Category Archives: Writings

San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized, Writings

Lessons learned: Thriller author Chris Pavone finds that everything is material for his next novel

For a writer of well-received international mystery thrillers, Chris Pavone can sound hilariously parochial. As a dutiful househusband in Luxembourg — the exact location of which he had to look up on a map — Pavone struggled with the oven dials because they were written in German. (He’d studied French in preparation for the move.)

A day trip to Germany to buy a clothes dryer for their apartment was a bust. (“We were unprepared for how much German there’d be in Germany …”).

No matter. After a month of working with a clothesline in the guest bedroom, Pavone discovered that the washing machine was also a dryer. He found out as he was translating the two-dozen settings on the machine. One of them said “Dry.” (What? Not “trocken”?)

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photography, San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized, Writings

Only in San Miguel de Allende could your massage help feed hungry abuelos: 35 years of So Others May Eat

Near the entrance to The Spa Wellness Center is a framed photograph lightly faded of around 80 abuelas in shawls, aprons and long dresses and a handful of bewiskered abuelos grouped on the steps of a Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel courtyard. Some hold canes and walking sticks. Many have woven shopping bags.

At the bottom of the picture is the bold caption:

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Reviews, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

For author and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, writing is a lot like poking the tiger with a stick

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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photography, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

How to look at flowers: A bird’s eye view of Candelaria

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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photography, Rants and raves, Reviews, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Free festival lets maestros take San Miguel’s ‘new’ 1875 pipe organ at Templo de la Tercera Orden out for a spin — and the public is invited along for the ride

After today’s concert in the Temple of the Third Order on Calle San Francisco, the maestro David Soteno Jimenez from Metepec in the State of Mexico had nothing but praise for the nearly 150-year-old pipe organ on which he performed.

“It is magnificent,” he enthused. “You see that it has only one keyboard and yet it has such a range of sound.” His one observation was that the stops that provide the keyboard its range take a bit of muscle to pull out — not an easy feat when your fingers are rolling a glissando down the keys.

He laughed as he mimicked a tug of war with the instrument, then showered it with more love.

Soteno Jimenez is the first artist from outside of San Miguel de Allende to “kick the tires” so to speak on the recently installed organ.

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

The last Christmas movie you’ll ever have to read

News headline: Hallmark has created 42 movies for the holiday.

Subsequently, House Beautiful magazine gushed about the  “comforting predictability of these flicks … No matter which title you switch on, the best thing about a Hallmark holiday movie is knowing that pretty soon you’ll be watching a happy ending.”

I don’t know if people who watch all 42 of these movies get a participation medal or a stay at the sanatorium. And Hallmark isn’t the only one flooding the zone. Somebody, noticing the overwhelming whiteness of characters in Hallmark movies, began putting out ethnic versions with the same insipient stories.

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photography, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

San Miguel is one giant living Christmas card

Walking Moppit the Philosopher Dog this morning and she was adamant about turning up Aldama as we left the main entrance to Parque Juarez here in San Miguel de Allende.

Normally we engage in a powerful battle of wills.

Moppit will want to go left when I want to turn right.

She wants to turn around and head home for a doggie treat while I want to press on for a few blocks more.

She wants to stop and sniff every pee-drenched corner when I don’t want to break the rhythm of my steps.

She wants to stop at Cafe Hortus for a croissant while I prefer walking over to Panina for a rosemary and raspberry scone.

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

Lessons learned from watching every Christmas TV commercial for 2023

Tis the season.
For what?
Commercials, of course.
Holiday commercials, filled with tinsel and snow, all merry and bright.
Urging you to get your Christmas shopping just right.

We’re here to help you, they say, with nary a snarky grin.
You see, we know what trouble you’re in with your kin.
The right presents can bail you out.
Listen to our adverts, Bubba, in case there is some doubt.

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photography, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Breakfast by the Jardine

They’re mostly gone now, the visitors, the tourists. Swept away by a late-season burst of rain and the chill in the air. Out with the marigolds and Catrinas and jacked-up prices — “make hay while the sun shines.” In with the hint of calm and solitude, if only for an eye-wink.

It is quiet for a moment. The so-called high season begins shortly, as the first dusting of snow transforms parts north and the occasional residents descend for the winter rounds of social gatherings, fine dining, concerts, and art exhibitions.

People coming and going in San Miguel are kind of like seasons all their own.

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Colonia San Antonio, photography, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Catrina grand finale

Don’t go looking for her. She is gone. I’m glad I stopped to make her acquaintance before heading next door to Cafe Murmullo to meet friends for breakfast.

In the time it took me to down waffles piled high with blackberries and raspberries with a drizzle of strawberry compote and two cups of chai latte, she was gone.

Women like that, so fickle. Here one moment, big hat and bangles. Gone the next.

Maybe next year. Same time, same place?

I will wait for her. Grateful for what little time we had together. (About five minutes this morning, to be honest.)

Meanwhile, the murals remain, of course. In the entrance to Instituto Allende on Calle Ancha de San Antonio 22. And they are beautiful. Are they not? Stop by and peek in the door. Murals are meant to be seen and appreciated.

Catrinas, too. But their time is short.

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