One man's junk is another man's $150,000 art piece.
Yesterday I went shopping and ended up at La Palacio de Hierro (The Iron Palace) -- one of Mexico City's finest department stores. Think Harrods. Or Saks. Or Neiman Marcus. You get the idea.
I was in a buying mood to replace several items in my luggage that have become a bit life-worn: shoes, slippers, robe, pajamas. And I wanted to buy a couple of very specific items. Two shirts -- black silk -- one long-sleeve, one short-sleeve. I was then going to top it all off with a couple of new ties.
You have heard me wax on about Mexico's emerging middle class. I supposed this was a store designed for them. Designer labels everywhere. And more choice than I see in most American stores of the same quality.
But, it didn't take long for me to re-discover something I already knew about Mexico. High quality clothes carry an equally high price tag.
To replace my worn Eccos would cost about $300 (US). Cotton pajamas -- $120 (US). Robe -- $150 (US). Slippers (simple leather slippers) -- $250 (US).
I didn't take the bait. Nor did I find any silk shirts. But I chose two ties -- neither of which had price tags. When the clerk rang them up, I discovered I had taken a nice chunk out of the rent money for the month.
So, that bag you see did not come cheap. The other items with it are museum entry tickets and an airline boarding pass -- all of which I have accumulated over the past five days.
If I have learned anything in Mexico, it is that anything can be re-cycled. Especially, junk.
I mentioned on Saturday (what you see is what you see) that I had spent a good deal of time in the Jac Leirner exhibition at the Tamayo Museum. Leirner is a celebrated Brazlian artist who has worked through various schools of art -- heavily within the Brazilian Concretism movement.
According to the program: "The work of Jac Leirner relies on the accumulation of everyday, discarded, or useless objects, and their reconfiguration into sculptural forms that inhabit the exhibition space."
To paraphrase Captain Barbossa: "It means she sells junk to people with lots of money."
Take this piece.
I wasn't quite certain what to make of it. It looked like layers of metal melded together to form -- what? -- an ash tray?
It turns out I was not far off the mark. Leirner was a heavy smoker. She saved all of her cigarette packages and constructed various pieces of art from the constituent parts. A series she calls "Lung." This one is made out of the metallic inserts.
The cellophane pulls were turned into a mossy-looking wall hanging. The boxes into other shapes.
In her "Corpus Delicti" series, she uses everyday dispensables as a trigger for nostalgia. Such as, this mobile made of airline luggage tags.
But, for humor, this room made my day.
It is a large space. But the walls are completely covered with plastic shopping bags sewn together on cloth as a tapestry.
It did make me laugh. At what I am not certain.
As a commentary on our consumer society? As an anarchic juxtaposition of color and shape? Or merely because someone has probably paid a good deal of money to have it in their personal collection? Schadenfreude calms the savage breast.
I have no idea how much the collector paid for four walls of plastic bags. But I am certain it was a lot. A similar piece consisting of only a dozen bags sold at auction for $52,500.
So, I am saving up my junk. I figure by the time Wednesday rolls around, I will have enough materials to pay for my upcoming European excursion.
Just as a footnote. Sunday in Mexico City was beautiful. The sun was out, and it almost looked as if the city had been deserted.
This is a photograph of Oaxaca (shot with my telephone camera) -- normally a bumper-to bumper street.
I enjoyed having the city to myself as I walked through the parks of Condesa and let the birdsong lull me into believing I could live here.
Well -- as long as I had a good job selling recycled plastic bags.
This is not really a promise kept.
Well, it was a promise I made to myself -- after I read about Brenda and Roy's road trip to Arivechi. The prime reason for their stop in the village was to see a kiosk that is a copy of one in Mexico City.
Knowing I would be back in Mexico City, I promised Brenda right then I would visit the original for her. Of course, she knew nothing of the promise. Until now.
After I finished my reflections on the murders at Tlateloco, I hoofed it over to colonia Santa Maria la Ribera to track down the wily Morisco Kiosk -- the Moorish kiosk.
And there it was, just as I was told it would be. But, considering its history, it was nice to see that it had not moved again.
It was originally designed to serve as the Mexico Pavilion in New Orleans at the 1886 World's Fair. And, because it was built and designed by a Mexican (José Ramón Ibarrola), it was recycled. Again as the Mexican pavilion. This time at the 1902 Saint Louis Exposition -- the one where Judy Garland promised to meet us.
Because it was destined to be peripatetic, Ibarrola designed the wrought iron panels to be easily disassembled -- and topped with a glass dome. And that is what happened.
Because it is a beautiful structure, the French-inspired designers in Porfiriato Mexico, gave it a starring role on the edge of the park (Alameda Central) that would help join the new capitol building with central Mexico City. But it did not remain stationary for long.
In honor of the centennial of Mexican Independence, a monument of a somewhat befuddled-looking Juárez, surrounded by a bevy of overly-attentive young women, displaced the kiosk again. Juárez, of course, needed to be recognized by the liberal Porfirio Diaz. But the monument looks almost as appropriate as dressing Gandhi in top hat and tails.
So, off the kiosk went to its current home -- in the midst of a French-garden park. As it turns out, the site is perfect for setting off this architectural jewel.
The pre-fabricated provenance is almost unnoticeable. It sits in the park as if it was always meant to sit there. You can almost hear the residents of New Orleans muttering under their breath: "Golly! Would you look at that?"
When I visited, the floor was filled with waves of families, who children would run through the kiosk as if they were on stage. There was even a ballerina teaching her daughter the necessary positions. It is always nice to see beautiful architecture being put to practical.
You may have noticed in the first photograph, the kisok was undergoing a particular use while I was there. Trailers dedicated to neutering dogs and cats. There was a parade of pooches through the park. Whether they had visited the clinic, I have no idea.
There is more in the neighborhood to see than just the kiosk -- even though the kiosk is the star. There are several Mexican art deco homes -- any of which I would gladly own. They are the remnants of what was once a very trendy neighborhood.
And then there are seedier places. Apparently, the 1985 earthquake left a number of the residences beyond repair, but not beyond occupancy.
So, there you are Brenda. I hope you find the original to be as satisfactory as the copy in Arivechi.
When I was young (during the Punic Wars), I wanted to be a politician. One of my fondest dreams was to run for re-election on the promises I had kept.
The voters of Clackamas County never allowed me to live that dream. But I can deliver on a promise I made the other day -- how living in Mexico has changed my attitude about several things. Today's tale is about a very specific incident.
I took my college studies seriously because I wanted to be a lawyer. And I was not going to get there by frittering away my time on matters immaterial.
When American campuses erupted over the Cambodia incursion, a portion of the university went on strike. That surprised a lot of us.
Portland State University was a commuter school. Most of the students were older -- many with families -- quite a few were Vietnam veterans. They had to sacrifice to pay tuition. And not having classes was not part of that sacrifice.
I talked with a federal judge -- a friend of my mother and father -- about the possibility of getting an injunction to force the professors to comply with their contracts. Some of my other colleagues decided they would take down the barricades themselves. My sympathies were always with the let's-get-back-to class crowd.
My views were similar in 1968. Like my traditional liberal Democrat colleagues of the day, I was adamantly anti-Communist. To me, it was the very essence of evil.
So, you can probably guess how I reacted to the news that a group of pro-Communist students had confronted the police in Mexico City in October 1968 -- before the Olympics were to open. There were deaths.
Until recently, that is the myth that had lived in my head. It turns out that almost all of it is non-factual. Other than the terrible fact that there were student deaths.
That myth is dead. From what I have read over the past three years, the story is far more complex than the story I was fed. But it is still a tale of evil.
During the late 1960s, some Mexicans began challenging the one-party corporatist model of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). They felt that the party was too "institutional" -- and not "revolutionary" enough.
That opposition was not well received by the then-president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz -- a man who believed that any disorder would bring back the internal strife of the Revolution.
Publishing houses were closed. Striking doctors were strong-armed into settlements. And in Morelia, a university was occupied by the army. President Díaz Ordaz was convinced that outside foreign agitators were behind the unrest.
He feared one culprit more than other -- the dictator in Cuba. It was no secret that Castro wanted to see his revolution spread through Latin America. But in Díaz Ordaz's manichaeistic world, there was no difference between leftist opposition and Communist subversion.
The stage was set for disaster when the police over-reacted to a fight between two groups of high school students in July. Four days later, an ill-fated event occurred. A group of students protesting the police violence ran into a group of students commemorating the beginning of Fidel Castro's Communist revolution. The two groups joined their demonstrations.
Díaz Ordaz responded by sending soldiers to occupy one of the offending high schools. The university rector reacted by leading a demonstration of 50,000 into the city -- with cries for the people to unite.
By August, demonstrations of 100,000 were not unusual. But, even the demands were less than radical: release of political prisoners, repeal of the penal code section that allowed random arrests, payments to people injured by the police, respect for the University's autonomy, dissolution of forces that had been "repressive," and the removal of two police chiefs. After all, these were "sons of the Revolution."
That is how they saw themselves. Díaz Ordaz saw them as a red menace. And his fears were not completely baseless. There were Communist influences among the students. But the student leaders rejected calls for red revolution. They were interested in reviving the spirit of the Mexican Revolution.
Díaz Ordaz was convinced that the students were trying to embarrass Mexico by demonstrating just as Mexico was to host the summer Olympics. So, he struck with force on 28 August. From both the police and the army. Student demonstrators were cleared from public squares. And the army occupied the University. Students facing tanks.
The leaders of the student demonstration saw that they were beaten by force. To continue demonstrations would only put lives at stake.
On 2 October, a group of student leaders called a meeting at the Plaza of Three Cultures (Aztec, colonial, and modern). By the time the meeting began, the army had surrounded the plaza with tanks. And young men with short haircuts and white gloves on their left hands mingled with the crowd of 5,000 to 10,000.
While the students were wrapping up their meeting, speaking from the third floor of an apartment building on the plaza, the men with the white gloves ran into the building and ordered the student leaders to drop to the floor. Just then, two military helicopters flew over the assembled students -- and dropped flares.
What happened next is a bit confusing -- as such events are. But we do know one thing. Shots ran out from the upper floors of the apartment buildings -- and from the helicopters. All directed at the students.
It turned out that the men with the white gloves were from the Battalion Olympia -- a special security force for the Olympics. And they were also firing at the students.
Then, the army moved in and started firing, as well. The plaza proved to be a perfect killing ground. The access streets were blocked by tanks, and snipers in the surrounding buildings had no obstruction between themselves and the target students. The operation would last for almost six hours -- including the arrest of thousands of students.
In the process, several soldiers, including the commander, were wounded. Not surprisingly, since the soldiers had moved into the firing pit. Of course, those injuries were the source of the news stories that the students had begun shooting first.
But that cover story could not extinguish the evidence that the assault had been planned by the government. Electricity and telephone service was cut off. The army prevented ambulances from entering the area. The police and army prevented relatives from visiting their wounded family members in hospital. Bodies were trucked away and burned.
It was the type of operation that would have been familiar in Cuba or Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. So, the myth of the armed Communist students lived on in official accounts.
Díaz Ordaz even felt free to embellish his memoirs with a fantastic tale. The students had planned to seize the neighboring Ministry of Foreign Relations. When the leaders arrived in four cars, they were all armed with machine guns.
In his attempt to justify his "show of force," he not only thought they were Communist gangsters, but they were extras in a James Cagney movie.
The number of people killed on that night of terror has never been determined. At the time, the government had no interest in a formal inquiry. After all, the president had prevented a Communist riot from seizing control of the government.
The number does not matter; the individuals do. What died that night was the belief that PRI was a conduit for reform.
A number of the former students are still involved in politics -- mainly of the hard Left variety. But they are no longer "sons of the Revolution." As they put it, they are broken men.
For them, their idealism died that night. For Mexico, it was the start of the end for the one-state dictatorship of PRI. To this day, political leaders are loath to show any force in the threat of public demonstrations -- no matter how disruptive the demonstrators are to the general public.
But, worst of all were the individuals who died and were tortured simply because they wanted to petition their government to address six simple grievances.
As I walked through the plaza today, I thought about them. Other than a monolith, there is little to let the visitor know what really happened here. But I found that to be true in Tienanmen Square and in Havana.
Evil events do not impress themselves into the earth. The plaza is just a place where students can play soccer and old men can reminisce about lost loves.
Benjamin Franklin may have said it best: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Mexico has taught me the value of those words.
The words are Frank Stella's -- one of the leading lights of American minimalism in the 60s and 70s.
The aphorism is stenciled on the wall in one of the current exhibitions at the Museo Tamayo -- entitled "Double Negative: from painting to object." The exhibition has gathered works from some of the best American artists of that period: Carl Andre, Jo Baer, John Baldessari, Larry Bell, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Agnes Martin, John McCraken, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Ryman, Robert Smithson, and, of course, Frank Stella.
It is quite the collection. And I wish I could share some of their works. But, probably for copyright purposes, photographs were prohibited. It is also possible that photographs would reveal that the emperor is wearing only a g-string.
But, I am getting ahead of myself.
The one piece I did photograph, before the forces of art authority shamed me into compliance, is at the top of this post. Stella's Sabra III (1967).
You probably know where I am going with this. I am a fan of Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word. His art criticism essay that takes American art in the 1970s to task for stripping the viewer's visual experience away in favor of pandering to the theories of art critics.
The practical effect is that the words of critics on museum walls explaining what we are supposed to think made the viewer almost superficial to the artistic process. Instead, of looking at the art, we naturally gravitate to the words on the wall. In the process, the public is treated as a bunch of rubes. "How could they possibly understand such lofty ideas?"
Here's an example. Sol LeWitt's Floor Piece #4 fascinated me. (The photograph is through the courtesy of the internet.)
It looks as if it may merely be a set of cubes. It is. But LeWitt has removed an internal section of the cubes to give an interesting kaleidoscope of shapes as the viewer walks around it. I found it quite witty -- and cerebral.
To that extent. I connected with the artist, but in a rather bothersome way. He sums up well what many people find unnerving about conceptual art. "Conceptual art is made to engage the mind of the viewer rather than the eye or the emotions."
So, I guess Stella is wrong. What you see is not even the point. According to LeWitt, we are pulled into some form of Cartesian vortex. Here is what The Word tells us to think: "LeWitt examines the infinite spatial and linear configurations possible in the simple geometry of a cube. The composition was generated by a mathematical formula."
Who talks like that? But the division between the viewer and the artis's theory is right there. It is a mathematical formula. And if you don't know what it is, how can you, a mere viewer, appreciate the work for what it truly is?
John Baldessari takes it one step further by mocking traditional art appreciation in Composing on a Canvas (1966-1968).
I will confess that the approach is rather clever. The canvas appears to gives us insight to art while mocking people who have the wrong concept of art. It is a rather good example that plays into the hands of people who say they know what they like in art, but they cannot begin to provide any standards that would distinguish good art from bad.
I do not dislike contemporary art. Despite what some artists and art critics have done to make it inaccessible to the general public, I find much it to be quite good -- and, often, witty.
But I had had enough. (Not really, I also enjoyed a stroll through an exhibition of a Brazilian artist -- Jac Leirner. "Functions of a Variable." But I do not have time to talk about her interesting use of recycled items. Such as, a giant room whose walls were covered with an international collection of plastic shopping bags.)
It was time for a visit to Chapultepec Castle. We have been there together there before -- three years ago. It has been the residence of Mexican presidents -- and a French-imposed emperor. The presidents now live down the hill. But it is a great museum these days.
Before I got there, though, I stopped at the Museo del Caracol -- dedicated to telling the story of Mexico's independence and its turbulent aftermath up to the Revolution. Because it is on the way up the hill to the castle, I stopped in.
I now have a better appreciation for the logic behind the stained windows in European churches. The windows were designed to relay the moral of Bible stories during a time when most congregants were illiterate, and when the Church prohibited those who could read from reading the Bible for themselves.
Most of the exhibits are dioramas of the great (and some not-so-great) moments of Mexican history. Iturbide's coronation, for example.
Each of the exhibits is accompanied with a detailed description of the historical event and its importance. The words, of course, are Spanish. My grasp of Mexican history is far better than my understanding of the language in the country where I live.
So, I am effectively as illiterate as the church-goers in the Middle Ages.
That pulled me back to the works I had just left in the Tamayo Musuem. In neither place did I really need an interpreter to tell me what was going on. But it would have been nice to know the details of the history markers.
If you want accessible art, you should spend a day at the national history museum that was once the residence of the Mexican head of state. Chapultepec Castle. Following the Revolution, the great Mexican muralists were given leave to decorate the walls.
Juan O'Gorman has three major pieces. Including, the inauguration of President Madero -- whose election deposed a dictator, and whose assassination set off another decade of turmoil for Mexico.
In the left corner, we can see a rather shameful act under way. The American Ambassador to Mexico, Henry Lane Wilson, hands the presidential sash to Victoriano Huerta, who would murder Madero and take the presidency for himself.
Justice being what it is, Huerta ended up dying in a Texas jail.
The most-acclaimed work, though, is by David Siquerios -- From the Porfiriato to the Revolution.
Siquerios is an interesting personality. There is no doubt he was a great artist and that his art served his Stalinist politics. But his life is fascinating enough to be a very good novel -- or movie.
The castle is filled with all sorts of interesting material from Mexico's history. Several of the residential apartments have been re-furbished to give an idea what the place looked like during the residencies of Maximilian and Porfirio Diaz.
My favorite? General Santa Anna's prosthetic leg. For some reason, I am really fascinated with one of Mexico's great scoundrels -- and survivors.
At some point in the future, I may sort through my photographs to write some additional essays. But, that will be another day.
I am a bit tired right now after this busy day. That bed is looking pretty good to me.
And, to that extent, Frank Stella is correct. What I see is what I see.
The life I live in Mexico City is not the life I live in Melaque.
Yesterday -- from start to finish -- is proof of that. Not that one is better than the other. They are simply not the same.
You already know that one of the reasons I came to Mexico City a week before I head off to Barcelona was for the final fitting of my formal wear. I had visions of the final tailoring taking two or three more sessions. That, at least, has been my experience with tailor-made suits. Something always needs re-doing.
Not this time. I walked in, tried on each item, and they all fit perfectly. Even the waist of the pants felt comfortable -- and that is difficult with formal pants.
In just over an hour, I walked out the door with the full kit to put on my own production of Brideshead Revisited. Of course, I have other roles to play this next month.
And then we had an earthquake. But you know about that already. (moving the earth)
I started to say the earthquake -- and the unseasonable rain -- threw off my schedule for the afternoon. But I did not really have a schedule. I have some places I want to see. On the other hand, if I do not see them, I will see something else.
Most of the museums here close around 5 PM. So, I picked the closest museum with the collection I thought would take the least amount of time -- the Museum of Modern Art.
I was wrong. The museum proved to be fascinating enough that I may visit it again before I leave.
Everything I had read acclaimed the museum's collection of the Mexico greats: Orozco, Tamayo, Rivera, Siquerios, Kahlo. They were good painters. But I have seen enough of their works. I was hoping to see something new.
And I did. Of the four exhibition rooms, one was closed for the installation of an exhibit, one was devoted to art in architecture, one was devoted to visual arts with an emphasis on photography.
It was in the last room that I expected to see the Mexican masters. Instead, I had an entirely new experience. The exhibit was entitled: "La Danza de Los Espectros." Works by Leonora Carrington, José Horna, Wolfgang Paalen, Alice Rahon and Remedios Varo. Carrington was the only one of the group I recognized.
I am not certain how I missed Remedios Varo's work. As you know, I am quite fond of Magritte's surrealism -- primarily because it forces us to ask what art really is.
Varo takes a different tack. She is one of the many Spanish republicans who ended up as exiles in Mexico following the Spanish civil war.
I am not certain I have seen an artist weave the images of surrealism with pre-columbian attributes to create her allegorical paintings. Paintings that are concurrently reactionary (reaching back to Hieronymous Bosch) and postmodern.
Take this piece.
It is immediately accessible. Even with its odd blending of the floor into the woman's cloak, it is obvious that an eternal tale is being told. The fact that she is almost indistinguishable from the mechanism she appears to be operating may be a clue to what the artist is telling in her tale.
She seems to operate the spinning wheel that operates the mechanism that condenses essence from the very air -- to be distilled into perfume.
What does it mean? That, of course, as with all good art, is for the viewer to determine. The artist merely tells the tale.
Or this 1960 work (just before she died of a heart attack), of a woman leaving her psychoanalyst's office.
Disposing of a rather obvious Freudian image.
While appearing to divest herself of a clinging mask.
And still carting a basket of Jungian archetypes.
The first thing I noticed were her detailed brush strokes along with minutely-defined details.
It turns out that Remedios began her career as a botanist who drew the objects of her study. That appears to be the source of her penchant for fine lines and intricate details.
That piece of information came from one of my dinner partners last night. The wife of a regular reader in Germany is working in Mexico City these days. We arranged to have dinner to catch up on our lives since we last met almost three years ago.
She invited a co-worker to join us. It turned out that the co-worker is quite conversant with the Mexico City art scene. That made for a very interesting evening.
While downing quiche, duck, and rice with squid at Bistrot Mosaico, we journeyed through various Mexican artists, why some very good words are dying as the art of reading recedes, what tickets might be available for events at the Belles Artes, the history of Mexico City's neighborhoods, Porfirio Diaz's impact on Mexico City's appearance, and more.
The Bloomsbury group and the Algonquin round table set would have been envious -- though Dorothy Parker would have been able to add an appropriate quip.
Because we did not start dinner until 9, I am writing this early on the morning of what is now today. I almost made a big mistake by saying, I need to get to bed -- tomorrow is a busy day.
Only if I let it be. The "Do Not Disturb" sign is on my door. And my time is my own.
I am here to enjoy myself. And that is something my life here and my life in Melaque have in common.
News flash! Mexico just had an earthquake.
OK. I know that is no more unexpected than a headline like "Trouble in the Middle East," but it may give me adequate cover for posting twice today. I already have enough material for tomorrow. Even though the news is now about 7 hours old.
So, here is the down and dirty. I was up early this morning to get to my final fitting for my formal wear. I will tell you how that went tomorrow. So, let me jump to the bridge line.
I had intended on going to one of Mexico's museums this afternoon. I headed back to the hotel with my new duds a bit before noon. After hanging them up, I put my backpack together with museum necessities. But, before I headed out the door, I decided to send some email.
In mid-correspondence, I noticed what felt like shaking. I didn't think anything of it until I noticed the drapes were swaying. Really swaying. Then the floor started swaying. And the power flashed off and on a couple of times.
Now, I just went through an earthquake last month. The epicenter was down in the state of Guerreo. A 7.2, if I recall correctly. But it was strong enough and long enough that I left the house. My ground level house.
Today, I was sitting 10 stories up, and when the building began swaying, it swayed. I grabbed my backpack and headed toward the door. It felt a bit like starting my cruise early.
The staff was in the corridor getting everyone lined up for an evacuation. And evacuate we did.
When we got outside, the street was filled with what looked like extras from an Irwin Allen film. What amazed me was how orderly the evacuation was and how calm everyone acted. People who live here are accustomed to the drill. But, most of the guests in the hotel are not regular earthquake riders.
I have to admit, I get a certain thrill out of quakes. Mind you, I have never been in one of the killer variety. I suppose the fact that it is dangerous is what gives me that adrenalin thrill.
There was no damage here. The epicenter of this quake was also in Guerrero, but its magnitude was only 6.2.
The worst thing that happened to us was that just as we assembled, it started raining. A lot of people (including me) simply wandered off to lunch.
After all, what is the point of standing around in the rain in Mexico City when there is life to be enjoyed?
I am a good traveler.
That is convenient. To say anything else would be a bit like Damian Lilliard saying he hates basketball. (The reference is for my mother -- the queen of Trailblazers fans.)
Most people seem to dislike hotel rooms. At least, that is the impression I get from comments like: "Who cares what it looks like? I don't spend much time there."
Well, I do care. Not only is it a place for me to sleep, but it is my base camp for touring. Not to mention my publication center to keep in touch with you.
When I was in Mexico City last month, I stayed at the Galeria Plaza Reforma -- a nice hotel filled with Korean and Mexican businessmen and busloads of Chinese tourists. The best room attribute, as I told you then, was the bath tub. And the hotel is near the sights I intend to see on this trip.
So, I booked another week. That is my room at the top. A standard business class hotel room. Last time I had a king size bed. That simply underscored the fact that I do not have a spouse. The twin double beds remind me that I do not even have a traveling companion.
The beds can taunt all they want, I am going to have a great time.
What do I plan on doing? Well, there are no plans. But I will have dinner tomorrow night with the Mexican wife of a German reader.
You may have noticed the books on the desk. Two of them are by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross -- On Brief and Grieving and On Death and Dying. They are for her step-father.
You might think them an odd dinner gift, but her step-father treated me to a very nice afternoon and evening with their family in Puerto Vallarta almost two years ago. He mentioned that he would like to read both of the books. So, here they are. Ready for delivery.
And I hope to have dinner with another blogger I have followed even before I moved here. The common thread, of course, is this blogging business -- where we set up networks of acquaintanceship that could not have quite worked in the era of quill, paper, and steamboats.
In addition to eating, there are a whole list of things I want to see: a couple more days at the Anthropological Museum. A day at the Museum of Modern Art. Another day at the Rufino Tamayo museum.
I am also going to make a pilgrimage on behalf of a certain northern Mexico blogger. But the object of that quest will await disclosure until I bag my prey.
While I am in that area of Mexico City, I also want to visit the Plaza of Three Cultures -- the site of the student massacre in 1968. As the result of several readings, my attitude toward that event has shifted. I want to visit the site to share some of those thoughts with you. It is an event that still haunts the reputation of representative government in Mexico.
But, before I do any of that, tomorrow morning I will head over to my tailor for my the final fitting of my white tie outfit. I may even share a photograph or two of the process. And really look like a naff tourist.
That brings me back to my hotel room. Unlike several hotels I have used in the last year, this one is actually arranged as if someone would use it productively. The computer desk has plenty of space. And the internet (though slow) actually works where the desk is set.
Of course, as in most hotel rooms, the only available electrical plug is on a blank wall 10 feet away from the desk.
That is why I travel with an extension cord and a multiple-port USB adapter. The cord is one of the first things I pull out of my backpack when I arrive in a new hotel room -- or cruise ship cabin.
It may look a bit like a rat nest, and no spouse would ever let me string that many wires through walking space. But it works. Out of a sense of caution and courtesy, I do pull it all up when I leave the room to the vagaries of the maid.
As you can see, I am all prepared for the week ahead. And, despite that list of things I would like to do, I suspect a few impromptu events will present themselves.
After all, this is Mexico City. Where almost anything is possible.
