Category Archives: Writings

Reviews, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

i3 talk: Dr. Nancy Hayden gives a glimpse into the very crowded future of space

On Tuesday, A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched, “the company’s 12th rideshare mission to a sun-synchronous orbit. Onboard are a variety of customer satellites, including 35 satellites integrated by Exolaunch along with 36 SuperDoves and Pelican-2 from Planet Labs PBC.”

On Wednesday, SpaceX launches its “sixth, suborbital flight test of its fully integrated Starship rocket, a combination of the Ship upper stage (S33) and the Super Heavy booster (B14). SpaceX plans to catch the Super Heavy booster using the chopsticks on the launch tower, but will make a final determination on the catch following liftoff and stage separation.”

On Thursday, a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket will launch the company’s previously delayed Blue Ring spacecraft, which is capable of both hosting and deploying multiple payloads.

(Source: spaceflightnow.com See update at bottom of this page.)

Also on Tuesday, space and security expert Dr. Nancy K. Hayden discussed the future of outer space and the increasingly heavy and chaotic traffic that is shooting out of planet Earth like hair plugs out of Elon Musk’s head.

Her talk for the i3: ideas that inform and inspire‘s Conversations with Big Thinkers lecture series at La Casona Event Center was first promoted as “Space: Brave New World or Wild Wild West?”  Somewhere along the line, out of respect for the growing congestion on the extraterrestrial freeways surrounding Earth, she added a third possibility — “Close Encounters” — to that title.

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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.

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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.

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San Miguel de Allende, Rants and raves, 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.

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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.

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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.

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

Atlas once, Atlas twice — but is he tougher than Jesus Christ?

“The Mini – Solve in seconds”

That’s the promise, or more probably, the challenge of the daily five-by-five crossword puzzle on the New York Times games page.

Monday’s second row, down, challenge was “Rockefeller Center statue depicting a Greek Titan.” Five letters.

Obviously not Prometheus – the golden, cast-bronze statue in the lower end of Rockefeller Plaza – since it busts the five-letter wall. But that’s the one everyone knows, even if they have never been to New York, because it is always in the frame with the Rockefeller Christmas tree.

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fiction, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Of opportunipees and slabadinks — ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe’

It was one of those days when you wake up feeling so clever because a unique word came to you in the middle of the night — opportunipee.

And you wrote it down. In a notebook. In the dark.

And it was legible.

A Jabberwokian euphoria fills your pores.

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Reviews, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Hedrick Smith on Democracy’s Future: A Dicey Road Ahead

Hedrick Smith

Even as the Pulitzer Prize-winning Hedrick Smith was navigating “the road ahead for American Democracy” during his i3 talk on Tuesday, even more Bozos were being added to the Trump Clown Car up ahead.

A once-respected doctor turned TV pill-shill was nominated to oversee Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act.

The empress of a studio wrestling empire was nominated as Secretary of Education.

And the hits keep on a coming.

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San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Luring touring musicians to San Miguel, one Pehuenche at a time.

His name is Pehuenche and he will be in concert this Sunday, Nov. 17 at the Tres Fuentes hotel and as exciting a singer as the Veracruz native may be, there is an equally exciting story behind the concert.

San Miguel de Allende isn’t exactly on anyone’s music circuit – those well-traveled paths that bands and other performers follow from town to town – or at least it hasn’t been.

At least until now.

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