Stuff

…but I’m filling me time. I’m trying to reign in the scrabble, boggle and moviegoing and just do stuff i won’t be able to do in a couple of months, like wandering round soaking up the mexicanidad with me camera(s).

On Tuesday Sita came back from the States, Colorado Springs sounds like a nice neck of the woods, fingers crossed and all that. I had me photography class and then we went to CosCafe. On Wednesday I went to the Mercado de Abastos and Jose came round in the evening. Yesterday i caught up with Boxer at his hamburger stand and then went to take some photos of the Hospicio Cabañas for a postcard competition they´ve got going, then a few beers in La Fuente and catching up with Javier. Time is flying by at a dizzying pace. Tomorrow Fernando´s grilling for us round his house…

Ooh, and i was made an “officer” for Ros´s Facebook group “You know you´re from Somerset when…” . My tagline: Bringing the sombrero to the South West…

If things are quiet at this blog, might I suggest a visit to me photoblog, which I´m still managing to update more or less daily.

CUANDO LA MUJER SE SACA EL MELATE (Mexican Lottery)

Una mujer llega a casa muy apresuradamente, rechina las llantas de su auto en la entrada, corre dentro de la casa tirando las puertas y grita a todo pulmón a su marido:

‘Apúrate!! Empaca tus maletas!! ¡¡Me gané el Melaaaaateee!!!!!!!!!’

-El marido responde entusiasmado:

‘¡¡¡Dios mío!!!…. ¿¿¿Qué debo empacar??? ¿ropa de playa o de montaña?

Ella responde…

-¡No importa pendejo!!!!. ¡¡¡¡Solo empaca y LARGATE A LA CHINGADA!!!!

…it´s this one. Even better than I thought, 7 megapixels, wide angle and various other bells and whistles, just what I needed for when my bulky but lovely Pentax DSLR is overkill. It’s charging now and then I’ll wander off and try it out. Tomorrow I get me mugshot in the paper and I reckon a fair few Flickr peeps will also have their photo published too.

I bought a tripod the other day as Day of the Dead is when you really need a steady camera to take long exposure night pictures. Here´s one from Myrna´s house of the altar she made for her mum.

I watched Carlos Reygada’s latest yesterday, Luz Silenciosa, which is a relatively restrained film about the Mennonites in the North of Mexico. Very nice photography in it, but not really my cup of tea. By a long way. Frankly, I’d rather read a book of the pictures than have to bear 2 hours or so of very, very slow moving plot. Luckily Jose, Javier and Franz came round to provide a commentary throughout. Without that I’d’ve been asleep after 15 minutes. No gerontophilia this time, and that is something to be thankful for. After watching Japon I badly needed the mind bleach. I just looked at the IMDB page, one user has the perfect one-line review: “Art-house pretension at its most tedious” Amen to that.

Sita’s being interviewed today in america, and I haven’t heard from her today yet but yesterday she seemed well impressed with the place. It’s in the foothills of the Rockies, so that means I have no clue where she is. Upper Left Gringolandia? Looking forward to a phone call later…

Thanks Amy, Mum, OneWay and Flash for the congrats. I pick up me camera on Monday.

If you´re wondering where I´ve been and why the hell I aint been posting these last few days, check out the latest Day of the Dead related several hundred pictures on Flickr…

as per always, but I’m trying to fit in as much day of the dead nonsense as possible in our last few weeks. So today I went for a wander round the Mezquitan cemetary and am off in a matter of seconds to a display of altars in Casa Vallarta, then tomorrow morning bright and early I’m off with Javier and Ofelia to Patzcuaro to get a taste of the day of the dead Michoacan style. It’s non stop and I’m loving it!

Then to cap it all, I just won a camera for the aforementioned photo competition (see below and comments). Suffice to say I’m smiling even though my laptop’s about to give up the ghost. Aptly enough.

I’m well chuffed, one of the pix I sent to a local newspaper got printed today. Mine’s the top left one:

The competition is ongoing for a year and there’s cameras and holidays in Cancun to be won. Details in hungover Spanish here.

I can´t get my head around the time change yet and have been up for a while… Anyroad, just a quick post to thank Jana and Victor for hosting the pumpkin carving soirée yesterday, which was good clean innocent fun despite the Satanic connotations. And plentiful booze. Pumpkin carving is not really a big thing here, but there´s a host of other traditions available related to the Day of the Dead which I hope to be photographing over the next few days.