TMi

yas! adorable ceremonial weapons? yes, please. view of escandon from the roof of our rental house. soldiers in the Zocalo wrestle the flag down. furling the flag for the night. the national flag paraded to off to bed. artwork being stoned. how could you not want to throw rocks at famous people’s artwork? what you can see when you look up. Thulsadooooom! yeah, I got this mug. A set of three images (not mine) of the mural work in San Ildefonso. the ‘mother arm’ – you are doing it wrong. elitists do look disgusting like this- but on the inside. and there is this bit of truth. Mexico City- Mixed Visuals

I have been so delayed in posting about my first experiences in Mexico City that I have now bumbled into my second experience. It was an expected trip, but the dates were uncertain. April became July and was turned back into April again. The last minute changes were a headache. What was Mexico city like? Can I even put that in a few words? Outside of the Zona Maco climate control, it was… amazing. This city is where Mexicans go to get things going, get things done. The flow of the place pushes you in clear directions, unlike this norther realm where entropy is the word of the day. For the first trip, we stayed in a very mod house in Escandon- a fantastic little neighborhood, by the way. The house had curious features: like a servant’s quarters where the laundry room is, and a telephone in each room- to call the servant. You think class is a non-issue that you only get to see on Downton Abbey? Think again. Traces of it are everywhere. And when you frequent the well-off sections of Mexic...

My brain is all over the map, yet somehow I’m concentrating on my trip to Brooklyn. I don’t have much in the way of logistical support so I am sweating the small stuff. That is all there is in my life, it seems. A series of small things. Nothing to boast. Everything to work on. Expect to see another blog post at some point soon about Mexico City (and another about LA- if I make the time), some more advertising for SOAK, and the usual enigmatic tomfoolery that you have come to expect from me. Everything to work on.

A simple bus ride north of the capital city can be a dangerous thing in Mexico. Not because of bandits, but bad drivers. On the way to our destination, we witnessed a flipped car and a person pinned beneath it- perhaps dead. How did the car flip? We could barely guess. Probable death notwithstanding, we arrived at  Teotihuacan  without problem. It is still a working archeological dig site. Real Indiana Joneses in sombreros sift dirt under tarp shades as the tourists mill around trying to avoid the aggressive trinket sellers. The whole site echos with the sounds of the flute doodlings and jaguar calls to entice people to buy. Bright red summer tanagers eyed us like little guards on duty, and seemed to give us their leave to come and go. Ants, not aliens may have build everything. A puppy certainly rules the city now. No sprained foot, no burning sunshine was going to keep me from BEING there. The light is relentless even on a hazy day and I did not complain a...

I have been extremely reluctant to post these days. It's not that I don't have anything to write about, it's just that my publishing tool is... less than satisfactory.  The Blogger site itself is an utter drag to use. It takes minutes for things to load- which is an eternity in Internet time. I have not been able to find out if anyone else is experiencing this issue. This hangup places me in a position to consider reworking my website to incorporate this blog on another platform altogether. Migrating the posts is not the issue. It's the prospect of reworking the site that makes me feel reluctant to do it. Ugh. Yes, total first world problem, I know... But this is my publishing outlet here. I could just struggle through as is. Just breath and tell myself that Mexican Internet is just too slow to deal with the complex thing that is Blogger, yet {GRRrr} the fault is still really with Blogger - GOOGLE! ahem- for not streamlining the site (that they bought out to...

I now present photographic evidence of the incredible forces needed to render my neighborhood without electricity. cock-up A doomed team of men came around to change the advertising tarpaulin in the lot next door. In the old days it would have been mildly talented sign painters. This lot was not very talented and off to a bad start; there was quite a bit of arguing. Hotter heads prevailed and one of them was fired/quit on the spot.  When they tried to continue on (repacking at this point, I suppose) a piece of the tattered old sign fell onto the power lines. Because it's a bright morning, the first thing I noticed was that the internet was down. Then I noted the lights not working. Then I went out to see... The group of men claimed they had called the fire department, but did they? They took off quickly so we were in suspense until a truck arrived; followed soon after by folks who could actually fix the problem. The whole situation did not last...