A Claxonomy of Mexico City's Traffic
allegralaboratory.net
allegralaboratory.net
...actually would be: dit, dit-dit dit dit. You added an extra beat/ syllable (the diddy bit = shave-e-and a hair cut), or two extra.
I see five notes (beats/ syllables) in 'shave and a hair cut', though the seven would fit in.
"Shave and a haircut, thank you". I stand to be corrected, but it is late and i am somewhat tired and emotional.
Btw, the abbreviated version only consists of 5 honks (ie "chinga tu madre" without the "cabrón" at the end), which is much more common in cdmx these days.
As a matter of fact, there's a common interaction in which one person will do the 5-honk salute and the receiver will reply with the missing 2 honks.
You can hear a couple of samples of that on sound file #13.
knock, dah-dah-dah-dah, thump thump.
Was hearing that recording (not the above track) all over when visiting CDMX a few years back
... I feel observed.
I actually wish it was a more widely accepted and recognized feeling. I've seen many drivers consciously choose a suboptimal, smaller route to drive with less people around, more pleasantly, even if they'd arrive later at destination.
But that means the GPS becomes either useless or adversarial. It will always point to an optimized route, and even asking to avoid congestion will only be for the biggest blocks. There's no "choose the path with the absolute fewest people" option, you have to set bullshit waypoints that have a high probability of being traffic free.
Sure there will be more traffic, but those roads were built to be open to the public. It wont be the depletion of a natural reserve, and rules can be set to protect from toxic behaviors. For instance many small towns in EU reduce speed to a very low limit and forbid commercial trucks; that avoids intensive drive by and travelers trying to shortcut the highway.
Only about 13% of people speak Spanish in Mexico [0], and while Google translate does an ok job, publications like this would be immensely more impactful if they could reach the people they are written about.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English...
It's not just the car honks. The various noises of the street are an essential part of daily life there, both in CDMX and even in rural areas far from it. I spent some months in both some years ago and you learn the honks on like day one so you don't get run over. You learn all the local jingles within a week or two, because you just have to. The water and gas sellers are easy enough because they just yell or use a tape recording. You learn the cow bell is the trash service. The steam whistle is the sweet potato roasters. The little flute trill is the knife sharpeners. Other vendors all tend to use the same recorded jingle for whatever they're offering.
Mexico is an amazingly pragmatic place where all these various signals emerged organically and are an integral part of daily life. I'll remember the recording for the tamale vendors[1] and the gas de oaxaca jingle[2] for the rest of my life.
A much more difficult one to learn is the whistles used up in the mountains of Oaxaca. These date back to ancient times and people can use them to communicate huge distances, from one side of a valley to another[3].
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzjlyeeXnec
Also the "se compra fierro viejo" recording and the whistle of the camote seller.