Skulls

Oct. 25, 2007

Last night we went to a Fulbright-organized guided visit of an exhibition, Brújula de Cuestiones (Compass of Questions), at the OMR Gallery in the Roma neighborhood, an exhibit that seems to me quintessentially Mexican. Read on. The artist, Gabriel de la Mora, led us first into a room with a clear plastic cube that contained the remnants of a smashed life-sized piñata figure of himself; on one wall was a screen showing a video of Gabriel methodically breaking the piñata and then placing the pieces (including the head still attached to shoulders, papier mache organs, long red ribbons, and tiny red confetti - the better to represent blood), while the other wall held a smaller video showing close-up views of the same action.

In the next room were two portraits of his father, also named Gabriel. At first view and from a distance, they appeared to be charcoal or ink drawings. Closer inspection revealed the first unusual characteristic: they were done entirely with tiny strands of human hair! And the room was filled with a sound emanating from the "cuadros sonoros", a sound we later learned was a computerized analysis of each of the sounds of the words brujula de cuestiones. One portrait was of his father at the age of 25, when he first became a priest; the other at 42 when he got married. Gabriel first learned that his father had been a priest for 13 years at his funeral, a secret revealed that had a profound existential effect on him. His conclusion: a secret is not a lie but rather a hidden truth.

One other work of art was in this room - a free-form sculpture made of strands of hair tied together and forming a structure. Interestingly, the structure changes form if it is moved at all. All the hairs come from Gabriel and his family, including his deceased father and a stillborn sister. The artist had to get permits to exhume the bodies.

His father had written a book entitled Manumiso, published as a novel and later revealed as autobiography, about a priest who leaves the church. On the ground floor of the gallery, the book is placed on a shelf on one wall, and the center of the room is dominated by 38 tall cubes, each containing alphabet pasta shapes of the letters, numbers, and punctuation marks used in the book - one cube for each symbol, one pasta symbol for each time the letter, number or punctuation was used. The letter "e" was the most often used, with "a" and "i" following. This and the pinata made me wonder if the artist is obsessed with constructing meaning by deconstruction, the reverse of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

Of greater interest was a wall full of another type of family portraiture; each member of his family, beginning with his 88-year-old grandmother and ending with young nieces and nephews, was represented by three things - skull, signature, and a five-times enlarged fingerprint. All these things were done with hair from the individual represented there. The signature and fingerprint of the stillborn sister were missing; her skull was included. The artist commented that the cranium, devoid of exterior characteristics, is universal as well as individual. Nationality, appearance, race, and sex are not apparent in a skull. On the other hand, DNA, present in the strands of hair, and fingerprints are completely individual.

One room of the exhibit displayed the whole family together on a stage, each family member represented by a fairly large marionette with personality and appearance faithfully represented; the marionettes were controlled by mechanisms mounted on the ceiling. The side and back walls served as screens for showing videos highlighting each marionette individually.


The last room was even more interesting. Exact replicas of the skulls of each member of his family (his own included) were mounted on slender rods at exactly the height of the individual (the deceased baby as if in her mother's arms).

Their shadows formed interesting patterns on the wall and floor. At this point in the exhibit, I couldn't help but think of all the skulls I've seen in Mexican art from very ancient times, the sugar skulls in the bakeries for Dia de los Muertos, the papel picado (cut paper) skull designs that decorate Day of the Dead festivities, the Catrinas, the skeleton caricatures of Guadalupe Posada. None of this strikes me as macabre, just very Mexican.

Guanajuato

Oct. 22, 2007

Thirty-five years ago some students at the University of Guanajuato took to the streets and performed some entremeses (short plays) of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, author of Don Quijote (published 1605), and thus the Festival Cervantino was born. Now an important international cultural event, it was the magnet that drew us to Guanajuato last weekend. Guanajuato without the festival deserves a visit; it's one of twenty-five Patrimonio de Humanidad (World Heritage) sites in Mexico. This is a UNESCO designation that honors places of significant contribution to world culture. Felipe II of Spain had earlier (end of 16th century) paid tribute to Guanajuato for the great wealth Spain was extracting from its mines. These riches that helped him finance the Counter-Reformation and launch the Invencible Armada also enabled the Spanish silver barons to embellish the city. Guanajuato is built on the steep slopes of a ravine, with narrow streets (some that disappear underground into tunnels), pleasant plazas, and gorgeous colonial architecture. It's one of Mexico's truly beautiful cities, and it has learned to celebrate the arts, even though in more conservative times it spurned its most famous native son, Diego Rivera. His childhood home is now a four-story museum of his early work. Another very enjoyable museum to visit is the Museo Iconografo del Quijote, with paintings, sculpture and ceramics from four centuries inspired by Spain's most well-known literary creation. We also visited the Alhondiga de Granaditas, site of the first major victory in Mexico's War of Independence and now a history and art museum.

The Festival Cervantino attracts people who buy tickets to scheduled performances in historic buildings, theaters and auditoriums and a younger crowd which fills the streets, watching or creating street entertainment. One lively group we saw on the street was performing skits inspired by Guadalupe Posada's caricatures (the skeletons); another was like a Tuna from Spain, a student chorus playing and singing traditional songs. We went to a modern dance performance of a Brazilian company in an auditorium that had displays in the lobby of beautiful modern ceramics from China, the featured guest country this year.

Dolores Hidalgo

Oct. 22, 2007

Sooner or later we had to get to Dolores Hidalgo, the cradle of independence where Padre Miguel Hidalgo on September 16, 1810 rang the bells of the church you see here and proclaimed an end to bad government and the beginning of New Spain's struggle against the mother country. Each year at 11 PM on September 15, this Grito is repeated across Mexico. Here in the DF the event takes place in the Zócalo, where the president does the honors. This year, however, President Felipe Calderón's Grito was preceded by that of his rival in the 2006 elections, López Obrador, who still claims to be the legitimate president. So the fireworks between these two factions heated up the Zócalo before the spectacular Independence fireworks that closed the ceremonies.

We stopped by Dolores Hidalgo on our way to the Festival Cervantino in Guanajuato last weekend to see the heroic, hopeful beginning of the War for Independence. (OK, our second motivation was to check out the Talavera pottery made there.) And later, at the Alhóndiga de Granaditas (the old granary) in Guanajuato, we saw the place where for several years the Spanish displayed the heads of four of the rebel leaders, including Hidalgo's.

Thank God for the U.S. Embassy (and cell phones)!

Oct. 21, 2007

The policeman on motorcycle waved us over just as we crossed from the Distrito Federal (el DF) into the state of Mexico. Two of his cronies soon joined him. We knew the mordida would be high even though we had broken no law; the mordida (literal meaning, the bite) increases in proportion to the number of cops. We know the drill: get out of the car, ask politely what's wrong, come to an agreement about the seriousness of the "infraction" and the amount of pesos.

Pollution control measures require drivers to comply with "Hoy no circula" rules. According to the last number of the license plate, cars must not circulate on certain days. Rocinante's plates end in 8, so we don't drive on Tuesdays. These ladrones claimed that because we have foreign plates, we cannot drive on Friday; according to them, this is such a serious offense that they must impound our car. Our protests only served to increase the length of time in the pound from just one day to the entire weekend, the pesos from 1500 to 3000! We were incensed enough to call the U.S. Embassy, easy to do because I had programmed the number into my cell phone before we even left Maine.

The woman at the Embassy said, "They're crazy!" and asked me to pass the phone to the one who seemed most in charge. The ladrones asked who we had called. I replied, "The U.S. Embassy." One of them quickly jumped on his motorcycle and sped off. A second one asked, "What did they say?" I happily replied, "Francamente que Uds. están locos." But it makes me sad and angry that corrupt thieves like these give Mexico such a bad reputation. Without the embassy number on speed dial, a cell phone that worked in the city, and the ability to speak Spanish, we would have been at their mercy. It was almost worth the hour delay to get the best of these clowns.

By the way, to call the embassy from within the DF, dial 50-80-20-00. If you're in other areas of Mexico, call 01-55-50-80-20-00. We've had four incidents with corrupt police over a period of several years - two within the last week; I would not want to travel without having these numbers handy.

Tres Marías, Acapulco, Pie de la Cuesta

Oct. 15, 2007

Edith (surely the world's kindest English Dept. chair) invited us to go to Acapulco with her to stay at her brother-in-law Jose's house. Since we got a very early start, we stopped for breakfast at Tres Marías, a spot about an hour from the city. We pulled off Rt. 95D, the cuota (toll) road and into a tianguis (market) of food stands, one after the other, all with enticing aromas and tasty displays. We settled on the Restaurante Acapulco and ordered Quesadillas de flor de cabeza (Zucchini blossom quesadillas, one of my favorites), sweet tamales, chicken tacos, and coffee. The green sausage you see hanging in the photo is called longaniza; it's good. A vendor walked by and offered us samples of delicious Oaxaca cheese. By Sunday, hungry and stuck in traffic, we regretted our decision not to buy it - we must have still been half asleep. Cece proposed a rule we intend to follow: we will not pass up ever again any food or artesania that we reallly like. Agreed!

One incident marred our entry into Acapulco. As Rocinante was passing through an intersection, the light turned red. The cop ahead of us went through, and Bill (after looking both ways, of course) followed. Immediately, a motorcycle cop appeared out of nowhere and pulled us over. The dreaded mordida (bribe) was about to happen. In Mexico, a red light is widely considered a suggestion to stop, a warning to look carefully, an imperative to stop only if there is a good reason. Seeing none, most Mexicans will drive on through. In fact, during rush hour policemen are at the busiest intersections whistling people through with total disregard for the red lights; it's much more efficient. But we, driving quite possibly the only car from Maine in the whole country and mindful of our last outrageous mordida in 2004, are very careful to obey every single law.

This time, Edith went with Bill to talk to the cop. It's not considered good form to stay in the car. You must go to the policeman and address him with utmost respect if you hope to escape with a small mordida. Cece and I watched from the car. Bill just stood there, wiping his brow from time to time. Edith, a woman of consummate courtesy, did all the talking. The policeman ahead of us waved us through...her family was waiting for us at the house...we didn't see the light...we weren't familiar with the city...yada, yada...and the clincher: what could we do to arrange the matter? The cop passed her a book, she discreetly returned to the car, took out a 100 peso bill (around $10), slipped it into the book and gave it to the policeman, who then stopped traffic to allow Bill to U-turn to follow him to a better route. And that's how it's done in Mexico.

When Bill and I made our first trip to Mexico in 1972, we camped outside of Acapulco in a small town called Pie de la Cuesta. It's a spit of land between the booming waves and dangerous current of the Pacific and a quiet, peaceful lagoon where families swim and waterski. It's laid-back, lined with palm trees and more noted for beautiful sunsets than for the Acapulco nightlife. We were thrilled to find out that Jose's house is perched on a hillside at one end of the beach in Pie de la Cuesta, and when the caretakers Antonio and Ruth opened the gates for us, no one wanted to venture out again. So we descended the stairway to the beach, walked down to an open-air restaurant for dinner and came back to the house to watch the sunset from the pool. Heavenly.

Street Vendors

Oct. 12, 2007

The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in Mexico City. Its roots are ancient and perennial. Along every major street you can buy just about anything you want - from food to batteries to porn to hair ribbons - in stands, covered by tarps, that are set up and removed daily. This can be viewed as a convenience or a nuisance, depending on your needs. Do you want to walk down the sidewalk to your destination or do you need to buy something ASAP on your way to work? We live very near the Eje Central, one of the major cross-city routes, which is replete with vendors. Because this is also in the Centro Historico and near the Zocalo, the Eje Central has been targeted for a street clean-up. Vendors have been put on notice that they have to close shop and move to plazas that the city government has set aside for them. Since street vendors have plied these streets since pre-Hispanic times, there is much resistance to the idea. It should be interesting to see how this situation develops. Also hard to decipher, since the clean-up starts now, mid-October, but with a reprieve for the Christmas season. Stay posted!

Our Daily Bread

October 11, 2007

Bread could be our favorite food. We especially love a chewy, tasty, dense bread with a hard crust such as a French baguette, the pan de pueblo of Spain, Cuban bread, any Italian bread, or the round loaves and rolls from Calandra's in New Jersey. We haven't found this type of bread here, despite many trips to the panaderia. But remember the song, "If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with"? Mexicans have perfected pan dulce (sweet bread) and have given it as many varieties as the Italians have for pasta. And here's the lucky part: you don't have to know the name of the variety to try it. As you enter the panaderia, you pick up a big round tray and tongs, walk among the displays of tempting treats, and choose what appeals to you. Then you go to the counter where an attendant bags it and gives you a tally, which you take to the cashier, who gives you a receipt to take back to the bagger to trade for your baked goods. The price is very reasonable, and at the end of the day there are twofers. We have the good luck to live near both the Ideal and El Globo bakeries, two of the oldest and most traditional in the city. So, even though we still prefer our bread dense, substantial and crusty, we are steady customers of both the Ideal and the Globo. We can't fault a country that contributed both the tortilla and pan dulce to world cuisine for their lack of heft and crust.

October 12, 2007
El Danubio


One night, craving seafood as Mainers often do, we went to the Danubio on Uruguay Street. According to the guide book, some consider it the best seafood in the D.F., and the seafood soup we had there was really good. The Danubio's walls are lined with framed, autographed napkins, some with drawings. We wondered if they had been signed by famous people or just longtime customers of the restaurant, so we took a closer look. Opposite us was one signed by Gabriel García Márquez (Nobel for Literature, 1982 ) and another with the autograph of Carlos Fuentes. My old students at Hampden should recognize Fuentes as the author of El Espejo Enterrado (The Buried Mirror), a quincentennial look at the transatlantic link between Spain and Latin America. Just above us was a napkin signed by Octavio Paz (Nobel for Literature, 1990). So we concluded that they must be famous. I recommend this restaurant to those of you who appreciate great literature and fine seafood.

Chapultepec

October 7, 2007

Hope you are enjoying your long Columbus Day weekend at home. We spent yesterday biking in the Bosque de Chapultepec, the huge park in Mexico City.

The park includes a zoo, a botanical garden, lakes, walking, jogging, and biking paths, stands selling antojitos (typical Mexican food),
souvenirs and trinkets, and the Castillo, which played a role in the Mexican-American War and now houses a museum. The great Museo de Antropología, the Museo Tamayo, and the Auditorio Nacional flank it. On weekends the park is filled with people enjoying its many treasures. One of the pathways is called the Paseo de Quijote; it has a modern sculpture of Don Quijote on Rocinante, lance pointed skyward, surely tilting at those famous windmills.
There is also in this section a small plaza with benches around a fountain and sculptures of Don Quijote with the face of Salvador Dali and Sancho Panza with the face of Diego Rivera. The Paseo de Quijote intersects the Calzada de los Poetas, which loops around a lake. Along this path are sculptures of famous poets, each with a plaque quoting a poem.

As we were reading some of the poems, we heard drum beats and the gentle rattle of the anklets of Aztec dancers, smelled the intriguing aroma of copal (an incense), and went to investigate. A group of about twenty dancers of all ages was performing, not for the public, but rather for themselves. Some were playing a mandolin-type instrument made of what looked to me like an armadillo shell. We had seen Aztec dancers before in the Zocalo peforming purification rituals

for paying customers who stood there while a shaman circled them with incense burners and switched them with some bouquets of herbs, a sign on the pavement stating that the ritual could clean your aura, attract health and peace, cure arthritis, ulcers and stress and chase away mal de ojo (the evil eye). While those rituals in the Zocalo seemed commercial, this dance seemed genuinely spiritual. At one point two dancers blew into a conch shell, making a haunting primeval musical sound. As we were really getting into the spirit of the performance, two young boys, video camera in hand, approached and asked if they could interview us (in English) for a school project. How could we refuse?

On the way out of the park, we passed a performance of mariachi music and traditional dance. The musicians were all dressed in white mariachi suits while the featured singer, América Zapata, was dressed in a long brown mariachi skirt suit.


The dancers, two men and two women, were in beautiful, colorful folkloric costumes. This performance was part of a series of events planned by the Secretaria de Cultura to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Bosque. Just in case our senses were not quite yet on overload, a display of antique automobiles caught our attention as we exited the park.

Jaripeo

Oct. 5, 2007

These photos are from the jaripeo, a rodeo event, that we went to on Friday. The jaripeo has horses, bulls, and riders in common with a Western rodeo, and the similarities end there. The women, announced individually, gallop full speed into the arena, where they abruptly stop in a cloud of dust. Wearing beautiful long white dresses and wide-brimmed Mexican hats, they ride side-saddle. When all eight women had entered the arena, they began precision riding that I can only compare to an intricate dance. And could you have dance without music? The band, dressed in red and white marching band uniforms, played rousing norteno music and corridos (ballads). After a while, people started dancing in the stands, and after the event ended they filled the arena and danced more. Amparo, a teacher who just retired from the Poli, had invited us, and we joined a group of her friends; one of the women riders was Amparo's god daughter, and many of her friends and family were there to see the performance. One brought a bottle of tequila, another a stack of potato quesadillas; everyone joined in.

The men riders were dressed in charro suits and wore wide-brim hats. They did some interesting rope work with their lariats - not as much as we would have liked, but Edith told us that the fancy rope work happened more at an event called a charreada. This was a jaripeo, and the main events here are bull riding and paso de la muerte (the pass of death). The paso de la muerte involves a group of cowboys galloping in a pack around the arena along with an untamed horse. At some point, one of the riders jumps off his horse and onto the wild horse. They all continue to ride until the wild horse stops bucking. It's an exciting event, and we saw three pasos de la muerte. Sorry I have no photographs to show you; the action is far too fast for anything other than a blurred image.

In the end, the president of the Agrupación de Charros Regionales de la Villa drew ticket numbers for the raffle prizes, including a set of spurs. Alas, we didn't win, but maybe that's a good thing since the winner leapt over the wall that separates spectators from arena. As in all things we do here, watching the people is as much fun as experiencing the event. The Mexican joie de vivre adds much to our enjoyment of this place.

Bicicletas y calles

Top: bikers heading toward the Zocalo
Bottom: Scouts at the entrance to Chapultepec Park

Oct. 3

Shopping is an experience here. Wal-Mart, of course, has several stores in the city. The Mercado de San Juan, a very nice market that sells all kinds of meat, fish, and vegetables, is a few blocks away. For artesanía, we go to La Ciudadela or the Fonart stores that sell a variety of hand-crafted items. There are several mom-and-pop variety stores, Seven-Eleven (just called Seven here) and its Mexican version, the OXXO. We also have Waldo's, a store that sells cheap miscellaneous small stuff, similar to Marden's or Bob's, and shops that sell trinkets for just three pesos or just seven pesos. But if you want a bigger item, you have to go to the street that specializes in that product. There are streets with stores that sell mostly shoes, others that sell lighting fixtures, one near us that specializes in bathroom stuff, another that sells things for the kitchen, another for computers. Musical instruments can be found on - fans of Joan Manuel Serrat's version of Antonio Machado's "Guitarra del Mesón" will appreciate the appropriateness of this - calle Mesones.

When we decided to buy bicycles to join the Sunday rides and vary our workout routines, we went to the street that has dozens of bicycle shops, calle San Pablo. But this street has a double specialty. The oldest profession is quite obviously a part of the scene on San Pablo; one or more prostitutes stand in front of each of the little shops! In contrast to the usual hawking that goes on to solicit business, they are silent, merely standing on their clear plastic stiletto heels, provocatively dressed, waiting for customers.

Most of the shops sell the same bikes, for the same price, most manufactured here in Mexico, some advertising "Italian technology", with prices ranging from around $70 to $1000, most in the $100 range. Two Mexican brands are the BR and the Benotto. I bought a BR, and Bill got a Benotto, the Italian tech one, for around $250 total; our friend Cece got one for $70. We were so exhausted by the cacophony of calle San Pablo that we left without buying chains, so they're now stored in Rocinante (the Tahoe). Bill already rode his down the Reforma to Chapultepec on Tuesday, when we were at school, although our students were not (the Oct. 2 demonstrations).

2 octubre no se olvida Oct. 2 is not forgotten

October 2 is a sad, angry, volatile day here. On Oct. 2, 1968 (ten days before the Summer Olympcis in Mexico City) students and union workers had organized a demonstration in Tlaltelolco at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, demanding reforms including autonomy for the huge university. Exits to the plaza were sealed off and police and military opened fire on the demonstrators, killing many. Reports vary on how many: officially, 30; unofficially, hundreds, maybe a thousand or more. On October 2, most students don't go to classes at all; at 4:00 they organize and walk (sometimes run) from the Casco de Santo Tomás, where the Politécnico is, and from Tlaltelolco through the city into the Zócalo. Police, shoulder-to-shoulder, line the sidewalks, helicopters patrol, granaderos - police in riot gear - are nearby in dark gray buses. By 5:30 the demonstration had reached our area; it probably ended around 6 in the Zocalo. Amid shouts of "Libertad", banners demanding justice, and posters of Che, people with spray paint were busy "decorating" news stands and walls with slogans and symbols, while police looked on without responding.