The Little Tin Candle Boat

[caption id="attachment_3288" align="alignleft" width="320" caption="Antique tin boat, powered by a candle. CLICK on the photo"][/caption]

I've recently begun work on a documentary of the tin artistans of Mexico.  Today, I interviewed one of the older families and they showed me this wonderful little tin boat which is powered by a candle.  It actually putt putts around and just makes you smile to watch it go.  Click on the photo below to watch the little video.  As I go along, I'll be posting short clips of the process of making tin pieces, but for now, here's a charming little toy boat.

Casa Azul, Frida's House

The Frida Kahlo Museum and the house that she grew up in, the house she was nursed back to health in after her tragic accident, the house she learned to paint in. This was her family home, which after one of her break ups with Diego Rivera, she moved back to. She painted it blue. She and Diego later brought the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and his wife here to live. She spent her last days and died here. (slideshow at the bottom of this post)

[caption id="attachment_3215" align="alignleft" width="288" caption="The grounds outside the room where Frida's day bed was."][/caption]

I was truly stunned by the size of the grounds, as well as the design of the structures which skirted the outer perimeter near the street, different than I had imagined.  I was equally surprised at how many preconceived ideas about Frida Kahlo's life I had adopted which this visit  dispelled by just being in the presence of the real thing.  This always happens to me with art galleries anyway.  For example Goya's dark series, which are housed at the Prado in Madrid, you can't imagine what these paintings really are through photographs of them.  You think you can, but when you stand right in front of them, they convey emotion, compassion, anger and the power of their story and they become real.  You have to spend time with the emotion they create inside you afterwards.

Three Kings Day

[caption id="attachment_3254" align="alignleft" width="320" caption="Along with the large city sponsored market, you'll see people selling toys outside their homes and markets -- scroll down for the slideshow"][/caption]

As a follow up to the Queretaro Nacimientos - the seven deadly sins post and their fabulous three kings display, here in San Miguel, the day before Three Kings Day, a market is set up along Calzada Guadalupe which runs about a half mile.  All the sellers in town have booths which are full of toys, clothing, shoes, tools, television character dolls, baskets of sweets and kitschy things for the children. All the street food vendors are here too. It is completely set up and taken down in less than 24 hours running from about 6 A.M. on the 5th of January until 3 A.M on the 6th, at which time it is completely dismantled.  It's as if it was never there in the first place.

Fireworks!

[caption id="attachment_3161" align="alignleft" width="288" caption="Castillo fireworks in front of the church"][/caption]

It is not exaggerating one bit to say that there is a larger than life fascination with fireworks here in Mexico. At three A.M. on almost any day of the week, you are likely to be woken up with a loud kaboom! followed by about six more.  If it's close enough, it rattles the house. Often, you will never know what it's for but it certainly gets your attention.  For festival days (or weeks) you'll have rockets and church bells for an hour at about six in the morning, followed by rockets throughout the day. Sometimes it is from one church, other times they are scattered around town.

[caption id="attachment_3160" align="alignleft" width="235" caption="Senor de las Columnas"][/caption]

Two weeks before Easter
for the arrival of Senor de las Columnas, the rockets and churchbells begin at 3 A.M. from the top of Avenida Independencia.  They are waiting for the procession from Atotonilco, an all night pilgrimage carrying statues of saints that will be paraded around town each day leading up to and including good Friday. The street has been decorated for almost a mile to the church, people are already on the street.  There are non-stop rockets going off, waiting for the moment that the statues reach the top of the street where their silk and ribbon coverings are unwound. It is so loud and so long that you have to give up trying to sleep and go outside to watch. Everything is preceded and ended with fireworks.  It is usually about 4 A.M that I give up trying to sleep and go outside.

New Years 2010!

[caption id="attachment_3141" align="alignleft" width="280" caption="New Years Eve Pinatas and Fireworks Video -- CLICK ON THE PHOTO FOR THE SHORT MOVIE"][/caption]

Last week we found a luchador wrestler pinata and bought it thinking we would have one  for the kids on our street at new years. Yesterday, we went next door and got 10 year old Ariel to come fill the pinata.  When he was done there was still a half bag of candy left and lots of oranges so we walked down to the market to find a second pinata, locating the pink sister to go with our blue one.  That not being quite enough, we wandered further down the street and found a drippy gooey cake with a jelly covered fruit top, (which turned out to be delicious in spite of how it looked,) and a couple of roasted chickens for dinner and headed home.

Ariel and Aron came over for dinner
We set up a stand to hold the rocket fireworks we bought last month and took Ariel all over the neighborhood to invite all the kids he knew for the pinata breaking at 7:30.