I forget where I first heard of it, but I can’t get Robert Fitterman’s storefront shop in the Bowery out of my mind. This is an old story, starting on May 5, 2010. And the shop didn’t last very long, by design. It closed on May 27.
It was only open Tuesdays through Thursdays, and then, only from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Worse than banker’s hours.
Now that might not seem ambitious on the face of it, but it is really about what Fitterman was selling.
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Imagine getting to celebrate your 70th birthday and the 40th anniversary of your blockbuster debut novel in one night.
Sandra Cisneros did just that on Dec. 20th at Camino Silvestre and Nectar, Calle Correo #43.
And there was cake! Well, cupcakes. Delicious cupcakes. And paper party hats and singing, too.
The book is “The House on Mango Street,” the story of Esperanza Cordero, a young Mexican-American girl coming of age in Chicago. Everyman’s Library has just come out with a 40th anniversary edition – which was another reason to celebrate.
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Once more, the Mercado de San Juan de Dios is transformed into a wonderland as the Christmas marketplace is open for business.
Extra booths have been erected around the market and they are filled with ornaments, Nativity figures and accessories, decorations, Baby Jesus figurines of many hues and sizes (and gorgeous gowns of swaddling clothes), garlands, pines, sparklers, elf costumes, devil’s pitchforks, cuetlaxochitls, Santa caps, treats, and holiday fantasies.
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The Jardin Principal, the towering Christmas tree, and the surrounding streets have been well-lit for the holidays since Dec. 6, That was the night of our first thunder-and-lightning drenching in weeks.
Timing is everything.
And the rains cooperated, stopping within minutes of the official Christmas tree lighting ceremony and the accompanying fireworks. (What would a tree lighting ceremony be without fireworks? Well, in San Miguel, what would any event be without fireworks?)
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“The Mini – Solve in seconds”
That’s the promise, or more probably, the challenge of the daily five-by-five crossword puzzle on the New York Times games page.
Monday’s second row, down, challenge was “Rockefeller Center statue depicting a Greek Titan.” Five letters.
Obviously not Prometheus – the golden, cast-bronze statue in the lower end of Rockefeller Plaza – since it busts the five-letter wall. But that’s the one everyone knows, even if they have never been to New York, because it is always in the frame with the Rockefeller Christmas tree.
Continue readingIt was one of those days when you wake up feeling so clever because a unique word came to you in the middle of the night — opportunipee.
And you wrote it down. In a notebook. In the dark.
And it was legible.
A Jabberwokian euphoria fills your pores.
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Even as the Pulitzer Prize-winning Hedrick Smith was navigating “the road ahead for American Democracy” during his i3 talk on Tuesday, even more Bozos were being added to the Trump Clown Car up ahead.
A once-respected doctor turned TV pill-shill was nominated to oversee Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act.
The empress of a studio wrestling empire was nominated as Secretary of Education.
And the hits keep on a coming.
Continue readingThere is an old joke about two explorers who are captured by cannibals. One is a Californian and the other is a New Yorker.
The explorers sit at the bottom of a large vat filled with water. Natives run around collecting firewood and depositing it at the base. It is going to be a big fire. It is going to be a big feast.
The chief of the cannibals stands over the two explorers and admires their pale skins.
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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.
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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.
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Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 
