Tag Archives: Sights

Terremoto

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A wave of nausea came over me from some unknown place. I was unsteady, like the first step into a canoe. The streetlamp finches were retreating outside my window, and the apartments were emptying outside my door. A father, shirtless with shaving cream covering half his face, was clutching his son in one arm. My hand was on the doorknob, my voice carrying to her in the back room. Moments later we were barefoot on the edge of a fountain in La Plaza Rio De Janeiro. A scene passed by on mute: a dark wooden stretcher; flashing lights; ambulances; two helicopters suspended in the sky; and a poignant street-art project with strings that resembled a wave. It was an earthquake, my first.

La Gran Ola, Irene Dubrovsky 2012 (photo by Jmt)

Dream Shopping

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Riding the metro in Mexico City is like shopping involuntarily in a really cramped space. “Chilangos” can do it in their sleep, literally. The other day I took Línea Dos from Pino Suarez to Tasqueña where I switched to the Tren Ligero on my way to El Museo Dolores Olmedo. As the train crawled intuitively south down the spine of la Calzada de Tlalpan in mid-afternoon, sunlight washed over seats in geometric shapes while adolescent, uniformed kisses faded from view through closing-train-door-frames. Passengers wore white lab coats with indecipherable documents in-hand, placed points on similarly indecipherable graphs in notebooks, kept attentive time to our ephemeral placement on the blue Línea Dos map above the mid-car window, or they were fast asleep, dream shopping. I watched (before I started recording) one dream shopper sleep straight through the piercing sounds of low quality contraband recordings coming from an early nineties portable cd player attached to a backpack: “OCHENTA BALADAS FAMOSAS, LE VALE DIEZ PESOS!” Seconds later, before opening his eyes, he purchased a disc with “NOVENTA ROLAS EN INGLÉS, SOLAMENTE DIEZ PESOS!” (ninety songs for roughly eighty cents) while Whitney Houston’s “I will always love you” played as the momentary soundtrack. I’ve come to understand the meaning of “El metro es cultura,” the clever, ubiquitous propaganda that clings to neon throughout the metro system in Mexico City, but línea dos is in a league of its own when it comes to dream shopping. Have a listen as the dream shoppers have their choice of a book about drug trafficking in Mexico for twenty pesos, a screwdriver with an interchangeable head for twenty pesos, a type of lint remover for ten pesos, and a combo package containing toothpaste and a toothbrush for ten pesos).  Dream Shopping (click to listen).

Salsa! (kind of)

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The focus is about as sharp as my recollection of what transpired last Saturday. That said, I know there was a Metro “tour” (gracias Rifka), lion meat! at the downtown market, homemade pizzas, margaritas (the beginning of the end), many too many Indios, and a mining of my small but growing collection of salsa LPs! These photos reflect more, and less than that, but that’s what makes them interesting to me. Sometimes out-of-focus is the best depiction of reality, and how that reality becomes a memory.  (Photos courtesy of Tracy!)

Plaza Rio de Janeiro

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This is the view from my apartment, looking down. It rains, taxi cabs queue, sirens flash, and uniformed school kids cross. Umbrellas, soccer balls, and believe it or not, bagpipes are the norm. Bells echo from the around-the-corner church, boy scouts race in colored shorts, and ambulantes want everyone to buy everything, this is the view from my apartment, looking down. Horns sound, joggers stop, go, stop again, and dogs without leashes chase inca doves, this is the view from my apartment, looking down. Motos, bicis, buses, and everyday pedestrians pass, robins sing, hummingbirds hum, and Michoacán ice is sold within earshot, this is the view from my apartment, looking down. There is elote, baton twirling, and a dance troupe, there are tamales, blue corn quesadillas, crosswords, suits, naps, sleeping grandparents, lovers, sword fights (seriously), popsicles, skateboards, chicles, cactuses, stick brooms, teenagers, “tunas!” and there are always taxis. This is the view from my apartment after it rains, looking down.