Umpteenth Photo of La Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel
A few days ago some interesting and mysterious installations showed up at the gate of La Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel and in the mini-plaza inside the gate that one crosses to enter the door of the church. "Mini-plaza" is not a word, but I cannot for the life of me come up with the correct word. These installations were made completely of plant materials.
I gathered—for reasons I cannot explain—that each of these installations was constructed by this or that civic organization or perhaps other organizations more closely affiliated with the church. Some were more impressive than others, but they were all quite arresting.
Of course I was not moved to investigate more so that I could give you some hard information about these, and I did not bump into anyone who knew what the deal was.
Moreover, I have had a vivid deja vu concerning these. I was sure I had already put them up on the blog somewhere. Apparently, I had not. If I have already, then you get to see them again here.
I still find not drinking at times to be an adventure even after two years and three months. Not drinking is not something that I grapple with or obsess about as anyone who has visited here for some time would know. But sometimes it is still an adventure.
A walking tour of Steve's house up the street that he just rented, where Frank and Allyson, his son-in-law and daughter formerly from Montana, also live.
It is a deep, narrow affair. I call it a shotgun shack, which is somewhat of a disservice to it obviously. However, the dimensions do pose a challenge in terms of fitting in bedroom furniture from the San Diego house that has been in storage for awhile here.
The first floor:
The second floor:
This is Steve' study where he composes. In his younger days, he was a full time musician in L.A., playing both in the studio and at live appearances with small combos and larger bands. I can listen indefinitely to his stories about those days. As he recalls it. . . . The jazz musicians were intensely competitive, many times downright mean people. The best of them did three things: sleep, have sex, and practice, all to the accompaniment of heroin. The horn players particularly. They needed to outplay the guy sitting next to them in the band. The heroin would become a progressively overpowering accompaniment until, for example, the guys sitting next to a player in the band, formerly one of the best players, would have to help him stand up for his solo.
Steve saw an out from this in composing and took it. Then he found that with modern technology he could compose a movie soundtrack, for example, here in San Miguel and easily communicate back and forth with the people who had engaged him for modifications, adjustments, and such. AND his clients loved to come visit him and deduct it. He has done a wide variety of projects, a movie being a big project now and again. He recently finished a soundtrack for one. That is why that came up.
The music is for Scare Zone. It is a horror flick. Heh, heh, as Candy would say. Unfortunately, I believe you are going to have to be a Facebook person in order to have any luck making that link work. Here is a relatively recent bio of Stephen O'Connor. Here is an older bio.
He still plays jazz guitar regularly here with other local jazz musicians in the restaurants and clubs. He is awfully good. I used to have the pleasure of listening to him practice outside here at the tennis courts in the morning. A nice way to enjoy one's coffee. I heard this once. He played “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” like I had never heard it before. Then he changed the key and fingering and played it again, a totally different piece of music. Then he changed the key and the fingering again, and again a totally different piece of music. And on and on. In other words, he did not just play Somewhere Over the Rainbow. He played twelve different Somewhere Over the Rainbow's. Only an example of what I am talking about.
By the way, that mahogany or teak cup with the metal straw near the monitor is a mate cup. Mate is a very popular drink in Paraguay and Uruguay and the national drink of Argentina. It is “tea.” I put that in parenthesis because it will definitely give you a non-alcoholic jolt. There is a Uruguayan outdoor café just down the street a way that makes it the way it is supposed to be made.
Steve is tired of dealing with his "stuff," too. He claims that within the next six to nine months, 90% of the stuff in this house will be disposed of and gone.
Frank and Allyson's bedroom is on this floor, but I did not photograph it. They were away.
The roof:
Totally concrete, of course, with all the plumbing buried in that concrete. The walls are not true. There are other little touches like the fact that the stairs to the roof narrow as you get closer to the roof.
This is the space between the outside of the wall of the house and the inside of the outer wall. They will eventually build a shed here to house Frank's tools and such.
It is a charmer, this little house, particularly the roof. I hang out there occasionally and have not been asked to leave yet.
I may have led y'all to believe that Ed Bradley and I were tight. Actually, at that performance he was sitting in the row in front of me two seats to the left. We did greet each other though while we were standing in front of our seats awaiting Hermeto. What a cool guy, Ed Bradley. God rest his soul, too.
One thing leads to another. You know? Candy recently mentioned the PBS special on Latin music in America. mr. anchovy, now at 27th Street, continues to educate me about the button accordion, the relevance of which you will see later. I lapsed into a reminiscence about a truly special subspecies of Latin American music, Brazilian music, with which I have had a love affair for a very long time. The first L.P. I ever purchased in my life back in the early sixties was Jazz Samba by Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz after their return from Brazil having soaked up that music. So I owe those two.
I wished to reminisce about Hermeto Pascoal, but I must mention that icon, Elis Regina, in passing—maybe not so much in passing--because it was through Hermeto that I discovered Elis. She died tragically in 1982 at 36 after unwisely mixing the alcohol and the cocaine, just when everything—family and career—were truly blossoming for her. Her memorial had to be held in a football stadium there. She is still adored in Brazil. A news report of her funeral in Portuguese, but you will get the idea easily:
Unfortunately, the audio quality of videos of her performances is touch and go. To truly appreciate her voice, you would have to purchase tracks from iTunes as I have, I guess. Over the course of some months, I believe I have found the best samplers on youtube sufficient to give you the idea. There are many other videos of her, but the audio on those is usually of a heartbreaking, poor quality. There is only one word for her from my point of view—vibrant. A Brazilian Edith Piaf, if I may. The following is the one I have chosen as the attention getter, “Behind the Door:”
If that one does not get to you, you need not bother with the rest.
The title of the following one I translate roughly as “You Drive Me Crazy.” You certainly do not need to understand Portuguese in order to understand what this song is all about, particularly when you get to the ending:
The Tom Jobim standard, “Waters of March:”
An up tempo version of the same tune, one I love, a duet with Tom Jobim himself:
“Two Over There, Two Over Here” with a sexy little dance, a slow samba:
And the memorial video, her a capella version of “If I Want to Speak with God:”
Oh, to hell with it. I got carried away here. I will get to Hermeto Pascoal later, the man whom Miles Davis called "the most impressive musician in the world" and who started as a youth on the button accordion, which will be the mr. anchovy connection. Suffice it to say at this point, that Ed Bradley of “Sixty Minutes” and I saw Hermeto play live in a very hot tent at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in 2000. That was the year they brought in a raft of Brazilian musicians, which was the reason I was there on that particular trip, one of many.
Shortly after that I discovered Elis Regina by listening to this very track on a Hermeto Pascoal disk that I purchased. I do not know how I missed her before. Another Brazilian standard, “Corcovado.” There is only one word for Hermeto and his piano—rococo--in the best sense of that word.
Hermeto and Elis never rehearsed together obviously, and that is probably a good thing. They might have ruined these.
Then there was this short track live from Montreux in 1979 that truly blew me away for some reason. I love the way she plays with Hermeto's hair in the video. Initially, she kinda eggs him on subtly, communicating something like, "Bring it, baby." And he does. She responds. And ends it by slamming her hand on the piano. Originally, I did not know that occurred during the tune because I did not discover these two videos until much later of course.
I am following up regarding some of the little various grocery establishments near my place as I promised in The Grocery Shopping entry. I have been turning to these as I have located them in lieu of walking to the open Mexican market or driving to the big open Mexican market or, God forbid, the Mega Store.
Back to little Abarottes San Antonio, my main gun grocery, for a moment. It is right next to the church, which means that it is just across the plaza from the gate to the tennis courts where I live.
These are interior shots of Abarottes San Antonio. As you can see, it is tight quarters in there, as it is in all these places. I always make sure that I have replenished my deodorant before going. He does have a tiny produce section, which can do in a pinch.
However, this is the little shop for produce. I do not know the name. It about four or five blocks at the most beyond the church, deeper in the neighborhood. The photos make these places look so much more spacious than they really are. That is Steve, or "Steve Uno" as folks now call him, with his cloth bag. I am "Steve Dos," having come here later. Or sometimes "Tio Steve." I carry around my cloth HyVee grocery bag from Iowa hoping that someday someone from Iowa will see it and yell, “Hey! Are you from Iowa?” Apparently, all the folks from Iowa get stuck in Texas, where they are thick in the winter.
So there is a start. Do not say that I do not follow up, even on a subject so mundane as this.
Again, today I saved money at Abarottes San Antonio using my mental grocery list. It's better than coupons. I neglected to pick up milk, my brand of which is kept behind the counter. It is too hot to go back there right now.
By the way, I do not think that I have ever put up a decent picture of Steve, even though I have mentioned him many times. Here he is, formerly from San Diego. Steve is a bit older than I. I specifically mention that because he continually confuses that issue, and I am starting to think that he is doing it on purpose. San Diego people are so vain.
Just as soon as I posted that last entry, I located my waterproof map of México. The flies are content. And I am content, since the effort of composing and posting that entry was apparently all it took to make the map reappear. It was a money saving proposition and also prevented a Holy War.
I know someone out there is wondering about that waterproof map of México. It is simple. I just wash it occasionally. It is waterproof after all.
