Intersections

Techgnosis? Occulture?

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 ...

* Image via RS.

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.

Gmail disabled, the mysteries and chains *

I just spent 24 hours (almost exactly: see here and here) without access to my Google email account for unknown reasons. Everytime I tried to log-in, a page appeared informing me that my Gmail account had been "temporarily disabled." That meant no access to various important messages regarding my freelance work and finances, correspondence with my family, research notes to myself, and archives of messages that have high emotional value.

I let my contacts know on Facebook and Twitter, purely out of frustration, and heard back from someone who said the same thing happened to her, and that Gmail never allowed her to return to her Inbox. I'm surprised I didn't panic more. Being away from a constant stream of new information, click by click, was slightly refreshing. But ... what if? What if Gmail's all-seeing-eyes found some offending phrases in my messaging and pegged me as some kind of threat to be scrambled? What if my "second life," my email account, was snatched away from me permanently?

Was it that Tom Cruise "creepy" tweet?

I'll never know. In order to regain access to my account, Google told me I had basically one option: Give them a cell phone number where they could send a text message with a verification code to re-activate my account. I tried taking this step with my Mexico cell phone, but Gmail told me "my country" wasn't among those where they do this. I tried a cell phone number in the U.S., and Google also told me "my country" wasn't SMS-retrievable. Huh? I sent I think five different reports/help requests, but I felt like they disappeared in a bin of unwanted bits as soon as I clicked send. I couldn't find any kind of customer service line for Gmail users, no avenue for breathing human interaction within Google's fortresses.

I don't expect ever getting any sort of response, no report for the user on why an account is temporarily disabled, no acknowledgment of my existence. Finally -- again, almost exactly 24 hours later -- my sister's cell phone number in San Diego worked out. But what if I didn't have a cell phone available to pester in the States? What about Gmail users without cell phones? What about ... jeez ... the scores of Gmail users in Mexico?

As far as I see it, for showing up at the right place at the right time, Gmail is now the standard email service among the "younger and richer," essentially, people with higher education who are around 40 or below. But this glitch I just experienced makes me wonder. When will it be appropriate to seriously consider a migration elsewhere? When Google shoves its new Facebook down our throats? When the Wave strikes?

* Previously, "Report: Google, watching everything, is hostile to privacy." For more, see Googlewatch.org.

** Image via The Truth Board.

Estamos aprendiedo como hacer un blog

Aqui estamos en el centro cultural con los amigos del Project Luz. Luego les explicamos mas. Estamos experimentando con hacer blogs. Acabamos de encontrar uno que se llama La Porra Ruda de Neza.

* Foto: Del archivo de Jasmin Lopez del Project Luz del 2008.

Postopolis Report No. 4: Aztec futurisms, y el adios

* How Postopolis spread: engagement. Via Tomo.

The culture supplement Tomo has just put out its Postopolis issue. Flip through the pages here. It's a useful marker to publish my final Postopolis report, so here it goes. Sorry for the delay ...

By Saturday, Postopolis had spread, like a Red Specter contagion. People in D.F. were hearing about it, tuning in and watching the stream online, and arriving to hear the talks live. The faces of my fellow bloggers were becoming not just familiar but welcoming. And those arty concrete ladrillos were by then all-too familiar with our poor sore nalgas.

On the final day David Lida came to discuss his book "First Stop in the New World" with Jace Clayton. A couple questions centered on Lida's thesis in the book that Mexico is "the capital of the Twenty First Century." He reiterated that his argument is based on the idea that the fastest growing cities in the developing world are growing like Mexico City did, which makes D.F. sort of the mother figure to places like Lagos or Mumbai. People for the most part make their life here day-to-day, Lida said, like in so many other such cities.

In a question, Mariana Delgado of Proyecto Sonidero challenged the notion that Mexico City is post-Colonial or post-Hispanic. She said something to the effect of, 'This is still Tenochtitlán.' The exchange was so cool because it demonstrated that this question -– Is Tenochtitlán a ghost city or the city around us, actually? –- is still a relevant one in D.F. today, in the year 2010.

I like to call that an Aztec Futurism. Or from the sonidero standpoint, is that a Tropical Futurism?

Postopolis Report No. 3: 'Residues of general economy' *

* Above, Mexico City, the lake of fire, at night from the air, via Oscar Ruiz.

Before going into highlights from Friday, I wanted to point out another highlight from Day 3, the photography of Oscar Ruiz, introduced by Gabriella Gomez Mont. Ruiz informed us before starting that he's not a professional photographer and not a professional speaker, he just flies helicopters. Yet from the air, he captures breathtaking images of the astonishing scale of Mexico City. Ruiz presented them with warmth and clarity, if a bit grimly.

As the pilot discussed his aerial pictures of shanties that spring up "over night" and resort-style residential complexes butting up against slums, you could hear the wonder and slight indignation in his voice at the severe social stratification he sees in Mexico from the skies. The photos have been online for years, so Ruiz's pictures are among the first people see when they browse the Web for a window into D.F.

It was great to finally attach a name and face to the photos.

Day 4:

Friday at Postopolis drew upon the hip-hop filter of Mexico City once more, with Camilo Smith, at the invitation of Wayne Marshall, interviewing 2Phase, an OG D.F. rapper by way of Chicago, and rapper Lil T'Ko. They got down a little on the mic and talked about their trajectories. Domus, one of the Postopolis sponsors, has great photos on Facebook.

In the evening, I introduced Cuauhtémoc Medina and Mariana Botey of the curatorial collective -- "sect," they insist -- El Espectro Rojo, or The Red Specter. As we saw on Friday, the group's level of theoretical rigor is challenging, almost aggressive, which is what makes their work so sharp and intellectually seductive. They have given themselves a clear mission of pushing the limits of curatorial practice and challenging normalized ideas about how art and the art object relate to capitalist production.

From the introductory text to "Critical Fetishes: Resides of general economy," The Red Specter's current show at the CA2 Madrid (made possible, they write, by the group's "Commissariat of Public Enlightenment"):

Critical Fetishes seeks to overcome the abjectionist description of capitalism's crisis, and to expose the way in which artistic work invokes moments of anti-production, de-activates the myths of development and puts the art object into operation as an object of desire and subversion. In this sense, the show takes a position against the identification of dematerialization with de-fetishization, as the dominant critical operation, in favor of rescuing the power of contagion and dissemination of the contemporary art fetish-object.

Postopolis DF was The Red Specter's first public "apparition" in Mexico City. The "Critical Fetishes" show is slated to come to the Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico later this year. Some of the artists include Santiago Sierra, Miguel Calderon, Francis Alÿs, Teresa Margolles, Fran Ilich, and Vicente Razo. (More then.)

Now, here are a few highly recommended recaps of the week by fellow Postopolis bloggers: Regine Debatty of We Make Money Not Art on Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3, and Nicola Twilley's exhaustive and enlightening talk with Rachel Laudan on Mexico, maize, Maseca, and Wal-Mart.

Pull-quote:

And the third thing that happened, finally — this really took place in the seventies and eighties — is that the company now called Gruma (Grupa Maseca) discovered a way to take the wet, alkali-treated maize, grind it, dehydrate it, and put it into packets. You've seen those packets in the grocery stores, I'm sure. By the 1970s, five percent of the maize for tortillas in Mexico came from Maseca. By the 1990s, it was fifteen percent. Maseca now has plans — whether they'll pull it off, I don't know — to take over all the tortillerias in the country.

More there, worth the whole read.

** Update: If you enjoyed Carlos Alvarez Montero's presentation of his photo work from Day 2, he'll be presenting the full version of his short documentary "Our Lady of the Bronx" at Club Atlántico in Centro, tomorrow Wednesday. I'll be moderating a Q&A with Carlos and Ali Gadorki will be playing tracks. More info here.

Postopolis Report No. 2: Highlights from Days 2 & 3 *

* Bloggers hard at work at Postopolis DF, via Tomo.

Postopolis DF finished on Saturday at about 10:00 p.m., after five days and 60 presentations, a bunch of parties and meals, and more information, ideas, and intersections at play than I believe most of us participating could handle. It was overwhelming, in the best possible sense. But that also meant that many of us barely had time to blog while absorbing the talks at El Eco (nice new site, by the way), and I apologize for not being as attentive as I should have been in this area.

I also missed a few talks that I really wish I could have seen live, but life and work call constantly in D.F. So now I'd like to offer a quick digest of highlights from the week, in parts. Check out Report No. 1 for the first bit of Post-processing. My Report No. 3 will appear on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Once more, what an amazing week.

Day 2:

Discussing the hip-hop subcultures of Mexico City with Wayne Marshall, Tomás Brum Alvarez of Rayarte, a D.F. graffiti magazine, broke down the lack of public space and media outlets in the city for hip-hop nacional. While doing so, he made a pointed dig at the old guard at El Chopo, whom he argued are resistant to incorporating hip-hop into the scene there. He referred to himself jokingly as a "choposuario," and then said, no, he's an "artesángano."

Couldn't help laughing out loud. "Choposuario" is a compound slangism that describes the graying old rockers who still guard El Chopo like it's some kind of countercultural holy grail (which it is), but also connotes a kind of nostalgic delusion for the old days of the tianguis -- which is now almost 30 years old. But artesángano was totally new to me. Sángano is another slangism that describes a lazy figure who leeches, or hooks others into doing his will. So what's an artesángano? An artesano, artisan seller, who hustles without shame? Whatever its intended meaning, I'll definitely be using it when inspiration strikes.

(Hip-hop is of course present at El Chopo, but mostly on the periphery. Across the street from the Saturday market, on Mosqueta, Plaza Peyote is there to meet all your Mexican hip-hop needs. It's where kids pick up CDs, fliers, T-shirts, magazines, sneakers, spray can caps, and so on.)

Day 3:

On Thursday I talked about human rights in Mexico City with Eréndira Cruzvillegas, former Special Speaker for Freedom of Expression at the D.F. human rights commission. I don't have a specific quote to share from Eréndira's brisk talk but, man, I certainly think it wowed and impressed those of us who were present for it. She spoke fiercely and passionately about the lack of opportunity for young people in the marginalized urban expanses of Mexico City, the kind that most visitors never see. Her perspective provided an alternate window from which to view the metropolis.

Shouts went out to the kids in the GAM, whom Eréndira said were critical to the drafting of an accurate -- and politically explosive -- report on the News Divine tragedy. Ms. Cruzvillegas is now the secretary of the permanent commission at the D.F. legislative assembly, but she remains an active advocate for human rights wherever she might be needed. Right after our talk, she had to leave early to go see someone behind bars who needs her help.

(Trivia: Eréndira is sibling to the Kurimanzutto artist Abraham Cruzvillegas.)

I enjoyed the talk by Jorge Legorreta, former borough chief in Cuauhtémoc and an expert on the D.F. water supply, in conversation with Jace Clayton. What a numbingly grim assessment for the future of water in a city founded on a lake. Water reserves are dwindling, infrastructure is notoriously bad, quality is low and generally uneven, and on and on. Most ominously, he predicted a "great flood" in Mexico City in the next few years, recalling the history of the catastrophic flood of 1629, which killed tens of thousands and didn't clear out until four years later, in 1633.

(Previous posts in Intersections on water in D.F. are here, here, here, and here. And here's a feature on the D.F. water crisis I did last year, for FSRN.)

The evening highlight from Day 3 for me was the presentation by Greg Berger, the Gringoyo, who was introduced by Ethel Barona Pohl and Cesar Reyes. As I said in the Q&A, when I first saw Berger's site, I wasn't immediately sure that it was satire. That's how good it is, and that also says something about a) my naïvete, and b) the pop power of gringo stereotypes in Mexico.

Go in there and check out his mini-doc on the swine flu scare from last spring. It is incredibly effective political activism, fusing humor, wit, and agitation. Brilliant stuff. (My work on the swine flu feargasm of 2009, here and here.)

* Image above, Storefront's César Cotta, left, and Niki Nakazawa, book editor at Arquine. ** Coming up, Postopolis Report No. 3., soon.

Postopolis Report No. 1: Ali Gua Gua, and M of Michoacan *

* Audience at the opening of Postopolis DF, via Tomo.

An amazing start to Postopolis DF at the Eco on Tuesday. The event kicked off in high spirits with introductions by the Storefront crew, despite the rain clouds (mercifully) sitting themselves upon Mexico City. Each invited blogger then introduced their site and work. Nicola Twilley of Edible Geography nlightened us with her food esoterica, including "disaster wine." Regine Debatty of We Make Money Not Art opened our minds to the weirdness of her native Belgium. (If the Dutch-speaking part separates from the French-speaking part, who keeps Brussels?)

Check out the day's coverage here. Video of my introduction is here, by Jesus Chairez.

Once the invited presentations got underway (Remember, in the "Ponzi scheme" of Postopolis, as Joseph Grima describes it, organizers invite bloggers they find intriguing, bloggers invite guests whose work intrigues them, and the conversations start), we listened to Fernando Romero quickly discuss the major projects undertaken by his firm LAR. Will they ever build that border bridge museum? Less and less likely, tragically.

Then I had the pleasure of introducing Ali Gadorki of Kumbia Queers and Las Ultrasonicas.

The most insightful moment for me was when during the Q&A, a young guy in the back offered his perspective: He is from "provincia" like Ali, he said, and is surprised at how, as he sees it, Mexico City kids tend to remain strictly within their tribal boundaries, while non-Mexico City natives who live here are more open to going to different tocadas during the week. Punk one day, rockabilly the next, migrating between hip-hop and reggae and so on on any given night. "Es una multicultura."

It might have been a generalization, but his remarks definitely resonated with Ali and others in the audience.

Earlier today, I introduced Carlos Alvarez Montero and his documentary work on transnational cholo subcultures, including his project "Covers (Adapt & Adopt)." Questions focused on Alvarez's "M of Michoacan" photo series, documenting migrants who return to Mexico after absorbing classical urban Chicano dress from the North. "How do you approach them?" came a question, regarding the photographer's practice.

Carlos said it's fairly easy getting cholos or other subcultural adherents to agree to have their photo taken. When people consciously adopt a certain set of dress codes, merging and mixing them, they're looking to be documented. It's the point, he said. "It's vanity."

* Keep up with the invited blogs and the main Postopolis page for all the updates. Intersections updates again on Friday.

** Post updated.

Intersections at Postopolis: Punks, cholos, and your rights *

* Above, Califas byka culture, via Mexico, in the Bronx. By C. Alvarez Montero.

And just like that, Postopolis DF is set to start. Tuesday June 8 is the opening day of the free offerings of talks and interviews at the Eco museum, until Saturday, June 11. Check out this previous post for all the details. And check out the whole schedule at the main Postopolis site, where all the events will be streamed live.

I'm so impressed by the line-up and the ability of the many organizers to make this come together. Now here are my guests. I think they reflect general concerns in my own work: subcultures, bilingualism, transnationalism, youth, modes of violence, modes of resistance, justice, contemporary art, and the wide giant scope of human sexuality. The urbanism of D.F. is the unifying glue.

On Tuesday, I sit down with Ali Gadorki, an OG figure in the Mexico City punk/alternative scene. Ali is a founding member of the ground-breaking all-female band Las Ultrasonicas (previously blogged here) and now leads the Kumbia Queers, another all-ladies group Ali created with a set musicians from Argentina. Ali is also known as Ali Gua Gua, her DJ handle. We'll be discussing the history and development of punk in Mexico City, queers in punk, women in punk, and everyone's new fixation: crate-digging for cumbia from the streets and the south south south south.

Keep reading ...

Postopolis, coming soon to D.F.

* Above, outside the San Hipólito chapel on Palm Sunday, 2010.

I'm excited to announce my participation as a co-curating invited blogger for the upcoming Postópolis DF, June 8-12, at the El Eco Experimental Museum in the Colonia San Rafael. The event is free, open to the public, and promises to be a fun and enriching time.

What is Postopolis?

The multidisciplinary "encuentro" (as I've been describing it to friends here) originated with the Storefront group in New York, as a way for designers, architects, urbanists, artists, and bloggers to meet and discuss trends, movements, and issues in the lived environment and culture of a specific city. Postopolis New York was followed by Postopolis L.A., and now the event arrives in Mexico D.F. It is co-sponsored with Tomo, the cultural supplement in the daily Excelsior, and Domus magazine. 

So how does it work?

Storefront asks local and international bloggers to join the event as co-curators. Each blogger in turn invites up to five local figures -- artists, designers, architects, etc. -- for 15-minute interviews. Then there is food, screenings, and events at night. For Postopolis DF, the invited bloggers are myself, representing Intersections, Wayne Marshall of Wayne & Wax, Cassim Shepard of Urban Omnibus, Nicola Twilley of Edible Geography, Ethel Barona Pohl of DPR Barcelona, Regine Debatty of We Make Money Not Art, Gabriella Gomez-Mont of Toxico Cultura, Guillermo Ruiz de Teresa of Tomo, Sam Jacob of Strange Harvest, and Jace Clayton a.k.a. DJ Rupture.

Take a look at some of the announcements each blogger has made, referring to the guests they've invited to be interviewed. I'll be announcing mine in a future post.

The whole affair is being organized collectively -- entirely on email, in fact, which has led to some animated discussions and an occasional overlapping of contacts. The way I see it, the organic quality of this process is a sign that Postópolis DF is going to be one-of-a-kind, interesting for anyone who stops by.

So stop by!

* Here's the Facebook page ... More later.

'New Latino Discourses' at UC Santa Cruz

Above, an image by Frank Espinosa, author of the award-winning Rocketo comic book series. Espinosa has designed for Disney and Warner Bros., and teachers Character and World Design at MIT. He is among the invited speakers at "¿Que hay de nuevo? New Latino Discourses" this Friday at UC Santa Cruz. The symposium is organized by the Latino Literary Cultures Project, headed by professor Kirsten Silva Gruesz.

We'll be breaking down comics, blogging, hypertext literature, and Spanish-language radio, all 'new' or newly rendered frontiers in Latino literary production in the United States.

A 'systems architect and biomedical mathematician,' Juan B. Gutierrez will address the subject of "The Triumph of the Giant Deaf Ear: How New Media is Changing Literary Practice." Dolores Ines Castillo, an assistant professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at UC Santa Barbara, will discuss Spanish-language radio with the talk, "House Calls: US Spanish-language Radio and the Politics of Health."

I'll be discussing Intersections and the topic of "Bending Geographies: Blogging from Far and Near." I often post about topics or stories occurring in other parts of the world or within my personal geography but while I am not physically present. Why and how are the questions at hand.

Tonight, at Imix Bookstore, an independent bilingual bookstore and gallery in the Eagle Rock hood of Los Angeles, I'm excited to accept an invitation to speak and read, and see faces from the old community. Here is the Facebook event page. Now ... what should we do after??? Dub Club?

* Both events are free and open to the general public. Posting returns on Sunday.

News and notes *

Posts were light this week here at Intersections. Much of my blogging energy is now being spent at La Plaza, the L.A. Times Latin America news blog.

Recently I've posted about Paquita la del Barrio's anti-gay adoption comments, and exclusive details on her upcoming apology, on the current situation in Chile one week after a new president is sworn in, on the crazy media slants on Felipe Calderon's recent visit to Ciudad Juarez, on the Ladies in White protests in Havana, and more.

Intersections might be a bit dormant for some time. I'm hosting relatives and friends during all of April. Mid-way through the month I'll be in Santa Cruz, speaking at a symposium at UCSC on "New Latino Discourses." The event, sponsored by the UCSC Latino Literary Cultures Project, will examine new communication models that are redefining "the literary" in the new century, according to the organizing professors. That includes the graphic novel, blogs, radio and podcasts, and hypertext lit. I'll have more on this later.

And, yes, I'm still editing my book manuscript, on Round 3. It is difficult but very exciting work that will keep especially occupied till the end of spring.

Meantime, I've updated and edited my links here, organizing them under new lists. I've also added a new advertising panel, via Technorati Media. Whenever I get a chance, I'll be working on updating my Journalism pages.

No matter what, this blog remains my one true love in the media maelstrom. This is the platform that allows me to interact with the world, and cover The Story, whether it's about art, music, style, sex, pop, politics, or the political-personal. My plate will never be too full.

* Image above via a new favorite, Timothy Hemingway.

Holden Cualfield as Howard Zinn

Reclusive author J.D. Salinger and crusading historian Howard Zinn died on the same day this year, January 27. In honor of these two greats, Hilobrow offers a quick history of the United States in the voice of Salinger's famous young protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Here's how it starts:

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is how the Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look and that kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

Read it here. Hilobrow is an intriguing new Web repository for the discriminating brainiac. * Graphic above via NYT.

Bicentenario Watch: A reassuring statement, kinda

Above, a non-commercial announcement from the Mexico City metro workers union, stuck where some company's advertisement should be. In English it says:

National Union of the Collective Transport System, January 2010.

In celebration of the Bicentennial of our Independence and the Centennial of the struggle that gave meaning to the Mexican Revolution, the Metro Workers have prepared ourselves to permanently maintain the trains in which you travel.

-- National Executive Committee.

The message gave me pause. What is the union saying here, stripping away the laborese?

Here's the meaning I took, purely as interpretation: The organized workers of the metro -- one of the busiest in the world -- are reassuring its users that if some kind of phantom-like social upheaval hits Mexico this year, or next, or the year after -- and who's to say that's unlikely or not, either way? -- the workers will keep the trains running. No matter what. Heavy.

The one-way fare, by the way, is now 3 pesos, up from 2.

* Related at TFT, "New Subway Line Redraws Mexico City's Map."

Slim as master of Mexico's digital future *

Above, a visitor to Carlos Slim's Telmex Institute in the historic center of Mexico City, using an interactive map showing wireless Internet locations for Telmex customers in the area. Check out my take on Carlos Slim as master of Mexico's digital future at The Faster Times.

* NOTE ON THE FASTER TIMES: I update at The Faster Times Mexico page about once a week, with selective "quick links" added more regularly on the page's left-hand column. Consider clicking around, and supporting the new-media experiment. The Faster Times is a rare online news source with contributors based around the globe. Check it out.

* NOTE ON INTERSECTIONS: More than three years of nearly uninterrupted updating, hundreds of posts, nearly two thousand comments, thousands of weekly visitors, I still rely on your PayPal contributions or helpful clicking of my "Commercials" to keep Intersections going. This is just another friendly reminder.

Browse around my archives based on dates or categories: Art, Tribes, Sexualities, Justice & Society, Borderlands, and so on. You can also still catch my feed on the news page at LA Weekly.com. In the coming weeks, I'll be revising and organizing my links bars. As always, your feedback is sincerely appreciated.

The hustle held

I just turned in the edited manuscript for my book to my editor at Simon & Schuster in New York City. I imagine he's printing the damn thing right now -- all 195 pages -- and carrying it down those cold, symmetrical Manhattan streets just before leaving for the holiday break.

Who knows. New York feels like another planet to me. What are they wearing over there these days?

I've been living in Mexico City for two years and two months, with almost no travel away. Since the day I landed in D.F., I've been working on this thing. We still have to finalize it, of course. I've gotta do an epilogue, notes, and a reading list. Maybe some pictures and maps? But otherwise, the book is actually, finally, just about done.

The project, as you might recall, has been ... tough. Right now my brain is so blank ("I can't see my eyes") and my heart unsure what it should be feeling that I'm just gonna go to a mall here in San Diego and stare at things for a few hours.

Then, a drink or two? They've got good, cocky micro-brews here.

Meantime, above, I am entrusting you with my book's working "thought diagram." I had this poster hung in my study space for months as I drafted and re-drafted the manuscript. It's a very intimate reflection of my process and my values. In June, in ritual sacrifice, I burned it.

Happy Holidays!

Impact of a warming Earth

Read the Washington Post catch-all on the end of talks at the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen. A startling excerpt:

In the deal, spelled out in a three-page document, each country needs only to list its current domestic pledges for emissions reductions and to promise to allow monitoring of their progress. It also outlines steps to help poor countries go green and prepare for the impact of a warming Earth.

But it sparked a rebellion among more vulnerable nations. They said they could not accept an agreement that lacked deep emissions commitments from the industrialized world.

"The science tells us we must act now, and urgently," said Ian Fry, climate-change representative for Tuvalu, which may be submerged by rising seas in a matter of decades. "To use a Biblical allusion, it looks like we're being offered 30 pieces of silver to bargain away our future. Mr. President, our future is not for sale."

The room burst into applause.

Here is the conference's official site, where I grabbed this potent image of the negotiators.

The nation of Tuvalu could be gone in a few decades? What is happening, really, to this planet? Can we do something about it? Are we willing?

* Image above from a previous post, "Anything to stay cool: Picturing a planet without us."

Eduardo Abaroa on altering the city

Here's the Pase Usted video of artist Eduardo Abaroa discussing some of his most celebrated installations, at the most recent salon at the top of the Latino, The City. I didn't know that the portable toilets in his Stonehenge recreation were fully functional.

Free thoughts on 'Free'

* New York Times illustration by David Reinfurt.

I probably won't go out and buy the book "Free" by Chris Anderson, but I'll read free reviews of it, and gather pertinent -- and free -- excerpts for my future reference. I wonder if the author would be pleased to hear this.

From Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker:

"Information wants to be free," Anderson tells us, "in the same way that life wants to spread and water wants to run downhill." But information can't actually want anything, can it? Amazon wants the information in the Dallas paper to be free, because that way Amazon makes more money. Why are the self-interested motives of powerful companies being elevated to a philosophical principle?

Good question. It sounds like a fascinating study of markets and media. The Wall Street Journal review of the book is here, and the New York Times review is here. Free to read, of course.

* Wait, the whole book is here! Brilliant.

Máximo González: Dead money brought to life *

Born in Argentina and based in Mexico City, Máximo González is a contemporary artist perhaps best known for his inspired use of devalued currencies. I first mentioned his work in this post on the "Poetics of the Handmade" show at MOCA in Los Angeles two years ago.

The above clip documents "Inflation," an installation he did recently at MUAC on the UNAM campus. It consists of 1,000 metallic balloons left to deflate into a field of crumpled, shimmering plastic -- for months. When I caught it, a silvery light had been placed above the space, giving the whole work an alien kind of glow. The balloons are printed with the figure 10c on one side and the insignia of the Mexican republic on the other, representing coins that are hardly used any longer, deflating before our eyes.

Watch Máximo talk about his work with dead money here; it's a highly recommended mini-doc. "The work with the money in particular is that," he says, "Use all the significances, concepts, ideas, the histories of the countries, the symbols, and with humor and irony ... trap them, give it a meaning, and make it more valuable."

Graffiti removal as subconscious art?

It's hard to tell if this video is super-serious or seriously satirizing itself. It treats the gray, white and beige blotches of "graffiti abatement" rendered by municipal workers across the U.S. as unintentional extensions of abstract expressionism and minimalism, and an "important step in the future of modern art."

Yes, those quilts of anonymous spots of graffiti erasure are often beautiful. But ... really? * The clip info says the original filmmaker is Matt McCormick.

The intersection of MJ and the Iran elections

The world watched with awe and horror at massive demonstrations in opposition to the results of Iran's presidential elections this month, and paramilitaries' deadly crackdowns. But the modern world's attention span is severely screwed. Two weeks later, a mood of melancholy is enveloping normally frenetic Tehran, reported the NYT over the weekend. Although a smaller demonstration occurred Sunday, the opposition's options are dwindling fast.

And suddenly now, the planet is on MJ overload.

Here's how we can honor both tragedies: The above video mashing up Michael Jackson's protest anthem "They Don't Care About Us" with images from the Iran unrest. (Pop-meta-meltdown once more, albeit with that awful "Jew me, Sue me" lyric still floating in there.)

"Freedom is near," the video says, "Don't give up." Could it be? From one of the many forwarded dispatches sent to me from inside Iran:

There is the possibility that those imprisoned remain there, that Moussavi is done away with by some means (exile, house arrest, etc), and that Ahmadinejad remains the illegitimate president of an unlawful dictatorship. If this happens, the next four years would mean major organizing in the underground and a new stage in Iranian political activism. One thing is sure: people are no longer going to accept the self-censorship or fear that has been imposed upon them.

For a long archive of beautiful ephemera in Iran, visit the photoblog Life Goes On In Tehran.

And for smart looks at Michael Jackson's death and legacy, from African and African American male perspectives, see here and here. Ernest Hardy discusses Jackson's most overlooked inspiration -- Diana Ross -- and Paul Tiyambe Zeleza cites Frantz Fanon to lament Jackson's long-ago death "as a black man."

Tektonic arrives in Mexico City

Could something be changing? Could the standard two-year (or three- or four- or five-year...) gap that separates U.S. or European cultural trends and their arrival to Mexico be radically shrinking?

The evidence is with the arrival in Mexico City of the tektonic subculture, from the immigrant suburbs of France, and so soon after its birth. As we've blogged before here and here, tektonic is a dance-based movement that updates the formerly dormant rave and techno scene with this jerky, pop-locking style.

There are now several distinct tektonic tribes claiming public space in D.F., such as this banda that gets together to practice their moves at the Hemiciclo de Juarez on the Alameda Central. They told me they all met on Hi5 and MySpace, investigated tektonic on the Internet, and appeared to have an impressively sophisticated grasp of the roots and nature of their chosen tribe. None of them were over 18.

* More from these dudes later.

Mexican Twitter users polled on upcoming election

  * The Twitter poll, click for larger view.

The left-leaning daily La Jornada conducted an informal poll of 914 current Twitter users in Mexico to see how the country's political parties will fare in the upcoming mid-term legislative election, on July 5. Querying its Twitter followers, the paper's poll found that right-wing or center-right parties (the cool colors), led by the president's PAN, garnered 33% of users' support. Left-wing or center-left parties (the warm colors), led by the PRD and Convergencia, got the majority remainder.

But the truth is you can't read this or any poll in a traditional left-right political binary without taking into account the curious position of the PRI. That party ruled the country pretty much unopposed for more than 70 years, until the 2000 election. They're not exactly the paragons of democracy -- nevermind the Revolution. (Wait, whatever happened to the Revolution?) La Jornada, on its own Twitter profile, identifies the PRI among the conservatives. (Guess that's what happened to the Revolution.)

Yet in poll after poll, the PRI is expected to be the big winner on July 5, signalling an imminent twilight zone between this summer and the crucial presidential election in 2012, when the PRI's candidate -- whomever, ahem, he is -- will be the man to beat.

'Pase usted' to lofty discussion, and drinks

There at the mic in the center of this shot is Jose Narro, a surgeon and the current rector of the UNAM, the university's equivalent of a president or chancellor, addressing guests at the third edition of Pase Usted, on the open-plan 28th floor of the Torre Latinoamericana. Pase Usted is a sort of rolling salon where a few distinguished speakers address a general theme -- and everyone else drinks and eats for free. The topic on Thursday night: Health.

With the spectacular views, the flowing mezcal, beer, and bites courtesy of Contramar, you can't expect everyone to come away with enlightened new perspectives on the pressing issues facing contemporary Mexico -- the country is by and large obese and undernourished -- but you can at least hope for a bit of osmosis to happen. Previously, Pase Usted tackled the Mexican republic's upcoming Bicentennial, and Sustainability. The next topic is City. Go the site for more, and to sign up.

The new D.F. tourism logo is chosen

* Kiss me a lot? The logo that will soon blanket the world.

They added a little "Bésame mucho" under it in its final form, but here is the winning entry received by the Mexico City tourism office for the capital's new booster image. In all, almost 7,500 entries were received from 30 countries. The image above re-interprets the Angel of Independence as a dynamic, rainbow-y thing placing its crown above the name of the city.

Attractive? Festive? Tacky? It's only ours to live with. As we reported here, five finalists were presented to the public, which was able to vote for a preference in the contest's final phase. People from all over the world apparently logged onto the secretariat's site and made a choice. The final winner was chosen with the help of a blue-chip jury, which included Jose Luis Cuevas.

The winning designer is Víctor Hugo Díaz Hirata, 37, a D.F. native living Sinaloa. Díaz takes home a cash prize of 1 million pesos.

SITAC 2009: South, south, south, south

Below, the introduction to the opening session of the boldly titled SITAC VII, the annual Mexico City conference on contemporary art theory that opens this afternoon. This year it is organized by Cuauhtemoc Medina, the prominent D.F. art theorist who in his role shifts the entire focus of SITAC to Sur, sur, sur, sur -- referring to Latin American postcolonial subalternity, more or less:

In spite of the inequalitites of institutional and symbolic power, the South has acquired a new prominence in the fabric of global imagination. This is shown not only in the expanded geography of cultural activity, but also in the super-positions, tensions and currents of thought, ghosts and shadows that inhabit the South. These changes have not been the product of a generous concession: they are the result of a cultural counter-offensive that since the end of the 1980s has been questioning the geographical division of cultural power and the critique of the effects of colonialism.

An abundance of panels, screenings, cocktails, and events are scheduled at or around SITAC VII. The clinics are headed by Roberto Jacoby, Mariana Botey, Jorge Munguia Matute, and Daniel Garza Usabiaga. * The SITAC program graphic, above, is by Ricardo Basbaum.

* See all posts in Art here.

Report: Google, watching everything, is hostile to privacy

Of all the web firms ranked in a report by Privacy International, only Google has been pegged as "hostile to privacy." The report calls the company's practices a "race to the bottom" of privacy standards for web users, BBC reports:

Privacy International placed Google at the bottom of its ranking because of the sheer amount of data it gathers about users and their activities; because its privacy policies are incomplete and for its poor record of responding to complaints.

It's a major slam, and a scary idea for people who use to Google for searches, RSS reading, email, maps, calendar -- basically to operate their entire virtual life. The Guardian's technology blog discusses the impact to Google, which is the same company that recently peeped into people's houses all over America with their new "Street View" feature. Now's a good time to reacquaint yourself with the Mother Jones piece from last year, "Is Google Evil?" and with Googlewatch.org. And, if you use Gmail like I do, to seriously consider making a switch. Any ideas?

* Whoops, they just updated the Reader interface and it erased all my subscriptions!

Colored lights are our friends

I want to go to the new Santa Monica Civic Center just so I could park there. (From LAFrog via CurbedLA.)

It's your homegirl up in here ...

Remember, back in the day, the party crews? Kids with the walls in their rooms plastered floor-to-ceiling with party fliers? I thought that stuff stayed in the 90s. Now check out Christine Pelisek's LA Weekly cover story on the "Vicious Ladies," an all-girl party crew out of East L.A. Reading this made me want to get reacquainted with the meta-pop version of the classic East L.A. homegirl, Little Loca, a.k.a Stevie Ryan, on YouTube. Loca is Ryan's alter-ego, a straight-A student chola from East L.A. who throws up two fingers like a gang sign to make a "V" -- for virgin. Ryan is an aspiring actress from the high desert. She told me in an interview back before she started blowing up that she grew up with girls like Loca. Pretty brilliant. Little Loca looks and talks almost exactly like a cousin of mine in San Jose. Swear. Here's Loca at "Silent Girl's tio's barber shop." Enjoy, ey ... n'stuff:

* Update July 3, 2017 — Rest in peace, Little Loca.