Like a conspiracy of Rome, New Orleans and Santa Fe subverted by a Spanish/Zapotec fusion, the city of Oaxaca seethes and simmers on a savannah spilling between mountains in the narrow kink of Mexico before the land explodes out into the Yucatan jungle. The city teeters between 19th century colonial quaintness and a grubby
Bladerunner
street, androids dreaming of electric jaguars. The streets are a worry of cobblestones, asphalt and concrete drenched with diesel fumes, open-cart vendors and dark, sullen eyes. But the traffic gives way to wide-open pedestrian boulevards, the street vendors peddle bright, fresh fruits and anything resembling a glare cracks into toothy delight when confronted with a smile. The magnificent buildings-the one real gift given to the world by the oversized and prolonged Spanish empire-are decorated with the startling and rich hues of a regional palette, stretching from mansion to slum. But the same walls are riddled with sloppy, angsty graffiti. More vandal scribbling, really, as there's not enough talent involved to call it graffiti. The political stencil paint work that sits alongside the hurried tags and curses, however, is thoughtful and well executed and almost always includes the brag of a Web site where those interested can pursue further art or politics. The city is a paradoxical game of oneupmanship: One moment is tranquil, the next is chaos; one scene is beauty, the next is despair. It's hard to imagine how it could be better.
Struggling with many of the same issues-such as growth, tourism, preserving heritage, disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples, economic development, politicians fixated on pork and posturing, water, the blessing/curse of being an arts capital-as Santa Fe, Oaxaqueños still bring their opinions to their plaza-officially the Jardín Juárez, named for the first indigenous president of Mexico, Benito Juárez, but simply known locally and worldwide as the
zócalo
. Complaints, praises and speculations about the direction of the city are witnessed in the daily banter between shoe shiners, cops, vendors, as well as in more explosive events, like when on Feb. 9, subcomandante Marcos showed up on the
zócalo
to call out the failings of President Vicente Fox's administration and urge Mexicans to, in a nutshell, quit being the USA's bitch.
I've often heard people lament the Plaza in Santa Fe as formerly being a lively and a local place. It's true that the weekday lunch hour still holds some of that feeling and even I can remember when weekend nights were packed with Plaza rats and proselytizers; but compare that to the
zócalo
, where one gets the sense that gravity pulls everyone and everything inexorably toward the center, down from the mountains, the foothills, the grand buildings to take the form of musicians, strollers, skateboarders, bicyclists, hustlers, lovers and fools, all steeping in a vibrant communal brew. Remind me again why we allow car traffic on three sides of the Plaza? To indulge tourists in need of a drive-by video vacation? Oaxaca's
zócalo
is proof positive that ditching the cars and adding some tables and chairs is a simple and singularly transformational event. It wouldn't hurt to close off a couple surrounding streets either-here's to the "downtown plan" that makes that happen.
Of course we don't have a dude in fatigues and a ski mask roaming the countryside willing to bust a cap in the ass of the big business and corporate interests that are always superseding the interests of pure livability and quality of life. Seeing subcomandante Marcos (these days going by the moniker of Delegado Zero as he cruises the country-it's rumored on a black motorcycle with a rooster on the back-more as a politician than a soldier) was a far sight more hectic than, say, seeing Bill Clinton speak on the Plaza in Santa Fe. We waited four hours amid maybe 1,000 campesinos who had marched into the city on foot, stopping traffic and waving banners and at least an equal swell of fiery citizens, from radicalized abuelitas and indigenous youth members of the Workers of the World, their hammer and sickle flags looking like antiques and their meticulous gelled hair looking more discotheque than Zapotec, to full-on punk rockers and seasoned counterculture hooligans. In the long run up to Delegado Zero's speech-three or four poets and performers and maybe 10 local politicians and activists taking their turn at the microphone-there were only a few uncomfortable moments for a tall, pasty gringo standing at the front of the crowd. When a poet on stilts wearing an extra long folk dress and a skull mask with pigtails (didn't Wise Fool New Mexico do a workshop in these parts?) said the world needed to get rid of Coca-Cola, hamburgers and gringos and tried to wrap it all up by rousing the crowd to chant "¡Mexicanos, Si! ¡Gringos, no!" the crowd was too anxious for Marcos to get too wound up in distraction. One man shouted repeatedly into the microphone, his eyes enraged and spittle flying, that it was time to "shoot the rich." I was tempted to cheer right along but, in a place where the average daily wage struggles to top $5, anyone on vacation from another country is plenty
rico
for a revolutionary lynching. Even though the poverty is enormous and even though on this night the
zócalo
's normally unarmed
Policia Touristica
's holsters were bulging with revolvers and their belts were spiky with golden bullets, the crowd was more energized than angry.
Delegado Zero, counterculture icon or not, comes awfully close to being ridiculous. The guy wears a black balaclava and is constantly smoking a pipe through it. It's absurd. Yet, instead of being a joke, he's an actual superhero-he even wears a utility belt, like Batman. In a country where bat gods have been worshipped for millennia, that can't be a bad chord to strike. Plus, even with a mask hiding his face (not so much a wool ski mask as a wicking, breathable high performance micro-fiber-REI online perhaps?), my wife assures me that Delegado is smokin' hot. With giant posters of Marx and Lenin swaying nearby, one could be forgiven for thinking the politics a little retro, but among the speakers chosen to precede Delegado Zero-in fact the final speaker before him-was an Angelina Jolie-ish, purple-haired, mini-skirt-wearing transvestite. And the good Delegado was just as adamant about fighting for gay and transgender rights as for those of the indigenous, poor and elderly. How cool is that?
Rather than dissipating after a night of revolutionary encouragement, the crowd morphed back into the rhythm of the
zócalo
and mixed into the throngs up the street, filled with food vendors capitalizing on the hungry anti-capitalists, six duelling guitars racing fretwork side by side and a throng of horny teenagers making eyes at each other around a bristle of tubas and drums sounding like a high school marching band on crack in the shadow of an enormous Spanish church. It was time for an all-night ancient progressive culture mash-up.
