Intersections

Mexico City in the 1940s

Above, via mañanarama, by Mario Ballesteros, an MGM "Traveltalks" video on Mexico City, circa 1942, at the start of the prosperous "Mexican Miracle" period.

The video points out the Metro Goldwyn Mayer offices in D.F., some apartment buildings, and the Mexico City country club."There are almost two million inhabitants, [who] have dedicated their way of life to the democratic cause of freedom and independence," our narrator says, perhaps forgetting a phrase somewhere.

The video is an interesting historical example of how the genteel romance of D.F. has attracted the curiosity -- and investment capital -- of Americans for generations. Mario also posts incredible images from the inauguration of the metro. His archive is worth a dig.

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!

Japanese Mexican girls

From a Southern California strip mall near you, above, "Japanese Mexican girls," by artist Shizu Saldamando, via FB. Can I get a pose, too? Check out some of Shizu's work here. A personal favorite are the romantic embraces in "18 With a Bullet."

* Previously, "Stay Gold: New work by Shizu Saldamando," "Tacorice: Wearing the L.A. look in Tokyo," and "Scenes from a manga convention in Mexico City."

Cruising in Chipilo, an Italian village in Mexico

* Our best shot of the Sunday cruising ritual in Chipilo, Puebla.

I knew something was strange in this town, something different was up, when we descended from a memorial hill behind the main church on a visit last Sunday and came upon two light-skinned guys in tight T-shirts, sparkly jewelry, and studded sunglasses. They were arguing intensely besides a parked car. Spit was flying, arms were shooting.

The guys were debating something in what sounded like Italian, and from what I gleaned just passing by discreetly, the topic was either deception over a shared sexual partner or a complaint over a borrowed piece of clothing. Perhaps a belt or pair of sunglasses?

This is Chipilo, a small town just outside the city of Puebla, right in the middle of Mexico. Chipilo, founded in 1882 by Venetian immigrants, has maintained an Italian profile in Mexico for generations, much like the Mennonite communities in Mexico's north. (See the documentary work on Mexican Mennonite women by photographer Eunice Adorno.)

Just about everyone who lives in Chipilo is still ethnically Italian and still speaks the dialect of Venetian. Spanish is only heard among visitors. In Chipilo they produce cheese, keep mostly to themselves, and ... go cruising.

The cruising culture here had me tripping out. We sat at a outdoor table at a small restaurant for pasta, and watched. Chipilo teens on Sundays pile into cars or trucks or bikes, some drinking from open containers, many blasting heavy house music, and drive up and down the one and only main drag in town. Over and over.

I don't think I was mentally prepared to absorb such sights in Mexico, where a vast majority of people don't happen to look 100-percent Italian, or speak Italian or any of its dialects. Before long the Chipilo kids -- aware of strangers in town, staring sexily at us new-comers -- started nodding and waving in our direction. The older folks sat at the few sidewalk cafes across from the church and watched listelessly, sipping their Chipilo coffee.

An online search indicates there's been some ethnographic and linguistic work done on Chipilo out of universities in the Puebla area. Good to know, but I'll leave it at that. On our one day in Chipilo, we didn't pry for images or for connections with potential subjects. We just sat back, had some good Italian food, and got cruised.

* Photo above by Raphael B. Thank you, Cynthia G!

Book imagery, considered *

I'm choosing images to go with each chapter in the book. The process is a lot harder and more complex than I thought it would be, aesthetically, thematically. What is the image supposed to do?

The end product will be a mix of images by professional documentary photographers, photos I've taken myself, original illustrations, and at least one painting. There are 15 chapters in the book, an introductory note, and an Afterword.

Above, a shot I'm considering by William Dunleavy, a young photographer from New York who spent a good chunk of time in 2008 documenting a band of punks from the outskirts of Neza, on the outskirts of Mexico City.

I hung out with Will a lot while he was here and met his punk crew a couple times, but I can't find them anymore, and I have a gift to deliver to them that Will left with me. I'll still be searching ...

Here's a post from Will's blog on the series, "Punks del Barrio." He writes:

In a country that teeters between the first and third world, these kids are often the lowest of the low. They are often the children of indigenous transplants to the sprawling megalopolis and live in the furthest toxic shanty towns. Through some chance they took on the appropriated identity and culture that is 'punk.' It's a scene that exists in fragmented but tight-knit families who won't hesitate to fight each other or hurl a brick at the cops. They were some of the rowdiest and most destructive people I'd ever met, and I could tell that they didn't have much to hope for. Despite that, my heart was warmed by their kindness to me, their families and loved ones. It was refreshing to experience punk without the familiar pretensions of class and race that I know in the USA.

Nice one. Thank you, Will, for sharing your images with me. And thank you all the photographers and illustrators who have generously offered to share their work through this process.

As always, process over product ... The road over the destination ... This is the best part.

* More later. ** Post edited.

Star Slinger: 'Leftist beat sorcery'

Above, sounds for rainy day schedules in Mexico City, from Star Slinger, an off-radar (right now) beat-maker from Manchester, England.

More here and here: "This is as much influenced by the leftist beat sorcery that's been emerging recently (check Extra Time) and Big Beat (Gas) as it is hip hop. Purists have been warned."

* Thanks, Ryan L.

Big banks knowingly laundering Mexican drug money

* Drug money fortress: A Wachovia bank building, via Google Images.

Here's a read for your Sunday morning coffee. Bloomberg goes deep on cases of major U.S. or multinational banks all but knowingly allowing the laundering of Mexican narco money for years on end, and for millions upon millions of dollars in bloody profits. Here is the printable version of the piece (at 13 pages).

Banks implicated include: Wachovia, Bank of America, Citigroud, HSBC, Santander, and Western Union.

The Bloomberg story, by reporter Michael Smith, lays out how narco cartels regularly transfer millions in U.S. cash drug profits down into Mexico through transfers and small currency exchange transactions. They in turn use the money to fund their trafficking operations, including buying airplanes to shuttle cocaine up to the U.S. from South America.

The big banks, for the most part, turn a blind eye. Meanwhile, Mexican President Felipe Calderon this week signaled a willingness to "debate" legalization of drugs in Mexico. Between that, the money laundering, and the lack of a visible dent in the flow of the drugs to the U.S. ... Makes you wonder if all those tens of thousands of deaths so far are in vain, don't it?

* Coming up soon: Issues, Realities, and Solutions in Mexico's drug war.

Visual AIDS for Prop. 8 *

Believe in Everything? In the maximal ambisexual nature of the Moment?

Then believe in Dis Magazine, headed in part by fair and friendly weirdo David Toro and a collective, based in New York City. Above, a visual appendage to a recent mixtape at the mag's site, by someone called Visual AIDS. No idea who that is right now either, but it looks like we should be friends. The mix seamlessly combines, among other naturally evolved references, jams by Aaliyah (Q.D.E.P. forever my lady), Ace of Bass, and what sounds like that haunting soundcloud theme from the "Terminator" movies.

Total sense, right?

It's in the spirit of homies Total Freedom, Kingdom, Nguzunguzu, Patent Leather Daddy, BDY DBL, CLASS, and by a mutant extension, the so-called sissy bounce scene in New Orleans.

Go there and download it, and give yourself some radical queer balance to the essentially normative expression that is Wednesday's federal court ruling against Prop. 8 in California. Speaking of, after the celebrations tonight, read this article from a January 2010 issue of The New Yorker on the risks of taking same-sex marriage "too soon" to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The battle's only begun. Again.

Somewhere between Radical Queer and Hetero-Normative, the law sits, the haters sit, I sit, and you all sit besides us. Make Dis your visual soundtrack. Yes. You too can be highly effective.

* Post edited.

Inspired by Ciudad Juarez, Rodarte stumbles *

Above, what women "sleepwalking" through life in Ciudad Juarez really dress like. The image is from "Las Otras Batallas," a photo exhibit currently showing in Juarez, and these women's garments look nothing like the dresses that the city supposedly inspired in the upcoming fall/winter line by the Rodarte house. Read more in my post at La Plaza here.

A couple of troubling things linger about this story. MAC Cosmetics has apologized for the Rodarte line's accompanying limited edition make-up collection, the one with names like "Factory" and "Ghosttown," but there's been no word or response on the matter as far as I've seen from the Mulleavy sisters directly, besides a cursory statement within the MAC statement.

The clothes are apparently still heading to racks or boutiques or showrooms in the fall. I wonder, how many women in Juarez will die violently between now and then?

In the New Yorker profile on the sisters earlier this year, Kate said: "We want to make people think, and, once you decide to do that, you will have people that won't like what you're doing."

Yes, indeed.