“You know, I haven’t even heard it yet. I’m as clueless as everyone else today! I don’t know what to expect.”
The speaker on Wednesday afternoon was Michael Hoppé and the occasion was the San Miguel de Allende premiere of his sonorous and introspective Latin Mass for chorus and strings, “Requiem for Peace and Reconciliation.”
The perfect music for Dia de Muertos and these very troubled times.
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I should know better, but I showed up at 5 p.m. today anyway for the start of San Miguel de Allende’s second Day of the Dead parade in as many days.
(Here are photos from Tuesday night’s Rosewood Hotel Dia de Muertos parade.)
And there were very very few people on Calle El Cardo, the supposed staging area. And very few of those people looked like they would be marching in a parade. Although, some of those people were horses, meant to pull carriages so that was a good sign. And several bands were sitting in the shade where ever they could find it up and down the street.
There were a lot of people on cell phones typing in things like “Where does the parade start?”
It dawned on me soon enough.
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Parading around as elegantly dressed skeletons is so much fun in San Miguel de Allende that apparently, it takes two parades over two days to fit it all in this year.
In the past, it was sufficient to stage one parade of promenading Calaveras, Catrinas, and Catrins — and a variety of other-worldly subsets in various manifestations of theatricality.
Last year, after the wastelands of Covid had subsided and a rebirth of traditions signaled a new dawn, the annual Dia de Muertos parade was a joyous traffic jam of humanity. Skeletons paraded en mass down the Ancha. Preciously costumed Catrinas and their cohorts, led by a masterful and exuberant Mariachi band, exited the sanctuary of the Rosewood and paraded toward the Ancha.
The two masses converged and ground to a halt as paraders funneled up the narrower Zacateras, made narrower by the density of the watchers on both sides of the road. It was a slow slog up to the Jardin where seeing and being seen is the endgame of the evening.
Continue readingThis is Jerry Lee Lewis, live in England, in 1964. It is all-video, all-animal energy, all-Jerry Lee. Punk before punk was ever a word.
Like the kids in this video, I stood at the very edge of Jerry Lee’s piano while he played. Inches from the 88th key and his left hand.
The year was 1989 though, not 1964, and the setting was more subdued.
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Editor’s note: In a newsletter for former Union-Tribune newspaper staffers, a colleague in San Diego recently recalled a review I once wrote that outraged the mayor and her staff. Jack Reber, the editor of the newsletter, asked if I would fill everyone in.
Glad to do it. But, as in my online days with SignOnSanDiego.com, I take great pleasure in scooping mainstream media. So, you will read it first, here on my own blog. My newspaper friends may get it at midnight tonight. (Sorry, Jack. I can’t help myself.)
Ah, the Russian Arts Festival of 1989. Gather round kids and I’ll tell you as much as is permitted by the several nondisclosure agreements I signed to gain a generous separation bonus from the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Obviously, I kid. There was no bonus.
My one assignment during the Festival was the Tiblisi State Puppet Theatre, under the direction of the great and late-Rezo Gabriadze (below with some of his creations). Georgean puppets aren’t like the Muppets, Shari Lewis and Lambchop, or Punch ‘n Judy. They tell real and elaborate stories, often tragic, and even violent or sexually mature.
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Do not look for rhyme nor reason in these photographs.
If they have anything in common, you could file them under “things that caught my eye this morning.”
That, and the fact that they were all taken in San Miguel de Allende.
Did I mention they were all taken today?
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This is my kitchen faucet.
Well, one of them.
There are four — two basins with two faucets each, two hot, and two cold.
Earlier today, this one — the hot tap in the left basin — was leaking.
The drip was annoying as hell. I was trying to distract myself from the need to write.
And the drip, drip, drip kept breaking my lack of concentration.
“I need a plumber,” thinks I, thinking of great thoughts.
So I start to take a photo to send to our property manager.
But at this moment, the sun reaches around the corner of the country kitchen window.
And catches the gleaming brass in its grasp.
“This is rather beautiful,” I think.
“Not annoying at all.”
The brass faucet floats in the air, like a shiny spaceship lost in the cosmos
Meanwhile, I’ve been carrying full pots of water out into the courtyard.
And nominating various plants as “Most Needy” before
Showering them with water, like the beauty queens they are.
“This is art,” I say to no one. “And any moment, a guy with a tool belt and rubber washers
Is going to end this lovely presentation like some emotionally-damaged art critic for the New Yorker.”
I know what I have to do: Capture this hommage to Paul Cézanne.
If a dripping faucet can be likened to a still-life study of fruits and bottles.
So this is it.
It only took about 30 tries to get the dripping water just right.
“Leak more, you bastard!” I shout.
No, not really. I can be a very patient guy when I’m in mindfulness mode.
I was OK with it when the plumber arrived.
Though feeling a little like he’s come to put my dog down.
“Be gentle with my leaking faucet,” I urge.
(Not really. Seriously? You thought I’d say that to a guy who rips out pipes for a living?)
It takes about five minutes, with the right parts, to nip the drip.
Kind of sad.
And yet, look! It is raining out right now.
The Creator’s own leaky faucet.
Though it lacks the brass of my kitchen sink.
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After a long night of parading, doing battle with the Devil, blowing off fireworks, celebrating the city’s namesake, and just all-around old-fashioned shoulder-rubbing with neighbors — what do San Miguelenses like to do the next day?
Parade some more.
Of course.
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With all the celebrating going on in San Miguel this weekend, it is easy to forget that love is always in the air.
I submit these photographs as evidence.
These were all taken on Sunday morning before I’d even had breakfast. The peacocks sauntered over while I was having breakfast. In fact, they came up to a very large enclosure housing a quartet of finches.
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The painting of a tiny Thai jungle village set against snow-tipped blue mountains in our casita has gained a full moon.
The moon wasn’t there yesterday.
And it was not there when Rose Alcantara acquired the painting on the island of Koh Samui, off Thailand, many many years ago. (She doesn’t want to think of how many.)
It is a charming and primitive scene of four red-tiled peaked-roof houses, painted in bright tropical colors. A red-dirt road curves through the settlement. Flowers of many colors encroach on the green grass yards, pushed in by the encroaching jungle. A rickety fence or two and an ancient wooden cart enhance the setting.
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Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 