15th Birthday or Give me some wheels

La Quinceañera: a celebration of budding womanhood.
by Dale Hoyt Palfrey
The transition from childhood to womanhood is a significant passage for
adolescent girls in almost all cultures. In Mexico, it is marked with the
celebration of the Quinceañera, or 15th Birthday. From a north of the border
viewpoint, it may be seen as a cross between Sweet Sixteen and a
debutante's coming out party. The celebration is a way to acknowledge that
a young woman has reached sexual maturity and is thus of a marriageable
age.
The most important component of the celebration is invariably a Misa de
acción de gracias (thanksgiving Mass). The birthday girl arrives decked out
in a fancy full-length dress - frills, pastel tones and matching hats or
headdresses prevail. Flanked by her parents and padrinos (godparents),
she is specially seated at the foot of the altar throughout the service.
She may be accompanied by up to seven damas (maids of honor) and as many
chambelanes (chamberlains), selected from among close family and friends.

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Classic

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Walking

Arcos Towers, Santa Fe (PhoneCam)

Monte Alban, Oaxaca

Salto de Quetzalapa

Have a great weekend!

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The end of the day

Rural scenes
Night
William Blake
The sun descending in the west,
The evening star does shine;
The birds are silent in their nest,
And I must seek for mine.
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Unknown Door

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Autumn / Otoño

“Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower”
Albert Camus
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A Momentary Lapse of Sky

A c a p u l c o !
Happy Weekend
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Crash

Car crash at noon.
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Doors and Chains

The true method of knowledge is experiment.
William Blake
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Berlin Wall

U2 - Sunday, Bloody Sunday (Live @ Berlin Wall 20th Anniversary 2009)
By Dave Graham. El Economista
BERLIN (Reuters) - World leaders past and present will join German crowds on Monday to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall -- a stark symbol of the Cold War that divided a city and a continent.

Ironias de la vida - Rocha / La Jornada

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Limitless

$ 3.00 MXN (0.223713 USD) limitless time calls.
"Happy Sunday"
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Iron Dancers

Have a great weekend!
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Chapultepec Castle

Fountain with a sculpture of the symbol of Chapultepec, "The Grasshopper"
In the background, statues dedicated to the boy soldiers, along a walkway at the top of Chapultepec Castle.
Chapultepec (Chapoltepēc, "at the grasshopper's hill" in the Nahuatl language; cf. Mexican Spanish Chapulín [Grasshopper]) is a large hill on the outskirts of central Mexico City. It has been a special place for Mexicans throughout Mexican history, and it was on this hill that the Aztecs made a temporary home after arriving from northern Mexico in the 1200s.
The Niños Héroes (in English: Boy Heroes), also known as the Heroic Cadets or Boy Soldiers, were six teenage military cadets who died defending Mexico at Mexico City's Chapultepec Castle (then serving as the Mexican army's military academy) from invading U.S. forces in the 13 September 1847 Battle of Chapultepec.
Their commanders, General Nicolás Bravo and General José Mariano Monterde, had ordered them to fall back from Chapultepec but the cadets did not; instead, they resisted the invaders until they were killed, with accounts maintaining that the last survivor leapt from Chapultepec Castle wrapped in the Mexican flag to prevent it from being taken by the enemy. [Wiki]
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The Balcony Worker

We sat around on a hotel balcony with a bottle of wine and tried to figure out how you would go about blowing up a planet. That's the kind of conversations science fiction writers have when they get together. We don't talk about football or anything like that.
Kevin J. Anderson
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What's Up / Que onda b....

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Justice is Dead

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Day of The Dead / El Día de los Muertos

Ver.2

Alebrije [aleˈβɾihe) are brightly-colored Mexican folk art sculptures of fantastical creatures. Pedro Linares first used the term to describe his papier mache creations.
The Day of the Dead (El Día de los Muertos or All Souls' Day) is a holiday celebrated in Mexico and by Latin Americans living in the United States and Canada. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. The celebration occurs on November 1st and 2nd in connection with the Catholic holiday of All Saints' Day which occurs on November 1st and All Souls' Day which occurs on November 2nd. Traditions include building private altars honoring the deceased, using sugar skulls, marigolds, and the favorite foods and beverages of the departed, and visiting graves with these as gifts.

Scholars trace the origins of the modern holiday to indigenous observances dating back thousands of years, and to an Aztec festival dedicated to a goddess called Mictecacihuatl.

Similar holidays are celebrated in many parts of the world; for example, it's a public holiday (Dia de Finados) in Brazil, where many Brazilians celebrate by visiting cemeteries and churches. In Spain, there are festivals and parades, and at the end of the day, people gather at cemeteries and pray for their loved ones who have died. Similar observances occur elsewhere in Europe and in the Philippines, and similarly-themed celebrations appear in many Asian and African cultures.

T I M E
Modern man thinks he loses something-time-when he does not do things quickly. Yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains- except kill it.

One of the worst forms of mental suffering is boredom, not knowing what to do with oneself and one's life. Even if man had no monetary, or any other reward, he would be eager to spend his energy in some meaningful way because he could not stand the boredom which inactivity produces.
- Erich Fromm
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Theme Day: Doorways

Bowery at Spring St in Chinatown. New York City

Abandoned house in the Pink Zone of the city

Palace of Fine Arts / Palacio de Bellas Artes

Click Here To View Thumbnails For All Participants
A warrior-hunter deals intimately with his world, and yet he is inaccessible to that same world. He taps it lightly, stays for as long as he needs to, and then swiftly moves away, leaving hardly a mark.
For an average man, the world is weird because if he's not bored with it, he's at odds with it. For a warrior, the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable. A warrior must assume responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous time.
A warrior must learn to make every act count, since he is going to be here in this world for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.
Acts have power. Especially when the warrior acting knows that those acts are his last battle. There is a strange consuming happiness in acting with the full knowledge that whatever he is doing may very well be his last act on earth.
A warrior must focus his attention on the link between himself and his death. Without remorse or sadness or worrying, he must focus his attention on the fact that he does not have time and let his acts flow accordingly. He must let each of his acts be his last battle on earth. Only under those conditions will his acts have their rightful power.
Otherwise they will be for as long as he lives, the acts of a fool.
Carlos Castaneda.
Happy Halloween!
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Underworld

Temple of The Feathered Serpent
Xochicalco is a pre-Columbian archaeological site in the western part of the Mexican state of Morelos. The name Xochicalco may be translated from Nahuatl as "in the (place of the) house of Flowers". The site is located 38 km southwest of Cuernavaca, about 76 miles by road from Mexico City. The site is open to visitors all week, from 10am to 5pm, although access to the observatory is only allowed after noon. The apogee of Xochicalco came after the fall of Teotihuacan and it has been speculated that Xochicalco may have played a part in the fall of the Teotihuacan empire.

The architecture and iconography of Xochicalco show affinities with Teotihuacan, the Maya area, and the Matlatzinca culture of the Toluca Valley.
The main ceremonial center is atop an artificially leveled hill, with remains of residential structures, mostly unexcavated, on long terraces covering the slopes. The site was first occupied by 200 BC, but did not develop into an urban center until the Epiclassic period (A.D. 700 - 900). Nearly all the standing architecture at the site was built at this time. At its peak, the city may have had a population of up to 20,000 people.

Of special interest are sculptured reliefs on the sides of some buildings. The Temple of the Feathered Serpent has fine stylized depictions of that deity in a style which includes apparent influences of Teotihuacan and Maya art. It has been speculated that Xochicalco may have had a community of artists from other parts of Mesoamerica.

Other monuments at the site include several other step-pyramid temples, palaces, three ballcourts, sweat-baths, an unusual row of circular altars, and a cave with steps carved down into it. The site also has some free-standing sculptured stelae; others were removed from their original location and are now on display in the INAH museum in Mexico City and at the site museum.

At some point around A.D. 900 the city of Xochicalco was burned and destroyed. Many of the excavated houses and temples have layers of burning and destruction that cover the deposits from the main Epiclassic occupation. Underneath destruction layers, numerous objects were left in place in the houses, indicating that the site was destroyed and abandoned quickly. A small remnant population lived on, however, on the lower slopes of the hill. Later, around A.D. 1200, the site was recolonized by the Nahuatl-speaking Tlahuica peoples, ancestors to the Nahuatl-speaking populations of the modern state of Morelos.

Xochicalco is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a tourist destination. The site also has a well-stocked museum, designed by noted Mexican architect Roland Dada. [Wiki]
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Theatre of The Absurd / Teatro del Absurdo

The Christian Science Monitor
By Sara Miller Llana | Staff writer 10.29.09
Los Tigres del Norte sing of censorship, bail on Mexican award.
Los Tigres del Norte, a popular Mexican band, canceled an appearance on the Luna Awards TV show in Mexico Wednesday. The Mexican government denied any censorship of the band.
MEXICO CITY - Politicians say that narcocorridos, the songs which extol the exploits of drug traffickers, must go. But these ballads appeal to a significant audience.
Caught in the middle are the Mexican musicians themselves, who say their art merely chronicles of the political and business interests that fuel the drug trade and wreak havoc on the streets.
In the most recent standoff, the popular “norteño” band Los Tigres del Norte canceled an appearance at an awards show in Mexico for alleged “censorship.” Universal Music, the Tigres’ record label, said that the government-owned National Auditorium in Mexico City asked them not to play their narcocorrido hit “La Granja” during Las Lunas Awards ceremony Wednesday night. In protest, Los Tigres bailed out.
La Granja, which translate as “The Farm,” seems to take aim at the military-led war against drug trafficking, which has unleashed violence between rival drug traffickers (see our briefing on the key cartels and the Mexican government campaign against them) and taken a livelihood away from many would-be marijuana growers and dealers.
The lyrics, translated by the Los Angeles Times, go like this:
Today we have, every day
Much insecurity
Because they let the dog loose
And it all came tumbling down . . . .

El Economista
Vicente Gutiérrez Created 28/10/2009.

"La Granja" dice la verdad: Tigres del Norte
Su tema ha sido censurado.

Con una fábula, Los Tigres del Norte critican a los políticos, los banqueros, al expresidente Vicente Fox, la inseguridad y la pobreza en México.
“Si alguien la prohíbe es porque dice la verdad y llama la atención. Nuestro trabajo es denunciar todo lo que vemos a través de nuestra música”, dijo Jorge Hernández, líder del grupo.
En el tema (y el vídeo animado) aparecen banqueros millonarios y Vicente Fox representados como marranos, un zorro y el pueblo.
“México tiene muchos problemas, uno de ellos es la crisis económica y otro la violencia. Pero lo peor es que en el país los políticos no se ponen de acuerdo en nada. Un día se aprueban los impuestos y al otro no... hay mucha confusión y eso daña al pueblo, que lo soporta todo”, explicó Hernán Hernández.
Los Tigres del Norte han denunciado problemas en sus canciones, pero... ¿ha servido de algo?
“Sí, claro. Nos lo dice la gente y lo vemos cuando usan la música en manifestaciones o cuando las censuran”, comentó Jorge Hernández.
“Fe, esperanza y alegría es lo que hemos llevado al pueblo con nuestra música y mientras siga habiendo problemas e injusticias... Los Tigres del Norte seguiremos cantando”, dijo Jorge Hernández.

El Universal
Ciudad de México Miércoles 28 de octubre de 2009
Jorge Hernández, cantante y líder de Los Tigres del Norte, reconoció que el hecho de censurar un tema no ayuda a mejorar la situación del país: "Si ese fuera el remedio para solucionar todo lo que tratamos en nuestras canciones, que las cancelen todas".
Comentó que la decisión, tomada tras una reunión con representantes de su casa discográfica, de no presentarse en la ceremonia de entrega de las Lunas del Auditorio Nacional, se debe a una recomendación emitida por parte de la Secretaría de Gobernación.
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Portraits in almost B&W

Vide Cor Meum
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V

Trying to catch the transit authority in action, suddenly appear this friendly hand in middle of the chaos.
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Sunday Walk

Caminata de Domingo 1999 de Leonora Carrington
Sunday Walk (painting) by Leonora Carrington 1999.
Leonora Carrington, one of Britain's finest - and neglected – surrealists.
Her importance, lies partly in that she - along with artists such as Leonor Fini and Remedios Varo - opened up a new, and more female, strand of surrealism: in Mexico, Leonora and Varo dabbled in alchemy and the occult, and the work of both was rooted for a time in the magical and domestic elements of women's lives. "One of the extraordinary aspects of Leonora's work is how she draws on so many different inspirations, from the Celtic legends she learned from her nanny, through the constraints of her upper-class upbringing, to the surrealism of Paris in the 1930s - and then to the magic of Mexico," "Her work is evocative of so many things, and it's enormously complex: she hasn't had a massive output because her technique is so meticulous and the work so detailed. She certainly wasn't a Picasso who could churn out several pictures a day; her work would take many months, even years."
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Zoo Entrance

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Gratitude

Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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