Mexico City's Templo Mayor connects Mexicans with their past
Despite years living in Mexico City, I had never been to the archeological zone of Templo Mayor — once the heart of the Aztec empire of Tenochtitlan, now located in the heart of the Historic Centre n...
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Mexico's lucha libre: Street art in a Coyoacan museum
A new exhibit running through January at the Museo de las Culturas Populares in Coyoacan, Mexico City, celebrates the "wow" factor of the wrestling phenomenon known the world over as lucha libre (free ...
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Mexico City's Revolution Monument: Monumento a la Revolucion
An icon in Mexico City, the Revolution Monument or Monumento a la Revolución is also known as the Arch of the Revolution. It is located on Plaza de la Republica between downtown Reforma and Insurgente...
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Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes
While perfect storms have been ravaging parts of America north of the Mexican border, Mexico itself — and especially Mexico City — is currently enjoying idyllic weather, a veritable Indian summer a...
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Mexico City legends: City of ghosts
Are there ghosts in Mexico City? Built on the ruins of the grand Aztec City of Tenochtitlan, its history can be traced from the prehistoric past. Legends of murder most foul suggest ghosts abound in this ancient city with its long and troubled history.
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Andy Warhol art in Mexico City: The Bazaar Years (1951-1964)
Mexico City is a center of art and culture, a required stop for world class traveling exhibits and concerts. Pop Art makes its presence known in Mexico City's Museo de Arte de la SHCP.
Pop Art is said...
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Mexico City's Modo Museum whets the collecting appetite
I once lived next to an elderly woman in Mexico City whose home was a veritable museum of unique and occasionally bizarre collectibles. Her living room was given over to the collection and there was ba...
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Mexico City's San Fernando Cemetery for famous sons, present or not
The San Fernando Cemetery first began operating in 1713. The poor were first buried there, in the section known as the "Panteón chico." Later, aristocrats nudged their way in, and then in 1835 the "Panteón grande" was constructed and it became an all-purpose public bone yard.
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Graffiti: Mexico City's wall art emerges from the shadows
In Mexico City, graffiti is a bit like prostitution. Nominally, it's illegal — carrying a $1,000 peso fine or a day in jail. But the rule of law doesn't seem to stand in the way of anyone with a can of spray paint inclined to deface a wall.
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Mexico inspires a growing list of foreign writers
Roberto Bolaño
The wave of media excitement generated in 2009 by the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño was on a par with the announcement of a new Britney Spears release, even if up until that moment ...
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Night in Mina Dos Estrellas, a haunted mine in Mexico
The Dos Estrellas (Two Stars) mine has had a long and checkered history. It was a fabled producer of gold and silver in the 18th century. Then one night more than 70 years ago, the god of the mine vented its wrath, unleashing a tragedy on those who made a living from its veins.
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Graffiti: the wry humor of Mexico City street stencil art
Most modern art aficionados know that if mysterious British artist Banksy didn't create the urban world's love affair with quirky riddles in stencil art on public walls, then he certainly spearheaded i...
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Graffiti: the Estadio Azteca and Mexico City's new wave muralists
Increasingly here in Mexico's capital, the graffiti mural is coming to represent what some local experts feel is a new movement in mural art in the great tradition of early 20th century Mexican muralists such as Diego Rivera and David Siqueiros. Mexico City's largest sports stadium has allowed graffiti murals to adorn its many outer walls, entrance gates and car park enclosures.
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Vintage cars in a Mexico City museum
El Museo del Automóvil in the south of Mexico City houses more than a hundred painstakingly restored cars. In existence since 1991, the Museo del Automóvil is unique to Latin America and was the fruit of the labors of a group of vintage car lovers, who exhibit their treasures for the joy of it. While it is basically a permanent exhibition, around 30 cars are rotated every three months to allow other collectors to also display their wheels. All the cars are registered and in fine working order, and the engines are turned over once a month to keep them that way.
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The lurid artistry of the Mexican lobby card
According to collecting experts, Mexican lobby cards of U.S. films are rarer than U.S. lobby cards of the same since fewer of them were printed. They wallow in exploitation, indulging in as much sex and violence as their respective eras legally allowed. Vampires are vampires. Aliens are aliens. Babes are babes. Criminals are criminals. Abominable Snowmen are Abominable Snowmen. Krakatoa is still East of Java (even though it's west) and will remain that way for all eternity.
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Swine flu at Ground Zero (Mexico City): life in a masked city
People are still going about their business as usual, only we're all wearing surgical facemasks. I can't decide if this whole fear campaign is a massive media beat-up or if it has some credence.
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In Morelos, Cuernavaca springs eternal
"Slightly to the right and below them, below the gigantic red evening,
whose reflection bled away in the deserted swimming pools scattered
everywhere like so many mirages, lay the peace and sweetness...
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The Sanchez Ghost
A tale of haunted guilt set in Mexico City and in the mind of the haunted protagonist, Pablo.
. . . Omar gazed at the rifle trained at his chest, and no presentiment crossed his brow. He knew it was Pablo's gun; he had gone pheasant hunting with him and his old man in the past among the gullies of hills of valleys extending to the great volcano of Popocatépetl. . . .
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Busting ghosts at Xochicalco, Morelos: A UNESCO World Heritage Site
A ghostly aura emanates from the site - in part, perhaps, due to a lack of crowds. - The pyramid forms part of the archaeological zone of Xochicalco, which shimmers in heat and eerie solitude on a plateau among verdant surrounds in the southwest of the state of Morelos, 23 miles from Cuernavaca. A ghostly aura emanates from the site - in part, perhaps, due to a lack of crowds that permeate Xochicalco's more famous cousins elsewhere in Mexico.
read moreAnahuacalli: Diego Rivera's gift of indigenous treasures
Legendary Mexican artist and master muralist Diego Rivera spent so much time avidly collecting pre-Hispanic art it's a wonder he ever got around to painting. Rivera amassed a collection of thousands of...
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Banano's Bar
When paradise turns to hell... A chilling tale set in a hot environment
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To market, to market: treasure hunting in Mexico City's flea markets
Some time ago I was exploring the Mercado de Antiguëdades de Cuauhtemoc in downtown Mexico City with my brother-in-law and an entrepreneurial young Mexican named Carlos Villasena, press officer for th...
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Zumpango: the guardians of a forgotten cemetery
"Magic realism" describes a style of Latin American writing where dreams and reality meet on equal footing in worlds lying ephemerally in between, poised to subvert back to the norm the very instant a ...
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Rolfe Schell at the gates of Tulum
"The great landscapes all belong to a tomorrow we have already lived."
Fernando Pessoa, Livro do Desassossego
I collect old books. There's no more fun for me than to forage through secondh...
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Society's fascination with the wild outsider
Immersed in the history of art and literature, weaved into the superstitions of the collective consciousness, and illumined by the silver screens of cinema, the Wild Man paradoxically basks in the ligh...
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