Modern sound recordings usually involve tiny disks which can hold dozens of tracks, specially designed to be easily portable and convenient. The Maya may have had different priorities. David Lubman has proposed that the earliest sound recording so far discovered on the planet may well be the main pyramid at Chichen Itza in the Yucatan. […]
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There are Mexicans these days who have never attended a Cinco de Mayo celebration. The holiday has taken a back seat to the many saints’ days and other festivals. The growth of celebrations in the United States was initially triggered by a lawsuit from LULAC, the League of United Latin American Citizens, several decades ago, […]
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Lightning is with us all the summer. It forks and it shimmers and it zips, and sometimes it pulsates for seconds on end. It is white and yellow and greenish and bluish and carnation pink. It has given rise to legends. They say that, in the seventeenth century, the storms in Guadalajara were so severe […]
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It has always seemed appropriate to me that the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, in their monograph Geografia Espanola del Toro de Lidia, uses the valleys of the major rivers of Spain to structure their study by geographical area. In it the ganaderías are pinpointed along the courses of the Duero, the Ebro, the Tagus, the […]
Continue ReadingLast week my good friend celebrated her sixtieth birthday with a once-in-a lifetime street party near Six Corners in the Village of Ajijic. Linda moved here four years ago after a thirty-four year career with the New York City Board of Education on the Upper West Side/West Harlem in Manhattan. She was a real city […]
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Yesterday was Palm Sunday and I observed, with a feeling of respect and rapture, the local Mexicans begin to celebrate Semana Santa (Holy Week). As I drove to meet my friend who lives on Hidalgo, the street of Ajijic processions, I was amazed. Men, women and children were sweeping the street in front of their […]
Continue ReadingJune is a month of family celebrations; in México as well as north of the border, weddings, graduations and Father’s Day are all prominent June occasions. This month, I happily recall a couple of the many wedding fiestas, and their food, that our family has enjoyed during our years in Mexico. So, move over dads and grads, […]
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Of the many battles fought on Mexican soil in the nineteenth century, only one — the Battle of Puebla, fought on May 5, 1862 — has given rise to a Mexican day of national celebration. Why this one? The main reason is that the Battle of Puebla marks Mexico’s only major military success since independence […]
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With pageantry unrivalled in all of Mexico, the Guelaguetza is the most colorful and exhilarating of the multitude of festivals in Oaxaca. And in a state with sixteen different indigenous cultures, each with its own unique traditions including language, food, music, dress and dance, it should come as no surprise that the annual two-week July […]
Continue ReadingOne of the most popular of Mexico’s many fairs and festivals is the Festival del Mole, the National Mole Fair, held each October in the village of San Pedro Actópan, in the Milpa Alta delegation of the Federal District. This part of the D.F. is unlike any other, a mostly indigenous area with landscapes of rustic beauty which include […]
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