“4 Mississippi,5 Mississippi,6…,10…,

“4 Mississippi,5 Mississippi,6…,10…, ready or not, here I come” into a magic world where the sewing machines count the milliseconds and the clock over the arcade reads 11:07; the

next minute the ground shakes beneath my feet and loud crashes and car noises, along with the stench of garbage, bring me back to a grey reality

: it was true. The Pope said "F*ck". It was in Italian, but still. The locusts were thick now, nearly blotting out the sun. I felt another tremor and ducked under a park bench just

when the dreadful sound of earthquake makes me shiver, the ground is cracking in the shape of an asphalt river 3 or 4 meters deep, which runs the perimeter of villa Alatini reveal

ing its foundation. I am standing petrified among yelling people, while i trace, in the depth of the crack, a strange figure in a half-ripped tailcoated costume, muttering about a

plan and a half city...altered by a big fire, and about a lost chance to have a city standing durable to the requirements of modern times. I took a better look and saw something

So I just sidled up real close to him, cocking my head so that I could read that which was hanging out of his pocket, but not touching him. But he thought something else entirely.

"Good grief!" I thought to myself as soon as I realized he thought I was hitting on him. Still, I really wanted to read it, so I played along & pasted a lascivious grin on my face.

Little did I intend for this ad-hoc romantic interlude to introduce me to the world's largest underground collection of surviving Tijuana bibles.