Archive for the mexico tag
VBS.TV Celebrates Mexico All Month Long
VBS.TV has turned its sights towards Mexico in a month long programming tribute, accompany the Mexican language version of Vice:
Having spread our seed across the whole of the English Commonwealth and the continent of Europe (the good parts at least), this month Vice and VBS turn our sites southward for the launch of Vice Mexico. This is just the first baby-step in our planned conquest of Latin America in its entirety, but it is still a doozy of a start.
For the next four weeks, all the programming on VBS is if not Made In Mexico, at least Made By Mexicans. Or in some cases With Mexicans. There will be new Mexican episodes of Practice Space with the likes of Los Dynamite, Maria Daniela, Silverio, Jessy Bulbo, and Hong Kong Blood Opera; fresh editions of Art Talk! with Miguel Calderon, Yoshua Okon, and other luminaries of Mexico City’s incredible punk-art scene; and features on our favorite facets of Mexico’s insane-ass culture like the murder-tabloid industry (la Nota Roja) and their retirement home for aging sex workers (yes, they really have one of those).
And as a final treat in the pinata, we followed Richard Kern down to the capital for a special Mexico City installment of Shot By Kern. Be on the lookout for that, and be sure to check out the inaugural Mexican Issue of the magazine over on Viceland.com.
Most of the series seems to focus on the mex/us border towns and Mexico City, no rural coast stuff going on, I guess it doesn’t mesh with Vice’s urban hipster aesthetic. But lots of good content, so go check it out.
Lance Wyman is the mastermind behind the superlative ‘68 Mexico Olympic branding system in addition to a hundred other logos you’ve probably seen, but never attributed to Wyman (or maybe you have and I’m a crowd of one).
I’ve never seen a full exploration of the concepts and applications Wyman’s team created for the project, so when I ran across the examples on his website (shown above) I was amazed at how many different applications there were and how the letterforms grew and morphed into a pattern of geometric shapes with the logo almost but not quite illegible. A brief search on google, amazon, et all… and I couldn’t find any books on Wyman’s work or the ‘68 Olympics branding. There should be (if there’s not already) some kind of definitive, impressive tome on this subject, if not in english then at least in spanish as the logo is still as relevant and venerated as it ever was, reappearing constantly by reference in modern Mexican pop culture.
Here’s a fascinating interview with Wyman from Eye Magazine. He delves into the logo’s dual inspirations - native Huichol art and Op art. OpArt which was coming on strong internationally and Huichol art which was just starting to be embraced and exhibited in Mexico. The Mexico 68 Olympics logo was a melding of these two seemingly diametrically opposed arts, that ended up working together pretty superfluously.
Incidentally, Creative Review asked Wyman what his thoughts are regarding the London 2012 Olympics logo:
“The London 2012 logo has been presented with promising descriptive text but besides the date, I don’t think the logo itself attempts to reference anything of significance,” he says. “It has certainly aroused a lot of critical references, from grade school paper cuts to porno.
“My gut feeling though is to give the logo a chance, he continues. “It has a recognisable, brash character and might offer an open book of application possibilities that will keep it fresh into 2012.
More on Lance Wyman and larger images from the Mexico 68 Olympics series at Web Esteem Mag.
[via TypeNeu]
Photo by Daniel Hernandez
The Daily Swarm: Mexico’s Emo Witch Hunt: mob attacks in Mexico City and Guadalajara… Televisa VJ’s rants inspire violence… Emo kids fight back across the country…
Mexico has a fervent emo subculture:
“Emo” refers to a youth subculture which involves a punk-meets-geek approach to fashion, angst-driven “emotional” music, and a general depressive nature. It is often regarded as a watered down version of the punk movement, much to the emo kid’s dismay.
No Wrong Turns: Emos Attacked in Mexico and Chile by Kelsey Mulyk
Apparently emo kids are being targeted by other youth subculture groups like goths and punks. Negative sentiments and open hostility have given way to fighting, rioting and strategic targeting of emo groups (personally, I can’t even imagine real goths picking on anyone, nevermind attacking them). Daniel Hernandez is a reporter for the LA Weekly, living in Mexico City. He has a series on the attacks, his coverage is in depth and ongoing:
A bizarre wave of mob emo-bashings is sweeping across Mexico. The movement is being generated on message boards and social networking sites by non-emo youth who highly dislike like the emo look and attitude.
The spark came first in Queretaro on March 7. An estimated 800 young people poured into the city’s Centro Historico hunting for emos to beat the crap out of. They found some. The next weekend it spread to Mexico City, where emos faced off against punks and rockabillies at the Glorieta de Insurgents, the epicenter of emo social space in the capital. There’s also been reports of anti-emo violence in Durango, Colima, and elsewhere.
Hostility towards emos has been bubbling under the surface, but current attacks coincided with an expletive and vitriol-laced tirade on emos by on-air personality Kristoff, on a recent Televisa morning show. The video is shocking.
The nationwide assault campaign against emos in Mexico continues to surge forward, as word is spreading that emos will be hunted and beaten by anti-emo kids in Tijuana on Saturday. Word is emos will rumble with their adversaries at Plaza Rio, Tijuana’s central outdoor mall…
If you’re interested in this story you can follow Hernandez’s reporting and all-seeing YouTube has tons of clips on the riots and anti/pro-emo user videos.
Photo from Gutierrez’s Xinjiang series
Raul Gutierrez’s photography is currently blowing my mind. all of it. I could rummage around his portfolio site all day long. His images are impeccably well done, yet there’s something very raw about them, which I’m very much in to.
Why not listen to Raul’s muxtape while viewing his portfolio or blog (how cool is the internet?!). I also found these interesting finds while on his flickrstream.
Yesterday I dragged the girls up to Sayulita to give them surfing lessons in the shallow break to the side of the beach towards Villa Amor. Each of the girls braved the cold water and got up on the board enough to claim bragging writes for when they get back home. Bella did particularly well and had good sense of balance.
Sayulita was bananas. Semana Santa in full effect. The most crowded I have ever seen it. Maybe 100 boards in the water. And not a single local in site. There wasn’t much swell to speak of but the ocean was broiling with wind generated white-cappers.
Today is the official start of Semana Santa, but the coast has been clogged with inland mexican vacationers since Friday. Semana Santa is Mexico’s Spring Break, Fourth of July and Labor Day all rolled into one. The entire country takes off, packs up and goes to the beach. Anything even remotely inflatable can be used as a floatation device and beaches look like hodge-pod terry cloth patchworks. The highway that runs through Bucerias is a virtual parking lot and every restaurant and corner store is jammed with gente. Going anywhere is a problem. But it’s also one of the best times of the year to be here. Our sleepy little beach town is alive and well.
All hell is breaking loose in the mexican state of Tabasco. 3/4 of the state, including the capital, is underwater. 300,000 people are trapped by the floods (CNN International says that number is 700,000). The damage and human displacement is on the level of New Orleans. It’s on everyone’s lips here, and we’re all scrambling to help in whatever way we can. Massive rains and a particularly close moon phase have caused the rivers in the area to overflow (although I can’t seem to find the original article that explains the way that the low, full moon, rivers and the gulf all created a perfect storm). A quick check of the google news homepage and I don’t see a single article, that’s disheartening. How long do you think it’ll take the US government before they even issue a statement, never mind actually helping. The forecast? more rain.
