Fotos: When Zeta Read At Flor Y Canto

Michael Sedano

Fotos Michael V. Sedano.Copyright 1973, 2008.

Click on an image for a richer visual experience.

In Saturday's guest column, "When Zeta Met Hunter and rascuache became gonzo," Gregg Barrios, conducts an arresting examination of the chicano originator of "Gonzo" journalism, Oscar "Zeta" Acosta and Zeta's friendship with Hunter S. Thompson, who took credit for Acosta's creation and vindicated himself by writing prolifically in the distinctive style.

Barrios refers to the first Festival de Flor y Canto, held in 1973 at the University of Southern California, where Acosta read the autopsy chapter from his outstanding autobiograpical novel, Revolt of the Cockroach People. Click this link to view the thirty minute reading. Acosta's reading is doubly moving, first, because of its subject matter, and second because of Acosta's emotional response to his recounting an autopsy of a chicano murdered in jail by police. A perfect crime.

The first Festival de Flor Y Canto brought together a pantheon of notable literary giants. Subsequent festivals in New Mexico and Texas failed to equal the energy, breadth, and greatness of the California event, but all left behind published anthologies. At any rate, only the Los Angeles event left a videotaped record. Many of these writers now are dead. Acosta. Ricardo Sánchez. Abelardo Delgado. Tomás Rivera. raúlrsalinas. Omar Salinas. As this first generation of writers passes, the videos provide the only means to appreciate these writers in propria persona, in their own voice. Alarmingly, these videos may be endangered.

I was dumbfounded when I learned of the Google video of Acosta's reading. Ironically, this is currently the only publicly available video document of the festival, that I can locate. Not even the University of Southern California has copies of the videos. In California, only the University of California, Riverside library has them, some forty tapes in the obsolete U-Matic 3/4" cassette format. Even with top notch conservation, it's likely that these old tapes have begun to deteriorate. For this reason, I have recently begun a project to digitize these programs to DVD. 

If possible, the DVDs will include the outtakes. Working with USC's El Centro Chicano and the university archivist, Claude Zachary, the project targets a newly revised and updated edition of the published anthology, to feature diachronic exemplars from those writers, expanded to include new work from the present generation of writers. Included in the proposed anthology will be a multimedia component, including the videos, interviews with surviving artists and participants, and the still photos I shot during the 1973 conference.

Here is a suite of Zeta photos, along with other people Gregg Barrios mentions in his La Bloga guest column. (Remember to click on the small fotos for an enlarged image).

Acosta steps into the crowd milling about the artist entrance. A beautiful woman catches his eye. He wraps an arm tentatively around her shoulder. They are introduced and she smiles in joy as Acosta pulls her into his chest. Cherchez la femme, que no? The scene recalls the incident early in Revolt of the Cockroach People where Acosta's persona, the lecherous Brown Z. Buffalo, narrates fondling a pair of underage teenaged girls during a political protest.

Now Frank "Pancho del Rancho" Sifuentes, a key organizer of the festival, joins the waiting artists. All horniness aside, Zeta points angrily at the television production trucks. They proclaim the name of the company, "Tom Reddin Productions." Reddin, former chief of the LAPD, is a blood enemy to chicana, chicano and antiwar activists. Interesting sidenote: seen over Sifuentes' right shoulder is Juan Felipe Herrera, who has become one of today's more notable chicano poets.

Sifuentes' face shows his concern at Acosta's reluctance to take the stage. Poet Alurista stands at Acosta's right shoulder, his serious rostro mirroring Sifuentes' belief of Zeta's threat not to read, out of Acosta's ire at being co-opted into helping Reddin's company. The crisis seemingly averted, Acosta enters the hall and stands at the back to enjoy the program.

Acosta's straightforward outspokenness is one facet of rascuachismo, as Gregg Barrios quotes critic Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, who observes, It is a witty, irreverent, and impertinent posture. Here, Ybarra-Frausto chats with Rolando Hinojosa-Smith and Tomás Rivera.

When Acosta takes the stage, he's not mollified. Acosta pauses at the lectern then explodes. He  points angrily at the television cameras. "Turn those fucking things off!" Acosta shouts at full volume, then repeats himself, "Turn the fucking cameras off!" He accuses Reddin of being an enemy of the people--specifically a chicano killer. Acosta declares his complete unwillingness to do anything that would put money into the pig's pocket and refuses to begin the program until the cameras are turned off.

Acosta stands in silent rage awaiting the departure of Reddin's employees. Pianist Javier Pacheco doesn't know what to do. Pacheco's role is to time the speakers and play a few notes to signal the end of the speaker's segment. The anger of the moment probably won't be calmed even by Mozart, so Pacheco stares helplessly into the house. Listen to the Google video and near the start, and at the 18 minute mark, you'll hear Pacheco's tinkling notes, that Zeta ignores, since so much of his alloted time was consumed in the delay.

Finally, the camera operators get direction from the truck outside. They remove their headphones and slink out of the hall. What I didn't realize until last year when the Google video surfaced, Reddin's director pulled a slick move. The cameraman turned off the camera's red light but allowed the cameras to continue shooting. 

None of Acosta's outburst makes the video. The Google video begins just after Zeta removes his shirt to reveal the netted garment you view in the videotaped reading and these fotos.

The tryptych captures Acosta as he chokes up recounting how the coroner peels back the corpse's face and scalp to reveal the sand-filled cranium and the small bag holding Robert Fernandez' brain.

His reading winds to a close and Acosta has grown distraught. He grabs his clothing as he walks off stage. By the time he reaches the back of the hall he's broken down in tears. In the distance you see poet Roberto Vargas grimacing at the incident while poet raúlrsalinas wraps a comforting arm around the broken Oscar "Buffalo Z. Brown, Zeta" Acosta.

Published Anthologies
Festival I - Festival de flor y Canto : an anthology of Chicano literature / Editorial Committee, Alurista ... [et al.] ; publication arrangements. Silas Abrego, F. A. Cervantes, Mary Ann Pacheco. Los Angeles : University of Southern California Press, 1976.

Festival II and III - Festival flor y canto II : an anthology of Chicano literature from the festival held March 12-16, 1975, Austin, Texas. Albuquerque, N. M. : Pajarito Publications, (1979?)

Videoprogramming
Click here to conduct Melvyl search on "Festival de Flor Y Canto".

Gallery Prints
For information about gallery-quality prints of Zeta or other Flor Y Canto artists, visit readraza.com or email here.

That's August's second Tuesday. Remember, La Bloga welcomes your comments and inquiries on this and every column. To discuss or leave a comment, click on the Comments counter below. La Bloga welcomes guest columnists who have extended remarks, book or cultural reviews, or something interesting to add. If you'd like an invitation, click here.

mvs

c/s