A heretic in the art world

Dan Ferguson and his wife Nisha, a pair of expat Canadians in San Miguel de Allende, make impressive ceramic sculptures - not to mention a good living. According to Dan, some visitors express amazement that the couple runs a commercially-viable art enterprise, DaNisha Sculpture.

While branded "sell-outs" for their approach, the Fergusons make no apologies. Dan says most students are "brainwashed" in art school that there's no living to be made in art. He and Nisha are proving the starving artist stereotype false.

Here's what I wrote on them in the Miami Herald, Mexico Edition: http://www.mexiconews.com.mx/24033.html

Canadians flock to western Mexico, but not necessarily San Miguel de Allende

Photo by Steven H. Miller

The Atencion newspaper in San Miguel de Allende published a feature I wrote on why so many Canadians settle in the Lake Chapala area instead of San Miguel. Basically, the Lake Chapala area is cheaper. The weather is also more agreeable. Most of us didn't leave Canada to freeze in the winter - and San Miguel can get pretty chilly. The Lake Chapala area has also been well promoted in parts of Canada and word of mouth advertising is now really spreading quickly.

Here's the top of the story:

Canadian retiree Dan McTavish, who has lived in Ajijic, Jalisco, for more than a decade, listed several reasons why so many of his fellow Canucks settle in the Lake Chapala area instead of San Miguel de Allende or any other part of Mexico’s interior.

Like many Canadian expats, he mentioned the weather as one of the main factors. The microclimate surrounding Lake Chapala is decidedly less chilly and often described as “perpetual spring.”

“Canadians come to Lake Chapala because it is not as cold as San Miguel,” the former Toronto native said. Additionally, “It is near ... Guadalajara. I can get off an airplane from the US or from Mexico City [on my way back from Canada] and be at my home in 35 to 40 minutes.”

While San Miguel de Allende has a noticeable Canadian community—estimated at about 15 percent of the expatriate population —Canadians seemingly dominate the Lake Chapala area, which is considered the largest enclave of Canadians outside of Canada, except parts of Florida in the wintertime.

Read the whole feature under the community section of Atencion's website.

Great - and artful - coffee in San Miguel de Allende

Adam, the owner of CAFE on Calle Correo in San Miguel de Allende, shows off one of his specialty lattes with an artful leaf design poured into the foam. The five-month-old cafe, which is also site of Adam's art studio, serves pretty much nothing but coffee, which is made the right way from properly-roasted Oaxaca beans. As Adam, a native of Montreal, put it: "I just couldn't stand the other places," when asked why he started his business.

Making coffee right means doing things other coffee shops neglect. He grinds the beans right before making a cup of coffee as the oil in coffee is highly perishablele and will go rancid shortly after being ground. The water is heated to 90 degrees Celsius as boiling water "scalds the coffee." Adam also adjusts the coffee grind several times throughout the day, depending on the temperature and humidity in the store. Milk is also important; he uses whole milk from the Santa Clara ice cream stores since it creates a thicker, more pourable foam. Being an artist, he then fashions a design in the foam by quickly flicking his wrist.

If you're in San Miguel, check out CAFE. You won't go anywhere else after trying it.

Development trouble stirs in San Miguel de Allende

Development issues continue vexing San Miguel de Allende as residents - both Mexican and expatriate - voice concerns that the municipality is imprudently granting too many construction permits for projects that fail to conform with the town's historic ambiance. Things came to a head on Dec. 16 with a demonstration against a seven-story condominium project called the Caracol, which was to be built next to the Caracol roadway, a bypass connecting the Salida to Queretaro with the Salida to Celaya.

Construction has been halted while the municipality reviews the project. The developer, in comments to the Atencion newspaper, blamed a small group, including expatriates, for stirring up trouble and pointed out that 108 San Miguel de Allende workers are now left without jobs. Critics of the development countered that the construction permits shouldn't have been given in the first place.

A new Super Gigante and large Comerical Mexicana outlet also opened earlier this month, saving many residents a trip to Celaya or Queretaro for worthwhile grocery shopping. And while popular - at least Comerical Mexicana is, while Gigante, a lackluster operation at the best of times, suffers with the new competition in town - the stores' plain, suburban-style facades drew grumbles from some of the marchers at the Dec. 16 protest. (More so Comercial Mexicana than Gigante.)

San Miguel resident Bob Kelly has followed this issue closely. Here's one of his articles from the Miami Herald, Mexico edition: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/miami/22528.html

San Miguel’s cantinas

San Miguel’s cantinas

By David Agren, Dec 8, 2006

Shortly before 5pm on a chilly Wednesday afternoon, an old- timer, clutching a cane, pushed through the wooden doors of Cantina La Colonia, a drinking establishment on Insurgentes in San Miguel de Allende. After approaching the bar, he ordered a generous shot of Gran Centenario Reposado Tequila and then proceeded to the tiny restroom behind a curtain in the corner. Upon emerging, he paid 30 pesos, took a sip from the shot glass before pouring the rest of the tequila into a red disposable cup and leaving the premises.

Ramon García’s family has owned Cantina La Colonia on Insurgentes since 1949.
Cantinas such as La Colonia generally sell alcohol in simple establishments to an older, less-affluent clientele drawn from the municipality’s barrios and ranchos. They generally open early and serve customers until midnight, seven days a week. Although similar to bars, cantinas usually lack polish and are governed by different licensing regulations. They’re also a throwback to days gone by, when only men would imbibe at such places and the tipplers were supposedly all macho. And while cantinas are still commonplace, business in many establishments isn’t exactly brisk.“In the old days, all the cantinas had a lot more people,” said Ramon García, owner of Cantina La Colonia.

Cantinas, however, live large in San Miguel de Allende’s municipal lore. Back in the 1960s, members of the Beat Generation, including Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac, would populate La Cucaracha, perhaps the area’s most legendary drinking establishment. Twenty-eight years after Cassady’s death on the railroad tracks heading toward Celeya, cantinas still dot most San Miguel de Allende neighborhoods, providing a cheap spot to drink beer and socialize with the Mexican population. In some cases, though, cantinas are tourist attractions and cater to both locals and foreigners in atmospheres that are genteel and not entirely authentic. And at places like La Cucaracha (cockroach in Spanish) and El Gato Negro (The Black Cat), the crowds can be decidedly young at times.

At Cantina La Colonia, owner Ramón García tends bar every day in a cheery establishment, which recently moved one door down the street. (He rented the old corner location at Insurgentes and Hernández Macías to a furniture store.) In the new location, he painted the walls mauve. It has three simple Corona-branded tables, a television set, a jukebox and a small shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe. He figured about 40 people could squeeze in at any given moment. Although possibly imposing for a foreigner passing by the swinging doors—the kind straight out of an old western movie—García rejects the idea of a cantina being an unsafe or unwelcoming place.

“The myth is that there were really macho people (in here),” he said between drags of a Marlboro cigarette. And he listed another fiction about cantinas: “That there used to be people here many years ago who had knives and guns.”

As a result, García said that foreigners—and some Mexicans—“Wouldn’t enter any cantina ... they were scared they would get beat up or that they could be killed.”

Cantina La Colonia first opened in 1949, the year García was born. He grew up in the cantina his father started shortly after moving from Mexico City. “For my father, this was a good business,” García said.

Since assuming control of the cantina, he said business has slipped due to the general economic malaise that has settled over Mexico for the past 25 years. (Last week, though, it was the cold weather that kept customers at home, and one night he closed early at 8:30pm.) Garcia also groused about the lack of a local industrial base and the dependence on tourism jobs, which he said don’t pay all that well.“San Miguel lives—for me—for nothing more than two things: artisans and drunks,” he said somewhat sarcastically.“Nowadays, the situation is [economically] pretty critical. Everything is going up in price and people don’t earn all that much money.”

Mostly Mexicans patronize his cantina—only about 20 percent of the clientele is foreign. Bottled beer is the most commonly ordered drink, followed by tequila. (García only sells Grupo Modelo products because the brewery, which makes Corona, Victoria and Negra Modelo, offered him a cash payment for signing an exclusivity deal.) Cantina La Colonia doesn’t serve food because cantinas are not allowed to serve it. The jukebox, loaded with a surprising variety of music ranging from Latin rock groups such as Maná to ranchero crooners such as Vicente Fernández, swallows an enormous quantity of coins. Cantina La Colonia almost never has live music—another thing forbidden by municipal rules. (Cantinas also can’t impose a cover charge.) Rules aside, bars, nightclubs and even strip joints are pulling customers away from cantinas, according to García, who lamented the large number of liquor licenses granted in the city center. “San Miguel is extremely saturated with bars,” he commented.

Silvia Hernández, a secretary in the Fiscalización office at city hall, said the municipality grants liquor licenses after consulting with the department of urban development and the general guidelines set out by the ayuntamiento (municipal council). As for cantina permits, she said few applications are made and most potential licensees seek permission to sell beer in small mom-and-pop shops.

And while bars and cantinas are different, some establishments blur the distinction. At La Coronela on the corner of San Francisco and Relox, the atmosphere is classy with large portraits of movie stars from the golden age of Mexican cinema gracing the walls. The music—a song from the sappy Mexican pop sextet RBD blared from the television during a recent visit—hardly seemed apt for a cantina. The establishment caters to both locals and foreigners, but in a departure from other cantinas, it hires well-dressed bartenders and waiters, each of whom declined to comment on the record for this newspaper.

Farther out from Centro, down Canal Street, Bar Casanova seemed a more authentic spot to watch the Chivas-Cruz Azul soccer playoff last Saturday evening. At Bar Casanova, a bottle of beer costs only 10 pesos and a waiter wearing a grubby white shirt and faded jeans delivered it to the table. Pictures of dogs playing poker covered some of the walls. Most of the denizens were glued to the match, with Chivas, a beloved squad that only fields Mexican players, drawing the most support. After a Cruz Azul shot hit the post, one inebriated patron yelled, “Pinche suerte!” (Cantinas are wonderful places to learn off-color Spanish.)

José Luis Perales, a lawyer trained at UNAM, has been the owner of El Gato Negro on Mesones for 23 years. The legendary cantina, which is adorned with photos of Marilyn Monroe, first opened in 1921.

On the other side of Centro from Bar Casanova, El Gato Negro delivers a more eclectic ambiance than virtually any other San Miguel de Allende cantina. Owner José Luis Perales decorated his establishment—the second-oldest cantina in San Miguel de Allende—with Marilyn Monroe memorabilia. El Gato Negro probably vies with La Cucaracha for the unofficial title of the most famous cantina in town.

“[El Gato Negro] has been famous because people comment ... ‘When you come to San Miguel you have to come to El Gato Negro,’” Perales explained.The landmark cantina on Mesones dates back to 1921. The original owner had a business delivering fuel, and a black cat was its mascot. Sort of by default, the cantina gained its name from the fuel company’s mascot, according to Perales. And while it was once a male bastion, Perales said that changed in the 1970s as Mexican women began receiving more legal rights and social customs changed. Nowadays, pretty much any sober person over the age of 18 can drink in a cantina.

“If you have a voter’s credential and it says 18 years old, you can enter,” he said.

Perales, like Ramón García at Cantina La Colonia, grew up in the cantina business. But unlike his competition, he previously studied law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Although he is a lawyer, Perales said, “I prefer working in a bar.”

Perhaps topping El Gato Negro in notoriety is La Cucaracha—but just barely. Esquire magazine once dubbed La Cucaracha one of the 10 best bars in the world. Located on Zacateros—it moved from its original location by the Jardín about a decade ago—it draws a mixed crowd of locals during the week and foreigners and tourists on the weekend.But beyond the plain and easy-going ambiance, history is La Cucaracha’s biggest calling card. The Beat Generation frequented La Cucaracha in the 1960s. Legend has it one writer gave writing lessons upstairs in order to cover his bar bill. Ramón García said La Cucaracha’s original owner was “a good promoter” who courted the American writers. “The Americans used to arrive and give him their checks,” Garcia explained. “If there wasn’t any money, it wasn’t important.”

Due to its notoriety, business is seemingly better at La Cucaracha than at pretty much any other cantina, including García’s La Colonia, which isn’t really thriving but, according to the owner, still provides an OK living. “It’s a business that isn’t especially profitable,” García said. “But it’s livable.”

Published in Atencion San Miguel

Adios, President

Adios, Presidente

A look back at six unremarkable years of Vicente Fox

David Agren December 4, 2006

Cantina owner Ramon Garcia once held high hopes for Mexican President Vicente Fox. He supported Fox not once but three times, as Fox previously ran for governor in Garcia's home state of Guanajuato before successfully deposing the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 2000. But with time, Garcia, like many Mexicans, grew disillusioned as Fox repeatedly stumbled and failed to implement much of the change promised during the heady days of his presidential campaign.

"He wasn't born dumb," Garcia commented, before adding, "Fox just never knew how to be president."

Garcia pointed to his ailing San Miguel de Allende bar business as proof of Fox's unfulfilled promises of creating prosperity. He said his clientele, mostly working-class folk from nearby barrios and surrounding ranchos, lacks the purchasing power of past years. Good jobs are still scarce.

Fox left office on Friday after six stable but unremarkable years of governance – if you don't account the early accomplishment of outsting the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and improving the macroeconomic climate. Despite running on an agenda of change, much of the old Mexico he promised to banish stubbornly persists, perhaps nowhere more visibly than in Oaxaca, where a teachers' strike descended into a battle between disgruntled leftists and the state's corrupt PRI governor. Inaction, a failure to broker deals with a divided Congress and a tendency to avoid conflict will no doubt go down as some of his biggest shortcomings. But many of Fox's problems stemmed from the high expectations created by his presidential campaign.

"He was an imprudent president incapable of biting his tongue,” said Marco Antonio Cortes, director of the political science department at the University of Guadalajara.

A gifted campaigner and lousy politician, the former Coca-Cola executive effectively turned the 2000 presidential race into a referendum on 71 years of PRI rule, coining the slogan, “¡Ya!” (loosely translated: now, or enough). He also was all things to all people and in the euphoria of seeing the PRI unseated – a feat compared to landing a man on the moon – pretty much anything he said seemed possible. Governing, however, proved more difficult than winning office.

"Fox never had a serious plan for governing,” said Dan Lund, president of Mund Americas, a Mexico City market research firm. Almost from the start, “There was a sense of drift that began to set in.”

Opposition lawmakers immediately seized on the president's poor political instincts and unwillingness to wield power like his predecessors. Much of Fox's agenda got bogged down in legislative gridlock. He quickly became a lame duck president.

His unwillingness to act decisively extended beyond partisan politics as he repeatedly backed down from confrontations. In 2002, he abandoned plans for a new Mexico City airport after machete-wielding campesinos refused to cooperate. Left-leaning presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador shut down central Mexico City for six weeks over the summer to protest alleged election fraud. Fox later fled the capital during the fiestas patrias (national holidays) rather than confront Lopez Obrador supporters camped outside of the traditional spot the president delivers the grito (the annual reenactment of Miguel Hidalgo's 1810 shout for independence). The Oaxaca conflict simmered for months, but Fox refused to send in the federal police until an American activist/journalist was shot dead in late October.

Perhaps most infamously, Fox said he'd resolve the Chiapas crisis in 15 minutes. Six years later it's still unresolved, although jungle-dwelling rebel subcomandante Marcos is now a peripheral figure, better loved by foreign lefties than Mexicans outside of Chiapas.Economically the country stagnated, although 2006 has been promising in terms of job creation. Growth averaged just 2.5 percent annually during the Fox years – a far cry from the seven percent promised. Migrants still decamp the campo (countryside) in large numbers. (The president promised to achieve an immigration deal with the United States, but 9/11 derailed those hopes.) Fox spoke of job creation, but the informal economy is as robust as ever. Monopolies and duopolies – most notably in telecommunications, broadcasting and brewing – still gouge Mexican consumers. Pemex, the state-owned oil company, is sorely lacking investment. Unions wield as much power as ever.

"We've got more macroeconomic stability, but that's all we've got,” Lund said. "Monopolies and privileges are braking – if not absolutely impeding – economic growth.”

Still, some of the macroeconomic figures are impressive. Inflation dipped below three percent, banks now issue fixed-interest rate loans, the peso failed to crash and the stock market tripled. Fox also drove down the budget deficit.

"He deserves credit, but not all of the credit that's been attributed to him,” said Marco Antonio Cortes. "He's been lucky.”

High oil prices swelled profits at Pemex, the government's main cash cow. (The company remits more than 60 percent of its gross income to the Mexican government, leaving little cash for exploration or maintenance.) Remittances from Mexicans abroad also accelerated, going from less than $10 billion in 2002 to a projected $24 billion in 2006.

Stability aside, Cortes remarked, "(Fox) hasn't achieved any of his important projects."

But that didn't stop the president from returning to what he did best: campaigning. Los Pinos (the presidency) aired an endless stream of TV and radio commercials and erected signs along many of the Republic's major highways boasting of the “Gobierno de Cambio” (government of change). Many Mexicans didn't believe it, but Fox remained somewhat popular. The propaganda, though, confused the residents of one Veracruz hamlet, who changed their town's name to Licenciado Vicente Fox Quesada in a bid to avoid missing out on the supposed largess flowing from Los Pinos. (More importantly for one resident commenting in Mexico City newspaper El Universal: “Most of the town is illiterate and this is one of the few names everyone could remember.”)

Fox's successor, Felipe Calderon, also spoke of change and made numerous promises during the 2006 presidential race. Unlike Fox, many analysts, including Cortes, give Calderon a better chance of succeeding.

"(Calderon's) intelligent, an able negotiator (and) much more prudent," Cortes said. Perhaps more importantly, "He thinks a lot more prior to opening his mouth."

David Agren is a freelance journalist living in Guadalajara

This article appeared in Reason