tijuana.gringo
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19 february 2004
59 winter 30 moon 48 space age
Sanborn's is burning !
the measuring
of a
red
line on paper
makes words
correct
. . . . . . .
. 1 . 2 . 3 . 5 . 7 . 11 .
dots join
to gether
-
c o n n e c t t h e . R G B .
19 . 2 . 4
"dice que es una disco"
teca
smoke billowing up
explosions of glowing
puff into the air
over downtown T.J.
something's burning
this morning yes...
early morning fire
between 3rd and 4th
by Revolution
I walk down fourth toward it
I see it is near Revo...
NO... right ON Revolution
looks like...
yes, it is........
S A N B O R N ' S
water runs in
the gutter downhill
crowds stand around behind yellow police tape " C A U T I O N "
is that English or Spanish or BOTH heh he ho children of Roman
Empire
fiddle while we burn
BEWARE OF THE DOG
all the people on the street watching
twos and threes into dozens waiting
watching the sudden crowd of fire trucks
a n d
s
m o
k e
feathers of water against the jagged rectangle
angles of buildings and naked sign frames
DUTY FREE
BOMBEROS DE TIJUANA
and still that twisting puff of white and grey
again and again and again rising up against
the deliberate spray, the ladder nozzle, the
fight to kill a fire
worming and gasping for fuel and breath and hot, hot, hot
all the baseball caps and windbreaker jackets
shoulders and arms, necks and buzzed hair
morning mix young and old brown white and male female on the corner
Sanborn's is burning it must have been open
it is open 24 hours
c o r r e c t i o n
I T W A S
o p e n
YOU SEE THE CROWD, and then one w h o
there is no margin to morning on the corner
a flip of the shoulder lets the jacket
fall halfway back cholo style from
the collar open neck tshirt on
the corner
watching
more
getting warm already?
power truck cherry picker
hook and ladder
pumper truck
tank of water ("pipa")
ambulance
red cross
more engines and pipas
and then more
S A N B O R N ' S I S B U R N I N G !
stubborn smoke in
among the framework
next to Sara's walls
red lights flashing
on the corner
waiting, watching
TV news truck on the scene
a distant SHOUT
down the
avenue
I go now
beer is being delivered down the avenue
on dolly stacks of cardboard cases full
seven boxes high from curb-parked truck
some things do not change
fire or no fire
Memory of the City as ruins
Most of the ancient history we know can read about Teotihuacan comes from Aztec, Toltec, Mixtec and Maya writings, both mythological and historical in nature. Those texts were followed by Spanish conquest and colonial period, Mexican independence, invasion by France and U.S., and finally a long century of scientific work, as teams of archeologists, technicians, laborers and scholars have excavated and studied the ancient ruins.
The "place-where-gods-were-made" was burned, then abandoned after 700 a.d., some 800 years before Europe conquered America. By the time the Spanish took Mexico, this great city was so old and ruined that people said the gods had lived and died here. Their crumbling tombs still stood beside that long, straight street called Way of the Dead, no? Aztec (and probably Toltec) myths relate that after the fourth Sun ended, the gods gathered here in darkness, built a huge fire, and sacrificed themselves to create a new, fifth Sun, and Moon, and all things else reborn from that great fire.
Or at least that was the party line. The Aztecs, we should remember, burned all the old books and wrote new ones, with a changed history for themselves. Our opinion, however, is that that god fire was an ancient memory of the mass destruction of the city temples themselves, an apocalyptic event most archeologists think took place toward the end of the city's life, sometime around 600 or 700 a.d.
tijuana.gringo
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copyright 2004 daniel charles thomas