Look What the Easter Bunny Dragged: Pedacitos of Literary Greats

Olga Garcia Echeverria

 

I don't have much to say about Easter. Like Thanksgiving and Santa Claus Day, it's a holiday that makes me feel awkward and rebellious. Pastel colors and Catholic mass make me nauseous. I've never been into wicker. I hate fake grass. I confess I have in my lifetime eaten my good share of chocolate bunnies and yellow marshmallow chicks, but nowadays I mostly feel resurrected by the literary word. Here are a few treats to sink your teeth into on this Easter Sunday. Enjoy!

 

Marquez On Writing from Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life by Gerald Martin 

(Alfred A. Knopf 2009).

 

GGM on his 1st Birthday

     I am a writer through timidity. My true vocation is that of magician, but I get so flustered trying to do tricks that I’ve had to take refuge in the solitude of literature. Both activities, in any case, lead to the only thing that has interested me since I was a child: that my friends should love me more.

     In my case, being a writer is an exceptional achievement because I am very bad at writing. I have had to subject myself to an atrocious discipline in order to finish half a page after eight hours of work; I fight physically with every word and it is almost always the word that wins, but I am so stubborn that I have managed to publish four books in twenty years. The fifth, which I am writing now, is going slower than the others, because between my debtors and my headaches I have very little free time.

     I never talk about literature because I don’t know what it is and besides I’m convinced the world would be just the same without it. On the other hand, I’m convinced it would be completely different without the police. I therefore think I’d have been much more useful to humanity if instead of being a writer I’d been a terrorist.

 

 

David Sedaris: An Easter Excerpt

 

 

One of the funniest stories I have ever read is "Jesus Shaves" by David Sedaris. His entire collection Me Talk Pretty One Day (Little, Brown and Company 2000) is hilarious and highly recommended. In "Jesus Shaves," Sedaris describes his experience as an adult second language learner in a French class in Paris, France. In their limited French, Sedaris and fellow students attempt to explain the meaning of Easter to a Moroccan Muslim classmate.  

 

    The Italian nanny was attempting to answer the teacher’s latest question when the Moroccan student interrupted, shouting, “Excuse me, but what’s an Easter?”

     It would seem that despite having grown up in a Muslim country, she would have heard it mentioned once or twice, but no. “I mean it,” she said. “I have no idea what you people are talking about.”

     The teacher called upon the rest of us to explain.

     The Poles led the charge to the best of their ability. “It is," said one, “a party for the little boy of God who call his self Jesus and …oh, shit.” She faltered and her fellow country-man came to her aid.

     “He call his self Jesus and then he be die one day on two…morsels of …lumber.”

     The rest of the class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm.

     “He die one day and then he go above of my head to live with your father.”

     “He weared of himself the long hair and after he die, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples.”

     “He nice, the Jesus.”

     “He make the good things, and on the Easter we be sad because somebody make him dead today.”

     Part of the problem had to do with vocabulary. Simple nouns such as cross and resurrection were beyond our grasp, let alone such complicated reflexive phrases as “to give of yourself your only begotten son.” Faced with the challenge of explaining the cornerstone of Christianity, we did what any self respecting group of people might do. We talked about food instead.

     “Easter is a party for to eat of the lamb,” the Italian nanny explained. “One too many eat of the chocolate.”

     “And who brings the chocolate?” the teacher asked.

     I knew the word, so I raised my hand, saying, “The rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate.”

     “A rabbit?” The teacher, assuming I’d used the wrong word, positioned her index fingers on top of her head, wriggling them as though they were ears. “You mean one of these? A rabbit rabbit?”

     “Well, sure, “ I said. “He come in the night when one sleep on a bed. With a hand he have a basket and foods. “

     The teacher sighed and shook her head. As far as she was concerned, I had just explained everything that was wrong with my country. “No, no, “ she said. “Here in France the chocolate is brought by a big bell that flies in from Rome.” 

     I called for a time-out. “But how do the bell know where you live?”

    “Well,” she said, “how does a rabbit?”

     It was a decent point, but at least a rabbit has eyes. That’s a start. Rabbits move from place to place, while most bells can only go back and forth-and they can’t even do that on their own power. On top of that, the Easter Bunny has character. He’s someone you’d like to meet and shake hands with. A bell has all the personality of a cast-iron skillet. It’s like saying that come Christmas, a magic dustpan flies in from the North Pole, led by eight flying cinder blocks. Who wants to stay up all night so they can see a bell? And why fly one in from Rome when they’ve got more bells than they know what to do with right here in Paris? That’s the most implausible aspect of the whole story, as there’s no way the bells of France would allow a foreign worker to fly in and take their jobs. That Roman bell would be lucky to get work cleaning up after a French bell’s dog-and even then he’d need papers. It just didn’t add up. 

     Nothing we said was of any help to the Moroccan student. A dead man with long hair supposedly living with her father, a leg of lamb served with palm fronds and chocolate; equally confused and disgusted, she shrugged her massive shoulders and turned her attention back to the comic book she kept hidden beneath her binder.

Adios Querida Doris Pilkington Garimara author of Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence

Doris Pilkington Garimara and her mother Molly

It's midnight, Easter Sunday, and I've just heard that author Doris Pilkington Garimara passed away last week of ovarian cancer. Among the many books she wrote, Pilkington Garimara documented her Australian aborigine mother's escape from a government camp and her amazing 1,500-mile trek home. Her book, Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence, brought to light the systematic racist policies to forcibly assimilate Australian natives by tearing them away from their families. Her book was later made into the highly acclaimed film, Rabbit Proof Fence. Like all great literature and art, Rabbit Proof Fence is a story that touches the heart in powerful and timeless ways. Through the years, I have returned to it numerous times--for its bravery, its mastery, and its poetic resilient spirit.

 

Last but not least, and in honor of our recently departed Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Doris Pilkington Garimara, I leave you with a few lines from one of my favorite Pablo Neruda poems. What is there not to love about Neruda?

 

 

 

This excerpt is from "Ode to a Few Yellow Flowers," which is translated by Ilan Stavans in All The Odes: Pablo Neruda.   

 

Polvo somos, seremos.

 

Ni aire, ni fuego, ni agua

sino

tierra,

solo tierra

seremos

y tal vez

unas flores amarillas.

 

 

We are dust, we shall become.

 

Not air, or fire, or water

but

earth,

we shall be

mere earth

and maybe

a few yellow flowers.

 

 

Times of sharing - Denver '09

The holiday season here seems much about purchasing commodities, "gifts for me" and, even when it involves charitable donations or Christmas presents, being recognized for our giving. However, the capacity to give costly presents is primarily a reflection of happenstance and of itself relates little to our true worth. Even Scrooge became a better, generous person only when forced to see how his miserliness would affect his future. That's a humbug example of altruism.

In my first grade classroom each year, my mexicanitos tend to think the season is about two things: purchased gifts and "gifts for me." So when the school's Holiday Fair opened, they gathered what little money they had and got drawn into the mania. Despite class discussions about the meaning of the season, nearly all the children returned with trinkets and cheap toys they'd bought for themselves. Trying to lecture to or model for them how Christmas should be about something more noble is a lesson not easily taught, at least by me.

When a rich benefactor adopted our school's kindergarten classes, some teachers suggested he spread his philanthropy to more grades, but he preferred just the kinder kids. Thus, approximately 100 children received several outrageously great presents. What I wondered was, how would their unemployed or plain-old-poor parents feel on Christmas day when their hijos opened Dad and Mom's gift that couldn't monetarily compare to what they'd received from the philanthropist?

In an attempt to carry a different message in my own life, this year my family sent out the following invitation:
"Those of us who are (somewhat) employed and (relatively) not destitute like too many in this country are (presently) the lucky ones. My family and I are among those (this year) and would like to share our (current) well-being with others. Come share something creative with us and others. It could be written, spoken, sung, or performed. Drawn, painted, carved or pasted together for show-and-tell. Baked, steamed, homemade, self-portraited, or recently read. Or something entirely different, of your choosing." I myself didn't know how it would be received and who would show up with what. Briefly, here's some of what was shared:

My niece Tonantzin Canestaro-Garcia participated in absentia, via her CD. Go here for a taste of her poesy. You can also catch her verse in Hecho en Tejas: An Anthology of Texas-Mexican Literature, edited by Dagoberto Gilb.

Art teacher Trudy shared her poetry:

"I want to meet me, I've been curled up inside
I haven't come out, thought it better to hide
I want to meet me, how about right now
I need to know and,
don't care about the what or the how
I want to meet me, who I am
what makes me strong,
how do I get through work all day long,
I want to meet me, not the image or reflection
but the person, I'm constantly perfecting
I want you to meet me, not the old me
but the new the one who doesn't have to hide,
because I know who I am, do you?"

Deme shared this seasonally appropriate gem by Neil Gaiman from his collection Smoke and Mirrors. Like much of this strange Englishman's stuff, the entire book is worth a read. Gaiman's intro explains, "Every year I feel insignificant and embarrassed and talentless. So I wrote this one year. I sent it out to everyone I could think of. My card. It's exactly 100 words long." Here they are:

"Nicholas was older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.
The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories.
Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves' invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen into time.
He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.
Ho.
Ho.
Ho."

My daughter Marika, a photographer, shared video from a recent trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but since I'm technologically challenged, you need to go here to see something simlar.

Carrie read Neruda's Poema 20 from Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada:

"Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.

Escribir, por ejemplo: " La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos".

El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.

En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.

Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.

Oír la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como pasto el rocío.

Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.

Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.

La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.

De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa,
y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo."

Neruda. In the original. Aloud. Makes any sharing more than can be described in print. Carrie was also arm-twisted into reading aloud her great short essay accepted by NPR, which you can check out here.

Patrick, on guitar, performed his song The River:

"Sitting back thinking 'bout yesterday
and all those things that I used to know
somehow they all seem to slip away
and I cry

change in the weather, I've always liked this time of year
brings misty memories from deep inside
seems like I'm watching life on a movie screen
then I realize

down by the river
things that I used to know
my memory's clearer, for things that I used to know

and if we all think about our pasts
how we wish the times would last."

Linda1 shared crafts she'd made, two of which I scanned, plus her first bronze sculpture that she'd made to go to her parents.
Now 60, Dan shared an essay he wrote when turning 50.
Susan shared an article that referenced her vegan belief of not cutting a tree for Christmas.
Linda2 detailed how the delicious gumbo she brought to share linked back to her Houston, Tex. upbringing.
Vixen, a Furry, shared her artwork, of which I unfortunately have none to show here.

Donald Holstrom, lead investigator of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, took us off to a place we didn't imagine we'd go, when he shared a DVD about the explosion at British Petroleum's Texas City (Houston) refinery in 2005 that killed fifteen workers and injured 180 others. The graphics simulation of how this occurred captivated us, despite the subject. Go here to view video of this. Tragic though the topic was, its sobering effect somehow didn't seem out of place, during a time when we indeed had something else to feel thankful for.

What else was brought to share, all that my wife Carmen had prepared, graced our table and home, eaten or imbibed, and as I watched and listened to the stories unfolding, I thought to myself what a wonderful creation the night itself became. Sometimes nervously, hesitantly, each person brought or even exposed something of themselves, something precious, from their past or heart, and as we warmed to the whole idea, the atmosphere opened up to more from the next to share.

This all led me to think that 2010's sharing might include more worth posting via La Bloga, live, webcast, etc. We'll see.

Back in my classroom on our last day before break, the kids returned from another round of gift-receiving, this time courtesy of the local sheriffs who became Santas for the first graders, with bundles of toys. Some received one huge gift, others a medium-sized one with a few smaller ones. I overheard six-year-old Manuel discussing what he planned to do with his four presents and had to have him explain it to the entire class.

He said (translated):
"I'm going to save this one and give it to my sister, this one's for my dad, and this one for my mom. I'm going to keep this one for myself."

He stunned the class.
He made me choke up.
The silence in the room and the looks on many faces made it obvious he'd succeeded in teaching the others about the something-nobler that I'd been working on for over a week. Two of them broke the silence, remarking:

"Eso quiere decir que Manuel es una buena persona."

It was that simple. Manuel was just that way. Sharing.

If your Christmas was somewhat like mine, or much like Manuel's, feel free to share some of it with La Bloga readers in Comments below.

© 2009 Rudy Ch. Garcia

Martín Espada on PBS TONIGHT!

Stellar poet and La Bloga friend, Martín Espada wil be interviewed on Bill Moyers Journal will be aired on PBS, Friday, July 20th (9 PM EST)

--Read what PBS had to say---

"Renowned poet Martin Espada speaks
about his love of language and the human
need for poetry as he reflects on how
heritage, immigration, violence and war
have influenced his work. Espada reads
selections from his latest book
The Republic of Poetry, which was
shortlisted for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize."


Lisa Alvarado