Day of the Dead in Oaxaca (Atzompa) Featured in New Documentary, "Acquainted with the Night"

Acquainted with the Night: Documentary Film Review

Alvin Starkman, M.A., LL.B.

Feature-length documentary “Acquainted with the Night” (Markham Street Films, 2010), is a brilliantly executed examination of how humanity explores, embraces and attempts to protect the night. Shot in seven countries and eight languages, director Michael McNamara and co-producer Jen Recknagel analyze the universality of elements embodied in dusk to dawn traditions – curiosity and the quest to learn, ritual celebration, fear and adaptation, and from a Western research perspective the concern for the night’s adverse impact on the individual, and society.

The movie is based on Christopher Dewdney’s book, Acquainted with the Night: Excursions through the World after Dark. While Dewdney breaks up the night into hourly vignettes based on science, myth and poetry, McNamara proceeds differently, showcasing key segments of time: daytime preparations, dusk, night-time activities, dawn and its aftermath.

In the film’s Prelude, individuals in a diversity of cultures and stations in life are shown preparing for darkness, foreshadowing what the night embodies for them:
• In the town of Atzompa, in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, a family walks along a dirt road with a wheelbarrow and arms full of flowers, destined for the cemetery, the beginning of its Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) rituals;
• Members of Astronomers Without Borders line up telescopes in Bhaktapur, Nepal, for viewing Jupiter and its moons;
• A team of researchers arrive at Arches National Park in Utah, to measure light pollution;
• On the Greek Island of Chios, villagers from two rival towns ready rockets and launching pads in preparation for a century – old, middle-of-the-night pyrotechnics competition;
• A group sets up high – power lamps in New York City near Ground Zero, for a tribute in lights;
• Artists at Parc des Buttes Chaumant in Paris, France, install their art, and lighting, for Nuit Blanche, a unique exhibition.

Introductions continue through Dusk, in Austin, Texas. Crowds gather before dark, eager to watch 1.5 million bats fly out from beneath an expansion bridge in a night-time feeding frenzy. This year the bats emerge unexpectedly early, but the film crew, on the ready, doesn’t miss a beat and catches the event as it happens.

Moving into The Night, we’re whisked worlds away, to a marketplace in Marrakech, Morocco. Children and adults alike are enthralled by the tales of a traditional storyteller, one of only two or three of his kind remaining. But storytelling is universal, as McNamara illustrates, taking the viewer from this Moroccan custom to Anglo- and French-Canadian homes in Canada where parents read the same bed-time story to their children, “Love You Forever,” in English and in French.

McNamara uses his characters, rather than a narrator, to thread his theses. Researcher Chad Moore, measuring light pollution with sophisticated instruments, decries the loss of the ability of Americans to witness true darkness. It “ties all people together across the planet,” states Moore. “We have to decide if it’s worth saving,” he asks rhetorically. Then in Nepal, as if to answer the question, we’re placed amongst astronomers encouraging onlookers to take a peak at the largest planet in the solar system. Curiosity, intrigue, marvel and the quest to learn about the night, each transcends culture and age.

Returning to North America, and The Night Shift, a long-haul trucker drives across Canada with her son, after dark, exposing us to the night’s working world – its allure, its danger, and its necessity. At the Sleep and Alertness Clinic in Toronto we learn of the afflictions which beset the night shift, and are told of modern-day disasters which have occurred during the middle-of-the-night as a result of human error – Chernobyl and Exxon Valdez are cited examples. If humanity must work throughout the night, as is suggested, how do we better adapt?

The dark side of earth’s most densely populated club district is revealed, under the watch of Toronto Police Department’s 52 Division. Another aspect of night shift work: patrolling nightly, and then rounding up mainly youthful revelers as they emerge from partying shortly after 2 a.m., high on drugs or a little too much to drink, in either case resulting in unruly conduct or violence. Detention and in some cases arrest follows; then finally the morning clean-up, Night’s Last Stand.

McNamara also illustrates how differently death is approached depending on societal mores. In the candle – lit Mexican cemetery his cinematographers capture the poignancy of an elderly couple lamenting the loss of their son, decades after his passing. He then switches to the somber spectacle of light near Ground Zero. On a subsequent night in the Mexican village, death is remembered no longer through solemnity, but now with comparsas – parades marked by reveling in costume, dance and song. McNamara then takes us to the pageantry of a Winter Solstice celebration at Toronto’s Kensington Market. The night is a catalyst for celebrating in similar, almost identical fashion, under dramatically distinct circumstances.

Particularly striking and thought provoking contrasts occur within the context of McNamara taking us to a makeshift outdoor hockey rink illuminated by the full moon, then to beyond Yellowknife, where The Dene, one of Canada’s First Nation peoples, emerge from their teepees rejoicing the awe inspiring Aurora Borealis, and yes, telling stories. Cut to Paris, where artificial light gives art a new appreciation, then to New York, where light pays homage to America’s fallen. It’s hard to resolve the conflict between utilizing and appreciating the night and all its wonder and beauty – a motive for its preservation – and perhaps just as valid, transforming and celebrating the night, which leads to its adulteration.

As dawn approaches, thousands of spent rockets are gathered on the Greek island, the Parisian art exhibit has lost its glimmer, the 9 / 11 lights are extinguished, the now exhausted Nepalese storyteller heads home, and the villagers of Atzompa depart through the cemetery arch, until next year’s Dia de los Muertos.

Acquainted with the Night takes the viewer on much more than a cross-cultural journey traversing the exotic and the familiar, and then back again. It opens our minds to a sampling of what most of us miss between going to bed, and arising for work the next day. It inevitably encourages many to re-evaluate an unnecessarily staid lifestyle, through examining a world not previously known to exist. It ensures that we expose our youth to more, yet at the same time cautions, and raises questions – with answers difficult to reconcile.

Alvin Starkman is a consultant to documentary film production companies. He received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School, thereafter embarking upon a career as a litigator. Alvin now resides in Oaxaca where he writes, leads personalized tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sights, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Br.eakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), combining the comfort and service of a Oaxaca hotel with the lodging style of a quaint country inn.

New Book Points to Evidence of Oaxaca as the Cradle of Mesoamerican Civilization

Oaxaca, Cuna y destino de la Civilización Americana: Book Review

Alvin Starkman, M.A., LL.B.

Oaxaca, Cuna y destino de la Civilización Americana is an impassioned plea for recognition of ancient Zapotec culture in the state of Oaxaca, south central Mexico, as the cradle of Mesoamerican society. As such, the treatise contends, it constitutes one of the world’s six great founding civilizations.

To buttress his proposition, author Juan Arturo López Ramos cites key evidence which supports the contention that Oaxacan settlement should be credited with developing the continent’s earliest known system of writing, calendar, cultivation, and first great city-state, Monte Albán. He bases his thesis on the fruits of primarily archaeological investigation by national and international researchers.

Background to López Ramos’ Knowledge and Investigation Regarding Oaxaca and its Pre – History

López Ramos was born in the Mixteca district of Oaxaca. He studied in Mexico at the Instituto Politécnico National, and did his graduate work at the Antigua Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, in Madrid, Spain. He then returned to Oaxaca to embark upon a career in politics. As both Secretary of Tourism, and member of congress, he gained exacting knowledge of Oaxaca, having had the opportunity to visit virtually all regions of the state. In addition, as a prominent politician he had occasion to meet with scores of academics working in the state over the course of more than two decades. He would inevitably be kept abreast of research in such diverse areas of inquiry as history, geography, anthropology and archaeology, botany and zoology, and linguistics, to name but a few.

Development of the Thesis of Oaxaca as the Cradle of Mesoamerican Civilization

López Ramos begins his analysis by distinguishing development in Mesoamerica from Old World civilizations, noting that the latter had the advantage of being in relatively close proximity to one another and therefore the ability to adopt or assimilate the cultural progress of their neighbors. By contrast, Mesoamerican civilization developed in isolation and therefore independent of outside influences.

After summarizing how Oaxaca was instrumental in the development of Mesoamerica by virtue of developments in astronomy, engineering, agriculture and social organization, the author sets up Oaxaca as the geographic center of Mesoamerica, noting its climatic, physical and biological diversity, and how as a consequence the state stands apart from other regions in Mexico. He emphasizes the quantity and broad array of vegetation and animal life in the state, and of course its ethnic and cultural diversity. Oaxaca’s unique position, in all of the foregoing respects, was therefore conducive to the development of a grand civilization.

The reader is provided with a review of the evidence of the earliest human occupation in Oaxaca (i.e. the rock shelters and pictographs found between Yagul and Mitla, contributing to the area’s recent UNESCO designation as a World Heritage Site), and the inhabitants’ crucial advancement through the domestication of squash, pepper, beans and corn. Campsites became villages, and through village life developed rudimentary adobe housing, industry (i.e. ceramics) and social structure including the earliest ritualistic behavior and governmental function.

The book truly shines where López Ramos advances his contention by illustrating that it was the Zapotecs and not the Olmecs, and it was in the central valleys of Oaxaca and not in Chiapas, Tehuacán, Teotihuacán, Veracruz or in other areas, where several indicia (aside from cultivation) of a great civilization first arose. Much of the evidence derives from the excavation at San José Mogote in the Etla valley, a settlement pre-dating others.

López Ramos acknowledges that the origins of pottery are in four areas, the oldest sites being San José Mogote and Tehuacán. But by comparing evidence at the two sites, he concludes that it was at San José Mogote where the first ever pottery workshop contained in a village, is encountered. The site also bears witness to the earliest use of consciously selected or tooled stones, and the first public buildings – constructed using deliberate astronomical orientation. The existence of a tombstone at San José Mogote, with the oldest writing in Mesoamerica, sets Oaxaca apart from anything similar found in the Olmec region of Veracruz or elsewhere. He then notes the antiquity of the calendar found at the same site, and that its complexity and accuracy exceed that of calendars of European societies of that era.

Using detailed description, López Ramos asserts the importance of Monte Albán, the first great city-state on the continent. He notes its significant advancements over the course of its extensive occupation, and indeed its grandiosity. He quotes archaeologists Damon E. Peeler and Marcus Winter who conclude that Zapotec astronomy played a major role in the design of Teotihuacán.

The author makes his case in a convincing manner, citing the research results of several academics who have worked in Oaxaca for decades. He does so in a highly informative, convincing, and in most cases readable and understandable fashion even for those of us without maximum proficiency with the Spanish language.

López Ramos Provides the Reader with a New or Renewed Appreciation of Oaxaca

In the course of the power-point presentation promoting his book, López Ramos cites the likes of D.H. Lawrence, Guadalupe Loaeza, Danish architect Jorn Utzon, and others who have marveled at Oaxaca and in some cases noted its influence throughout the modern world – just to ensure that even if you don’t entirely accept his thesis, from reading the book you’ll come away with a new or renewed appreciation of the state, and more particularly its central valleys.


Alvin Starkman has a masters in anthropology and law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. Now a resident of Oaxaca, Alvin writes, takes couples and families to the sights, is a consultant to documentary film companies working in southern Mexico, and owns Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast (http://www.oaxacadream.com ), a unique bed and breakfast experience providing accommodations which combine the comfort and service of a four star hotel, with the personal touch of quaint country inn style lodging.

Wine Bar in Oaxaca Now Open at La Olla Restaurant

Worth checking out is the wine bar upstairs at La Olla restaurant in downtown Oaxaca:

http://www.suite101.com/content/wine-bar-in-oaxaca-mexico-at-la-olla-restaurant-a292488

Alvin Starkman - Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast

Diet Drinks, Sugar - free Sodas, Available to Tourists to Oaxaca

The following is an article for those visitors to Oaxaca who will want to track down their favorite sugar - free drinks, diet sodas; canned, bottled or in powder form, for both consumption in Oaxaca, and in the case of powdered Nestea, Clight, ZUKO and others, for taking home at the end of the trip because of the rock bottom prices:

http://www.suite101.com/content/diet-drinks-in-oaxaca-mexico-diet-coke-pepsi-light-clight-a290759

Alvin Starkman - Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast