And could I be so lucky…but they have come to Mexico! And not only that, but they painted another amazing mural at the same place where I held Wear Your Art on Your Sleeve. Check it out:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/7jgtFl/blogs.sacbee.com/photos/2010/09/mexicos-200th-birthday-bash.html

DRUG MUSEUM

Gold plated gun. Narco traffikers have so much style.

Narco attire...so badass

Display cases feature weapons seized from drug traffickers. Among numerous jewel-studded firearms lies a gold plated handgun with an embossed portrait of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Also on display is a diamond encrusted cell phone that once belonged to Daniel Pérez Rojas, one of the founders of the notoriously violent Zetas cartel. The museum’s exhibits show how drugs have been used since ancient times, how poppy is grown today in narco camps, how heroin is produced in drug labs, and how narcotics are smuggled inside everything from donuts and encyclopaedias to propane tanks and stuffed animals. Near the exit, a plaque commemorates more than 600 Mexican soldiers who have died fighting the cartels over the last 30 years.

El Museo de Enervantes is perhaps one of the most fascinating museums in the world – but you can’t go there. Operated by the Ministry of Defence, this “secret museum” is not open to the public. It is intended for military use only — primarily in the training of new soldiers.

Drugs hidden inside Virgin mural

A SOUNDTRACK FOR THE DRUG TRADE
Narcocorridos are the popular drug ballads populating radio airwaves throughout Mexico. Their mix of explicit lyrics, accordions, tubas and 12-string acoustic guitars make for an odd cross between gangsta rap and polka-esque folk music. Some of these songs stir up controversy by glorifying the drug trade, while others play out more like Greek tragedies, the protagonists realizing their own fatal flaws all too late. These pop songs are undeniably popular, reaching Mexican communities in North America as well.

NARCO STREET ART

Another place to find art documenting drug culture is the street itself. Street artist Watchavato, for example, tags the walls of Mexico City with stencil prints of Jesus Malverde, the patron saint of drug dealers. Malverde, believed to have been a sympathetic bandit killed by the authorities, is revered as a Robin Hood figure in the drug world. (One of the many shrines to this unlikely saint is even displayed in the military’s El Museo de Enervantes.) Watchavato’s stickers, prints and paintings, which also depict AK-47s, flashy cars and other by-products of narcotrafficking, can be seen throughout Mexico’s capital.

NARCOCINEMA
Narcocinema has also surfaced as a genre unto itself. It is an industry of alternative films which, despite generally going straight to DVD, have become very popular in regions of Mexico and the US plagued by drug violence, according to the BBC. Most of these low-budget movies are based on true stories of Mexican drug barons. El Pozolero, for example, tells the story of Santiago Meza Lopez (nicknamed “El Pozolero”, or “The Stew Maker”), who confessed in 2009 to dissolving 300 dead bodies in tubs of acid.
Some of these movies even have suspected ties to the drug cartels themselves. Drug lord Edgar Valdez, for one, admitted to financing a narco biopic about his life. The movie was subsequently used by authorities to aid in narcotics investigations.

Check this out by Vice:

http://www.vbs.tv/es-mx/watch/the-vice-guide-to-film–2/mexican-narco-cinema-part-1-of-3

NARCO NOVELAS (Drug Soap Operas)
Narcocultura has also made its way into soap operas. Narco novelas, or drug-related soaps, tend to focus on female characters, likely because they target a female audience, NPR conjectures. La Reina del Sur (Queen of the South), for instance, is a popular narco novela airing on Telemundo. Based on a novel by former war correspondent Arturo Pérez-Reverte Gutiérrez, it has been the first soap to focus on a female drug lord. Another popular novela, Muñecas de la Mafia (Mafia Dolls), follows the women who date and marry drug dealers in Mexico and Colombia.

“The violence in Mexico is something that permeates all aspects of culture. You can’t escape it.”

Tourist Recommendation #1

One of my favorite things about living in Mexico City is the abundance of colorful markets and bazaars that run all throughout the year. Some run weekly or monthly and many on special occasions or for a specific purpose like promoting Mexican artists or designers or to give antique and toy collectors a chance to show off, trade, and sell their interesting knick knacks. There are so many that I can guarantee any tourist , even just visiting for a weekend, will easily find one. My current favorite: Bazaar Fusion which runs trimonthly and is most often located in Condesa or Roma.

Tourist Recommendation #2

Mexico City has an unending amount of social gathering spots (aka pubs, bars, lounges). But as creatures of habit, most of us find ourselves drawn back to our favorites. Let me share mine with you: Groove. This dimly lit, bohemian restaurante-bar in La Condesa has delicious food, a smart wine selection, and best of all, the young Argentinian brothers who own it treat their clients like friends in their own home. If you are looking to sit back on a comfy couch, drink a beer or a glass of wine and enjoy conversation day or night, this is definitely a perfect place!

Only in Mexico.  By Vicki Plett

As much as I look like I don’t belong here (being tall, blonde and blue-eyed and speaking what can only be termed as poor Spanish), I try my best to make DF feel like home. But no matter how close I get to feeling some sort of normality with the way things are here, there still continues to be things that shock, amaze or bother me in this city. Obviously for native Mexicans most of what they see in their day to day is just regular. After living here for two years, I am still shocked by some of the strange things that I’m hoping will soon become normal for me as well. Till they do, I am cursed to be the “odd” girl who has to stop and take photos of street art, while others only see pointless graffiti or to comment on something I find absolutely horrific, while others don’t even see the point in mentioning something so ordinary. Let me share some examples with you of things that are so unique to Mexico that only a foreigner like myself could find them outstanding, for better or for worse:

Women-only taxis and buses. Great alternative for women not wanting to deal with sexual harassment.

Chicken legs in my soup.How can anyone want to gnaw on anything that looks like it was chopped off of ET?

Men wearing luchador masks in the airport…and this being okay. Guess its not necessary to show your face when traveling.

Giant crater-like holes in the middle of sidewalks.

Mariachis selling themselves like prostitutes down Garibaldi. I just love this.

Parking thieves you must pay to not key-scratch your car while you’re away.

Restaurant servers who are more than willing to run to the corner store to pick you up cigarettes, Advil, gum or any other random thing you might like while dining.

People who turn right from the far left lane and no one, not even the police bat an eye.

How you can find tons of places to eat yourself fat and drink copious amounts of alcohol under $100 pesos.

Day of the Dead. This day will probably never feel normal, but will amaze me every year.

Art everywhere. Even when I’m not trying, I am discovering new galleries, new artists, and seeing new street art everywhere. I am loving how much creativity lives in this city.

All I hope is that the more beautiful things continue to amaze, making me feel proud to call DF my home, and that all the things that irritate slowly change with the evolution that is Mexico City.

Here are some pics from the day that you give you an idea of the hood:

A property I love, but can't afford

Another property we love, but can't afford

Another beautiful property that we definitely can not afford

Property not available for rent, but still fascinating

Popped in to a lovely bookstore/cafe called El Pendulo.

Inside El Pendulo

Oscar, a skateboarder and another cyclist. Mexico City is changing ever so slowly. When you look at this photo to you see Mexico City as overcrowded with heavy traffic and pollution as it is most often portrayed?

If I had the time, the talent and the money, I would love to redo this place for my business. The architecture is absolutely stunning. Unfortunately, it is way too big of a project for us at this time.

Oscar patiently waiting at a red light.

This is an apartment complex and I think it's pretty.

Quick stop at the corner store for some beers and we're on our way home

Graffiti Art in La Roma

Gorgeous photo in an art gallery in La Roma

Super patriotic car.

Bowl of lifesavers in an empty polkadot room (Garash Galería, La Roma)

Pretty house that I want to live in (La Roma)

Street Art makes ugly wall nice to look at

Chicharito. The only man Oscar permits me to kiss if I ever get the opportunity to be that close.

Mexican megabillionaire Carlos Slim finally opened his contemporary art museum in Mexico City and I have been dying to check it out. The first week it was open, there were lineups out into the street and so we decided to wait. I like galleries to be kind of like libraries: empty and quiet, so that you can ponder what you are looking at.

Anyway, the museum, named after his late wife Soumaya, houses his “world-class” art collection that I guess he didn’t have room for in any one of his mansions around the world (He has amassed an art collection of 66,000 pieces). I put world class in quotations because for the most part I was super dissapointed in this collection: a lot of museum artifacts and religious antiques and NO contemporary art in 3 of the 5 floors. That was a huge dissapointment. I was so excited to see some contemporary paintings that most galleries I visit simply can’t afford. I thought for sure, Carlos Slim, richest man in the world will have some stunning and rare contemporary pieces. I am not saying that I am a qualified art critic, but for my taste and for the fact that the museum has been advertised as “contemporary”, yet most pieces were hundreds of years old, I can say it wasn’t so great…for me.

However, he does have the second-largest cache of Auguste Rodin sculptures in private hands (including “The Thinker”) and some of the most famous (and some of my favorites) of Salvador Dalí statues.

What is super spectacular about this museum is mainly the architecture, inside and out. The museum was designed by Slim’s 38-year-old son-in-law who also designed the adjacent enormous complex which is the headquarters for the magnate’s telecom corporations Grupo Carso and Telcel, a shopping mall (where you can find purses worth $5000 dolllars!!!), and luxury apartment housing. It is quite a sight to see. The museum is massive (towers 150 feet in the air) and its shimmering, honeycombed aluminum structure resembles a swelling wave.

It cost about $34 million. I truely believe that art and culture are important factors in rehabiliting communities, but I can’t help but wonder, living in a city with so much poverty, that $34 million dollars could have been better spent if Slim “really” wanted to give Mexico a gift, as he says this museum is.

Handful fresh blueberries

Handful dried unsweetened cranberries

Sprinkling of crushed almonds

1/4 oatmeal

Sprinkling of flax seed

1/4 cup espresso coffee

Sprinkling brown sugar

1/3 water

1/4 cup skim milk

NUMMY!!

Nearly 6 years ago in University when Oscar and I first met and started dating, we were chatting online. I think we were both on university campus; I was in a library and he was in the Engineering computer lab. Oscar must have printed out part of that conversation and has kept it in his wallet ever since. Over 6 years. It brought tears to my eyes not only because he kept this, but because of all the good memories it brought back of when we first started out.

Vicki says: SMILE! Vicki thinks you are great!

Oscar says: How come?

Vicki says: bc u r sweet, romantic, funny, innocent, hardworking, creative, caring, brilliant, gentle, polite, charming, understanding, grateful, smart, generous……you’ve got a great smile and a cute but and you have a sexy Mexican accent and you’re very handsome and you’re healthy and fit. you’re also open-minded and you never lose your temper. You know how to make me laugh and you try so hard to make me happy. bc when your lips are dry you look so cute wiggling them around. and cuz your glasses make you look sophisticated and bc you listen to me and to others and are interested in art and politics just because I am. bc you encourage me to do my best and you’re my shoulders to cry on……bc u make me feel beautiful even when i know i look bad. bc my life wouldn’t be as wonderful or nearly as fun without you in it. come find me and kiss me.

There was also another folded piece of paper with a picture of me on it. He must have printed it from an online pic somewhere. He never told me. He never asked for a photo of me back then so I’m not sure exactly where he got it from.