MEXICO
Artist Credit: Watercolor by Sue Siskin: Zocalo, Oaxaca, Mexico
Something happens to me when I am in Mexico. I relax. My mind seems sharper. Most of all, I’m happy. The people and ambiance of this beautiful country have inspired the stories and other posts in this section.
Short Fiction – A Cautionary Tale Based on Personal Experience
Herman Piakowski sat in the Mexico City airport. Crowds of tourists and locals streamed by. Herman looked at his wife, Betty Lou while she listened to two girls they saw on the plane flying down. “So, you really use it, that cream?” “Hell yes. Like, it hurts...
Short Fiction: The Dead Man
The ceiling fan purred. It was hot and humid in the room. Albert had come to Puerto Vallarta from San Francisco where it was cool and brisk. He had ten days to himself alone without a phone or computer. He came to think, not to work. He walked out to the...
Jesus Mezcal and the Easter Bunny
[Click on BLUE links for more information} Capitalism and Christianity make strange bedfellows. To anyone, especially any Christian, who doubts this I would say: read some of Tolstoy’s essays such as My Religion. Tolstoy had many faults...
Poem by Think in the Morning: The Man in the Zocalo
The mind is restless. It never sleeps. Thoughts skip across the surface Like flat rocks on a lake Sink to the bottom Into darkness and mud. A man traipsed the square leaning on his walker Straw hat. Wide brim. Khaki pants. Plaid shirt Covered with...
El Chapo
Today's News: Drug lord 'El Chapo' extradited to the U.S. I wrote this one year ago while in Puerto Vallarta. Gotta Do It “Listen Guzman, we gotta do it. We gotta build a wall. Those Americans are flocking down here, drunks, fat people, cheapskates and...
Tre Piatti: Food and Art in Puerto Vallarta
[please click on blue links for further information] “Everything we do turns to shit in a few hours.” James Larsen, owner, The Restaurant, Fort Bragg, CA Tre Piatti is a regional Italian restaurant in the heart of the Zona Romantica in...
Muriel’s Raicilla
[click on blue links for further information] “Long ago my grandfather used a Canoe to cross the bay from Pizota to Sayulita or to Vallarta to sell it.” Muriel Castillon I first tasted Raicilla in 2010. I was spending a few days with my family at...
Lucy’s CuCu Cabana
[Click on blue links for further information] You already know that Alebrijes Make Me Happy. All of Mexico makes me happy. It's a large country (760,000 square miles) but smaller than the contiguous 48 states of the USA (3 million square miles). Thankfully you...
Oliver Sacks in Oaxaca
Written over fifteen years ago, Oliver Sacks’ Oaxaca Journal is still one of the best books for visitors to Oaxaca. I was confused to read that one reviewer thinks that: “Sacks did not go into the depth I might have expected based on the insight he displayed in...
The Trickster: Clifford Irving in Oaxaca
It was Mark Twain who said “truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.” Mark Twain could have been speaking about Clifford Irving’s Howard Hughes hoax that's based on a true adventure. Anyone will...
The Last Zapotec Princess
The executioner lifts the macuahuitl and points it toward the sky. Donaji lays on the stone altar, her neck extended, slightly bent, fully exposed to the powerful thrust she knows is to come. She is a Zapotec Princess, the last. She will give her life for her...
Some Traditional Markets of Oaxaca
NOTE: ALL MARKET PICTURES IN THIS POST WERE TAKEN AT THE FRIDAY MARKET AT EL LLANO BENITO JUAREZ PARK UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED. Oaxaca abounds with traditional markets. The grand market of the city, Central de Abastos, was brilliantly described by D.H....