Chicanonautica: Reveling in Mayasploitation

by Ernest Hogan

Things have been apocalyptic for a long time. How long can it go on? Forever? Maybe there’s something to the idea of cyclical time after all. What goes around . . .

So, what do I read to take my mind off the newsfeed of doom? I keep a bloodshot eye for demented stuff like Mayan Calendar Girls: The Great Meso-American Novel by Linton Robinson, Grayson Moran, Cammy May Hunnicutt, and “Team 2012”.

Yes, it’s an oldie, from an earlier part of the 21st century when 2012 was still the future. Barack Obama, Dubya Bush, and Francis Ford Coppola do cameos. Ghosts of apocalypses past, riding again

Those suburban mystics who wonder what ever happened to the “Mayans,” while not recognizing who’s mowing their lawns and vacuuming their floors, will be seriously disturbed by this one. It's not just a Great Meso-American Novel, but a masterpiece of Mayasploitation, with plenty of sex (more than violence that should be preferable in a civilized world), drugs, and spirituality of a kind you can't find neatly packaged at Barnes & Noble. 

And it's not just the result of intense navel-staring on the parts of authors. Having been to the Yucatan, I can attest that the stranger than sci-fi stuff (yes, human/dolphin sex is a thing) that brims over on every action-packed page, in places where James Bond and Indiana Jones would fear to tread is, yeah, actually real. And just how will Mayan culture affect 21st century civilization? Probably like this, only more so . . .

To quote one of the many, crazy characters: “It’s multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-sexual. It’s . . . you know . . . The Yucatan Lives.”

I unashamedly enjoyed it, and by the way, I don’t believe there’s such thing as a guilty pleasure. Damn the pretensions, just enjoy stuff.

My visit to Mayalandia, back before it was upgraded to the Mayan Riviera, blew my mind. My dad telling me about how when you go down south enough, the Mexican deserts give way to jungles didn’t prepare me for it. Suddenly, the tamales are wrapped in banana leaves instead of corn husks, the street names are all Mayan, and the little brown people half my size made me feel like I wasn’t in Aztlán anymore . . .

The same feeling comes back when I read this dizzying tsunami of weird details so dense it gets difficult to tell who’s doing what to whom, but then that just may be the point.

Strangely enough, it was originally an internet serial, like my own Brainpan Fallout. The cliffhanger style fits when things are fluxed up.

And it holds up amid the current global madness. Another decade, another apocalypse. New possibilities emerge in a shattered world.

Again, it gets me wondering about the Mayan influence on the future. Are they really the new Egyptians? Who will be appropriated? Who will consume? And who will be consumed? Are we products yet? Maybe I’ll finally get to use my idea about one day all the interwebs spontaneously translating into Mayan hieroglyphics . . .

Ernest Hogan is the Father of Chicano Science Fiction, and is just now learning what that means.

Words On A New Decade: On With It.

Editor's Note: With 2020 the beginning of a new decade, La Bloga looked at the last time we entered a new decade. tatiana de la tierra, QEPD, launched the decade of the 2010s. 

Changes, futures, consequences, perspectives; we lived with them. "I barely know what’s in store twenty-four hours ahead of time and make no claims about the future."

It's an honor to share this La Bloga column for a new decade a decade age, by our brilliant friend. 

tatiana de la tierra? 
¡Presente!

tatiana de la tierra

It’s a new decade and times are grim as we head into the scripted doomsdays, with 2012 just around the corner. Will the world (as we know it) end with the Mayan calendar? Will there be a massive shift toward higher consciousness that will lead the planet to true healing? Or will humanoids continue to limp on amidst wars, poverty, corporate deceit, and rampant consumerism? Religious zealots are talking cataclysm and spreading the word with glossy pamphlets urging sinners to give it up for the Lord. Others are chanting for peace, meditating on divine love, and gearing up with vibrational healing tools.

I barely know what’s in store twenty-four hours ahead of time and make no claims about the future. But let me suppose that things will stay on the same course at least a bit longer. Today’s hot issues—unemployment, global warming, gay and lesbian marriage, health care, war, education, hunger, and immigration, to name a few—are also tomorrow’s. And they’re not going to magically go away as long as corporate interests continue to reign or as long as misogynist (mostly white) men are making decisions to affect us all.

What to do? If you’re tired of waiting for social justice or if you’ve lost all hope for change, you can take a few things into your hands. Make your own change, or speed up the process of deterioration so that the prophetic transformations can finally take hold. There’s a magical spaceship out there—there has to be.

Meanwhile, as a public service, I offer up some ideas of things you can do in times of doom.

1. Become a communist. Republicans claim that having health care for everyone is a sure sign of socialism. They’re right! Want health care? Go socialist!

2. Join the military. Out of a job? Can’t get into college? Can’t afford a gym membership? If you’re young and in your prime, the military is a great option for getting in shape, learning discipline, and being part of the brotherhood. Sure, you may lose a limb or end up with post-traumatic stress syndrome, but if you make it through, you might have a shot at an education.

3. Buy an illegal immigrant. They’re great for taking care of your house and kids. They can cook, clean, build things, do errands. And they’re cheap since there’s no comprehensive immigration bill being considered and they have no guaranteed rights. It’s the deal of the century!

4. Have more babies. Disposable diapers do a great job of choking up landfills, are wonderfully toxic, deplete the earths’ resources, and take a few hundred years to decompose. Want to push pollution and global warming along? Use disposable diapers!

5. Heal yourself and others. Medical doctors are great at diagnosing and prescribing pharmaceuticals, but they’re out to lunch when it comes to herbs, supplements, nutrition, and energy medicine. There are a zillion alternative healing modalities you can train in, such as homeopathy, Reiki, Quantum Touch, acupuncture, Tong Ren, crystal healing, sound healing, shamanism, Emotional Freedom Technique, midwifery, and naturopathy. They’re fabulous, low tech, and cost-effective modalities that people are tuning into more and more.

6. Learn Chinese. Want to be forward-thinking and speaking? Already a quarter of the earth’s population, the Chinese have a commercial and economic edge and will be a dominant force in the future. Learn the Mandarin mother tongue to get in step with the times, ahead of time.

7. Become a reverend. Gays and lesbians are busting to do the “I do’s” and more and more state legislations are permitting same sex unions. Who’s going to marry all these queers? Who’s going to baptize all their babies? If you become a reverend, you can be the one to do the honors.

8. Get a medical marijuana license. Who knows when we’ll have a health care plan that favors the people instead of insurance companies, medical doctors, and the pharmaceutical industry. Until then, you can get high and alleviate stress and pain with a few tokes.

9. Feed hormonized oversized chicken breasts to your children in order to accelerate their puberty. Babies are pumped with endocrine-disrupting chemicals in utero and throughout their childhood. Add recombinant bovine growth hormone found in milk and the ubiquitous pthalates and bisphenol-A to the mix and the result is demasculanized boys and prematurely feminized girls. Don’t want your children to fall behind? Give them their hormone disrupters!

10. If all else fails, become a breatharian. With practice, you can become plant-like and live off of sunlight. Perfect for hunger and homelessness!

Chicanonautica: No Mayan Apocalypse, Just a New Baktún

by Ernest Hogan

This is going up on December 20, 2012, so Happy New Baktún Eve! Yeah, I know a lot of folks are expecting asteroids, comets, polar shifts, flying saucers, zombies and other madness, but not me. I’ve been through this End of the World thing a few times, and I also know something about the Maya, so I’ve got a few things to say.

Back in the Nineties, I was desperadoing it on an awful temporary job. One of my co-workers had a kidney infection, the other had the Grim Reaper tattooed on each of his skeletal arms. Mr. Kidney Infection went on and on about how he was at an all-day lecture by a “Navajo shaman” who said the world was coming to an end in a couple of months, stating astronomical fantasies out of 20th century pseudoscience rather than Diné cosmology. Mr. Grim Reaper disagreed: “The Bible says the world’s gonna end in the year 2000.” I did my best to stay out of it.

Then there was the whole Y2K thing. Doesn’t anybody remember that? I wonder what happened to all those generators and gas masks people were stocking up on?

And, of course, there’s already a backlash. “If the Mayans say they could predict the end of the world, how come they didn’t see their own demise? Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!” By the way, it’s Maya, not “Mayans.” Maya are the people. Their stuff is Mayan. Talking about “Mayans” just shows that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

The culture of the Maya fell due to drought, small pox, and European invaders, but they did not die off. There are around seven million of them living in southern Mexico and Central America.

I’ve been to Mayalandia. Once you get down to the tropics, deserts give way to jungles, and the people are small and brown with faces out of Mayan art. They often speak the local Mayan dialect instead of Spanish. The names of towns and streets are heavily Mayan.

Also, there are Maya in the United States these days. People who think they are smarter than the “Mayans,” have their heads too far up their butts to recognize the Mayas cleaning toilets and mowing lawns in their towns. 

What we have here is a case of classic snake oil in postmodern New Age packaging. You didn’t hear about it until the Seventies and Eighties. Before that, the fact that the Mayan calendar ended at Baktún 13 wasn’t considered a big deal. 13 is considered a lucky number, so why not end it there? The alternative would be to keep computing the calendar forever. But the snake oil salesmen got ahold of it, and folks just seem to love hearing that the world is coming to an end.

You don’t have be factual. You don’t have to be accurate. The popular image of the “Mayan calendar” we’re seeing all over the interwebs is really the Aztec Sunstone.

So get over it. It’s just a new baktún. 144,000 days. About 394 years. Plenty of time.

Why aren’t we celebrating beginning of Baktún 14, or the restarting of the Long Count cycle, the Sixth Sun? What’s the matter? Don’t you want a future? Happy New Baktún, cabrónes! 

Ernest Hogan is the Chicano author of the pre-Columbian-themed, underground science fiction cult novels Cortez on Jupiter and Smoking Mirror Blues. Another, High Aztech, will become available in Baktún 14.

2012 Pura Belpré Award Winners

Gracias to ALA (The American Library Association) and ALSC (Association for Library Services for Children) for this post about the 2012 Pura Belpré Awards Winners. 
http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/belpremedal

The award is named after Pura Belpré, the first Latina librarian at the New York Public Library. The Pura Belpré Award, established in 1996, is presented annually to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth. It is co-sponsored by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), and REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking, an ALA affiliate.

2012 Author Award Winner

 
Under the Mesquite, by Guadalupe Garcia McCall, published by Lee and Low Books Inc.

In “Under the Mesquite,” Garcia McCall, writing in emotionally riveting free verse, gracefully manages to convey the experience of growing up in a bicultural community in Texas with geographical accuracy and a radiating authentic voice for its main protagonist fourteen-year-old Lupita, the oldest of eight children who is dealing with her mother’s terminal illness.

“Garcia McCall deftly communicates not only the experience of a youth losing her mother to cancer but that of a child surrounded by siblings embracing and discarding their Mexican roots in various degrees,” said Naidoo.

2012 Illustrator Award Winner

Diego Rivera: His World and Ours, written and illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh, published by Abrams Books for Young Readers, an imprint of ABRAMS

Diego Rivera: His World and Ours highlights the accomplishments of Mexican painter, activist, and muralist Diego Rivera. Tonatiuh’s stylized illustrations include elements of Mayan artwork and represent his interpretation of Diego’s original artwork, answering the question: what would Diego paint today? Through eye-catching digital collage, Tonatiuh juxtaposes contemporary Mexican life with the past.

“Tonatiuh’s visually appealing, layered artwork rendered in a mural style pays homage to Diego’s paintings while balancing traditional images with modern twists,” said Pura Belpré Award Committee Chair Jamie Campbell Naidoo.

2012 Author Honor Books

Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck by Margarita Engle, published by Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Engle’s beautifully written poetic narrative cuts to the heart of an untold story in Latin American history and describes the enslavement of the native peoples of the Caribbean by the Spanish along with the mixing of Spanish and native blood that now forms the vast majority of Latin America. Told from several points of view, the story captures the rhythm and sounds from a time long ago and encourages readers to explore Latino culture on their own.

Maximilian and the Mystery of the Guardian Angel: A Bilingual Lucha Libre Thriller written by Xavier Garza, published by Cinco Puntos Press.

Xavier Garza successfully captures the excitement that Max, an eleven-year-old Mexican-American boy, displays when he discovers that his favorite Lucha Libre wrestler is coming to town and might have a strange connection with his own family! This action packed bilingual mystery novel uses playful language that reinforces elements of Mexican-American culture and overflows with almost unbridled excitement for Lucha wrestling.
 
2012 Illustrator Honor Books

 
The Cazuela that the Farm Maiden Stirred illustrated by Rafael López, written by Samantha R. Vamos, and published by Charlesbridge.

Nothing is better than a delicious bowl of arroz con leche unless, of course, a host of farm animals have a hand in the preparation! Lopez’s blazing illustrations for the rhythmic, rollicking cumulative tale, “The Cazuela that the Farm Maiden Stirred” radiate a cheerful exuberance and are peppered with Latino cultural details that extend Vamos’ perky narrative.

Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match /Marisol McDonald no combina illustrated by Sara Palacios, written by Monica, and published by Children’s Book Press, an imprint of Lee and Low Books Inc.

Bright and vivacious Marisol, a young Peruvian-Scottish-American girl, loves peanut butter and jelly burritos and speaks both English and Spanish. Unfortunately, her teacher and classmates do not appreciate Marisol’s mashing of cultures. Using mixed media techniques, Palacios’ illustrations exude child appeal and biculturalism, allowing astute visual readers to identify the blending of cultures.

Chicanonautica: 2012 -- A Mayanoid Odyssey

by Ernest Hogan

So here we are, 2012 -- let the games begin!

And it’s all over the media and the interwebs -- the end of the world as predicted by the Maya -- or Mayans, to use the term most believers prefer. Looks like we’re in for a year long apocalyptic party. Whoopie! Hui! Hui! Hui!

As guy who’s written science fiction with preColumbian themes, I guess I need to speak up. I’ve been studying -- obsessing over -- things Aztec and Maya for decades. Do I think that the world is coming to an end?

In a word: no.

There is no great Mayan prophecy about the end of the world. Mayan mythology is full of cycles, in which different versions of the human race are created and destroyed (hm, could it be an analogue for evolution?), but there is no Last Judgement -- that’s a Judeo-Christian thing from the other side of the planet. We are in the Fifth Sun. They don’t say if there will be a Sixth Sun, but one hasn’t been ruled out, either.

Most Maya scholars agree that the we are approaching the end of the calendar, not the end of the world. Or, in the words of Antonio Cuxil, a Guatemalan Mayan expert of the Mayan calendar: “It is the end of a 5,126-year cycle, that’s true, but there is no mention of the end of the world.”

I'm glad to see the Mayanoid myths debunked. but what bothers me is that there’s a backlash starting. I’m seeing a lot of condescending stuff, dismissing the Maya as ignorant primitives. There’s also a lot of New Age Mayanoid confabulations about galactic orbits, planetary alignment, ancient astronauts, UFO messiahs, and other things that have nothing to do with Mayan civilization.

People need go to the Maya themselves -- yes, they are still around! -- see how they live, and ask them what they have to say about all this.

Meanwhile, there are interesting discoveries of more ruins, translation of Mayan hieroglyphics, and recreation of their musical scale that aren’t registering on the pop culture radar.

On the bright side, Mexico is taking advantage of this opportunity to promote tourism.

And other hucksters are poised to cash in.

So, I’ve decided to get in on the action. In 2012, I’m going to do my bloody best to take advantage of this global hoopla to call attention to the impending launch of the ebooks versions of my novels, Cortez on Jupiter, Smoking Mirror Blues, and High Aztech. There will also be one of Obsidian Harvest, a novella I collaborated on with Rick Cook, that actually is about a Mayan apocalypse. Why not? One thing I learned in my Atomic Age childhood, is the end of the world sells.

And there’s an appealing, twisted optimism in it.

Ernest Hogan as started the countdown for the launch of the ebook version of Cortez on Jupiter.

10 Things You Can Do In Times of Doom

tatiana de la tierra


It’s a new decade and times are grim as we head into the scripted doomsdays, with 2012 just around the corner. Will the world (as we know it) end with the Mayan calendar? Will there be a massive shift toward higher consciousness that will lead the planet to true healing? Or will humanoids continue to limp on amidst wars, poverty, corporate deceit, and rampant consumerism? Religious zealots are talking cataclysm and spreading the word with glossy pamphlets urging sinners to give it up for the Lord. Others are chanting for peace, meditating on divine love, and gearing up with vibrational healing tools.

I barely know what’s in store twenty-four hours ahead of time and make no claims about the future. But let me suppose that things will stay on the same course at least a bit longer. Today’s hot issues—unemployment, global warming, gay and lesbian marriage, health care, war, education, hunger, and immigration, to name a few—are also tomorrow’s. And they’re not going to magically go away as long as corporate interests continue to reign or as long as misogynist (mostly white) men are making decisions to affect us all.

What to do? If you’re tired of waiting for social justice or if you’ve lost all hope for change, you can take a few things into your hands. Make your own change, or speed up the process of deterioration so that the prophetic transformations can finally take hold. There’s a magical spaceship out there—there has to be.

Meanwhile, as a public service, I offer up some ideas of things you can do in times of doom.

1. Become a communist. Republicans claim that having health care for everyone is a sure sign of socialism. They’re right! Want health care? Go socialist!

2. Join the military. Out of a job? Can’t get into college? Can’t afford a gym membership? If you’re young and in your prime, the military is a great option for getting in shape, learning discipline, and being part of the brotherhood. Sure, you may lose a limb or end up with post-traumatic stress syndrome, but if you make it through, you might have a shot at an education.

3. Buy an illegal immigrant. They’re great for taking care of your house and kids. They can cook, clean, build things, do errands. And they’re cheap since there’s no comprehensive immigration bill being considered and they have no guaranteed rights. It’s the deal of the century!

4. Have more babies. Disposable diapers do a great job of choking up landfills, are wonderfully toxic, deplete the earths’ resources, and take a few hundred years to decompose. Want to push pollution and global warming along? Use disposable diapers!

5. Heal yourself and others. Medical doctors are great at diagnosing and prescribing pharmaceuticals, but they’re out to lunch when it comes to herbs, supplements, nutrition, and energy medicine. There are a zillion alternative healing modalities you can train in, such as homeopathy, Reiki, Quantum Touch, acupuncture, Tong Ren, crystal healing, sound healing, shamanism, Emotional Freedom Technique, midwifery, and naturopathy. They’re fabulous, low tech, and cost-effective modalities that people are tuning into more and more.

6. Learn Chinese. Want to be forward-thinking and speaking? Already a quarter of the earth’s population, the Chinese have a commercial and economic edge and will be a dominant force in the future. Learn the Mandarin mother tongue to get in step with the times, ahead of time.

7. Become a reverend. Gays and lesbians are busting to do the “I do’s” and more and more state legislations are permitting same sex unions. Who’s going to marry all these queers? Who’s going to baptize all their babies? If you become a reverend, you can be the one to do the honors.

8. Get a medical marijuana license. Who knows when we’ll have a health care plan that favors the people instead of insurance companies, medical doctors, and the pharmaceutical industry. Until then, you can get high and alleviate stress and pain with a few tokes.

9. Feed hormonized oversized chicken breasts to your children in order to accelerate their puberty. Babies are pumped with endocrine-disrupting chemicals in utero and throughout their childhood. Add recombinant bovine growth hormone found in milk and the ubiquitous pthalates and bisphenol-A to the mix and the result is demasculanized boys and prematurely feminized girls. Don’t want your children to fall behind? Give them their hormone disrupters!

10. If all else fails, become a breatharian. With practice, you can become plant-like and live off of sunlight. Perfect for hunger and homelessness!