Household saints

Inauguration day of the statue of El Santo in Mexico City, below in a mask like his father, El Hijo de El Santo

Visit David Lida’s post on El Santo:  David Lida » Blog Archive » Household saint.

The sculpture of El Santo, El Emascarado de Plata (The Silver Masked Saint):

The plaza, garden and statue, inaugurated in June 2006, is between the streets Jesus Carranza and Gorostiza in Colonia Peralvillo, Cuauhtémoc, the Barrio Bravo de Tepito in Mexico City.  The sculpture, 3.65 meters tall and weighing 1.5 tons, was created by Edwin Jorge Barrera García, a sculptor and fireman.  The wrestler’s son, who wrestles as El Hijo de El Santo, financed the project.

The unveiling was presided by politicians, son of Rodolfo Guzmán, a.k.a. The Saint, actors and the President of the Lucha Libre Comission of the time.  The wrestler’s son, like his father, wore his mask and did not reveal his identity.  Others attending included sports commentators, retired wrestlers Baby Richard, Pompín y Many Guzmán, legendary masters of the “lucha” like El Perro Aguayo, Ringo Mendoza and Mil Máscaras, and wrestlers Huracán Ramírez Junior, Scorpio, Greco, Charles Bronson, Rebelde Rojo, Blue Panther, Cerebro Negro, Villanos III, IV and V, Dr. Cerebro, Jaque Mate Jr., Solar, Fantasma y Tinieblas, Blue Demon, Jr.  At the event they signed autographs and posed for the camera’s of hundreds of Mexican Lucha Libre fans.

Heroes die but legends continue…I leave the Saint in your care. – El Hijo de El Santo (The Saint’s son) on the day of the innauguration

Information about El Santo released at the event:

Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta was born September 23, 1917 in Tulacingo, Hidalgo.  He began wrestling in lucha libre in 1925 as Rudy Guzmán, Hombre Rojo/Red man, and the Murciélago II/Bat II.  It wasn’t until June 26, 1962 that the referee Jesús Lomelín baptised him as El Santo, the name that immortalized his career.  He was national Welterweight and Middleweight champion in 1943, Welterweight world champion in 1946, Middleweight champion and Cruiserweight (97 kg./210 lbs.) national champion in 1952.  The Saint starred in 58 films, including The Saint and Blue Demon against Dr. Frankenstein, The Saint vs. the Wolves, The Mummies of Guanajuato, The Saint against the Vampire Women and The Saint against the Zombies among others.  He died February 5, 1984.

There is another statue of El Santo in Tulancingo, Hidalgo, birthplace of the wrestler.

Mexico City, in a constant state of flux and reinvention

If Mexico City is a book, then it’s one that’s constantly being rewritten.

For the photographer Brian Rosa, Mexico City is in a constant state of flux and reinvention – never completely finished; never completely reinvented.

He photographed Mexico City during a research fellowship prior to the national Centennial Celebration in 2010 and saw a discrepancy between “the rigid central planning and the chaos of informal settlements…”.  He “ended up trying to reconcile these two conflicting histories…”  The result was a series Rosa titled: Palimpsesto Urbano: Mexico City (Urban palimpsest); it is not a comprehensive visual catalog of the city but calls attention to the city’s constant state of evolution.

To live in Mexico City is to cross countless invisible borders every day; to be constantly barraged with all things-beautiful and ugly, banal, and remarkable-that this world has to offer. – Brian Rosa

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(See this complete series and other work by Rosa on his site: http://brianrosa.net/ ).

Vocabulary:  Palimpsest/Palimpsesto

Decipherment in architecture

Architects imply palimpsest as a ghost—an image of what once was. In the built environment, this occurs somewhat often. Whenever spaces are shuffled, rebuilt, or remodeled, shadows remain. Tarred rooflines remain on the sides of a building long after the neighboring structure has been demolished; removed stairs leave a mark where the painted wall surface stopped. Dust lines remain from a relocated appliance. Ancient ruins speak volumes of their former wholeness. Palimpsests can inform us, archaeologically, of the realities of the built past.

Thus architects, archaeologists and design historians sometimes use the word to describe the accumulated iterations of a design or a site, whether in literal layers of archaeological remains, or by the figurative accumulation and reinforcement of design ideas over time.

Where in your neighborhood or city do you find palimpsests, shadows of the past?

Conscious Listening: My Mexico City — by Jennifer Clement

In Mexico the faces of poets are represented on some of our money. On the 100 peso note is the face of Nezahualcóyotl, the prehispanic ruler. The 200-peso bill holds the face of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the nun who lived in the 17th century and wrote some of the greatest verses ever written in Spanish. And one of the designs featured on the 20-peso coin, which has become hard to find recently, is engraved with the face of Mexico’s Nobel Prize-winning poet Octavio Paz. I always think that a country that has poets on its currency can only represent a place where anything can happen and everything does.

Colonia El Toro, my neighborhood in Mexico City, is still a place where old and new Mexico congregate and everything happens. This morning the knife grinder came past my house on his bicycle and blew his whistle; the garbage truck stopped outside while the driver rang a brass bell; and the gas truck arrived with a man who walked beside the vehicle and screamed dozens of times over and over, ¨El gas!¨ A bread seller came to the door with a large basket attached to the handlebars of his bicycle. I could hear his high-pitched bell from blocks away. Three Jehovah’s Witnesses rang my front door buzzer.

Later in the morning the ironmonger walked past. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called out that he was willing to buy any scraps of metal or old newspapers. His voice was silenced by a pickup truck that drove by selling oranges. It had a loud microphone attached to the side door with an unintelligible recording about the price of the fruit.

At noon the neighborhood crier stood outside screaming the news about the latest crimes in the neighborhood: the mechanic Señor Diez had killed his wife; an ATM machine had been vandalized; two chickens had been found dead inside a green Volkswagen.

In the afternoon a man walked by announcing with a megaphone that the circus would be arriving at the end of the week. He yelled, “We bring real Indian tigers. We bring an elephant. We bring a boy with three eyes.”

Later one man stands at the corner below my window playing the trumpet. He plays “Las Golondrinas” (“The Swallows”) off key. A tin can for tips is tied to his waist.

By late afternoon Señor Primitivo, an old man with three cows, walks up the road. One cow limps. Señor Primitivo explains to me that a man driving a red BMW and talking on his cellular telephone hit this cow. He shakes his head while he makes the hand gestures of driving and talking on the telephone.

In the evening a man pushes his steaming cart down my street and the air is filled with the scent of sweet potatoes and bananas. The tamale vendor walks past and cries, “Tamales from Oaxaca for sale. Tasty, delicious tamales for sale.”

Mexico City is made up of dozens of villages that have joined together over the past one hundred years due to overpopulation and construction projects. This development has created a terrible and fascinating urban sprawl. Therefore, some neighborhoods are more modern and others more traditional. Almost all areas can claim a yam and banana vendor.

At midnight, in my part of the city that is in the south near the UNAM University, I hear the soft, comforting whistle of the watchman as he makes his rounds under a sky that has no stars, because of the pollution and because of the electric lights, a sky that only has a moon. The word Mexico means “the navel of the moon.”

JENNIFER CLEMENT is currently the President of PEN Mexico, part of a worldwide organization to promote literature, defend freedom of expression and develop a community of writers worldwide. The author of numerous award-winning books, Ms. Clement lives in Mexico City, Mexico. Learn more about author and poet Jennifer Clement at her website:  http://www.jennifer-clement.com/  My Mexico City was originally published in National Geographic’s Ultimate City Guides. Check mexicocitylife’s websites: Mexico City, Mexico for the link to National Geographic’s site.

In her essay, Ms. Clement writes of the many people and sounds on the streets of her neighborhood that are such a distinctive part of Mexican city life.

Each year, Mexico City celebrates Semana del Sonido/National Sound Week to document sounds that are unique to Mexico City and its culture and as a strategy to increase citizens’ listening habits and a conscious awareness of the audio environment.  A video at the TEDGlobal 2011 conference by Julian Treasure, 5 ways to listen better focuses on this as well.  In our louder and louder world, says sound expert Julian Treasure, “We are losing our listening.”  His fascinating talk shares five ways to re-tune your ears for conscious listening — to other people and the world around you.  Five Ways to Listen Better

The concept for a national sound week began in France in 2004, and in 2009 a similar celebration began in Quebec, Canada; Mexico is the third country to adopt this event.  Organized by Fonoteca Nacional, the first Semana del Sonido occurred September 2010; this year the event took place May 23-29.  For more information on Fonoteca Nacional, working since 2008 to safeguard and promote the audio heritage of the nation, see: http://www.fonotecanacional.gob.mx/  (This site is in Spanish).

At this link, Sounds of Mexico’s street vendors, you will see and hear the bread vendor, the garbage collector, the gas man, the iron and scrap metal collector, organ grinder and knife sharpener.  Also, below, I’ve attached a locally famous video of a Oaxaca tamale vendor that haunts the streets at night.  One person suggests the recording that blares from the vendor’s speakers was made in the 1920s.  What do you think readers?

Coco Chanel and Mexico – What’s my point?

Fashion passes, style remains. – Coco Chanel

Informal Translation: “…Point of View;

Ode to Coco   Beyond her revolution in the world of fashion, her unforgettable creations, her empire and her choice of style, Coco Chanel made history by her vision…”

Approximately two weeks ago, one of Mexico city’s neighborhoods, Polanco, made international headlines. Many of you will know about this or saw the video, Las Ladies de Polanco.

Since I want to avoid posting or popularizing vulgarity, the “ladies” language prohibits me from posting the video, so readers/voyeurs take note: your curiosity won’t find any satisfaction here. (Nor, undoubtedly, will I boost my subscriptions or ratings by these kind of decisions). However, for those suffering from insatiable curiosity, I will recommend a link on my blogroll: Mostly Mexico City by David Lida. He discusses Las ladies in his August 29 post.

Besides giving some interesting background information on the ladies in the video, Mr. Lida writes about his concern that his books and articles have perhaps idealized the city, misleading readers. In addition, he ponders if videos, like this one, create a smokescreen while acts of violence by drug cartels, now being called acts of terrorism, grow in frequency.

Now, readers are probably wondering, “What does Coco Chanel have to do with all this? Well, my POINT OF VIEW is, to a degree, represented by my choice of her words, a cover of Mexico’s VOGUE, its text and the potential for multiple interpretations and word play (with Vogue’s manipulation of the word moda/oda or in English, FASHION/ODE, and I, with the word COCO). I hope I am allowing enough gap for readers’ imagination. Obviously, I’ve decided to take a different tack addressing certain issues. The Ladies of Polanco video went viral, and to a great degree I understand this kind of phenomenon. I understand why it might be preferable or more popular to watch two adult women swear like sailors (truck drivers, troopers, dwarfs, pirates…) than watch news coverage of buildings torched in the northern city of Monterrey or hear about the growing numbers of innocent people killed by drug cartels.

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Early on I decided I was not going to blog this VISION of Mexico, and now, not the latest version of the neighborhood Roma as portrayed in the aforementioned video either. I might not be following trends, but I will stick to my style.  As Coco said, “Fashion passes, style remains”.

Perhaps Coco, if she were living, would have preferred a post that focused on other features of Polanco. There you will find a multitude of elegant stores offering luxury clothing brands, including Chanel. (The store is on the Avenida Mazaryk in Polanco).

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Rirkrit Tiravanija is an artist at the forefront of modern conceptual art. In this video, Cool Hunting talks to the artist about his current project as part of Absolut’s 365 Days initiative in Mexico and the culture’s attitudes towards art.

365 Days » About.