sunday

In the streets in Tere's car. We go here and then we go there. But first we walk to the street market. Early in the morning. I walk to her house at eight. We wander through the booths and stands as they are still setting up, still putting out stuff on tables, serving the first snacks and tacos.

I buy a saucepan with glass cover for ten dollars. A bit steep, but in good condition and it looks a good brand, Meyer Bella Cuisine, manufactured in Thailand. I also buy a birthday present for my niece. I think I won't tell what it is because I want it to be a surprise and sometimes her mother and father read these pages and there's still almost two weeks until her birthday so I have time to mail it yes.

We go home to Tere's house. Check out the newspaper. We can make the ten:thirty showing over at the Otay Americana mall.

Apocalypto.

Well. It's a Hollywood picture. Yes. Good movie. Bad history. Bad natural history, too.

Twisted history. The eclipse scene violates the laws of nature, showing a total solar eclipse that takes place in like one minute from first hint of moon touching the sun to moving all the way across to uncovering oh yeah that's a phenomenon that takes more than an hour in reality but check it out like they are bringing the hero forward to the sacrificial stone when the sun first starts being covered and ten seconds later as he is lying on his back the sun gets completely covered... WRONG Wrong wrong it does NOT happen that fast NOT don't bother making any excuses no No NO it does not. The only excuse: and it IS a valid excuse, no matter how much I complain, is: "artistic license" uh huh.

And the next night the moon is almost full? Jeez Louise it takes two weeks for the moon to get full from New Moon and solar ecclipses only take place at the new moon, oh please Please PLEASE for God's sake why does this damn Hollywood film have to lie like that? Piece of fancy slick shit is why. Ain't no academic hair-splits here. It is Art. They tell lies pure and simply for dramatic effect and I don't know what the hell I am complaining about I mean I believe in artistic and poetic license, what? But this film is pretending to be historical. I think.

I do not even want to begin to criticize the cultural ASS-sumptions made about the Maya (supposedly the actors are all speaking Yucatec Maya language) people please please please the geography is wrong (filmed in Veracruz state, but still BEAUTIFUL yes it is) and well, I won't even start on the culture and history um er well, "exagerations" yes, again, a case of artistic license, which, no matter how much I do not like it, being a fairly well-informed layman on this subject, I do not like the "exagerations" but hell anyway it is art, not truth. And I must confess it seemed to me not so much a case of lies as merely exagerations.

And the film IS well made, so...

Art only wants to be a pure fantasy. My problem is I want a piece of absolute, proveable, history. Like the story of Hunac Ceel, or... no. No such. Or maybe this was, frankly it might have been, based on an exageration of the Hunac Ceel episode. Might have been. Yes, it might have been. But the geography was still wrong, too many mountains. And the eclipse. Sigh. Too fast.

AND It IS, nevertheless, never mind my bitching and moaning, it is a splendid piece of filmmaking. Glorious, gruesome violence. Fantastic jungle movement scenes. Really cool animal sequences. Absolutely weird and wonderful strange "Maya" cultural fantasy. Yes, yes, it is "Maya" in quotes and definitely a fantasy. Fantastic fantasy.

There is something magically powerful about the use of an exotic language with subtitles. This is getting to be a hallmark of what's his name's movies. First the Jesus monster devil movie, and now this gorgeous creature. You know who I mean. The drunken jew-hating faggot smashing fundamentalist freak-papist. Uh huh. Him. Good actor. Better director. Sigh. There is no accounting for talent. I don't particularly care for him as a person, but, Mister G., I salute your work as an artist. Kudos.

I could go on and on and on but just one last note of critique/analysis:

One theme it portrays rather beautifully is the old story of little forest backwoods hick with his simplicity and honesty set face-to-face against the big city life all vicious, corrupt, degenerate, bloodthirsty. Tis a cliché cliché cliché but it's very clearly and emotionally presented, the characters are cleanly drawn, and one feels empathy for their world and life. Perhaps the supporting characters are a touch one-dimensional, but still engaging.

I liked the movie. I am going to see it again. Maybe.

OH BY THE WAY IF YOU SEE THIS FILM IN TIJUANA (where movies cost much less) WATCH OUT the subtitles ARE in SPANISH uh huh and the actors speak Maya, remember.

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Deliciosos tacos.

So then we drive along the big street west past the university into the earliest, oldest sections of Otay mesa, built up in the 1950s about the same time the campus of the University was opened out on the edge of nowhere.

We come back into the area where the older campus the TEC school is, to go for tacos at a place Tere has told me about. There on the corner near where the street makes its turn to plunge down through Postal toward the river, I finally find the perfect taco stand I should have taken Chris to a year ago oh yes you would love it I hope you he can find it.

There's actually three taco stands, or maybe four, I forget which, crowded together on a sliver of triangular land in front of the sports field there, and the one on the very tip of the triangle beside the booming boulevard serves pure seafood tacos.

Mmmm mmm mm there is a chilified shrimp taco that is to die for, and and and oh my the crowd so thick and milling around everyone eating, and tacos handing over head and past you all the time, tacos pouring out from the steaming, broiling stand oh my oh my oh my.

And that SHRIMP taco, the one called enchilado (if I remember the word right, you never know I often forget and end up inventing things), "chilified" oh mmmmmmm Mmmmm MMMMM Mmmm mm nam nam nam. YUM.

Then you toss on a little chopped/shredded cabbage and white cream-sauce and guacamole mmmmm oh yes oh yes oh yes Chris come back and go there now!

I am going to be honest with you, dear reader, the movie was good but the tacos are better. If only they could have lasted two and a half hours in the mouth!

In the park.

So then afterwards we drive off across Otay mesa again, retracing our steps and turning down into the river valley. We're going to the park down by Insurgentes Boulevard, where the small city zoo is, because I want to see the new animal enclosures they just opened, one for bears, one for jaguars, one for hyenas. Plus ride on the little train ride, oh yes.

The hyenas seem the happiest about the whole thing. The bears are stuck in a place and hiding in the corner. The jaguars are pacing and sleeping.

The little train is magnificent, of course. It's just a little train ride, nothing very special, but fun, and it goes past a collection of concrete reproductions of ancient Mexican sculpture you know all those devil-snake gods and such so it is curious because we just saw that movie today that is millions of dollars slicker than a bunch of cement copies but oh such less true and much more well I have already said enough about Hollywood no more now.

Tere and I walk around, sit down, look at animals, talk about the movie. The forms of human sacrifice. The film upset her tremendously. She leans closer to me. Talks about the blood and gore. The cutting out the heart scenes are particularly gruesome. The bouncing the head down the temple pyramid staircase. It upset me too oh look I am talking about it anyway. Huh. Well we walked around the park with all the happy people and families and children running and laughing around us yes that helped, it did, to decompress from the horror, the horror, the hollywood monstrosity of horror.

The park is jam-packed on Sunday but we found a parking place in the lot and later it only took ten minutes waiting in lines of Mexican cars to get back out onto the street. As we walk around looking at the few animals that are there, I think my God have mercy but my fellow Americans would think me crazy to come to the Tijuana zoo instead of going to the big, huge, beautiful San Diego zoo with a million more animals and all (and an astronomical admission price, too) but But BUT I am here precisely because it IS Mexico and Mexico is where I want to be and as long as my parents are still alive I am going to stay here on the border where I grew up and where I have found so many things to write about and eventually, maybe, God willing, in a few years if I survive, I will move further south, but until then primero Dios mas'Allah I will stay here on the border in my beloved lands of California and every now and then take extended trips south into deeper Latin Latin Latin Latin ancient America yes.

Tere's dream is to eventually move back to Nuevo Laredo where she owns a house and live in the apartment in back and rent out the house in front.

Me I want to go live in one of those old colonial cities or ancient towns in the altiplano.

And write and write and write and translate and translate and write and read and read and read out loud and perform. Make some film and video. Send out for computer dinner to share with you. Send out for computer dinner. To share. With

y o u

Amen. Goodbye.

or well... goodbye for now at least