60. ongoing

vagueterrain.net/journal13/yukiko-bowman/01

59. some houston

one

beware falling through:
Lerup's 'holey plain', perceived at a certain scale, is the result of outward-expanding leapfrog development, a sense of distance reliant on the car, non-existent zoning, and stick-frame building.

two

in an afternoon, shot from the driver's seat, T to B:

refinery + storage tanks off 225 E

donuts + oil: this chain was visible elsewhere in the refinery area

birds + oil: ?

on the way to oil, bearing S towards the ship channel bridge

vinegar factory in the 5th ward, and the distant mirage of downtown rising up from flat

three

the roads here careen and are temples to speed, revealing beneath a forest of columns in diminutive proportion (coming from the Bay Area's herculean seismic-minded structures). the ubiquitous presence of slowly running, barely carving bayou water (this is the Buffalo) violates the otherwise straight-shot city, a squiggly reminder of weather's force which replenishes, decays, clouds, and bungles the attempt to tidy and erase.

58. to japan and back again...

for a mostly family-oriented visit, but with a few notables:

1. Uguisudani, Tokyo (above)
this is one of Tokyo's 'Love Hotel' hotspots, one stop north of the Ueno hub on the Yamanote line. this thicket of neon signs circumscribes the western edge of the area, which is squeezed between the railway and the major avenue of Showa Dori 2 blocks away and running parallel to the west. rather than feeling like a seedy railside sex nexus, the two massive infrastructures of rail and road provide the neighborhood with an almost cozy, village-like atmosphere and scale. here, couples of all ages (young urban hipsters, burnt-out business-men with mistress, the occasional prostitute picking up dilapidated soul and vice-versa) stroll afternoon and evening, darting in and out of these hotels which, on average, boast only a dozen rooms or so. on a Sunday morning at 10am (typical check-out hour), there was a mass-exodus of over-nighters heading back towards the train station, hand-in-hand, smiling.

2. Arata Isozaki's Art Tower, Mito
built in 1990, this twisting triangulated tower is near my uncle's home in Mito and thus, has been part of my visual radar for several years. Mito, capital of Ibaraki-ken, and even Hitachi, my mother's hometown, are increasingly becoming part of the Tokyo conurbation (ex. both are included in urban railmaps of Tokyo). as this happens, their characters evolve, the streetscapes increasingly closed up and shut down as chainmalls spread their made-elsewhere efficiency.

having moved so frequently, my sister and i realized that Hitachi is the only place in the world that we continue to visit where we have childhood memories, which doesn't quite make it home but makes it...something, a place where we can register the change of a sandy beach now covered in concrete. still, it's a 10+ hour flight for both of us from our respective abodes, which once again highlights that intimacy and distance, memory and proximity, need not be connected.

i snapped the triptych of the tower from the car, stopped at a red-light and beginning to move.

http://www.arttowermito.or.jp/Tower/isozaki1.html

57. view from the icon.

this was the half-way point of an 8-mile Sunday walk -- my first time visiting (vs. driving over) the city's most beloved icon which belongs, i realize, not only to the city but to this entire portion of the East Bay. i have grown so accustomed to seeing the bridge as the city's most imageable symbol, glimpsed on a clear day from wurster's 9th floor, i never fully realized how much the Bay Area is iconicized when the gaze is inverted. here, the ridges of Berkeley become the backdrop for SF's ivory + emerald hills, all miniaturized in relation to the breadth of the landscape and the seemingly infinite volume of deep-green sea. although the view is totalizing, the self is obliterated from this vantage point, distracted by competing stimuli. the water below becomes indescribably mis-scaled, appearing much closer and much more harmless in the absence of proximate human-sized objects. what has always been a flawless demarcation of the Bay's protected interior before the Pacific's frothy no-man's-land uncannily became a precipice, whose immediacy of affect rendered the urban toyland into a simulacra. from this vantage, the banal feels banal, and the extraordinary, seductive.

56. traveling SF + beyond...

on Sunday we went to a design charette in the historic downtown of Pittsburg, CA. (the northeast terminus of the Pittsburg/Bay Point line). the BART ride takes a near-hour and reveals BART's ex-urban reach; en route, the smoothe golden hills of livestock agriculture and cookie-cutter developer housing take over to the south, while to the north the flat land and proximity to Suisun Bay historically made it a prime area for heavy industry + rail, which remain semi-salient local economies. we walked 2+ miles from the current BART terminus to the town-center, and along the way had access to the wide, flat right-of-way of the Union + Southern Pacific railroads. in this area the wall is king, and separates rail from house, house from power-line forest, everything beyond the wall of the rail-bed apparently endless until the horizon of smoke-stacks and windmill fields takes over, fading into briny haze near the water. it's an orderly, quiet, and melancholy landscape.

on the way home, i snapped the above blurry last minute photo of the Lafayette Mock War Memorial on a hillside adjacent to Hwy 24 and the Lafayette BART station: http://zombietime.com/lafayette_mock_war_memorial/. not knowing what it was i was struck by its dense, helter-skelter informality. its placement at a BART station along the highway makes it extremely visible, and the reaction to the memorial when it was first erected a year ago was immediate. it has since been controversial, as ownership over how to memorialize the war's victims is ambiguous.

55.

like a good relationship, a blog is difficult to 'end' without feeling as if one is killing something that has been worthwhile, and to which one has grown inadvertently attached. i have decided to continue to use it as a forum for further speculation back here in the U.S., where collation of Branner material and thesis preparations begin to meld into an exciting panoply which considers the nature of urban documentation, the generic global city, and the existence of the minute particular, all tied together and navigated, of course, by the linescape. it's not readership i am hoping for so much as an actualization of a ghost-reflection of my own thoughts which might, in the process of creation, spit something back out at me (or convince someone else to).

last night during thesis discussion there was much talk of Architecture's debatable relevance to the contemporary human body, and it's role in articulating 'space' vs. 'place,' two terms which both de Certeau and Team 10 utilized. de Certeau conceived of 'place' as the geometric bookmark, as on a map, while 'space' is the nuanced, volumetric, ever-shifting actualization of a 'place' in use by multiple players, under variable conditions. (in parallel: grammar is to place as spoken language is to space). Team 10, however (and as i understand it), criticized the universalizing 'space' of Modernism's technophilia and called for a re-discovery of 'place' as particular locale. the use of the terms is not contradictory -- a place holder certainly signifies a particular locality, and Modernist space is not necessarily unoccupied or unpracticed (one could even argue that Modernism placed practice/occupation above particularity). one could also argue that Team 10 is re-asserting geography over humanity, a humanity which the Modernists used as a justification for their universalizing style (i.e. human needs became fulfilled by technological standardization). in both arguments, the concepts are inseparable, and the contemporary question might be what is the nature of practiced space WITHOUT its demarcation in place, and vice-versa?

Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset's project in Marfa, TX was mentioned in our discussion as alluding to this debate: http://www.texasescapes.com/TexasArt/Prada-Marfa-Update.htm. what does a locked Prada store (never to be used) in the middle of the Texas desert (hardly to be seen) signify? is there architecture without humanity? and when does the intent of the creator give way to the work's own momentum? ostensibly the store was supposed to be left untouched -- to be scoured by the elements, marked by passers by. unfortunately, it seems that the maintenance has been conscientiously pursued.

a blog, or at least, this one, is not art or architecture, but i have similar questions about when its work is complete, and thereafter, what becomes of it. a concluded discussion turns into a memoir, which suggests...death? without further ado i shall add to the mess.

photo: aquatic park freighter on its way to Oakland.

fifty-four. landing.

RdJ night (view from Sugarloaf) into Midwest morning and SF afternoon . . . for now words fail, but the trip continues.

fifty-three. Brazilian Branner high-five.

we three met during the last days of São Paolo (here buoyantly pictured at Mendes de la Roche's Sculpture Museum in Pinheiros, a must-see: the building is an exercise in spacious circulatory disappearance into slope. a vertical difference between two streets flanking the corner-sited building is used to fullest advantage to create a meandering landscape of ramps, shallow staircases, narrow passages, and hidden doorways which knit the interior and exterior into a seamless ribbon of quiet transitions.)

we shared a bus-journey to Rio past swaths of stump-scarred land now dotted with termite hills and beef-bearing cows. (Brazil's meat-industry is something one hates to love, intertwined with 'grilled' as its culinary identity is). arrival had us gawking at the landscape and clutching white-knuckled in a ferocious taxi-ride up the cobblestone streets of Santa Teresa, which hovers above the Centro area. the area is reminiscent of the North Berkeley hills, and i found myself disoriented by the sensation of comfort i (and my lungs) felt with the neighborhood's salt-scented breezes, residential scale, dynamic building-topography interplay (ex. the stair-connectors shown above), subtle social spaces, and nostalgic tram line. it's easy to see why expats might disappear into this city of Samba, seashore, and sociability.

Ipanema beach, although swarming with Brazilian bikini-clad bodies and muscle-beach men, was surprisingly low-key, and i felt little of the self-conscious preening and screening that i had anticipated. on the contrary, people's comfort level with their physicalities of all shapes and sizes was welcoming. the narrow strip of sand here acts as microcosmic town, replete with retail (vendors every 15 seconds), real-estate (chair and umbrella rental), and recreation (cerveja and paddle ball).

fifty-two. disconnected oddities, ameliorative generosities.

São Paolo ends with a bang and a whimper and a promise of revisit, my last few days there unfinished, frantic and fun ... for the first time on the Branner Ivan, Ballard and I converged, changing this urban jungle of solitary, wary evenings into wandering hop-scotch stop-here stop-there visits to churrascarias and chopperias to engage in much-needed catching up. these evening walks revealed stunning sights not possible during the day, such as views of receding rivers of car taillights swooping downhill beneath 60’ overpasses. it is dizzying, these connective stitches that cross the city everywhere (such as along Ave. May 23rd), revealing both a dysfunctionality (these low roads lie in valleys that end up flooding during summer deluges) and a subsequent generosity (the suggestion of reconnection is everywhere, in both built infrastructure such as numerous bridges and stairs, and in less-supported allusions, such as sidewalks which ‘continue’ across 8-lane roadways). this unpatterned melee of linescapes dates back to the city’s colonial birth when private land owners who lived in the elevated city-center connected their outlying holdings to the center via an unmanaged criss-cross of roads and bridges. São Paolo’s sensory similarity to Tokyo, which Ballard and I both felt, probably resides in both cities’ lack of well-established planning strategies and subsequent rapid urbanization, which has happened only the latter half of the 20th century.

from my last days here, there are a few routes i’d like to recollect:

10.6 ( to) the Lilac Line
a glance at SP’s metro map will reveal 3 primary lines: the north-south blue, the east-west red (the two meeting in the center at lively Pca de Se), and the east’ish-west’ish green, which lies to the south of Se and which services the elite business canyon along Paulista. (SP is described as having an itinerant ‘downtown’ in which the city’s money and power roves by the decade: the Centro was replaced by uphill Paulista, and now Faria Lima to the west is receiving much of the real-estate attention). there is also the lilac metro line, in the city’s southwest, a segment of 8 stops which connects to the CPTM suburban rail network. the fringe placement of this short, distant line aroused my curiosity, as i assumed it serviced a wealthy area and/or a politically important region in terms of population density and votes.

reaching the line requires a triple transfer, from metro red to its western terminus at Barra Funda, where lines A and B of the CPTM begin. Barra Funda is a major node linking the two systems (Metro and CPTM) and as such, it is also used for animated social-service videos (regarding good manners, saving water, etc., reminiscent of Singapore) and a small amount of advertising. while the city streets are largely devoid of billboards and posters due to April’s advertising ban, some advertising is still allowed in the transit stations, and even on the bodies of trains themselves (although rare).

line B of the CPTM was distinct from the metro on a sweltering Saturday afternoon; windows were open, faces moist with sweat, chatter was a bit louder, the hawkers more vociferous in their sale of cold coconut water and sorbet. leaving Barra Funda, the train passed through a relatively brief industrial sector followed by an even briefer patch of railside informality: shacks, urban agriculture, and two pigs (Mom and piglet) walking along a shady path. the N-S line C, from a transfer at Pres. Altino, is also part of the CPTM system and has its own character. its welcomed A/C and classical music was, most likely, an attempt to drown out the smell of the Pinheiros River, along which the line runs. at every station, the compartment filled with the heavy waft of effluent; once flowing southward, a nearby reservoir changed the Pinheiros’ direction, which also receives run-off from hillside favelas during summer rainstorms.

regardless of its dire condition, the Pinheiros remains a defining factor influencing the city’s western skyline; the high rises along its eastern banks spread N-S from Feria Lima’s financial district while on the western banks, the skyline rises and falls with isolated hills that once again exhibit São Paolo’s quick-changing socio-economic pockets – one hill hosts a favela, the next a handful of mansions, the next few hills a collection of dense white towers. the lilac line, radiating westward from the southern end of Line C, serves a densely populated residential area of favela-covered hills which rise above the small valley created by a now-culverted feeder stream. here the topographical corridor was close to the rail (approx 150m), and the train’s noise-pollution an obvious burden. the turnaround at Capao Redondo was quick and the ride home semi-rowdy with a few beer-drinkers celebrating some team’s football victory (a celebration later echoed back at Barra Funda with an impromptu parade of fans, flanked by station policemen). a blind beggar who boarded halfway through the Line B ride transformed the compartment into a silent and thoughtful community that gave more generously than i have seen elsewhere, and once he disembarked a more comfortable conversation level seemed to permeate the train. the day’s most remarkable sight, however, was back at the Santa Cecilia station where i had started the day. a boy of 8'ish was sit-riding a skateboard down the ramp that led to the station; he had a smile on his face whose ferocity suggested its rarity, and it was amazing to witness how a small piece of urban topography and 4 wheels could offer such a complete and temporary respite from the city’s demands.

10.8 Ave. São João + Elavado (see top photo)

the Elevado Costa E. Silva runs above a portion of Ave. São João, beginning in Santa Cecilia and curving northwest over to the edge of the hilly and pristine Perdizes neighborhood. although on my way to somewhere else i was compelled instead to follow this shadowy, linear, street art-gallery where overpass support pillars serve as canvases and sometimes as lean-to walls for the homeless. this same median over which the Elevado runs also serves as an efficient (good use of space, with the Elevado as roof) but inconvenient (no crosswalks) concrete swath for the buses which run on the inner lanes of São João, again a testament to São Paolo’s ‘go anywhere but no hand-holding’ approach to circulatory freedom. this stretch of São João + Elevado yields a high concentration of used bookstores which spill their tattered and colorful contents onto an otherwise semi-seedy sidewalk scene.

where São João + the Elevado cross over Av. Pacaembu, two striking views are afforded down either side of the overpass: to the south, the towers and verdant residential streets of Perdizes, and to the north, a banal strip of gas stations and apparent car dealerships which fades off into flat distance. adjacent to the overpass on this side was a sloped patch of dirt and a few trees where a few homeless men had established a true campsite, replete with fire-ring. despite the site’s high visibility from above and its adjacency to a busy road, the overpass wall and a set of stairs defined a discrete space, and the trees offered patchy protection. less than ½ mile away up into the hills of Perdizes a private school with ebullient teens next to an excellent 1950’s church of diagonal wall-blades, gentle side lighting, and sloped floor offered an entirely different world of privileged calm. the streets here (R photo above) looked uncannily like those in Jo’burg’s nicer neighborhoods (L photo above), where SFH are surrounded by 15’ high and 1’ thick walls, and chairs on corners belie the presence of neighborhood guards whose job it is to provide a psychological sense of well-being to the street. not far from here i descended into an odd topographical bowl/depression, where single storey bungalows remain mysteriously untouched and surrounded by a forest of slope-perched high-rises. in this area, one can witness some dramatic landscape gymnastics, where entire portions of hills are literally cut away to accommodate parking garages...this next to a nostalgic set of white-washed stairs and bright bungalows (see photo, below).

10.9 Rio Grande da Serra

Linha D provides a survey of the city’s southeast rail corridor, which evolves in a quintessential urban fade. the right of way begins narrowly out of the hub of Bras, with walls close, a railcar graveyard pressing in, and crowded, cavernous warehouses showing their roofs above the corridor barrier. this continues through the ex-industrial district of Mooca, and thereafter the density of warehouses begins to thin and the walls swell away from the tracks to allow vacant swaths of land, the occasional pocket of informal settlement, and the sporadic factory. in the distance heavy industry spews its smoke from barely visible spindly smokestacks, and a roadway 200 m. away breeds a suburban-feeling fabric of big’ish box retail separated by unused lots. the satellite town of Maua, 4 stops from the line’s terminus, marked a change of sorts – this lively hub boasts a massive bridge which attempts to knit together bandstand stairs, a tower of platforms and a bus-station with the town’s public plaza. excepting the bridge portion, the structure is unfortunately unfinished, leaving behind a dysfunctional red steel gesture. a large banner hanging from the bridge’s railing announced the temporary presence of Poupatempo Mobile, a roving tent-based version of the state government-sponsored social-service organization which i mentioned earlier. at Maua, most of the train’s chatty riders emptied out, leaving behind a void of silence and lonely faces in twilight. hereafter the stations disappeared into simple shadowy anonymity against a backdrop of the rural: expansive fields, with localized smatterings of houses, most notably those huddled on hills accessed by steep and narrow stairs. when the train wasn’t flanked by field it was flanked by small canyon, two steep rocky mounds pressing in close to the rail, turning windows into mirrors against a premature nightfall.

fifty-one.
having found a room where i can breathe and think, the end of my itinerancy (Sao Paolo) within itinerancy (Branner) has alleviated some of my distraction-beyond-logical-explanation. distraction may also be a state of being in SP, specifically; every city has its moods & effects, and while i cannot pinpoint them to a fountain-source here, the city’s disquiet strikes me as palpable. this is my third attempt at a comfortable temporary abode, the first being internally fine but located on a pedestrian street that became an unsafe zoo after 8pm, the second up on the hill (Paulista) but of the once-luxury-turned-to-seed budget variety where men wore tux vest uniforms and doors had built-in lazy susans (for discreet room service) even as the pillows were covered in plastic liner, the bed adorned with a junky ‘zine circa 2005, and the battery-powered lamp oozing corrosion and dead beyond repair.

having avoided the institution of the hostel in cities where it is affordable to do so, i have been seduced by a corner room here in the downtown Hostel. it is not just the 2nd floor room i love, which allows me to see down two different streets, but this neighborhood, which no travel guide would ever describe as definable, being in transition as it is and located somewhere between Santa Cecilia, Republica, and Consolaçao. next door, a sterile Formula 1! hotel sits across from a semi-retired grand-duchess called the San Raphael, whose ground-floor bar spills onto the sidewalk and acts as catalyst for a mini nightlife-on-sidewalk district. in the other direction, away from Sao Joao’s traffic, the sidestreets are lined with auto-fetish stores (ex. motorcycle clothing, body appliques), stores that are shiny without being bourgeois. from my two windows, in the early hour of 6am i watched the streets exchange hands. a few joggers dodged the dazed-out all-nighters or homeless clearing out for the day, windowless white mini-vans easily navigated the nearly empty streets, delivering newspapers and bread to kiosks and snack stands, an SUV with tinted-windows dropped a handful of scantily clad dancers onto the sidewalk where they hobbled on sore feet to various homes or hotels. everything was cool and calm for a few brief minutes.

there is silence to be found in pockets, although usually accompanied by a harsher reality. today: unlikely tree growing robustly on the top floor of an abandoned brick building, approx. 15 stories tall. or two men standing on the roof of a gorgeous glazed Modernist tower near Pça Ramos; i envied them but then realized they were either homeless, in a graffiti gang, or developers, as on closer inspection, most, if not all, 20-odd storeys looked empty. all the guards and police-people also seem shrouded in silence (the guards especially); they are heaviest in areas of revitalization, to make wary people feel safe in otherwise still-hectic environments. they stand in some of the nicer galerias, or at the door to more comfortable hotels in seedier parts (our hostel has one), or in areas where there is a stark mingling of have and have-not (such as at Pça Ramos where street kids sleep beneath a tree 10 feet from the entrance of the ‘Shop Light’ mall, or likewise, at the Municipal Theater, whose grand steps attract those who don’t have places to sleep but still want a nice place to sit). the Cathedral at Se is a silent holy place populated with the devout while its steps are gently claimed by a crew of beggars. this city’s ability to embrace such jarring contrasts within 5 feet makes it in some ways the most honest and difficult of all i have visited so far. the mind is constantly trying to absorb conflicting environments and given very little time to do so.

but it is not cruel, or at least, there are signs that it is not (which can obversely make the small acts of cruelty seem so much larger). the SESC organization, something akin to localized business cooperatives, demands taxation from businesses and then uses the funds to provide art and recreation centers around the city (Lina Bo Bardi’s SESC Pompei being the most famous). people who live in the precinct can use the facilities for free while outsiders can use it for a fee. the SESC Pompei offers a range of art classes, a library (where men play speed chess in silence), the gymnasium tower + pool, and a huge restaurant, bar, and performance venue. in similar social-mindedness, Poupatempos are city-sponsored ‘one-stop-shop’ type institutions offering a plethora of services such as ID card issuance, post office, medical exams, etc. i serendipitously found the first, designed in 2000 by Mendes de la Roche, at the Itaquera metro terminus (to the east). infrastructural in size and layout (like an indoor city with avenues), one can walk straight from the metro platform over a bridge and into the Poupatempo megastructure, making these services easily accessible from select public transit stations. this Poupatempo, which serves the city’s neglected eastern districts, in turn leads directly to a brand new mall, due to open in November. it looks incongruous and out of scale, as the surrounding residences are packed and tired at best, but according to the Poupatempo official (who finally gave me permission to take photos) the mall is an attempt to jump-start the area.

where the metro ends in this eastern quadrant, the CPTM picks up (Paulista Company Metropolitan Transit), a suburban rail system that supplements the 3-line metro. as the city center recedes, the train hawkers make a more frequent appearance, usually selling chocolate or gum. the length of the line’s extension is reminiscent of Tokyo, as is the hum of the train itself, growing louder as the riders diminish. as the train passes through empty farmland and the city seems finally exhausted, just as quickly the population again increases, until the line’s terminus. here a small town with busy main avenues seems to proclaim its self-sufficiency in the form of a single glass-clad office tower which boasts a heli-pad. it is now a full hour from the city. the return ride, on Line F, to the north, is sheer emptiness and sleeping on Thursday evening. the density is out there but in the darkness, it is unseen, as these neighborhoods do not receive the luxury of streetlights. the lighting within the train is yellow and poor, and everything seems a stage-set for a melancholy movie in which other bodies don’t mean company, and the man who boards sits too close even though the compartment is nearly empty. these suburban lines, at least to the east, express a loneliness which is embedded in detail. i never realized how much the color of in-train advertising can superficially cheer up the eyes, or at least temporarily entertain. the peri-urban platforms become dark, un-announced pauses of concrete, and the gap between the train and the platforms varies in both width and height (sometimes a step up, sometimes a step down, always a considerable gap across) as municipal concern with such details fades away.

below: metro at Pca de Se

fifty.

the Anhangabau Park overpass, from Paulista looking north.

forty-nine. ‘White Heaven.’

‘white heaven’ is the pet name given to Sao Paolo by a perceptive few. the sky rarely shines true blue, and the blanket of haze and slight moisture that hangs in the air most days turns an otherwise unromantic skyline of dirty off-white into a dream-like vagueness. this past Sunday, the heart of the historic Centro was turned into a movie set. roads, transmogrifications of once-rivers, were blocked, and the streets were piled with tumble-weeds of shredded + tangled office paper. i watched as a crew member threw scraps in front of an industrial-sized fan, this need for false weather a rare and odd sight.

in other parts of the city, such as Paulista Ave, which shoots straight down the city’s highest ridge, fur-barked trees drop violent yellow flowers. like tears, they litter the sidewalks whose cracks become collectors of color. these small tragedies that mar the downtown’s elevated, wealthy areas are manually swept away in a battle to fight off the jungle in which the city was built. today, on noisy Rebouças, a cheap blanket, of the type used to protect walls or furniture during a move or a renovation, lay abandoned after a night’s sleep, and the squashed remains of large avocados were scattered here and there. the tree above, whose limbs were heavy with fruit, provided both potential feast and potential ambush.

if there was ever a strange city, this would be it. when speaking of the difficulty in comprehending it, i was told to ‘let it go. the more you try the less you know.’ there is little that is cohesive for me to tell. i stumble upon surprises, like the avocados, while thick traffic murders all thought. often, the one that does exist is, ‘what is that?’ it takes a retreat to my room, or a conversation, to figure it out: rooftop catwalks between two towers = a shared heli-pad. numerous facades covered in some sort of hieroglyphic script = an ongoing graffiti battle played out between favela gangs who come to the city center to claim the nth facade: the one owned by the disowned. the goal is to scrawl as high as one can in a territorial vertical war. the city may be quietened of advertising, and storefronts left with the rain-print of sign removal, but the city is definitely not devoid of signs.

the roads read as rivers, the towers as trees, trees so thick they become a sea, which returns their concrete masses to water. water’s transformed dominance is in the Anhangabau River, which once cut a watery swath to the west of the city’s original escarpment. it is now covered in concrete and above it runs an urban highway (9 Julho) that emerges and disappears under giant swaths of second ground. between these crevices, and the sheer density of towers which hug the topography, i have never seen anything comparable to the city’s panorama, or the maze of walkways, overpasses, underpasses, floating parks and dungeon stairways that saturate areas such as Anhangabau. at the scale of the Cinque Terre, Italy, this climbing, criss-crossing, disappearing acrobatic is one thing; at the scale of a metropolis, quite another. the audacity of such built endeavors is perhaps a response to the brashness of the original landscape, which is nicely exhibited in 19th c. maps at the Patio de Colegio, where the city was founded. with such high highs and low lows, one is always aware of up and down, but rarely of where ground 0 might be. even the buses are topographic: embarkation is flat, but one must ascend via stairs to both the front and the rear of the vehicle. the flow is highly controlled, with an attendee + cash box + magnetic turnstile reader. in like manner, some metro station platforms have metal bars which control the movement of platform traffic, and again, the turnstiles are everywhere. even the trash bins are given consideration in relation to ground; they become elevated metal-mesh containers with legs, quickly filled and subsequently emptied by men who pull enormous 2-wheel carts behind them.

elsewhere, the precious and profane seem to co-exist in surreal fashion. one of the city’s most elite and orderly cemeteries, with its noble carved headstones, serves as a foreground to the proximate glass and concrete towers which rise behind . the two are separated by a row of trees and a wide swath of grass. such juxtapositions of scales and symbolisms are becoming less shocking, as is the surprising lack of sensual taboos. cars park in the showrooms of lamp-stores whose ceilings are shrouded with crystalline chandeliers. stairways lead to high-speed roads which are flanked by uninviting sidewalks of yellow-tunnel light and noxious fumes. abandoned 20 storey towers hulk in the heart of the Centro even as hopes for urban renewal keep historic monuments well cared-for. at night, the Centro doesn’t twinkle from above but rather seems to suck the light away from the stoplights, headlights and taillights which glow on the streets, whisking people away to more palatable residential districts. the night sidewalks, underpasses, and nooks and crannies created by level shifts, walls, and overhangs are given over to the city’s young and often shoeless homeless population.

despite these melancholy descriptions, the city is not morose. during the day the Centro is rife with rhythm and hawkers selling everything from meat-on-a-stick to dangly earrings (especially popular). a cafe on Saturday was packed with youth singing along to a live band. every stranger i have encountered so far has been absolutely kind, helpful, and unendingly patient (as per public transit behavior – no rush, no shove, no worry if this train’s full). fresh fruit and great coffee are consumed in great, affordable quantities. signs of attempted renewal are apparent; the new Metro line 4 will connect Luz, the center of the Centro’s down and out, with distant nodes beyond Pinheiros, where office towers and busy boulevards abound. (the flier campaign for this line depicts a perky hipster couple being joined by the line). despite the large number of abandoned buildings, construction is visible, as are attempts to use building and retail projects to vitalize certain areas (ex. Itaquera). contrary to my expectation, the sky is not saturated with helicopters (although they are audible during evening rush hour), and walled enclaves, where they do occur downtown, still retain a visual porosity in the form of the fence, rather than the thick concrete wall. the sidewalks are inhabited, and after being in Johannesburg, this feels like cause for celebration...not that using Jo’burg as a measuring stick is necessarily healthy. but Sao Paolo, at least in its downtown areas, has a more ubiquitous vitality than stories of crime and segregation would lead one to anticipate.

random oddity: the prevalence of dates in street names such April 7th, March 25th, July 9th, May 23rd – all undoubtedly dates of significance. most cities cite famous people, monuments, and landmarks, creating connection between the naming of a place and a physical thing. on Sao Paolo streets, ideas of place and time become conflated. for example, on April 7th there is a great galeria . . . these galerias are a remarkable aspect of the city. usually occupying the first 3 to 5 floors of block-width buildings, they are essentially open-ended malls situated around a central atrium. most are serviced by central escalators, and boast circumferential balconies on the upper floors, and occasionally level 1 is below grade. part retail, part food court, part public space, part corridor, they are infrastructure at its most versatile and express a generous idea about an ‘edificio’s’ relationship to the street and to the public.

the open-closed building is elsewhere evident; Lina Bo Bardi’s SESC Pompei leaves its gymnasium façades punctured by enormous holes and entrances, USP’s architecture building is organized around a courtyard accessed through an open entry between the building’s pilotis, not to mention its library patio, created from a void in the plane of the glazing and pushed to the floorplate’s utmost edge. unforgettably though, in spite of its airy, flexible layout, the architecture school is simultaneously becoming cave/grotto: lime, which is leaking from the concrete ceiling, has created baby stalactites which hang down like icicles from the waffled ceiling. in one spot, i found a small bump on the floor. it was the beginning of a stalagmite.

posting from within the tranquil ground-floor of the Copan, SP. here is where the building´s genius truly lies, the street´s topography coaxed into this small-town arcade of laundromats, coffee-shops, and video stores. the ground falls away in a graceful curve, like the building´s facade.

forty-eight. tidbits: M.C.´s generosity.
* the flag in the Zocolo. a monumentally-sized favorite meeting spot, especially in the mid-afternoon sun, when the billowy fabric above throws a wafting shadow on the stones + people below.


* a tiny amphitheatre + reading space within the .5 mile underground corridor between the Zocolo + the Pino Suarez metro stations. this entire subterranean route has a reading theme, and is lined with small, glaze-fronted bookstores and the occasional corridor cafe.


* 9.21, an attempt at color in a low-income housing project, Ixtapaluca. the accretion and the sameness look neurotic, but at least cheerfully so. this city-outskirt settlement brings with it an entire typology of suburban accoutrement: down the street is a Wal-mart / Suburbia complex + Burger King. however, mixed heterogeneously into the big-box virus remains the fabric of small-scale storefront retail, which remains dominant. an outdoor market a few miles down the road was, in effect, an outdoor Wal-Mart in scope and variety of affordable junk available: electrical plugs, colorful underwear, cheap tools, fried food, artificially-flavored sweets, health + beautycare, etc.

* between Ixtapaluca and the city, along high-speed rte. 190, the wall between the roadside towns and the highway is punctured every few miles to allow for a pasero stop + bright-yellow pedestrian overpass. as the road approaches the city, more formal housing blocks are separated from the highway via a wide tree-planted median, upon which i saw a few joggers.


* Sunday in Alameda Park. the place overflows with public enjoyment. couples laze on the patches of grass, hawkers sell food, jewelry, and music, the city’s Secretary of Culture sponsors staged events (ex. hyper-slick DJ’s from Germany). a handful got their serious groove-on while the rest gawk-bobbed in curiosity. the beats were hard and seductive for a lazy afternoon.


* always, the easily-accessible publication of events, which makes free gallery openings and $1 concerts a near-daily event. Claudia Nierman’s show was strange but sporadically smart, juxtaposing soft images of the body with the metallic or stone overlays of buildings, statues, stairs, doorframes, dilapidated corners of rooms: “it is hard to tell what is soft and what is hard, what is foreground and what is back. does the building or the body come first, and who is clothing whom? are buildings openings to the body, or the body openings to buildings? do we inhabit space, or does it inhabit our cavities?” i also went to Stephan Demming´s video exhibit, ‘The Edge of the City,’ re. his documentary by the same name. traveler, cartographer, video-wandered, director, and collage artist, he seeks to understand the urban boundary as being comprised of ‘spaces and daily activities’ rather than of lines, walls, and rules.

Mexico City’s graphic communication cannot be underestimated. its historical legacy of non-verbal public communication in the way of murals extends to the functional everyday (ex. transit), and makes it one of the more freely-navigable metropolises i have been in. moreover, the graffiti, while generally mediocre, is occasionally brilliant: a blank double-panel sidewalk-level billboard space of light blue paper over layers of older paper + rust had been carved into and read, via the removal of layers, the thick letters: PARANOIA PARADISE... on a main avenue, for all to celebrate.

9.24 Nezahualcoyoti, garbagetown dusk.
a highly-gridded area squeezed on the edge of the FD boundary, just beyond the reach of the Pantitlan Metrostation, Neza is home to a handful of famous athletes and criminals whose past-times include Olympic bike-racing, boxing, and the collection of human ears. the streets are as straight as a razor, and on clear days, lead southward to a stunning view of snow-covered Popo. the main drag is graced with another center median, thickly grown and narrow, upon which a woman was picking some herbs, and at one point in the middle of which a basketball court was barely squeezed. the vitality of the downtown area petered out at a place called ‘garbagetown,’ where my acquaintance once played as a child, and now avoids like the plague, understandably – although there was no stench. still, the melancholy sight of isolated shacks amidst heaps of plastic flyaway scraps and the silhouettes in the distance – human figures, backhoes, and a torn Mexican flag, blowing in the wind – could not be soothed by the mountains and the hugeness of the sky on that elevated plain. desolate, deep purple. the ride home this last night in the City was long and silent.

forty-seven. city edges.
9.19, Vitali + Cuautepec
heavy rain made the evening commute more brutal than usual. usually walkable distances were rendered intolerable (street and sidewalk flooding due to poor drainage is a serious issue). moreover, the frequency of trains can be erratic, so flow volume accumulated quickly and the 5 minute waits yielded already-full compartments. after waiting two rounds without successful embarkation, i ran home in the rain – by far the quickest way to cover a mile in such conditions, rail, taxi or bus included. for all the traffic, however, the paseros here are so easy to use, as most routes end or begin at Metro stations, so even if you’re not sure exactly where you’re going there are navigable benchmarks that allow you to plug back into the mapped Metro system. more importantly, the buses are well-signed, in contrast to Jo’burg, where mini-bus know-how was entirely by word of mouth and experience. however, some residents swear against them – their horrid road rules (or lack thereof), the corruption and perceived disorganization of the system (cronies leasing buses at impossible rates, licenses which are sold first and foremost for profit), the sheer shoddiness of some vehicles.

the day was incredible though, and was spent traveling to the city fringe by Metrobus, pasero, and then foot (Mexico city is the first city i’ve been in that supports the textbook zoom derive). it pertinently ended at a gallery opening of Massimo Vitali’s “A portfolio of landscapes with figures.” (http://www.massimovitali.com/) his large-format, washed out photos feature hordes of people vacation-playing against a backdrop of sea, snow, and industry. the human figures loom plasticine and super-saturated while the mountains, smokestacks, or granite-cliffs fade into abstract washes in the background. the density and clarity of his figures render his canvases into ‘Where’s Waldo’ exercises; invariably he captures a handful of figures either looking straight at, or deliberately hiding from, the camera. more innocently, he also captures couples in various states of (dis)affection, people frozen in physical play, or in self-conscious self-scrutiny (a women primping in a compact mirror, another women adjusting her bikini-clad breasts, etc.). the tone of his work is complex – at first the harsh, surreal color schemes read like frigid satire, but the subjects are too detailed to become symbolic; in spite of their sheer number each remains a subject clearly demarcated in space, suspended in water, sliding over snow, sunning on rock, pursuing health, beauty, and fun, but imperfectly so – bodies are squishy, faces are caught in distorted expression, azure waters support oil tankers in the distance. his panoramas are especially poignant, as he leaves the edge of each frame ambiguous and slightly overlapping, such that the movement of figures can be followed from one frame to the next. i can’t say whether the work is politically laden, but it does offer a succinct representation of the human compulsion to embrace nature, industry, and play in equal measure. the fact that this juxtaposition is rarely idyllic simply highlights the ultimate inevitability of human fallacy.

today’s earlier exploration out to Cuautepec was marked by topography, density, and an essential interplay of the official and informal that is distinctly Mexico City (or what I have observed of it). Indios Verdes is the northern terminus of both the Metrobus and line 3 of the Metro; from there it is a stop-start 45 minute ride further north into the Cuautepec district, which is pressed against a mountainous ecological conservation zone and is within the northernmost protrusion of the Federal District’s boundary. as the road gently slopes up to meet the hills, dense commercial activity and stoplights give way to smaller-scale shops, diminished traffic, and densely packed CMU housing that clings and climbs up the hill. however, the sense of a main road (or two) is maintained, from which near-vertical stairs or secondary roads off-shoot perpendicularly, maintaining a surprising loyalty to the grid which rules so much of the downtown layout (and which is a legacy of cosmically-driven Aztec city planning). from a distance it was unclear whether the neighborhoods were serviced by infrastructure, but powerlines, streetlights, paved roads, and sewage pipes that follow the road layout attest to the positive, as did an FD garbage truck and squeaky clean streets. visually, it is difficult to not feel enamored at the sight of this extremely topographical, high-density residential area where most grey single family homes reveal vivid splashes of color on doors or window frames (although some older, lower, larger houses were entirely painted, and not necessarily for the better).

the pasero climbed up into this well-ordered melee for a surprising distance, almost to the visible edge of allowable building zone. this is marked distinctly by a wall which snakes horizontally over the ridges of the hills, and resembles a less-glamorous Great Wall. (this settlement boundary is visible on other hillsides around the city fringe and is not limited to Cuautepec). the walls are built once the informal settlements begin to grow, and the infrastructural services are the result of community mobilization and petitioning of the government. curious as to what happens at this literal edge i climbed further until the wall revealed itself as a simple concrete boundary, no higher than my 5’2”, mostly grafittied, and usually topped with a second layer of chain-link. however, the wall had a gate, which was open, and which led into the conservation zone and along a path of extremely green, pristine grass, lush wildflowers, and copious eucalyptus trees. it was stunning, the contrast to the hill houses made more startling by the proximity of the highly built to the left-untouched, and the apparent respect for the wall’s function as boundary seemingly total. in other words, the hardness of the boundary and its efficaciousness allowed for the proximity and extreme contrast, and i was left wondering how/why the wall’s legitimacy is so-well maintained. perhaps the presence of infrastructural service (and its obvious absence of the other side) might partly account.

also noteworthy was the fact that in areas where the foothills were steepest and closest to the main street, social and commercial activity were more vibrant, perhaps due to a greater population flow down into flat open space, but also, i surmise, because of a spatial-visual effect that renders the main street + hill into something of an abstract, intuitive plaza or coliseum-like space. as i mentioned before, i have seen churches and public spaces here that are demarcated by descent, and wonder if public space in these hills isn’t created as a hollow collects water by gravity. relatedly, the steepest streets were the most colorful -- the most well-planted, the most occupied, the best-cared for.



Ecatepec, 9.17.
back-tracking here... Ecatepec municipality is beyond the boundary of the FD but is still within the Mexico City Metropolitan Zone, and is the conurbation’s largest municipality (after the FD). many of its residents commute into the city, thus justifying Metro line B’s extension far beyond the FD boundary in order to service the area (while most Metro lines stay within the FD). out here the line resembles the Pittsburgh-Bay Point BART -- aboveground, sandwiched between opposing lanes of Av. Hank Gonzalez -- the station serving not so much as an urban node as a pit-stop along a highway from which subsidiary transit carries passengers into the towns that have their own centers, far from the highway. immediately adjacent to the highway and the overpass-station there is a hectic tangle of paseros, a smattering of street-stalls, and another Wal-mart/Suburbia shopping center. everything feels transitory in this zone, ready to escape.

the VW-style mini-van pasero is more prevalent out here than the army-tanker style pasero that runs roughshod in Mexico City center. since the highway + metro split the area into two distinct halves, i headed west, towards the distant hills which were draped in what looked to be informal housing. true to the grid, a highly developed thoroughfare ran due west perpendicular to the highway, and i walked for a couple miles along this road, passing through several distinct zones – a predominately noisy and congested commercial area close to the highway, followed by a smaller-scale, predominately auto-repair area with perpendicular mews-like shared yards between rows of facing homes (see photo above; they were amazingly tranquil and well-planted spaces for such proximity to the main drag), then over a canal which was a distinct border into a slightly less well-kept area of similar use, across the busy Via Morelos and suddenly into an industrial zone of semi-trucks, warehouses, dusty roads and mostly men. food processing seemed to be the dominant industry; i saw a truckload of beans, and smelled sweet caramel as i continued towards the hills, trying to look as non-chalant as possible with my Chaco’d toes and double X chromosomes. i never got there, however, as the industrial zone dead-ended into the Autopista Pachuca, with no visible way across, so i hung a sharp south and headed instead for a renegade hill with a smaller neighborhood clinging to its slopes.

this settlement hovered directly above the small industrial area in what was a poster-child candidate for environmental injustice. fortunately, the factories weren’t spewing smoke but emitting sugar-smells, and the only immediate pollution was that of a low rumble of machine noise. the several hundred houses up here were serviced only by uneven dirt roads that could barely support auto-traffic but that were a healthy playground for 4-legged furries (dogs, cats, horses) and that provided the best views in the area. it is still strange to see this socio-economic inversion in relation to topography; i am accustomed to hills, as in the U.S., being areas of prime real-estate for the views they afford. here in Mexico, the plain is prime, the hills are inconvenient, and create an edge against which the undesired is pushed, along with the highways and the industry. in a city that developed long before the engine and was once surrounded by lake, this penchant for the flat and center makes sense, while i surmise that SF or LA’s initial spatial divisions are less divorceable from a carriage, tram, or car’s ability to navigate the distance and curves.

after a quiet hour exploring the hillside, i descended dusty-footed down an informal footpath that overlooked a grocery store and landed in the backyard of a gas station where i waited for my maniacal bus-ride home. along the (terrifying) way we followed a decommissioned railway track that ran down the middle of a grassy median dividing the 6 lane road. although my driver believed otherwise, the road wasn’t a highway but was lined with shops, neighborhoods, pedestrians, and the railbed-median was tree-lined, suggesting great potential for a linear park. in other areas the tracks had been sheared to make room for a built intervention, leaving behind a ruin of of thick, cleaved iron ties.

once back downtown and re-plugged into the Metro system, i witnessed a chaotic outbound rush hour scene in which arm-waving cops were stationed at flimsy portable barricades in order to ensure that no men lined up for the first two train compartments. a recent campaign to reserve these cars for women-only is the result of an alleged increase in harassment, and while many stations yield signs demarcating as much, these are rarely heeded. in a crowded city where 2 out of 6 seem to travel as a couple, the system has yet to prove its pragmatism or pragmatism, and as such, it is not yet defened by the city's public.

forty-six. collection: recollections.
my days have been less cohesive of late due to some logistical nightmares, so here are a few small pockets from along the way...

Independence celebration at the Zocolo, p.m. 9.15.
the Zocolo celebration began with an appetizer on the 42nd floor of the Torre Latino, a 1950’s sky-scraper of still-graceful proportions and seismic stability (photos from the 1985 quake show surrounding low-stories in a heap of concrete and rebar rubble, while the tower remained unscathed...) i wanted to see what a crowd of 80,000 might look like from above, crammed into the streets that lead towards one of the world’s biggest public squares. seeing the city spread out in twilight was illuminating, the 9 to 5 business center strangely dark, and lights densifying towards the periphery and up into the hills and mountains that circle the city in organic pattern. the noise below was audible, as party horns were blown, and pedestrian hawkers shouted their wares into the crowds. the most popular were the aerosol cans of pseudo shave-cream, and ‘cream’-proof face masks that looked like riot guards. the shaving cream fights are one of the night’s most popular activity, perhaps acting as a stand-in for more vehement oppositional activity? it was easy to surmise from the 42nd floor that patriotism infuses infrastructure here, as every intersection glowed red, green, and white from the stoplights and headlights. it was also evident that, while the Zocolo draws the biggest crowd, more local celebrations were being held at smaller plazas, such as the Republica.

the entry to the square was armed with metal detectors and a line of riot-ready police, leaning solemnly in a row against a stone building. it was an alcohol-free event, although this does not explain the eager cops running out of 7-11 with a six-pack of beer in tow...still, this is probably a good decision given the sheer size of the crowd, the largest i have ever been in, and, uncannily, the calmest. after watching on megascreens the beautiful singer shake her red, white, & green booty on stage, the cameras focused on the small balcony of the Palacio Nacional, where Calderon was due to emerge at 11pm to deliver the annual grito (cry for Independence). this was preceded by twenty minutes of patriotic music delivered through speakers which hung, corpse-like, from cranes positioned throughout the square. lighted renditions of the flag and famous faces were aglow everywhere, hanging from the buildings, although as the evening wore on certain panels blacked out leaving behind patchwork visages. it was divinely windy enough for the massive centre-square Mexican flag to be catching some wind. (the only other flags i have seen that rival this one in size can be found along American autorows).

the president over-waited his enthusiastic welcome by trying to build too much anticipation. with the end of each song the crowd cheered and bleared, only to be greeted with another song (or, at one point, a dignitary coming onto the balcony and yelling, “uno!....dos!....tres!....” he then went back inside and the music continued). the one protest banner, earlier hanging from an upper balcony of a fancy rooftop restaurant, was removed; the banner had called from the ‘legitimate president’ (Obrador) to take office, following a too-close-to-call result scandal during the 2006 election (familiar?). by the time Calderon emerged, speck-sized, to give his 45 second hoorah, babies were crying, a few adults were yawning, and the event was anti-climactic. if nothing else, however, this ritual marked the beginning of a lengthy and dramatic firework display right over the crowd. a man not too far from us got pummeled in the face with a chunk of firework debris, and the rest of us did our best to simultaneously gape upwards while avoiding the ash-missiles which seemed attracted to the moist tissue of the eyes. it was a total blast (literally), and i felt a strange commiseration with the 4 year old girl who was bawling against her daddy’s shoulder while also pointing at the fireworks in amazement.

for all of the pomp, the evening’s most interesting events were subsidiary: the first was the experience of mass exodus once the fireworks ended. every crowd has its own behavior, and this one was akin to one big organism that, if it had a form, would be a large, squishy, slow, quiet being that was covered in confetti. it was similar to being on a ship -- rocked, rolled, and lulled by the sea, once in awhile being jolted but mostly being gently coerced into some forward motion that was neither flow nor a lurch but flurch. the second, more minor discovery was that of the best roast chicken-stand in the city, on the corner next to a 7-11 one block from Insurgentes Circle. at 2am, it was the evening’s biggest cause for celebration.




staccato Sunday, 9.16
the day was a musical score of highs and lows, each in quick succession. the 18th century Museo San Carlos building is situated around the corner from the Casa, and similarly to other uniquely sectioned entrances i have seen in Mexico, its foyer was approx 8’ below sidewalk level via stone stairs (recalling Tepotzlan’s churchyard, which is also entered through descent, and from more dusty memory, recalling Hong Kong shopping centers and hotels, which sometimes provide access to their sub-ground floors directly from the street). after leveling out for a pause the building’s roof disappears and opens into a slightly elliptical courtyard of horizontally diminutive but vertically expansive effect. the staircase which leads to the upper-storey exhibition space was also noteworthy, its underside supported by a quarter-arch, in turn supported by a column.

less than a half-dozen blocks away sleeps the recently (in)completed and thereafter closed hulk of Alberto Kalach’s Biblioteca Jose Vasconelos. prematurely opened in May 2006, allegedly in too-quick time for the election, the library has already closed its doors for repair due to leaks and water damage. when i visited, a pair of bored guards sat in the foyer while the echoes of music played somewhere from within the concrete and glass bowels. unable to gain access inside i craned my neck at the quarter-mile long louvered facade and lamented the shoddy detailing (glazing that meets concrete floor via bead of silicone, for ex.) and the already fatigued look of disuse and neglect. the library’s adjacent bookstore is a single-storey glass box whose entrance is (again) sunken into a small courtyard, but the stone of the courtyard floor has already broken from sub-ground swelling and two of the large glass panels are broken (perhaps in protest, for many feel that this ill-managed mega-project was politically driven and a poor use of funds). there were no sounds of construction, and i am hoping that this was simply due to Sunday, rather than to prolonged inertia, which will likely turn the monolith into an even bigger moneypit.

around the corner from the library i beheld my first Mexico City Wal-Mart, which i have since noticed is often co-sited with a pink-hued ‘Suburbia’ department store and a VIPS orange-hued restaurant chain. it was and wasn’t just like American Wal-Mart: the warehouse size was nearly as big, but the parking was urban – stacked indoor garage, cramped outdoor space; the interior was stuffed with cheap crap, but of a much more radical hue; there were baked goods for sale, but some through bake-sale style open tables and bare hands; the sidewalk outside sported the usual ambulantes for the non-VIPS patrons. despite these small tokens of indigenous adoption, however, the corporation’s presence here never fails to raise a problematic response from myself and other travelers; people at the Casa who would never step foot inside the mega-store now willingly do so in order to patronize the produce department, where dark-green leafy things are on sale (hard to get at the stalls and corner stores). moreover, it is not just the arguable homogenization that the corporation represents so much as it is its mission to provide low-cost cheap shit. (don’t get me wrong – there is plenty of low-cost cheap shit on the street and in the mom and pop shops, but something about the smaller scale makes it at least visually more palatable).

from Wal-Mart a Metrobus ride took me south to our old Condesa haunt to see a mapping exhibit, where a Sunday afternoon revealed swarms of the well-dressed meandering through Parque Mexico (once a race track) and sipping espresso on sidewalk cafes. Condesa is currently the happening gourmand’s neighborhood, and pretty food served on very large plates were in abundance at its multiple eateries. the exhibit already over, i opted for the long walk home through Insurgentes Circle up to Paseo de la Reforma. Insurgentes is worth mentioning for its amazing sectional quality in which a circular roundabout for bus and cars is elevated above a sunken plaza lined with retail shops, which are tucked beneath the road itself. in order to get into the plaza there are stairs which pass under the roadway. to the north, this tunnel-underpass shields a cluster of densely packed tarp-covered street stalls which produce a cacophony of music. these stalls give way to a more formalized tree-lined pedestrian mall (Genova Ave), which dead-ends into Paseo de la Reforma’s regal officialness, along with the freakish series of ‘art benches’ that line the avenue. these are, for the most part, unused, but some are humorous and bizarre (ex...the bench for two that looks like cemetery headstones), and a few make for cozy teenage make-out nooks. not surprisingly, most people choose to sit on the plain stone benches.


evening cowboys in the rain, 9.18
i saw something new this afternoon, which was a man on the metro doing somersaults over a pile of glass which he carried around in a pouch made from a tee-shirt. there was a momentary buzz of amazement inside the compartment, but after one or two rolls people went back to what they were doing.

i also thought of cowboys this afternoon, having taken the Metrobus north to its terminus at Indios Verdes, and again, praying for my life in the process. at Indios Verdes all spectrum of transit formality is present; in this part of town the Metro runs aboveground through the middle of Insurgentes, which here swells to become the Autopista Mexico Pachuca, rising into the hills. the Metrobus terminus lies to the west of the road, where on one side of a fence the clean red, white, and green Metrobuses line up, and on the other, a mass of private buses lie in semi-chaotic wait to embark on their routes due north and west. they range in size from the mini-van variety up to the behemoth tourbus-type. the back of the lot is relegated to vehicle maintenance and cleaning, where drivers with oily hands peer into hoods and under tail-pipes, sweep accumulated garbage from the bus onto the ground, and otherwise hang out until work calls. it felt not unlike a corral, and while the modern-day horse has always been the motorcycle, i wondered if these men weren’t of a similar cowboy genre, reckless and itinerant within the urban landscape, somewhat collectively organized but ultimately out to fight the city traffic, and each other, in solitude. more than half the buses i have been on boast a prominent religious icon front and center above the windshield, usually Jesus. i have yet to decide whether this is a soothing thing, or whether it means i am in the hands of a driver where only Hail-Mary’s will save me.