Intersections

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!

On my first Vive Latino *

Above, the lovely Ely Guerra performs before the multitudes at the Vive Latino festival in Mexico City, Saturday, April 24. Other highlights of the day included Ozomatli, Celso Piña, Quiero Club, Cuca, Deftones, and Mago de Oz. We strolled the crowds -- who were paying an outrageous $70 pesos for a large beer! -- and enjoyed the "hospitality tent" backstage.

The big day was Sunday, though, with the Tijuana No! reunion, Silverio, Kumbia Queers, Calle 13 (which we caught on TV earlier tonight), and Australia's Empire of the Sun, in their only North American stop on their current tour till they hit Lalapalooza in August.

But I didn't go back on Sunday. I was suffering from music-festival overload after just one day. Forgive me. Big fests like this are just ... not my thing. And Ocesa doesn't have a very egalitarian press apparatus; the only set-up I saw was for Televisa.

Saturday was fun, though, definitely. The above photo was taken from a "VIP" viewing platform besides the main stage. Here's another shot I got of the crowds. Foro Sol is enormous.

* I'll have more coverage on Monday at La Plaza.

Malcolm McLaren's casket

Above, punk impresario Malcolm McLaren is lowered into his grave at Highgate cemetery in London, photographed by Olivier Zahm of Purple magazine, April 22. "An artist who all his life used to fight constantly against the Societé du Spectacle with anarchy and chaos. I love you for ever Malcolm," Zahm writes.

McLaren, former manager of the Sex Pistols and founder of the London store SEX with designer Vivienne Westwood, succumbed to cancer on April 8. He was 64.

Journalist Jess Bravin tweets of an encounter with McLaren -- covering in the L.A. Times a visit McLaren made to Cal State Fullerton, in 1990. From the article:

Possessing no talent as a writer, musician or visual artist, however, McLaren realized that only one profession seemed open to him: "Plunder. I asked myself, could I enter the world of plunder like the great masters?"

McLaren's casket reportedly carried his signature slogan: "Too fast to live, too young to die."

Arizona, look into your future

* Illustration above, by Lalo Alcaraz.

Here's a summary of my response to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signing on Friday a monumentally degrading anti-illegal immigrant bill: So stupid.

SB1070 is not some kind of anomaly. Rabidly reactionary anti-immigrant bills pop up across the country and even in Congress. Remember what happened after HR 4437, the so-called Sensenbrenner bill? Massive, massive demonstrations of millions upon millions in cities and towns across the great United States -- the political awakening for scores of immigrants and their families.

HR 4437 subsequently died, and four years later, the demonstrations continue.

And remember what happened after Props. 187 and 209 in California? A political backfire that is still felt today: the state is dominated by Democrats now, much of them "brown and proud."

Could SB1070 beget the same future for Arizona? We'll find out if the good citizens of the state and its neighboring entities heed the call of Zach de la Rocha, and move upon the state capitol on Sunday to express their displeasure with Brewer and the Arizona legislature.

Rage against the machine, indeed.

* All posts in Immigration.

On Earth Day, turning 40, and San Diego

Above, San Diegans watching a group of samba dancers perform before a set by a legend of dub, U.K.'s Mad Professor, at the World Beat Center stage at Earth Day in San Diego. The faces you see are a cross-section of this city's true identity, multicultural and mellow.

It is Sunday, April 18, and we are just below the flight path for jets landing at San Diego International Airport.

Here's the bill for the day's performers at the World Beat stage. Earth Day, held one Sunday every April in San Diego's vast and lush Balboa Park, is described as the largest free environmental event in the United States.

The Union-Tribune says 70,000 people attended the festival, which is officially named EarthFair. (70,000 is about the same amount of people who go to Coachella in a day.) Here's a U-T piece charting Earth Day's 40-year history, with roots I was unaware of: student activism at UC San Diego in 1970. "Earth Day ... has evolved into a more centrist and commercialized event but retains the core element of creating awareness about ecological problems," writes Mike Lee.

The food vendors are always a major draw. This year we had Jamaican patties and a plate of Filipino pancit, lumpia, and rice, and from the Centro Cultural de la Raza, aguas frescas and Oaxacan tamales. I have memories of attending this event since I was little, and I always run into old faces from high school when I drop by now. No difference this year.

A few more photos here, here, here, and here. Yes, it is "played out" in some ways, but Earth Day serves as a good marker for the outside world to re-calibrate its assumptions about diverse and sunny San Diego. In other words, stereotypes related to malls, military bases, and Republicans won't cut it anymore.

* NOTED: First Lady Michelle Obama visited San Diego on Thursday, stopping by after her visit to Mexico City. Mrs. Obama checked out a community garden in City Heights, San Diego's traditional arrival point for new immigrants, and my local hood.

Pismo Beach

 

Above, Esquire News, a newsstand in Pismo Beach, on Saturday, April 17. ("The same people have been running it since probably the Carter administration," a reviewer says on Yelp.) We strolled in during a stop on the drive back down from Santa Cruz on California's historic 101.

In Esquire, I spent less than four dollars on five items that I seriously needed, without question: A pack of gum, a bottle of root beer, a gift card, and two sticks of Red Vines. We strolled the couple blocks that you might call the Pismo Beach downtown and a bit of the pier. We walked into HotShots billiards, which looks like it was once a theater, and had a beer. Hemp Ale for me.

I've said it before, but here goes: The California coastline is a world treasure. You are so fortunate, Californians, to live on it, or near it, or to have been raised in its wake. Those breezes and waves shape Cali coastal culture as it remains today. Don't ever forget it.

... The "Pismo Beach Disaster," by the way, is an "entirely fictitious event."

'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.

Beers of the world, with quesadillas

Calle Regina, a newly repaved pedestrian street on the south end of the Centro Histórico of Mexico City, is hip. Now, I haven't been to any of those places cited there, but I did have an unexpected Shangri-La moment on Regina while cutting through on business the other day.

At Regina 43, El Black, not much more than a hole-in-the-wall, offers what just might be the best bottled beer selection in Mexico City. (Please correct me if I am wrong.) They pop open Guinness, Kirin, Duvel, Stella, Chimay, even Duff. They've got all the Mexican beers and good artisanal options like Malverde. There's no stylish design elements or moody music -- just a few shelves of sample beer bottles and plastic patio tables.

I spotted my favorite whenever-ale back in the U.S., Newcastle, and had to sit down, in awe. The standard Mexican lagers are good and all, but this how you end up reacting when on most days in Mexico your primary beer options are "clara" or "obscura."

Just inside the door at El Black, there's a quesadilla set-up. When I asked the ladies who hand-make the kekas about the almost unbelievable bottle selection -- "You really have all these beers in here?" -- they just shrugged and looked at me like, 'Are you going to have a beer and a quesadilla, or what?'

Blessed be, I will.

Jodorowsky's Sunday comics

Above, a little girl asks, "Dad, What is liberty?" The father, a big man in orange, responds: "It is knowing oneself and acting in accordance with what one is." The artist is Alejandro Jodorowsky. He drew it for publication for January 14, 1968, in the Mexico City newspaper El Heraldo.

Via Fimoculous, via Technoccult, via Arthur magazine founder Jay Babcock, here's a blog that posted Jodorowsky's Sunday newspaper comics from the late 1960s. I'm eager to examine each one.

The maestro's inclination toward Zen is evident in the last posted comic, in which the speaker, driving through a heavy rain, completes the strip: "Do not allow fear to hold you back; always finish what you start."

Check out Babcock's interview with Jodoroswky here. "Energy is coming because I will die very soon," the maestro says in response to a question about how he gets so much done. "I am old. I have so many things to do, so every day I get quicker, in order to do them! I don’t want to die without doing everything I wanted to do."

* Previously, "Defend when attacked: Zen meets Mexico, D.F."

An earthqauke on the borderlands

From my current post at La Plaza, on the Easter Sunday earthquake centered south of Mexicali:

It is the strangest thing about life in the far northwest of Mexico and far southwest of the United States. The international border is there, policed and guarded, its crossing coveted by millions -- for Mexicans, to work, for Americans, to "get away from it all." The boundary divides the First World from the developing world, the wealthy neighbor from the poor one. But in so many ways, the line is invisible, not there at all.

Read the rest there. And, did you see the botanical garden ponds at Balboa Park in San Diego, normally as flat as plates of glass, rocking around like artificial amusement park surf?

* All posts in Borderlands. * Photo above via the AP.

In the studio with Dr. Lakra *

* Above, a cute little doll with a farting naked girl tattoo and black skull luchador mask, in Lakra's studio. Awwww.

Wanted to quickly throw up this link, to the profile I wrote for ArtMag on the artist Dr. Lakra. ArtMag, based in Berlin, profiles artists and documents exhibitions featuring works from the Deutsche Bank collection of contemporary art.

Dr. Lakra, represented by the Kurimanzutto gallery in Mexico City, is a key artist in the collection's holdings on paper and from Latin America. From my piece:

Small-framed and soft-spoken, the Doctor isn't much of a talker. But in the course of my visit to his studio, Dr. Lakra reveals himself to be an artist whose path to commercial success has been as unorthodox as the contents of his work. He never went to art school. Or any school at all, it turns out. Instead, Dr. Lakra spent his formative training years hanging around punks and tattoo artists in Mexico City, squatting in East Berlin just after the Wall came down, and bumming around Los Angeles and San Francisco. That's where he honed his craft and absorbed Chicano culture by tattooing cholo Mexican gangsters and working with the greats of Californian tattoo artistry at the time, such as Ed Hardy.

The piece includes original photos, samples of Lakra pieces from the DB collection, and the voices of art theorist Mariana Botey, and of Friedhelm Hütte, the bank's global head of art.

It was an enriching trip, visiting Lakra in Oaxaca, as I posted previously. Jeronimo Lopez Ramirez is an active member of his community, a gifted artist, and I do believe, belongs to the true and borderless tribe of permanent punks.

... You know who you are.

Time for some pool *

Above, Masumi, a muse of Mexico City, helping us select a table for some Sunday afternoon pool at Billares Liverpool, near metro Hidalgo. That's me in the deep right, heading for the best spot to view the carnival of San Juditas day.