Random Descriptions of My Travel Adventures

A video of my favorite song by my favorite band from Oaxaca. The song, Son de la Barricada, is about the resistance movement of 2006. I lifted this from a blog called Angry White Kid which details the ongoing struggles occurring in Oaxaca. He includes the English translation on his website. The video is shot in a bar called Nueva Babel, one I attended frequently with friends. We saw Raices perform there twice and both times I was blown away by their music.

As a teacher, and a former slacker undergraduate student, I have seen, heard, and offered some pretty creative excuses for missing class. Most excuses are pretty run of the mill, got sick, car broke down, witnessed a shooting (yup, got that one this semester) but a few weeks ago one of my students furnished me with one of the most hilarious bits of "proof" for their absence I have encountered. Said student missed a class in which we had a quiz. He claimed to have had very bad food poisoning and I told him that if he could bring me a doctor's note I would let him take the quiz. He shows up to my office, not with a doctor's note, but with a note from his roommate . Not only was it a note from his roommate but it was on half a sheet of ripped paper. Despite the fact that I knew this guy was lying through his teeth, I let him take the quiz because he made me laugh so hard. See for yourself....click on the note below.

I should have posted these images a long time ago but never got around to it. Now that I'm procrastinating when I should be writing my dissertation this seems like a great time. The competition and the events surrounding it deserve much more explanation than I'm going to offer here but I will let the art speak for itself. A flyer announcing the competition. At the top it says "The color of the resistance" and at the bottom it reads "For the respect and freedom of expression of urban and street art" or something like that anyway. In really fine print at the bottom it says "Stop facism in Mexico, Free the political prisoners, Stop the privatization of PEMEX." This might give you an idea as to the tone of the event and the art being created. The line up of blank canvasses. Art taking shape. The evolution of a picture. An interpretation of the Oaxaca state government. At one point a skirmish broke out and the state police arrived, guns drawn. We were ...