The Mexico Diary

I went to Mexico at the end of last winter and was just overwhelmed by its beauty. At some point my camera was washed away by a bigger than expected wave, so I decided to travel the old-fashioned way and use my memory. When I got home, I began making a visual diary of the trip, digging into my picture archive for illustrations. To my surprise, I found that I had not a single image of Mexico or anything Mexican in my collection, a fact of which I was ashamed. So I made this diary using illustrations that reminded me of people and things I saw, places I went. Many of the images are Spanish and come from art catalogs, especially the Virgins. The book is about complete now. First the cover. I have to admit that the candy wrapper is from a lollipop available everywhere in Mexico and supposedly designed by Salvador Dali before he became famous.

Now for a look inside.

Mexico City is unbelievably huge, even to a New Yorker. Upwards of 30 million people living in buildings no more than a few stories high in a valley encircled by huge mountains of mythic shapes. It takes TIME to fly over Mexico City.

We were staying with my friend's family high above Puerto Vallarta. I was amazed to see that the rich and poor live in immediate proximity; I'd not seen that in a city before. In New York, it only happens when a neighborhood is gentrifying and once that process is complete, the poor are gone from sight. Not so in Vallarta, and so it is possible to live in a tourist town and feel close to the kind and handsome people who live and work there. The sun bleaches everything; colors start out strong and become more achingly beautiful with every passing year of slaking sun and storm. Roosters rule the streets and are never quiet. Same for the dogs. The first night I kept thinking of that scene in Disney's 101 Dalmatians when the dogs send out an alarm across London. The tall, narrow door you see here is actually in Cuba.

For a Catholic country, you sure don't see much of Jesus in Mexico. The Virgin, however, is everywhere and splendid.

!Viva la diferencia!