Mexico (ⁱ/ˈmɛksɨkoʊ/; Spanish: México, IPA: [ˈmexiko] ( listen)), officially the United Mexican States (Spanish:  Estados Unidos Mexicanos (help·info)), is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States of America; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometres (over 760,000 sq mi), Mexico is the fifth largest country in the Americas by total area and the thirteenth largest independent nation in the world. With an estimated population of over 113 million, it is the eleventh most populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country. Mexico is a federation comprising thirty-one states and a Federal District, the capital city.

In Pre-Columbian Mexico many cultures matured into advanced civilizations such as the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacan, the Zapotec, the Maya and the Aztec before the first contact with Europeans. In 1521, Spain conquered and colonized the territory from its base in México-Tenochtitlan, which was administered as the Viceroyalty of New Spain. This territory would eventually become Mexico as the colony's independence was recognized in 1821. The post-independence period was characterized by economic instability, the Mexican-American War and territorial cession to the United States, a civil war, two empires and a domestic dictatorship. The latter led to the Mexican Revolution in 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the country's current political system. Elections held in July 2000 marked the first time that an opposition party won the presidency from the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

Park Avenue (formerly Fourth Avenue) is a 140 feet (43 m) wide boulevard that carries north- and southbound traffic in the New York City borough of Manhattan. For most of its length, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenue to the east.

The flowers and greenery in the median of Park Avenue are maintained by the Fund for Park Avenue. Begonias are a flower of choice for the Fund's gardeners because there is no automatic watering system and they can cope with the hot sun.

Each December, Christmas trees are placed in the median in a tradition that started in 1945 as a memorial to soldiers killed in action.

The road that becomes Park Avenue originates as the Bowery. From Cooper Square at 8th Street to Union Square at 14th Street, it is known as Fourth Avenue. Above 14th Street, it turns slightly east of north to align with other avenues of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811. From 14th Street to 17th Street, it forms the eastern boundary of Union Square and is known as Union Square East; its southbound lanes merge with Broadway for this distance. From 17th Street to 32nd Street, it is known as Park Avenue South, and above 32nd Street, for the remainder of its distance, it is known as Park Avenue.

Ryoji Ikeda (born 1966 in Gifu, Japan) is a Japanese sound artist who lives and works in Paris. Ikeda's music is concerned primarily with sound in a variety of "raw" states, such as sine tones and noise, often using frequencies at the edges of the range of human hearing. The conclusion of his album +/- features just such a tone; of it, Ikeda says "a high frequency sound is used that the listener becomes aware of only upon its disappearance" (from the CD booklet). Rhythmically, Ikeda's music is highly imaginative, exploiting beat patterns and, at times, using a variety of discrete tones and noise to create the semblance of a drum machine. His work also encroaches on the world of ambient music; many tracks on his albums are concerned with slowly evolving soundscapes, with little or no sense of pulse.

In addition to working as a solo artist, he has also collaborated with, among others, Carsten Nicolai (under the name "Cyclo.") and the art collective Dumb Type. His work matrix won the Golden Nica Award in 2001.