2 - ¡OLE!
Cuando El Hombre Pequeño
Se Hace Grande

“Nou a la Güerrau”
Cróníca de una Esperanza
Por José Juan Castañeda Olvera
Una particularidad distingue a San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, de entre muchas entidades del país. No sólo es una de las ciudades más visitadas en el mundo, sino que también resulta misteriosamente un lugar magnético para que diversos extranjeros de distintas nacionalidades lo adopten como su hogar. De esta forma, un buen porcentaje de la población son residentes foráneos. Esta fusión cosmopolita ha creado una amalgama entre lo colonial y lo extranjerizante. La logística de las calles lleva por caminos impensables, calles verticales y vertientes empedradas que discurren en callejuelas y plazas, que siguen sorprendiendo a los mismos residentes. El color abunda en sus paisajes urbanos. En alguna ocasión, la poetisa Elsa Cross, dijo que normalmente asociamos un color a las ciudades: para Mérida el blanco, León el verde, etc. Pero al hablar de San Miguel, más bien llega a nuestras mentes una especie de collage indescifrable. El centro sanmiguelense nos presenta una iglesia en prácticamente cada esquina, que datan de la época colonial. Las influencias del barroco de esa época, ostentoso y muchas veces no muy bien armonizado, se pinta de su radiante cielo y halagüeño sol, escupiendo expresionistas influencias de color. Tan internacional como los rostros, razas y sangres, Pedro Vargas, el tenor mexicano, brotó de las entrañas de este singular pueblo, destinado a emanar los aires internacionales de su cuna.

Don’t Call It A Comeback!
Pulque Has Been Here for Years!
by Tochtli-Rabbit
In my youth, upon visiting Mexico City, I would sometimes see a very plain looking building with no door and no windows that had scrawled upon the wall outside the words “pulqueria”. I once asked my best friend Edgar what this place was, and he told me it was a drinking establishment for a very specific type of drink. The drink was called pulque. And when Edgar described it to me, he would wince and shudder as to express his utter disdain for the beverage. Edgar was obviously not a big fan of pulque. But then again, Edgar was not a fan of tequila either. He only politely drank and tolerated tequila when it was offered to him as a toast, or dared to him by a friend. And pulque, being derived from the same family of maguey plants as tequila and mezcal, was not very high on his list of favorites. Couple this biased aversion against the maguey family with lurid myths about pulque’s mysterious production and origins, and in no short time Edgar had convinced me never to want to try it.

Little Big Men o Los Enanitos Toreros
Por El Feliz Gigante Verde
(Español) Hace dos semanas algunos de ustedes quizá tuvieron el placer de ver a Los Enanitos Toreros en la Plaza de Toros Oriente. Ellos son un grupo de 8 enanos que han deleitado por 18 años, a público de todas las edades, con su manera cómica y única de torear, hacer un rodeo y hasta un acto de striptease. Sus miembros son de varios lugares de la República, sin embargo ellos consideran a Aguascalientes su punto de partida. Se especializan en lo que ellos llaman Rodeo Cómico, Jaripeo Cómico, y Toreo Serio-Cómico.
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(English) Two weeks ago, some of you may have had the pleasure of seeing Los Enanitos Toreros at Plaza de Toros "Oriente". They are a travelling troupe consisting of eight Mexican midgets who have delighted audiences of all ages across the country for the past 18 years with their unique brand comic bullfighting, rodeo and, yes, even striptease act. Their members hail from all over the country, but they consider Aquascalientes, Mexico, their home base. They specialize in what they call Rodeo Cómico, Jaripeo Cómico, y Toreo Serio-Cómico, all similar forms of comic rodeo and bull fighting.
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Do Art Students Hate Art?
By Keith Keller
Art students don’t go to galleries. They go to inaugurations and hog down on the free snacks and wine. This is a fine tradition that has kept many an honest artist from starving to death. They don’t visit galleries when the gallery has nothing to drink or eat.

I lived in the hotel Sauto in the big front studio for two years. One day I noticed a young woman in the courtyard dribbling ink on a newspaper then folding and opening the paper, making her own Rorschach test. She seemed pleased with the results. David Wright, another painter living in the Sauto, joined me as I was watching the dribbler dribbling. "RISD student," he said, as if this explained everything.

Rob's Napkin Poetry