In Mexico City, the annual Day of the Dead parade on Saturday held special significance after the devastating quakes last month. Edgard Garrido/Reuters
Day of the Dead begins on October 31st and ends November 2. Día de Muertos is a Mexican holiday celebrated throughout Mexico, in particular the Central and South regions, and by people of Mexican ancestry living in other places, especially the United States. It is acknowledged internationally in many other cultures. The multi-day holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died, and help support their spiritual journey.
Follow Phillip
on instagram
Mexico’s Day of the Dead Parade Pays Tribute to Quake Victims
With faces painted as skulls and bodies made up like skeletons, throngs of performers marched through the streets of Mexico City on Saturday in a Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) parade in a country still mourning the nearly 500 people killed in back-to-back earthquakes last month.
Thousands of onlookers cheered and applauded as a giant raised fist constructed out of hard hats and pickaxes led the procession, signifying the resilient spirit of a country hit with one of its worst calamities in decades.
An 8.2-magnitude quake — the most powerful to hit Mexico in a century — struck off the Pacific Coast shortly before midnight on Sept. 7, setting off tsunami warnings, burying hundreds of people under collapsed buildings and scattering frightened residents into the streets.
Participants and onlookers alike painted their faces as colorful skulls — many in the style of Mexico’s iconic figure “La Catrina.” Eduardo Verdugo/Associated Press
Then, on Sept. 19, a 7.1-magnitude quake struck about 400 miles from the epicenter of the first one, toppling buildings, cracking highways and killing more than 200 people in Mexico City, the capital.
“For us as a society, it was something very violent that moved our conscience,” Ramón Márquez, 51, wearing an orange T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “#fuerzamorelos” or “Be Strong Morelos,” said of one of the quakes, Reuters reported.
“The parade could be a distraction, a way of escaping,” he added.
The Calavera Catrina, or Dapper Skeleton, is the most representative image in the Day of the Dead festival. Mario Guzman/European Pressphoto Agency
There were dancing devils. Towering skeletons. Altars festooned with marigolds. All paraded down Mexico City’s main thoroughfare to kick off the annual Day of the Dead festivities that run through Nov. 2 with rituals continuing in town plazas, homes and cemeteries leading up to All Saints’ Day.
More than 700 performers prepared for months for the colorful afternoon procession along more than four miles of the Paseo de la Reforma.
Children had their faces painted in the style of La Catrina as they prepared to march. Rebecca Blackwell/Associated Press
They were joined by a group wearing fluorescent aid-worker vests who marched with fists in the air — a tribute to the rescuers who had made the gesture to demand silence as they listened for desperate survivors in the rubble from the second quake.
But the earthquakes did not diminish the centuries-old Mexican celebration. Participants and onlookers alike painted their faces as colorful skulls — many in the style of Mexico’s iconic figure known as La Catrina.
Musicians dressed as a Mexican character also known as “The Elegant Death.” Edgard Garrido/Reuters
Local news media reported that at least 300,000 people attended Saturday’s parade, up from 200,000 last year.
Local news media reported that at least 300,000 people attended Saturday’s parade, up from 200,000 last year.
Historians trace the origins of the multi-day fete back thousands of years to Mesoamerican festivals, when people believed that the dead returned temporarily to Earth.
Also in the procession: A puppet depicting the skeleton of a dog. Edgard Garrido/Reuters
Day of the Dead is also meant as a celebration of life. Food, music and remembrance of relatives are interwoven in the festivities.
Day of the Dead is also meant as a celebration of life. Food, music and remembrance of relatives are interwoven in the festivities.
“We’re not only here to celebrate and dance, but also when there’s a disastrous situation we come together to help,” Violeta Canella Juárez, 31, said.
More than 700 performers prepared for months for the parade along more than four miles of the Paseo de la Reforma. Rebecca Blackwell/Associated Press
For 18 years, Hollywood Forever Cemetery has hosted a Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, celebration that draws thousands of people. (Hollywood Forever Cemetery)
As thousands prepared to head to Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Saturday for its 18th annual celebration of the Mexican tradition known as Dia de los Muertos, they had no shortage of places to shop.
Outfits adorned with images of colorful sugar skulls, skeletons and other traditional Day of the Dead symbols are available these days far beyond the small neighborhood stores that once had a lock on such things.
Target, Wal-Mart and other big retailers have plastered the theme on masks, paper plates and candle holders. There are Day of the Dead earrings and necklaces at Party City, costumes and headbands at Spirit Halloween stores and temporary tattoos and bed covers available at Etsy.com.
More Day of the Dead Photos from Mexico City —
More Day of the Dead Photos from Mexico City —
More from our world —
Whether one embraces or mocks the paranormal, the many accounts that have spilled out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue over two centuries give ghosts an undeniable place in the country’s history. They also make that address arguably the nation’s most famous haunted house.
The U.S. Treasury Department reported last Friday that the federal budget deficit for the just-completed fiscal year had risen by $80 billion over fiscal 2016 to the ominous-sounding $666 billion, a number many people think is an omen for the coming of the devil or anti-Christ.
In this case they may be right: The spending and taxing policies about to be put in place by the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress will balloon the federal deficit to $1 trillion or more every year going forward.
A cyclist and Trump's motorcade in Sterling on Saturday. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)
Some Heros Wear Bike Helmets
A cyclist flipped off Trump's motorcade and entered the annals of presidential protests
The departure of President Trump’s motorcade from his Sterling, Va., golf club on Saturday, October 28, 2017 was chronicled as dutifully and minutely as the retreat of some great army.
The president left Trump National Golf Club at 3:12 p.m. after spending the day there on the edge of the Potomac River.
A thick column of black SUVs escorted Trump past two pedestrians, a Guardian reporter wrote in a pool report — “one of whom gave a thumbs down sign.”
“Then it overtook a female cyclist, wearing a white top and cycling helmet, who responded by giving the middle finger.”
The cyclist was photographed for posterity. So was an “IMPEACH” sign held aloft outside the golf club that day.
On Twitter, Voice of America reporter Steve Herman offered his account as eyewitness to the following events:
“The cyclist flipped off @POTUS a second time when the motorcade halted at the traffic light,” he wrote. “No, we do not know her name.”
Nor does anyone know if Trump, behind bulletproof windows, had seen either of the cyclist’s streetside salutes.
But with knowns and unknowns thus established, the world set about interpreting a middle finger’s significance.
Newsweek wrote, perhaps speculatively, that “to flip off the president of the United States” seemed to be the cyclist’s single-minded goal.
The Guardian avoided analysis. The Reddit commenter zablyzibly did not: “Some heroes wear bike helmets.”
Accused of polluting the record of a motorcade’s passage with details that were not, really, news, Herman defended himself. “The cyclist’s act has certainly generated an emotional reaction among many,” he wrote.
We’ll go him one better. That fleeting, vulgar indignity to the world’s most powerful person was not just news, but a historical tradition.
and finally
Argentine Actor/Model Nuel McGough
No comments:
Post a Comment