Chavez, known to New York racing fans as Chop Chop, a nickname born from his short, vertical strokes with his whip, has become a good stretch rider.
Main tourist drags like Avenida Revolución, for years a noisy kaleidoscope of gringo bars, strip clubs and chintzy souvenir stands, had become a desolate stretch of closed doors and increasingly aggressive vendors.
What began as a weeklong gathering for motorcycle hobbyists has become a sprawling stretch of all-day parties that lasts most of May and drives away golfers and vacationing families, local politicians say.
Then came the revolution, and the Bund became a glum stretch of state-owned insurance companies, ministerial buildings, and banks.
The Gay Village – one of North America's biggest – is lively and welcoming, bisected by Sainte-Catherine Street whose eastern stretch becomes a blissfully car-free pedestrian zone throughout summer.
Suddenly the dirt track becomes a vast eight-lane highway stretching across the scrub land to the horizon.
Typing something with letters on opposite ends of the keyboard — like "laser" or "plate" or "mail" or a billion other words — becomes a pretty hilarious thumb stretching exercise.
No artist's career illustrates the traps of modern fame for an artist more clearly, or the risk of having a style become a brand; stretches of the second volume, obliged to take account of the immobile mobiles and stasis-filled stabiles that Calder churned out in later life, are likely to make dispiriting reading.
As midsummer approaches, living above the 50-degree north line of latitude becomes a virtue as the day stretches deep into the evening.
