Mexico, startlingly, has both made a cult of death and has extracted grimness from it
“Here in Mexico, there is a great facility in dying”
—Xavier Villaurrutia
“Here in Mexico, there is a great facility in dying”
—Xavier Villaurrutia
The stiff-backed mountains surrounding Guadalajara have long ago turned southern California tan — since December the humpback flanks have been shedding green, turning brown.
March is a time when trees full of lavender and blue explode along many avenues of Guadalajara and stain certain rural roadsides like the magical blood of ancient Nahua gods.
As the 1960s came to an end, a woman who had built a fast-paced New York advertising career (Helen Rubenstein’s advertising manager, vice-president of a mid-sized advertising agency, copy group head for Baten Barton Durstine and Osborn), who had reared a family, and seen her husband pass away, retired and drove to Guadalajara.
On an August afternoon in 1963 Astfulo (“Tulfo”) Diaz gave me a horse racing tip. In pueblos lining Lake Chapala, horse racing of both the most formal competitions, as well as the most casual pickup races were grandly popular. Spontaneously, without preparation, they could take place, midweek or on weekends.
Chucha — Maria de Jesus — Anzaldo was a small wiry woman of about 60 when I first met her in the 1960s.
Like a sudden outbreak of dengue fever Christmas somehow got started in October this year.