Boys will be boys

On the metro during rush hour the two front cars of each train are segregated by gender. Only women are allowed in them, due to the unfortunate propensity that men in Mexico City have for unsolicited fondling in crowded transportation. Boys will be boys.

Even, apparently, when they are dressed as girls. Last Monday it was reported that David Mondragón Vargas, a 46-year-old systems engineer, wearing a wig and a dress, was arrested on the metro. He had been in the women-only cars, molesting members of the fairer sex. His apprehension was, in part, the result of a complaint from a woman who claimed she had been accosted by him on three separate occasions. Click here to read El Universal’s version of the story, and to see a video of the engineer, who looks a little bit like my late Aunt Toby.

Readers of the sex chapter of my book First Stop in the New World will find out that sexuality in Mexico City is baroque, misleading and confusing, a conclusion perhaps evidenced by this case. In another chapter I mention how few local novelists use Mexico City as a backdrop for their books. Ing. Mondragón Vargas illustrates why: Reality will inevitably trump whatever you could make up about this town.

Coco loco

In Mexican Spanish, coco (coconut) is a synonym for head. Someone who has mucho coco is supposedly intelligent. I got out of the metro at the Insurgentes stop the other day, and saw this fellow handing out leaflets. I took the trouble to take his picture, but not to find out what he was shilling.

Vote for Homeboy

My friend Federico Gama, who I believe is the best photojournalist in Mexico City, is responsible for many photos on this web site, including the one above. He is up for The Grange Prize this year,  which "focuses on the best of Canadian and international photography." Readers, we can all help him win. Click here if you want to know more about the prize, or click here if you want to go directly to the page where you vote for him.  Don't think about it. Just do it.

Blue over the blue law

Earlier this month, the geniuses at the city’s Legislative Assembly passed a decree by which any establishment that dispenses alcohol must serve its last drink by 2:30 a.m. and close its doors by 3:00. For many reasons, I am dismayed. For one thing, Mexico City has a rich libertine history, and it seems a shame that current conservative politicians can, without any sort of referendum, simply erase or paper over that past. Secondly, I don’t like “nanny” governments that presume their citizens are big babies unable to control ourselves or make adult judgments. (It strikes me as unseemly that, at my age, someone else should be deciding at what hour of the day I have my last drink.) What's more, hardworking waiters and bartenders will see their incomes diminished from the absence of those late-night, last-minute drunks who leave extravagant tips.

Finally – what is the point? I believe the law was passed mostly to comfort the wealthy parents of adolescent spawn, who often stay out too late, drink too much and crash their cars. If parents cannot control their children, they shouldn’t look to the government to do the job for them. These kids can likely find somewhere to drink past three in the morning, even if it isn’t a public place, and get into smashups anyway.

Amanda

She was by far my laziest student. She had long eyelashes; lank, dark hair, and a huge, slack and provocative mouth. These qualities, combined with the fact that she only stood about four feet tall, gave her the look of a sexually precocious, perverse baby.

She took workshops in creative writing with me at the Escuela Dinámica de Escritores. Yet when the day came to hand in assignments, most of the time, she wouldn’t bother to show up. Once, she gave me her homework, and it was all of one sentence. “This is fine, Amanda,” I said, trying to encourage her. “But it would be nice to see the sentence that comes after, and the one that comes after that.” Her response was nothing more than an insolent look, as if I were truly clueless.

A year or two after classes were over, she resurfaced as “Amandititita,” something of a novelty act in the Mexico City pop music firmament. She has cut a couple of CDs and been covered widely by the press. Not long ago I read an interview in which she complained about how many commitments she has – as a pop sensation, her time is no longer her own. Click here to see a video of her biggest hit, in which she sings about the travails of having a metrosexual boyfriend.