Prepare to sigh

Pedro Infante sings a goosebump-inducing serenade in "Escuela de Vagabundos" (1955).

Teenage poet

This last week, except for when I was working on my tan in Acapulco, has felt very intellectual. Not for anything I did, heck no (although I did start a reading a book! see below.) More like this week I've come across a number of characters who've reminded me of Mexico City's creative wealth, which I've been so busy chasing down at the music school that I've forgotten to look for it elsewhere.

The main character:  A teenage poet named Juan García Madero in The Savage Detectives. I'm reading about this guy as he cavorts through my own favorite neighborhoods in Mexico City in the 1970s, back before the traffic made a trip between Coyoacán and El Centro a half-day ordeal. His shenanigans are adding a whole new layer of wonder to my daily errands. Maybe moody college dropouts actually DID do drugs and write poems on the roof of the building near the park where I recently listened to Sufjan Stevens on my iPod! 

The teenage poet is also inspiring me to be bolder and more curious in Spanish conversations with strangers, rather than my old habit of getting to the point and scurrying away. 

For instance, last week I was at an acoustic hip-hop show at a bar in the swanky Condesa neighborhood. When I came out of the bathroom, I was surprised to see that most of the bar's patrons were momentarily paralyzed, staring at something on the TV behind my head like I imagine people would an alien disembarking from a UFO. I turned around and realized they were watching the new Britney video. I looked back at the crowd of (mostly male) admirers, and must have shaken my head or something, because one of them managed to tear himself away for long enough to run over and apologize profusely.

"I'm sorry! I can't help it! She's so amazing!" He said, gesticulating wildly in a way that made me think he was Italian. Then I realized that meant he was Argentine. 

I was heading towards my friends, but decided to stick around and see what this guy was about, as the teenage poet would probably do. Turns out this Britney fan is also a multimedia artist living in the superhip/quaint neighborhood of Tlalpan, and happened to be at the bar to celebrate the opening of his latest exhibition. Me and the teenage poet high-fived in my head. The artist and I proceeded to get tacos and while discussing vegetarianism, what ever happened to Straight Edge, and differences between Santa Claus and Baby Jesus in Argentina. That was fun.

A few nights later, I went to a dinner party along with two lady friends. The host was a Harvard-educated Mexican dude who knows how to cook and works at a think tank (pronounced "tink-tank"). When his two equally educated and foxy buddies showed up, one after another, to his chic apartment, I started to feel like I was in a binational episode of Friends. 

We proceeded to have a wonderful night of conversation in which the three dudes listened attentively to us, made no comments about our eye color, and explained that the constant teasing among males is a way of expressing affection in a machista society. One of them drove me home and didn't ask for my number. I climbed the stairs to my apartment beaming, and considered deleting Macho Cheese.

Finally, today's random and life-enhancing conversation was with a security guard. I was passing by Teatro Iris in the heart of the Historic Downtown, where I saw him looking horribly bored. I ducked in and pretended to need a brochure of the theater's schedule. He gave me one. I couldn't think of anything to say, but the teenage poet told me to stick around. 

"There's a museum upstairs," the guard said eventually, pointing up with his finger. "It's free."

So I went upstairs, and that's where I saw this photograph. It made my day in the way that I don't think a photo ever has. If I could write my own verse of "My Favorite Things" from the Sound of Music, and then take a picture of that verse, this would be it.

Audio Postcard: Croonings from Acapulco

While I toil away at an entry for my glitzier blog about my weekend in Acapulco, please enjoy the song that has been stuck in my head ever since I got there and first got a load of this view.

The singer is Nat King Cole, on his 1958 tour through Latin America. He recorded this song on his stop in Rio de Janeiro, backed by a Brazilian orchestra of extremely talented musicians, many of whom sported tiny mustaches.

The song doesn't technically have anything to do with Acapulco, except that it was part of the tidal wave of tropical-themed media that washed over the U. S., Europe, and Latin America in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, etching the tourist-destination destiny of Latin beach towns like Acapulco in stone.

One more thing that they have in common: Both are, in my opinion, fantástico. Wish I could say the same for Nat's accent.

Don't try this accent at home: Nat King Cole learned Spanish phonetically in order to record three Spanish-language albums (Cole Español [1958], A Mis Amigos [1959], and More Cole Español [1962]) and tour Latin America. Considered one of the first American "crossover artists," he was enthusiastically received by Latino audiences and was invited to stay with the President of Brazil during his tour.

But I do know that I love you

Note: Monday is Mexican Revolution Day (didn't we just have one of these?), so no class for me. Therefore I am taking a last-minute and probably undeserved trip to the beach. 

Dear Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa,

Before I go to the beach for a three-day weekend, I want to say a quick thanks for the Revolution of 1910. I can't go into greater depth about it because it was extremely long and confusing and I get it confused with other revolutions. I also don't want to look like I'm taking sides on such a bloody movement, which resulted in lots of people (including you) getting assassinated, and 70 years of single-party rule. 

I have to admit that even though I wrote a paper on your uprisings in my Latin American History course, I still get you guys mixed up. It's the mustaches. People here seem to be divided on whether you were well-meaning guys or bandits. But they keep naming subway stops and restaurants after you. So it's hard to imagine what Mexico would be like without you.

Villa and Zapata enjoy a quiet moment together in the Palacio Nacional in 1914, after their armies converged in Mexico City. Villa sits on the presidential throne where Porfirio Diaz sat for 34 years, while Zapata is cool with just savoring the historic photo op. Otilio Montaño, professor and the David Axelrod of Zapata's Tierra y Libertad campaign, is wearing a head bandage on the right.

And Mr. Villa - I went to a restaurant downtown where you reportedly walked in and shot your gun at the ceiling. Was this before or after you ate? I thought you'd be pleased to know that the bullet hole is still there, and since then someone has drawn a circle around it.

Sincerely,

Me.

C'mon, feel the NAFTA

My crush on mariachi music can probably be traced back to a single source: Disney's The Three Caballeros (1944). My brother won a copy of it in a coloring contest at the supermarket, when he was 6, and I was 4.

It wasn't till college that I learned that this flick, which I had memorized down to every last one of Donald Duck's Brazilian booty-shakes, was propaganda billed by F.D.R. to promote his Good Neighbor Policy. It took me awhile to get over this. Apparently he hoped that the U.S., Mexico, and The Rest Of Latin America (represented by a cigar-smoking Brazilian parrot) could be BFFs* like these cartoon birds. 

*so that the United Fruit Company and the U. S. Military could keep on exploiting and occupying Latin countries. SLEEPOVER!!

Dream wedding

On Friday I woke up on a couch in Miami as a Boston terrier named Twiggy licked my face. I heard voices speaking Swiss German in the kitchen, giggling over the sound of techno music and frying eggs. For a second, I experienced a complete reversal of my first few mornings in Mexico, this time waking up and freaking out about not being there.

Slowly I got my thoughts together. I spotted my yellow high heels heaped in the corner and suddenly [kinda] remembered the bachelorette party. Oh my god, I was home in the USA! Felt like a dream.

and my brother was there...

And it KEPT feeling that way. My visit was weird, a surprisingly smooth mixture of familiar and foreign. In many ways it felt too good to be true, and it was over in a flash.

If your dreams are like mine, they bring together people from totally separate spheres of your life. This wedding was no different. I was riding down sunny highways with my brother, long-lost cousin, and two college roommates who know me well, but hardly know each other. I decided that the only logical missing character in this dream was my mariachi teacher. 

So when mariachis surprised us at the wedding reception, blowing into their trumpets from the balcony of the bride's childhood home, I froze. Where was I? Even more bizarre, we guests (Swiss cousins included) enjoyed the serenade from below the balcony, not on it. The mariachis were up there in our place, their sombreros silhouetted by the moon. A total switcheroo. Typical dream stuff.

After rolling off the couch with Twiggy that morning, I had chatted with my hosts and then sat out on their front steps while they got ready for their wedding duties. Unshowered and still dressed my club clothes, I was a greasy speck in middle of a pastel-painted and sun-saturated suburb. 

I took a walk under a line of palm trees towards the Intercoastal. The sidewalk was so smooth and blemish-free that I walked around the block barefoot. I thought about Mexico City's sidewalks, which are considered fabulous for simply existing. They look as though they've been through a series of earthquakes—which, come to think of it, they have.

Prior to this trip, I had been nervous that I would love Florida too much. I was afraid it would somehow awaken the spoiled American in me and make me dread getting back on a plane to Mexico. But it turns out I had underestimated both countries and myself. So instead of awakenings, I just enjoyed a quick recharge of my batteries in the English-speaking, blue Florida sun.

That was the dream, and my 7:05 Sunday flight back to Benito Juárez International Airport was reality. At the gate, I made a last-minute round of calls from my American cell phone before turning it off for another six weeks. I kinda felt sad about not feeling sad about what a big deal it wasn't.

I boarded my plane and opened a copy of Archaeología Mexicana, a wildly popular bimonthly magazine that reports on the latest archeological finds and Mexico's cultural curiosities. It sells alongside Spanish-language Playboy and Cosmopolitan at most Mexico City newsstands.  The latest issue happens to be about where Mexican music comes from.

I hunkered down and forced myself to read in Spanish, circling words I didn't recognize, planning to look them up when I got home. I needed to warm up, I told myself, if I was to avoid being a clumsy mumbler when I went through immigration. When I eventually landed and reached the officer's desk, though, I was happy to discover that I slipped back into neighborly conversation with ease. I knew where I was and felt wide awake.

Turn the page

A plane crash just a few blocks from my apartment has dampened considerably the election elation in Mexico City. The sounds of sirens provided an eerie backdrop to the Embassy party last night. We stood on a balcony and spotted plumes of smoke rising from the park, while we were served wine, hot dogs and hamburgers by a white-tuxedoed catering staff.

The big screens in the banquet hall switched back and forth between cheering crowds in Chicago, and Mexican pedestrians running for their lives from a plane crash that many suspect was an act of drug cartel terrorism. My friends and I stood and stared, in awe of the complex world that awaits Barack Obama's administration. From the conversations I had with Mexicans my age last night, many of whom are embarking on their own careers in Mexican politics and government, the relief we shared over Obama's victory was only deepened by their overwhelming uneasiness about Mexico's security.

But we couldn't keep from celebrating. I wound up at an expat bar just in time to catch Obama's speech, after calling my parents in a speeding taxi and leaving an extremely jealous voicemail on my brother's phone as he celebrated in Grant Park. When I made it through the door, I stood on a chair, grabbed a random caballito of tequila and started scanning the crowd for my friends, with whom I immediately engaged in a mixture of hugging and borderline crowd-surfing.

And now the moment I've been waiting for, for four whole years. I present you with a fresh batch of online away messages and facebook statuses, compiled today at noon, which can finally replace this total bummer of a list from November 2004.

• This facebooker is estatic. And can't find any copies of the Times.
  
• This facebooker is riding high after witnessing history.
• This facebooker is toasting to Obama: woo hoo!!
• This facebooker is looking forward to the next four years...for once!
• This facebooker can't stop smiling.
• This facebooker is all smiles.
• This facebooker is feeling so solid.
• This facebooker is elated and speechless.
• This facebooker is blown away by the city he loves. Sweet home of Obama. That rally was amazing guys... Mind blowing. I was also on Fox News!
• This facebooker is so excited for the possibilities ahead.
• This facebooker is screaming, "YES WE DID!"
• This facebooker is celebrating...with wine.....and joy....and HELL YEAH!!
• This facebooker doesn't know how she'll get anything done today.
• This facebooker is Amavericka!
• This facebooker feels American again.
• This facebooker is choked-up.
• This facebooker is whew.
• This facebooker needs me some confetti!
• This facebooker is at home in Ohio, politically speaking.
• This facebooker is O(migodImProudOfMyCountry)bama.