The Setup
Rattled by television gunshots and the turbulence of bouncing between
Starbucks/office block/supermarket/couch; rendered mind-blunt and with
traffic-induced tinitus by the incessant inerrancy of ignorance that
parades as punditry but amounts to plutocracy, to oligarchy, to autocracy,
to 
megalo-monarchy;
This Correspondent was more than happy to board a connecting flight
at Albuquerque bound for the seaside resort of Zamas, in Mexico's
Yucatan peninsula, and the 13th annual Postmodern Village conference
there.
Eschewing the usual need for social commentary in choice of location but maintaining a lack of accessibility, the ‘villagers back at the home office have finally seemed to have succumbed to an incipient establishmentarianist Bo-Bo-ism.
And not a moment too goddamned soon, either.
Or so This Correspondent discovered while ordering about a compliant cabana boy who resembled an immediately post-adolescent George Lopez. When he returned with my Mai Tai we locked eyes briefly, and This Correspondent declared with as much sincerity as he could muster, "I say, my boy, when The Revolution finally comes, I'll have to get my own Mai Tai, but until we truly can be equals, keep them coming and be comforted in the knowledge that I tip well."
It's only money, after all, and while June is the off-season and rather hot in Yucatan, it beats hell out of drowning inside the Beltway like my less fortunate Washington Press Corps compatriots. I call them that, but light on the "patriots" part, as they seem ready and willing to bargain their First Amendment rights for a Brooks Brothers suit, and while moving from academia to the Fourth Estate has shifted by own sartorial purchasing habits from Land's End to J. Crew, it hasn't kept me from asking the hard questions. But that makes a fellow tired.
So tired.
So a chance to relax in the place that bills itself as The Real Margaritaville and enjoy some po-mo bloviating by some real intellectual heavyweights seemed pretty good.
The Scene
Aside
from all the pasty skin and the ever-flowing sunscreen, aside from the
slight tinge of guilt we all had from living like kings among the First
World's premiere Third World country, the presenters behaved pretty
well. There was only one confirmed shark attack, but then Professor
Wankey was persuaded to put his pants back on by the local constabulary.
Public drunkenness is expected - even encouraged - in Zamas, especially
among those Norteños who are willing to host a few thousand academics
desperate for release down to the land of the Excellent Exchange Rate.
Have You Tried the Raw Fish Tacos?
They're "cooked" in lime juice, which is just another way of saying "Have more Cuervo and you won't care anymore." Despite that, dysentery rates were up substantially from last year's conference in Jigalong, Australia. Montezuma comes down from the mountains and claims his own. This Correspondent also heard a rumor that a local herb helps with those symptoms, but was too close to an upcoming FBI background check to perform any tests in the field.
The
weather, aside from being as humid as a Georgia Senator's gold
fillings, at least provided no hurricanes this time. All that oppressive
stickiness, though, did give us a better view of fellow villagers than
some of us had ever seen before, even at PMV's annual Kwanza Cookout
and Custom Car Show. Who knew Norma Perfect looked like that–and
since when did femynysm excuse hiding it away like she does? Not even
a restrained "sexy librarian" nod in the direction of an
admirer, of course. Ah well, there are always Yulia Tymoshenko's
press conferences when she gets back to The States.