Chicanonautica: Springtime with Xipe Totec, Xochiquetzal, and Xochipilli

by Ernest Hogan

It looks like we're into another early Summer here in Arizona, but Spring hangs on, keeps clawing back. Clouds blow in. Temperatures fall (but not too much). Palo Verde trees and sage bushes explode with yellow and purple blooms, painting the urban sprawl like a psychedelic poster. Not to mention those cactus flowers.

All while the other parts of the country brace for a major snowstorm . . .

In Arizona, it seems we can’t keep a good season of rebirth and resurrection down. You’d think someone made a sacrifice to Xipe Totec, the Corn God, who demands the sacrifice of human skin the way the leaves need to be husked off ears of corn. The Mexica believed that all flesh was the same, as are we all, plant, animal, human just variations on DNA. Life is all there is to eat. Vegetarians and cannibals are siblings under the detachable skin.

Xipe does tend to stand in for Jesus in this culture.

I had a dream in which I stepped on a flower and it rose up like a snake to attack me. Forgive me, Xochiquetzal, Goddess of the Flowering Earth and Creativity. We need you in these times. Thank you for all the flowers. I’ll watch my step in the future.

We should pay our respects to her brother Xochipilli, God of all kinds of Sex, Drugs, Rocking, and Rolling. Yup, it looks like the Mexica invented hippies. Jipis. “By the time we got to Tenochtitlán . . .”

It does seem to be him the Norteamericanos are evoking when they celebrate Cinco de Mayo. The Battle of Puebla is ignored, or not mentioned, swept under the carpet of modern life. What a lot of governments would like to do as they rekindle their taste for human sacrifice at taxpayer expense. 

Reminds me of a ritual I once witnessed in Mexico City–there was a man in full Aztec priest regalia and a drugged rattlesnake . . .

If it only I could find a bottle of Escorpion Negro . . .

Ernest Hogan, Father of Chicano Science Fiction, uses the word Mexica out of respect, but delights in the fear Aztec strikes in the hearts of certain kinds of people. He is also teaching his “Gonzo Science Fiction, Chicano Style” course as part of the Palabras del Pueblo writing workshop again online, the weekends of June 6-7 and 13-14. Only $100. Sponsorships available. Deadline is May 20. Sign up now!

Latinopia, Culture As Resistance

Selections from Latinopia: Knowledge Equals Resistance 

Michael Sedano

With the United States of America on a declivitous path to complete failure as a nation, reasonable people seek ways to protect our shared culture, reinforce authentic values, and learn from history, as a way to Resist! the depredations wrought by the deplorables, the GOPees and MAGATs among us.

Learning history, examining issues closely and truthfully, celebrating arte and cultura, are among the modes of resistance that not only comfort people in stressful times, but also build foundations to counter today's emotional barrage from masked goons, alcohol swilling, puppy-killing, well-coiffed liars--the GOP ilk now shredding the US Constitution.

Not long back, Facebook banned mention and links to Latinopia on grounds that Latinopia is "subversive." That's exactly what Klan and MAGATs (but I repeat myself) believe.

Latinopia.com stands for reason, truth, love, and genuine Unitedstatesian values as expressed by diverse raza identities: Latino, Boricua, Chicano, y más. 

The website is a labor of love shared with no charge nor subscription movida from author, filmmaker, director, Jesus Treviño. Latinopia.com has served public interest for years. The website's accumulated a vast treasure that students, teachers, researchers, families, you, can spend hours enjoying and learning. If you haven't been following the weekly update, you've lots of catching up!

Treviño has collected insights from important luminaries--many well-known names--in the pantheon of raza writers, artists, scholars, critics. La Bloga-Tuesday is honored to share a few gems from Latinopia's powerfully useful menu of interviews, performances, readings, essays and videos. 

Today's La Bloga-Tuesday anthology of Latinopia gems illustrates the range and depth of Latinopia's coverage of nuestra cultura. We provide one video sample, and links to view the content on Latinopia itself. Please click, enjoy, share. 

La Bloga values reader comments. When you've reached the foot of the page, you'll find the comment feature. Be sure to click on the Notify Me box to engage in subsequent comments.

(Full disclosure: Michael Sedano enjoys close association with Treviño and Latinopia as a contributor and roadtripper to interview Rudy Anaya, documenting los Librotraficantes, and hosting Living Room Floricantos documented by Treviño for the site.)

Video: Interviews, Readings, History, Performances

José Montoya "El Louie"

https://vimeo.com/20187019 

Anaya on poetry:
http://latinopia.com/latino-literature/latinopia-word-rudolfo-anaya-on-poetry/

Anaya on Soul:
http://latinopia.com/latino-literature/latinopia-word-rudy-anaya-on-soul/

Thelma Reyna on healing and COVID
http://latinopia.com/latino-literature/latinopia-word-thelma-reyna-on-doctor-poets-other-healers/

Flaco Jimenez on his career:
http://latinopia.com/latino-music/latinopia-music-flaco-jimenez-my-start/

Flaco and Max Baca performing:
http://latinopia.com/latino-music/latinopia-music-flaco-jimenez-stylings/

Gallery of Latinopia on Comida:
http://latinopia.com/category/latino-food/

Narrative, Interviews, Reviews, Criticism

Rudolfo Anaya in his own words:
http://latinopia.com/latino-literature/rodolfo-anaya/

Bobbi Murray on the people v. ICE
http://latinopia.com/latino-literature/latinopia-guest-blog/bobbi-murray-report-from-the-trenches-8-08-25-more-legal-victories/

Ricardo Romo on Margaret Garcia, artist
http://latinopia.com/blogs/ricardo-romos-tejano-report-8-01-25-margaret-garcia-portrait-artist-and-muralist/

José M. Umpierre on Boricua independence:
http://latinopia.com/blogs/burundanga-boricua-8-01-25-day-of-the-invasion-and-of-the-constitution/

Luis Torres on Shithead's pendejadas:
http://latinopia.com/blogs/tales-of-torres-4-10-25-trumps-pernicious-pendejadas/

Gilberto Quezada on baseball cards and belonging:
http://latinopia.com/latino-literature/latinopia-guest-blog-gilberto-quezada-7-17-25-baseball-cards-more-than-collectibles/

Michael Sedano on Return to Arroyo Grande:

http://latinopia.com/latino-literature/latinopia-book-review-return-to-arroyo-grande/

Chicanonautica: Laboratorio Setenta y Cinco Efe Eme, Tijuana

by Ernest Hogan

 

¡Anímate! It’s not all pre-apocalyptic dystopia. Really. And I’m not just giddy from having a new book out. For the first time in decades, I have a favorite radio station. It’s like when I was teenager in SoCal, cruising the FM dial (AM had gone solid bubble gum and my tastes had gotten edgy) in search of something that would not only provide a suitable soundtrack for my life, but expand my horizons.

Ah! Those were some days . . . “But,” to quote Frank Zappa, “ I digress.”

These peculiar days, I do such searching through radio.garden. Radio stations from all over the planet online. Kinda utopian if you ask me.

A few months back I discovered Laboratorio 75FM, Tijuana, Mexico, and my world exploded in a good way. It was like discovering an interdimensional portal, worlds I never imagined were revealed to me. It blew my mind, as we said back in the day . . .

Seems that while I was struggling to make a living, and keep my writing career going, cultural revolutions were going on . .  . not just in what I like to call the Latinoid Continuum, but in the peculiar overlapping sections of the planet that were affected by the Spanish Empire, but also other cultures, because people tend to move around and ignore borders. Music and countercultures (note the plural) that are not owned by corporations have been developing all over. As Ishmael Reed said about the black experience, “It’s not a ghetto, it’s a galaxy.”

Some of it’s on the Norteamericano side of the Rio Grande/Bravo, Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside, Chicago, others all over Mexico, with a lively Mexico City scene. Then there’s Central and South America, with some connections to Europe and Asia. A vast, multi/recombocultural/rasquache, nonAnglo-centric, Global Barrio.

And it’s not the stuff that the music industry is pushing through Latin Grammys. There’s a definite postpunk sensibility, though they did play something by the Dead Kennedys, and it crosses and mixes genres. Oaxaca has an underground electronic Goth scene. Mexican punk has a horn section, and shows its mariachi roots. Argentina has an angry metal sound. Yucatan-A-Go-Go is outrageous, rambunctious, humorous rock and roll. There’s also what sounds like mutant cool jazz, folkloroid tunes (sometimes with indigenous lyrics), apocalyptic and dystopian visions, and now and then, lyrics in English.

And just because the words, and even the band name, are English or Spanish, you can’t be too sure where it's coming from. This is radio, hooked up to the internet, and satellites. Quaint old concepts like national borders are fading away here.

The serious, anonymous female disc jockey (how different from the sonic sexy symbols of ancient rock radio) provides background on the bands, where they’re from and the genres and subgenres in español. Now and then she gets excited and rrrrocks las palabras.

There’s also a website that lets you know not only what’s playing, but what they’ve been playing for the last five days. You can click and get videos and links to find videos, streaming, band websites, and other sources. 

Though sometimes there is no link. A lot of this stuff comes from far flung hometown outfits like Tijuana’s own El Topo Records. I like that. The street finding its own way to create culture.

And all this is just the tip of this rocking iceberg. New worlds to explore. One more step toward the Intergalactic Barrio, triggering a utopian vision of Swinging Tijuana becoming the cultural capital of the planet.

Ernest Hogan's latest book, Guerrilla Mural of a Siren's Song: 15 Gonzo Science Fiction Stories, has been longlisted for the British Science Fiction Association award for Best Collection. He will be teaching "Gonzo Science Fiction, Chicano Stye" at the Spring 2024 Palabras del Pueblo workshop.

Chicanonautica: Our Myths Recovered

by Ernest Hogan

I meant to read David Bowles' Feathered Serpent/Dark Heart of Sky: Myths of Mexico much sooner, but I'm a writer, so I live under a mound of books that grows larger all the time. Also, the last few years have been hectic—do I really have to catalog the
Trumptopian madness?

It hasn't calmed down. In fact the last few weeks have gotten crazier. All the more reason to dig this book out one of my many, teetering to-be-read stacks. I was glad I did.

I became a mythology fan in grade school, back in the Sixties. The peplum, or sword and sandal genre caught my childish attention. Movies like Hercules in the Haunted World and Jason and the Argonauts left their mark on my sensibilities. And then I would find books.

But then these were usually Greco-Roman, occasionally Norse. Sometimes they were from Egypt, "Arabia," Asia . . . distant lands.

By the time I was in middle school, I found out about the Aztecs and Maya, in the public library; also my dad had books on archaeology. My mind was blown. There was something different about these stories. And the people looked like me.

Hell, the were my ancestors! This mythology was mine.

I wondered why there weren't any movies about them. I had a lot to learn.

This began my life-long obsession with preColumbian cultures. It shaped my world, and made me a Chicano in mind and spirit as well as genetics.

It wasn't easy.

I had to hunt down books in libraries and used book stores. And they were never easy-to-read editions.

These were often adult, scholarly works full of dull academic prose. But the subject matter compelled me. A lost world, shattered by colonialism. Someone had to to gather the fragments, reassemble them, bring them back to life.

I had often watched my dad get interested in something, go to the library, check out a stack of books, and in a few weeks become an expert.

I became a teenage researcher, a scholar. Also an writer and artist.

Today's kids don't realize how easy they have it. They just have to read Feathered Serpent/Dark Heart of the Sky and they have an excellent introduction to preColumbian cultures and mythology, and an entertaining read at the same time.

 

It goes from the creation myths, the hero twins of the Popol Vuh, to the Toltecs and Maya, the Aztecs (others are mentioned, ancient Mexico was multicultural), and the grand tragedy of the Conquest. The stories are separate, but they are presented as a mosaic and bring a shattered world back together again. A miracle or sorts.

I'm sure it will inspire young Chicanos/Latinos/Lantinxs/Latinoids, make them sure of their identity, and send them off to study their mythology.

The book is a remarkable accomplishment. David Bowles should be considered a true Chicano hero. He makes me feel like a slacker.

Ernest Hogan wrote this review at home, while the library where he works was closed due to the Coronavirus.

Another La Bloga anniversary

Beginning our 12th year

Today marks La Bloga’s 11th anniversary. No presents, please, other than your continued literary contributions and feedback.

11 candles might be lit for the current, regular contributors of La Bloga. But don’t blow them all out at once. Instead, read a passage, article, story, poem or novel that each of them wrote. [Sorry for not featuring something on every bloguista.]

La Bloga's Em

There won’t be a party, since the contributors are scattered across Aztlán, something they describe in their cultural works. Old or younger, each contributor might at least be toasted with un Salud!

The faces of the contributors are featured on the masthead above, though they’re not named, nor linked to their websites. [fotos appear in the order each person joined up] But you can dig a little, into the right sidebar where all should be available.

El Ramos

Through 11 years, La Bloga has had its highs, lows, panic-attacks and recognition, mini-charlas and a couple of break-ups. But it’s always been bigger than any one of us, encompassing much of the length and breadth of Chicano/Latino lit and culture.

With an albeit misnamed thanksgiving day just passing, I’m grateful to have had the chance to play a small role in the Chicano literary website that became a Latino cultural website.

A fat candle should be lit for Michael Sedano, a.k.a. Em, who's operated as surgeon when necessary to keep the website alive. Just don't blow his candle out yet.

bloguista Olivas

And two brown candles should be lit for Manuel Ramos and Daniel Olives who literarily sustained La Bloga in its infancy, and continue to propel its growth.

At the same time, meeting some of its obligation to decolonize machismo, La Bloga now boasts roughly a 50% participation de embras literarias.

bloguista Melinda Palacio

Given recent events like the neo-fascist rise of Trumpisms, the #RedNBlackNBrownLivesMatter, the U.S.-created Syrian refugee crisis and yesterday’s shooting at a Colorado Planned Parenthood Center, La Bloga’s political orientation and articles find more reasons to raise its voice and provide analyses.

bloguista Lydia Gil

While publicizing and encouraging readers to seek out our cultural works, La Bloga has remained non-commercial, no ads marring our side-bars. We’ve all been involved for reasons sometimes romantic or dutiful.

So, before the commercial season takes hold, post something here or send a La Bloga contributor a message of your choice.

bloguista Amelia Montes

Should you forget to, no deben tener miedo—next week more La Bloga articles will appear under your tree or on your feed.

Feliz El Año Doce que sigue, y esperamos, muchos más,

RudyG