Oaxaca-The Year After: Muerteada - It's a thing... San Pablo Etla...

The here and now... and what and why

Complacency is a trap. At least that’s what I was thinking when I up and left the comfort of a Yankee prep school gig, where I taught music, amongst other things, for 28 years. There was also that life long career as a composer, musician and artist.

First, it was a year in St. Thomas, USVI, working as a reporter and shooting photography and then, a year in San Agustin Etla, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Time passed.
More time passed and a year back in the Athens of America followed by a hasty return to Oaxaca where it is all happening.
A couple of years in San Sebastian Etla and now, just down the road in San Pablo Etla. Life is good.

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For additional photography please visit my flickr page.
You can find my music on Jango (World & latin - Worldbeat) and at iTunes and most online stores.
¡Soy consciente de todas las tradiciones del Internet!
If you are coming to Oaxaca, please contact me for tours or advice.

Monday, October 16, 2017

Muerteada - It's a thing... San Pablo Etla...

Muerteadas seem to be getting more popular as the years go by or maybe I just never noticed how many there are in the barrios and villages near me. I drove around today to see the new murals enticing people to come and celebrate. So what's a muerteada? Kinda hard to describe... more or less it's people dressing up and dancing to insanely infectious music, going from house to house, for many hours, many times starting in early evening and ending the next morning. There might be mezcal and beer involved... it's a nice little bit of insanity. Each village has a different look, but the bands are always killer! I always end up at the San Augustin/San Jose melee.... but more about that later.

I walked around the corner to shoot this mural. ¡Viva San Pablo Etla Seccion 3! I saw it a week ago when a bunch of young guys were out starting it. This is what it looked like then.