2006, reflections and reprints
by Suzanne Ludekens, Editor in Chief, Dec 29, 2006

As 2006 draws to an end, I would like to give heartfelt thanks to all the people who have contributed to, supported and produced Atención. San Miguel’s community newspaper would not be possible without the support of the readers and the local business owners who advertise with us and the cooperation of local authorities.

Looking over the year’s issues, what is particularly inspiring is the number of articles on community assistance projects by individuals, groups and formal nonprofit organizations. 

This issue is compiled of a selection of favorite articles and a few current events. For information on special events around town this week and the current Around Town listings. The end-of-year House & Garden Tour will explore two magnificent residences on Christmas Eve (see the Home and Decoration section).



Teresa Lemon Shepro’s tips to visitors follows. Reprinting this piece is as much part of my holiday tradition as roast turkey, nativity scenes, piñatas and tequila. 

After a hectic press day every Tuesday for the print issue, editorial staff face their second weekly deadline—the website. Although we are dragging our feet, John Edwards’s entertaining and, at times, irreverent teasers for website articles keep us in more than good spirits. Brilliant minds move in mysterious ways, Just Teasing, his favorite hooks can be read below.



2006 SPECIAL—COMMUNITY

I felt Edgar Soberon’s writings about buildings and cities worthy of reprinting because of his thought-provoking, lyrical insights into history and the architectural landscape.

The profile on local Volador de Pampantla Don Tomás by former reporter Tania Noriz brings to life a personality whom we see daily on the streets and who gives us so much at the traditional celebrations. Also, it was one of the last pieces by Tania, who had recently become a mother for the first time. She has since become director of municipal artesanal development. 

Stirling Dickinson, one of San Miguel’s most generous benefactors, is beautifully remembered in John Virtue’s article about the life and tireless work of the Favorite Son of San Miguel.

The color images in the Garden Club 2007 are not only award-worthy but are a great way to remember the year. The calendar makes a great gift for last-minute shoppers, but you’ll have to visit San Miguel for a copy!

2006 SPECIAL—CULTURE

The article I wrote on the recently founded Frida Kahlo museum, in San Miguel is my personal homage to an exceptional artist who has inspired life-changing experiences around the world. The privately owned museum donates all entrance fees to the Red Cross—now that changes lives! On a personal note, after reading Hayden Herrera’s biography of Frida Kahlo in 1989 I left Australia for Mexico to visit the home of this remarkable artist, never dreaming that Mexico would become my home, and my life could be so enriched. 

San Miguel is rich in art, and Atención publishes several articles on art openings most weeks. One piece of writing by painter Peter Leventhal that I found truly poetic and inspiring, on the works of Mari José Marin.



2006 SPECIAL—COLUMNISTS

Vicki Gundrum, our book reviewer and proofreader par excellence, has brought her singular brand of wit and irreverence to her reviews and the office. 

Robert de Gast’s day trip to Cruz del Palmar is easy, accessible and more than a photographer’s delight. 

While Jeremy Goodwin’s recipe for scarlet sauce is ideal for the holiday season, and the love story that accompanies it is a romantic delight. 



I would also like to say mil gracias to the publishers of Atención San Miguel, the board of the Biblioteca Pública, for the support they have given me and the staff.

I look forward to serving the community in 2007. Season’s greetings and all the very best. 

Tips for Visitors
By Teresa Lemon Shepro, June 23, 2006

Dear Future Houseguest,

I have prepared this information sheet to assist you in your visit. 

San Miguel de Allende is a lovely colonial town in central Mexico. This means it is not on the Pacific coast, or on the Atlantic coast, or in the Caribbean. To further clarify, it is not on the beach, or near a beach.

If you have not traveled outside the US before, please consider taking a practice trip to another foreign country before visiting me. Learn to read maps, hail taxis, change money, and order from non-English-language menus. 

If you will be arriving from a suburban environment that involves mostly driving around in your car, please understand that here in San Miguel it is necessary to walk to most destinations. 

Consider purchasing a Spanish phrase book. Minimally learn to say “please” and “thank you” in Spanish. You can only imagine how awful I would sound in your favorite restaurant back home if I grunted, “coke,” “beer,” or “decaf.” Spanish is not some offshoot of Neanderthal; it is the language of Cervantes, Octavio Paz and Desi Arnaz.

Many establishments in San Miguel do not accept credit cards. There is a form of payment and exchange called “cash.” Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Please bring some.

Tipping is a simple matter of arithmetic. If your bill back home were $100, you would probably leave a $15 tip. If the bill here is 100 pesos—you would leave 15 pesos, not 2 pesos because the waiter will never see you again. He’ll see me again! 

Don’t try to work it out to spend down to your last peso. I am happy to buy your unused pesos. This is far preferable to my subsidizing the last two days of your trip because you are “out of pesos.”

I will send you the email address of the airport shuttle when your travel arrangements are firm. As you know I have a car, you may be asking yourself, “Well, why doesn’t she offer to pick me up at the airport?” The answer is twofold. First, I don’t want to, and second, I have no idea how to get to the airport. I’ve gone there a million times in the shuttle, always heavily sedated on Dramamine. 

Which brings us to the topic of Health Concerns. 

The last time I checked, I was not a consultant for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta or the Director of the San Miguel Board of Health. I therefore do not know if every slice of raw onion or floweret of broccoli has been completely sanitized. 

Please be assured that local restaurants are in the business of repeat customers and are careful in food preparation. I take precautions in my own kitchen by having very little food whatsoever.

How long you stay is up to you and how long you wish to remain my friend. Some friends unknowingly stay “too long.” This often happens when they elect to travel on mileage award tickets and can only choose from limited availability. 

A stay that involves a return flight more than seven days after your arrival is considered “too long.”

A hostess gift is completely unnecessary. Evidence of your return flight or ongoing travel, in the form of a paper or E-ticket, will more than suffice.

If you are bringing a child—and I hope you are not—please be advised that I do not have many of the electronic gadgets that are commonplace in the States. I do have a TV and a radio. I control the remote (husbands, take note).

In any case, children under one meter in height are not permitted in my house for safety reasons—their own safety, as I will murder them if any of my treasured Gorky ceramics are damaged. 

Please remember that whereas you are on vacation, I am not. I have a busy social, work and volunteer life. I will include you whenever possible in my engagements. I will not be able to include you in some activities. These include: when I want to read a book, when I want to take a shower, when I’ve had it.

You are welcome to check your email daily. Some guests spend hours at my desk online everyday, emailing their entire contact list about their vacation. May I suggest going out and having a good time instead? You can tell your friends about your adventures when you return.

Some frequently asked questions about San Miguel:

Q. Are we under attack? 

A. No.

Q. Then what are all those explosions?

A. A celebration.

Q. At 3am?

A. It’s more fun that way.

Q. Is this ice safe?

A. Yes.

Q. It’s noon. Can we have lunch? 

A. No.

Q. Do you think I should change more money? 

A. Yes.

Q. Why is it so cold? I thought this was Mexico. 

A. I’m tired of this one.

Q. Do you really have four cats? 

A. Yes.


Q. Can you keep your cats out of my room? 

A. No, it’s their room.



San Miguel de Allende and the surrounding areas are resplendent with beautiful and original handicrafts. Shopping is limited only by your budget and luggage space. 

“Well, how about shipping?” you may ask. Yes, indeed, there are many shipping enterprises in town that do a good job with packing and crating. But a shipping arrangement is between you and the agent, not between me and the agent. Your shipping arrangements should be made at least 24 hours before your departure. Any purchases that, at the last minute, you want me “to take care of” will be offered to the next Patronato Pro Niños silent auction. 

There are several beautiful and interesting destinations in the area for excursions. Atotonilco, Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato and Querétaro are among them. I can testify to this, as I have been to each of these places approximately one billion times. I will be happy to accompany you to one of the above. The others are easily reached by bus or taxi. There is one caveat. 

If it becomes obvious that you mean to go into every ceramic shop in Dolores Hidalgo, I will hand you bus fare and a map to the bus station. Hopefully this information has helped prepare you for your visit.

Oh, and did I mention that there are many lovely hotels in San Miguel in all price ranges?

Being a guest in San Miguel (or anywhere else)
By Edward Rapp

The vacation season is about to begin, and for those living in San Miguel, that means visitors. This is a source of frequent complaint among residents, although I cannot see why. If you don’t want house guests, you simply say that you’re busy or you’re suffering from a contagious disease.

People who want to come stay with you are likely your friends, so there’s no reason not to welcome them and enjoy their company. Limits and rules are needed, however. The following guidelines—unwritten but ruthlessly enforced—ensure tranquility in our house.

As a guest, assume that your hosts have conservative values until there is evidence to the contrary. Do not walk around the place half-naked until you have seen your host and/or hostess doing so. At our place, this would involve a long wait.

Do not leave false teeth soaking in the shared bathroom. They terrify infants and upset everyone else.

Attempted seduction of the host or hostess always creates more problems than it solves.

It is permissible—even obligatory—to arrive bearing flowers and champagne, or simply the latest stateside magazines … but not lasagna. However much you may like it, the gift—either hot or cold—reflects on the culinary prowess of the hostess.

Your children’s little foibles, although infinitely charming in themselves, do not always prove winning to others. Your offspring, therefore, should not (a) attempt to pull the tail off the host’s dog, (b) awaken at 4am demanding to be led to the VCR, (c) spit food on the floor, (d) rearrange the furniture in order to fight off an extraterrestrial attack, (e) smash the hosts’ kid’s train set or (f) vomit.

Being away from home does not get you out of washing the dishes. And references to the wonders of dishwashing machines, such as “the kind we have at home,” will not earn you brownie points.

When the host says to “make yourself at home,” don’t take him or her too seriously.

Never express anything other than admiration for your host’s house, food, children, garden, furniture or taste in potted plants. Misgivings or friendly advice on how to improve things always leads to tension. This is especially true when the advice is actually asked for. Oops! Simply say, “Everything is perfect already.”

By the same token, it is rarely a good idea to use the words “small” or “quaint” in relation to your host’s house or anything in it. Almost everyone thinks he has a big house. “Small” or “quaint” are good only for describing the footwear of the hostess.

Nomads in the Sahara consider it an affront if guests offer to buy their share of food and drink. Do not assume this criterion will apply here.

Keep snoring and late-night arguments to a minimum. Your hosts are accustomed to a certain set of noises. New sounds will destabilize them.

Avoid phrases such as: “You won’t be needing the car today, will you?” or “All you really need is a decent size swimming pool” or “If you don’t have time to run me over to the bank, you could always tide me over till Monday.”

Make your bed.

Smile a lot.

Be ill if you must, but go off someplace else to make your noises.

Take care where you leave your chewing gum.

Above all, recall Benjamin Franklin, who said, “After three days men grow weary of a wench, a guest, and rainy weather.”

Just teasing

If you visit the Atención website at www.atencionsanmiguel.org, you may be familiar with the brief descriptions we use to highlight articles from each week’s issue. These “teaser boxes,” as we call them in the office, are written by Atención’s copy editor, John Edwards. As we wrap up 2006, we reproduce some of our favorites from the website here.

Why not take a bus out of town? Robert de Gast shows us the beauty of the countryside in nearby Cruz del Palmar—and tells us how to get there by bus. 



For the Weather Girls, it’s always raining men. Our resident bibliophile meteorologist, Vicki, gives the weather report for great reads under 200 pages. There’s always time for a quickie….



It was a dog day afternoon as a small group of four-legged divas donned their finery and pranced in protest around the Jardín. Meanwhile, we hear from restaurateurs and the health department about diminutive canine diners. Is it doggy bags from now on?



Resident epicure Jeremy Goodwin explains how wallpaper turns into romance and offers up a scarlet sauce to the letter. 



Book reviewer and writer Vicki Gundrum explores the bounds of truth and fiction in a discussion of memoirs and biographies. Do we lie to tell the truth? Ask Oprah, as she wipes the egg off her face.



Farmer John’s Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables contains a wealth of inspirational and creative recipes, but that is just the tip of the iceberg lettuce.



The name says it all: La Colmena is busy as a beehive, and natives and newcomers alike are drawn to the enticing aromas wafting down calle Reloj.



The secret is out: a rare cache of Frida Kahlo’s personal letters and drawings is on display for the first time in San Miguel; the hot-blooded Kahlo does a good turn for the Mexican Red Cross. 



Bonne vivante Trish Vargas lets the wind blow her hither to Pico de Orizaba, the highest volcano in North America, in whose shadow she does a bit of her own rumbling.



This week, what Joseph Dispenza has on his mind is the torrid affair between Pasiphaë, Queen of Crete, and the bull, their Minotaur love-child, sex, bullfights, and ritual remnants.



It’s a bird … It’s a plane … It’s Don Tomás, one of San Miguel’s beloved local characters, spinning high above the esplanade; this Veracruz native keeps a centuries-old tradition alive with guts and grace. 



Vicki Gundrum has a “B” in her bonnet about her basenji, just trying to be “a good girl to a bad dog”; if you need a giggle, or a gag gift for someone expecting a dog, fetch this canine account.



Not-so-intrepid traveler Athea Marcos Amir tips over a few sacred cows as she recounts her recent, aborted junket to find the Ineffable, and the edible, in India.



At the LPGA tournament in Michoacán, volunteer Bill Gallacher meets up with the infuriating “Murphy,” is forced into ill-fitting attire and describes the golfing event to a tee.



Shop ‘til you drop, raise the dead, join the dead poets society and don’t falter with your altar: Atención makes no bones about the why, where and how of getting in the spirit.



More than a crush: In Carol Schmidt’s and Norma Hair’s new book, Falling … in Love with San Miguel, we follow the trials and joys of living in Mexico in a day-by-day “travel memoir and love story” about their first year in San Miguel, city of “fallen women.”



The mercury may be dropping at night, but astronomer Phyllis Pitluga tells us it will also cross the face of the sun on November 8, revealing the slow majesty of orbiting worlds.



Carb-loading for camping in the frozen Scottish highlands—or a chilly night in San Miguel. Jeremy Goodwin offers up an easy, comforting spud that will take you to your own private Idaho.



Better than ghost stories and s’mores: Science Camp San Miguel is gearing up for its second summer session and needs some “camp counsellors” to help plan the curriculum. Last one to the canoes is a rotten egg (an ovum exuding hydrogen sulfide).



November 21 is the Feast of Santa Cecilia, patron saint of musicians, and the mariachi will be out in full force and full voice in Plaza Garibaldi. The next morning, Cecilia gets a wake-up call when the mariachi croon the mañanitas, then join other peripatetic performers that night at San Antonio Church for a brassy bravo.



We welcome new columnist Carol Schmidt, who’s “SMA Day by Day” addresses common questions about everyday living in San Miguel. She’s fallen in love with San Miguel, and you’re invited to the wedding.



David Agren passes through those beckoning swinging doors and sheds some light on the murky interiors of San Miguel’s watering holes. Drop a peso in the jukebox, take a load off, and sip a Modelo along with Atención.






Buildings & cities
By Edgar Soberon, Aug 11, 2006

We often remember and associate towns and cities with their architectural landmarks.

This is due in part to the dominance such structures exert over the urban landscape, its profile or skyline. I also think that we come to associate places with such structures not only because of their monumental scale, their function or beauty but also due to a barrage of images in the media that help shape a symbolic representation in our collective imagination. Such architectural landmarks come to embody not only a place but oftentimes a people and a culture; their form somehow becomes a countenance that we all come to recognize, like a familiar face. 

The latter is evident even for places we have not visited. I think of Sydney, Australia, and can’t help conjuring up the image of its opera house on the bay. With Barcelona, I picture its Sagrada Familia, not to mention Bilbao, which now has a global profile thanks to Frank Gehry and his spaceship-like Guggenheim Museum. Probably the most famous of all landmarks and one of the few without a useful function is the Eiffel Tower. Over the years it has come to symbolize not only Paris and all things French but also 20th-century modernism. These examples, just to name a few, are images we all carry around in our memory and imagination; one might call them picture postcards of the mind.

This brings to mind an essay I read years ago by the French author Roland Barthe titled “The Eiffel Tower.” In this short essay, Barthe recalls how the writer Guy de Maupassant had lunch every day in the Tower’s restaurant. This, the author claimed, was the only way to enjoy a few hours in the day when he did not feel the presence of the iron monolith watching over him. Maupassant’s obsession or eccentricity may be written off as charming, if not mildly neurotic or paranoid—at least, that was my first reaction upon reading the essay. Years later, I had the chance to confirm its deeper meaning and implications with the fall of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. Having lived in Chelsea for many years, I recall that months after the collapse of the prominent twin towers I still looked back over my shoulder on my way home in order to verify their disappearance. Their presence was still felt, but unlike Maupassant’s feeling, this was more a sense of two phantom limbs, the real appendages having been severe
d from the New York skyline. All those years the towers had marked the way south on my mental map, and suddenly they had vanished forever. 

If the fall of the World Trade Center left a scar on the collective imagination of a city, this void would eventually be filled once again by other landmarks. The Empire State Building or another skyscraper would once again rise to take dominance; Manhattan, unlike many places, has plenty of these iconic symbols. I have often thought of New York as one of those reptiles or tropical plants that when a limb or branch is cut grows another in its place right away. It is a place unlike any other, constantly changing, reinventing itself with endless energy. 

If I recall correctly, one of the proposals by a young architect for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site was one in which four identical towers, or quadruplet towers, rose out of Battery Park. I think this illustrates the idea very clearly.

When we think of San Miguel de Allende, the image that comes to mind is that of the Parroquia. It is a neogothic fantasy of the late–19th century whose particular charms are not only its medieval pretensions but its scale and proportions, attributes that somehow help to humanize the building. Just think of the monumental cathedrals in France or Germany that must have inspired it. These are buildings that were made to inspire awe, even fear, in spectators, not unlike their modern counterparts, the skyscraper. The Parroquia is by comparison something out of a fairy tale, its pink “cantera” limestone the color of human skin. Even though it dominates the skyline, as monumental structures often do, it is not visible from every vantage point in town.

I must add here that the unfortunate coloration recently applied to the building has received mixed reviews among residents. We are all hoping that in time it will fade through weathering, if it cannot be presently corrected. On a sunny day, standing up close before the building, one can almost accept the new coloration since in the sunlight it blends in with the original color of the limestone (a much cooler pink). However, when viewed from a distance or from the outskirts of town, the top part appears an intense light red-oxide, which is further enhanced against the blue sky. 

If there is something larger than life, even unreal, about some of the structures that dominate the profiles of cities and towns, there are also those buildings and landmarks that are by their nature and intention their complete opposite. These are modest and inconspicuous structures built with proportion and measured to human scale. Their very charm stems from their simplicity and size, which instills a sense of intimacy with the visitor. These are buildings that the adventurous visitor feels he has discovered on his own meandering about and takes back home as a lived experience. Rather than the collective symbolic image to which large buildings aspire, these buildings form part of our personal memory of a place. They are often the center of smaller concentric neighborhoods or barrios, not the center of an entire city.

One such site here in San Miguel is the small sanctuary dedicated to Our Lady of Solitude, Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, or Calvario, as it’s often called. You have seen this small chapel on your way out of town to Querétaro; it stands high above calle San Francisco.

The building’s first phase of construction dates back to the 18th century (an inscription on the entranceway reads “1730”). Its altar displays an image of the Virgin carved in stone. The façade and vestibule were constructed at the beginning of the 19th century in the neoclassical revival style of the period. Carved into the red “cantera” limestone above the arched entranceway are the symbols of the Passion of Christ, which link the building to the Sanctuary at Atotonilco and its founder, Father Felipe Neri de Alfaro, a devoted mystic, poet and follower of the Cult of the Virgin of Solitude. The building is located on what was formerly the old Camino Real, and it is said to have been an important place of worship, not only for pilgrims on their way to Atotonilco but also for travelers and merchants who offered their prayers to the Virgin before embarking on a long and often dangerous trip to the capital. To the present day, the “Via Crucis” still culminates at this sanctuary on Holy Friday during Semana Santa
.

I had the chance to speak with the building’s caretaker, Sra. Alicia Quintanar, and she provided some of the historical information on the building. Her family has taken care of this small sanctuary now for several generations, and she is the last in this line. We spoke of a recent car accident that left one of the supporting pillars at the entrance to the building almost completely demolished. She also mentioned that the municipality had sent an engineer to survey the building under former mayor Villareal’s administration; however, nothing has been done since. 

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the building is in bad disrepair, and I hope that the appropriate care and attention will soon be given to this small historical gem. The renovations that have helped restore many of the churches and monuments here in San Miguel seem to have come to a halt with the recent elections, but I hope the new administration will continue in their endeavors to preserve the cultural patrimony of San Miguel and the nation.

Great buildings, whether large or small, form part of our collective imagination and history. They help shape our sense of place, and therefore our sense of reality. They inhabit us as we do them, marking and giving meaning to space and time. When they vanish, part of ourselves is lost with them. We are their caretakers.

Don Tomás, the story of a birdman
By Tania Noriz, Sept 29, 2006

Every day at 8am, Don Tomás Bautista leaves his small apartment in colonia Allende laden with handicrafts and Veracruz-style clothing, heading for the streets to sell his wares. People recognize him easily, clothed in the garb of his native Papantla, selling shirts and vanilla.

Don Tomás Bautista is also is a brave man—a birdman. For 41 years he has been a performer in one of the most recognized pre-Hispanic traditions in Mexico, the ceremony of the Voladores de Papantla (the flyers of Papantla). For 10 years, the Voladores have captivated tourists and locals during one of San Miguel’s main celebrations, the Alborada (dawn), which honors the patron saint of the city, Saint Michael the Archangel. The aerial spectacle, thousands of years old, originally honored the sun god and is for Don Tomás as much an ancestral rite as a thrilling display of daredevilry.

No fear of flying

“To be a volador requires something more than a desire. You need to be brave,” says Don Tomás, who learned the tradition from his uncle at the age of 13.

Don Tomás was raised by a single mother, abandoned by her husband, who worked in the field to provide shelter and food for her five children. As a child, Tomás had to leave school after second grade to work in the field cleaning bananas and oranges; when he was older, he worked digging wells for only 10 pesos a day.

“My uncle taught me to fly,” he recalled. “One day I told him that I wanted to earn some centavitos. He asked my mother’s permission, and that is how I began. You just have to lose your fear of heights and have enough nerve.” Don Tomás began practicing with a short wooden pole 12 meters high but soon graduated to the 37-meter metal pole.

Financial hardship forced Don Tomás to leave his town to travel with other voladores throughout Mexico. He journeyed to Tamaulipas, Colima, Sinaloa, Jalisco and Baja California. “We went on an adventure around the country. After flying, we asked for money from the public, and that is how we started to earn an income.”

But there have been many difficult days full of hunger and worry. Don Tomás, like his companions, had to pay for lodging and food. They were also hindered by the barrier of illiteracy, because none knew how to read or write. “A trip that I especially remember was the one that I took to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, because some people told me the pay would be good. However, I didn’t earn any money the whole week of that trip. I couldn’t eat for a week and my worried family called me. They told me one of my daughters had had an accident. I had to beg money to buy the bus ticket. My partners went with me to the bus station, but couldn’t purchase the tickets because they didn’t know how to read or write. I proudly told them I would buy them because I learned to read and write by myself.”

Don Tomás says that when he arrived in his hometown, his daughter, uninjured, opened the door. His family tricked him into returning sooner to Papantla. 

After that trip, Don Tomás traveled to Querétaro to sell craftworks. There, an American customer asked for some little drums and rattles to sell in San Miguel, and that is how Don Tomás arrived here 25 years ago.

“For me it was a blessing, because this is the way I have been able to come out ahead.” 

Dedicating almost all his time to his main source of living, the sale of Papantla shirts made by his wife and daughters, Don Tomás is a happy man. “I have my family and my work and we are well. What else can I ask?”

But Don Tomás has to face separation from his home and family, whom he visits every three weeks when he travels to Papantla to replenish his merchandise. “This is my life. Some days are sweet and some days are sour. My work is risky, and I make constant trips to Papantla and perform in the flight dance ceremony for the Saint Michael celebration, but I am not scared. I am a brave man.”


Roots of an ancestral tradition

The Papantla region of Veracruz is located near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. It is famous for being the world’s largest producer of vanilla. It is also well known for the Tajín, an archeological site of the Totonaca culture and one of the most important religious centers of Mesoamerica. The town has also gained fame because of the Voladores de Papantla, a group of four aerialists who spin and descend by ropes from a wooden pole more than 30 meters high.

The dance of Papantla originated with the Totonaca and Huastecan cultures of the mountainous zone of Veracruz, where the tradition is still alive. The dance is linked to fertility gods such as Quetzalcóatl and Tláloc, the god of water. The Voladores fly from the top of the pole tied to a rotating platform called a manzana (apple), and their rotating descent symbolizes the movement of the stars, and especially the sun.

The ritual combines music, dance and offerings. Five participants take part; four dancers and a leader, called a cacique, who dances at the top of the pole playing a flute and is in charge of directing the ceremony. The four dancers fly down with opened arms wearing suits with bird motifs. In the past, the wooden pole used to be cut by the Voladores in a special ceremony. Nowadays, many poles are metal, and the pole-cutting ritual takes place in only a few communities of Papantla.

Don Tomás explains: “We request permission from God before cutting the wood, and after cutting it with an axe we carry it to the place where we are going to install it. Later, we looked for a padrino (godfather) who will buy the offerings, as well as aguardiente (a distilled alcohol beverage), four eggs and four cigarettes. These offerings are given to the cacique, who performs the inaugural ritual.”

Before climbing the pole, the cacique offers the aguardiente to the four cardinal points; he then ascends to the top and begins to play the son del perdón (the forgiveness tune) on his flute. The four dancers climb up and sit on the manzana structure. “The cacique dances and greets the four cardinal points and salutes the sun,” explains Don Tomás. “As we dancers tie the cords around our waists and legs we ask God to forgive our faults and entrust Him with our lives. Then we all begin to descend at the same time, because at this point nobody can turn back.”

The cacique plays the flute and dances while the dancers spiral downward, making 13 turns around the pole. When the dancers have alighted, the cacique descends and plays the son de la despedida (the good-bye tune).

“It is a very beautiful tradition. To be there makes me feel free and without fear,” says Don Tomás, for whom life has been difficult, though he is still grateful. “Everything that God gives me I receive with pleasure. Thanks to Him my family, my children and I are well and have work.” 

This religious ceremony of respect and balance, this magical ritual that hypnotizes spectators, is a living tradition. “My son is a cacique,” proudly says Don Tomás, “He works in Puerto Vallarta and he is doing well. It makes me happy since he works, entertains people and at the same time preserves this important custom, as I do.”

Remembering Stirling Dickinson, San Miguel’s favorite expatriate
By John Virtue, Oct 20, 2006


Editor’s note: Stirling Dickinson was one of San Miguel’s great philanthropists; he co-founded and supported many of the city’s long-standing non-profits. On the eve of the anniversary of his death on October 27, 1998, academic and author John Virtue kindly offered Atención an exclusive excerpt from his forthcoming biography of Dickinson, The Model American Abroad.

Stirling Dickinson once accepted an invitation for Christmas Eve dinner at the home of American residents of San Miguel, only to advise them, hours before the event, that he had fallen ill and was being hospitalized.

He was released the following day after doctors found nothing wrong with him. He happily spent Christmas Day with Mexican friends. “His illness was just an excuse to miss the dinner,” said Jesús Grimaldi, principal of the Gabriela Mistral primary school and son of Stirling’s longtime housekeeper.

The contrived illness was quintessential Stirling Dickinson, who died eight years ago this month (October 27, 1998) when his van plunged down an embankment of the Salida a Querétero. Rather than risk offending the hosts by telling them he had changed his mind about the dinner, he contrived an illness as an excuse to cancel. 

A painfully shy man, Stirling felt more at ease with Mexicans than he did with most of his fellow Americans or other foreigners. When speaking his accented Spanish to Mexicans, his shyness tended to disappear. He would give them abrazos, although he was known to step back when a newly arrived American student at the Instituto Allende offered his hand to shake. He would talk to someone in English for 15 minutes, always avoiding the person’s eyes. Yet he could talk his way into Mexican fiestas when he liked the music wafting into the street. 

Stirling inherited his shyness from his father and grandfather. Grandfather William was a poor farm boy from New England who moved to Chicago, where he became a millionaire futures trader. Stirling’s father, Frank, who owned an advertising agency, called his own shyness an “allergy.” 

Born in Chicago in 1909, Stirling was an only son, brother to two younger sisters. While studying at Princeton, he made a best friend, Heath Bowman, with whom he traveled to Mexico in 1934 to research the first of three books on which they collaborated: Mexican Odyssey. Bowman wrote and Stirling illustrated. Readers in the United States during the Depression enjoyed reading about the exploits of two carefree young men who traveled throughout Mexico for six months in a green 1929 Ford Model A convertible. The book went into multiple printings.

After writing a second book on South America, they decided to tackle a novel set in Mexico. Looking for a cheap place to live while researching and writing, they chose San Miguel. They arrived before daybreak on February 7, 1937. At the Jardín, Stirling looked up at the spires of the Parroquia poking through the mist. “My God, what a sight!” he said to himself. “I’m going to stay here.”

For $90 Stirling and Bowman bought part of the ruins of an old tannery on Santo Domingo street where they fashioned a house they christened Los Pocitos. After publishing their novel, Death Is Incidental, Bowman married and Stirling purchased his share in the house. 

A lifelong bachelor, Stirling believed that artists should live an ascetic life—and that’s what he did in Los Pocitos. He slept on a narrow bed in a room suitable for a monk. Although he had a housekeeper, he insisted on preparing his own Spartan meals. He never installed a telephone of his own, using that of the housekeeper. Some residents who knew Stirling from his earliest days and saw how he lived had no idea that he was a millionaire through inheritance.

Yet the town’s humble Mexicans sensed that he might help them, so they started to drop by. He never turned anyone away. Those who needed medical attention he’d send with a chit to Dr. Francisco (Paco) Olsina. If medicine was needed, Olsina would give out a chit for the Santa Teresita pharmacy. If the person died, another chit would be given for the López funeral home. At the end of the month, Stirling would honor the chits. He did this anonymously. 

Stirling paid for the education of many poor sanmiguelenses and contributed to the schools where they studied. “There’s not a school in San Miguel that doesn’t owe something to señor Dickinson,” said Esteban González, principal of the Leobino Zavala Camarena primary and high school. Stirling had funded his studies.

Although Stirling did postgraduate art studies at the Art Institute of Chicago and France’s L’Ecole d’Art Américaine du Palais de Fontainebleau, he realized that his artistic talents would never place him in the top tier of artists.

So he was amenable to an offer made by Peruvian artist Felipe Cossio del Pomar to become director in 1938 of San Miguel’s first art school, the Escuela Universitaria de Bellas Artes, located in the former convent that houses the present Bellas Artes. 

Probably the most important legislation to affect San Miguel was not passed by Mexico’s Congress but by that of the United States: the GI Bill. Under it, thousands of veterans of World War II received free education. The first handful of GIs arrived in 1946 to study at the art school. By the end of 1947, their presence in San Miguel was so notable that Life magazine assigned a reporter and photographer to do an article. A three-page spread appeared in the January 5, 1948, edition under the headline “GI Paradise: Veterans go to Mexico to study art, live cheaply and have a good time.” This was possible when apartments rented for US$10 a month, servants cost US$8 a month, rum was 65 cents a quart and cigarettes cost 10 cents a package.

As a result of the publicity, more than 6,000 American veterans immediately applied to study at the school. Stirling thought that San Miguel, which then had a population of fewer than 10,000, could only handle another 100 veterans, bringing the student body to around 140.

The ex-GIs were more demanding than previous students, so David Alfaro Siqueiros, an icon of the Mexican mural movement and a vocal member of the Communist Party, was hired as a guest lecturer. He agreed to work with the students on a mural of San Miguel’s most famous son, Ignacio Allende. When Siqueiros went over budget, he and the art school’s owner, Alfredo Campanella, had a falling out and the artist threw him down a flight of stairs. 

The faculty and the majority of the students then walked out in support of Siqueiros. When this forced the school to close in 1949, Stirling opened one of his own. But it did not receive accreditation from the American Embassy, so most of the veterans either went home or transferred to other Mexican schools.

Campanella subsequently launched a campaign against Stirling and his faculty—including the current dean of San Miguel artists, Leonard Brooks, who’ll be an active 95 next month—that resulted in their deportation as communists in 1950. Faced with the threat under Article 33 of the Constitution of never being allowed to return to Mexico, they contacted Mexican friends, including Siqueiros, and managed to get the deportation order lifted. 

The Instituto Allende was about to open, so Stirling closed his school and became art director of the new one. But he was unable to shake the accusation that he was a communist. Before the decade was out, Time magazine and the New York Herald Tribune published almost identical McCarthy-era articles saying that exiled American communists used Stirling’s home as a meeting place. Stirling sought the help of the prestigious Chicago law firm of Wilson & McIlvaine, which had a long connection with the Dickinson family. A threatened lawsuit brought apologies from both publications and a statement from Stirling in the minutes of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee that he had never been a communist. The subcommittee’s counsel had been the source of the news stories.

Stirling had been worried that the publicity would adversely affect the Instituto Allende, where he taught as well as ran the art department. Like so many shy people, Stirling was an excellent teacher. He taught Spanish, botany and landscape painting.

But he was best known for his “Aspects of Mexico” course that combined lectures and field trips. He wanted the foreign students to see the Mexico and the Mexicans that he so loved.

Over the years, Stirling became famous for his outrageous masquerades, on display at two annual events: Los Locos parade and a charity costume ball. Stirling’s most controversial— if not most successful—appearance was at one of the balls. Six Mexicans arrived with a casket, placed it on a table and lifted the lid. Out poured the singing of Enrico Caruso and up popped Stirling, disguised as the Italian opera singer. On another occasion, he was a Viking, long hair and beard, gnawing on a bone and dragging a young child—a mannequin—by the hair. He was a towering Goth wearing skins and buffalo horns. He once went as a bearded sheik. He appeared as Abraham Lincoln and even in blackface as basketball star Michael Jordan. 

Stirling had two great loves: his baseball team, which he founded in 1938 and managed until 1987, and his orchids. The team once won 84 consecutive games.

He was always vocal during the games, shouting encouragement in Spanish at his ballplayers: ¡Por favor! ¡Por el amor de Dios! ¡Chispas! ¿Porqué? ¡Dále duro! ¡Sigamos adelante! When the team was short a man, he inserted himself in the lineup. He played his last game when he was in his fifties.

On the 50th anniversary of his arrival in San Miguel, the local baseball field he helped to build was officially inaugurated. He didn’t want it named after him, but it inevitably became known as Campo Stirling Dickinson, Stirling Dickinson Field. 

Stirling helped the ballplayers in one way or another, usually financially. Most of their houses were purchased or built with Stirling’s help. He bought furniture and stoves. One player aspired to be a taxi driver, so Stirling bought him a car.

Stirling also used the ballplayers to help him find orchids. He’d drive into the countryside with three or four players in the back of his pickup truck.

As he got older, he had the players climb the trees to fetch the orchids.

Stirling had what was probably the largest private orchid collection in Mexico. 

He discovered a new orchid that bears his name—Encyclia dickinsoniana—and a second was named after him in recognition of his work: Cypripedium dickinsonianum.

When Stirling resigned in 1983 as president of the Instituto Allende, he thought he’d have more time to dedicate to his orchids. He was wrong. The library, which he had helped found, asked him to take over its “rural library program,” under which books were donated to outlying schools. At the time, the library had 85 schools on its list. Stirling got in his Dodge pickup truck and soon the program expanded to 300 schools. Until his death, he made three to five trips a week during the school year, determined to help those who lived in the interior as he had done for humble sanmiguelenses.

Working with the Patronato Pro Niños, which he financially helped, he identified children who needed medical and dental attention and brought them into town for treatment. He measured up to a thousand pair of feet per year and returned with shoes, sometimes the first footwear the children owned.

In 1942, after just five years in San Miguel, Stirling had been named a Favored Adopted Son, the only time the mayor’s office has so honored an American resident. Two years later, he was honored by the governor for his work with young Mexicans, a result of his founding the baseball team.

After his death, his baseball players launched a successful campaign to have a street named after him. Then they raised funds for the bust located on the corner of Stirling Dickinson street. 

One day when an American visitor was passing the corner in a taxi, he asked the driver if he had known Stirling. “I didn’t know him, but my father did,” he replied. “He told me that Esteerling Deekenson built San Miguel, not just the houses but the sky and earth itself.”



Dickinson biography due in 2007

John Virtue’s biography of Stirling Dickinson, The Model American Abroad, is scheduled to be published next year by Windstorm Creative of Port Orchard, Washington. It’s the final book in what Virtue calls his “San Miguel Trilogy.” The first biography was Reva and Leonard Brooks, which came out in 2001. The second is Brother in the Shadows, a biography of Canadian painter Fred Taylor, who lived in San Miguel from 1958 to 1987. McGill-Queen’s University Press plans to publish it next year. Taylor was a communist and his brother, E.P., was Canada’s leading businessman in the forties, fifties and sixties.

Virtue is the director of the International Media Center at Florida International University in Miami. A native of Canada, he spent 17 years in Latin America as a foreign correspondent and executive for United Press International, the last six based in Mexico City. He and his wife, Anna, started to weekend in San Miguel in 1977 in order to give their young son’s lungs a respite from the smog of Mexico City.

Prior to joining Florida International University, Virtue was executive editor from 1982 to 1987 of the daily newspaper El Mundo in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He resigned on a point of ethical principle without having a job lined up. This experience helped when he started to give ethics workshops on behalf of the university, eventually in 16 Latin American countries, including Mexico.

He is currently completing the manuscript of a book titled Finding Equality in Mexico. It deals with the role the Mexican Baseball League played in hastening the breaking of the color barrier in the major leagues in 1947. During the previous decade, over 100 players from the Negro Leagues in the United States played in the integrated Mexican League.

His e-mail is virtuej@fiu.edu 

A year of magnificent images with the Garden Club calendar
By Atención staff, Oct 6, 2006

The colorful and elegant Garden Club calendar for 2007, featuring fabulous photographs of picturesque San Miguel streets, culture and festivals, is now available through Garden Club members and at various locations throughout San Miguel. 

The calendar is produced by the Garden Club of San Miguel de Allende, an organization with nearly 40 years of promoting local interest in flowers, plants, gardens and floral arranging in support of civic, beautification and educational projects.

Cover, “El Grito” by Linda Ericksen Linda, a full-time resident of SMA for 18 months, used a Panasonic Lumix camera

January, “Going Home” by Fran Schiavo Fran, a professional photographer and one-year resident, used an Olympus camera

February, “The Bells of Santo Domingo” by Murray Friedman  Murray, a retired family physician and 2½-year resident, used a Nikon 5700 Coolpix camera

March, “The Doll Maker” by Lulu Torbet Lulu, a professional writer, swapped her pen for a Canon EOS Digital Rebel camera for this shot

April, “Las Niñas de Semana Santa” by Patrice Wynne Patrice, a five-year resident and photographer and designer, used a Nikon 4500 for this Semana Santa image

May, “Two Musicians” by Cory Gray Cory, a part-time resident of SMA for over 23 years, took this photograph of the Festival del Maíz with a Fuji Finepix

June, “Day of the Locos” by Sallie Kravetz Sallie, an amateur photographer and frequent visitor, used a point-and-shoot Canon camera to capture one of the city’s favorite festivals

July, “El Charco” by Fran Schiavo Fran, who also contributed the January photograph, used a Nikon to capture the beauty of the city’s botanical gardens

August, “San Miguel Vista” by Sandy Baum Sandy, a full-time resident of SMA for the past two years, is an accomplished pilot who enjoys aerial photography with a Nikon 8700 Coolpix

September, “Alborado” by Angel Miguel Reyes A true sanmiguelense, the 21-year-old Angel Miguel is an amateur photographer and student, and perhaps a future Garden Club member!

October, “Castillos” by Jon Sievert Jon is a full-time resident, and though once a professional photographer now enjoys more casual photographic opportunities using a Canon digital camera

November, “Day of the Dead” by Jim Fix Jim, a frequent visitor to SMA, used a Kodak 6.1 Megapixel to capture this colorful religious national tradition

December, “Bells of the Parroquia and Boys” by Suzie Harriman  Suzie, a part-time resident of SMA, began photography with a Kodak Brownie camera at age 8 but now prefers a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20-5 Megapixel digital with 430-mm focal length Leica zoom lens

The calendar is not only beautiful and practical, providing holidays and space to annotate daily activities, it makes a great souvenir or gift for family and friends. All proceeds directly benefit San Miguel through beautification and educational projects supported by the Garden Club. Look for the calendar at Casa de Papel, Border Crossings, La Conexión, Solutions, Sollano 16, Casa Luna, and Villa Jacaranda. For more information call Dorothy Ponder at 155–8179 or Louise McGann at 154-5081.









Revelations of the heart of Frida
By Suzanne Ludekens, Sept 15, 2006

My love for you will become a myth, a legend.… They all loved you and you despised them all and Frida more.… But I am not poor and you don’t despise me…I am great, because loving you the way I love, not many love as I love you…. I am Frida Kahlo

The Heart of Frida exhibit

Tuesday–Friday, 9:30am–2pm, 4:30–7pm

Saturday, 10:30am–2pm, 4:30–8pm

Sunday, 11:30am–3pm

Gallery at Casa Maxwell, Umarán 3 & Canal 14, upper leve1, 152-6551

50 pesos

Can anything new be discovered about Mexico’s most famous artist, Frida Kahlo? Since the publication of Hayden Herrera’s biography of Frida Kahlo in 1983, an international best-seller, Kahlo and her art have taken on legendary proportions. Her face and artwork appear on every imaginable item, from t-shirts and shopping bags to fridge magnets. Her life—tortured by physical pain and tormented by her deep love for her husband, muralist Diego Rivera—is the subject of films, theater productions and even musicals. Her work has inspired numerous imitations in the art world. Yet there remains more to discover of her, and there is now a unique opportunity in San Miguel to pursue personal insights into the life and work of this exceptional and intricately self-aware woman.

On the top floor of the 16th-century building that is home to the store Casa Maxwell is “The Heart of Frida”—the new, private gallery presenting an exclusive exhibit of original love letters and drawings by Frida Kahlo. The exhibit comprises six ink drawings and the remarkable contents of a small wooden box of 37 articles, including 8 letters in self-addressed envelopes, 27 notes and 2 postcards. The love letters and notes offer a passionate view of the main themes of Kahlo’s life—her health, politics and above all her love for Diego.

Finding the heart of Frida

San Miguel residents Graeme and Joanne Howard acquired the collection in September 2005 and immediately found themselves immersed in the world of Kahlo. “The collection was Graeme’s dream,” recalls Joanne. “He would spend all day in his office going over the pieces, he was so involved.”

The exploration of the letters took the couple on a privileged journey into the world of Mexican art and culture. They met art historians, translators and even ex-students of Kahlo in preparation for creating the gallery. From the moment Graeme purchased the drawings and the letters contained in a small, decorated wooden box with “Coyocan, Frida Kahlo, 1950” painted on the inside of the lid, he envisioned a public exhibit of the works. “I sensed that this collection was private,” said Graeme. “That it was not meant to be public, unlike her diary that was always kept on her bedside for all to see, and that it held enormous value for residents and tourists of San Miguel.”

Since September 19, 2005, when Graeme took possession of the letters, he worked with several translators to find the most accurate interpretation of the pieces. For three months Graeme worked with Carlos Vasquez, who transcribed the pieces and faced the arduous task of interpreting Kahlo’s language to create an English translation. More time passed as James Frey, Nitza Ruiz, Pakina Lagenscheidt, Elena Brown and Kris Kegel reviewed the translations.

Reproductions of the letters, notes and drawings were collected in the book The Wounded Eagle: The Courage and Creativity of Frida Kahlo to document the collection and to begin authentication.

Fernando Diaz, a San Miguel gallery owner and art history professor at the National Institute of Bellas Artes (INBA), put Graeme in contact with Mexico City artist Arturo García Bustos, who was one of Kahlo’s students—one of “Los Fridos.” García followed Kahlo to paint with her at her home after poor health forced her to give up teaching at the public art school La Esmeralda in 1943. A renowned and highly respected painter, García authenticated the collection early in 2006.

García wrote about the collection: “I can express…my observations about the authenticity of this material because during that time it was possible for me to get to know her unique personality, writing and her pictorial techniques ….

I am pleased to be able to affirm and place my reputation upon 43 authentic pieces of the twentieth century artist of great importance, Frida Kahlo, for which purpose this letter of authenticity attests the originality of these pictorial works, notes, letters and writings that make up the portfolio ‘The Wounded Eagle.’”

An emotional journey of love and pain

According to biographer Herrera, “Frida’s intelligence and humor shone through those eyes; they … revealed her mood: devouring, bewitching, or skeptical and withering.” Those very moods are reflected in the poetic content of the letters and notes of the exhibit. But don’t expect sweet expressions of undying love; the sentiments range from explosive sensual passion to caustic impulsive accusations of betrayal. Exposing the tormented depths of Frida’s love for her husband, these secret documents reveal her complex nature filled with ambiguities and contradiction and disclose other aspects of this woman who lived her life with such intensity that it renders our lives pale in comparison. 

Kris Kegel, the manager of the exhibition, pointed out that the pieces are categorized in two sections: “Secret Drawings” and “Secret Letters.”

Several of the Secret Drawings are on the back of losing lottery tickets, testimony to Frida’s love of popular Mexican culture and depicting her portrait as an impaled butterfly or a crippled eagle. The juxtaposition with her note “The Earthquake” suggests a cascading, sensual passion that ends with the bitter accusation that she made a person of Diego—as she tells him he will sink in a tide of evil. Throughout the exhibit, the pieces move the viewer through powerful emotions, making it both an artistic experience and a highly charged emotional experience.

The pieces in the “Secret Letters” show Frida’s sadness, confusion and anger with irony and powerful suffering—of how Kahlo came close to being “murdered by life.”

Entrance fees directly support the Red Cross emergency service and will be used to increase staff salaries and hire more desperately needed staff. To make online reservations, visit www.Frida2007.com 

Marin’s enchanted forests... and transcendent trees
By Peter Leventhal, (June 2, 2006)

What makes the move in an artistic career, let us say, from the expected to the unexpected? In what moment does the artist, when it happens, if it does happen, produce transcendent images?

When before the images, no matter how beguiling, or even moving, held fast to the prosaic, what turns them into the deepest and most significant aspect of art-making, that which takes us out of ourselves? To us, the sense of cosmic destiny brings with it a solace that is the last and lasting solace we can hold to.

We simply cannot say. Magic pervades art. What comes to us as artists is always a gift. We enter the profession as seekers, with an obdurate will to make it ours. When it comes to us, it is because our will has cracked, because of fatigue, or frustration or affliction.

In that moment some presentiment arrives from a place that is not ours. It fixes in our work, giving us opportunity. 

The tree figures in the work of Mari José Marin are the locus of her imagery. Her trees have always had a totemic quality. They are the trees of the clan Mari Marin. Somewhere, somehow, in the last few years, these totemic trees have been distilled into images in which the essence becomes more potent. The images confront us with their strange power, accept us into their scheme of adhering all the aspects of living a life in a single form: sickness and hope, the void of comprehension and sudden universal insight, memory and forgetfulness. Something came as a gift to Mari José Marin and changed her work into a compelling, expressive enterprise.

I am not an aficionado of the reductive. Some might look at the progression of Marin’s trees and say she has stripped them, or reduced them to their essence, but I look and say she has internalized what was outside. When it was outside it had a decorative profession. Inside, it has an expressive intention of phenomenal power. And now there is no longer inside or outside in these images, but a seamless potent scheme of singular fused events.

Offerings for your altar
By Maria Teresa Valenzuela, Oct 27, 2006

Photographs & personal items

Family photographs and objects of value to the departed give the dead the feeling of being back home again. The dead care about the material things of their former life and are comforted by their favorite possessions. Just as in life, each soul has a bit of vanity and wants to be admired during the fiesta.

Flowers & incense

Flowers are the most representative element of the offerings. A floral carpet leads the souls back home, while the cempasúchil (yellow marigold) is believed to carry the smell of death. A copal incense burner is placed in the center as the pungent woody aroma of the copal leads the departed to the Ofrenda. 

Candles

The flame of the candle lights the way to guide the deceased soul home. Candles decorated with ribbons are placed on the altar, one candle for each deceased family member. As each candle is lit the names of the departed are called out, as if to say “Come back home, my dearest, your family awaits you.” 

Food & Drink

In ancient Aztec culture souls returned once a year seeking nourishment and community, finding their way back home by the scent of their favorite foods. It is believed that the soul tastes the food through the smells and that the spirit consumes the essence of the meal. When the spirit has consumed its fill of the meal, the food and drinks are then shared with relatives and visiting friends.

A glass of water is always set out for the soul to quench its thirst and alcoholic beverages are to remind the soul of good times past.

The names of the departed are often written on the sugar skulls, but Mexicans also write the names of the living, to remind us all of life’s fragility. 

Papel Picado

Curtains of papel de china picado are hung behind the altar in designs cutout with skeletons, flowers, birds, and coffins. The purple color represents mourning, and hot pink or bright orange signify the joyful return of the departed to the land of the living.






Loving to Read
By Vicki Gundrum, Aug 11, 2006

Memoirs and biographies

“You must remember this: a kiss is just a …kiss”—but memories are fallible, and so we rely on memoirists to approximate a “memorable” experience and talented, dogged biographers to research and then write about the lives of others.

Richard Nixon wrote to the young Caroline and John Kennedy, Jr. that when they grew older they would probably start reading biographies. I don’t know whether this prophecy came to pass, but my own reading path didn’t lead me to biographies until I reached a more seasoned age. Chick-lit and depression memoirs appeal to a younger crowd. 

Dr. Peter Kramer, in his new book Against Depression, coins a term for the depression memoir: “autopathologies.” He hates them because he thinks they romanticize depression, which discourages young people from getting help for their depression.

I think he makes a good point. When I saw the movie Girl, Interrupted—based on an autobiography of a girl in a mental institution—it was easy to imagine that some girls in the movie audience would want to run home and act out like the wild, gorgeous and crazy Angelina Jolie did in the movie.

Other specialized memoir categories include prison memoirs, Holocaust memoirs, illness memoirs, travel memoirs, coming-of-age memoirs, coming-out memoirs, memoirs of the work experience or of another “role,” memoirs of “other-ness” (such as memoirs of cultural outsiders).

One of the most recent memoir scams involves James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces: Oprah recommended it for her book club, which always leads to best-seller status, and it turned out that this “memoir” is composed of a million little lies. Thinking about this debacle makes me jealous about the best-seller money and glad Frey got caught for misrepresenting the story behind the story, and I wonder whether other would-be liars are now more afraid to do the same, fearing they too could get caught. Oprah had something to learn—she initially defended Frey by saying his lying didn’t matter. In a telephoned statement to Larry King Live Oprah said that what mattered was not the truth of Frey’s book but its value as a therapeutic tool for addicts. Oprah took many readers on her journey of changing her mind—concluding that the truth does matter—so she has redeemed herself and to me remains one of two heroes in encouraging reading in our times (the other being J. K. Rowling of the “Harry Potter” series).

James Frey is a bald-faced liar. It is also true that most truth is relative. I am writing my own memoir about associations with outlaws and sometimes pretend to entertain an approach opposite to Frey’s:

writing a truth and then calling it a lie—so no one can accuse me of complicity in mischievous deeds, so the truly guilty can remain anonymous to their own families, and because I am not really sure just what the hell is true and not true—because I am writing about a bunch of liars. 

I think all memoirs contain truths and lies, and all novels contain lies and truths. (This is not to excuse Frey, whose lying was deliberate and designed to make money.) We tell stories about ourselves to boast, to blame, to exorcise demons—but the writer is often mercifully unaware of these spins.

The novelist John Desfrene has entitled his guide to novel writing The Lie That Tells the Truth. He recognizes one value of novels to readers: novels uniquely elucidate some truths about life that without this form might not reach ripe expression. As I continue my memoir, I find I am taking it further from the absolute truth, sacrificing that to better clarity of expression (and to increase the fun quotient). So, in my publishing fantasy, I now envision a from-the-foreword sentence that reads “based on a true story” replacing the previous fantasy line of “a true story.” How many detours from the remembered, so-called truth does one take to go from “true” to “based on truth” to “inspired by a true story”? At the speed at which I’m converting to invention to enhance the storytelling in my memoir, the last chapter could segue into science fiction, which seems a reasonable possibility because I begin this closing chapter by running away to Mexico—to me an entirely alien world.

Novelist Michael Ondaatje is a master of the power, and even truth, of poetic license. He includes this quotation in a notes section that ends his novelistic biography of jazz cornet player Billy Bolden, Coming to Slaughter: “While I have used real names and characters and historical situations, I have also used more personal pieces…. There have been some date changes, some characters brought together, and some facts have been expanded or polished to suit the truth of fiction.”

One of my favorite books of the last few years is Dancer: A Novel, by Colum McCann. This is a fictionalized biography of Nureyev. I couldn’t tell when reading it how much was invented. I suppose I will need to read a real biography to do a comparison, but that might not be as much fun as reading this book was. And, depending on the skill of the biographer, it might not so strongly evoke a feeling for the life of Nureyev for a reader.

I recall reading one depression memoir: William Styron’s Darkness Visible. It was a best-seller in its day and a true story about the author’s depression. I was clinically depressed once and I can tell you that book is accurate but a dead book: The book is depressed, as certainly its author was. The book—unlike others, both other memoirs and novels—fails to express the experience of depression as a profound disturbance.

Why has writing even come to an exploration of the minutiae of relative truth? I think it stems from publishing marketers who strive for labels, combined with two contradictory lessons that writers-in-training receive: write what you know and don’t turn your back on a good imagination. It’s time for a third lesson: It takes a good writer’s imagination to compose an autobiography or memoir. Writers choose their details in the telling of a true story, striving to cook up a palatable mix from the pain, humor and sorrow—the truly telling bits of a life.

Next week’s issue will include an annotated list of notable memoirs and biographies in the Biblioteca Pública’s collection.

Vicki Gundrum serves on the English Language Materials Subcommittee of the library and can be reached at vgundrum@earthlink.net.

Cruz del Palmar: The world’s greatest travel bargain?
By Robert de Gast, July 28, 2006

Normally, my column appears in the photography section, so I never thought I would be giving a bus schedule, but here it is:

From San Miguel to Cruz del Palmar, daily:

8am; 11:30am; 2:30pm; 5:20pm

From Cruz del Palmar to San Miguel, daily:

6:30am; 9:30am; 1pm; 4pm; 6:30pm



So, where is Cruz del Palmar, and why would one want to go there? Cruz del Palmar, with a population of about a thousand souls, is the third largest community in the municipio, the county, of San Miguel, after San Miguel proper and Los Rodriguez. As the crow flies, it is about six miles from San Miguel. As the bus rattles, it’s about twice as long, and takes about an hour. But the price is right: eight pesos. You’ll cross several streams, get to see miles of countryside, and if you pay attention, a half dozen chapels, some abandoned.

For photographers without a car, it is a chance to experience the campo around our fair city and visit a typical community. The bus leaves from the Calzada de la Luz, between Animas and Loreto, and it leaves en punto, right on time, just like the bullfight. And at times the bucking of the bus will remind you of a bullfight.

Part of the trip is made on a paved road, and part on an abandoned railroad track, but the rest of the voyage is made, if not on the road from hell, then on the road from purgatory. Although the driver knows every rut, dimple, and tope, you won’t be able to read, and taking pictures from the moving bus is nearly impossible, although the windows can be opened and the scenery, in places, is interesting. Except for the earliest and latest buses, they are usually crowded with old men wearing hats, young women wearing ponytails, and beautiful children wearing smiles. 

If you want to make pictures during the trip, in the bus or from the bus (the windows slide open), be sure to choose the highest possible shutter speed by selecting “S” or “Tv” (for “time value”) or that funny little icon that looks like a running man on some cameras to ensure that the bounce from the bus won’t translate into blurry photographs. This is when you begin to think you should have bought that camera with the image stabilization option.

Looking at the bus schedule, it becomes clear that if you miss the return bus you’ll have a three-hour wait on your hands, something you probably won’t want to consider. Still, in the half hour you’ll have before the bus turns around you can walk around and take pictures.

The village is small and poor, has a couple of stores and friendly people. The parish church is beautiful and usually open. Don’t miss the 14 stone benches in the atrium of the church, which are decorated in mysterious, and colorful, Aztec symbols. If the church is not open, a few pesos for the caretaker, who is never far from his job, will solve the problem. But watch the clock and be sure to tell the driver that you intend to ride back with him! 

Cruz del Palmar is not the only bus destination available from San Miguel. Buses go to or near virtually every one of the hundreds of pueblos, none more than a dozen miles from Centro.

Some leave from the Calzada de la Luz (to Atotonilco, always called Santuario; Las Cañas; Pueblo Viejo; and others); some from El Puente de Guanajuato, near the end of calle Canal (to Cieneguita or Cabras); or from Puente Umarán, the street in front of the Ignacio Ramírez Market to (Santas Marias or Corral de Piedras). It pays to get the latest schedule from the drivers. Take the bus and leave the driving to…them.


Robert de Gast leads photography workshops and offers short, private tutorials. He can be reached at 152-7396 or via email: robertdegast@hotmail.com 

A Single Man’s Kitchen
By Jeremy Goodwin, July 21, 2006

Scarlet sauce and love letters

I would like to take this opportunity to share a tale of true love.

Just before Christmas two years ago, we were catering parties for corporate bigwigs in Houston. One of my coworkers was a five-foot bundle of irrepressible energy; Connie, cute, skinny and in her mid-50s, was looking for Mister Right, but at the time she was content with Mister Right Now.

She had recently bought her dream house and was decorating the bathroom walls with postcards from exotic places around the world.

She asked me if I could get my brother, who lives in the highlands of Scotland, to send her some cards for her bathroom wall. Peter was living alone in a cottage on the Bamff Estate, just outside Alyth in Perthshire. He had been married, but his wife had died a couple of years previously, leaving him adrift and unaccustomed to the social whirl. He agreed to send a couple of cards to Connie, and being unwilling to leave the back blank, wrote something witty. Whatever he wrote must have caught Connie’s attention, and she replied. Over the following 18 months, they emailed each other and exchanged the stories of their lives. For some unknown reason, they never got around to speaking on the phone. 

Two months ago, Connie landed at Edinburgh Airport, clutching in her sweaty hands a photo of the man she knew only from his prose. She was hoping it would help her identify the person with whom she was about to spend the next eight days.

At the moment that they met, the world became a better place.

They climbed hills, biked the back roads, planted a vegetable garden together, and relearned the meaning of joy.

When it came time for Connie to leave, they realized that they could not stand to live apart, and even the thought of separation hurt. Connie is back in Houston, 4,500 miles away from happiness, but she is selling her dream house, applying for a visa, and preparing to abandon her life in America.

You may have coasted through your middle years, not necessarily numb, but lacking in enthusiasm, with your emotions muted. When true love finds you after decades of absence, it is like being 19 again. Both Connie and Peter are walking around with silly grins on their faces and seem to be getting younger every day. The only fault I can find is that their happiness may remind the rest of us of what we are missing.

Thankfully Connie does not have any of the more common complications that many people adopt. She has no allergies, no aversion to strange foods, or troublesome squeamishness. It is very fortunate, because much of the food served at Bamff Estate is game—pheasant, partridge, hare and rabbit—much of which is left to age in an unheated room at the back of the cottage. It is an unfortunate fact that after a while, even the diversity of flavors offered by game may become mundane.

As the French are wont to state, the sauce is the base of the dish, and I invented this to add a little variety and a lot of color. Anybody familiar with the local markets will have seen many different types of cactus fruits for sale. The taste and texture varies, but they all have a common disadvantage—there are too many seeds. Tunas, or the prickly pear fruit, may be mild in taste, but they are seriously red. They are really suited for making a brilliant sauce that will make your most simple food seem exotic. The sauce is really simple to make and can be finished a number of different ways. The recipe above uses butter, but you can finish the sauce with heavy cream or coconut milk for different tastes. The coconut milk will give a sweet finish, the cream a sharper profile, and the butter gives a very smooth feel in the mouth.

Cactus fruit sauce

4–5 ripe cactus fruits (tunas)

1/2 cup sweet red vermouth

1 tablespoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons unsalted butter (room temperature)

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon cayenne (or a fresh hot pepper)

1 bay leaf



Throw everything except the butter into a saucepan and bring it to a boil. If you need to, add a little water to cover the fruit. Simmer gently for about 10 minutes. Allow the fluid to cool and then strain it into a new pan. 

Bring the strained juice to a boil and cook until you have reduced the volume by about half. When the sauce begins to thicken a little, add the butter and stir it until the desired consistency is achieved, a little thinner than a classic gravy. Allow the sauce to cool for five minutes before serving.

When serving a sauce finished with butter, it is advisable to warm the plates to prevent the sauce from congealing.

Jeremy Goodwin is an author, freelance food writer and owner of The Best Kept Secret. He may be contacted at: jeremy@dcnet2000.com.