Reading the city

Phil Kelly, an Irish artist who has been in Mexico City for about 25 years, opens and closes "Making a Scene," the chapter in First Stop in the New World about contemporary art. He arrived here with $50 in his pocket, half of which he spent on a hotel room, from which he telephoned English-language schools until he got a job as a teacher.

At the time he spoke no Spanish, so he began a process he calls "reading the city" -- traveling by metro, microbus and on foot, all over town, immersing himself in the observation of "the physical way in which people existed day by day." Volkswagen taxi cabs -- which were yellow in those days -- and palm trees became Phil's obsessions, "emblems," he says, "that reflected the exuberance and the freshness of the city."

When I met him, almost twenty years ago, I was immensely inspired. There is no writer who guided me to my own vision of Mexico City as clearly as Phil did. He had come here, seen the city in a unique way, and made it his own. At the time, after many years of living hand to mouth, he was only beginning to make a living as an artist. Today, he sells as many paintings as he can produce. He has had solo shows in the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Mexico City, has exhibited all over the country and is represented in galleries in Dublin and London.

Down by law

Diligent readers of this blog know that when I am not a writer, I am what is known as a mitigation specialist. I do investigations for lawyers who defend clients -- principally Mexicans -- who are facing the death penalty in the U.S. Among the defendants' families, friends, colleagues, classmates, teachers, doctors, priests and nuns, I look for mitigating circumstances, in the hope that these details will help spare their lives.

Sometimes in the course of the investigations I find myself in sections of towns where some of the bottom fishers of the legal professions operate. These two photos were taken near the intersection of Tulane Avenue and Broad Street in New Orleans, where Central Lockup, the city's holding prison, is located. And where, when I was 20 years old, I spent a fateful night, charged with, according to the arresting officer, "aggravated stupidity." But that's another story.

Crema catalana

I like this restaurant so much that I have hesitated to write about it. Because it is one of the few places I know in Mexico City that is reliably quiet, intimate and rarely crowded -- and I wish it would stay that way. It is called El Racó and it is on Avenida Sonora across the street from Parque México. The chef, Alonso, and the manager, Héctor, are terrific people. Best of all, they turn out excellent preparations of Catalan food. In a city where the temptation to eat heavily is hard to resist, I am grateful for the lighter options they offer -- salads, vegetables, and some knockout fish, particularly the house specialty, huachinango (red snapper) baked in salt.

Ticket, please

As anyone knows who has been approached by a Chiclet salesman barely out of his diapers on the streets of Mexico City, this is not a country that is scrupulous in its observation of child labor laws. But the above photo suggests that this laxity may be taken too far at times. The image was captured at the bus station in a small town in Guanajuato not long ago. Would you have climbed aboard that vehicle?

Start the revolution without me

I like San Miguel de Allende. It's one of the prettiest towns in central Mexico, and if there isn't all that much to do there, it is one of the nicest places I know to do nothing. Those people -- you know who you are -- who bitch about the retired gringos seem cranky and petulant to me. Still, when I saw this gentleman roaming the streets on horseback there on a recent afternoon, gussied up as the Mexican revolutionary hero Jose María Morelos, I had a sinking feeling. It was as if I were walking around in the Mexican pavilion of Disneyland, or some kind of a welcome-to-Mexico theme park. When I stopped to take his picture, I didn't think to ask him if it was a year-round gig, or if he was marching around preparatory to the Independence Day celebrations on September 15. ¡Viva!