Through the Roof and Underground in Mexico City

Overlooking Mos Eisley, Obi Wan Kenobi says to Luke Skywalker: “…you will never see such a wretched hive of scum and villainy.” Approaching the DF at sunset the clouds a metallic orange clinging to the mountains and volcanoes –Popocatépetl and Ixtlaccíhuatl – I had the same feeling in suspension over the mass of humanity, of experiencing the sinister from afar while serpents of vehicles and pedestrians went slithering through the overpopulated valley that Mexico City occupies. At one and the same time, I could see the villainous scum but also the life of a city busting its britches, exploding in movement. Once at ground level, one comes face to face with the urchins that wait at intersections swarming like armies hovering over cars to wash their windshields their faces black with the city soot their water bottles half full of soapy water and the drivers not daring to look into their eyes waving them off with their fingers. Once in the barrios de las afueras you can go to a place like taquería Paisa where a man stands behind a grill cooking lengua, suadero, longaniza, al pastor, sesos putting them into tacos, sopes, gorditas and huaraches. His wife takes orders while his daughter plays with tortilla dough some of it in her hair learning the ways of her father, who inherited the hole-in-the-wall taco stand from his father before him. This is Mexico City. He laments the quantity of people the hatred people have for each other because in a city of 20 million it is very easy to hate others. You can´t get away from them. A couple of federales enter the joint, the cops flirt with a woman painted pink by nocturnal activity. When we get the bill it is almost as if we were robbing this humble father and his family. We leave a large tip and escape into the DF night one that inspires life and madness where phantoms and specters of Aztecs and conquistadores still battle.

Anybody that has been to Mexico knows that the sights, sounds, smells and tastes can be overwhelming. This sensory overload is concentrated in Mexico City. Walking downtown you can feel the ghosts that inhabited the capital of the ancient empire where Spain as a superpower dwindled its resources and established a binary system of 1s and 0s of whites and Indians of rich and poor of light and dark. These dualisms have eclipsed exploding into the fractal chaos that Mexico City represents now. Tenochtitlán splattered and sunken into a pit millennia old. Mexico City is SuperMexico. Mexico on 10 hits of acid. 20 million people spontaneously combusting leaving nowhere to go except through the roof and underground. If Mexico City is SuperMexico, then going to a Mexican wrestling match is HiperMexico. Even better after visiting the medieval torture museum near Bellas Artes , another sign that the Mexican dark humor and fascination with death is still alive. They would not let me bring the camera in but this is what it was like outside the luchas libres. These were not nearly as chaotic as the scenes we witnessed before and during the match but you get the point. We left early and these represent the calm before the storm. James participates in the primitive hipercapitalismo with the street vendors selling shirts made in China with poorly written French. The images that follow are only vague footprints of the Mexico we have explored.