Para el Cuarto de Baño

Of all the things I picked up in Mexico, this is my favorite. I don't think Andi likes it that much.

¡Lucha Libre! (un otra vez)

I specifically booked my flight back to Philly on a Saturday so I would still be in town for Friday night's Lucha Libre! As most everyone had left the hotel on Friday morning, I ended up catching a cab and going by myself.

I had a great conversation with the taxi driver. As he spoke almost no English in was primarily in Spanish—so I got some good practice. When we got to Arena México he asked me, "¿Tiene un billete?" "No, no tengo un billete, I answered. (No, I don't have a ticket.) "No compra billetes en las calle. ¿Entiende? "Si," I said as I exited the taxi. "Yo entiendo." As I opened the door, I was mobbed by the hawkers selling tickets. I pushed past them to the window to buy a ticket, and then made my way inside.

Los días final en México

So.... my commitment to keeping this blog current while I traveled through Mexico didn't quite stay consistent. I've been back in the U.S. for a week, and my blog needs an ending. So here goes:

The last few days were spent catching up on sightseeing. One more trip to the Mercado Cuidadela, and then a visit to the Museo Mural de Diego Rivera, the Instituto Nacional De Bellas Artes (it was closed), the Palacio de Correos de Mexico across the street, and then Museo de Arte Popular. My friends from the U.S. had all left Mexico City by Friday morning, so I enjoyed the time by myself.

¡Lucha Libre!

Retrato de Lupe Marin

On Tuesday morning, I went to visit my favorite piece of art in Mexico: “Retrato de Lupe Marin,” by Diego Rivera, painted in 1938.

I’ve been describing the painting to my friends ever since I got here, talking passionately about it to anyone who will listen: “It’s huge; about ten by six feet. It’s Diego’s Rivera’s first wife, Lupe Marin, and it was painted after their divorce, after he left her for Frida Kahlo. You’re looking up at her, with a forced perspective, and she looks even more imposing. She has a neon green pallor, and she’s painted in such a way that… you can tell Diego Rivera both loved her and desired her, and hated her intensely; hated that he loved her.”

It made a big impression on me the last time I saw it—probably in 2006, when I was here for one of the first piercing seminars put on by the APP. My life has changed a lot in that time.

When I was at the museum, I almost walked past it. It’s much smaller than the painting I told people it was: the Internet lists it as 171.3 x 122.3 cm  (about six by four feet). The green color of her skin is there, but definitely not as garish as I remember, and she didn’t look like the monster that I’ve been describing to my friends.

I stood in front of the painting and studied it; I stared at it for probably a half an hour. I stared at her hands, her feet, her reflection in the mirror behind her. But mostly, I looked at her face.

Her mouth had the sexual sneer I remembered—the lips painted red and open, with a wanton, teeth-exposing part to her lips—but there was something else there too… a kind of pained grimace. I kept looking at her eyes: why are her eyes so ill defined when everything else is so vibrant? They look clouded, or like… she’s crying.

She wasn’t the detestable ex-wife of last trip’s painting; she’s a woman deserving of sympathy; the sympathy for someone who loves you, but who’s no longer gets your love in return. She’s a monument; a beautiful woman who he could no longer show the love, the affection she deserved. You can look at the painting and hear her say, “Diego, ¿por qué no me haces hermosa? Why can’t you make me beautiful? It’s shows Lupe’s painful longing—for Diego?

Santo, en "El Tesoro de Dracula"

Desde el Mercado Legunilla in la Ciudad de Mexico.

Oaxaca (Dia de los Muertos)

(Mientras escribo esto, Bethra y yo estamos en el primer autobús de la mañana a la Ciudad de México. No tengo wi-fi, así que probablemente voy a publicar cuando lleguemos al hotel.)

I usually feel right at home in Oaxaca's vibrant ex-pat population, but this trip it was hard to not feel like an ugly American with the swarm of tourists who descend on the town for la Dia de los Muertos. I’ve been spending a lot of time with Bethra, so the last two days consisted of a lot of markets and eating, and we had to wade through the sea of people to get to our favorite food spots.

Friday, after the markets, we headed over to la Galeria Gorilla. Jason, from Gorilla Glass, played host for visitors from all over for this year's festivities. Many stayed at the Gorilla Glass factory, while a few of us bunked off-site at one of several hotels. I saw many of my good “traveling friends”: people from the body-modification industry and around who I only see a few times a year, but who I still consider friends—and several of them good friends. Bethra, (from Atlanta), Adam (from Brooklyn), Corey, Lysa (and Todd), and Andrea (from San Francisco and the Bay) Autumn Swisher and Shon (from Nomad in San Francisco), Kevin (from Phoenix), Jimmy Buddha (from Austin), Ron Garza and his wife Nakota (from Long Beach, California), and a few others I was meeting for the first time. While we waited, Corey, Meno, and Luna worked on the traditional alter in the courtyard in back of the gallery.

After dark, about ten of us followed Jason over to a group show (where he had a piece on display) in an amazing space that was basically a courtyard inside an abandoned, decaying building. After this, we headed back to la Galeria Gorilla for the performance scheduled for later that evening.

Around 8 p.m., we were led into the gallery for the evening’s performance: “Bridge of Mud and Feathers.” It was performance piece Japanese-American Shibari bondage practitioner and educator Midori and suspension artist Samar. In the small space, Midori, in Butoh-inspired costuming, adorned a rope-trussed Samar with flowers, and then Jimmy Buddha and Muffe, both gilded, attached red chord to Samar’s already-inserted hooks and suspended her off the floor. As she spun, Midori smeared ink over parts of her body, than pressed paper to her body, creating crude paper prints. It was quite beautiful.

 Afterward, Bethra and I headed over to the Panteon Antiguo.  It’s a cemetery fully-enclosed by a sort of mausoleum wall, and inside it’s a party as people visit graves and socialize, both in and out of costume. We’re both early risers, so we were in bed before midnight.

We visited the Gorilla Glass factory the next day for stories of the insane, all-night drunken march through the Oaxacan hills for the traditional celebration of mescal and food. Part of me wishes I could have seen it; part of me knows I wouldn't have survived it. It seemed like everyone else barely did.

(En el autobus, la pelicula “Spider-Man” in playing—en español—mientras Bethra y yo estamos viendo “Fuego” con Isabel Sarli en mi computadora. La turistas que estan detrás de nosotros estan dormiendo, y esta bien porque Sarli esta desnuda por mucha de la pelicula. Es un viaje estraño.)

Halloween (PHL to ORD to MEX to OAX)

 

I don’t know what I was thinking when I booked my itinerary for this trip: a 6 a.m. fight from Philadelphia to O’Hare, two hours in Chicago, then a 9 a.m. flight to Mexico City, then a five-hour layover before making my way to Oaxaca. It took me some time, in the surreal early-morning hours hours at the Philly airport, to realize why people were wearing costumes: It's Halloween.

I'm on the ORD to MEX flight, and I’ve started reading Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives—and become immediately engrossed. Ever since my 2003—or 2004, I don't remember—trip to Japan, I pack and read literature of the countries I’m visiting. On previous trips to Mexico I read through Juan Rufo’s Pedro Paramo, The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela, and others by Carlos Fuentes, Rolo Diaz and Paco Ignacio Taibo II. My favorite Mexican American writers so far have been Guillermo Arriaga and Pedro Juan Gutierrez. (Even though Gutierrez isn't Mexican; he's Cuban. Bolaño is also technically Chilean, but writes from his years in Mexico City.)

The flight is like most other international flights: an interesting mix of people and languages between those returning to and those coming from. The guy the row in front of me to my right is, I’m pretty sure, from the U.S. He’s reading Never Trust a Liberal Over 3 (Especially a Republican), by America’s favorite liberal-baiting troll, Ann Coulter.

In-flight wi-fi is pretty cool, even if it is ten bucks.