antonio balson

Finding a jewel, Awareness by Anthony de Mello S.J.

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Few things are as rewarding as finding an unexpected jewel. It might be a film, some material thing -including a jewel- but in my case it was a book.

Anthony de Mello’s The Prayer of the Frog has been on my to read list for years, but it is a long list so I don’t really worry too much about it. A few months ago, I found another book by Anthony de Mello on the Free Bookshelf at my school: Awareness.

Well, I finally picked it up and it gave me a big slap on the face! What an awakening!

The book (published posthumously; de Mello died in ’87 the book was published in ‘90) is basically a transcript of one of his conferences. He shakes you to wake up, to start really seeing, to really listen and observe, to be aware of what we do, including charity work, to not label things, including God. The book is really priceless, with quotes such as:

We see people and things not as they are, but as we are.

Anthony de Mello

De Mello urges the reader to simplify, to understand the difference between desires and preferences. He points to our understanding of the world through our conditioning. The whole book is full of wisdom and urgency. I read the almost 200 pages in a few sittings.

One never quarrels about reality; we only quarrel about opinions, about concepts, about judgements.

Anthony de Mello

Handel’s Messiah, how to start the holiday season!

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Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Halleeeelujaaaaah!!!

You have heard this sung a thousand times, but did you know it comes from Handel’s Messiah?

Thanks to a generous donor, I managed to get a ticket to see and hear the Palm Beach Symphony perform Handel’s Messiah, together with a group of students from my school.

Although this was a smaller production than the North Carolina Symphony, or the Naples Symphony, or others I have seen, the music is so amazing that it really does not matter so much. It is also a wonderful way to start the holiday season.

As an Enlightenment freak, I love how Handel pushes his Baroque style to the gates of the Enlightenment, of Classical music. Together with Bach (you can read my musings on him here), they make the Rococo obsolete before it is born, making it possible for Mozart, Haydn or early Beethoven to get a start on Classical music at the end of the 18th C.

In case you have not seen or heard this amazing work here is a YouTube recording. Enjoy. By the way, the Hallelujah is at 1:36…

On the importance of doing your work

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The most important lessons in life you learnt as a child. One of those lessons was do your homework, do your work. There is no substitute. You might be able to get away without doing your homework once in a while. But if you want results, you have to do the work, put in the hours.

Last Spring, we lost the soccer game against our eternal foe, Miami’s St. John Vianney 3-4. This year we put in the work week after week. We practiced with dedication and enthusiasm, we even organized a scrimmage against a local team. We put in the work. The team was diligent and conscientious about practicing, not easy when you have a ridiculous grad-school workload, but they did it.

The result?

With only a few minutes to warm up and settle in after our drive to Miami (the referee, hired at the last minute had things to do, come on, this is Miami), our players -minus one of our forwards who suffered an accident travelling down (he is fine, just a sore neck)- jumped on to the turf field.

We won 0-6. Victory is sweet, revenge even better!

Congratulations to the team, Assistant Coach Josh, the faculty and staff that made the game possible, as well to our phenomenal photographer Dylan McKay!

Baptism by fire, my first pro tour of Miami

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My first professional tour of Miami was a baptism by fire, a jump in the deep end of the pool: eight hours, on E-bikes, and in French!! Fortunately, my customers were a lovely French couple.

Tours are generally booked for 4 or 8 hours (occasionally some folks book less or more). An 8-hour tour of Miami is a lot of time, considering there really is not much of cultural, historical, artistic value concentrated in a specific area of Miami. Sure, there is Art Deco, Little Havana, Little Haiti, Wynwood, and a bit Downtown, but how long do you need to spend in Brickell? In Coconut Grove? In Coral Gables walking -or cycling around? But an 8-hour tour of Miami for an inaugural tour was a lot to prepare for, but I did prepare. Having a few years of experience as a tour guide since I set up Tonxo Tours helped to plan the tour.

The E-bike factor was fun. We rented the bikes in Haulover park, which was a bit of a schlep from my customer’s hotel in Bayshore, but it allowed us to check out Haulover pass, and to ride all the way down to South Beach!

After South Beach we crossed over to Downtown where we saw Gesù Church, the oldest church in South Florida and the remains of the Tequesta village, which is sadly now a dog park next to the Miami river.

It was then that my customer’s E-bike lost power (something about a sensor), so although I had my trusty Swiss Army knife to try to tighten some screws, it was to no avail. We decided to ride back to Haulover.

Despite the technical issues, the tour was still a success, and the customers were happy. It was a long day for me, but it was worth it. If you are in Miami on a Saturday and want an insightful, interesting, and rewarding tour (on foot or bicycle)? Contact me, we will try to make it fun!!

On Being a Real Madrid fan, a Madridista.

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In case you did not know, I am a Real Madrid fan, a Madridista. I figured I would mention it now that we are starting the Champions League knock out stage. Our first game will be against Liverpool, whom we beat for the title in 2018 and 2022!! So, as much as I want to win, I have to be realistic and understand how hard it is to win back-to-back Champions League titles (or anything for that matter…).  But that, as you would expect, does not dampen one iota my love for Real Madrid.

My dad would occasionally take me to Bernabeu Stadium when I was a child to see games, and then whenever I could snag tickets I would go. So, I cannot say that I go to every game -something particularly difficult when one lives abroad- but I still consider myself a fan and try to go whenever possible. For a time, my sister worked at Marca, the biggest sport (read soccer) newspaper in Spain, and she would often end up with free tickets!

Lucky for me, my girlfriend Celia is also a fan, and if we cannot go to Bernabeu we watch important games at her local bar, La Bodeguita (worthy of it’s own blog…).

Real Madrid has won 14 Champions League titles, 35 league titles, etc., etc. But it is not about the victories, more about the impossible comebacks, the last-minute goals that get us those championships, Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo, and Cristiano Ronaldo, Zidane, “Peđa” Mijatović, Sergio Ramos, Gareth Bale… every move of every goal engraved in our memory.

So now you know, other teams are good and even great, but none come close to Real Madrid.

Breakfast in West Palm Beach: Hive Bakery and Café

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Those of you who follow this blog at all might know that it started as a way to chronicle my Harley-Davidson (RIP) ride from Boston to Austin, Texas and back looking for a PhD program in Spanish Literature in 2011. After the trip I just kept writing and writing. I write about anything that interests me in any way: Academics and education, literature, The Camino de Santiago, culture, cities, food, cigars, travel and adventure, etc. Today is restaurant review day:

I recently had the opportunity to have breakfast with a dear friend in West Palm Beach at Hive Bakery and Café.

The restaurant is on iconic Route 1 (South Dixie Highway) across the street from the Norton Museum (which I have written about a lot, click here). The whole block is owned and run by the same folks. They have a home decoration store and business, and a clothing store.

Hive sits on a nice corner and has the obligatory artsy design (with a beehive pattern, get it?). Inside it is warm, well lit, and airy, very pleasant, with all the de rigueur décor. Your eyes immediately catch the counter full of delicious looking pastries. This being 2022, and West Palm Beach, the food was healthy but delicious, you will not find greasy diner breakfast fare here. The coffee was top notch, well made with quality coffee. My pain au chocolat looked very elegant, crunchy on the outside, but it missed the buttery softness inside. The service was attentive and professional. It was a perfect experience.

So, what is wrong with this place? Nothing. And that is the problem: it has no character, no personality, no charm, it is all Instagram perfect, there is nothing exceptional, it is sterile. Critically, it has no narrative, or the narrative is boring. Everything was good but not remarkable. If I never go back, I will not miss it, I will not miss the food, the people, nothing. It seems to me that nowadays everything is designed to perfection, consultants develop the perfect menu, accountants establish the perfect everything to maximize revenues, everything is so impeccable that it is boring.

When I get the chance to go out, I will always choose a place that has something, usually a combination of extraordinary (not expensive) food, character, personality, history, sense of humor, great staff, or an indescribable factor that makes you want to come back again and again. Hive is not that place.

On bicycles and cycling

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For as long as I can remember I have been riding bicycles. I can count having had over ten bicycles through my life, some of which got a lot of miles on them, a couple of them were stolen from my front door!

But I do not want to bore you with my history of bicycles and bicycle riding, of riding around Switzerland as a teenager, of riding in different countries, and so on. I just want to motivate you to get on a bike and ride! Pedal as hard as you can, feel the wind in your face, you are creating that speed, it is all you!

Although some people obsess over their rides, I have to agree with the once great Lance Armstrong and say that

“It’s not about the bike.”

Lance Armstrong

In fact, I still ride an Orbea mountain bike I bought in 1990 (it’s the one on the photo). Just get out there and ride.

Not only are bicycles fun to ride, but they are also very practical. I used to ride to work in Boston and Madrid, long, long before it became the hipster thing to do. I still ride to chores around the village in the Summer. Unfortunately, I have not gotten around to getting a bicycle in Florida. One of these days…

So, if you do not have a bicycle get one, there are great used ones on Craigslist or Wallapop, then get going!

PS: The Camino: For the record, I am against doing the Camino de Santiago on a bike. This might be difficult to understand, but on a bicycle, you are going too fast to focus on your journey, on the spirituality of what you are doing, you are mostly focusing on not cracking your head open and on staying on your bike. I see folks on amazing electric bicycles and what they are really doing is a great excursion on the path of the Camino, but they are not doing the Camino. I do respect folks on vintage bikes or on plain vanilla bikes, not the hi-tech stuff!!

Hispanic Heritage celebration at the Norton

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The Norton Museum in West Palm Beach is such an oasis of culture for me that I have already written about it five times in this blog. Well, here is the sixth:

Understanding the importance of Hispanic Heritage and Hispanic Heritage month, the Norton organized an open house “Nuestra Cultura” day in celebration. I took advantage of the opportunity and took some students from my classes. We had a blast!

We skipped the piñata making table, the Latin dance lessons, and the food stalls. We checked out the mercado set up in the garden, and what we really dug our teeth into the actual museum. Although the collection is small, it contains top notch art. We walked around discussing different pieces and paintings.

We had a wonderful time, and I enjoyed (finally) being able to share the Norton with my students!

If life were a city…it would be Madrid

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Madrid is home (neo-mudejar background)

This is not my sentence; it belongs to the Madrid Tourism Board (or whatever it is called). A dear friend, old college classmate, and travel consultant extraordinaire Jen Donati passed it along after she met with the aforementioned Madrid Tourism Board recently in NYC.

The video as you can see is a bit cheesy, it uses all the current topics and techniques that end up making it a totally unremarkable video: a cute font, quickly changing shots (we have so much to show you, so little time! and we want this to be a dynamic video), a multigenerational and inclusive cast (perfect), hip and trendy folks in hip and trendy restaurants, hotels, and streets, a catchy American song in the background, even some hints of humor, ha-ha!

So, despite the video having everything required to be the perfect promotional video, it does not pull at your heartstrings, it does not really want to make me pack my bags and jump on the first flight to Madrid. Why? What is it lacking? Passion. This was a clip obviously made by committee.

“Wait” you will ask, “who cares about a promo video for a city?” Well, I do. I do because it is my city, because I am a tour guide there when I am home (check out my website), because I am passionate about cities, especially Madrid.

By contrast here is a remarkably similar clip to promote the 2017 Festival Flamenco Madrid. The music and the dance accomplish everything the other clip could not. Even being a minute longer (which could be a handicap in our ADD, Tik Tok world), the clip grabs you and does not let go. The settings, streets, plazas, venues are the same, but he music and movement are the key here, even, I am willing to venture, with a fraction of the budget.

At the end of the day, what have you got? Well, in my case an urge to go walk around my city that I miss so much.

On the importance of building community

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Surprisingly, although I have repeatedly written about community in my blog, I have never dedicated a full post to it. Well, here you are:

It used to be that when you were born you had automatic community for life. Even if you lived in a big city, your neighborhood was your community, you would go to the same grocers, church, cafés, etc. Now, especially in the increasingly hyper-capitalist suburban individualist world, the concept of community has pretty much vanished.

Maybe because of the importance of community and the lack thereof, the US is obsessed with the concept of community. Sadly, for all the talk, community is another word they cannot spell.

With the different buttresses that community offered mostly gone, the only one that continues (mostly) standing is work. So, work has become -in many cases- our only community touchstone. Gone are the neighbors, the churches, the meeting points. We just drive from our isolated house to work and back. Of course, many folks have strong communities built around church and clubs and different associations, but even these are discrete and rarely connected, which means that you have your church friends, your work friends, your café friends -if you are lucky- and so on, but not the network, the rich tapestry that used to define community.

I have been keenly aware of this problem since I moved back to suburban US in 2005. It would eventually become one of the factors that led me to depression. Since then, I try to build strong communities wherever I go. My efforts other than work, fall on volunteering, church, and of course Film Club! Yes, I chat to some people at the gym, at yoga class, and at my café, but those venues have not surprisingly given any tangible results.

Like pretty much everything else in life, you have to actively work at building your community, it is not going to magically fall on your lap one day, a wonderful support network where you can express yourself and get any sort of help from moving a sofa to a comforting chat. Nope, you have to work for it. But more importantly than working to form your own little support group, your real community will flourish when you build community for others.

Notice that I did not mention family, which is of course the cornerstone of community. But when you move away from home, that most important foundation is only available on the phone or during visits -if you are lucky enough to visit.

The result of the erosion of community systems is that folks are increasingly lonely, alienated, and sadly, eventually depressed. So go work genuinely and honestly on your community, the results will be worth it!