Lila Downs y Paul Cohen se casaron

Yesterday was "Noche de Rabenos"; night of the radishes. One of the most well-attended and most interesting of Oaxaca's many fiestas, it is juried, and the prizes are large. For those of you who don't know what goes on, look it up on the Web or in past Newsletters. Suffice it to say that we have not missed one in seven years, until this year. Instead, we went to what was, in my experience, one of the finest wing-dings ever.

The crowd was the most trans-cultural I have dined with. Lila's mother comes from the mountains; the Mixteca Alta. She is a Mixtec indian, and her dark skin marks her as indigenous in caste- and race- conscious Oaxaca.. Lila's father (now deceased) was a gringo professor of art from Minnesota. Lila was raised as a Catholic. Paul's mother and father were Jews (both he and his brother had Bar Mitzvah) living in New Jersey (he died, she married a Catholic, and recently converted to Christianity). Both families were represented, along with a host of friends from all over the continent.

Among the luminaries was Robert Persig, the author of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". It turns out that he, like me and many of the guests, had lived at one time in Minneapolis, where Lila's father taught. Amy, Lila's half sister, baby-sat for his son. Some very good friends of mine are also close to Persig.

Amy also has some small notoriety. After going off to New York to model, she ended up becoming a fashion designer, and her hat store on the lower east side was a mecca for the trendy until escalating rents and the vicissitudes of gentrification forced her to close the doors a few years ago. The closing was memorialized in The New Yorker.

Jerry Liebling, an internationally known photographer, was also in attendance. He's another ex-Minnesotan, having spent some time teaching at the U of M.

At Lila's mother Anita's house, a Catholic priest from Tlaxiaco, Lila's childhood home, officiated. Toward the end of the ceremony, Paul and Lila, who had been kneeling, stood up under a Khupa (Jewish marriage awning) which was held up by Michele, Jerry's daughter Dani, Diana and me. "Shalom", the priest intoned, and Paul smashed the traditional napkin-enclosed glass with his foot. Talk about eclectic...

The reception was held at the home of political and cultural maven Margarita Dalton, who along with companion Julia Barco occupies a few acres of land with a view of the southern mountains, a few miles further out of town. Their house was designed for outdoor entertaining, with a huge veranda lining its inner el-shaped wall. A bus and a couple of suburbans ferried the pedestrian-guests over from the wedding. Paul and Lila covered the last few hundred yards in an ox-cart, a must according to Triqui traditions.

Well over a hundred guests were seated comfortably while waiters and waitresses kept the drinks and hors deouvres coming. There was a fine traditional brass band, and dancing monos made specially to evoke Lila and Paul. Chef and teacher Susan Trilling was the caterer, and no expense was spared. Among the five or six dishes served before dinner, my favorite was shrimp dipped in batter and then coconut, fried and served with a sweet-sour sauce. Dinner was buffet-style, and featured a real cajun gumbo, turkey with mole negro, herbed rice, steamed vegies and a magnificent green salad. A fruit compote was served at table for desert, and later there was champaigne and chocolate layer cake. The mezcal was some of the best I've ever had.

In traditional fashion, the cost of the wedding was divided between many "madrinas", one paying for the band, another for the food, another for the booze, etc. In the system of favors-trading that, in poor communities, enables simple folk to provide for lavish affairs, each represents a favor collected or a favor owed.

The evening ended with music. Friends from the Oaxaca music scene performed, as well as a trio singing Oaxacan songs from the Mixtec and coastal traditions, and a few songs from Lila, accompanied by Paul on the sax and a friend from San Miguel Allende on the guitar. Sated with food, good company and music, Diana and I boarded the last Suburban of the evening and returned home. Mmmmm, mmmmm. I can still taste that wonderful coconut shrimp.