May 17, 2006
Under The Balcony
I went to a mariachi concert the other day. Natalia's group was playing at a nursing home for Cinco de Mayo and since she keeps inviting me and I keep saying I want to go, I finally did. It was a great way to spend an hour: the concert was outdoors, the residents of the home in a circle, the six mariachi in the center. The audience was made up of very old people as well as one or two former gangsters paralyzed from the neck down, their tattoed bodies inert on wheelchairs. These were people whose bodies had betrayed them, all that was left were their minds and moments like this, their faces momentarily aglow. There was one woman who was 93 who knew every song and was singing along in a faint voice. Natalia pulled her into the circle and sang a duet with her.
I took my shoes off, laid in the grass, the sunlight on my face and listened to the music. It got me thinking about the mariachi ethic. I have always loved mariachi music, it is a quick way to tap into those subterranean aquifers of extreme joy or sadness without irony. The lyrics are simple and beautiful and known by all, a shared narrative anyone can appropriate when it is too difficult to face your own. Mariachi music, at its best, usually involves crying. I remember every year at school there were mariachi the last day of classes for the seniors, the bell would ring and the mariachis would parade in, trumpet blaring and seniors would start singing and hugging each other and crying and the ayyy ayyyy ayyyyys would last into the late afternoon and the underclassmen would watch, somewhat perplexed, somewhat in awe, not believing that would be us until the time came and there we were crying our hearts out, singing our ayyy ayyyy ayyyyys.
Plaza Garibaldi is one of my favorite places in Mexico City. You cannot say it is the heart of the city, Mexico City is too monstrous a chimera to have a single heart, but is is definitely one of the spiritual reservoirs that keeps the city alive and defines it, much like the still lake in the middle of Hanoi feeds the ethos of that Buddhist city. Plaza Garibaldi is an open plaza in the old historic center where freelance mariachi congregate. On any given night there are probably a couple hundred hanging about, on a viernes de quincena the biweekly pay day, there are far more.
At any hour, any day, you can go to Plaza Garibaldi and hire an impromptu mariachi band. As you approach the plaza you are approached by mariachi in the black suits and silver- studded pants. You can ask the band to meet you at a certain address if you are planning on serenading your girlfriend or you can have them perform for you on the spot. Some mariachi wear white or brown charro suits with sarapes. There are also a handful of singers and musicians dressed in the norteño style who will play corridas on their accordians or others dressed in the white pants and guayaberas of Yucatan and Veracruz who will strum their harps and sing bombas.
The best is on a busy night when a singer approaches you and you request a song and he assembles a band on the spot, a trumpet player in black, a charro violinist, a guitarist in white, and so on. The singer makes quick inquiries, Cielito Lindo? Hermoso Cariño? Besame Mucho? El Rey? La Media Vuelta? and the band comes together at that moment to perform the song and, after the money is divided up, they dissolve, street theater at its best.
There are two reasons, aside from the classic reason of hiring mariachi for a serenade, to go to Garibaldi: you are feeling very happy or you are feeling very sad. If you are lucky, there are friends with you and you stand in a semi-circle, arms around each other singing along with the band. When one of you runs out of money, the other pitches in and shares your happinness or sadness until they become one and the same and you are singing and laughing and crying and enjoying that very Mexican need to take pleasure in the sadness of life.
There are roving tequila men who sell tequila by the cup, you pay a few pesos and they pour a shot in a cheap plastic cup. And there are the men with the caja de toques or shock box: you stand in a circle with your friends, two of you hold a metal rod and the man runs an electric current through the circle. You hold tight, not wanting to be the first to let go, as the man runs the dial up from 2 to 3 to 4 and 5 and your friends are all grimacing and squeezing your hand tight and you to 6 and then to 7 and you don't want to be the one to let go quien es mas macho and then to 8 until finally someone lets go and everyone is secretly relieved and takes another shot. By two or three in the morning there are there are several passed-out drunk revellers, their bodies slumped beneath one of the monuments to the great mariachi composers or, why not, beneath the statue of the Italian liberator himself.
But mariachi in its purest form is the serenata, and that is the true purpose of Plaza Garibaldi, a home for the itinerant troubadour, a place for the restless romantic to assemble an impromptu army of fellow sentimentalists and charge into battle.
By tradition a serenata takes place under a balcony or window. This is important: the man is below the woman, looking up to her and pleading his case. This is not Romeo sneaking under Juliet's balcony in the middle of the night to secretly swear by the moon his love to her. The serenata is the enemy of secrecy. The lover is at the head of a raucous and loud procession that snakes its way through the neighborhood at an impolite hour, waking the neighbors and incurring the wrath of the beloved's parents. By the time the window swing open and the woman gazes down at the assembly of provacateours the entire city block is alert and waiting.
That is the point, the stakes could not be higher. This is the moment when the man must plead his case before the court. Most likely his lover's parents despise him, for few parents like the kind of scoundrel who would wake the family in the name of love. Perhaps the beauty herself is unhappy with the unfaithful minstrel. The neighbors are the jury, skeptical but willing to be swayed. The man stands alone, the world looking down on him. His only friends are musicians he met half an hour ago and are his allies as long as the pay is forthcoming. The man will stand or fall on his own will, he stands defiant under the balcony.
There should be no doubt about the danger. The neighbors could throw things at him out the window, a rival lover may emerge or, worst of all, the light in the señoritas window may never turn on, the window never open, the face never peer over the balcony. One of the better pieces of family lore has my maternal grandmother being serenated by her boyfriend when my grandfather, half drunk and in a mood to fight, summons a group of friends who beat up the mariachi band and my would-be progenitor, picks up the guitar and finishes the song.
At this moment of maximum danger, the height of macho arrogance, the man invokes its counterpart: the humbling beauty of love. Everything rests on this. The parents and lover and neighbors and onlookers and street drunks all know the lyrics of the songs. There is nothing new he can say, that hasn't been sung before. The question is, will the man sing so beatifully that they are moved? Will his passion channel the purity of love and awaken the idealist in them? Or will his lack of conviction show, the windows closing one by one, the lights turning off, the trumpets falling silent?
The same man that a minute before stood in the penumbra of the street light daring the world to challenge his right to be there steps forward into the light and sings, The day you were born, all of the flowers on earth were born. It is trial by combat, he will only win her favor if in fact he does have the gods and the muse on his side. This is the mariachi ethic. The man must show he is afraid of nothing and no one and then, once he's done so, has permission to show he is vulnerable and emotional. Why do matadors wear pink stocking and their sparkling "suits of light"? Because they can. Facing the possiblity of death before the bull, the matador has earned the right to wear something beautiful and superfluous. For the man under the balcony or before the bull, masculinity has come full circle and and encounters femininity: danger is beauty, strength is nakedness.
I went to a mariachi concert the other day. Natalia's group was playing at a nursing home for Cinco de Mayo and since she keeps inviting me and I keep saying I want to go, I finally did. It was a great way to spend an hour: the concert was outdoors, the residents of the home in a circle, the six mariachi in the center. The audience was made up of very old people as well as one or two former gangsters paralyzed from the neck down, their tattoed bodies inert on wheelchairs. These were people whose bodies had betrayed them, all that was left were their minds and moments like this, their faces momentarily aglow. There was one woman who was 93 who knew every song and was singing along in a faint voice. Natalia pulled her into the circle and sang a duet with her.
I took my shoes off, laid in the grass, the sunlight on my face and listened to the music. It got me thinking about the mariachi ethic. I have always loved mariachi music, it is a quick way to tap into those subterranean aquifers of extreme joy or sadness without irony. The lyrics are simple and beautiful and known by all, a shared narrative anyone can appropriate when it is too difficult to face your own. Mariachi music, at its best, usually involves crying. I remember every year at school there were mariachi the last day of classes for the seniors, the bell would ring and the mariachis would parade in, trumpet blaring and seniors would start singing and hugging each other and crying and the ayyy ayyyy ayyyyys would last into the late afternoon and the underclassmen would watch, somewhat perplexed, somewhat in awe, not believing that would be us until the time came and there we were crying our hearts out, singing our ayyy ayyyy ayyyyys.
Plaza Garibaldi is one of my favorite places in Mexico City. You cannot say it is the heart of the city, Mexico City is too monstrous a chimera to have a single heart, but is is definitely one of the spiritual reservoirs that keeps the city alive and defines it, much like the still lake in the middle of Hanoi feeds the ethos of that Buddhist city. Plaza Garibaldi is an open plaza in the old historic center where freelance mariachi congregate. On any given night there are probably a couple hundred hanging about, on a viernes de quincena the biweekly pay day, there are far more.
At any hour, any day, you can go to Plaza Garibaldi and hire an impromptu mariachi band. As you approach the plaza you are approached by mariachi in the black suits and silver- studded pants. You can ask the band to meet you at a certain address if you are planning on serenading your girlfriend or you can have them perform for you on the spot. Some mariachi wear white or brown charro suits with sarapes. There are also a handful of singers and musicians dressed in the norteño style who will play corridas on their accordians or others dressed in the white pants and guayaberas of Yucatan and Veracruz who will strum their harps and sing bombas.
The best is on a busy night when a singer approaches you and you request a song and he assembles a band on the spot, a trumpet player in black, a charro violinist, a guitarist in white, and so on. The singer makes quick inquiries, Cielito Lindo? Hermoso Cariño? Besame Mucho? El Rey? La Media Vuelta? and the band comes together at that moment to perform the song and, after the money is divided up, they dissolve, street theater at its best.
There are two reasons, aside from the classic reason of hiring mariachi for a serenade, to go to Garibaldi: you are feeling very happy or you are feeling very sad. If you are lucky, there are friends with you and you stand in a semi-circle, arms around each other singing along with the band. When one of you runs out of money, the other pitches in and shares your happinness or sadness until they become one and the same and you are singing and laughing and crying and enjoying that very Mexican need to take pleasure in the sadness of life.
There are roving tequila men who sell tequila by the cup, you pay a few pesos and they pour a shot in a cheap plastic cup. And there are the men with the caja de toques or shock box: you stand in a circle with your friends, two of you hold a metal rod and the man runs an electric current through the circle. You hold tight, not wanting to be the first to let go, as the man runs the dial up from 2 to 3 to 4 and 5 and your friends are all grimacing and squeezing your hand tight and you to 6 and then to 7 and you don't want to be the one to let go quien es mas macho and then to 8 until finally someone lets go and everyone is secretly relieved and takes another shot. By two or three in the morning there are there are several passed-out drunk revellers, their bodies slumped beneath one of the monuments to the great mariachi composers or, why not, beneath the statue of the Italian liberator himself.
But mariachi in its purest form is the serenata, and that is the true purpose of Plaza Garibaldi, a home for the itinerant troubadour, a place for the restless romantic to assemble an impromptu army of fellow sentimentalists and charge into battle.
By tradition a serenata takes place under a balcony or window. This is important: the man is below the woman, looking up to her and pleading his case. This is not Romeo sneaking under Juliet's balcony in the middle of the night to secretly swear by the moon his love to her. The serenata is the enemy of secrecy. The lover is at the head of a raucous and loud procession that snakes its way through the neighborhood at an impolite hour, waking the neighbors and incurring the wrath of the beloved's parents. By the time the window swing open and the woman gazes down at the assembly of provacateours the entire city block is alert and waiting.
That is the point, the stakes could not be higher. This is the moment when the man must plead his case before the court. Most likely his lover's parents despise him, for few parents like the kind of scoundrel who would wake the family in the name of love. Perhaps the beauty herself is unhappy with the unfaithful minstrel. The neighbors are the jury, skeptical but willing to be swayed. The man stands alone, the world looking down on him. His only friends are musicians he met half an hour ago and are his allies as long as the pay is forthcoming. The man will stand or fall on his own will, he stands defiant under the balcony.
There should be no doubt about the danger. The neighbors could throw things at him out the window, a rival lover may emerge or, worst of all, the light in the señoritas window may never turn on, the window never open, the face never peer over the balcony. One of the better pieces of family lore has my maternal grandmother being serenated by her boyfriend when my grandfather, half drunk and in a mood to fight, summons a group of friends who beat up the mariachi band and my would-be progenitor, picks up the guitar and finishes the song.
At this moment of maximum danger, the height of macho arrogance, the man invokes its counterpart: the humbling beauty of love. Everything rests on this. The parents and lover and neighbors and onlookers and street drunks all know the lyrics of the songs. There is nothing new he can say, that hasn't been sung before. The question is, will the man sing so beatifully that they are moved? Will his passion channel the purity of love and awaken the idealist in them? Or will his lack of conviction show, the windows closing one by one, the lights turning off, the trumpets falling silent?
The same man that a minute before stood in the penumbra of the street light daring the world to challenge his right to be there steps forward into the light and sings, The day you were born, all of the flowers on earth were born. It is trial by combat, he will only win her favor if in fact he does have the gods and the muse on his side. This is the mariachi ethic. The man must show he is afraid of nothing and no one and then, once he's done so, has permission to show he is vulnerable and emotional. Why do matadors wear pink stocking and their sparkling "suits of light"? Because they can. Facing the possiblity of death before the bull, the matador has earned the right to wear something beautiful and superfluous. For the man under the balcony or before the bull, masculinity has come full circle and and encounters femininity: danger is beauty, strength is nakedness.
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