the people who lunch

Elaine Stritch was not there.


No throaty celebration of the ladies who lunch.


But we were well beyond the ladies only lunch club.


My former landlady (Karen) called to let me know one of my readers was in town and wanted to meet me.


I am certainly no J. D. Salinger (in many respects -- one of which is I am still alive).  No shrinking violet I.  In fact, I am as shameless about being the center of attention as my former state's senior senator, who is known to shove constituents out of the way to get to the nearest news camera.


Karen asked if I would be interested in a late lunch on Sunday.  Let's see?  Fans.  Food.  Of course, I would be there.


When I showed up at Tinto del Mar, I was looking for two lunching ladies at a table.  And, even though I was fashionably late, I saw only tables of large groups.


It turned out one of the large groups was Karen's.  She was there with six other people.


We could easily have been the cast for a Merchant-Ivory film.  A Canadian couple, Don and Irene, renting The Professor's house.  Myrella, my reader, from Houston.  Daniel and Fabiola, friends of Karen's from Guadalajara.  Another friend, Verona, from Seattle.


Myrella and I once had an online conversation about beach property she owns in Oregon.  But we rambled over as many topics as any good friends do when meeting.


And she was a pure joy.  Having read of my often fruitless quests to find aged parmesan cheese, she brought me a chunk.  Along with a dog book she highly recommended: The Gospel According to Sam: Animal Stories for the Soul.


I continue to be amazed (and pleased) at the kindness of people.


The choice of Tinto del Mar was a good one.  The dining room was underpopulated.  And, once the usual mariachi band stopped playing, we were able to have great conversation.


The service is always very personable -- and, quite often, personal.  Even if the food is a bit too heavy for me with its thick cheesy, fruit-infused sauces.  Not really bad.  But certainly not outstanding.


It is a testament to the place that its food does get in the way of having a good time.


I put a bit of a damper on the afternoon when the conversation turned to the drug violence in Michoacán.  I conceded that anywhere in the world where people are being shot -- especially over an ill-conceived drug policy -- is a shame.  But there is statistically a greater chance of any given person dying in a car crash than being shot by a drug gangster in Mexico.


The Mexican couple took great umbrage.  And I suspect a lot of it was my rotten Spanish getting in the way. 


But I understand their concern.  Some Mexicans are far more likely to be kidnapped and shot than is an American expatriate.  And numbers do not assuage that fear.  Fear always trumps reality.


My heart sank as I listened to them.  If this very joyful couple can descend into such dramatic fears, what does that say about the future of democratic Mexico?  Those who fear are always the first fruits of demagogues.


Mexican history provides two answers: a man on a white horse -- or another on a red burro.  And there is always someone in the wings willing to cross-dress as either Porfirio Diaz or Lázaro Cárdenas.

But that is not my fight.  And my concern quickly passed.  After all, the lunch was to celebrate life, not to sink into life-sucking politics.  And we had our share of fun and silliness.


So, thank you again, Myrella, for the cheese and the book.  I grated a portion of the cheese over some lemon soup I made last night.


And keep those comments coming.


Note -- The last photograph is not of Myrella.  That is Karen.  And there is an interesting story about that ice cube.  But that may be for another day.

mooning on la laguna

It seemed big.


But when it comes in its full cookieish form, it always seems big.


I went out on ant patrol last night.  Before I looked up, I knew what I would see.  The light on the ground was almost as intense as my flashlight beam.


When I did glance, the moon almost startled me. 


Full, yes.  But something else.  Almost as if it wanted to draw close enough to ally its talent in my small battle against natural instincts.  Instead, helping me to find my own.


The moon is a unifier.  I knew that somewhere on a Caribbean island, someone was looking up at the same moon.  Or on a plaza in central Mexico.  Or in a hot tub in Oregon.


For a moment, we pause.  Look in awe.  And know that we are sharing a moment of wonder.  Looking at the jade rabbit.  The witch gathering sticks.  The old man with his lantern.


The size, of course, is an illusion. As artful as any David Copperfield conjury.


Last night the moon was in fact larger. Well, it was closer than usual and seemed larger.  And tonight it will be closer still.  Closer than it has been for two decades.


I could spend a lot of time talking about perigee and azimuth.  But tonight will be a night of poetry, not science. 


Go out and gaze on the face of that jolly old man.  And remember you are not alone.


Or perhaps, read a bit of Billy Collins's Moon before you go out.  Set the mood.

The moon is full tonight
an illustration for sheet music,
an image in Matthew Arnold
glimmering on the English Channel,
or a ghost over a smoldering battlefield
in one of the history plays.

It's as full as it was
in that poem by Coleridge
where he carries his year-old son
into the orchard behind the cottage
and turns the baby's face to the sky
to see for the first time
the earth's bright companion,
something amazing to make his crying seem small.

And if you wanted to follow this example,
tonight would be the night
to carry some tiny creature outside
and introduce him to the moon. 

And if your house has no child,
you can always gather into your arms
the sleeping infant of yourself,
as I have done tonight,
and carry him outdoors,
all limp in his tattered blanket,
making sure to steady his lolling head
with the palm of your hand. 

And while the wind ruffles the pear trees
in the corner of the orchard
and dark roses wave against a stone wall,
you can turn him on your shoulder
and walk in circles on the lawn
drunk with the light.
You can lift him up into the sky,
your eyes nearly as wide as his,
as the moon climbs high into the night.

Picnic,Lightning (1998)


Note -- The photograph is mine.  The first time I have ever been able to catch the moon in any detail. 

no caption saturday

My friend, Jean Young, who once ran a bakery here in Villa Obregon (buttery buns on the beach) and now lives in one of the metropolitan areas in the highlands, sent me this photograph earlier in the week.


I have seen it several times, and I always get a chuckle out of it.


But it amused me even more this week.  Perhaps circumstances in nature let us see more of our own nature.


After almost a year of being on the road, I think I am going to settle down for a bit in my demi-casa. 


And simply watch the birds.

sex on the floor

“Where is all the singing?  I thought people would be singing in the streets.”


He was American.  Probably from one of the upper central states – Minnesota or Wisconsin – from the almost-across-the-border sing song in his voice.  His wife simply looked tired.


”And music.  I thought there would be music.”


With that I knew he was new in town.  Because all you need is patience if you want to hear music on the streets of Melaque.  Pouring forth from a car radio or a truck loudspeaker.


But I don’t think that is what he was looking for.  He had a Hollywood-acquired notion that roving mariachi might musically mug him at every street corner.  Confusing Carmen Miranda with Dolores del Río.


Don't get me wrong.  Mexico is a very musical country.  I get to share my neighbor's taste in radio music every afternoon as she does her wash.


But there is something deeper than that in the Mexican character.


Last year I witnessed a bit of it in Manzanillo at a performance of the Orquesta Sinfónica de San Luis Potosí (pieces of eight).  One of the most popular pieces that night was Arturo Márquez's Danzón No. 2. 


It is played at almost every pops concert in Mexico.  Mexicans admire it so much, it is commonly known as the second national anthem.


Some of you probably know it as the stunning video produced by the Mexican Tourism Board.


But it is more than just a cultural icon.  What Márquez wrote is the very essence of good sex.


And I am not merely talking about the fact that all dance music represents sex.  It is more than the old Scottish joke that Presbyterians are opposed to sex standing up because they are afraid it will lead to dancing.


The danzón is an odd dance form – at least, its paternity is.  Apparently, it derives from an earlier English dance (though I find it hard to believe considering the character of both countries).  The Cubans then modified it into a very seductive dance.  So seductive that polite society eschewed it.


Like many other things Cuban (including contemporary Cubans on rafts), the danzón made its way across the Gulf of Mexico to Veracruz – where it spread through Mexico.


There are other popular danzón pieces.  But none as popular as the piece Márquez premiered in 1994.


All music can be enjoyed abstractly.  And that is certainly possible with this piece.  Márquez follows the academic form, but he turns it into his own with a very clever interpretation.


I will not bore you with the formal music – because that is not its most interesting characteristic.


The first time I heard it performed live was in Manzanillo.  From the moment the solo clarinet started the syncopated theme, shoulders started to move in time with the music.  Then torsos, hips, and feet.  Until the audience was undulating to the music -- like some Fellini orgy scene.


If you listen to the piece (and I urge you to do so), put aside all thoughts of academic music.  If you cannot feel the hands of an expert lover as the oboe waxes and wanes, I can offer nothing more to you than my condolences.


This is the piece that Bolero dreamed of being in the movie 10. 


This YouTube video of Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela is not the best recording of the piece.  But you get the idea.  (It is best if you choose 480p.)  These performers are simply too young to capture Márquez's mature caresses and kisses.


Listen and enjoy.  Drop those inhibitions and let your body move.






This is the sound the man from Wisconsin should have been seeking on the streets of Melaque.


But then, shouldn’t we all?

pat in the middle

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!


For those of you in Boston, Chicago, and New York, the day means parades and green beer.  And, of course, Irish jokes.


Dan Green, a loyal reader in North Carolina, sent me this joke almost a year ago.  It has been fermenting in my in-box for an occasion just like this.

Patrick walks into a bar in Dublin, orders three pints of Guinness and sits in the corner of the room, drinking a sip out of each pint in turn. When he finishes all three, he goes back to the bar and orders three more.


The barman says, "You know a pint goes flat soon after I pull it.  Your pint would taste better if you bought one at a time."


Patrick replies, "Well now, I have two brothers -- one is in America and the other in Australia and here I am in Dublin . When we all left home, we promised we'd drink this way to remember the days we all drank together."


The barman admits that this is a nice custom and says no more.


Patrick becomes a regular customer, and always drinks the same way -- ordering three pints and drinking a sip out of each in turn, until they are finished.


One day, he comes in and orders just two pints. All the other regulars in the bar notice and fall silent.


When he goes back to the bar for the second round, the barman says, "I don't want to intrude on your grief, but I wanted to offer my condolences on your great loss."


Patrick looks confused for a moment, then the penny drops and he starts to laugh.  "Oh no," he says, "Everyone is fine! It's me -- I've quit drinking!"

Here in San Patricio, we celebrate Saint Patrick's Day with fireworks and second degree burns.


It may surprise some of you that we would be going out of our day to celebrate an itinerant Anglo-Saxon priest the Irish adopted as their own.  But San Patricio has a patron saint.  And he is -- yup! -- Saint Patrick (or San Patricio, as we know him around these Latin-speaking parts).


That is him on the right.  Sitting on his carry-all for not-so-spontaneous processions around the village.


Every year the village goes all out to have a great one-week party in honor of the amateur herpetologist of the emerald isle.  Yellow and green decorations are everywhere. 

 

Along with carnival rides.  Food stalls.  And castillos -- those towers of fireworks designed to whirl and spin, and toss burning rockets into the crowd.


And this year had quite a few firework twists.  There was more of everything. 


Lots of mortars.  Several of those giant displays so popular at county fairs.  And lots of the little rockets that fire into the audience sending people jumping and whooping with sheer pleasure.


This year I took one right in the stomach.  I took a photograph, but it does not do the experience justice.  And it was not until I got home that I noticed the entire left inseam of my dockers is one giant black singe.Rocket scars are worn with reverential pride around here.


Before I moved south, I read stories in several blogs describing similar fireworks-centered fiestas.  Almost every blogger would then say they had tired of attending the late-night celebrations.


I could not understand it.  I was enthralled at the sight of my first castillo.  But, after two years of fireworks for every conceivable event, I found myself thinking similar thoughts this week.  I simply had other things to do.


But the young man who delivers my bottled water invited me to attend the Wednesday night festivities with his wife and his son.  So, off to the plaza I went.


I had a great time.  The castillo did what castillos do best.  People oohed in delight at the spinning fire and shrieked in real terror when the rockets began firing at them.


But that is not what the event is all about.  I also ran into people I had not seen for a couple of months. 


One of them talked me into joining her on two carnival rides.  Both were fun, but the last one was thrilling.  Better than any ride in a themed amusement park.

 

You can see it at the right.  It looks deceptively calm.  But when it starts, the seats turn over and over in a very irregular pattern.  You almost have the feeling that death is waiting for you on the next spin. 


It was great.


On each spin, I kept thinking: this is exactly the type of ride Islagringo would enjoy.


It was an evening of experiencing the joy of basic good times with one another -- renewing our souls in social communion.


And that was only Saint Patrick's Eve.  Tonight I will need to join the crowd again for another shot of joy.  With a final chance to see Saint Pat smile.


And, who knows?  I may even participate in the bull chase -- despite my bum ankle.

who is my neighbor?

I have been reading Donald Miller's latest book (A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life) for the last few weeks.


Rather, I have not been reading it. 


The combination of my trips around Mexico and my brief trip to Oregon have serialized the book into four or five page installments.  But I finally finished it on my return to Melaque on Saturday.


Near the end of the book, Miller writes about a bicycle tour he made across America to raise money for a charity.

When you fly across the country in an airplane the country seems vast; but it isn't vast. It's all connected by roads one can ride a bike down. If you watch the news and there's a tragedy at a house in Kansas, that guy's driveway connects with yours, and you'd be surprised by how few roads it takes to get there.  The trip taught us that we were all neighbors, that my life is connected to everybody else's.

I thought of that quotation while reading a message board posting this past week.  It was written
Justin Horner -- a graphic designer in my home town of Portland, Oregon.


Let's turn the floor over to him to tell his story.

During this past year I’ve had three instances of car trouble: a blowout on a freeway, a bunch of blown fuses and an out-of-gas situation. They all happened while I was driving other people’s cars, which for some reason makes it worse on an emotional level.  And on a practical level as well, what with the fact that I carry things like a jack and extra fuses in my own car, and know enough not to park on a steep incline with less than a gallon of fuel.

 

Each time, when these things happened, I was disgusted with the way people didn’t bother to help. I was stuck on the side of the freeway hoping my friend’s roadside service would show, just watching tow trucks cruise past me. The people at the gas stations where I asked for a gas can told me that they couldn’t lend them out “for safety reasons,” but that I could buy a really crappy one-gallon can, with no cap, for $15. It was enough to make me say stuff like “this country is going to hell in a hand basket,” which I actually said.

But you know who came to my rescue all three times? Immigrants. Mexican immigrants. None of them spoke any English.

One of those guys stopped to help me with the blowout even though he had his whole family of four in tow. I was on the side of the road for close to three hours with my friend’s big Jeep. I put signs in the windows, big signs that said, “NEED A JACK,” and offered money. Nothing. Right as I was about to give up and start hitching, a van pulled over, and the guy bounded out.

He sized up the situation and called for his daughter, who spoke English. He conveyed through her that he had a jack but that it was too small for the Jeep, so we would need to brace it. Then he got a saw from the van and cut a section out of a big log on the side of the road. We rolled it over, put his jack on top and we were in business.

I started taking the wheel off, and then, if you can believe it, I broke his tire iron. It was one of those collapsible ones, and I wasn’t careful, and I snapped the head clean off. Damn.

No worries: he ran to the van and handed it to his wife, and she was gone in a flash down the road to buy a new tire iron. She was back in 15 minutes. We finished the job with a little sweat and cussing (the log started to give), and I was a very happy man.

The two of us were filthy and sweaty. His wife produced a large water jug for us to wash our hands in. I tried to put a 20 in the man’s hand, but he wouldn’t take it, so instead I went up to the van and gave it to his wife as quietly as I could. I thanked them up one side and down the other. I asked the little girl where they lived, thinking maybe I’d send them a gift for being so awesome. She said they lived in Mexico. They were in Oregon so Mommy and Daddy could pick cherries for the next few weeks. Then they were going to pick peaches, then go back home.

After I said my goodbyes and started walking back to the Jeep, the girl called out and asked if I’d had lunch. When I told her no, she ran up and handed me a tamale.

This family, undoubtedly poorer than just about everyone else on that stretch of highway, working on a seasonal basis where time is money, took a couple of hours out of their day to help a strange guy on the side of the road while people in tow trucks were just passing him by.

But we weren’t done yet. I thanked them again and walked back to my car and opened the foil on the tamale (I was starving by this point), and what did I find inside? My $20 bill! I whirled around and ran to the van and the guy rolled down his window. He saw the $20 in my hand and just started shaking his head no. All I could think to say was, “Por favor, por favor, por favor,” with my hands out. The guy just smiled and, with what looked like great concentration, said in English: “Today you, tomorrow me.”

Then he rolled up his window and drove away, with his daughter waving to me from the back. I sat in my car eating the best tamale I’ve ever had, and I just started to cry. It had been a rough year; nothing seemed to break my way. This was so out of left field I just couldn’t handle it.

In the several months since then I’ve changed a couple of tires, given a few rides to gas stations and once drove 50 miles out of my way to get a girl to an airport. I won’t accept money. But every time I’m able to help, I feel as if I’m putting something in the bank.

When one of the lawyers asked Jesus how to inherit eternal life, Jesus responded with the two great commandments: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, Love your neighbor as yourself.”


The lawyer, smelling the possibility of a loophole where he could minimize his love-sharing, asked: "And who is my neighbor?"  You can hear the subtext dripping from the question: "Certainly not the people I do not like."


In response Jesus told a parable that is certainly one of western civilization's top ten tales -- the parable of the good Samaritan.  A story of how people we distrust are included in that category "neighbor."


I have been reading the Old Testament lately.  The torah repeatedly warns the reader to be especially mindful of the needs of three groups of people.  Widows and orphans are on everyone's list.  But the third group might surprise some people who draw their political inspiration from The Bible.


Aliens.  Immigrants.  Strangers in the land.


I have heard several people tell of tales similar to Mr. Horner's of the kindness of Mexicans in the United States -- and in Mexico.  People with very little money who are always willing to share one commodity -- their time and hands.  The very virtues we honor as Americans.


The highway that connects Portland to that driveway in Kansas keeps right on going -- to Ciudad Juarez, Oxaca, even Melaque.


Maybe that should be part of the immigration debate.  A little consideration on whether we are measuring the correct virtues.


Just a question for thought.

ruins of the day

We do not know much about the people who built Teotihuacán.


Or why they abandoned their majestic city on the plain north of Mexico City sometime between 800 and 900 AD.


There are theories, of course.  Internal social collapse.  Invaders.  Ecological catastrophe.  Increased medical expenses.


OK.  Maybe not the last one.  But no one knows.


What we do know is that the people who built the city left.  The city was abandoned -- except for a few squatters.


When the Aztecs came wandering through on their way to founding their watery empire, they believed the place was built by gods.  And they left it alone as a sacred site -- suited only for pilgrimages.


Archaeologists took a serious interest in the place in the early 1900s.  As part of the centennial celebration of Mexico's Independence, Leopoldo Batres used dynamite in the hopes of finding layers under the pyramid of the sun.  There were none.


But he left enough damage that it is still possible to see the erosion from his blast holes.


He then reconstructed the pyramid – and did a terrible job.  Adding a terrace where one never existed.  It was as if Walt Disney and Alfred Nobel had gone into the archaeological business.


When the place was built, it was considered sacred – and continued to be sacred up until the conquest.  The people who built Teotihuacán believed the act of creation took place in the caves under the site.  And the Aztecs were shocked and awed enough to buy into the same mythology.


My earliest recollection of Mexico (probably when I was in the sixth grade) is of the pyramids (of the sun and of the moon) at Teotihuacán.  They have long been the poster children of Mexico tourism -- before the Maya became the center of archaeo-tourism.

 

The two pyramids can be seen for miles around the site.  Looking just as their creators wanted them to look – like the surrounding mountains.


 

Like every other tourist, I wanted to show my mettle by climbing both pyramids. 


Unfortunately, the day we visited was one of the worst days of my intestinal disorder.  I was far more interested in finding the nearest rest room than I was in climbing anything.  Including the face of history.


And that was too bad.  My fellow travelers told me the view from the top was amazing.  I am sorry I could not make the trek.


But I was able to see the other site that interested me.  Two days ago I told you about the reconstruction of the Temple of the Feathered Serpent in the National Museum of Archaeology.  This is the real deal.

 

Visitors can get very close to what remains of the original.  Almost all of the paint is gone, but the mosaic representation of the rain god is still there.

 

But the city is far more than a sacred place.  I mentioned two days ago that at its zenith, it was one of the largest cities in the ancient world – with a population of nearly 250,000.


You can still visit the remains of their homes.  With the pottery on view in the museum on site and in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, it is possible to reconstruct what it was like to live in such a great city.


My only disappointment was my inability to fully enjoy the place.  Unlike some of the other monumental ruins I have visited, this is the only one I would like to see again.  To climb those pyramids before they are shut down.


This time, with a stomach that knows how to control itself.