Mexico has long been going smoke-free in public places, but at the same time alternatives such as patches and nicotine gum disappeared from pharmacies. While in the U.S. and Europe those products are readily available, in Mexico it became impossible even to order them online.

This coincided with the emergence of vaping, which had the advantage of not filling up the area with smoke or leaving a stale smell on fingers, clothes and breath. Vaping products have been banned by the Mexican government on health grounds.

One new non-vaping nicotine option appearing at convenience stores —being sold under the brand name “ZYN”— are nicotine pouches that you put under your upper or lower lip and keep there for a while, absorbing the nicotine through the mouth. Some people may prefer gum or lozenges, but when there’s nothing else you take what you can get. They are priced about the same as a packet of cigarettes.

ZYN is made by a Swedish subsidiary of the tobacco giant Philip Morris and is part of the company’s shift toward smoke-free products, which have become popular for reasons such as those mentioned above. Information about them in Mexico, along with the  different presentations and risks (smokers may be shocked to know that nicotine is addictive), is available here.

Another option is Velo, made by British American Tobacco, which has a similar product, and similarly priced, also available in convenience stores in Mexico.

Without delving too deeply into confessions of a smoker, it might be well to warn those about to celebrate that nothing is necessarily permanent.

In 2024, a congressional committee approved a proposed constitutional ban on electronic cigarettes and vaping that was passed and is now in the process of becoming law. Meanwhile, notices have been posted in customs halls and some travelers are having vaping products confiscated when their personal items are examined.

Apparently, “but I thought they wanted people to stop smoking,” doesn’t carry a great deal of weight.

Changing tastes in coffee consumption

With the rising popularity of coffee-drinking for entertainment, the casual expert who knows that the good stuff is called arabica and grows on mountains is in ever-greater company, and the value of that knowledge as a conversation opener has dwindled somewhat.

The purveyors of the best coffees tend to print that kind of information all over the packages, and some even include rather sophisticated stories about how the coffee comes to be in the bag at all, almost rivaling the verbosity of the cereal companies who provide enough literature on the box to see you through a week of breakfasts without having to pick up a newspaper or speak to anyone else at the table, except to waffle something that sounds like “I’m reading” through soggy flakes.

There are many, if not infinite, combinations of roasts and grinds for the different coffees to make it impossible to say which are the best; besides, there is no accounting for taste.

Coffees grown in Mexico

Possibly the best known Mexican coffees come from Chiapas, which is the state that produces the most. But there is plenty to be said for Oaxaca state’s Pluma region, as well as coffees grown in Veracruz state’s Córdoba region.

For home consumption, a fair selection can be found at most Mexican supermarkets, although for a wider choice, the coffee shops that grind the beans on the premises are a good place to go: they also tend to have more sizes of bags, so you can try out different kinds quite frequently, ordering quarter-kilos (about a half-pound), “un cuarto,” or find one you always want, and buy a big bag of it. The handful of high-end food shops, some with branch networks across the country, also stocks ample ranges of high quality Mexican and imported coffees.

It’s probably fair to say, without being too nationalistic, that Mexico produces enough of its own good quality coffee as to make paying extra for imported grains a waste of money. Of course there is the Malinchista factor to consider, for which Colombian and Costa Rican coffees are readily available as well as the top Italian coffee brands, although generally speaking malinchismo doesn’t apply to hot drinks. That may be just as well as a majority of the coffee drunk in Mexico is still of the instant kind, and there you definitely want to stick with the Swiss company’s brand.

Instant coffee is still popular in Mexico

Not everywhere has good coffee, and some restaurants that specialize in other areas definitely fail in this. A number of taco restaurants have cottoned-on to the trend in customers’ demands for a decent coffee after a meal and now serve proper Café Americano, Cappuccino, or even Espresso, but there remain others whose only offering is “agua para Nescafé,” (they bring a cup of  hot water, a spoon and the instant coffee jar), or “café de olla,” which is coffee made in a cooking pot, la olla, and sweetened with treacle, piloncillo, and cinnamon. Tastes fine, but isn’t what you might expect.

The easiest way is to look up the event online at Ticketmaster, which tends to handle sales for the usual commission to most events. A number of store chains have Ticketmaster booths.

This is fine for a regular season game, a play, a ballet at Bellas Artes, or even a relatively little known group or singer.

But since the rock stars of old — old rock stars — discovered that Mexico is a profitable place to perform, the number of “big” concerts has increased. Mexican fans are willing, and frequently do, pay higher prices for their tickets than their counterparts in the U.S. or the U.K. Literally higher, not purchasing-power-parity higher.

For blockbuster events, such as soccer finals, big time artists, visiting theater or dance troupes, and Broadway productions, the normal channels can be impossible unless you happen to have a particularly fast Internet connection and can fast-type credit card details, or have a whole day to spend lining-up at the venue when ticket sales are announced.

This is where the ubiquitous revendedores – ticket touts – come in.

No one seems to know when and where they get hold of the tickets that no one else could find either at Ticketmaster or at the box office, but they do, and the price they charge can go up exponentially for certain events, particularly concerts.

If you decide to get tickets through this channel, and it may be the last resort, it’s better to do it with the help of a regular concert goer, someone who knows the ropes and may even have the mobile number of a reliable revendedor.

The higher prices commanded by the touts can be attributed to supply and demand, but the resale of tickets under false pretenses, for example lying about what part of the stadium or hall they are in, isn’t beyond some of these people.

For particularly popular concerts where even the regular revendedores say they can’t get tickets, there will be others offering counterfeit tickets, known in the trade as chocolates, which will be found-out at the gate. One thing to watch for here: if more ticket touts are asking if you have spare tickets to sell than offering to sell you tickets, chances are that they are genuinely sold out, so beware.

Every so often, public outrage will be such that authorities will announce a crackdown, a couple of touts will be “arrested” and their tickets recovered, but as surely as it rains in the rainy season, they will be back the next week.

Mexicans don’t eat that much ice cream

The proliferation of fancy brands —Häagen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry’s, Santa Clara— might lead you to the wrong conclusion about just how much ice cream Mexicans consume.

According to some reports, Mexicans only eat on average 1.5 liters of ice cream a year, a small fraction of what Americans and New Zealanders —the world’s top consumers— guzzle down.

Also somewhat surprising, for a relatively low-wage country, is the amount of business done by ice cream brands of which a single serving cone or tub can cost around four or five US dollars.

Market studies here can be incomplete in a country where there is a large informal economy, and products such as ice cream and popsicles are often made by individuals whose sales are off the marketing-experts’ radar screens.  It’s ice-cream franchises, however, that are expected to generate the growth in product consumption in the country.

Buying ice-cream in Mexico

If you visit or live in a large city or tourist resort, the most likely place you’ll find ice cream is at one of these chains, many of which are located at malls.  Local grocery stores —las tienditas— convenience stores such as Oxxo and 7-Eleven, as well as a majority of pharmacies have fridges with prepackaged ice creams and popsicles, mostly in single servings.  Multi-packs and larger presentations are found in the freezers at supermarkets.

The best known brand of ice cream in Mexico, and apparently the one with the largest market share is Helados Holanda.  These tend to be cheaper than the boutique brands, whether bought in individual servings or in larger packages.  This makes a lot of sense when buying ice cream for a family, but for those particular about quality —all natural ingredients, for example— this apparently won’t do, and those who can afford it prefer to buy the expensive stuff.

Flavored popsicles are popular in Mexico

It’s almost impossible not to come across a popsicle shop —paleteria— called La Michoacana.  These shops sell a wide range of fruit-flavored paletas as well as cream ones, paletas de crema.  A word of advice, go for the water ones.  Although originally from the state of Michoacán, apparently just about anyone can call their paleteria La Michoacana, as this interesting report suggests.

In smaller towns, and still occasionally in large cities, you can find the traditional ambulant purveyors of helados, or nieves in the case of  lime sorbets, being served from a pushcart or from a container placed in ice on the front of an adapted bicycle.  These vendors are famous for crying out “de limón la nieveeeeee!!!”

Soft ice-cream for passing refreshment

Soft ice cream from a machine is also growing in popularity, not only because of the flavor but also because of the price. McDonald’s offers a range of these ice creams at its restaurants, but also has separate ice cream counters at many of its outlets (and kiosks at shopping centers) for those who just want to pick-up some passing refreshment.  If your budget is somewhat strained and it’s hot out, this can be quite a useful option.

Books’ row in Mexico City

In the south of Mexico City, where Miguel Angel de Quevedo avenue crosses Avenida Universidad —about five minutes from the Bohemian hangout of Coyoacán— is a mini paradise for bookworms.

Three major bookstores, Gandhi, El Sotano, and Fondo de Cultura Economica, and a dozen or so smaller ones, line both sides of the street. Outside are wooden trays with books at throw-away prices, and inside you’ll find special offers on those less likely to be thrown away.

Mexico City remains the place where the widest selection of books and bookshops can be found, and some well-known chains have most of their branches in the capital.

Bookshops are still popular in Mexico

But while in many developed countries bookshops have been closing, Mexican chains have been opening new stores. Like bookshops everywhere, they have also added small gifts, toys, games & puzzles, and other paraphernalia to their offerings to make the business work.  This may annoy some purists, but somehow it’s hard to get worked up about a model that means the book business can continue going.

• Cafebrería El Péndulo —coffee shop-bookstore— boasts several branches in Mexico City, including in trendy neighborhoods such as Polanco, Condesa, Roma, and San Ángel.
• Librerías Gandhi has expanded with new stores in Mexico City, and also has branches in 24 of Mexico’s 32 states.
• El Sótano and Casa del Libro have more than a dozen branches.
• Gonvill Librerías is the biggest chain in Guadalajara, Mexico’s third most populated city and which is also host to a major international book fair each year.

These chains tend to stock the best selection of books, often beyond the capacity of the shelves so that many are neatly piled up.  You can find most books in Spanish at these stores.

And while many, especially Gandhi and El Péndulo, have one or two shelves of books in English and French, here it tends to be hit and miss.  You might find occasional books of interest, but you are less likely to find a specific title. (For some you can check availability online.)

Buying eBooks in Mexico

Since eBooks are virtually borderless, there are as many options in Mexico as anywhere else.

Amazon’s Mexico shop sells Kindles, and you can usually find almost any book published in English or Spanish in the local Kindle store.  Apple Books are an option for those who use Apple devices —iPhone or iPad— although they don’t have a dedicated eReader like the Kindle.

There’s no accounting for taste, and online reviews show some people are impressed with the Apple Books app, others not so much. For those using Android, Google Books is an option, and again, it has the disadvantage of not having a dedicated eReader.

In Mexico, the Gandhi and Porrúa book chains have an agreement with Kobo Books and sell Kobo eReaders, which are popular in Canada and parts of Europe like France and Italy. (The Canadian digital bookseller Kobo was acquired by Japan’s Rakuten Group in 2012, so the app says Rakuten Kobo, although people still widely refer to Kobo books).

Both Gandhi and Porrúa sell eBooks on their own websites, which can be downloaded onto the Kobo reader or using the Kobo app installed on devices, and you can also download eBooks directly from the Kobo website.

Depending on how budget conscious the reader is, it can be advantageous to keep open several options, as sometimes a title will be available on one platform and not another, or cheaper on one than another.

The Kindle, Kobo, and Google Books apps are available on Apple and Android, but the Apple Books app isn’t available on Android.

Finding books not published in Spanish

When you are looking for a particular physical copy of a book not published in Spanish —such as a new release— the options are to stock-up on a trip abroad, or order it from a book seller online—most of which will ship books to Mexico with no problems, but not necessarily that quickly. If you want a particular book right now, eBooks are the way to go.

Mexico’s department stores and big box stores have book sections, but these vary widely in selection and quality. There are about 150 Sanborns stores with magazine sections offering international titles published in English, but not much in the way of books published in English beyond current best-sellers.

Fancy browsing

Even the most bourgeois of us like to dig around for books in a bohemian atmosphere, and for that there are plenty of elegant bookshops—although that isn’t where most Mexicans go to buy reading material.

Wide assortment of sweet and savory bread

It’s not unusual in the evenings to see people hanging around inside the shop, metal tray and tongs in hand, waiting for the next batch of hot rolls —oval-shaped bolillos or flat teleras— to be wheeled out from the ovens and tossed into the bins.

Then there are the shelves organized with a large variety of pan dulce —sweet bread— each piece with its own particular name.  Among the most popular are chocolate or vanilla coated conchas (shells), the sugar-covered bigotes (moustaches) or moños (bows), the plain mantecadas (cup cakes), ear-shaped pastries called orejas (ears), and the inevitable cuernos (croissants).

Then there are the crumbly cookies called polvorones (in various colors), the long, glazed pastries known as banderillas, and chinos, largish splodges of cake baked in wads of thick grease-proof paper, usually sprinkled with small pieces of walnut.

Bread shop scenes of a bygone era

In an era gone-by, the local panadería would often be the focal point of a bustling street corner, and in more innocent times than these, an evening meeting place for young lovers, particularly among the working classes. This was so common that the expression “¿a qué horas vas al pan?” (What time are you going for bread?) became a joke as a chat-up line.

Seldom lacking outside would be the vendor of tamales —sweet or savory corn dough served in a natural leaf wrapper— from a steaming pot settled into the front of a large tricycle; and not far away the wheeled oven-cart loaded with camotes (yams) and baked bananas would come trundling by, announcing its imminent arrival with an ear-piercing screech from a steam whistle mounted on the mobile stove, accompanied by the reassuring smoky odor from the smoldering charcoal embers inside.

A common and natural next-door neighbor to the bread shop is the grocery store —tienda de abarrotes— selling cold cuts, canned foods, soft drinks and liquor, and some have installed a rosticería: a roast chicken stand mesmerizing customers as they wait and watch inordinate amounts of grease drip from anemic-looking fowl going round and round on a spit.

Contemporary bakery stores in Mexico

Some of these scenes have been replaced over the years by the proliferation of multi-purpose supermarkets with their own in-house bakeries, particularly in the cities. The fancier supermarkets like CityMarket purvey a wide variety of sweet and savory breads baked in-store throughout the day.

Many of the old traditional corner street bread shops have closed, or their quality has gone downhill. Some are unable to compete with the variety of fancy doughnuts, and the slick presentations, or the price advantages of buying in bulk enjoyed by the large chains and many, if not most of the them, have lost their charm.

In their place, supermarkets with their own bakeries, specialist local independent bakers (most often advertising on social media), and larger bread shop chains like Esperanza have emerged to fill the never-ending demand for sweet and savory bread.

Strays in Mexico

Stray dogs in Mexico are generally not treated very well, and the most common reaction of street dogs is to dodge when humans come close, probably a conditioned response to having been frequently kicked or stoned or hissed at to scat.

One overblown fear is that you could catch rabies. Years of government vaccination campaigns —since 1990— has reduced this probability to practically zero. In 2005, officials noted 125 cases of rabies among dogs and cats in nine states, compared with more than 3,000 cases in 1990 in 29 states. The latest data from Mexico’s health ministry demonstrate that in 2017 there were just three cases in three states—and not every case affected humans.

According to estimates from health officials, there are around 100,000 reported cases a year of dogs attacking humans, of which nearly half were vaccinated dogs, suggesting that dogs with owners are just as likely (or unlikely) to bite you as strays. This is in a population of 130 million people, and an estimated 18 million to 20 million dogs.

Concerns about stray dogs that have been mentioned by different local governments carrying out round-up campaigns include health problems caused by feces, and in one case in northern Durango state, dogs were said to be a threat to drivers as they crossed the highway.

Precise data are hard to come by

While there appear to be fewer street dogs every time you look, the number of dogs with owners seems to be increasing, along with other security measures in residential areas. (Keeping a dog is a deterrent to burglars.) Statistics in this case don’t go very far—the maze of data on the country’s National Statistics Institute web site turns-up little meaningful data about man’s best friend.

They don’t say, for example, how many dogs get taken for walks every day and how many are left to rot on rooftops, barking in desperation at anyone who walks below, and raising their level of excitement if the pedestrian is accompanied by a dog.

Trends observed by watching dog walkers

A walk in the park —or in one of Mexico City’s trendy neighborhoods where younger generations can be seen walking their dogs instead of pushing baby buggies— of a morning or an evening turns up a fair amount of anecdotal evidence about the habits of people and their dogs. The ‘poop scoop,’ for example, is becoming increasingly common, although it’s still sensible to keep an eye on the ground before you.

In middle-class suburbia, there is a good deal of oneupmanship when it comes to owning a dog. It’s not very practical to staple a pedigree certificate to the animal, and so the more obvious implicit superlatives are biggest, rarest, most expensive—things that people just know and dogs just don’t care about.

With many city dwellers living in apartments, sub-compact dogs appear to be more plentiful than the larger breeds. Schnauzers and Pugs enjoyed a period of popularity in recent years, although their fame has become overshadowed by the Bulldog. But most likely, as more and more people get Bulldogs, and their novelty wears-off, a need will arise for a new “in” dog.

Learn more about caring for pets in Mexico

Mexperience publishes guides and articles about bringing pets to Mexico and caring for them here:

• Latest articles about pets in Mexico
• Dog walkers in Mexico
• Bringing your pets to Mexico

You might imagine this would lead to a well-informed population, although the programs appear designed primarily to make sure you get to work twice as neurotic as you would have done had it just been the heavy traffic, and not also the frantic flicking back and forth through the radio stations as you navigate your way around an inordinate number of advertising breaks.

Amid this on-air array of news, phone-ins, trash music, noise, and seemingly endless and fruitless discussion on “topics of the day” fit to cure insomnia, lies an oasis of frequency modulation.

Radio Universal, on 88.1 FM* in Mexico City, and also available online, has two hours a day of Beatles music and trivia —Mon-Fri 6-7 a.m. and 9-10 p.m. / Saturday 7-8 a.m.— a harking back to the 1970s when “Beatles hours” were as frequent and as competitive as today’s news.

Back then, when English was less widely spoken, The Beatles were referred to as Los Beatles and shamelessly pronounced Los Beetlays. Now that the cuarteto Liverpool is making a bit of a comeback among the savvy Internet generation, the group is pronounced more like Beadles—probably the U.S. influence.

This doesn’t mean a return of Beatlemania, but rather that any iPhone worth its salt is expected to have at least a smattering of retro bands and in that sense, a member of the earphone set will happily concede that the Beatles had “buenas rolas“—and perhaps in the same breath ask: “John Lennon was one of the Beatles? Oh. I thought so.”

* For decades, Radio Universal broadcast on 92.1 FM until 2016 when the frequency changed.  The exact reason why is unclear, although it appears related to the term of the contractual frequency concession, which ended in June 2016.  Frequent listeners and fans won’t mind the frequency change, and in these days of digital airwaves, where people listen online and in-car radios automatically scan the networks and display key information like the station name, it probably won’t make much difference anyway.

But on one particular kind of Friday in Mexico —viernes quincena— when pay day coincides with the last day of the week, the congestion is even greater.  Not just the traffic thickens. As the working people have money to spend, this day you can find yourself in long lines for restaurant tables, cinema tickets, or at the supermarket checkout.

People mill around at malls, and finding a parking spot can be like looking for a needle in a haystack. (Navigating the narrow underground parking lots is a particularly useful skill to develop in busy cities.)

The advent of direct deposit for wages did away with much of the lining-up at banks to cash checks, which in years past was about as daunting a prospect as can be imagined. But people in Mexico still often prefer to use cash so lines at ATMs have replaced many of the lines at bank branches.

What the British call a fortnight the Mexicans call the quincena—a 15-day period between pay days. And as most wages are paid bi-weekly, the pay day is also referred to as la quincena.

The noticeable buzz of commercial activity illustrates the fact that much of the working and middle classes, here as elsewhere, live from one paycheck to the next. Sales numbers from the retailers association Antad, and from its biggest member Walmart reflect this. Months that have an extra Saturday —a typical shopping day— tend to see bigger increases in sales, and the effect is even greater when the weekends coincide with payment of la quincena.

Officially, pay days are on the 15th and 30th of each month, or the nearest prior working day. So if the 15th or 30th falls on a weekend, wages should be paid on the Friday before. Pay days that fall on the Monday can be devastating for weekend plans.

And as there are 24 pay day quincenas per year (52 weeks), inevitably there are a number of quincenas largas, or long quincenas. These are usually following months with 31 days, and they can become even longer if the preceding pay was deposited ahead of a weekend.

Social media provides many examples of the anxiety surrounding the timing of deposits and the efficiency of HR and payroll departments. The X account @MundoGodinez addresses with considerable humor the daily life of the typical Mexican office worker, and la quincena looms large as a subject at the front of most minds.

See also: El Aguinaldo

One of the best known works of Spanish literature is such a one – Lazarillo de Tormes.  The delightful 16th century satirical novel is standard fare in schools and is frequently used as an introduction to Spanish literature for both students of Spanish and native speakers.

The novel is considered to be a pioneering work of the genre known as picaresca, to which the later, even better-known Don Quixote de la Mancha belongs.  It’s also plugged as a fine example of Spain’s golden century, and serves to introduce the subject of censorship by the Spanish Inquisition, since it was one of the works that made the Index of Forbidden Books, a sort of a sixteenth century hall of fame.

The book is an autobiographical account of the fictional life of Lázaro, an orphaned boy who describes his adventures with a series of masters, each one a typical character of the society of the time.

And while Don Quixote is better known than Lazarillo, it’s probably not better read, on account of the length of it.  One of the advantages of Lazarillo is that it’s very short, so short that anyone can finish it without the excuses and other dubious claims made by those (of us) who made it some distance past the other’s introduction to an “idle reader” and intend to finish it one day.

Lazarillo should probably grace any bookshelf that includes Spanish works, but the text is also available online at a number of sites, both in Spanish and English.

Of course you can put on some music to enjoy, although even the most avid music buffs might need a break from their usual fare, or want to listen to someone speaking “live,” especially first thing in the morning.

Car-pooling is still very much a thing for the well-organized, and a quick glance at the traffic in a big Mexican city suggests that the average occupancy per car is one-point-something. But even for those vehicles that might qualify for a car-pool lane, if there were such a thing, one-on-one conversation isn’t that attractive an option when leaving home before it gets light, as traffic levels in the capital suggest many do here.

Enter the radio.

Here in Mexico you could say that you are spoiled for choice. There are endless news shows, music shows of all kinds, talk shows, and call-in shows, but not that many documentaries or decent game shows.

As in other places, the popularity of a radio show has a lot to do with the personality behind the microphone. And ratings are their principal guide. Among the most competitive spaces, but not necessarily with the highest ratings, are the morning news programs.

Some run from 5:30 until 9 or 10 o’clock. The FM frequencies are the most coveted, and some shows will be on for an hour on FM, and then continue on an AM frequency as FM makes space for the next ‘ratings king’.

Four hours or more may sound like too much for one day’s news, and most of the morning programs are filled with the previous day’s news (since nothing much has really happened since then). This isn’t that much of a problem.

Commercial breaks are frequent and long, and are apt to cause listeners to flick through the stations to avoid them, usually with limited success.

Interviews are often dragged out affairs for this same reason. Then there are the “on this day in history” fillers, the traffic updates, and frequent updates on the outside temperature—or the time.

One particular show gives the time only in minutes, but not the hour. “Ten minutes to the hour,” “fifteen minutes past the hour.” The host will occasionally explain the reason for it, namely that Mexico has four different time zones and therefore it would be presumptuous to give a particular hour. It’s hard to know if this is simple pedantry, knowing that there are four time zones, or bragging about nationwide coverage of some kind. In any event, it serves to fill in some more space.

Most of the show hosts are also quite expert in spinning out news items with long introductions, to the news itself or someone who is about to be interviewed. These can be interspersed with comments and opinions, even about the least controversial of subjects. And in these days of Social Media listener-interaction, no host worth his salts will fail to read out a few Tweets or Facebook comments.

The main radio broadcasters in Mexico are Radio Centro, Radio Formula, W Radio, MVS, and Imagen—and their program listings and frequencies can be found on their web sites, which also include live streaming, and links to previously recorded shows.

The birds living in the capital —of which there are a considerably large number for such a vast expanse of concrete and bitumen— find their dawn-welcoming choruses competing for ears with the continuous rush of tires on tar, the roar of diesel combustion, and piercing shrieks from the whistles of policemen trying to keep it all moving along.

Perhaps not surprisingly, noise is something of a status symbol for the chilangos as they struggle to be noticed among 20 million others.

The owners and operators of the ubiquitous micros —shuttle buses— may well skimp when it comes to seating arrangements, faulty light bulbs, or sticky doors, but spare no expense when rigging up sound systems for the apparent entertainment of the driver alone. From the intricate set-up of tweeters and woofers, no one is spared the blast of música tropical, corridas, or rock en español.

In case this isn’t enough, some replace the standard horn with a series of trumpets pumping out Yankee Doodle or La Cucaracha, both proclaiming “make way for the raucous.”

The penchant for forcibly sharing dissonant tastes extends to the owners of cars, many of whom roll down their windows to let fellow motorists and pedestrians appreciate the finer points of disco, rap, or hip-hop—at full volume.  Pathos comes to mind as the driver tries to shout “look at me” through the speakers, but actually insists, “listen to this awful din.” None of the loudies seem to like Simon & Garfunkel.

And, as elsewhere, even in the best of homes decibels rather than premises, inference, and deduction are the main currency for settling differences in points of view.  Here, the more the merrier combines with the louder the better to produce some ear-splitting enforcement of opinion, making the expression, el que calla otorga, (whoever says nothing, consents) somewhat redundant.