Announcements
One of McAllen’s newest art venues is an ice cream parlor. Fun loving Jim Kryzak notified me that he will be hosting live music from 7 – 9 pm on Tuesdays at the new Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Shop at Palms Crossing, next to Barnes & Noble at McAllen Convention Center. [...]

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A performance
Here’s a performance of Donnie Hathaway’s “Valdez in the Country” by the Mid-Night Combo at the benefit concert for Dulce Rodriguez last Sunday. Thomas Raines, the keyboard player, is my son. Other players are Noé García, Jorge Mujica on drums, and special guest Ted Lucio, The Dude, on bass.
Enjoy.

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A lyric by Stan Raines (with a twenty-times-revised explanatory essay appended)
I write him letters
When I cannot sleep
When the I-Pod dreams
Won’t come.

I draw him pictures
When I have the time
Of my cat dancing
Across the lawn.
He doesn’t come
From my home town,
But I know he loves
The homeland.
I’ll see him soon,
I know I will
In five years
Or maybe twenty.

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A poem by Thomas Thornburg from Ancient Letters
The day was blithe as she swung by,
Dimple-shouldered, hair awry,
Soft kirtled in a downy gown
To do her washing by the town;
She rilling, whistled tirra, lira,
Knelt beside the lilting water.
Arlotta, the tanner’s daughter.
When she awoke, the wadded tunic
Beneath her hip was dark, was dank;
The river ran on, ancient, runic;
She [...]

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