I don't tend to have very high expectations when I am invited to contribute to a new magazine -- even if it is edited by someone I respect, like my friend J.M. Servín. But after reading the premiere issue of Cuaderno Gonzo from cover to cover, I was pleasantly surprised. It's a magazine of long-form narrative journalism, much of it in the first person. I liked each and every story, but among the highlights are a piece about child prostitutes in Acapulco by Alejandro Almazán, another (improbably funny) story about surviving a stroke by Miguel Ángel Chávez Díaz, and a third about the selling of Omnilife -- a sort of a Mary Kay-style empire of products that are supposedly healthy -- written by Daniela Rea.

The magazine is available in El Péndulo, Gandhi and other fine bookstores across Mexico City. If you have nothing else to do on Thursday night, November 17, come to Pulquería Los Insurgentes (Insurgentes 228, between Calle Colima and Calle Durango, Colonia Roma) at 8 pm. Sr. Servín, Sr. Almazán and I will be there.  The name of the magazine is a tribute to Hunter S. Thompson, the journalist who turned "gonzo" into a household word -- at least in some households, albeit not the ones with the most traditional family values. Contrary to popular belief, he didn't invent the word. I will be talking about the gonzos that came before Thompson.