Una obra que sobresale casi al final del recorrido de la expo de Jose Clemente Orozco, en San Ildefonso. "Craneo recortado," proxilina en masonite. La obra tiene como fecha 1947, dos años antes de la muerte de Orozco. Pertence al Instituto Cultural Cabañas en Guadalajara.
An outstanding painting near the end of the Jose Clemente Orozco exhibit at San Ildefonso. "Cut Cranium," proxylin on masonite. The painting's date is 1947, two years before Orozco's death. It belongs to the Instituto Cultural Cabañas in Guadalajara.
My La Plaza post on Christmas Eve on photographer Enrique Metinides turned into a piece in the print paper, which ran today. (Somewhere. Couldn't find it anywhere on the main pages at LATimes.com.) Clip:
Even Metinides professes wonder at the ultra-violence of today's drug conflict. "There is just such a frightening quantity of dead, that they'll never find all the cadavers," Metinides said, fingering silicone albums filled with favorite snaps.
Then the retired journalist stops himself, arching an eyebrow. "But why even say it? What does that have to do with me?" he asks, then answers his own question. "Nothing."
Thanks to the editors in Foreign and Calendar for spotting the post and asking for a broader piece. Thanks to curator Veronique Ricardoni for connecting the interview. And thanks to photographer Eunice Adorno for sharing her portraits of Metinides with the paper.
By the way, readers in L.A., where did it run? How does it look?
Man, it's so refreshing to see the plancha del Zócalo in Mexico City open and free, as intended. No ice rink, no SME plantón, no bicentenario stage and lights. Nothing.
I took this photo a couple weeks ago. Checked again on the plaza on Friday, and it's still open to the sky. The slate is clean. What will it see in 2011?
We don't know how or when it started, and wouldn't know what to properly call it. All we have to work off right now is this video recently commented by friend Anahi. Potentially, these are "cowboy crews" at Salinas High School on the Pacific slopes of California's San Joaquin Valley.
That's where generations of migrants from Mexico have traveled to pump out the crops that help make up the breadbasket of the United States. That's what my dad did. Migrants pick your fruit but also have kids. Kids go to high school. And make culture.
Here, they're taking banda music from Mexico and the Mexican diaspora in the U.S. and applying a dance style to it that involves the hopping and spinning of duranguense (previously explored in Intersections here) but with new acrobatic tricks. Mainly, flying into the air and to the ground and landing on your ass, then picking up the hopping right from there. The boys also do this break-dance-rooted diving move.
It looks competitive.
Oh not to worry. This kind of hyper-physicality is totally Mexi. Remember the "dos borrachos" dance clip that went viral a couple years ago? Realness.
But these cowboy crews? Are they big, big? Do they have them in L.A.? In other U.S. cities that are Mexicanizing? Atlanta? Salt Lake City? On Long Island? How are they socially organized? If you're reading this and in a cowboy crew, let us know what's up!
One of the best in blogs in L.A., Chimatli, caught duranguense early on. Here's the blog's dance category. Great stuff. Here, I've looked at tektonic arriving in Mexico City (but since kinda gone?), the cholo-cumbia-chuntaro current in the North, the mosh-pits of Ecatepec, and the (guarded) sonidero scene in and around Tepito.
"The food factor should always be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef hash with diced chiles, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of Key lime pie, two margaritas, and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert… Right, and there should also be two or three newspapers, all mail and messages, a telephone, a notebook for planning the next twenty-four hours and at least one source of good music… All of which should be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot sun, and preferably stone naked."
Now come on, and be honest, doesn't just a fraction of that sound like a fat slice of heaven? "Stone naked"? I wonder how many days Thompson actually started off in this way. Every single one? And I'm reminded, I need to re-crack open my copy of "Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72," and finally get "Hells Angels," which I understand is a masterpiece of the form good ole Hunter S. Thompson perfected.
Today, Friday, I went for a big breakfast at la Pagoda, inspired. Huevos con jamon, cafe con leche, una donita, un plato de fruta, totopos y frijoles, salsa, jugo de naranga. Yours?
This is a car on Line 7 of the Mexico City metro, in the deepest tunnels in the system, between Mixcoac and San Antonio. For a second, I thought we were in Pyongyang.
The Tacubaya transfer was just as empty late on a Sunday night. My flash made a visual trick on the escalators heading up to Line 1, a simple amusement. I used to live above this joint. Sad as ever.
This is one of the fold-out photos of Romina Aranzola in the December 2010 issue of Playboy Mexico. Romina, a former host of the TV Azteca show Hit M3, is the cover-girl. The photos are by Enrique Covarrubias and they were taken at the Nanciyaga ecological reserve in Veracruz, Romina's choice. She's a native of the port state.
"If I didn't do this with Playboy, I'd end up doing it with a friend, or who knows. Why wouldn't I get nude?" Romina says in the interview, by Arturo J. Flores.
I met Romina a few years ago. She's a natural, in every way. It shines through in the photos. (See them, pirata-style, here, here and here.) This issue is a collector's item, no doubt.
Romina is now taking a year off in Australia. Wishing her the best.
For one night over the winter holiday, this is the "hotel" where we stayed in at La Barra, an unassuming little beach in Veracruz that faces northeast. The sands start just where the wide and lush Laguna de Sontecomapan eases into Veracruz's remote tropical lowlands.
You get to La Barra by speedboat across the lagoon. There is not a lot of anything there but a few houses and a few seafood restaurants on the shore. One of them is building rooms.
Even when these rooms are done, La Barra is not the sort of beach that would get dropped in any tourist guide as a "destination." I can't imagine a mezcalería or massage place popping up. There is no cell phone coverage.
Most of the tourists who get here are jarocho day-trippers from neighboring towns and cities, meaning despite the high season, once night came, we were the only non-locals on "the bar" and, not that it mattered, cuz there wasn't anything to do anyway.
The beach is desolate and a little dirty, with ancient-looking trash lying around in some spots. But you know ugly-beauty does it for me. Here, the draw is the ocean. The sandbar is long into the surf, the longest I've ever swam in. You can literally walk half-a-kilometer out and still be standing in ocean only waist-deep. It felt so good.
'If I keep walking, will I eventually hit Cuba?'
Over the break, we also stopped into Veracruz port, Catemaco, and Los Amigos, the sole "ecotourism" hotel and restaurant, right on the lagoon's shore and accessible as well only by lancha. This coast, thanks to friends and other forces, will keep calling.
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.
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.
I got nothing but a big-ass county fair in my hood, which is all I could ever really ask for from Melchor, Gaspar, and Baltazar -- the guy in black-face. The fair ended Thursday night. I miss it already. That's where I'd been eating, according to my calculations, about ten different kinds of mega-healthy fair snacks on each of the, oh, five or six nights I went.
Read my crónica on the Reyes Magos fair at the Alameda Central here. And check out a video I shot of the weird floating inflatable spheres and a little chunk of live audio.
The funnest -- most fun? -- Tilt-a-Whirl rides play that kind of Mexican tribal. The dudes who run them, Tepito-style to the core, stand on the track the whole way, hopping on your carrito to make it swing more furiously. They even, swear-to-god, grabbed the top of the car sometimes, in a flash, hurling themselves into the air so their legs hit the ceiling of the ride itself, then pressing back down, twirling you till it hurts.
(One of the dudes -- sensing something? -- lifted his shirt a little at our mixed crew while a-whirling and did a little gigolo gyrating move in between, with a smirk. Thanks a lot, guy.)
At the feria, I had tlacoyos, blueberries dipped in chocolate and chocolate sprinkles, esquites, freshly fried french fries, cotton candy, fresh-made hotcakes with cajeta, lechera and (more) sprinkles, and something called a jarrito loco. (No idea, but as long as it had ice, chile, lime, and salt in it, it was fine by me.)
I loved the excessive P.D.A., the little kids out all night with their faces painted like tigers or fairies, the liberating kitschiness and tackiness of it, the sense that this hood -- downtown -- belongs to the always-stylish and hyper-stimulated tepiteño kids who populate it and culturally "run" it. That's the way it is, pretty much today, tomorrow, and as long as Centro is Centro. The feria is our focal point.
We took a photo with the Reyes, yes. But didn't get on "The Inverter." Maybe next year?
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 ...
In 2010 I began to appreciate the trip that a good electronic mixtape can be, in any genre. I had more interactions with more DJs/mixers/selecters and began to understand something about the mechanics and back-ending involved in mixing a good mixtape. In December, I collaborated on an experimental mixtape of my own.
Here are a few solid mixes I got wind of this year, might have blogged about here or there, and listened to over and over in different states.
THE YEAR OF SALEM:
Salem knocked me out this year. Actually, starting late last year, when their We Make it Good mix for The Fader in November immediately made an impact on my understanding of the limits of mashing. What is it? Witch house? Gothic hip-hop? Just ... fucked up?
Whatever you want to call it, Salem's sound draws from, among other things, drugs, Chicago, and DJ Screw. That there's been such extravagant strokes of blacklash in some sectors I think legitimizes their position on the avant garde. Salem allows music to feed on our collective dark side.
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