Monthly Archives: December 2024

Colonia San Antonio, San Miguel de Allende, The Week in SMA, Writings

Talk of the town: Lecturers, speakers, teachers, and authors all want a word with you

Update: Change of venue for San Miguel PEN Presents! Talks and times are the same, only the location has changed: Nectar at Camino Silvestre, Correo #43, Centro.

Talk is not cheap but it sure is plentiful in San Miguel de Allende during the first couple of months of 2025.

Intelligent, knowledgeable and often-times brilliant speakers will be stepping before podiums all over the city to offer enlightenment on topics like explaining the last U.S. election, explaining the current Mexico president, explaining the media, poetry, Artificial Intelligence, outer space, talking about their latest novels, the history of San Miguel, and so much more.

If you are looking for a modern-day Chautauqua Movement, look no further than San Miguel.

Continue reading →
Standard
photography, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Sunset San Miguel

We were a few minutes late for our 6:30 p.m. reservation at Antonia Rooftop Bistro but just in time to catch the end of this glorious sunset.

The restaurant is about four heart-pounding flights above the Hotel Palomar at San Francisco #57 and I suspect sunset dinners are in demand. It does have an elevator, by the way.

Continue reading →
Standard
Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

A word, please: The poetic commerce of Fitterman’s pop-up shop

I forget where I first heard of it, but I can’t get Robert Fitterman’s storefront shop in the Bowery out of my mind. This is an old story, starting on May 5, 2010. And the shop didn’t last very long, by design. It closed on May 27. 

It was only open Tuesdays through Thursdays, and then, only from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Worse than banker’s hours.

Now that might not seem ambitious on the face of it, but it is really about what Fitterman was selling.

Continue reading →
Standard
San Miguel de Allende

The lesson from ‘Sweaters for ABBA’: Dream bigger because people will come through — and thanks

Or, to get out of the doghouse, try and do some good

It started when I accidentally gave away two boxes of warm clothing that was meant to go to ABBA House in Celaya. Long story short, the clothing went to a good cause albeit not the one Rose Alcantara envisioned when we filled the boxes with clothing.

Sure enough, I was in the doghouse, again. This one built all on my own.

I felt badly because I know Rose was thinking of the hundreds of immigrants who pass through Celaya en route to the United States. And the thousands who may very well be following the trail south after January 20.

Continue reading →
Standard
San Miguel de Allende

Sandra Cisneros has a lot to celebrate

Imagine getting to celebrate your 70th birthday and the 40th anniversary of your blockbuster debut novel in one night.

Sandra Cisneros did just that on Dec. 20th at Camino Silvestre and Nectar, Calle Correo #43.

And there was cake! Well, cupcakes. Delicious cupcakes. And paper party hats and singing, too.

The book is “The House on Mango Street,” the story of Esperanza Cordero, a young Mexican-American girl coming of age in Chicago. Everyman’s Library has just come out with a 40th anniversary edition – which was another reason to celebrate.

Continue reading →
Standard
San Miguel de Allende

SMA ‘psychologist’ extradited to the U.S. as a fugitive on pedophile charges

With a name like Jake Spade, you knew it was too good to be true. Too much out of the cheap and tawdry dime-store paperback mysteries to it.

Apparently, Jake Spade was all that more before he moved to San Miguel.

He is actually Glenn D. Bales, an Arizona fugitive wanted for child sexual exploitation of a minor, a felony in Maricopa County to where he was extradited and arraigned this month. The state asked for $75,000 bail. 

Continue reading →
Standard
Colonia San Antonio, photography, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Just crèche-ing it: A tale of two Mangers

“Bob,” many of my Google-adverse friends ask at this time of year, “what does the word ‘crèche’ mean?”

Well, my little Wikipedia-bereft amigos, crèche comes from the Latin word cripia which means crib or cradle.

Unless you are British. The British, being British, have a completely different meaning for the word, mainly, I suppose, so they can have another excuse to complain about North American English. The British sided with the French on this one and think that a crèche refers to a day-care center.

Continue reading →
Standard
photography, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

San Juan de Dios market is transformed into a holiday wonderland

Once more, the Mercado de San Juan de Dios is transformed into a wonderland as the Christmas marketplace is open for business.

Extra booths have been erected around the market and they are filled with ornaments, Nativity figures and accessories, decorations, Baby Jesus figurines of many hues and sizes (and gorgeous gowns of swaddling clothes), garlands, pines, sparklers, elf costumes, devil’s pitchforks, cuetlaxochitls, Santa caps, treats, and holiday fantasies.

Continue reading →
Standard
photography, San Miguel de Allende

A Christmas walk through San Miguel de Allende

The Jardin Principal, the towering Christmas tree, and the surrounding streets have been well-lit for the holidays since Dec. 6, That was the night of our first thunder-and-lightning drenching in weeks.

Timing is everything.

And the rains cooperated, stopping within minutes of the official Christmas tree lighting ceremony and the accompanying fireworks. (What would a tree lighting ceremony be without fireworks? Well, in San Miguel, what would any event be without fireworks?)

Continue reading →
Standard