I filmed this video with Homero Fernandez for Alumnos47 back when Down & Delirious in Mexico City came out. Had so forgotten!
I filmed this video with Homero Fernandez for Alumnos47 back when Down & Delirious in Mexico City came out. Had so forgotten!
Posted at 03:49 PM in Author News, Books, Film & Photography, Mexico, People & Ideas, Thirty Thirteen, Twenty Twelve | Permalink | Comments (0)
Last summer, at the urging of a friend, I sent a 30-dollar check and 22 pages of writing to the judges at MacDowell Colony.
I was either being delusional or just resigned to the tumult and shock I've already endured in the rough two years since I moved back to America from Mexico. Nothing here makes sense anymore. And everyone in a way is wildly deluded by the infections spread by technology. Me included.
In November, just before I signed on to become editor of LA Taco, I got word that I had gotten into MacDowell for Winter/Spring, off those pages. So that's where I'm going for a bit, to see what I can come up with and make for you, my reader.
Javier Cabral, associate editor, will take full reign of the site in my absence. We're also gonna publish a ... major food guide. That you won't want to miss.
But more on that later! Thanks for your patience and support.
* Photo above, a view of Village Green.
Posted at 11:00 PM in Author News, Books, Brown, Food, Futurisms, Indigenous America, Mexico, People & Ideas, Sexualities, Spiritualities, Television, Thirty Thirteen, Twenty Twelve | Permalink | Comments (0)
The sun on Friday was amazing. Life is more or less back to normal in Mexico City, seventeen days after the earthquake that everyone here describes as the "strongest" and most "violent" they've felt since the 1985 disaster. The anxiety is unifying.
Put on autoplay and watch the compilation videos if you fancy reliving the trauma.
Such a weird place, this city.
You walk two blocks and see ten different startling things. So much good food literally anywhere the eye lands. It's like a contact high just walking around. A pulsating energy. People are kind, and also ready to be rude again when warranted. The sounds are back; barking, honking, laughing, whistling, living.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but today it finally felt like the city was back. And yet ...
The signs of the disaster are still everywhere.
This is on Amsterdam in Condesa. The sign says "No Foto," as if those of us who come upon this place are not united in its mourning. I sat here for a while. I just had to sit down on the ground for a bit, I guess ... In the hardest hit areas, so central to what D.F. these days considers itself to be, every other block has a building with a ribbon of police tape around it, indicating a site that is uninhabitable, or should be.
The corruption, speculation, abuses, and real estate crimes are piling up. In the every day, the walking-around has been altered.
Part of the drama is a silent realization.
We always sat around and talked about what happened in 1985, but did so with a safe, fictional distance. We were prepared now. It'd never happen again, come on bruh. Sept. 19, shittily, hit Mexico terribly a second time. How?
Now, UNAM is saying a mega-quake is expected one day in the ocean off Guerrero.
From where I sit and wander, in these pockets and corners where every other structure it seems is riddled with cracks and broken surfaces, the D.F. citizen is reminded that this certainly could happen again, at any moment, and almost surely will. Behaving accordingly, for now, will be the ultimate test of what this megalopolis becomes after the calamity of 2017.
I won't get started on the states. Morelos, Puebla, Oaxaca, Chiapas. Entire towns made of light adobe structures were essentially destroyed. Much of the destruction remains uncharted. People are left wondering what all this means.
Somehow in the anguish and sadness of the last two weeks I missed this image. The church atop Cholula, a 16th Century landmark on a green-covered ancient and little understood pre-Hispanic pyramid known as one of the largest in the history of the recorded world, is done:
Aquí otra vista de la Capilla de los Remedios tras el #Sismo en Puebla. Fuerte golpe para Cholula. pic.twitter.com/kbUPHPz3d0
— Fernando Canales F (@FerCanalesF) September 19, 2017
Puede que fue un berrinche de Coatlicue?
Posted at 11:57 PM in Cities, Death, Design, Film & Photography, Hoods, Indigenous America, Mexico, People & Ideas, Spiritualities, Thirty Thirteen, Twenty Twelve | Permalink | Comments (0)
** Open thread, check back for updates.
Marcela Turati reports in Proceso that government and military personnel with experience in digging through rubble for survivors are complaining that civilians had "taken over" the rescue operations at collapsed buildings in Mexico City.
The trained personnel say picking away stones from the top of a collapsed structure — bit by bit, as civilians have lined up to do since the minutes after the quake hit — does not work.
"We made a tunnel, but we should have made five more," one unnamed engineer told Turati from an apartment tower that crumbled on Ave Amsterdam in trendy Condesa. "One tunnel, because they don't want to listen to the military or to Civil Protection. They're not listening to the firefighters, or those of us who lived through '85. [...] The ones giving orders don't know."
Reports say that site has already been cleared for victims. Watch these other heart-wrenching rescues.
Collapsed building on #Amsterdam Ave. all clear of victims. Rescuers, described largely as young people, break into national anthem. https://t.co/xSmBhMK0bs
— Daniel Hernandez (@longdrivesouth) September 22, 2017
Fissures
Four days since the Sept. 19 quake hit, this still feels like a death in the family.
My friends' Facebook posts in DF are heartbreaking, stirring. My people are still out there on the streets, finding ways to help. Others I know are joining caravans to reach the most affected and so far largely neglected areas of Puebla and Morelos.
These are streets, places, faces, voices that we know, intimately. I know so many people here in the United States and really around the world who have been touched by Mexico in some form feel the same way today.
More than 300 people are dead, according to official figures. The majority of the victims are in densely populated Mexico City and in Morelos, near the epicenter of the 7.1R sismo that hit at 1:14 pm Central Time on Tuesday. Dozens of buildings fell in Mexico City and in the states of Morelos, Puebla, and Oaxaca, which was still reeling from the 8.1R quake of September 7.
Unknown numbers of people are injured, unknown numbers of buildings are permanently unsafe, unknown numbers of roads and other infrastructure are damaged. I'm worried about the little towns and villages in remote corners of Chiapas and Puebla that have not received aid.
Millions, millions of people today are in shock, distress, and by now, almost certain fatigue.
* Photo by Ronaldo Schemidt, via AFP.
And now the fissures between government and society — always churning just below the surface — are emerging. Among citizens, there is a sense that this moment of "control" over the streets and the soaring solidarity cannot be let go from the people's grasp. We've suffered so much in the last ten years, endured so much chaos, violence, political stagnation.
Is this what it takes for Mexican society to actually wake up and do something? Can we sustain it?
This morning on Aristegui Noticias live, anchor Carmen Aristegui said: "In this moment of tragedy we are seeing that Mexico we wish to be, that muscle, that spirit, that vigor, that will to not be just a sitting flower but part of a society."
* Above, a woman volunteer rescuer outside the textile sweatshop in Colonia Obrera where 21 bodies have been recovered. Excuse her while she eats her torta. (Via Martha Ugarte)
Criticism has emerged over the Peña Nieto administration's optics handling. Video of one incident shows interior secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong being jeered away from a rescue site on the very first day of the disaster.
Reports have also emerged of convoys of being turned away in Morelos due to bureaucratic stops. This is something to watch out for in the days ahead.
The president and top cabinet officials visited the Rébsamen campus and had photo-ops, but did not illuminate or apparently guide the rescue operation. Differing rumors circulated about the possibility of a girl named "Frida Sofia" alive under the rubble, then circulated through the press, then were later proven false.
Frida Sofía never existed. And parents who are actually real and grieving say the education secretary has not contacted them at all.
Criticism has also rained down on default government-media conglomerate Televisa for apparently having exclusive access to some of the rescue sites, including the Rébsamen school. As far as the story of the child is concerned, some asked, could it be the fatigue, shock, and adrenaline coursing through the volunteer rescuers? Several at the school insisted to the Associated Press even after the story was proven false that a surviving child still existed down there.
Last night a contact in DF told me she was certain that rescuers heard voices, and maybe they did. Maybe they heard ghosts, the spirits of the 21 dead kids, she said.
El Universal is calling Frida Sofia a "ghost story." This is a signal of collective trauma, of course.
Either way, the case demonstrated a breakdown in communication at the government level, and apparently in standards and practices for journalists reporting from these sites. Colleagues say access is restricted. If a shaken and tired rescuer emerged and said something promising, of course, the impulse was to report it ...
'Diabolical'
The earthquake hit on the anniversary to the day of the 1985 quake that left at least 10,000 if not up to 30,000 people dead. My dad later called the coincidence "diabolical" and that is how I will describe this situation for the rest of my life. There's something cruel about this, a planet rendering punishment.
This time, only two weeks earlier, southern Mexico got severely ratted by an 8.1R monster in the Pacific that left more than 100 people dead, and the city of Juchitán (Oaxaca) largely devastated. Chiapas and Oaxaca were already begging not to be forgotten in the news cycle.
Keep in mind these big ones come about once or twice a year for central Mexico. They shake Mexico City good, because it's 20 million people on a dry lake in a high valley near some volcanoes, but "if it didn't fall in 1985, it won't fall ever."
The quake twelve days earlier put DF on the edge, but there also might have been a false sense of complacency; another heavy one went down, no major damages in the city as in 1985. Saved. Again ...
That morning, as they do solemnly every year, the president and his top brass held a flag ceremony on the Zócalo at dawn, when the big earthquake struck on September 19, 1985. This was Peña Nieto's fifth time doing this ceremony during his term.
The leaders were already dressed in black.
Mexico City, which suffered the worst in 1985 because that earthquake was centered relatively close — in Michoacán — has for years conducted a full earthquake drill across schools and office buildings to recall the devastation and the heroic civilian efforts of the '85 disaster.
Every Sept. 19, we recall how the DNA of the country was altered forever. The topos and grassroots brigades mobilized to save people from a sea of collapsed buildings, in a rising stench of human decay, and helped spark the fall of the PRI regime during its most decadent years, and moved us toward reforms.
On Tuesday, DF had its earthquake-drill, and then everyone went back to their offices and classrooms.
Another quake with that level of damage was not supposed to happen again. Not that same day. But it did. And now the regular, tough citizens of Mexico and Mexico City — mexicanos and foreigners, side by side — are rising and leading the way.
The sense of fear and panic that I hear is lingering in the air over DF now, four days into the disaster, is rooted partly in the sudden awareness not only that another 1985 has happened, but that a 2017 is now sure to happen at some point again in the future.
** More ...
* Top photo: Yuri Cortez via AFP.
Posted at 10:02 AM in Brown, Cities, Death, Fear, Film & Photography, Futurisms, Indigenous America, Justice & Society, Kids, Media, Mexico, People & Ideas, Spiritualities, Technology, Thirty Thirteen, Tribes, Twenty Twelve | Permalink | Comments (1)
President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto and some kids along with the secretary of the navy Vidal Soberón Sanz, today from the balcony of the Palacio Nacional, during the military Independence Day parade at the Zócalo of Mexico City, Sept. 17, 2017. (Handouts)
Posted at 02:10 PM in Film & Photography, Kids, Mexico, People & Ideas, Surveillance, Thirty Thirteen, Tribes, Twenty Twelve | Permalink | Comments (0)
This is an essay about growing up going back and forth between the U.S.-Mexico border, on the land where I am from — San Diego/Tijuana. It is posted at Highline, the HuffPost's long-form vertical, in conjunction with the release of a short film by Laura Gabbert on Friendship Park.
An excerpt:
Crossing the border was made possible by my privilege. On my family’s returns into San Diego, all we had to do was smile and declare “U.S.!” when a border agent asked our citizenship. We were brown-skinned Americans, and no other proof was needed. This was the 1980s, and others crossed just as easily with the shopping and tourist visas that were readily handed to Mexicans born in the region. Back then, there was nothing to fear on the border if there was nothing to hide.
Read the whole thing here, and also watch Gabbert's film "Monument/Monumento," with Field of Vision.
It was a great experience writing this, and great to get those juices flowing after being inactive for so long. Next phase of this crazy career is only barely starting to take shape ...
* Photo above, the southwestern edge of the border, 2011.
Posted at 06:18 PM in Borderlands, Brown, Business, Cities, Design, Film & Photography, Immigration, Justice & Society, Media, People & Ideas, Surveillance | Permalink | Comments (0)
One of the greatest and lesser known joys of a (sometimes joyless) Berkeley education was the access to so many truly great lecturers in the buildings that dotted the campus.
There were many professors with rockstar-style reputations among Berkeley undergrads for lectures that electrified audiences: Pedro Noguera in education, Barbara Christian in African-American studies, Filippenko in astronomy, Abel in English, the brave Tyrone Hayes in integrative bio, and so on.
Another such name was bio professor Marian Diamond, who died last month at age 90. She was the prof known for an infectious fascination with the human brain, which she described as the most complex and wonderful thing in the known universe.
Diamond was born in Glendale and transferred from Glendale Community College to UC Berkeley in 1946. In '48, she became the first woman to graduate from the then-department of anatomy. She wound up teaching at Berkeley and in the 1980s gained international attention for finding that brains keep developing into old age — research fueled in part by her work studying slices of Einstein's brain.
Watch this documentary about Diamond and her work.
Of course at some point she was awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award, the most hallowed distinction given on campus in terms of real worth for students. Whoever had that symbol by their name in the course catalog meant the teacher was just goddamn good.
Diamond was known for showing up to special events and producing a real brain specimen from a fancy hat box, and declaring, in her signature slogan, that the brain was the most magnificent structure — a creator of ideas — that we know in the universe.
Great lady, Marian Diamond. May she rest in peace.
My all-time favorite lecturer will be the perpetually frowning and soaring orator Leon Litwack in history. Litwack's coal-miner bass of a voice and Eastwood-like delivery would kinda enrapture those inside massive Wheeler Hall during History 7B, his introductory course on U.S. history since the Civil War.
I took it. I refused to miss a lecture.
Litwack employed music, video, and still photographs as he spoke, often moving students to tears over the racial horrors of every major American period to our day. His lecture on the role of Berkeley itself in the opening of the 1960s was especially memorable. Litwack was deeply committed to the notion of the centrality of African American history to the narrative of America at large.
Watch him above, in just one instance. Especially good when he cites a few modern hip-hop lyrics.
A Golden Bear through and through, Litwack was born in Santa Barbara and got his B.A. and doctorate at Cal. He is now emeritus, at 87. I hope he knows in retirement that he affected generations of students' lives, including mine.
Posted at 08:56 PM in Death, Justice & Society, People & Ideas, Thirty Thirteen | Permalink | Comments (0)
* Robertson and Olympic.
This year I am co-judging the journalism prize of the Pen Center USA Literary Awards, with writers Maria Bustillos and Edward Humes. I was also one of the co-judges of the inaugural Christopher Isherwood Prize in autobiographical prose at the L.A. Times Festival of Books.
These tasks have helped me confront my own writing, and challenged my relationship to prose as a reader and editor. I've also had a glimpse of the complexity of making an editorial decision with other minds, in disparate places, and under deadline pressure.
Posted at 10:40 AM in Author News, Books, Media, People & Ideas, Thirty Thirteen | Permalink | Comments (0)
* Sigman (left) was born in Obregon, Sonora.
There’s a reason you saw more sugar skulls and calaveras on the streets of the U.S.A. this year.
It’s one of the many after-effects of the second major historical wave of U.S. migration from Mexico, which more or less coalesced around the opening of the North American market and has reached net-zero in relation to migrants who are returning to Mexico. In its wake, Americans have adopted the taco truck, the liberal use of Spanish phrases in rap by major American hip-hop stars like Kayne West and Kendrick Lamar, and the Days of the Dead.
The (Days or) Day of the Dead, aka "Dia de Muertos," is celebrated November 1 to 2, overnight. Mexicans at home make altars for their departed, while on the streets the holiday has morphed into a carnival of sugar skulls, calavera skeleton figures, and crowns of marigold flowers.
Since last weekend, countless communities from big cities to rural counties in the United States took on festivals and special events, concerts, art openings, and exhibits related to Day of the Dead. Morrissey — idol to many, many Mexican American mozheads — headlined last night's Day of the Dead festival in Santa Barbara.
Inevitably, given current trends in liberal academic theory, Day of the Dead has become a flash-point in ongoing debates about cultural appropriation in U.S. consumer culture. The imagery related to the holiday will abound in a forthcoming Disney/Pixar animated feature titled "Coco"; cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz is a consulting producer on the film, which can't be anything but a good thing.
Posted at 12:50 PM in Art, Blogs, Borderlands, Brown, Business, Death, Design, Film & Photography, Futurisms, Homeland L.A., Immigration, Indigenous America, Media, Mexico, People & Ideas, Pop, Spiritualities, Twenty Twelve | Permalink | Comments (0)
Vampire Weekend singing "This Land Is Your Land," the popular national anthem, with Democratic primary presidential nominee Bernie Sanders.
Posted at 11:33 PM in Film & Photography, Futurisms, Media, People & Ideas, Television, Twenty Twelve | Permalink | Comments (1)
Been thinking and engaging lots with trauma lately in my journalism, and in reckoning with what so many of us have gone through in Mexico. The terror of losing a loved one, or being abused, or being cast aside by society, rendering trauma as a state of homelessness, for example.
This essay by author Saïd Sayrafiezadeh lances through the heart of the matter:
I was not gay and I told him so. He would not accept no for an answer. The no was even more evidence that I was gay. Back and forth we went like this. Since there had never been any precedent in my household for alerting the authorities to misdeeds, it never occurred to me that I could have walked over to the campus student services office and reported his behavior. In my confused and desperate state, I even wasted a significant amount of time entertaining with some seriousness the possibility that I might indeed be gay. This went on for the duration of my college career, which for the record was never completed.
Posted at 09:37 PM in Books, Justice & Society, People & Ideas, Sexualities | Permalink | Comments (0)
My latest for VICE News. In this documentary, I served as both producer and correspondent. Thanks to my crew, Brooke, Phoebe, and Mack.
Posted at 04:55 PM in Author News, Borderlands, Brown, Business, Cities, Crime, Design, Fashion, Film & Photography, Futurisms, Homeland L.A., Humor, Immigration, Media, Mexico, People & Ideas, Pop, Tribes | Permalink | Comments (0)
* Campus de la Escuela Normal Rural Raul Isidro Burgos, Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, Mexico, 2014.
It's been an honor reporting the news in Latin America. And it's been especially rewarding to cover news in Mexico, on Mexico, and especially for Mexico. Now, after eight years of doing so, I'm relocating to Los Angeles and picking up where I left off.
I've been trying for weeks to come up with something decent to say about this change. I've received anxious reactions from readers asking why I'd leave, and believe me, I've been anxious too.
It's a combination of personal factors and the opportunity for another big challenge.
I needed to invoke binational privilege, and take a little breather on this maddening and infinite place. DF wears on the body and brain. Anyone who's lived there knows this. In my case, the horrors of the daily news cycle in war-weary Mexico began straining me with greater force. Each trip to the field with the VICE News crew in Mexico, to see how someone in my country had something horrific happen to them, with no recourse, no justice, left a little unexpected scar. (I know "tough" reporters aren't supposed to talk about this stuff, but that's that.)
Being away from the beach for so long wasn't good for me either.
I also needed to check back in with my family. Their demands that I be closer to them intensified in 2015 as the news out of Mexico got worse and worse. Yes, the flight to DF is as long as the time it takes to drive between L.A. and San Diego. But it's the cosmic comfort of knowing I'm not across a border and several states away on the bellybutton of the moon that pulled me back.
I also began missing, for reals now, a lot of my old friends.
This is not an act of abandoning Mexico, not abandoning my friends in arms in DF. I'll still be covering the stories that matter to my communities, doing some field reporting in Mexico and anywhere else we gotta check out in Latin America, as long as VICE lets me. I still got my Mexico cell phone. Now I'll also start poking around for stories in Califaztlán and down the border, a fertile land for contradictions to explore.
Not clueless: I know my country the USA is as messed up as Mexico but in different ways. So if you got any leads or tips, drop me a line.
Writing about leaving Mexico has failed me. I can't really wrap my brain around all the issues and implications that this transition stirs up. I love Mexico too jealously — maybe too violently — to attempt to sum up these years with some lines, or even some pages. Maybe a little down the road.
Right now I just wanna wake up on Monday morning and get to work.
* Related: Leaving Los Angeles for a little bit ... and The year I ate my way through Oaxaca, and reported in Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Chile, and Guerrero, Mexico.
Posted at 01:52 PM in Author News, Blogs, Brown, Cities, Death, Futurisms, Indigenous America, Justice & Society, Media, Mexico, People & Ideas, Twenty Twelve | Permalink | Comments (0)
I once said this song is an "artifact, a witness, an indictment, a prayer." Ten years later, "Dry Drunk Emperor" by the 2000s New York band TV on the Radio remains the most stirring offering in any language of mourning to the victims and survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
And more potently, ten years after the avoidable disaster, the song is a clear call for revolution. It's references to then-President George W. Bush as a "dry drunk emperor" of "gold cross jock skull and bones" and a "mocking smile" are reminders of the darkest moments of the Bush-era decadence.
In the remembrances this week, where is the acknowledgement of those days' feelings of anger, desperation, disgust? Where is the howling from the bottom of our gut?
I encourage you to listen today to this track and to ponder the power of its lyrics:
Baby boy
dying under hot desert sun,
watch your colors run.
Did you believe the lie they told you,
that Christ would lead the way
and in a matter of days
hand us victory?
Did you buy the bull they sold you,
that the bullets and the bombs
and all the strong arms
would bring home security?
All eyes upon
Dry Drunk Emperor
gold cross jock skull and bones
mocking smile,
he's been
standing naked for a while!
Get him gone, get him gone, get him gone!!
and bring all the thieves to trial.
End their promise
end their dream
watch it turn to steam
rising to the nose of some cross-legged god
Gog of Magog
end-times sort of thing.
Oh, unmentionable disgrace
shield the children's faces
as all the monied apes
display unimaginably poor taste
in a scramble for mastery.
Atta' boy get em with your gun
till Mr. Mega-Ton
tells us when we've won
or
what we're gonna leave undone.
All eyes upon
Dry Drunk Emperor
gold cross jock skull and bones
mocking smile,
he's been
naked for a while.
Get him gone, get him gone, get him gone!!!
and bring all his thieves to trial.
What if all the fathers and the sons
went marching with their guns
drawn on Washington.
That would seal the deal,
show if it was real,
this supposed freedom.
What if all the bleeding hearts
took it on themselves
to make a brand new start.
Organs pumpin' on their sleeves,
paint murals on the White House
feed the leaders L.S.D.
Grab your fife and drum,
grab your gold baton
and let's meet on the lawn,
shut down this hypocrisy.
* Previously, "Obama in the eye of the storm," "Los Angeles."
Posted at 02:41 PM in Cities, Death, Fear, Food, Justice & Society, Media, Music, People & Ideas, Pop, Spiritualities | Permalink | Comments (0)
Above, our VICE News documentary produced by the Mexico bureau, regarding the case of Alberto Nisman, the federal prosecutor who was investigating the 1994 bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association in Buenos Aires.
Our crew spent a week in BA investigating this case, with local producer Gaston Cavanagh. It was one of the more complex stories I've had to cover, because every time we reached what seemed like a reasonable conclusion about something, the next turn, the next interview, completely flipped it.
The assignment was also challenging because it dealt with the thorny themes of anti-Semitism, terrorism, the Kirchners, the opposition in Argentina (the left calls them "the right," but they call themselves "liberal"), and Iran. You decide where you stand on all that.
Posted at 05:31 PM in Crime, Death, Fear, Film & Photography, Global, Justice & Society, Media, People & Ideas, Surveillance | Permalink | Comments (0)
** Originally published at Munchies, on May 7, 2014:
“Why is it that we have allowed people who are totally incompetent in food to design our food?” Diana Kennedy was saying, her gray and white hair lifting lightly in the breeze. “Our food doesn’t have the flavor it used to have. I remember the chile poblanos, full of flavor, thin-fleshed, very dark green, and that big. Now ¡olvidalo!”
“Forget it,” she said. Today, there is actually a four in ten chance a chile poblano served to you anywhere in Mexico has been imported, most likely from China. Kennedy knows this, and the truth seems to burn through her entire being.
A living legend in food, Kennedy started exploring the markets of Mexico’s towns and villages more than fifty years ago, meeting cooks and gathering plants and recipes with the precision of a ethnobotanist. It has been her lifelong project of achieving total intimacy with Mexico’s native ingredients.
Sitting at Kennedy’s outdoor dining table with a tiny glass of mezcal before me, I struggled to imagine the flavor of the chile poblanos back then because fifty years ago, Mexico and the planet were simply different places than they are now. There were less people, for one, and probably a lot less contaminants in the air, in the soil, in the water. In our lives.
There was no transgenic corn in Mexico fifty years ago, and definitely none imported from the United States—as there is today—not in the land where science has agreed that corn was born.
At 91 years old, Diana is old enough to remember what that Mexico tasted like. Her palate fuels her ideas—and anger.
“People are losing taste, especially in the US, and then it passes to Mexico,” Kennedy told me. “It’s ridiculous, but then nobody has paid attention to the agriculture in Mexico.”
* All photos by Alejandro Mendoza.
Continue reading "You're eating fake tortillas, and Diana Kennedy is pissed about it" »
Posted at 10:42 AM in Books, Business, Earth, Food, Futurisms, Humor, Mexico, People & Ideas, Twenty Twelve | Permalink | Comments (0)
* Photo by Hans-Máximo Musielik.
Here's a link to my print feature in the January issue of VICE magazine, on the Raul Isidro Burgos Ayotzinapa Normal School, near Tixtla, Guerrero. Excerpt:
It's said as a slur, but it happens to be somewhat true. The Federation of Campesino Socialist Mexican Students, uniting the student leadership at 16 schools across Mexico, including the one in Ayotzinapa, formed in 1935. One of Ayotzinapa's best-known graduates, Lucio Cabañas, was national president of this group when he studied there. Cabañas would go on to form the Poor People's Party, a militant political organization with an armed wing. The group kidnapped politicians and operated a radio signal over a wide region in the Sierra de Atoyac.
The students believe in direct action today as well. Through their "Struggle Commission," for example, they take over buses and toll booths. Masking their faces, the Ayotzinapa students charge a flat 50-peso toll on any vehicle that passes, be it private, public, or a commercial passenger bus. We watched as they did this for a few hours one day at the Palo Blanco toll booth. Some motorists I approached in line said they supported the Ayotzinapa students, but about just as many said they were nothing but vandals and hooligans.
Read more here. To read all our coverage related to the Ayotzinapa mass disappearance, check out the tags Guerrero, Ayotzinapa, and Mexico on VICE News.
Posted at 07:47 PM in Author News, Death, Fear, Film & Photography, Indigenous America, Justice & Society, Media, Mexico, People & Ideas, Tribes | Permalink | Comments (0)
* With my homie Franco, an hincha for club Newell's Old Boys in Rosario, Argentina, May 2014. Photo by producer Raymundo Perez-Arellano.
There is no use apologizing. Intersections, like a lot of blogs that started in this long-forgotten blog big bang of 2005-2006, went into posting decline after the realization that it was impossible for me to keep up. Not while at the same time taking on a reporting and writing job with extremely demanding responsibilities and expectations.
When I was in the DF bureau of the LA Times, at least I managed to re-post my stories, most of the time. Since 2013, this has also become functionally impossible. Work just went from crazy to crazier.
After a year as editor of VICE México, in June of 2014, my boss asked me to step in and become Mexico bureau chief of VICE News. It was the kind of job I had never really thought about doing but at the same time knew I was capable of doing, so I said yes. With this, my year, and my life, changed.
By then, early summer, our office's Munchies Guide to Oaxaca (which we actually recorded in November 2013, produced by Santiago Fábregas and shot by Guillermo Alvarez), was finally live and cookin'. Munchies had also just posted my profile on food queen Diana Kennedy.
I was on my way to being a food host for VICE, and was still editing the Mexican edition of the print magazine at the time.
But after seeing and hearing good responses to my first hosting gig for VICE with the Oaxaca guía, the chiefs wanted to try me out on a serious news assignment. Right away, they sent me and a crew to Rosario, to investigate the drug war happening on the streets of an important port city in Argentina.
From there, other assignments in the field followed. I said "Yes" to whatever was asked of me — including yes to a trip that was decided on and carried out within hours of arriving to the office for a normal work day — dealing with the challenges as best I could, recognizing and representing, in a corner of my mind and in my own little way, for my beloved brown America.
During all this, I've had to keep up my main, most important duties, with a teensy staff: editing, translating, fact-checking, and publishing original news stories and features from across Latin America. The bureau staff and I have spent long hours working with reporters filing from Santiago to Tijuana, often under breaking-news pressure, just everyday hustling, getting stories up onto the VICE News site.
The stresses in 2014 were the steepest I've confronted since the start of my career. Then, in late September, Ayotzinapa happened. And the work got even more intense.
But I'm not gonna complain. I'm only looking forward. This year I plan on hosting more for VICE News in my role in the bureau, and I also hope to squeeze in some fresh field assignments with Munchies. There's more in store, and I want to thank all my readers and my community for staying strong with me and hanging on through all the madness and bullshit out there.
So, below, some highlights from my first seven months at VICE News. For all the stories I've written or co-written for News, click here. I'll have a post later — I hope! — all about our Ayotzinapa coverage.
The Rosario documentary I mentioned. Beautiful city, fucked-up story. This documentary, fixed locally by Gaston Cavanagh, made some waves among locals in Rosario and was cited in numerous subsequent news reports in the Argentine press.
Stopping over in Buenos Aires, we decided to check out the issue of paco, the BA streets version of crack, and a symptom of the economic malaise that has plagued the country since 2001.
A quick Munchies interlude in here, a tour of three classic Mexico City fondas. Mmmmmmm, ¿A que hora es la comida?
On September 11, we landed in Chile, to cover the demonstrations and street protests tied to the anniversary of the 1973 coup that brought down socialist president Salvador Allende and initiated the military dictatorship. Three days earlier, a bomb went off in a Santiago subway station.
At the Tolemaida military base, in Melgar, Colombia, our crew covered the 2014 Fuerzas Comando competition, a meet-and-greet for elite special ops teams from across Latin America. This documentary was produced as part of the VICE News "War Games" series.
This is the full-length version of our documentary on the horrible case of the missing students in Guerrero, Mexico. All the credit in the world for this work is to be shared with the committed and talented producers, fixers, photographers, editors, and administrators at the VICE México headquarters in Mexico City, and in particular, Rafael Castillo, Hans-Máximo Musielik, and Melissa del Pozo.
We really put in as a team the toughest hours and biggest risks many of us had ever seen in Mexico.
Me and the VICE News crew were also in Peru in late 2014, for a documentary that is coming up early this year. But that's another story ... 2K15 has begun. Stay tuned, and as always ... More soon.
Posted at 10:12 PM in Author News, Blogs, Brown, Business, Crime, Film & Photography, Food, Futurisms, Global, Justice & Society, Media, Mexico, People & Ideas, Spiritualities, Twenty Twelve | Permalink | Comments (4)
Check out the official trailer for the Guide to Oaxaca I am hosting for MUNCHIES, the newly launched food channel at VICE. It's a quick taste of the five-part, hour-long series I recorded in November with colleagues Santiago F. and Guillermo A. from VICE México.
Yes, I tried the turtle eggs.
* Previously, "BBC: Mexico's youth culture explosion," "Video report: Tacos de guisado in Polanco."
Posted at 02:58 PM in Author News, Film & Photography, Food, Global, Indigenous America, Mexico, People & Ideas, Sexualities, Tribes | Permalink | Comments (1)
This photo of a photo shows my first apartment without roommates in Mexico City, 106 in the Edificio Victoria. It's where I wrote most of "Down & Delirious in Mexico City" and had some of the best, worst experiences of my life. Joven Will is how I called William Dunleavy, a friendly young punk from New York and New Jersey who I met one day in DF.
Will threw me off at first when he let me know he was taking photos of a family of dedicated punks who lived in La Paz, past Ciudad Neza. He was 19 years old yet had a totally clear vision of what "good" documenting meant and what it did not. It was almost like he was trying to determine my seriousness the first time we talked, not the other way around. This photos is from the night Will had his 20th birthday at my place. A bunch of wanderers from the Hotel Virreyes came by. It was just a senseless DF beer peda. Really fun.
Will eventually helped illustrate "Down and Delirious," and I'm super proud to say it.
The poster behind Will is a Foro Alicia response to a government-mass media campaign of demonizing young people during those intense months of 2008 (but really always). It says: Soy delincuente, tengo 20 años, soy joven, no tengo derecho a la educación, al trabajo, a la vivienda, a la saludo, y a muchas cosas más.
We were down with that. Anyway, all of this is to say, I know it's not anywhere near your birthday, but, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Will!
Posted at 09:58 AM in Books, Cities, Film & Photography, Futurisms, Hoods, Mexico, People & Ideas, Tribes | Permalink | Comments (0)
** Originally published Nov. 1, 2013, at VICE México:
En Los Ángeles -- la segunda ciudad de mexicanos más grande del mundo -- el Día de Muertos se lo toman en serio. El año pasado estuve en el Sur de California por estas fechas, donde, en el centro cultural Self-Help Graphics & Art, una joya histórica de la raza del Este de Los Ángeles, vi el mejor altar de muertos que jamás he visto.
Lo hizo un artista conocido como Vyal Reyes, en memoria de grafiteros y taggers que han muerto de L.A. durante sus búsquedas por conquistar las calles con sus rayas.
Viniendo de una familia que incluye grafiteros, me impactó mucho este altar.
Primero, el artista uso un ataúd negro como pieza principal, donde metió fotos de graffiti-heads que han caído junto con latas de aerosol negras. Por fuera, Vyal pinto escenas urbanas con ojos "para estar trucha." Colocó latas de aerosol blancas en vez de velas, y pañuelos en vez de mantelitos.
"También incluí una cinta de seguridad, para indicar que la mayoría de estos artistas tuvieron muertes violentas" me dijo Vyal ayer vía correo, desde Los Ángeles.
"No conocí a todos los artistas personalmente", agregó, "pero tengo un gran respecto hacia ellos y hacia las contribuciones artísticas que dieron a la escena. Quiero homenajearlos para que sus esfuerzos no sean olvidados".
Los detalles obviamente tienen un sentido bien pensado. Hay una máscara para pintadores, junto con la salvia blanca que se quema tradicionalmente en California.
"Son las herramientas que usamos para protegernos físicamente y espiritualmente", añadió Vyal.
Afuera en el patio de Self Help, chicos del barrio del Centro de Los Ángeles estaban practicando su "spray art". Adentro, había muchos altares de la comunidad chicana de L.A., pero ninguno tenía la relevancia bruta con las calles como el de Vyal One. Tuve que regresar a tomarle más fotos, y a pararme a contemplar un poco la ofrenda.
El trabajo de Vyal se puede ver aquí. Este año, me dijo, está armando un altar en downtown Los Ángeles.
Posted at 05:58 AM in Art, Death, Graffiti, Homeland L.A., Hoods, People & Ideas, Spiritualities, Tribes | Permalink | Comments (0)
Rest in peace, Mike ... journalist, press advocate, warrior.
O'Connor was funny as hell, too, in the face of all the calamity he saw in Mexico. A dry wit that seemed at first to border on the unstable. He used extremely, uh, colorful language whenever warranted. It was fun talking to him on the phone, like we did just a few weeks ago. He'd ring me to shoot the shit for a bit, catch up on deep media-world memes. We'd curse the owners, curse the politicians, make dark jokes about life as a reporter in Mexico.
While working for Tracy Wilkinson at the LA Times bureau in Mexico City, I met Mike and gradually got to know the critical work he did in these years. He'd travel to the most cartel-corrupted regions of the country to investigate the murders and disappearances of local news reporters, and to offer support and guidance for those still keeping up a candle in the darkness. His most recent in-depth report on press security in Mexico for CPJ focused on the state of Zacatecas, which, not surprisingly, is smothered by fear, corruption, and silence.
He did it mostly in secret, to protect his subjects, and to protect himself. He was expert at these topics, shared his advice liberally: no photos of you if you cover corruption and drug war in regional Mexico, all lines should be considered tapped and recorded at all times, BlackBerry BBM (was) the most secure communications method for reporters working on dangerous subjects. In conversations both serious and casual, he made it clear: Never, ever trust the Party.
In short, fue un cabrón de los buenos and he will be missed, sorely. Especially now, as the silencing power of political and mass-media hegemony takes hold in Mexico, as the country returns to official-party rule, and as so many journalists begin falling, whether in intimidation, in selling-out, or in death.
Bad news losing you, Mike. Bad news for all of us.
Posted at 12:50 PM in Death, Fear, Humor, Justice & Society, Media, Mexico, People & Ideas | Permalink | Comments (2)
** Originally published at VICE México:
La última vez que fui a Nueva York, en 2011, cené una noche yo solito en un bistro precioso en Little Italy. Todos mis amigos y contactos estaban o afuera de la ciudad o “muy ocupados”. (Pues ya qué, es Nueva York). Luego, esa madrugada, mi estómago me despertó y me pidió vomitar cada último pedazo de la pasta de cuatro quesos que cargaba. No fue un pedo de alcohol ni cruda, fue solo un misterio.
Otra noche, cené con una vieja amiga en un restaurante seminuevo en Brooklyn donde cada mesero y bartender tenía tatuajes y lentes de pasta. En el sistema de sonido sólo tocaban hits como del 2002 y 2003, o sea, Bloc Party, Yeah Yeah Yeahs! y Chromeo, todo con una gran sonrisa que no pude descifrar si era de chiste o de nostalgia. En el aeropuerto de regreso a México, sólo quería algo fresco –algo– entonces me compré una manzana roja como de 1.50 dólares en la terminal. Le di una mordida y noté que algo estaba raro. El corazón de la manzana estaba completamente negro.
Bueno, fueron tiempos raros. Era abril, pero el clima se sentía como de febrero. La ciudad estaba fría, lluviosa y todos se quejaban de que el "invierno no terminaba”. No entendía por qué se oscurecía a las cuatro de la tarde; de pronto el cielo se hundía en un morado deprimente.
Lo frío se extendía a la gente.
En el metro una noche regresando de Manhattan a donde me estaba quedando, vi un mexicano bien mexicano parado en mi vagón, seguro regresando de su chamba a la casa. Tenía piel de color madera, ojos chinos, nariz elegantemente grande, cabello brillantemente negro, un verdaderomexica del continente americano. Yo (ya pedo) me le acerqué y le pregunté con toda la buena onda de mi alma que si era de México. El vato me dio la cara más irritada e indiferente de su vida. Claramente estaba pensando: Sí, pendejo, obvio que soy de México y ando aquí chambeando, ya se sabe que esto es Puebla York, entonces ¿qué me miras?
Como buen neoyorkino, supongo. En la ciudad de Nueva York no hay tiempo para pendejadas.
En fin, no la pase bien en 2011. Pero la semana pasada, cuando regresé al Noreste estadunidense por un par de días, estuve resuelto en mejorar mis impresiones, y la ciudad en este caso me consintió. El clima estaba espectacular. Y aunque Nueva York ha tenido sus días duros —el huracán Sandy, la ley racista de Stop-and-Frisk, y la gentrificación y clasismo brutales generados por la corrupción de los grandes grupos financieros— al final sigue siendo una ciudad de gente fregona y movida y bella como lo ha sido por siglos.
Uno se la puede pasar bien, beber bien y definitivamente comer bien. Pero eso sí, si tienes lana/plata/baro/feria. Esto fue lo que comí en 48 horas en New York City, y lo que me costó.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 10:00 PM, ARRIVAL
Llegando, tomé el metro desde el aeropuerto hasta Williamsburg, donde me quedé con una amiga querida. Después de despertar a la vecina de abajo (perdón), me pasaron llaves y decidí tener una noche para salir y ver Brooklyn un ratito antes de un día de trabajo el miércoles en las oficinas centrales de VICE.
El roomie de mi amiga, Scott, decidió acompañarme, y fuimos al Metropolitan en Williamsburg. Es un bar divey, punky, ghetto, ambisexual, queer, de gays no horribles y todos sus amigos. Una noche aquí en el 2011 conocí y hablé un buen rato con una chica lesbiana criada como judía jasídica, súper fregona. Como lo anticipé, esta noche había gente. Hombres con barbas blancas largas y chamarras de piel, modernas de la moda, vestidas con dudes en cachuchas, niñas lindas; era noche de QUEERAOKE. Me tomé dos chelas locales de Brooklyn, a cinco dólares cada una, y le invité una Diet Coke al amigo Scott. Más propina, gasté 16 dólares.
Saliendo quería cenar, entonces pasamos a un deli, de estos lugares que están abiertos las 24 horas y que a veces se conocen como bodegas. Venden de todo: frutas, carnes, cereales, chupe y sándwiches hechos a la orden, al total estilo New York. Me comí un sandwichito de pavo con queso, unos chips y una chela Newcastle. Fueron 11 dólares.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 10:00 AM, BREAKFAST & LUNCH
Al día siguiente, quería un desayuno cute de Brooklyn, pero me desperté tarde, y quería llegar rápido a la oficina. Entonces paré en otro deli sobre Bedford Avenue y aquí al cocinero mexicano le dije: “Me das una egg and cheese”, a lo que contestó: An egg and cheese, you want it on roll?en inglés perfecto.
Los mexicanos chambeando en el Noreste siempre quieren asegurar a todos los clientes —incluyendo a los mexicanos— que pueden hacer bizness en inglés, que son buenos migrantes. El sándwich de queso y huevo con tocino estaba simple, servible. Con un jugo verde de botella, mi desayuno empezó a $8. Al lado, en un café con demasiado estilo, pedí un latte para acompañar, a4 dolarotes.
No tenían canela, como siempre le agrego a cualquier café, y me vieron con cara de loco por haberla pedido. De la noche a la mañana había gastado casi 40 dólares en alimentos, y todo de bar y bodega, nada de lujo.
A la hora de la comida nos juntamos para comer con compañeros de VICE México que también estaban en esos rumbos. Nuestro director de contenido Bernardo Loyola conocía un buen lugar de ramen japonés, en la calle Grand, aunque dijo que Fette Sau era “el mejor restaurante en Nueva York”. No lo dudé, pero todo el chiste del lugar era la celebración de la carne de puerco, puro puerco, y entre nosotros había una vegetariana.
De hecho, el puerco está bastante in en Nueva York, o por lo menos en Brooklyn. Todos los lugares cool parecen tener algo de pork, casi siempre, es pork belly this o pork belly that, pancita básicamente. Le pregunté al artista y galerista William Dunleavy, un amigo de NY que conocí cuando pasó un rato documentando a un grupo de punks en el DF, por qué el puerco es la carne de moda en Nueva York.
“Creo que es porque los judíos jasídicos no comen puerco, y todo en Nueva York es contradictorio a como era antes de la gentrificación”, me dijo Will. “Son economías dictadas por losyuppies que dicen ‘El puerco puede ser preparado deliciosamente por nueve dólares la orden, y eso lo vamos a adoptar y abrazar’”.
Y luego agregó: I think pork is delicious.
Continue reading "Mal del Puerco: Dos días de comer y chupar en Nueva York" »
Posted at 05:45 PM in Business, Cities, Food, Hoods, People & Ideas | Permalink | Comments (0)
** Originally published at VICE México:
Suena como una fantasía para cualquier periodista que ama a su comunidad: mudarte a un barrio emblemático, querido, herido de tu ciudad, y luego, empezar un periódico sobre el barrio, en servicio al barrio – sí, en papel.
Esto es lo que ha hecho el periodista regio Diego Enrique Osorno, uno de los más reconocidos actualmente en México y en el extranjero. Además de ganarse el cariño de las personas por hacer un periodismo de servicio y denuncia, Osorno acaba de lanzar un semanario impreso para abrir un espacio a los jóvenes escritores de Monterrey, y a partir del nuevo periodismo, ayudar rehabilitar su ciudad tan golpeada por la violencia de la guerra contra el narco.
Lanzado el 1 de mayo (“Dia del Trabajo,” Diego me recuerda), El Barrio Antiguo se ha convertido en un fenómeno social en Monterrey en poco tiempo. Osorno es el editor en jefe, y con él colabora como editor adjunto el periodista Diego Legrand, además de un buen grupo de jóvenes narradores reporteros. Como admiramos el trabajo de Osorno, también colaborador de VICE, les compartimos esta conversación con él sobre su proyecto.
“Somos pobres, pero honrados,” me comentó Diego sobre la publicación. Con esa gran declaración en mente, me da gusto anunciar que cada semana VICE México publicará una nota deEl Barrio Antiguo para compartir el buen trabajo que el proyecto realiza, y ojalá para apoyar el periódico con más ojos a nivel nacional e internacional. ¡Bienvenidos!
VICE: ¿Cómo y desde cuándo surgió El Barrio Antiguo y con qué apoyo? Hoy en día armar un periódico impreso nuevo en México no es nada fácil.
Continue reading "Conoce 'El Barrio Antiguo': Crónicas contra la barbarie" »
Posted at 02:59 PM in Business, Cities, Hoods, Media, Mexico, People & Ideas, Tribes | Permalink | Comments (0)
From Latino USA:
Commentator Daniel Hernandez is a pocho, a Mexican-American, living in Mexico City. But lately he’s noticed he’s not the only one, and the line between pochos and chilangos, what Mexico City natives call themselves, is blurring.
Go here for the link and audio file for my latest commentary for Latino USA on National Public Radio. Readers, are you a pocho in Chilangolandia as well? * Previously, “On voting for the first time for president in Mexico.”
** Photo: The crossing at San Ysidro into Tijuana, January 2012.
Posted at 02:37 PM in Borderlands, Cities, Global, Mexico, People & Ideas, Tribes | Permalink | Comments (2)
* Update, 19:02 p.m.: Actualizo en la noche si tienen tips!
Real quick, here are some recommendations for some interesting exhibits and events happening around Zona MACO:
Opened Thursday or Saturday:
Morgan Manduley, at Yautepec, Melchor Ocampo 154-A, San Rafael.
Salón Acme No. 1, at Gob. Rebollar 45, San Miguel Chapultepec.
Gustavo Abascal, at Arte TalCual, Colima 326-A, Roma Norte.
** Also ongoing and highly recommended: "Asco: Elite of the Obscure," at MUAC at UNAM.
Opening Monday, April 8:
PJ Rountree with Kenny Curran, at Comedor (Cafe Zena), Gob. Tagle 66-A, San Miguel Chapultepec lunchtime through Friday, plus April 15.
Etienne Chambaud, at LABOR, Francisco Ramírez 5, Daniel Garza/Constituyentes, 5 p.m.
Opening Tuesday, April 9:
Jochen Lempert, at Lulu, Bajio 231, Roma, "la puertita roja," 5 p.m.
Esto no es un museo, at Centro Cultural España, Rep. de Guatemala 18, Centro, 7 p.m.
Miguel Angel Rios and Carlos Motta (fachada), at Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Tres Picos 29, Polanco, 7 p.m.
Group show; Bucareli ACT, Bucareli 120, Centro, 8 p.m.
Opening Wednesday, April 10:
MACO opens to the public. By now, Eugenio Lopez (or his staff of buyers) has already picked whatever he's taking home this year.
Opening Friday, April 12:
Colective Show Mexico City 2013, Neter, Calle 6, No. 11, San Pedro de los Pinos, 6 p.m.
Opening Saturday, April 13:
Gabriel Orozco, kurimanzutto, Gob. Rafael Rebollar 94, San Miguel Chapultepec, 12 p.m.
Sesiones de Azotea, at ATEA, Topacio 25, Merced, 3 p.m.
... More later!
** Photo: Artist PJ Rountree installing "Estaciones/Sazonez" at Cafe Zena, 2 p.m., April 8, 2013.
*** Added Wednesday, April 10: Raw Material/Materia Prima, hosted by Yuatepec, with five visiting galleries, Puebla 124, 12:00 p.m.
Posted at 04:42 PM in Art, Hoods, Mexico, People & Ideas | Permalink | Comments (0)
Above, several members of the Mexico City art collective Cráter Invertido at their studio space, October 2012. I profile the group, along with a variety of other exciting artist-run spaces currently operating in D.F., in the March 2013 issue of Art in America magazine, part of their series of "Atlas" columns from different art capitals.
An excerpt from the piece, in time for this week's energy around Zona MACO:
At a warehouse on a nondescript street in an old semi-industrial neighborhood near downtown, 14 artists have joined forces in a "collective of collectives" calling itself Crater Invertido. The name evokes the twin volcanoes that loom in the distance as well as an explosive inversion of the art pyramid. Most of its artists are recent graduates of one of the national art schools, La Esmeralda, where the group first took shape by organizing “happenings” in response to the institution’s deficiencies. Crater Invertido is now a politically sharp, process-based collective. Several members were active in the spring 2012 protest movement known as #YoSoy132, a grassroots democracy effort aimed at preventing the restoration of the old political regime.
"There was a constant interest in maintaining some type of cooperative. But we actually started seeing each other less, working less, because so much was going on politically in the country," remarks Crater Invertido artist Juan Caloca. "We kept asking ourselves what we could do, beyond purely symbolic actions, to generate something constructive in the long term."
#YoSoy132 was an electric moment for the opposition in Mexico, but the old regime won the election anyway. The movement eventually suffered a symbolic cooption by one of its sworn enemies when the media giant Televisa announced that prominent former members of #YoSoy132 were joining one of its programs as on-air panelists. On the October day that the news broke, members of the Crater Invertido shrugged it off and were busy at work, hunched over tables finishing a joint assemblage project called "Container of Volcanic Ash." There was still beer left over from the space’s most recent live-music event.
While reporting this piece, I interviewed Jose Kuri, co-director of kurimanzutto gallery, about the growth in independent art spaces in the city. He recalled a similar movement a generation ago.
"That’s why the artist-run spaces were there, where they could bounce off ideas, connect with other artists, experiment," Kuri told me. "That's why they had the artist-run spaces like the Panaderia, a place to meet people, to hang around, to go see a band to play."
"You don’t want only galleries, the commercial side of it. You want these other places, where [young artists] can show without the pressure of the galleries and without the pressure of the market," added Kuri.
* Above, members of the collective and space Neter, in San Pedro de los Pinos, Nov. 2012. Left to right: artists Marcos Castro, Alejandro García Contreras, and Jimena Schlaepfer.
Kuri and Monica Manzutto show many artists who started out in the important spaces of the 1990s -- Abraham Cruzvillegas (who has a great "Autoconstrucción" up right now at the Eco), Miguel Calderón, Gabriel Kuri, Gabriel Orozco, and more.
On Saturday, Orozco could possibly grab the highlight of D.F.'s annual spring "art week" based around Zona MACO, the city's major art fair. He's opening a solo show at the kurimanzutto's space in San Miguel Chapultepec, his first at his Mexico "home" since 2009, and I believe his first new work on display since Orozco's conquest of New York.
The 2009 show was an intriguing offering. I covered it here. Gabriel Orozco is currently on the cover of the weekly Frente, for an interview by Rulo.
Continue reading "Art in America: Mental spaces and empty promises" »
Posted at 12:28 AM in Art, Blogs, Cities, Global, Hoods, Mexico, People & Ideas | Permalink | Comments (0)
** The following is an excerpt of an English/Spanish-written draft of a piece published in the February 2013 issue of Gatopardo magazine, 'El fin de un ciclo.'
* See original post here.
Sábado 15 de diciembre de 2012
[11 Ix o 12.19.19.17.14]
El punto clave de información that we aquired on this stop was that in the town of Ticul, south of Mérida pero antes de Oxcutzcab, vivía un maestro de los garabatas, como se llaman los guaraches en Yucatán. Jorge Coronada, one of the healers we met at Kambul, told us el maestro Jose Ortiz made the best shoes on the peninsula. We drove off.
A place often reveals itself to you by the character of its roads, and in Mérida, there was a prominent but never menacing police presence all along the city’s periférico, a modern highway lined with factories and government compounds. We passed our first of many state police checkpoints, there to help maintain Yucatán’s proudly held rank of safest state in the country. In the town of Uman, the street I took to reach the center suddenly turned one-way against me in the opposite direction. A kid on a motor-bike taxi coming in the correct direction took one look at me as he drove past my dash and sneered, "Vete a la verga, vato." I laughed it off as the capricho of a local angry teen with a mean streak. One can never truly say about a people, "They are so kind, they are so welcoming," because there's always at least one or two exceptions.
It was early evening by the time we arrived in Ticul. The sky was clear and a sea of stars shone brightly above. The moon was regal, the roads one long line of darkened forest from point A to B. This town was like most others we’d come to see in Yucatán. It contained a market, a bus station, cell-phone and clothing and shoe stores, and low stone houses that looked as though they could have been built twenty or two hundred years ago. The towns that dot the plain of the peninsula are all centered around a plaza with a church that often looks built to repel a siege. In fact, many of them were. The churches in towns like Tizimin, Muna, and here in Ticul were built tall, with few windows, and with massively thick walls. They are reminders that the Maya of Yucatán resisted the Conquest forcefully and for generations more than the Aztecs.
In Ticul, which 19th Century traveler John L. Stephens described as "the perfect picture of stillness and repose," I drove into the dusty center of town, made a right, and pulled up alongside a middle-aged man sitting outside of a shoe store. I told him we were looking for Mr. Jose Ortiz, the shoemaker. The man was about sixty years old. He had white hair and unusually clear green eyes. "He is my father," he replied, and offered directions.
A few blocks back, on the same street, we came across Mr. Ortiz's taller. There was a small hand-painted sign attached to a wooden post, marking the front of a house. The door was open and the only illumination inside was a single flourescent bulb attached under the shelf of a work table, bathing the room in a humming pale blue light. No one was inside. We knocked and called, knocked and called. In the window to the street, Christmas lights were draped over an altar to the Virgen de Guadalupe. The lights were the kind that come with a device that plays carols in a single tone in a loop. We inched inside and waited. Old photographs, signs, maps hung from walls appeared as though they hadn't been touched in decades. It was clear that Mr. Ortiz's taller was a special place. I felt good just standing there. A woman passed on the street and asked us who we were looking for, and a minute later Jose Ortiz Escobedo came strolling our way.
He was a very slim old man in trousers and a work shirt. Mr. Ortiz had a handsome brown face and a sharp triangular nose. He greeted us kindly and we introduced ourselves. We expressed interest in taking a look at his offerings of garabatos, but at first it was a little difficult to comprehend what Mr. Ortiz was saying. He said he was 90 years old. His words blended together and his sentences came in mixed clauses. His Mayan accent was strong – the swirling yet chopped castellano that simmers at the front of the mouth and pops with K's and Q's.
Mr. Ortiz explained that he would be unable to sell us any pair of the leather sandals that hung on his wall. They looked like delicate but sturdy objects. He said any he had "would hurt your feet." He only makes garabatos to fit a foot right, he said. I tried on a shoe and it fit perfectly, but Mr. Ortiz absolutely insisted he would not sell us anything not made to fit – not even a belt, although I tried. For a minute, it was impossible for us to comprehend the possibility, that unlike in Mexico City, money couldn't buy everything, and everything wasn't for sale.
We asked Mr. Ortiz if he heard anything about the supposed prediction of the end of the world, and he said it was nothing, and although he hadn't been to Mérida in more years that he could remember, he concluded in between other thoughts: "Si se acaba el mundo, me voy a Mérida."
Mr. Ortiz was born in the house where we stood and his father was born there too. He has worked as a shoemaker for 75 years. He married at 22. His wife is still alive, and they have the same age, 90. He had eight children, but only five survive today. He told us he had 12 great-great-grandchildren.
He explained to us the Maya translations of certain words – che for madera, eck for estrella. He said the Maya of Yucatán always say what they mean, no matter how blunt. He said he belonged to a stubborn people. And, being a man of his age, Mr. Ortiz didn't demure while elaborating.
"Porque los mayas, lo que ven, eso dicen," Mr. Ortiz said. "Lo que hablamos ahora es amestizado, no es la verdadera maya. La verdadera maya es ofensivo, ofende a la mujer."
"El apedillo que tengo yo no es maya … me llamo Victor Jose Ortiz Escobedo. Es español … Y a pesar de que soy maya porque nací en la tierra maya, nuestro estilo es maya, solamente el apellido no es."
We talked about life in Ticul, and asked what he ate to stay so healthy and alert. He eats chaya, lechuga, espinaca, rábano, chayote, no mention of meat. He moved about the room freely, using his arms to emphasize thoughts. "Tengo que trabajar," he said. "Si se acuesta, envejece mas pronto."
I asked again if he saw any meaning in the "end of the world" as supposedly predicted by the Maya. Mr. Ortiz explained: "El sistema de ellos termina. El sistema de los otros, ahorita, es lo que va terminar, y empieza lo de los mayas."
* Printed with permission of Gatopardo magazine, c/o editor Guillermo Osorno.
Posted at 08:44 PM in Author News, Business, Cities, Film & Photography, Futurisms, Global, Indigenous America, Mexico, People & Ideas, Twenty Twelve | Permalink | Comments (0)
Here's a video report by journalist Michael Maher, with photographs by Peter Kayafas, about the endlessly fruitful topic of youth culture in Mexico City.
With takes at El Chopo and at protests during last year's #YoSoy132 movement, the video also features an interview with your blog author. Go to the first link for full clip.
* Above, screen shot, via BBC Magazine.
Posted at 02:17 PM in Author News, Cities, Fashion, Film & Photography, Global, Mexico, People & Ideas, Tribes | Permalink | Comments (5)
A major reportaje on the afromestizo musical profile of Mexico, by producer Marlon Bishop, via Afropop on Public Radio International. Bishop travels to Guerrero to check out the chilena tradition, to Mexico City for the danzón, and to Veracruz and Los Angeles to examine the new-generation son jarocho craze.
It's an involving, rich podcast. See more here for blog posts with clips related to self-declared criollo musical culture.
I've held a long-running discussion on race in Mexico in recent years on Intersections, highlighting previous documentary projects, easy but telling race-tricks in contemporary social science in Mexico, and bringing some pop-media attention on pop Mexican blackness.
I remain ambivalent about the application of U.S.-style racial goggles on the reality of race as it's lived in Mexico today.
I was struck, for example, by an academic voice in the Afropop audio who says "naming the beast" is needed to "fund the beast," suggesting that afromestizo people in Mexico need more "resources" that have been denied to them because of their race or color.
That is totally an American racial-politics thing to say, and would register as flat-line discourse to many Mexican thinkers, of many classes and colors, I can assure you. All kinds of poor people in Mexico have been neglected by the state, in a complicated long-running saga of injustice in Mexico that is simply more complicated than a black-and-white vision.
Additionally, I remain unsure who gets to be Afro-Mexican. Or even, who wants to be? Mexicans call themselves mexicanos first, and many find little use in sub-categorizing ourselves in the U.S. manner. Yes, there are some serious race conundrums at play here, and racism in the mass media is still so prevalent. But U.S. race relators don't necessarily have the smarter hand, or the better model.
So what is? Let's keep discussing, and in the meantime, enjoy the podcast and the dope music! * Gracias por el tip, Nati! * Post edited.
Posted at 06:41 PM in Film & Photography, Futurisms, Global, Indigenous America, Justice & Society, Mexico, People & Ideas | Permalink | Comments (0)
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