Reviews, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

A one-time Nicaraguan emigree to U.S. flourishes as a restaurateur in Mexico City

Barrio Cafe, Ave. Sonora 201, Cuauhetenoc,  Mexico City.
Barrio Cafe, Ave. Sonora 201, Hipódromo, Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City. (Photo by Barrio Cafe)

We were in Mexico City, enjoying coffee and a bite to eat at a corner restaurant just a block off the expansive Parque de Mexico, in the popular Hipódromo, Cuauhtémoc, neighborhood.

The young and athletic hostess Ayse Lang, who had seated us at the sidewalk table of Barrio Café, stopped by to see how our late-morning coffee break was going. 

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

Frida Kahlo’s Hall of Pain museum in Mexico City, the artist’s own Graceland

They’ve got it all backward.

The Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City ought to start with the collection of medical harnesses and contraptions that the artist used to alleviate the pain, to stand upright, to obtain a modicum of normality in her life.

Instead, the very devices that she so cleverly hid beneath her layered dresses and shawls come at the end of the journey. They are shocking, horrifying.

They make you, finally, grasp the essence of the pain which dictated and influenced so much of her life and art.

It is only at the end that the courage, the determination, the resilience, the bravery of Frida Kahlo come into the clearest focus.

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photography, San Miguel de Allende

Once upon a time …

In the land of Mexico, princesses abound.

Here are some to see. Two from San Miguel de Allende. Two from Mexico City.

So much casual beauty, posing before the photographer’s lens.

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