Transformative Paste-Ups in Oaxaca, Mexico

 There is a lot art-wise in Oaxaca's galleries and museums, but the streets have their own offerings, and one theme is the transformation of the colonial tropes by indigenous forces, or perhaps in the third example, where a Conquistador type has melded with a variant on Chewbacca - the universe.

Puebla's Biblioteca Palafoxiana - First Public Library in the Americas

 Now there is something to sing, or read about. One might spend a decade in this jewel box library in Puebla, reading such gems as Gallen, and Pliny. The collection was donated to the Church here by the Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, who thought it a good idea if everyone had access to books. This, in 1646 was a radical idea. We were told this was the first public library in the Americas, and as you can see there is still a queue of eager readers.

Return of the Giants in Technicolour

 Four days in Oaxaca and every one  turned out a parade for their Spring Festival, this one with its Monos De Calendarios was a riot of good humoured colour, celebrating the anniversary of a local school. I suspect these pair of giant dancing puppets satirized some beloved teachers. Each day bought another set of fabulous costumes. 

Three Lamps in the North

 You might blame it on Elliot 'Preludes' locating that lamp in such a melancholy street, but street lamps illuminate a lot about a city. The Spanish colonial flourish in the top set, in Puebla, Mexico  are nearly insectival in their curlicues, the gryphon set that lights up Orizaba,Mexico, just outside their Belgium imported caste iron palace, a kind of over-sized predecessor of Mecano are firmly European. Not so the lovely Art Deco number in Havana, an unexpected piece of chinosiere on an art deco gem, it would seem churlish not to give you a glimpse of as well.

Cuban Cars - Film Noir in Colour

Window screens like this are hard to find

Just add Lauren Bacall

Taxi Rank in Havana- NB Horse and Cart on the righ

Why every second driver needs to a be a mechanic - the ubiquitious break downs

The start of a random snap-a-thon in front of the Teatro Nacional de Cuba

About five seconds later -

It's hard to stop feeling surprised by Cuba's car fleet,   the feeling is you've walked into a colourised movie set from the 1950's, slightly anachronistic as all the walk-ons are wearing fluoro lyrca, and while some of the cars are decked out in shiny candy coloured paint jobs, others are complete bombs, broken lights, puttied up panels, coughing out  grey smoke or, frequently, breaking down.  One taxi driver told us he got 10kms to the litre of petrol, and it might have been my Spanish but the words 'unleaded' and 'catalytic converter' seemed meaningless.

Las Palitinas or Is that a Baked Bean Ice-cream Midde Row 8th from the Left?

Puebla, Mexico, at first peek looks like a Spain town with a seriously upscale paint job, and it's not just the buildings, which are confections of pink, orange and blue, a spectrum of mid-tone pastels and hot tones but the food. This collection of paletinas demonstrate not only how inventive this ice-cream maker makes up her trove of paddle pops but their graphic effect. Aside from that luridly blue one, and perhaps its four down  neighbour that looks but cant possibly be baked beans, they all are tempting.  To try however may not solve their mysteries, I had the pink speckled pop, top left, and was none the wiser as to its inclusions.

Diego Rivera's portrait of Frida Kahlo in the MInistry of Education

While  Mondays in Mexico City mostly find one on the outside of most major museums, the Ministry of Education building, just on the north side of the Zocalo, as a working office, is a Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, thing. The building itself with its cool courtyard and generous cloisters would be a pleasant enough destination by the series of murals for Diego Rivera make it a compelling documentation of socialist history and art. For me the depiction of Frida Kahlo, centre stage in this arms-fest softens the heavy polemical content, though the ambivalence of placing her dead-centre, with a load of bayonets cradled like the baby she did not have in her arm, and then to have a gun pointed directly at her head says much about Rivera's ambivalent attitude towards her.

The other satiric murals on capitalists, wittier in their acidic take and parody seem more interesting than the solid blocky forms of the many worthy comrade and worker murals, though I am sure my view on this would be not popular.

Have you heard the one about the chicken and the vase?

Among the myriad treasures of  Mexico City's Museum of Anthropology, this sassy chicken cocks at snoot at visitors, caught in mid-sentence he seems to be telling you about either the size of the worm that got away or perhaps the first 'why did the chicken cross the road'  joke. Either way, I say Viva! Anthropomorphy!