MEXICO.(The Talk of the Town)

"Mexico is different," the Drifters asserted, some years ago. There could be no arguing this, over the past five weeks, as a white flatbed truck turned up at various busy spots around town, presenting an alternate vision of winter to passersby. The truck, commissioned by the Mexico Tourism Board, was painted with travel-agency slogans like "Mexico: It's Beyond Your Expectations." In back, in a Plexiglas pen the size of a shipping container, three young women, in bikinis, and one young man, in surfer trunks, lolled about on a patch of beach. The tableau featured fake palms, real sand, honest games of chess and checkers, halfhearted beachball-tossing, aimless booty-shaking, occasional lotion application, and, above all, authentic ennui, of a kind seen on actual tropical beaches, as well as in strip-club dressing rooms. The colder New York got, the better Mexico looked.

Last Thursday morning, the truck took up position on Broadway at Forty-ninth Street and commenced its daily triggering of double takes, grins, head shakes, snapshots, cell-phone "Yo, dude"s, and leering "Yo, baby"s. According to Russ Levinson, the truck's driver and lifeguard, who was out on the sidewalk in an overcoat and scarf, distributing handbills, the two questions that pedestrians asked most frequently were "Can I go in there?" and "Aren't they cold?" In both cases, the answer was "No." "Cielito Lindo," the Frito Bandito theme, blared from speakers, as one of the girls in the truck checked her Blackberry and another sat on a towel, picking at sunburned (or sunlamp-burned) skin.

"Let's get some action going," Levinson said. He put on techno in place of the mariachi music, and said, into a walkie-talkie, "Can you guys get up?" The women rose and began absentmindedly volleying a beach ball.

There were steel stairs leading up to their pen. Inside, it was warm, seventy-five degrees. The sand was fine and deep; the sky--a ceiling of backlit panels--was pale blue, with wispy clouds, and the sun shone brightly from a fleet of footlights. You couldn't hear the street.

The sunbathers introduced themselves: Dragan, an aspiring Serb businessman, tall and thin, with dark stubble and long feet; Puja, a muscular actress/singer; Michelle, a model, with a tendency to wink; and Lila, a cocktail waitress, with a belly ring and Shannon Doherty bangs. Levinson made it clear ...