Through the Looking Glass

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.

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.

Landscapes

Patricio and I made our way to the Centro Histórico this cold afternoon in search of a book with old maps of Mexico, something that would document the known and changing landscape of the country. We parked at the far end of the Alameda, walking along its length to take in a photo exhibition of the Mexican Revolution. On this day in 1910, Francisco I. Madero called the nation to begin its Revolution, marking big changes in the political landscape, and in hopes of a better democracy.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador believes it to be a symbolically perfect day to begin his own fledgling government, purportedly in the name of a better democracy as well. Filling the Zócalo with thousands of people, he would take his oath as president of Mexico, in defiance of the officially recognized Felipe Calderón. We gathered some images in the chilly afternoon; for many, a double celebration of Mexican revolution. We'll see if the political landscape might at all change from here.

Crowds filling the Zócalo

Marching down past the Alameda

Arriving at Bellas Artes

Flags flying high

tremors

even after this morning, the only earthquake i've ever felt was a tiny tremor in acapulco during the summer of 2004. i'd say that fact is probably one of the bigger selling points for living in the state of mexico. our house isn't build on an old, shaky lake bed. we're firmly planted on solid, foothill soil.

i admit it: part of me is disappointed to have missed the pair of morning quakes. i equate the experience with a real mexico city initiation, like no-fee apartment hunting in new york. not having been jostled around, even a little bit, leaves me feeling something like a wannabe.

the other, larger part of me, though, is simply glad we're both safe. i can live without having my house rumbled around, and the tremors seemed to have cut off my cell phone reception, so i'll consider myself effected and just call it good.

but earthquakes aren't the only source of rumblings we've had around here. the political fault lines have also been shaking things up in the city, leaving a lot more immediately-felt effects in its wake. supporters of lópez obrador and his demand that the electoral votes be recounted "vote for vote, poll for poll" have camped out along reforma avenue, closing off sections of the thoroughfare completely and setting up virtual communities with barbershops, a movie screen, makeshift restaurants and dance halls. they're called plantones, planting themselves and their city center tents at the epicenter of continuous waves of discontent.

and the mountains can't keep us from feeling the tremors even up here in the state of mexico. when driving to amealco in the morning on tuesday, a group of obrador's party, the prd, had completely taken over the inter-state's tepotzotlán tollbooth. forcing the toll workers to abandon their stalls, they lined up along the lanes with flags and banners, waving travelers through for free.

it's a historic time for the country, much more memorable than the set of a.m. earthquakes. i feel, in some ways, fortunate to be here and to see these events firsthand. but the emotional investment comes with a great deal of frustration, since i find fault with a large part of the prd's modus operandi. a disillusioned candidate who sanctions illegal appropriation of federal installations (tollbooths, for example) isn't someone who can easily win my support. nor is someone who maneuvers his party's adherents to demand something that's outside the federal legal structure. if the judicial system can't--and consequently won't--comply with a demand to recount the votes of polls that were never officially contested, that non-compliance will be used by the party as another reason for complaint. if the recount of contested polls were to show significant discrepancies, then in the interest of upholding democratic ideals, the recount of every vote seems like a decent and reasonable request. i'd be surprised, however, if obrador were to concede defeat if any recount--partial or full--confirmed calderón as the president elect.

i believe in social justice, and in political resistance when it's for the greater good. perhaps obrador knows a lot about the former and is somehow in the right with the latter. i'm skeptical. but i know we'll have wait for the shock waves to pass, as always, depending on retrospect to see where all the upheaval leads. hopefully, it will eventually leave us all standing on more solid ground.

say it with skin

we decorated the middle school with yellow ribbons and listened to bette midler's "from a distance," playing out through the loudspeakers of the assembly room/gym as we tried to sit quietly on the lacquered wood floor. that was my introduction into the workings of a protest, happening shortly after the beginnings of operation desert storm.

i've seen--and sometimes been a part of--groups with something to say since then. i remember miles of bicyclers riding north together on sixth avenue; we watched them from the roof garden in aida's chelsea apartment building, knowing they were protesting the republican national convention with an anti-bush ride. i also remember cacerolando--banging with spoons on gemma's pots and pans--in the tiny barcelona plaça de rius i taulet, in the wake of the bombings at madrid's atocha station.

mexico is known for being a city of protests, and yesterday, en route to the zócalo, i watched representatives of the movimiento de los 400 pueblos protest in their now famous way: nude, or in underwear, symbolic of being stripped of their rights. they come to mexico city from their farming villages in veracruz, crying out against a governor's illegal appropriation of land, and the disappearance or imprisonment of many of the movement's members. for years now they've marched, asking for justice, and advocating their cause with banners and fliers and their bare, brown skin.

some think it's pitiful. some think it's ingenious. some think it's futile and some think it's essential. i've heard it called laughable and courageous, an worn out posture and an admirable institution. maybe it's all of that; i don't know enough to say. what i did see yesterday was as peaceful, though, reminding me a little of the intent of yellow ribbons.

stone soup

leftovers are alright. sometimes, like with my mom's mennonite borscht, the dish tastes even better on the next day's reheating. most people would probably agree, though, that's it's good to vary what appears on the table. catering to cravings or an interest in healthy balance, the pot on the stove turns chicken into broth one day and potatoes into mashable softness the next. and in the democratic kitchen of the u.s., i'd say the melting pot is being put to excellent use, set over the fire, making stone soup.

the united states is, to its credit, a country of readers. books, magazines and newspapers are published with relative ease, available for reasonable prices, delivered even to a person's mailbox if they so choose. librarians will rarely have a hard time finding a job. the new york times' best seller list is a veritable river of bubble and change, new titles constantly appearing. and almost everyone i know harbors fond memories of being read to as a child.

books are valued, and with good reason. at their best, i think they're the finest looking glasses on the market. take, for example, the story of stone soup. it's core is the same, the details malleable, the questions it raises about the human condition eternally relevant. a quick search for the title in amazon.com alone yields 280 results; a tale poking around at faith, mistrust, community, trickiness and epiphany is, doubtless, a recipe for a classic.

and it's a classic that merits another telling:  ****

once upon a time, there was a famine in which people jealously hoarded whatever food they could find, hiding it even from their friends and neighbors. one day a wandering soldier came into a village and began asking questions as if he planned to stay for the night.

"there's not a bite to eat in the whole province," he was told. "better keep moving on."

"oh, i have everything i need," he said. "in fact, i was thinking of making some stone soup to share with all of you." he pulled an iron cauldron from his wagon, filled it with water, and built a fire under it. then, with great ceremony, he drew an ordinary-looking stone from a velvet bag and dropped it into the water.

by not, hearing the rumor of food, most of the villagers had come to the square or watched from their windows. as the soldier sniffed the "broth" and licked his lips in anticipation, hunger began to overcome their skepticism.

"ahh," the soldier said to himself rather loudly, "i do like a tasty stone soup. of course, stone soup with cabbage--that's hard to beat."

soon a villager approached hesitantly, holding a cabbage he'd retrieved from its hiding place, and added it to the pot. "capital!" cried the soldier. "you know, i once had stone soup with cabbage and a bit of salt beef as well, and it was fit for a king."

the village butcher managed to find some salt beef...and so it went, through potatoes, onions, carrots, mushrooms and so on, until there was indeed a delicious meal for all. the villagers offered the soldier a great deal of money for the magic stone, but he refused to sell and traveled on the next day.   ****

the immigration reform bill may not have passed this time around, but outside the storybook, soup soup commands a much longer prep time.

in the meantime, i'll admit it's not easy to wait. it's also difficult to listen to the skeptical villagers' comments. i had a terrible time keeping my cool when hearing that fox news anchor brit hume described marchers carrying mexican flags as "a repellent spectacle." it requires some painful struggle, resisting the adoption of his mentality which appears to be rooted in fear. by calling him a repellent spectacle, which is still an almost overwhelmingly temptation, i'd be surrendering to my own fear that people really believe him. in the end, i'd prefer to have more faith in the u.s. than that. 

and faith is the most fantastic part of this stone soup story, unfolding in fits and starts in communities all over the country. a republic works best if people really believe in it, and i think it would be hard to find more fervent believers in the ideal than the immigrants who sacrifice so much to be a part of it. a considerable part of patriotism, it seems to me, lies in a deep trust that the system of government and what it stands for will continue to work in the interests of the people who call it home. if that's the case, i wonder if immigrants, legal and otherwise, have a greater capacity for patriotism than the fearful citizens who want them to leave. i find the immigrants' faith in congress, in spite of decisions that continue to directly and negatively affect them, both astonishing and fundamentally admirable. as with the soldier/stranger in the story above, there exists an understanding that, with patience, the skeptical might still discover the value in working with the outsider who arrived uninvited.

i'm optimistic. this isn't the first time an immigrant wave has brought conflicting feelings to the national surface. it's hard to believe, now, that the irish also once arrived with incredible controversy in their wake. the current situation, then, is a new variation on the old recipe, keeping the country's political kitchen healthy and interesting in the slow preparation of a one-day delicious, more spicy stone soup.

tenniel turns 186

a happy birthday wish goes out today to the spirit of sir john tenniel, illustrator of the british magazine, punch, and the man who engraved alice into lewis carroll's stories and alisa cooper's imagination. i remember spending as much time taking in the illustrations of those books as i did reading the adventures of alice in her looking glass world.

one of the engravings in through the looking glass illustrates the chess board valley. standing next to the queen at the top of the hill, alice sweeps her gaze across the landscape below and excitedly comments, "It's a great huge game of chess that's being played-all over the world-if this is the world at all, you know..."

the sentence now strikes a chord in me that didn't exist when i read the the book as a child. how sound a description it is of our life this side of the looking glass. my experience yesterday, waiting in line to pay the phone bill, highlighted the fact that in many cases, i am a pawn; though i can make my own moves in my chessboard valley of mexico, there are kings and knights who also make strategic decisions, affecting the rest of us in a way that spells loss. i cannot simply mail in a payment because the game of chess here doesn't allow me to do so. beyond blame, though, i still create my life by thinking about my next move and how it will hopefully allow me to end up on top. and everyone does this, from george w. bush to the toddler in the highchair next to us at lunch.

but it is the last part of alice's exclamation that really leaves me thoughtful. is this really the world at all? i'm chronically afflicted with doubting thomas symptoms, but i still wonder if this world is really the real reality.

whatever the case, i'm glad tenniel made the decision to pour out some of his artistry into carroll's works. what a winning move it was.