Intersections

Casual smooches with a piñata

Here's a Golden Era starlet in an intimate moment with Tin Tan, the one and only -- if only in piñata form. It's last week. We're on a race up to the moutains on the western flanks of the Distrito Federal, headed to a costume party at a friend's house in tiny San Lorenzo Acopilco, a pueblito in the Cuajimalpa borough just before the border with the Edomex.

Yes, it's very, very cold up there. I was unprepared, in shock for a bit; spent about two hours snuggling with myself on a couch, shivering and cursing my freezing toes, before I could get up a convivir. "You should come in February, it snows up here."

We went down the lane to check out the church, where they were having their big fiesta for San Juditas. Gifts of atole and sweet bread. It felt like a special night, on the cusp of Muertos and Halloween. The orange Harvest full moon.

Pia Camil, artist for sale

Above, a shot of an installation by artist Pia Camil, who recently held a residency in an emtpy office space on the 12th floor of the Edificio Miguel E. Abed, on Eje Central in downtown Mexico City.  She hung out a window an enormously long red banner covered in the phrase 'PIA CAMIL FOR SALE.'

A few weeks ago, Camil invited guests up to the studio for a showing of new work and a live performance, with gallerist and musician Brett Schultz. During the set, as Camil pounded on a drum and wailed into a mic, she was connected to the banner hanging outside, tied to it like it was her cape. The sun was setting, it was a windy afternoon, and the banner floated and flapped into the sky over the traffic on Eje Central.

Needless to say, everyone in attendance sighed at some point and thought to themselves, 'Gosh, I love Mexico City.'

Listen to a sample of the performance here. Camil also plays in the local new-noise (or art-rock, or art-noise, or noise Mexicana?) band El Resplandor, which I've seen play a bunch now. Learn more about them here. It's a whole scene in D.F. suddenly, this sound. Who's next?

Here's an interview with Pia in Tomo. She's into "primitive futurism."

Snapping neck and face tattoos in Mexico City

Above, two portraits from a new series by photographer Carlos Alvarez Montero, "Scars." These guys are Orestes and Miguel. From the statement at Alvarez's website:

This series is composed of 20 portraits of residents of Mexico City that decided to engrave ink marks on their neck/faces as a statement of their life experiences. This allows them to step out of the crowd, define themselves as unique, and by no means look back. Just forward.

See more there. They're eye-catching images, with lots of concurrent facial piercings, and different tribal aesthetics at play that I'm able to read, including punk, cholo, rockabilly, mod, and neo-indigenismo.

It's a reminder that tattoo is not only a culture to itself but a vital tool of expression for many subcultures that are seemingly unrelated to one another. A love of tatuaje, which I also share, is the binding glue.

* Previously, "Intersections at Postopolis: Punks, cholos, and your rights."

Above Morelia *

This is the view above Morelia, spreading out there in the distance, from the off-the-charts Hotel Villa Montaña, in the leafy mountains to the south of the city. I'm not staying here, no way. I merely went up this morning to conduct interviews with some of the filmmakers behind "Revolucion."

I'm in Morelia for the film festival. My first time, my first time in Michoacan, too, and per my practice I am soaking up as much as possible. (I repeat.)

You can read my coverage this week at La Plaza. Always blogging, always grinding. * More later.

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!"

On home: A mural's meaning in National City *

Here's an essay that went up on Friday at Zocalo Public Square titled, "A Piece of Home in a Lost Mural." In it, I relate my search last year for an old mural that I remember from my childhood, at the National City Public Library (the old one, not the one pictured in that link).

From the piece:

When I finally arrived to check it out, the library was shut down, the 1970s-style brown-on-brown building locked and unused. It turned out National City had built a new library a few years back, down the way in Kimball Park. When I walked over to see if the mural was there, I couldn’t find it. I asked around, spurred both by reportorial instinct and by a more personal desire I couldn’t quite identify. No one knew what I was talking about. But I needed an answer.

My curiosity about the state and status of this mural sparked connections that otherwise would likely not have happened with two men whom I now admire greatly, David Avalos and Juan Parrino.

Avalos was persistent and active in our search for the library mural; without his tenacity we would not have found it. In a long series of email correspondence, Parrino was crucial in illuminating the history behind the mural, how it was conceived and executed. As I describe in the piece, the library mural was created collectively by National City youth.

"In effect they had made fundamental movement towards becoming empowered citizens," Parrino wrote me, referring to the teens who participated in the project. "By empowered I mean their sense that they had the ability to achieve purpose and by citizens I am not referring to legalistic terms of documentation status, but rather to being engaged members of society with entitlement to defend, demand, and demonstrate for their civil and human rights."

Avalos is still active in the South Bay community in San Diego and teaches at Cal State San Maros. (Here's a mention of some of his work in the U-T in 2007.) Parrino is now an organizer at United Teachers Los Angeles. Here are images of the four panels, provided by Avalos. I do not recall the order in which they were hung. I am uploading them labeled as they were sent to me. Panel 1, Panel 2, Panel 3, Panel 4.

Last we heard from the city, officials are hoping to re-display the mural in a public setting in the near future. I'll keep you updated.

* Thank you David, Juan.

Excavations: Nicki Minaj before Nicki Minaj

She sorta feels like a cross between Lady Gaga and Missy Elliot, with maybe a sprinkling of some Santigold and Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes (RIP, lady).

She's Nicki Minaj, discovered on MySpace and now backed by Lil Wayne's Young Money Entertainment and Universal Motown, and she's about to release a record that is likely to complete the well-known formula for mega-stardom. Just see the samuria-inspired video for "Your Love."

But before she became the next natural development in over-produced pop ladyhood, Nicki was an ambitious, rough-ridin' female MC who more or less didn't play around. Above, "Warning." The track follows Nicki as she learns her man is messing around with some other lady named Kim.

The hook: "Damn. I'm'a have to send her to her Maker." The ending? An instant classic.

I've also had "Go Hard" on loop for weeks now, thanks in part to a sample of the track used at the end of a long mix from last year by Nguzunguzu/Total Freedom. In the original track, this couplet just kills it:

Hit 'em, hit 'em knock-knock, tell 'em let me in.

My name rings bells, bitch, buzz me in.

And I only stop for pedestrians,

Or a real real bad lesbian.

(Then Lil Wayne just has to adlib: "Ohhh!") Minaj did well at the BET music awards over the weekend, and it's clearly only the beginning. Wayne, her mentor, is already "jealous."

Shit, who wouldn't be?

Saturday ...

... is already feeling a lot like Friday.

Sunlight, streets, snacks. Los fierros viejos de la Portales, el mercado de la Portales, metro Pino Suarez, and its pyramid to the wind god. Salto del Agua. Bueno, no. Isabel la Católica.

Correo Mayor, fake jewelry galore, as far as the eye can see. The old postal palace, trámites que se tratan del color de la piel. "Blanco." "No, moreno." Un esquimo de fresa, por favor. Una quesadilla de queso y pollo. Un heladito de chamoy y chile. Bueno, me lo chingo.

Y no hay de faltar un litro de piñón (para llevar, plis) y un cóctel de fruta, sin crema. Para acompañar el café vietnamita que me traje desde Los Angeles. Todo esto hasta en el día que no se olvida. "La gran ciudad." La urbe como máximo paraíso y útlima perdición.