Carl's Mexico Notebook
#8

About a year ago, Lorena and I were promoting the 25th anniversary edition of the People’s Guide at bookstores in northern California. We’d put together an informal “dog & pony show” that included a few slides of Mexico and a reading from the book (see Parrot Fever), followed by an exchange of questions, personal experiences, and comments from the audience.

Most of the people who came to these events were already familiar with our books. Although we were “singing to the choir”, it was nonetheless quite gratifying to meet readers who credited the People’s Guide with helping them make friends and cultivate interests in Mexico that go deeper than just tourism.

Among those attending was P.G. Meier, who offered us a cassette tape he’d put together of Oaxaca street musicians. Thinking “home movie soundtrack equals utter boredom”, I accepted with a certain reluctance. I also admit that it took a couple of gentle email reminders from P.G. before I actually broke down and plugged his tape into a deck.

You’ve probably already guessed my punchline: instead of garage-grade noise, I listened (twice in a row) to an amazingly well-produced collection of authentic Oaxaca street-folk, right down to the clink of coins in a musician’s cup. It was not only good music, but was in some ways better than commercially produced archival recordings I’ve heard from Mexico.

P.G.’s next surprise came in response to my gushing “review”: contrary to what I’d expected, he was simply not interested in selling copies of the cassette. As he explained, recording the music in Oaxaca, photographing the musicians, and producing the tape (and later a CD) was an entirely personal project, and nothing more.

Ground Control: Are you listening, Mr. Trump?

I’m now happy to say that even though P.G. still wants to maintain a “low profile” with this project, he has generously offered to share selections from his Oaxaca recordings with us. When will the music be available? We’re not sure... as the saying goes, “stay tuned”, we’re definitely working on it.

In the meantime, P.G. consoles us with a tempting review of "Seasons of The Heart" featuring Susana Trilling -- a fine video cooking series on the foods of Oaxaca produced for PBS.