Interview with Gustavo Arellano

Hot off the success of his bestselling ¡Ask a Mexican! (Scribner) which is based on his nationally-syndicated column of the same title, Gustavo Arellano roars back with a memoir, Orange County: A Personal History (Scribner), which is being released tomorrow (Mexican Independence Day!). The publisher describes Arellano’s book as “[p]art personal narrative, part cultural history, Orange County is the outrageous and true story of the man behind the wildly popular and controversial column ¡Ask a Mexican! and the locale that spawned him. It is a tale of growing up in an immigrant enclave in a crime-ridden neighborhood, but also in a promised land, a place that has nourished America's soul and Gustavo's family, both in this country and back in Mexico, for a century.”

I’ve had the opportunity to read an advance review copy of Orange County. Arellano’s new book is filled with his trademark sardonic humor blended effortlessly with facts, figures and historical context as he gleefully reveals the real Orange County, a place very different from that promoted by the county's business and political interests. I suspect his hometown will never be the same, at least in the eyes of the rest of the country.

Arellano kindly agreed to sit down with La Bloga and give an interview about Orange County.

DANIEL OLIVAS: Okay, let's just get it out of the way: Are you now an incredibly rich author?

GUSTAVO ARELLANO: I don't like to use these acronyms, but LOL :-)! My dad taught me to never ask someone how much money they make, but the reporter in me loves to leak information. Let's just say I'm still driving my 1999 Toyota Camry with 186,000 miles on it, but I was able to buy a near-mint 1974 Cadillac El Dorado convertible from my former boss with the advance I received--but I can't afford the steer horns for the hood that they require.

OLIVAS: Why did you decide to do a hybrid personal memoir/cultural history?

ARELLANO: The two books I always wanted to write were a history of Orange County and another telling the mass exodus of the ranchos of my mami y papi (El Cargadero and Jomulquillo, Jerez, Zacatecas, respectively) to Anaheim and points beyond. My agent was excited about the Orange County angle, but he was more enthralled by the tales of my family's four generations in Anaheim. He suggested I combine the two tales in our book pitch to publishers when we were shopping ¡Ask a Mexican! in 2006. While most of the companies to whom we pitched ¡Ask a Mexican! loved that compendium, Scribner was more excited with the Orange County memoir proposal. Guided by my editor Brant Rumble, I was able to accomplish the tricky feat of the hybrid that both told a serious history of a much-stereotyped region but also wove in the modern story of Mexican migration to los Estados Unidos.

OLIVAS: Was it liberating or horrifying to write a book that has real chapters longer than your usual answers to stupid questions about Mexicans?

ARELLANO: Ha ha, not all the questions I receive for my column are stupid--the ones I get on etymology are amazing. People who don't regularly read the OC Weekly usually are unaware that I'm still a reporter first and foremost, and part of my responsibility is writing 5,000-plus-word stories aspiring to the best of literary journalism. Taking that into consideration, I wrote each chapter of Orange County as if it were a cover story for the Weekly. The trick for me, however, was making sure that constant themes wove themselves through and through to make Orange County an actual book and not another collection of my writings. I enjoyed that process immensely and can't wait to do it again.

OLIVAS: It is clear that you gleefully take aim at the mythology created to promote Orange County. If you were forced to choose one myth to dispel, what would it be?

ARELLANO: That Orange County is Eden. It's not. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else on Earth, but I acknowledge the corruption, the Mexican-bashing, the iron grasp developers have on county residents, the class warfare across OC. All of what I just spoke of, however, is swept under the rug or--more deviously--celebrated as virtues in the official narrative followed and expounded by millions.

The main metaphor of my book is the Cult of the Orange Crate. Back when King Citrus ruled the land, orange farmers would ship their fruits in boxes with an ornate label--anyone who's spent their life in Southern California knows how they look: idyllic paintings of orange trees, pretty señoritas, rolling foothills, all with names like Esperanza, Old Mission and the like. The labels were both retelling reality and suppressing it. They didn't show the Mexicans like my great-grandfather and grandfather living in segregated citrus camps, the addiction to cheap labor the industry grew. Hey, Know Nothings: want to blame someone for illegal immigration in Southern California? Blame the citrus growers of yore.

Similarly, Orange County: A Personal History also addresses the idealization many Mexican immigrants maintain of the homeland they left, the insistence on maintaining culture and visiting as often as possible. Look, I'm about as Aztlanista as you can get, but there's a reason why millions of Mexicans have left la patria over the past century, and it's not because they're fleeing the Guatemalan invasion. I laugh when people say that life is better in Mexico than in the United States--yeah, tell that to the poor souls like my father who fold themselves into pretzels for a chance to break the shackles of poverty.

OLIVAS: You write about your family, warts and all. What has been their reaction?

ARELLANO: They haven't read the book yet. My mom's going to have a heart attack--whenever I'd tell her about what I was writing on a particular day, she scolded me like any good Mexican mami. But I tell those stories to specifically make a point to Americans--that Mexicans can and do escape from some of those pathologies they love to hoist on us as being exclusively Mexican: lack of a college or even high school degree, alcoholism, spousal abuse and the like. The crap I'm constantly debunking in my ¡Ask a Mexican! column. I'm proud to tell those warts. I'm proud that my dad has been sober for almost 25 years--millions of our young gabacho scholars in American colleges and universities can stand to learn from this 57-year-old Mexican.

OLIVAS: I cringed as I read how your father made you dress like a "real" Mexican and go to neighborhood dances. It is clear that you're emotionally scarred. But out of great pain comes great art, no?

ARELLANO: If you can wear a Stetson and cowboy boots, rock it. I'll stick with my Chucks and fedora.

OLIVAS: You pepper your book with restaurant recommendations (worth the price of the book alone!). Food obviously plays an important role in your life. If you were on death row, what would be your last meal?

ARELLANO: Food plays an important part in my life not just because of my mother's cooking but because I've been the food editor for the Weekly for the past four years (two years longer than the existence of ¡Ask a Mexican! column). Including the best restaurant in each of Orange County's 34 cities was an attempt to hoist another genre on my new book: the travel guide. All this said, my last meal would be my mom's rajas con papa y queso washed down with Honduran banana soda.

OLIVAS: You now have two books under your Mexican belt. What will the third one be about?

ARELLANO: La Bloga can break this news: I'm finalizing details to publish another book for Scribner with the tentative title Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America (And Soon, the World). I want to examine the socio-culinary role that "Mexican" food has played in the United States--Tex-Mex, Taco Bell, the war against taco trucks, busboys, the Aztec gifts (tomato, chocolate, vanilla, etc.), the Mississippi Delta tamale, and how this vision is now influencing what "Mexican" food is in the world, and not, you know, actual Mexican food. Did you know that tacos are all the rage in Sweden, except their tacos make Taco Bell look like the masterwork of a lonchera?

OLIVAS: Finally, who do you want to play you in the movie version of Orange County (and if you say Robert Downey, Jr., I will kill you)?

ARELLANO: Funny you ask this question. My Facebook's status recently read that I was taking a bunch of ridiculous meetings--all I'll say at this point is that television execs LOVE to take meetings and that said meetings are farces. I've heard Sean Penn and Marc Anthony (shudder) should play me in a film, but I still say I'm the reincarnation of Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens since they passed away on February 3, 1959 and I was born 20 years later. Or, if you need a flesh-and-bones version, a younger Woody Allen sans the gross womanizing.

OLIVAS: Mil gracias for spending time with La Bloga.

Here is Gustavo Arellano’s book tour schedule:

September 16 (LOS ANGELES): 7 pm, Borders, 8852 Washington Blvd., Pico Rivera, CA. Contact: Jan Wagner, 310-540-7000 ext. 552.

September 17 (PHOENIX): 7 pm, Changing Hands, 6428 S McClintock Dr., Tempe, AZ. Contact: Cindy Dach, 480-730-0205

September 18 (LOS ANGELES): Libreria Martinez (go to website for more information).

September 19 (AUSTIN): 7 pm, Book People, 603 N. Lamar, Austin, TX. Contact: Alison Kothe, 512-472-4288 ext. 207.

September 20 (DALLAS): 2 pm, Borders, 5500 Greenville Ave., Dallas, TX. Contact: Carlo Rich, 214-363-9305.

September 21 (HOUSTON): 2 pm, Nuestra Palabra, George R. Brown Convention Center, 1001 Avenida de las Americas, Houston, TX 77010. Contact: Tony Diaz, 832-630-6007.

September 23 (NEW YORK): 7:30 pm, Barnes & Noble, 396 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY. Contact: Donna Rausch, 212-674-8780

September 24 (DENVER): Tattered Cover, 1628 16th St., Denver, CO. Contact: Charles Stillwagon, 303-436-9219 ext: 2736.

October 18 (LOS ANGELES): SCIBA Author Feast.

◙ I previously reported on the opening of Rancho Pancho, a new play by former Los Angeles Times journalist and San Antonio playwright Gregg Barrios. The play is about the short-lived but intense relationship between playwright Tennessee Williams and South Texan Pancho Rodriguez from 1946-1947. The other characters are Carson McCullers (with whom Williams and Pancho shared a summer home in Nantucket), and pioneer stage director Margo Jones (who was in P-town for Brando’s Streetcar audition). Well, the San Antonio Current just reviewed the play and said this, in part:

The hot ticket Saturday night seems to have been the premiere of the fully-staged version of “Rancho Pancho,” playwright Gregg Barrios' exploration of the tempestuous relationship between Tennessee Williams and Texan Pancho Rodriguez.

Jump-Start Theater was filled to the rafters for the performance — folding chairs were brought in to accommodate late-comers. Sunday's performance drew a healthy crowd as well, according to figures from the brand-new Classic Theatre, which staged it in collaboration with Jump-Start.

The crowds were rewarded with a satisfying piece tracing the relationship from its early, playful phase all the way to the explosive, emotionally draining break-up. Director Diane Malone has described the play as a love story, and that's exactly what she and her gifted cast delivered.

[The cast of Rancho Pancho is pictured above: Rick Frederick (clockwise from top left), Benny Briseño, Anna Gangai, and Annella Keys.]

◙ Rigoberto González, writing for the El Paso Times, reviews first-time novelist Claudia Guadalupe Martínez’s young adult novel, The Smell of Old Lady Perfume (Cinco Puntos Press, $15.95 paperback), which he calls a “touching study of the heartaches that befall an 11-year-old girl living in El Paso's historic Segundo Barrio.” If you live in or near El Paso, you may meet Martínez who will be appearing for a reading and book signing to introduce The Smell of Old Lady Perfume. When: 6:30 p.m. this Saturday. Where: La Fe Cultural and Technology Center, 721 S. Ochoa (rear entrance). Information: 838-1625.

◙ Agustin Gurza, staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, tells us about a new outlook for singer Lila Downs:

Lila Downs is an artist who always seemed to have her act together. The Mexican American singer has a stunning voice, a confident multicultural vision grounded in her Mixtec Indian roots and a successful 15-year career in world music circles. What she doesn't have is a child.

Downs faced her inability to conceive as she approached her 40th birthday this month, and the productive artist suddenly felt barren. Depressed and drinking, the together performer fell apart. "What . . . am I doing in this life if I can't have children?" she asked herself. "That's the whole point of living as a woman."

The deteriorating political situation back home in her beloved Oaxaca, wracked by a violent teachers strike two years ago, only made matters worse. As a champion of the culture, she felt powerless and angry, and she started taking it out on her band. Once, in the middle of a concert in the Canary Islands, she walked off the stage, thinking, "You guys work it out yourselves. See how far you get without me."

To read the entire piece and how Downs got her groove back, click here. If you have story ideas for Gurza, email him at agustin.gurza@latimes.com. (Pictured: Lila Downs; photo credit: Los Angeles Times.)

◙ Sarah Rafael García invites everyone to her first on-campus presentation. She will be presenting Las Niñas (Floricanto Press) at Cal-State University at Fullerton, to several classes but they will also provide an open special event:

Cal-State University at Fullerton
7 p.m., Tuesday, October 7th
TSU Ontiveros Room ABC

For address & directions, click here

Co-sponsored by CSUF's Researchers and Critical Educators (R.A.C.E.) and the Chicana & Chicano Resource Center.

◙ An announcement from the Cypress Park Branch Library:

Most of the attention the working-class, largely Latino community of Cypress Park northeast of downtown receives from major media comes from spasms of gang violence. The fatal shooting in August of a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy. The February shooting outside Aragon Elementary School.

But the community is much more than that.

The Cypress Park Branch Library, a hub of community activity at 1150 Cypress Ave., will showcase another side of the neighborhood with a free reading 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20, featuring two local authors, one of whom grew up in Cypress Park.

Reading from their work will be Reyna Grande, author of the critically acclaimed novel Across a Hundred Mountains, and Conrad Romo, who produces "Tongue and Groove," a five-year-old monthly reading event at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood, and who grew up in Cypress Park a block from the former Southern Pacific railroad yard.

Grande, who was born in Mexico and came to the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant at the age of nine, received a 2007 American Book Award and the 2008 El Premio Aztlan Literary Award, for her first novel. She is currently finishing a master's program in creative writing and her second novel, Dancing with Butterflies, is scheduled to be released in 2009.

Romo, a second-generation Angeleno, has had short stories published in Palehouse, Wednesday magazine and Noveltown Review. His short story, "Cement God," was recently featured in Tu Ciudad magazine and also appears in the Anthology Latinos in Lotusland.

Romo organized the reading in an effort to give something back to the community where he grew up, to call attention to positive aspects of the tight-knit community, and to show that Cypress Park is defined by more than just the headline-grabbing violence of a few gang members.

"There are other stories," Romo said. "A whole community can be identified by just a few actions. . . . but there are other stories, other people who live there."

Contact: Conrad Romo, (323) 931-1200, or through his website. Branch Librarian: Patty Rostomian, (323) 224-0039.

◙ Happy to be back but I really did enjoy my family vacation to Yellowstone. Remember that Latino Heritage Month begins today. There are many ways to celebrate, of course, but how better than buying a book by your favorite Latino/a author? If you need ideas, check in with La Bloga each day. See you next Monday and remember: ¡Lea un libro!

Bibliocaust

A UNIVERSAL HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS: FROM ANCIENT SUMER TO MODERN IRAQ
Fernando Báez, translated by Alfred MacAdam
Atlas & Co.

One of the first inquiries that Sarah Palin made when she became mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, in 1996, was to ask the city librarian if she would be open to banning books from the library. The librarian explained that all the library books had been "purchased in accordance with national standards and professional guidelines" and that she would fight anyone who tried to dictate what would sit on the library shelves. Ms. Palin went about her business of governing the town of 6,300 residents, performing tasks such as asking most of the city officials under her authority for their resignation, including the librarian, as part of a "loyalty" test. Ultimately, the librarian stayed on at the library and Ms. Palin moved on to other things.

The news splash of that almost-forgotten episode in the life of the person who may well end up only a heartbeat away from the Oval Office, as the morning talk show hosts like to say, instigated within me a thought-process that eventually led to Fernando Báez's Universal History of the Destruction of Books. It started with trying to put myself in the place of the small-town mayor who thought that a priority after winning the election was to worry about the subversive, dangerous and evil books in the city library. It ended with reading Báez's catalog of the incessant war against writers, ideas, history and identity.

Báez writes about much more than banning books, of course. His subject is the story of the obsessive violence committed by humans against books since books were first invented. He writes about the burning of books, about bibliocaust, which he defines as the destruction of books in "an attempt to annihilate a memory considered to be a direct or indirect threat to another memory thought superior."

Báez is the director of Venezuela's National Library and a recognized world authority on the history of libraries. His incredible saga about the destruction of books begins and ends in Iraq, where humanity's first books appeared, a "great paradox" according to Báez. In Sumer (southern Iraq), between 4100 and 3300 BC, Báez estimates that 100,000 clay tablets were destroyed, primarily because of the wars between the city states, which were always accompanied by fires. The last chapter describes the author's 2003 visit to Iraq as a member of the U.N. committee investigating the destruction of the country's libraries and museums.

Báez details the looting, ransacking, and burning of Iraq's libraries. He describes the destruction of books, tablets, artifacts, state records and documents - the heritage of the country. The numbers he cites are staggering: ten million documents disappeared from the Iraqi National Archive, including tomes from the Ottoman period such as registries and decrees; almost a million books were lost in the looting and burning of the National Library; more than 150,00 clay tablets have disappeared from archaeological sites. The University of Baghdad was attacked by looters in April, 2003, shortly after the U.S. invasion. The destruction was complete, rendering the University "desolate" and "burned-out." The library in the College of Physicians, which had a collection of medieval Arabic texts on medicine, was emptied. A student told Báez: "Someday someone will burn the Library of Congress, you know, but they won't lose anything like what's been destroyed here."

The destruction and looting had been expected and two months before the U.S invasion a group of archaeologists met with advisers to the U.S. President and warned them that museums and archaeological sites had be protected by U.S. troops. Five thousand essential sites were on a list presented to Martin Sullivan, President Bush's cultural adviser.The warnings and list were ignored and Sullivan resigned in frustration when the looting began. The litany of war crimes ascribed to the U.S. includes violations of the Hague Convention of 1954 because U.S. troops did not protect the cultural institutions of Baghdad. For example, after soldiers knocked down a statue of Saddam outside the National Library, they left, leaving the building open to looting and arson. Báez concludes that "Iraq was the first place to fall victim to cultural annihilation in the twenty-first century."

Among the Ten Worst Moments in the History of Books, compiled by Baez, is the destruction of Mayan books in 1562 in Mexico. In Maní, in the Yucatán, Diego de Landa burned 5000 idols and twenty-seven codices of the ancients. This statistic is found in the chapter entitled The Destruction of Pre-Hispanic Culture in the Americas and, again, the parade of horrors, the description of over five hundred years of plunder, is overwhelming.

In 1530, in Texcoco, the first bishop of Mexico, Juan de Zumárraga, made a bonfire of all the writings and idols of the natives. Ironically, Zumárraga introduced printing to Mexico; he also created the first public library in Mexico. In their zeal to obliterate native culture, the Spaniards destroyed and outlawed all symbolic manuscripts of the Indians including magic figures and charms. Gold objects were melted down or seized as "trophies" by European collectors. Báez notes that although the list is not long, the most important codices are now in Europe. These surviving Aztec codices are of colonial origin. Mayan theatrical performances were prohibited; only three pre-Hispanic Mayan codices survived the purges. The disappearance of the native culture was so complete that Báez can state: "No one imagines that a Christian cathedral could be built on top of the pyramids of Egypt or the Sphinx, but that is exactly what happened in Mexico during the sixteenth century."

The Introduction to this book explains Báez's basic theories about the type of person who burns books and why such destruction has been a consistent part of the world's history. He states that books are not destroyed as physical objects but as links to memory - "there is no identity without memory. If we do not remember what we are, we don't know what we are." When a group or nation attempts to subjugate another group or nation, the traces of memory must be erased. Báez also concludes that there are dozens of causes for the destruction of a book or library but the root of all such destruction is the "intent to induce historical amnesia that facilitates control of an individual or a society." Báez writes about the Culture of Destruction, and one of his most troubling observations is that, in general, bibliocasts are "well-educated people, cultured, sensitive, perfectionists, painstaking, with unusual intellectual gifts, depressive tendencies, incapable of tolerating criticism, egoists, mythomaniacs, members of the middle or upper classes, with minor traumas in their childhood or youth, with a tendency to belong to institutions that represent constituted power, charismatic, with religious and social hypersensitivity. To all that we would add a tendency to fantasy. In sum, we have to forget the stereotype of the savage book destroyer. Ignorant people are the most innocent."

There are chapters about the Library of Alexandria; China; Rome and Early Christianity; the Islamic World; the Renaissance; England; the Rise of Fascism and the infamous Nazi book-burnings; and the conflicts between battling ethnicities such as the Bosnian War (1992-1995) when some of the "most radical acts of violence in European cultural history were perpetrated." The book is complete and devastating in its indictment of the complicity in this violence of those in control, those who have the power or who are seizing power, whatever historical time period is discussed.

I took away from the book the important lesson that book burnings and censorship are products of the divide between us and them; that, as Báez writes, the negation of the other requires control, which in turn means barring information. This tendency in all of us can be opposed and stopped. We can resist the censors when they come to our town, and just like the librarian of a small Alaskan library, we can fight for
the books.

Later.

RAW SILK SUTURE

illustrated by Maria Arango

Gente: below is the press release for what is my latest book, Raw Silk Suture. It has been a blessed project, and a labor of love. My dedication is also posted, but I would be remiss if I did not also thank Maria Arango for her gorgeous illustrations, my editor Carlos Mock, my graphic designer, Bill Rattan, and my publisher, Roberto Cabello-Argandoña, and the talented and generous Susan Palmer Marshall for her invaluable feedback. Lastly, un abrazo to Juan Felipe Hererra, Demetria Martinez and Francisco Aragon for their encouragement and unflagging support.

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PRESS RELEASE

In this collection, Lisa Alvarado wields the pen and cuts deeply to the heart of Chicanisma, female identity, the use and misuse of the body, its restoration, and the power of love. With finely etched free verse, each subject is explored to the depth without hesitation, and boldly revealed.

PRAISE FOR RAW SILK SUTURE

"Figures in black abound in Alvarado’s “perishable craft,” her words of and for the unseen...her intensities are relentless. Alvarado is a poet of the abyss...Such an artist was Frida Kahlo....Lisa does not offer an exit; this is one of her superb contributions. She conjures, that is all....Caress this book as you would hold your soul-to-be gasping for life. That is all." -- Juan Felipe Herrera, poet. Author of 187 Reasons Mexicans Can't Cross the Border and Half of the World in Light, New and Selected Poems; Professor, Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair, Department of Creative Writing University of California

"Alvarado's call for "a quiet remaking of cells" is nothing short of revolutionary. Read this book, look at yourself and the world around you and know: anything is possible." -- Demetria Martínez author, Confessions of a Berlitz-Tape Chicana

"Simply put, Raw Silk Suture is “a scar / that has / become a flower.” -- Francisco Aragón Editor, The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry Founding Editor, Latino Poetry Review (LPR)

"The poetry of Lisa Alvarado thunders across the page. Fiery and smoky, these are poems for midnight whiskey and pre-dawn espresso. These are poems for what ails us." -- Manuel Ramos, Author, Moony's Road to Hell, and Founder and Columnist, La Bloga

Lisa will kickoff the national release, Saturday, September 20th, 7:30 PM, at: Decima Musa, 1901 S. Loomis St, Chicago, IL, hosted by Palabra Pura/Guild Complex. She will also be appearing at Acentos in the Bronx, New York, on September 23rd, 7 PM, as part of the national kickoff for this release. (The Bruckner Gallery at Bruckner Bar and Grill, One Bruckner Blvd.; corner of Third Ave. and Bruckner Blvd.)

BIO:

Lisa Alvarado is a poet, performer, and installation artist and is the author of two award-winning chapbooks, Reclamo and The Housekeeper's Diary; the latter also a one-woman performance which toured nationally. Lisa is also the co-author of the acclaimed young adult novel, Sister Chicas, written with Ann Hagman Cardinal and Jane Alberdeston Coralin. She is the recipient of grants from the Department of Cultural Affairs, The NEA, and the Ragdale Foundation, and is also a journalist, contributing reviews and interviews to La Bloga, and Blogcritics.org. If you are interested in booking Lisa to experience this groundbreaking work contact her at: lisa@lisaalvarado.net. For review copies or to purchase, contact: Roberto Cabello, Floricanto® Press 650 Castro St, Ste 120--331 Mountain View, California 94041-2055 415-552 1879 Fax 702-995 1410 http://floricantopress.com Inter American Development Inc.

ISBN: 978-1-888205-06-0

###### FIN ######

And I'll let the dedication page say what's in my heart:

For Luis Rodriguez and Maureen Seaton,who laid the word ‘writer’ at my feet.

For Martín Espada, Odysseus de Nueva York. For the clenched fist and the lion’s heart.

For Diane Ackerman, who reminds me the divine is in every day beauty.

For Tara Betts, Sharmili Majmudar, for the flesh in the word.

To Michael Sedano, Manuel Ramos, Daniel Olivas, Rudy Garcia, Gina Sol Ruiz, René Colato Laínez, for making me bring my ‘A’ game.

For Jay and June, heart of my heart, and Rose, dear sister mine.

And lastly, for my sisters, Ann Hagman Cardinal, Jane Alberdeston Coralin, for writing that that comes from the deepest roots.

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SAD NEWS FROM ACENTOS

The crew at Acentos extends its deepest sympathies to the family and friends of novelist Edgardo Vega Yunqué. He passed away on August 25th, age 72.

The New York Times' David Gonzalez eulogizes and remembers his friend
here: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/chronicler-of-new-york-leaves-the-scene/?ei=5070&emc=eta1

Mr. Vega Yunqué's writing was of the fiercest variety: uncompromising, curious, surprising. Always a proud Boricua, a chronicler of New York, as Gonzalez notes, he never succumbed to
the popular notions of Boricua writings, breaking and challenging conventions wherever he could.

For our part, it is important to note that Ed spent his childhood in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx, where the Acentos series calls home. His sudden passing reminds us of the mission we share as writers to chronicle our barrios, our people, with the truest words we can pen.

Vaya Ed Vega Yunqué…and godspeed.

Paz,
The Acentos crew.

Book Trailers

René Colato Laínez

Inspired on the famous Movie Trailers, now writers and illustrators are making their own trailers. But instead of movie clips, they use the art and images of their books.

Take a look at LITTLE NIGHT by Yuyi Morales. This wonderful book won the Golden Kite Award given by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).



Like a movie trailer, a book trailer can inspire you to go to a bookstore or library and look for that particular book. In the movie trailer, you can include your previous books and your websites. ESTELA'S SWAP was written by Alexis O'neill and Illustrated by Enrique O Sanchez.



A book trailer can make you laugh too. Do you know who are the Cheecharrones? You will know them after watching this book trailer. CAPTAIN CHEECH was written by Cheech Marin and illustrated by Orlando L. Ramirez.

Review: Black and White and Dead All Over

John Darnton
NY: A.A. Knopf, 2008.
ISBN: 978-0-307-26752-8 (0-307-26752-0)

Michael Sedano

Back when I was a kid, someone told me a homophone joke, "What's black and white and
read all over?" A newspaper. Shortly thereafter came the "sick joke" version, "What's black and white and red all over?" A dead nun.

I can't believe it's taken almost sixty years for some writer to use one or the other of those jokes as a title allusion, but it has. The culprit is John Darnton, and he's used both jokes to signal a newspaper-based murder mystery--there's neither convent nor nun. In keeping with the jokester heritage of the title, Darnton writes Black & White and Dead All Over as a roman à clef comedy that's well worth putting up with some cutesy stuff and an early give-away of the murder's identity.

Since a whodunit revolves around characters, Darnton elects to give his silly but often illustrative names. The predator mogul who wants to swallow up the newspaper is a New Zealander, Lester Moloch. The first murder victim is an unpopular editor surnamed Ratnoff. Less obscure, perhaps, are the detectives who unravel the crime. The police investigator is one Priscilla Bollingsworth--attractive but not readily approachable--and the reporter, Jude Hurley. For her, think homophone vulgarity, balling; for him think literarily, Hardy's character Jude Fawley.

After a brisk opening--the first body drops in the first pages--Darnton slows down the action, giving over lots of space to introducing the names of his characters and their foibles. I'm sure there are tons of newspaper in-jokes flying here. Darnton explains the ones that require more than insider knowledge, allows others to fly past. Some of this backgrounding is necessary to the story, like the vicious Ratnoff's penchant for savaging poor reporting, and his hardly compensatory practice of scribbling a one-liner of praise in purple ink. When Ratnoff's body is discovered, the murderer has spindled into the corpse that same one-liner in purple ink. But some of the characters, like Bavardez--such an unusual name--simply disappear, leaving the reader wondering what all the fuss was about.

The title is a bit of a misnomer. There are only three murders, but they are spectacular. The spindled editor in the City Room, the gossip columnist wrapped in bailing wire in the basement, the cook poisoned and flopped into her pear soufflé in the studio kitchen. But then, the "dead all over" could as well archly refer to Darnton's subtext, the death of print journalism and the rise of the internet. With the murders all occurring on the premises, the board locks out the frightened employees. Jude turns to the web-based paper to pursue the case and publish his stories. In fact, Darnton points to tabloids and web publications as reflections of what readers read and where journalism is making its last stand. Jude's paper, The Globe, populated with old-fashioned writers and colorful characters, is on its last legs.

With all the importance names have in this novel, the dead give-away of the fiend's identity comes at the absence of a name. When the gossip columnist sees her murderer, not yet realizing what his presence implies, she recognizes him by announcing, "Oh, it's you." In a world marked by camaraderie and spirited repartee, "you" offers a telling indicator of status and contempt. Then, in the next chapter, Jude has a similar encounter with a character, whom Jude recognizes with the same tell-tale, "Oh, it's you." That's right, "you," it turns out, is the killer. That is not a spoiler revelation. Readers will find Darnton's name play thoroughly enjoyable, so when a person pops into the story and is deprived of a name, that telegraphs significance. Too bad Darnton doesn't name that person Butler.

There are a couple of subplots running--a bastard heir, Moloch's spies, Jude's courtship of Bollingsworth, the impending death of newspapering--that keep the story running at an enjoyable pace. Several laugh out loud moments will be rewards beyond the sense of authenticity--or perhaps comfortable stereotypes--for newspapering Darnton weaves into the fabric of the novel.

It's interesting that there are several outstanding newspaper motion pictures, but not many newspaper novels. Kinky Friedman has a colorful columnist character, but for novels, I wracked my brain. The only other newspaper novel I can remember is The Last City Room, by the LA Times' Al Martinez. It's thus a pleasure now to add one more to the list, John Darnton's Black and White and Dead All Over. Got others? Leave a comment and recommend it.

mvs

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Lipstick Vogue

The other day I was at Gesine’s having a latte with my friend Rick and he mentioned he had had a long conversation with his mother the night before. I didn't know much about her, so I asked questions: what she had done in her life, what his relationship with her was like, who she was. As he spoke I imagined a well-coiffed, tailored, seventy year-old retired school teacher who sent floral-scented thank you notes and organized her husband’s sock drawer. He painted a comforting picture of his mother, a woman I imagined was a more traditional "Mom" than my own had been. Then as I took a bite of my pastry he added, “During our conversation last night my mother told me she was thinking of getting her lips tattooed.”

After I dislodged the small piece of carrot cake that I had nearly asphyxiated on in my shock, he quickly added, “Not with a design or anything. Just a color, like permanent lipstick, you know? Several of her friends have done it.” As I continued to stare at him, attempting to reconcile this bit of news with the image I had of his seventy-year old mother and deciding if he was merely pulling my chain, Bonnie came out from behind the counter and walked towards our table.

“I’m sorry, I hope you don’t think I was eavesdropping, but I just have to ask about this lip tattoo thing.” She turned to Rick, “Are you serious? Your mother’s considering this?” Rick confirmed that it was indeed true. Bonnie was shocked too, but clearly fascinated. Finally she offered, “Well, it kind of makes sense. My mother was on her deathbed and she just had to apply new lipstick before going into surgery. I think it is a generational thing.” She smiled as she remembered her mother groping for the tell tale green tube on the hospital night table.

I was prompted then to remember my Great Aunt Ana in Puerto Rico. She was a forceful woman with a military-like countenance, a series of tasteful length polyester dresses her uniform, and always armed with a completely practical and frugal approach to life. A former math teacher she saved everything, spent no money that wasn’t absolutely necessary, and always wore her salt and pepper hair in a sensible helmet of controlled curls. Needless to say she was not a woman prone to frivolity or vanity…with one exception: the hourly application of peppermint pink lipstick. I used to love to watch her do it. She would purse her lips as if she had just eaten a lemon then carefully apply the lipstick while looking into a tortoiseshell, compact mirror. As she neatly tucked the lipstick and mirror into their proper compartments in her black vinyl handbag, she would un-purse her lips, pink stripes going up and down her lips from where she had puckered them. No matter how much she was lacking in skill, I recognized that this was her one indulgence, her one nod to the girlhood that was robbed from her when she was told she was expected to care for her disabled sisters and not marry. Realizing this, I celebrated her candy-cane striped kisses.

But in my family this habit was not just restricted to Ana. My mother would not even go to the supermarket without lipstick. Her beauty routine included many more elements than her Aunt, but lipstick was as essential to her as her eyeglasses or shoes. When we traveled she carried around a hard-sided, Samsonite make-up case that coordinated with her teal luggage. I remember walking through the airport hand in hand as she carried the case in the other, the clean clicking sound of the Max Factor lipsticks rolling back and forth in the upper tray of the case. How many of you readers were once little girls (or boys) who smeared their mother’s lipstick haphazardly on their lips, proudly displaying what you thought was a badge of adulthood?

I had been half listening to Bonnie and Rick talk as this Viewmaster reel of memories ran through my head, when I became aware that they were looking at me.

“Did I freak you out with the tattooed lips story, Ann?” Rick asked. I thought for a minute as he and Bonnie waited for my reply.

“No. I think it is lovely that your mother enjoys festive colored lips enough to make it permanent. But what about being able to change the color with her outfits?” As my friends discussed this dilemma, I thought about these stylish, mature women with their paraffin smelling lipsticks, and smiled. Then I quietly put down my empty coffee cup, the tell tale kiss mark of Viva Glam IV on its white cardboard rim and reached for the lipstick tube from my purse. Pulling it out, I raised it up to Rick's and Bonnie's mothers, to my great aunt Ana, and to my own well-turned out mother, a generation of women who took care and pride in their appearance, and recognized that whether you were going to church, the supermarket or the operating room, you should always look your best. Then I pulled the top off of the black metallic tube and carefully reapplied the frosted wine color to my own lips.

[Monday's regular contributor, Dan Olivas, returns next Monday, Sept. 15.]

The Whole Story

We all have them. In fact, some of us have more than others. Family stories. Historical ones, inspirational ones, and, of course, humiliating ones. Though I am certain that many of you hear your share of these at any family gathering, it is the storytellers (or cuentistas) among us who carry these tales forward. Though, as I came to find out about my mother’s tales, they are not always based in fact, but are sometimes closer to fiction, but I had to inherit the skill from somewhere, verdad?

I started telling stories when I was five. In the sixties, family vacations were road trips. Every summer my parents would load the five of us kids into our VW van and head down to Florida to visit our grandparents. We would stop at the South of the Border stores, purchase pounds of colorful plastic souvenirs, eat massive amounts of heavy comfort food, and stay at motels with tiki-themed pools. On one particular occasion we had been on the road for several days and had run out of things to talk about. My brothers and sisters surrounded me with arms crossed and sulky looks on their faces as we putted along highway 95. Seeing the possibilities for an audience I announced, “Once, I had a pony.”

Silence.

I looked over and saw that my brother John was smirking at me and suddenly realized that he would know I was lying since he was indeed six years older. I quickly added, pointing to John authoritatively, “I once had a pony, and then you were born.” Silence. Then uproarious laughter. Needless to say I will never live this down and though I am 45 it is still brought up at family gatherings, but that afternoon, when things calmed down in the car my mother gave me a lecture about not making up stories, and how I should always tell the truth.

My mother's insistence on the truth made sense to me as I never thought she had much of a flare for telling stories. There were certainly more talented cuentistas in the Davila family, but she had a few she would tell me from time to time, always with a seriousness that implied she was imparting a deep dark family truth for my own good. There was a room in her great aunt Ana's house, right next to the one we used to stay in when we went down to Puerto Rico for a visit. Ana would never let anyone in there: when she needed to get something out of it she would open the door just wide enough to slip through and close it behind her so I wasn’t able to follow. I couldn't imagine what was behind that slatted wooden door. Treasures? Scaly green monsters with glowing yellow eyes? I asked my mother about it one night as we tried to sleep to the whir of the air conditioner and the whine of mosquitoes above our heads.

"Why won't Anatia let anyone into that room?"

My mother replied, "Well, her father, my abuelo, shot himself in that room."

I gaped at her in the dark. "What? Why??" I squealed as she shushed me, looking toward the closed door as if Abuelo himself were listening from the other side.

"He was sick with TB and he didn't want to be a burden to his family, so he took out a pistol and shot himself in that very room. Anatia is the one who found him and since then no one can enter the room but her."

I lay there in silent awe, gently pulling my head away from the stucco wall that divided me from the memory of my great grand-father's violent death in the next room.

Over thirty years later, ten years after my mother's death, I was in a restaurant with my mother's siblings, and I mentioned the story of my great grandfather. Tio Jorge practically choked on his tostones.

"¿Que? Abuelo didn't shoot himself! He died very peacefully in a hospital! And that house Anatia lived in wasn't even built then!" I just stared at him, heat rising from my chest to my face.

Finally I sputtered, "What? Mom made it all up?" I began to recount the other stories she had told me. One after another, they were confirmed to be fiction. I was furious. Beyond furious. How could my mother feed me these lies year after year? And I believed her! I could just see her talking to me over her shoulder in the VW van, her self-righteous lecture about not telling stories ringing in my ears.

I stared at my half eaten lunch, tears gathering in my eyes. My cousin Jose Luis took my hand and said, "Annie, what does it matter if the stories are true or not? Isn't our family as defined by the stories that aren't true as by the ones that are? Write them down, Annie. That is your role in this family. Write them down, true or false. They are what makes us who we are."

It was this revelation that helped me become a writer as well as a storyteller. My cousin taught me a very important lesson that day and I often hear his wise words in my head. Every day we have less and less opportunities to hear these oral histories (or, in my family's case, historical fiction). Any hours spent traveling by car are now filled with Gameboys, individual DVD players watched with headsets on, our ears glued to cellular phones. Something has been lost in the electronic din. Something that once defined us. I want my son to hear the stories of his abuela, no matter how outrageous, how fabricated. It is the storytellers that continue to weave the fabric of our families by bringing these tales forward. So what if they add a bit of their own embroidery or embellishments along the way? I’ve come to believe that it is these intricate designs that define us, that reflect who we are as a family. So next Thanksgiving, let your drunken uncle Joaquin tell his tall tales. And be sure to take notes. You never know when you might want to remember it.