For reasons I may go into another time in more depth, today I had to go, in person, to some government offices downtown to prove that the bloke who owes 3 years of road taxes or somesuch doesn’t live here anymore. There was threats from bailiffs involved and this was the third warning apparently… Anyroad, Long story short, I sorted it out and went to McDonalds as I felt I’d earned it. And I’m glad I did because I took this here photo. I’m fairly near certain you don’t get a molcajete full of green chiles coming as standard in other McParts of the world…
My first bullfight for the record. Still analysing my feelings on whether to go again… It’s a tricky one. I really enjoyed it on the one hand and feel there’s tons to learn about the long history and culture of the bullfight, on the other hand it does have many barbaric moments. But as a carnivore it would be hypocritical to condemn it. Before yesterday I’d never seen an animal die. Let alone 6 huge beasts in a row at extremely close quarters…
Pahrump, Nevada is where one of Sita’s aunts set up shop a couple of years ago. It’s basically a weird martian landscape with scattered casinos, incongruous golf courses and enormous industrially air-conditioned houses with gardens full of gravel and cacti (see photo). Anyroad, this article on a new law they just passed banning foreign flags does not bode well for its political future. Reminds me of when the kids in my Spanish class in California told me off for having flags from Spain, Chile, Mexico and the UK but not the stars and stripes. They’re only flags for christ’s sake…
Just to another part of the city (near Plaza Bonita) but after a hastily put together excel spreadsheet of cost-benefit analysis decided against it… taking into account cancelling/recontracting services, removal vans, deposits, and the all important 4 extra flights of stairs it would have resulted in a grand saving of 30 bucks a month. Also there was no area for a BBQ, it would have been nice to have a bath though. Especially with waterjets. Oh the luxury. I would have needed to figure out how to waterproof the laptop though.
Anyway, deciding not to move, this month at least, is a HUGE weight off my mind. I’ve only got one more week in the big city before the US, UK jaunt kicks in which pretty much puts me out of action for a few weeks and after all the fun with plumbers, cleaners and fridge repairers in the last week I’ve learnt not to go making plans that involve short periods of time and heavy reliance on the Mexican service industry.
Today I’m working on some translation and shall also be hitting the travel agents trying to find hotels for Mum and Dad’s visit in Feb. We’ll all be flying into Cancun and from there on in it’s unbounded adventure.
Also working on Amour Fou’s website. I’ll not link to it cos I don’t want it indexed by search engines yet. But if you fancy a look (there’s only 20 dvds in the catalog for now, (Allen – Almodovar) it’s presently at agaveweb.com/amourfou with the blog at agaveweb.com/amourfoublog . I think the design stage is almost over, but the uploading of 500 odd dvd descriptions has barely begun…
Spanish Word/Phrase of the week: “Me sale mas caro el caldo que las albondigas” roughly: The sauce is costing me more than the meatballs. To use when you’re being shafted by service charges and such like. Eg when you’re sending a 5 peso keyring to California and the postage costs you 70 bucks.
He referred to the Smiths obliquely as a ghost who is always nearby but still gave it some welly with songs like Panic and Girlfriend in a coma. The crowd, myself included, couldn’t help but join in more with those songs rather than his relatively sedate solo stuff. He made the odd stab at Spanish with some, frankly, baffling dialogues seemingly influenced by his recent move to Italy. “Is there a Julia in the audience?” which is something to do with the police in Italian. (pull)Fair play to him for shouting “Tapatios” to the crowd though, we liked that.(/pull) And there was the requisite booing when he mentioned that tomorrow he’d be playing in Mexico City. Sita especially appreciated the changes of shirt with an average of 4 songs to each ripping off of silk shirtery…
Interesting backing band too, shaven-headed 25/40 yr old men forced to wear some bizarre dungaree outfit. They had the songs down pat.
Overall a fantastic concert and it was definitely worth arriving early to get to the rows where you could see every passionate expression. Even if it meant watching Eurovision clips from the 60s, New York Dolls footage and a Bjork/Kate Bush percussionist/keyboardist act named Kristeen Young.
The setlist via a source I will soon track down:
William In the future when all’s well Don’t make fun of daddy’s voice Panic Dear god please help I’ve changed my plea to guilty First of the gang to die Disappointed You have killed me Ganglord Let me kiss you Everyday is like sunday Girlfriend in a coma I just want to see the boy happy Life is a pigsty Please please please How soon is now? Far off places Irish blood English heart
I’ve been scouring the intertubes trying to find a plugin for the blog that’ll display the my latest 5 photos from Flickr that have been commented on, to no avail. I was going to replace the film reviews box on the right (unless you’re an IE user) with it. I installed a Flickr photo album, but all it’s done is create a mirror site of all my Flickr photos. Still if you find that Flickr is too clean, intuitive and well designed, you could do worse than browse using this new section of the site…
So anyone happens to know of such a plug in, please comment it. Muchas thanks.
Rumsfeld out and a Democrat majority in the House of Representatives. Still doesn’t fill me with hope for a brighter future but it’s a step in the right direction. Here’s Steven Colbert’s take on it.
First off the good news. If you like insanely paced, utterly unbelievable, adolescent male wish-fulfillment films, Crank (2006) will be right up your street. I was feeling slightly sleepy, but it picked me right up. Jason Statham’s heart will explode if his BPM goes below 150 and spends 87 sex, violence, drugs and jumping around-filled minutes trying to kill the baddies before he expires… Excellent stuff. Snappy dialogue too… He’s goes to a hospital to get some Ephedrine, “I’m looking for something beginning with E”… “England?” asks the chemist. Fine editing and SFX. Never a dull moment… 4 Lulus.
Next up The Killers- Sam’s Town (2006)… not so good. As every review will tell you it’s a change in direction from their excellent debut album. I went right off the actual band after reading an interview in Q with the vocalist who came off like an immensely irritating git. Still I’ve never let my feelings about the members of a band change my opinion about the music. However this album is not my cup of tea at all. According to most reviews, they’ve rediscovered Bruce Springsteen as an influence, and that’s definitely apparent. not being a fan of the Boss won’t help you here, but worse still they appear to have rediscovered Meat Loaf too. And that’s unpardonable. 1.5 Lulus
No sos vos, soy yo (2004) was the only option at the cinema on Sunday night. A film about a fairly nasty break-up and the aftermath on one very sensitive young man. It was very tenderly observed and, though predictable, a nice little film. Even though I’m not sure about the redemptive powers of dog owning… Always nice to hear argentine spanish in the cinema though. 3.5 Lulus
They weren’t there again today. Sod it. I’m going to organise my own club, that can be my new year’s resolution. I’ll be 32 next year and if that’s not the age when one should settle down and start thinking about organised Scrabble, when is the right time?
Got my guitar back from “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” workshop downtown. It’s sounding fine again. I bought a high E string in San Juan de Dios and promptly broke it after trying to tune the guitar too high. They gave me another and threw in a polishing for nowt. Took a couple of photos of the shop, which looks the part. I’d not trust them with one of my more expensive guitars, mind…
A year ago or so one of the “machine heads” on me guitar fell off, so i’ve been tuning the other strings to that one since I can’t tune it at all. So it’s gradually been getting lower as the months go by, so that when I sing Shakira songs they sound more like Tom Waits. No more! I went to the city center with my guitar over my shoulder like some scruffy gringo mariachi and left it at a tiny little guitar workshop overnight. It’ll cost me 120 pesos (7 quid) but tomorrow should be back to normal as long as I can find the shop again… Actually I should find it cos I have their card “43 years of experience” apparently, and the geezer there didn’t look a day under 97. They’re listed on the card as El Bueno, Salvador, el Malo, Jose and El Feo, Juan… Hope it’s Salvador who does the magic. Even though he looked at my geetar and said ah they don’t make them like this any more, which i’m not conviced of. I got it 7 yrs ago in Seville for 80 quid… Any requests for more YouTube busking?
Also “rented” a bunch of DVDs… Crank (apparently the first 30 minutes is good), Ong-Bak in “El Nuevo Dragon” (chop soggy nonsense from Thailand), The Corpse Bride (this time not dubbed into Spanish, hopefully), Mi Vida sin mi (My life without me?, no idea what it’s all about), Cronica de una Fuga (Uruguayan director, Cannes film winner), Sra. Venganza (from the director of the excellent korean film, Oldboy), and Children of Men (I couldn’t wait for it to come out in the cinemas any longer). So this week I shall be mostly vegging out in front of the telly awaiting young sita’s arrival…
And a 15 piece Mariachi band has just struck up a rousing rendition of god knows what in front of the house opposite me. I love this country! And there goes song #2, “¡ay, ha, jaiii!”. Seriously, where else does this kind of nonsense happen?
And they’re still playing… I had time to go up on the roof, film a quick 90 secs, upload it to YouTube and post it here… this is costing someone big bucks… pesos grandes even. Maybe they’re getting off-peak rates…
I found the aforementioned photocopy of the Day of the Dead altars. Below is a translation, I find this kind of stuff fascinating. The best we can come up with in England at this time of year is that the Guy represents Guy Fawkes. And chucking him on the bonfire, his torture and death…
The altar should have 3 steps which represent the past, present and future.
It should also include the 4 elements, air, fire, earth and water.
On the 1st level goes the photo of the deceased with two large sugar skulls which represent death.
On the 2nd level you put everything that the deceased enjoyed and loved in their life, along with three medium sized sugar skulls which represent the Holy Trinity.
On the 3rd level you put 4 candles which represent the 4 stages which the deceased passed through and through which we all must pass: childhood, youth, maturity and old age.
On the 4th level you put three crosses. One of salt, to purify the place, one of ash, to show respect to the deceased, and the third made of candles to call the deceased to the altar.
There should also be 4 wax candles in each of the cardinal points of the compass so the deceased can find their bearings.
Blue candles represent the River of Death.
Purple candles represent pain and mourning.
Red candles represent passion.
White candles represent fire.
Xempazuchil (marigold) petals signify abundance or plenty.
A bottle of tequila and the favourite food of the deceased so they can remember the good times of their life.
Small incense burners with copal to scare away evil spirits.
A picture of “Las Animas del purgatorio” (The Souls of Purgatory) so if the deceased is still in purgatory he can find his way out.
A dog known as a Xoloitzcuintli, because this prehispanic animal was the only one who knew the path to get to the netherworld, he helps cross the river and guides the deceased there.
And small little skulls representing each person who made the altar and which shows that we are all mortal and will all face death.
“We thank you for your visit and invite you to say the rosary with us…”
Another fantastic afternoon/ evening/ night yesterday. First up, I went to see Memorias del subdesarrollo (1968) about Cuba’s surprisingly sedate postrevolutionary transition. There’s going to be a whole series of Cuban films on Saturday afternoons at 5 in the CUCSH so that might become a nice weekly event. Afterwards, El Rincon de la Doa for pre-concert drinks then on to the Teatro Diana for the main event. We had great seats and you could practically make out each chord the guitarrist played. Julieta is completely different to young Shakira, mind. She seems altogether shier, but warmed up after a few songs. It can’t be easy playing to a seated audience… I was surprised as I like to bob about while concert going, but actually sitting down made perfect sense and It was a fine spectacle with some nice lighting/projection effects. Excellent musicians too. I might have to seriously reconsider my thoughts on accordianists. All my favourite songs were present and correct. Actually she didn’t play Casa Abandonada, but I can live with that. Let’s see if it’s on YouTube…. Nope, have the final song instead, an audience singalong no less… Andar Conmigo
Then back to El Rincon de la Doa for post-match analysis and banter. Then a last-minute change of plan from going to find taco outlets open at 2 to going to “El rincon de los rumberos” where I looked after handbags and drinks for those who enjoy dancing to live salsa… A fine, fine night all round.
Didn’t get home till very early this morning… however despite the lack of sleep the following ad for French channel, Canal +, made me laugh:
And I also liked this here magic eye stereogram tetris thing. Defocus your eyes and use the cursor keys to steer the falling blocks. Or alternatively just try to not go permanently blind…
On Wednesday I had a fine old day wandering around the city’s graveyards and markets enjoying the colourful celebration that is the Day of the Dead. If anything I was doing the tour a bit early as things really kick off in the evening and the following day. On the plus side I got to take lots of photos without being too much in the way.
First off I went to the Panteon de Mezquitan which is a huge, fairly posh graveyard. The usual silence of the place was interrupted by the officials reminding everyone through a huge speaker system to pay for another year’s “storage” for their deceased and to be watch out for “criptas fragiles”. Another reason to visit during the day is you’re less likely to fall into fragile crypts and open graves, which would put a damper on anyone’s evening… Everyone had bought their flowers in the market opposite. They’re called Cempazuchil (there are many alternate spellings, zempoalxochitl, zempazúchil or “Twenty-Flower”) which are African Marigolds and are the official Day of the Dead flower, representing the Sun, the source of all life put on the graves to attract the dead to the offerings. And if you’re planning on buying them, you’re best off avoiding these 2 or three days of hyperinflation.
In the same market you can also stock up on your “Pan de Muertos” Bread of the Dead, a slightly sweet, brioche-like affair with skull and bone shapes moulded onto it.
After there I went to the centre, to the Panteon de Belen where they have an Altar competition and it’s one of the oldest graveyards in Gwod. 25 pesos to enter with a photography permit…
There were about 20 different altares here honouring such luminaries as Pedro Infante, el Santo, Pope John Paul II, Che Guevara, Elvis and Maria Felix. Each one has all kinds of symbolism going on. They gave me a photocopy of the meaning of everything but somehow I lost it and all I remember is that the crosses made of salt are for purification. There are treats such as tequila, bread, chicharron, and their favourite brand of fags left too. A friend of mine said that she’d left a bottle of coke, bread and Marlboro lights on her uncle’s tomb. The next day the bread turned to powder, the cigarettes wouldn’t light and the coke had gone flat. Proof positive that the deceased visit their tombs and chow down on the various things left there for them.
I could write a lot more about these customs but you know how it is, work to do, etc… I think it’s a great tradition all round, and something that needs to be kept up to combat the all encroaching gringofied version of hallowe’en. T’was a lovely day all round.
