My father’s Quiet De Luxe typewriter: Chicano stories that the world will never read

 

By Daniel A. Olivas

“Pop would have wanted you to have it,” said my older sister as she handed the case to me. “Because you’re the writer in the family,” she added, though this explanation was quite unnecessary.

The “it” is a Royal Quiet De Luxe that reportedly was Ernest Hemingway’s typewriter of choice. The Royal Typewriter Company manufactured its popular portable model from 1939 until 1959, the year of my birth. My late father, Michael Augustine Olivas, purchased it sometime after he had returned to the United States in 1952 after serving two years as a Marine during the Korean War. I surmise that this 17-pound typewriter was a prized possession for this son of Mexican immigrants who worked in a factory and had dreams of becoming a published writer.

Sadly, those dreams would remain unfulfilled to the end of his life in 2020.

As with many immigrant families during the 1950s in my old neighborhood a few miles west of downtown Los Angeles, my parents were able to start a family, purchase a small house, and buy a car on the sole salary of my father’s factory job while my mother focused on the hard work of primary caregiver to their children, who would eventually number five over the course of a decade.

My father worked the nightshift at an electric turbine manufacturing company. He told me that when I was a baby—their third child—he would set his typewriter near my crib and work on a novel, short stories, and poetry. Pop joked that all that typing near my young self must have destined me to the writing life.

I imagine him now, a handsome young man in his late 20s—younger than my own son—clacking away on that Royal Quiet De Luxe with dreams of becoming a published writer like the authors he loved: Fitzgerald, Cather, Maugham, and of course, Hemingway.

Pop’s old portable typewriter is a beast of a machine in all its mid-century glory. The light-brown metal casing complements the green keys and space bar. The ivory-colored letters, numbers, and symbols still stand out brightly against the green beds of the keys, which dip slightly at their centers to allow fingertips to nestle in comfortably. And the smell—oh, that smell!—when I open the case: The pungent tang of typewriter ink emanating from the ribbon ignites a flood of childhood memories. I love that metallic, inky scent. It reminds me of my father.

What happened to Pop’s typed pages? That was a mystery to me until about 15 years ago. I had a book reading at Tía Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore for a short story collection, and my father attended. When it came time for audience questions, Pop stood, arms behind his back, and introduced himself as my father. Everyone nodded, smiled, appreciated that this man offered his son the support of his presence. Then he said softly, “I used to write, too.”

The audience again nodded, smiled, and perhaps became a bit puzzled about where this was going. I grew nervous, not certain what Pop was planning to say next. He continued: “But it was trite.” I took a breath. And he added: “Nothing important. Nothing like what you write.”

 “I wish I could read your stories,” I said, not knowing what else to offer.

He waved his right hand slowly to brush away my desires. “I burned them all,” he said, punctuating the end of his story with a smile that was far from bitter or morose, just accepting. He then sat, and the room fell into a thoughtful silence. I could not bring myself to ask why he took such final action in destroying his creative writing.

But a few years later, when my parents were visiting me and looking at my various books and literary journals in our family study, I asked Pop why he had destroyed his pages. As my mother looked on with trepidation, my father explained that his writing had been rejected repeatedly by publishers, and he decided that he needed to move on with his life. That meant he focused on getting his college degree and master’s and eventually getting a job where he wore a suit to work.

I so dearly wish Pop had saved his writing. I think about what he wanted to express through fiction and poetry. The question of what he wrote about was clearly a painful subject for Pop. I tried a few times to find out what stories and sentiments he tried to tell through the written word, but he never offered more than a wince and vague responses.

I do know this: My father was a proud Chicano who loved his culture and people. My suspicion is that the publishing industry in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s was many times less hospitable to Chicano literature than it is today—even with the structural racism that BIPOC and other underrepresented writers still face and battle.

And that is a heartbreaking conclusion. A conclusion that means my father’s voice will remain in my memory and not in the printed word. A voice that—I believe—would have enriched not only his family but also the world at large.

[This essay first appeared in The Writer Magazine.]

Fathers Day Floricanto

Review: Reyes Cárdenas. Chicano Poet 1970-2010. San Antonio TX: Aztlan Libre Press, 2013.
ISBN-10: 0984441557 ISBN-13: 978-0984441556.

Michael Sedano


I love it when an expectation gets trashed in light of actuality. It’s especially thrilling when it comes in form of a richly diverse collection of poems assembled under the term “Chicano poet” in publisher Aztlán Libre’s 2013 Reyes Cárdenas. Chicano Poet 1970-2010.

Among the foundation characteristics readers expect in Chicana Chicano poetry include identity and liberation themes like the urban landscape as lost and ruined homeland; Aztlán as Chicana Chicano Eden and separate genesis; carnalismo, Chicanidad; poetry peopled by Chicana and Chicano icons like pachucos, farmworkers, tireless mothers; the anglo as devil. Expressive modes such as code-switching and Spanish language content adding dimensions of potency absent from other United States poetry, marks the literature’s enduring gems.

Poetry that emerges from the movimiento of the sixties and seventies makes up a diamond mine of gems that deserve a reading in 2013. For instance, the urban landscapes of rrsalinas, Alurista’s amerindian works, Jose Montóya’s farmworkers and El Louie, Ricardo Sanchez’ master of the blue-eyed hatred, the warm carnalismo of Tino Villanueva’s Aquellos Vatos, the subdued rage of Abelardo’s “Stupid America.”

Reyes Cárdenas doesn’t appear in that list, culled from a collection of anthologies published since 1968. But he should. Cárdenas is doing Chicano poetry like you’ve rarely seen in print. With Aztlán Libre’s help, readers everywhere now have access to work Cárdenas has written since 1970.

Readers will be encouraged to consume the entire volume in a single sitting, the work is striking and so diverse that each set of readings presents yet another new way to understand “chicano poetry”. Readers coming to the anthology expecting the canon will find it, but much more.

Cárdenas likes to perplex readers with language tricks and entire book titles, like “The Collected Poems of Artemio Sanchez.” He writes about a guy named robinson, who’s the poet’s alter ego. The Chicano Poet’s hommage to e.e. cummings, like the Villanueva allusions, makes a masterful presentation of art written by a Chicano but not what you expect, ¿sabes?

Cárdenas’ unique approach to movimiento attitudes shines in “Manifesto.” This selection from the 1970 collection, Chicano Territory, mixes conventional images with unconventional technique like calling attention to the poem as a line of words, to have some fun with the politics of identity.

Manifesto

Sure, now it doesn’t matter.
Outside there’s a Chicano
flying upside down.
Across the street
someone calls this a barrio,
and then goes into the next line.
Try to catch a gringa by the tail
you can’t.
Her pink buttocks on Padre Island.
Gringos adore square poetry.
They’re in Mexico chasing Villa,
leave them there.
Here in the Juan Seguín Manifesto
a pachuco scurries.
Stop that punk he’s crazy.
The democrats love the Buddha.
An Italian painting falls off the wall,
That’s what I was going to tell you.


Here is Cárdenas tribute to Aquellos Vatos, Starting Over. Cárdenas adopts the same reminiscing voice and updates characters with wry “whatever happened to?” allusions. For example, Villanueva’s rata was growing a mustache at ten, El Caballo de Littlefield was one of the guys who was just around. I see he still is.

Starting Over

Artemio Sánchez returns to his hometown
Thirty years after having moved to Minnesota.
Hell, his frozen neighbor is the Hispanic
Poet Ray González.

Lupita left La Rata and moved to Houston,
Meme married a divorcess from Nuquis,
El Caballo still works at the chicken plant.

They say El Beatle moved somewhere up north
and became a writer
but no one knows for sure.

Speedy never made it back from Viet Nam,
La Reina del Diez y Seis at Hidalgo Hall
died of cancer last year—

so many putos had the hots for her back then.
But when you visit the old hometown now
only strange Mexicans stare at you from Seguin.

It’s no longer nomás Yogi Berra’s déjà vu.
You’ve become a stranger
in your own land once again!


Chicano Poetry offers the insights of Chicanismo to readers, but it doesn’t have to. Chicano poetry can go anywhere it wants. That might be the subtitle of Cárdenas’ tribute to one of the greatest poets of United States literature. Chicano Poetry belongs with the rest of “American Literature.”

The Sweaty Gary Cooper Couplets

I’ve heard the rumors that e.e. cummings
is on the way back.

You’ve probably heard those rumors, too.
I’m not worried about myself,

but I’m concerned about you.
You’ve been stealing his stuff for years.

I know you once ran off
with Olaf glad and big.

I know you stole the bells
from his pretty how town.

I know you carried his heart
in your heart, and gave it to your girl.

You had the gall to tell her
it was your very own.

Oh, he’s on the way back, alright,
and soon it’s going to be high noon.


When I pick up a major opus anthology of a writer’s career, I read the first piece then read the final pages. Then, after this view of the alpha omega of the writer’s art, I thumb through the volume stopping in random spots to peruse a sequence out of the literary life. Now, equipped with this overall impression of the anthologized work, I look at the table of contents, note, but rarely read the prefatory pages, saving these for after I’ve drawn my own response to the work.

I find the diversity of style, content, language, personae, art, point of view, encouraging and challenging at the same time. There is so much here to challenge poetry readers that I’ll allow Reyes Cárdenas the last word, the final poem in the collection, from the publication From Aztlan on the Moons of Mars:

Brave new chante

The crippled ship
arrived at Mars

todo catiado,
the worst for wear,

as if Michael Jackson
had Beat It.

The twelve volunteers
beamed down

in groups of two.
The transporter

estaba fregado, broken.
The ticker tape tardeada

took place in the lab,
no towering skyscrapers,

just hopes
and dreams for the future.

Over the next
year or two,

news trickled in slowly
as the last

of the Google Robotic Reporters
either were destroyed

by the Martian
or succumbed

to mechanical problems.
The Mexicans

were again
Strangers in a strange land,

alone in the universe…
For now.


You can order your copies--one for a friend--of Reyes Cárdenas. Chicano Poet 1970-2010 through local booksellers and the publisher. Request your local library add the title to the shelves.


Facebook friends
Words of the Poets Are Sung in Subway Stations

La Bloga friend Jessica Ceballos shares news of the upcoming Poesia Para la Gente event, in Los Angeles, Sunday June 30.

Ceballos and colleagues invite all to join la gente riding the rails with poesía, at high noon, on the Red Line platform. Be sure to buy your TAP card. Deputies capriciously check, so a couple bucks saves a hassle and a fine.

Get details on poetry underground's underground and surface rail plans, and updates. via Facebook.https://www.facebook.com/events/154857521368576/

Dear Dad: On-line Floricanto For Your Day
Gaby Sweningsen, Elena Díaz Bjorkquist, "Driving Silently With My Dad" by Andrea Hernandez Holm, Jenny Fiero, John Martinez

"I love you Dad" by Gaby Sweningsen
"Cuídate" by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist
"Driving Silently With My Dad" by Andrea Hernandez Holm
"Home Hospice: Still Life" by Jenny Fiero
"Eulogy for Uncle Mike Garcia" by John Martinez


I love you Dad
Gaby Sweningsen

I remember being afraid of you,
I remember being angry at you
I remember your words, your smell
and I hated you.
I remember them saying to me "you are just like your father"
"you are just like your father"
I didn't look like Abuelita, or Mommy
I was like you they said,
and I hated you.
Then one day I tought, if i am like you and they hate you, do they hate me too?
and I hated you, a hate that I hated, but it was there.
As time passed, I saw you getting weaker, getting humbler,
you needed me,
you were sick,
and I hated you for that too.
Then I learned about you, not of that man that was always drinking and screaming,
but of the little boy, the little boy that didn't have parents to guide him,
a mother to love him,
a mother to kiss him,
a father to teach him
and I understood
how could you give me something you didn't know how to give?
And that Love that never went away, started showing for you
and I love you Daddy,
I love you for being my father,
I love you for not giving up on my love
I love you for loving your grandkids
I love your for having the strenght to be sober, and even if you relapse
I will still love you
my heart is clean.
And now when they say, "you are like your father"
I say, "yes, he is my father after all."
I know they love me, even when I look like you,
and even when I love you,
and hate won't taint my heart again.

My name is Gabriela Cortez-Sweningsen.

Born in Mexico, I am a mother of five beautiful angels, and the wife of a wonderful man.

I am a daughter, a sister, an auntie, a friend, but most of all, I am a woman, who strives everyday to live a happy life, free of hatred and bad feelings towards others, and try my best to cheer others up in the process.




Cuídate
by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist ©2012

Cuídate, my dad says to me
As I kiss him goodbye.
Take care of yourself
Go see a doctor.

How does he know?
I haven’t told him
About the cancer,
Surgery and radiation.

Cuídate, he repeats
The cautionary word
He always uses now
Instead of goodbye.

But this time it’s
More emphatic
As if he knows
What I’m not telling.

Cuídate, he says again.
I am, Daddy, I say.
Is that fear I see
In his eyes?

Is he afraid
He might lose me,
His only advocate
In maneuvering the system?

Or is he afraid
For me, for my health?
Does he know
Something I don’t?

I kiss his cheek again,
Feel the stubble on my lips,
Think about when I
Was a young girl

When he was strong
And healthy
Not lying in a bed
After four heart attacks

I am taking care
Of myself, I say aloud
And of you, I whisper.

I dedicate this poem to my father, Valentine S. Herrera, who passed away on December 2nd, 2009. Happy Father’s Day, Daddy!

I’m a writer, historian, and artist from Tucson, Arizona. I write about Morenci where I was born. I’m the author of two books, Suffer Smoke and Water from the Moon and co-editor of Sowing the Seeds, una cosecha de recuerdos and Our Spirit, Our Reality; our life experiences in stories and poems, anthologies written by my writers collective Sowing the Seeds.

As an Arizona Humanities Council (AHC) Scholar, I’ve performed as Teresa Urrea in a Chautauqua living history presentation and done presentations about Morenci for twelve years. In 2012 I received the Arizona Commission on the Arts Bill Desmond Writing Award for excelling nonfiction writing and the Arizona Humanities Council Dan Schilling Public Humanities Scholar Award in recognition of my work to enhance public awareness and understanding of the role that the humanities play in transforming lives and strengthening communities. I was nominated for Tucson Poet Laureate in 2012 and am one of the moderators of the Facebook page Poets Responding to SB 1070.

My website is at http://elenadiazbjorkquist.com/




Driving Silently With My Dad
by Andrea Hernandez Holm

We are returning
to a place of peace and pride
to a place of belonging
to the earth
to the world
to ourselves.
We are coming home.

Andrea Hernandez Holm was born and raised in the desert of Central Arizona, where her families arrived after a journey that began with her ancestors in the highlands of Chihuahua, Mexico.

Andrea is a poet, a student, and a teacher. Her writings and research focus on issues of identity, memory, and writing. Her works have appeared in The Journal of MALCS; Our Spirits, Our Realities; Red Ink; Tribal Fires; La Sagrada; the Blue Guitar; and on La Bloga.

Andrea is a member of the moderating panel of Poets Responding to SB 1070 and the writing collective, Sowing the Seeds of Tucson.




Home Hospice: Still Life
by Jenny Fiero

Grey
paper-thin man wearing
blue striped pajamas
wheezing
White
bony-handed fingers hold
on to my elbow
No words necessary
only presence
Blue
comforter on bed
white lace border
so fragile
A circle
of daughters
a moment of connection
respect
A squirming
grandson wants to
play with the cat
Mr. Milly,
golden tail waving
exits the room
Dad’s breathing,
raspy air



Jenny Fiero is a poet and watercolor artist. She works in the schools as an Occupational Therapist using expressive art therapy with children. She also teaches Tai Chi.

Jenny has been married to her friend Brad for 26 years. She has two grown children who are in college.

Jenny’s grandfather immigrated from Austria with his family in 1902 when he was two years old.




Eulogy for Uncle Mike Garcia
by John Martinez

(Read at my Uncle Mike's Wake in 2001)

The sun beats, almost infinitely
In a cloudless
Light blue sky,
Over an acre or so
Of cornfield it seems
The gold fish in the trough
Full of green mossy water
Behind the barn,
Is watching it all;
Me and Cecil sharing a bow
And two arrows,
The brown chickens picking
At everything small
And my uncle Mike,
Moving like a balanced Yogi
With a bucket of slop,
Towards the pig pen at the far
End of his four acre spread
Today, Mike Jr., will teach us something
About his father, but I can only imitate,
Like a towel tied around my neck,
I would be Superman
Before I could be like him.
At first, I thought it was the smooth
Blue veins swelling from
His hands and forearms,
That one day I might earn
And then have his power.
Then, I thought, it was God indenting
His forehead when he prayed,
As he often did.
If I tighten my eyes,
I might see what he sees.
Then, calendars were made of paper
And hung crooked
On kitchen walls
And even though our bones
Were as soft as the milk
That made them,
Our minds, in cartoon narritives,
The index finger of our parents,
Certain things were known
To us all;
Uncle Mike had land
And there wasn’t a body
Stronger than his on that land
And when he stood,
Erect and proud in that door jam,
Facing Dudley Street,
Even the single horse,
Bow backed and chewing,
Was weaker that him.
Family came from Mexico to stay,
So he built a house
On the east side of his land,
Sheet rock, two by four, rebar and cement,
Nothing was too difficult
And so, on a warm Sunday
One of the girls, Tommy or Anita,
Would throw water
On the hard-pan earth,
The floor of their living space,
And sweep slow puffs of dust,
Making the floor
Hard and shiny,
And you’d find him right there
With my Aunt Lydia, in a wrestlers clench,
On a couch covered with blankets
In life, there are certain men
Who are examples of what it is to be a man
And while scholars scurry to define what
Is most significant
In the lives of these men,
The man whose life is an example
Simply lives
This was the case of Uncle Mike
Great men attach themselves to God
So Uncle Mike knocked a wall down
And built a Church, combed his hair
To a slick shine and moved people
To a somber union with God,
Great men take seed and earth
And then feed, so that others can live
And honor him, as this is his right.
Uncle Mike did this.
Great men raise livestock, no matter how many
And with a swift and loving stroke,
Provide the nutrients to yet more life,
Uncle Mike did this.
Great men love and so they are loved.
So when I pull down the sky
And the bunched up clouds that
Circled his ranch, like an umbrella,
A painting of my youth,
When I think of him outside
In front of a smoking pot
Of chicharron
And at a distance,
The offering,
Hanging upside down
In the barn
And my own father,
Lightly tapping his shoulder
In deep gratitude, while the children
Spread about the land like small streams,
When I think of seed pouring from his hand
And back into a sack before a harvest,
I realize how he lives in me,
In all of us, and how he changed me,
Even early in life.
And one day I will drive out,
Like I always wanted to do
And just sit down with him
On an upside down bucket
You know, just to talk to him,
Because he’s there, he will always
Be there, knowing for sure that
All of this was worth it.

Review: Solitude at the Los Angeles Theatre Center

Michael Sedano

Solitude.

Written By | Evelina Fernandez
Directed by |José Luis Valenzuela
Choreographed by | Urbanie Lucero
Original Music by | Semyon Kobialka
Produced by | Latino Theater Company

Starring
Robert Beltran (Star Trek, Voyager, Big Love), Evelina Fernandez (Luminarias, American Me), Fidel Gomez (Walk Out, Luminarias, 7th Heaven), Sal Lopez (Luminarias, American Me, Dementia), Geoffrey Rivas (Luminarias, CSI), Lucy Rodriguez (Dementia, ER), Semyon Kobialka on Cello


In Solitude, playwright Evelina Fernandez has crafted a complex delight that fills the stage with music, dance, and drama that invites the audience to feel and think beyond the limits of the play, a chicana’s version of the play’s the thing wherein to capture the conscience of the audience. Featuring excellent acting, effective staging, aural diversity, the performance leaves people thinking and talking about important questions. It’s the best kind of theatre, in other words.

I saw the initial preview performance Friday night. It had a few kinks, but that’s why professional companies like Latino Theater Company mount previews. I’m sure by the time Solitude opens on September 9, continuing through October 4, all the rough edges will be gone and audiences will thrill to Director Jose Luis Valenzuela’s masterful staging of a sure-to-be theatrical treasure.

Playwright Fernandez frames the drama with several quotations from Octavio Paz’ landmark work, Labyrinth of Solitude, none more arresting than this opening excerpt from Paz that foreshadows the action. Here’s the play in a nutshell:

Death and birth are solitary experiences. We are born alone and we die alone. When we are expelled from the maternal womb, we begin the painful struggle that finally ends in death. Does death mean a return to the life that precedes life? …. although we do not know, our whole being strives to escape the opposites that torment us. Everything -- self-awareness, time, reason, customs, habits -- tends to make us exiles from life, but at the same time everything impels us to return, to descend to the creative womb from which we were cast out. What we ask of love (which, being desire, is a hunger for communion, a will to fall and to die as well as to be reborn) is that it give us a bit of true life, of true death. We do not ask it for happiness or repose, but simply for an instant of that full life in which opposites vanish, in which life and death, time and eternity are united.

Mourners gather at the memorial service for Gabriel’s mother. Gabriel—Geoffrey Rivas-- left the block and his single-parent mother’s home more than twenty years ago. Gabriel went off to become his own opposite, to college, career, and is a rich man today. He’s back with his best friends for the first time since he went into exile. The friends still love him, though they acknowledge back on the block people consider Gabriel an asshole.

Johnny—Sal López-- and Ramona—played to a “T” by playwright Fernandez—never left the neighborhood and are poor as always. They attend the services to honor their life-long neighbor and for the opportunity to touch their long-absent friend, to catch up and pick up where they left off, share the love they never gave away.

Angel—Fidel Gomez--single-parent Ramona’s son, has come at his mother’s insistence. He’s at loose ends. Recently graduated Stanford with an M.A. in literature, he has intellectual skills but none of the smarts his mother and Johnny developed out of a lifetime on the block. Angel has no idea what he’s to become.

Sonia—Lucy Rodríguez--Gabriel’s wife, plays reluctant hostess in the couple’s penthouse digs to people she doesn’t know, nor does Gabriel, not any more. She can’t figure out why Gabriel’s invited them, and is at wit’s end since Juana the maid has defied her employers’ last-minute demands to cook food for the mourners. Never-seen Juana, by the way, is a funny side-bit and running gag.

Johnny and Mona love Gabriel’s memory and step back into Gabriel’s life hungry for communion with the exile. Not that they are not curious to learn if their friend truly is the asshole chisme holds him to be. Their inquiry will shape the evening’s conversation.

Fernandez writes-in a bizarre supernumerary character, Robert Beltran’s The Man, leaving it to the audience to figure out why he’s here at all. The character embodies the voice of Octavio Paz, but he’s not part of the reunion. The Man is the limo driver, who’s insinuated himself into the mourning ritual by dint of having to wait around until the passengers are ready to leave. The driver jokes that his role is to bring along his primo Chelo the Cello player in the limo. The Man is an oddball presence, not wacky, oddly absurd in a semi-good way. The Man consoles the nerdish Angel, offers him consejos on women and love-making (although it’s been a while, he confesses); makes a semi-successful pass at Sonia; provides comic relief when needed. The character occupies a parallel space to the central action, leaving me wondering if The Man is here as foil to the male typologies represented by the loyal husband and father Johnny, the unhappily married disaffected exile Gabriel, the confused young man Angel, whose future depends on making fateful choices. Or is The Man merely the playwright’s indulgence? For sure, The Man offers director Valenzuela his greatest challenge in making the Wednesday premiere a tighter paced, more direct assault on the play’s important themes.

In keeping with Paz’ dictum of exile, Fernandez doesn’t paint Gabriel as a vendido, despite his abandonment of his friends, neighborhood, and mother. The playwright instead paints Gabriel’s sorrowful regret as an echo of Paz’ insight, expelled and impelled back. For Gabriel, the evening offers a chance of rebirth. The characterization encourages but doesn’t make the point that Gabriel is vencido, not vendido. Provided he doesn’t come to blows with Johnny or Mona after they’ve all drunk too much. “Americans drink to forget” Octavio Paz says, “Mexicans drink to confess” the playwright reminds.

Mona’s son Angel, and childless Gabriel, counterbalance one another. Angel is one confused young man. He faces the same choices Gabriel long ago made. Maybe Angel will get it right, if Gabriel didn’t. Angel, like Gabriel, left the neighborhood to better himself. Unlike Gabriel, Angel now has returned to his mother’s home, as witnessed by his presence here, to act the dutiful son. The tangible tension between the two characters feeds on a question Johnny asks Mona. Will Mona tell Gabriel Angel is Gabriel’s son? “He is my son!” insists Mona, dismissing the question altogether. The question hangs over the characters as the first act closes.

Opening night audiences will get to see how the preview helps director and playwright work out some of the kinks that stood out in the Friday try-out performance.

Kink one, the set. Designer François-Pierre Couture lays out the split-level stage floor in stark black and white. Skewed picture frames surround the stage, making a silently apt visual reference for the action. One key scene—the “you gonna tell him?” scene between Johnny and Mona—takes place in the far left back corner. Otherwise the rear part of the stage is curiously underutilized. Up front, I find it disconcerting when characters step off the white landscape onto the black border, as if they are stepping out of bounds, off the stage where the action belongs.

Kink two, the music by Semyon Kobialka. Playing a luscious cello reminiscent of Bach, Kobialka is always on stage in the character of Chelo, whose only role is to be on stage playing cello. It’s a beautifully outrageous theatrical trick, but regretfully detracts from the action by occupying more time than necessary. Another musical trick, rumbling recorded mambos and silhouetted dancers transition from scene to scene. Delicious eye candy but too loud for the loudspeakers, and again, overly long. After the first extended dance number, continuity would benefit from abbreviated transitions. In the second act, Sal López’ Johnny sings his guts out in a wondrous drinking song—uncredited in the program—that could be abbreviated in the interest of cutting the two hour and forty minute performance down to manageable duration. Hence, kink two-and-a-half. Beautiful as the auditorium is, the seats are exceedingly hard on the nalgas.

Kink three is the most problematic, a preachy “author’s message” ending. Solitude has been a tour de force to this final scene, then, it’s as if Fernandez and Valenzuela do not trust their audience to process complexity and make sense of all they’ve experienced. I saw some of this mistrust as the first act ended. Valenzuela stood from his center row seat, looked around the milling house and announced, “It’s an intermission.” The playbill could have mentioned there’d be two acts. Small but telling point for that first act close. Second act, cut that “message” scene, trust the audience to figure out what they’ve just witnessed.

Solitude opens Wednesday, September 9 at the superb Los Angeles Theater Center, on Spring Street in the true heart of the city. Covered, secure parking next door offers a five dollar bargain. The Latino Theater Company runs a four play season. Tickets at twenty-five dollars a seat, add another twenty dollars for a season’s parking, there’s a season total of one hundred twenty dollars. Compare this to the Mark Taper’s nine bucks to park ($23 for valet), thirty-five dollar seats (plus handling charge), predictably ponderous programming, and there’s no better bargain in Los Angeles theatre than the Latino Theater Company. Go for it, gente.

News & Notes

U.S. Latino & Latina WWII Oral History Project 10th Anniversary Dinner And Korean and Vietnam War-Era Symposium October 2-3, 2009.

Jim Estrada and Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez are organizing a dinner and symposium celebrating the accomplishments of the U.S. Latino & Latino WWII Oral History Project coming out of the University of Texas-Austin.

A $50 dinner ticket gains admission to the Saturday symposia on Korea and Vietnam.

Speakers for Korea:
Silvia Alvarez Curbelo, University of Puerto Rico-- "War, Modernity and Remembrance: The Borinqueneers in the Korean War (1950-1953)"

Allan R. Millett, University of New Orleans--"The U.S. 8th Army, Korea, 1950-1953: Making a One Culture Army from Soldiers of Many Cultures"

Carlos Vélez-Ibañez, Arizona State University-- "Korea and Latinos:
The Invisible Minority in a Forgotten War"

Speakers for Vietnam:
Mark A. Lawrence, University of Texas--"Rewriting the History of the Vietnam War: Political and Diplomatic Dimensions"

Kyle Longley, Arizona State University--"Grunts: The American Combat Soldier in Vietnam"

Jorge Mariscal, University of California at San Diego-- "The Vietnam War is Boring: Young People and Historical Amnesia"

That's September's second Tuesday. A Tuesday like any other Tuesday, except We Are Here. Thank you for visiting La Bloga.

mvs

La Bloga welcomes your comments or inquiries on this or any daily column. Click the comments counter below to open a discussion. La Bloga welcomes guest columnists. When you have a review of a book, arts, or cultural event, or something of interest to writers from your writer's notebook, click here to learn about being our guest, or joining us as a regular, as noted in the following.

Interested in Joining La Bloga?

You may have noticed our mug shot banner has changed. The recent retirements of dear friends Ann Hagman Cardinal and Lisa Alvarado have created an opportunity for a new teammate to join the La Bloga regulars. If you write on Chicana Chicano Latina Latino literature, arts, and culture, and maybe considered becoming a bloguera or bloguero, but found the pressure of everyday or weekly deadlines daunting, La Bloga may be right up your alley. We're looking for someone to write alternate Thursdays, sharing that day with Lydia Gil. Click here to discuss your interest.

Dad: This Year’s Model

Lately I’ve been struck by how my image of fatherhood has changed over the years. Like many people, my original concept of a “father” was based on memories of my personal experience with the species. My image of my father is that of an eight year old, frozen in 1971, as that was the year he died. To me, Dad was a tall, strong creature with a loud laugh, a good sense of humor and a hell of a temper. He wore collared shirts and long pants every day, and smoked a pipe filled with cherry tobacco. He worked during the week doing mysterious “office” things, and when he came home Mom kept us quiet as Dad was tired after working hard all day (try raising five children and running a household, Pops). She’d have a gin and tonic at the ready, and he would sit and read his paper (what I wouldn’t give, as a parent myself, for ten minutes alone to go to the bathroom). He played golf on Saturdays, and went fishing often. What the family ate, what car we bought, and where we went on vacation were all decided based on what Dad wanted. He could be warm and supportive and a hell of a lot of fun to be around, we often felt that he wasn’t around enough. Though under it all we knew that he loved his children, we were just an aspect of his life, one of many and not the foremost. We loved him back, but we behaved primarily because we were terrified of him. Many of my own father’s qualities were pretty common to the “Dad Model” of the 1950’s and 1960’s America. Despite having fond memories of my father, the last thing I wanted in a husband and father of my children was that kind of a Dad.

My realization that not all fathers were this way and that the role as a whole was changing came when I was in my early 20’s. I was visiting my brother George and his family, and had stayed over at their house one Friday night. When the baby woke up the next morning, George went in to get him so his wife could sleep late. I spent the morning watching George change his son’s diapers, give him a bath, make him breakfast, and watch Mr. Rogers with him. After a few hours of this I looked at George and said, “Why do you do all this and let her sleep in?” motioning toward the closed bedroom door and his slumbering spouse. He responded, “Because he’s my little boy, and this is our time together. It isn’t work, it’s fun.” His eyes misted while looking at his baby’s round face. I was floored, and for once, speechless. After a few moments of recovery time, I barked, “How the hell am I supposed to find a husband who will live up to this!”

Well, I did. I think that my husband is one of many of our generation who are tackling the task of fatherhood differently than our own fathers did. My husband changed as many diapers, bandages as many scrapes, reads as many books, and is as committed to our son as I am. We each take on the responsibilities of the family according to our own gifts and not according to gender lines. He does the cooking, the shopping and the home repairs; I do the cleaning, financial planning (because of my computer skills, certainly not my skill with a budget) and schedule organization.

And he has the stronger disposition. I’ll never forget when Carlos was two and had broken his arm at daycare. When we arrived at the medical office the doctor we all share handed our poor howling son to Doug, pointed at me and said, “You! Hallway!” and to my husband he pointed to the treatment room, “You! Inside!” I stood with my jaw on my chest in the hallway, tears flowing and heart racing as the door slammed shut in front of me. I then realized that perhaps our doctor knew us too well. I’m pleased to report that I am now more effective in these situations—having already been through my share of scares--but Doug is still better, and as a fully involved father he is miles better than my own was.

I know that while Doug’s approach to fathering is no longer unique, or even unusual, there are still examples of the old model “Dad” striding about. Once, right after Carlos was born, Doug was at the Stowe skating rink, showing off his prowess on a pair of hockey skates, when one of the local guys came up to congratulate him on the birth of his son. “Hey, if you start coaching hockey now, you can coach Carlos’ team when he gets old enough!” To which my husband responded, “Yeah, but what if he wants to figure skate?” The guy walked away from Doug in shock, a look of disgust on his face. The wonderful part is that Doug was serious. Whatever would make Carlos happy, he would support.

I have no doubt that Carlos is the highest priority and single brightest star in his life (this is one instance in my life that I’m happy to come second) and this comforts me. Many of my friends have similar situations with husbands or partners who are much more involved in the upbringing of their children, and I think it will make for an even more thoughtful and progressive next generation of adult males. On this day of honoring fathers and fatherhood, I would like to salute men like my brother George and particularly my husband, and express my gratitude to those men who are equal partners in this carnival we call parenthood.