Review: Rudolfo Anaya. The Old Man's Love Story. News from SE to NW.

Rudolfo Anaya. The Old Man's Love Story. Norman: U Oklahoma Press, 2013.
ISBN: 0806146486

Michael Sedano

Everyone dies. My grandmother died. My mother died. I died. In Rudolfo Anaya’s The Old Man’s Love Story, the old man’s wife has died. How do you go on after death? What of your own? Where do dead souls go?

The widower struggles with grief, memory, and life after death. This is Anaya’s own story--he pulls no punches--but elects to tell this deeply personal story from the safe distance enabled by a third person narrator.

The third person voice allows the mourning man to step outside himself to address an audience, organize the events and relate what happened to a character called “the old man” as he goes about resolving the consequences of life and death.

In this voice, Anaya crafts a barely-controlled narrative of his own roiling emotions, enriches the text with literary flourishes, allusions, motifs, and keen detail, ultimately presenting a meaningful look at death, grief, and living. Beyond its profundity, The Old Man’s Love Story is a scream of pain you need to hear.

It’s not a fun read. Some readers won’t be ready for The Old Man’s Love Story, especially younger people who see themselves invincible. Nor will those with a low tolerance for cultura “get” it. The book deals with issues those people haven’t dealt with, they have no skin in the game. So it goes.

Near death experience patients like me, readers in serious infirmity, and generally, gente aware of cucui and other spirits are ready for The Old Man’s Love Story. It won’t haunt you but starts a conversation that’s probably overdue. Carpe diem. The old man is not afraid of dying but frustrated at everything he’s going to miss.

The old man has spirits in his life and many moments of communion. New Mexico cultura informs the old man’s spiritual and metaphoric view with cloud formations, water, land, soul, various people’s gods. He views his own memory as thrusts from a hellenistic muse whom the old man names Memoria.

The old man's wife speaks to him, offers comfort, and urges him to go on living. He cannot summon her but with a sense of normalcy accepts her presence whenever she appears. “Magic realism” outsiders might term such moments in the narrative. For the old man, and Anaya, conversations with the wife are the most normal things a grieving man does.

Grief comes with memory. Random events and artifacts trigger memories of courtship, travels, life together, her personality, having sex. Each memory fills the old man with pain at her absence magnified by his understanding of the finality of this emptiness. Because grief and memory intertwine but are not the same, the widower finds himself unable to unravel the tangle. He cannot control memory and his grief is inconsolable.

As the old man’s suffering persists unabated, a reader begins to sense thoughts of suicide in the old man’s struggle, notes of surrender that would leave writer and reader deadened with depression. No one wants to read that. Yet, a fleeting thought, a word here, a conclusion there, Anaya sets the reader on edge, the outcome for the old man in no way assured.

As the book begins, with the old man’s bereavement finding its first expression, it comes with a sense of excitement for the dead wife’s next self:

Her journey into the world of spirits was a new adventure, but damn! He knew nothing of that world! He could only imagine it! Like imagining heaven. He worried. Was she okay? What if she lost the way? But she loved adventure. It was part of her nature. Now she had entered a country of spirits, from which no one returned.
Her spirit had lingered a while. Shortly after she died he had seen her walking down the hollyhock path. Dressed in a flowing Mexican skirt, the bright colors she loved, and a white blouse, stepping as lightly as an angel. She had turned and looked at him. 43

But the old man struggles with being separated. His wife’s disappearance from his garden, the hollyhock path, their time, has made his life chaotic, him irrational. At one manic point he surrounds himself with photographs, lies on the floor a shaman willing her back from death, Mictlán, the other side, wherever, just come back. Therapy doesn’t help.

He seeks refuge in reasoning and science. The old man learns about brain chemistry and the brain’s engrams, the loci of memory. He is not consoled that surgery or time will erase memories. Once the memories are gone, she is gone. The old man desperately needs the life memory sparks in him, memories don’t hurt all the time. He persists until he can answer ill-understood questions.

He questioned his own concept of the spirit world.
“It’s not out there,” he whispered. “It’s in me. The world of spirits is my memory—I am the world of spirits!”
Why was he surprised? He had searched for the meaning of life and death, the knowledge that was the bedrock of so many cultures, the truths written in esoteric gospels, a faith held in the human heart since the beginning of time.
He had known this all along. One of his characters, an old woman on her deathbed, had told a child, “I will live as long as you remember me. I live in your memory.” 130

Anaya arrives at this consolation for the old man via a stream-of-consciousness narrative that spills freely out of the writer. The loose style that flows from idea to idea looking for a logical connection can pose a challenge to inattentive readers. This is the way the man’s mind works, how a writer thinks. It’s best to pay attention.

The constrained rambling style of The Old Man’s Love Story stands in tribute to Anaya’s late wife, who was the writer’s editor. The writer is allowed free rein on this manuscript. Anaya seems to be telling his readers, this style is appropriate to this occasion so she’s letting me slide on some of my excesses and more abstract ruminations.

Students of Chicana Chicano Literature will find The Old Man’s Love Story illuminating for its insights into elements of the writer’s life and career. Readers curious about Sonny Baca’s heightened spirituality across the four novels of that series see its origins in the author’s lifelong relationship with spirits and spiritual practice. Anaya accepts that La Llorona frightened him as a boy, perhaps in the guise of grasping ramas in the bosque, but that was La Llorona pulling his hair in the darkness.

Writers will note Anaya’s sense that his characters spring sui generis from their own dimension. Just as spirits are, characters are.

And it’s true, that was his background but the more he wrote the more he felt the pull of the spirit world. The voice of the story was not completely his. He was moved to write the tragedies and comedies of those characters who came to visit him. 54

It’s that sense of spirits and literary characters that lets the grief-stricken mind lose itself in beauties of a garden path before a moment later seeing his dead wife pulling weeds. He’s comforted by their conversations, her advice about getting a girlfriend, helping him close doors and open others in efforts to define the old man’s loneliness and depression, and find a way onward.

Which he does. That is not a spoiler but a final reason to read The Old Man’s Love Story. The last handful of pages, when the issues have reached what resolution exists for one man, sparkle with vision. The old man finds his respite not in a particular spirit but the spirit of life itself, and with that final rainbow along the hollyhock path the old man understands.

His ancestors had come and stayed to raise crops in the land of the pueblos. We worked hard, the old ones said. Our backs broke and our hands were stained with blood. But one afternoon lived beneath this sky provides enough beauty to fill our souls for another day’s toil. The earth provided, the sky rewarded. 168

Order The Old Man’s Love Story from your independent bookseller or via the publisher's website.

NDE Addendum. Anaya's speculation about whether, and what the other side is like are right on. The other side is there. I saw it last July during emergency surgery. I returned with the ancestor's message on my lips, struggling to share it. "Sage" they said without speaking. "Burn sage" I finally said when I found voice. The old man's conversations with his wife don't surprise me but I envy them. Souls cross back and forth for important reasons. In early January I was certain an upcoming surgery--a consequence of July's--would kill me again, this time for sure. In December I was saying good-bye to people, cooking last meals, doing uncharacteristic things, walking on eggshells. One morning I smelled my dad's smell in bed next to me, felt him holding my hand--my dad never held my hand tenderly or otherwise--and in the instant felt assured I would live because he told me, again without speaking. A few days later I went through the operation easily and near painlessly.


Mailbag: Caribbean via Tucson
Greater Antilles Island Focus of Talk

La Bloga friend Tom Miller joins a panel--tomorrow in Tucson--addressing growing interest in Cuba, given prospects for increased communication with the island nation.

Mailbag: Pacific Northwest
Seattle Teatro Announces New Web Presence

Rose Cano,  eSe Teatro - Artistic Director announces her website, http://www.eseteatro.org now features easy-to-click links and a cycling banner featuring the company's programs. Let's get on with the show, ese.

On Daniel José Older's novel, Half-Resurrection Blues

I already noted that the dude's first novel is going to burn up USican speculative literature, much like Junot Díaz's novels scorched literary fiction. Or like Raymond Chandler helped prop the pulp-bar for crime-detective fiction. Problem is, some critics have no idea what DJ wrote. I won't bet my last bottle of Don Pedro that I do, either. Daniel Olivas already did The Review of Older, but I got cosas to add.

Reviewers have called this novel: spectral noir, hard-core fantasy, genre fiction, urban fantasy, Noir, a literary .44 [magnum], mystery, suspense, supernatural thriller, ghost-detective, plus, there's also "diverse." If your hood hasn't been totally gentrified-razed of culture, and you can find a bookstore, I won't guess where you'll find this book. Except, probably on the chingón-bestseller table. Where Nora Robert's and Michael Crichton's tomes are trying to edge themselves away from DanielJosé's, to not get their white pages sullied by some street Newyorquian noir.

Check it, people--Half-Resurrection was released. One. Whole. Month. Ago. Jan. 6th. Two weeks--a mere fokkin' 14 days--later comes this announcement:

"Tony Award-winning actress Anika Noni Rose has optioned TV/film rights to Daniel José Older’s urban fantasy series Bone Street Rumba."

Sheeeet! Not just his first novel optioned, all his pinche Rumbas. A debut novelist's dream is to get 1 book optioned. But a whole series? That's no dream; that's Great Sea Mother Yemaya cradling you, mowing your detractors with her machete, and blessing your progeny with free-rides through Columbia Univ. So, someone besides me thinks Older's Rumba books are worth more than a read.

Like some hallucination, while reading Half-Resurrection Blues, it came to me to compare/contrast DanielJosé with Chandler and Junot. Chandler's dead and won't give much of a fokk anymore, and Junot may not concur, pero, así va.

He just did't get blacks.

From Chandler, mostly, The Big Sleep:

"The streets were dark with something more than night." [Walter Mosley might define this is THE writing--terse, snappy, quick-and-move-on-ly.]

"From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away." [Ignoring his white-machismo, this is smooooth.]

“I don't mind your showing me your legs. They're very swell legs and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintance. I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter nights.”

“She lowered her lashes until they almost cuddled her cheeks and slowly raised them again, like a theatre curtain. I was to get to know that trick. That was supposed to make me roll over on my back with all four paws in the air.”

DanielJosé doesn't compare to Chandler, though he can chandler when he's in the mood. I put one pata en mi boca and state, sin miedo, that DanielJosé is deeper than Chandler. Period.

Here's some Junot [Díaz]:

“She was the kind of girlfriend God gives you young, so you'll know loss the rest of your life.” [Male authors of all colors must write about las mujeres as undiscovered territory, revealed, que no?]

“You really want to know what being an X-Man feels like? Just be a smart bookish boy of color in a contemporary U.S. ghetto. Mamma mia! Like having bat wings or a pair of tentacles growing out of your chest.”

“Dude, you don't want to be dead. Take it from me. No-pussy is bad. But dead is like no-pussy times ten.” [Mujeres as objetos, again.]

“In a better world I would have kissed her over the ice trays and that would have been the end of all our troubles. But you know exactly what kind of world we live in. It ain't no fucking Middle-earth. I just nodded my head, said, See you around, Lola, and drove home.”

“She is sixteen and her skin is the darkness before the black [better than Chandler's above?], the plum of the day’s light, her breasts like sunsets trapped beneath her skin, but for all her youth and beauty she has a sour distrusting expression that only dissolves under the weight of immense pleasure. Her dreams are spare, lack the propulsion of a mission, her ambition is without traction. Her fiercest hope? That she will find a man. What she doesn’t yet know: the cold, the backbreaking drudgery of the factorias, the loneliness of Diaspora, that she will never again live in Santo Domingo, her own heart. What else she doesn’t know: that the man next to her would end up being her husband and the father of her two children, that after two years together he would leave her, her third and final heartbreak, and she would never love again.” [Compare to Chandler's paws in the air.]

Chandler's world had "one white dude to rule them all"--Phillip Marlowe, who knew some Spanish and some mexicanos. Chandler wrote pulp, knew it, maybe sometimes regretted it, but that was how his U.S. was and how he worked it.

Junot works the other side of the alley, the immigrant dominicano better read than described, by me anyway. My point to using him is to get to unas migas of DanielJosé [from Half-Resurrection]:

DanielJosé

"I dip into a brightly lit tobacco store for some Malagueñas and a pocket-sized rum. The rum goes into my flask and one of the Malagueñas goes into my mouth. I light it, walk back out to the street, and weave through the crowds. When I move quickly, no one notices my strange gait or the long wooden cane I use to favor my right leg. I've gotten the flow down so smooth I almost glide along toward the milky darkness of Prospect Park. There's too much information here in the streets--each passing body gives up a whole symphony of smells and memories and genetics. It can help pass the time if you're bored, but tonight, I'm far from bored.

     Tonight I am hunting." [There's a gist of the plot, prosaically.]

"I make a grunty-affirmative noise. When they send me after a normal ol' fully dead ghost, it's usually to toss their translucent asses back into Hell or, when they're really acting out, slice 'em to the Deeper Death. That means they're gone-for-good gone, not just kinda-sorta gone. It takes some getting used to, yeah, but you figure, hey--they were already dead once. Not everyone comes back even as a spook, so they had that second chance and jacked it up by playing the fool. The final good-bye ain't that big a deal in that sense. But this one . . . this strange, gray-like-me man with his wild schemes and last-gasp poetics . . . his death hasn't left me since New Year's.

     Neither has his sister's perfect smile." [More about the plot.]

"The feeling follows us down the block, even lingers as a dull whisper while we trudge up the creaking steps at Mama Esther's. Then we enter the library, the only room in the entire house with any furniture, and everything's all right again. There aren't even shelves, just stacks and stacks of books from floor to ceiling. You'd think it'd be a chaotic mess, all packed in there like that, but somehow there's a harmony to it; the books seem almost suspended in midair. They're everywhere, and the room is wide and tall enough that it doesn't feel cluttered. If I don't clean my little spot in more than a week, it starts to close in on me, so how Esther keeps this utterly full room spacious is beyond me. Some ghost shit, I suppose. Either way, it's oddly comforting.

     Esther's floating in her usual spot right in the center of the room. That's where the head is anyway. Beneath that great girthy smile, her wide body stretches out into invisibility in a way that lets you know she's got the whole house tucked within those fat ghostly folds. "Boys." She nods at us; the warmth of that smile is a sunbath after the grimness of the ngk." [To learn about the ngk, read the book; they're more than "imps."]

Maybe all that my selections prove is that I'm horible at examples. But if you want easy quippy, go pulpy Chandler. If you want Junot, go Junot. But if you want refreshing, street-smooth, page-flowing noir and Latino spec--ungenred--go DanielJosé.

Publisher's synopsis of Half-Resurrected: "Carlos Delacruz is one of the New York Council of the Dead’s most unusual agents—an inbetweener, partially resurrected from a death he barely recalls suffering, after a life that’s missing from his memory. He thinks he is one of a kind—until he encounters other entities walking the fine line between life and death.

     "One inbetweener is a sorcerer. He’s summoned a horde of implike ngks capable of eliminating spirits, and they’re spreading through the city like a plague. They’ve already taken out some of NY Council of the Dead’s finest, leaving Carlos desperate to stop their master before he opens up the entrada to the Underworld—which would destroy the balance between the living and the dead.

     "But in uncovering this man’s identity, Carlos confronts the truth of his own life—and death."

Quién sabe whether DanielJosé wrote this synopsis, but it leaves me flojo-limp. A plot synopsis goes weak, not providing the reader much hint of the powerful writing within. On a better day, minus a hangover, when I was young-sharp, I'd'a shot higher. But maybe that's just me. Decide whether to purchase the book, by a read of half a random page; the sucker flows más suave than Carlos glides through las calles de la Nueva.

Las embras who couldn't get past Yunior's mujeriego to read Oscar Wao, can enjoy Carlos, however gray his half-deadness, which incidentally doesn't reek of morbidity. There's love, of a different kind because it's of a different world. Yemaya's.

The man paved the way for our spanglishes.

Here's una cosa I wonder about DanielJosé's work that Junot carried to the penultimate: the novel's boriqua Spanish is light, however great the sabor--sporadic, casi. Junot blew the lid off the exclusionary Anglo-English-ceiling with a major body-slam [yeah, so sue me for metaphorical mix] that USican audiences are ready for bestsellers profuse with nuestra lengua (or at least can pretend to be, entering gentry bistros with Oscar Wao tucked in their man-purse). I'd prefer more lengua boriqua from DanielJosé. Maybe he was testing the literary waters. Maybe that's simplemente his voice, at the moment. Yo no sé, but I'll ask.

DON'T buy or shoplift Half-Resurrection expecting Yvonne Navarro-horror. DanielJosé doesn't try to gore your groin or twang your things-under-the-bed neuroses. He shoots for lifting our sorry-ass, neglected literary intellects to invented realms of noir experience. Think--Yunior the immigrant wandering through women to find no truths, brutalized by colonialist reality, except in Carlos's case, supernatural navigation is what-we-do, and do fairly well. To plug myself, my Chicano protagonist got bounced around the walls of his alternate-world, trying to escape. Carlos is sophisticated enough to chill in his mundo and fulfill his mission. It's a wild, enjoyable, funk-ride to get there. I recommend you take it. Later, you might be lucky enough to see it on-screen.

This pic is an Anika Noni-reminder

One note about that. The film, the TV series, the whatever, might become the next blockbuster, but it will fail like a blind, Carlos-crippled m-f-er the further it meanders from DanielJosé's prose. Sure his dialogue rules, and, not that I know jack about movie directing, but por favor, Anika Noni, consider employing an off-screen narrator, a la Anthony Mendez of Jane the Virgin. En serio, Esa, that's where the art breathes.

A last great lesson I learned from my read of Half-Resurrection pertains to the mierda about genre. How especially Latino authors bitch and moan and wonder more where their work will be slotted. Chuck that. This novels tells me, "Dump the rules, slaughter the bookstores' shelves-by-genre and publishers' imprint guidelines. Write your art. Speak yourself. Give your readers what you want. Let the accolades fall as far from you as they care to. Then again, you might just be more than noticed, and then get hit with a goddamn-the-dude's-unfairly-lucky TV/movie option.

Best author profile ever

Not that I compare--yet--to DanielJosé, but Latin Post features an author profile on me that I believe you might enjoy, un montón, however strange some of the revelations. I'd appreciate your leaving comments there to justify my existence on its pages. With enough readers doing so, I might be asked for a return engagement. Gracias.

Palabras:  How Blogger & Author Rudy Ch. Garcia's Life Experiences Helped Form His Identity as Chicano Writer

Next This year, en Havana

Whoever reads this and owns a yacht, meet me in Matamoros and I'll bring the Negra Modelos and we'll head to La Isla, before all the turistas invade. Me tengo que ir, este año. Or, a lo menos, before me muero. ITM, if you're in AridZona next week, La Bloga's amigo Tom Miller is one of the panelists. Miller knows more about Cuba than anyone but Fidel. Wishing I could be in either locale:

Es todo, hoy,

RudyG, a.k.a., part-time cheerleader for Half-Resurrection, in case you missed that,

and Chicano fantasy author Rudy Ch. Garcia who creates equally strange worlds

Latina Poet Laureate. Bloguista in Aridzona 1

First Latina Texas State Poet Laureate

“The Texas Commission on the Arts (TCA) is pleased to announce the Texas State Legislature’s appointment to the position of state poet laureate: Rosemary Catacalos.” (Texas Commission on the Arts press release). Catacalos is the first Latina to hold that post. You can learn more information on her author page.

In September, Wings Press will publish the 30th anniversary edition of Rosemary's first book, Again for the First Time, and a limited edition (1,000 copies) of a chapbook of newer poems, to be entitled Begin Here. The signed and numbered chapbook will feature a cover of handmade paper printed by letterpress. (Wings Press has published books by poets laureate of Virginia, Delaware, Louisiana, Utah, Kansas, and Texas -- and the U.S. For more info, contact Bryce Milligan, Publisher, Wings Press)

Catacalos was awarded the Dobie Paisano Fellowship by the Texas Institute of Letters and the University of Texas in 1985, as well as a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship. She directed the literature program at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center (1986-1989). Catacalos spent 1989 to 2003 in California, where she was a Stegner Creative Writing Fellow at Stanford University, then executive director of The Poetry Center/American Poetry Archives at San Francisco State University (1991-1996). She was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Stanford until she returned to San Antonio in 2003 to become the executive director of Gemini Ink, a literary arts center. She retired from Gemini Ink in 2012. In 2008 Catacalos received the Macondo Foundation's 2008 Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award.

A Bloguista in Aridzona 1

Not getting away from it all

This week, my wife and I  wanted to do three things: take a short cheap vacation (Tucson), experience a Sixto Rodriguez concert (Denver tickets, sold out) and, as they say, “get away from it all.” We got tickets for the first two and headed for the airport.

So, what is the “all” that a marginalized Chicano wants to get away from on a vacay? A list of that could fill a paragraph, but let’s just call it: the political, economic and social pressures of U.S. society, the kinds of things bolded below.

Snow-ice granules fall as we head to the DIA terminal. They increase. I’m thinking Global Heating’s going to interfere with our getaway, but forecasts assure us it’s “just a spring storm.”

As we work through airport security, for the first time I notice how few Blacks and Latino-lookers are in line. I count those queued, and come up with an estimate that only about every 30^th person looks like they’re not Anglo. I’m privileged, I’m reminded, one of few able to enjoy “freedoms” of air travel.

I don’t make it past the scanners. Two jars of homemade jelly that apparently look like nitroglycerine are confiscated. Okay, fine. But then, “You’ve got a knife in your bag.” “But I thought the rules were changed.” “They don’t change until tomorrow.” They confiscate my second Swiss Army knife in a year. It’s my fault for not reading closely Homeland’s motto: “Give us your billions of dollars and we’ll make you safe by taking away your jelly and precious little knife.”

I’m more pissed at myself than them because I forgot cardinal rule #1 about living under Big Homeland Brother’s repression: The rules can change; you were safe yesterday, but keep up on how you might transgress, today.

We get on the plane and for over an hour the pilot will strategically reassure us with varying explanations how it won’t be that much longer before we take off. He never mentions Global Heating is responsible. We sit on the tarmac for over an hour, waiting our turn for deicing. I’m wondering about the poor souls who took later planes and how long before they’ll get out.

Landing in Tucson is good; rental car; motel (America’s Best Value Inn – exit 262 on I-10 is $50 cheap, clean and recommended by Visitor’s Bureau. Now we’ve gotten away from it all?

Except the motel TV, car radio and Arizona newspaper are filled with the Marathon bombings. Conjectures, misreporting, photos of pain and suffering, again. And strange pieces, like, of all people, Putin assures the U.S. Russia is ready to assist however they can. Why’s the Russian Prez entering the picture?

We hit the Biosphere 2 facility, full of the sciences of arcane worries like self-sustainability, recycling wastes and vibrant ecosystems. Not once during the hour lecture do I hear the words Global Anything, no connections made to how the mostly retired, Anglo visitors contribute more than anyone else to planetary degradation.

Next to Arizona State University, we have beers and good eats one night, an area filled with college people, yeah, very few are black and brown. In the bathroom standing up to do my business, I hear a couple of Anglo kids share and laugh over some nigger-jokes that I thought were dead history. I forget Aridzona is a hothouse of anti-bilingual/Chicano studies/immigration sentiments. At least the guitar player tells me about R&B performed at a few good bar/eateries.

Like at home, I’m up at 6, reading the newspaper, going online for Denver and national news:

1. A cop shot at MIT, but “it has nothing to do with the Bombing.”

2. The layer of dust on motel swimming pool furniture is from Asarco copper mines in the area and more severe, recent desert dust storms that violate Clean Air Act levels. Will they get their jelly and knives taken away for that?

2. U.S. children rank 26^th internationally in quality of life, only a little better than Latvia and Estonia; kids like I once taught.

3. The storm that escorted us out of Denver hit the Midwest. Tornados, snow, rain, flooding, car-eating sinkholes, a few deaths, stretching from Mexico to Canada. I don’t hear mentions of Global Anything.

4. Snow pack in Colo. Mountains will melt too fast because of dust from NM and AZ. Likely cause flooding and the drought to continue. No mention of Global Anything.

5. Homeland Empress Napolitano is on the news asking we give her more of our money that should go to kids’ welfare, instead, so she can install more surveillance, even though the billions we already gave her accomplished nada to stop the Bombing. Sounds like Putin deserves the money more than her.

6. Arizona pipeline and Keystone XL Pipeline in the news. Here it threatens Native American sacred grounds. XL threatens the continent.

7. Boston shut down for a day. MIT cops killed by Marathon bombers. One suspect dead, the other captured, bloody. Chechnyans, maybe. So, somehow Putin knew? Which means Obama knew, though maybe too late. Americans, of course, were the last to learn.

They’re cheering, clapping, tweeting and celebrating in Boston. After the residents of an American metropolitan area was on lockdown--no transportation, no schools, businesses open, people walking the streets, shut into their homes, self-incarcerated for the All-Clear.

It’s good the ALLEGED perpetrators were caught, stopped, taken off the streets. But millions of supposedly free Americans on Lock Down for hours and hours scares me more than the terrorists, whoever they were, whatever they were armed with. They were no nuclear threat. To our knowledge, there were only two of them, on the run and in hiding. To willing give up my right to travel, conduct my life and pursue my endeavors and hand it over to Homeland threatens me in a way that’s too 1984. But that’s just me, unable to get away from it all and unable to forget that I’m supposed to be living in the Land of the Free, not the Home of the Shut-In.

Great Mexican food in Tucson

For lunch on Friday. we head to Mi Nidito, the so-popular place to eat in Tucson, for lunch with Tom Miller--and wife Regla--who’s leading a Cuba trip of alternative-media journalists this July that I’d give my next Swiss Army knife to be on.

Tom is as tall as the restaurant’s famous visitor Bill Clinton, when he was still Prez and after he’d recovered from Monica. According to our host, Jimmy Lopez, Clinton came in and ordered almost one of everything on the extensive menu. He ate all but one tamal.

The walls of the waiting area of this appropriately named, Little Nest, are covered with photos of the famous and the notorious, including Cheney. Tom Miller’s photo’s there, but mine won’t be until my next book, apparently, because Jimmy didn’t rush for his camera.

We’re treated like, not kings, but gente. Moderately priced, the food is extravagantly served, with my wife and I unable to finish one order between us, even though we’d had no breakfast. Attentive staff, crammed Mexican décor, a busy place that was worth waiting for. Go here for more info about a place not to miss.

Friday night we head to the Pascua Yaqui tribe’s Casino del Sol Amphitheater for the Sixto Rodriguez concert. I need to digest Sixto—not Rodriguez—before I tell you about the experience. Next time, more about that, and about heading to Phoenix to meet, for the first time, Bloguista Ernest Hogan. And the saguaro cactus. And Phoenix. Y más. But very little about getting away from it all.

Es todo, hoy,

RudyG

Things cubano y mas

Polymitas cubanas

I know of a secluded place in the Southwest where spring waters vary from muddy red to an incredible aquamarine. Spirits are said to populate the waterfalls at night, dinosaur petroglyphs adorn smaller canyon walls and the natives might share their mota with you, if you're lucky. The protected pristine environment suffered from tourists, including me.

Malecón, Cuba - © Marika Garcia

I've used that setting in stories, but tried not to share its location, because my knowledge of the area is detrimental to the continuation of its ecosystem. It's part of my species' environmental butt-print--especially of the subspecies Americana--that it leaves all over the planet.

Havana at night - © Marika Garcia

In a posted, bucket list, I included a visit to Cuba, before my government removes restrictions on traveling there. A visit after that would be more like standing in the lines of DizzyWorld than some significant experience. It wouldn't be to go for the sham nostalgic thrill of classic American Cars in Cuba.

Havana After the Rain -
© Marika Garcia

Cuba has entered La Bloga writings for many reasons and many times. In my own, the Chicano fantasy novel The Closet of Discarded Dreams includes fictionalized characters of Che Guevara and Marilyn Monroe homesteading a 9/11 monument, engaged in a flirtatious relationship. However the two appeared in the book as it was being written, I hope their roles added delight to the plot.

In my WiP entitled Bruised Hearts, Mended Dreams, a tiny, fantastical, jungle sprite named Polymito (inspired by the PBS documentary, below) works alongside young Cuban sculptor Fortunato. The beautiful snail with wings shoots a love dart into an azteca Tzitzimime, star being named Lechita.

Cubana Josefina - © Marika Garcia

Besides for researching material for my fiction, Cuba is on my bucket list because of another aspect to its pristine nature--its cultural exclusion from decades of Americana. (For a peak at some of its vibrant cultural expressions, see Lydia Gils' post this week on the Drapetomania exhibit of el Grupo Antillano--where, as she says, she herself would like to be.)

en el Club Galiano -
© Marika Garcia

So. while everyone in the world has "enjoyed" copying American culture, the Cuban economy, people and environment have been boycotted from doing so by our government. A blessing and a curse.

This April is an historic month on the Isla. It marks the thirty-third anniversary of the Mariel Boat Lift when 125,000 cubanos fled their homeland and, among other things, added to the anti-Cuba political bias of Florida and the U.S. electorate. It also commemorates the fifty-second anniversary of the failed Bay of Pigs, CIA-backed coup that greatly derailed U.S.-Cuban relations.

Cuba had gained only formal independence from the U.S. in 1902, as the Republic of Cuba. Under that new constitution, the U.S. retained the right to intervene in Cuban affairs and supervise its finances and foreign relations. Like we've done to too many Third World countries.

Rather than embracing Cuba's liberation from the Mafia, corporate banana-republic interests and the dictator Batista regime's corruption and exploitation, the U.S. gov't boycotted our island neighbor for decades. This contributed to the Cuban people's present poverty and estranged us from them. Again, the blessing-curse.

Of coursse, we latinos are no homogenous bunch, the reason that conservative Cuban-Americans who vote Republican have little understanding of why so many Chicanos historically lean toward progressive ideas, such as in the Chicano Movimiento days when Che was one of our heroes.

Che continues as Cuba's second great national hero, after José Martí, and schoolchildren there begin each day with, "We will be like Che!" Imagine: a revolutionary for a daily role model. Throughout Latin America, schools, monuments and museums bear his name. Guevara has even been sanctified by Bolivian campesinos as a saint. But he also remains hated by certain Cuban-American exiles. Which brings us to the present.

I realize the posts below will contribute in a small way toward more of my subspecies wanting to invade this Accidental Eden. That's no one's fault; it's the nature of our kind, possibly the same reason that Global Heating is our way of self-immolating--to rebalance the planet. I'm as guilty of precipitating that as anyone.

Cuba: The Accidental Eden

polymita - do not purchase

This is the title of a PBS documentary recently re-aired, with much to teach us about Cuba's international leadership in (forced) sustainability and ecosystem protection. You can go here to watch the episode. Yes, it will make you want to go to Cuba, if nothing else, to see the endangered Polymita before they become extinct.

Polymita - do not touch

The Polymita is a genus of large, air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the family Helminthoglyptidae, endemic to Cuba and nowhere else. It is also Nature's Cupid. Polymita creates and uses love darts as part of its mating. The dart can strongly favor the reproductive outcome for the snail that is able to lodge a dart in its partner. Sex and love, Cuban-snail-style, naturally.

Inviting La Bloga readers to Cuba, 7/13

Babylonia, Cuba - © Marika Garcia

Arizona author Tom Miller, a regular reader of La Bloga, has put together a U.S. gov't-approved five-day trip to Cuba. Initially organized for the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, it has been expanded to include others who write and promote journalism and literature.

El Paseo, Havana - © Marika Garcia

That’s where La Bloga readers come in. Tom and AAN put together an informational flyer here.

This is an opportunity to mix with Cuban writers and, not incidentally, make landfall on the island while los hermanos Castro are still in charge. After reading the flyer, direct your questions to Tom at tlmolinero AT msn.com or 520-325-3344.

Tom Miller has written about Latin America and the Southwest for over thirty years. His adventure books include The Panama Hat Trail about South America, On the Border, an account of travels along the U.S.-Mexico frontier, Trading With the Enemy about Cuba travels, and about the Southwest, Revenge of the Saguaro. He's edited compilations, How I Learned English, Travelers’ Tales Cuba, and Writing on the Edge: A Borderlands Reader. He has led educational tours through Cuba for the National Geographic Society and others, is a member of the Thornton Wilder Society and Cervantes Society of America and a major contributor to the Encyclopedia Latina.

La Noche Cubana - San Antonio

benefit for Bihl Haus Arts

Thurs., April 11, 6-9pm

The Cubans are coming! The Cubans are coming . . . to Bihl Haus Arts! So, get ready to 'go Cuban' with us at ICONS, a powerful exhibit of paintings and multiples by Cuban artist Adrian Rumbaut.

Preview Adrian's one-person show at La Noche Cubana, on Thursday, April 11, 6-9 pm.  This celebration of all things Cuban—art, music, dance, food, drink, culture—features musical guests Trio Tresero from Austin, world-famous mojitos and Cuban-inspired delicacies, a silent auction of Cuban-themed items, and more! Dress is Caribbean casual, 50s Havana, or come as Marilyn Monroe and/or Ché Guevara (why? see artwork below).

ICONS opens with a free public reception on Saturday, April 13, 5:30-8:30pm. Music by George Prado and David Gonzalez, with a special 7pm performance by Jose de Leon who will sing 5 boleros written by Cuban composers. Pool-side salsa dancing from 7:30–8:30 pm. The evening includes Sangria and Cuban botanas. The exhibit continues through May 25.

About the Exhibit: The artworks in ICONS form two bodies of work. The first, Contraparte/Counterpart, explores “visual duality” through the super-imposition of the symbolic images and iconic paired portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Ché Guevara, two of the most recognized and commercialized faces of the 20th century. In this work, Adrian fuses the pictorial with the graphic by combining painting and fabric design. In each pair of paintings, the reverse image of the alternate is embedded on the canvas.

In the second, Diagramas Pictóricos/Pictorial Diagrams, the artist questions the rules of pictorial traditions such as composition and equilibrium. In them, iconic portraits of Marilyn, Ché, Marx, Mickey Mouse, etc., have been cut up and recombined to create new faces, multiplied images that mimic reality itself.

Adrian Rumbaut will visit San Antonio during April and May. Adrian’s work was recently featured in the 11th Havana Biennial and in Cuban Art Space (NYC). His work is found among collections in Cuba, the U.S., Germany, Canada, Spain, United Kingdom and Portugal, among other countries, and he is the recipient of several notable prizes and awards. In recognition of Adrian’s artistic achievements and value to Cuba, the government recently provided a home for his family in a new development on the outskirts of Cienfuegos. The development consists of small but durable apartments made completely out of white PVC.

"Tickets, available here

or by calling 210.383.9723, are $75 advance ($90 at door). (100% of the proceeds benefit Bihl Haus Arts, a non-profit community art gallery; a portion of the ticket price is tax deductible). More info here."

There. I've done my Bloga best and worst to promote more of my subspecies invasion of La Isla. On the positive side, perhaps it will improve relations between neighboring peoples, help end an insane blockade to peaceful understanding. If you go, leave the Polimitas alone, even the shells of ones that supposedly died naturally. Cuban children and the spirit of Che will thank you.

Segundo Sábado - San Antonio, Tex.

featuring Artists Benjamin and Anna Varela in

"Nopalitos, Tostones y Cafe"

Saturday, April 13, 2013

6:00pm – 9:00pm

                               Married couple Benjamin and Anna Varela join together in their exhibit "Nopalitos, Tostones, Y Cafe" in Gallista's Main Gallery. Opening reception will feature poetry performances in celebration of National Poetry month, hosted by Grand Slam Champions Anthony the Poet and Amanda Flores. Special guest folk musicians "La Chichada" and DJ Roach will add to the celebration. Artist's studios will be open, and Yolanda's cafe will be open.

Benjamin is currently an Adjunct Professor at South Texas College in McAllen, Texas. He received his M.F.A. From the University of Texas Pan American. Anna is currently an Art Teacher at Pharr-San Juan-Alamo-North High School. She received her M.F.A from UT Pan American.

Keystone XL Pipeline Update

Despite its incredible ramifications on North America's environment and economy, the U.S. State Dept. has schedule only one public comment hearing on this pipeline.

y más polymitas

It will be held April 18th in Grand Island, Nebraska (2.5 hours west of Omaha.) Nebraskan community leaders whose farms and ranches are threatened by Keystone are asking for help mobilizing supporters to come to this important hearing and stand with them. Please come join a BBQ (April 17th), rally (April 18) and more to make your voice heard at the hearing.

Go here for details. P.S.: Fracking is bad for Polymitas and other livings things.

Es todo, hoy,

RudyG