First Stop in the New World Mexico City, the Capital of the 21st Century

by Lida, David

• ISBN13: 9781594489891
• ISBN10: 1594489890
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-06-12
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover

Summary

A panoramic literary portrait of Mexico City— a vibrant, seductive, paradoxical city now commanding the world’s attention and showing us the way to the future of urban life. David Lida moved to Mexico City fifteen years ago in search of a kind of culture, energy, and spontaneity that he thought had been lost in his native New York City. What he found was a thriving, miraculous urban center comprising centuries of living history, even as its rapid development was making it a prominent force on the world stage. Through the eyes of an American who has become an insider, First Stop in the New Worldis a street-level panorama of contemporary Mexico City—from the high arts to the sex industry; from the dense jungle of urban politics to the interactions of everyday commerce; from one end of this five-hundred-square-mile city to the other. Lida expertly captures the kaleidoscopic nature of life in a city defined by pleasure and danger, justice and lawlessness, ecstatic joy and appalling tragedy—in limbo between the developed and developing worlds. While London and Paris have become more homogenous, less captivating, and less surprising since the days when Dickens and Balzac wrote about them, Mexico City points to our urban future—if Manhattan was, as posited by Rem Koolhaas, the urban Rosetta Stone of the twentieth century,” Mexico City will play that same role in the twenty-first. And with his personal, literary-journalistic account, David Lida will serve as the ultimate chronicler of this exciting city at a vital moment in its history.

Author Biography

David Lida is an American who has lived in Mexico City for much of the last fifteen years. His journalism has been published in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Forward, Interview, Gourmet, and The Village Voice, among others. He is also the author of a book of short stories that take place in Mexico, Travel Advisory.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Hypermetropolis	p. 1
Mexican Lexicon, Part One	p. 15
El Centro	p. 17
Where the Money Is and Isn't	p. 25
Santa Fe and Santa Fe	p. 47
Getting Around	p. 54
Lucha	p. 62
La Penultima Copa	p. 67
Paty	p. 79
Two-for-One at the Pyramid of the Sun	p. 82
Our Rodeo Drive	p. 107
Montse's Trip	p. 110
Mexican Lexicon, Part Two	p. 115
Jesus of Iztapalapa	p. 118
Winners	p. 134
Sex Capital	p. 137
Wim Wendel's with Skin	p. 164
The Last Cabaret	p. 167
Eating all the Street and Elsewhere	p. 174
Onions	p. 193
The Best Lies Are True	p. 195
Who's Afraid of Mexico City?	p. 199
The Crater	p. 229
Mexican Lexicon, Part Three	p. 231
La Fondesa	p. 234
Making a Scene	p. 241
Alternative Art	p. 258
High and Low	p. 261
Island of the Dolls	p. 276
Globalization and Malinchismo	p. 279
The Other Side	p. 301
Piedra	p. 306
The Politics of Obstruction	p. 309
Transa	p. 322
Epilogue: China Libre	p. 324
A Note to the Reader	p. 331
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.