Through the Looking Glass

Eagle and Sun

Either, or. This, that. Here, there. Yes, no?

Sometimes, a decision just needs help. A push toward one or the other, all responsibility placed outside--though technically on--the hands of those who want to decide. Let a little random chance to the work. And how?

Heads or tails.

Or at least that's how it used to be done, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who flipped a metal coin stamped with the head of a monarch. But now here in Mexico, it's águila o sol--eagle or sun--a phrase  quite appropriately decided by a coin, as well. Born into use when the old, copper, 20 centavo coins began to circulate, those three words have long outlived the very coin itself. Patricio and I have one hoarded away here at home, though. It used to belong to my grandmother, a souvenir likely kept from a late sixties Mexican road trip when the final destination was Acámbaro. One side shows the symbolic, coat of arms eagle. On the other appears Teotihuacán's pyramid of the sun, with solar rays crowning the image at the top. Águila o sol. Coins like this, along with any coin at all, still work hard for bets and the choice between disparate desires.

But when copper came up a few weeks ago for me, I didn't need to flip any coins of the stuff to help me make a decision. A visit to Copper Canyon has been on my wish list for a long time, and once I found out that my sister-in-law would be teaching a two-week summer course there through her university, the proverbial light bulb came on above my head. What better pretext could I possibly find for finally making the trip? And yet, that versatile, copper, 20 centavo coin still played a part in the beginnings of those plans. In English, I speak of light bulbs, but in Spanish, me cayó el veinte.

Realizing something--when the idea finally clicks--can be described through the metaphor of a pay phone. Those veintes, the coins, were once the fee for making a phone call, with everything coming together when the veinte dropped into the box. Me cayó el veinte--putting myself in the pay phone's position, the change fell right into place, and I knew just what I should do. Beyond congratulating Trini on the classes she would offer, I also realized her work spelled a chance I shouldn't pass up.

So I'll be up around Copper Canyon for week now, with hopes for catching glimpses of lonely águilas, and soaking up plenty of Chihuahuan sol.

Masiosare

The neighborhood had been quieter since last Thursday, since school was out to bridge the long  weekend between Mother's Day on the 10th and Teacher's Day, yesterday, on the 15th. Today sounded more like a Monday than a Wednesday, with snare drums rattling in accompaniment to discordant bugle blasts, not too long after eight in the morning from the Margarita Maza de Juárez elementary school across the street.

The first day of the school week always begins with a woman's voice over a loudspeaker directing a patio full of uniformed children. To those of us on the other side of the high walls--that line of cinder block around the complex of two-story green and white buildings, emblazoned with the unintentionally-rendered but nevertheless menacing face of President Benito Juárez's wife--the muffled, monotonous, and yet undeniably commanding voice drapes itself over our homes. I sometimes liken it to the sound of a muezzin's call to morning prayer, only that this voice is calling the kids to begin their rendition of the Mexican national anthem.

It's always an earnest, endearing and slightly comic performance, with the loudspeakered voice all but drowning out those of the children, and the haphazard sounds of drums and bugles played by the few remaining students doing their best to approximate the anthem's official rhythm and notes. A tune that couldn't possibly be more classic in its embodiment of the march tradition, it sounds both weary and hopeful coming from the school's little ritual of ceremony and practice.

We hear it at midnight, too, on those nights driving home after a late movie, the radio tuned to Horizonte or Reactor. Every television or radio station must play it at the beginning and end of their broadcasts, turning the minutes and the airwaves after twelve into a choral interlude. Click here to hear it, and go ahead: imagine being in the car with us on those windy roads home. And if you like, you can read along to the lyrics here, too.

I think you'll agree that it's not the type of anthem (or as it's actually called here, a hymn) that would easily prompt soccer stadiums to invite musical superstars in for a Beyoncé-style, roof-raising, lax-tempoed, improvised-vocal-flourished rendition. And so, the pregame performance usually goes like this. It might be more rigid, but it's certainly still regal. The salute even seems more formal, the right hand placed not with the palm flat over the heart, but rather with the palm facing the floor and the thumb-side to the chest.

Almost any song collectively known and sung, especially about one's country and its autonomy in particular, tends to rally up emotions in just about any citizen. Mexico's anthem is not exception. And yet still it gives pause to think about the nature of the lyrics: imagery of war, cannon-fire, soldiers and blood that become a necessary means to certain ends: the ideas of victory, glory, honor, union--and liberty. It's all nothing if not sobering. Violence and peace are virtually, paradoxically inseparable.

But not many of us think about that in too much depth when it comes right down to the singing. In fact, it's no secret that many children and even adults--those who have likely never seen the lyrics in writing, who haven't worked out the full meaning of the sometimes archaic wording--can misunderstand what they've learned to sing. Perhaps it's an urban legend, but plenty of people have heard of birth certificates boasting the name 'Masiosare.' It sounds pleasant enough, doesn't it? But it comes from the middle of the anthem's first verse: "Mas si osare..." is the phrase, meaning "But if [someone] should dare...". I can understand hearing that and then thinking it might name a certain 'Masiosare,' but I'm doubtful of the claim that anyone would name their child after the [someone] in that line, who in the second half is revealed to be an "enemy outlander."

And yet, who knows? All things are possible. A popular sushi chain here even serves up a delicious Masiosare Roll...If anything, it's proof that the national anthem holds a firm place in the national consciousness--something also confirmed almost every week of the academic year, right across the street from our house.

Before Tunick, Sans Tunics

Patricio and I already had sentimental attachments to the Zócalo--the main plaza here in Mexico City, and once the very center of the Mexica world. It was often our nexus of special trips into the Centro, and became the glittering backdrop to our first New Year's Eve together, celebrated with good friends on the top floor of the Majestic, just a couple of days after our wedding. This past Sunday, though, with almost 20,000 other people in the pre-dawn chill, it became both the focus of Spencer Tunick's lens and a central part of our own new ties to the square. We literally left our footprints there, and down a stretch of 20 de Noviembre Street too. And then we left with the more intangible memory imprinted in ourselves, as well.

It wasn't the first time for me to sign up and strip down for a Tunick installation; I also know what the floor of New York's Grand Central Terminal feels like to the touch of bare skin. We were a mere few hundred women, including two fantastic friends, calmly followning instructions under the turquoise arch and golden constellations. I remember it as slightly dream-like, and not only because it happened in the sleep hours of the morning.

Mexico, as is almost always the case, was almost incomparably different.

They say we were 18,000. We had no idea at the time. What we did know was that we filed in en masse, packing continuously into the streets below Tunick's setup in the Majestic, a roiling mass full of expectant and boisterous participants at five o'clock in the morning. In spite of the assistants' pleas that the crowd calmly sit and wait and be patient, hundreds of benign but restless rabble-rousers maintained the crowd in high, noisy spirits. Some did the wave. Some shouted the UNAM's cheer. Some yelled "Slackers!" to the latecomers of the crowd. And some cried "Get naked! Get naked!"up to the press reporters and curious onlookers, hanging out the windows and balconies of the hotel. Chants of "Mexico! Mexico!" burst out too many times to count. The city was just about to turn the stereotype of conservative Mexico on its head.

The temperature dropped further before the sky began to turn light; it was the only thing that finally subdued the masses before Tunick got the show on the road. But then his translator told everyone to make sure that we "filled up the back part" of the plaza, a hilariously sexual insinuation that caused even the quietest of us to laugh hard. Less than ten minutes later, our clothes lay in piles and our bare feet lay claim to the gray Zócalo stone slabs. Indeed, we filled the whole thing up.

Most of us hugged ourselves against the typically cold Mexico City morning, and then the loud- speakered directions rolled over our heads and moved us into place. We faced the hotel, and in a race against the sun's appearance over the Presidential Palace behind us, we stood, we saluted, we then lay on our backs, and later curled up into "Aztec Stones." Rubbing our knees, sore from minutes of waiting in that fetal position while those in the back kneeled into position and a joke or two about stray farts made the rounds, we stood and began funelling our way down the south-bound street, slow and jovial and full of solidarity--not unlike many of the politically-minded marches that often dominate the center of Mexico City. Only this time, no one wore clothes.

One last photo of the women was then taken--thousands lying on their sides, wrapped around a subway entrance on the southeast corner of the square. And when it was over, Tunick remained perched atop his ladder, surrounded by outstretched hands thanking him for his work and for what would be, for many, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I wondered what he thought of this chance to make his art here in Mexico. Of his enthusiastic subjects, sometimes so verbally rambunctious that they interfered with quick cooperation. But I don't wonder at all about what Patricio and I thought. For us, it was an unforgettably joyful experience, surrounded by thousands and thousands of of fellow humans, exposed in all our infinite differences, and yet for just over a naked hour, so very much the same.

Blessed Wood

The sounds of hammers and mallets coming from the catty-corner house-in-progress have been replaced today by the boom of fireworks overhead. The albañiles (often translated as "masons," the word really encompasses a much broader range of construction work and its varied specializations), aren't taking advantage of the view toward our patio's potted mint, rosemary and cat grass. They're taking advantage of their 24 hours to celebrate. Being the 3rd of May, it's the Día del Albañil, when construction workers across the country set down their tools in exchange for a cup of something refreshing, soaking in the day set aside in their honor: those millions of laborers who--many as likely to send out a cat call as any construction worker in the states--put the roofs over millions of Mexico's heads.

This is serious business, as the continuous bursts of the cohetes can attest. Copious drinks are poured and lifted with toasts of "¡salud!" while plates are piled high from the various offerings on the table. Most often celebrated at the site of their current work, the day may also celebrate at home, and a good many will eventually fill the bars, cantinas and pulquerías close by. It's a delicious way to be grateful for a break, grateful for paid work and safety on the job, and grateful for the satisfaction of a finished product that may either loom near or remain far in the hopeful distance.

This gratefulness has other roots spreading both through the day and through the history of the country and Catholicism. May 3 is also the Día de la Santa Cruz--the day once appearing on the liturgical calendar to commemorate Saint Helen's discovery of Christ's cross in the city of Jerusalem. By 1970, the day was no longer an official religious feast, but it's connection in Mexico with the albañiles was already far too deep, and the Vatican made a concession to the country that allowed Holy Cross Day to continue.

The ties between Cross Day and Mexico's albañiles is said to be this: "Since in the early years of the Spanish colonial period in Mexico, most churches were still under construction, on May 3 the priests asked the masons to make crosses and put them on the highest point of the building." Decorated crosses had formed a much older part of Spanish tradition in the day's observance, and whether or not the albañiles began celebrating the day as their own as a result of this story, the truth is that today, the cross and construction are inextricably tied.

Those grouped together at their construction sites, hosted by the lead engineers and architects, still fashion a cross together, often from wood coming from their own materials, and sometimes decorated with flowers and colored paper. The head albañil is then asked to place it prominently over the work, an offering and a talisman from and for those who are linked to its construction. Patricio's good friend, Enrique, has engineered a large addition to a school not far up San Pedro's main street. I'm sure that at least a few of the fireworks are coming from that direction, shooting up past the cross that's already been nailed to the facade.

In the school's case, the construction spells prosperity both economically and intellectually for a number of people. But prosperity also fits in strangely with the wee, starry hours of May 3, as well. Over a late plate of quesadillas last night, Patricio remembered that buried coins or treasure are rumored to emanate a luminous, gaseous light above their hidden spots during the hours before the sun comes up. Uncovering such a find--from caches of Spanish gold to riches secreted away during the Revolution--would certainly make anyone, whether Catholic or albañil or both or neither, most grateful indeed.

Que Milagro

¡Qué milagro!

I hear this every now and then, especially if I'm making a phone call. A lot of you know I'm not much one for dialed-up conversations, preferring the slow time of playing with words that an email often allows. So when I do press the call button, I can see how it might be deemed a miracle.

Milagro equals miracle in most senses of the word: Water into wine, Life after death, D.F. without traffic. But in a country where gods once lived among men, and the Virgin Mother descends with signs of roses for the people, the miracle of apparition rings an almost daily note. Or doorbell. Or dial tone.

"¡Qué milagro!", friends and relatives say here when they haven't seen or heard from someone in awhile. On the surface, it isn't much more than the phrase one instinctively says, letting the caller or visitor know that their presence--physical or vocal--is a welcome and pleasant surprise. But I like to think of it as something more awesome, something that gets the circumstance right--that everyday miracle of a friend's visit or a relative's call, the apparition of something truly mysterious: human connection. 

Qué milagro.

Pedro Infante, Que Cante, Que Cante

Just like Patricio and I are prone to spontaneous bursts of dance, the cat and the car's interior are also often witness to our impulsive bits of song. And the top three melodies, with lyrics we'll sometimes change, would be recognized by almost any Mexican citizen who happened to hear us through an open window. When the skies are overcast and the clouds look heavy, one of us is bound to take on an exaggerated tenor and deliver the prediction that "Parece que va a llover" (It looks like it's going to rain). Or when the mood strikes us, or to better call the other in from a different room, the register runs higher and out comes a vocal shower of "Amorcito corazón" (My little lovey heart). And sometimes, an almost pouty "Pero te quiero más que a mis ojos" (But I love you more than my own eyes) will find its way into the air between us. They're all perfect for our purposes, and they're all cultural references with one thing in common: an icon whose death happened fifty years ago yesterday.

Pedro Infante sang each of those lyrics in movies still so popular that they're played in rotation (along with around 60 others) each weekend on major network television. A toda máquina, the Pepe el Toro trilogy, and Tizoc are the ones we pull our own top three from, but I'd also be telling the truth if I said that Patricio knew about a dozen other Infante songs in their entirety, by heart.

Just say the name "Pedro Infante" to someone here, and lyrics, images and sentimental ties will come to the listener's mind. Everyone has a favorite movie to name, or three, and though some love his memory a great deal more than others, it would be a rare and astonishing thing to find a person who frowned at the invocation. Actor and singer, with a voice that still wields the power of swoon, he's the one person an aunt of ours said would have made her consider acts of adultery. My mother-in-law can go glassy-eyed when she hears him, my father-in-law will belt out "Efigenio El Sombrerudo" at a party with his best imitation. Patricio's daughter, even as a little girl, couldn't have been a more rapt audience when watching his films.

He's something much more than anyone I can think of in American culture; it's a delicious coincidence that his last name literally means "prince." He's like a bigger-than-life soup of Frank Sinatra, Elvis and Robert Redford well-simmered together. And unlike Elvis, whose life also ended too soon, Infante hasn't become an icon of kitch. He's as classic as a Redford, or a Humphrey Bogart, perhaps. But for many, like Elvis, Infante continues to live. He was even said to have moved right here to Nicolás Romero, spending the rest of his days in peace. Our friend, Laura, knew the rumor all to well--she and her father made nothing less than a pilgrimage here when she was a girl, only to find an old man to dash their hopes and disappoint them both.

His lyrics and lines, not to mention his charisma and his rags-to-riches story of fame, continue to maintain thick, solid roots throughout popular Mexican culture, fifty whole years after the ill-fated flight he was piloting in the Yucatán. Only a few years back, supporters of López Obrador claimed that "¡Peje el Toro es inocente!"--a reference to one of Infante's most famous characters, Pepe el Toro, framed for a crime he didn't commit.

And much like Pepe, Infante's record has been washed virtually clean by his fans. His machismo may have been enormous, some illicit connections may have been true, too. But he's become a legend here, and the legendarily good find their faults falling away, far in the background.

And what's left is the stuff of spontaneous, joyful song.

A Word to Paint a Thousand Pictures

The conundrum of writing when multitudes of special things happen;

This is where I stand, making haiku to gather up image and thoughts.

***

Madcap high-schooler, mooning traffic-slowed cars from his school bus window:

What more, besides a timely cellphone call, can make Saturdays such fun?

***

Applying for my Mexican driver's license was easy as pie.

A visa and a payment, a sitting before the camera. Done.

***

A postponed tour of an art patron's frenzied world bore a small world tale:

The kind woman to my right knows a good friend of mine down New Zealand way.

***

Dear friend, Rachel, lands in the City for a week of adventuring.

Next day, my Matrix is towed from Condesa's streets (parking anarchy).

Two rescuing souls in button-up shirts and ties banish fear with help.

***

Taking a taxi to Bellas Artes palace, our thoughts leaned toward dance.

Shen Wei's company left us breathless after their second performance.

***

Matrix, freed from the lot, rolls us up into green, mountainous glory:

Temoaya, where we watched the clouds and listened to clear water running,

And voices speaking Otomi carried themselves across stone and town.

***

Bar Chon: where ant eggs and chrysanthemum petals are served up for lunch.

Simply a good start, for the evening held promise of lucha libre:

A universe of masks, sparks, raised fists and popcorn--nothing, if not fun.

***

Slow, coffee morning preceded night, and my face smeared with birthday cake.

Tradition let me plant a frosting kiss on the cheek of the culprit.

***

A gorgeous day through canals in Xochimilco meant celebration.

I had turned 30, with a thriving sense of wonder still intact.

***

Palm Sunday having passed, we walked through the streets of Villa del Carbón.

Buying fine leather boots, I hoped for miles to go before I should sleep.

Attuned to Tlatelolco

I mean, really. If walls could talk. And if I had the chance to listen to those surrounding just one place here in Mexico, I now know where it would be. I see it as Patricio and I drive home from the historic Centro, I see it misspelled occasionally on posters, I see its photographs on the covers of historical books--I see it in one of the very dearest movies in recent years. And I saw it up close recently, something I think few people in Mexico City do, whether they're here for a weekend or here the better portion of their lives.

The place is Tlatelolco, easily missed if traffic is flowing nicely up Eje Central, and easily one of the places that impressed the Spanish conquistadores the most. Once a sister city to the Mexica (Aztec) capital of Tenochtitlan, it later fell under the Tenoch rule--becoming the city's crown jewel of commerce and, ultimately, the place of its empire's defeat. It is now also known as the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, or Square of the Three Cultures, for the juxtaposition of walls in what remains of that ancient, island city. The archaeological site of Tlatelolco's ceremonial center sits in front of the church of Santiago Tlatelolco, built of stones taken from the pyramids themselves. Rising above and surrounding the two is an expanse of a 1960's housing complex, also flanked on one side by what used to be the foreign ministry building.

In such a relatively small space, the press of historic juggernaut reveals a chronology's glimpse--three culture's represented by their walls: those of the pre-Columbian, the Viceregal, and the modern independent Mexico that still often holds on to vestiges of the former two. This is where Cuauhtémoc, the last of the Aztec tlatoani, or rulers, was taken captive. It happened after tens of thousands of unsurrendering Aztecs died, here in the last holdout against Cortés and his troops. This is also where a number (likely far greater than the government has chosen to maintain) of political protesters were killed in 1968, shot by military and police forces ten days before the Olympic games began. And then in 1985, many of the housing buildings were severely damaged or destroyed, when that morning earthquake rocked the city and left Tlatelolco's walls to witness huge loss one more time.

And so much of what was documented--or could have been--no longer exists. A few buildings are left. The details are gone. And walking through the plaza on a sunny Friday, with traffic running north and school groups milling in the church, makes it difficult to imagine a market close by that rivaled anything in Europe at the time of the Spanish arrival. Or the fear of being under attack, or under the rubble of what once was a ceiling. The church--one of the oldest in the country--remains bare of its altar since the years of often bloody struggle between religion and the state. Its starkly beautiful chancel of high-reaching volcanic stones speaks not only of the most religious of mysteries, but historical mysteries as well; tragedy has been an irreversible part of Tlatelolco's past, but so have an infinity of the smaller miracles of every day life. Juan Diego's baptismal font rests in a corner of the church as well, a symbol of the area's continual rebirth, the continual resurrection of both archaeological treasures and the residents' quotidian dreams. 

Tlatelolco is, I'd argue, one of Mexico City's most interesting treasures. Come see for yourself, with ears--or at least the eyes--attuned to the walls.

Network for Good

"Oh, my big mouth."

"He sure did stick his foot in his mouth."

"I'm eating my words."

Sometimes expression can come at a price. Mostly, it's benign--a social faux pas that becomes water under the bridge. But expression is still risky, in whatever form it may take. There's a chance that one might offend, and then what will the offended do? Navigating formal and informal conjugations in Spanish-speaking cultures is a familiar expressive minefield for anyone deciding on how to address a person. Tú or Usted? What is the price if I slip? Again, those social situations can be readily smoothed out and rectified. Expression may have its pitfalls, but they often turn out rather insignificant.

But expression can come at a much bigger price, especially for those whose statements reach an important audience, with a message carrying controversy's potential. In Mexico alone, nine journalists paid the price of their lives in 2006 for speaking out about drug-trafficking and social violence. Others are missing. Some are burdened by accusations and threats. Lydia Cacho, having published Devils in Eden and subsequently exposing the involvement of powerful social and governmental figures in a ring of child pornography and prostitution, was arrested without a subpoena, sued for defamation, and threatened to be thrown in jail to be beaten and silenced by some of the very people about whom she had written.

Fortunately for artists, the risks in this country are much less severe, or perhaps they are only less documented. Freedom of expression has flourished considerably since Fox took office in 2000, but the dangers of freely speaking will likely never disappear.

And so it is in too many other countries, to much more worrisome degrees. Fortunately, organizations exist and continue to form with the determination to foster both free speech and safe lives for the speakers. And I'm speaking out for them, directing you over to this page's left-hand column. Beneath the quotes is a heading entitled "Network for Good," and a link to "My Charity Badge." By clicking that link, you'll be directed to freeDimensional's badge, a vehicle for donating to four charities that work toward expression at less-costly price. The opportunity for supporting these organizations is priceless, however, and I encourage you to investigate and choose to donate to their cause. Being connected more personally to freeDimensional Inc., it would be fantastic to see it's support grow.

And the badges that raise the most funds before the end of March will receive matching funds of up to $10,000 from Six Degrees.

It seems that Network for Good is allowing better freedom of expression to come at a monetary price, too. It's worth it. And pass the word on--it can do a world of good.

Raise it High

Don't we just love symbols? Something easily identified, standing in for a different entity, one that is larger and unwieldy when put into words. They can sum up the familiar, and with them, we can construct a world of reflected identity. They can remind us of who we are, and they may inform others about us, too.

It might be a logo. Maybe a cross. A letter, perhaps. Often, too, it is a flag, and this past Saturday, Mexico celebrated its own. That green, white and red banner with the country's coat of arms in the center, the flag we know today is one of the most recognizable symbols of Mexico. Some might say that the Virgin of Guadalupe finds herself as a deeper, more visceral symbol of the country, and she herself even found herself on early Mexican flags--a symbol of those who fought for independence from Spain.

But for me, the flag seen these days over landmarks and city plazas--reaching dimensions of monumental size--and sometimes found in miniature, suction-cupped to windshields, carries a symbol that holds meaning even for me; someone not born to pledge allegiance to what it means.

It's that eagle in the center, wings outspread, the serpent in its teeth and talons, atop the cactus in a small, lacustrine island. It is a symbol not only of Mexico, or of the Mexica (Aztec) people, who upon seeing it as a completion of prophecy, knew where they were to call home. It can also mean something for so many; a symbol of destiny connected with a sense of place.

Other symbols of Mexico were present on Saturday for us, even if Patricio and I don't have a Mexican flag to our name. The morning was spent preparing for a slow afternoon of paella, shrimp stew, opened bottles and sunshine, and the welcoming into our home of the most indisputable of Mexican symbols that I know--the cherished togetherness of family.

Flag day held its own meaning for me on Saturday, having nothing to do with military marches or a particular affinity with red, white or green. Now part of a family, I'm a part of Mexico, too. And that eagle in the coat of arms sure does speak to me of an identity somehow Mexican, of a destiny all my own, connected with a sense of place.