Mexico City I
by Joshua Ellison · 08/10/09
The first thing to adapt to when you arrive in Mexico City is the scale. This is where every account of the city begins, because it’s where you must begin. Even for an experienced urbanite, this is another kind of place, a whole different realm of numbers: over twenty-million people; seven-million miles of streets; 250 colonias, or neighborhoods; 12,500 tons of garbage produced every day. The numbers alone can have a numbing effect, but in person that reality can stretch your perception, even your sense of self, as you try to situate yourself in relation to a human enterprise of this magnitude. Feeling this small takes some getting used to.
We are staying in the Condesa neighborhood, a relatively calm and historic colonia near the city center. It’s been called Mexico City’s Greenwich Village, which is probably generous–or slanderous, depending on your politics–but it does have a pleasing array on food, bars, galleries, park space, and other gentrified amenities. Condesa is also a point of gravitation for artists and intellectuals in the city. Once upon a time, this was an immigrant enclave for Jewish and Spanish Republican exiles. The neighborhood, with its signature Art Deco buildings, was hit hard by the earthquake here in 1985. Today, glass-fronted condos have mostly filled in the holes.
It’s not so large by local standards, but I’m finding it almost impossible to navigate. One night, after walking in circles for hours, our disorientation was so total that we walked up a spiral staircase into a solid wall (this was inside a restaurant, believe it or not; we were promptly sat in a dark corner).
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Jose Gordon (from lapaginadebetobuzali.com)
Our first encounter of the trip was with two warm and interesting characters. Jose “Pepe” Gordon is a writer and the host of a wonderful television program, called Imaginantes, which features short animated interludes derived from literature (everyone from Borges to George Steiner to Etgar Keret). We also met with Alberto “Beto” Buzali, a writer and literary impresario. They both seemed very excited about the project and were very generous with their time, connections, and expertise.
They had fascinating stories to tell. Pepe told us about a conversation with a well-known indigenous Mexican painter, Francisco Toledo, who had become a deep reader of Kafka and kabbalah. Toledo, Gordon said, found a profound connection between those texts and his desire to connect, through art, to his own ancient culture. Toledo was trying to preserve a native language that has lost its alphabet. Kabbalah had lead him to reflect on the power of letters, their physical life that also gives solidity and presence to the people who use them. Gordon suggested that maybe Toledo’s painted images could be the forgotten signs of his language, too–the characters that were lost when his people started using the colonial alphabet.
(Spanish speakers will enjoy the clip from Gordon’s show based on the encounter).
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We ended the day at the rooftop bar of the Condesa df hotel, drinking mezcal, looking out over the neighborhood as a summer storm pounded the city.
Read more dispatches from Mexico City here.
