C. Hannibal buildings, cinema culture, cultural history, mexican culture, visually speaking

Google Video pick of the week #011

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In my neighborhood, when the jack hammers and tractors get rolling at 2 a.m. you know they won’t stop until well after 5a.m.  I try to ignore it, just bury my head under my pillow a little deeper, until I muffle all the sound. I’m not too light of a sleeper, but some nights these past two months, it got hard to sleep. Here’s why. And for that, I’m not trippin.

That is to say … I know that sound.

It’s not  just an annoying 10 ton clatter that makes its way up and down Cuauhtémoc Ave. It’s more than that.

It’s the sound of progress. Road infrastructure, public transit, just .38 cents and you’re home.

It’s that Westside extension putting a hole in Beverly Boulevard.  And it’s something like the Metro Rapid in the Valley, except out here you MUST pay to get on.

It’s also the extension of the Metrobús in Mexico City.

Which brings me to this week’s GVP. I picked the documentary, Bogotá: building a sustainable city, not because Brad Pitt narrates it, but because it’s about Bogotá, Colombia. Maternal lands.

You see, Colombia, along with Brazil were the forebearers to the style of bus service called BRT that Mexico has been recently using. It started out as a model of sustainable design, and now is a way of life that’s growing and costing lots of money.  Colombia’s Transmilenio was the first BRT I ever rode on back in 2006, when I visited.

So, check out the video, below, and learn what Bogotá can be like.  I’ll be fighting mucho ruido trying to hold on to at least a few hours of REM sleep. All in the name of progress.

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C. Hannibal mexican culture, visually speaking

Ad sequence: Benicio, the Ice Cream Man

benicio del toro advertising

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Benicio Del Toro´s Magnum campaign kicked off earlier this year. It´s been Mexican bus stop signage since at least April. I kept seeing this ad, and wondering to myself what this means when an actor does these kinds of moves. I can´t imagine an Oscar winner doing this for the U.S. market (Eva Longoria was the Magnum spokesperson just before).

Reminds me that huge stars do ads in Japan for the types of products you´ll never see them shill for in their home market.  What´s the public reaction in Mexico to this ad? I guess the goal is to get people to eat more overly sweet dairy bars. I just hope Benicio knows that Mexico is already one of the countries (along with the U.S.)  where diabetes and obesity are increasing.

basketball ads in mexico

Basketball and football have a lot of fans in Mexico City. Doesn´t compare with soccer or wrestling, however, that´s slowly changing.

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C. Hannibal visually speaking

Google Video pick of the week #010

As a  tattoo artist named Sol, from Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl recently told me at a party, “You need a higher degree to understand Jodorowsky. He’s not for the working man. Too abstract.”   While that may be true, Alejandro Jodorowsky is still a mythical multidisciplinary talent, best known in the U.S. as one of the progenitors of midnight cinema.

Above is La Montaña Sagrada, or Sacred Mountain (1973), a film that followed his breakout El Topo, and was bankrolled by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The film, which at times can seem like one long perverted commercial, is actually a dense meditation on his belief in the tarot and mysticism. Definitely one that went over a lot of people’s heads. For more on Jodorowsky, check out this excellent BBC documentary.
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C. Hannibal visually speaking

Oso Machete

As I approach my 100th post (a milestone for me in this blogging game, really), I’ve been brainstorming on a little I Know Huh? banner redesign. This pic takes a little inspiration from the Machete flick I posted about a couple of days ago. Courtesy of my sister, Cali, who lives and works in N.J., and graduated with a degree in toy design from F.I.T.—-where I had the luck of catching Gordon Parks speak at her graduation.

Cali works with paint, D.I.Y crafts, comics and pretty much anything else she comes up with in her room. She had some acrylic on vinyl anime character records displayed at the Hive Gallery in Downtown L.A. a couple of years ago. Contact her or check out her etsy.com sales page see more of her work.

C. Hannibal cinema culture, cultural history, mexican culture, music, Racially Speaking, visually speaking

Machete vs SB1070

I enjoy seeing popular entertainment take a stand against injustice.

Last week, Robert Rodriguez released a mock trailer for his upcoming “Mexploitation” film, Machete, and aimed it directly at the home state of SB1070.

One thing that popped out at me was the Jessica Alba  line near the end:

“We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.”

It also struck a chord with a lot of Spanish-language media. And that was perhaps because it sounded like a line from a 2001 Los Tigeres Del Norte song, “Somos Mas Americanos“.

“Yo no cruce la frontera, la frontera me cruzó”

Here are the translated lyrics to the song.

Of course, me…I immediatley thought of  the Malcolm X line:

“We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, the rock was landed on us.”

You can see it below. As you do, think of what’s going on in Arizona, and the plight of poor people who go there for work, for better opportunities; and then think about what SB1070 is trying to do. Reminds you a little of Jim Crow. Doesn’t it?

Here’s the Denzel version (starts at 07:18-07:32)

Shouts to Cypress Hill for cancelling their May 21 show in Tuscon in protest.

C. Hannibal cultural history, music, Racially Speaking, visually speaking

Google Video pick of the week #009

“Beat This: A Hip Hop History” (1984), was a BBC program that debuted the same year as another GV gem, “Beat Street”.

With the same stodgy wikipedia tone as all its other culture docs, this BBC piece takes us to the streets of the BX, then back to Manhattan, to hear the late Malcolm McLaren tell it to a group of B-Boys about how hip hop culture came to him. He goes at around 09:40.

The doc is narrated with the butter smooth tone of Imhotep Gary Byrd, and done up like a live radio broadcast cum history video.

Afrika Bambaata fans can rejoice, too. It’s packed with rare raw footage from the era that really set it off for hip-hop.

C. Hannibal buildings, cultural history, visually speaking

Ground Zero

There´s a very disturbing poetry to Alejandro González Iñárritu´s short from the compilation for September 11. It´s disturbing, but also satisfying for me, because it shows the reality of  the  horror of that day. No sugar added. No cushion.  Just an unforgettable, disturbing horror. I get the same feeling, however minutely, every time I pass by Ground Zero.

I´ll no doubt be doing some heavy thinking on Sept. 11 when I take RW1 this fall.

I wasn´t living on the East Coast when it happened, so I feel some disconnect.

I moved to L.A. in mid June 2001. About three months later, my mother, who was working in Downtown Manhattan, called me, crying, ¨Turn on the T.V., they just crashed a plane into the World Trade Center.¨

What a way to wake me up.  I didn´t believe what was happening, until that second plane hit.  Then I was like,  ¨What should I do?¨ I felt helpless out there, 5 minutes from Disneyland. In my crummy Anaheim apartment.

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C. Hannibal cultural history, mexican culture, Racially Speaking, visually speaking

Post-race in the Americas II

POST-RACE IN MEXICO ::

My mission in these posts is not to say that Mexico is a bad place for Black folks. To the contrary, there’s a thriving population here from the Caribbean, Africa and Haiti, among other places.  The presence of these  cultures makes the city a much richer place to be.

But the fetishization of antiquated images of negritude, seems to flourish here. And it leads one to think that certain aspects of Mexican society are resisting progression towards a more inclusive country. Maybe that´s an exaggeration.

Still, that´s just my point of view. Which is obvious, given my background, growing up Black and Latino, code switching in a suburb of Newark, NJ.

And to be fair, those images are similar to these images, which we were nurtured on, while sitting in front of the T.V. in the U.S.  So, the representation of images of Africa and Africans here isn´t too different from our depiction of Native Americans at sporting events.

Above is a picture from Africam Safari (the “m” designating it as a Safari in (M)exico), in Puebla.

It´s been around since 1972.

Although that ¨African¨ mascot and other similarly disturbing (and hilarious) images dominate the park, it´s interesting that little of it is represented in park ads, or on the park´s Web site. Maybe because these images aren´t appropriate in 2010?

Photo gallery after the jump….

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C. Hannibal concerts, cultural history, mexican culture, music, visually speaking

Essence of hip-hop en Estadio Azteca

In many parts of the modern world, graffiti is vilified. Here in Mexico, it´s a respected art form. Often encouraged.

From the renowned muralist culture, to even farther back to its ancient civilizations, communicating through art on walls has always been the way here.

Today, with the support of a paint company and local government agencies, what is essentially a free hip-hop festival will take over Mexico´s  main soccer stadium. A place were people go to worship futbol, for the 3rd year in a row, becomes a place for hip-hop´s faithful.

I went in 2009, and the event was regarded as too commercial by many graf heads. But, it´s one of the rare times in this megalopolis that lovers of rap music get a free open-air concert. ¨Wild Style¨ incarnate, here in Mexico City.

Below, Jezzy P , a rapper from Ecatepec who just dropped a new album     (she´s been putting years of work into her music) will be a featured rapper on Saturday afternoon. About two dozen rappers will perform over the weekend, while graf artists are competing on the walls of the stadium.

It´ll be like a day in the Bronx circa 1979.

Check out the list of scheduled rap performances on Jezzy´s blog.

In addition to Jezzy, highlights include performances by 2Phase,  Skool 77, Ana MC, Van T, T-Killa and Manicomio Clan, also check for ongoing cyphers in the parking lot.

The 3er. Concurso de Graffiti en tu Estadio Azteca 2010, co-sponsored by the Secretary of Public Security, takes place  April 17 and 18, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Mexico City´s Azteca Stadium.

C. Hannibal buildings, los angeles, visually speaking

Bunker Hill in the L.A. night

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From Bunker Hill Towers, a place I would not want to call home when the ground rolls, I could always see the eastside of Downtown encroaching me. There’s a sky bridge that connects the Bunker Hill apts. with the World Trade Center and I would walk across the traffic on Flower and Fig. The bridge is part of a system of Downtown L.A. pedestrian skywalks. Your feet never have to touch ground if you’re just going for a Subway sandwich at the Bonaventure. Wonder what Fante would have thought?

He might agree that the traffic-jumping bridge doesn’t change the overall problem of how that section of L.A. has carved its space. During the day it was all office workers getting exercise, or taking a shortcut to lunch. At night it’s another crowd, once, I saw two transsexuals taking night photos with the L.A. skyline as the backdrop. Another night, a homeless man taking advantage of lax security below and enjoying a brown paper bagged tall boy near the spiral staircase.

For more on Downtown L.A.’s historic Bunker Hill, check out this local blog. A Boston site has this forum post with pictures that capture Bunker Hill in the daylight.