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.
