The Rebel Reporter

Free-lance journalist John Ross (1938-2011) arrived in Mexico City one week after the September 1985 earthquake.  Rubble in the streets of the Centro Historico blocked his taxi’s access to his intended destination; he walked the last blocks to Hotel Isabel on Isabel de la Católica Street.  In response to his knocking the bell captain opened the massive door wearing what John described as an uncharacteristic full-dress uniform with shiny brass buttons running up his chest.

“Do you have a room?,” John asked.

“A room?” querried the bell captain.  “I have 75 rooms!”

After weighing the pros and cons of the many rooms and floors John checked-in to room 102, on the second floor with windows opening onto Isabel la Católica street.  It was his home for the next 25 years.

From Room 102 John led his readers through every major Mexican news story - from political upheavals to environmental crises.  John broke the story of the impending Zapatista uprising in Chiapas weeks before it happened and anticipated the negative impact proposed laws would have on the fragile ejido system before they were passed.  John’s first rule of journalism was, “Be there.  You can’t report stories you haven’t witnessed personally.  Develop your sources.  Over the years I’ve maintained sources as diverse as homeless beggars and those in lofty positions of power.” 

John’s last interview was in room 102 on December 29, 2010 with Charlie’s Digs collaborator Carol Hopkins while I moved his archive to a van for the first leg of its trip to the Bancroft Library at U.C. Berkeley.

John, with the distinction of being the dean of foreign correspondents in Mexico, checked out of Hotel Isabel on December 31, 2010 – two weeks before his imminent death.  Alive, John was one of our favorite people.  Dead, he remains one of our most admired.

Last Saturday, Carol and I made our way back to the Hotel Isabel lobby for the presentation of John Ross’ posthumously published, Rebel Reporting, John Ross Speaks to Independent Journalists.

The “event” began with Norman Stockwell explaining how and why he’d edited and published the collection of journalism lectures his friend John had first given at San Francisco’s New College in 2006 and again in Wisconsin at Madison College in 2010.  “Dissemination of these lectures was the only thing John ever asked of me.  This book is my fulfillment of a promise made.”

A disparate group of eighteen was present -- aged 16-80.  In the once-grand lobby of the hotel, we’d pulled up chairs and celebrated our friend and the publication of his book.

Self-effacing, Stockwell said he’d “unsuccessfully offered the book to every leftist publisher in the United States.”  Just when he thought he’d let John down, a publisher surfaced.  Stockwell gives credit to many but I believe the credit belongs in his corner.  The existence of this beautiful, pithy, 118-page volume is an act of love.  There are two excellent forwards by Democracy Now’s own Amy Goodman and by Robert W. McChesney, University of Illinois professor of communications.

During Carol’s 2010 interview with John he had referred to the lectures now published in Rebel Reporting, “These are the most important of my unpublished papers.”  In a short summary of the lectures John emphasized, “To cover a story, go to where it happened, be a part of it. It’s not your job to be objective.  Find the truth and tell it.  Stand for Something. Don’t write anything you don’t believe.” 

John’s good friend, Hermann Bellinghausen, was among the 18 present last Saturday. John was Bellinghausen’s journalism colleague and godfather to Hermann’s young son, Julian, present at this book presentation. 

For many years Bellinghausen has covered Chiapas, the Zapatistas and sub-commandante Marcos.  He shared humorous and poignant memories of his friend — while deeply lamenting the unavailability of John’s books and articles in Spanish.  “It’s surprising and unfortunate but all of John’s writings about Mexico are in English.  John published three books about the Zapatistas and a novel about Mexico; all are important. 

“It’s also little known in Mexico how significant John was as a friendly interpreter of Mexico to the U.S… There’s never been a journalist like him.  In addition, he was a great poet, one of the last beatniks and a passionate lover of jazz…

“Though relatively unknown in Mexico’s intellectual world, John was well-known among Mexican journalists. John never let himself be tricked by power or fame.  Maybe that’s why he isn’t translated into Spanish – he didn’t have the right friends and he didn’t try to make them. Even though he wrote so well, with such passion and such a good pen, there are only 18 people here today.  We each need to make an effort for John to be better known.”

Carol and I walked away from the Hotel Isabel relishing our own reminiscences of John, glad we’d gone to where the story was, met John’s friends, and, for a bit, again basked in John’s genius.  In my backpack I carried a stash of copies of Rebel Reporting – published by Hamilton Books -- entrusted to me by Norman Stockwell for sale in Mexico.  Let me know if you would like one.

Finding your way around the block

The next time you’re in Mexico City’s Centro Histórico look up to the top of the 17th and 18th century buildings. Most have a niche on the corner with a sculpture of a saint or other religious figure. These signs of religiosity by the original owners are also clever navigational aids.

I was reminded of this by the monthly magazine “Kilómetro Cero” (“Kilometer Zero”), published by the Historical District Trust Fund. The magazine’s name can be considered an address. It refers to the Zócalo, where roads to all parts of the country originated.

In last month’s cover story, historian Guadalupe Toscano traced the origin of these niches to the Holy Cross Hospital in Toledo, Spain, where an arched niche contains a sculpture of St. Helen discovering the Cross. In her book ‘Witnesses in Stone,’ Toscano said Mexico City adopted this as a style in architecture. “While the image in the niche was an expression of the owner of the building’s devotion for a particular saint or virgin, the niches soon became landmarks for those who needed to locate an address. Numbers were not used.”

This prompted me to remember Mérida, Yucatan’s similar practice. Stone plaques — many still in place — with an outlined picture were affixed to the walls of corner buildings giving a name to each corner. Mermaids, elephants, saints — over 250 of them. Addresses were given with the name of a street and the name of the closest corner.

Eventually this gave way to Merida’s contemporary, easy to understand street numbering system. Odd numbered streets (Calles) run east to west. Even numbered streets run north to south. The Zócalo is at the intersection of streets 60 and 61. Addresses include the street number and the number of the building followed by the closest cross street.

Puebla introduced a similar system in 1917. Street names were replaced with numbers, with avenues (avenidas) running north to south and streets running east to west. Numbering radiated out from the Zócalo and was divided into four quadrants. Puebla historian Sally Ochoa said with a smile, “It’s totally logical — once you figure it out.”

In the northeast quadrant the streets and avenues are all even-numbered. In the southwest they are all odd-numbered. In the northwest avenues are even and streets are odd-numbered. In the southeast quadrant it’s the reverse. I’ve never been in Puebla long enough to find an address without a map in hand.

Outside Puebla’s historical center the street naming reverts to Mexico City’s style. Each neighborhood has a certain category of names — such as rivers, or species of flowers, or mountains. My favorite in Mexico City is Colonia Telefonistas with streets such as Dial Tone, Handset, Operator, Direct Dial. That’s what happens in a city as large as Mexico — you run out of names.

In my book, Colombia takes the prize for the easiest to understand street system. In Bogotá, what are called carreras, run north to south and streets run east to west. When I was in high school we lived at Calle 69A #10-23. Calle 69A is between 69 and 70. Our house was 23 meters west of the corner of 69A and Carrera 10.

Being an odd-numbered house, you would know it was on the south side of the street. This is so, logical a blind person can find an address in Bogota by pacing the distance from a corner.

Pacing is used in Costa Rica where directions are given in meters. But there meters can expand or contract. A city block is considered 100 meters — even extra long blocks are ‘100 meters.’

In neighboring Nicaragua, blocks are ‘cuadras’ and many streets have no names. My parents’ official address at the Valdivieso Eccumenical Center was the bust of José Martí, 2 cuadras east, 1 cuadra north, Managua, Nicaragua.

In Caracas, Venezuela streets are named, as are buildings and houses. No numbers. You need to know the location of a building to find an address. The British Embassy’s address in Caracas is Castellana Tower, 11th Floor, Eugenio Mendoza Avenue.

As vague as addresses can be, they seem to go hand-in-hand with our identity. To open a bank account in Mexico you must provide proof of your domicile with a utility bill.

A telephone company receipt is the preferred ‘comprobante de domicilio.’ The address also needs to match the address on an acceptable government-issued document. A driver’s license is not acceptable, however a voter’s registration card is. Foreigners can use their immigration document.

But you residents know that’s still not enough. “¿Entre que calles?” (between which streets) the banker wants to know. What color are the walls/ gates of the house or building? If you’ve gone in search of an address you understand why. House or building numbers aren’t necessarily in orderly succession. The name of a street often changes when crossing an important artery.

How improved is this from Viceregal Mexico City’s address system?As we search for an address might it help to have a nearby saint in a niche ready to intercede on our behalf?

Reflecting on Porfirio Díaz

Thursday is the 100th anniversary of the death of President Porfirio Díaz, who ruled Mexico for thirty years between 1876 and 1911. With only one exception, he was re-elected every four years during that time. However, he is not a president you see honored by many statues or street names.

For most of the 20th century Díaz was called a dictator or tyrant. He has been described as heavy-handed, iron-fisted or sometimes both. His long rule is the reason for Mexico’s fierce constitutional ban on re-election to public office. For this Díaz did get streets named for him. Nearly every town in Mexico has a street named “No Reelección.”

Faced with the armed insurgency of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, Díaz presented his resignation to the Chamber of Deputies on May 25, 1911. In a four-paragraph, single-page typed letter, he even used the word “revolution” as the reason for his resignation.

Though there is little public adulation of Díaz, there is recognition of him in strange places.

General Porfirio Díaz is one of the officers listed as being taken prisoner by the French on an oval-shaped monument in Puebla’s Zócalo. The monument honors the “exemplary surrender of the Army of the East under the command of General Jesús Ortega,” to French General Élie Frédéric Forey on May 17, 1863. Díaz somehow escaped from the French army and continued fighting against the French Intervention under President Benito Juárez.

Though the Mexicans did not defeat the French, Díaz emerged a military war hero. He remained loyal to President Juárez through Maximilian’s reign but had developed presidential ambitions of his own.

In an 1876 coup, soon after death of Juárez, Díaz assumed the presidency and was president for 30 of the next 34 years the period known as the Porfiriato.

Despite having made his military fame fighting the French during Maximilian’s short-lived Mexican Empire, Díaz was a great admirer of everything French. Think Porfiriato when you see the French- style buildings in downtown Mexico City. 

Their steep metal roofing was a 19th century European design to assure snow would slide off easily — hardly necessary in tropical Mexico.

In fact, the most spectacular and beautiful buildings in Mexico City’s Centro Histórico were either built or started during the Porfiriato. The domed Monument to the Revolution was really meant to be the dome over the center of the legislative palace the opus magnus Díaz was constructing.

Porfirio Díaz is one of the most easily recognizable figures in Mexico’s 20th-century murals. I have no doubt Díaz would have been delighted with his portraits as immortalized by Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Both were members of the post-revolutionary mural art movement. They intentionally ridiculed Díaz’ vanity; the satire would have been lost on him.

Rivera portrayed Díaz prominently in the murals in the National Palace’s central staircase his chest covered with medals and wearing a white-plumed hat just as Díaz portrayed himself in his official presidential portrait.

Siqueiros’ mural in Chapultepec Castle would certainly have filled President Díaz with pride sitting in the presidential chair seemingly oblivious to the swooning crowd of top-hatted members of high society pressing in around him while swirling women dance in front of him.

The railroads became the signature trademark of the Porfiriato. Twenty thousand kilometers of track were laid during his tenure. Telegraph lines, paralleling the tracks, served as the long arm of the Díaz administration’s control over the rest of the country.

Reliable, scheduled long-distance transportation became the norm during the Porfiriato. The president himself traveled the length of the country in the presidential railroad coach. He personally inaugurated public works projects of French design, many of them railroad related. Any city on a railroad line has buildings dating back to the Porfiriato ― if only the train station.

Though there was very good material progress during his tenure, pressure built up in society. Díaz’s long term in office meant little turnover at all levels of government and left little opportunity for young lawyers to advance in government positions. A closed dictatorial system left middle-class professionals and business owners increasingly marginalized and in search of alternative forms of government.

Rapid capitalist transformation of the rural countryside meant increasing the size of the haciendas and mass dispossession of land, water and traditional rights of Mexico’s rural villages.

The ensuing Revolution was one of the first wars in which trains served as troop transports. In fact

a steam locomotive and a coal car are an outdoor display at the Museum of the Revolution.

And, it was aboard a train that Díaz would set off on his exile to Paris. Díaz rode the train from Mexico City to Veracruz where, after having coffee at one of my favorite restaurants, La Parroquia, he departed aboard the Ypiranga into exile to France. He died at 85 years of age on July 2, 1915, and is buried in Paris’ elegant Mountparnasse. General Gustave León Niox, who Díaz had fought against in Mexico, walked in Díaz’s funeral procession.

‘Keramiká’ in Chapultepec

When the first Spanish troops reached Tenochtitlan in 1519 in what is now Mexico City’s Centro Histórico (historical center), they were astounded to see ornate buildings, a highly engineered city with an intricate system of canals, a market center, and ceremonial plazas. These were all signs of a high culture that had developed independently of Europe, the Middle East and Asia. They found more signs of high culture in the Maya territory to the southeast and frankly throughout what is now Mexico.

There is so much to say about the indigenous cultures of Mexico such that the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park focuses almost exclusively on this area. It is unusual among the world’s leading museums in showcasing only two cultural areas of the world — Mesoamerica and Arid-America.

But as a world-class museum it also has access to temporary exhibits from around the world. Right now it is showing “Keramiká, Divine Matter from Ancient Greece,” an exhibit on loan from the Louvre with 89 exquisite vases and urns and five marble sculptures.

The result is that a convergence of high quality ceramic vases is going on in the National Museum of Anthropology. Though not billed together, and not even exhibited in adjacent galleries, ancient Maya vases in the museum’s permanent collection dating from the the classic and post-classic periods (300-1500 A.D) and ancient Greek vases (700 B.C.-200 A.D) are exhibited concurrently.

The comparisons between Greek and Maya vases are fascinating. Not in the sense that ancient Greece had any influence on the Maya, but rather in the similar use given to ceramic art as the medium for portraying events that have endured, with little decay, through millennia.

Clay seems deceptively simple. It is easily modeled and can be skillfully decorated, but when fired to high temperatures it becomes as hard as stone. Due to its beauty, ceramic art was a frequent offering in Greek and the Maya burials — placed carefully in tombs subsequently sealed or filled with earth where it survived the passage of time.

Decoration on some of the vases — both Greek and Maya — portrays deities and mythological or religious events. Many are pictorial documentation of events in the lives of living people.
View Greek vases from opposite sides and in many cases you’ll see before and after scenes in which the same people or gods are portrayed. The shape of the vases and urns varies, but the color, for the most part, is amazingly uniform — black background with orange-red figures, or vice versa.

View Maya vessels as if to be seen as a single panel all the way around. Archeologist Justin Kerr perfected a technique to photograph the entire surface of a cylindrical or round vessel in a single frame.

The interaction between Greek deities is portrayed graphically on many of the vases. Though ancient Greek can be read by modern scholars, there isn’t much text on the pieces displayed in Keramiká other than an occasional name of the patron for whom the vase or urn was made, or the name of the ceramic artist. Those versed in Greek mythology will understand the scenes showing gods interacting with each other. Portrayals of life markers such as birth, marriage and funerals give us insight into daily life and living quarters of the ancient Greek elite.

It is the Maya vases that include the most writing. Breakthroughs in deciphering written Maya weren’t made until 1977, but once they started they came fast and furiously. Within five years the understanding of written Maya went from 15% to 50% and comprehension went up to 90% when read in the context of the surrounding hieroglyphs. Unfortunately there wasn’t much to read. Only four books survived along with an assortment of texts carved in stone, most of them quite deteriorated. Then archeologists realized there was a wealth of hieroglyphic text, much of it in pristine condition, on ceramic plates and vases.

Just below the rim of Maya vessels there is frequently hieroglyphic text blessing the piece, describing its shape and referring to its owner and its use. Sometimes the name of the artist who painted the vessel is recorded as well — making them the earliest signed pieces of American art. Text set within the painted scene describes the event itself.

The scenes portrayed on both the Greek and Maya vases are small and it can be hard to see all the detail. In the Keramiká exhibit some of the scenes from the vases are enlarged to life-size photographs. It is as if we are looking over the artist’s shoulder.

I encourage you to see the beautiful pottery in the “Keramiká, Divine Matter from Ancient Greece” exhibit in the National Museum of Anthropology. It will be open until April 27, 2014. And on the same visit walk 100 meters to the Maya room to take in the remarkable vases and urns there. The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Closed Mondays.

The Caballito presides over art and architecture

In 1979 President José López Portillo ordered the equestrian statue of Carlos IV of Spain moved from a traffic circle on Paseo de la Reforma to a plaza where viewers could wander around and see it from every angle. The president reasoned few admired Manuel Tolsá's exquisite sculpture in the traffic circle.  Drivers maneuvering the traffic flow and even pedestrians put their lives at risk even attempting to view the statue in detail.  

Even though the statue has one of the largest and grandest horses ever seen in sculpture, it is referred to in ironic Mexican style as the Caballito -- the tiny little horse.  Once it was moved the traffic circle went from being the “Glorieta del Caballito” to “the Glorieta donde estaba el Caballito”-- where the Caballito used to be.  Yes, all reference is to the horse, not the rider.

In 1821, after independence from Spain, there was talk of melting down the statue and fabricating weapons from the bronze.  Cooler heads prevailed; it was preserved as art, not homage.  For safekeeping, it was moved from the Plaza de la Constitución (the Zócalo) to a university building.  It remained there until 1852 when it moved to the traffic circle on Paseo de la Reforma. 

Now the Caballito is in the middle of the esplanade in front of the National Art Museum and presides over one of the few open spaces in Mexico City's Centro Historico.  Although traffic flows through on Tacuba street, by eliminating curbs and sidewalks contemporary city planners allowed the Art Museum to share its open space with the Palacio de la Minería (the School of Mining) also designed by Manuel Tolsá, who besides being a sculptor and architect was rector of Mexico City's San Carlos Academy of Art.  The Palacio de Correos (main post office) and the old Senate building have toeholds on opposite corners of this marvelous plaza. 

As I sit on the stepped pedestal of the Caballito, busy contemporary Mexico passes by.  I am reminded of a tourism department poster that read "Mexico City, where the Renaissance went after it left Europe."  Tolsá's Mining Palace, built in the last years of the Viceroyalty period, faces the former Secretariat of Communications and Public Works building (now the art museum), symbol of Porfirio Diaz's idea of Order and Progress, built in the last years before the Mexican Revolution of 1910.  

Looking up at the top level of the main post office, designed by Italian architect Adamo Boari, it’s easy to imagine passing a Venetian palace in a gondola.   Step into that building at the corner of Tacuba and Eje Central and be wonderstruck by its beauty.   Inside is a statuette of a relay runner making his way from the Gulf coast to Emperor Moctezuma's palace with a giant fish on his shoulder -- Mexico's first postal system. 

The National Art Museum's facade is currently behind scaffolding, but the museum is open. It houses a number of magnificent marble sculptures in hallways and staircases but its extensive collection is mostly paintings.  One room exhibits various portraits, all by different Mexican 20th Century artists, of patron of Mexican arts and muse Maria Asúnsolo. 

You’ll see impressive mural-sized artist's views of imaginative events within Mesoamerican palaces, from a European perspective.  Contrasting with them are accurately portrayed photographic-quality landscapes by José María Velazco.  Velazco studied botany in order to paint leaves accurately.  His best known paintings are the view of the Pyramid of the Sun painted from the top of the Pyramid of the Moon in 1878, and a steam locomotive pulling a train around a curve, over a bridge, enroute to the port of Veracruz.  Snowcapped Citlaltépetl (better known as the Peak of Orizaba) is in the background.

Outside the museum art is also happening.  David Cerón Oropeza 'paints' with chalk on the pavement.  He 'puts up' a new painting each month.  The current one is Johannes Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring".  The pitch-black background of the masterpiece goes well with the Plaza's black volcanic paving stones.  

While admiring his rendition of the painting, tune out the traffic and listen for rattles like those worn around their ankles by Aztec-style dancers. They will be around the ankles of street saxophonist Oscar Gomezcesar, a.k.a. El Vampiro.  

When I emceed the tribute to John Ross in Mexico City's Teatro de la Ciudad last year, Oscar fulfilled John's request that El Vampiro play "The Internationale" on stage.  He'll gladly play it for you on request.  

 

Besides being part of the Manuel Tolsá Plaza, both Oscar and David are well-versed in literature, art, and current events, all likely from a point of view quite different from that you probably normally encounter.  They are interesting lunch guests. Don't worry about inviting The Vampire into a restaurant with you; he's well regarded in the Centro Histórico.

And going full circle, the traffic circle on Reforma is once again the Glorieta del Caballito, but with a very different Caballito.  Now it is Sebastián's schoolbus-yellow modern sculpture of a knight from a chess set.  Traffic flows around it smoothly.