Noticias and End of July Goodness

I'm thrilled to announce that Teatro Luna has settled into their brand new home in beautiful Logan Square on the northwest side of Chicago! The teatro is housed in the St. Luke's Church of Logan Square - a fabulous place with a strong focus on the arts and community building. The upcoming offerings include:

- Monthly workshops, free and open to the community.
- Professional development series - sliding scale for actors, writers, directors, and designers looking to expand their skills and network.
- Writing and Performance Classes - sliding scale.
- A new Reading Series, featuring staged readings of new work by Latina/o playwrights. Stay turned for more information and a schedule.

Teatro Luna is located at the corner of Francisco and Altgeld, just a few blocks from the Logan Square Blue Line Stop.

St. Luke's Lutheran Church of Logan Square 2649 North Francisco Avenue · Chicago, Illinois 60647

Mailing Address: PO Box 47256, Chicago, IL 60647

Check out las hermanas at the Goodman Theater's Latino Theater Festival on August 13th. You can catch a preview of our fall show JARRED: A HOODOO COMEDY by Tanya Saracho JARRED is a hilarious look at what happens to a woman when she turns to santeria, brujeria, and hoodoo after a terrible break-up. She's got her boyfriend in a jar: now what?

For tickets visit http://.goodmantheatre.org

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Goodman Theatre 170 N. Dearborn St. Chicago, Illinois 60601 Box Office: 312.443.3800 BoxOffice@GoodmanTheatre.org

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MADE IN CHICAGO: WORLD CLASS JAZZ AT THE JAY PRITZKER PAVILION
Chicago Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble
Thursday, July 31: 6:30 PM FREE!

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And from La Bloga friend, Denise Chavez

portrait by Raquel Valle-Sentíes

The Writing Women's Lives Conference in Santa Fe was a wonderful gathering of creative women. We wrote corridos with Elena Diaz Bjorkquist and Consuelo Luz set them to music. Page Lambert gave a powerful workshop on nature and place and wrote an incredible corrido about a beloved mare. Susan and Denise Abraham from El Paso also gave a talk on their young adult novels. Thank you, talented mujeres!

I completed my Corrido Cat Cycle, writing El Corrido del Gato Consentido (The Corrido of the Spoiled Cat) to my cat, Kuki. I met many new writer friends and visited with Natalie Goldberg, Sally Bingham and Anne Hillerman, also dear BBF Friends, Don Usner and Adalucia Quan and her family and a friend from NMSU days, Maria Montez Skolnik.

We had a party at my sister's new house and Estevan Rael-Galvez, State Historian, joined us. I'm back home now and busy with Center activites and still working on my novel!!

Upcoming events to take note of:

August 8 and 9: The Way Out West Book Festival in Alpine, Texas. Featured writers are Elmer Kelton, Kinky Freedman, Benjamin Alire Saenz, Sarah Bird, Bobby and Lee Byrd, Denise Chavez and others. This is the first ever Alpine festival. It is a great setting and wonderful town. Check their website at: http://www.wowtxbookfestival.com/1.html

August 31: The John Barry Award for Fiction in Spanish has a deadline of August 31. They are looking for the best short story written in Spanish in the U.S. or Candada. Prize is $1,000.
www.johnbarryaward.com

Sept. 13 and 14: 16th of September Fiesta on the Mesilla Plaza. We will be selling books in our booth. Come and hang out as we hang out! We will need volunteers for shifts on Saturday from eight am until midnight and volunteers on Sunday from noon to 7pm with help breaking down after 7. Fiesta hours are from noon to midnight Saturday and noon to 7pm on Sunday.

Take a two hour shift and listen to great music and eat as many quesadillas as you can and help us sell books! We had a great Cinco de Mayo booth and plan on having one as well for Dia de Los Muertos.

September 26-26: Writing From the Creative Heart, a weekend long writing workshop with Denise Chavez. Reserve your place now as the workshop is limited. Call me at 575-496-2351, for more information or email me at bbf@zianet.com Cost is $90 for BBF members and $100 for non members.

October 25: The Great Southwest Book Festival at the El Paso Public Library. Contact Mike Payan, Senior Librarian and Event Coordinator for booth and festival information at: payanmm@elpasotexas.gov

NOW: Sally Meisenhelder from Amigos de Las Mujeres has informed us that Casa Amiga in Juarez is in financial difficulty and needs help. If you know any donors or foundations that can help, please contact Amigos at: http://www.amigosdemujeres.org/

Stay tuned for a Care and Evaluation of Out of Print Book Workshop with John Randall later this fall, a reading by Jesus Tafoya and Rosario Sanmiguel in Spanish from their new books, both incredible writers from Juarez/La Frontera.

Dr. Tafoya teaches at Sul Ross University and Dr. Sanmiguel at La Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez, also the 4th annual Tamalada/Tamal making workshop at La Cocina Restaurant in Mesilla Park. We hope to have a celebrated food writer join us. Stay tuned!

We are also working on the Pooch-athon with a reading from Cristina Garcia's new children's book, The Dog Who Loved the Moon.

Other than that, we are drying out from many rains and loving this cool weather. Hang in there, chile!

Best wishes,

Denise Chavez

Lisa Alvarado

Interview With Author Carmen Tafolla

René Colato Laínez

Hola Carmen, thank you for this interview for La Bloga.
Who inspired you to write?
My mother was a person with very little formal education, but a great ear for a story, and a great memory for people's stories. My grandmother was a storyteller, as were several aunts. And SO, it turns out were my GREAT-grandparents. Listening to the stories of my familia and my barrio was where I first learned to love the art of storytelling, and to respect the power of a story... orally, with all the magic of unwritten centuries behind me... Stories get more powerful when they are refined through the telling, generation after generation....

I was very, very young when I began to dream of writing stories down, preserving them, polishing them. They were our history, and they were our alma.

-As a child what was your favorite book?

We didn't have a lot of books at home, a Spanish-language Bible, a hymnal, a book about medicine (I thought! It was called La Santa Doctrina, so I figured it had to do with Doctors and Medicine...) But when I was about 5, my parents started one of these a dollar-a-month Childcraft Series offers, and the first volume was "Childhood Verses, Rhymes, and Fables." I can STILL see those pages and remember the stories! So, between that and the Old Testament and the leyendas told orally, I had plenty of exciting stories to start off with. When I was 10, the city finally put a library on the "West Side" (the Mexican side) of town, and then my Mom would walk me weekly to check out five books, the maximum they'd let me check out at a time. I never discovered Dr. Seuss or Madeleine L'Engle or Garcia Marquez or Winnie the Pooh till I was in college! And then I fell in love with books all over again.

-Tell us about your new books.


I have two children's books and one adult book out this year.

What Can You DO with a Rebozo? (Tricycle, 2008) is a colorful, imaginative picture book beautifully illustrated by Amy Cordova and targeted at children under 6. It celebrates an icon of Mexican culture through the eyes of a little girl who sees its versatility, but invents some uses of her own! I want to show little girls (and boys!) that they can use one thing for many purposes, and that sometimes the funn---iest games come from using our own imagination!


Then, That's Not Fair: Emma Tenayuca's Struggle for Justice, co-authored with Emma's niece, Sharyll Teneyuca, is a picture book biography for children 6 and up, based on the courageous Latina civil rights leader from the 1930s, who at the age of 22, organized and led 12,000 pecan shellers in a strike that represents the first successful mass action in the Mexican-American struggle for political and economic justice. Our adult biography on Emma is nearing completion, but this children's book is the first book ever published on her, and it is a really beautiful volume by Wings Press, illustrated by Terry Ybanez and designed as a tribute to those brave pecan shellers who were starving to death and still had the courage to hope for a better world for their children. Even the endpapers are pecan-colored!


And, just last month, Wings released a collection of my short stories, which I just presented at The International Conference on the Short Story in English, held in June in Cork , Ireland . The title The Holy Tortilla and a Pot of Beans, a feast of short fiction, kind of says it all – it’s about the holy and the miraculous, as well as about the mundane, most common, underappreciated blessings, like a pot of hot, homemade beans.

- Where did you get the idea for What Can You Do With A Rebozo? Do you have many rebozos at home?

Rebozos are one of my most useful clothing items. I live in San Antonio, where the weather might be 100 degrees and sweltering one minute, then walk into an air-conditioned building and just freeze till you're blue. Or it might drop 40 degrees in three hours. I also travel a lot, so a rebozo is a very useful and versatile item to help me deal instantly with weather changes and different levels of formality. It has served me as a coat, a muffler,a fan, a head scarf, PLUS, it rolls up into a tiny corner of the briefcase! I have three BIG boot boxes at home, each with a different range of colors!

In 1992, 500 years after America discovered Columbus lost on a beach, my publisher was looking for art for the front cover of my upcoming poetry book, Sonnets to Human Beings. I recommended Cata Garate, who had a whole series of oil paintings of women in rebozos. When the book came out, Sally Andrade was so stunned by the cover she asked if U.T. El Paso could exhibit Cata's whole series together with poems of mine. We did, but then one thing led to another and soon, Cata and I were at work on a coffee table book combining art, poetry, and the story behind this universal symbol of Mexican womanhood. That book will be out soon from Wings. But the idea of the rebozo's versatility soon had me "cooking on" a children's picture book and developing a spunky little Chicanita protagonist, 4 years old, who could come up with crazy, imaginative uses for her Mom's rebozo! What Can You DO with a Rebozo? just came out of Tricycle this spring, sparked a series, and the follow-up book What Can You DO with a Paleta?, is due out from Tricycle Press in Spring of 09.

- The Holy Tortilla and a Pots of Beans is full of culture and magical realism and each story tells a message. What was the selection process for the stories included in the book?

In this very blase, over sophisticated, materialistic world, where emotions are corny, human decency is looked down on as "political correctness", and everything is assessed in "measurable" terms, I wanted an emphasis on those things that lie BENEATH the skin, and outside the realm of the price tag. I wanted to select stories that filled that dimension between the stark simplicity of the Holiest things we encounter to the absolute magic of the everyday objects around us. That's why the title is not just "The Holy Tortilla" (too pious and above us) but also includes a normal, everyday Pot of Beans...

If the stories can help elevate to the holy the simple, daily values, customs, strength and beauty of nuestra gente, then I'll have done justice to the people, the everyday readers to whom this book is dedicated.

-You write for many genres. What is the difference between writing for children and for adults?

Actually, children are more demanding readers. Adults will kind of assume that SOME place in the book, there'll be something good that they might appreciate or learn from. But children-- if you lose them on even ONE page, they want to get up and go do something else. So, writing for children demands distilling every word, polishing every action, eliminating ALL excess baggage. It's almost harder than writing poetry!! But the reward-- is in the power and authenticity of what's left. If you reach children, (and I expect good children's lit to be timeless, so I want to reach children now and three generations from now), then you've hit something authentic.

- What is your message for inspiring writers?

A very long time ago (I must have been 10 or 12 years old) someone told me that to get a PhD, you had to write a book called a dissertation, and it had to be on a topic NO ONE had ever written on before. I immediately felt impatience and despair, and thought that if I didn’t hurry up and get grown up fast, like tomorrow, all the topics would be used up and there wouldn't be anything left to write about! For a long while, I thought that was true, lamented the fact that by the time I grew up, all the good storylines would be taken, all the topics explored, all the interesting devices invented already. Boy, was I naive!

Now, I tell young writers, there is NO ONE on the face of the earth who can see the world in quite the same way you do, nor who has had quite the same combination of experiences and emotions. You are unique, your voice is a necessary part of the puzzle, without which we are deprived of the full richness of the human experience. So don't worry about how you compare to others, don't follow anyone else's example, nor anyone else's rules, invent your own rules, and then master them! It is the essence of art, to reach deep into what comes from your own soul, and then turn yourself over to it, follow, explore that path. Learn from others, but also learn from that quiet voice whispering to you, that knows when you have not quite written it as well as you know it could be written. Write who you are, but trust yourself, and your art, to grow beyond your own boundaries.
For more about Carmen, visit her website www.carmentafolla.com

Meet Carmen This Sunday

The Museo Alameda
Tricycle Press
and MANA de San Antonio
invite you to join them in
CELEBRATING

“What Can You DO with a Rebozo??”

The Museo Alameda invites the public to a Family Day!
Children’s Costume Contest and Book Party
for Carmen Tafolla’s latest children’s book,

“WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH A REBOZO?”

Beautifully illustrated by award-winning artist Amy Cordova, this picture book aimed at 3-5 year-olds, celebrates the versatility and practicality of this icon of Mexican womanhood, and encourages young children to explore the delightful territories of their own imagination.

Sunday, August 3, 2008
12-4 pm

101 S Santa Rosa Ave
San Antonio, TX 78207
(210) 223-5820

Hands-on activities for Children, 12-1, and 1:30-4:00
1:00 Program:
*Foklórico dances by the famous Champion family dancers *a storytelling session by award-winning author Carmen Tafolla
*a fun demonstration by San Antonio’s Hermanitas, showing styles for the elegant, practical, and fun-costuming uses of rebozos, for adults and children

*Children’s Costume Pageant & Contest (age 10 and under) with prizes for
-The Most Creative Use of a Rebozo,
-The Silliest Use of a Rebozo,
-The Most Adventurous Use of a Rebozo,
-the Most Colorful Use of a Rebozo
-the Most Elegant Use of a Rebozo
-the Scariest Use of a Rebozo

Costume Contest award-winners will each be given a free copy of the beautiful hard-cover book. One lucky family will receive the Grand door prize of a four-book collection of books by Carmen Tafolla, including her brand new collection of short stories, The Holy Tortilla and a Pot of Beans.

1:45 Presentation of Contest Awards
2- 4 Booksigning by Carmen Tafolla

All exhibits open to the public.

Books by Carmen Tafolla available in the Museo Gift Shop

Macondo Libre

If you missed last night La Palabra Eléctrica, come tonight for another great Macondo night, La Palabra Tremenda. In the tradition of Mexican Lucha Libre where good conquers evil, our writers fight for political and social issues. In Macondo Libre, writers will showcase fighting moves that will take your breath away!

Don’t miss the ultimate challenge, la Palabra Peligrosa, a literary fundraising event where nationally acclaimed poets and writers wrestle the truth out of the official story and reclaim it with a night of powerful readings and music. This dramatic lucha poetry slam will include performances by the poet Ai; poet, writer and NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu, Sandra Cisneros and musical performances by the father/son team George/Aaron Prado, the Krayolas and other special guests. All proceeds from the event will benefit Our Lady of the Lake University and the Macondo Foundation. At last, the word wrestlers are here. ¡Que viva Macondo Libre!

La Palabra Tremenda
Featuring: Macondo Writers and Special Community Guests
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
San Antonio, Texas
Our Lady of the Lake University
Providence Hall, West Social Room [PWSR]–the Red Room–at OLLU at 7 p.m. Admission: Free

Readers:
Carolina de Robertis
Ignacio Ramos Magaloni
Tatiana de la Tierra
Amelia ML Montes
Angie Chau
Ben V. Olguín
Erin Bad Hand
ire'ne lara silva
Leslie Larson
Lorraine M. Lopez

(15 minute intermission - The Krayolas)

Maria Limon
Miryam Bujanda
Pat Alderete
René Colato Laínez
Rosalind Bell
Trey Moore
Wendy Call

La Palabra Peligrosa
Featuring: the poet Ai, Andrei Codrescu and Sandra Cisneros
Friday, Aug. 1, 2008
San Antonio, Texas
Our Lady of the Lake University
OLLU at Thiry Auditorium 8:30 p.m.
Admission: $25 Donation per ticket at the door

Macondo Foundation
The Macondo Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that organizes and hosts an annual workshop for professional writers. It originally began as a writing workshop around the kitchen table of poet and writer Sandra Cisneros in 1998. Since then the workshop rapidly grew from 15 participants to more than 120 participants in less than nine years. The foundation also has a writer in residency program and continues to grow in its outreach to writers. As an association of socially-engaged writers united to advance creativity, foster generosity, and honor community, the Macondo Foundation attracts generous and compassionate writers who view their work and talents as part of a larger task of community-building and non-violent social change.

For more information about the Macondo Foundation check our web site www.macondofoundation.org.

Los esperamos

Review: Forbidden Stories of Marta Veneranda

Sonia Rivera-Valdés.
NY: Seven Stories Press, 2001.
ISBN-10 1-58322-047-X
ISBN-13 978-1-58322-047-4

Michael Sedano

One reason I avoid back cover blurbs is I like to let a text speak for itself. Moreover, I’m often disappointed when high expectations meet a lesser actuality. Yet, I received a gift from an unexpected source, and, on opening the package, find myself turning a book around in my hands, ritually reading the book jacket while signaling my surprise and pleasure at what sounds like a scintillatingly lurid piece of fiction.

The gift is Forbidden Stories of Marta Veneranda, a 2001 collection of ten translated stories written by U.S. Cubana Sonia Rivera-Valdes. A gift to me from an enthusiastic reader, I have mixed emotions in approaching the book because of the back cover blurbs comparing this collection to Anais Nin. “Makes you forget the world around you . . . in human behavior-that which is not sanctioned by society," I’m promised. Nin is pretty hot, I think, but then comes the toughest promises yet. "Slyly heretical . . . most important book of stories since Joyce's Dubliners". By now my head is spinning. Can this book possibly meet such rising expectations? I thank the giver and promise her I'll put it at the top of my "to be read" stack.

Good things come to those who read, and now that I’ve read the nine stories, ten if you count the "Explanatory Note" as a fiction--which I do--I understand the blurbers’ hyperbolic enthusiasm. The stories, it turns out, are feminist, gay erotic literature. How was I to know? The characterizations “gay” “erotic”, absent from the back cover blurbs though perhaps obviously implied in "Forbidden" and the goddess Venus referent, strike me in the opening paragraph where Rivera claims her stories mask identities of true confessors of hidden shameful secrets. The shame, Rivera explains, comes not from criminality or social sanction, but "the way he or she has perceived and experienced it". So it sounds like hot stuff.

The buildup promises more than Rivera's translators can deliver. Or it might be that Rivera never put in the heat, and this is a fully complete translation.

Many of these stories mix hetero and homo sexuality with gay abandon. A woman first discovers she thrills at hairless skin when she kisses a body with passion. An older woman rejects a younger out of age, but relents in the end, leaves New York to Havana and the bedroom of her young friend and the friend knows all the words. A woman meets a Kama Sutra expert who entertains her for a weekend. The woman regrets he will not abandon his gay partner for her, but she expresses gratitude to know hers is the biggest yoni the Kama Sutra expert has seen. And stuff like this. Passionate. Funny. Weird. Sad.

The stories flow with economy and directness. Years and momentous events go by in the spaces between paragraphs. One sentence the character's a struggling factory worker screwing the boss to protect a co-worker's job, the next page she's a college graduate. Sensations, of course, control erotic literature. Here, sharing the thoughts and feelings of her characters, Rivera excels. The story of the enormously fat woman with the yeast infection and kidney problems that give a room-permeating stink provides a vivid reading moment. I wonder how the Spanish expresses the man's arousal as the fat woman slyly seduces him by spreading her huge thighs to fill his eyes and nose with her essence. A few stories later, Rivera refers to the same woman in so mundane a sentence that a reader is advised not to read the book in public, to avoid having to explain the surprised laughter. Or perhaps one should.

Rivera’s heterosexual stories aren’t entirely straight. Here the author blends sexuality with violence against women. I appreciate Rivera's restraint in avoiding the stronger treatment elected by other writers, America's Dream for one, although the dull relentlessness of one woman's story numbed me for a while after finishing the story. Yet, that afternoon I remember asking myself, "Self, why is that woman so stupid?" I don't think that's unkind, but perhaps the only response I'm capable of.

Rivera's translators have made her impressive. She's won awards so she may be. Her tales provide diversion best taken a few pages at a time. For example, I read Marta Veneranda over a month’s time, at lunch each day, a few pages at a time and much as I look forward to getting back to other activities, I regretted having to, as this meant closing the cover until another day. But I thought also, "Big deal. Exposés -- especially sex exposés-- should be more graphic, more exciting." I think of the sex in Villanueva's Naked Ladies for example, and regret Rivera's understatement. I had hoped for lurid prose and got elegant writing instead. Still, when I see "forbidden" I want forbidden.

Seven Stories Press makes it easy to sample the work, as you've noticed if you clicked on the links in the above, or the link in the title of this column. You'll find a Google Books-like fascimile of the work by visiting the publisher's website, or clicking on the links noted.

I hope others will find this collection and share their response, as I'd be interested for a broader point of view. I’m guessing a woman will approach the stories with a different purpose and a different opinion from a sixty-something man.

A ver.


Gente, there goes the final Tuesday in July 2008! Tempus fugit, carpe libros. In comes August, a wedding anniversary and birthday month.

mvs

La Bloga welcomes your comments and responses to this and all columns. Simply click the Comments counter below and write away. La Bloga welcomes guest columnists for those with extended remarks, or your own reviews of books, arts events, and related ideas. To discuss your invitation to be our guest, clicking here is the first step.

Thania Muñoz's Final Post on La Semana Negra '08

Exclusive reports from Crime Fiction's international big-bash by our roving reporter.

The closing ceremony of La Semana Negra, was held July 20 at 12pm in the biggest tent. It was rainy, and although Poniente’s beach was muddy, a lot of Gijoneses were present to make this as special as previous days.

Paco Taibo, II started the ceremony with a speech commenting on all the struggles that the organization of La Semana Negra has to go through every year to bring this event to the city. He thanked the city of Gijón for its unconditional support and acknowledged that although every year there are complaints about the noise, people, trash, and more, the number of people that attend proves to the city and to the few complainers that La Semana Negra is all about bringing literature and people together, about having a good time with family and friends.

This year around a million people attended, and 51,000 books were sold. This shows the popularity of the event, and how even though our societies are changing, books and literature are still an important part of our lives. After the mayor, Taibo II, and city officials finished their speeches, the traditional “Rufo” prizes (La Semana Negra’s mascot--a black, chubby, figurine) was given to the persons who play a big role in the organization, security, planning, etc. in making La Semana Negra a successful ten-day event.

Since this is my last post on La Semana Negra I would like to highlight what I believe were some of the most incredible moments in Gijón. This is not a ranking, only a biased list of what I believe made these ten days so unforgettable.

1. The beautiful Asturian city of Gijón and its great weather. Not too hot, not to cold. Although they were warm days, a swim in the ocean freshened people right up, and the rain only made the city more beautiful because it would only last a day and the next day the city was sunny with clean and shiny streets.

2. The Taibo family. They were always present at the events and offered you their help, smiles and good sense of humor. Paco Ignacio Taibo, II dedicates three months of the year to the planning of La Semana Negra, and anyone can definitely notice the love he puts into it. Twenty-one years don’t go unnoticed. His wife Paloma Saiz and daughter Marina also play a big role and deserve recognition: Thank you!

3. The invited writers. The list of writers is very long, but I would like to highlight Cuban writers, Amir Valle, Lorenzo Lunar and Rebeca. Not only excellent writers, but also wonderful people.

4. The Colombians, Mario Mendoza, and Nahum Montt, who called themselves “the grandkids of Gabriel García Márquez”, who “unlike his sons, don’t owe him anything.” Their thriller and detective fiction about Colombia, a clear and non-magical realistic picture of this South American country.

5. The interview and everyday conversations with Rolando Hinojosa, an intelligent man and as Daniel Olivas calls him, “one of the maestros.” His advice, not only journalistic but also academic, and most importantly all he had to say about the years he has attended La Semana Negra, made me work hard every day, take notes, record the literary sessions, and hope that one day I will become as smart as him. Truly an inspiration.

6. The every-day 5:00 tertulias at the main tent, where you could learn everything about the writers: from their writing techniques, their geeky side, to what they drink and eat when they write. And also deep conversations on evil vs. good, monsters in literature, etc. There are not a lot of places where this still happens, or if you know where it does, please let me know.

7. The book presentations, where you could hear a writer present their book, answer questions, sign books, and have conversations with readers afterward. A very intimate experience where people have the opportunity to take pictures with the writers and maybe even ask them out. I swear I didn’t try this.

8. “La velada poética”-Poetry night. An incredible night with world famous poetas José Emilio Pacheco, Joaquin Sabina and Luis García Montero. There is something about a room full of people eager and anxious to listen to their favorites poets. The hour or so that the poets recited was a surreal experience, definitely one of the main events of La Semana Negra. So if after reading so much about La Semana Negra on La Bloga you decide that it's surely worth making such a far away trip next year, believe me--the poetry night will be worth all your dollars spent. You can check out a really good video of this event on YouTube.

9. The night dedicated to Ángel González. The poetry night, held Friday the 18th will be marked in the history of La Semana Negra as the night Gijón remembered and paid loving tribute and respect to a great and dearly loved poet.

10. The Semana Negra book, food, and jewelry tents--the free spirit and relaxing attitude of the people and the event itself; the smell of churros accompanying you as you go around the tents trying to find that particular book you know you can only find in Spain; watching families spending time together; walking around the fair or sitting on the sand reading a book.

I would like to thank La Bloga, especially Daniel Olivas for all the support and RudyG for posting my reports (cropping pictures, editing, and much more), and to all the people that have been reading and commenting on them (Norma Landa Flores, always the first and sweetest). It has been a great experience being La Bloga’s “roving reporter” and attending La Semana Negra itself. Here is my email for questions, concerns, and whatever else comes to mind: thaniamunoz AT yahoo.com.

Saludos desde Los Angeles,
I love La Bloga!
Thania Muñoz

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

Los Angeles Times:

My wife and I are distressed by the reports concerning the Times' plans to scrap the Sunday Book Review and downsize it to a few pages in the Calendar section.

While we understand the economic difficulties the Times and other print media are suffering through, the Sunday Book Review is not only a joy to read, but represents, in many ways, the cultural and intellectual health of our city.

I grew up in a working class neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles and my parents knew that the way their five children would make it in this world was through education and books. My parents introduced us to such writers as Mark Twain, Miguel de Cervantes, Willa Cather, and Ernest Hemingway. My fondest memories concern our frequent visits to the public library. Because of this emphasis on reading, my parents planted the seeds for their children's success. Four of us finished college, and three of us went on to earn advanced degrees. The schools represented in our family include Stanford, UCLA, Harvard and Loyola University. My parents went through tough economic times but they never denied us our dreams. Today, I'm a government lawyer and the author of four books of fiction.

Instilling in us the love of books was key to this success. My wife and I have filled our house with books which has been a perfect environment for our teenage son. In fact, he has been working on a novel and has written some very beautiful poetry.

We urge you to reconsider your decision regarding the Sunday Book Review.

Thank you for consideration.

Daniel A. Olivas
West Hills, CA

[If you wish to write to the Times regarding this issue, you may send your e-mails to: readers.rep@latimes.com and letters@latimes.com. For up-to-date news on the Times’ apparent collapse, visit Kevin Roderick’s LAObserved.]

◙ Award-winning author Montserrat Fontes has a new website. Fontes is the author of First Confession and Dreams of the Centaur, winner of the 1997 American Book Award for Fiction. Fontes is currently working on her most important novel to date, The General’s Widow. Her next appearance is at Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa, November 5-7, 2008.

◙ Interested in Latino urban literature? If so, visit Urbano Books.

◙ Mil gracias to Thania Muñoz for her wonderfully vibrant and informative reports from La Semana Negra these last couple of weeks. If you missed Saturday’s post, go here. Thania is back in Los Angeles now and I’m sure her head and heart still back in Spain.

◙ Over at the San Antonio Current, Gregg Barrios writes about “stellar boxing cards promoter Tony Padilla…” Check it out.

◙ McCain Snubbed Arizona's Hispanic Flyboys.

◙ Gustavo “Ask a Mexican” Arellano is getting rave advance reviews for his forthcoming memoir, Orange County : I've Been Taking Notes (Simon & Schuster). Go here for the complete story. More on Arellano's book soon.

◙ Nicholas Thomson of the San Francisco Chronicle writes about the untimely passing of Alfred Arteaga, a celebrated poet and professor of Chicano and ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, who died July 4 of a heart attack at a hospital in Santa Clara. Arteaga was only 58. Thomson’s piece, which includes one of Arteaga’s poems, notes, in part:

Professor Arteaga was considered a pre-eminent academic in postcolonial and ethnic minority literature studies. He was well versed in Shakespeare and studied the Renaissance.

He combined his knowledge of Western thought with a fascination for indigenous traditions in the Americas to teach his students about contemporary Chicano literature's influence on American culture and write poetry that juxtaposed different cultural ideologies, according to a statement from the university.

He was a prolific poet who conjured up philosopher kings in postcolonial America, ensnaring both his characters and their landscape in the web that he called the "fabric of language," the statement said.

◙ Tomorrow, 826 Valencia will host a discussion of Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives. Speakers will include Peter Orner, Dave Eggers, along with Daniel Alarcón and other guests. WHERE: 826 Valencia at 19th Street in San Francisco. WHEN: Tuesday, July 29, at 7:00 p.m. NOTE: Space is limited, so registration is recommended; RSVP to press@mcsweeneys.net. NOTE: 826 Valencia opened its doors to the public in April 2002 and, since then, it has enlisted help from hundreds of qualified volunteer tutors eager to teach students in the area. 826 Valencia also has seen the interest in its programs — from teachers and students in the area — steadily increase. 826 Valencia is thrilled to see the nod of approval from the community as it strives to provide free services to Bay Area teachers, students, and families. To see how you can help, visit here.

◙ All done. So, until next Monday, enjoy the intervening posts from my compadres y comadres at La Bloga. ¡Lea un libro!

Mom Was a Punk Rocker

This year I turned 45. One day you find yourself at a wedding, dancing in the cool way you always have, and all the sudden you are a roaring geek and an embarrassment to your children. And, of course, they do not hesitate to point this out. Well, I was feeling kind of depressed about all this, so I went out shopping. Retail therapy, you know. As it turned out I had an incredible experience at the mall that day (yes, the mall…when’s the last time you heard that out of someone over the age of 13?).

I was in one of my favorite stores, one of those retail chains that carry merchandise geared towards today’s cool and disenfranchised youth, when I saw a Ramones' Rocket to Russia t-shirt on the wall. I stood there, sighed, and said to myself, “Now THAT was a great album!” Just seeing it got me reminiscing about my New York City punk rock adolescence, and I asked a store employee if they carried the CD. The multiply-pierced, fuchsia-haired sales girl laughed, and said, "The Ramones? We've been sold out for weeks! They come in and go out the same day.” Perplexed, I went on to ask if she thought the record store might have it in stock (See? I gave my age away right there! "Like, what’s a 'record' lady?"). She looked confused (or maybe it was just the way the chain that went from her nose to her ear was pulling her cheek), and finally replied, “I don’t know, but you might try the music store three doors down, you might luck out.”

So off I go, determined to get the damn CD and continue my trip down memory lane. I swept the store's rows and rows of digital media with my eyes, and headed toward the Pop/Rock section. I thumbed through the R's. Nothing. I asked the frighteningly young sales clerk with, yes, a lip piercing, where I might find the Ramones, and he said "Oh no, you wouldn't find them in the pop/rock section, we have a new "Punk/Ska" section!" (New?) He brings me over to the area in question, and my eyes fall on the cover of the Sex Pistol’s Never Mind the Bullocks. I reminisce out loud that this was the record I bought with my first paycheck from Woolworth's when I was 14. He got this glazed look in his eyes and said, "You have this on vinyl??? This is a CLASSIC!" Then he picked up a copy of Rocket to Russia as if it were the Holy Grail and said, "Do you know they are coming out with a tribute album to the Ramones?" Since I was not really interested in the lead singer from ColdPlay singing "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" I tuned him out and said, "Oh, great."

I was feeling rather old as I brought the over-priced "retro" CD to the check out and placed it on the counter. I grabbed some headphones from a nearby rack and asked the other incredibly young man behind the register if they had any sturdier ones for my 9-year old. At this he glanced down at my CD purchase and asked incredulously, "Your nine year old is into the Ramones??" and I say, "Oh no, that's for me, I was talking about the headphones." "You're into the Ramones? Cool!" He seemed so impressed I went on to say, "Yeah, I saw them three or four times in the late 70's." At this point his jaw hit his chest and he gasped, "You SAW THE RAMONES LIVE???" Enjoying this I added, "Yeah, in Central Park for $7.50" He didn't even have words for that, he just sputtered "Central Park???" and I went on to list who I had seen live that year, Blondie, Elvis Costello...I thought he was going to have a seizure, and he looked at me with glazed eyes as if I was a celebrity.

All of the sudden as I stood there basking in the young man's awe--all 45 years of me--I felt that maybe this growing older thing wasn't so bad. I used to say that the definition of middle age was when the music of your youth comes back in style as "retro," and here I am. On the way home I turned up the Ramones and remembered the nights of CBGBs, Max's Kansas City, and the Mudd Club. After the clubs closed in the wee hours, we would stumble out blinking at the sunrise with our spiked hair, fishnet stockings and leather motorcycle jackets, and go home and change into our Catholic school uniforms and go straight to school, smelling vaguely of rum. "Well," I smiled to myself, head bobbing to "I Want to be Sedated" as I drove down interstate 89, "I may be middle-aged, but I guess I'm not so uncool after all."Recently, my son unearthed some photographs of me taken during my punk days, and he was clearly impressed. “Mom! You were so young and cool!” To which my husband replied, “Yeah, and when someone tries to insult you by saying ‘Your Mom wears combat boots!’ you can say, ‘Yes, she did!’”

La Semana Negra’s last days

Exclusive reports from Crime Fiction's international big-bash by our roving reporter.

I’m back in Los Angeles, La Semana Negra ended! There was a lot going on during the final days, but I’ll try to summarize them in two posts.

One of the most important events happened on July 19. At the yell of, “Weimar for everyone,” the 21st Semana Negra gave away 1,000 book sets dedicated to giving voice to writers who opposed the Nazis during the 1930’s and 40’s. The set is an incredible black edition with a big, thick gold “W” across the box. It's composed of two books, one is a selection of texts by German writers who, because they opposed the Nazis, were silenced and as a consequence their literature is not well known--writers such as Gustav Regler, Ludwig Renn, Bodo Ushe, and Marchwitza Kisch even wrote continuously during those years.

As Carlos Fortea said, “I think we owed them this recognition and this rescue from oblivion. . . I wouldn’t call this poetic justice; instead, I want this to be an act to rescue their literature. These people have the right to be on these pages.” Other writers such as Bertolt Bretch and Anna Seghers also deserve acknowledgment for their work during that time, but their case is different since they did gain international recognition.

The second book is dedicated to stories told from different perspectives but with the same setting, by contemporary writers. Paco Taibo II and forty other writers illustrate this period of history with photography, comics, or short stories, among others. At the event in the main tent of La Semana Negra, the stage was packed with writers and other artists who participated in the making of the book. Taibo II wanted to give each recognition for their work, from taking the time to doing it for free.

Since this was a free book, a gift from La Semana Negra and Pepsi, the tent was full and everyone was trying to get to the front, because although there were 1,000 books, there weren’t enough for all the people. Talking to people, I found out why everyone was so anxious and desperate to get to the front. But of course at the beginning they weren’t too obvious. I also wanted to get the free book, so I got there an hour early and got a comfortable chair at the front.

From asking the staff and people around me, I found out that every year people get wild. They push, throw chairs or even hit people to get to the front for the free book. Since there are a limited number, people know that if they don’t in a sense get a little rowdy and pushy, they are not going to get one. For some this is almost unthinkable, because the book is a Semana Negra tradition and they have been collecting them for years.

I think this a great tradition. I think there is nothing better than collecting books and of course reading them. But the conversations about how “last year people were taking the books from each other” and “people got on stage and wanted more than two!” (the rule is you can only get one) got me very scared.

But the story that seemed the most funny and scary at the same time, was that last year the organization decided to keep the books in the big brown boxes and designated people to pass them out. Well, this didn’t turn out as planned, because people were fighting for the boxes with the staff and the old lady who I previously mentioned actually fought Taibo II for one of them. As Marina Taibo (Taibo II’s daughter) told me, “she was crunching her teeth and pulling the box with all her strength. It was quite scary.” Even though I would have loved to see this, this year’s organization would try to avoid this sort of thing.

All the books were spread out on stage. After introductions and thank-you’s, Taibo II and Angel de la Calle, one of the contributors and the director of “A Quemarropa” (La Semana Negra’s newspaper) gave the ok for people to come on stage to get the book. At the beginning people came up in an orderly fashion. I did so by only taking two steps, but as soon as people saw the books were running out, they forgot their manners and started pushing.

Not that I’m complaining, but to properly illustrate people’s behavior, after I got my book and was making my way to the rear of the tent, my shins were hurt by chairs people were trying to get them out of the way. I screamed (not too loud though) and made it out alive with just a few bruises. This year didn’t get as wild as others, which made everything so much better and enjoyable, although my shins don’t agree.

After the books were distributed, the contributors went to another tent where they had set up tables, and the writers signed the books. An endless line, but that made the free book even more special--thirty-two contributors in total! Some writers signed on the page of their story, the comic’s artists drew on them and others simply gave you a quick smile and signed on the first page. After an hour and half, they finally ended and marked their time in history, which in my case, will never be forgotten.

Don’t miss the last post of the incredible Semana Negra,
Thank you to all who have been keeping up with my posts!

Saludos desde Los Angeles!
Thania Muñoz

¡Ay, Cisco! Libros y Música

MORE NEW BOOKS FROM BILINGUAL PRESS

Death and the American Dream
Daniel Cano
October
Daniel Cano is the author of Pepe Ríos (1990) and Shifting Loyalties (1995), and is a professor of English at Santa Monica College. Death and the American Dream takes place in 1915. Pepe Ríos lands a job as a Spanish-language reporter in Los Angeles, thanks to the wealthy husband of a former lover. The time is alive with political intrigue, as the news is filled with stories about Hearst, Darrow, Flores Magón and Zapata. Ríos wants to find the truth about his best friend's death, but can he deal with the threat to his new life and a possible revelation about his past life? The publisher says this is a "tantalizing and suspenseful" novel filled with journal entries about the character's former existence in Mexico and his dreams for the future.


The Captain of All These Men of Death
Alejandro Morales
July
Alejandro Morales, a novelist and professor of Chicano/Latino studies at the University of California, Irvine, and recipient of the 2007 Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature is the author of several biographical novels in which he tells the fictional story of a character's life using historical events. He has published a total of seven books. His newest is The Captain of All These Men of Death. The book is the story of Roberto Contreras, a victim of tuberculosis in the 1940s who is committed to a sanatorium. The publisher says: "Amid his relapses and recoveries he meets a series of women who have a profound effect on his life: a mysterious French doctor, a captivating patient, and a sinister acquaintance from a Los Angeles barrio. Meanwhile, a hospital newsletter delivers articles describing the various ways in which tuberculosis patients have been treated throughout history -- cared for humanely or ostracized, alienated, and administered barbaric medical treatments. The author equates these practices to heinous modern-day medical experimentation and the superstitious pagan practices of witchcraft and Satanism in California barrios."

The Cisco Kid: American Hero, Hispanic Roots
Francis M. Nevins and Gary D. Keller
August
The publisher says: "This book expands on Francis Nevins's 1998 book, The Films of The Cisco Kid. Retaining the original's thorough, chronological study of the filmic Cisco Kid cycle and its in-depth analysis of the Cisco phenomenon, The Cisco Kid adds a Hispanic sensibility to the history of the character in United States film. Despite the Cisco Kid's initial creation outside the Hispanic world by such mainstream writers and filmmakers as O. Henry and Webster Cullison, by 1929, with the first Cisco sound film In Old Arizona, this fictional character was endowed with a Latino persona that it has retained in mainstream American culture and in Hispanic culture within the United States and elsewhere. Including film stills, lobby cards, and posters, this lavishly illustrated coffee-table book is sure to delight anyone interested in the Cisco Kid."

CHILDREN'S BOOK CONFERENCE AND MANUSCRIPT CRITIQUE
The Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Society of Children's Books Writers and Illustrators is sponsoring its annual Manuscript Critique for authors of Young Adult & Children's literature.

Full details and instructions for formatting and submitting a manuscript for critique can be found on the Conference website at this link. Submissions must be received by July 30, 2008 for consideration. To participate, you must be a registered attendee of the Fall Conference.

Manuscripts will receive a written critique and a one-on-one appointment with a published author, an agent or an editor.

This event will be held September 20-21, 2008 at the Qwest Learning and Conference Center in Lakewood, CO. Please visit the website for the Conference details and schedule, and to register for the event.


SU TEATRO'S 12TH ANNUAL CHICANO MUSIC FESTIVAL AND AUCTION
August 7 - 10

This year’s lineup…

Aug 7—Noche Tradicional featuring Tony Silva and Trio Xochitl

Aug 8—Noche Alternativa featuring ¡FUGA! and Izcalli

Aug 9—Summer Pachanga featuring Nueva Sangre, Zydematics, and ¡FUGA!

Aug 10—Mariachi Tardeada featuring Mariachi Vasquez, Mariachi San Juan de Colorado, and Mariachi Real del Oro con Lazaro

Plus, exciting live and silent auctions every night, featuring hotel getaways, spa treatments, sports tickets, and the finest Chicano artwork from throughout the Southwest. Don’t miss the best party of the summer. Tickets are $10 – $18. Complete Festival Pass is only $35! Comadre group discounts available each night. Purchase in advance and save up to 15% on Saturday and Sunday tickets! Call us now: (303) 296-0219

El Centro Su Teatro: 4725 High Street, Denver

Later.

A Taste For Bones

Murder One: A Writer's Guide to Homicide
Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino

I realize I have a morbid taste for bones--a guilty pleasure, to be sure. I find myself fascinated with the way evidence forms a code to be deciphered in order to understand the horrible, the devastating. In trying to develop believable scenarios of homicide for a possible novel, I needed texts that describe complicated forensic material in accessible language, suitable for the writer/criminalist wannabe. Murder One is a great resource in that regard.

Written by two investigators for the Monmouth County, New Jersey Prosecutor's Office, this text gives a clear cut overview of different kinds of homicide, appropriate investigation techniques and evidence collection. Both Corvasce and Paglino have been in law enforcement since 1978, and have an excellent handle on presenting information to the general public. The chapters of the book are organized into the following sections:

• familial murders, usually triggered by simmering feuds
• gang murders, from contract hits to drive-by shootings
• organized crime hits, and the psychology and code of behavior within crime families
• business and financial murders, directed to silence whistle-blowers
• the rising trend in vehicular murder • crimes of passion, their triggers and underlying motivation • cult murders, serial murders and the details of real-life investigations

The authors also delve into legal definitions, forensic terms and definitions and the basic structure of initial homicide investigation; allowing reader/writers to explore opportunity, motive, use of weapons, and details at the scene of the crime. Interspersed throughout is the authors' commentary, reflecting their own case files experiences. Since I plan on describing more than one unholy execution, I was excited to get the corporeal goods necessary to get the right take down on paper.

Body Trauma: A Writer's Guide to Wounds and Injuries
David W. Page

Dr. David Page has extensive trauma surgery experience, and is currently an associate clinical professor of surgery at Tufts' Baystate Medical Center. In Body Trauma, what happens to organs and bones maimed by accident or injury is the subject matter of this detailed, yet easy to read book. This text reveals in simple, but descriptive language the following:

• The four steps in trauma care
• Details of skull and brain injuries
• What the Glasgow Trauma Scale is, and why it's important
• Specifics of both penetrating and blunt injuries, especially as it relates to head and neck trauma. • The "dirty dozen' dreadful, but survivable, chest injuries
• The effect of blunt trauma, puncture and bullet wounds on abdominal organs

While at some level, this kind of immersion seems like overkill, (no pun intended) I feel like I have to capture a large amount of information to best make the story hold together and seem believable. Mind you, I'll have to edit and delete passages because there's too much information, that's how much I was able to glean from these resources.

I'm fascinated by my own ongoing interest in this kind of take on mortality and the reductionist perspective that certainly is bound to it. It's a seeming contradiction for me, whose own poetry tries to focus on spirit and its power to animate and heal.

I think it has something to do with embracing the concrete aspects of mortality--the frailty of the body, the effects of violence. As I write fiction with these themes, I make a certain sense of them that may be a crime novelist's conceit--to make sense of the irrational, the terrifying, the unspeakable.

Lisa Alvarado

Pura Belpré Medal Award Big Celebración

René Colato Laínez

Pictures from timomeara@gmail.com

Award winners from left to right: Carmen T. Bernier-Grand -Frida: ¡Viva la vida! Long Live Life!, Margarita Engle -The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano, Yuyi Morales -Los Gatos Black on Halloween, Marisa Montes -Los Gatos Black on Halloween, Carmen Agra Deedy -Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale, Raúl Colón - My Name is Gabito: The Life of Gabriel García Márquez/Me llamo Gabito: la vida de Gabriel García Márquez, and Dana Goldberg representing Maya Christina Gonzalez- My Colors, My World.


ALSC and REFORMA organized a big fiesta to celebrate the Pura Belpré Award Winners on Sunday, June 29th at ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA. The speeches were full of memories, family and corazón. Yuyi Morales revealed her childhood espantos of la Llorona, Cucuy, and the hairy hand. Carmen Agrada Deedy talked how she got inspired to tell her Martina Cockroach story to a group of elementary students after her saw a big cockroach crawling in the school auditorium. Carmen T. Bernier-Grand discussed many similarities in the life of her mother and the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo.

Here are a few more pictures of the Celebracíon.

Marisa Montes talking about Los Gatos Black on Halloween.
Determination is the main key. Editors did not get the idea of some black gatos speaking Spanish and celebrating Halloween. Does the gatos from Latin America know about Halloween? But she did not give up and now has a beautiful picture book. Yes, los gatos know about Halloween and Día de los muertos, too. They are bilingual!



Raul Colon received an honor award in illustration for his book My Name is Gabito: The Life of Gabriel García Márquez/Me llamo Gabito: la vida de Gabriel García Márquez. This was written by la famosa Monica Brown. Order her new picture book Pelé, King of soccer/ Pelé, el rey del fútbol which is coming out in December.






Yuyi Morales receiving her award... At the end of her speech, she had a little sorpresita, she sang La llorona while her son played the guitar. To read Yuyi's report about Pura Belpré Award visit her blog at www.yuyimorales.blogspot.

Here is the list of all the winners.

Margarita Engle, Medal winner for text- The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano.

Yuyi Morales, Medal winner for illustration- Los Gatos Black on Halloween.

Carmen T. Bernier-Grand - Honor for text- Frida: ¡Viva la vida! Long Live Life!

Carmen Agra Deedy - Honor for text- Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale.

Marisa Montes - Honor for text- Los Gatos Black on Halloween.

Raúl Colón - Honor for illustration- My Name is Gabito: The Life of Gabriel García Márquez/Me llamo Gabito: la vida de Gabriel García Márquez.

Maya Christina Gonzalez- Honor for illustration- My Colors, My World/ Mis colores, mi mundo.

****

Read Monica Brown's new interview
Author of My Name is Gabito: The Life of Gabriel García Márquez/Me llamo Gabito: la vida de Gabriel García Márquez.

Author Monica Brown discusses the links between literacy and culture and highlights the importance of bilingual books. She also talks about her own writing and why she loves writing picture book biographies...

Read more at www.papertigers.org.

Gijón Literary Prizes

Exclusive reports from Crime Fiction's international big-bash by our roving reporter.

7th day - La Semana Negra recognition

Every year La Semana Negra awards writers for their literary work. The jurors of the prizes are always fellow writers, and although the prize is not monetary, as Spanish writer and one of the winners of the Hammett award said, “It gives you prestige because it is not driven by anything else than the quality of the work. It's very transparent.”

Here is the list of categories and the 2007 winners:

The Hammett Prize to the best detective fiction novel written in Spanish given by the Asociación de Escritores Policíacos:
This award was a tie, so it’s shared between the Spanish Juan Ramón Biedma for his novel El Imán y la Brújula and the Argentinean Leonardo Oyola for Chamamé.

The Espartaco (Spartan) Prize given to the best historical novel written in Spanish was given to the Mexican writer Antonio Sarabia for his novel Troya al Atardecer.

The Memorial Silverio Cañada Prize given to the best first published detective fiction novel written in Spanish was given to the Argentinean writer Carlos Salem for his book Camino de Ida.

The Rodolfo Walsh Prize, for the best nonfiction detective book written in Spanish, was given to the Mexican writer Sanjuana Martínez for Prueba de Fe.

The Celsius 232 Prize for the best science fiction or fantasy novel was given to the Spanish writer Javier Negrete for his book Alejandro Magno y las águilas de Roma. There was a special mention by the jury to the Spanish writer José Carlos Somoza for his book La Llave del Abismo.

Also, for a short story contest, the Ateneo Obrero de Gijón Prize was given to Nacho Padilla for “Viaje al centro de una chistera” (Trip to the center of a top-hat).

The prizes were given at 10:30am on July 19th at a press conference in Gijón’s Hotel Don Manuel. The room was jam-packed with nominated writers, press, and all the staff of La Semana Negra. There was a special energy in the room, and although local television channels were present covering the prizes, everything seemed so intimate. No one except the jurors, not even Paco Taibo, II, knew who the winners were, so everyone was anxious and expectant, especially the nominees.

The winner of each category was read off by one of the jurors. They opened a white envelope and off a handwritten letter read a special message from all the jurors and then announced the winner. Every time one was read, the room was invaded by a wave of claps, yells, and hugs for the winners.

Leonardo Oyola, a winner of the Hammett Prize shed a few tears. Carlos Salem was also very moved and happy; it’s his first published novel ("Camino de ida"), and as he said when he received the prize, “Your own fellow writers are the ones who recognize your work, and that makes this prize so important.”

All the writers recognize the importance of giving each other recognition, but in the case of Sanjuana Martínez and his investigation book on the victims of Mexican Catholic pederast priests, she affirmed that the award is also “recognition of the courage of the victims, to all those who have suffered and are still suffering.”


Following is a short introduction to the winner’s books. I hope these books get translated into English soon, but if not, definitely keep a close watch for them, because Semana Negra winners have a tendency to win more literary prizes.

The Hammett Prize: Juan Ramón Biedma's El Imán y la Brújula is a political novel of Spain during 1926, an espionage plot, where extreme situations are abundant and with the end of the war of Morocco as a background.

Leonardo Oyola's Chamamé (a traditional danceable rhythm of the northeastern Argentina) is about the persecution of two asphalt pirate gangs after the theft of loot. A vibrant story about a settling of scores.

The Espartaco (Spartan) Prize: Antonio Sarabia's Troya al Atardecer is a war novel that tells the story of twin brothers who fight on opposing sides.

The Prize Memorial Silverio Cañada: In Carlos Salem's Camino de Ida, Octavio Rincón’s authoritarian woman dies during their vacation, and it’s the best thing that ever happened to him. Perplexed at the fact that his most profound wish in life has been realized and confused between this wish and his fear of becoming a suspect of her death, he embarks on a wild journey.

The Rodolfo Walsh Prize: Sanjuana Martínez's Prueba de Fe is a denunciation book against at least two prominent Catholic cardinals, Norberto Rivera Carrera and Juan Sandoval Iñiguez.

The Celsius 232 Prize: Javier Negrete's Alejandro Magno y las águilas de Roma. Alejandro didn’t die in Babilonia. The hypothesis presented in the book is that he was poisoned by his ambitious wife Roxana in connivance with Perdicas, one of the generals, but a mysterious doctor Nestor arrives just in time to neutralize the intoxication.

José Carlos Somoza's La Llave del Abismo is a futuristic thriller that evokes a shadow universe. It is also a journey through the ins and outs of faith, a reflection over what it means to kill in the name of religious beliefs, and a revelation of what is hidden behind them.

Saludos desde Gijón!
Thania Muñoz

Empathy for a jerk. Note by Note. Two Reviews.

Michael Sedano

Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037

Back in 2003, the New York Times began a beautiful series of nine articles documenting the process of building a Steinway & Sons concert grand piano. The first article hit the paper in May, with follow-ups coming almost monthly until the ninth article arrived, all too soon, in April 2004. At the rate some newspapers have begun to shirk their responsibilities to readers, it’s encouraging to note that the New York Times still makes all nine articles available at the click of a keyboard.

These articles remained foremost in my memory when I came across an advertisement for a documentary movie called “Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037.” Naturally, I had to see the movie. Easier said than done, however, which is why I mention the NYTimes series. Documentaries have a tough time getting screen time, so if “Note by Note” happens to come to a screen near you, it’s well worth the effort to seek it out.

The documentary might be more aptly subtitled after the “Characters” chapters on the movie’s website, “Meet the the Craftsmen and Musicians (Who) Play a Part in This Year-long Labor of Love.” Love, indeed. The documentary engages the viewer through interviews that discover an ethos illustrating that these men and women, regardless their background and particular job, fully comprehend the significance of their labor. From the lumber guy who hangs around the foul-smelling pools of a sawmill to pianists pounding keyboard after keyboard to select the one instrument that fits not just their performing style but the particular piece being showcased, the interviews prove that all these workers invest each piano with a distinctive soul and it is that which makes each instrument uniquely itself.

The documentary offers up one moving segment after another. The Bosnian immigrant with a wood plane he brought to this country with him; the Salvadoran immigrant brothers who strum their guitars during lunch; the hippie-looking piano tuner who’s moved up through the ranks to a critically vital role in a room decorated with his child’s drawing of dad and a “paino.”

For me, the most touching moment comes when an “ordinary” piano changes hands from factory sale to a family’s living room. For an instant, I remember the Laurel and Hardy classic of the two pendejos moving a piano up a tortuous set of steps. In “Note by Note,” the movers maneuver the grand up the few steps into the family’s living room. The instrument uncrated, the boy serenades his parents and grandparents. Tears fill their eyes as the boy moves smoothly through the notes of a Mozart sonata. Then the camera cuts to the misty eyes of one of the piano movers. The smile on that laborer’s face is all the picture anyone needs to understand “sublime.” Which is what this documentary film does, over and over.

http://www.laurel-and-hardy.com/featureshort/talkie/0081/81-shoot2.html

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/nyregion/PIANO_INDEX.html

http://www.notebynotethemovie.com/


Dagoberto Gilb.
The Flowers.
NY: Grove Atlantic.
SBN: 0-8021-4402-0 / ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-4402-7

Dagoberto Gilb has done it again, crafted an interesting, sympathetic portrait of a real loser. Gilb weaves a fascinating dystopia surrounding Los Flores, an apartment house where Sonny, his mother, stepfather, and residents come into our awareness. In The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuña, the title character is a hapless vato who means no one any harm, and goes through life doing just that—harming no one. Now Gilb has come up with Sonny and The Flowers, another hapless vato but not necessarily harmless nor unharmed.

Daniel Olivas, who reviewed The Flowers in February, well in advance of my reading, terms the novel a “coming of age” piece. Then, recently, Daniel cites an interview where Gilb observes,

I've had some ideas about him for a decade but first pen to paper was about five years ago and then I really got at it recently. Within the last two to three years. I actually finished a version two years ago. I didn't know if I was really done. And then I went back. I took more time with it—not necessarily with the writing, but I'd let it sit for a while. Not knowing what to do—if I got it right. I wanted to make sure I had what I wanted.

I second Daniel Olivas’ esteem for the novel as an effective work. The Flowers is a beautifully written, well-plotted, novel. And it is, in its most literal sense, a coming of age novel, what with the first car, the first sex, the first infatuation, the splitting apart from motherly love. But the world of this novel leads me to wonder just what Gilb “wanted” from this second loser novel.

Mickey Acuña’s world rests precariously at the edge of society, and as the novel concludes, although a reader is never certain of his motive, Mickey has voluntarily walked off the edge. Sonny’s already half out of this world with a psychological disability. For much of the rest, he either lacks self-control or gets jerked around by the adults who control his world.

What a wretched world Gilb populates for hapless Sonny. His mother marries a racist Okie with money, and in a short while begins stepping out on the man, engaging Sonny to cover for her absence. Sonny’s a thief and burglar who steals from the neighbors and his mother. He excuses his burglaries as curiosity to see how the other half lives, but eventually discloses that he’s taken money and liberties in other people’s homes.

Sonny falls in puppy love with Nica, a sequestered neighbor teenager whose mother and stepfather keep her from school to serve as their fulltime live-in babysitter, since both work night jobs. Nica, whose name might actually be Guadalupe, doesn’t like being Mexicana in California, but speaks only Spanish and spends all day watching Spanish-language teevee. Another neighbor—a prostitute as it turns out-- seduces Sonny with come-hither flirtation, revealing clothes, wine and mota. Sonny, without recognizing it, has been raped by the woman, and this explains why he is at once scared and confused by what happens in Cindy’s apartment.

Sonny’s world has true friends, it’s not all bleakness. There’s the albino black used car salesman who gives Sonny wheels in exchange for information on stepfather Cloyd, who doesn’t recognize his tenant as a black man. There are schoolmate twins, a couple of straight-A student nerds, who admire Sonny’s independence and perceived maturity, but regularly display fear that Sonny might hurt them. There’s a kindly older couple who operate a run-down bowling alley where Sonny gets most of his meals and adult kindness.

And there are moments of moral equivocation and incongruity. There’s the harmless Russian immigrant from Spain, who sits and watches all day. One of Cloyd’s racist pals, a mean ex-cop, is married to a substitute teacher who longs for art and beauty. She expresses disgust at her husband and Cloyd’s rantings and seems likely to leave him, but stays with him despite her distress. There’s a “pervert” who stalks Sonny and the twins, but then Sonny engages him in a strangely intimate conversation. Sonny’s “normal” world is full of such mostly awful complexities.

So what is it that Gilb “wanted” from this character, from the ethos of this Chicano protagonist? He’s damaged from the start and is pushing limits to no good end. Would Gilb have the reader understand Sonny’s final act as a moment of nobility, as the writer’s way of illustrating some insightful argument about humankind that was absent when Mickey Acuña just walked away? In a way, this is what Sonny does as the novel closes, saving the innocent Nica. Or has he? Sonny has stolen several thousand dollars of hard-working racist Cloyd’s money. He’s convinced the babysitter to abandon her baby brother and parents and hightail it back to Mexico, on Cloyd’s money. She doesn’t like being Mexican, over here, but maybe back home, she’ll find the happiness deprived her on this side. But what of Sonny?

Here's an idea! Read Dan's review of this novel, read it yourself, then let's continue our discussion by means of the comments feature. Really, what do you make of characters like Mickey, and more so, Sonny?

Until next week, July's final Tuesday, see you then.

mvs


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Homeless musician's story is also about the columnist who wanted to help

The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music (Putnam, $25.95 hardcover) by Steve Lopez

Book review by Daniel Olivas

In 2001, columnist Steve Lopez moved to the Los Angeles Times after building an award-winning career at respected publications including the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Oakland Tribune, Time magazine and the San Jose Mercury News.

Over the past seven years, Lopez's Times column has made a large and often jagged mark on the City of Angels as he deflates prevaricating politicians, beachfront billionaires, devious developers and anyone else who seems to be causing damage to the city.

One day in 2005, as Lopez was "on foot in downtown Los Angeles, hustling back to the office with another deadline looming," he encountered a homeless man who inspired another column. A homeless man in L.A.? Unusual? No.

But there's an angle that Lopez saw in this potential subject: "He's dressed in rags on a busy downtown street corner, playing Beethoven on a battered violin that looks like it's been pulled from a Dumpster."

This violin-playing homeless man led to a series of much-read columns. In the process, Lopez shook up readers, politicians, musicians and anyone else who has a heart. Why? Well, the man -- Nathaniel Ayers -- had been one of a handful of African-American students at Juilliard, where he studied classical bass, in the 1970s. But mental illness struck, and Ayers eventually spiraled down to the horrendous depths of homelessness in downtown Los Angeles.

Out of these columns comes Lopez's heartbreaking, tough-talking and engrossing book, The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music (Putnam, $25.95 hardcover).

It is impossible not to get caught up in Lopez's attempts to make contact with a man who lives in a bizarre and brutal mix of street life, nonexistent voices and exquisite music. But we also get a glimpse of Lopez's dogged attempts to trace this man's life back to his childhood to understand how this could happen.

As he gets closer to Ayers, Lopez moves from reporter to friend. He decides that he must help Ayers move to a safer existence in a shelter. Lopez's readers also want to help, and many offer mental health advice, while several others actually send new instruments -- violins, cellos and basses -- for Ayers to play.

Eventually, Lopez discovers the Lamp Community, a nonprofit organization that offers shelter for more than 88,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County. In time, Ayers accepts the help of the organization. But progress is painfully slow, in large part because of Ayers' earlier unsuccessful encounters with mental-health professionals.

Ayers is an often-frustrating subject, to say the least: He is prone to ugly verbal outbursts and does not trust living in confined spaces. Several times, Lopez feels ready to wash his hands of the man, but a mix of stubbornness and affection prevents him from abandoning his new friend.

Another fascinating aspect of this narrative is the peek we get of Lopez's life as a newspaperman trying to meet deadlines in an industry suffering from historic restructuring and downsizing. Interesting, too, is the much-tested patience and support that Lopez's wife and daughter offer as he is consumed by the plight of this one man.

Steve Lopez is a consummate columnist who has created a powerful portrait of homelessness and mental illness. All the while, he demonstrates a deep respect and compassion for his subject. This is a potent, riveting and deeply affecting book.

[This review first appeared in the El Paso Times.]

Poets José Emilio Pacheco, Joaquín Sabina & Luis García Montero

Exclusive reports from Crime Fiction's international big-bash by our roving reporter.

6th Day - Thursday's Poetry Reading

This morning, José Emilio Pacheco, Joaquín Sabina and Luis García Montero read their poetry at the main tent of La Semana Negra. Since the recital was scheduled for one in the morning, I had planned to arrive an hour before, thinking I was going to get a good, comfortable spot. But it seemed dozens of people thought the same thing. Usually at this hour people are at the clubs dancing away the night, and you would think no one would even think about poetry. But in Gijón this was not the case.

As Paco Ignacio Taibo, II said, “Some years ago when I proposed a poetry reading late at night, people said I was crazy, that no one would actually attend.” But in fact a lot of people attended, and as I made my way through the audience that was trying to find chairs and move closer to the stage, I soon realized I wasn’t going to get a chair. So I made my way through to the front to sit wherever possible. I got a little spot right on the front between two couples and took out my camera. I’m a big poetry reader and just thinking that I was going to be listening to these three important poets of the Spanish language made me shiver. Before the recital, the tent was noisy, people desperately trying to find a place, but by 1:00am, no one else was able to get in. This made me feel more excited, and I felt envious looks from people behind me.

The recital got started by Yampi who livened up the tent with his guitar so people started singing. With his endless smile, Yampi thanked everyone for being there so late at night. He honored the deceased poet Ángel González by singing some of his poems, verses that quickly changed the mood of the tent. Ángel González died this year on January 12th and his death is most felt at La Semana Negra, because since the late-night poetry readings got started by Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Ángel had never missed a year.

Joaquín Sabina, famous songwriter and poet, has been attending La Semana Negra for the last six years and Luis García Montero, has also attended for many years. The only newbie was José Emilio Pacheco, who in some way came to replace Ángel González. Not an easy task, but knowing that José Emilio is considered one of the most important Mexican poets of our time, with his brilliant work in narrative, translation and most importantly poetry, he had nothing to fear.

A little after 1:00 Paco Taibo went on the stage and people went crazy clapping. Taibo said how happy he felt that so many people were at the event and that he knew we would truly enjoy it because, "poetry has less and less space in our society." He introduced the poets and surrounded by claps, cheers and yells, the three poets got on stage and waved to everyone. It was an amazing moment when the poets took their seats. Sabina and Montero seemed very comfortable on stage. Pacheco on the other hand seemed nervous and timid, but this didn’t stop his smile.

The recital started with Sabina and Montero together reciting a poem dedicated to Pacheco, verses that truly evoked the importance of Pacheco’s place in Spanish language poetry. The two poets declared that the poem was an homage, following the example of Pablo Neruda and Federico García Lorca's tribute poem to Ruben Darío. The poem was recited with enthusiasm, vividly, full of respect and admiration for the Mexican poet. Pacheco was moved by the poem to reply, “The least I can do you for you is read you poems that haven’t been publish yet.” He read three short poems and afterward timidly thanked everyone.

For an hour the poets took turns reading their poetry, and after each, the crowd got rowdier and louder. Many times you would see Taibo II trying to silence everyone from the side, because as he said at the beginning, “I want to establish a quiet and peaceful atmosphere so everyone can hear well and enjoy the poetry.” This was impossible. People would scream and tell Sabina or Montero that they loved them; or to Pacheco, “You are the greatest,” and similar remarks. I have to confess I was loud too, but how could you not in the presence of these eminents breathing the same air you are, stepping on the same sand and, most importantly, listening to their verses in such an intimate space?

Joaquin Sabina was the last to perform; García Montero joined him by singing the choruses. It was a tango entitled "Semana Negra", lyrics especially dedicated to La Semana Negra and all the happiness it brings to Gijón. After the song, a lot of people tried to get on stage. I got pushed and stepped on, until Taibo announced the poets would be signing books, but that everyone had to make a line. The organizers of La Semana Negra also gave away copies of a special anthology of Pacheco’s poetry to everyone.

For half an hour the poets signed books, and people in line were excited and had big smiles on their faces. Unfortunately, when the poets tired and decided to head to the hotel, people still in line got a little crazy and started pushing. Security intervened to protect the poets, who at the moment were much like rock stars. I don’t blame anyone; getting their autographs is special.

After the poets left, there was a strong energy in the air. It was like one of those moments you don’t believe just happened and you know they will never happen again--truly an unforgettable night for the people and visitors of Gijón.

I love La Semana Negra!

Besos desde Gijón,
Thania Muñoz

Raw Silk Suture, Awards, New Candelaria, New Pérez-Reverte

AARON A. ABEYTA COLORADO BOOK AWARD FINALIST
Rise, Do Not Be Afraid (Ghost Road Press, 2007), aaron a. abeyta's debut novel, is a finalist for this year's Colorado Book Award. La Bloga has featured aaron and his book in two interviews and a review. Congratulations to aaron for the recognition, and good luck at the awards banquet set for October 8, 2008.

THE AURA ESTRADA LITERARY PRIZE
Lucha Corpi sent me news about this new award; gracias, Lucha. Here's the website description:

The Aura Estrada Prize will be awarded biannually to a female writer, 35 or under, living in Mexico or the United States, who writes creative prose (fiction or nonfiction) in Spanish.

The prize will include a stipend (how much depends on how much we are able to raise for the endowment, but we hope it will be approximately $15,000.) It also, so far, includes residencies at three writers‘ colonies, Ucross in Wyoming, Ledig House in New York, and Santa Maddalena in Tuscany, Italy. Residencies can last up to two months each.

Granta en Español will also publish an excerpt of the winner‘s writing.

The Aura Estrada Prize will be formally announced and opened to submissions at the Guadalajara Book Fair in November, 2008.That day the judges will be announced, as well as all pertinent details regarding the application process. The first Aura Estrada Prize will be awarded at the book fair one year later.

And here's a bit about Aura Estrada:

Aura Estrada was born on April 24, 1977, in León, Guanajuato, Mexico. Her Master's thesis, Borges, inglés (about the influence on Jorge Luis Borges of William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb and Robert Louis Stevenson) was later published as a book by the Mexican small press, Scripta, as was a subsequent long essay, Borges, prologuista. She also studied at University of Texas, Austin (1998-99) and, on a visiting scholar grant, at Brown University (2002). In the fall of 2003 she enrolled as a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Literature at Columbia University. That year she also won a Fulbright Scholarship. In the fall of 2006, despite a heavy academic and teaching load at Columbia, she enrolled in the Hunter College MFA program, and began writing fiction in English.

While at Columbia, she also published creative prose journalism, reviews and short-fiction in Mexican and Latin American magazines such as Letras Libres, DF, Gatopardo, the online literary magazine, Letralia, and in the anthology El gringo a travéz del espejo; she published a story and an essay at Wordswithoutborders.org. And writing in English, she published book review-essays at Bookforum and The Boston Review. In 2009 a collection of Aura's writings will be published by Almadía, a Mexico-based independent publisher.

At Hunter she began writing a novel, in English, which she intended to revise and complete in Spanish. As a Hertog Fellow at Hunter, she was a research assistant for Toni Morrison.

On August 20th, 2005, Aura and Francisco Goldman were married. In July 2007, while vacationing in Mazunte, Aura suffered a fatal accident in the waves and died in a hospital in Mexico City.

NEW NASH CANDELARIA
Bilingual Review Press announced the January, 2009 publication of Second Communion by renowned writer Nash Candelaria. Bilingual's catalog describes this new book as a memoir that focuses on how and why the author became a writer. "As he investigates his family's more than 300-year history in New Mexico, the author undertakes a more intimate journey that leads him to understand truths about himself: why he chose to become a writer and why he chose the topics he did. Part family history and part self-examination, Second Communion is a must-read for aspiring writers, those interested in Southwest history, and students and teachers of Chicano literature." Candelaria has published four novels including Memories of the Alhambra (1977), a "seminal novel of Chicano literature," and Not By the Sword (1982), an American Book Award winner.

NEW PÉREZ-REVERTE
Those of us who are fans of the swashbuckling Captain Alatriste can now pick up the third book in Arturo Perez-Reverte's series, The Sun Over Breda (Plume, 2008). The author's website says:

Arturo Pérez-Reverte has enthralled readers and critics around the globe with his Captain Alatriste series. Having sold four and a half million copies to date in the Spanish-speaking world, the series has made Pérez-Reverte a literary superstar and his fictional seventeenth-century mercenary a national icon. And the appeal of Pérez-Reverte's adventurer and his exploits continues to grow, as evidenced by the extraordinary reception for the first two translated volumes in the series - Captain Alatriste and Purity of Blood.

And now, in The Sun Over Breda, Pérez-Reverte continues his thrilling chronicle of the swordsman-for-hire, as Captain Alatriste takes up his blade and rejoins his elite Cartagena regiment as they take part in the battles and siege of Breda. Fifteen-year-old Íñigo Balboa enlists to serve as his master's aide, and narrates their further adventures of swordplay and skirmishes, of mutiny and wartime honor. And, back in Spain, Alatriste's nemesis Luis de Alquézar grows more powerful, as Íñigo's mysterious friend Angélica hints at some plans upon his return.

RAW SILK SUTURE - LISA ALVARADO
La Bloga is proud to trumpet the publication of Raw Silk Suture (Floricanto Press, 2008), from our very own Lisa Alvarado. This poetry collection is set for release in September, and we warn all La Bloga readers to get ready to be swept away by Lisa's writing. Here's some of the press release:

In this stunning collection, Lisa Alvarado wields the pen and cuts deeply to the heart of Chicanisma, female identity, the use and misuse of the body, its restoration, and the power of love. With finely etched free verse, each subject is explored to the depth without hesitation, and boldly revealed.

Figures in black abound in Alvarado’s perishable craft, her words of and for the unseen...her intensities are relentless. Alvarado is a poet of the abyss...Such an artist was Frida Kahlo....Lisa does not offer an exit; this is one of her superb contributions. She conjures, that is all....Caress this book as you would hold your soul-to-be gasping for life. That is all." -- Juan Felipe Herrera, poet. Author of 187 Reasons Mexicans Can't Cross the Border and Half of the World in Light, New and Selected Poems; Professor, Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair, Department of Creative Writing University of California.

Alvarado's call for a quiet remaking of cells is nothing short of revolutionary. Read this book, look at yourself and the world around you and know: anything is possible." -- Demetria Martínez author, Confessions of a Berlitz-Tape Chicana.

Simply put, Raw Silk Suture is a scar / that has / become a flower. -- Francisco Aragón, Editor, The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry Founding Editor, Latino Poetry Review (LPR)

The poetry of Lisa Alvarado thunders across the page. Fiery and smoky, these are poems for midnight whiskey and pre-dawn espresso. These are poems for what ails us.-- Manuel Ramos, Author, Moony's Road to Hell, and Founder and Columnist, La Bloga.

Lisa will kickoff the national release, Saturday, September 20th, 7:30 PM, at: Décima Musa, 1901 S. Loomis St, Chicago, IL, hosted by Palabra Pura/Guild Complex. She will also appear at Acentos in the Bronx, New York, on September 23rd, 7:00 PM. (The Bruckner Gallery at Bruckner Bar and Grill, One Bruckner Blvd.; corner of Third Ave. and Bruckner Blvd.)

I expect that we will hear from many of you about Lisa's new book - don't miss it.

MORE RECOGNITION FOR ROLANDO HINOJOSA
At the beginning of this week, Thania Muñoz gave us an intriguing piece of a much longer interview with Chicano writer Rolando Hinojosa as part of her excellent reporting from Semana Negra. Be sure to check out her posts for a lively reconstruction of the surrealistic experience known to writers around the world as Semana Negra, the black week of literature. I recently learned that Professor Hinojosa was awarded a Doctor of Letters by Texas A & M University-College Station. That might have happened on his way to Gijón for Semana Negra. Congratulations to one of the maestros.

Later.

Adrian Castro: As the Spirit Moves Him

Adrian Castro, his spirit, his riveting poetry and stage presence graced us in Chicago at a recent Palabra Pura. Wise Fish is a must read and we're fortunate enough to have had a conversation with Adrian, featured below. But before that, check out some background information, what other people are saying about this breathtaking book and revel in an excerpt.

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Adrian Castro is a poet, performer, and interdisciplinary artist. Born in Miami, a place which has provided fertile ground for the rhythmic Afro-Latino style in which he writes and performs. Articulating the search for a cohesive Afro-Caribbean-American identity, Castro honors myth on one hand and history on the other. He addresses the migratory experience from Africa to the Caribbean to North America, and the eventual clash of cultures. Castro creates a circular motion of theme, tone, subject matter, style, and cultural history, giving rise to a fresh illuminating archetypal poetry. These themes reach their climax in their declamacion – the call-and-response rhythm of performance with a whole lot of tun-tun ka-ka pulse. He is the author of Cantos to Blood & Honey,(Coffee House Press, 1997), Wise Fish: Tales in 6/8 Time,(Coffee House Press, 2005), and has been published in many literary anthologies.

He is the recipient of a Cintas Fellowship, State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship, NewForms Florida, the Eric Mathieu King award from the Academy of American Poets, NALAC Arts Fellowship, and several commissions from Miami Light Project and the Miami Art Museum.

He has performed with many dancers and actors including Chuck Davis and African American Dance Ensemble, Heidi Duckler and Collage Dance, and Keith Antar Mason and the Hittite Empire. The New York Times Book Review recently selected Wise Fish as an editor’s choice saying, “Sinuous, syncopated verses about the Caribbean melting pot.” And “…even a cursory glance suggests his poems—which seem to be trying to dance off the page…would truly come alive on the stage. “Wise Fish” is a serious and seriously enjoyable contribution to our flourishing Latino literature.” Adrian Castro is also a Babalawo and herbalist.

1758 SW 23 ST Miami, FL 33145 (305) 858-3837
E-mail: Oditola@hotmail.com

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Wise Fish: Tales in 6/8 Time
Reviews

Bob Holman :
"From a e to ae aeeeee is how long it takes for a word under slow waves to dissolve to pure sound. This is the domain of Adrian Castro, el poeta salsero, whose Wise Fish is composed solely in Spanglishcubanotainocreole y la lengua del orisha. Castro lays out a groove deep as an ocean trench, and you flow with the go. Use the dorsal fin of the wise fish to comb the language free of snarls, tangles and knots. Now you got it, poetry's music. Open book, hear music."

Campbell McGrath :
"Adrian Castro is fast becoming our foremost poet of the Caribbean, that crossroad of the Americas whose multiple cultures and languages he knows and speaks so fluently. His poetry is ecstatic, drum-propelled, lyrically empowered, spiritually questing, restlessly exploring the flyways of diaspora and exile from Puerto Rico to Haiti to Florida, from Cuba to Jamaica to Colombia, yet the idiom it inhabits is purely American. For all his journeying Adrian Castro is never away from home, because, like the hermit crab, he carries it on his back."

Quincy Troupe :
"The poetry of Adrian Castro fuses Spanish, Spanglish, and various dialects of the English/American language in a dazzlingly lyrical way. Influenced by the poetry of Victor Hernández Cruz, who pioneered this fascinating linguistic mix and fusion, Castro's poetry breathes life into and pulsates through the nexus of many cultural crossroads: Cuban, Haitian, Puerto Rican, Dominican as well as that of a cross-fertilized United States. Castro's new work is laced with intriguing rhythms and a robust musical language that makes Wise Fish a powerful, fresh, complex collection from an increasingly gifted poet."

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MISA CARIBEñA
Verde de ver green was her eyes
where the story began
hidden among almendras
dates, twigs of olive dripping oil

The sting of salt pooling
around ambitious brows
La misa begun by 3 boats
(rickety in their raucous bouts with breeze)

*

?? How to proceed
when your script has been writ by others
declared to be in your best interest
without finding your best interest
…history
with all its difficulties
rises from incantation
like musk deep
in the earth…
--retelling
There’s a bundle of bridle memories
wrapped in white, deep red, then
black cloth
strewn like an old photo
we turn away from
--retelling
La liturgia can be bilingual
Latín con Yórùbá
Spanish y Spanish
English con Spanish
Spanish con Latin
Cubano con Yórùbá
someone
has to orchestrate this—

El Proceso:
Burn a collection of twigs (Amansa
Guapo, No-me-olvides, Vencedor, Paramí, Quita Maldición, etc…)
Filter to fine dust
Add dried quimbombo
Gather witnesses
Hang the white, red, & black cloth flag-like
Prepare herbal solution for bathing afterwards
Spread ash circular on the ground
Begin writing symbols to span the column from earth to other world
Symbols born from word

There are delicate songs
that web these worlds
A gourd with salted water
is waiting their arrival
When drops pool around fingers
sliding like rain
mist of spirits
arrive in chronological death
the sting of salt pooling
inside our gaping memory
For the future—
we place a table blanketed with pools of cups
fistful of flowers
candles
here they
los muertos
can swim
frolic
After this ash has been etched
we understand how the dead has been received

*

This is goodbye—
la gran despedida
circled by candles infinite
-- it can be a signature of sorts
-- una caja de muerto
the difference is we live
& we continue an odd embrace
rhythmic

It has been established that
life begins in the ocean
Indeed she who floats on a mantle of blue
sequined with stars & moonlight
is motherhood en persona
& the one chained at the depths who
no one has really seen
collects fragments of bone from
sand
the sound of water choca con hueso
welds the primal bond deep
in the unconscious
Here is where life begins
Here is where
we
began
with words on sand
(close to the tide)
you accepted
I accepted—

A kissed history has dug into the sand
trying to erase the echo of what was writ
You alone gnawing at the mystery
manifested seed-like in my hands
challenging all my efforts
They now have slid off unto
otra

I thought though in sand
impermanence would not victimize us
the crystals in your eyes
my eyes
sharp & crackling with hope
I thought my feet could shuffle scissor-like slide
side to side on sand
printing mysterious messages to you
(of love, of future, of promise)
I thought the bay pooling around our oath
the reflection of words crystalized there
floating
sinking
delivered with 3 drums bàtá to the origins
I thought they would become sand, then bone
I thought then maybe a child
now I realize
you thought
you thought…

*

??How to proceed
when your home itself
simple & predictable
is an abiku—
…Born transient
with scars from previous lives not
really indefinite
but transient
clenching fists of young frustra-
tion not
yet established alive…
“comb the language”
with the dorsal from wise fish
encrusted with coral
Filter the rhythm
music of
accents
“or else”
end up at the bottom of the sea
grinding bone con bone
busy trying to get born
again
in another place—

drops pool from salt
from fingers sliding like rain
unto the green
verde de ver green was her eyes
where the story begins again
hidden among almendras

un llanto gitano se oye
un llanto gitano dice
“Que no me lloren
que no me lloren
que tengan azucenas
una gitarra cajón y compás de bulerías
pañuelos verde y blanco
que me lloren así”

This is no secret:
we are children of death
Bundled bulky in history
one white
deep red
one black
textured hymns
ruffled by boats in their raucous breeze
fingering our skin
only a sense
that pools from salt
sand
water
from fingers sliding like rain down skin
unto green verde de ver
again
again
green was her eyes

Misa because there’s sand
Misa because there’s memory
Misa because there’s transformation
Misa because there’s fish
because there’s ritual
because there’s tragedy
Misa because there’s music
because there’s love
because we mix we survive reborn
Misa porque tu con yo yo con tu
todos mezclados—
Misa caribeña


INCANTATION FOR THE WORD (I)

Shi-shi shah-shah shi she-eeh
is the music of divination powder
Takatakatakataka
is the music of palm nuts conversing/(ikin)
Ikin can
speak of a certain matter burrowed in sand
Odù is the music of
Omolú is the music of
that speech

And we arrived with these pronouncements
circling a wooden tray
circling those signatures (who summon the true name of things)
like coded messages from birds soaked
with the dew of universe
archetypes & all
past present & therefore
future
many languages with rhythm & all
even tonal
circling a wooden tray
tray who circular implies
WORLD
And it is word who causes this dance
And there are rhythmic leaps into
the sweetness of abundance into
the iron crest of creativity
And there herbs who cause the invisible to manifest
And it is word who causes this dance
Takatakatakataka
is the music of palm nuts conversing/(ikin)
Yes we can initiate a dialogue between known &
unknown
between those who flow round jagged stones of ignorance
river-like
like wise fish
we can bring messages regarding history
the ineffable speech of music
the music of verse
vibration from spirits through ripples
rhythm residing deep among the lushness
An old beaded crown invokes the power of poem
-- in an incantation we can

Odù is the music of
Omolú is the music of
that speech
Shi-shi shah-shah shi she-eeh
shshsh!



Note on Text:
Ikin: Specialized & ritually prepared palm nuts used in Orisha/Ifa divination.
Odù: A divination verse from Ifa literary corpus.
Omolú: One of 240 odu Ifa. Literally “child of king”. Offspring of 16 major odù Ifa.

ONE IRONY OF THE CARIBBEAN

It is common knowledge:
these waters witnessed the meet between East & West

Those sullen sailors rancid with chorizo
talcum’d with salt & sea breeze
old gunpowder
the perennial scent of Spain flapping
among the crested flags
the debauched night of laud
the Moorish cumin
the Gypsy’s dervish

But Tainos had mango o guanábana
to hoist as flag
perhaps a carey & tabaco leaf as insignia
They used planks from siguaraya
o quiebra hacha
pine or cedar
(which perfumed at the same time)
while sailing to the Areyto plaza
And the Caribs
well they used bones with hatchet scars
for mere decoration
in effect a floating coffin

The triangle that ensnared freedom
corraled continents into a trinity of suffering
the ships which chiseled these shores
in effect floating coffins

They departed from these islands
in rafts at best
hammered & fastened from rafters
from dangling colonial homes
in Regla, Cojimar, Marianao,
Jacmel, Cap Hatien
the same homes built
by survivors of floating coffins
They built them
with the same wood which bolted their ancestors’ chains
The same wood glued with sugar cane sap
They used strewn army canvases for sails
the sails that pivoted
often in the wrong direction
A rudder fashioned from shovel
stained with the earth of a dead man
They launched it to sea
to begin anew
but in effect a floating coffin

A long time ago
they didn’t bury the dead
till the eyes were pecked by a mysterious bird
delivered to the heavens
so the eyes could oversee the body’s proper burial
It was then that
they buried the body
in a hollowed trunk of siguaraya,
quiebra hacha, pine or cedar
sometimes ceiba for chiefs & priests
They launched it to sea to reach home to
reunite with the others
they lauched it to sea
to begin anew
in effect a floating coffin

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1. There is a profound sense of spirituality and musicality in your work. Can you talk about the sources of that, how they're connected, and their influences on you? 2. What has been the role of Santeria/Lucumi in your life as it relates to your world view and how you work as writer.

I'll answer the first two questions simultaneously since I think they're related. One of the central themes in my work is the relationship between poetry and sacred writing/texts. In my case, the sacred texts include the verses from the Ifa literary corpus. Briefly, Ifa has 256 Odu (perhaps best translated as chapters, but not from a physical book).

Each of these Odu have hundreds of verses associated with them. Each verse has a structure, a theme, a message, a sacrifice, a teaching. These verses are studied and memorized by traditional Babalawo, of which I am, and in turn interpreted for people who seek divination. Since I study quite ardently and live Ifa and its verses, their asthetics, rhythm, narratives, teachings, inevitably seep into my poems. Another central theme of my work is migration, and its dynamics-- acculturations, mixes, musics, rhythms, foods, culture in general. I frequently use my Afro-Latino asthetics to interpret, think, and talk about these issues.

3. Specifically, what are the themes you feel tug at you, make you want to return for exploration more deeply? Why?

I often reinterpret myths, or attribute modern sensibilites to them. I think the story of humanity is exactly that of migration, and the inevitable mixes. To write about migration, is in a nutshell, to write about humanity and the most ancient of customs.

3. How does being a husband and father impact your writing?

Being a father has I think given me a wider perspective on what's important, on my actions of today, on the importance of cultivating for the fruits of tomorrow, to be cliche.

4. Who have been mentors/influences on you creatively?

Influences-- in poetry mostly Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Victor Hernandez Cruz. But of course one gets influenced even in a small way by everything you read. But these are the poets I keep going back to. Musically, I listen to a lot of drumming, Afro-Cuban music, Jazz, Latin Jazz specifically-- Irakere, Munequitos de Matanzas, Jerry Gonzalez and the Fort Apache Band, John Coltrane, Mario Bauza.

5. What's your take on slam poetry and popular schools of poetics as it relates to your own work and also as a vehicle for up and coming young poets?

I have never participated in a slam. I think they have there place. However, unfortunately many "slam" poems suffer from a lack of workmanship and editing. I think open mics and the slam scene are a pretty democratic and open environment which is fundamentally a positive thing, especially for poets in their early stages of development. The slam scene has also made poetry more accessible to audiences. However I think the downfall of that is people may get the miscontrued idea of what is poetry.

Lisa Alvarado

Las Tertulias at La Semana Negra

Exclusive reports from Crime Fiction's international big-bash by our roving reporter.

I've been looking for a word to correctly translate “tertulias.” Since unfortunately I didn’t bring my big and thick Oxford dictionary with me, I relied on wordreference.com. The definition it gives doesn’t transmit the same meaning to me, but then again, I think about all the translations in the world, from the classics of literature to Latin American literature translated into English, and I convince myself and say "don’t be so stupid, translations are not that bad."

So, according to my online translator tertulias are: literary gatherings, and I’m sticking to that term. At La Semana Negra, every day at five, there are tertulias where the invited writers discuss a topic. It’s an hour-long debate where they give their own opinions and even get into arguments with the other writers.

The first three literary gatherings where dedicated to the “monsters” of literature or film. The panel included Mexican writer, Miguel Cane, Spanish writers, Elia Barceló, Cristina Macía, Rafael Marín, Daniel Mares, Marc R. Soto, Victor Condé, Federico Fernández Giordano, Rodolfo Martínez, Juan Miguel Aguilera, Eduardo Angulo and Manuel Nonídez.

Right off the bat, the debate heated up. Some said Mr. Hyde is the worst monster of all time; others thought it was zombies and of course the always scary vampires. Although the list of monsters was very long, Mr. Hyde took the prize. Rafael Marín took the discussion to another level by saying Mr. Hyde scares us because he demonstrates that “we could be monsters, too.”

After that “Alien” made an appearance in the discussion and writer Elia Barceló defended him, affirming that “the only thing Alien is trying to do is defend himself.” Some agreed, some didn’t, but what made the literary gatherings more interesting was the great number of people listening to this conversation full of some very nerdy details on movies and books.

Although at the beginning in the “Carpa del encuentro”, Semana Negra's main tent, there weren’t many people, as time went by more slowly started coming. I would look around at the puzzled faces: some were ready to get up and say something, and others nodded when they agreed with what one of the writers said.

The guys next to me confided in me (I think because I was taking notes the whole time), “Yeah, I know it’s so cool to find out that you are not the only one that talks endlessly about these things.” These tertulias bring people closer to the writers so they have the opportunity to get to know them in a more personal way. After the debates are over, you see spectators coming up to the writers, saying they agreed with what they were saying, that the other writers were wrong, or something of the sort.

After the “monsters” tertulias, the next two followed the theme entitled “El mal y sus protagonistas” (wordreference.com again: “Evil and its main characters"). This time it was Paco Ignacio Taibo, II, the Cuban Lorenzo Lunar, Colombians Mario Mendoza and Nahum Montt, Mexican writer Eduardo Monteverde, the Chilean Roberto Ampuero, the Chicano Rolando Hinojosa, and Spaniards Ángel Tomás González, Kama Gutier, Juan Ramón Biedma and Achy Obejas.

This tertulia focused on evil in these writers' own literature, why they write detective fiction, hardboiled, gothic and such, summarizing why their characters or stories are in some way evil. Juan Ramón Biedma at one point, firmly and passionately said, “Because good characters are boring.”

Simple and clear as that, but Roberto Ampuero, the Chilean writer who teaches at the University of Iowa, said “I live in a country (USA) that is constantly trying to separate good from evil, and of course George W. Bush is always saying that we are good, but it’s a lie and it makes no sense. That’s something that intrigues me--why people are always trying to differentiate good from evil, if in reality we are both.” The debate continued on that note, and most of the writers agreed evil is very ambiguous and that we all have the possibility of being the hero or villain, because evil is something within us, something natural.

I don’t want to scare anybody--I know Vampires and Mr. Hyde are not the prettiest things--but I definitely wanted La Bloga readers to know what topics are discussed at La Semana Negra and to make sure everyone gets a feel of the types of discussion that happen here. But not only that; I also wanted to pass on the excitement and happiness that people who attend this gathering feel.

I’m sure some of you reading this will love hearing your favorite writer talk about his horror characters or why they write the way they do and how they build their characters. It’s a special thing and the spectators certainly recognize this, because during the discussions, they didn’t stop taking photos and notes. As someone behind me said, “I’m posting this on my blog.”

Saludos desde Gijón!
Thania Muñoz

Call for Poetry Submissions to UCLA Anthology and More Writing Tips for Children

Call for Poetry Submissions
"Spiraled Connections: 40 years of Indigenous Journeys at UCLA"

The American Indian Studies Center at UCLA is seeking poetry submissions for a fortieth-anniversary anthology commemorating its forty years of publishing books by and about Native peoples. We envision this anthology as a collection of materials by Indigenous poets directly connected to UCLA in the past forty years and those they have mentored or influenced.

Our aim is to illustrate and celebrate the ways that Native people present at the core of the American Indian educational movement have radiated their innovation and empowerment out to the community in all directions. Submissions do not have to be education-oriented.

Deadline: February 1, 2009

WHO CAN SUBMIT: Indigenous poets (having origin in any of the original peoples of North America and who maintain cultural identification through tribal affiliation or community recognition) connected in some way to UCLA (alumni, former/current professor/ undergraduate /graduate/staff, folks previously published in AICRJ or other American Indian Studies Center publications) and those they have mentored or influenced.

WHAT TO SUBMIT: Up to five poems (single spaced), not to exceed a total of ten typed pages. We are open to all poetic styles and forms. Poems in your Indigenous language will be considered but you must also provide English translation with your submission. What have we become in these past forty years of American Indian scholarship, education, community, intellectual, creative and academic adventure? Who have we become, who have we touched, how have we grown, transformed, helped each other, learned to negotiate the academy, our multiple roles and lives? How can we, as poets, express this Indigenous journey?

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Please include name, email, phone, address, and a brief bio along with your submissions. While unpublished pieces are preferred, previously published material will be considered. If something has been previously published, please let us know where and when it was published, and whether you have the rights to your own material.

HOW TO SUBMIT:
Inquiries can be directed to Deborah Miranda: mirandad@wlu.edu.
Deadline: February 1, 2009. Please send submissions with an SASE for response to:

Deborah Miranda
English Department
Washington and Lee University
204 W. Washington St.
Lexington, VA 24450

ABOUT THE EDITOR: Deborah Miranda is an Esselen/Chumash poet and scholar, currently an associate professor of English at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, where she teaches creative writing, literature, and composition. She has published two poetry collections, Indian Cartography and The Zen of La Llorona; projects forthcoming are The Light from Carrisa Plains: A Tribal Memoir, and Written on the Bark of Trees: Praise Poems.

More Writing Tips

A Writing Tip from Highlights coordinating editor Kim T. Griswell
Wake Up and Smell the Pine Needles

You've probably been told a thousand times that writers must show, not tell in their stories. What does that really mean? Showing means writing all five senses into your story: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.

To find out if you're using all five senses, get a set of five highlighters, each in a different color. Go through your text and highlight all the sensory details, using a different color for each sense: sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch. You'll be able to see right away if you're favoring one sense to the exclusion of others. Sight is the sense most of us favor, though if asked what stays in the memory longest, smells, tastes, or sounds often come to the fore. If your writing leaves a sensory vacuum, go back and add sensory images to enrich your story and allow readers to experience it as if they were there.


Kim T. Griswell spent six years as the coordinating editor of Highlights. She currently serves as senior editor, special projects, for Highlights for Children, Inc. Her service has spanned the worlds of publishing and teaching, leading her to positions as senior editor, book development manager, a university instructor, and a teacher with the Institute of Children's Literature. She holds master's degrees in teaching writing and in literature. A prolific writer and committed editor, Kim has published more than two hundred short stories, articles, and columns. Her children's book, Carnivorous Plants, was published by Kidhaven Press in 2002.

***

A Writing Tip from Charlesbridge Editor Randi Rivers


Unfortunately, many submissions tend to be familiar story types. Bedtime stories, fairy tales, stories about an outcast whose bad trait makes him/her the hero, Tooth Fairy tales, and birthday stories top the list of overdone types. A lot of stories have the sole aim of teaching a lesson, but stories should be stories first—they should entertain.

If you have a fresh idea or a unique way to tell a story, that's what catches an editor's eye. Think about your writing style and your story's presentation. Decide how your tale stands out from the pack and capitalize on that. If you write nonfiction, then decide what holes it fills or how it's different from other similar books. Keep revising until you're ready to submit. Be your own toughest critic.

In the early 1990s, Randi Rivers worked for a magazine publisher based in the Los Angeles area. While in L.A., she coauthored the play Heart of the Matter, which was later produced by the Dunwoody Stage Door Players in Atlanta, Georgia. After returning to Massachusetts, she joined Charlesbridge Publishing. Currently an editor, Randi acquires and edits eight to ten children's books per year.

***

A Writing Tip from Journalist Peter P. Jacobi

Passion. That's my P word. Boris Novak, in celebrating International Children's Reading Day in 1997, said: "Adults look at colors, yet do not see them. Adults perceive shapes, yet do not understand their speech. Adults live in light and from light, yet do not notice it at all. Adults cast long shadows, yet do not play with them. Adults take up much (indeed too much) space, yet never just for once marvel at it spaciousness. Adults look at the world with closed eyes. This is why space shrinks, shadows die, light darkens, colors fade, and shapes fall silent. Children are different. Children, with eyes wide open, gaze out at the world and marvel at things. Children play with colors and with shapes. Their play blows away the dust from the faded colors and returns to them the sheen with which they were born. Play brings to life new shapes, unseen and unheard before, fresh in their beauty." For children particularly, we must have passion.

Peter P. Jacobi is professor emeritus of journalism at Indiana University and a consultant with magazines and corporations, helping CEOs, writers, and editors learn to express their ideas more effectively. His articles have appeared in World Book, The New York Times, Highlights, and others. His two guidebooks, The Magazine Article: How to Think It, Plan It, Write It and Writing with Style: The News Story and the Feature, are standard reference sources for journalists.

***

A Writing Tip from Newbery Award Winner Jerry Spinelli

Write your book. Underline your. (Not someone else's). That's one of those things that sounds so obvious that it's not even worth saying, but in fact it is.

Writing your book simply has to do with tapping into whatever we have. We all grow up, and all we're doing is simply making use of something that is as common as gravity—memories. When we grow up, our past is not irretrievably lost to us, like the juice squeezed from an orange. The past stays with us. Tap into it for your writing.

If I were training you to be writers, I would say pick your best experiences and write at least a hundred pages, covering your life up to age fifteen or so. You'll be giving yourself a lifetime's worth of material to draw on, like ore in the ground. It's just a matter of extracting it, refining it, and purifying it until you're laying out pure wrought iron.

With titles like Do the Funky Pickle, There's A Girl in My Hammerlock, and Who Put That Hair in My Toothbrush?, Jerry Spinelli has won the hearts of many young readers. His 1991 release Maniac Magee won the Newbery Medal, and his eighteenth book, Wringer, received a Newbery Honor. Jerry's latest, Milkweed (Knopf), has been called "stunning" by Kirkus Reviews.

***

These tips come from general sessions given at the Highlights Foundation Writers Workshop at Chautauqua. Find out more at www.highlightsfoundation.org.


The Highlights Foundation
814 Court Street
Honesdale, PA 18431
Phone: (570) 253-1192
E-mail: contact@highlightsfoundation.org

saludos René Colato Laínez

The Mexican Vampire

Exclusive reports from Crime Fiction's international big-bash by our roving reporter.

4th day - Mexican actor Germán Robles

This year La Semana Negra is paying homage to Germán Robles. Robles is a very well known actor in México and other parts of the world for the collection of vampire movies he did during the late 1950s. He is considered “the” Latin vampire of our time. As critic Jesús Palacios (author of the ¡A mordiscos! book distributed free each night) said, “the Americans have Bela Lugosi, the English, Christopher Lee. We have Germán Robles, one of the greatest”.

La Semana Negra has been screening his movies since Saturday, every night at ten thirty. Since the first day the tent has been full, definitely because at the beginning of each screening, Germán Robles himself presents the movie, and tells spectators an anecdote about the movie. Although he is an elderly person now, he still maintains a posture and an enviable elegance. He is a great actor and is not afraid to say it himself, as on Sunday, “I’m a great actor, and since I don’t have my grandma to be saying good things about me, I have to say it myself: I’m a really good actor!”

Although he has been recognized for his work around the world, and his movies have been translated into more then fifty languages, he is not very well known in Spain. This is especially sad, because although his whole career is centered in México, Robles is from Gijón.

This was a big surprise for the people of this city. Robles’s dad fled the country during the years of the war and settled in Mexico City. Seven years later his wife and son Germán followed him, and the seventeen-year-old Germán Robles started working as an actor and draftsman. He filmed “El Vampiro” in 1957, directed by Fernando Mendéz, before Christopher Lee!

Germán told Sunday’s audience an amazing anecdote about this. He said he had a Mexican friend who used to work at London’s BBC, and at an event he had the opportunity to talk to Christopher Lee. Lee asked him if he was from México and if he knew the actor Germán Robles, to which the reporter, Robles’ friend, answered, “Yes, yes, we are like brothers”. Then Lee told him, “Well, tell Mr. Robles that he was been a true inspiration for me.” Who would have thought that a Mexican inspired the acting as a vampire of an Englishman! An incredible anecdote that Robles told with great pride and a definitely well deserved recognition.

I don’t know how hard it is to find his movies now, but it is definitely worth a try. There are incredibly good Mexican movies from the so-called, “cine de oro mexicano.” Instead of gothic cathedrals or houses with enormous chandeliers as we are used to seeing in dark vampire movies, you see an old Mexican hacienda in a little town of provincial México, a beautiful actress, and an indigenous man, endlessly praying throughout the movie.

Germán Robles's character is an elegant vampire who speaks well, and as Robles himself said, “you can smell his lavender cologne from meters away.” Well directed and aesthetically perfect, even though it was 1957, the special effects are good and the acting amazing.

I emphatically recommend Roble’s vampire collection, and as La Semana Negra continues, so the screenings will continue special homage to a special bloodsucking Gijones.

Thania Muñoz

Art for Your Head

The latest project by Juan and Ricardo Compean

The “Immigration Cup 2008” is a customized foosball table, which takes a humorous approach on the current immigration debate in America. It is on exhibit as part of the “Declaration Of Immigration” art show at the National Museum of Mexican Art (NMMA) in Chicago, IL.

In addition to seeing a first class art exhibit featuring the works of over 70 artists, the fine people at the NMMA are allowing visitors to PLAY the “Immigration Cup 2008” foosball table during museum hours!!

Please visit www.13por13.com to see images and read more about the “Immigration Cup 2008” project.

The exhibit, which runs from July 4h 2008 to September 7th 2008, will launch the Museum’s 3-year commitment to immigrant centered programs.

For museum information please visit NMMA at: http://www.nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org/

If you are interested in seeing images from the show please go to:

http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/6PPuCX6Ti-S/Immigration+
Themed+Art+Exhibit+Opens+Chicago/MRIIHdfCk63

The museum exhibit is also mentioned in articles found using the following links:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2008/07/08/AR2008070802728.html

http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/travel/29next.html?scp=1&sq=
chicago%20latino%20neighborhood&st=cse

Lisa Alvarado

Don't EVEN Think of Missing July's Palabra Pura

Calling all wordsmiths and lovers of poesia! Don't miss July's Palabra Pura

Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - 7:00pm

Note Corrected Time: Reading starts at 7:00 PM
Cost: Free admission.
Location: Center on Halsted, Chicago's LGBT Community Center, 3656 N. Halsted, Chicago

In 1996, Emanuel Xavier took the New York City spoken word scene by storm, quickly becoming one of the most significant voices to emerge from the neo-Nuyorican poetry movement. Following in the tradition of writers/performers like Miguel Piñero, Xavier captivated audiences with a fresh and poignant brand of art that celebrated sexuality, Latino heritage, and the often brutal streets of New York.

A painful past of sexual abuse at the hands of an older cousin, rejection by a devoutly religious mother, homelessness, and a life of prostitution and drug-dealing, are among some of the experiences that served as inspiration for the vibrant and emotionally raw poems for which Xavier became famous.

Pier Queen, released in 1997, was Emanuel’s debut anthology, which included many of the poems that earned him the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe Grand Slam Championship.

In 1998, he founded The House of Xavier, a collective of poets, and created the annual Glam Slam which fuses the excitement of the ballroom scene with the energy of the spoken word movement.

In 1999, Xavier released the semi-autobiographical novel Christlike, which garnered a Lambda Literary Award nomination. A year later, these achievements prompted PAPER magazine to choose Emanuel Xavier as one of its “50 Most Beautiful People.”

In 2002, six years after he first graced the stages of smoky cafes and independent theaters that made up New York’s underground poetry scene, Suspect Thoughts Press released his second collection of work, Americano. With Americano, the self-proclaimed Pier Queen grew up. With thirty-five new poems, Emanuel Xavier considered what it means to be American- but Latino; Latino- but gay; Nuyorican- but Ecuadorian; revolutionary- but not an activist. In essence, it was the next chapter in the life of a native son surviving the contradictions of his homeland.

In 2005, he edited Bullets & Butterflies: queer spoken word poetry featuring the likes of Regie Cabico, Alix Olson, Daphne Gottlieb, and Staceyann Chin.

Emanuel Xavier’s publications have also appeared in Drumvoices Revue, Genre, Urban Latino Magazine, James White Review, Long Shot, Men on Men 7, Blood & Tears, Besame Mucho, Virgins, Guerrillas & Locas, Of The Flesh, The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name, Coloring Book: An Eclectic Anthology of Fiction and Poetry and Bad Boys.

Emanuel Xavier has performed as a spoken word artist throughout the country at venues such as: Austin's Resistencia Bookstore and Tillery Street Theatre, San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; New Orleans's Le Petit Theatre; Chicago's DePaul University and the University of Chicago; Brown University; Hartford Public Library; University of Massachusetts; New York's Lincoln Center, Riker's Island Prison, Central Park Summerstage, Washington Square Park, The American Crafts Museum, Barnes & Noble, Queensborough Public Library, Dixon Place, Columbia University, St. Mark’s Poetry Project, Irving Plaza, The Henry Miller Theater, Bar 13 Lounge, The Blue Ox Bar, Joe's Pub, Aaron Davis Hall, Bowery Poetry Club and Nuyorican Poets Cafe, where he became a two-time Grand Slam winner.

He has also appeared on PBS's In The Life and Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry on HBO (Seasons 3 & 5). He will also be featured in the forthcoming Wolfgang Busch documentary about the ballroom community, How Do I Look? and Maurice Jamal's independent feature film, The Ski Trip. The spoken word CD, 5 Past 13- a little bit LOUDER: Volume 1, features a live performance of his poem, "Americano."

He has produced several spoken word events in New York City such as: OUTSPOKEN, the Realness & Rhythms monthly series at A Different Light Bookstore, the House of Xavier’s annual Glam Slam competition and the Words To Comfort benefit which brought together poet laureates, spoken word artists and celebrities such as Lou Reed and Claire Danes to raise money for the World Trade Center Relief Fund. He has also hosted the Lambda Literary Awards, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors and an episode of PBS's In The Life.

Emanuel Xavier is recipient of the Marsha A. Gomez Cultural Heritage Award for his contributions to gay and Latino culture and received a City Council Citation for his contributions to the gay and lesbian community of New York City.




After working as a cubicle drone and toiling away vainly under bad fluorescent lights and glass ceilings Irasema Gonzalez combusted. The mid-twenties melt-down that followed resulted in extraordinary things: she quit her job, awarded herself a sabbatical, and ultimately opened Tianguis, the bookstore she always longed to walk into. She is a founding member of the Proyecto Latina reading series, a collaborative between Tianguis Books, Teatro Luna and Mariposa Atomica Ink. Her poems appeared in Between the Heart and the Land, an anthology by March Abrazo Press featuring Midwestern Latina poets. She is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago where she earned a B.A. in journalism and creative writing. She resides in Little Village with her husband and two cats.


Lisa Alvarado

Books and Churros

Exclusive reports from Crime Fiction's international big-bash by our roving reporter.

3rd day - Sunday, June 13

I would like to dedicate this post to the tents of La Semana Negra, to the smell of oily churros, waffles, French fries and sandwiches that populate the air.

I’d heard that at La Semana Negra there was more than books, writers and conferences, but to see it with my own eyes, is an incredible experience. There are tents full of horror books, next to a sandwich and hamburgers joint. Needless to say, a churro tent is located between a detective fiction book tent and another one of fantasy genre.

The event this year is held at Poniente Beach in four tents where most of the film screenings, conferences and other events take place. Your shoes get full of sand everywhere you go, but if it rains, as it did last Friday, what you step in is mud. Nothing to complain about though; you’ll still enjoy a great conference about new book releases or a screening of the 1950’s classic vampire movies of “El Vampiro Mexicano” with an introduction by the vampire himself, the great Mexican actor, Germán Robles. [more on that tomorrow]

The fair is set up as a long line of tents facing the sea. It starts everyday at five o’clock and in a few hours all the tents are lighted. Tons people walk around, eating, talking, and sporting La Semana Negra hats--a black, detective hat given free as a pretty keepsake to people who attend.

There are also tents set up as bars, nightclubs and restaurants. At night, these places are full of people listening either to a live rock band or dancing to the sounds of techno or house. Paco Ignacio Taibo, II proudly said that this year “there are as many bars as bookstores.” When he said this, you could see his gray-haired mustache became a big smile.

La Semana Negra also contains a big concert stage where everyday at 10:30 there are concerts, and spectators comfortably sit on the sand, drink beer, sidra, or their drink of choice and enjoy the music.

The tent bookstores close at 12pm, so it is not rare to see people with bags full of books, tired of carrying them around, having a beer while reading a book they just purchased. I shed a tear every time I see someone with a book by Dashiell Hammett in one hand and chocolate churro on the other. Plain and simple paradise.

This picturesque scenery and the great variety of tents is something Paco Ignacio Taibo II tries to convey every year. In the inauguration ceremony he made a note of that (roughly translated): “this is a celebration for the masses, for the great majority”. And this is entirely true.

You don’t only see intellectuals, professors and other nerds walking around the fair. There are all sorts of people--from the abuelito who can barely read anymore because his sight is not as good as before, to the young guy who prefers to wait until the movie comes out instead of reading the book--who come to La Semana Negra just to have a good time and maybe, after looking at so many books, even buy one.

Great books, food, drinks, and people, just some of the many things this event brings to the city of Gijón and to the people who come and visit during this amazing week.

Besos desde Gijón!

Thania Muñoz

Spotlight on m. m. garcia and her first book, Hate Mail

As m. m. garcia puts it, “one particularly crappy day at work,” she wrote “a decidedly pissed-off rant on craigslist.” Garcia notes that her “online tirade found its way to the best of craigslist section, where it elicited an influx of e-mails expressing sympathy, empathy, and even a few ‘you-go-girl’ cheers.” Thus was born Hate Mail (Dame Rocket Press), garcia’s “gift to the world” (as she puts it). It is, indeed, a gift, for those who have a certain sense of humor…like the one I have. Hate Mail is one of the funniest books I've read, ever. But I admit that I’m a bit warped.

“I realized that there was a whole community of other people out there who were equally irritated by the people around them but felt helpless to express their anger,” explains garcia. “I wanted to make something funny and honest that represented what we were all going through.”

Garcia wrote and designed the book over the course of one summer before she began her graduate studies in publishing at Portland State University. It was “an experiment to see what kind of book I was capable of making all on my own.” She made and sold only a handful of her copies before one of them found its way into the hands of her future publisher, Dame Rocket Press. A collaboration between garcia and Dame Rocket’s publisher led to the current hardbound edition that was recently awarded the gold medal in the Gift/Holiday/Specialty Book category of the 2008 PubWest Book Design Awards.

Garcia currently lives in Portland, Oregon, but is about to relocate to London, England. “I love the way British people are so calm and polite on the outside, and seething with pent-up anger on the inside,” she muses. “They’re the perfect Hate Mail audience.”

The Wasted Years is garcia’s next project, which she describes as “a short story collection that celebrates those blissfully ignorant years between 18 and 29, when you don’t know what the hell you’re doing with your life—like a wind-up toy that goes in the most convenient direction until something gets in its way.” She promises it will be 99 percent less ranty.

As a special treat for La Bloga readers, and because it is difficult to describe garcia’s humor, she has kindly allowed La Bloga to reprint one of the more infamous chapters from Hate Mail entitled, “Fucking Cat.” Sorry if this offends any gentle soul…if off-the-wall, uncensored humor is not your style, go here for about fifteen minutes rather than read the following:

"FUCKING CAT"

A short story from the beloved Hate Mail

By m. m. garcia

I caught my roommate’s cat pissing in the bathroom sink. I turned on the lights and there was Jean-Luc (named after Patrick Stewart’s character on Star Trek: The Next Generation) hunkered down in the sink, taking a piss. Immediately to his left, sitting on the rim of the sink, was my toothbrush.

I was deeply upset. Jean-Luc had already proved to be much like his owner: skittish, impulsive, and neurotic. I would sometimes see his glowing eyes peering out at me from the dark recesses of my closet—like the vampire Nosferatu—with his claws ready to scratch and his jaws ready to bite. It was as if he knew exactly which room I would enter next, using some kind of feline telekinesis to beam himself into the nearest closet, cupboard, or crevice to wait. And watch. And sometimes to pee.

I didn’t freak out when he pissed on the plastic bag of clothes I had set aside to go to the thrift stores. I didn’t say anything when my roommate announced, “Jean-Luc likes all the doors in the house to stay open.” And I only swatted at him when he decided to chew through the Saran wrap and start licking the fresh batch of hummus I had just made for an office potluck. So when I saw the brush I regularly used to scrub my teeth not three inches from a stream of cat urine, I went a little berserk.

Things were said that probably shouldn’t have been said. I may have threatened to put him in a lead-weighted sack and throw him in the Willamette River. I may have turned on the sink, causing a stream of cold water to instantly drench him. I may have yelled that there was more where that came from as he ran to my roommate in her room.

“Did you yell at Jean-Luc?” she asked.

“Yes. Your precious Jean-Luc was relieving himself next to my toothbrush in the sink that I wash my face in. Your cat is a fucker.”

“Don’t call my cat a fucker!” she snapped as Jean-Luc stared at me from her lap with a look of feline contempt. “It upsets him, and I don’t want Jean-Luc to develop low self-esteem because of YOU.”

COMMENTS OF THE AUTHOR:

I served the hummus anyway.

Cat food is food for cats, not food made of cats.

Cats have permanently inflated self-esteem.

◙ In case you missed Saturday’s post, La Bloga’s own roving reporter, Thania Muñoz, sent a wonderful dispatch from Spain where she’s attending this month’s crime fiction symposium called La Semana Negra. The annual fiesta is led by Paco Ignacio Taibo II in his hometown Gijón located on Spain's northern coast. Thania is a master's student of Latin American literature at California State Los Angeles (where she's editor of the Spanish Department blog) doing research to present at the Pacific Coast Council on Latin American Studies conference this November. She was interested in Mexican detective fiction and her research focuses on Jorge Ibargüengoitia’s novels. And many thanks to el Rudy for designing Thania’s dispatches. More to come…

◙ Issue number 40 of Pembroke Magazine is now available. It’s a special edition dedicated to Latino/a literature guest edited by Liliana Wendorff. The issue includes fiction, poetry, essays and interviews. Many authors are represented here including Rane Arroyo, Alma Luz Villanueva, and Sergio Troncoso (I have a little story, too). In any event, consider ordering a copy and perhaps submitting work in the future.

◙ The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism has announced the 2008 winners of the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for outstanding reporting on Latin America and the Caribbean. In its seventieth year and the oldest international journalism award, the Cabot Prize honors journalists who have covered the Western Hemisphere and furthered inter-American understanding. Among the 2008 gold medalists is Sam Quinones, general assignment reporter for the Los Angeles Times and author of True Tales From Another Mexico and Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream: True Stories Of Mexican Migration, both published by the University of New Mexico Press.

To learn more about the prizes and this year's winners, visit the prize’s official website.

◙ The July-August issue of Southern Cross Review has finally arrived on your cyber-doorstep. Hurry to the journal’s official link and enjoy.

◙ For a lively interview with Dagoberto Gilb, visit identitytheory here. Regarding Sonny Bravo, the young protagonist in Gilb’s new novel, The Flowers (Grove/Atlantic), he says:

I've had some ideas about him for a decade but first pen to paper was about five years ago and then I really got at it recently. Within the last two to three years. I actually finished a version two years ago. I didn't know if I was really done. And then I went back. I took more time with it—not necessarily with the writing, but I'd let it sit for a while. Not knowing what to do—if I got it right. I wanted to make sure I had what I wanted.

◙ Rosa Martha Villarreal’s novel, The Stillness of Love and Exile (Tertulia Press), won a Silver Medal in the Independent Publisher Book Awards in the Pacific-West regional category. You may see all of the winners here.

◙ Carolyn Kellogg (one of my favorite literary types) interviews Gustavo “¡Ask a Mexican!” Arellano over at the Los Angeles Times. Keep an eye open for Arellano’s upcoming memoir-of-place, Orange County: I've Been Taking Notes (Scribner).

◙ Rigoberto González reviews Gabriela Jauregui’s debut poetry collection, Controlled Decay (Akashic Books) over at the El Paso Times. González notes, in part:

In her debut collection, she's unafraid to write about "the bad games we're playing at being human." Oppression of the disenfranchised, religious and political persecution, threats to civil liberties and freedoms -- all of these dangers happen outside the walls of this country, and within them.

Though Jauregui's muse takes her to the holocausts of Europe and to the war-ravaged Middle East, it's the poems set in the Americas that ring with more urgency and conviction.

◙ At the Jewish Journal, Amanda Susskind reviews Gregory Rodgriguez’s Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America (Pantheon). In a thoughtful analysis of the book, Susskind notes, in part:

For those who monitor and respond to extremism at the border, hate crimes against Latinos and the victimization of new immigrants, Gregory Rodgriguez's new book…is a welcome resource, detailing the history, politics and patterns of Mexican immigration. His academic approach and extensive research provide much-needed factual information. His humor and straightforward style keep the reader engaged and curious. And his conclusions are well reasoned and accessible.

Rodriguez takes us through a history lesson that tells the story of Mexican immigration through the lens of his premise that the Latin American concept of mestizaje (racial and cultural synthesis) has influenced and will continue to influence America's view of race. He starts in the 16th century with the story of the first Spanish expeditions to Mexico and their mixed race progeny who blended Spanish, Indian, Black, Aztec and Christian customs.
* * *

Rodriguez's thorough study and articulate presentation will help anyone who advocates for comprehensive immigration reform and speaks out against bigotry of all kinds. But even the casual observer of race and society in America will find the book enlightening and accessible.

◙ All done. So, until next Monday, enjoy the intervening posts from my compadres y comadres at La Bloga. ¡Lea un libro!

¡Yo vengo a gozar!

Exclusive reports from Crime Fiction's international big-bash by our roving reporter

2nd day - interviewing Rolando Hinojosa

Chicano writer Rolando Hinojosa met with me on a cold and rainy Saturday morning. We talked about what la Semana Negra means for him, his book and much more. Enjoy.

Thania: What has been your experience at la Semana Negra?

Rolando: I started attending la Semana Negra ten years ago. I’ve only missed one year, in 2005, and it was only because I was having some health issues, but overall I always try not to miss La Semana.

Three years ago I started teaching, with Spanish writer Elia Barceló, creative writing courses to adults. This year we have a big group of sixteen students; there are fifteen women and one man. The students are seventy years or older, and since they have lived a lot, they also have a lot of experience and a lot to talk about. We meet every day and I read, edit, and provide some criticism of their work. They are dedicated students and one of our students who started taking the classes three years ago has already published a novel; she is eighty-six years old. So we feel very proud to be a part of that.

Thania: What about your experience as a writer?

Rolando: I always participate in discussions here. For example this year I’ m going to participate in a series of discussions about “El mal y sus protagonistas” (Evil and its principal characters). But I also present my work here, either my latest book or work that is going to be published soon. This year I have a novella entitled “Los siete contratos de Ramsey.” I’m trying to get it published here in Spain along with two other novellas that I have written.

Thania: And what about these novels; do they follow the “color” of La Semana? Are they “dark”?

Rolando: Yes, yes, for example, “Los siete contratos de Ramsey” is about an Irish-American cop from Manhattan who retires after twenty-two years of service to turn into a contract killer, “en un matón.” He has seven contracts. Although he is a killer, he is a really good killer. He accomplishes all the contracts, so he is a good worker, but he is also very kind. He behaves good, he is a widower; besides all the killing that he does for money, he is a really good person. The book is in Spanish, but this summer I’m planning to translate it into English.

* * *

This is the short version of a one-hour interview with Rolando Hinojosa. Unfortunately with the hectic Semana Negra schedule I didn’t have the time to type up the complete interview. This is only a taste, but you can imagine what is coming. Hinojosa’s ten years of Semana Negra are hard to explain in one sentence, but what he emphasized throughout the interview is:

“I come to Gijón to have a good time and see old friends, even if I have to do a little work here and there. Yo vengo a gozar!”

Saludos desde Gijón!

Thania Muñoz

Driving Doña Ana

I’ve always suspected that my great aunt Ana (nicknamed Anatia) learned to drive as an adult. You know the type, those drivers with the insecurity that comes with something you didn’t learn with the fearlessness of youth. She owned boat-like Buicks, usually white, with leather interiors and no air-conditioning, a horrible combination in Puerto Rico. (I can still hear the sound of the skin ripping off of my thighs as I climbed out of the car in my shorts.) She would grasp the wheel tightly with her gnarled pianist’s hands and lean into the steering wheel with her chest as if she were riding a sled instead of driving a car. Grasping the stick next to the wheel and staring above her glasses at the dashboard, she would shove the car into drive. Her orthopedic shoes would step on the gas abruptly, and we were off in a lurching frenzy.

The hardest part about riding in the car while Anatia drove was her propensity to slam alternately on the brake and the gas, so that during the entire ride the passengers would be thrown forward, then backward, then forwards again, like marionettes controlled by some spasmodic puppeteer. Given that I already had a tendency towards motion sickness I particularly dreaded these trips because, even though she had no air-conditioning, she would insist on leaving the windows up and the doors locked as it would keep us safe from ladrones. This was a legitimate concern to be sure, but I was certain that there was no way anyone could even touch the door handle let alone reach in the window given the continuous lurching of the car. Their hand would be ripped from its socket before they could perpetrate any crime against us.

One year Anatia took my brother John and me on a road trip. John was eleven years old and already reading Scientific American. Though Anatia had been retired from teaching, she couldn’t help encouraging his nerdy scientific interest, so she planned a trip to take him to see the largest radio telescope in the world in Arecibo. Because I was only six and had no say in where I went, I was dragged along on this expedition. Arecibo is high in the Cordillera--Puerto Rico's mountainous back country—so the trip involved miles and miles of one hairpin switchback after another. A mile as the crow flies could take four miles of winding road. John was also prone to motion sickness, so the combination of the constantly turning road and Anatia’s stop and go driving style was downright deadly. At one point she nearly lost control of the car on a corner overhung by a huge mango tree where fallen ripe fruit had left the road a slick, pulpy mess.

Needless to say, by the time we reached the telescope after hours of driving, John and I were both an interesting shade of green. The telescope was essentially a really big hole in the ground lined with chickenwire. I couldn’t figure out why anyone would even remotely care about it, and all I could think about was that we had to travel back down the amusement ride-like roads with a woman who barely seemed in control of the car. Even John was too sick to enjoy the telescope, so we spent a half an hour on a tour (with me whining the entire time) and headed back down the mountain.

John and I consulted in secret and decided that if we were going to be subjected to another several hours in the car with Anatia, we wanted to at least buy something fun to eat, or a souvenir. We wanted something out of the experience other than a queasy stomach. My brother convinced Anatia (she had stopped listening to me a half-hour of whining ago) to stop at one of the many roadside kioskos on the way back. These outdoor stores, often little more than ragged tents, sold a variety of unidentifiable tropical fruits and vegetables as well as scary looking chicken and pork hanging out in the Caribbean sun. Anatia examined the fare picking at it with a look on her face as if she had smelled something bad, and then determined that the only safe thing to eat was the traditional green coconut served with the top shaved off with a machete. A straw was provided to drink the milk and a plastic spoon with which to finish off the coconut meat inside. I hated coconuts, I still do, and I was pretty irritated that there was nothing else to be had (at least according to Anatia). I stood there with my arms crossed, scowling at my brother as he devoured his coconut. Luckily it had a calming effect on his stomach so at least John was in a better mood on the way home. He chatted with Anatia while we heaved down the mountain and I rode with my head out the window, ignoring the possible threat of ladrones, trying not to lose what little food I had in my stomach.

Through the grace of God, Anatia decided to give up driving at age 80. She told my mother before our visit one year that she had hired a driver who took her wherever she needed to go. Needless to say, this was a great relief to us all, and to the entire town.

When we arrived at the airport a few weeks later for our yearly trip we were greeted by a smiling Anatia. As we waited at the curb she explained that her driver was getting the car. She and my mother chattered away excitedly in Spanish, and ten minutes later the large white Buick pulled up and the driver stepped out. He appeared to be ancient, hunched over and with glasses that seemed to have been broken off the bottom of two Coke bottles. I heard Mom whisper in English, “How old is your driver?” To which Anatia replied with a smile, “86.”

The Black Train to Gijón

1st day Friday the 11th

On Friday, I took the famous Black Train to Gijón. I still get the chills when I pronounce these words, although the train is not black (as I had excitedly imagined), the people who get on it definitely are. Not because of their skin hues, of course, but because the train is full of people who write detective fiction, thrillers, horror, fantasy, comics, testimonial, historical, and science fiction books and the rest of us who love these genres.

The writers, visitors, and the press (which I’m part of) met at Hotel Chamartín, which is located in the middle of the train station in Madrid. It was a big group of people from all over the world, with luggage, cameras and smiling faces. My first concern was the organization, how would they keep us together. It seemed as if everyone was in their own little world, but soon I discovered their formula.

Most people participating in La Semana Negra, have attended the event more than once. The famous Chicano writer Rolando Hinojosa told me, “like me, out of the twenty-one years of la Semana Negra, I’ve only missed one, back in 2005”. Everyone knows each other; if one gets lost, someone will notice and look for you. The second way of keeping everyone together is by walking as a group; yes, I felt I was back in middle school and taking a field trip to the museum.

Paco Ignacio Taibo II, la Semana Negra’s founder and continuous organizer, is the leader of our group. With his emblematic cigarette on hand, he lead the group to the train and another member of the organization made sure no one was left behind. What seemed as an impossible task was handled by old-fashioned comradeship.

Before we got on the train, the first issue of A Quemarropa was distributed. This newspaper details the agenda of day, news of invited writers, conferences, concerts and other events at Gijón. The paper is released every morning of la Semana Negra. After we took a look at the newspaper, a group picture was taken and we finally got on the train. My adventure was starting.


As soon as the train left the Madrid train station, writers and reporters alike started walking the aisles, talking and telling each other jokes, laughing and overall having a good time. That’s the other outstanding thing that I would like to highlight about the people who attend this event. Although the genres paid tribute at la Semana might be considered too “black” for every member of the family, it’s still a family event.

Imagine a crime friction writer, a comic writer, and a fantasy writer having a deep conversation about their latest works, while the Cuban writer Amir Valle’s son is pulling down his pants, and the Spanish comic writer Juan Diaz is trying to put his baby to sleep, with no success, to say the least. Not the typical picture of writers smoking cigars and drinking Mojitos in the middle of a smoke cloud, but there is still great conversation, respect for each other, and love. Truly a family event.

We left the station at 8:00am and arrived at Gijón at 6:00pm, a long ride, which included a press conference: Chilean writer Roberto Ampuero talked about his latest book, El Caso Neruda; Colombian writer Mario Mendoza about his book Sátanas. And many others, a long list of new titles and writers that I would share through email.


There was also a concert by Yampi, a Spanish artist, and a funny, but short talk with American writer George RR Martin. At around 4:00 we stopped at the little town of Miéres, where a typical Asturian (northern Spain) band led us into the town to a place where Asturian sidra and appetizers were quickly consumed by us all.

In Gijón, after a short stop at the hotel, all of us headed to playa Poniente, where la Semana Negra tents are set-up. There were already a great number of people looking through tents full of books, sweet desserts or clothing--a weird mixture of items, but this is what makes la Semana Negra a warm, popular event: it's dedicated to literature and to the people who love it.

The inauguration black ribbon was cut by Gijón’s mayor Paz Fernández Felgueroso and Paco Ignacio: la Semana Negra was officially inaugurated!

Great first busy day of a long awaited event. Looking forward to the rest of la Semana Negra. Hope everyone enjoys the post.

Saludos desde Gijón!
Thania Muñoz

Next post:
Rolando Hinojosa talks about his 10-year experience in la Semana Negra.

EXCLUSIVE: La Semana Negra XXI in Gijón, Spain

Daily reports from Crime Fiction's international big-bash

Manuel Ramos was busy this week in the Rocky Mtns., so I'm subbing today. This post concerns, coincidentally, two young readers who contacted us for different reasons, one literary, the other artistic. Though we lack a chat room, La Bloga occasionally helps readers make connections, sometimes with surprising results, as with this first case.

In January La Bloga posted a request from Thania Muñoz, a master's student of Latin American lit at Cal State Los Angeles (where she's editor of the Spanish Dept. blog) doing research to present at the Pacific Coast Council on Latin American Studies conference this November. She was interested in Mexican detective fiction and her research focuses on Jorge Ibargüengoitia’s novels.

As part of her research, this month she's attending the crime fiction symposium in Spain called La Semana Negra. Monday's contributor, Dan Olivas, suggested she do posts about it for La Bloga. So she mentioned it to the organizers and guess what? They were very excited and sponsored and authorized her as a member of the press! We Bloguistas are thrilled with the possibilities.

Manuel Ramos is the only Bloguista who's attended La Semana Negra, the annual fiesta led by Paco Ignacio Taibo II in his hometown Gijón, located on Spain's northern coast--una celebración magnífica de crime-fiction. He could attest to what this once-in-a-lifetime experience is like. Thania's in an enviable situation and position.

You can find out more info about La Semana Negra in English or Spanish, or just follow Thania's postings for the next ten days or so. Buried amidst paella, Spanish wine and the plethora of international writers around her, she may be hard pressed to do a daily post. But, as you can see from her first messages below, she exhibits the type of youthful exuberance that promises she'll provide La Bloga readers with some unique and delightful postings. The logo below will introduce her postings each day; just scroll down til you find it.

Good luck, Thania; we know you'll do us proud. And don't let your duties interfere with enjoying the great experience at hand.


First message: I think I told you I’m leaving June 10th. I want to be there for Madrid’s festival of books and since one of my good friends is studying abroad in Madrid, I decided to leave earlier and get to know the city. I’ll be in Madrid June 11th and later leave for a short trip to Barcelona. According to the email I got from Alejandro De-Bernardi (in charge of La Semana Negra visiting press/reporters) I’ll be taking a train (the “Tren negro” or “black train”) from Madrid to Gijón on July 11th. I’ll be staying at the Hotel Don Manuel in Gijón, and they will provide me with transportation back to Madrid.

I should receive the list of invited writers and other attendees at the end of this month. The "Semana" starts the 11th and ends the 20th. According to De-Bernardi, he will put me in contact with writers that I would like to interview or answer other questions about the event. Also, Rodolfo Perez Valero, the Cuban writer, knows a lot of the people that attend every year, and he's going to email them so they can contact with me and help me out.

I have this great opportunity, so I decided to just go for it. If when I come back, I have to live in a one-room apartment and only eat beans with tortillas, pues, ni modo.

Salud,
Thania Muñoz

Last message: La Semana Negra is getting closer! It starts this Friday. Yes, I can't believe it--the time is finally here. I’ll attend the press conference this Thursday and take the Tren Negro up north to Gijón, where the event is held, early Friday.

I could start sending posts as soon as Saturday. All events start at five in the afternoon or after, so I’ll have time to write and send you pictures during the day. Daniel had the great idea of having me write a post each day of La Semana Negra and then doing a final, more detailed piece at the end of the event.

Muchos saludos para todos,
Thania Muñoz

* * *

• The second possible "connection" is the request below, which we post for informational purposes, since some La Bloga readers may find it of interest. Included are samples of the artist's artwork. You can contact him via his Email.

"Peace. My name is Robert Trujillo (aka “Tres”). I’m a 28-yr.-old muralist / illustrator from Oakland, Calif., currently residing in Brooklyn, NY. I have been drawing since elementary school, painting on walls since high school, painting canvases since college, and illustrating many stories since I became a father in 2004. My cultural background is African American, Korean, Mexican, Apache, Spanish, and probably others, which I’m still searching for. I’m an artist who believes in teaching and learning.

In 2003 I co-founded a collective of muralist/art educator/activists called Trust Your Struggle. We have done murals, workshops for youth organizations, and gallery installations nationwide. Two years ago we went to Mexico and Central America doing just that, and this year we plan to do it in Los Estados Unidos--New York, Atlanta, New Orleans, Texas, Arizona, y California.

I started an online group called 'Come Bien' Books, focusing on collaboration projects about Black and Latino art, writing, comics, health, zines, and children’s books. We work with all types of people, but encourage young writers and illustrators of color who are professional, intermediate, and beginning to express their thoughts verbally and visually. The purpose of the project is to increase literacy and creativity in young minds, paint a picture of the world we want to see, to abandon the major publishers of this art who do not reflect our culture or ideas, and to combat negative images of our people in major media.

My motivation is to be a positive and nurturing influence on my son. It is to honor my ancestors and family by passing on our visual art traditions, to give, to learn, to challenge the educational system, both public and private, and to ensure more artwork that fuses ethnic studies, political commentary, personal history, and dynamic visual styles using a variety of media that are prominent, loud, unapologetic, and just what some of us need.

I contacted La Bloga is to get connected with the Latin@ writers community, authors who have created books, which I read to my son. As a parent it's great to connect with folks and learn from them. As an artist, I'd like to work with some of you or collaborate on a book. I have been preparing for the last couple of years to do illustration full time. Even if I don't get to collaborate, it would be nice to just read, get inspired, share my work and hopefully inspire you. An exchange is the best way to describe my intention."

Robert Trujillo / Tres
Trust Your Struggle Collective / 'Come Bien' Books, CA-NYC
beatdontstop@hotmail.com

Catching Up With Johnny Diaz

JOHNNY DIAZ

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SCORE

It’s not just a name—it’s a frame of mind.

Nestled amid peach and candy-pink Art Deco buildings, Score is the hottest gay bar in Miami’s South Beach. And for friends Ray Martinez, Ted Williams, and Brian Anderson, there’s no better way to start the weekend than by checking out the steady stream of beautiful Latin men coursing in and out of Score’s doors…

While Miami is home to the most gorgeous males ever created by God or a lifetime gym membership, Ray, resident movie critic at The Miami News, would give the dating scene a one-star review. Tired of hooking up with sculpted, shallow hunks who use books as towel weights, Ray is thrilled to finally meet a guy he wants to take home to mami and papi…

Ted, host of a popular Miami version of Entertainment Tonight, has enjoyed all the perks of his celebrity status. But being overexposed has its downside. Ted’s longing for a deeper connection spurs a reckless move that could cost him everything…

Brian has a life of leisure with his fabulously wealthy older boyfriend. The key rule to their open relationship: no sleeping with the same guy twice. But ever since Brian met a Puerto Rican love god named Eros, it’s a rule he keeps breaking…

A sexy, smart, and irresistibly witty new novel, Miami Manhunt explores one wild year when love gets crazy, hearts get broken and mended, and the only thing to count on is the fact that life will never be the same again…

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Praise for Johnny Diaz and Boston Boys Club

“Racy, funny, and smart. You’re going to love this book.” —Scott Heim, author of Mysterious Skin and We Disappear

“Fun, well-written, and a great page-turner.” --Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, New York Times bestselling author

"The excellent Johnny Díaz has produced another hilarious arresting novel about that most impossible of all quests: finding love, true love, in Miami." Junot Diaz, author of New York Times bestseller The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Bio

Johnny Diaz is a Living/Arts writer for The Boston Globe, where he writes about pop culture, style trends and Hispanic-related arts stories. Before that he worked at The Miami Herald. As a reporter there, he shared in the 2000 Pulitzer award coverage of the federal seizure of Elian Gonzalez and the chaos that erupted in Miami afterwards. He also covered some of the biggest breaking stories in South Florida, such as the Gianni Versace murder. He was also a featured contributor in the first Chicken Soup for the Latino Soul. Johnny lives in Boston and readers can visit his website at www.beantowncuban.com.

We caught up with Johnny just as his new book was ready to launch. For our first conversation with Johnny, just take a peek here.

1. Describe what your life has been life personally and creatively since the launch of Boston Boys Club?

It's been a non-stop rollercoaster. I find myself much busier than I was before BBC came out. I receive a lot of emails from readers and I answer each one. (I also print them out and save them in a journal.) As I promoted BBC through book readings and interviews last year, I had to
finish Miami Manhunt so I juggled both books in different ways. I felt I was caught between the two. And I also have my day job to do as a full-time reporter at The Boston Globe.

So it's been busy but a good busy. Now I find myself in the same scenario as last year: I am promoting Miami Manhunt as I finish the last leg of my third book.

The emails from readers and comments make it all worthwhile. I feel my stories have connected me with others. Hopefully, I won't go completely gray by this time next year.

2. What's been the response regarding BBC from the queer community, the Latino community, and the literary community at large? Do you feel it'sbeen liberating to tell that story and carve out chico lit as a genre?

A lot of different readers connected with each f the characters from BBC. But I did receive a large amount of feedback from fellow younger Latino gay men who felt they finally saw someone like themselves or someone they knew through the Tommy Perez character (Cuban-American writer from Miami where he has a tight-knit overprotective family.) That was one of the reasons I wrote BBC and Miami Manhunt - to add to the small gay Latino presence in American literature where central gay Latino characters are few.

In that aspect, I feel it has been liberating for me and for readers as well because we should be able to see ourselves reflected in the books we read. We need more gay Hispanic representation, gente! Come out and share your stories.

3. How are you able to juggle journalism and fiction writing?

At times, it's hard, a non-stop juggling act. I can't put them down! I try to write the fiction on the weekends, Friday nights or Sunday mornings or when I go to Miami on vacation to visit my parents. I find that being there completely disconnects me from Boston and work. I can truly focus on the fiction.

The journalism is automatic for me. It's in my blood and flows out of me. I think it's harder to capture emotions and feelings in first-person as I do for fiction than it is to write about other people in third-person for my articles which I find easier.

In a way, both styles of writing complement one another. Whatever I am working on for The Globe has a way of inspiring a scene for a chapter in the books. When I go running or cycling to think of scenes or dialogue for the book, I often stumble upon a story idea. I don't think I would be able to do one without the other. They go hand in hand. The key is to stay organized. If I can write a chapter a week or every other week, then I'm on schedule.

Sometimes it's hard to do this because if I had a heavy week of newspaper writing, the last thing I want to do is sit in front of the computer and write away. But I still do it because each style of writing serves as an outlet for the other. One begats the other.

4. Are there emerging themes that you see yourself being drawn to? What are they and how would you like to address them?

I enjoy writing about family and the dynamics of sibling relationships when one is gay or of a different gender. That has been a running theme in both books and in my third book (which I am currently writing.) Family is a universal theme that anyone can relate to and I plan to keep using it as a backbone for my novels because it resonates with my readers but most of all, with myself. I come from a large Cuban family where my aunts and uncles are second-parents and where my cousins are second-siblings. The ever-evolving structure of family, what does it mean today versus 20 years ago, continues to inspire me. But I also enjoy writing about love - finding it and keeping it. I believe most people can relate to that as well.

5. Who are the writers you enjoy for pleasure's sake ? Why?

I'm a big Nicholas Sparks fan. He writes simple stories in a clean writing style yet the stories pack an emotional punch. I'm a big Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez fan, who inspired me to write Boston Boys Club, because she writes in a fluid, tongue-and-cheek style that is entertaining and
educational. Dean Koontz is another favorite. I enjoy how he weaves a suspense/mystery with witty rat-tat-tat dialogue and descriptive prose.

6. Who are the writers that raise the bar for you? Why?

Scott Heim, who wrote "Mysterious Skin " and the recent "We Disappear,'' is another favorite writer. His writing radiates a quiet power, a mix of suspense and poetry that gently pulls the reader along in his Kansas-inspired mysteries.

Junot Diaz is another one that has set the bar high for this Diaz He is a perfectionist when it comes to his writing, often taking years to write one book. I wish I can be like that. His writing is like a whole other language, a fast-paced Spanglish pocked with new and old pop culture and
scifi references yet tinged with the duality of being a Latino and American.


7. Do you think chico lit as a niche market will become problematic for you as you move forward. If so, how?

Eventually, it will if I decide to change things up a bit for a fourth novel. Supposed I want to write a novel about a straight married couple, will my readers follow me after reading my novels about gay Hispanic men? I don't know. That's a risk. I have been encouraged by my publisher to keep doing what I am doing but eventually, I am going to want to strike out and do something else. I don't want to be boxed into one genre, even though I put myself there. Readers like consistency and so do publishers. Stay tuned.

8. What do you think will help take your writing to the next level?

Pushing myself harder to challenge myself in the way I write will help me get to the next level. I have become comfortable writing in first-person for fiction. I'm curious to see how I would write in third-person, as I do in my news articles. Would I be a stronger writer that way? I also believe
working with different editors also help writers grow because you are exposed to another sensibility. To grow as a person, you need to change and the same goes for writers. I think by trying to come up with different storylines and characters, I may just grow into the writer I aspire to be one day.

Lisa Alvarado

Why Do I Write Multicultural Books?

My goal as a writer is to produce good multicultural children's literature; stories where minority children are portrayed in a positive way, where they can see themselves as heroes, and where they can dream and have hopes for the future. I want to write authentic stories of Latin American children living in the United States.

Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) honored me with a "Los Angeles Board of Education Certificate of Appreciation" both as a teacher and author. They asked me, "Why do you write?" My answer is in the video.

Meet the New Mexico Book Awards winners this Thursday.

Rio Rancho Public Library has organized a special book signing event for the winners in the 2007 New Mexico Book Awards this Thurday, July 10, 2008. The signing will take place at the Loma Colorado Main Library Auditorium from 6:30pm - 8:30pm and is free and open to the public.

755 Loma Colorado Dr. NE
Rio Rancho, NM 87124
(505) 891-5013

On the Passing of Alfredo Arteaga

Chicano poet and essayist, Alfred Arteaga, has passed away. Alfred was an extraordinary multi-lingual poet, often writing poems through in English, Spanish, French, German and Nahua. He was the author of several books of poetry (Cantos, Red, Love in the Time of Aftershocks) and of cultural studies (Chicano Poetics and An Other Tongue). His latest book of poetry, Frozen Accident, came out in fall 2006 from Tia Chucha's Press. He was Professor of Chicano Studies at UC Berkeley, an institution he somehow managed to survive as a poet and a human being. He remains online at alfredarteaga.com.

And from Juan Felipe Herrera, this note says more than I could possibly hope to:

Lisita,

Another great hermano, poeta, literary critic pioneer has passed away. A swashbuckling, handsome, mind wrestler and heart igniter, Alfred, Xicano Apollinaire, pioneer, clarinet-voiced, a word-painter, and logos-creator, so humble and so strong at the same time, one of the Bay Area Latino Literary Renaissance giants --

ahh, those sweet years. Gracias Alfred for your palabras, your love giving, you good spirit smile, may light, blessing falls upon you in your new path of peace

tu carnal Juan Felipe

raulrsalinas, luis omar salinas and now, Alfred Arteaga - three pillars, three blazes of sun


Lisa Alvarado

Rivera Frescoes: Instauration, Restoration

Michael Sedano

Today I am sharing a series of photos shot at Mexico City's Secretaría de la Educación Publica across a span of ten years, first in 1995 and again in 2005. With some trepidation, I hope to revisit these walls in the near future to see what progress time has produced. I hesitate because once photographers were free to photograph any wall. My most recent visit to el Castillo de Chapultepec, zealous guards threatened to confiscate my camera if I so much as raised the viewfinder to my eye! Fortunately, the educators have a much friendlier actitud.

On the 1995 visit, I spent an entire morning in the Secretariat, shooting every panel possible, plus some interiors. It is a short walk from the Secretariat to el Zocalo and el Palacio Nacional, where Rivera has covered the second floor with a richness of precolumbian themed work. There, again, I took detailed images.

On my most recent visit, I reached the Secretariat late in the day and was able only to rush through a couple of interiors and cursory shots of key panels. Sadly, I didn't make the effort to track down the worst of the samples and cannot illustrate a before-and-after of the destroyed panels.






As the first pair of photos illustrates, certain of Rivera's frescoes were totally obliterated and their reappearance on the walls must be seen as instauration rather than restoration.
















I did, however, have the good fortune of shooting Rivera's 1923 work, "La Feria Del Dia de los Muertos," during its ongoing restoration. The first set of images shows an artist patiently cleaning the substrate at the bottom of the mural.





I did not find a guide to ask if the damage resulted from weatherization or terremoto.










Ni modo, the work was in dishearteningly terrible shape. At bottom center, large swaths of detail have disappeared.

Have a look at the next image, at right and below. Note the figure of a woman in yellow dress in the 1995 image. Left of her all that remains is white plaster. In the close-up you can make out the artist using a point to clean off the surface in preparation for a repaint.


Notice how in 2005 all of the bottom center has been restored. Figures emerge to the left of the yellow clad woman. Now the work bench dedicates itself to work higher up, at lintel level. When I stood next to the work however, I could not make out what aspects were under repair or restoration. Study the over-under close-up and note the excellent quality of the surface.




Below see an over-under layout of close-ups showing more or less the same region. This is a set of figures at the far left of the panel, above the lintel and just to the right of the half-round clerestory of the portal. At top, the restored sections are barely noticeable. At bottom, the damage makes your heart stop.

I am working on a series of illustrated lectures on Mexico City's mural frescoes--Rivera, Siquieros, O'Gorman--and welcome leads to books and other resources. One highly informative resource I found for the Education Secretariat and the National Palace is a long out-of-print tourist manual, by R. S. Silva E., Diego Rivera's frescoes in the National Palace of Mexico, City: a descriptive guide. Mexico City : Sinalomex Editorial, 1965. I am grateful to John McDonald, a senior librarian at the Claremont Colleges Libraries, for letting me borrow the book from the Honnold Library. The title is also available at UC Berkeley. Silva points out that the personages in the Dia de los Muertos detail include actress Celia Montalban and bullfighter Juan Silveti, with the cigar.

You can click on each of the images in today's post to view the files in much larger, better detailed size. In fact, I've laid out the Rivera over-under image as a picture postcard that you can print on heavy photo stock and mail to friends. Click here for this, and other, print 'em yourself postcards from Read! Raza.

Two new picture books from Arte Público Press’s children’s imprint, Piñata Books

Book Reviews

By Daniel A. Olivas

Butterflies on Carmen Street / Mariposas en la calle Carmen (Piñata Books) by Monica Brown. Illustrated by April Ward.

The Woodcutter's Gift / El regalo del leñador (Piñata Books) by Lupe Ruiz-Flores. Illustrated by Elaine Jerome.

Two new picture books from Arte Público Press’s children’s imprint, Piñata Books, present different ways that beauty comes into a child’s life: one from nature, the other from the hands of an artist.

In Butterflies on Carmen Street / Mariposas en la calle Carmen, Monica Brown tells the story of a little girl, Julianita, who exclaims to her abuelito (grandfather) that at school, “Today is Butterfly Day!” As Julianita walks with abuelito, she explains that her class is going to learn about monarch butterflies. This delights abuelito: “Every winter in Agangueo, the town where I’m from, in the beautiful mountains of Michoacán, Mexico, the butterflies come and make our little town a magical place, landing on trees and the roof of my little blue house.” Julianita’s excitement is compounded by the fact that each student is to receive their very own caterpillar to raise. In vibrant illustrations by April Ward, we follow Julianita as she learns about the life cycle of monarch butterflies and eventually watches as her caterpillar makes its miraculous transformation. These very same monarch butterflies migrate every winter from Canada and the United States to warm parts of Mexico. The generations are linked by the beauty of nature which knows no borders.

Lupe Ruiz-Flores’s The Woodcutter's Gift / El regalo del leñador shows us a slightly different way beauty may enter children’s lives. Her book begins with a storm that “knocked down the giant mesquite tree that stood in the town square.” The townspeople view the tree as nothing more than a rough and ugly dead thing, something to discard. But the woodcutter disagrees. He sees possibilities. Slowly, he has the tree cut into smaller pieces and hauled to his workshop. The town’s children are curious. What is the woodcutter planning to do? As the days pass, the townspeople also grow curious. Eventually, the woodcutter clangs a big bell to invite everyone into his woodshed to see what he did with the mesquite tree. To everyone’s astonishment, he has carved life size images of zoo animals: a zebra, tiger, lion, giraffe and turtle! After the townspeople and children help the woodcutter paint the animals, they realize that it takes just a little imagination to turn a “dead tree” into something beautiful. Elaine Jerome’s delightful illustrations help bring this menagerie to life.

[These reviews first appeared in the MultiCultural Review.]

◙ WERE WE EVER THAT YOUNG? Gregg Barrios offers this wonderful piece from the San Antonio Express-News about Patti Smith’s one and only concert in San Antonio in 1978. Here’s an excerpt (in italics):

My first encounter with Patti Smith was in the pages of Creem magazine in 1971. Her poem “Oath” opened with the still astonishing lyric: “Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine.”

In late 1975, her first album, “Horses,” set the same lyric to music, with the same shock of recognition.

Smith went from rock journalist to performance artist to the radical punk poet who teamed up with Lenny Kaye, also a rock critic, to create a new music that spoke in tongues to a new generation.

* * *

The San Antonio concert at Randy's Rodeo drew 1,000 fans. The English new wave group Squeeze opened with an adventuresome but uneven set.

Smith's entrance caught everyone off guard: With a copy of “Babel” in hand like a fire and brimstone revival preacher, she read chapter and verse of her incendiary “Babelogue” then segued into a powerhouse version of another track from “Easter,” in which she embraces the “n-word” to identify herself as a rock 'n' roll outsider.

And yes, that’s Gregg Barrios with Patti Smith from 30 years ago (photo by Todd Smith).

◙ All done...a short one because of the holiday. So, until next Monday, enjoy the intervening posts from my compadres y comadres at La Bloga. ¡Lea un libro!

Holy Tortillas and Riveting Fiction

La Bloga friend, Rigoberto Gonzalez wrote this review

 about Carmen Tafolla's wonderful new book. Gente: if you haven't bought this book, run, do not walk to your nearest indy bookseller. And if you can't quite ambulate, click here.

 Lisa Alvarado

Celebrating the Fourth

PATRIOTISM


The Fourth of July – and a person’s mind turns to thoughts of ... getting out of the city and away from the heat. As the temperature rises, and a muggy shower weighs down the early evening air, illegal bottle rockets streak by my open window, and I think of the contradictions inherent in the celebration of what some call Manifest Destiny Day.

The talk show hosts have been livid about the “disrespectful” song that a Black, female jazz singer had the audacity to sing in place of the expected Star Spangled Banner at the Mayor’s State of the City speech. The Democrats thought they were ready to showcase the Queen City of the Plains to the world during their national convention in August but, wouldn’t you know, this “disrespectful” song set back the agenda a bit; the sound of the gears turning in the minds of the political power-brokers was screechy and labored as they tried to gauge the damage the singer did to the city’s image and to the long-range chances of the presumptive Democratic candidate.

All of this on top of recent metro-area shoot-outs, including in LoDo, the hot spot for bar-hopping and general revelry and the likely dumping place of barrels of money that Democrats will throw away during their convention. And these weren’t just “bang, you’re dead” shootings; these were O.K. corral, shotgun and semi-automatic weapons, running through the streets, high-speed chase rumbles; the kind of incidents that required the Mayor to remind everyone that Denver does not put up with this stuff, not even for a day.

Yeah, the holiday caught Denver with its pants down, so to speak, but I don’t want the headlines to get in the way of some serious contemplation about this day, and what it means to me, and friends. So I asked my comrades here on La Bloga to contribute a few lines on the topic of what does patriotism mean to me? Because they are always willing to help, and they have gracious, generous hearts, I am pleased to present their insightful, moving, and right-on-target words that shine brighter than the rockets’ red glare.
___________________________________________________
Lisa Alvarado
Patriotism is a word so polluted and distorted by right wing forces that I hesitate to use it. But I love what this country offers, despite the lessons of history -- what it dreams, what it promises, and I celebrate the hidden history of everyday people of many colors who built mi America con sudor y sangre.
___________________________________________________
Daniel Olivas
Our teenage son has had some serious health problems these last couple of years. His college plans have been somewhat derailed and life has been tough. But he's optimistic and we all have readjusted our sights in terms of how long it will take him to finish high school and move into college life. Chronic pain without a cure in sight isn't fun. But he is so excited that he can vote for the first time in November. He is energized and hopes that his vote will help elect a young, brilliant man into the White House. Our son is not blindly patriotic: he knows our country is facing some dire times and that one presidential candidate can't change everything. But he believes in the promise of our country and the importance of his vote.
____________________________________________________
René Colato Laínez
Patriotismo
What is Patriotism? I guess love for la patria, the country. In the kindergarten reading program there is an entire unit about Patriotism. It is a good unit and children learned to love the flag, to share and
to live in democracy. All my students have Latino roots. Many have been born in the USA and others are from Mexico or Central America. One boy told me, “Teacher I love Mexico. I was born there and the
Mexican flag is cool. The eagle is eating a snake.” I decided to change the unit to fit my student needs. The unit is all about USA but my students have more than one country. Yes! We can be patriota for
two or more countries at the same time. I am from El Salvador and I also love my country flag and celebrate every September 15, El Salvador independence (And most Central American countries independence too) If we live in two cultures and speak two languages, can we be patriota for the two countries at the same time?
____________________________________________________
RudyG
What being patriotic means to me? In the spirit of La Bloga, I liken this question to the perennial: What does being macho mean to you?

The stereotype macho is a mean, cussing, beer-swigging, womanizing pendejo who's looking for a fight. The patriotic counterpart looks much like our current President--a mean, bragging, accusatory, colonial alkie who's looking for his next war.

A "real man"--macho or otherwise--would be a caring cuss who can handle his drinking, be caring toward children and females, and consistently take care of his family financially, nurturing their company, focusing himself on their betterment.

Real American patriotism should advocate similar values: opting for diplomacy rather than aggression; engendering fraternity among its citizens rather than inciting intolerance; saving and investing in our well-being and betterment rather than squandering our wealth on military expenditures; garnering natural resources rather than exploiting them; caring for all citizens, rather than just those of one color or a high-income level; protecting our home planet rather than trashing it. A "real patriot" would stand for and support such things. At least, that's my take on this.
__________________________________________________
Michael Sedano
Flag Pin Patriotism
When I wear a suit, my lapel invariably sports a United States flag pin, that enamel on gold-colored metal pin that's become the latest symbol of vapid political bull roar.

"So-and-so's not patriotic because he doesn't wear a flag pin." "So-and-so deserves your vote because he wears a flag pin." "Oh yeah? Look, here's a photo of so-and-so and his lapel has no flag pin!!" "Well, your guy's a flag pin flip-flopper."

I wear my flag pin not to symbolize my patriotism but to bring back warm memories of when an evil-eyed fellow presented me with my own enamel stars and stripes as a challenge to my patriotism.

I was a guest at the Marriott across from the Phoenix AZ convention center, where the lobby featured placards welcoming the red-white-blue patriots milling near the bar. Walking past, I noticed this short-haired older fellow giving me the stink eye. That's something I'm accustomed to as white people like him often think a brown person like me doesn't belong in places like the Marriott lobby, unless I'm serving him a drink. I crinkled my eyes at him in a half smile and said nothing. I felt his burning glare into my back all the way into the elevator. When I did an about face to look out as the doors slid closed, sure enough, his scowling face looked in my direction but he quickly averted his eyes. I smiled at him anyway, and nodded to his chiffon-gowned wife.

The next day's trade show concluded and once again I walked into the lobby and once again it was malojo redux. Same guy and gowned-up wife, this time conversing with another couple whose backs were to me. My buddy nudged his pal who turned around to stare at me with the same squinty-eyed sour lips. As I came even with them, I did a column right detour and in two steps I was on them. My pal took a surprised step back into a potted palm tree. I nodded to the other fellow and smiled at the wives. "Good evening, Sir" and stepped nearer to Mr. Palm Tree. He stammered wide-eyed, cornered. He reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a small plastic envelope, and said, "Here, I suppose you wouldn't wear this."

I looked at the enamel flag pin in his outstretched hand. "Of course I'd wear it. I wore it for two years when I was in the U.S. Army." His eyes glazed over a bit.

Being sure to make skin-to-skin contact, I removed the clear plastic envelope from his opened palm. I turned the piece over and noted the adhesive label reading "Made in PRC". "Oh," I read, "made in the People's Republic of China. Red China." I smiled graciously, then added, "Interesting, don't you think?" I waited half a beat in his stunned silence, brandished the pin at him, and said, "Thank you, Sir."

Every time I wear my flag pin, I think about that pissed-off patriot's resentment, hoping this small lesson in semiotics still stings him as much as it tickles me.
___________________________________________________
Manuel Ramos
About a week ago, my five-year-old grandson told my wife and I that we should vote for Barack Obama. We looked at each other, then at him. Flo asked, “Why should we vote for Obama?” “Because he’s smart,” Jaden answered, “and everyone says he’s nice.” We agreed that these were admirable qualities, and I wanted to believe that my grandson lived in a country where being nice and smart were enough to lead us into times of peace and prosperity, although I would settle for times of peace. I wanted to believe that, but I also accepted that I could not look at the world as a five-year old, that there are realities that need confronting. But wouldn’t it be great if nice and smart were all that was needed?

We talked about voting for a minute, then I mentioned that Jaden could not vote for Obama. “You have to be eighteen,” I pointed out. That did not sit well with the young boy. In fact, he got angry and insisted that he could vote. I acceded somewhat. “Well, yeah, you can vote like in class or with your friends, so you’re right, you can vote for Obama.” He kind of went along with that. I realized that I react the same way - anger, anguish, frustration - when I think that any of my rights are in jeopardy, threatened by forces that have no roots in my existence, much like a five-year old has to simply reject the negatives that tell him he can’t do something.

I catalog what I regard as my rights: to speak and think the way I want; to practice any faith or none at all; the right to be who I am, to model cultural pride and respect of my heritage to my grandson; to believe in peace and diversity and equality; to vote for the smartest and the nicest. There have been times in the history of this county when such things have been denied to whole groups of people, to nations and tribes, races and genders. And yet, here we are, July 4, 2008, celebrating the fact that we have that history and that there always have been grown-up Jadens who simply reject the negatives, and move us forward, kicking, screaming and crying, but still moving. Those are the patriots.

Later.

Teatro Chicana, Teatro in Chicago y Una Broma

front (l) Peggy, Laura. Back (L) Hilda, Felicitas, Beckie, Gloria and Delia. 

Teatro Chicana
A Collective Memoir and Selected Plays

By Laura E. Garcia, Sandra M. Gutierrez, and Felicitas Nuñez
Foreword by Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez

"This collection of testimonials of early Xicanistas and their work in teatro is an important contribution to the preservation of the spirit and energy that made the Chicano Movement."

—Ana Castillo, author of The Guardians and So Far from God

"These memoirs are the personal, honest, and riveting testimonials of seventeen Chicanas who performed Chicana theater during the 1970s. These carnalas empowered themselves and thousands during the tumultuous years of the Movimiento by performing plays for working-class communities. From college campuses to the fields where campesinos toiled, estas mujeres had the courage to fight gender inequality. We need their courage today. And we need their stories for a new generation of Chicanas and for working women everywhere."

—Rudolfo Anaya, author of Bless Me, Ultima and Curse of the ChupaCabra

"'Órale, ya era tiempo.' Stories of 'the Movement' too often emphasize men's roles, ignoring the vital participation of women or relegating them to the sidelines. In Teatro Chicana, women are central to the ideas, emotions, strategies, writing, art, and music of the 1960s and 1970s when this country—and much of the world—rocked with revolutionary imagination and fervor. The Chicano Movement, like most social movements, also had many women warrior/leaders—this struggle was shaped and ignited by women, fed and nurtured by women, with many men at their sides. I was part of this—I knew first hand how feminine spirit, energy, and love embraced and impelled us. Seeing it again through the voices of the elder-teachers in this book, I'm reminded—no movement is complete without la mujer."

—Luis J. Rodriguez, author of Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. and Hearts and Hands: Creating Community in Violent Times

_______________________________________________________________

The 1970s and 1980s saw the awakening of social awareness and political activism in Mexican-American communities. In San Diego, a group of Chicana women participated in a political theatre group whose plays addressed social, gender, and political issues of the working class and the Chicano Movement. In this collective memoir, seventeen women who were a part of Teatro de las Chicanas (later known as Teatro Laboral and Teatro Raíces) come together to share why they joined the theatre and how it transformed their lives. Teatro Chicana tells the story of this troupe through chapters featuring the history and present-day story of each of the main actors and writers, as well as excerpts from the group's materials and seven of their original short scripts.

SPEAKERS FOR A NEW AMERICA
Call 800-691-6888
C/O TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO
PO Box 3524
Chicago, IL 60654
http://speakersforanewamerica.com

Edited by:

Laura E. Garcia is the editor of the Tribuno del Pueblo newspaper, a bilingual publication that gives voice to the poor and to those fighting unjust laws, such as those that make the undocumented immigrant an animal of prey. She lives in Chicago.

Sandra M. Gutierrez is a lifelong community activist who has advocated for immigrant rights, unionization, youth counseling, and cultural diversity. She lives in Pasadena, California.

Felicitas Nuñez was a co-founder of the Teatro de las Chicanas and continues to be a driving force behind the organization. She lives in Bermuda Dunes, California.

_______________________________________________________________

FILM IN THE PARK at Dusk

A program for the entire family, free of charge!

Elsa y Fred (Argentina/Spain)

Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Mozart Park
2036 N. Avers St.
Chicago, IL

Fred is 78 years old and a recent widower falls in love with his neighbor Elsa who claims to be younger. They fall in love, scandalizing their children and even their grandchildren. She is bound and determined to change Fred. She makes him laugh though, something he has not done for many years.

_______________________________________________________________

Based on the book by Pam Muñoz Ryan
Adapted by Lynne Alvarez
Directed by Henry Godinez

July 12 – August 10, 2008
Part of the Goodman Theatre Latino Theatre Festival
Goodman Theatre in the Owen, 170 N. Dearborn St.
Chicago, IL

Save $5 at any Friday performance! Use promo code "5off" to save $5 per ticket at any Friday performance July 12 through August 10. (Discount subject to availability. No exchanges or substitutions. Limit: 8 tickets per order.)

Call (312) 443-3800 or Groups of 10 or more call 877.4.GRP.TIX

Suggested for everyone age 8 and older

Esperanza Rising is the story of a wealthy Mexican girl whose privileged existence is shattered when tragedy strikes, and she and her mother must flee to California. Forced to work in a migrant labor camp, Esperanza must learn to rise above her difficult circumstances and discover what she's truly made of. Set in the turbulent 1930's, and based on the popular book by Pam Muñoz Ryan, Esperanza Rising is a poetic tale of a young girl's triumph over adversity.

Henry Godinez

Director Henry Godinez, a Chicago Children's Theatre Artistic Associate, directed our Inaugural Production of A Year With Frog and Toad. Henry is the Resident Artistic Associate at the Goodman Theatre, where curates their biennial Latino Theatre Festival and directed six seasons of A Christmas Carol. He serves as Artistic Director of Northwestern University's Theatre and Interpretation Center, and is the co-founder and former Artistic Director of Teatro Vista.

_______________________________________________________________

NUEVO DICCIONARIO CONFECCIONADO

POLINESIA: mujer policía que no entiende razones.

CAMARON: aparato enorme que saca fotos.

DECIMAL: pronunciar equivocadamente.

BECERRO: observar una loma o colina.

BERMUDAS: observa a las que no hablan..

TELEPATIA: aparato de TV para la hermana de mi mamá.

ANOMALO: hemorroides.

BENCENO: lo que los bebés miran con los ojos cuando toman leche.

CHINCHILLA: auchenchia de un lugar para chentarche.

DIADEMAS: veintinueve de febrero.

DILEMAS: hablale más.

DIOGENES: la embarazó.

ELECCION:
lo que expelimenta un oliental al vel una película polno.

ENDOSCOPIO: me preparo para todos los exámenes excepto por dos.

MANIFIESTA: juerga de cacahuates.

MEOLLO:
me escucho.

ONDEANDO: sinónimo de ondestoy.

TALENTO:
no está tan rápido.

NITRATO: frustración superada.

REPARTO: trillizos.

REPUBLICA: mujerzuela sumamente conocida..

SILLON: respuesta afirmativa de Yoko Ono a Lennon..

SORPRENDIDA: monja corrupta y muy dispuesta...

ZARAGOZA : bien por Sarita!!!!!!


Lisa Alvarado

New Books and Magazine

New Bilingual Books from Children's Book Press

Quinito, Day and Night / Quinito, día y noche
Story by Ina Cumpiano
Illustrations by José Ramírez

Little Quinito and his family take the reader through a day filled with opposites, including short/tall, quiet/loud, and rainy/sunny.

From first thing in the morning until he goes to sleep, Quinito is off and running— fast or slow, depending on the day. If it’s sunny, he’s off to the park to swing high and low. If it rains, it’s time to stay home and be quiet at naptime and loud at playtime. There’s so much to do before the sun sets.

Ina Cumpiano teams up with José Ramírez once more to show young readers that everywhere they look, opposites abound. Quinito, Day and Night is a delight for readers young or old, tall or short, messy or neat .

24 pages Full-color illustrations Ages 4 to 6 Bilingual English/Spanish


Animals Poems of the Iguazú / Animalario del Iguazú
Poems by Francisco X. Alarcón
Illustrations by Maya Christina Gonzalez

The animals of the Iguazú speak for themselves in their own soaring, roaring, fluttering voices in this bilingual environmental poetry collection about Argentina's Iguazú rainforest.

In the magical rainforest of the Iguazú National Park, toucans have two papaya slices for a beak, and butterflies are the multicolored flowers of the air. Great dusky swifts watch over the park, and the untamed spirits of jaguars roam the jungle. Spanning three countries—Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay—the thundering waterfalls and lush green rainforests of the Iguazú have dazzled visitors for centuries, and are now in danger of being lost.

Following the Amerindian oral tradition, award-winning Chicano poet Francisco X. Alarcón lets the animals of the Iguazú speak for themselves in their own soaring, roaring, fluttering voices, and the resulting poems are as urgent as they are beautiful and humorous. Maya Christina Gonzalez’s mixed media illustrations bring the colors and textures of the Iguazú rainforest to vibrant life.

Animal Poems of the Iguazú initiates Children’s Book Press’ goal of an eventual conversion to the use of recycled paper for all new titles and reprints of backlist titles; the book is printed using 100% recycled paper.

32 pages Full-color illustrations Ages 6 and up Bilingual English/Spanish

A New Young Adult Novel from Cinco Puntos Press

The Smell of Old Lady Perfume

Claudia Guadalupe Martinez’s debut novel for young adults is a bittersweet story about death, family, and the resilient emotional strength of the human heart.

Chela Gonzalez, the book’s narrator, is a nerd and a soccer player who can barely contain her excitement about starting the sixth grade. But nothing is as she imagined—her best friend turns on her to join the popular girls and they all act like Chela doesn’t exist. She buries herself in schoolwork and in the warm comfort of her family. To Chela, her family is like a solar system, with her father the sun and her mother, brothers, and sister like planets rotating all around him. It’s a small world, but it’s the only one she fits in.

But that universe is threatened when her strong father has a stroke. Chela’s grandmother moves in to help the family. The smell of her old lady perfume invades the house. That smell is worse than Sundays. Sundays were sad, but they went just as sure as they came. Death was a whole other thing, and Chela doesn’t understand that’s what everyone is waiting for. In her grief and worry, Chela begins to discover herself and find her own strength.

Claudia Guadalupe Martinez was raised in El Paso, Texas. She learned that letters form words from reading the subtitles of old westerns for her father. She went on to graduate from college and moved to Chicago to become one of the city’s youngest non-profit executives.

A new magazine from the editors of Highlights!

Highlights High Five is perfect for young children aged 2-6!

Highlights High Five is the newest offering from the publisher of the nation's #1 children's magazine, Highlights for Children. Like its older sibling publication, Highlights High Five is founded on the belief that children are the world's most important people and helps set children firmly on the path to becoming curious, creative, caring, and confident individuals.

Highlights High Five celebrates the early years of childhood—a time of discovery when learning happens at every turn. Our magazine is dedicated to helping parents, educators, and other caregivers nurture young children by:

* encouraging a natural sense of wonder about the world;
* promoting reasoning, problem solving, and creative self-expression;
* fostering a love of language and a rich vocabulary;
* and inspiring them to be kind, to get along with others, and to grow in self-confidence...for
children are the world's most important people.

Review: Teatro Chicana

Michael Sedano

Teatro Chicana
A Collective Memoir and Selected Plays.
Edited by Laura E. Garcia, Sandra M. Gutierrez, and Felicitas Nuñez
Foreword by Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez
Austin: UTexas Press, 2008.
ISBN: 978-0-292-71743-5 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-0-292-71744-2 (paper)

When my daughter was five years old, she became an honorary member of Teatro A La Brava when she accompanied me to many a rehearsal as the teatro rehearsed a controversial but popular acto about a local injustice. My years with the teatro, and my daughter's involvement with us, remain among our warm memories of her childhood and my good fortune to be dad to one of the world's greatest kids.

Most likely my thirty-year old memories of that time color my reading of Garcia, Gutierrez, and Nuñez' well-edited memoir of a teatro group from the same era, the 1970s. Even if a reader has never been in a teatro, Teatro Chicana will be worthwhile reading to learn from its seventeen voices how membership in teatro contributes to a person's political, cultural, and individual growth.

There also are some beautiful stories. And sadness. The collection opens with an endearing essay by Delia Ravelo that captures most of the themes that emerge from the other speakers: a chicana is trapped in her culture's antifeminist mores. She rebels, adopting dysfunctional behaviors that place her future and happiness in jeopardy. She escapes into higher education where she discovers teatro, and as a result she blossoms politically, socially, personally, making lifelong friendships and has a lot of fun in the process.

Ravelo's joy at her teatro experience takes on a somber note as she winds her essay to a close. Early on, the reader is pulling for the abused child, sharing humorous events and artistic satisfaction. Then in the final paragraph she writes how her "earthly journey eventually will end and then my body will disappear and my brain will follow." The next essay, by Peggy Garcia, acknowledges Ravelo's leadership and inspirational friendship--as do most other writers--reveals that Delia Ravelo died before this book came to press.

Sic transit gloria mundi would be a good subtitle for the collection. From hardship to teatro to hardship becomes one of the themes that emerge. One of the ugliest hardships several writers acknowledge is sexual abuse by family members. Helplessness is not the only way the subject is discussed. Guadalupe Beltran found a way to defeat her exploiter, and helped another little girl do the same. Beltran's essay is one of the best organized pieces. She begins in blank verse with intense recollections that serve as previews of the expository prose paragraphs that follow. Similarly, Teresa Oyos composes her entire essay in the verse format for an interesting diversion from the prose of her fellow teatro memoirists.

The most comprehensive historical memoir is the final piece by Felicitas Nuñez. Nuñez' work was the heart of the three teatro groups that the writers joined. Initially it was Teatro de las Chicanas. The group segued to become Teatro Laboral as its themes matured with the maturation of el movimiento. The final incarnation as Teatro Raices comes in 1979 and winds down in 1983.

The most touching essay comes from Sandra M. Gutierrez, who composes a letter, a benediction really, as a tía addressing a high school girl about to enter her own college career. Gutierrez' essay suggests the importance of this collection as one part of a full circle. Just as Gutierrez and the other women left home to start their own careers as student actors, wives, mothers, divorcées, professionals, just as the teatro found successive cycles of new members as established members graduated out of the college milieu, so too can today's women find satisfaction, expressiveness, individual direction by finding their own teatro to nurture their spirits through that transition from girl to woman, from a past of imposed limitations to a future limited only by the bounds of a woman's imagination.

The final third of the volume presents actos and artifacts of the various teatros. Several writers extol the power and wonder of a countersexism acto called "Bronca" whose impact comes from a chant blending "cabron" to the title, as in Broncabronbroncabronbroncabron. The acto deliberately affronted menso machos of the movimiento whose insecurities and priggishness demanded that men take spotlight roles and women did the cooking. After such a big buildup, finding the acto itself is but an outline--the teatro worked a la brava through much of its career--is disappointing. But then, among the pleasures of chicana chicano teatro, and our actos, is the paradox of time and place; "you have to be there." That the compilers can present the outline, and a few more fully fleshed scripts, along with several pages of photographs, is tantalizing consolation that at least we can remember what was.

Gente! Here comes Independence Day, the United States' Fourth of July. Need I ask, "How many other countries have a fourth of July?"

See you next week.

mvs

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