Haz Lo Que Quieras

A whole new way to experience Message from the Underworld

CDMX

Greetings from Ciudad de Mexico! I arrived here the day before yesterday after a week in the capital of Yucatan. On Friday the folks at Habla, where I’ve been taking Spanish language lessons, threw a party, which was convenient since it was also my birthday. I donned what has become my official birthday suit and partied down.

Mexico City is a disorienting place. The city sits on top of a lake that dried up centuries ago, and is catastrophically unstable. The city is slowly sinking into the earth and the buildings tilt at odd angles. It’s not something you register most of the time but you sense it somehow. Same with the air pollution. And the elevation. Your body informs the mind by slow degrees that it’s different here. Despite the challenges of living in Mexico City more people live here than in any other city in North America.

Looking out my hotel window on the sixth floor, the city spreads out in every direction and is ringed by mountains. It doesn’t seem possible to be inhabiting a 500-year-old city that sits at the bottom of a lake, one-and-a-half miles above sea level, surrounded by mountains. That sounds like something out of a science fiction story.

From my window I can see the rooftop of the building immediately to my right. It’s festooned with sinks and clotheslines so people can clean their clothes the old fashioned way, just like that scene in Roma. I watched a woman who busied herself while waiting for her clothes to dry by playing catch with her three-legged dog.

I went into my favorite bookstore in the world—Cafebreria El Pendulo Roma—and experienced a new first when I spotted a copy of Haz Lo Que Quieras on the shelf. That’s the Spanish edition of Bad Religion’s Do What You Want. (I also spied a copy of Scott McClanahan’s El Libro de Sarah o The Book of Sarah.) I bought two books by the Mexican author Fernanda Melchor whose work I’ve been obsessing over lately.

Yesterday we met up with Pepe, Nuvia’s oldest friend in Mexico City, who used to manage a tattoo parlor and is responsible for many of our punk rock adventures in the city. After lunch at Mi Campa Chava, a Mariscos joint whose Instagram account I’ve been drooling over for months, we walked by an open window and saw a printing press. The artist—Armando Cabrera—invited us inside and showed off his studio where he transfers images onto copper plates to create prints. He’s been working with some of the city’s biggest artists for years, carrying on the work that his father did before him. The art and craftsmanship were inspiring but Armando’s openness even more so.

Axolote

I’m going to keep this brief—it is my birthday after all—but a few announcements before I go. A podcast I did with The Written Scene is up. I talk about my passion for writing and tease a project I’ll be telling you all about soon. It’s more intimate than some of the other podcasts I’ve done and that’s due in large part to the host, Adam Greenfield, a fellow San Diegan I’ve known for years.

Now for the big news. For the last month I’ve been sending out a special weekend edition of Message from the Underworld to paid subscribers called Orca Alert! It’s a weekly round-up of articles with a focus on the arts, culture, and science. It’s short, comes out on Sundays, and probably won’t ruin your day.

To get Orca Alert! all you have to do is become a paying subscriber to Message from the Underworld. When you do you’ll be supporting my work as a freelance writer and doing your part to keep Message from the Underworld going. If you chose not to subscribe—haz lo questions quire—that’s cool too. I’m jut really glad you’re here.

I took this video over four years ago backstage at the Heaven & Hell festival here in CDMX and it still gives me chills. Be safe and have a great week.