AROUND TOWN

Meetings & Lectures May 16, 2008 San Miguel de Allende


Unitarian Universalist Fellowship meeting

Berenice Reyes addresses the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship this Sunday on CASA (Centro de Adolescentes de San Miguel de Allende), the family service organization now celebrating its 25th year in San Miguel. Reyes is the organization’s Director of Development.

Operating on grants from the Mexican government, individual donors and organizations from three continents, CASA helps more than 50,000 Mexicans in need every year. Reyes will talk about CASA’s signature service: teams of adolescent peer counselors who provide environmental, sexual and civil-rights education, and family planning consultations and methods. She will also discuss the organization’s various youth and family programs, the maternity hospital and family health clinic, the midwifery program (Mexico’s first and only government-accredited school of midwifery), child development and day-care centers, and the various programs that provide an entertaining alternative education in sexuality and often ignored social issues.

The UU Fellowship meets every Sunday at 10:30am at La Posada de la Aldea, Ancha de San Antonio 15 and welcomes people of all ages, races, religions, sexual orientation and gender identity. Visitors are invited to attend the service and then join the UUs in the hotel restaurant for brunch.

Midday Rotary Club 

On Tuesday May 20, we are pleased to have as our guest speaker graphologist Colin Hanlen, MA. His goal in this presentation is “to help people understand the implications of their writing and especially to get rid of the guilt that so many people have about their writing which comes from criticisms from well-intentioned teachers and such who are not fully informed.” 

Handwriting analysis, or graphology, is a respected science in Europe and generally every job résumé must include a handwritten cover letter. It is a very handy tool for anyone dealing with the public or who wants a better understanding of “what people are really like.” 

Hanlen has over 25 years of experience in his field: teaching, training and consulting. He has been a Catholic priest, a marriage and family therapist, and carpenter/handyman. He has written Handwwriting Analysis Simplified, a booklet for the person who wants to get the basics without having to read a big book.


The Rotary Club of San Miguel de Allende-Midday meets every Tuesday at their new location, the Hotel Real de Minas at the intersection of calles Ancha de San Antonio and Stirling Dickinson. Check-in time is 12:00–12:25pm and the meeting starts promptly at 12:30. Visiting Rotarians and others interested in Rotary are invited to attend this meeting. Rotary is an organization of business and professional persons united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations and help build goodwill and peace in the world. For more information, please go to the website: www.rotarysma.org. 

Classes & Workshops

Chess Workshops

Free chess workshops for adults meet Mondays 5–6:30pm in the central patio of the Biblioteca Pública. The Biblioteca has good chess sets, but bring your own if you like. Up to a dozen players occupy the north portal of the patio each week.

Players gather at Mama Mia, Umarán 8, on Wednesdays, 5–7pm. The restaurant has tournament-class sets and spectacular views of churches, mountains and sunsets from the rooftop terraces. Last week an odd number of players led Kennedy Poyser to take on two at once. The results were brutal—a mate with double-check before his King had even castled and a lightning-bolt Queen-Rook finish to the other game. How chess masters can defeat dozens in simultaneous exhibitions is even more of a mystery now.

Poyser hopes to be treated less cruelly on Saturday at Casa de la Cultura on Chorro, 10am–2pm. The view is stimulating and you get your morning’s exercise climbing the switchbacks on the road to the top of the hill.



Performances & Events

Casting Call!

Auditions are being held for The Last Ride, a new play by Michael Hager and directed by Michael Gottlieb. Performance dates are August 19–24 at Teatro Santa Ana and will benefit Casita Linda, the nonprofit organization dedicated to building houses for the disadvantaged. 

Auditions are Wednesday, May 21, 10:30am–12:30pm.

The play is a good-natured look at love, relationships and the hopes and dreams of small-town folk in a big-town world. The Last Ride is set in a highway truck-stop in the Southwest as friends gather for the birthday celebration of the local hero—a rodeo star and budding singer-songwriter. 

Needed are four women (ages 25 – 60) and seven men (ages 25 – 60, one of whom sings and plays guitar, about 50 years old).

For further information call the director at 044 (415) 114-8671.

Audubon Sightings
By Walter L. Meagher

The Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Two women took turns dropping a bucket into a well at Juan Ruiz, a pueblito a few miles past the Presa. The ground sloping from the well ran down to a streambed, empty of flowing water but full of rocks waiting for the June rains.

In the untidy shrubs at the field edge, I saw a male and female Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, scooting in and out of filtered sunlight.

Since gnat is a word that belittles the beauty of the bird, the male dressed as handsomely as Robert E. Lee, I never say the name, except to you who will appreciate my reservation as soon as you see the gnatcatcher for yourself. But I must say something ornithological to justify this column.

On average, the Blue-gray is 11 centimeters long with the tail more than half the length. This long tail helps the Blue-gray get airborne by swishing against the leaves. Gnats are 1/12th of a centimeter long. The predator, then, is much larger than its prey. Gnats are more easily seen when flying. Whichever bird caught the most gnats in evolutionary time had the most secure lineage, accounting for a tail we think of as simply a mark of the bird’s wardrobe.