At the end of last month, to coincide with FEMACO, the annual Mexico City contemporary art fair, the owners of the Hotel Hábita in the fashionable Polanco district hired 20 graffiti writers to cover the façade of the building with their work. As they were painting, police tried to intervene and stop them. This is a picture of the finished product.

The Hábita was the first 21st-century hotel in Mexico City, and not only due to the fact that it opened in the year 2000. At the time it was the only hostelry with a minimalist, nearly monochromatic, white Philippe Starck-ish design to ts 36 rooms. Several imitators have opened since. Here, Rafael Micha, one of the Hábita’s owners, demonstrates that he has sold his soul to the devil. This is my guess, at any rate, given (a) his diet, and (b) that he remains slim in spite of it.

This is Mari Carmen, one of the Hábita’s public-relations specialists. She is the closest approximation we have to Julie Christie in Darling in Mexico City.