Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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At a community dinner in Santa María la Ribera – one of Mexico City’s first suburbs, built in the late 1800s just west of the old centre – I met a European contortionist. He was in his 70s and used a wheelchair. Circus work had first brought him to the country decades ago, but then he’d never left. “I feel more alive here,” he told me.
This is the city’s seduction: extremes of existence can happen all on the same street corner, and render life more vivid. The Slovakian expat writer Lucia Duero describes the city as “on the edge of the moment: an intensive intensity of being. You know the world is torn apart and you hold to it tight, joyfully.”
Foreigners have been beguiled by the city ever since Hernán Cortés and his conquistadors arrived in the ancient Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, the site on which the modern city now stands. An Austrian emperor, installed by Napoleon III of France, ruled briefly here, DH Lawrence found inspiration for his novel The Plumed Serpent, Hollywood royalty hopped down from LA, and the Beat generation sought escape (from crimes, from mainstream America) and self-destructive transcendence.
www.theguardian.com
lg325 John Ross is mentioned here. I have never heard of him. You might have though.
We should do that with our cities because we can. Make our own virtual tour of whereever.
This is the city’s seduction: extremes of existence can happen all on the same street corner, and render life more vivid. The Slovakian expat writer Lucia Duero describes the city as “on the edge of the moment: an intensive intensity of being. You know the world is torn apart and you hold to it tight, joyfully.”
Foreigners have been beguiled by the city ever since Hernán Cortés and his conquistadors arrived in the ancient Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, the site on which the modern city now stands. An Austrian emperor, installed by Napoleon III of France, ruled briefly here, DH Lawrence found inspiration for his novel The Plumed Serpent, Hollywood royalty hopped down from LA, and the Beat generation sought escape (from crimes, from mainstream America) and self-destructive transcendence.
Mexico City: a virtual tour through film, music, books, food and art
One of Latin America’s most colourful capitals comes alive through its dancehall rhythms, gritty cinema and tasty tacos
www.theguardian.com
lg325 John Ross is mentioned here. I have never heard of him. You might have though.
We should do that with our cities because we can. Make our own virtual tour of whereever.
