Mexicowoods—An Expatriate Life

Food and Music at Xochimilco

Waterborne vendors on the canals of Xochimilco tempt weekend boaters with souvenirs, clothing, toys for the kids, and food. The network of waterways is a hub of commerce. This man offers candied apples.

Others sell pan dulce, empanadas, tacos, beer and soft drinks. Some cooking is done right on the water: here boiled or roasted corn—Mexican comfort food—over a wood fire.

Visitors hire musicians at every turn. A small, blue barca containing two marimba players pulls alongside a family boat, mesmerizing a young lady with soft music.

Norteño bands congregate at a canal-side restaurant, hoping for a gig.

Mariachis abound. They seem to spend more time poling up and down the canals waiting to be hired than actually performing. They have a lot of downtime, just like the mariachis at the Jardín in San Miguel de Allende.

 

Everyone enjoys singing along. What traditional tune so inspires this family? Quiereme Mucho? La Paloma? Guadalajara? 

No—they are singing I Did It My Way.

I love zither music, so when this salterio player came alongside and pitched me, I immediately asked him to play Cielito Lindo. Laura shot a clip of his performance. The fee for one tune? $20 pesos.

If you watch the clip to the very end, you can hear the bass player suggesting a couple more tunes and me responding No más!

On the canals, music complements every situation. Here mariachis set the mood for two lovers.

 

We drifted through the waterways for a couple of hours, sipping Pepsi Cola thoughtfully supplied by our boatman (for a price), listening to music and the laughter of families enjoying themselves on a warm afternoon. Our first visit to Xochimilco was just another of those tourist "must do" events. Someday we'll return again just to experience another relaxing afternoon among happy people.

Old-Time Mountain Music

During unbearably hot summers, Floridians traditionally retreat to cooler weather in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Places like High Hampton Inn and Country Club cater to visitors, offering upscale rooms, fine dining, and golf. In recent years, vacationers have become retirees, building dream homes and creating demand for fine restaurants and boutiques. Jeeps and pickup trucks no longer rule: Mercedes and BMWs crowd parking lots.

But original mountain folk still live here, and we joined them one evening at the Lake Toxaway Community Center for the Friday Night Jam, an open microphone event where locals play country music. It begins with a volunteer-prepared dinner prepared in the center's commercial kitchen. On the night we attend, the fare consists of an overcooked pork chop, canned peas, canned applesauce, dinner rolls, iced tea, and a selection of homemade desserts. Mine is strawberry-flavored Cool-Whip "cheesecake." Haute cuisine it's not. It probably doesn't even rise to the standards of Zeke and Earl's Hot Dog Shop (five stars).

But our eight bucks buys us not only fuel for the evening ahead, but three hours of authentic music. And that's what we're there for.

At the Friday Night Jam, everyone is welcome to put their names on a sign up sheet. The performers are mostly local residents, mostly amateurs. A few are gifted musicians. A few. All are entertaining.

They perform bluegrass, old timey, country, and traditional Appalachian folk songs. Here the Hooper Sisters sing a gospel song.

Clarence Zachary, Laura's distant cousin, picks his Martin dreadnaught and sings in a fine, nasal country voice. He's an audience favorite.

Musicians whose turn has not yet arrived remain on stage to pick along with those who are soloing. I counted six guitars, two mandolins, a fiddle and a stand-up bass. One or two versatile musicians fill in from time to time on five-string banjo, dobro, or pedal steel guitar.

  

Lively numbers brings out dancers. This 80+ year old man is doing the twist to a number written is his honor: Bert's Boogie.

You can dance, but please don't swing on the ropes. People dance alone and in threes. Children dance with their parents. A man twirls a wheelchair-bound woman around the floor.

An elderly couple shows moves honed after decades of dancing together. He's wearing an oxygen bottle on his hip. You're never too old. Nobody seems shy or self-conscious.

 

Nor is anyone shy about airing dirty laundry. The bass player and emcee (visible behind the dancers, above) recently left Mary Etta, his wife of many years, for another woman. Mary Etta, accompanied by the fiddle player, works out her anguish, singing:

I've had nothing but sorrow
Since you said we were through.
There's no hope for tomorrow.
How's the world treating you?

Her ex stoically plays bass behind her while we all endure her strange quasi-operatic falsetto.

A slogan on a sweatshirt seems to deliver a message consonant with the social conservatives of the Cashiers Valley but leaves me wondering exactly what the point is.

The ensemble—if that's what it is—is anchored by this man, Joe Byer, a retired picker who once played with the Stanley Brothers. From time to time he steps up to the "redneck" mike and makes his old Gibson boom and twang, earning cheers every time.

 

Tonight's music is much like the dinner: not particularly good but extremely satisfying. An elderly man, apparently having studied guitar for about six months, painfully picks out Wildwood Flower. A little girl with way too much voice for her years sings I Am a Child of God. I hear my favorite country songs about lost love, like Pick Me Up on Your Way Down.

At the end of three hours the emcee says "I've enjoyed about as much of this as I can stand." For him, maybe so. But I could sit there for hours more.

If I moved to Cashiers or Lake Toxaway, I'd spend a couple of months rebuilding the callouses on my chording hand. Then I'd get up there on Friday nights and pick like I did forty years ago. I'd sing Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger When You Go Out at Night with all the pathos and solemnity that song deserves, with tears in my eyes and Joe Byer taking the breaks.

Lazy Guanajuato Afternoon

We situated ourselves on a sunny Guanajuato plaza, hungry for a light lunch of carrot and potato enchiladas—called enchiladas mineras in Guanajuato, enchiladas queretanos in Querétaro, enchiladas del portal in San Miguel de Allende.

Restaurants put out umbrella-shaded tables. I sat at one, contemplating an old ore cart left over from the city’s mining days. Now it serves as a planter. What else are they good for?

Wandering musicians present themselves uninvited at our table. This man vigorously strummed his blue guitar—apparently last tuned in ‘98. A chicken-choking grip on the neck revealed an absence of classical training. No matter: his atonal music was vibrant, enthusiastic, and most entertaining.

Something about his appearance reminded me of the Simpsons character, Hans Moleman.

The itinerant guitarist-singers, playing as they were to groups of Mexicans, avoided gringo tourist favorites—Cielito Lindo, La Paloma. The tunes and chords were unmistakably Mexican; the lyrics were unique and playful.

Most street musicians are not very good, but we don’t expect them to be. A Guanajuato plaza ain’t La Scala.

But their tunes contribute to the lazy pace, the uncomplicated food, the quiet warmth of the afternoon.

Music Man of Pozos

A sandwich-board sign marks the bougainvillea-draped entrance of Ehekatl, a modest store in Pozos that sells pre-hispanic musical instruments.

Before entering, it’s worth taking a moment to pause and examine the sign. On it, a musician depicted in Aztec style plays a drum and sings. We know he is singing because a serpentine blue shape emerges from his mouth: a typical pre-hispanic speech bubble.

Photo: Paul Latoures

An image from the 16th-century Codex Borbonicus employs swirly speech bubbles to illustrate two Aztec gods conversing. Ehekatl’s logo employs the same convention.

Image: FAMSI

On display at Ehekatl is a variety of musical instruments patterned on old indigenous designs. Here we have drums, a flute, and seedpod rattles. Barely visible at the top of the frame there’s a rib from a steer, serrated to produce a rasping sound when stroked with a wooden stick. The instrument in the foreground appears to be a sort of xylophone. The five bars are stones that produce high-pitched “plinks” when struck. They are not organized into a scale of any kind. Apparently this xylophone is used to produce rhythm rather than melody.

The store was open but nobody was inside when we entered. Paul picked up a drumstick and sounded a drum carved from a hollow log. In response, Juan Suárez Terán—instrument builder and owner of Taller Ehekatl—appeared. Here he demonstrates one of his drums. His technique is sophisticated. He striks it near the rim and then draws the drumstick across the head toward the center, producing a chirping sound that swoops as it rises in pitch.

Juan digs blues. The photograph on the wall is B. B. King—one of his heros. Juan is a musician first, a student of ancient instruments second.

He plays one of the flutes for us: it has a haunting tone. This instrument belongs to the fipple flute family: wind instruments that produce sound the way recorders, tin whistles, and organ pipes do. Instead of the usual slot cut into the top of the tube (called the voicing), Juan employs a carved block (called a fetish) secured with a leather thong, to control the size and shape of the slot: critical for establishing the tone of the flute.

Juan makes, demonstrates, and sells pre-hispanic musical instruments. He also does gigs with a band consisting of talented friends. They make rockin’ music, suitable for parties.

Juan Suárez Terán
Taller Ehekatl
Centenario #26
Minerál de Pozos 37910
Guanajuato

Tel: 442-293-0121
Cel: 045-468-105-3693

To view hundreds of images of pre-hispanic codices, check out the website of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, FAMSI.

Comments:

Very cool entry amigo! And a wonderful link to boot. Gracias
John Calypso | Homepage | 07.02.09 - 10:21 am | #

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Thanks again John, I will definitely make it to his shop on my next visit down.
Rick | 07.03.09 - 4:05 pm | #