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Horizontal vertigo : a city called Mexico / Juan Villoro ; translated from the Spanish by Alfred MacAdam.

by Villoro, Juan, 1956- author.

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New York : Pantheon Books, [2021]

Mexico City (Mexico) -- Civilization -- 21st century.

Mexico City (Mexico) -- Social life and customs -- 21st century.

9781524748883 (hardcover) :

1524748889 (hardcover) :

xi, 346 pages ; 25 cm

First American edition.

Prologue: Making an agglomeration look like a city / by Néstor García Canclini -- Entry into the labyrinth : chaos is not something you improvise -- Living in the city : "if you see Juan ..." -- City characters : el chilango -- Shocks : how many of us are there? -- Crossings : memory atlas -- Living in the city : the child heroes -- Ceremonies : the shout (el grito) -- La independencia, S.A. de C.V. -- Places : the back patio (La zotehuela) -- Living in the city : oblivion -- Ceremonies : coffee with the poets -- City characters : el merenguero -- Shocks : street children -- Places : the mausoleums of the heroes -- City characters : the manager -- Crossings : from eye candy to Moctezuma's revenge -- Ceremonies : "do good without staring at the blonde." Wrestling movies -- Places : public government ministry -- Living in the city : my grandmother's outing -- Places : Tepito, El Chopo, and other informalities -- City characters : Paquita la del Barrio -- Ceremonies : the virgin of transit -- Living in the city : the conscript -- City characters : the King of Coyoacán -- Ceremonies : the bureaucracy of Mexico City -- giving and receiving -- Places : fairs, theme parks, children city -- Places : a square meter of the nation -- Ceremonies : how does the city decorate itself? From the foundational image to garbage as ornament -- Crossings : extraterrestrials in the capital -- Shocks : a car on the pyramid -- Places : the meeting spot -- Living in the city : rain soup -- City characters : the tire repair man -- Ceremonies : the passion of Iztapalapa -- Shocks : the anxiety of influenza, diary of an epidemic -- City characters : the quack -- Places : Santo Domingo -- Shocks : the disappearance of the sky -- Crossings : the city is the sky of the metro -- City characters : the zombie -- Shocks : the new meat -- City living : the political illusion -- Ceremonies : the security book -- City characters : the sewer cleaner -- Shocks : the earthquake : "stones are not native to this land" -- Ceremonies : the aftershock, a postscript to fear.

"Horizontal Vertigo: the title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes, which led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant flâneur, Villoro wanders through the city seemingly without a plan, describing people, places, and things, while brilliantly drawing connections among them, the better to reveal, in all its multitudinous glory, the vicissitudes and triumphs of Mexico City's cultural, political, and social history: from indigenous antiquity to the Aztec period, from the Spanish conquest to Mexico City today, one of the world's leading cultural and financial centers. In his deeply iconoclastic book, Villoro organizes his text around a recurring series of chapter titles: "Living in the City," "City Characters," "Shocks, Crossings, and Ceremonies." What he achieves, miraculously, is a stunning, intriguingly coherent meditation on Mexico City's genius loci, its spirit of place"--

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