In which art imitates life

Last week Mary and I enjoyed the Toulenc Trio for the second time at our fabulous local theater, the Ross Ragland.  I hadn’t remembered Toulenc from their first visit two years ago, but I slowly realized that I’d heard them before as the concert went on.  This is happening with my brain more and more, and I’m keeping an eye on it, so to speak.

Poulenc is a woodwind trio made up of Vladimir Lande, oboe; Irina Kaplan, piano; and Bryan Young, bassoon.  They’re based out of Baltimore and are more or less typical of what I think of as the first-rate second-tier musical talent we regularly get out our way.  Which is to say, for example, Young is principal bassoonist with the Baltimore Symphony but probably wouldn’t make the cut for New York or Washington National.  Still, to our rustic ears, you’d never know the difference.  In many cases, I’m not convinced there is a difference.

Poulenc started with two pieces from the late-Baroque and early classical periods. I listened politely but failed to ignite.  After intermission, though, they came back with three pieces from the 20^th century, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed: French composer Jean Francaix; excerpts from a filmscore by Shostakovich; and two especially wonderful tangos by Argentinean composer Astor Piazzolla.  Lande explained that these are not tangos to be danced to.

After the concert, we talked with the musicians in the lobby and bought a CD from them, Poulenc Plays Poulenc, which they autographed for us.  I was especially interested in the amount of travel such musicians do, and Lande briefly rolled his eyes and said he was just back from a twenty-concert tour of Latin America in which he conducted Shastakovich.  So immediately I thought of Guanajuato, and sure enough, he had conducted there for Festival Cervantino.

Is this a small world or what?!

Regrettably, he said, he hadn’t been able to enjoy the city because he was off the next day to the next concert.  Regrettably, I said, I hadn’t heard his concert, probably because I was at one of the jazz concerts instead.  I really should go back one year soon and study the program more carefully, because every night during the festival there are a dozen or more events worth going to see, and it’s limiting to stick to only one genre.

Still . . . .

So for some reason I felt a personal connection to Lande only because we’d been in the same Mexican city at the same time, but it once again led me to ponder over what are the motivations and rewards to the musicians who keep up the travel schedules that are typical for these troubadours.  What keeps them going?  After traveling to twenty Latin American capitals in about as many days and conducting major symphony orchestras, Lande and his two fellow musicians (one of them his wife) set off on a West Coast tour for which, I learned, they landed in Sacramento and rented a car.  From Klamath Falls, they were driving the next day on icy roads to Moses Lake, Washington for another concert.  If you’ve ever been to Moses Lake, you might share my amazement at this fact.

I chatted about this with bassoonist Bryan Young, and he said some of their best audiences are to be found in the smallest venues.  He mentioned Coos Bay, Oregon as a concert they still talk about.  And I must say, they got a very enthusiastic reception here, although there couldn’t have been a hundred people in the audience that wintry night. 

I suppose people like them have to perform and people like me have to go out to hear them. 

Art is like life in this way.  It will do whatever it takes. 

Hogar dulce hogar

Home sweet home.  I'm back in Klamath Falls where it’s cold and dreary, with lows in the low-20s and another storm coming in this weekend.  Quite a shock from the routine mid-70s and sunny skies of Mexico.

Once the Festival Cervantino concluded at the end of October, life in Guanajuato returned more or less to normal.  By this time, I was hosting a bad and persistent cold and cough and energy was down quite a bit.  With no great concerts to tempt me out at night, I usually got back up to my house by mid-afternoon and stayed in until the next morning.   Mary was with me for ten days, and she went home with a cold, too. 

Still, she loved it there as much as I did, and was out and about on her own while I was in school.  She was also picking up Spanish at an alarming rate, mostly from her conversations with Blanca, from whom I rented a room.  They hit it off like old friends, and I learned that Blanca actually spoke just a little English, although she only spoke Spanish to me.   

By the end of week four after Mary had gone back home, I started to feel a little bored with my classes and the whole Mexico thing and was mostly just waiting out the time until I returned home.  How much more Spanish could I learn in a week, anyway?

Fortunately, my attitude turned for the better for week five.  November 2^nd is Day of the Dead, and the Mexican students studying English at our school made an altar for a secretary who passed away last year. [See below] They prepared a little presentation for the rest of us in English, and we in return did the same about Halloween in Spanish.  One of my Mexican instructors asked me what a witch hunt was, and I explained a little about the McCarthy era to her and made it clear that witch hunts and Halloween aren’t related.  I was proud of how well I did until I realized my last words, “no son relajados,” mean “are not relaxed.”  Oops.  I meant “relacionados,” but it was too late.

The altars and ceremonies are very formal, including, of course, the macabre elements of skulls and dancing skeletons that we Anglos find a little weird.  I can only say I thought the combination of reverence and playfulness was a refreshing take on the whole death thing. 

I took Saturday as an extra day to get ready and make one last, leisurely walk around the Centro of Guanajuato.  I was being more careful about what I ate for the last week, so I had a so-so lunch in one of the better restaurants.  For really good Mexican food, I had to go into the small, seedy looking cafés with usually only two or three cramped tables and just pick something off the menu, even though I couldn’t understand much of what I had ordered.  I never regretted a decision. I also never had any stomach problems.

Sunday morning was sad as I finished packing up and then said goodbye to Blanca.  Elias, a driver from school, took me out to the airport and we had a nice chat about this and that.  As long as a conversation partner talked slow enough, I could follow pretty much whatever we were talking about.  I still need a lot of practice on the real Spanish that all native speakers use among themselves, but even here I’m starting to make progress.  Soap operas and movies when I can get them are the best practice for this, although as I said earlier, I can only take soap operas in very small doses.  Still, I made a huge language leap in five weeks, even though my Spanish can still only be described as limited and halting.  The challenge now, as always, will be in finding ways to continue to study in a town that offers little in the way of classes.  I’m meeting weekly with two conversation partners, Leticia and Antonio, and they are very helpful, but it takes a lot more than two hours a week to continue to make progress. 

Flying out from Guanajuato, I looked down on Mexico.  What I know about the violence and brutality that are so common in most of the country was in such contrast to the friendly, genuinely happy demeanor of almost everyone I met or worked with.  I don’t feel any particular desire to retire as an expat in Mexico or anyplace else, but if I did I can’t imagine a better place to live than Guanajuato.  And yet, there’s that feeling that no place in Mexico can stay free for long from the kind of terrorism that has affected most of the rest of the country.  I can only hope I’m wrong and things take a slow turn for the better rather than the worse.

Here’s the most important thing I learned in Mexico:  Mexicans are proud of their country.  They have so many reasons to be so.  If I were Mexican, I’d be proud, too. 

A few last pictures

Highlights of my last week in Mexico include the Day of the Dead celebration on November 2nd  and my "graduation" from school last Friday.  Here are a few pictures.

Claudia and Edith award me my diploma.  Despite Edith's Anglo appearance and first name, all the teachers were native Mexicans.

My friend David, a talented photographer and filmmaker.  David is over 70 and was in Mexico for a semester to brush up on his Spanish.

My friend Mike, a librarian from Portland currently intentionally between jobs.  After a semester in Mexico, he thought he might go down to Guatemala to study for awhile.  He didn't seem to like the idea of plans, but he was sure he wasn't going back to the library.

Juan Carlos, who taught most of my grammar classes and who was even more fun than he looks in this picture.

Two burros just outside the door to the school.  Burros are still used to carry heavy loads up the steep streets, much too narrow for cars.  This load was a little too big for a single Mexican laborer, but I also often saw workers carrying up sacks of cement or propane gas cylinders which had to weigh well over a hundred pounds.

The altar made by Mexican students at our school in remembrance of a secretary who died last year.  Everything on the table, including placement, had a practical or symbolic value for the spirits of the dead loved ones

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Street art produced by public school students for Day of the Dead.  Materials consisted of various seeds, beans, flowers, and dyed sawdust and wood shavings.  These were all gone the next day.

Ultimo dia

It’s my last day in school.  I’m taking Saturday to get ready at a leisurely pace, then flying out Sunday.  I’m a little sad about leaving but looking forward to being home.  I guess that defines a good trip.

I have more pictures to post up, especially a few from Day of the Dead,, which was last Wednesday.  I haven’t uploaded them from my camera yet, so I’ll probably only get to that after I get home.  And I’ll probably write up a post-op.

And then a few weeks at home and we’re off in out trailer for the Southwest.

Vagabundo.