“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 of the town. It seemed peaceful enough from where they were sitting.” -Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano In the purest sense of things, not […]
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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. Greetings from Mexico City… On the subject of the city – and schools, and cinemas, and restaurants, and bars, and churches, […]
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Mention the name “Sean Flynn” to any savvy tween and the recognition is instant: “He stars in Zoey 101.” Indeed, the teenage actor, grandson of Australian-born screen legend Errol Flynn, is more than recognizable to legions of young Nickelodeon viewers. However history buffs, especially those cognizant with the Vietnam War, might associate the name with […]
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Has anyone heard of a Rio Flying Cloud? A Whippet? A Phaeton? They sound like the monikers of mysterious yet amusingly kitsch vessels that move through the air in old time superhero comic books. They conjure a weird parallel universe where history is a malleable substance and citizens go about their lives with no sense […]
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Art and sport seem rarely intertwined. There is the American cliché of the muscle-bound football jock bursting with idiotic energy, indulging his time off the field to torment the nerdy, isolated artist (who invariably exacts his revenge by growing up to become a Hollywood screenwriter and perpetuating the cliché in teen flicks — wherein the […]
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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 its emergence into light — at least from a broader (if somewhat bemused and undecided) public’s point of view. Those in the know will […]
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In Mexico City, graffiti is a bit like prostitution. Nominally, it’s illegal — carrying a $1,000 peso (100 dollar) fine or a day in jail. But like the hookers plying their trade in mini skirt collectives along infamous thoroughfares such as Sullivan and Tlalpan, the rule of law doesn’t seem to stand in the way […]
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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 to be the first movement to straddle two aesthetically opposed dimensions, arriving at a fresh place where […]
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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 fighting) — that is as famous a Mexican cultural export nowadays as Frida Kahlo, Day of the Dead, and tequila. It’s also big in […]
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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 next to the National Palace and the Cathedral — right off the Zócalo, until very recently. It was something […]
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