Sinfonia New York

It was back in May that the new, period orchestra, Sinfonia New York, mounted the Gran Chacona in New York.  I wasn’t there, didn’t know about the group and their work with ancient instruments but YouTube saved the day.  I did get to watch and listen to this video. 

Sadly the sound and picture are not the same as being there but it is nice to get a taste of it.

The Art and Ecstasy of the Chaconne
The Gran Chacona (after Aranes), as performed by members of Sinfonia New York and by dancers Patricia Beaman and Carlos Fittante. Arrangement by Grant Herreid of Ex Umbris and choreography by Patricia Beaman and Carlos Fittante.

Sinfonia New York’s site

Technorati Tags: Music, New York, Sinfonia New York, Dance, Period Instruments

American Sojourn

Travel has been taking up my last two weeks.  There was, because I cannot fly, the 5 hours by ADO bus from Merida to Playa del Carmen.  Then I discovered that the low tourist season has diminished the number of ferry crossings – ergo, a 2 hour wait for the next ferry on the new dock/muelle in Playa.  It was the night before Independence Day, Mexico style, and dogs sniffed, soldiers searched, Mexico raised it’s security level to preclude the terrorist bombings of last year in Morelia.  Cozumel was peaceful.

My stay was booked through www.kayak.com on Expedia.com at the Casa Mexicana Cozumel, a pleasant hotel on the malecon not far from the Carnival dock, puente langosta. I gave it a thumbs up for convenience, cleanliness and a price of about $53 + tax US which isn’t bad in tourist-oriented Cozumel.

Waterfront Hotel on the malecon in Cozumel

Soon I was ensconced in the bowels of the thoroughly American world of the cruise ship – air conditioned, overfed and coddled, a VIP.   The long trip begins.

Carnival Ships Ecstasy and Imagination

The Ecstasy sets sail earlier than my Imagination in whose cabins I have traveled before.  This time, VIP, my cabin has been upgraded to one with a window (not porthole since portholes are round and open – this is large and rectangular, doesn’t open).  I have stayed aboard beset with a celebratory attack of gout, still exhausted from 5 hours on the bus from Merida.  And perhaps the feeling of being back in America is worthy of some tastes of frozen yogurt and over-eating.

The Ecstasy steams away from Cozumel in the dwindling sunset

The voyage by sea has been over for a while followed by some time nursing gout and a flu-like something, visits to doctors and, finally, the train to New York.  That, itself, is a voyage not unlike a cruise without the comfort but still with the odd take on the past.  On the ship it is the days of ocean liners updated to mass travel.  On Amtrak it is the days of golden railroad travel barely hanging on to its’ roots.

More to come assuming the cardiac surgery Monday goes well.

Mexico Won On Hedged Oil

The Financial Times reported that the Mexican finance minister, Agustin Carstens, who is suddenly a figure in global markets, hedged oil prices for 2009 and won his bet on a global level.  His finesse earned the country an extra 8 billion US while the OPEC countries are counting backwards.  Check the story out at FT’s Emerging Markets.  It is also reported that President Calderon replaced the head of PEMEX in his cabinet shake-up.

Picture of the day:  You can’t have an omelet without breaking a few eggs – or some such cliché.

Photo © Howard Dratch, 2009.

Mejorada Square: The Blessing

There are no posts recently.  I haven’t been very interested in words.  There is a new picture from Mejorada Square, another Meridiano face overlooking the city.  This one blesses the passers-by of the ancient church.

Ancient priest blesses the passers-by

Mexican Heroes

Picture of the Day: 12 July 2009.

Mexico has its’ revolutionaries and their effigies (badly done) on display for the tourists of the world to savor.  Window display in El Centro, Merida.

Effigies of the strong and famous

© Howard Dratch, 2009.

Anniversary Memorial

Tomorrow will have been our 40th wedding anniversary.  We were married in the garden at Blithewood, the Zabriskie estate, on the Hudson River at Bard College.  It is now the Jerome Levy Institute for Economics of the College and is returned to its past glory.  For us it was the keystone of a long but tempestuous marriage.  Each year until we came to Mexico we returned to the garden.  It will be a sad day for me and one full of memories of better times before slipping away from civilization into the primitive life of the Yucatan jungle.

The formal garden at Blithewood.

Photo © Howard Dratch, 2007.

Merida: Ghoul of El Centro

This fellow tried to scare me from a perch above a door in El Centro.  He has been at this game for some time.  Just walk on by.

Merida Faces: The Ghoul

Photo © Howard Dratch, 2009.

New June Pictures

It is time to do a little creative work, to test old cameras and keep learning the new digital machine.  The F3 is dusted off and cleaned, some rolls run through it, the ancient Vivitar 283 left at a shop to see if it still can work and an FM3A left for the same reason.  Wandering with a film camera that I actually know how to use was fun, the scans ok to work with.

I began a file of pictures from which I may have real prints made rather than the cheap-printer variety that never fail to un-impress.  Then there is the search for what to shoot, how to regain a passion of more than 50 years that had begun to escape me.  Changes come hard in this world.

Hieroglyphs from Past Civilizations

Photos ©Howard Dratch, 2009.  Mouse-over picture for preview of the gallery.

Click on the preview to go to the gallery, click on thumbnails to launch it.

Merida Faces

Little by little, poco a poco, faces are being added for a gallery.  This fellow winked at me from a deserted alley in El Centro.  It is not wise nor safe to follow the wink into hidden alleys in cities, but I did and was charmed by his smile.

Merida Faces: The Winking Car

©Howard Dratch, 2009.

Merida Coffee Roaster

Very little beats the smell of roasting coffee beans – especially in wood-fired roasters.  The first time I came across the thick aroma encompassing a city block with the sticky, dark flavor was in Ciudad Valles in San Luis Potosi.  There the roaster was old, a little grimy and stoked by Huastecan ladies.  It was a discorvery to be savored.

Here in Merida the same, rich smell enveloped me near the Santa Ana square as I walked and photographed.  This roaster, Cafe Cafico (924.27.00) not only provided freshly ground espresso they had roasted but the first Cuban coffee I have tasted in Mexico that tasted like the Cuban coffee I grew up on in Tampa and wait to enjoy when I am in Miami.  The machine is neat, too.

Coffee Roaster at Cafe Cafico, Santa Ana