Mexi cyber-punk

Hey, remember what I was saying about Mexico City being like Blade Runner? Well I was websurfing or clicking or nosing around the other day online of course and check out what I found in William Gibson's blog! (guy who wrote Neuromancer) I didn't even know he had a blog but Google rooted out this comment on Mex DF.

"Saturday, May 24, 2003
posted 4:18 PM
FOX HEADROOM

Fuldog's backgrounder, from Mexico City, on El Presidente's wife, the clown, etc., is exactly the sort of feedback that makes blogging worthwhile. Like, *who (around here, anyway) knew*? Except of course for our man on the ground in the DF -- which is, by the way, the most, well, *cyberpunk*, for want of a better word, place I've ever been. Mexico City is a moment by moment reminder of just how embarrassingly relative the term "dystopian" is. The infrastructure there has been functioning for decades now in what for the cities of El Norte would be conditions of grotesque Burroughsian emergency, but people just keep getting up every day and getting on with their lives. Which I found both impressive and strangely hope-inducing.

Actually there is a better word for the DF ("Federal District", like DC) than "cyberpunk": "Ballardian". When you see Fuldog here, he's checking in from one *extreme* urban environment!"


And that's from the creator of "cyberpunk" himself I think... It's a little dark. I'm not sure it's that crazy here, but there are parallels. I'm not sure what "Ballardian" means, but I guess that's why he's the Hugo author and I'm stuck here in the "Tenochitlan Industrial Axis".



Here are some more photos I took on the roof of my friends house down the way. The planes fly right over the city day and night and sometimes pretty close. You get used to hearing them air-brake over the WTC.



Typical Mexico City rooftops. Don't see too many of those old school aerials in Vancouver anymore. Those cement casks are older water tanks.



Typical DF apt going up. In our area it's becoming more and more yuppie to live. They're building many of these small condo buildings which are mostly kind of ugly in my opinion, but they're still a little humbler than the glass canyons of Yaletown for instance.