Treasure among the Tat

An announcement yesterday over the ship’s PA:

“The good news is that we will be pulling into port at 1700. The bad news is that it’s Ensenada”

Insensitive? Tasteless? Pejorative of our neighbor south of the Border? No! Frighteningly accurate. Ensenada is not as bad as Tijuana, but it’s close. Tijuana-by-the-Sea, one might call it. It’s economy is centered around tequila. Not it’s production, but it’s consumption, and in large quantities. It’s soul has found embodiment in a vehicle christened by one of the Kid’s young friends as “The Hootchie-Mama Bus.” This is a vehicle that was parading up and down the main drag of Ensenada, featuring of a group of young women in tube tops and wedge heels dancing to very loud music blaring from large speakers.

Last night, Zoë, the Kid and I ventured out into Ensenada. It was not our first sojourn, since the night before we had dined there on seafood that was almost as over-cooked as it was over-priced. Something drew us out though. Maybe it was the seductive glow of the neon tequila signs, or the enchanting melodies belched by the discotheque speakers, or the signs advertising Viagra with clever drawings that we hoped the Kid would not ask about. Or maybe it was the chance to get of the damn ship one more time before it sailed, even if it did mean taking a family stroll down Main Street, Sodom and Gamorrah. In any case, off we went, never imagining what we would find.

On the main drag, among the Corona signs and the shop windows featuring a lovely tshirt with the words “I f#&k on the first date” was an artsy coffee shop owned and operated by a man clearly obsessed with Remedios Varo. For those of you who a little rusty on your mid-twentieth-century Latin American surrealist painting, Varo was a Spaniard who lived and worked in Mexico after her exile from Spain following the Civil War. This guy had a friend who made reproductions of Varo’s paintings, and he had one whole wall of the shop covered with them. We were all drawn in, and the owner soon started telling us about her and her work. The Kid was fascinating, asking questions about different paintings, hearing about the stories they told and the visual jokes they were built upon. Zoë and I bought two of the repros for the house, and the Kid, after some doubt and debate, bought one of his own.

For the first time, a work of art had spoken to him, for reasons all his own, that had nothing to do with his parent’s tastes and preferences, and, for the first time, he had bought it so that he could enjoy it himself. It’s propped up on the desk in his cabin, where he can see it from his bed. The very first thing he’s ever purchased that he is not likely to outgrow. That's it up there.


Who would have thought . . . In Ensenada?!?!? As for me, I bought a bottle of Cuban rum.