The Parroquia San Antonio de Padua is just a block away and you could hear the momentum building all morning — trance-dancing, church services shot out to the courtyard through loudspeakers, cohetes exploding overhead, church bells, primal cheers …
It builds and builds like a head of steam in a boiler until it all bursts out on Callejon San Antonio and dances, trips, oozes, roars, and flips down the street toward the main drag, The Ancha. Like festive lava flowing at a Mardi Gras party.
This photo has drawn a lot of attention on Facebook. I took it on January 25, from the upper balcony of the home of our friend Lorna Reutner. Lorna, Cat Silver, Rose Alcantara and I had climbed up to this airy perch in her Colonia San Antonio home for dessert and a little post-dinner wine and conversation.
Needless to say, the full Wolf Moon got our attention pretty quickly. All conversation stopped as we stood agape at the spectacle over San Miguel de Allende. What wasn’t lit artificially was set aglow by this moon.
I pulled my iPhone out and whipped off a few shots before returning to the table — shouldn’t be a rude guest, after all.
A photographer friend from the United States had a kindly suggestion: “Nice moonlight shot. Clean your lens well and you won’t get those streaks.”
Well, yes. Sometimes accidents are the best thing about photography. I don’t think it would have had the same impact if the image were nothing more than another iPhone full moon/pin-prick on the horizon.
I’d say this photo, streaks and all — Solar flares? Random refractions? — creates an emotionally accurate tableau. It is not exactly how it looked, but it is exactly how I felt looking at that moon.
But he’s right. I’ll try harder to keep my lens caps squeaky clean.
Future photographic accidents will be on purpose …
Of all the days of the week, I find Tuesdays to be the best. For many reasons.
Number one, of course, they are not Mondays. This isn’t nearly as important as it was when I actually worked for a living. Just the same, Tuesdays give you a chance to accomplish all the things that never got done on Mondays.
Even in so-called retirement, a lot doesn’t get done on Mondays. Some sort of psychological hangover from the days of full and meaningful employment, I imagine.
Tuesdays also seem to be the day on which the most stuff happens to you when you are least expecting it.
The city of San Miguel de Allende came out in force on Sunday to celebrate the 255th anniversary of the birth of Don Ignacio Allende y Unzaga, hero of the Mexican Revolution of 1810.
The city, through its Directorate of Culture and Traditions, has presented a slate of civic and cultural events in honor of the birthday that will culminate in a huge fireworks display tonight.
The most visible of all these events is the traditional Great Military and Civic Parade which started around 10:30 a.m. and marched through Centro, down Zacateros, up the Ancha, and terminated on Cardo.
Rogelio Riojas-Nolasco, founder and music director of Operisima Mexico, reflects on the opera studio’s first year in front of Villa Puccini on the morning of their premiere performance here of “La Bohème.” The owners of Villa Puccini, John and Joy Bitner have opened their doors and hearts to the opera troupe.
The modest wooden door in the high garden wall opens into El Rio y La Paloma No. 2 in the distant and dusty San Miguel outpost of Los Frailes. Stepping through the portal feels a bit like Dorothy stepping out of Auntie Em’s farmhouse into Oz.
Behind this wall is indeed another world so unexpected and beautiful as to momentarily throw you off balance.
The path before you leads to a distinguished columned building in the Greek Revival style — now to become an opera house. To the left is a fountain with a sculpture of Hercules riding the back of a dolphin. In the distance, another fountain celebrates Dionysius. To the right is an Italian villa and beside it is a weighty and somber stone Medieval tower.
Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 