Taipei Charlie gazes northward
Oct. 12th, 2015 10:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceHeh. I thought my tasks were over, my duty done. My schedule is empty, my time's my own...
Heh.
Yesterday was Sunday, and we told the interpreter kids to take the day off. Did they listen? Did they hell. They are persistent interpreter kids, and we are duly grateful.
The morning I spent in my room, workalising; then Iain and I rendezvoused in the lobby, and headed off towards the Templo Mayor to do touristing together.
Now it so happens that the hotel and the Templo are kitty-corner from each other (as we say in the States - "cater-corner" is the English, but no one says that any more. Except me), with the Zocalo as the square in between. Where the book fair, of course, is.
So there we were picking a path between the tents, and there suddenly was Fausto at my elbow. It's like being Peter Pan and having your shadow suddenly find you again. Poor boy was totally at a loose end, required to show up for the sake of his paycheck but nothing to do with his time. So of course we said "come along with us!", and of course he did.
There was a long but fast-moving queue for tickets to the Templo. I couldn't quite understand either the popularity of the site or the speed of entrance, until we actually reached the ticket booth and I tried to pay for three. No, no, said Fausto, only for two: apparently Mexican nationals get into museums and galleries for free on Sundays. Hence speed, with hardly anyone actually needing to pay; hence crowds, everybody taking advantage.
Which is kind of lovely in theory - and wouldn't ever happen in the UK, where these places have traditionally been free most of my life and nobody goes - but did make for a kind of crowded jostly experience. Especially when know-it-alls started holding forth loudly about something or other and people stopped to listen and blocked the narrow path through the ruins almost entirely, I am just sayin'.
Anyway: so there is this vast Aztec temple in what was their capital city, and that became Mexico City after the conquest and the Spaniards buried what they didn't destroy, and built on top of it. And everyone thought that the Metropolitan Cathedral stood on the site, and so it would never be uncovered; until workers were digging next door, back in the 70s, and oh look what we've found...
So there is this path that winds back and forth through revealed ruins, with charming serpent-heads and skulls at strategic intervals (and an absolute demonstration of the principle of "Oh look, we have built our temple upon a lake and it is sinking; quick, let's build another bigger temple on top of it, because that is sure to work." The Aztecs did this six or seven times, like conjurors covering cups with bigger cups. The path cuts directly through the stack, and you can see each layer of the pyramid revealed, staircases within staircases. Then the Spaniards came and pretty much did the same thing, and yup: CDMX is still sinking. Because lake). And then you get to the end of this wander through history, and there is the actual museum. Which is rather splendidly laid out, with again a very specific path to follow through history (from which the guards will not let you deviate, oh no), and useful plaques with information, some of which is in English as well as Spanish. Some of it is not, but look, here's Fausto. Also, it turns out that Iain and I know humiliatingly little about the history of Mesoamerica. But look, Fausto...
So we saw a lot and learned a lot and walked a lot, and my Fitbit is still in California; and then there was coffee and cake, and then we headed back to the Zocalo for Quentin's event. At which, of course, our anthology was discussed a little; and afterwards we had no idea, but it was being given away at the back just like the day before, and they set up a table and we sat all in a row and signed it just like the day before. And at a guess, that's going to happen again this evening after Iain's event...
It's still a lovely book. I should show you a copy. Here, look:
What we need now is some enterprising British publisher to decide to publish the parallel text, the same collection of stories in their original English. If only so that we-the-authors can actually read them. And then they could negotiate for e-book rights too, with a clause allowing them to sell translation rights in that collection; and then an enterprising Spanish publisher could bring out Adriana's translation - that is, this book - in e-format, and we would have come the whole circle. Sound like a plan, people?
Then we went for coffee in a crowd, because Adriana has to be fed espresso at regular intervals or she wilts, and she had an Ai Wei Wei review to write overnight; and then back to the hotel for dinner. Where I overheard a chance remark that thrilled me to the very marrow, because I might be missing my old friends Sean and Gerry, who fly in a couple of days after I fly out, but our mutual old friend Bill Herbert was coming in last night, and I had no idea...
He actually arrived while we were at dinner, and was already dead immediately after; so I shoved a note under his door, and met him at breakfast this morning, yay. And I have hijacked him for the day, and we are going shopping...
Heh.
Yesterday was Sunday, and we told the interpreter kids to take the day off. Did they listen? Did they hell. They are persistent interpreter kids, and we are duly grateful.
The morning I spent in my room, workalising; then Iain and I rendezvoused in the lobby, and headed off towards the Templo Mayor to do touristing together.
Now it so happens that the hotel and the Templo are kitty-corner from each other (as we say in the States - "cater-corner" is the English, but no one says that any more. Except me), with the Zocalo as the square in between. Where the book fair, of course, is.
So there we were picking a path between the tents, and there suddenly was Fausto at my elbow. It's like being Peter Pan and having your shadow suddenly find you again. Poor boy was totally at a loose end, required to show up for the sake of his paycheck but nothing to do with his time. So of course we said "come along with us!", and of course he did.
There was a long but fast-moving queue for tickets to the Templo. I couldn't quite understand either the popularity of the site or the speed of entrance, until we actually reached the ticket booth and I tried to pay for three. No, no, said Fausto, only for two: apparently Mexican nationals get into museums and galleries for free on Sundays. Hence speed, with hardly anyone actually needing to pay; hence crowds, everybody taking advantage.
Which is kind of lovely in theory - and wouldn't ever happen in the UK, where these places have traditionally been free most of my life and nobody goes - but did make for a kind of crowded jostly experience. Especially when know-it-alls started holding forth loudly about something or other and people stopped to listen and blocked the narrow path through the ruins almost entirely, I am just sayin'.
Anyway: so there is this vast Aztec temple in what was their capital city, and that became Mexico City after the conquest and the Spaniards buried what they didn't destroy, and built on top of it. And everyone thought that the Metropolitan Cathedral stood on the site, and so it would never be uncovered; until workers were digging next door, back in the 70s, and oh look what we've found...
So there is this path that winds back and forth through revealed ruins, with charming serpent-heads and skulls at strategic intervals (and an absolute demonstration of the principle of "Oh look, we have built our temple upon a lake and it is sinking; quick, let's build another bigger temple on top of it, because that is sure to work." The Aztecs did this six or seven times, like conjurors covering cups with bigger cups. The path cuts directly through the stack, and you can see each layer of the pyramid revealed, staircases within staircases. Then the Spaniards came and pretty much did the same thing, and yup: CDMX is still sinking. Because lake). And then you get to the end of this wander through history, and there is the actual museum. Which is rather splendidly laid out, with again a very specific path to follow through history (from which the guards will not let you deviate, oh no), and useful plaques with information, some of which is in English as well as Spanish. Some of it is not, but look, here's Fausto. Also, it turns out that Iain and I know humiliatingly little about the history of Mesoamerica. But look, Fausto...
So we saw a lot and learned a lot and walked a lot, and my Fitbit is still in California; and then there was coffee and cake, and then we headed back to the Zocalo for Quentin's event. At which, of course, our anthology was discussed a little; and afterwards we had no idea, but it was being given away at the back just like the day before, and they set up a table and we sat all in a row and signed it just like the day before. And at a guess, that's going to happen again this evening after Iain's event...
It's still a lovely book. I should show you a copy. Here, look:
What we need now is some enterprising British publisher to decide to publish the parallel text, the same collection of stories in their original English. If only so that we-the-authors can actually read them. And then they could negotiate for e-book rights too, with a clause allowing them to sell translation rights in that collection; and then an enterprising Spanish publisher could bring out Adriana's translation - that is, this book - in e-format, and we would have come the whole circle. Sound like a plan, people?
Then we went for coffee in a crowd, because Adriana has to be fed espresso at regular intervals or she wilts, and she had an Ai Wei Wei review to write overnight; and then back to the hotel for dinner. Where I overheard a chance remark that thrilled me to the very marrow, because I might be missing my old friends Sean and Gerry, who fly in a couple of days after I fly out, but our mutual old friend Bill Herbert was coming in last night, and I had no idea...
He actually arrived while we were at dinner, and was already dead immediately after; so I shoved a note under his door, and met him at breakfast this morning, yay. And I have hijacked him for the day, and we are going shopping...