Chicanonautica: At the Intersection of Xicanxfuturism and Gonzo Sci-Fi

  

by Ernest Hogan

Seems I’m always in some kind of intersection. And intersection being another world for crossroad. In West African Vodun, Papa Legba is the Lord of the Crossroads, who like the Mexica Yacatecuhtli, God of Travelers and Merchants, influences my life. Sorry if I crossed a border–it’s something I do all the time, without thinking. It comes with the whole Chicano enchilada.

So now I'm in the middle where Xicanxfuturism and Gonzo Sci-Fi meet. Not only is Xicanxfuturism: Gritos for Tomorrow, with my new Paco Cohen, Mariachi of Mars story coming out, but all kinds of bizarre changes are happening thanks to the senile billionaire in the White House, and I’m trying to finish my story “Once Upon a Time in a Mass Deportation” before I have to teach my online “Gonzo Science Fiction, Chicano Style” class in which I write a story over the course of two weekends, telling the students how I do it.

Whew!

The story is coming together. The plot is a done deal. Now all I have to do is figure out how to fit in all the insane details I’ve come up with. It’s more like composing a surrealistic mural rather than storytelling at this point. Yeah, it’s crazy, but it’s actually how I've always done things.

I don’t usually stop, look at, and think about what the hell I’m doing, but that’s what the class is all about. Funny how it goes from violent bursts of outrage in my brain to a kind of delicate surgery . . .

And of course, I’m being distracted by the ongoing Trumpocalypse. Trying not to obsess over all the bad news, but ignoring it would be like not paying attention to the nearby volcano that’s spewing smoke and spurting out fountains of lava. Maybe the eruption won’t be so bad, but then I want to know if a pyroclastic flow is heading my way.

It doesn’t help that the president is disconnected from reality:

Greetings, America, this is the Alternate Reality News Network.

Turns out El Chapo isn’t such a bad hombre after all, besides his business savvy will be good for the economy. And does have money. 

We need immigrants like him and his family.

And we need to welcome and help all those Afrikaners threatened by that white genocide. Who says we’re not good humanitarians?

Dr. Strangelove III has been put in charge of the Golden Dome project that will keep us all busy building lots of satellites that will shoot down missiles in mid-air—fallout, anyone? And the doctor says he’ll be ready to come up with new defenses against any countermeasures all the other nuclear powers develop. A new arms race will be fun.

Ack!

And there’s a lot more happening as I type. 

Meanwhile, in the real world, a new species of bacteria has been found on the Chinese Taingong space station, and the prevalence of feeders has caused a species, Anna’s hummingbird, to undergo mutations, and expand beyond their native California. New life, new civilizations. The evolution will not be televised.

What kind of future are you making?

Ernest Hogan is getting creative as the going gets tough.

Chicanonautica: Education, La Raza, and Me

by Ernest Hogan

I’m getting ready to teach my Papí Sci-Fi’s Ancient Chicano Sci-Fi Wisdom online at Palabra del Pueblo Writing Workshop. Guao, it still sounds weird. Me, a teacher. How the hell did that happen? 

My usual joke is to say that me and school never got along so good. Back in the Sixties the education system didn’t know what to do with a dyslexic Chicano with a dangerously over-active imagination. I just wasn’t good at the trained monkey act that gets mistaken for intelligence, and I couldn't seem to do anything right but daydream .  .  .

I’m not complaining. It’s been a wild ride, and where I ended up is pretty damn interesting. My out-of-control mutant monster imagination has been good for me, even if I had some serious struggles in my early years.

Somehow I keep ending up at odds with society and education—and by that I mean organized education. Y’know, like organized religion. I’m all for education, it's just that I tend to clash with the social constructions that evolved around it.

It’s something I keep writing about.

At one time I was so frustrated I almost threw my high school diploma into the trash. The only time I was asked about it was when I applied for some classes at a community college. Now that I  talk—some would say “lecture”—at colleges nobody even mentions any degrees I might have.

And in the last couple of decades, academia charged in and saved my career.

So I’ve become a teacher of sorts, an undocumented one, of course.

I have no explanation for it. It’s like a fable of Ancient Chicano Sci-Fi Wisdom.

I’m a firm believer in self-education. I also believe that it never stops. Diplomas and graduations are social niceties, excuses for photo ops, parties, and glomming gifts. Have fun, get what you can, but the learning never stops—unless you’re a total loser.

I’ve long wanted to write a book called Steal This Education (referencing Abbie Hoffman), but the ways to acquire information—and knowledge—keeps changing. Any manual would be obsolete before it could be published, which is the point. You have to be constantly learning, or else you’ll be left behind.

It’s so pinche sci-fi. Gotta love it.

I can’t really tell anybody how to do it. I can babble about how I’ve done it. Maybe it will help.

So I try to make it fun.

Life is a series of learning experiences. Make it an adventure.

It’s the freaking story of my life. I’m always writing it. Sometimes I sell and publish it. It’s a bad habit I’ve got, and there seems to be no cure. I sure hope not.

Class dismissed. Now go out and get into some interesting trouble.

Meanwhile, I’m putting on my Papí Sci-Fi mask and costume, and going out to cause some interesting trouble.

Freeze frame. Mad scientist chortle. Fade out. 

Ernest Hogan shouldn’t be taken too seriously, after all he’s a cartoonist, sci-fi writer, and a Chicano.

Chicanonautica: Jamming at the Center for Science and the Imagination

 

by Ernest Hogan

The last time I did something with Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination was for Us in Flux, during the early part of COVID epidemic, the result was a story called “Tomorrow is Another Daze” that they published on their website. It was fun and they paid well.

So, when they asked if they asked if I wanted to participate in a workshop, that would result in another story, I said yes. The fact that they paid was a factor. When I get an email asking me to do something, I scan through looking for numbers and dollar signs.

Unlike Us in Flux which done through Zoom, Sound Systems, about the future of orchestras was live, so I did a park and ride to the ASU campus in Tempe. The local light rail is where you find black and brown Phoenix, talking, gawking, and noodling on their hand-held devices. Gliding through all the shiny, new apartment and office buildings felt futuristic.

Tempe had changed since I had last visited. The ASU campus has expanded; there is no clear division between the campus and the town. A border has been erased. New sci-fi-ish buildings tower over the old streets.

The older I get, the more the world seems sci-fi to me.

The Centerpoint building, where the CSI (what everybody calls the Center for Science and the Imagination) offices are, and retail/restaurant spaces are available, is impressive. The room where we spent most of the next day (and a half) was a great work space, and had a large window on one side, letting us see the sun, trees, grass, and people walking by on paved paths.

This really was a workshop, with an emphasis on work. We were assigned tables, each of which had a charging station at its center and a sign letting us know what our team was assigned to discuss and create a story about. Our subject was “Orchestra as Network.”

I was teamed with Paul D. Miller–better known as DJ Spooky–electronic/experimental/hip hop composer, multimedia artist, and writer; Garrett McQueen, a bassoonist, radio host, and activist who works to decolonize “classical” music; and Ashley Lauren Firth, violist, songwriter, educator, activist, and death doula. I was the only non-musician/non-composer, and person at the table not of the African diaspora.

And even though I was the only Chicano/Latinoid in the room, we were a diverse group. Jamaica, India, Nigeria, and the Asian diaspora were represented. Our four groups had a science fiction writer each, the others were either musicians, or otherwise involved with orchestras, and one worked in medicine.

Time was divided between discussions of the subject with the entire group, then breaking up into our smaller teams, to create our stories.

The discussions were wonderful. So many interesting people from different backgrounds. Ideas, information, and opinions flew. This is the sort of thing that should happen at science fiction conventions, but doesn’t anymore, in our age when the genre has become about worshiping corporate franchises.

Afrofuturism was not only discussed, but happened. Sun Ra, Octavia Butler, Samuel R. Delany were evoked. DJ Spooky and I both recommended George S. Schuyler’s Black Empire. The resulting book will not be about preserving sacred western traditions.

And it wasn’t all just work talk. We all took a walk through the streets of Tempe to experience Garth Paine’s 3D sound environments that even include audience participation through our phones. There were breaks, snacking, meals. Several participants expressed the desire for a direct brain-to-sound instrument–something that technology is coming close to creating. I got to meet Sheree Renee Thomas, editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and warn her that I’d be sending her stories soon. Some of the best talk came with people relaxed, a little drunk, revealing what it’s really like to work in an orchestra.

Also, the academic discipline helped keep us on track.

The non-writers will contribute short essays based on the experience. I’m excited about the story we developed. The Sound Systems book will be exciting.

This is a great way to do a themed anthology. I’d gladly work on similar projects in the future.

Hmm. Maybe a Chicanofuturist one . . .

Ernest Hogan is preparing to dispense Papí Sci-Fi’s Ancient Chicano Sci-Fi Wisdom and write his Sound Systems story.

Hey, Writers with Wild, Latinoid Imaginatons!

 

  by Ernest Hogan

Are you a writer in the Latinoid continuum with a wild imagination? Then you need to know that the deadline for signing up for Papí Sci-Fi's Ancient Chicano Sci-Fi Wisdom at the 2023 Palabras del Pueblo Writing Workshop is May 1st, and it's coming fast. 

 It's online, so you can experience it from the safety of your own home.

 Click here for more information, and to sign up.

Ernest Hogan is a very busy Father of Chicano Science Fiction this year.

Chicanonautica: A Sunday Live in Virtualandia

by Ernest Hogan

Sunday, October 18, in the wretched year 2020, I was on video, online, live twice. It was the latest manifestation of my writing career, that keeps coming to life and dragging me into new worlds. 

It's also a hint at what post-COVID-19 civilization will be like.

The first one was part of a Literary Arts Residency organized by the Shuffle Collective in the NoCal Bay Area focusing on "underrepresented writers," fifteen residents "reflecting the breadth of the discipline and all of whom are writers of color, women writers, or identify as LGBTQIA. Our goal with the program is to equip them with the creative and professional skills needed to move their careers to the next level."

They also had sessions with Ytasha Womack, David Bowles, and Kathleen Alcala.

It was on Zoom, that seems to be taking over the quarantined world.

So Tío Nesto, with over forty years experience in the writing life, offered his throbbing brain to be picked.

They were impressed when I rattled off some of my publishing credits, and kept calling me "prolific." Maybe they're right. Even when I think I'm slacking, I crank out new material, and some of it even gets published, but then I'm a writer--that's what I do.

I gave practical advice about writing on the run and on my phone, dealing with being interrupted, and establishing writer's office hours. They asked if I'd read some of my work, so I read the first chapter of my novel-in-progress Zyx, Or; Bring Me the Brain of Victor Theremin. I also discussed my novels, published, unpublished, and the ones I want to write before I die. Then snippets from my writing life.

I described writing as a bad habit, but in retrospect, with me it's more of a lifestyle, and lately it's been taking over.

They seemed to appreciate what I had to say.

While waiting for the Shuffle Collective event I watched the first half of Santo y Blue Demon en el Mundo de los Muertos, one of the more unusual lucha libre movies. The first third of it takes place in the 17th century. There are also scenes stolen from Mario Bava’s Hercules in the Haunted World. I watched the second half while eating lunch and waiting for my next event. It kept me in the mood.

This next one was different, a live Facebook reading to promote the Kickstarter campaign for Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology. Editors Matthew David Goodwin and Alex Hernandez hosted Stepanie Nina Pitsirilos, Scott Russell Duncan, and myself who read from our contributions, and the audience in Virtualandia invited to ask questions. The whole thing was immediately available on Facebook.

Someone mentioned that there were other Latinx writing events that weekend. Stephanie Nina Pitsirilos knew about one with a virtual reality room where the participants could “mingle.”

How different it is from the conventions I attended back in the Seventies, when “fandom” was mostly outsiders creating their own culture. Now comic-cons are part of a looming corporate takeover of imaginative fiction and media. Academia is involved. But still, these smaller gatherings are opening up new possibilities.

Academia, entertainment, and the corporate worlds are coming together. New cultures are being born in new venues that are part convention, part school, part cyberworkspace. 

The writer George Clayton Johnson (hearing him talk, and hanging out with him in the old days helped shape me as a writer) once said that conventions were his university. It was the same for me.

Welcome to the University of Virtualandia.

Ernest Hogan will be on the road in California when this goes up. Watch for the travelogues at Mondo Ernesto. 

Chicanonautica: The Pendejadas Never Die

By Ernest Hogan

I’m a cartoonist at heart, a dyslexic who started expressing himself visually before writing, or even reading, became comfortable. My approach is more that of a slapstick comedian than a poet. My speculative fictions tend to be satirical.

My Chicano experience makes racism a frequent target. I see it as fighting back. Racism should be dragged out into the blazing sun and deconstructed before a live audience in a ritual similar to both a vivisection and a bullfight.

I’ve thrashed out at these pendejadas over the years. Like a naive idealist, I thought that these protest works would become dated, and I would have to explain that racism and the grotesquerie it spawns actually existed.

But when I look back at my published work I'm horrified to find that racism does not get old, the pendejadas of the past are still with us, and my decades old writings still ring true.

Now that El Presidente is empowering the bigots, and the Supreme Court and Putin are backing him up . . .

I’m probably going to grit my teeth and write something else. I’m actually tired of writing about racism, but it keeps me out of jail.

Like I said, it’s fighting back.

As Ishmael Reed quoted Muhammad Ali: “Writin’ is fightin’.”

Meanwhile, I offer some links to some this fighting/writing. Maybe the uneasy laughter will do some good.

Gringos is a chapter from High Aztech that captures the essence of the novel and of the Latinoid condition on both sides of the Border, a never-ending nightmare from which we can’t escape because we don’t know if we’re awake or asleep. I wrote it back in the Nineteen-Nineties and reads like it was ripped from today’s headlines. The folks at Mithila Review: The Journal of International Science Fiction & Fantasy were kind enough to put it online.

Doctora Xilbalba’s Datura Enema appeared in, and was written for, Rudy Rucker’s Flurb, a Webzine of Astonishing Tales. He suggested I write about then Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s reign of terror. Opportunities like that don’t come often. See why El Presidente gives me déjà vu? I wonder what happened to Jan? She’s gone, but her pendejadas live on.

UNO! DOS! ONE-TWO! TRES! CUATRO! was written while El Presidente was running for the office. It was inspired by his campaign rhetoric. Like the old business saying goes, “Give the people what they want . . .” I tried to create a far-out dystopian vision. Lately, I think I may have been too conservative. The whole thing is in Five to the Future: All New Novelettes of Tomorrow. You can read an excerpt in Somos en Escrito: The Latino Literary Online Magazine.

The current situation hasn’t inspired a new story yet, but then this long, hot summer is just heating up. The night air already burns. The problem is, it’s getting hard to out-do pendejadas . . .

Ernest Hogan’s Smoking Mirror Blues is available in a new edition. He’s going to be the final judge of the First Annual Somos en Escrito Extra-Fiction Writing Contest 2018.

Building Bird Forgiveness, the Book

Melinda Palacio

Preview of my new poetry book, Bird Forgiveness

            Over the past four years, I've been working on two writing projects at the same time, a new novel, which remains in progress, and a new poetry book, Bird Forgiveness. Although I've been working on the novel longer than the poetry book, the poetry book won out and is in the final stages of editing and production. I wouldn't recommend working on two different books at the same time. I somehow always give into the myth of multitasking. Perhaps, multitasking is a genuine way to get more done at the same time. I don't really know anymore. Sometimes life forces you to get excited about more than one thing. The downside is rooms with piles of books and paper and other scraps of projects left undone because it's challenging to work on multiple items and get them all done to my satisfaction. Add to that a family tragedy like your grandmother dying a slow death to make all of your projects seem overwhelming.

            The moment when finishing what you've started seems overwhelming, Anne Lamott's 1995 book, Bird by Bird: Instructions on Writing and Life, still holds true. The big takeaway from Lamott's book is the scene when she describes her ten-year old brother having a meltdown because he had put off a report on birds that was due the next morning. He knew he didn't give himself enough time to finish the project and her father helped him out, sat down beside him and put his arm around her brother and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird'. I'm sure glad Anne Lamott shared that story with the world. The concept is about taking baby steps, breaking a big project down to smaller, more manageable chunks. Take the writing of a novel, for example, and look at it scene by scene, chapter by chapter, sentence by sentence, word by word. This is how a book comes to those traditional lovely last words, The End.

With my book, Bird Forgiveness, the idea of finishing the collection bird by bird doesn't apply only to the writing of the poetry collection, but to life in general. I wasn't concerned with taking on poems about the many different birds. This is a collection of poems that is as much about doing right by birds and the environment as it is about people and human relations, as the title poem suggests. And what has made all the difference is having an editor and publisher, Andrea Watson from 3: a Taos Press, champion this book without putting pressure on me to have a certain amount of poems finished by a particular deadline.

Being passionate about multiple types of writing and projects is a good thing. Once a book is finished, you simply can't shelve it and move onto the next project without giving the book another thought. There is still marketing, readings, and workshops to offer in connection with the last book, all the while working on the next book, as well as new poems and stories. However, I can shuffle my tortillas and get my novel to a stage where I am proudly displaying a cover and endorsements. For now, I'd like to share some of the words from three poets who were kind enough to send in their reviews for the book while the manuscript was still in progress and on its way to becoming the forthcoming book, Bird Forgiveness from 3: a Taos Press, coming soon to an independent bookstore near you (alert your favorite bookstores).  

****

Endorsements for Bird Forgiveness:

As a lover of birds, I am a lover of Bird Forgiveness.  As a lover of poetry, I love these poems because though beaked and winged, in pain and in joy, they also take flight out of their occasion. With a focus on birds, the world is renewed, and the poet reminds us it is we who need forgiving. Melinda Palacio's birds touch us everywhere they fly: from the drowning of a homeless woman in Audubon Park to the oil spill damage to a duck. Like the birds she loves and mourns, Melinda Palacio migrates her songs between two coasts, Gulf and West, Latino and Anglo—and she asks for the poetic freedom birds have. Sometimes the poems appear as near sonnets, sometimes in utterly free shapes, but always this is a book of fierce mourning for the birds that fall at our feet and for a grandmother who dies under her watchful care while caged birds quarrel. In the end Melinda Palacio sets all her birds free, and we remember what birds and poets have most in common—their wild song.  

—Rodger Kamenetz, To Die Next To You

How wonderful to think that Melinda Palacio is writing poems so delightfully human, so unexpected in their movements  from wit to profundity, so uncompromisingly honest. Who else would recognize a bluebird as Elvis? Who else ask birds for forgiveness? Her finest book yet, Bird Forgiveness is a work of great modesty, invention, and abiding respect for all the living world.

—Rodney Jones, Village Prodigies

Bird Forgiveness is a deeply nourishing and exquisite book about living. Melinda Palacio

masterfully explores confinement, liberation, freedom, and flight. Abundant joy and wonder run through the poems—from the harpy eagle, to a bluebird named Elvis, to instructions on how to wash a duck—and they examine human behavior and relationships with wisdom and grace. This is a delightful, unforgettable book from a marvelous talent at the top her game.

—Lee Herrick, Scar and Flower

*****

Where I'll be tomorrow: Beyond Baroque, February 24 for the Nasty Women Poets anthology reading at 4pm. If you're in Venice, say hello. Peter J. Harris follows at 8pm.