added Friday post

1 files changed, 15 insertions, 26 deletions

diff --git a/published/2018-11-03_friday.txt b/published/2018-11-03_friday.txt
index 0265767..ef479fb 100644
--- a/published/2018-11-03_friday.txt
+++ b/published/2018-11-03_friday.txt
@@ -14,44 +14,33 @@ The next Friday was Wednesday, Halloween.
 
 It's not much of a holiday down here and honestly, aside from some candy corn I brought down for Elliott, who has been obsessed with the stuff ever since he discovered it last year at Ron's house, we were pretty much going to skip Halloween this year. 
 
-That said, the girls' dance teacher wanted to take all the kids down the Parrochia/Jardin area after class on Halloween, where, apparently, the expats hand out candy. I thought, well isn't that creepy of them. But then I'm always slagging the expats and I've been trying to do that less so I didn't say anything. It turned out to be way creepier than even I had imagined, but the kids got to walk around town in their costumes and really didn't care about anything else. They had a ball.
+That said, the girls' dance teacher wanted to take all the kids down the Parrochia/Jardin area after class on Halloween, where, apparently, the expats hand out candy. I thought, well isn't that creepy of them. But then I'm always slagging the expats and I've been trying to do that less so I didn't say anything. It turned out to be way creepier than even I had imagined, but the kids got to walk around town in their costumes and really didn't care about anything else. They had a ball. 
 
 <img src="images/2018/2018-10-31_175853_halloween.jpg" id="image-1762" class="picwide" />
-<img src="images/2018/2018-10-31_183730_halloween.jpg" id="image-1763" class="picwide" />
 
-I can't remember if I've allowed myself to print this yet or not, but generally speaking my least favorite people on earth are American expats of a certain kind. Typically of the baby boomer generation, always of the upper middle class, usually from one of the coastal states. 
+After the girls' dance class was over all the kids changed into their Halloween costumes and Michelle, their teacher, the six or so other kids, their families, and the five of us all walked the half mile or so down to the Jardin. There, in exchange for candy, a bunch of older expats took pictures of the all the kids. Not weird at all. Uh...
 
-I don't mean tourists or travelers. A friend asked me if it's touristy here. It is, I think. I mean we're tourists, we're here. But I grew up surrounded by tourists. But we tourists are, at worst, a harmless cold -- even if it's horrible for a day we'll be gone soon enough. And before I say what I'm about to say let me first say we've met some really wonderful people here, some who've been here a long time, but I think of them as long term tourists. They are not of species of expat that was in the Jardin on Halloween. 
+I might not have thought anything of it if the expats had been taking pictures of *all* the kids in the Jardin, but they weren't. They were taking pictures of the Mexican kids. That our kids were taken for Mexican was an accident of assumptions -- since we were walking with a group of Mexican families, we must be Mexicans. 
 
-No, the expats I am referring to are a different breed. They're cancer to the tourist cold. A malignant and unstoppable destructive force. And they're like obscenity, no one can quite define them, but you know them when you see them. 
-
-In Asia these expats are almost universally men, and they have almost universally left home to buy the sort of women they could never get to acknowledge them in the States. That's just one subspecies though. There are others. Here I've overheard more than a few expat women saying the same things I heard come out of the mouths of American men in Thailand. The kinds of things miserable, lonely people say about the happy people who surround them. 
-
-Why come to a place full of people you sneeringly look down on? I think that's actually why they come -- geo-arbitrage. The value of the dollar allows them to live like the elites that sneered down at them back home. They run away from that and yet quickly turn into the same petty tyrants that ruled over them back home. It's sad really. Fortunately here it's pretty easy to avoid them. Stay out of the expensive restaurants and you'll almost never run into these types of people (in Asia sometimes it's a bit tougher to avoid them).
-
-Alas, Halloween in San Miguel apparently brings them all out of the woodwork. 
-
-After the girls' dance class was over all the kids changed into their Halloween costumes and Michelle, their teacher, the six or so other kids, their families, and the five of us all walked the half mile or so down to the Jardin. There, in exchange for candy, a bunch of older expats took pictures of all the kids. Not weird at all.
+It got me thinking about *why* we all take all the pictures we take. The kids -- regardless of nationality -- didn't seem to care, by the end they had buckets full of candy and for children, candy transcends all. 
 
 <img src="images/2018/IMG_20181031_180431569.jpg" id="image-1771" class="picwide caption" />
 
-Usually when you see people of your own nation behaving badly you really have no idea how the locals feel. Do they care? Do they just think crazy American (or Brit, or German, or whatever)? This was interesting because everyone assumed, since I was walking with a group of Mexican families, that I was Mexican as well. I don't propose to speak for anyone, but I think I might understand an inkling of how they felt, and here's the thing obnoxious expat baby boomers of San Miguel: I'm pretty sure no one likes you. 
-
-I can be a little confrontational with people behaving badly in public. If someone is out of hand my instinct is to stop them. Especially when kids are involved. If you want to provoke me to violence, messing with my kids is the fastest way to do it. If all this had happened in the U.S., I'll be honest, I'd probably be in jail. Here I am a guest and I try to be a good guest. So I watched the families I was with and did what they did. I forced myself to to be overly polite, to smile and encourage my kids to smile. Perhaps it was ordinary to them, I don't really know. It was odd enough to me that I had one of those experiences where I get to watch myself from outside myself. 
+The next Friday was Thursday, Dia de Muertes. Despite the name, around here celebrating Dia de Muertes takes two days. 
 
-I walked away thinking that when you're on the outside looking in, you never really know how tightly someone's lips are pressed when they smiling back at you.
+Day of the dead is a colorful holiday, lots of marigolds, elaborate family shrines, candles and, at night, fireworks. We went out wandering the town in the morning, watching people set up all the painstakingly handmade decorations. I hardly took any pictures though. The expats with their cameras in the Jardin the night before was still in my mind and then, unfortunately, we kept running across more people with cameras behaving badly. Normally I hardly notice expats or tourists, but for some reason they were all over the place for day of the dead, and behaving obnoxiously.
 
-The way people were looking at me for a mere half an hour, the belittling smiles, the unconscious patronizing, the palpable feeling that someone else thinks you are less human than them, is how some people are treated day in and day out, every single day all over the world Because of the combined random chance of skin color, geopolitical boundaries, and the amount of money, power and opportunities those things granted me, I very rarely get treated this way. It's a luxury I take for granted. On Halloween for a moment I didn't have that luxury. But it was only for a moment -- when the candy buckets were full the kids and I could walk away, me shaking my head at the whole thing. Not everyone gets to do that. 
+We watched people shoving cameras in the locals' faces while they tried to make shrines for their dead, the parents they missed, the children they'd lost. And let's be clear, it wasn't "people" it was, in all three cases I witnessed, white males of a certain age. And it wasn't just any locals. They sure as hell weren't shoving cameras in the face of the guy covered in tattoos with a prominent 13 on the back of his head, no they were doing it to the grandmothers and grandfathers, the people who, again, were least likely to protest. 
 
-I've been a bit more reserved when I'm out and about ever since. I've also been more sensitive to people behaving badly around me, which is one of the reasons there's so few pictures in this post.
+And I point that out not because the guy has gang tattoos, but because his tattoos make him photographically interesting, more so than a grandmother to my mind. But then he's intimidating and the grandmother isn't. Or so you'd think. But the only public act of violence I've seen in Mexico was grandmother beating a guy with her purse when he got in her way at a parade, so it's not like old Mexican women are helpless. 
 
-The next Friday was Thursday, Dia de Muertes day one.
+Still, you have to wonder what makes people think it's okay walk around shoving your camera in a grandma's face, while she's in the midst of a celebration designed to honor the dead. It's rude any day of the week. And, after the experience in the Jardin the night before, I couldn't help thinking -- to what end? Why are we even taking all these pictures? To remember? Are our memories that bad? To show others? To impress our friends with... what exactly? How little you understand the culture that's been kind enough to allow you to visit it? I don't understand how anyone comes to think it's okay to behave this way. 
 
-Day of the dead is a colorful holiday, lots of marigolds, candles and, at night, fireworks. We went out wandering the town in the morning, watching people set up all the elaborate decorations. Unfortunately we kept running across people behaving badly, particularly people with cameras. We watched people shove cameras in Abuelas' faces while they tried to make shrines for their dead, the parents they missed, the children they'd lost. And let's be clear, it wasn't "people" it was, in all three cases I witnessed, white males. In the midst of a celebration designed to honor the dead you're going to shove your camera in an old Mexican woman's face? That's rude any day of the week. And to what end? So you can post some shit to the internet to impress your friends with... what exactly? How little you understand the culture that's been kind enough to allow you to visit it? I don't understand what how anyone comes to think it's okay to behave this way.
+I do know where the idea for the image comes from though -- National Geographic. But National Geographic photographers don't get those images by rudely shoving a camera in someone's face. Shoving cameras in someone's face is something shitty photographers do -- the people who take pictures no one will ever care about precisely because they have no empathy, no feeling, no soul, lack even the self-awareness to recognize that there is a soul. These are crappy selfies in which the self just happens to be outside the frame.
 
-And of course it's the shitty photographers doing this stuff, the people who take pictures no one wants to see anyway because they have no empathy, no real feeling, no soul, lack even the self-awareness to recognize that there is a soul. Shitty selfies in which the self just happens to be outside the frame.
+The people making art out of the beauty they see around them, the people whose images could actually end up in National Geographic don't take pictures like that because there's no beauty to be had that way. They don't take pictures without permission, they don't take pictures without first getting to know a person, even if only for a few moments. 
 
-Real photographers, the people making art out of the beauty they see around them,  don't take pictures like that, they never take pictures without permission, never take pictures without knowing a person, even if only for a few moments. I watched shit photographer after shit photographer all weekend and I didn't want to be like them. I'm too shy to go out and meet people and ask to take their photographs, so I took the other sensible path, I put my camera away. The only pictures I have of Dia de Muertes are of me, my family, and few of the public decorations we saw while walking around. 
+On Dia de Muertes I watched shit photographer after shit photographer behaving like asses and I didn't want to be like them, which is why there's so few images in this post. I'm too shy to go out and meet people and ask to take their photographs, so I took the other sensible path -- I put my camera away. The only pictures I have of Dia de Muertes are of me, my family, and few of the public decorations we saw while walking around. 
 
 <div class="cluster">
 <img src="images/2018/2018-11-01_121201_halloween.jpg" id="image-1765" class="cluster picwide" />
@@ -62,12 +51,12 @@ Real photographers, the people making art out of the beauty they see around them
 </span>
 </div>
 
-And that's how it's supposed to be I think. I always sort of thought of Dia de Muertes as a Mexican Halloween, but it's not at all. It's a celebration of *your* dead. Like everything in this country it's about your family, your history, your people. There's an essay I really like, <cite>[Let Me Die like a Mexican](https://claritamannion.wordpress.com/2016/10/25/dia-de-muertos/)</cite>, which calls Dia de Muertes a "bittersweet reflection on love, loss and life well lived." That's very much what it felt like to me.
+I think that's how Dia de Muertes is supposed to be anyway. It isn't the huge party I thought it was. I always thought of it as a Mexican Halloween, but it's not. It's a celebration of *your* dead. Like everything in this country it's about your family, your history, your people. There are public aspects to it, certainly fireworks and parties, but it's primarily a more personal holiday. There's an essay I really like, <cite>[Let Me Die like a Mexican](https://claritamannion.wordpress.com/2016/10/25/dia-de-muertos/)</cite>, which calls Dia de Muertes a "bittersweet reflection on love, loss and life well lived." That's very much what it felt like to me.
 
 It's also the day the dead come back to visit the loved ones they've left behind. That's not metaphorical and it's not taken lightly. Everything that's done is done to make their journey back from the underworld more pleasant -- the food, the offerings, the alcohol, it's all for the returning family members. Any student of the world's bardo literature knows that coming out of the underworld is no easy task. You're going to want a drink afterward. 
 
-Walking around during the day I spent a fair bit of time contemplating how Dia de Muertes managed to survive the Catholic church. It's the most overtly pagan celebration I've ever seen. Sometimes the older pagan ways are too strong to be denied I guess. What comes from below almost always outlasts what is imposed from above. Surprisingly, the recent movie, Coco, does a pretty decent job of capturing what the celebrations here are actually like.
+Walking around during the day I spent a fair bit of time contemplating how Dia de Muertes managed to survive the Catholic church. It's the most overtly pagan celebration I've ever seen. Sometimes the older pagan ways are too strong to be denied I guess -- what comes from below outlasts what is imposed from above. Surprisingly, the recent movie, Coco, does a pretty decent job of capturing what the celebrations here are actually like.
 
 I, on the other hand, cannot do a decent job of explaining what Dia de Muertes was like because I decided I wasn't invited. My dead are nowhere near here and I've got nothing for them even if they came. I'd never really thought about it until that night, but I'm a crap descendant in that regard. I've never done anything to honor the dead in my family, certainly nothing of the sort that happens on Dia De Muertes here. I don't even think about them much if I'm honest. I didn't even make to their funerals in most cases, what business do I have being out on day of the dead?
 
-So I went back to the apartment. I sat  in the little covered outdoor area between the two rooms,  listening to the fireworks, watching the flickering colors in the window. I drank a Modelo. Maybe two. It could have been three. I mumbled something about it being Friday, and it was actually Friday by then, and I ain't got no job, I ain't got shit to do.
+So I went back to our apartment. I sat in the little covered outdoor area between the two rooms, listening to the fireworks, watching the flickering colors in the window. I drank a Modelo. Maybe two. It could have been three. I mumbled something about it being Friday, and it was actually Friday by then, and I ain't got no job. I ain't got shit to do.