These are the police who patrol the Alameda Park. Dressed in their charro uniforms, they add just the right touch to the Alameda.

Sept. 24, 2007

The music ranges from lively to sublime. In the centro organ-grinders, dressed in khaki tan uniforms (there's a huge variety of uniforms in this city) are on every street, cranking out such standards as "Cielito lindo" with one hand, hat in the other extended for tips. Sometimes an assistant stands nearby asking for the tips. The stands that sell CDs always have music blaring. Often on the subways, the blind pass through playing CDs from a small chestpack and selling copies for "Diez pesos." I think you can buy just about anything for diez pesos: it's a chant you hear often enough, "Diez pesos, solo diez pesos." Since we live within earshot of the Alameda, we often hear music from there, especially on weekends. They often have live bands and dancing in the park. The first weekend we moved into the centro, the music was so loud we couldn't sleep, so we didn't even unpack our bags; but that was because it was the last weekend for"Australian Thunder", a male strip show that had been playing at the Metropolitan down the street. We had seen stretch limos driving around and advertising this show for a few days, and we wondered about the kind of neighborhood we had settled into. It hasn't been that bad since!

Sometimes the music is surprising. After we left the Frida exhibit at Bellas Artes. full of her beautiful, transcendent, ugly, painful, surrealistic style, we stepped into the BA bookstore and heard oh so familiar Elvis! A few weeks ago we were savoring tacos and the ambiente at the Cafe de Tacuba, when we were surrounded by the music of guitars and beautiful voices singing traditional Spanish (not Mexican) ballads - Clavelitos, Valencia, etc. Once we were really enjoying a balladeer singing at a Chinese restaurant (Chinatown is a few blocks away) when another (not as enjoyable) singer strolled up and started singing at our table. We -and the waiter- just rolled our eyes. Yesterday a trio of guitarrists serenaded us at lunch at the Hotel de Cortes, and last Sunday as we ate breakfast on calle Gante, a pedestrian street, a jazz trio with long dreds was playing in front of a typical Mexican pushcart selling food just in front of a Starbuck's. Strange juxtapositions!

On weekends there are sometimes small concerts at two historical buildings near the Zocalo. We went to one at the Antiguo Colegio de San Idelfonso, at one time home of the preparatoria made famous in the movie Frida. She was a student at the school when Diego Rivera, home from Europe and still painting with European influences, was painting the mural Creation. That mural forms the backdrop for the stage. A cappella singers, the madrigalistas of Bellas Artes, sang many traditional tunes and the featured singer Luz Bermejo, now quite elderly, sang some amazing tangos, accompanied by a virtuoso Russian pianist. We enjoyed the concert and the setting immensely. And at the end, the music director announced the tribute to Pavarotti for the following Wednesday (please see post for 9/23), a most moving celebration of his life and sublime music.