San Miguel de Allende

Festival of the Arts San Miguel de Allende starts Friday — let the feast begin!

Eduardo Adame’s gigantic sprawling, eclectic, cultural “potluck party” is about to begin. 

A “potluck” is how Adame described the third edition of the two-week-long Festival of the Arts San Miguel de Allende (FASMA) in May, when he was pulling together global and homegrown artists, musicians, singers, actors, poets, photographers, craftsmen, and the like for the showcase.

“Everyone is invited to bring the best that they can do – and invite their friends,” he said back then, expanding on the analogy

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

It is Liberation Day in my head

I’m done with “push” content from newspapers, substacks, pods and podcasters, bloggers, social media platforms, conspiracy boosters, angry MAGAs, fundraisers, revolutionists, ah-has and ma-ha’s, political shamans, alarmists, talking heads, Chicken Littles, grim reapers, Beltway pundits, scribblers, cartoonists, and diatribe specialists.

Or as another noted crank once put it, I’ve had it up to here with “Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism, This-ism, that-ism, is-m, is-m, is-m.”

All I am saying is don’t give push a chance. 

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San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized

UPDATE: It was pouring raincoats!

In less time than it takes an evening downpour to pass through San Miguel de Allende, we had nearly 120 raincoats in the hands of the senior citizens who visit So Others May Eat for a hot lunch every Wednesday.

Sometimes good intentions and charitable hearts move that quickly.

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

Blogger Joe Grappa has some questions and Jesus sits down for a Q&A

Sometimes you are handed a gift, in this case, a funny and talented writer named Papa Joe Grappa. A mutual friend sent me Joe’s Substack column titled “Questions for Jesus When He Comes Back.” It is really funny, as it should be for a guy who was Jay Leno’s head writer for 20 years.

Here’s the thing, as I was reading Joe’s questions, I was hearing Jesus’s answers.

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San Miguel de Allende

So Others May Stay Dry

Dr. Grace Lim made a startling discovery on Wednesday as she delivered her weekly health talk to the 120 elderly guests at the So Others May Eat hot lunch program.

The day was gray, and the waterlogged clouds promised yet another badly needed downpour. In one of the wettest rainy seasons in memory, the doctor’s topic was staying dry, staying warm, staying healthy.

“How many of you own an umbrella?” asked Dr. Lim.

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Colonia San Antonio, photography, San Miguel de Allende

Our Locos dance to a different beat … lots of different beats

Well, all those umbrellas did not go to waste. The ones people carried to the Locos parade and the ones sold by vendors under threatening skies.

The rains stayed away and thousands of gaily costumed — and bizarrely, quaintly, curiously, delightfully, enchantingly, dreamily, whimsically, scarily, creepily, amusingly and shockingly costumed — paraders strutted, danced, boogied, jumped and jived their way down the Ancha, en route to the Jardin Allende in the civic square.

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Colonia San Antonio, photography, San Miguel de Allende

A time for tacos, Locos, and nightly rain in San Miguel de Allende

Such a relief.

It now rains most evenings in San Miguel de Allende, somewhere between 5 and 7 p.m. I could almost set my watch by it, if I had a watch.

We got caught in a downpour last night in Colonia San Antonio as we were leaving a nearby Italian restaurant, Denver’s Los Olivos, with some friends. Juan Miguel (Denver) always delights — a very old-school chef with traditional recipes and a dining-in-the-kitchen feel.

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Colonia San Antonio, photography, San Miguel de Allende

A Flamboyant tree grows in Colonia San Antonio

More than five years ago, we lived in a “penthouse” apartment that overlooked this tree from nearly a block away. You could not miss it. You could not turn away. Its color is otherworldly among the beige and brown stucco buildings.

After the splendid jacaranda trees drop their lavender flowers, this one, and more like it in hidden courtyards behind drab walls, spring to life.

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San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized

FASMA2025 is more than a festival; it is a feast served up by local arts and culture groups

Read the latest on FASMA 2025 here.

The third edition of the San Miguel de Allende Festival of the Arts (FASMA2025) is coming in August and will offer more than 100 events from scores of local arts and culture organizations.  Music, theater, opera, film, dance, literary and plastic arts programs will be presented in many of San Miguel’s finest venues, Aug. 1-17.

Individually, these are the kinds of events for which this city is famous around the world.

Collectively, this is an opportunity for San Miguelians to sample the many lively, beautiful, and inspiring performance programs that make up the fabric of this community.

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Memoirs -- fact and fiction, San Miguel de Allende

Luck runs out for Lucky Lady Too but not for globe-hopping pilot, Bob Gannon

It was such a relief last week to learn that my old friend Bob Gannon crashed his 56-year-old Cessna 182 just outside of Las Vegas.

Of course, he walked away from the crash. The plane wasn’t called Lucky Lady Too for nothing.

Let me interject that I am simply relieved to know that Bob is still alive. And flying. I confess that I periodically check the news for recent Bob Gannon and Lady Too exploits — or an obituary. I haven’t found either in years.

Both to my distress and relief.

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