Tag Archives: blogging

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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photography, San Miguel de Allende

Star light, star bright, see how you’ve survived into the morning light

A star fell from the heavens and landed in a pocket park in San Miguel de Allende,

Right behind the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel.

Crazy how people take such things in stride.

If a star had fallen anywhere else, people would have been looking for it on the five o’clock news.

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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, Reviews, San Miguel de Allende

Gallery: The walking dead are nothing if not punctual … when it comes to a parade

Who ever heard of a parade starting on time in San Miguel de Allende? Well, ALMOST on time.

Last night’s official parade of the dead got off within 20 minutes of its announced time of 6 p.m. By our standards, that’s awfully good. And it caught a lot of Catrinas and Catrines by surprise.

The first band and mobs of gaily dressed skeletal creatures were out of the gate on Cardo like it was the Kentucky Derby and not Dia de Muertos. All of a sudden, a hundred bystanders with iPhones and Nikon cameras were scrambling down the Ancha to get ahead of the parade.

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photography, Writings

Gallery: San Miguel’s Night of the Catrinas – not quite a parade, definitely a promenade

Gaily costumed and made-up men and women just sort of filtered into the plaza last night in twos and fours. If there was a grand parade from any of the private Catrina parties around San Miguel de Allende, it was after I left.

By 8 p.m., I’d seen enough. And what I saw was delightful.

(Catch up with Thursday night’s official parade here.)

There were lots of traditional Catrinas and Catrines but there were spinoffs, too. Like the two cowboys, the bishop, the woman in the illuminated cape, and the tyrannosaurus rex. Yes, a dinosaur. It is just that kind of year.

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Colonia San Antonio, San Miguel de Allende

Death becomes us this time of year

Parque Principal this morning where overnight the marigolds were hung with care in hopes that our ancestors’ spirits soon would be there.

Marigolds are everywhere in San Miguel de Allende this time of year. They are like a homing beacon for our departed loved ones. It is how we let them know we welcome their spirits back for a short visit. It is how we let them know that we have not forgotten them.

The marigolds are on ofrendas — the altars we build to remember our deceased loved ones and family. They are in our parks. and other public gardens. They hang from door frames of businesses and homes.

This year, the spirit of Dia de Muertos seems to be embraced more than ever. The list of events in hotels, restaurants, public squares, and cantinas is staggering. Everybody is in on the action and it seems to be working. The visitors are swarming to the city.

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fiction, photography, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

She came with the house

She was in our house when we moved in five years ago. She’s been here much much longer than that. I venture to guess that she has been on this planet longer than we have.

She is an old-school Catrina. Her wide-brimmed chapeau with the enormous winged and flowered bow on top looks like the one José Guadalupe Posada, drew on his original “La Calavera Garbancera” back in 1910. So does the hairstyle.

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photography, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Princess in the park

Tuesday evening the basketball courts in Parque Juarez thrummed and thumped with exuberant kids who shouted back and forth to teammates while jutting and cutting up and down the blue surface, looking for an open shot.

It was a different world next door at the stately old gazebo. A fairy tale was unfolding. Like all good princesses, she would allow only a tantalizing glimpse of her face. The air of mystery was exquisite.

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photography, San Miguel de Allende

An Independence Day parade to celebrate the best of Mexico

I think that of all the parades we have in San Miguel de Allende, this is my favorite.

This one, during the Mexican Independence festivities, celebrates the school children (our future), first responders (our safety), police and military (our security), and equestrians (our history). It has it all. All that makes Mexico a beautiful country in which to live.

The parade began on Cordo and turned onto the Ancha before marching up into Centro on yet another flawlessly beautiful September day.

One of the worst things you can do is over-write a parade. It is all visual and emotional. So I’m going to leave it right there and just fill this page with pictures of beautiful kids and adults in uniform — and some in costume.

Enjoy.

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

We had a time back then, didn’t we?

An old friend sent me a list today of all the former employees of the Wilson Publishing Company who would be attending a reunion in the next week or so.

The list spans more than 40 years. I was surprised to find that I know or recognize nearly half the names. Each name sent me into fresh reverie, triggered a sweet memory of another era.

My friend, Brian Mitchell, like me, was an editor of one of Wilson’s several weekly newspapers in Southern Rhode Island. Brian’s was the newest of the three and he got to create his paper from scratch – a most challenging and yet, enviable, task.

Mine was a hand-me-down, more than 100 years old but well-cared for – the flagship paper of the little Wilson empire, The Narragansett Times.

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