Hours: 9am-6pm Monday through Friday - 9am-2pm Saturday (Marshall and Mars Hill)
10am-6pm Monday through Friday - 10am-2pm Saturday (Hot Springs)
All branches are closed on Sunday.

My Account

Back To Results
Showing Item 1 of 1

Horizontal vertigo : a city called Mexico

Villoro, Juan 1956- (author.). Mac Adam, Alfred J. 1941- (translator.). Villoro, Juan 1956- Translation of (expression): Vértigo horizontal : un ciudad llamada México. English. (Added Author).

Summary: "Horizontal Vertigo: the title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes, which led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant flâneur, Villoro wanders through the city seemingly without a plan, describing people, places, and things, while brilliantly drawing connections among them, the better to reveal, in all its multitudinous glory, the vicissitudes and triumphs of Mexico City's cultural, political, and social history: from indigenous antiquity to the Aztec period, from the Spanish conquest to Mexico City today, one of the world's leading cultural and financial centers. In his deeply iconoclastic book, Villoro organizes his text around a recurring series of chapter titles: "Living in the City," "City Characters," "Shocks, Crossings, and Ceremonies." What he achieves, miraculously, is a stunning, intriguingly coherent meditation on Mexico City's genius loci, its spirit of place"--

Record details

ISBN: 9781524748890
ISBN: 1524748889
ISBN: 9781524748883
Physical Description: xi, 346 pages ; 25 cm
print
Edition: First American edition.
Publisher: New York : Pantheon Books, [2021]

Content descriptions

General Note:

"Originally published in Mexico as El vértigo horizontal by Almadía Ediciones S.A.P.I. de C.V., Mexico City, in 2018."

Formatted Contents Note:

Prologue: Making an agglomeration look like a city / by Néstor García Canclini -- Entry into the labyrinth : chaos is not something you improvise -- Living in the city : "if you see Juan ..." -- City characters : el chilango -- Shocks : how many of us are there? -- Crossings : memory atlas -- Living in the city : the child heroes -- Ceremonies : the shout (el grito) -- La independencia, S.A. de C.V. -- Places : the back patio (La zotehuela) -- Living in the city : oblivion -- Ceremonies : coffee with the poets -- City characters : el merenguero -- Shocks : street children -- Places : the mausoleums of the heroes -- City characters : the manager -- Crossings : from eye candy to Moctezuma's revenge -- Ceremonies : "do good without staring at the blonde." Wrestling movies -- Places : public government ministry -- Living in the city : my grandmother's outing -- Places : Tepito, El Chopo, and other informalities -- City characters : Paquita la del Barrio -- Ceremonies : the virgin of transit -- Living in the city : the conscript -- City characters : the King of Coyoacán -- Ceremonies : the bureaucracy of Mexico City -- giving and receiving -- Places : fairs, theme parks, children city -- Places : a square meter of the nation -- Ceremonies : how does the city decorate itself? From the foundational image to garbage as ornament -- Crossings : extraterrestrials in the capital -- Shocks : a car on the pyramid -- Places : the meeting spot -- Living in the city : rain soup -- City characters : the tire repair man -- Ceremonies : the passion of Iztapalapa -- Shocks : the anxiety of influenza, diary of an epidemic -- City characters : the quack -- Places : Santo Domingo -- Shocks : the disappearance of the sky -- Crossings : the city is the sky of the metro -- City characters : the zombie -- Shocks : the new meat -- City living : the political illusion -- Ceremonies : the security book -- City characters : the sewer cleaner -- Shocks : the earthquake : "stones are not native to this land" -- Ceremonies : the aftershock, a postscript to fear.