Thursday, January 20, 2011 — Is it all about eating?

Every time I sit down to write an entry in this blog, I've either just finished eating or I'm at least sitting in the dining room at Playa Los Arcos Hotel. No wifi in the rooms and the lobby has only coffee table hight surfaces. Doesn't work for me to reach down to type. Fortunately, I'm not the only one here with a laptop and they seem quite amenable to my using mine anywhere any time.

I noticed that many of the pictures of Skip I've pulled from my files have also to do with eating events. When our children were in preschool I started playing bridge with a group of women with children about the same age. We've all gone our ways but we still see each other at least once a year for lunch in Healdsberg. And I treasure their friendship that has lasted over all these years. Stuart, pictured here, served on the same ship in the Navy with Skip. Many years gone by.

Time is actually going rather quickly here I must say. I join Jean Pierre and Yael Saturday and I hope to photograph our show at the Peter Gray Museum at the University that morning. Wish me luck. These small format tapestries are not the easiest to get decent photos of. I'll just do the best that I can.

I'm sitting here typing with a constant smile on my face listening to and watching the "guest" drummer on the stage. The main man is playing Besa me mucho on the multi-purpose Yamaha, the beauties are doing their dancing thing and the guest, who can't be more than nine years old at the most, is cranking out his rythm and looking like a real pro. He's good but still has only so many tricks and it is fun to hear him make the most of what he has. He's really cute and I have a hunch he is the son of one of the beauties. In fact, someone in the bar audience side has just asked a question about him. I heard her say he is eleven, but he is really short. So I was not quite right, but close. Doesn't pay to look away for long. He's now setting up some kind of off and on colored light at his drum set. Think he's lost me. They've moved on to a song they do each night. A very sentimental number that sounds like cooka cooka coo. With violins and full effects. Now suddenly the Yamaha is switched to organ. I think I better stop this description if I haven't lost you already, but the smile is still on my face.

While we're on the subject of drums, at about three o'clock or before each afternoon, the sound of drums on the beach becomes stronger and stronger. Today I was sitting in the dining room at about that time answering an urgent request from Rodrick Owen for a karakumidai picture and looked out onto the malecon to see three men in fantastic headdresses. I have to interrupt this for a moment. A request from a big table full of patrons for Davy, Davy, Davy has just resulted in "Davy" heading for center front stage and he is now dancing with the beauties and singing a song many in the audience seem to know and now one of the waiters at the big table is dancing to the tune. The little guy is quite a performer. The whole audience is clapping in unison. They won't let him stop. It's turning into a medley. Well, I can't really do it justice....but I can't stop. He just turned around and banged on his drums between verses. Whew! I'm sitting behind him and he is facing the bar audience. Must be fun to see his face. Now he's sitting and doing a special drum thing. OK. Enough.

Back to the men with the headdresses on the malecon. They were drummers, definitely from someplace a bit more exotic than this. Must be a special indian tribe. They were drumming very close to the malecon, but each day I have heard drummers closer to the water so I haven't actually seen them well from here. There are times when the drumming doesn't stop until late into the night. It seems so natural and almost essential. It reminds me of how excited I became the first time I read Mickey Hart's "Drumming At the Edge of Magic." There is something so relevant about the beat of a drum. It speaks to the heart and the soul. The men with the head garb were dressed sparsely and seemed to have a lot of tattoos. Very lean and exotic. The head pieces were made of huge long turkey feathers and the waiter said there were parts from deer. I couldn't quite figure that out but he seemed to know. There's something good about not always knowing all the answers.