Augusto al Gusto: Reading Your Stuff Aloud, Oracy Month

One In A Hundred-Thousand: Your Best 2 Minutes

Michael Sedano

Every year for eleven years now, poetry has been the motive of 100,000 people focused on themes like peace, justice, sustainability. La Bloga invites your participation with a video recording of you reading your own work for two minutes. Our On-line 100K Floricanto happens on September 21. Due date: September 14.

When you write, you make it right. Now read it and make it sound right. Give each word what it earns and deserves. Honor your Arte with a thoughtful reading.

Announcement details are at this link. Rules there offer guidelines--variance happens--except two minutes is the limit.

Your video reading will be your writing. Not necessarily the best two minutes you’ve ever written, the best two minutes—or shorter—you’ve ever read. 

Today, La Bloga adds six Ekphrastic prompts in search of a poem or a paragraph.

Back in May 2018 (link), La Bloga teamed with Oscar Castillo to share ekphrastic poetry created from Oscar’s Smithsonian photographs by Professor Margarita López' students at Cal State Channel Islands, and published in El Canto de los Delfines.
Oscar enjoyed the experience and I hope to share something like that, with this month's ekphrastic poetry or prose prompt. I took the suite of six photographs of an Esperanza flower feeding an Allen’s Hummingbird at the Los Angeles County Arboretum, a week ago. 
Capturing the bird and the flower that day, that moment, was my challenge. Your challenge is What do you see in the photograph? If Google is working well, click on an image and scroll a slide show.

Email for details on buying prints, note cards, playeras. Note: La Bloga maintains a “no selling” policy so, like  stockbrokers say, the actual offer is in the email (link).

Guest Writer: Raymundo Jacquez, Jr.

 

What voice do you hear when you read Raymundo Jacquez’ account? Do you hear a fifty-years older man taking a sentimental journey? A vigorous headstrong vato who hasn’t learned his lesson yet? A Veteran with his head on his shoulders?

Read "The Kitchen Exile," aloud to someone and videotape yourself. When rehearsing a reading, give the important words and phrases appropriate emphasis. Do it cold and let the words come at you. Then listen to yourself while you follow along with the text. Identify words and phrases that you feel more than others, that have information that needs to stand out, where do you have fluency issues?

 

Evaluate your oral performance with four goals in mind:

 

•Saying the words written on the page. Incidental changes happen, but is it you, or the writer?

•Are you using micro-pauses or full stops for emphasis and clarity?

•How often did your eyes get off the page? Did the eyes make contact with camera? When you create eye contact you’re creating emphatic space, it’s a form of pausing to catch your breath and to make a point.

•Are you cranking up the playback volume? Speak as if people across the room were in the conversation. Be sure you enlarge the conversational space to include the gente in back, make them pay attention.

 

Reading someone else’s words is wonderful preparation for reading your own. When you rehearse a personal reading, limit yourself to three practices once you have all the elements together. More than three, you predict yourself and lose effectiveness. 

 

 

 

 

 

THE KITCHEN EXILE
Raymundo Jacquez Jr.  

Except for Joy, things were going from bad to worse in my life. I didn’t like Cal-State. I felt totally out of place. I didn’t belong. I was a fraud. I stopped going to classes and just dropped out. I didn’t care if I lost my student deferment. I was tired of playing the game. What the hell anyway, if I wanted to be a writer I had to experience everything life had to offer. Hemingway was Hemingway because he lived what he wrote about. People could read his books and know he had walked the walk before he had ever talked the talk. 

War had its own value. Wasn’t war one of the most predominant chapters in human history? The more I thought about Vietnamrite the more I convinced myself that I didn’t want to miss out on my generation’s war. Every American generation went to war. Why should my generation be any different? It was an American rite of passage. I just wished my war had been a little more black and white as to who were the good guys and bad guys. I didn’t like the idea that there was a real big maybe that we were the bad guys. I had almost decided to go, when my Dad made the decision for me….well maybe I helped a little bit. 

Dad and I had gotten into another argument about the war at the dinner table again. Mom had made chicken flautas, which was spiced chicken, rolled up tight in a corn tortilla. They looked like gun barrels. I had forgotten the point I was trying to make, or if I even had an objective beyond just pissing my Dad off.

I picked one of the flautas off my plate and instead of eating it I started pointing it at everybody like it was a gun barrel. 

 

“Ratataatatatta…..” “You are all dead, you dirty commie bastards. I’m gonna kill you to save you! Long live Amerika. Seig Heil, mein Papa.”

 

Dad blew up. He got up and he called me outside. We went to the backyard together. I thought we were going to go to blows. I was scared. I had never hit my father and I didn’t want to. But he looked like he was going to hit me. I was relieved when he started just talking.

“Look Ray, if you’re a coward and don’t want to go let me know. I’ll join and go in your place right now!” 

I was infuriated. Blood rushed into my head. He had challenged my manhood. No one called me a coward, not even Dad. I had taken his macho jingoist bullshit for too long. “That’s a joke, you’re too old to go, and you know it!” My voice was getting louder. I didn’t care. If he wanted a fight he had one!

“Ya, easy for you to say it’s a good war, go die. It’s not your dick on the line!” 

 

I nearly screamed it. I thought he was going to slap me. I was shaking. I had never talked to my father like this before. I knew there was no turning back. We were both laying everything out on the table, nothing held back. 

“You’re a coward” 

 

He said it simply, and without emotion as he pulled away from me. 

 

He was sullenly resigned to the fact that his oldest son was some sort of commie pinko coward or worse. I saw the look of disdain on his face mixed with a deep hurt in his eyes. He was my Dad, and what he thought of me was more important to me that what everybody else in the whole world thought of me. I did not care what my country, God, Congress, Tricky Dick, or all the saints in heaven thought, but I did care about what my Dad thought of me. I tried lowering my voice, and placed my hand on his shoulder. 

 

“Dad, I could go to Vietnam, but it won’t change me, I’d be the same person, with the same ideas against the war as when I left. They can have my body, but they’ll never get my mind. The real war is here against the oppression of the gringo ruling class. We’re their latter day niggers, and I don’t want to die with a sombrero in my hand. I’d rather die with a rifle in my fist.” 

 

I was quoting Emiliano Zapata, and sounding like a revolutionary. I knew these were the right buttons to drive my Dad crazy. I was right. We locked horns. Neither of us was going to give an inch.

“No, you’re wrong; you couldn’t go into the military and come out the same…” He was somewhere else when he said it, another place, and another time. Maybe he was thinking about his own generation’s war. I didn’t care. 

Dad moved away from me, shrugging my hand off his shoulder. He walked back into the house. I could hear Mom in the kitchen reciting the Rosary with the Spanish radio station that played the rosary every night. She would recite the Rosary as she cooked the night’s dinner. She told us that we must all pray the Rosary because the Blessed Virgin had commanded it at Fatima for world peace. She didn’t know it, but world peace was about to get really personal. “I’ll show him” I thought.

The next morning I went to the Hayward recruiting center on “A” street. All the armed Forces were represented there - the Army, Navy, Air Force, and the Marines. I checked out each of them. I saved the Marines for last. Everyone had offered me the moon if I’d sign up for a three or four year hitch. Only the Marine Corps made no promises. The Marines had a two-year, no frill enlistment contracts. Besides, my Dad had been in the Navy. What better way to rub salt in our father/son feud, and continue the rivalry, than to join the United States Marine Corps?

I signed the papers. I was theirs. I was to learn later that U.S.M.C. was an abbreviation for “You signed the Mother Fucking Contract.” I was also going to learn that nobody goes into the Marine Corps and comes out unchanged.  “Once a Marine, always a Marine,” is a lot more than just a catchy slogan. I asked to go in as soon as possible. I didn’t want time to think about what I had done. I might want to change my mind.  The Marines kept their promises; they always did. Within two weeks I would be gone. 

I went home from the Recruiting Station. Dad was still upset about the night before. He was sitting at the head of the table in the dining room eating his evening meal. I couldn’t wait to let him have it with my “good news”. Instead of starting an argument with him about the war I changed tactics. I sat down at the opposite end of the table for a sneak attack. The wary look on his face said he was expecting a frontal assault. For a Navy guy he had good instincts.

“You know Dad, I’ll bet Vietnam ain’t so bad. It’s probably got friendly villagers and beautiful beaches. A guy could get a good suntan over there.” 

 

Dad looked over his plate at me. I had confirmed his suspicions. He had stopped scooping a piece of meat up with his tortilla and was now moving rice around on his plate. He was wondering where the hell this was all going. He knew I was up to something. 

Mom was busy taking fresh flour tortillas off of the comal and bringing them to the table. She had made a second pitcher of iced tea with lemon. She put the pitcher down without saying anything, but the look on her face said she knew we were at it again about the war. 

 

My little brothers were too busy eating to notice the subtleties of life’s little drama as it was unfolding. They were part of the backdrop on the stage instead of the actors or being part of the audience. Vietnam to them was something on television, a nightly ritual when the news would give the carnage as crisp clean numbers in the body count. As Americans we were born competitors. We followed the numbers to make sure we were winning. Lately the numbers didn’t look too good.  But the score was starting to be kept in the barrios, suburbs, towns, and cities in America. Only the blind thought we were still in the lead.

Dad had just scooped up a piece of meat and chili with his tortilla when I let him have it between the ears. “I joined the Marine Corps today!” 

 

I spoke with a smug smile, without any comprehension what “I joined the Marine Corps” really meant. Dad’s food stopped then slowly made its way into his mouth. He looked at me in stunned bewilderment.” There would be no more fights. I would be going to war just as he wanted. After all, wasn’t it his generation’s slogan “Better Dead than Red” that I had just fulfilled?” Maybe he would be getting his wish after all, and I’d come home in an aluminum tube. I watched the expression on his face change to a hurt bewilderment. I had scored a direct hit.

Mom had heard me from the kitchen. She had heard the straight delivery of my self-prescribed death sentence. I might have as well said I was going to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. There was only one place that came to mind when you said “Marine Corps” and that was Vietnam. Vietnam was now synonymous with death and war. At Cal State, hardly anyone could locate Vietnam on a map or globe. Now Vietnam was a generational destination spot.

“Aye Dios mio!” came the soft gasp from my Mom’s quivering lip as she burst out into tears and came running to me, grasping me roughly by the shoulders. “No mio, please tell me you didn’t. You’re going to school. You’re going to be a lawyer or a doctor. No mio you’re joking, Si?” 

 

Poor Mom, she seemed so small, and vulnerable at that moment. She was shaking, and her voice was trembling. She was fighting to gain control of the flood of tears that rolled down her checks in torrents. 

 

I felt bad. I wasn’t even dead yet, and besides I had no intention of dying. Dying only happened to the other guys in the movies. Didn’t it?

“You got what you wanted now Ray”, she said to my father. I had rarely seen her stand up to him. “His blood is on you, and if anything happens to my son I’ll never forgive you”. 

 

Mom turned off the stove, and walked into her bedroom slamming the door behind her. There would be no more fresh homemade flour tortillas for him that night. In fact, I figured he’d be in dry dock for a long time. Dad and I just looked at each other. For once, neither of us had something to say. Mom had said it all.

After a few minutes I could hear Mom saying the Rosary. I could see the flickering of the candles she had lit before the statue of the Blessed Virgin of Guadalupe in front of her small bedroom altar. I could also smell the incense as it made its’ way from her bedroom, down the hall, and into the living room. Mom was in one of her very serious prayer modes. 

 

I knew the candle was probably for me. I found out later it was. It always was.

 

I was born Raymundo Jacquez Jr.  in Oakland, CA in May 1950. My Dad was from Anthony, New Mexico and my Mom was from Texas. I was raised in the rough Oakland housing projects along the estuary until I was five. Then we moved to suburbia. 

I now claim Hayward as home.  I attended James Logan high school in the middle of the Decoto Barrio. In the Sixties I was both a self- proclaimed Chicano student revolutionary and a weekend hippy in Haight Asbury before joining the Corps.  

I received a degree in Socio-Cultural Anthropology; and I eventually retired after a thirty year career with the United States Treasury. 

 

I was not drafted to Vietnam. I enlisted in the Marine Corps. My enlisting was result of an ugly confrontation with my pro-war Navy World War II dad. This excerpt is from Farewell to the World and it documents that fight and the story of how and why I joined the Marine Corps to fight in a war I didn't believe in.

 

 

 

 

Remembering: The Last Days in Vietnam

Remembering: The Last Days in Vietnam
Daniel Cano

As another April 30th nears, I recall, a couple of years ago, a colleague asked if I’d say a few words to introduce Rory Kennedy’s film “The Last Days in Vietnam,” which had received excellent movie reviews and was being screened at Santa Monica College where I was teaching at the time.

At first, I declined. I’d had enough of war. Then, after thinking about it more, I reconsidered.

Since the publication of my book Shifting Loyalties in 1993 (click link in title), I’d received letters from Chicano veterans and their families, expressing their gratitude for the stories I’d written about my time in Vietnam. At my readings, many Chicano veterans thanked me for using my voice to give their voices life.

Of all the mainstream books and movies about Vietnam, one would think that Chicanos had no place in the war. I remember teaching a Chicano literature class. We’d been reading Charley Trujillo’s book Soldados and Jorge Mariscal’s Aztlan in Vietnam. A Vietnamese-American student raised her hand to admit she’d never known Chicanos had fought in Vietnam. Her statement perplexed me. It reminded me of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man: no matter how many sacrifices and contributions Americans of color make to this country, we remain invisible.

A letter I’ll always remember was from a Chicana who told me her father had died in Vietnam when she was a child. After reading my book, she said she felt closer to him, understanding what he might have experienced. So, how could I not say a few words to introduce Ms. Kennedy’s film about the Vietnam War’s last days?

For 42 years, I’ve sought a justification for the Vietnam War—or, at least, my role in it.

In 1969, when the Army discharged me, the country was in turmoil over the war, so I pretended that I’d never worn a uniform. I just wanted to hide. But no matter how much I tried to hide, I couldn’t.
Over the years, the reminders were everywhere: Tet, Kent State, The Chicano Moratorium, My Lai, Hearts and Minds, Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial, Desert Storm, Afghanistan, Iraq, and ISIS.

Since I couldn’t escape, I immersed myself in the study of Vietnam, the land, the people, the history, and politics --always searching, I suppose, for the war’s elusive justification.

April 30, 1975, along with millions of Americans, I watched on television as Vietnam fell to the North Vietnamese communists, or looking at it from our so-called enemy’s perspective, Vietnam’s liberation, the images flickering across the television screen, the last helicopters flying off the rooftop of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. I felt ill--then angry, bitter, and finally betrayed. “What a waste it had all been,” I’d thought.

How ironic that the Vietnamese student told me she didn’t know Chicanos had fought in Vietnam, when we now know the first American to be captured by North Vietnam was a pilot, Chicano Everett Alvarez, and the last American out of Vietnam was Chicano Marine Sgt. Juan Vasquez. Then there were the thousands of Chicanos who gave life and limb in those sweltering jungles.

After I watched Saigon fall, I refused to vote, to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, or to hold my hand over my heart during the National Anthem. I hid the Army in a cardboard box: the photos, medals, and citations. I didn’t want my son or any of my nephews seeing them and glamorizing war.

As the years passed, I asked myself, if communism was the justification for war, why then did Nixon open relations with communist China? Why did the Soviet Union and East Germany collapse under their own weight? Why do we trade with Vietnam and open relations with Cuba (finally)? Why did we kill two-million Vietnamese and sacrifice nearly 60,000 Americans and bring so much pain and suffering to so many families? (And that’s not counting the terror wrought on Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador under the auspices of salvation from communism.)

In 1995, the ex-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara published his memoir, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. “The lessons,” I considered the phrase, as if the slaughter in Vietnam had been some sort of scholarly exercise. McNamara concluded his memoir by telling us how to do it better next time. I took his thesis to be, “Sorry. Looking back on it, we made a terrible mistake.”

As early as 1967, McNamara realized the war was wrong, even immoral. He pressured President Johnson to end it. By speaking out, McNamara found himself booted from his job as Secretary of Defense and reassigned to head of the World Bank.

We now know that many politicians and generals knew early on that the war was unwinnable. But they, too, remained silent and allowed the massacre to continue.

So, who was benefiting from this war? How many millions went into the pockets of Colt and other weapons’ manufacturers and the corporations that supplied the uniforms, vehicles, food, and supplies? In the Golden Triangle, the sale of opium and heroin flourished (but that’s a whole different story).

A few years ago, as I walked through a local bookstore, I noticed a title glaring at me from the stack-- The Tiger Force: A True Story of Men at War.

My artillery battery supported a recon outfit called the Tiger Force, guys we admired, wild, insanely brave men (mostly kids, really), who’d go into the jungle in small groups and sometimes initiate contact with much larger forces.

I thumbed through the pages. Sure enough, it was the same Tigers that we had supported. Maybe I’d find a justification for the war in these pages.

Instead, I read that from June through October 1967, in the pastoral Song Ve River Valley, after communist forces had killed the most experienced Tigers, the remaining Tigers, many inexperienced recruits, took their revenge by executing, in the most heinous ways, hundreds of Vietnamese farmers, and civilians. The Tigers who had self-destructed, turned rice paddies and farms into blood-soaked fields. And it hadn’t been a secret. The brass knew but didn’t stop them, in fact, in some cases, they ordered it.

“June through October 1967,” I remember thinking. That’s when I was there.

My artillery battery supported the Tigers. So, when they called in artillery strikes, was it for fun, to just to watch the villages burn? It was my job to remove those shells from the canisters and hand them to the gun crews who loaded them into the Howitzers and send them crashing into those villages.

What sin had those villagers committed to deserve such a fate? They refused forced removal from their farms and hamlets into filthy, unsanitary compounds the military called Relocation Camps.
How much blood is on my hands? Can I be like Robert McNamara and say, “Well, in retrospect….”? Can I pass it off as a lesson learned?

A reporter who saw McNamara years later said he looked like a “haunted man.”

For me, like many veterans, the Vietnam War is not abstract or theoretical. It isn’t an academic problem. It’s as visceral as a fist in the gut. That’s why it is difficult for many of us to talk about it. I can’t think about Vietnam without thinking of myself in it.

As I watched, Rory Kennedy’s film, “The Last Days in Vietnam,” I had hoped I might find the justification for that war.

But no, though it is a beautiful, uplifting movie, when I exited the theater, I found no justification, not even in the faces of those Vietnamese desperately seeking escape at the American Embassy, or, surprisingly, on the faces of the South Vietnamese throngs waving communist flags to welcome the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese into Saigon.

As another April 30th crawls closer, I wonder if has anything changed? We see the same desperation on the faces of Syrians, Afghanis, Yeminis, and Iraqis. Maybe, in the end, we should heed Lennon’s words and “give peace a chance.”

Editor's note: La Bloga implored Bloguero Daniel Cano to share his decorations and badges from his service in the United States Army because these are important parts of his, and the nation's, histories.  Lest we forget: only 7% of the population ever wore the uniform.

La Bloga salutes the men and women who served and shed blood in foreign wars. 

Daniel observes, "Vietnam vets still suffer from society's mixed messages of pride and humiliation."

Review: Burning Banks and Roasting Marshmallows: The Education of Daniel Marleau. Notes 'n News.

Gregory Desilet. 2010, ISBN: 1-4415-4683-9 (Trade Paperback 6x9).

Michael Sedano


I had drawn Quick Reaction Force duty that February day. QRF was among the Army's quaint oxymorons. After a full day's duty, QRF detailed soldiers were confined to quarters from 1700 until called upon for a quick reaction.

Boring hours pass until the inevitable 2330 hours call-up when we'd rush out the quonset hut shouting "Go! Go! Go!" Jump into the back of a deuce and a half for a wild bouncy ride across the post. Working in total darkness, I would locate the ammo box then pass out magazines of live ammunition to unseen hands as voices counted off. Snap the magazine into the weapon but not pull back the receiver to lock and load one live round.

The truck would slide to a halt near the front gate where we exited the vehicle in silence, threw ourselves on the cold hard dirt and pointed our weapons at the unaware Korean civilians across the street. After a few minutes we were told to reverse the process, only slower, and another QRF was in the books.

In the interim between reporting to our hootch and the alert, we'd pass time cleaning our M-14 reciting the mantra, "Sir, the M-14 is a 7.62 mm, magazine-fed, gas operated semi- and fully-automatic shoulder weapon..." We'd practice donning the M-17 Protective Mask. Stored in a canvas bag slung across the shoulder, the drill was to pop the snap, extract the mask, pull the straps apart while fitting them around one's head. A vigorous tug at the straps sealed a rubber gasket to the face. With one hand pushing firmly against the pressure of a forceful exhalation intended to clear the mask of lethal agents, we'd then shout "gas! gas!" before exploding in wild laughter and ripping the mask off our instantly sweating faces.

The highlight of any QRF was the privilege of receiving the free copies of Pacific Stars and Stripes that would go on sale in the PX the next morning. This particular February's issue made my stomach turn. The front page featured a large photograph of a burning building--the Bank of America in Isla Vista, California. Something snapped when I saw that. My student loans were owed that bank. I used to deposit my Teaching Assistant paychecks into my checking account in that building. And there it was going up in flames. I unsheathed my bayonet and drove it into the photo, again and again and again.

I'd heard stories from friends who were in IV that night. I used to laugh that my wife and my friend Michael Collins had thrown the first stones. But it wasn't until I'd read--make that devoured--Gregory Desilet's creative non-fiction treatment of the bank burning and the series of riots surrounding the fire, that I came fully to realize the ugly violence that consumed my old stomping grounds only a year after I'd left the place. The story makes me happy I was not there.

When I left Santa Barbara, Isla Vista was truly a paradise of drugs, sex, rock and roll, and intellectual ferment. But damn, gente, Isla Vista became one perilous student ghetto during the mad uprisings of 1970.

Desilet's account, although heavily--and effectively--fictionalized, provides some hair-raising moments that deserve a 2010 reading. With Bush-Obama's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as lethal and meaningless today as Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon's Vietnam was then, reading Burning Banks and Roasting Marshmallows: The Education of Daniel Marleau, will make one wonder where have all the protestors gone?

The IV pedo started with an unfavorable tenure decision unfavorable to a self-righteous Anthro profe and his radical cohort. Foolish students were putty in their hands, particularly as the profe cynically linked his private personnel action to widespread genuine disgust with the failed Southeast Asia war. I am not reading too much into the plot here; Desilet's key characters present much the same perspective, albeit one needs to read between the lines to see it.

Desilet peoples his narrative with three fictitious characters. Marleau, a photographer, is Desilet's alter ego. The fotos appear in poor reproduction in the pulp pages, and are better viewed at the author's website. Canova, radical instigator and a bit of an entrepreneur, Canova burns with anger at the pigs. A public speaker and instigator, Canova goads Marleau to attempt a second bank burning, during which Kevin Moran, QEPD, a student, is killed accidentally by a stupid cop. It's a disappointment that the story doesn't explain what happened to the killer cop. Jeff is Marleau's roommate, a voice for moderation and balance between mobilization and against violence. But Jeff has a dark secret that puts Desilet's attempt to rationalize the forces of left / center / right into the trashcan.

Interplay between a drama beauty, her cop daddy, and Marleau leads to some of the book's best moments of comic relief tinged with a flirtatiousness that has a ring of authenticity. The generational split Desilet builds around this trio, although preachy in the end, is a highlight. Younger readers will understand the daughter's impatience, older readers with kids of their own will sympathize with both the kid and the dad. Cops, conservatives, and teabagger readers will side with the dad while condemning the daughter's headstrong attitudes. All politcal and life spectrums will enjoy reading the work.

Being self-published should not dissuade readers from seeking out this excellent account. As it does for me, Burning Banks and Roasting Marshmallows: The Education of Daniel Marleau fills some gaps in what one thinks one knows about the 1960s and 1970s. People who think "hippies, love children, antiwar protests" explains anything about the era will have their eyes opened to what those terms look like up close and dangerous.

CSULA Selects May 14-15 for Annual Octavio Paz Conference

La Bloga friend Roberto Cantú invites scholars, students, and people interested in the Mexican nobel laureate to the 2010 edition of the school's annual celebration of the writer's career. The 2010 meeting, titled, World Civilizations, Modernity, and Octavio Paz: A Plurality of Pasts and Futures opens in the Golden Eagle Ballroom on the El Sereno campus near East LA. The event is free, although conference organizers warn that campus cops enforce parking regulations 24/7.

For information on the conference, visit the Paz blog or contact Dr. Roberto Cantú at the Department of Chicano Studies, California State University, Los Angeles, 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90032. (323) 343-2195. rcantu@calstatela.edu.

David Mills, QEPD

Gregg Barrios eulogizes his friend, television writer David Mills, in a recent issue of the San Antonio Express-News. Datelined New Orleans, where the writer collapsed during production, Barrios notes how suddenly vital matters can change, It's difficult to write about the passing of a talented television writer whose work has graced some of the most important TV programming in the last decade: “The Corner,” “NYPD Blue,” “Homicide: Life in the Streets,” “ER,” “Kingpin,” “The Wire.” It's even harder when that writer is in the prime of his life and creativity.

2010 Festival de Flor y Canto Open Call for Artists is Closed

The festival takes place at Doheny Memorial Library on the campus of the University of Southern California on September 15-17, 2010. The lineup of veterans of the 1973 event returning for a reunion will be a strong draw. Equally attractive is the list of contemporary poets and fiction writers with impressive publication histories, amplified by a group of emerging writers some making their debut on a public stage at 2010 Festival de Flor y Canto, as was the case in 1973. Look for announcements on the guest lineup in coming weeks here at La Bloga.

National Latino Writers Conference May 19-22 in Alburquerque

Registration remains open for the 8th renewal of one of the best writing workshops for Chicana Chicano Latina Latino writers. A small enrollment, a top-notch faculty, and superb facility guarantee a productive experience. Couple professional ambience to the conference's opportunity to present work to agents and publishers, and the NLWC stands as a compelling need in a writer's development. For details, visit the National Hispanic Cultural Center's website here.

That's the view from Isla Vista and Pasadena this antepenultimate Tuesday of the only April in 2010, a Tuesday like any other Tuesday, except You Are Here. Thank you for visiting La Bloga. See you next Tuesday.

mvs

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