Here we are now more than half way through, and as usual the culture shock and intensity of the experience made the initial experience, uh, grim.

For anyone who has stuck with me so far, there´s going to be a lot more content from here on to the conclusion of the visit and beyond.

This happens every time here - there is a horrific dread surrounding the immensity of what we´re trying to pull off, and I don´t cope well ("Oh really?", you say) with being away from home and the lonliness of careeening around here in Mexico That Is Very Different. I get to the point of incapacitation, often exacerbated by dehydration and the heat, despite my efforts to take precautions.

But just when I am ready to curl into a ball and completely withdraw from the scene, around that magic half-way point, I will find some reserve and go after some activity and WHAM - there is magic everywhere you look. In a few blocks, there will be scenes of incredible beauty, and indescribable human pathos and drama. Tableaus of exquisitely rendered chaos of colors and forms and objects and printed words - the kind of thing that makes National Geographic seem so very pedestrian.

It takes my breath away.

For someone who wants to paint, to render these images into something that other people can experience in the filtered way that I might portray them, this place cries out for chance to be the source. There is an urgent appeal from the surroundings at times like these - this is where your creativity is going to be awakened - this will be your best chance in this life to rise above tedious wage slavery and a lifetime of creative frustration and limited expression.

You can see a hint of it in my photographs (yes, finally, a break in the depression to allow the camera out of the bag with increasing frequency). But I want to render these things on canvas, in vibrant oil colors.

I'm going to make up for the past few days of no posting to do several here. Are you still with me?

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