OK, I can sit here all night and write about the beautiful Catrinas and Catrins. About the amazing make-up jobs and costumes. About how people came from all over the world just to parade from Calle Cordo to the Ancha to the Jardin in Centro.
Did I mention this is San Miguel de Allende, the most magical city in the world?
No, I didn’t. And I won’t go on because this is one time, my friends, when pictures speak way louder than words.
Continue reading
The Day of the Dead has begun, in the most beautiful ways imaginable.
This morning dozens of people, young and old, arrived at the Jardin Principal to build large public oftendas, the altars that pay tribute to family, friends, classmates, motorcycle and Rotary club members — our loved ones who have passed away.
It is a beautiful and heartwarming thing to watch.
Continue reading
Tonight in the public park (The Jardine) there will be scores of kids in costume, each carrying a satchel or plastic pumpkin. Arrayed around the park will be ex-pats with bags full of candy.
The twain shall meet.
Halloween is becoming bigger every year, much to the consternation of the grumpiest among us. Perhaps rightly so, there is some concern that the holiday will dilute Mexico’s own customs.
Continue reading
The bifurcated psyche of a world-class athlete who grew up in a literary household.
Now, that has all the makings of a great novel.
Not coincidentally, these are the circumstances that led world-class athlete Ivy Pochoda to become an excellent novelist, with six titles and counting. But getting those two lives – high-powered athlete and high-powered novelist – working together, well that was the topic of a most entertaining talk by Pochoda on Tuesday as the inaugural headliner of the Art of the Story conference.
Pochoda’s life story fits in quite well with the overall theme of San Miguel de Allende’s newest literary festival. That is – if I may interpolate from the list of fascinating workshops and events scheduled – inspiration is all around us, if you know how to look for it.
Continue reading
The Catrina face-painting tag team, Efrain Gonzalez and Laura Cerroblanco, launched their season with a party on Friday at Restaurante Lolita at Salida a Celaya #52.
It was a chance to learn a little about Dia de Los Muertos, watch the dynamic duo paint some faces, hear some fine music from Gabriela Espinosa and Sharon Itoi, enjoy a dinner prepared by Chef Fernando Guarneros, and reconnect with some old friends and make some new ones.
Continue reading
We love our mojigangas.
The tall, human-fueled street puppets have been around San Miguel de Allende since 1924. They are of as many varieties as there is of life.
They can be comic, satirical, political, nuptial, magical, tragic, whimsical, mystical, surreal, fantastical, scary, devilish, angelic, familiar, historical, sexy, skeletal, ethnic, gypsies, tramps and thieves, and even, ordinary.
Like those images above from a recent parade in San Miguel.
Continue reading
It is that time of year. The skeletons in our closets find their way to the streets of San Miguel de Allende.
Not those skeletons.
These are more literal.
Continue reading
We once lived in a house that had a 360-degree view of San Miguel de Allende from the rooftop.
We still live in the house but the view is mostly gone.
In its place is a three-story condo project that wraps around the two sides facing Centro, the Parroquia, and the sunrise. It would be oppressive were it not for the chiffon yellow paint job. Chiffon yellow tends to soothe.
At any rate, this picture is not about that.
This picture was taken many blocks away on the top floor of the Posada de Las Monjas hotel on Calle Canal. Twice a week I climb the Escher–like staircases to the top to take Pilates. The walk to the studio is almost as grueling as the class. But obviously worth it.
And I’m not just saying that because the instructor is my wife, Rose Alcantara.
This is the view from the studio.
On Monday , we were expecting a late-season shower. The clouds to the West looked promising. They apparently had business elsewhere. All we got were sprinkles.
And a spectacular view.
We were mystified.
One minute, Dr. Grace Lim is delivering her weekly health talk on Wednesday to the nearly 120 guests of So Others May Eat in the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel courtyard.
“Many of you only have each other,” she reminds the elderly San Miguelians, all over the age of 65. “You need to watch out for each other.”
A frail elderly woman reaches up and asks for the microphone and Dr. Lim hands it to her.
Continue reading
“(His) gift for artifice notwithstanding, he’d spun such dense layers of fabrication that inevitably he lapsed into self-contradiction.” – “Fantasia for Piano” By Mark Singer, Sept. 10, 2007, New Yorker magazine.
When the end came, it was a mere shadow of the audacious and raucous life that led up to it.
How sad. Imagine a man who promiscuously craved attention his entire life dying alone in a cold and dark room in a cold and dark dacha in the midst of a most unforgiving Russian winter.
Or nearly alone. With him was the sullen old nurse who spoke little English and seemed to know more about boiling cabbage than ministering to a dying man. In her defense, boiled cabbage was valued more by her people than this corpulent and grotesque American who knew only how to complain.
“Everything,” she often told her husband as they ate dinner in the dacha kitchen. “There is nothing in this existence which is not out to make his life miserable. Just ask him. Jesus Christ did not suffer as much for all Mankind as this man thinks he suffers when the temperature drops just a few degrees.
Continue reading
Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 
