Chicanonautica: Memories of Palenque

by Ernest Hogan

They say that the social media is bad for creativity, but sometimes it delivers inspiration like a sniper’s bullet through the frontal lobes. I found an interesting news item about construction of the Maya Train uncovering a tomb. I shared it on Facebook and Twitter with a comment about my having fond memories of Palenque. Then those memories came flooding back. Talk about fun.

Hey, I should write about that! So here we are . . .

In 1982, I accompanied my sister Carol on a trip to Mexico. My Spanish was a lot better than hers, and I don’t think our parents would have let her go alone. I owe her an eternal debt for it. Whenever I go to Mexico, it changes my life . . .

We went to Mexico City, Oaxaca, and the Yucatán, visiting a lot of archaeological sites. For the sake of brevity, here, I’ll concentrate on our visit to Palenque.

We did a lot of train and bus travel. It was fantastical and Kafkaeque. I was reminded of Juan José Arreola’s story The Switchman, a magic realist piece where fake landscapes line the railways, passengers never end up where they intend to go, and often are persuaded to start colonies in some undeveloped territory.

I have been tempted to steal the idea and expand it to a galactic scale. Hell, it’s what will probably happen, if it doesn’t already exist . . .

Palenque is not just the name of the Mayan ruins. An old guy I asked for directions joked about las ruinas actually being the town. A fellow tourist told us, “You can’t get to Palenque.” It took some determination, but we made it.

 

The town was surreal. I’m not sure how accurate my memories are. I have an image of a street on a hill, breaking off into a cliff out of which there was a drainpipe, and a feathered serpent jaw carved into the rock. Could be confabulation. There’s something about this part of the world that makes your realism magical.

Getting to the actual ruins was a real adventure. The bus driver couldn’t have yet been in his teens. He was tinkering with the engine when we found him. He wore aviator sunglasses, an unbuttoned shirt, shorts, and sandals. A cigarette hung from his lips. He had a cynical smile that grew more intense when hit bumps on the winding, cliff-hugging road and his passengers went airborne. And he loved taking those curves fast.

The ruins of Palenque were amazing.

The Lacondon jungle—now home of the Zapatistas—surrounds them like a high, living wall. They were so thick I was sure I would get lost after a few steps. I felt that it wanted to devour me. A local man trotted into it with a rifle on his shoulder and his dogs leading the way.

Looking up I saw the edges of the jungle, like a huge open mouth. The air was full of butterflies, above to them, large dragonflies, and above them, hawks. Concrete poetry.

Palenque is famous for being the location of the pyramid with the carving that Erich Von Däniken claims depicts an ancient astronaut. I suppose it looks like that if you don’t know much about Mayan art or space travel. More likely, it’s information about the mummy that was found beneath it.

I did see things that suggest a sci-fi-ish reality:

A small, onsite museum had a skull that could have been a prop for a science fiction movie. It’s probably the result of the well-documented practice of skull shaping.

There were also disturbing carvings of humans in the arms or strange humanoid creatures. The intimacy often did not look consensual. They are similar to glyphs of the Burden of Time, but quién sabe?

Back in town we made an astounding discovery. A used comic book shop! These were Mexican comics. A lot of them were sci-fi. I recognized some as translations of American comics from the Fifties. Probably unauthorized translations.

It was run by boys about the same age–some younger–as that daredevil bus driver. I wonder what happened to them? Have they written any science fiction? Did they become Zapatistas?

Zapatista futurism. Is that a thing?

Now the Maya Train chews through the Lancondon jungle, spitting out its own future, Mayalandia, out to give Disney World a run for its money. I do wonder what it would be like to tour la ruinas in such high tech luxury. I also feel sorry for those who will not have strange adventures like mine.

Ernest Hogan, the Father of Chicano Science Fiction, has been wandering through Planet Nevada, NoCal, and Sasquatchlandia, and will be blogging about it soon. And judging the Somos en escrito Extra Fiction contest.

Chicanonautica: Can a Chicano Be Mainstream?

by Ernest Hogan

Intercepted conversation from an unidentified source:

Ernest Hogan: Victor? What the fuck? It's 4:24 AM, for Tezcatlipoca’s sake! 

Victor Theremin: I'm feeling restless. Could use some writer talk. 

EH: I thought I turned my phone off . . .

VT: You know I have access to outlaw technology.

EH: What? There's video, too? I haven't downloaded any apps for that.

VT: I’ve had my hacker friends download stuff to your phone.

EH: I wish you wouldn’t do that. It’s an invasion of my privacy.

VT: Is there any such thing as privacy anymore?

EH: Uh-oh. I nearly woke up my wife. I better go to the living room . . .

(The sound of footsteps, soft impacts, profanity.)

VT: There is so much to think about right now.

EH: As usual.

VT: Actually, cabrón, there's a helluva lot more than usual.

EH: Yeah, I guess you're right, with COVID, and all that political and other pendajas going on.

VT: Precisely! This is the end/beginning of new eras! And you know what that means?

EH: What? You on a beach somewhere? Why is the sky purple?

VT: It means that us Chicano science fiction writers are gonna have to rethink everything, and reconsider what we've been working on! 

EH: I know it happened to Emily.

VT: How is your wife?

EH: Restless. Eager to get on with a new phase in her life.

VT: See? There a helluvalota that going around.

EH: Just what is a helluvalota?

VT: Quit trying to change the subject.

EH: Can't help it. You knocked me out of some heavy REM sleep.

VT: I tell you, something is happening. Something planetwide. More than the pandemic, or politics, something affecting everybody’s brains . . .

EH: There you go again, losing track of where the sci-fi ends and the reality begins.

VT: I keep telling ya, it doesn’t matter these days. 

EH: Could be. I’m thinking about pitching my next novel as mainstream.

VT: What? The one with the AIs, aliens, and a character based on me?

EH: Yeah.

VT: Uh-oh, looks like you’ve gone over the bend.

EH: I don’t know. I just realized that it’s actually a modern day retelling of Don Quijote, and what could be more mainstream than that?

VT: I always considered it to be the first psychological sci-fi novel.

EH: About senile dementia?

VT: The final frontier.

EH: The problem is when I try to come up with things to compare my stuff to in the pitch, I have a hard time coming up with recent, popular sci-fi. 

VT: You’re solidly in the tradition of Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick . . .

EH: Today’s sci-fi audience doesn’t remember them.

VT: Stick with sci-fi, Ernie. The truth will out!

EH: It might work better if I said I was like Hunter S. Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut, and Ishmael Reed.

VT: Like the modern reader remembers them.

EH: I know the post-Twilight/Fifty Shades of Gray audience doesn’t like to think when they read, but I keep hearing that the mainstream audience is bigger than genre. And I really would like to take the chance to actually make it big before I go back to tin-cupping it in the underground.

VT: What, you think you can be the Chicano Vonnegut?

EH: Better than being the Chicano Kilgore Trout.

VT: I thought I was the Chicano Kilgore Trout!

EH: I’ve been busting my ass as a Chicanonaut in Scifiilandia, where I’m treated like the most talented leper they've ever met, and I’d like it all to amount to something.

VT: And how has the mainstream world treated you?

EH: I still have trouble convincing them I exist. And they still give me the bum’s rush. Or take off running when they see me. And this is all before the realize I’m a Chicano.

VT: Ever thought about where sci-fi ends and the mainstream begins?

EH: A lot lately. When I shelve books at the library, I keep running into books that look interesting in the General Fiction section, and when I take a look they have science fictional plots, only they don’t have the entire universe, or even multiverse in danger, like they insist on in commercial sci-fi these days.

VT: This is the age of genre meltdown, besides, genres are just marketing gimmicks, and high-brow conceits like magic realism and speculative fiction are just pretensions for readers who want to feel intellectual.

EH: In my ten years as a bookseller, not one customer ever came in asking for magic realism or speculative fiction.

VT: So, whatcha gonna do, ese?

EH: Think I’ll keep all my options open. When trying to sell the book, I’ll start at the top, go for the dough, and if that doesn’t work out, I still have one foot stuck back in the underground.

VT: Sounds quixotic as all hell. Good boy! Uh-oh, there’s an unidentified phenomenon in the sky that I need to investigate, gotta go, bro!

Ernest Hogan is the Father of Chicano Science Fiction, and Victor Theremin is a fictional character, at least in this universe.

Chicanonautica: Through Space and Time with Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist

By Ernest Hogan

In my Goodreads review, I wrote: “Kathleen Alcalá brings Mexican/American worlds filled with wonderful characters to magical life, for all your senses.”

I had read a few of her stories in science fiction and fantasy anthologies, but they did not prepare me for this. This is not your usual genre writing. It is bigger than the usual categories. Maybe literature. Maybe this is the real mainstream.

The stories in Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist conjured up people and places who seemed familiar, like I already knew them. I found myself feeling nostalgic for places I’d never been. And not just with words, but multi-sensual experiences. I’d been to some of the locations, but didn’t live in a lot of the times.

This is beyond ordinary experience.

Kathleen Alcalá was born in Mexico, lived in Compton,  and grew up in San Bernardino, in California. I’m also a product of SoCal, but she’s classier than I’ll ever be.

She has a great feeling for the Latinx past. She wrote three novels set in the Nineteenth Century. Her work is often time travel, not as a theme, but in that it transports the reader into another time. 

Literary time travel, a kind of magic realism.

It could be called North American magic realism, but without the usual literary pretension of someone who took a class on Latin American Lit, and decided to write something like “Boar-Hays.” This comes naturally. From experience. Latinx experiences.

These experiences are beyond the usual fare of ethnic studies classes. It’s the usual barrio of the corporate imagination. These are places full of real people, that feel that I’ve met them, like maybe they’re long-lost relatives. More like things you would learn from listening to your abuelita over the years, and if you are lucky, they will come back to you, in her voice, years later, after she’s gone.

There are touches of the supernatural, but not in the popular horror/paranormal mode. Though fans of the genre would gain a lot from reading these stories.

It can make wall come crumbing down, borders disappear, and cause an infinity of new worlds to open up.

Ernest Hogan is the author of High Aztech, and will be judging Somos en escritos.com’s Second Annual Extra-Fiction Contest: The deadline for submissions is September 30--what are you Latinx writers out there waiting for?

Chicanonautica: Good Times with Virgins & Tricksters

by Ernest Hogan

People tend to think they know what to expect from “ethnic” fiction: victim stories, the good old days in the ghetto/barrio/whatever, the political call to action . . . When you get more specific to Latinx the ethnic studies clichés dominate the reader’s expectations. Maybe there’ll be some magic realism if you’re lucky. Kinda feel like it’s your duty to roll your eyeballs over every page.

Then there are writers like Rosalie Morales Kearns. Talk about range! She can do just about everything from magic realism to science fiction, and more, and it’s mind-blowing all the way! Her stories are a joy to read.

She’s a Puerto Rican/Pennsylvania Dutch (which should be an interesting story in itself), a volatile Latinoid mix that makes for a powerful imagination. She’s also a publisher/editor/novelist/anthologist. 

With all this going on, she defies being pigeonholed into any genre.

The stories in her Virgins & Tricksters reflect this. They qualify as contemporary literature as well as various genres. Ethnicities and expectations be damned. Just read them and be dazzled.

A cycle of stories called The Wives looks at and exposes the roles of women that should satisfy the women’s studies crowd, and shake up a lot of worldviews. Don't be afraid, guys . . .

 

"The Devil Take the Hindmost,” an apocalyptic thriller, comes close to commercial sci-fi and provides more than the proliferation of this kind of story (guess we’re living in apocalyptic times . . . I wonder what it’s like to live in non-apocalypitc times?), bringing some new twists and fresh ideas to the subgenre. Could be the basis for a good movie.

My favorite is “Taínos at Large,” about a young woman connecting to her Puerto Rican/African roots. More than just a travelogue with santeria. It blends the fantastic with realistic fiction, and it has everything that’s expected from “ethnic” fiction and more, and is damn good story.

Those are just my favorites; there’s more and they are good.

Stereotypes are left far behind in these stories. We see Latinx -- and especially Latinas -- of a wide variety, just as we know them in real life, and need them in our cultures. They are examples of the new kinds of Latinoids that La Cultura is always giving birth to.

Rosalie Morales Kearns is a helluva writer; I’m sure her other works are worth looking out for.

Ernest Hogan’s novel High Aztech is selling well, and his latest story, “PeaceCon,” is available in Unfit Magazine Vol.3. The insane novel he is working on is taking on a life of its own, not to mention taking over his life. He also will be judging Somos en escrito’s Second Annual Extra-Fiction Contest.

La Bloga's Latino Speculative Literature Directory

Speculative literature: science fiction, fantasy, horror, magic(al) realism, fabulist fiction, a lo menos. Latino spec lit: mucho más que eso.

Genres of fiction make it easier for booksellers and publishers to fit our work into slots. It might've been Neil Gaiman who suggested that all books for those over 12 years old should only be shelved by author name. The spec lit definition above is something we live under, even if it can't accurately describe every book or story. There are other definitions, but this is what I use.

We were contacted this week by Julie Rodriguez, who describes herself as "an American writer living in San Mateo, Calif." She does "very short fiction, tiny true stories, illustrations & more." Her article Where are all the Latino genre fiction writers? Right here! is worth checking out on her website Truth Is Weirder. Julie compiled an extensive list of "Canadian/US Latino Genre Authors" and asked readers to contribute more names. Go there to see if you know of writers who should be included.

Her list inspired me to begin updating our list of "Latino spec novelists," which in some cases overlaps hers. What's below is our latest list of novelists, some of theirs books, publishers, genres and websites, in chronological order. I welcome contributions to making this more complete and current and will periodically update it, as needed. As you'll see, the list needs expanding.

La Bloga Spec Lit Directory (1/13)

[Self-described: Chicano, Hispanic, Mexicano, Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Sudamericano, American y más, expanded as needed. Publisher in parens.]

1922 Campos de Fuego - breve narración de una expedición a la región volcánia de "El Pinacate", Sonora Gumersindo Esquer [M]. "A Mexican Jules Verne." This came out after the Border was erected, but we could claim Esquer as a precursor.

1975 Los Pachucos y La Flying Saucer, an early spec short story by Reyes Cárdenas [Ch] (Caracol magazine). "A wild romp of the kind of joyous mayhem that happens when you plug sci-fi into a different culture."

1976 Victuum, Isabella Rios. (Diana-Etna Inc.) Where psychic development epitomizes with the encounter of an outer-planetary being. O.O.P.

Ernesto Hogan

1984 Afro-6, Hank Lopez. [MA?] (Dell Publishing) According to his NYTimes obit, Lopez was "born in Denver of parents who had emigrated from Mexico." A futuristic thriller about a Black, armed take-over of Manhattan. [Copyright includes Harry Baron, not listed as co-author.]

1990 Cortez on Jupiter, Ernest Hogan [Ch] (Tor Books) A Ben Bova Presents publication. "Protagonist Pablo Cortez uses freefall grafitti art--splatterpainting--to communicate with Jupiter's gaseous forms of life." http://www.mondoernesto.com

Kathleen Alcalá

1992 Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist, Kathleen Alcalá [Ch] (Calyx Books)

1992 High AzteCH, Ernest Hogan [Ch] (Tor Books) Renegade Chicano cartoonist Zapata creates a virus capable of infecting human minds with religion. http://www.mondoernesto.com/

Jesus Treviño

1995 The Fabulous Sinkhole, Jesus Treviño [Ch] (Arte Público Press) "Stories into magic realism: spunky teen Yoli Mendez performs quadratic equations in her head." Film/TV Director/Writer of Prison Break, Resurrection Blvd. Star Trek Voyager, Babylon Five, Deep Space Nine. http://chuytrevino.com/

1997 Juan and the Chupacabras, Scott Corrales [H], [w/M. Davenport] (Greenleaf Publications)

2000 Places left unfinished at the time of creation, John Phillip Santos [Ch] (Penguin Books) "A girl sees a dying soul leave its body; dream fragments, family remembrances and Chicano mythology reach back into time and place; a rich, magical view of Mexican-American culture." http://provost.utsa.edu/home/Faculty_Profile/Santos.asp

2000 Soulsaver, James Stevens-Arce [PR] (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) www.stevens-arce.com

2001 Smoking Mirror Blues, Ernest Hogan. Tezcatlipoca, the Mirror that Smokes warrior/wizard god of the Aztecs--Western Civilization thought it wiped him out centuries ago. He's back. http://www.mondoernesto.com/

2004 Devil Talk: Stories, Daniel A. Olivas [Ch] (Bilingual Press) These twenty-six stories bring us to a place once inhabited by Rod Serling . . . only the accents have changed; Latino fiction at its edgy, fantastical best. http://www.danielolivas.com

2004 Creepy Creatures and Other Cucuys, Xavier Garza (Piñata Books)

2005 The Skyscraper that Flew, Jesus Treviño (Arte Público Press). An enormous crystal skyscraper mysteriously appears in the Arroyo Grande's baseball field. Then the stories begin. http://chuytrevino.com/

Mario Acevedo

2006 The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, Mario Acevedo [Ch] (Rayo HarperCollins) The first and only vampire book to be declassified by the federal government. . . . Felix Gomez went to Iraq a soldier. He came back a vampire. marioacevedo.com

2006 Gil's All Fright Diner, A. Lee Martinez [A] (Tor) Born in El Paso, he has other books, but may not consider his books or himself anything latino. http://www.aleemartinez.com/

2007 Firebird, R. Garcia y Robertson [A] (Tor)

2007 Abecedarium, Carlos Hernandez [??] [w/D. Schneiderman] (Chiasmus Press)

2009 Lunar Braceros, Rosaura Sanchez, Beatrice Pita & Mario A. Chacon. (Calaca Press)

2012 Summer of the Mariposas, Guadalupe Garcia McCall [Ch] (Tu Books) Pura Belpré Award; Andre Norton Award nominated. http://www.guadalupegarciamccall.com

2012 The Closet of Discarded Dreams, Rudy Ch. Garcia [Ch]. (Damnation Books) A Chicano alternate-world fantasy. With a Chicano protagonist. Honorable Mention, SF/F category, 2012-13 International Latino Book Awards. www.discarded-deams. com

2012 Roachkiller and Other Stories, R. Narvaez [PR] (Beyond the Page Publishing) Winner of 2013 Spinetingler Award for Best Anthology/Short Story Collection and 2013 International Latino Book Award for Best eBook/Fiction.

Matt de la Peña

2012 Dancing With the Devil and Other Tales From Beyond, Rene Saldana Jr. [MA] (Pinata Books) http://renesaldanajr.blogspot.com

2013 Infinity Ring: Curse of the Ancients, Matt de la Peña [??]. (middle-grade, Scholastic Inc.) "Sera sees the terrifying future, but can’t prevent the Cataclysm while stranded thousands of years in the past. The only hope lies with the ancient Maya, a mysterious people who claim to know a great deal about the future." http://mattdelapena.com

Kathleen Alcalá story

On the Literary Journal of the Inlandia Institute, here's how Kathleen's just-released story begins:

La Otra

She had never thought of herself as “la otra,” the Other Woman. All she knew was that she had loved him better, and it was only natural that he should leave his fiancé and marry her.

“But that was a long time ago,” she would laugh when telling this story to Sirena, who seemed fascinated by her abuela’s past. “Back when the animals could talk.”

Anita had not been looking for a husband in those days. She already had too many men in her life – five brothers and a widowed father. She cooked and washed from dawn to night, then got up and did it all over again. When the house burned down along with half of the town, it was a relief – there was nothing to wash and nothing to cook. They had no choice but to join up with all the other refugees and walk north. . . .

Read the entire delightful story that reminded me of the great magic(al) realists.

Spec poetry wanted

Via the Carl Brandon Society comes this:

Stone Telling, a speculative poetry magazine dedicated to showcasing multi-perspective work of literary quality (eds. Rose Lemberg and Shweta Narayan) is open to submissions. For the coming issue, we're only considering submissions from people whose poetry we have NOT published before.

We are especially interested in diversity of voice and theme. While we are open to all speculative poetry, we love to see work that is multi-cultural and boundary-crossing, work that deals with othering and Others, work that considers race, gender, sexuality, identity, and disability issues in nontrivial and evocative ways. We’d love to see multilingual poetry, though that can sometimes be tricky. Try us!

There are no style limitations, but rhymed poetry will be a hard sell. Please try us with visual poetry, prose poetry, and other genre-bending forms. We will consider experimental poetry, but remember that not all experimental poems are easy to represent in an e-zine format.

Guidelines can be found at StoneTelling, but the "upcoming reading period" information is out of date. We're open to submissions from Jan. 15 – March 15, 2014.

 http://stonetelling.com/guidelines.html

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RudyG Tweet #1 to Arapahoe High School's principal and students about your school shooting: Might it be past time to change the school mascot from Warriors to something else?

RudyG Tweet #2 to President Obama about your speech yesterday on the NSA and my civil liberties: As others have said, "my" civil rights are not mine to give up. I won't and can't do so because they're embedded and guaranteed in the Constitution that was intended to protect freedoms we do have. It will pass them on to those who come after me. Better that you should give up the NSA's power to chinga anymore with any of our civil rights.

Es todo, hoy,

RudyG

1st Novel - http://www.discarded-dreams.com/

Author FB - rudy.ch.garcia

Twitter - DiscardedDreams