Intersections

Estrella Cercana: A newspaper's obituary, Part 2 *

** ... Continued from previous post.

And here's how the team came together.

Homero would be in charge of the production process -- lining up the budgets, locating and contracting the printer, developing an advertising plan, handling all the transactions with advertisers and payments with collaborators, and building a distribution map. It's a huge task over-all. See this recent piece Homer wrote for Tomo.

Alberto, designer behind the Soma site, among others, would be in charge of devising a design scheme and laying out each issue. We looked at Mexican tabloids and Cuban party newspapers he acquired on a visit there. We picked fonts. Alberto subcontracted an assistant design editor, Adiranne Montemayor, also an architect. Then we brought on Javier "Coco" Rivero, the brain behind Writers & Kitties, as copy editor. (It sounds way better as corrector de estilo.)

Coco's job was to review pitches as they came in to a general email address, recommend them to me to read and edit, line-edit stuff we'd want in the paper, and handle any big edits directly with the writers. A key point for me, after the traumas suffered freelancing through la crisis, was insisting early on that contributed pieces to the paper had to be paid, like in "real life." It's the principle. Kuri agreed.

Things started rolling. We bought the Web domains, opened a Twitter, found a printer (a testy old man in the Col. Guerrero, but that's another post), hired a web manager with Rodrigo Escandon, and hired Jeromino Jimenez (aka Ñaka Ñaka) to design a unique banner background for each issue's nameplate. Online, these would be .gifs. Yay.

The gallery gave us a budget for six issues at eight pages, with four pages in color. The core editorial team decided we would reserve the centerfold, known in the old-school as a double-truck, for a strong visual display, like a poster readers might want to keep. The back page would be called FUN FUN FUN, and would be jammed with random newspaper diversion bits, like horoscopes, gossip and such. The back-page would also include the print announcement for our carefully curated audio downloads. (More on that later.)

Then, we put out the call for pitches. Here's my Intersections post announcing the launch of the project. 

This was to become the hardest part while getting started, establishing and nurturing the paper's editorial voice and character -- fast. We wanted Estrella Cercana to operate as a refraction, an interpretation, or a decoding of a "traditional" newspaper. We wanted stories and works to have a degree of intimacy or relevancy, no matter the genre or format. News for you and me.

Thankfully, weeks before, the Monterrey journalist Diego Enrique Osorno had published on a Gatopardo blog a "manifesto for infrarrealist journalism." This piece, re-published with Osorno's permission in the first issue of Estrella Cercana, became our anchor text, our baseline.

One part says:

Hagamos un encuentro nacional de jóvenes escritores militarizados o de jóvenes escritores zetas. Si algún imbécil menciona
los treinta mil,
o cuarenta mil,
o cincuenta mil,
o sesenta mil,
o setenta mil,
o noventa mil,
o cien mil muertos,
entonces hagamos algo extra: escribamos una columna de opinión defendiendo a las instituciones o leamos un haikú de guerra en el Zócalo al final de la marcha; cantemos el himno nacional o un narcocorrido antes de que comience la próxima sesión de nuestro taller literario.

Next, it came time to make to the first issue and get it out there. This initial process, as satisfying as it was, came with some ... setbacks.

** ... Part 3, next.

(* Click on the image for a larger view of one of Carolyn Castaño's Narcovenus works. * Post slightly edited)

Estrella Cercana: A newspaper's obituary, Part 1

It's been nearly a month since the final edition of the "periódico con fin de vida," Estrella Cercana at kurimanzutto, and I've barely had time to regroup, review, and evaluate the project.

This week's series of posts is an attempt to do that.

So, from the beginning, Estrella Cercana emerged as a response to an invitation from Jose Kuri to propose some kind of intervention at the gallery. He had read "Down & Delirious in Mexico City" and liked it. The invitation was open and I tossed around ideas here and there with friends, but nothing concrete ever settled. Time passed.

One evening in early September after work, I met up with two architects for drinks at a cantina in San Miguel Chapultepec. I told them about Kuri's invite. Alberto Bustamante and Homero Fernandez and I came up with the idea for a "literary newspaper" that would accompany the gallery's show "Distant Star." The group show, co-produced with Regen Projects in Los Angeles, was titled after Roberto Bolaño's novella "Estrella Distante."

The name of the newspaper came almost instantly: Estrella Cercana. We thought the image of a nearing star was futuristic, apocalyptic, semi-cultish, and very "newsworthy"; or in other words, evoking cultural codes weighing heavily on the zeitgeist as we approach 2012.

Kuri immediately said Yes.

What did we get ourselves into, though? Activating a newspaper -- a newsroom, with different writers in different places, a design operation, an advertising operation, a publishing operation, a printer, a budget, a team -- was not going to be easy. And, crucially, we all had normal day jobs.

It also sounded like an opportunity not to be missed.

We settled on a weekly. We met with the gallery to discuss logistics and consider what ended up being a totally generous budget, a deep sign of trust, I'd say. Kuri wanted the intervention to be good. We were in agreement.

Why not?

Who isn't down to work with a new, fresh group of people on a wild creative project? Thus, the team started coming together.

** ... Part 2, next.

Mexico detains man over tweet alluding to Blake Mora crash

** Originally published at World Now:

A Mexican Twitter user was detained and questioned by federal investigators about a message on the social media site that seemed to allude to the helicopter crash that killed Mexico's interior minister, Francisco Blake Mora.

The tweet by @mareoflores appeared Thursday, a day before the suspected accident that killed Blake and seven others, and referred to the 2008 Learjet crash that killed a previous interior minister, Juan Camilo Mouriño.

That accident also occurred in early November and its anniversary was a source of buzz among Mexican social media users in the days before Friday's crash.

"I haven't left work so early since the fall of Mouriño's plane," the tweet said. "Be careful, flying officials."

The federal attorney general's office said it detained the Twitter user Sunday under its duty to "exhaust all lines of investigation" in the Blake crash. A spokeswoman said Monday that the user was found by the agency's cyber-police unit.

Identified as a 26-year-old publicist named Mario Flores, the latest tuitero to enter the news in Mexico said in interviews Monday that agents dressed in civilian clothing approached him in his Mexico City driveway, tackled him and pushed him into a civilian vehicle. He said he was taken to meet investigators and was in custody for eight hours.

After his release Sunday night, Flores was greeted with news cameras and cheers outside an attorney general's office building in the capital (link in Spanish). Flores said he told authorities that the tweet was a coincidence and that it was rooted in his experience living through the 2008 Mouriño crash, which occurred just a few blocks from his place of work.

"It's in the collective consciousness," Flores said in a radio interview with journalist Carmen Aristegui (link and audio in Spanish). "It's the same way that Americans still talk about 9/11."

Flores joins a growing list of social media users in Mexico who have been targeted by criminals or government authorities for messages posted on Twitter.

In the border city of Nuevo Laredo, a string of grisly unsolved killings is spreading fear among Twitter users who keep one another informed on criminal activity. This year, two social media users in Veracruz became a political flash point after they were jailed over tweets that state authorities said spread rumor and panic.

And in the hours after the Friday helicopter crash, the Twitter user @morf0 became a brief media sensation when a message of his seemed to predict the Blake crash, saying: "Tomorrow on 11/11, a secretary will fall out of the sky."

For his part, Flores said Monday that Twitter users should be protected, not targeted, by authorities.

"I am a user, I am Mexican, I just want peace for me, my family and more than anything for my country," he told Aristegui. "I don't want ministers to fall from the sky and I don't want tuiteros to be taken from their homes for saying something."

* Photo: A memorial service for interior minister Francisco Blake in Tijuana on Sunday / Reuters

Facts also fall victim in Mexico 'social media' killings

** Originally published at World Now:

Four people have been killed in gruesome fashion in Mexico since September for posting about drug cartels on social-media websites, the headlines and news reports say.

Trouble is, the reports could be wrong.

Information is the latest battleground in Mexico's drug war, as a string of brutal deaths in the northern border city of Nuevo Laredo has produced alarming reports that social networks are under attack by the infamous Zetas cartel.

Most of the reports, however, are not built on verifiable facts. And facts have become a rare commodity in many regions of Mexico that are dominated by drug cartels.

In each case, such as a man found decapitated near a monument in Nuevo Laredo on Wednesday, the victims have been left with hand-lettered messages suggesting that they were using Twitter and the local chat board Nuevo Laredo En Vivo to report on cartels. 

In each case, the messages have warned against cooperating with the Mexican military and have been signed with multiple Zs, presumably referring to the Zetas.

But how can anyone know for sure?

Anonymous threat to Zetas, media, both falter *

* UPDATE: Fulfilling any decently skeptical person's expectations but failing those of info-war-mongers, including major U.S. media outlets and some heroin addict in Dallas, #OpCartel is basically a bust tonight. Here's my report from Friday.

** Originally published at World Now: 

A story that at first seemed to point ominously to a dangerous new development in Mexico's drug war was spiraling into confusion Friday as social-media users claiming ties to the hackers group Anonymous announced -- and then retracted -- a threat against the Zetas cartel in Mexico.

Some Twitter users who claim membership in the secretive hackers collective said they would be carrying out the attack against the ultra-violent Zetas by revealing the identities of the cartel's associates and businesses starting Saturday.

Others, however, were reporting that the attack was canceled and warned that the operation, dubbed #OpCartel, would put innocent lives at risk.

Adding to the confusion, the reason for the supposed cancellation of the attack shifted throughout the day. Did the Zetas release the Anonymous member allegedly kidnapped in Mexico, an abduction that purportedly inspired the hackers' threat? Or did Anonymous receive threats itself and cancel the operation for the safety of its members and their families?

In the dual worlds of shadowy cartels and shadowy hackers, there is almost no way of knowing, and no way of verifying such claims.

Anyone can claim membership of the leaderless hackers group. And anyone, in theory, can start a hash-tag on Twitter and call it an "operation" -- even before a single action is taken.

* Read more at the original post.

** ADD: Watch trailer of documentary on Anonymous at Wired.

*** Image: Gizmodo.

Dia de Muertos en Oaxaca *

* UPDATE: My report from San Agustin Etla, "A lively street party for the dead in Oaxaca, Mexico."

This is a Day of the Dead altar in a home in Oaxaca, Oaxaca, just now. All the elements were gathered on Sunday at the city's bustling Central de Abastos, at the special tianguis de muertos.

The pulque and tepache stand was closed. Momentary sad-face. 

Over here, we're looking at how they're passing noche de los difuntos in Ciudad Juarez; by beating up protesters and photographers outside a police station.

Honoring my dead and all of the dead of Mexico. Wherever you are, good evening.

* Previously, "In Mexico, more deaths than can we can image."

⟢ Estrella Cercana, Part 2 ⟣

Los contenidos del primer num. de Estrella Cercana ya estan en línea. Checkanlo! El periódico se puede conseguir imprentos en kurimanzutto, y varios otros locaciones entre el Centro, la Condesa, Roma, y por los alrededores.

Follow @StrellaCercana for the details. 

* More info here. cc: The one and only ... Zemmoa. ("Fun Fun Fun.")

Nuevo Laredo: Killing social media users in Mexico

** Originally published at World Now at the L.A. Times, the paper's new international news blog. My recent base at LAT.com, La Plaza, is hereby retired, but links remain live and available. Thanks for the follows and re-posts and continued tips and feedback.

REPORTING FROM MEXICO CITY -- A woman found decapitated in the border city of Nuevo Laredo is being mourned as an apparent member of a social networking site used by local residents to share information on drug cartel activity.

The victim was found early Saturday with a note nearby saying she was killed for posting messages online about violent or criminal incidents in Nuevo Laredo.

The Tamaulipas state attorney general's office identified the woman as Maria Elizabeth Macias Castro, 39, and said she was an editor at the newspaper Primera Hora (links in Spanish). The Associated Press, however, quoting an employee of the newspaper, identified the victim as Marisol Macias Castaneda, and said she held an administrative and not an editorial post at Primera Hora.

A web search of the newspaper's website found no mention of the woman's death or the discovery of a decapitated female body on Saturday.

But on the website Nuevo Laredo en Vivo, a banner image appeared memorializing a member known as NenaDLaredo. "You'll always be present," the display says.

9/11

I stayed away from the news on Sunday, then logged on and looked at pictures and newspaper front-pages. From Patrick Smith at Salon:

It's not the anniversary itself that irks me. The 10-year mark is -- or should be -- worthy of our solemn respects and a national timeout. But commemorating the attacks would feel a lot more meaningful if, in fact, we had ever stopped commemorating them. Our healing process has been never-ending -- occasionally introspective and edifying, but all too often maudlin and suffocating.

Yes, exactly. Where we going with all this? What happens to America on Monday? And every Monday thereafter? More of the same, seems to me. That's the truly sad part.

* Photo via Framework at LAT. * Salon link via FAY0LA.

Taller de periodismo digital

¿Que es el periodismo digital? ¿Como se practica? De cierta manera, si, es lo que piensas: blogging es la plataforma principal. Pero el periodismo digital es algo más, es un tipo de blogging que requiere ciertas técnicas, metodologías, y ciertas éticas por parte de el que la maneja.

En este taller, que dare empezando el próximo martes, 14 de junio, en el nuevo espacio cultural .357mx en Ciudad Satélite, examineramos las características del periodismo digital, veremos unos blogs y páginas de noticias que lo hacen bien, y pondremos en práctica lo que vemos un la formación de su blog particular.

¡Inscríbense! Cualquier duda o pregunta, por favor contactenme directamente a mi correo. El link para un video de introducción se encuentra aquí.

* Imagen: Google Images

A book in a sea of books

The day before I traveled back from Southern California to Mexico City, I went to a Barnes & Noble store at one of those new suburban malls that still sprout up on the outskirts of cities. My mom and I hit up Otay Ranch Town Center, kinda east of Eastlake, east of Chula Vista, southeast of metropolitan San Diego. We wanted to see the book in its natural habitat.

With Borders going bankrupt, Barnes & Nobles is the only big bookstore chain carrying "Down & Delirious in Mexico City." We searched the long aisles of self-help books, books on celebrities in Spanish, study guides, books on crafts or pets, romance novels. I finally found two copies of my book on a low shelf in the travel section, wedged between a couple of bestsellers on ex-pat life in Mexico and some travelogues by Brits or Australians on India or the Pacific Islands. One of them had the word "savages" in the title.

The experience neither pleased nor disappointed me.

As I wrote and worked on the thing, I knew that one day I would walk into a big bookstore and see it on a shelf, an anonymous mass-produced product like any other. In Otay, it looked just as I had envisioned it. One book in a sea of books, each one waiting to be bought, each one worried that it might not happen. Its placement as a travel title also seemed a bit imprecise. But ... whatever?

It hit me. This book is no longer mine. The thing has its own life now. The process was my reward, my prize. After trying daily news reporting, weekly feature-writing, magazine work, blogging, radio, and video, I wanted to try another form to tell stories. Writing this book was that experiment, an opportunity to seize.

The process was long, hard, and often drove me crazy. I learned and grew and suffered plenty of doubt and setbacks. But I won't feign modesty. I'm proud of the work and the way the project turned out. Now I want to share it with people, and I'll keep doing so as long as you want me to. But in my mind I've already released myself of it.

That said, watching the book make its own life is exciting. I have to keep in mind that my collaborators and I might know the book intimately, but every other reader is getting to know it for the first time. That's exciting. Yes, I'm reading the reviews.

Trying drugs and writing about it is OK, people

Here's an audio interview I did with Turnstyle News, a new outlet based out of Youth Radio in Oakland, Calif. We talk about the emo riots, the cosmopolitan nature of D.F., and a topic I knew would be coming up: Why did you feel it was OK to address your own dabbling in drug use in some sections of the book?

As I tell interviewer Nishat Kurwa, in more words, of course ... Why not? Not like it's never been done before. In the interest of transparency, I showed those sections to my parents before I showed them to anyone else. Without any misgivings. Think about it: Bet a good majority of your editors and media execs -- to say nothing of your president -- went through exactly what I did when I first hit D.F., my "impossible city" in a world of many.

Listen to the Turnstyle News interview here.

I'm stopping this afternoon at UC Irvine to speak to the students of Erika Hayasaki, a former colleague at the L.A. Times and now an assistant professor of literary journalism at Irvine. This evening, Stories in Echo Park. Wednesday, I'll (still) be talking about the book to the students of Ruben Martinez, journalist, author, and professor at Loyola Marymount University in West L.A. Here's that flier.

Thursday's the party.

Let's have a reading and a party in Los Angeles **

Above, a video created by Sister Mantos, an L.A.-based musician and performance artist who will be sharing the bill at the Slake magazine release party for "Down & Delirious in Mexico City." This is precisely the energy that I think is present in many of the book's pages.

Here's the Slake release sheet on the event. The party is Feb. 17 at 8 p.m. at the Echoplex -- ** UPDATE: The venue has been changed to the Echo upstairs. ** The idea is to organize a music party in the spirit of the book. So, also playing next Thursday and also right up our alley, DJ Total Freedom, Crazy Band (who belong to that anti-Internet presence movement), and DJ Lengua. I'll also read a little. Thanks, guys, for agreeing to play!

First, though, on Tuesday, we're doing a reading at Stories bookstore upstairs on Sunset Boulevard. Here's the Facebook event page.

Thank you Liz Garo, Joe Donnelly, Laurie Ochoa, Anne McCaddon, and Craig Gaines for putting the Echoplex party together. Thank you Pilar Perez and Marcus Kuiland-Nazario for organizing the Stories reading.

We'll have books and also issues of Slake for sale. Slake is now in its second issue. Honored to be a part of a venture in new literary journalism and creative writing in a sometimes bleak landscape for new writing. There's an excerpt from the book in Issue 2, "Mexican Gringo."

Yesterday's reading at UC Riverside went really well. Really engaging questions from students and community members. Was fun to hang out a bit with Michael Jaime-Becerra and Jazmin Ortega, former La Opinion reporter and press official for the L.A. mayor, and a UCR alum. We checked out the campus paper The Highlander and the Tomas Rivera library, which has a great collection of children's literature.

I'm excited to share this project three years in the making with my friends and former neighbors, and to share the energy of Mexico City with its close cuz, Los Angeles, always home.

* Edited

Daniel Hernandez in Arizona, a 'tocayo' and true patriot *

In Mexico and in Spanish spoken by Mexican immigrants in the United States, a "tocayo" is a friend or acquaintance who has the same first-name as you do. "Tocayos" greet each other and say good-bye with it and not their shared name.

Tonight, I want to salute my tocayo doble in Arizona, Daniel Hernandez, Jr., a 20-year-old student at the University of Arizona who essentially saved the life of Rep. Gabrielle "Gabby" Giffords in Saturday's shooting in Tucson.

Above, Daniel's interview with the openly right-wing outlet known as Fox News. There is the characteristic awkward nature of the questions and answers in such spots, but more so here, as Daniel stays incredibly on-point, on-message, and composed while recounting the horror of what happened. He ran to the bullets when the shots started, and directly to the congresswoman. He propped her up, applied pressure to her wounds, held her hand and spoke to her, and traveled with Rep. Giffords in the ambulance to the University Medical Center in Tucson.

Here are the details.

Almost frustrated toward the end of the interview, the anchor asks Daniel, "You're an example for a lot of young people, Daniel, in terms of your courage and your responsiblity. What's your message for other folks out there tonight watching, thinking, 'How can I raise a boy to be just like Daniel?'"

"I think the first thing we need to do," Daniel responds, "is make sure we acknowledge the real heroes, that's the public servants ... "

Amazing. The anchor in her New York studio is almost speechless.

Daniel, presumably a Mexican American, might be native-born. He also might not be. Daniel, I'm being told, is also gay/queer/LGBT-identified. Don't know for sure. (*UPDATE: Queerty reports Daniel serves on the Tucson Commission on GLBT Issues, and his name appears on the site's members list.) But what counts right now is his enormous strength of character, courage, and sense of civic engagement, even in the face of mortal danger. His statements reflect a genuine dedication to public service and to those who work in government not to spread hate or division but, as he puts it, to help people.

That's about as close as you can get to "patriotism" these days than anything else.

I am proud to share a name with you tonight, Daniel Hernandez, mi tocayo. Your family, friends, and millions of strangers are proud of you as well. You certainly are an example for all of us. I wish you all the best in the future, surely a bright one.

Techgnosis? Occulture?

What lies at the intersections of popular culture and the occult? Mysticism and technology? Led Zeppelin? "Tron: Legacy"? La Santa Muerte? and I'm only beginning to find out. From a conversation with author Erik Davis, by Antonio Lopez, at Reality Sandwich:

I am not sure who exactly coined that term; there’s a British scholar who gets recognized for it but it was also online back in the day. It’s a good one. For me it means the place where popular culture meets the underground and very real currents of magic, mysticism, and the esoteric -- a stream that has always been with us, but which was rediscovered and reaffirmed, in not always healthy ways, in the 60s. “Occulture” is also a way to claim the occult or the religious fringe as a kind of cultural identity or playground, rather than an overly serious and hidden realm. I try to look at the mysteries from both ends -- I think its important to look at, say, the contemporary ayahausca scene as a scene, with dress codes and slang and rock stars, not as a sacred separate realm. (Even though sacred things can and do go down there.) At the same time I think it is important (or at least more rewarding) to look at our often junky world of late capitalist culture as a place where the seeds of insight and vision might be found, if only you look at the landscape in just the right way.

The whole thing is here. I've not read Erik Davis, but his titles are on the list for the next trip to the States, and RS is a new obsession. No better dosage of futurisms for the second decade of the "new" millenium ...

* Image via RS.

Enrique Metinides: 'El Niño' with all the shots

Above, a portrait of Enrique Metinides, the great D.F. photojournalist, taken in October 2010 by Eunice Adorno.

Metinides, now 76, is one-of-a-kind, an OG photojournalist whose work transcends the field and enters the realm of high art. In my view, he's among the best to have ever practiced the craft, taking more photos over many more years than, say, Robert Capa, Weegee, or Dorothea Lange.

Here's my end-of-the-year post at La Plaza, my interview with Metinides, marking the latest exhibit of his work in Mexico City. "In the Place of Coincidence," curated by longtime Metinides collaborator Veronique Ricardoni, is up at Garash until the end of January. The video and photo-montages mentioned in the piece display Metinides in new formats and through new perspectives; highly recommended.

"I'm a photographer by accident," Metinides said.

Back in his day, they called him "El Niño." The Kid, a name that followed him for years. Here are a few more portraits by Adorno, who is gracefully sharing them with Intersections. (Earlier this month, Eunice won the 2010 Fernando Benitez national cultural journalism prize in photojournalism, for her work on Mennonite women in north-central Mexico. See this slideshow at BBC Mundo.)

Teen prostitution in Oakland: Drinking the 'pimp juice'

* A girl, 15, is arrested in Oakland on prostitution suspicions. By Brett Myers.

Oakland-based Youth Radio has an impressive two-part series up this week on teen prostitution, produced in partnership with "All Things Considered" on NPR and led by young reporter Denise Tejada.

Here's the Youth Radio link and here's the link as the story appears on NPR.

Tejada, in Part 1 of the series, talks two former teenage sex workers who were coerced or forced into hooking on the streets of Oakland. Their descriptions of their time under the control of pimps -- they have subcategories, apparently, such as "romeo pimp" and "guerrilla pimp" -- are pretty chilling.

One girl identified as Brittney explains how she entered the underworld. She was kidnapped when she was 15: "All I heard was, 'Man, go get that girl,' and one of them came out and dragged me by my hair and pulled me into the car."

She was then gang-raped.

Interviewed in the story, Alameda County District Atty. Sharmin Bock is up-front: "Remember Guyana and Jim Jones where everybody's drinking that Kool-Aid drink? Well, that's exactly what these girls have had. Let's call it pimp juice. They've all had it and they can't see past either their affection for him, or their fear for their trafficker."

Part 2 of the series, on how sex-trafficking has "gone global and more violent," airs Tuesday.

The Youth Radio page for the "Trafficked" series also includes essential web extras. The "Pimp Business Plan" is ... wow ("Make every hoe take a vow to hoeing."), and the Davey D audio essay on rap's connection to pimping and the "hustling" culture of Oakland is also good listening.

Addenda, on the media:

Denise Tejada, by the way, is the kind of natural new-generation journalist who should rightfully make old media models and old media institutions a bit nervous. I found a post with video where Tejada is first interviewed by NBC-Universal's mun2 then manages to turn the tables, getting an interview from her interviewers.

That's what's up Denise, and all young people of color; never permit yourself to be merely a subject. We all know how ugly that paradigm can get. So congratulations is due to the young journalists at Youth Radio, and all their supporters, for their strong work.

Keep at it!

Listening to Bolivia, from anywhere

My job entails writing about places I have yet to visit. That's life in the news-blogging world, where we rely on the magical sci-fi portal that is the Internet to transmit us, you might say, to locations where interesting or urgent news is happening.

Searching, I found FM Bolivia. Call me seduced. The site streams a live radio feed of Bolivian cumbia and more, round-the-clock. It's an Andean aural paradise. I turn it on and don't flick it off for hours. There's also a news page.

* Previously, "Evo!"

Bicentennial love *

The bicentennial of Mexico's independence passed without major incidents on Wednesday and Thursday in Mexico City.

That is, if you discount the massive and bizarre Olympic-style parade, the 7-ton anonymous colossus statue erected live on the Zocalo, the over-the-top fireworks and fire show, the "grito" led by President Felipe Calderon as thousands on the plaza shouted "culero" in reply, the military parade the following morning with units marching from 17 "amigo" countries to Mexico (including China and the United States) and fleets of Air Force planes swooping down overhead.

A piece of cake, right?

There was less reflection than I thought there would be, less remorse or regret for some of the steps Mexico has taken in recent years, and a lot less fear that I might have imagined, too. Everyone came out, partied, and armed themselves for the inevitable cruda.

A fun night, but there's still a drug war going on, a hurricane on the way, and lots of anxiety to process for the mornings after.

The above photo of bicentennial love is by photographer Trevor Snapp, who produces work from Latin America and Africa. Here are more by Snapp. The Boston Globe's "Big Picture" feature does the bicentennial here. Great images.

* Thank you, Trevor! * Updated.

Bicentenario blues?

Above, a representation of the Templo Mayor adorning the walls of the buildings on the west side of the Zocalo. I took this on Friday during a stroll around Centro for a post at La Plaza, on Mexico's bicentennial of independence. At night it is lit up and looks incredible.

It's on this Wednesday night, September 15, starting at 6 p.m. with a parade choreographed by Ric Birch, who put together Olympic ceremonies at Barcelona in 1992 and at Sydney in 2000. Then there are performances on three stages by Kinky, Lila Downs, Espinoza Paz, Los Tigres del Norte, and many others. I feel a bit of excitement in the air finally, but maybe I'm just projecting.

After all, I don't have to cut across Reforma everyday and have to suffer it being shut down for three days.

The New York Times and the Associated Press both go long on the grim mood in Mexico in 2010. The A.P. quotes a priest at a shelter for Central American migrants in Oaxaca, and left me nodding: "I think that nationalism isn't much help any more. ... I think what we need is new humanism, that places value on the individual human being."

Meantime, or quickly down the road, maybe we could use a real audit on those millions of pesos being spent on the party. As ever, I'll be here to witness and keep my mind open and deliver myself to the fiesta, without resistance. Relatives are coming into town as I type, so things should get suitably saucy, soon.

* More later.

Journalism warning labels *

Above, a sample from "Journalism Warning Labels," by Tom Scott, a UK comedian, who ... maybe should try teaching at a major American j-school?

Scott explains: "To be fair, newspaper journalists have far too little time to do far too much, particularly with the steady collapse of print circulations. If a story breaks just before the deadline, they may just copy it: but it seems only fair to require labelling in a case like this."

Ouch. Now imagine if you picked up your paper and it was covered in these labels. An experiment in ultimate transparency? Scott's other work is impressive. Check it out here.

* Thank you, Michael!

In Oaxaca, tejate and tensions with the state *

Above, a bowl of fresh tejate outside the door of the Santo Tomas Xochimilco church in Oaxaca, where an old woman was handing out glasses of the maize-cacao drink for free for parishioners as we left a wedding ceremony inside. A drink for "Zapotec kings," according to MEXonline, tejate is "made of precisely toasted corn, cacao, cinnamon, and the seeds and flowers of a fruit called mamey." The flor de cacao becomes a foam and rises to the top as the ingredients are mixed together by hand, adding a wonderful texture to tejate as it travels down the throat.

It is served cold, sometimes with ice and sweetened with sugar-water. And it is delicious. Over the three days I spent in Oaxaca last weekend for this wedding of friends of friends, and for the Guelaguetza festival, I had a glass of tejate nearly every time I saw it being sold on the street.

Referring to Oaxaca as a nation unto itself is as accurate as you can get in describing the southern Mexican state. Much like Mexico City functions in relation to the Valley of Mexico and the surrounding central highlands, Oaxaca City (now Oaxaca de Juarez) feels sharply cosmopolitan for its region. All of Oaxaca's distinct regions and ethnic groups converge there, an ethnic, linguistic, and gastronomic diversity that is palpable and evident on every corner. In its food, in its civil and civic customs, in its sense of self and its relationship to the rest of Mexico and the rest of the world, Oaxaca is a fully realized society.

And all societies, of course, have their share of problems.

The work: A sicario narrates an assassination, and more

In the latest installment in a periodic series, I hustle my posting at the L.A. Times La Plaza blog. Below, recent news and notes from across Latin America, with an inevitable leaning on Mexico, per our location, and a focus on the work of LAT correspondents, per the paycheck.

I've also had two stories recently in The Times. Nice to have a byline in there again. Those links hang down after the posts noted below (and I'm only going back to early June with the posts; this is making my head heart):

Shooting of Mexican boy by U.S. border agent ratchets up tensions

DNA testing pits media family against Argentina government

Ghosts of the Pinochet regime haunt Chile's conservative president

June is shaping up as one of the grisliest months in ...

Students in Puerto Rico end long strike

High-level Mexican officials not to blame in day-care center ...

Santos wins: A vote for continuity in Colombia

'The Other Battles' -- photos from Ciudad Juarez

Argentina dispatches Mexico in World Cup -- again

'Dudus' in drag: How accused Jamaican drug lord evaded arrest

Assassination of candidate Rodolfo Torre in Mexico rattles ...

Pressure mounts on Mauricio Funes in El Salvador

Earthquake felt across southern Mexico; 1 person dead

Mexico Supreme Court orders release of 12 activists jailed ...

Mexican authorities nab suspected cartel hit man, a former ...

Mexico City, Beijing top list for worst 'commuter pain'

Hurricane Alex: 'Monterrey is beyond recognition'

Giant whale fossil found in desert in Peru

Dissident on hunger strike in danger of dying, Cuba says

Drug-smuggling sub seized by Ecuador reportedly able to ...

In Mexico, Times report on network's use of blackface ...

Jorge Videla, former dictator, faces new trial in Argentina

Cuban dissident calls off hunger strike afer 134 days

Colombia journalist denied visa for Harvard fellowship

Drug gang hit man narrates assassination of prosecutor in Mexico

As always, more here. My recent stories in the actual paper are "Mexican labor secretary defends copper mine crackdown" and "For Mexico, 'Zoot Suit' still relevant after 30 years," with an interview with Luis Valdez.

If you've made this far down the post, might as well ask, What do you think of La Plaza? What would you like to see more of, less of? How about the state of Intersections?

And speaking this blog, I'll be updating my right-bar pages soon, I promise.

* Image above, Cristian "El Cris" Rosado Mendoza, accused Juarez hit man.

The work: Still no sign of 'Diego the Boss'

Here's a recent post at La Plaza, the L.A. Times Latin America news blog, on the disappearance of one of the most powerful men in Mexico, Diego Fernandez de Ceballos. The former presidential candidate for the PAN went missing on Friday night on his ranch in Querétaro.

Five days later, pretty much the entire security and law enforcement apparatus of the center of the country has been mobilized to find him, but still no sign of the man they call Jefe Diego. Tracy Wilkinson updates the story today: "Fernandez de Cevallos was more feared than beloved, and if he was the victim of kidnapping, as the evidence suggests, the list of suspects is a long one."

Other recent posts I have up at La Plaza:

• On attacks against in journalists in Honduras.
• A critique on the obsession in the U.S. with Cinco de Mayo.
• From Haiti, on the question of where to place the displaced.
• A look at a report on the struggle for balance in Mexico's narco war.
• On UNAM canceling an exchange program with Arizona.
• On the rise of 'Chavez fatigue' in Venezuela.
• On Costa Rica's first female president.
• On a less smoggy Mexico City.
• On Tijuana's reawakening -- question-mark.
• On a controversial port plan in Colombia.
• Placing some mapable context over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
• Surprise! Mexico keeps a corporate-friendly tax structure.
• And, Brazil's Lula takes a win on nuclear talks with Iran.

As always, I appreciate the link-ups, the feedback, the tips, and the comments! Posting here at Intersections remains light while I finish final edits on the final draft of my book manuscript.

* Photo above, Diego Fernandez de Ceballos, by European Pressphoto, via LAT.

The work: Oaxacan attack, Haitians, and 'Zoot Suit'

* Above, actors doing it up in the Mexico production of 'Zoot Suit.'

Perdiocally I'll be posting some of my recent work at La Plaza, the Latin American news blog at the L.A. Times. Just now, "Zoot Suit" premieres in Mexico City, the first time the landmark Chicano musical play is mounted in Mexico -- and the first time it is presented in Spanish. Very exciting news.

Here, a report on a breaking news item -- 2 people, a Mexican woman and a Finnish man, are killed in an ambush attack on a humanitarian caravan in a disputed region of Oaxaca. Here, an update on the movement of Haitians to Mexico. Here, a look at a new Purepecha urban settlement discovery in Michoacan.

Also, Bolivian president Evo Morales suggests chicken causes baldness and homosexuality, and Mexico City archbishop Norberto Rivera is named in a sexual abuse suit in federal court in Los Angeles.

L.A. Times Mexico City bureau chief Tracy Wilkinson posts about Mexico protesting the Arizona immigration law, Lorena Ochoa quitting golf, the FBI calling Salvadoran gang members terrorists, and Mexico issuing a travel advisory on Arizona.

* More soon.

Narco-state satire, as a comic strip

Click to get a larger view of the above strip, an installment of "El Ñacas y El Tlacuachi," by a cartoonist known as Bobadilla, who is based in the cartel citadel city of Culiacán, Sinaloa.

In this strip, which appears in the tough Culiacán newspaper Ríodoce, a young "emo" asks the two narco hitmen characters to do him the favor of killing him. The hitmen remind him that assassinations are a "business," meaning costly, which depresses the emo even further. Generously, the hitmen suggest the emo step into the cross-fire of their next gun battle. The emo complies, but miraculously survives the bullets. The following day, the corrupt papers proclaim the capture of a major narco figure: El Emo.

Planet magazine has an engaging interview with Bobadilla, and more examples of his strip. "El Ñacas y El Tlacuachi" originated in the Culiacán magazine La Locha. There are more here.

* Thank you, Natalia!

'New Latino Discourses' at UC Santa Cruz

Above, an image by Frank Espinosa, author of the award-winning Rocketo comic book series. Espinosa has designed for Disney and Warner Bros., and teachers Character and World Design at MIT. He is among the invited speakers at "¿Que hay de nuevo? New Latino Discourses" this Friday at UC Santa Cruz. The symposium is organized by the Latino Literary Cultures Project, headed by professor Kirsten Silva Gruesz.

We'll be breaking down comics, blogging, hypertext literature, and Spanish-language radio, all 'new' or newly rendered frontiers in Latino literary production in the United States.

A 'systems architect and biomedical mathematician,' Juan B. Gutierrez will address the subject of "The Triumph of the Giant Deaf Ear: How New Media is Changing Literary Practice." Dolores Ines Castillo, an assistant professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at UC Santa Barbara, will discuss Spanish-language radio with the talk, "House Calls: US Spanish-language Radio and the Politics of Health."

I'll be discussing Intersections and the topic of "Bending Geographies: Blogging from Far and Near." I often post about topics or stories occurring in other parts of the world or within my personal geography but while I am not physically present. Why and how are the questions at hand.

Tonight, at Imix Bookstore, an independent bilingual bookstore and gallery in the Eagle Rock hood of Los Angeles, I'm excited to accept an invitation to speak and read, and see faces from the old community. Here is the Facebook event page. Now ... what should we do after??? Dub Club?

* Both events are free and open to the general public. Posting returns on Sunday.

Safari in Los Angeles, in a home in MacArthur Park

* Above, the subjects, from afar, in an apparent dining ritual. Via LAist.

The Entryway is an online project created by two aspiring journalists -- "maybe the whitest people we know" -- who move into a crowded immigrant household in Los Angeles to learn Spanish, so that they can, eventually, better report on their city. It's getting wonderfully fawning feedback so far, and hopes to raise $3,240 to keep going.

Kara Mears takes photos and Devin Browne writes and designs the entries, which are published sort of like a diary, with words and phrases alternating between large and small typeface. The first thing we learn about the young women, in their opening entry, is that they chose their family after an apparently grueling two years of searching because -- unlike other houses in MacArthur Park, I guess -- "This family cares about cleanliness. They cannot live with bedbugs."

There's a sign about cleanliness on the wall. "The sign in the bathroom made me feel better," Devin writes.

We learn nothing else in the first entry about Juan and Maria, the immigrant hosts, other than their home is in fact infested with cockroaches, and that maybe Kara 'shouldn't have brought her other boots.' From there on, nothing about where everyone is specifically from, why and how they moved to the United States, how they make money, how they survive, and, most crucially, the underlying forces that cause migration, poverty, and social marginalization.

You know, the stuff of journalism. But The Entryway, I figured out upon quickly consuming the entire site, isn't a journalism effort. The authors are wasting an incredible journalistic opportunity, in the service of their own vanity.

News and notes *

Posts were light this week here at Intersections. Much of my blogging energy is now being spent at La Plaza, the L.A. Times Latin America news blog.

Recently I've posted about Paquita la del Barrio's anti-gay adoption comments, and exclusive details on her upcoming apology, on the current situation in Chile one week after a new president is sworn in, on the crazy media slants on Felipe Calderon's recent visit to Ciudad Juarez, on the Ladies in White protests in Havana, and more.

Intersections might be a bit dormant for some time. I'm hosting relatives and friends during all of April. Mid-way through the month I'll be in Santa Cruz, speaking at a symposium at UCSC on "New Latino Discourses." The event, sponsored by the UCSC Latino Literary Cultures Project, will examine new communication models that are redefining "the literary" in the new century, according to the organizing professors. That includes the graphic novel, blogs, radio and podcasts, and hypertext lit. I'll have more on this later.

And, yes, I'm still editing my book manuscript, on Round 3. It is difficult but very exciting work that will keep especially occupied till the end of spring.

Meantime, I've updated and edited my links here, organizing them under new lists. I've also added a new advertising panel, via Technorati Media. Whenever I get a chance, I'll be working on updating my Journalism pages.

No matter what, this blog remains my one true love in the media maelstrom. This is the platform that allows me to interact with the world, and cover The Story, whether it's about art, music, style, sex, pop, politics, or the political-personal. My plate will never be too full.

* Image above via a new favorite, Timothy Hemingway.

Mexico's northern border, on fire once more

* Military on the streets in Reynosa, via Gringa-N-Mexico.

Narco-related violence in Mexico is dominating the news once more. Three people with ties to the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez were killed on Saturday. At least thirteen were killed over the weekend in Acapulco. And with scores dead in recent weeks, Reynosa is on fire due an apparent split between the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas. Things are so bad there, journalists are going missing, or just turning away from the story.

Getting a sense of what things like are like on the ground is becoming harder and harder. But there are some voices coming through.

If you can muster checking in on reality, the blog Ontobelli meticulously accounts for narco-related gun battles across the country, mostly via amateur YouTube clips. Many if not most of these battles go unreported in the mainstream press. The blog's author offers this narrated video explaining the background on the current outbreak of violence in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, and all of Mexico's northeast.

For an achingly frank ex-pat account of the situation in Reynosa, check out the blog Gringa-N-Mexico, by a young woman named Lindy -- "born and raised in southern Michigan, just a little country gal" -- who followed her husband to Mexico after he was deported. In a Feb. 24 post, Lindy writes about how completely the Gulf Cartel controls the streets of her adopted city:

I guess the cartel wanted to make the citizens of the city feel better so a few days ago they made a gigantic banner and hung it from an overpass near where we live. It read something along the lines of - Citizens of Reynosa, you are safe. We the cartel so-and-so are here to do our job and we do not wish to harm any people of your city, we only want to do what we have to do and not hurt any civilians. ... How nice of them?

The kicker is when she realizes the meaning behind the acronym "C.D.G." that she spots on some police-looking vehicles.

* UPDATE: Looks like the post has been taken down. Too bad, but not unexpected. Suerte, Lindy.

** INTERESTINGLY: In the case of the consular official in Juarez who was killed along with her husband near the border with El Paso, the local NBC affiliate across the border notes that whatever the victim Lesley (or Leslie) Enriquez did exactly at the consulate has not been specified.

Robert Cason, victim Arthur Redelfs's stepfather, also told KTSM he did not know what his step-daughter-in-law did at the consulate. Meanwhile, Diana Washington Valdez in the El Paso Times quotes a former DEA agent who says he knew Redelfs, a local Sheriff's Office detention officer, "since 1990."

Speaking to The Takeaway, expert narco reporter Ioan Grillo says the Enriquez-Redelfs slaying appeared to be a "very organized hit."

However, unnamed sources in the State Department led The Washington Post to conclude that it "did not appear that the slain consular employee was involved in counternarcotics work."

Officials are saying now that it looks like a case of mistaken identity.