The strongest strikes Calderón and Clinton could make against the narcos would be to take the Army off the streets in Mexico and legalize drugs. Seriously. And Carlos Monsiváis died today, following José Saramago yesterday in Lisbon.
I was in a museum earlier today watching Monsiváis speak on film and said, “After a certain point he stopped getting older, he has looked the same for so long” — but he was already dead. He was an excellent person; I wonder how long the wake will last and whether they would let me in.
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I omitted from yesterday’s description of a photograph I might take the fact that if the wind blew in the right direction, the Mexican flag that hangs on the Cathedral would flutter into view. Mexican nationality was a theme in what I visited today.
I wandered through the Lagunilla market, which is near the Plaza Garibaldi (where the mariachis play), and then went over to see Tlatelolco, where I had never been before. This is where the 1521 battle against Cortés was lost, and the plaza, which now celebrates the “Three Cultures” of Mexico, sports a large sign announcing that this battle was no defeat but the birth of the mestizo nation.
There is a large square that was the biggest market Cortés’ soldiers, many of whom had been “to Italy, and Rome, and Constantinople” had ever seen, and where many Mexican students were gunned down by the Army in 1968. The ruins of the Aztec city have been restored and are extremely impressive, and the church 16th century church – of St. James the Apostle, who had appeared to the Spanish soldiers in battle – is austere and beautiful. Nearby is a lovely park, an oasis in the run-down neighborhood.
I had not realized there is a huge cultural center center next door, and I would not have done had I not fallen into conversation with a man also visiting the ruins. There are rotating exhibits, a restaurant, Internet stations, and couches to sit on. There is the Blaisten collection, which I had not known was open to the public, and an enormous and very well documented exhibit on the movement and events surrounding the 1968 massacre, including a film 2.5 hours long with interviews of the protagonists that is shown continuously on multiple screens.
I liked discovering all of this by chance.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 