{"id":32,"date":"2011-10-29T04:13:45","date_gmt":"2011-10-29T04:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/?p=32"},"modified":"2011-10-29T04:13:45","modified_gmt":"2011-10-29T04:13:45","slug":"diario-de-ciudad-de-mexico-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/?p=32","title":{"rendered":"Diario de Ciudad de M\u00e9xico I"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u00b4d write at greater length, but this Mexican keyboard slows me down. This strikes me as a challenge basically identical to the guy in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly<\/em> who has to write by repeatedly telling a nurse when to stop cycling through the alphabet. I\u00b4m a regular Jean-Do in Mexico.<\/p>\n

(Except Jean-Do didn’t have to endure Windows mistakenly underlining his every word as misspelled.)<\/p>\n

Note to those considering Aerom\u00e9xico\u00a0for their civil aviation needs: they don’t have self-check-in machines for you, nor do they have a shorter line if you aren’t checking luggage. And believe you me, Aerom\u00e9xico\u00a0passengers check themselves a lot<\/em>\u00a0of luggage.<\/p>\n

Met a late-middle-aged couple on the flight. They live in Newport Beach most of the year, but come down to the house they own in Acapulco to ride Harleys the rest of the year. \u00a8We ask and ask our friends to join us,\u00a8 the wife lamented, \u00a8but they’re too afraid of getting their heads cut off. I say, if you’re going to think that way, why bother living at all?\u00a8 Tell it, sister.<\/p>\n

(\u00a8Heads cut off\u00a8?)<\/p>\n

We’re staying right across the street from the\u00a0Centro Cultural Bella \u00c9poca, a combination of cafe, theater, and the largest book store in Latin America \u2014 in other words, the ideal place for me to stay across the street from. Half of its shelves offer Haruki Murakami novels or books related to Haruki Murakami in some way. 1Q84<\/em> recently came out here, so maybe that has something to do with it, but I’ve long felt a resonance with the Spanish-language literary world in Murakami that I can’t properly describe. (Not with this Mexi-keyboard, anyway.) Sam Anderson’s New York Times Magazine<\/em> profile of Murakami<\/a> reinforces a notion I’ve harbored: I so often return to Murakami not for his Japaneseness, but for his internationalist<\/em> Japaneseness. (Recall his trip to Stockholm to dig crates for classic American jazz records<\/a>, watching Godard DVDs along the way.) This may well hold for every Japanese thing I follow, except maybe Ozu.<\/p>\n

Every Mexico City business I’ve thus far patronized has about thrice as many employees as its U.S. equivalent would. It sounds irritating to have a lot of extras hanging around, but I enjoy the attentive service experience. (I do wish waiters wouldn’t stand there staring at me while I count out my cash, but hey.) Highly beneficial side effect: this is one of the cleanest cities I’ve ever visited, except Vancouver. (No city’s as clean as Vancouver.)<\/p>\n

In line with the waiters and street-sweepers, there are cops and security guards everywhere. That bookstore I mentioned has the same level of security as a small-town prison \u2014 wait, a medium-town prison.<\/p>\n

I see more dogs \u00a0and a greater variety of them\u00a0in Condesa, the neighborhood I’m staying in, than anywhere else I’ve recently visited. These people love <\/em>their pups, however oddly shaped or scabby. The dogs stay clean, though, through creative business ideas like \u00a8Condesa’s Fluffy Shower\u00a8, a truck containing a shower for dogs<\/em>. I saw a line of panting clients chained to various trees next to the Fluffy Shower’s parking space.<\/p>\n

Much of my Spanish listening practice over the last few months has come from Cinemanet<\/a>, a podcast seemingly associated with Mexico City’s Cineteca Nacional. What’s screening at the Cineteca while I’m in town? Oh nothing, JUST A BELA TARR RETROSPECTIVE<\/a>. (And a Naomi Kawase series, speaking of los Japoneses.) It really is <\/em>my birthday. In like a week, anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u00b4d write at greater length, but this Mexican keyboard slows me down. This strikes me as a challenge basically identical to the guy in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly who has to write by repeatedly telling a nurse when to stop cycling through the alphabet. I\u00b4m a regular Jean-Do in Mexico. (Except Jean-Do didn’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mexico","category-mexico-city"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/34"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}