refreshment

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¡refresca en grande!
refreshment, big time!

narcomuseo

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museo del enervante, mexico city
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mexurb

this is one of the original ca. 1960 promotional tv ads for ciudad satélite, the first american-style planned suburb in mexico (the 1940's-50's el pedregal, with its posh barragán-style modernist caserones scattered over a volcanic rock landscape and tied together by winding one-way circuits doesn't really count as middle-class suburb), the bastard brainchild of mario pani (mexican le corbusier, father of the multi, a developmentalist take on the unité d'habitation). satélite was supposed to be a "green belt" and provide "working class housing" but it was fueled by dirty interests (the land was property of former mexican president, miguel alemán) and turned into an aspiring middleclass nightmare of over 3 million people scarred with water scarcity, crime, congestion, informal subdivisions and a name for being mexican whitetrash heaven.

it takes spanish and at least faint notion of what satélite is these days to fully appreciate this, but here it goes:

lookie lookie lookie!
city ahoy! ahoy!
city ahoy! for you and for everyone to see
with its wondrous realities
don't look anywhere else, ciudad satélite has it all
water! electricity! telephones!
true and existing services
concrete pavement, sidewalks, sewage
everything finished with the best of qualities
public lighting, trash collection
everything working, not only projected
a unique shopping mall, open everyday from 9.30 am to 10 pm
where you'll find, just a few steps from home, everything that you need
schools! sunday mass!
in other words, a complete and finished city
...

got mugged?

people never learn. first, that bloddy limey non-profit suggested in a recent add campaign that, like laura martínez puts it, mexicans wear awfull hats...and will give you aids. now it's some goddam bushwacker team dissing mexico to allure dumbfolk.

found it on ballardian:

walking past sta travel in collingwood (melbourne), I was struck by this advertisement: ‘i was mugged in mexico.’ sta targets the thrillseeking youngish backpacker scene, and it seems to have finally realised the futility of promoting mexico via the standard travel-industry imagery of tacos, burritos and tequilas to a street-smart, apparently narcissistic audience that has seen it all and done it all before.

this coming from a country of ex-cons...
pinches pendejos

(oh, the un-pc ranting about brits and aussies is just to give the post pizzaz. i really love anglos. really...)

mexitiki

following up on the prior post, i just noticed jean charlot (frenchy russian artist guy who lived in mexico in the twenties/thirties and then moved to hawaii). i've passed a few of his murals in méxicocity, not knowing they were his. but his mexitiki murales done in the fifties are the ones i like the best. ajúacawabunga.