Category Archives: San Miguel de Allende

Rants and raves, Reviews, San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized

Leiden sang, Aaronson painted — and the word for the night was ‘sublime’

It was only Leiden’s second or third song of the night, a ranchera – the music of love, passion, heartbreak, powerful emotions. Powerful music. In fact, it was the first ranchera she’d ever written.

“My father said to me,” recalled the Mexico City-based singer, “if you are going to sing rancheras, you have to suffer to feel it.” She paused and smiled slyly. “Now I have a degree in suffering.”

(And she does, a degree in sociology.)

“I not only can sing rancheras, I can create rancheras!”

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San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized

An artist and a musician walk into a room and start talking — that’s Club Social San Miguel

What do you get when you put an artist with eclectic tastes into a room with a musician with eclectic tastes?

I don’t know, but why don’t you join me Saturday night and let’s find out together?

For the fifth time, Club Social San Miguel is uniting one amazing singer with one equally intriguing artist, and founder Sheree Boyer will kick off the conversation with the question, “What does your art mean to you?”

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Rants and raves, Reviews, San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized

In one night, Orquesta Sinfónica De San Miguel de Allende has changed the cultural landscape

San Miguel de Allende has its own symphony orchestra. Do you know what that means?

It is the central gem in our cultural crown.

The city, for its small size, sparkles with opera, chamber music, writers, painters, and poets. (You know the saying, “If you aren’t an artist when you move to San Miguel, you will soon become one.”)

For the longest time, we’ve gotten by on occasional fly-bys from big-city orchestras and the wonderful youth symphony adventures.

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San Miguel de Allende, Writings

End animal suffering — one clinic at a time, that’s Rosey’s Wish

Some invitations are just too irresistible, like this one: Come join us out in the campo as we sterilize about 50 dogs and cats in the little community of San Antonio del Varal.

How could I say no to that?

The invitation came from Donna Lynes-Miller, the lifeforce behind Rosey’s Wish, a mobile veterinarian clinic on the front lines of the effort to reduce the number of abandoned and feral dogs and cats in San Miguel de Allende.

San Antonio Del Varal is a bit more than a half-hour away from, and a pleasant century or two behind, the city of San Miguel de Allende. An easy drive down the highway toward Queretero, and a sharp left onto a hard-packed dusty road that ends at the rancheria.

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Memoirs -- fact and fiction, Rants and raves, Reviews, San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized, Writings

What happens when your AI browser gets into the gummies: Perplexity in nine acts

Act 1

Me, speaking into the Perplexity AI browser’s microphone: “How long is the French Camino?”

What Perplexity heard: “Hello, this is a test.”

What Perplexity replied: “Hello! Test received loud and clear. What’s on your mind?”

Act 2

Me, a little perplexed with Perplexity: How long is the French Camino?”

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Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized, Writings

This is just Wilde

“Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life” — Oscar Wilde in an 1889 essay.

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In the avalanche of outrage and imagery pouring out of Minneapolis in the aftermath of the killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, one scene stood out to me, but not for reasons related to Good’s horrific shooting.

A video shows dozens of Minneapolis citizens sliding down an icy slope to join scores of other protestors on the far side of a wintry landscape.

Where had I seen this before?

I snagged a freeze-frame, and it took only minutes to recall.

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Memoirs -- fact and fiction, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

A book fell into my lap and changed everything; a magical end to the 1960s

Showing up late for a party stoned and tipsy wasn’t very original in late-1969, though I was getting damned good at it — and tired of it all — a rudderless college drop-out, dodging the draft, hiding out in Washington D.C. in the shadow of the Selective Service.

I was fast becoming a mess.

Nobody at John and Linda’s party noticed – even when I stumbled back against the bookshelf and slid to the floor while Jenny from West Virginia badgered me with her latest career dilemma: Airline stewardess? Or a psychologist?

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Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende, Scotland - West Highland Way, Uncategorized, Writings

First fantasy of the new year: Let’s buy a Scottish castle

I’m a little quick off the mark, but my first full-blown fantasy for 2026 is already in:

I want to buy a 20-bedroom castle on the Isle of Rum in the Inner Hebrides. (I think it might include the whole Isle of Rum. Not sure.)

I don’t think I need to say more.

But I will.

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San Miguel de Allende

Amazing grace of Operisima’s holiday concert

It is times like these that you realize what a precious treasure Operisima Mexico is for San Miguel de Allende.

The operatic troupe’s Christmas Concert in the Iglesia San Francisco added rocket fuel to an already soaring holiday spirit.

Nearly a dozen elegantly dressed singers poured heart and soul into a program of popular and sacred seasonal music under the direction of Rogelio Riojas-Nolasco and in conjunction with Casa Europa Mexico.

Here’s a small taste of the evening. It repeats tonight (Sunday, Dec. 14, by the way. You can walk up and get tickets $300 — 600 mxn.

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photography, San Miguel de Allende

To market, to market … this holiday we go

Every Christmas season, Mercado de San Juan de Dios is turned into a Winter Wonderland.

Well, pretty much minus the Winter part.

Let’s say it transforms into a Christmas Marketplace, without all the messy snow and sub-zero temperatures.

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