1. Music recorded Tuesday at the National Museum of Anthropology. Performed by Tribu, a group that plays Aztec percussion instruments. Permission has been granted to place this live recording I made on our website.
The narrow streets of Mexico City’s San Angel area were jammed with cars. I sat for a half hour in the back seat of the taxi, wishing it had windows that could be rolled down. A bead of sweat trickled down my back. Finally, as we crept up to a small, historic square, I climbed out of the cramped VW beetle and sensed that something was not normal: Hundreds of people were milling around, straining to look at something up the block.
I walked quickly across the cobblestone street to see what was happening. Suddenly, through the crowd, I saw two men wrestling by a truck. One appeared to be an old man, the other an assailant. Then I saw the gun. While everyone stood and watched, the two men struggled briefly until the assailant hit the old man with the gun, dropping him to the street.
“OK, let’s do it again,” shouted someone beside a large van. “They’re shooting a soap,” another said.
The soap is called, "If You Don't Love Me Any More." Naturally, I placed myself amongst the video crew and shot images like I was doing backup work for the crew. They didn’t seem to mind. A tall, blonde actress named Nora Parra appeared, and, after coaching from the director, raced down the shop-lined street, pushing aside the milling crowd as she tried to escape from her video attacker. She almost knocked me down. After a couple more takes, the vans were packed and the crowd quickly thinned. I’ve been told Mexico City takes its soap operas seriously.
As I explored the rest of the square, I happened across a new cafe called Ciberteca, which is scheduled to open tomorrow. It’s a new cyber restaurant. Its owners, Pedro and Sara Baram (above), told me it would be Mexico City’s first. Considering the historic look of San Angel, with its cobblestone streets and colonial buildings, the cyber cafe feels slightly out of place. But Pedro and Sara have a mission to bring technology and food together.
“When we thought about how many cyber restaurants exist around the world , and we have none in Mexico City. . . well, we wanted to do something about it,” said Sara.
“It is pretty incredible that we are in an age where you have Macintoshes sitting inside adobe houses,” added Pedro.
For myself, I find it ironic that I am sitting in one of the historic, quiet corners of Mexico City getting a first look at a dispatch I filed yesterday to Washington, D.C.
|
|
|
El Caballito (Little Horse) on Reforma Ave is an example of the bold architectural look seen through much of Mexico City.
|
|
Mexico City’s Independence Angel monument stands against the modern glass buildings of Reforma Avenue.
|
Actors do mock battle during the filming of a soap opera in the back streets of San Angel, Mexico City.
|
|
Soap opera actress Nora Parra pushs her way through a San Angel crowd during taping Tuesday. Mexico’s soap operas are exported all over the world.
|
Water falls from a huge canopy in the central courtyard of the National Museum of Anthropology, a museum that houses Aztec, Mayan, and Olmec artifacts. One of the features of this museum is the huge spatial qualities it affords the exhibits.
|
|
A huge Aztec stone sun disk is displayed in the National Museum of Anthropology, one of Mexico City’s biggest attractions.
|
|
