Songs of the Homeland

In class we all watched a video about how conjunto music came about back in the cotton harvest days where Mexicans were called “vaqueros” or “Rancheros” and other names as Mexicans, Tejanos or Mexican Americans just to name a few. In South Texas, ranching to them was their way of life including cattle, windmills, and water. It basically began with singing in the fields and the poor harvest people were their audience. Conjunto music became popular to the people who harvest and it spread out to everyone. The 12 string guitar called the vajocesto was introduced as well the heart of the conjunto music the “accordian” in which has a unique sound that brings this type of music to life. San Antonio is the capitol of conjunto music today Valero Longoria to Flaco Jimenez were one the most well known conjunto artists in conjunto music history. Conjunto music of course is played everywhere at weddings, Baptists, and all sorts of gatherings. Conjunto music can be played about almost anything such as relationships, beer drinking, tear drinking, hope, love, and loss. I gained more watching the short video even putting together what I know and it made learning about conjunto music easier to understand the roots.

McNay Art Museum- The Tree

The McNay Art Museum- The Tree

I recently made a visit to the McNay Art Museum to take a look at some pieces of art. The one piece of art that struck my attention was a painting done by Piet Mondrian called “The Tree” 1908. The color struck my attention and the leaves had multiple of dark different colors and shades not vibrant more of grays and green. It had a flattening effect of evening light and had dim outlines. The background was dark but the colors of the leaves especially the few light yellow colors brought it to life. I made a comparison with his other painting and they all seem dark and gloomy slightly different from the others. The texture appeared to be smooth, it had depth and balance. The tree was right in the center and there wasn’t anything else around it for it to not have any kind of balance. The painting kind of gave it a small theme to it. It could be the change in seasons and the days are shorter gave it an emotional almost depressing theme in my opinion. Piet Mondrian loved to paint trees and had a quite a collection but most were used with the same colors in this period as well.

Losing Ground

In the San Antonio Express News “Losing Ground” series talked about developmental issues regarding vested rights. These huge developers come to San Antonio wanting to build here over the Edwards aquifer. The bad part about that is putting the aquifer at risk of possible contamination or some damage may occur if it goes as they plan. There is an organization that help protect the aquifer called AQUA and they also have an ordinance that was made back in 1995. With these vested rights laws many people are opposed of these laws while developers wouldn’t have to lift a finger and not have to go through the process of visiting city council to get an approval to see if developments can be built or not. I have learned how some of these old laws can be re-written by some sneaky developers and use them as their own which creates a big problem for them and the city.
I think it is important for the people of San Antonio and all surrounding areas to get involved in what is being developed here. It is important to know if any of these developments going to affect our neighborhoods. I don’t really like the idea about clearing up a whole bunch of trees and brushes for a development that will affect our aquifer. There are way to many developments that are being built here and I feel like our city is over crowed with a whole bunch of them. Another reason why I disagree with some of these developers are when they decide to make a development in large areas cleared from trees and brushes for tiny developments. I feel as these developers are a bit shady because of course big money is involved but they don’t realize the damage they are causing to the aquifer and to the environment. Most of the time it can interfere with neighborhoods such as contamination being involved depending on what will be developed in that area. Some developers don’t preserve any trees at all and are better off clearing them out completely. We should try to keep ourselves informed about what is being developed in around our area. I feel that we all shouldn’t let an issue like this pass us by without getting ourselves involved more and. There are some damage that has been made already in our city and the continuation of developments seem to continue to expand more and more over time.