The weather has been lovely nonstop since my arrival here in Mexico City. Some clouds but only long enough to cool the air, and lovely breezes from the mountains. The temperatures are consistently mild in the low twenties and high teens though it gets cold at night. I have been meeting quite an array of interesting and engaging guests here, many from Canada and so far I have met three Vancouverites here. Today I took a long hike into the wealthy neighborhood, Las Lomas de Chapultepec and I must have covered between fifteen and twenty miles of walking, so I'm kind of sore and tired. There is a lot of impressive sculpture on public display here. The Paseo de la Reforma, that never-ending thoroughfare with more lanes than I can count runs through part of Chapultepec Park and has a huge landscaped boulevard running down the middle with a path and that's were I saw a lot of impressive sculpture. I kept getting lost trying to find the neighborhood but I always managed to find my way, sometimes with help from passing strangers. I can understand why this area is isolated. The wealthy, or the Robber Barons as I like to call them, are afraid of the public they have defrauded through underpaid and exploitative work practices and I don't think a lot of them are really interested in sharing the wealth they have gained on our backs. So they shelter themselves in faux palaces behind walled compounds protected by armed security guards. I don't care how hard some of them might have worked for their wealth, the fact is that there are many people who work as hard or harder who still have to struggle every day to keep body and soul together. It isn't a question of envy, it is a matter of justice. Unfortunately we cannot force people to change their selfish attitudes and I am personally opposed to violent revolution. But it is inescapable that we need a revolution and that there will be one. I only hope that no one gets killed. I am not a card carrying Marxist, never was. I don't think it is a matter of left or right, but that we change our way of thinking.
Otherwise it was an enjoyable walk along treed boulevards flanked by beautiful homes. Yeah, that's it, admire the lovely sarcophagus and don't think of what lies within it.
Monday, Feb. 20, 2012
I am feeling disappointed that my Spanish has been so slow to develop. I have always been a slow learner which is odd given that I have an extraordinarily high i. q. I've had it tested, twice and it measures at 140 which puts me in the top two percent. It seems to have to do with the way my brain is wired. I understand that my progress in the language is impressive, given the odds that have been against me. Perhaps it is also a feature of ptsd. I was so overwhelmed I think by the violence to which I was subjected to almost daily as a child from my brother and from my mother and sometimes from my father that perhaps this has also created obstacles. But I am working against these obstacles and where possible I am working or trying to work with them. I think at the bottom I have never believed that I am good enough to really succeed at anything. That Im not really worth it and this was so reinforced by the ugly hatred of my father and brother towards me. But I cannot let this hold me back any longer and I am moving forward
Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2012
> St. Peter was taking some new arrivals on a little tour of heaven
> and he was showing them an almost completed renovation project. It
> was a sumptuous villa with interior courtyards and chapel space and
> drawing rooms and libraries and everything that a heavenly mansion
> could possibly offer. One of his guests pointed to an inconspicuous
> trap door on the dining room floor. St. Peter, smiling jovially
> said, "Why, I am so glad you should ask" as he opened the trap door.
> Out flew smoke and flames and the cries and shrieks of the
> unredeemed, and he quickly slammed it shut again. "This", he said,
> "Is our smoking patio."
I have probably mentioned before that there
> seem to be a lot of smokers in Mexico City. While smoking is
> prohibited indoors it is still allowed on most restaurant and cafe
> patios. This can create a few problems for nonsmokers who are
> highly sensitive to cigarette smoke. Many restaurants open up onto
> patio space so even if you are
> seated inside well to the back you are still likely to get second
> hand smoke in your face from anyone smoking just outside. If you
> are a vegetarian it's even worse because the meatless fare is scarce
> enough on most menus here so when you luck into a vegetarian
> establishment that has a smoking friendly patio you either grin or
> bear it or find somewhere else to eat. I did enjoy not one but two
> delicious iced drinks on the patio of one establishment in Coyoacan
> today that has banned from its patio cigarette smoking.
> Unfortunately there is practically nothing for vegetarians on their
> menu.This morning I went out to the university and walked along a
> highway till I came across a huge wild space. It is called Las
> Pedregales de San Angel, a protected ecological zone that is all
> bush, scrub, grass and cactus growing out from jagged black volcanic
> rock. The space is enormous. I went in through the entrance and
> took a paved walkway as far as one of the
> most peculiar monuments I have yet seen in Mexico City. It is a
> huge perfectly oval pit larger than a sports stadium. The bottom is
> all volcanic rock and bush. Above surrounding the pit are 66 huge
> concrete triangles, arranged side by side in a perfect circle. There
> is no inscription explaining this monument so if anyone would like
> to do a google search please let me know. From there I continued on
> to the university campus which like UBC is sprawling with concrete
> brutalism. I stopped in a cafe for a glass of grapefruit juice then
> walked back to the Metro but decided to explore some more. There is
> a town or barrio on the other side of the Metro from the university.
> It is a very poor looking place, very shabby jumble of buildings
> and shops and cheap cafes and bars. There is graffiti everywhere
> and the area would seem frightening but all the residents appear to
> be fairly well dressed and unthreatening. Many of the building
> facades are
> brightly painted.
I wandered around for a few blocks, marveling
> that right next to the university is a neighborhood of people, many
> of whom possibly have never finished high school or could never
> afford the luxury of post secondary study.I returned to the metro
> and so an older man, older than me I think with a hand truck loaded
> with bottles of pop he was going to vend somewhere. He had just
> arrived at the bottom of the stairs. There are no elevators at
> these stations and many don't have escalators. I offered to help
> him carry his load up the stairs. There are around thirty seven
> steps on these stairways.Why a man of my age would do something like
> this at high altitude is beyond me, but I did it, I have lived to
> tell and I am no longer sore all over. I took the train as far as
> San Angel where I walked to Coyoacan, surrounded by colonial beauty
> and bougainvillea thus refreshing my sense of beautiful illusion.
I > believe it was Marlene Dietrich
> who said "We cannot live without our illusions no matter how hard
> we must fight for them." This was during her final interview, when
> she was already approaching ninety and living in seclusion where she
> could forbid the world from seeing the ravages of age. If you
> google my website, by the way, and click onto portraits, you will
> see a portrait I painted of her. I actually saw her on TV last
> night performing I think in Las Vegas. She was already seventy one
> and very sad looking, singing "When We Were Young."
On the train
> going back to the hotel there was a long delay again, and it was
> crowded but not packed. An elderly lady in her seventies, who
> seemed to be standing okay but with a bit of struggle was not
> offered a seat by any of the useless young drones who tried to
> ignore her. I tried to focus on two young women, sisters, I think,
> seated in the courtesy seating area, but they wouldn't budge.
> Finally as they were getting up I said to the lady
> in Spanish, Andele, las egoistas se van, or There you go, the
> selfish girls are gone, but she was also getting off at the same
> stop, so I said to both the young women, Ojala se sientan verguenza,
> or You had better be ashamed of yourselves. You should have seen
> the look they gave me! Well, I am not above publicly humiliating
> someone in a foreign country if they seem to really deserve it. |
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