How to Age Gracefully on Social Media

Plus Día de Muertos, a BIG surprise for our book club readers

Your author in Morelia, trying his best to age gracefully.

I’m writing this from Mexico City airport, on my way to San Diego via Tijuana. For the next week, I’ll be exploring California by train, from San Diego to Downtown Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.

It’s been a busy last few weeks with lots of travel - including to Morelia, Michoacán for the 20th annual Morelia International Film Festival and the Day of the Dead in Paztcuaro (see photos below).

Given my pace of travel, I thought I’d experiment with a new format - a roundup of a few of my favorite finds from this past month. Let me know if you like this format and perhaps I will do it more often.

Ingrid Rojas Contreras, author of “The Man Who Could Move Clouds”

Also - I’m very excited to announce that we have a special guest for this month’s book live book club chat - the author herself! That’s right, Ingrid Rojas Contreras will be joining our live Zoom call on Dec 1st to discuss her memoir The Man Who Could Move Clouds.

So if you haven’t already, get your copy, join our free private book club chat and put the Zoom details in your calendar. Add any questions you have for Ingrid directly to our book club chat and I’ll pick my favorites to ask her on your behalf!

And big thanks to those of you who upgraded to a paid subscription this week: John Sager and Kathleen Bonhé, author of the wonderfully informative

The Mexpatriate

Read on, enjoy, and share your own recommendations in the comments below.

Essential Reading

• In Wired, Helena Fitzgerald talks to to ask why the first generation to grow up online is starting to feel too old for social media. She asks, is there a way to age gracefully on the internet? #ugh

• Monocle travels to Mexico City to find out why it has become ground-zero for the global TV streaming wars, as execs look to LATAM for the next Squid Game.

• In Vox, Rebecca Jennings travels to Positano and concludes that “The Instagram capital of the world is a terrible place to be” - and how to find something better when traveling (apart from subscribing to The Missive, of course).

• In Current Affairs, Adrian Rennix and Nathan Robinson explain why you hate contemporary architecture - and if you don’t, why you should.

• In Afar, Jessica Camille Aguirre explores a new take on space tourism - leaving the world’s atmosphere at 15 mph.

• My friend

  Tash Doherty
  recently launched a saucy Substack about sex, relationships and more called
  Misseducated
  . Check out her recent article on how she’s learning to stop judging other women as she makes peace with herself.

• On

  Snack Stack
  , food writer Doug Mack dissects the antiquated patriarchy of the fabled Explorer’s Club of New York via a string of bizarre dishes once served to members - including a supposed defrosted Wooly Mammoth steak dinner.

• And finally, my old travel buddy Philipp wrote from Switzerland to share an article from The Guardian about how Chinese investment is transforming Sihanoukville in Cambodia, a place we all met in 2009 (see picture below). A mirror of the Mexico City gentrification debate on the other side of the globe.

Your author (2nd from right) with backpacker friends in Cambodia, 2009.

Seminario 12, downtown Mexico City

Travel Favorites

• Last month I went to an incredible wedding in Seminario 12, a former seminary-turned event space in one of the oldest houses in Mexico City, built in 1640 above the ruins of the Mexica ceremonial temple of Tezcatlipoca. (Congrats Mike and Sophia Dewey!) It was an interesting building to visit after reading Conquistadores, by Fernando Cervantes, as it was built by one of Cortes’ men right after the conquest. Read the story of the building’s 20-year renovation here and check out their gorgeous private hotel roomre.

• The Mia Film Festival was really cool, even though we just caught the end of it in time to watch the Audience Prize winner Ahora Estamos Juntas by Mexican director Patricia Balderas. This year was the 20th edition of the festival and my first visit. But I’m definitely going back next year and staying for the whole week.

• By the way, Morelia has to be one of the most underrated Mexican destinations. Said to be one of the most beautiful cities in the country, it receives next to no foreign tourism simply for being in Michoacán, which the State Department ranks as “Do Not Travel” because of cartel activity. But Morelia is perfectly safe and a jewel waiting to be re-discovered by foreigners. Here are my tips: Have breakfast at Cafe Michelena, lunch at La Conspiracion de 1809, dinner at Lu Restaurante, mezcal sampling at Tata Mezcaleria and drinks with live jazz at the incredible Nameless Hidden Bar where you can have artisan cocktails for $5 a pop. Did I mention that Morelia is one of the most affordable cities in Mexico?

• Finally, we spent Day of the Dead at Paztcuaro, a gorgeous colonial town built atop the former capital of the Purépecha kingdom. It’s long been synonymous with the Day of the Dead and one of the real-life inspirations of Pixar’s Coco. We visited it during the day before taking a ferry in two hour pilgrimage to the nearby island of Janitzio for the midnight vigil at their cemeteries.

  
  See the Instagram Reel below for a taste of Morelia. And this Thursday I’ll be posting more film photos with a behind-the-scenes audio commentary for the photos. That’s it for now!
  
  Hasta pronto,

  
  Marko

  markoayling

  

  A post shared by Marko Ayling (@markoayling)

  

  Deshlee Ford in the Panteón de Janitizo