“Don Luis, aquí. Aquí, Don Luis,” yelled a group of white-shirted men. They were calling for passengers in the camionera central in Pinotepa Nacional near the border of Oaxaca and Guerrero. We had dodged taxis, buses, minivans and pickup trucks in our search for the sitio Pinotepa de Don Luis. And now several animated drivers yelled and waved us […]
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Masked dancers take to the streets on July 25 to reenact an age old battle fought in Spain long before the conquest. The ceremonial tastoan (sometimes spelled tastuan) rituals come from the 12th century and were originally known as the dance of the Moors and the Christians. In Spain’s version, the dance symbolizes the expulsion of the Moors […]
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In Mexico, May seems much shorter than it does north of the border. There are so many holidays that the country seems to call a halt to the normal workweek and honor almost everyone. It actually begins on April 30 with the Dia del Niño, when children are honored with gifts and treats, and classes are […]
Continue Reading Holy Week — from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday — is observed throughout Mexico. However San Miguel de Allende’s fervor and pageantry are some of the most powerful and beautiful. The image of El Señor de la Columna is carried in a procession from Atotonilco on the Sunday before Palm Sunday, and visits churches in […]
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MexConnect contributor Anthony Wright has published his first novel with the Vancouver, Canada-based independent publishing house Moon Willow Press. The novel, called Infernal Drums is set in Mexico and is a heady mix of road tale, occult drama, and dark comedy. Anthony, an Australian, spent a number of years in Mexico City during the 1990s, […]
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Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are widely celebrated throughout the world. But Mexico is such an inclusive culture. Children’s Day is always filled with activities, and children look forward to a holiday all their own with fun, gifts and special events. Many schools celebrate the day before and parents are invited. Of course, there are […]
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By its very nature, a film in which a house narrates the story and the story spans three separate historical periods over 300 years — a century apart — must be lauded, firstly, for its narrative ambition. Las Paredes Hablan, a new Mexican production, is that film. Its director, Antonio Zavala Kugler, acknowledges that the movie takes […]
Continue ReadingPlaza Garibaldi, 2 a.m., and the mean streets are bopping. Beers flowing. Flowing friends. Tequilas, too. Maybe a few too many. What the hell. You’ll get a taxi … You are a writer and this is a first-person narrative. Maybe you’ll be able to sell the piece. Because you were shot after you boarded that […]
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New Yorker Janelle Lynch, at a relatively young age, has garnered international recognition over the last decade for her large-format photographs of urban and rural landscapes in which the human form is loath to figure. Landscapes devoid of human activity or, if depicted at all, reminiscent of a corrosive delineation, typify Lynch’s oeuvre — and […]
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Mexican-American author Daniel Hernandez has hit a fresh nail on an old head by exploring different youth cultures in Mexico City. Youth is a favored subject for a modern mass media obsessed with this demographic, and one would think the market was pretty well saturated by this point. Moving rapidly from an emerging subculture in […]
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