PERDIDA EN MANHATTAN

Murió Chavela Vargas

Vargas rose to fame flouting the Catholic country’s preconceptions of what it meant to be a female singer: singing lusty “ranchera” songs while wearing men’s clothes, carrying a pistol, drinking heavily and smoking cigars. Though she refused to change the pronouns in love songs about women as some audiences expected, many of her versions of passionate Mexican folk songs are considered definitive.

“I was never afraid of anything because I never hurt anyone,” Vargas told the audience at a Mexico City tribute concert in June 2011. “I was always an old drunk.”

—The Washington Post

… que descanse en paz