Recycling a few haunted posts to say “Boo” to you

So many “postcards” are backlogged on my desk that I am dusting off some old seasonal favorites for Halloween and Day of the Dead offerings.

First, a few ghost stories from Brackenridge Park to set the tone for Halloween. Her murderers never caught, surely you have glimpsed Helen Madarasz roaming the park at night seeking justice: “The Madarasz Murder Mystery.” The post even throws in a few bonus ghosts who joined her later, all four who died in the park within a one-year period. Or perhaps you have heard the midnight screams of the glamorous Martha Mansfield, whose billowing crinolines set her ablaze in the park during the filming of a Civil War romance in 1923: “The Curse of Mararasz Park: Another Ghost Wandering in Brackenridge Park?”

When our daughter Kate said I could us this circa 1997 photo of her being kidnapped by the Pumpkin Monster, I do not think she realized it would continue to float up to the surface years later: “The Best Halloween.”

Dia de los Muertos, Romerillo, Chiapas

And then move on to some Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico for All Souls Day and All Saints Day:

• Postcard from San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, Mexico: Grooming Graves to Welcome Back the Dead
• Postcard from Romerillo, Chiapas, Mexico: Day of the Dead Mudfest
• Postcard from San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, Mexico: Coke is for Everyone, Dead or Alive
• Postcard from San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico: Dia de los Muertos Part of Urban Fabric
• Postcard from Mexico City: Visiting the dead in Panteon de Dolores

Finally, a few stops by graveyards in Europe: https://postcardsfromsanantonio.com/category/haunting-graveyards/

Happy Halloween!

Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno, Genoa, Italy

 

Reviving Dia de los Muertos

When I first moved to San Antonio, the places to see flowers and foods placed on graves to encourage visits from their inhabitants were the old San Fernando Cemeteries. Most of the wrinkled pilgrims picnicking with their deceased loved ones on All Saints and All Souls Days, November 1 and 2, appeared poised to repose alongside them. The remnants of the Dia de los Muertos traditions enduring from when San Antonio had been part of Mexico were dying with them.

Bedoy’s Bakery, founded in 1961, credits Father Virgil Elizondo with encouraging the bakers to dust off traditional old recipes for dead bread, pan de muerto. I used to buy the breads around Halloween, but felt guilty when we selfishly ate them without offering to share them with the dead.

In the past decade or two, artists in San Antonio began adding contemporary twists to ancient Day of the Dead traditions, and now the city sponsors a full-blown fiesta for Dia de los Muertos in La Villita. Altars, processions and even a concert by Girl in a Coma were part of this year’s event, held a bit early because the city’s Day of the Dead calendar is getting more crowded.

While a far cry from the celebrations we witnessed outside of and in San Cristobal de las Casas last November, San Antonio’s spirited version represents traditions worth reviving and refreshing for new generations.

Although I cannot comprehend why the marketing department at Coca-Cola is not all over sponsorship opportunities for this event. In Mexico, Coca-Cola dominates the graveyard market in San Juan Chamula, Chiapas:

One would think a people who have rejected so many standards held by outsiders would not consider taking even one sip of a Coca-Cola. But expelling evil spirits from the body is key. Spitting helps, but burping is best. And what is better at inducing burping than a few shots of rapidly consumed Coke….

But, what marketing genius convinced the Chamulans a half-century ago to incorporate Coke into not only their Sunday church-going regimen, but everyday life? I mean, Chamulans need to continually maintain their guard against those invasive evil spirits, burping them out on a regular basis.

And whoever the lucky holder of the local bottling franchise is really struck a home run with this. The market is larger than just the living. On Dia de los Muertos, even the dead are served Cokes to quench their parched throats from so much time spent underground and to burp away any evil spirits hanging around the cemetery.

Just think how large Coca-Cola’s market share would soar if this practice spread to the dead everywhere.

Here are some posts from last year in Chiapas, Mexico:

• Postcard from San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, Mexico: Grooming Graves to Welcome Back the Dead
• Postcard from San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico: On the Marigold Trail to Dia de los Muertos
• Postcard from Romerillo, Chiapas, Mexico: Day of the Dead Mudfest
• Postcard from San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico: Dia de los Muertos Part of Urban Fabric
• Postcard from San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, Mexico: Coke is for Everyone, Dead or Alive

 

Postcard from Toledo, Spain: Another splendid museum off the beaten path

So close to Toledo’s Plaza Mayor yet skipped by so many visitors, the riches of the Santa Cruz Museum are displayed in a stunning rehab of a 16th-century hospital.

Yes, there are some El Greco works inside, but, uncharacteristically, I was fascinated by the fashions – an exhibit titled La Moda Espanola en el Siglo de Oro.

If you are paying attention, please, Mister, a necklace with powerful magical amulets resembling the one above is at the top of my birthday wish list.

And more on the fashion front: Returning to a blog theme broached in San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, “What should Jesus wear?,” a large canvas in this museum seems to address whether he wore boxers or briefs.