Anodyne
Thursday, May 24, 2012
 

CJ (20), 2012

Looking northeast, El Paso in the middle distance.

Reading Sergio Gonzalez Rodriguez, The Femicide Machine (semiotext(e), 2012).  Thanks to Carey Mercer for his suggestion of this valuable source.

Gonazalez Rodriguez:  "South of the border crossing, and the old red-light district, with its nightclubs, cantinas and bars lies the zona dorada -- the golden zone -- the city's most urbanized area.  Its avenues recreate the broad strokes of US-style cities.  Suddenly, the rectilinear order of these avenues twists off in an unexpected direction.  A saturation of outdoor advertising appears with loud colors, along with a scattering of brands: a parody of a Texan city.  At once contemporary and anachronistic, vital and decadant, Ciudad Juarez looks like a collage.  The half-century old promise of the city as a thriving business and recreational zone rests in suspended animation.  Signs of underground violence suddenly emerge on street corners, walls, uprooted fence posts, and sidewalks torn up by car crashes, decay and damage caused by fire, graffiti tags, bullet holes.  An invisible and encompassing menace floats there."
- posted by cjb @ 9:39 AM


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