2014

S2.E1 ∙ Tololoche

Wed, Dec 31, 1969

Marcos Serna started playing the tololoche, or Mexican double bass, in 1969. He started playing with various groups in Monterrey and came to Mexico City 41 years ago. The tololoche is love, as Marcos conceives his musical vocation. To do what he does requires boundless love, and every night in Plaza Garibaldi, Marcos plays into the wee hours of the morning. Following his great love, music, has led him to live far from his family, who are in Chinahuapa, Puebla. Marcos lives in a small apartment near Plaza Garibaldi, and ever smiling and cheerful, Marcos Serna plays his tololoche all night long.

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S2.E2 ∙ Mago

Wed, Dec 31, 1969

A maker of dreams and illusions, Chen Kai builds his own machinery for his performances, like in a tale, he takes plans from the books of great magicians to build magical artifacts in his little workshop, in the company of his other great passion: animals. In his home he has a vast storeroom filled with mysterious crates and strange apparatuses, a space and an atmosphere worthy of a magician. A master of new magician's apprentices, Chen Kai continues to perfect his craft and do what he does best, fill the world with magic, in front of children or adults; for him, magic is his life, his path, and his destiny.

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S2.E3 ∙ Sochantre

Wed, Dec 31, 1969

Father Felipe Galicia is sub-precentor of the Mexico City Cathedral. He too was a member of the boys' choir and since then has remained deeply involved in the children's school. The choir is formed by around twelve boys, who are students in the third to sixth grades of elementary school. Their school hours are from 6:45 in the morning to 7:00 in the evening. The boys live at the school and every morning they walk down Calle Donceles to the Cathedral to sing at mass. When they finish they return to the school for breakfast and continue their studies under Father Galicia's supervision.

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S2.E4 ∙ Chinampero

Wed, Dec 31, 1969

Miguel Valle and his sons, Javier and Marco, are the second generation of a family devoted to a vanishing lifestyle: cultivating vegetables and flowers on the traditional raised beds known as chinampas. They practice the ancient farming method the Mesoamerican cultures, who created one of the world's most beautiful floating cities, Xochimilco. Miguel Valle married very young and from the time he became responsible for a family he undertook to ensure that they would not want for anything, fining that the earth, when worked properly, is an inexhaustible source of food. Thus, he started farming a chinampa, and although he found work at the post office, he never stopped planting his crops. Over the years he acquired a plot in the emblematic canals of Xochimilco, where to this day he continues to practice the area's millenarian farming tradition, which uses neither chemicals nor fertilizers. It is the wisest way to grow crops.

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S2.E5 ∙ Zapatero

Wed, Dec 31, 1969

Francisco Castillo inherited the cobbler's trade from his father, Nicolas Castillo. He was born in 1940, and that same year his father opened his shoe repair shop. Thus, Francisco's life has always been linked to footwear. By age twelve, Francisco could make new shoes, custom styled to the pattern the customer chose. He bought the leather and cut and stitched it by hand; they were shoes made to last, to walk. But time has brought new technologies to footwear and today's shoes don't last like before. They are made to be replaced frequently, in a time when almost everything is disposable. Of that time all that remain are Francisco's memories.

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S2.E6 ∙ Referi

Wed, Dec 31, 1969

Gelasio Perez Huerta (1941) came to Mexico City when he was ten years old, and one year after his arrival, began to learn boxing at the Gloria gym in Colonia Morelos; within a few years he made his debut as a professional fighter. Gelasio is retired from Central Mexico's former electrical company Luz y Fuerza del Centro, and on retiring from his job as an electrician he embarked on a new career: he became a boxing referee, and to date has officiated in almost 50 world championship bouts. Thanks to his new profession, Gelasio Perez has had the opportunity to travel to different parts of the world such as Russia, North Korea, and Italy. The prime of his life began when he decided to return to his roots in the sweet science.

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S2.E7 ∙ Tecnólogo

Wed, Dec 31, 1969

Jose de la Herran was born in Mexico City in 1925. He grew up surrounded by technology, transmitters, and electronics, because his father worked for a prominent Mexican radio station. He was a child fascinated by technology, which shared its secrets, transforming him into an authentic expert even at an early age. Jose de la Herran has devoted his life to knowledge, science, and the inventions which inspire awe and wonder at the human mind. In the year 1983 he received a richly deserved National Award for Science and Arts, one of many awards bestowed upon one of the most brilliant minds Mexico has given the world.

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S2.E8 ∙ Masajista

Wed, Dec 31, 1969

Touch is the body's most important sense for para Emilio Gonzalez and Justo Perez, who lack the sense of sight, more than smell or taste. In touch they have found their greatest talent and their livelihood: therapeutic massage. Every day Emilio leaves his home in Mexico City's Agricola Oriental district, and takes a bus and then the subway, to Dr. Alfonso Herrera School, on Calle Donceles downtown, where Emilio and Justo have a parlor where they offer massages which, they insist, can cure almost anything. Lacking vision, Emilio and Justo have developed their other senses. However, it is their hands' contact with other bodies that has developed their sense of touch to such an impressive degree, through their curative massages.

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S2.E9 ∙ Clown

Wed, Dec 31, 1969

Aziz Gual is an artist with a long career, a disciple of great masters of the art of the emotions, clowning, like Marcel Marceau and Russia's Anatoli Locachtchouk. An extroverted and tireless man who has perfected his technique in the world's leading schools and showcased his art on extensive tours of the USA, Turkey, Croatia, Italy, France, and Brazil among many other distant locations. Gual has received important awards in recognition of his art.

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S2.E10 ∙ Muñequitos

Wed, Dec 31, 1969

An old building houses several workshops which make different metal figures to sell. Upstairs there is a small but comfortable apartment, home to Guillermo Perez and his family, who, for more than 25 years, have produced cake figurines, for weddings, quinceañera parties, and baptisms. They sell their figurines at the old La Ideal Pastry Shop, on Calle 16 de Septiembre in the Historic District.

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S2.E11 ∙ Taxidermista

Wed, Dec 31, 1969

Severiano is the fourth generation of a family devoted to taxidermy. His great grandfather first took up the work of preserving the bodies of animals for posterity. His art, as Severiano sees it, has been safeguarded and perpetuated by the Lopez family in Mexico. His family was entrusted with one of Mexico's most spectacular and important projects for the knowledge and divulgation of science: they mounted the specimens on display in the magnificent showcases of the Mexico City Museum of Natural History, a place that leaves its mark on the souls of every child that visits it, on standing face to face with penguins and polar bears or African lions, beautiful animals frozen in time, in poses that deceive the viewer and make us believe we are looking at a living being bursting with energy. That is the art of Severiano's family.

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S2.E12 ∙ Dibujante

Wed, Dec 31, 1969

Marcelo Diaz is an extraordinary drawer. He started practicing his trade at age 19, drawing cartoons and comic strips for newspapers. His natural talent earned him a spot in one of the Mexico's leading publishing firms in the 1970s and 80s: Novedades. Marcelo grew up admiring the drawing in comics from other countries, and even as a boy he imagined that drawing could open doors to the world for him, and so it did. He drew numerous story boards in the golden age of the graphic novel in Mexico. Beautiful and exuberant women and strong, steely eyed heroes, with an exceptional quality of line that made him unique in his profession.

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S2.E13 ∙ Maniquies

Wed, Dec 31, 1969

Joel is an affable, hard-working man. At 18 years old he started working as assistant to his brother-in-law making mannequins. At the time he had no idea that the trade he learning would become the center of his universe. He learned to make mannequins after finishing junior high school but interrupted his apprenticeship to take a job as a Mexico City police officer, in constant pursuit of a better future.

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