. . . from the past

I'm off to Queretaro, Queretaro to visit Sandy Kessler of all people. Can you dig that?

Chicago Skronk at La Casona (Jazzmientos)

This was AWESOME.

My neighbors Graciella and Luis invited me to an event called Jazzmientos. It was held at the beautiful La Casona which is an art space created my the American artist John Spencer. This picture is from an inner courtyard. The concert space, which is unusual to say the least, was at the top of these stairs.

It was an evening of jazz in celebration of the 7th aniversary of 106.1 FM, an alternative radio station here in Cuernavaca. I was sure I would like it, but I had no idea what I was in for - Chicago style skronk!

This is a short video of Claude Lawrence, who, oddly enough, resides in Chicago.


This is a short video of Claude Lawrence playing with Francisco Mora Catlett, who played with another Chicagoian, SUN RA.


I felt like my Mexico experience went to a new level with this event. The space was incredible and the audience "felt" like people like me.

I even met two new friends who would play a much larger role during my travels: Mercedes and Karla. We didn't really talk much, but they were very nice and very pretty and - pretty girls from Mexico who are into skronky jazz - well, that's the winning combination! I invited them out to El Manojo the next night and then went home with Graciella and Luis. But that was only the first half of the evening.

. . . to be continued.

Karaoke Mexicano

This is what I did after Jazzmientos. This post will be a lot more interesteing and make more sense when you see the picture that I don't have yet.

Last Thursdays the crew at the local Starbucks, where I spend a great deal of my time, invited me to a karaoke party. It was one of those situations that I find myself in regularily where I understand the basics of a conversation, but I don't get the details.

What I thought was going to happen
I thought that a few of us were going to go to one of the guys' houses to make some music. A bunch of the crew are drummers and we had been talking about getting together to make music. They told me be there at 11:00 because that's when they closed.

What really happened
I showed up, banjo in hand, ready to make music. We were waiting for the whole rest of the crew. That's about 10 people total. Then we drove, not to far away, to a house that I later learned was not owned by one of the baristas, but by a couple who are frequent coffee drinkers, also. We weren't there to make music, we were there because the couple was throwing a kareoke party for the Starbucks crew.

So we had a karaoke party. Now it was a little strange for these reasons.

• I don't work at Starbucks.
• I speak Spanish like a 4-year-old.
• I don't know ANY contemporary Mexican pop tunes.

But, I did what I could and we had a great time. My first song was Suspicious Minds. Later the whole crew sang Cielito Lindo with me, which I will remember as a very special moment of my trip here.

Towards the end of the night the drums were brought out and we did get down to some instrumental music. Banjo and djembe just jammin' away. And I sang Lazy John.

Another memorable night.

Yes, I am still here

Hi everyone,
It's been a very busy week. Sorry I haven't keep this up to date but I hope to get back on track.
Here's a list of "events" that I hope to cover. I'm going to make a seperate post for each one so I can manage this better and so you don't have to read one LONG post. You can read one or two and come back for the others later.

Events of the past week:

• Karaoke with the Startbucks crew
  
• Jazzmientos - Chicago style skronk in Cuernavaca
  
• More music and muchas amigas at El Manojo
• The silver markets and Polzone in Taxco
• A haircut in Tlaquiltenango
  

Here it goes!

An Evening of Music at El Manojo with La Zafra

Here is a little write up I did today about a great night my friends and I had on Sabado, 19 de Julio. I wrote it in English first and then translated it to Spanish. I did pretty good! My maestra mejor, Margarita, helped me correct a few things here and there.

What a night this was. Well, I'll let you read this. I posted it first in Spanish and then in English.

Pictures courtesy of Ryan Leibling.

En español

Tuvimos a buen tiempo antenoche. Yo y mis amigos Sheleice, Heidi y Stehpan, conocimos a Ryan en un bar que se llama El Manojo. Fuimos escucar un grupo de Veracruz que se llama La Zafra.

No había mas personas en el bar y la bailarina de el grupo, Miroslava, vío que tenía interés especial en la musica. Ella me llamo a bailar pero estuve muy nervioso. Finalmente bailé con ella y todo la gente lanzó vítores. Ella es bailarina bonita.

En el descanso conoci a los musicos. Luego esta noche, tocaban cuando el principal de el grupo, Lusi Manuel, me tocó una jarana y tocé un cancion con el grupo. ¡Esta es la razón de que vine a México!

In English

We had a great time two nights ago. Me and my friends, Sheleice, Heidi, and Stephan met Ryan at a bar called El Manojo. We went to hear a band from Veracruz called La Zafra.

There weren’t many people in the bar and the dancer of the group, Miroslava, noticed right away that I was especially interested in the music. She was calling to me to dance with her but I was too nervous. Eventually I did dance and the audience cheered. She is a beautiful dancer.

At the break I met all the musicians. Later that night, while the band was playing, the leader of the group, Luis Manual, handed me a Jarana and I played a song with them. That is why I came to México!

Tepoztlán - an Indiana Jones Moment

This is me almost to the top of the Tepozteco Mountain where I got to see the remains of Tepoztlán, a temple built in the Aztec era, sometime between 1150 and 1350 AD. I don't want to get into the whole history of the place, but I can tell you that it is quite impressive. Boy, when humans get their minds to something, they can make it happen.

(Here's a few more pictures. More and higher quality pictures soon available on my web site.)




Speaking of making it happen, we made it all the way to the top. This is a picture of me and my German amigo Stephan right after we got off the bus in the town of Tepoztlán. See that blue awning at Stephan's right ear. If you start there and run your mouse straight up to the top of the mountain, you can kind of make out the temple. We climb from the point we're standing at all the way up to the temple.






Here's Stephan and Sheleice (from Arizona) on their way. The path is all stones. Sometimes it's jagged. Sometimes it's narrow. Sometimes it's slippery. Sometimes it's all three. There's maybe a hunderd yards of stairs right at the beginning, but from that point on it's all stone. And it's all up. Until we were climbing down. Then it's all down.








The view was like this all the way up. Jaw dropping natural beauty every ten feet or so.







That's the temple in the background.








A view from the top of the temple.

Test me on what exactly?

I want to share an interesting moment of insight from my final Español Gramática class for the summer.

I took another test on Friday. I’m not taking these español classes for college credit, so I don’t have to take the tests, but I thought that it would be interesting to see how far I had come over the three weeks. Before I tell you the results; a little background on the morning that had preceded the test.

I was feeling pretty run down on Friday morning and, instead of going to Unitnter, I skipped my first hour, bought a newspaper, and sat down at Starbucks. I was very proud of how well I did reading the paper, including almost total comprehension of an article about Obama’s speech regarding American students learning a second language. While there, I also spent a great deal of time speaking, en español, with my amiga Pao, who a Starbucks barista. We had a great conversation and I left for school very excited about learning Spanish!

Well, four hours later I took the test and, for the second week in a row, I didn’t do very well. Preteríto and imprefecto verb conjugation became an alphabet soup in my mind and I was only able to squeeze 53 words from my brain for my 100-word-essay. The test was done and I left the room to get some fresh air. There I was, on my last day of class, in the middle of México, feeling really, really, really bad about my prospects of learning Spanish.

Bad? About Spanish? But I was feeling so good! What happened?

----

I started thinking about my language classes in grade school. When I was in the 7th grade I was thrilled at the prospect of spending the year learning Spanish. But then I found that, despite my best efforts, the class was difficult. I addition, I was terrified by those headphones that allowed the teacher to ease drop on me as I was playing my part, along with the rest of the class, in a pre-recorded conversation. I got frustrated and as the class became more difficult I noticed that, even though I was studying and trying my best, I was not getting the “good grade” I was used to as an A student. By the time we got back from Christmas Break I had basically checked out, and after only one year I “quit” Spanish for the rest of my school career. Too bad, because I really wanted to learn Spanish.

----

Forward 18 years or so and here I am, in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Again, class is tough and it’s easy to get frustrated. But, I’ve been around the block a few times and I know a couple things that I wish I would have known during elementary and high school, when my entire life depended on good grades, rather than life experience.

First, I know that just because it’s me who doesn’t understand something, I’m not necessarily the one with the problem. I know there’s a big difference between leading a student in the educational process and simply reciting knowledge. Reciting knowledge lacks the ability to listen (which create dialog), and in addition it lacks an understanding of how the student is to put new knowledge into context in the “real world”.

Second, I know from experience that knowledge and language, be it Spanish, music, math, literature, or whatever, is nothing if it remains in the world of the classroom. Knowing how to conjugate 200 verbs in imperfect tense is not my goal. My goal is to have a more "well rounded" life (as my parents said when I was a kid) and be able to communicate with more of the world. If we can communicate, we can share our life experiences, and hopefully that brings something positive to the world.

If sharing life experience where the test, I’d receive straight A's very semester.

Thanks for reading. What do you think? Any similar experience in your life? Drop me a note.

Hope you’re doing well Chicago, Detroit and parts unknown. Let’s talk soon.

Hasta luego,
Jason

Niños Bailando Capoeira

I went to the Zocolo (city center) last night looking for a group of dancers dancing Danzsón, but I didn't find them. That was disappointing, but look at what I did find!

This is Capoeira. It is a combination martial art, dance and music originating in Brazil. There was three student groups yesterday, one circle of men, one of women and one of kids! The kids were great! Check it out.



There's another short video on my website. Those girls are awesome. ¡Que padre! (en español = very cool!)

It was too difficult to get very close to the adults, but here's a short example of what they were doing.



Pretty cool, huh? I know there's Capoeira classes for adults around town, including at the Old Town School, but I'm not sure about classes for niños y jovenes (kids and young people). If you're a student and you're reading this and are interested, maybe your parents can help you find a place to learn Capoeira. Then you can teach me!

Twinkle - a universal language (plus a P.S.)

This is Andre. His mom is one of the cooks at my favorite restaurante. Today, after lunch, I saw that he had a violin. I asked him about it and he told me that he had been playing for 2 months. He had a very strong sound for a beginner. He didn't know what to play porque he's just starting, but I played Twinkle and then he learned it by ear. It was great! He was playing it right out of the gate and we played it together a few times.

We're going to play again on Friday. Between Oscar on guitar, Andre on fiddle and me on banjo, we have the makings of a pretty good old time band.

Know a good bass player in Cuernavaca? Send him or her our way!

P.S.

This is my friend Grace. She's here for a few weeks with her son Patrick. I think they're from West Virginia, but I may be wrong. Drop me a line if I am.

The picture was taken at a little party that Unitner threw on the 4th of July. They put together an group of students (myself included) to sing the National Anthem. That was pretty cool but I got all subversive about it and had a group of students singing "This Land is Your Land" (the "real national anthem where I come from), but we got cut off when someone turned on a sound system with some other background music. That was too bad, but I understand that most people aren't us to having "the people" make the music, rather than simply being receivers.

This Land was Made for You and Me!

¡Hola Chicos!

That's what Paquita says every morning. She is mi maestra for Español Funcional: Vocabulary for Basic Communication. Let me tell you, there is nothing basic about it. It's tough but Paquita is a great teacher.

Español Funcional is 3 horas en la mañana. We start at 8:00 and sometimes it's a little tough to follow, but once Paquita starts rolling, I'm get up to speed pretty quickly.

¡Vamanos Chicos! Click here for more pictures and higher quality pictures from this class!

This is my afternoon class Español Gramática. It's a little different than the morning class. Español Funcional is a different topic every day, where the Español Gramática is more of a building blocks kind of thing.

¡Vamanos Chicos! Click here for more pictures and higher quality pictures from this class!


Speaking of Español Gramática, I had a pretty tough week in there. We spent the week working on preterit verbs (that's past tense.) We took our weekly exam today and yo no puedé bien. We had a different teacher at the beginning of the week and I just wasn't getting it. Alejandre, la profesora mayor, came in on Miercoles (Wednesday) and righted the ship. I think I'll do OK next week, but today, ¡dios mio! I was happy to put school to rest for the weekend.

On of the interesting things about being part of this school is the different waves of people coming in and out. Last week was my first week so I met a ton of new people. Then some of them left and a bunch of new people came in. Now a bunch more people are leaving, some of my closest amigos actually, and that's sad. For example, Corrie (on the left, taken, I think, at the moment he finished his Masters Degree) left today. But, I know that it will be fun to met a whole bunch of estudiantes nuevos on Lunes (Monday).

Hasta luego Corri y Tori (who left yesterday. I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of her with the class.) Drop me a line when you get a chance.

Fresher Air - A Brilliant Design

It's been 2 weeks since I've been in air conditioning. That's right. My body has been the temperature it's designed to be relative to the temperature outside and the material and amount of clothes I'm wearing for 14 straight days. It feels great.

Here's a picture of the house I'm staying in. It's the azul one on the right. That azul cushion is one of the ones from the earlier post.
This is the view just outside the front door.
I can't begin to explain how incredible the clouds are.

I can't begin to explain how good the fresh tortillas are.

Poco a Poco

That's my new favorite phrase. Little by little . . . so many things.

What a week. One of the great things about being here is that, since I don't know the language, I have friends everywhere I turn. It's incredible. Just like sitting on the porch, if I'm not afraid and I put it out there that I don't know very much but I'm trying, there's always a friendly face.

My favorite story to tell right now is of the young lady that works at the OXXO, which is basically a 7-11 right down the street from where I live. It's strange, but the fact that I don't know the language actually helps our relationship, rather than hinder. When I first started going there she was very helpful, and would slowly say the cost (numbers are very hard to understand at standard speed) and would help me with other things. Now that I'm understanding a little more and I can speak more, I can tell that she's happy for me. That's something that never happens in Chicago. Why would it?

I just can't believe how many great people I'm meeting. Here's a couple highlights of people I've met outside of school.

* Today - I can't believe I can't remember his name, but he was born in Cuernavaca and lived in Glenview for 8 years working in restaurants. I met him at the counter at the camera shop. We talked travel, music, Cueranvaca vs. Chicago, and the joys of life.

* Yesterday - I was waiting out the rain at a great restaurant and met Rosy, an older women who is a high school English teacher, as well as a senior citizen computer teacher. Here husband pasted a while back. They're from Mexico, but they lived in England for a long time. She gave me some great Spanish lessons and we talked about teaching and about learning and about life. She ended up give me a ride home. We're going to get together next week for another chat.

So with all this talk I haven't had much time to play music. But I did find someone to teach me some Mexican songs. His name is Alejandro and he teaches spanish at Uninter. On Tuesday we sat down on a bench at the school and we talked all about music and life and teaching, (the usual Jason subjects) and had a grand time. We learned Las Mañanitas, which he says is the "most important folk song in all of Mexico." He would fit in great at the Old Town School. First he gave me the song's background. Then he taught me the words. Then he taught me the tune. And just like so many of my classes, the instrument came last.

Like I said, though, I haven't had much time to play. That's OK. It'll come.

Here's a picture of my notebook. I haven't written this much by hand since high school. Believe it or not, my hand writing has actually gotten considerably worse over the years. And it wasn't too pretty to start with.

So my second week at the school is coming to an end. I was only going to go for three weeks, but this is just so much fun, I don't know, I might need to do four. Oscar and I are going to get together to play tomorrow and I think I'm going to in to Mexico City to find the famous Plaza Garibaldi on Saturday or Sunday.

Oh my gosh. So much more. I'll try to post again this weekend.

Thanks for reading,
Jason

Fin de Semana Prima - Getting the General Idea

It's an anniversary of sorts. Yesterday was the end of my first week in Cuernavaca and tomorrow will be the end of my first week an Universidad Internacional. It sure went quick. The Unitner (as they call it for short) has been a great choice. I have about 50 new friends and there's a great "we're all in this together," kind of feel. Plus, I've had 2 salsa classes and one evening of salsa dancing. I am dang tired!

Last night's homework was pretty tough so I was up late, which made today muy defacile to get through. I needed an extra café soló en la manaña, knowing it was my own fault because before I did my tarae (homework) I went to el centro for 1/2 price movie night and caught an español version of Kung Fu Panda. I can't tell you many of the details, but it was very funny and had a blast being in a theater with so many kids howling with laughter.

I spent today with my new friends Kumi (Japanese, living in northern Canada), Judy (British born, living and teaching French in L.A.) and Geri (15-years-old, born in Venezuela, living in South Carolina) and her mom Eveline (born in Holland, a Spanish professor, living in South Carolina). We took a tour of Xochicalco, which is the ruins of one of the great meso-american cities. This is a picture of me on the main temple. The inhabitants had a great deal of astronomical knowledge and the most impressive part was the observatory. The structure is huge. At it's center is a small room with a hole in the ceiling no more than 2 feet wide. Every year, at mid-day of the summer solstice, the whole room is illuminated.

Then we were off to Hacienda de Cortes, the summer home and sugar factory of Hernando Cortes, which is now a hotel and garden. It was quite beautiful.

Our guide, who's name I can't remember, had a severe limp and a specially formed shoe on his left foot. When asked why he regaled us with the story of having his foot bitten off by a lemon shark while he was a scuba diving guide in Veracruz. It sounded like quite a story, but I'll have to find him and have him tell it again when I know a little more español. Like the movie (and the tour of Xochicalco for that matter) I can tell you the general idea, but I didn't get much of the details.

Oddly enough, he knew all about the Cubs' 100-year drought and loves béisbol.

Oh my. It's almost midnight. ¡Necesito esta despierto at 6:30!

Buenos noches.