Old-School

"Old-School Musicians in Merida"

    I was impressed by the almost-Christ-like sacrifice represented by the political career of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, the only governor of the state of Merida able to speak the Mayan language. He who, while still a young man, had been imprisoned for encouraging the native Mayans to break down fences erected by rapacious land-owners; fences that prevented the peasants from accessing their own ancestral lands. He who, in 1922 at the age of 47, was elected overwhelmingly as governor of the state.

     Carrillo Puerto proclaimed the "first socialist government in the Americas". During his 20 months as governor he initiated land reform, confiscating large estates and returning land to the native Maya. He promoted new farming techniques, granted women political rights, began family planning programs, fought against alcoholism, and fought for the conservation and restoration of pre-Columbian Mayan archaeological sites. In the first year of his administration, 417 public schools were opened; and he founded the Universidad Nacional del Sureste.

      In early 1924 he, with 3 of his brothers and eight of his friends, was lined up and shot by political enemies. 

      My friend was trying to remember a love song said to have been written for Carillio Puerte when he fell in love with a young woman visitor from the United States. In 1922, the 33-year-old American  journalist Alma Reed (whose marriage to Reed had been annulled) was invited to Mexico by President Álvaro Obregón as an honoured guest. In February 1923, her party was welcomed to Yucatan by the strikingly handsome governor; described in her autobiography as "a man of exceptional magnetism and rare physical beauty. He was attired in a crisp white linen suit and, in his over six-foot height, towered head and shoulders above the assistants and petitioners who crowded around him". To a colleague who asked how she found him, she replied unhesitatingly «He's my idea of a Greek God!» The attraction seems to have been mutual. At the end of the year, Reed returned to the States to prepare for marriage, never to see Carrillo Puerto again. 

    The song addresses her as "La Peregrina” ('The Pilgrim'), by which name she is now immortalised. Composed, in the 4 verse Trova style, the tune by Ricardo Palmerín (a Yucateco composer), the words by Luis Rosado Vega (a Yucateco poet). Though it is not a great song, it was known by all and sung by many, even to this day.  

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e06PHapO6dc;  

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhrvspxq6N8;

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=420nOTLt92w&t=58s;

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw0CqmKi1Bg. 

     On Friday, at 7pm, we returned to the little plaza where, the previous night, we had heard the singing and dancing of La Serenata. No audience now, but three microphones on the stage; and one elderly guitarist in a severe black suit, like an undertaker's, who confessed to knowing the 100-year-old song. He said if we returned at 8pm he and his colleagues would open their ‘spot’ with “La Peregrina”.

     When we returned at 8, it turned out the owner of the bar had changed his mind and was going to ask a younger group to play. We were disappointed, as of course were the musicians. After a word with his colleagues, who had appeared from nowhere, they agreed to play the song, just for us. They lined up; leader in the middle, lead-guitarist on our right, he with the big fat acoustic  bass guitar on our left. And they sang the song; just for us. My friend gave the leader 200 pesos, though that hardly reflected our joy at hearing the song, acoustically, from three guitars and three singers who, between them would be carrying at least two hundred years of memories and tradition.

      There was a suggestion that the Gringo journalist was a US spy. But I think it would be wrong to doubt the honesty and good faith of Alma Reed; she spent many subsequent years in Mexico, and was a great supporter of the politically motivated muralist painter, Orozco.

     After hearing ‘our love song’ sung so beautifully and authentically, just for us, we made our short way back, past the patient horses and their gaily decorated fiacres, to our hotel. Long after midnight I could still hear the repetitive thumping and out-of-tune wailing from the youngsters and their loudspeakers in our little plaza. 

     Perhaps we should call in on the restaurant tomorrow and tell the owner how delighted we were to hear the ‘old school’ musicians singing a true Yucateca song without amplification in the square on Friday night.

PEREGRINA

(Tune: Ricardo Palmerín; words: Luis Rosado Vega)

Peregrina de ojos claros y divinos

y mejillas encendidas de arrebol,

mujercita de los labios purpurinos

y radiante cabellera como el sol.

Peregrina que dejaste tus lugares,

los abetos y la nieve y la nieve virginal

y veniste a refugiarte en mis palmares

bajo el cielo de mi tierra, de mi tierra tropical.

Las canoras avecillas de mis prados,

por cantarte dan sus trinos si te ven

y las flores de nectarios perfumados,

te acarician en los labios, en los labios y en la sien.

Cuando dejes mis palmeras y mi tierra,

Peregrina del semblante encantador:

No te olvides, no te olvides de mi tierra,

no te olvides, no te olvides de mi amor.

(For others of my posts about Mexico, put the keyword Mexico in the search box.)

Los Tres Cojos

Los Tres Cojos 

Traffic moves slowly in Mexico City; more correctly I should say it move rapidly but with many pauses. The queues of stationary cars, at certain points on the Circuito interior, are so dependable that teams of nimble sales persons are poised ready to dash in amongst the cars with sweets, or drinks, or trinkets, or lottery tickets; especially at rush hours.

At traffic lights on major crossings, where the cycle-time allows, there are often entertainers poised ready to step into the space in front of the cars to perform for their captive audience.  On Avenida José Vasconcelos I have often seen children juggling with three balls and, after dark, young men juggling with flaming torches. Sometime you see tumblers or break-dancers. They have to move smartly when the lights change, but clearly know when their time is up.

Today I saw a unique display; three one-legged men on crutches playing with a  football. They kept their ball up with great skill using their three single legs, occasionally extending a crutch to stop the ball escaping into the traffic. 

The Spanish language has a special word for a one-legged man — un cojo. And, not surprisingly, also for a one-armed man — un manco. (Cervanres was one such, I am told.)  I teasingly asked about a man with only one eye, and was told “Yes, a one-eyed man is referred to as un tuerto.” What verbal richness! What nice distinctions become possible with a language so specific! Why are such words missing from the English Language? What is special about the Spanish – their legal system, perhaps?

But I am ashamed to note that I have already deserted the bizarre spectacle that moved me to write this note; my tres cojos at the crossroads in front of the Russian Embassy. 

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Street sounds in our Colonia

 Street sounds in our Colonia

Each time I hear a new noise I am tempted to look out of the window to see if I can identify the source. It might be a wheezy whistle, or a clear warble, a distant trumpet, or a marimba played with 4 hammers, or distant but uplifting snatches of brass band music; or, as yesterday and today, the unrelenting and shattering sound of nearby road works. So today, to escape the frightful din, I popped out before lunch to Sanborns’ to drink a beer, and to recollect the more pleasant, interesting, and distinctive sounds of Colonia San Miguel Chapultepec, Mexico City. Sounds that make this so very different from my little village in middle England.

One such sound comes from the truck that tours round each street each day offering to collect any old iron. The cry comes over a loudspeaker with the same childish female voice, the same unvarying intonation, the same repeated words, of which I only catch “..estufas, microondas,…” (stoves, microwave ovens). Towards evening another truck, using a similar business model, advertises “tamales, oaxaqueñas, " and suchlike food.

I prefer, for its old fashioned quaintness, the wheezy whistle that advertises roasted sweet potatoes (camotes). Toward evening, a man lights a small wood fire on his trolly, which presumably roasts the camotes, but at the same time makes steam. When all is ready, he pushes his trolly out onto the street and opens the valve to the whistle. This emits a piercing shriek that dies slowly away to a dismal groan.   

Another sound, which I had often heard over the years, I identified only yesterday, but relish for its throwback quaintness. An elderly man cycled slowly up the road towards me, one hand holding the handlebar, the other holding a small set of panpipes. Every now and then he warbled a handful of notes. Behind, on the carrier, he had a small two-stroke motor that would drive two grinding stones. So here was the 'sharpener of knives and scissors' that I had heard spoken of. One has to know the meaning of his warble in order to rush out and catch him before he disappeared down the road. 

The brass band was a one-off. But the other day, as I worked at my computer, I enjoyed for an hour their rousing snatches of melody and, occasionally, song. I had to go out onto the street to find the source. It did not take me long. The band were having their practice in the converted gym across the intersection, now called "La casa del humor", which, on weekend evenings, emits gales of laughter and applause. 

When I sat down to lunch just now, I heard the distant thump-thump of a drum, and some disjointed notes from a brass instrument. As they slowly approached our house I got up and looked discretely out. A man, on the far side of the street, thumped the drum keeping level with a man on our side playing the disjointed notes on a shiny trombone. I was reminded of a tip my father told me regarding busking in London before the war; "the worse you play the more you collect". A similar strategy may have motivated this duo. 

Not so the marimba duettists. They played their two or three pieces with considerable panache and some skill,  though I am afraid they collected little or nothing from either of their two stands in our street. 

These sounds, also, seem to be from a bygone era. These days, with iPod and earphones piping Mozart or Reggae straight into people's brains, who needs a barrel-organ or a marimba duo to enliven the siesta hours? 

(For others of my posts about Mexico, put the keyword Mexico in the search box.)

Impressions of Mexico

Some early impressions from my latest visit to Mexico.

It is my tenth visit to Mexico since 2015, but in the first 24 hours of this latest visit I already have three rather terrible stories to record. 

I have often been told tales of kidnappings in the City, and drug-related murders in the country, and learned the shocking word 'feminicidio'; but until now I was always able to waive that away, calling it 'hearsay', and saying that it did not impinge on me personally, nor on my friends, directly. Not now! Perhaps this is a 'new Mexico', a post-COVID Mexico, an AMLO-governed Mexico, suffering a spike in unemployment and a deliberate erosion of respect for middle-class virtues.

I was met by Isaura and her driver as I issued from customs at Benito Juarez airport and we drove in modest traffic to General Juan Cano 79. Eduardo (the driver) brought the suitcases up from the basement garage while we contacted Valeria to see if she was at the Wine Shop (Brutal Vinata) further up the street at No. 42. I washed my face, changed my boots for sandals, stripped off a couple of layers of surplus clothing and was ready to go out. It was only 8 pm and the evening still warm. I calculated that for my internal clock it was 2am and I had been awake for 19 hours. 

At the wine shop we met and greeted Valeria and her friend Mercedes, a friend from primary school days. We joined them at their end of the long stone table, Isaura for a glass of Fluxus Blanco (a Mexican Chardonnay/Chenin Blanc), I for water, as I had already drunk well over my daily allowance on the long flight. I learned that the husband of Mercedes made and repaired instruments (violins, and organs), that they had 2 children and lived near San Angel. On my heavy-lidded way back to our flat at 10 pm (4 am GMT), Isaura told me that Valeria had lent Mercedes a large sum of money which she and her husband were steadily, and scrupulously, repaying. The luthier had been kidnapped and had been forced to pay a large ransom for his release.

Next morning, after a somewhat restless night, Isaura and I had got up at 8 am to be ready to join the Banbury Spanish class by Zoom. Eduardo the driver arrived punctually at 10am. We decided to go south to the 'Cineteca' to see the new Mexican film Tótem, by Lila Avilés. We set off after lunch with Eduardo to drive the 8 km south (25-30 minutes). There he left us and made his own way to his home in an eastern suburb of the city. 

Why was this punctilious and capable man driving us around the city, and doing odd jobs around the house ⎯ even washing the dishes on occasion? It turns out that Eduardo used to run (or own) a taquería, had been asked to pay 'protection money' by a gang, had refused; whereupon the shop had been attacked and one of his employees murdered. 

We bought our tickets for the 4.30 pm showing, but had half and hour spare, so we decided to call in on Cati Bloch, now at the age of 81 a sub-director of the Cineteca National and in charge of the library. She greeted us warmly and took us along to the Cafetería, where we drank various types of water. Two senior men passed us, greeting Cati as they did so. When they were out of earshot, Cati wrinkled her nose and told us that the taller man was her boss, the director; no love lost there; did not normally greet her in like circumstance. She then explained that the National Film Library had just celebrated its 50th anniversary, that a book had been planned, and created under the direction of Cati, printer chosen and contracts signed. The director was to write a preface. When that failed to turn up, the director told Cati that he had decided to scrap the project, and with it a year's worth of her time and effort, not to mention that of others, and the costs involved. 

What a climate in which to work! Nothing to compare, of course, with my two previous stories; but the story still shocked me, coming (as it did) on the heels of the other two.

On the other hand, the film Tótem was a delight. It has scored 95% satisfaction in the Rotten Tomatoes scale, and won prizes everywhere. It is surprising, stimulating and warming. Totally Mexican, it is drenched in colour, emotion, fun, flavour, and originality. It seems to speak about ordinary people doing extraordinary thing with complete naturalness, and ordinary things with extraordinary gusto. A birthday party with a hot-air balloon, a parrot, an exorcism. A cancer death framed in love and gratitude.

We came out into the rapidly fading daylight. Still warm. Youngsters in groups on the grass. A short queue quietly waiting to buy tickets for later showings on one or other of the ten screens.
A waxing moon was already bright in the darkening sky, positioned vertically above us ⎯ something you never see in England; which could as well be said of all the above.  

(For others of my posts about Mexico, put the keyword Mexico in the search box.)

Nos adentramos en una Colonia Obrera

 Nos adentramos en la Colonia Obrera Cuauhtémoc

     Mi violín alemán barato (de Sandner) estaba mal configurado cuando lo compré hace 5 años en Veerkamp ("Palacio de la Musica", Ciudad de México); bueno, apenas configurado en absoluto. Las cuerdas, el puente, la cejilla estaban todos allí, pero no mostraban signos de haber sido trabajados para lograr la altura óptima de las cuerdas. Traté de profundizar los surcos del puente con un cuchillo de cocina dentado, pero el tono disminuía y tenía miedo de estropear la cubierta de las cuerdas. Decidí darme un capricho y gastar un poco de dinero en tenerlo "configurado correctamente".

     Google me encontró una lista de luthiers en México, con números de teléfono y páginas de Facebook. Elegí uno al azar, se llama Máximo Rodríguez Laudero, y me puse en contacto. Debía presentarme el miércoles a la 1 de la tarde en su nuevo atelier: Isabel la Católica 400, esquina con Delgado. Mi compañera me dijo que "no era una parte recomendable de la ciudad", y que el metro estaría abarrotado debido al cierre de la línea 12 descompuesta. Ella insistió en acompañarme –– en taxi.

     Llegamos al lugar con 3 - 4 minutos de adelanto. El taller de imprenta más cercano a la esquina nunca había oído hablar de un Máximo Rodríguez Laudero, ni de ningún luthier. Tampoco tenía conocimiento la imprenta de al lado. Yo tenía un número de teléfono pero, antes de que hubiéramos colgado, la puerta de la casa se abrió y un joven tímido apareció y nos condujo por un pasillo hasta una habitación al fondo. Esta contenía una mesita en la que yacía un violín desmontado y un pequeño armario de herramientas.  Máximo sólo había ocupado este taller durante dos días.

      Di mi diagnóstico. El aceptó. Regresaríamos en una hora y el trabajo costaría £20 (es decir, MX$500). Salimos a la calle, con una hora 'para matar'; caminamos, disfrutando del sol y la experiencia novedosa de este distrito explícitamente 'obrero'. El tráfico era modesto y no intrusivo. Pero dos ruidos distintos llamaron gradualmente nuestra atención.

     Resultó que básicamente todo la gente estaban escuchando el progreso del partido de fútbol en Qatar: México contra Arabia Saudita; en teléfonos móviles, en radios, en pantallas de televisión, en tiendas, en cabinas, en quioscos, en cafés, en imprentas, en papelerías. (México ganó 2:1 con gran alboroto de todos.)

     El otro ruido, desconocido, era el de las imprentas, porque estábamos en un área de la ciudad donde esencialmente todos los negocios se relacionaban con la impresión. Las tiendas eran papelerías, los puestos vendían camisetas estampadas y cintas estampadas, los quioscos vendían tazas impresas. Los trabajadores eran impresores, litógrafos, fotocopiadores, impresores de metal caliente, estampadores de láminas calientes, dibujantes. Vimos un anuncio de un taller: "Suajes y Suajados, urgentes". Mi compañera no tenía idea de qué habilidades estaban involucradas, y Google Translate fue de poca ayuda; algo relacionado con el estampado de cualquier material.

     Después de tres cuartos de hora, y un poco cansados, nos sentamos en un banco por unos minutos afuera de un taller en el que estaba operando una enorme prensa anticuada; un pesado volante girando, enormes mandíbulas apretando y soltando. Al lado, una maquina más moderna funcionaba con un ruido como una fotocopiadora gigante. Durante nuestra caminata debimos pasar frente a más de cien imprentas, tal vez doscientas.

     Y un fabricante de violines.

(For others of my posts about Mexico, put the keyword Mexico in the search box.)

Colonia Obrera Cuauhtémoc

 We venture into Colonia Obrera Cuauhtémoc

    My cheap German violin (Sandner) was badly set up when I bought it 5 years ago in Veerkamp's; well, hardly set up at all. Strings, bridge, nut were all there, but they showed no signs of having been worked on to achieve optimal string height. I tried to deepen the grooves in the bridge using a serrated kitchen knife, but the tone diminished and I was afraid of spoiling the covering of the strings. I decided to treat myself, and spend a little money on having it "set up right".

    Google found me a list of luthiers in Mexico, with telephone numbers and Facebook pages. I picked one at random, called Máximo Rodríguez (Laudero), and I made contact. I was to turn up at 1pm on Wednesday at his new address: Isabel la Católica 400, esquina con Delgado. Isaura told me it was "not a good part of the city", that the metro would be crammed due to the closure of the broken 12th line. She insisted on accompanying me –– by taxi.

    We go there with 3 - 4 minutes to spare. The printer in the shop nearest the corner had never heard of a Máximo Rodríguez, or any violin-maker. Nor has the printer next door. I had a telephone number but, before I had got out my phone, the door opened and a shy young man appeared and led us down a passage to a room at the end containing a small table on which lay a dismantled violin and a small cabinet of tools. Máximo had only occupied this workshop for two days.

     I gave my diagnosis. He agreed. We would come back in an hour and the job would cost £20 (i.e. MX$500). We set off down the street, with an hour to kill, enjoying the sunshine and the novel experience of this explicitly 'working' district. The traffic was modest and not intrusive. But two particular noises gradually took our attention. 

    It turned out that essentially everyone was listening to the the progress of the football match in Qatar – Mexico versus Saudi Arabia; on telephones, on transistor radios, on television screens, in shops, in booths, in kiosks, in cafés, in print shops, in stationers. (Mexico won 2:1.)

    The other noise was that of printing presses, for we were in an area of town where essentially every business was concerned with printing. The shops were stationers, the booths sold printed T-shirt and printed ribbons, the kiosks sold printed mugs. The workers were printers, lithographers, photocopiers, hot-metal printers, hot-foil embossers, draughtsmen. We saw one workshop advertising: "Suajes y Suajados, urgentes". Isaura had no idea what skills were involved, and Google Translate was little help –– something to do with die-cutting. 

    After three quarters of an hour, and a little weary, we sat on a bench for a few minutes outside a workshop in which a massive, old-fashioned, press was operating; a heavy fly-wheel spinning, massive jaws clenching and releasing. Next door a more modern process with its characteristic whoosh-click, whoosh-click, like a giant photo-copier. In that hour we must have walked past well over a hundred printing concerns, perhaps two hundred. 

    And one violin maker.

(For others of my posts about Mexico, put the keyword Mexico in the search box.)