Tag Archives: Science

Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

The Log: April 19 — Fight the dark side: Dance, sing, read, write poetry

IMG_1393ANNOTATED LOG:

#1 CONNECTED: Rose Alcantara’s daughter, Caira Button, celebrates her birthday today, far from her Chicago home but in very good company in Western New York. Rose sang Happy Birthday to her from our home in Mexico. Technology rocks.

#1A FACETIME WITH FAMILY: Spent almost an hour in a video chat with Ryan and Larisa and grandson Augie, who is saying his first words! They remain in place in San Francisco where it can’t be easy. One of the world’s most beautiful cities outside your door … and you can only look out your window.

#2 BIG OOPS: The worst thing you can do upon waking is open up Facebook.  Trust me, bad news accumulates while you sleep. All this rage with no outlet …

A.Illinois governor forced to secretly buy badly needed medical supplies from China for fear Trump’s government will impound them.

B. Boston hospital team makes secret rendezvous in mid-Atlantic region to score protective medical supplies, as feds threaten to take them away.

C. Stimulus funds will reward more than 43,000 MILLIONAIRES with an average $1.6 million each.

#3 WELCOME RELIEF: Found in Garrison Keillor’s Letter from Manhattan.  Crafting good limericks and simplifying life — that’s the life. “It’s been a quiet week in apartment 12B.” That’s the stuff.

#4 TELEVISION: “CBS Sunday Morning” is like nestling in with an old friend. I can hear my blood pressure settling down for the day.

#5 DISCOVERY: Nobody has a lock on the truth about coronavirus — yet — but everyone has an opinion. I found a reasonable voice in Richard Lehman, professor of Shared Understanding of Medicine at the University of Birmingham.  His post in the British Journal of Medicine opinion page is calm, reasoned, informative, fact-based. I look for more from him.

#6 PAIRINGS:  Pink Floyd’s “Ummagumma” goes especially well with Gore Vidal’s 1977 essay “On Re-reading The Oz Books” from the New York Review of Books archives.

L. Frank Baum wrote 14 “Oz” books, the unevenness of which Vidal excuses because the man was writing 48 other books at the same time.

I’ll admit it, “Ummagumma” and me on psychedelics did not go well in late-1969. It goes better with the Wizard of Oz. Wish I knew that then …

#7 VIDEO: I’m not sure where I found it but there is an amazing video of liquid-limbed hipsters holding a dance-off to the Devil’s Music, jazz, baby. On further research, I found an 8-minute version that says this is a Sunday night party during the Jazz Roots Festival in Paris in 2015. Swing, baby, swing.

#8 I WROTE A POEM: Titled “Remembering to Dance Like Nothing Else Matters.” The first half was inspired by this video and the rest is based on something that happened to me in the early-1980’s in Rosarito Beach, Baja, Mexico.  I’m not a poet. These things just happen.

#9 PODCAST: While walking Moppit tonight, I tuned into the New York Times show “The Daily.” On Sundays, the program presents a spoken piece of long-form journalism borrowed from partner app AUDM. Today’s is “The Woman Who Might Find Us Another Earth.”  Sara Seger is a brilliant astrophysicist, a certified genius, but befuddled by the most common challenges of living on Earth.

#10 SHORT STORY: Edna Ferber’s “The Gay Old Dog”(1917). Chicago man becomes a Loop-hound. That is not a compliment, or, wasn’t back in the day.

#11  I leave you with this, the BEST PLAGUE PARODY SONG YET:

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Camino: Porto to Santiago, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Entering Phase 2 of the coronavirus with the help of the Camino, history, humor, and Garrison Keillor & Randy Rainbow

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Decontamination crews are spraying down the streets of San Miguel de Allende today. The visuals alone ought to drive the doubters indoors. (Photograph by John Bohnel)

So, Mexico entered Phase 2 on Tuesday. While the president still hugs and kisses the babies and young girls, his Health secretary has called for restaurants and casinos to be closed, for public gatherings to disperse — you know, the same stuff we have been doing in San Miguel for a couple of weeks now.

Only, a lot less.

Phase 2 is clinically called the “community transmission phase.”

Phase 2 feels like Mom calling the kids inside to safety — after it starts raining. The kids have been playing outside, conscious of the dark clouds building. Continue reading →

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San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Something is different: A morning walk in San Miguel in the Age of Pandemia

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Early evening in San Miguel de Allende. The clouds rise up in the east like fluffy canvases, awaiting the inspiration of the dying sun to recast them in gold and amber hues.

We walk this same path over and over, Moppit and I.

The pattern is unchanging.

Open the front door at 7 a.m.

Glance up into the sky and count the hot air balloons.

Or remark on their absence.

 

Today was a day to note their absence. Continue reading →

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Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized

The racist at the next table

The couple sat down at the next table as I dipped my second churro into a piping hot Chocolate Mexicano.

“I’ll sit right next to my darling sweetheart,” said the man brightly. And a little loudly.

“Who talks like that?” I wondered.

I was especially curious because I happened to be reading a NOVA report on the theory that the Big Bang created a mirrored universe that runs in reverse of ours. Mind you, not for one moment did I think that I’d slipped through the portal and landed in 1947.

It was just, you know, quaint. And a tad patriarchial. But then, she looked like the sort who thought a line like that might be charming, under some circumstances. Continue reading →

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