In 2003, I walked out of a San Diego theater struggling to explain the movie I had just seen. This was bad news in a way because I’m pretty sure that I’d been assigned to review it for the newspaper.
Maybe not. Reviewing movies was not my full-time gig with the paper. But I knew I had to write about it.
“It’s like … It’s like.” I stopped. Closed my eyes. Inhaled.
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Cheer up all you ink-stained wretches of a dying breed, Molly Ringwald finds editing sexy.
Well, to be specific, she finds standing over the shoulder of her husband, the writer-editor Panio Gianopoulos, and watching him edit is very sexy. Well, close enough. Maybe not enough to bring back editing in the Artificial Intelligence Age, but comforting just the same.
Somebody out there likes us!
Come to think of it, Molly Ringwald is pretty easy to like, too.
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Ah, that special time of the year when you ask yourself, “Why can’t I be in two places at once? Or three?” That time is now.
This is the time when people with money from the north pour across the border unchallenged and settle in for one month or several and begin to madly buy up tickets to a vast number of events – all of which we only see a hint of the rest of the year.
But few and far between though they might have been, you could reasonably trust that an empty seat could be claimed moments before a performance would begin.
You know the Season is here because – even though arts and cultural events have multiplied like sex-crazed rabbits – you will frequently hear that dreaded phrase, “Sorry. Completely sold out,” from a voice that actually sounds quite chuffed and hardly sorry at all.
Facebook, in a marvelous act of undercounting, posts a message to me on Monday morning: “Reminder: You have five events coming up this week.” It didn’t even get the right five.
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Today, I realized that I’ve been looking at the flowers all wrong.
The ones that have filled the wood aisles of Parque Juarez for the annual Candelaria Festival. Nearly every pathway is filled with flowers, succulents, cacti, saplings, herbs, seeds, soils, exotics, and verdant things indescribable by a casual traveler like me.
This isn’t my first Candelaria, bucko.
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Clowns were dancing up the street again today.
I didn’t make the same mistake twice.
Just because clowns are dancing, it doesn’t mean there is a party going on.
I learned this lesson the hard way on a recent weekend.
The recent procession that passed in front of my house from Parroquia San Antonio de Padua was a funeral. Not a celebration.
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This is mine.
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.
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Ok, there probably wasn’t a real Bohemian within 10 blocks of this amazing venue. But “La Boheme” was indeed being performed inside.
Mighty lavish surroundings for a tragic tale of starving students and prostitutes. That’s the Italians for you. That’s opera for you.
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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 …
Beam me up, Scotty!
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.
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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.
(Click on any image to enlarge it.)
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Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 