Natalie Woods For Life Magazine 1955

Laguna Santa Maria del Oro #2 - The Expensive Bit

Those who read this blog may be aware I passed by this great natural volcanic lake with no bottom and stayed at a place called Koala Bungalows. A little bit of manicured lawn and gardens with bungalows and spaces to park your tent on the southside of the laguna that is. Whilst staying there I would sit on the wooden jetty and cast my eyes over the lake to the northside. The rich persons side. The side where the morning mist floats like muslin over the water and delicate mayflys and damselflys dip into the surface causing ripples on the still water and where the low clouds brush the hillside with dripping moisture. Only rich people can afford to stay at a place where nature can spread that sort of romantic spell over the location.

Here where we stayed on the southside or south of the railway tracks our solitude was nightly destroyed by a group of itinerant neo-hippy drummers and Peruvian flute players who had their country HQ in a shitty, squalid house behind the bungalows. Their constant percussive out of tune thumping noise and barking mangy dogs put paid to any chance of sleep unless you OD'ed on Laudanum. Screaming kids and families banging doors till the wee hours also did something to make us vow never to return to Koala Bungalows and we looked in envy to the Elysium north. The land of fairies and soft grass and Edelweiss and goats on a lonely hill.

Last weekend we booked in the Tau Boutique Resort on the northside and from the tranquility of our first morning's breakfast sipping our carrot and orange juice cocktail on the terrace we looked with disdain to the south and their people living in Roman Galley conditions.

More nice stuff after the jump

Photography - Zapata Smiling But Dead

Thanks to this Tumblr

and here's Zapata's lieutenant Fortino Samano looking uncannily relaxed moments before his execution in 1916 


Thanks to Tumblr

Frida Inspires Yet Again

It's interesting how this artist and her work just keep inspiring people to manipulate her and her work using modern digital technology. Image what she may have done if she had had access to it.  Another example is the post of her head Photoshopped ultra-realistically on another body that inspired over 900 people to take a look on this blog. I subsequently deleted it because evangelical angry Frida purists began to get involved in the discussion.

Thanks to macedonum for this

The Art Of Staying Cool and the Role of the Useful Punkah Wallah

Our part time reporter Jim Thighes-Moriarty adivses you how to keep cool.

We at MazReal don't hold ourselves responsible for Jim's views. By all accounts he has never heard of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.


Frida Kahlo looking relaxingly cool with her bangles rings and flowers?  Not today in Mazatlán however. It is like putting your face in the door of a Turkish Baths and breathing in steam and heat tinted with sweaty Turkish man sweat and the occasional wafting smell of dried prawn, burning tyres, sewerage or power station smoke (when the breeze is a southerly that is )but luckily now in my garden wafts the hint of Jasmine from my better half's Jasmine bush reminding me somewhat of drinking tea in China during those heady days when the British still ruled Shanghai. Oh how we laughed.

That pesky punkah wallah I ordered from India for me and my memsahib is a damn long time coming. They're impossible to find in this country, something to do with the wages going up to 5 centavos a day I think it was so I had to reluctantly look through my well-thumbed copy of the Skymall catalogue and go through there. Indian Wallahs charge about half the Mexican Wallah rate  and that's for a month so they are good value. I have shipped half a dozen in a box by EdFex from that wonderful country of cheap labour where the poor starving native knows his place in that wonderful country of the caste system and rich Bollywood actors and honest politicians who are allowed to shoot poor people who get in their way.

Granny Farquhar-Fiennes-Clinton and her trusty slaves

I am just carrying on the family tradition as can be seen above from the family instagram snap of my grandmother reading the horse racing pages from her verandah in Poonaville while she gets a pedicure from the foot wallah and a waft of breeze from the family Punka Wallah called Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Jnr went on to govern India and be a real thorn in the side of the British Ragamuffins.

More colonial nastiness after the jump

Quote Of The Day

The New Republic's Timothy Noah puts it,

 We’re sorry that 12 people had to die in Aurora, Colo. But we aren’t sorry enough to lift a finger to prevent it from happening again.

Frida Kahlo Loves Feet