These days perusing the headlines first thing in the morning often is like taking that first sip of coffee and discovering someone has laced it with Tabasco sauce. You gag. You spit. You say "What the hell?" or worse.Wednesday and Thursday were Tabasco days. Via one of his early morning tweets, which have come to …
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Victory! Vinyl LPs live!
Comments on my blog yesterday, about whether I should keep my collection of vinyl LPs, leaned in favor of keeping it with an outlier voice from Pátzcuaro grumbling that I should toss it.Stew and three of our highly-trained dogslooking under the stereo cabinet toassess the nature of the problem. Vox populi won and Stew and I …
Is it time to toss my vinyl LP recordings?
I don't need my old LPs butsomehow I can't let them go.In the beginning there was the vinyl LP recording, and the LP became high-fidelity, stereophonic, quadraphonic, "360 Stereo" and more, with a detour for tape cassettes, compact discs and most recently MP3 files. Except for cassette tapes, I still have most of these media …
By the dawn's early light
It pays to get up earlyto catch an unexpected showA day's first and final hours of sunlight, the "magic hours," are supposed to be the best time to take pictures. It's true. At around seven-thirty this morning I went out with my camera, followed by our dogs, to take pictures of the ranch. At that time sunlight …
Of matzo balls and arroz con pollo
How the dots of Cuban Jewish historyfinally came together for me in San MiguelIn 1998, more than thirty-six years after leaving Cuba, the newspaper I worked for sent me to cover the historic visit of Pope John Paul II to the island. It would be a trip filled with revelations, a return to a place that …
Little League graduation
Think herding cats is difficult?Try kids doing a graduation waltzLast Saturday Félix' five-year-old Edgar graduated from kindergarten and there was a celebration so incongruously elaborate—and irresistibly cute—you'd have to be dead not to smile. About forty kids graduated, a third more boys than girls for some reason, and the dress code was equally formal but hardly …
Bad news rains on San Miguel
What to do when nasty rumorssuddenly come true? Recently I've received news of outbreaks of San Miguelophobia, particularly in the picturesque mountain town of Pátzcuaro, where the sun goes up and down every day, and in the heavily air-conditioned Pacific Coast resort of Barra de Navidad, where in August even iguanas wear sun protection. There might …
From sere to jungly in two weeks
It's time to plant now that the rains have finally arrived As Saturday Night Live's premier journalist Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, "It just goes to show you, if it's not one thing it's another." A month ago the ranch was tumbleweed-dry, the levels of the rainwater in the cisterns had dropped down to eighteen inches and brush …
What fuels Trump's high approval ratings?
His approval rating is 35 percent or so. It ought to be closer to zero.The blow-up over the weekend regarding Donald Trump Jr. and his apparent encouragement of Russian operatives to meddle in the U.S. election—I love it!, he exclaimed—is amazing on a couple of levels.Little Don must be stupider than a sack of manure. How …
In Mexico, in No One we trust
Capitalism requires trust among the players. Maybe that's why it doesn't work so well in Mexico.Two-and-a-half years ago we got the notion to apply for an ATM card from Interbank, a mutant of Intercam, the financial organization where we'd kept our money for close to ten years. We talked to Victor, a bespectacled bank clerk and lone …
El Rancho Santa Clara 