GOPlague-time, Galardonado In Silence, Roblest Impressions

 Michael Sedano

As if caregiving isn't enough challenge for a semi-old man (in two weeks I'll be 77), now I'm dealing with the GOPlague. Barbara has tested positive twice for the virus. She's got it, but it's not going to get her.

Me, I test negative. My claim to temporary invincibility comes as no idle boast. After all, I survived the cold war high above the frozen Korean DMZ, and back in July 2014, I died. 

The Ancestors sent me back so I wouldn't miss all those life events that flashed before my eyes as I was departing. My one regret was I wouldn't get to share my granddaughter's milestones. "Burn Sage," the ancestors told me. I do, every morning. The Ancestors are in the smoke, powerful medicine.

Provenance? I was overjoyed that Barbara had built strength and had energy to come into the grocery store and push the cart. My negligence allowed her to complete the aislesweeps unmasked. The only time she's gone into public without masking, the GOPlague gets her.

And that's the view from the coast, Tuesday, August 22, 2022. The only penultimate Tuesday of August in 2022 you're ever going to see, for the rest of your life. Make it great, gente. Read, raza, and GOTV. Never vote R.

Silence of the Latino Book Awards

The weekend of August 19-20 brought raza writers from across the continent to receive an International Latino Book Award. Almost 600 titles won a prize, if not a Medal, an honorable mention. The awards structure offers 208 categories, accounting for two full days of meetings at L.A. City College.

I searched the Google for news of "International Latino Book Awards" to disappointing results. The dearth of news about the awards fills me with frustration at lack of effort, somewhere. 

Essentially, the only news promotions the Awards get is from the organizers. Running the show is Empowering Latino Futures, renamed  from "Latino Literacy Now", whose dubious history of poorly-attended Edward James Olmos Book & Family Festivals are good cause to change identity, while pursuing the same business plan.

 

I don't know if the abysmal publicity about the Awards owes itself to poor promotion out of the Empowering Latino Futures' office, or deliberate erasure by newspaper culture editors. Raza literature doesn't get ink, just as raza actors don't get roles, raza directors don't get gigs, raza books don't get awards. So we have to do it ourselves.

 

Next year's Award campaign evidently keeps the same $90 entry fee per title. Authors, Agents, and Publishers interested in next year's awards can click this link. But do note, ELF staff have not updated the company webpage in detail.

 

Most Galardonadas Galardonados receive a dust jacket sticker, and authority to call oneself Prize-winning Author. Empowering Latino Futures promises some Award-winners $1000 cash and a marketing campaign. ELF places a $2500 value on the  marketing package that sends press releases and stories to 625 "Latino media outlets." 

Wouldn't it be something if ELF were to share that 625-name list with the Galardonadx? The only news I get about the Awards comes from happy Award-winning Authors on the MetaFace, so distributing proven leads to the writers genuinely has value.

It would be something if those 625 Latino media outlets ran the story big, with fotos and a local spin? A local writer's P.R. release has a better chance with a small-town editor, me parece, but the writer needs a name and number/email.

La Bloga congratulates all the participants in the International Latino Book Awards, and encourages participation in this, or similar, programs, with a caveat:

This Award is a sticker on a book. You gotta put that book and sticker onto bookshelves, you gotta send out your own press releases, don't restrict yourself to local Latino media outlets. You gotta toot your own horn. 

Learn to pronounce "Indefatigable" when people ask about your marketing campaign.

Guest Writer: Hugo Garcia

A guest at CasaSedano asked if I had read anything interesting, lately? I had just the answer for him sitting on my TBR pile, Against the Wall, in Spanish, as Contra la muralla, from Arte Publico Press.

The guest, retired newspaper editor and Spanish-language newspaper journalist, Hugo García, devoured the volume and enthusiastically sketched a few notes. The collection is available from the publisher (link).

In Alberto Roblest's Contra la Muralla's 17 short stories, reality and perception mix, even in the same sentence. The dramatic effect is not always clear to the reader.

When Roblest succeeds, like in El Dia Anterior al Anterior he skillfully describes its protagonists:

To date Grace hated her job...Sometimes she dreamt the plane was crushed by God's hand slamming it against the clouds; The Scorpions got off the limousine at the airport entrance astonished there were no fans anywhere; Pedro Martinez Ocaña aka Tigrillo was born without talent for politics or investments. To be honest he lacked talent to do anything; Cristal was worried her only support could die any moment leaving her destitute. She knew she had to hurry before his children and his two ex wives beat her to it. (García's translation) 

Roblest intrigues the reader as to how his people will intersect and how this will affect the story's end? Other times, the reader is left wondering what the stories were really about.

Throughout the stories Roblest shows a mastery  of character description and deep awareness of current political and economic corruption in the U.S., for example, in Obelisco Ennegrecido  Roblest covers the Washington Monument in cockroaches. 

Some of the Cuentos are only a couple of pages long like Laberinto in which its protagonist is chased by a fat being called la Chingada and Una Vez Abajo no se olviden de Encomendarse a Dios where the narrator is intrigued that a man in a suit and slippers stands in New York's Times Square looking up at the sky calling God.

Some stories are several pages long like El Dia anterior al Dia anterior and Lost and Found. Longer works allow the writer to present a traditional linear narrative until he gives the story a suprising end. 

In all, there is something for every one in its 17 short stories.

The Plague Cancels Carnival and New Years Resolutions

 Melinda Palacio 

As if the thought of Covid-19 muscling its way into 2021 isn’t enough, there’s the shenanigans from Trump supporters looting and rioting and disrupting democracy. The week started off with dismal news about hospitals throughout California reaching capacity. A brief phone call with my sister, an emergency room nurse in Bell Flower and everything Dr. Fauci said about a surge on top of a surge on top of a surge is coming home to roost. Many people decided to have big gatherings for thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, moving everyone back to square one, back on lockdown, only this time, doctors, nurses and paramedics must pick and choose who has the highest chance for survival. It’s a dire situation that could have been avoided had we had a real leader instead of a selfish charlatan. 

Instead of focusing our collective attention on how we are going to solve this pandemic and get vaccines in people’s areas, we were distracted by trump supporters who fancied themselves storming the Bastille and starting a revolution or civil war. What we saw on television was looters who were gently shoved away and a police force absent of the type of force it wielded during Black Life Matters protests. 

This week should have ushered in the Three Kings and the start of carnival, culminating in Marti Gras. I should have been busy setting resolutions and planning on what normal might look like beyond the plague. Marti Gras in New Orleans has been canceled and this might be my first year in over a decade without King Cake.  Instead, I was glued to the television, watching the home grown terrorist attack the nation’s capital building, all in the name of the traitor -in- chief. Can we depose him already? 

I have one feel good story to share with you. Many readers of La Bloga know I’ve been learning ukulele for the past year. If you’ve read my COVID Christmas post, you’ll know that my neighbor gave me a guitar. I offered to teach her how to play the ukulele. Last week I gave her first lesson and she did so well. She learned three songs. Music is the gift that keeps on giving. I’m so honored to be able to teach my first music student. Teaching my neighbor ukulele over zoom is something I never imagined I would do. I never thought I would learn how to play the little instrument, let alone be good enough to teach someone else.  My neighbor is an older lady who is retired and lives alone. She says she was the first woman to own a house in her corner cul de sac. She swims in the ocean enjoys birding in the neighborhood. And she’s an early bird. If I hadn’t walked my dog early in the morning, I might not have met her. Here’s to new encounters in the new year. Somehow being isolated has introduced me to a wonderful neighbor I didn’t know. I’m looking forward to more fortuitous meetings in 2021. You?

Dispatch from Plaguelandia

Melinda Palacio

When I started blogging about the pandemic in March, no one could have imagined we would be back in lockdown with no where safe from Covid-19 in December. As it is, we are talking about, at least, two more seasons, maybe three, of the the Corona Virus Song and Dance, relax regulations a little and then shut down an entire city, state for weeks. I am grateful I’ve been able to survive this pandemic both physically and creatively. However, it has been a challenge. Isolation gets to me even though having all this time to write should be a blessing. I admire people who have managed to finish books, publish their work, and create art instead of grumbling about the world ending. 

With so many months to end this roller coaster year, I sometimes feel I should have published two or three books, at least finished the one I’ve been working on forever. The year in lockdown should have served as my own personal writing retreat, but the part of me that enjoys worrying decided to let all the worry and anxiety take over. However, I am ready to move on and embrace the upcoming new year. Next month, the world will be a different place. Given all that I know about quarantine life, I don’t think I would do anything different.

One of the best quarantine decisions I’ve made is adopting a puppy. The days may blur, causing me to surprise myself each time a new week rolls by, but my puppy forces me to keep a schedule. She doesn’t care what day of the week it is, doesn’t let me skip meals or walks. What I didn’t expect was how much joy she brings to strangers. Everyone loves a puppy. Strangers who wouldn’t go out of their way for me, cross the street just to engage with my dog. They sometimes have long conversations with her. They take her approval, licks, and wagging tail as consent for their intrusion. 

On the one hand, my paranoid self shudders at the thought of random people petting my puppy. What if they are infected with Covid-19 and pass the virus to me by touching my dog? I’ll admit, I have asked people to sanitize their hands before petting my puppy. But sometimes people rush her like she’s some famous movie star. I’m often surprised by a stranger’s sheer excitement at touching my dog. I also understand that the quarantine and lockdowns have had a strong effect on people, giving them a hunger for interaction with a friendly being. The dog doesn’t wear a mask or hold out hand sanitizer like a weapon of defense. The puppy accepts all affection with no judgment and wags her propeller tail so feverishly it looks as if she could fly away. 

Without fail, people always want to know the same three questions about my dog: ‘Is she a puppy?, How old?, and What’s her name?’. Pandora, the pandemic puppy, is six months old and while she looks like a mountain lion or small horse, she is definitely a puppy.

My next post falls on Christmas. If we’ve learned anything, let the cancelled pandemic world stay cancelled. Wear your mask, wash your hands, stay healthy and avoid surper-spreading holiday gatherings. Let’s have a merry Christmas by stopping the rising death tolls and curbing Covid. 

If you are looking to participate in a random act of kindness, text FAMILIA to 44321 to Donate to Al Otro Lado and help reunite families.