The poet of East L.A.: Debut brings women's stories to wider audience

Peeping Tom Tom Girl (San Diego City Works Press, $12.95 paperback) by Marisela Norte

Book review by Daniel Olivas

In the introduction to Marisela Norte's first book of poetry, Peeping Tom Tom Girl (San Diego City Works Press, $12.95 paperback), the scholar George Lipsitz dubs Norte the "poet laureate of the people." This urgent, gritty, sexy and engrossing collection of poems supports Lipsitz's grand pronouncement in every respect.

Norte is a native of East Los Angeles who, remarkably, does not possess a driver's license. She rides the bus and, when necessary, walks in this city that seems to live and breathe on exhaust fumes.

But Norte's mode of transportation has the effect of bringing the poet even closer to those she writes about, with a particular emphasis on the Chicanas, Mexicanas and tough-girl cholas of her community.

As she notes in the title poem:

I am a peeping tom tom girl
And from my seat on the downtown bus
I have been driven through
Been witness to
Invaded by
Las vidas de ellas.

Norte is a storyteller, and she allows her imagination to fill in the blanks of the lives she witnesses from her bus seat or the sidewalk's vantage point. In the poem "Big Red," we are introduced to middle-aged "Disco Grandma" who gets out

Of her big, black, sport utility vehicle
The one she parked with great difficulty
Between a baby blue Mazda mini truck
And a forest green Lexus.

Norte does not pity Big Red. In fact, she wishes that "I were brave enough / To follow her on to the dance floor." Norte praises those who know who they are and what they want, even if the rest of the world might not think much of their efforts.

Norte undermines the mistaken belief held by many that poems should be "pretty" or "beautiful" in the most banal and harmless sense of those overused adjectives. For example, in such pieces as "Daily Grind," she recounts a young woman's rape after a wedding by a "friend of the family." The woman's degradation is heightened by the subsequent abortion and the male doctor "who barely looks at" her and who tells her to open her legs: "'Wider! Wider!' he says, 'I know you're used to that.'” In a sense, the protagonist is raped again.

Norte sings of the lives of women -- primarily Chicanas and Mexican women -- such as an aunt who, in the poem "Act of the Faithless," crosses the border each day: "She worked as a hotel maid / In the El Paso Holiday Inn." The discards of hotel guests become her treasures:

Decorated her home with
Objects of rejection
Souvenirs
Turistas left behind
Salt and pepper shakers
Shaped like ten gallon hats
Lone Star state of the art back scratchers
All the way from Taiwan

The above stanza's last line is emblematic of Norte's irony, which she deftly employs to prevent her protagonists' lives from devolving into pedantry or too-easy pathos.

For too long, Marisela Norte's poetry was known and appreciated mostly in Southern California. But upon the publication of her first book, many others will no doubt discover this singular talent.

[This review first appeared in the El Paso Times.]

◙ BOOK REVIEW BY DANIEL OLIVAS EXCLUSIVE TO LA BLOGA:

The Slacker's Guide to Law School: Success Without Stress (The Fine Print Press) by Juan Doria (paperback, $16.95)

Oh, I wish I had this book when I was applying to law school.

Juan Doria’s easy-to-read, sometimes hilarious but always practical guide to succeeding in law school without losing one’s mind (or soul, for that matter), should be required reading for all new law students.

Doria earned his B.A. in English literature at Indiana University – Bloomington, and then did what many such majors have done (I’m included in this cohort): he applied to law school – after traveling through Italy for a bit.

In the first chapter entitled, “Should You Go to Law School,” Doria recounts his reasoning in making this decision, reasons that will sound familiar to all those liberal arts majors out there: I don’t know what else to do; my parents (spouse, friends, etc.) expect me to go; I want to make money; and the ever-famous last words, I can do anything with a law degree.

You can see where this is going. But, in truth, Doria is being honest: his point is that you, the potential law student, should think long and hard before making the emotional, intellectual and financial investment in going to law school.

Doria divides his book in logical progression beginning, as noted, with the initial decision to go to law school, moving to the application process, taking the LSAT, choosing a law school, beginning classes, studying for exams, graduating, finding a job, and taking the bar.

Doria does not hold back. He readily recounts the alcohol and drug abuse that is all-too-common within law school. Every potential friend and study mate is also a competitor. Law school nerds are annoying and to be avoided. Romance is possible (Doria got married in law school and became a father) but he warns against dating a fellow law student (I married my law school sweetheart 22 years ago so I have some qualms about this advice).

As I read The Slacker’s Guide to Law School, I realized two things. First, the practice of law has been much more fun than law school itself (I got the sweats reading some of Doria’s chapters, especially on test taking).

Second, Doria is no slacker. To the contrary, he knows how to work hard but he also has an excellent bullshit detector. Doria simply reminds us that there is no reason to kill yourself in law school when there are practical and less painful ways to avoid the usual soul-crushing mistakes made by new students.

If you’re thinking about applying to law school or have a friend or family member thinking about it, buy this book!

◙ AUTHORS’ PANEL AND BOOK SIGNING

Join the Friends of the Signal Hill Library to welcome guest authors, Margo Candela, Mary Castillo, Reyna Grande, and Jamie Martinez Wood, who will discuss their fictional accounts of the Latina experience from three different perspectives. This free program is sure to be a thought provoking evening.

Monday, October 20th
7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Signal Hill Park Community Center
1780 E. Hill St.
Signal Hill, CA 90755

◙ Gregg Barrios gets interviewed over at La Opinión, the Spanish-language daily newspaper published in Los Angeles (it is the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the United States and second-most read newspaper in Los Angeles after the Los Angeles Times). Barrios discusses his hit play, Rancho Pancho. Read it here.

◙ Things are hoppin’ over at C. M. Mayo’s blog (which she provocatively calls, Madam Mayo). First, there’s a guest post by Sergio Troncoso entitled, Things Every Writer Should Know About Money (a must read). Then Stephanie Elizondo Griest offers the gripping Glimpses into the Mexican Underworld. You can catch all prior guest posts by clicking here.

◙ Yesterday the San Antonio Express-News gave a rave review to Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature (Bilingual Press). Written by Gregg Barrios, the review may be read here. Here's a short excerpt of the review:

In citing the present Latino population of Los Angeles County at 4.6 million, the Los Angeles Almanac adds an arch footnote: "A late 19th Century editorial in the Los Angeles Times predicted that the 'Mexican' population in Los Angeles would disappear by the early part of the 20th Century."

Latino writers might be hard-pressed to find solace in this. For in the world of mainstream publishing, they are still barely visible. And in the more rarified literary quarterlies and best stories anthologies, they are an endangered species.

Daniel A. Olivas edited this collection with this in mind. Yes, there is a respectful nod toward established and overlooked writers, but the lion's share of its 34 stories comes from previously unpublished writers — some seeing their fiction, their byline in print for the first time.

Long overdue, "Latinos in Lotusland" is a literary GPS guide to El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles, aka the city of Angeles as seen through Latino — mostly Mexican American and Chicano — writing.

****

"Latinos in Lotusland" is a movable feast that bears witness to the incredibly talented writers that reclaim Los Angeles as their own.

◙ In yesterday's El Paso Times, Rigoberto González reviewed a new graphic novel by the multi-talented and prolific Ilan Stavans, Mr. Spic Goes to Washington (Soft Skull Press, $15.95). González notes that it’s “an illustrated comic tragedy that answers the question: What if a keep-it-real Chicano infiltrated the U.S. Senate?” You may read the entire review here.

◙ All done. So, until next Monday, enjoy the intervening posts from my compadres y comadres at La Bloga. And remember: ¡Lea un libro!

Body-Building Hobos…with Guns!

My son Carlos and I were driving down Elmore Street one day last week, when we saw a long-haired dachshund running up the middle of the road. Its gait of total glee, immaculately groomed coat, and jingly tags told us it was not a stray. The dog was weaving back and forth across the road, cars screeching to avoid it.

“Mom! We have to do something!” My son cried.

Now I wouldn’t have left the creature to get squished under the wheels of a car, but with a houseful of asthmatics the prospect of bringing it home was not appealing, not to mention that we were heading to my office and sneaking an energetic dog in would prove a challenge. I pulled the car over and leapt out, waving my arms in warning at the oncoming traffic. Just as I bent over to call to the dog—who, by the way, was smiling, I swear he looked like a drunken frat boy on spring break—I heard a car careening behind me and whipped around to stop them. I watched a nice-looking man jump from the driver seat and call “Sam!” as the pooch ran to his waiting arms like a kid back from summer camp.

“Are you his owner?”

“Yes, we’ve been driving all over looking for him, the little bugger!” he said, affectionately mussing Sam’s fur.

“Thank God! I wasn’t sure WHAT we would have done with him, but we couldn’t have left him to run wildly through the streets!”

The man thanked us and drove off, Sam’s shiny nose peeking through the cracked window from the safety of the sedan’s back seat.

After we’d resumed our course, Carlos turned to me and asked what we would have done with the dog if his owner hadn’t arrived.

“We would have taken him home and posted some ‘lost dog’ signs around town, why?”

“Well, then anyone could come to the door. I mean, like…a hobo.”

“Carlos, I don’t think you need to worry about hobos.” I chuckled, tickled by his use of such a nostalgic and vintage term.

“But what if they were body-building hobos….with guns?!”

Now, I moved to Vermont so I could raise a child in a safe environment. As I’ve mentioned in previous columns, having grown up in New York City’s upper, upper west side, I was mugged three times before I was eight years old. I figured my child could grow up in the safety of a rural Vermont town, hanging from trees and walking home from school in safety, the only threat being a skinned knee. But as I drove, I glanced over at my son and realized it had still happened. Though his threats were more fanciful—I pictured hoards of body-building hobos jumping from 1920s era trains rattling through our small town—he still had fears about his safety.

I couldn’t help but think: Is it television? Is it in the genes? Is he hard-wired to be nervous? And the burning question underneath it all, the true ‘parent trap’: is it my fault?

My mind harkened back to my own tenth year after we had moved to suburban New Jersey, my mother having the same impulse to raise the children in a safer environment. I remembered the piles of horror comics I devoured each day, my butt parked in its usual spot in front of our Sony Trinitron to watch the weekly Creature Feature movie, armies of monsters, aliens and zombies parading across the small screen. And every night after my mother tucked me in—reminded by my begging whine to leave the nightlight on—I pulled the blanket tightly around my neck to protect against vampire attacks while I slept. I thought of the hundreds of children lining up for the spook house at the local amusement park, rocking back and forth on their Keds, nervously chattering in anticipation like monkeys. The boys lined up on the sidewalk in front of the old, abandoned Jenkins’ house, daring each other to go closer, to step on the porch, to look into the broken window panes.

We liked to be scared.

As I thought about this from the vantage point of middle age, I realized that this must be a childhood way to prepare ourselves, the fantasy horrors making life’s true challenges pale by comparison. Because after all, fear is not the antithesis of courage, courage is being able to act despite our fears. I could see my son waiting for my response out of the corner of my eye. I smiled at him.

“Well honey, in a fight between a body-building hobo and your dad, I’d put big money on Dad.”

He took a deep breath, and I could tell this wasn’t entirely a joke to him. He really had been looking for reassurance. “Yep, he’s not afraid of anything,” he said, no small amount of pride in his voice.

“You got that right,” I replied. As we drove through the Vermont summer morning I was secure in the knowledge that between the three of us we could handle any horrors life could hand out, true or imagined.

Body-building hobos? Bring ‘em on.

Book Give-Away! Read All About It.

Here's the final quiz in the La Bloga / Hachette Book Give-Away.

Publisher Hachette Book Group, as a way of recognizing "Hispanic Heritage Month", will mail this eight-title library of outstanding reading to the first person correctly answering the questions below, and provided the response includes a mailing address:

Dream in Color By Linda Sánchez , Loretta Sánchez ISBN: 0446508047
Gunmetal Black By Daniel Serrano ISBN: 0446194131
The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters By Lorraine López ISBN: 0446699217
Bless Me, Ultima By Rudolfo Anaya ISBN: 0446675369
Brownsville By Oscar Casares ISBN: 9780316146807
The Hummingbird's Daughter By Luis Urrea ISBN: 0316154520
The General and the Jaguar By Eileen Welsome ISBN: 0316715999
Tomorrow They Will Kiss By Eduardo Santiago ISBN: 0316014125

All answers are readily available in this week's La Bloga posts:

1. Floricanto Press published this biography of a community worker and Monterey County judge.

2. Flor Y Canto 2010, will be held at this university.

3. The big city referred to in Estrellita en la ciudad grande is this one.

4. This is the fellow who said "The paranoid person is in possession of all the facts."

5. His novel, Rise, Do Not Be Afraid was a nominee for a Colorado Book Award.

Once you've assembled your answers to these questions, click here -- please include your mailing address -- and if you're the first to send in the right answers, you'll get your eight outstanding books from Hachette.

Bits and Pieces

THE COLORADO BOOK AWARDS were announced on October 8. The winner in the History category was The Life and Times of Richard Castro: Bridging a Cultural Divide by Richard Gould (Colorado Historical Society). Gould's book tells the story of a Colorado political leader who was beaten by the police as a young man. Years later his house was bombed and he was shot by political rivals. Castro eventually served as a state representative. He died at age 44 from a cerebral hemorrhage. Other nominees for the Colorado Book Awards included aaron a. abeyta for Rise, Do Not Be Afraid (Ghost Road Press) in the Fiction category, and Guillermo Vidal for Boxing For Cuba: An Immigrant's Story of Despair, Endurance & Redemption (Ghost Road Press) in the Creative Non-Fiction category.

FROM LIBRERIA MARTINEZ: "Join the Friends of the Signal Hill Library to welcome guest authors, Margo Candela, Mary Castillo, Reyna Grande, and Jamie Martinez Wood who will discuss their fictional accounts of the Latina experience from three different perspectives. Margo Candela, will discuss More Than This, a unique falling-in-love story; Ms. Castillo's book, Switchcraft, is a spirited romantic comedy about two best friends who share a life-changing trading places experience. Reyna Grande's work, Across a Hundred Mountains, tells the story of a small group of undocumented immigrants and makes their struggles and humanity real to the reader. Jamie Martinez Wood's debut novel, Rogelia's House of Magic, is about three different 15-year old girls who find friendship and special powers as they are trained by a wise old woman. This free program is sure to be a thought provoking evening."

October 20, 7:00 - 8:30 PM, Signal Hill Park Community Center, 1780 E. Hill Street, Signal Hill, CA


A DOZEN ON DENVER, the Rocky Mountain News' project to celebrate Denver's (and its own) 150th birthday with fiction by Colorado authors, has planned two events for November where the twelve authors and their stories will be featured. On November 14 at 5:00 PM, the News will announce the winner of its writing contest (the 12th writer and story) during a reception and general party. All of the participating authors are expected. The party will take place in the lobby of the Denver Newspaper Agency, 101 W. Colfax Avenue, Denver (303-954-5000). Then, on November 22 at 2:00 PM, the Tattered Cover Book Store (Colfax Avenue store) will host an event to honor A Dozen On Denver where all of the authors' books will be available for signing. These events are free and open to the public. In the spirit of the celebration, and to publicly demonstrate your support for an excellent idea from the Rocky Mountain News, I urge those of you who can attend either or both of these events to show up and join in the literary fun.

THE POWER OF ONE - As part of the Aurora Public Library's Power of One series, five authors will conduct a panel around the general theme of the series: the power that one word, one image, one perspective or one moment can have on all around us. Authors include Margaret Coel, Christine Goff, Robert Greer, RT Lawton, and Manuel Ramos. The program is set for October 26 at 2:00 PM at the Aurora Public Library, 14949 E. Alameda Parkway, Aurora, CO. 303-739-6634.


JAMES CRUMLEY - Finally, and belatedly, I wanted to note the passing of a great American writer, James Crumley. Mr. Crumley died on September 17. His death has been noted by many others with praise and admiration, feelings shared by his readers from around the world.

The New York Times repeated this quote in its obituary: Though Mr. Crumley’s books attracted a devoted readership, they were never best sellers. He was philosophical about this.“I’m not middlebrow and middle class,” he said in the Dallas Morning News interview. “Sure, I’d like it if more people read the books. My children would like it. My ex-wives would like it. But that’s just not what I’m about.”

Crumley's best-known work, The Last Good Kiss, is considered an American crime fiction masterpiece. It opens with these famous lines:

When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.

That's all I got this week.

Later.

Conspiracy Culture: From Kennedy to The X-Files

"Everything is some kind of plot, man." - Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

Agent Scully: "What makes you think that is a conspiracy? That the government is involved?" Kurt Crawford: "What makes you think it isn't? - Memento Mori / The X-Files

"The paranoid person is in possession of all the facts." - William Burroughs

Conspiracy theories are a particular and salient feature of post World War II America. From McCarthyism to postmodern novels, The X-Files, and gansta rap to feminist polemic, there is widespread suspicion that sinister forces are conspiring to take control of our national destiny, our minds, and even our bodies. Conspiracy explanations can no longer be dismissed as the disorganized ramblings of far right crackpots, the left wing intelligentsia, and the techno cognoscenti.

Particularly as evidenced by the popularity of a show like The X-Files, mainstream America became more than willing to embrace the idea that there is a cabal of men planning our futures, that we cannot trust institutions, that the enemy is closer than we were taught to believe. We have lived through grassy knolls, Cointelpro, the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, infiltration and disruption of a host of Chicano groups, especially La Raza Unida Party, as well as CIA-led coups in Chile, Iran, Namibia. Events of the last decade bear witness to this brave new world.

While the major spin on 9/11 identified virulent Islamic terrorist bent on destroying us, there were still news threads that linked the Bin Laden family with the Bush family and the Bush family to international oil interests. We had Dick Cheney heading the shadow government from deep in the bowels of the earth, and FEMA hawking duct tape and plastic sheeting as protection from invisible enemies. Can anyone say "WMDs"?

Conspiracy Culture author, Peter Knight, a lecturer in American Studies in Manchester, attempts to provide his own analysis using such diverse sources as Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, Don DeLillo's Underworld, Oliver's Stone's JFK, and soon his new flick, W, The X-Files, and a host of internet sites.

He explores how conspiracy theories developed from the 1960's through the 1990's. The focal points of these theories range from the Kennedy assassination, alien abduction, body horror, AIDS, crack cocaine, the New World Order; as well as what he terms "the usual conspiracies...of patriarchy and white supremacy." I found this level of research, its detail, and its scope impressive.

Beyond this, we part company. When it comes to his analysis as to why ideas of conspiracy have proliferated, Knight is completely ahistorical. He posits the growth in the wider acceptance of conspiracy as policy to intellectual inferiority and sloppiness, poverty, and a spiritual paucity. I was astounded at this polemic disguised as dispassionate deductive reasoning. I personally remember when, in the late 70's in Chicago, Black Panther leader Fred Hampton was murdered in his bed by Chicago police - police who were aided and abetted in that execution by moles paid by the FBI through the Cointelpro program of "neutralization."

Semiautomatic assassination appeared to be a fairly neutralizing force in communities and the community of social change as a whole. That level of challenge to the government, to capital, to imperialism and its domestic and international control has yet to be re-created, although perhaps we see the seeds of its rebirth in the resistance to the Iraq war. Rather than Knight's position that a conspiracy theory's popularity is solely due to a lack of sophistication, education, and contemplation, I believe the proponents are literate, distrusting the narrative of authority, and suspicious of the authorized narrative as to the health of the body politic. In a nutshell, what message may be taking root in a deep and irrevocable way is: Trust no one.

See Scully, I told you this was coming.

ISBN-10: 0415189780

Bad news:

Journalist Teresa Puente was laid off from the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board Today. She was the only Hispanic on the board and also wrote a twice monthly column. Puente also was the only writer at the Sun-Times that regularly covered Latino issues and immigration.

Also, her colleague, Deborah Douglas, the only African-American writer on the editorial board, was laid off Wednesday. This means there are no people of color on the editorial board any more.

To voice an opinion on this matter please send an email to:

Michael Cooke, Sun-Times editor, mcooke@suntimes.com

Tom McNamee, Editorial page editor, tmcnamee@suntimes.com

Cyrus Freidheim, publisher, cfreidheim@suntimes.com

Finally, GOOD NEWS:

The National Museum of Mexican Art celebrates Folk Art Week!

October 17 - October 26, 2008
10am - 4pm

1852 W. 19th Street, Chicago, IL.
For more information, please call 312-738-1503 or visit www.nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org



Artist Demonstrations:

Ceramic Sculptures by Demetrio Garcia Aguilar, Ocotlan de Morelos, Oaxaca
Textile Weaving by Celia Santiz Ruiz, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas
Huichol Yarn and Beadwork by José Benitez Sanchez, Santa Catarina, Jalisco
Wood Carvings by Jacobo & Maria Angeles, San Martin Tilcajete, Oaxaca
Wooden Masks by Orlando Orta, Tocuaro, Michoacán
Amate Paintings by Marcial Camilo Ayala, San Agustin Oapan, Guerrero
Sugar Skull Demonstrations by Alejandro Mondragón Arriaga, Elvira Garcia Zinzu & Elvira Mondragón Garcia, Toluca, Estado de México




Wishing for more good news,


Lisa Alvarado

New Children's Books From Piñata Books/ Arte Público Press

Estrellita en la ciudad grande
Estrellita in the Big City
By Samuel Caraballo (Author)

ISBN 9781558854987
Category Picture Book
Published 31 Oct 2008
Bind Hardcover
Pages 32
Price $ 15.95
Age Group 4-9

A young girl recounts her experiences in the Big Apple to her Abuela in this homage to loved ones who stay behind

“Hola, Abuelita. It’s me, Estrellita!” And so begins the phone conversation that Estrellita and her beloved grandmother have longed for since Estrellita moved from her beautiful island home of Puerto Rico to New York City.

Estrellita regales her grandmother with stories of the exciting sights and sounds of the big city: her first ride on a subway train into Manhattan and the fascinating underground city where you can buy anything—“even clothes and shoes”— and listen to musicians perform at all hours; the hustle and bustle of Fifth Avenue, where people, yellow cabs, and buses rush up and down; the Empire State Building that “was SO tall that I thought it was going to fall on me!”; Rockefeller Center with its glass-covered buildings that reach into the sky; and the Verrazano Bridge, one of the world’s longest suspended bridges that looked “as if it had no end.”

As exciting as the tourist attractions are to Estrellita and her father, El Barrio, a neighborhood where everybody speaks Spanish, is just as thrilling. There’s a restaurant called Rincón, just like the town in Puerto Rico, and a music store called La Casita Latina. Estrellita and her family sing Abuela’s favorite song, “En mi viejo San Juan,” and Estrellita is reminded once again of how much she misses her grandmother. But she is comforted by her phone conversation with Abuela and knows she’ll talk to Abuela again soon. And maybe some day Abuela will come to visit Estrellita in the big city!

In this lively sequel to Estrellita se despide de su isla / Estrellita Says Good-bye to Her Island, author Samuel Caraballo and illustrator Pablo Torrecilla team up again to depict the loving relationship between a young girl and her grandmother. Torrecilla’s exquisite illustrations of Abuela on the phone in tranquil Puerto Rico contrast superbly with those of Estrellita set against the backdrop of a vibrant and busy New York City. Readers of all ages will relate to a young girl’s love for her grandmother, while children ages 4 to 9 who have been separated from family will empathize with—and be reassured by—Estrellita’s experiences in a new city.

Pepita on Pepper Street /
Pepita en la calle Pepper
By Ofelia Dumas Lachtman (Author)

ISBN 9781558854437
Category Picture Book
Published 31 Oct 2008
Bind Hardcover
Pages 32
Price $ 15.95
Age Group 3-7

The intrepid Pepita is back with another entertaining tale for children about making new friends

Pepita is almost always happy. But she isn’t today. She’s not happy because everything is different on her new street. There’s no familiar grocery store on the corner, and no tortilla shop squeezed right next to it. Tía Rosa’s house isn’t down the street, and worst of all, her best friend Sonya no longer lives right next door. Pepita is definitely not happy about her move to Pepper Street.

But her dog Lobo doesn’t mind the new neighborhood, and in fact, he likes the new smells he encounters as Pepita walks him up and down the street. He even wags his tail at the new people they meet: Mrs. Green, who wears a straw hat while weeding her rose garden; Mrs. Becker, who paints the pepper trees, and her dog, Blackie; and José, the mailman, who hopes Lobo won’t bite him. Soon, Pepita realizes that her father’s suggestion—“the best way to stop feeling new is to get to know people”—is good advice. And when a girl with bright red hair named Katie Ann comes by to visit, Pepita learns that making new friends isn’t so hard after all.

This colorful bilingual picture book focuses on the tough transition that many kids make: adjusting to a new neighborhood and making new friends. Readers ages 3 to 7 will root for plucky Pepita as she learns to like life on Pepper Street.

It’s Bedtime, Cucuy /
A la cama, Cucuy
By Claudia Galindo (Author)
Johnathan Coombs (Illustrator)
John Pluecker (Spanish Translator)

ISBN 9781558854918
Category Picture Book
Published 31 Aug 2008
Bind Hardcover
Pages 32
Price $ 15.95
Age Group 3-7

Little Cucuy is back in this entertaining bilingual picture book that touches on a subject familiar to all children and their parents

Like many human children, Cucuy, the little monster, doesn’t like to go to bed. “I’m not sleepy,” he says. “All I want to do is jump around and play!”

He tries to run and hide, but Mamá manages to get him into his pajamas. Every night he kicks and screams, wiggles and jiggles, mumbles and grumbles. He’s hungry, he’s thirsty. He needs to go to the bathroom. But Mamá won’t give in. “Tomorrow you will have a whole new day to jump around and play,” she tells her little monster, until finally he … drifts … off … to … sleep.

Children ages 3 to 7 will delight in the travails of poor Cucuy, the little monster who doesn’t like to go to sleep. And they might just see themselves as Cucuy protests but ultimately does fall asleep. Author Claudia Galindo and illustrator Jonathan Coombs once again collaborate on an entertaining picture book for children.

Bits and Pieces of the King's Gold

Michael Sedano

2010 Festival de Flor Y Canto Call for Writers & Artists

Planning is now in the definite maybe stage for a literary and arts festival at the University of Southern California in 2010 during fiestas patrias observances, celebrated in the United States as "Hispanic Heritage Month" in September and October.

Linked here is the first call for participants. If you are a surviving writer or presenter from the 1973 Festival de Flor Y Canto, please click and send your contact information. The festival looks to showcase the growth of Chicana Chicano Latina Latino literature since 1973, so contemporary writers need to click, too, and send along your contact information.

La Bloga will continue reporting on developments of the upcoming floricanto. For some background, see this post.

And thinking of that 1973 cast of artists, Daniel Olivas' Monday column reported Christopher Buckley's tribute to Luis Omar Salinas. The portrait in Dan's article shows Salinas at an advanced age. Here's a photo of Salinas, left, with Alurista, when both appeared at the 1973 Festival de Flor Y Canto.

To view additional photos of Flor Y Canto of 1973, see this page. The full collection of photos will be part of a gallery show at the 2010 event, including a portrait series I call "¡Presente!" featuring images of writers, like Omar Salinas, who have died since that first Flor Y Canto.

Front Range Paper Leading the Way

Who hasn't witnessed the shrinking space newspapers allot to literature and book review sections? One paper, The Rocky Mountain News, is showing the big rags east and west how to do literature honorably. Celebrating its 150th anniversary--and the city of Denver's 150th--The Rocky Mountain News is showcasing local writers by commissioning original fiction. As the paper observes:

This November, the city of Denver celebrates its 150th anniversary. In April, the Rocky follows with its own 150th. To commemorate both, we're celebrating the creative spirit that has marked our city since 1858, with a special series titled A Dozen on Denver: Stories to celebrate the city at 150. For the series, we've commissioned 11 Colorado authors to write original fiction. We asked the authors to choose a different decade of Denver's history, to mention Larimer Street at least once in their stories and to keep it all to 2,500 words.

Today's Dozen on Denver featured writer is La Bloga co-founder Manuel Ramos. You can read his piece by navigating to The Rocky Mountain News' "Dozen on Denver" page here; make sure to listen to Manuel's interview linked on that page. Here's a link to Manuel's story, "Fence Busters".

The King's Gold Doesn't Quite Fill A Formula

Arturo Pérez-Reverte. The King's Gold. NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2008.
ISBN 9781436240598

They say the memory's the second thing to go, when you get old, and I don't remember what the first thing is. Or maybe it's inattention. A few weeks ago, Daniel Olivas cited Rigoberto González' review of Yxta Maya Murray's new novel, The King's Gold. Only the title stuck in my mind. So when I browsed the new books shelf at the Pasadena Public Library, I saw that title, something triggered in my memory. and I picked it up.

The King's Gold I held is the work of Arturo Pérez-Reverte, not Yxta Maya Murray. Ni modo. Manuel Ramos turned me on to Pérez-Reverte, and I enjoyed Pérez-Reverte's The Sun Over Breda hence walked away happily with with my borrowed novel. You'll share the sentiment if you find your own copy.

It's a confection of a novel. With Fall hard upon us, it's time for sitting by a fireplace with something to pass a few hours. Nothing heavy, puro adventure. This one fits that niche. If some kid were to ask for a definition of the world "swashbuckler" I wouldn't bother with a dictionary, I'd give the reader a copy The King's Gold.

Sixteen years old, Íñigo Balboa narrates the story of his and Captain Alatriste's return from Breda to Seville, Spain. War, the pair learn, is a simple affair of point and slash. In Spain, nothing is nearly that obvious. Moreover, mid-17th century Spain is a mess of political intrigue complicated by old enemies, old friends, petty local cops, Moorish slaves, whores and crooks, and royalty.

The story's a reminiscence of an old man. Balboa alludes to his own high adventures and heroics yet to come, and much as he builds the larger-than-life character of Alatriste, Balboa magnifies the reader's affection for Alatriste by reminding us that the hero will be slayed in some upcoming adventure. This interplay of future against current events is an interesting technique to be on the lookout for, or have your emotions toyed with:

By God, it's been a long road. All the people in this story--the captain, Quevedo, Gualterio Malatesta, Angélica de Alquézar--died a long time ago and only in these pages can I make them live again and recapture them exactly as they were. Their ghosts, some loved, some loathed, remain intact in my memory, along with that whole harsh, violent, fascinating time that, for me, will always be the Spain of my youth and the Spain of Captain Alatriste.

The King's Gold is a work of translation, with the attendant cultural traps of vocabulary. These are reduced by the technology and setting of 1626, and the skill of Margaret Jull Costa. "The bluebottles," the cops, is so frequently used that I'd like to see the Spanish to see if this is a cultural substitution or a literal translation.

Irrespective of one's historical knowledge, Pérez-Reverte and his translator provide a vivid portrait of gritty hand-to-mouth existence of soldiers thrown into a world without a Veteran's Administration. To survive, some turn to thievery and murder. Our heroes accept a mercenary job to turn pirate and capture a treasure ship freshly arrived from Mexico. Sadly--because it would be such fun--the author misses an opportunity to draw out his story with the formulaic recruiting of his warriors like the movies "The Dirty Dozen" or "The Magnificent Seven". There's a colorful visit to a condemned killer and a fleeting glance at a couple of recruits. But drawing out character studies would take away from the focus on swordplay and bloodletting, and half of them will be killed in the raid, so we get a list of names and descriptions of their blades.

And use their blades they do. That's what swashbucklers do.


Book Give-Away Winner

Last week's winner came as a late entry, a Denver resident who discovered La Bloga by reading Manuel Ramos' bio in the Rocky Mountain News. Hachette / La Bloga are happy to recognize Marie Madrid's 100% correct responses to Saturday's questionnaire. Marie is receiving by US Mail these eight outstanding titles:

Dream in Color by Linda Sánchez, Loretta Sánchez
Gunmetal Black by Daniel Serrano
The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters by Lorraine López
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
Brownsville by Oscar Casares
The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Urrea
The General and the Jaguar by Eileen Welsome
Tomorrow They Will Kiss by Eduardo Santiago

Look for your opportunity to win the final set of eight this weekend.

And that's the antepenultimate Tuesday of October, 2008. A Tuesday like any other Tuesday, except, we are here. Thank you for reading La Bloga, and gracias de antemano for your comments on this, and any, La Bloga column. To comment, just click on the Comments counter below. And remember, La Bloga welcomes guest columnists. If you'd like to share your thoughts on books, arts, culture, or respond to something you've read here, click here to declare your interest in being our guest.