Ragged Claws

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Too much wine and too much song, wonder how I got along


One of the most endearing things about Mexico City is the presence of music in public spaces. Merchants hawk cds or dvds on the street, vendors tuck speakers into specially designed backpacks in order to sell mp3 collections on the metro, and the teenage boys who steer rickety green buses up and down Reforma blast their favorites as they drive. 2009 has been the summer of Michael Jackson - it's hard to walk through the Alameda without hearing "Beat It" or "Smooth Criminal" pulsating from stalls along the path. This is the first time I've been here that a single artist has been so dominant, although it's true that loose musical themes usually emerge during each visit. Last year the mysterious entity which produces and markets mp3 discs was pushing a collection of '80s and '90s hits, so it was common to hear wistful snippets of "Losing My Religion." In 2004, the song which made its presence felt was "Seasons in the Sun," by Terry Jacks (who sings the line "Goodbye, Michelle, it's hard to die" with remarkable gusto, as if telling Michelle that while yes, dying is hard, it's a challenge he is eager to tackle. "Seasons in the Sun" also includes the immortal verse "But the stars we could reach/Were just starfish on the beach.") I think the repeated encounters with this song in 2004 were just coincidence, though, not the work of any larger structural forces. (At least, I hope this is the case, since it's terrifying to think of some malevolent hand deliberately sowing schmaltz throughout the fabric of space and time.)

The most serendipitous Mexican musical experience, though, happened in a pedestrian underpass last summer. Because I am now old enough to be out of touch with the Youth of Today and their internets, toaster phones and tweet tweet splats, I was listening to an NPR podcast about pop culture. (Yes, I know that getting information about popular culture from NPR compounds the geezer factor tenfold, then raises it to the power of a million, then multiplies it by itself a few times just for fun, then lightly drizzles some maple syrup and powdered sugar on top and serves it up as an Early Bird Special.) The NPR hosts were discussing the then-novel phenomenon of Rickrolling, in which internet users are tricked into watching a video of the 1987 Rick Astley song, "Never Gonna Give You Up." So I was walking through the underpass, headbanging to NPR, when noises from the outside world started to seep through. Speakers blared from inside a small hardware booth, and those speakers were playing..."Never Gonna Give You Up." Seriously, it was like walking by a pet store, and seeing a live performance of the hamster dance, but even more meta. That's one of the best things about having all of this public music available - it allows for the creation of fortuitous connections and associations, enlivening what would otherwise be more workaday spaces.

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