At the Zocalo

Mexico City sounds cool, please send pictures.

Joel, you were at Woodstock - 1969 or that other ersatz affair in the early-90s?

Joel was too young to be at "Woodstock"--that's just a euphemism that means he goes to Gene W's house and inhales sometimes.

can see it coming now from famed writer:

"I never inhaled"

I am going to delete that Woodstock line if you people insist on taking this very respectable blog into the gutter.

"it's hard to take Canada seriously as a separate nation"

-It's sometimes hard to believe Americans are a sentient species.

He said "head-smacking," hehhhhhhhh.

A thousand words are worth a picture.

The problem with taking a camera to historic sites is that you can easily spend 85% of your time looking for groovy camera angles and the perfect lighting, and unless you really, really enjoy photography you forget to enjoy yourself and be appropriately awestruck by the cathedral or whatever. So my advice is to forget about the camera and enjoy your vacation unfettered by these concerns.

Canuck: Sense of humor, please! I'm quite sure all Joel meant was that Canada (English-speaking Canada anyway) is so similar culturally that he doesn't think of going there as traveling "abroad" ...

Maybe you, like the cathedral, will still be around too. Do you ever marvel at the fact that we are alive and conscious at this exact point in time -- in the present -- rather than having experienced consciousness at any other time in the very long history of the world? What are the odds of that? Are we just lucky? (Sure, this sounds like a crazy question; people who lived at any other time throughout the ages could have asked themselves the same thing, because where else can a person experience consciousness, except in the present?) But is it possible that we have always been conscious and always will be? That when our bodies expire, our consciousness lives on? That what we think of as our lives are not just short blips, but episodes in an eternal experience of consciousness?
Now, what was that you were saying about Woodstock?

No, I really meant that I can't take it seriously as a separate country. To me it's like the state just north of North Dakota. I realize this is pathological, and that's why I refer to it as my Canada Problem. Years of therapy haven't been able to cure it. As for not bringing a camera, I probably should mention that the person with me was a professional photographer and he took a picture of me beneath the Cathedral, so there's that. In fact I would recommend that people travel with their own photographer, in the same way that people travel with a nanny. Except maybe the photographer thinks I was traveling with HIM, and was, you know, taking his notes for him. And by the way, i WAS at Woodstock, and at Altamonte, and at the Concert for Bangladesh and at Live Aid.

Um, they do sell those disposable cameras in Mexico, right?

Maybe you take pictures like I do, finger or thumb obscuring the lens (I had my hair cut shorter so no more long hair in the frame)--pictures of the sky and skid marks in parking lots--but some are actually of people I know and not too bad scenic shots. I know I am not a great photographer but I like my own "view" of the world and enjoy my candid photos.

In the arches of the Zocalo you should be able to get a disposable camera, I think even some street vendors have them.
If you'd wish a better view you can go to the observation deck of Torre Latinoamericana or Torre Mayor, just at a side of Chapultepec park.

(And since you are in Coyoacán do not miss the Siberia ice creams in the Coyoacán plaza)

I stand corrected, Joel. Anyway, don't feel too bad about your lack of photos: I was in Mexico City a week ago, and I didn't KNOW you could climb up to the roof of the Cathedral. Oops.

"It's sometimes hard to believe Americans are a sentient species"

indeed... how'd you think we got to be Americans, by being nice !??!!??!

So you were that one third-grader who got to go to Woodstock.

Buy postcards. They are not as personal as photos but they do the trick.

My ATM card worked in Mexico City but not in Toronto. So maybe it's Mexico that's not a separate country.

Re: your "Canada Problem."

Don't worry about it ... the entire population of Canada has had the same problem for decades and years of therapy haven't helped them either.

I don't think Joel is as worried about the camera, per se, as about his existence. (or am I slow on the uptake here and the point is really about how cameras-cum-solipsism are irrelevant to the things they are aimed at?)

Not to worry Joel ... Long after the world has forgotten Twain and Aristotle, they'll remember the Achenblog.

you could always just photoshop yourself into pictures of woodstock, altamonte, and at the concert for bangladesh and at live aid or even Mexico City Cathedrals. i leave it to you whether you decide to include a picture of you with or without pants.

See, this brings us back to Joel's comment about "taking this very respectable blog into the gutter." If we wanted a discussion of pantsless wonders, we'd go to Weingarten's chat.