Fotos

At the Getty ( all text from the Getty's website)
In Focus: The Nude
The unclothed human figure became a camera subject shortly after the discovery of photography was announced in 1839. This exhibition, which is drawn exclusively from the Getty Museum's collection of photographs, brings together the work of over 25 innovative photographers who have left their mark on the history of the genre.



André Kertész Photographs: Seven Decades
This exhibition shows the quality and diversity of a very long career in photography. It comprises approximately 55 prints drawn from the collection of the Getty Museum. The exhibition follows a chronological and geographic path, beginning in Hungary, where Kertész was born in 1894 and made his first photograph in 1912, then moving to rare small prints made in Paris, where he emigrated in 1925. The final section presents photographs made in New York, where he lived and worked from 1936 until his death in 1985 at the age of 91.



The Goat's Dance: Photographs by Graciela Iturbide
The work of Mexico City photographer Graciela Iturbide (b. 1942) is featured in a show of more than 100 prints drawn from a combination of sources. Not strictly a retrospective of the photographer's career, this exhibition highlights Iturbide's work with surviving indigenous communities in southern Mexico (such as the Zapotec Indians of Juchitán and the Mixtec Indians of Huajuapan), outsider immigrant groups in East Los Angeles (like members of the White Fence and Maravilla gangs), and those struggling at La Frontera, the U.S./Mexico border. Concentrating on this international artist's North American pictures, it examines her more recent landscape studies from the American South as well as Mexico, and presents images from Iturbide's native city created almost 40 years.

Adonis García

Las aventuras, desaventuras y sueños de Adonis García, el vampiro de la colonia Roma de Luis Zapata


Adonis García is, thus far, the only male protagonic prostitute of my study. The author puts the story in the mouth of his creation and demands double duty of his readers. As reader, I experience Adonis' narrative via two senses - sight, of course, but hearing as well. It is a twist on the "found manuscript" device and Zapata invokes Lazarillo to great effect. I paraphrase and translate (if one can do both) a bit from the back cover, the hypothetic presence of a tape recorder to serve as the vehicle of an uninterrupted monologue, through which parade moments of a picaresque life in the unknown underbelly of Mexico City. Premature adolescence, homosexuality, prostitution, illness, tedium are the organizing themes that Adonis chooses to relate the stages of his life. Zapata indeed seems to revitalize the picaresque novel, while at the same time extract constants from that genre and reinterpret them in a great American metropolis of the XXth century. The whole novel is an homage to the picaresque novel and is sprinkled with quotes from not just Lazarillo, but also El buscón, El Periquillo Sarniento. This novel is also, thus far, the first to establish, if only intertextually, the "transatlantic" link I've been looking for in the narrative - it is more obvious in film.

cinta primera y tú ¿qué vas a hacer cuan
do dios se muera?

Dios no se muere; parientes tiene (Perico) y padrinos que lo
socorran; ricos hay en México harto piadosos que lo protejan...
JOSÉ JOAQUÍN FERNÁNDEZ DE LIZARDI. El Periquillo Sarniento

( llegábamos a una fiesta un cuate y yo

____________________________________________

Menudo Christmas Day entry, ¿qué no?

Cellebration of the senses

Just sent e-mail to friends and family letting them know that my old phone number is back in commission. It's funny how much I've missed it. I think I was a fairly late adopter of cell phone technology and even used to self-righteously make disparaging comments about those who seemed surgically fused to their phones. That was until the accidental presence of K.'s phone in my truck made it easier to arrange logistics on the hardest day of my life. When I got my own phone, I also got that number. Now I am thinking that some commentator on pop culture or psychology or (post-)modernity or technology should do an article on how a phone number can quite unconsciously/subconsciously become a bit of an extension of personality. Someone probably has. Though I open myself to being mocked, I admit to feeling that my phone number (especially the cell phone number) is, whether I like it or not, part of who I am. Maybe that's because it works for me in reverse. Rather, seeing the phone numbers of others (especially on the cell phone screen) brings those people to mind and evokes whatever memory or emotion I associate with them. Perhaps this is why I've always kind of enjoyed entering numbers by hand every two years when the plan expires and we get new phones. Not that I could have had them electronically transfered this time even if I'd wanted to, and it would have been tempting, as entering the 55 numbers I either had memorized or written down caused my thumbs to cramp (those who grew up playing video games have no idea what that would even feel like). Yesterday K., seeing what I was doing, asked, "When you put in a number, you picture that person, don't you?" Indeed, I did. And I heard, felt (and in the case of Zachary's Pizza, The Nantucket, Chicken Express and J's Garden), tasted and smelled them as well.

What the dickens! A dickens of a time!

Attended the Dickens Fair at the San Francisco Cow Palace today by the generosity of TigerDan from the FTE forum - thanks for the comp. tickets. We were some of the first people there who were spectators, as opposed to costumed (?) participants and the latter may have outnumbered the former. Since we were there early, we got to see the "anticipatory set" in which the participants playing characters from the novels were introduced. Other cool things - ¡Dan's band!; the corset shop windows; the sugared almonds whose smell always makes me weak in the knees and for which I can never resist paying the $4.75 at these things. Um ... OK, wait, lest you think I attend every ye olde event that comes to town, by never and "these things" I mean both times! Or four. Anyway, the atmosphere of the Dickens Fair was very much like the Renaissance Faire or the NorCal Pirate Festival. Varrrh, ye got me - I went to the Pirate Festival twice! We can have nice (?) things! In fact, the Pirate Festival trumps the Dickens Fair for one reason - henna tattoo booth.

Vallejo Waterfront

No, the "Ren Faire" does not get a link. Nor have I ever worn a costume to any of these events. Neither my geekiness nor the arms I use to embrace it stretch that far, despite the pangs of regret I sometimes feel at not having at least busted out an all-purpose corset and peasant blouse.

¿Property assessment?

I know this blog has been viewed internationally. And as a gift, it's been priceless al estilo Master Card, but the cost of taking String of Lights out into the world(wide web) would be rent/a bunch of car payments!

The worst responses to the question, "Is this outfit OK?"

1. "OK for what?"
2. "That looks like something your/my mom would wear!
3. "If you're going to wear something that comfortable, you better have on slutty underwear."
4. "I guess."
5. "No hablo inglés."

Joy to the World

Three Dog Night
My time wasting du jour (the online part of it, anyway) revealed that Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World", according to some readers of Spinner.com, has the 3rd best opening lyrics. This prompted me to do a bit of research on the first pop song I remember hearing. I was three and we'd gone to the lake. As we walked in to a waterfront café, the song was playing on a jukebox. I liked it. That day was cold and I also remember having an absolute hissy fit, wailing at the top of my lungs, because the beach was covered with dead fish - and no, the connection to the lyric "Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea" was not lost on me, even then. But, back to the findings. My first source revealed that Hoyt Axton wrote the song and a few seconds later I found this image on a very lovingly prepared website dedicated to Axton's music.


Seeing Axton's name occasioned another stop on memory lane. After Mom died, I was looking through her day planners (I found them back to 1994 or 1995 - tax reasons) and in one of the Address/Phone number sections I came across the almost surreal entry "Hoyt Axton" followed by a Bitterroot phone number (the 777). Yes, he did live in Victor at the time she lived in Missoula, but I'll probably never know why Mom had Hoyt Axton's phone number...

We can have some nice things

Pond with decorations on Tennessee Street. I'm not sure if the skin doctor or the CPA constructed the pond.



Vintage Chevy and vintage Hamm's beer trailer on Alabama St.



Persimmon tree in neighbor's yard.

¿¿¿Why are they even at Goodwill in the first place???

I came out of Goodwill yesterday to find my Subaru jam-parked between two Mercedes-Benz, one so recently purchased it didn't even have plates. As I cranked the steering wheel and inched forward, then back, then forward, then back, then forward,then back, then forward,then back, then forward until I could finally pull out onto Tennessee St. I raged, in a fit of reverse clasismo (?) "Why the fuck are you materialistic rich bitches shopping at Goodwill in the first place? Probably one of you beat me to that $20 bookshelf, like you can't go get a brand new one...Oh wait, are your car payments so high that you actually can't? But, hah! Even if you did buy that bookshelf, it won't even fit in your trunk whereas it would slide with no effort on my part into the back of my PAID OFF station wagon!"

Why I was at Goodwill this time: It was part of the quest for jeans that fit and that had no stretch. Jackpot! One pair of Levi's, one pair might have been from Spain (brand Ermenegildo Zegna - saw stores called that in Spain), and the other a pair of Wranglers that I wore last night to Chris' western-dress party. I think all 3 were actually men's jeans as the sizes were all a waist size x an inseam length. Those numbers, while not covered by FERPA, will only be released to those who possess a legitimate academic need to know. I will, however, disclose that the Levi's tag, alarming, includes the adjective "husky".

Buying textbooks for next quarter doesn't count as holiday shopping

No, the books aren't strategically covering anything, as hot as that image (of someone other than your author) would be. Hey! Do you think that one of "those" projects a la Calendar Girls or the Hot Men of the Houston Fire Department calendar would be a good fund-raising idea for academic departments? And what would be the title of that semi-cerebral semi-smut?

_______________________________

P.D. Since I'm being inappropriate about books, here were my thoughts as I walked away from the book bins on A Street. I had just returned most of the books I'd checked out this quarter, retaining Ladies Who Lunge and El vampiro de la colonia Roma (as my fuck-off reading and jump on my reading list, respectively). Some of those books I'd checked out only Tuesday evening and as I watched those disappear into the slot, I felt I'd used them fast like cheap sluts - and worse, I'd neglected to appreciate the whole body, instead I'd fetish-ized only those parts that were of most interest to me.

_______________________

Between her fingernails

String of Lights has some bulbs out this week, as my attention has been focused on the papers that are due way too soon!

Cristina Marcos as Petra in Méndez-Leite's TV adaptation of Clarín's La Regenta

For the past few days I've been (like her co-protagonists Ana, Álvaro, Fermín, Paula and Víctor) at the mercy of Petra, that manipulative little vixen par excellence of late nineteenth century Spanish literature. I think I'm finally out from under her thumb, or as Petra herself might say, "entre las uñas". Hope to print out and turn in tomorrow the paper in which I analyze this character.

Then, on to examine a contrasting literary personage, Juana Manuela Gorriti, who attempts to create a sense of sisterhood in her community of Latin American writers and thereby foster a spirit of pan-americanism. Isn't it nicer, but not nearly as juicy a story, when we all cooperate?

Sensory overload 8/12/07

Cluster 7/12/07

String of Lights does not necessarily endorse this view, nor should it.

¿Tienes advil?

From the Urban Dictionary (www.urbandictionary.com)
2. advil
A great drug that despite common belief cannot relief [sic] misery, despair and anxiety.
- We broke up. Will Advil take the pain away?
- No.

For the last two nights I've had a headache. Tonight at Steve's Pizza with the Spanish Lit. class it reached its zenith while I was trying to maintain 3 separate conversations. I couldn't find my trusty ziploc of advils. There weren't even any rolling around loose in the bottom of any of my bags. Don't act so shocked, you've seen me take an advil (and other very necessary pharmaceuticals) retrieved from much worse places. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Here are places I've picked up that pill and taken it because it was a. one of my last or b. very expensive: 1-under the floormat in the car 2-my desk drawer 3-my kitchen floor 4-the car seat (i.e.my crotch) 5-the sidewalk in front of Sinn Fein's headquarters in Belfast. They've probably got me on camera dropping, then bending over to pick up 4 advils, contemplating them in my palm for half a second before knocking them back, and I don't care - my back was killing me that day and you know, that Advil didn't even really kick in until I belted down some Bushmill's with it, in an attempt to show that I support a truly united Ireland. Another nice combination is tonight's, Fioricet (in lieu of advil)/red wine (no, don't "...try to to make me go to re-hab...no, no no.").



In a desperate plea for comments, I invite you to answer me this: Where's the sketchiest place from which you've plucked a pill before popping it?

Exchange rate

Yo: Disculpa, J. ¿Esta parte del dedo (señalando la parte del dedo que no contiene la uña) se llama la yema?
J: Sí es la yema.

Me: Excuse me, J. This part of the finger (indicating pad of finger) is called "la yema"?
J: Yes, it's "la yema".

5 minutos más tarde....

J: Eh, perdón...¿Sor Juana es del siglo XVII o el XVIII?
Yo: (pensando,"¿Es el siglo uno más o uno menos que el año?") Del XVII.

J: Um, excuse me...Is Sor Juana from the 17th or 18th century?
Me: (thinking, "Is the century one more or one less than the year?") She's from the 17th.

Challenges today-

-starting the run
-continuing the run
-finishing the run
-keeping the "¿what-the-fuck-are-you-talking-about?" expression off my face during Actividad 14 p. 524
-trying to stop for or at least not to mow down oblivious cyclists as they struggled in the rain
-reading my own writing

Writing is easy...

...you just sit down at a typewriter and cut open a vein.

-someone called Red Smith (?)

x3

Two days ago I saw one of the doubles. After lunch I walked up a new street on my way back to the hotel. When exploring a new town I always try to take a different route on the way back. While waiting at an intersection, I saw him approach, but it troubles me that I don't remember if our paths crossed on the parallel or on the perpendicular. He wore, like I did, a black velveteen jacket (his cut for him, of course), a scarf, gloves, jeans (his fit him better than mine fit me) and black boots (his heels lower than mine and silent as they hit the pavement). His hair is brown, like ours, and his eyeglasses, framed in dark red plastic. His expression, not morose, just pensive. His eyes startle me because they are not dark. They are that light color between green and blue that glass takes on when it's been polished by the sea. This leads me to believe that perhaps he is not my double, but yours. And if he is your double, then he is also hers (as are you). I slowed as our paths crossed. (Was it on the parallel or the perpendicular?) Our gazes crossed and I saw his lips start to barely curve upward. When we'd both crossed the street (the same street or intersecting streets, I don't remember) I turned around. He did not. I watched him walking, with your buoyant steps, until he was out of sight. In his hand was a plastic bag that I would have in mine a few moments later.

Hace dos días vi a uno de los dobles.

Feels like the first time

Este post se ha escrito desde Monterey, CA
wharf/heard but didn't see

Yesterday for the first time, or for the first time in a long time I...
...spent more time in a hotel room than out of it, re-reading Borges' El Aleph y otros cuentos under covers in bed in the freezing room.
...am delighted, intrigued, provoked, captivated by Borges' writing.
...used a hotel fitness center. I couldn't figure out the weights system.
...ran on a treadmill but couldn't bring myself to experience another "first", watching TV while working out. The programmability of treadmills could really help me to enhance my, um..."athletic performance", but keeping track of the speed/distance/heart rate was pretty stressful as it induced an orabora of guilt. The speed and distance readouts indicated that I wasn't going fast enough for my liking. But, each time I checked my heart rate, the number of beats per minute (excessive, according to the age table stuck to the dashboard) I felt I had to lower the speed.
...was asked to leave a restaurant (The Crown and Anchor in downtown Monterey) because they needed the table. At least the staff made the decent gesture of offering to buy us another beer.
...watched one of those contest/elimination shows "The Next Great American Band".
...did not blog!
...had cold hands! Purchased these gloves in Walgreen's shopping spree. Some lucky girls will receive some just like them for Christmas, if you (yes, I do mean you) have been very good all year.

Just because you can zip them doesn't mean they fit.

The euphoric state produced by being able to zip my "skinny" jeans this morning without that tug dissipated quickly as I regarded my reflection in them. I think they must be what caused my dizziness in the elevator. Note to self: don't bend over in a moving elevator to rummage for car keys in bag on floor and straighten up suddenly as the elevator bounces to its stop. Especially not while wearing jeans that may be cutting off circulation.

"Those are really cool boots! Where'd you get 'em?"

La nueva novela de CRG

El convento de Dos Mundos

Going to see CRG tomorrow at Stanford is an opportunity I cannot miss, but for the first time EVER I'll be missing a seminar. And it's Peluffo's class and the reading is Eva Perón. I so much would have loved to hear what she has to say (Peluffo, not Perón, I'm actually getting a little impatient with Evita's memoir).


Also, have chosen to take Friday off...so thankful for Monika and Matt, who will be covering. At least Friday is test day. And speaking of, again, so thankful - Monika is doing the finishing touches to Test#3 as I write. Doing the test was another stresser that made this week so out of the ordinary. Yet, it became something salvific. Below, I reproduce Monika's ingeniously creative e-mails along with an e-mail of mine. The Skype conversation referred to in my missive served to pull my head from where it was entrenched (my ass) and placed it gently back where it belongs.

From: m
Subject:=?iso-8859-1?q?RE:=20Examen=203=20todav=EDa?=
To:todos
Date:Wed, 28 Nov 2007 07:05:30 +0100 (CET)

Estimados hermanos,
Que no corra la sangre y que haya paz. Sus sugerencias aún están llegando a los buzones de este santo monasterio. Sus peticiones serán atendidas debidamente, disculpen a la hermana Valerie, que ha sido rápida y veloz en su ejercicio espiritual de componer el examen 3. Gracias, hermana, los hermanos de la Congregación de TA´s del Santo Suplicio te lo agradecemos. Ahora, en la noche, me retiraré a mi celda y meditaré profundamente con la ayuda del señor(oh, Norma, que todo lo ves) e inspirada por ella,llevaré a cabo la mejor de las tareas para que todas las sugerencias queden debidamente atendidas para mañana a la hora del ángelus (o sea, bien prontito). Que la paz sea con vosotros,ave.
La hermana Sor Teo de Loteria

From: V
To: M
GENIAL! Casi escupí un buche de vino tinto sobre el teclado de "mi precioso". ¿Tengo tu permiso reproducir esta carta en mi blog? Y, de veras, discúlpame...sí hice unas correciones, y no sabía que te estaban enviando más, pues no me han llegado ningún
otro e-mail...¿quieres pasármelos para que pueda ayudarte? No quiero que pases demasiado tiempo en este examen...bueno te busco en Skype...o te hablo por teléfono.
V.

From:M
To: V

Estimada madre superiora, Sor Valeria de los Ángeles,
su Excelencia puede reproducir esta misiva en su diario o bitácora internáutica sin agravio alguno para mi persona ¡Por supuesto! Es un honor. En cuanto a las
correcciones, no se preocupe ni se desvele su señoría, que ya fueron enmendadas. Mañana añadiré aquellas otras de la hermana Angélica y del padre Fray Omar.
Ahora me voy a la cocina, donde el padre Fray Alvariño se encuentra preparando unas viandas como cena, creo que precisa ayuda...
Un devoto abrazo,
La hermana Sor Presa de los Exámenes y Papers.

---

Bah Humbug

Each year I am less and less in the Christmas spirit. Like everyone else, I am appalled that the Christmas commercialism begins so early. Even the food doesn't appeal. Red and green don't look nice together. I guess there are also some personal reasons why I no longer feel the magic or enchantment or the warmth of the season. The last time I felt it was when we went to MT to the brothers' houses. But that can't happen every year. A large part of my attitude is a reaction to hearing Christmas music in not even mid-November.

I realize that every year there are fewer Christmas songs that I can even tolerate. Some of them follow, along with their antitheses and some are quite incongruous and I cannot even begin to explain why they've made the cut or haven't.

1. "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" (but not "Jingle Bell Rock")
2. "Do You See What I See?" (but not "Little Drummer Boy" or -gasp-"Silent Night")
3. "Blue Christmas" (but not "White Christmas")
4. "Good King Wenceslaus" (but maybe not "We Three Kings")
5. "The Office Xmas Party"(but not "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer")
6. "Silver Bells"(but not "Jingle Bells")

LaLaLa #2

Although not a huge fan of this style of naïf art, I was kind of looking forward to going to the Grandma Moses exhibit at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento with Sylvia. When I was in 4th grade, our beloved teacher Mrs. Sisson had us study Grandma Moses. The artist was an amazing person, having started painting in her 70s and painting so prolifically. The exhibit was lovingly curated and viewers paused longer than the average time before each painting, sucked in to what Sylvia called the artist's "mind maps" of her village. Even I spent a lot of time looking at the detail and vaguely remembering Mrs. Sisson's lesson. I think we read a book, watched a documentary and did paintings of Poplar "in the style of..." Some of those paintings, would definitely have been less cheery than the endearing and actually quite elaborate "Sugaring Off" (below). Just imagine muddier snow, rusted-out rez cars instead of horse-drawn buggies, way more dogs running around and a few passed-out drunks up alongside some of the buildings. Title would be "Sleeping It Off." Yes, just add making fun of Grandma Moses to the list of reasons why I'm probably going straight to hell.



I hadn't been to the Crocker for over a year and was surprised at the construction and expansion project. The museum is really one of the state's best art museums and allegedly the oldest West of the Mississippi (and the Crockers were related to Elena Poniatowska). One of the coolest things about the permanent collection is that most of the art has a plaque that offers an explanation/interpretation of the work and alerts viewers to special details (e.g. looking beyond an obvious fireworks display in a painting and noting that flames are shooting out of Mount Vesuvius in the background). These explanations, surprisingly, are not in the least bit patronizing.

But the very coolest thing was the 2nd floor's center gallery. The paintings there are now hanging salon style. (See page 3 of exhibitionlayout.pdf)

I must have seen this style of hanging art before. But I either don't remember it or am such a peasant I actually haven't. Both are very real possibilities. Since I would never dare profane the space of a museum with my camera, I'll let Tommy Huynh's photo that I found on flickr.com illustrate this gallery that had me absolutely enchanted.

I figure that since I credit the photographer it's probably OK to copy his photo that he probably wasn't supposed to take in the museum in the first place anyway.

__________________________

Sylvia showed me Thrift Town out on Arden after we left the museum. A pink and orange paisley button-down shirt, a burnt-orange linen blazer that I hope will make me look like a professor and jeans that have a henna tattoo iron-on detail on the end of the legs and in a size number that made me very happy (never mind that I can't really sit down in them...they'll be my museum-going jeans).

Advice

Was thinking about my mom's words of wisdom today - other than the typical "say please and thank-you" type. Somewhat incongruously, instead of sitting me down for a proper feminist "sex talk" she just handed me her copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves (first edition), saying, "Here. You're an advanced reader. We can talk about it afterwards if [read mathematically iff ] you have any questions." Never sentimental, she didn't offer a loving yet cautionary speech when she dropped me off at college the first time. She just wrote the first 3 of these gems on the little notepads the RA had hung on our doors. The rest were passed down over the years when needed.

• Keep your room clean.


• You know where the clinic is. If you have to, use it.


• Don't fuck up.


• Always have a "Plan B".


• Don't drink from the swizzle stick. It's tacky.


• Handwrite thank-you notes (but not if you've said thank you in person). Don't type them. It's tacky.


• No matter how much a man tells you he loves you, never let him see you putting on your pantyhose.


• Don't wear white shoes (or linen) or drink gin and tonics after Labor Day or before Memorial Day.


• There's always money for travel.


• If you see_____(insert name of current or former stepdad), don't talk to him or give him any money.


• Don't open your wedding gifts at the reception. It's tacky.


• Read. (unspoken and understood)


• Read quality books, certainly, but a good trashy novel once in a while won't kill you.


• Oh for God's sake, Valerie, STOP cracking your knuckles! You're going to have arthritis by age 25.


• You should get a dog.


• Vía radio now, but always at the moment I most need it, "Don't worry.....'bout a thing..... 'Cause every little thing..gonna be allright."


• To be continued when memory serves...

I do try to follow all of these, but haven't done so well on the wearing of linen and drinking of gin and tonics only between Memorial and Labor Days. Mom actually gave a dispensation of the linen thing after living in Rosarito for a few months. And the g and t's...well, sometimes we just have to extend the season, due to mitigating circumstances and/or temperatures. Oh, yeah, and those thank-you notes...

A writer's writer writes about writers, writing...y mucho más

Tusquets, 2001


Started the study-reading of Javier Cercas' Soldados de Salamina. It raises interesting questions about the value of literature written by authors who supported and/or were part of the falange. Excellent transition de parte de la profe. Cristina, from Cela to Cercas. Soldados is quite an easy, compelling "read" and from the first few pages, it's evident that the story would translate smoothly into screenplay. Indeed, the filmic version (click for the excellent site) of the novel was extremely sucessful and nominated for an Oscar. I look forward to seeing the film next week - the protagonist appears to have undergone a sex change. As much as this novel can "pass" for literatura popular, there is a literary weight to it which enabled its being used in this seminar and as subject of critical works. Of particular interest are the writing about writing angle, the above-mentioned question about questionable authors and the nods to or strong presence of other authors, here especially to Chilean author Roberto Bolaño (who died, age 50 at the apex of his career in 2003 Obituary in the UK's Guardian Unlimited). Instead of citing the first sentence of the novel here or even the first mention of Bolaño (in which Bolaño reveals to the narrator that he has read and liked both of his books and displays the worn copies to prove it), I'd like to copy the following. It's now perhaps a bit eerie...definitely a tribute to Bolaño mixed with a bit of respectful competitiveness on the part of Cercas...

"Esa tarde, mientras escuchaba con creciente interés la historia exagerada de Miralles, pensaba que muy pronto iba a leerla en uno de los libros exagerados de Bolaño, pero cuando llegué a mi casa, después de despedir a mi amigo y de pasear por la ciudad iluminada por farolas y escaparates, quizá llevado por la exaltación de los gin-tonics yo ya había concebido la esperanza de que Bolaño no fuera a escribir nunca esta historia: la iba a escribir yo" (164).

Despistados

Annual Thanksgiving pilgrimmage to Namaste Indian Cuisine in Concord.

Wow, I don't think I feel like writing tonight...

New chair from IKEA.

I'm almost as IKEA-phobic as Lauren Henderson's detective Sam Jones. The IKEA experience might be easier if the little food store downstairs sold Absolut and if you could actually stop off there first instead of being routed up an escalator and through every single display before the ride (powered by your feet) stops at the cash registers on the first floor about 3 miles from where you came in. After spending that much time in that vast expanse of saddeningly flimsy furniture, there was no way I was leaving empty-handed. Purchased the chair (original purpose was a chair, if not that exact one, but it all worked out) and some candles. Each time I've been to IKEA, I get the tealights.


I'm so afraid that the next time I'm in there, my brain will completely short-circuit from the sensory overload that place induces. An even more frightening possibility is that I'll buy one of these pillows.

Translation pains

I have attempted to translate part of my proposal for my final paper in the Latin American Lit. seminar. It's rough on purpose. The Spanish is smoother. I think. I won't include it here, as my purpose is just to try to capture a bit of what goes on mentally when I translate. Too bad I can't show you what the headache looks like. I seem to display a bit more interference from Spanish on my English than vice versa. Or perhaps not. At any rate, if so, I hope it's only evident in my cacademic writing.

Not because of the translation, but the content, I realize, reading over this post that...

...I may have just set off my own Bullshit-o-Meter!

"Juana Manuela Gorriti, diffuser of american culture: Cocina eclética and other collaborations of Pan-american women writers."

In her introduction to her translation of Sueños y realidades (Dreams and Realities) by Juana Manuela Gorriti, Francine Masiello states that

Gorriti sought to provoke a gendered revolution consistent with domestic reserve, a recognition of women in the public arena, but consonant with the law. This domesticated version of feminist militancy was aimed at achieving self-sufficiency for women while keeping them in less contentious public spaces (xxxiv).

I think it remains to be seen whether Gorriti was exactly "militant”, but overall, I do agree with Masiello. The houses of Gorriti's homes in Lima and in Buenos Aires, locations of her literary salons * well would have fit perfectly among those public spaces. Although she did invite men to these gatherings, they are it is the women who I intend to treat (¿?) examine in this work. The evolution of the XIX century woman from just merely "Angel of the House" to that as well as increasingly sophisticated reader and writer, in some cases is evident in Gorriti's writing as well as in the writing of some the women invited guests at her veladas. in which I propose to study, in general, the type of proto-feminism that Gorriti practiced exhibited, and more specifically, how her efforts fostered a spirit of panamericanism and a sisterhood of latinamerican Latin American writers. I will attempt to analize analyze how her compilation of cooking recipes (Cocina ecléctica) and her literary salons involved the American women (at least certain privileged American women, that is) in the political, cultural and social lives of the continent.
* Subject of Batticuore's excellent study El taller de la escritora: Veladas Literarias de Juana Manuela Gorriti: Lima – Buenos Aires 1876-1892.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Article in today's Chronicle on what passes for political scandal in Vallejo.

(11-19) 12:29 PST Palm Springs Vallejo's vice mayor, [Gary Cloutier] who is locked in a tight race for mayor of the Bay Area city, has been arrested [locked in and locked up] on suspicion of public intoxication in Palm Springs after he allegedly stumbled out of a bar and attempted to drive away, police said today. Read all about it.



Comments from area residents

"I almost feel bad saying this, but he's even hot in his mug shot." "If I had to deal with the idiots in this town, I'd go to Palm Springs and get plastered, too." "One vote, Leo. One vote."

Friends' Thanksgiving (post started 17/11/07)

It's been either six or seven years that Friends' Thanksgiving has been going on at 231. It has been, traditionally, a relaxing day spent with people who do not share DNA (before going on to spend time with those who do). This year, the event will be tomorrow and fewer people than normal will be coming. Those who will be coming are some of my favorite people to sit around the table with and I know the meal will be enjoyable and the atmosphere one of friendship, love and warmth, even though we don't all see each other as often as we used to. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and the meal always has something beyond alimentary aspects - comfort, joy, humor, etc. And I cannot help thinking of literary meals that have had the power to heal a character.



One of the first novels I could read normally after Mom died was The Heart Song of Charging Elk by Jim Welch. The salvific meal from this novel takes place in a Paris jail, where the eponymous protagonist has landed after a series of mishaps that separate him from the Buffalo-Bill Wild West Show he's been touring with. We will see that a meal prepared and served with care and regard for the one who will consume it has incredible healing force.

"For two days, Charging Elk had lain on the sleeping platform and sung his death song. It was a powerful song and it took him away to his own country. He did not feel the cold or see the close stone walls. He did not notice when one of the wasichus brought him soup or emptied his slop bucket...But this day, the third sleep, his song was weak and he was afraid it was losing its power. He no longer felt his nagi lifting inside him, hovering, waiting to be freed for the long journey home.

Then, around midday, something happened that caused him to quit his death song entirely. One of the helpers entered his room, carrying a small platform and a tray. He smiled and talked soothingly, pointing to the window, then to the shaft of light on the opposite wall. He pointed to the tray and rubbed his belly, and Charging Elk followed the man's finger and he saw real food. A cooked bird and several small potatoes, accompanied by a large chunk of bread and a piece of chocolate. He saw the usual mug of pale tea, but he also saw a small bottle of what looked to be mni wakan. It had no paper with the French writing stuck on it, but he could see the dark juice through the deep green of the bottle...The helper noticed that he was looking at the wine. He pointed to the bottle and put his thumb against his lower lip, tilting his head backward. Then he left, laughing.

Charging Elk had not eaten anything solid for several days...he was anxious to be dead and away from this stone room, this foreign land. It had been easy to quit eating the things that floated in the soup and the sour bread, but the sight and smell of real food made him almost grateful that he had not gone away...

Charging Elk looked at the bird for a long time before he found the strength to swing his legs over the edge of the platform and stand up...He stood for a moment, waiting for his sight to come back; then he reached down and touched the bird gingerly, almost a caress. It had been roasted and its smell filled the small room. He pulled a piece of skin from the carcass and tasted it. He thought it might be a wasichu trick, that it might be poisoned or diseased. But the skin tasted good...

After he finished the chicken, he popped the small potatoes, one by one, into his mouth...He chewed the dark bread...

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the blue packet of cigarettes and the matches Yellow Breast had given him. There was one cigarette left...He put it to his lips and struck a match. The thought of making prayers, of performing the yuwipi's ceremony with the tobacco, did not occur to him. And for the first time in several sleeps he felt warm and satisfied with this life and did not wish to end it...

Charging Elk leaned back against the stone wall and watched the smoke curl up into the shaft of light toward the window. He saw Yellow Breast's eyes in the smoke and he saw that the eyes were troubled, almost frightened, with what he saw in Charging Elk's face. He had given Charging Elk this tobacco to make prayers with; and now he had given him a meal of real food and a bottle of mni wakan. Charging Elk would drink it after he finished his smoke because he knew that Wakan Tanka had sent Yellow Breast to help him. Charging Elk smiled...He wanted to live, to continue to breathe the air of this strange country among these strange people. Just a short time ago, this thought would have caused Charging Elk great heartsickness; now he was content to smoke the cigarette and think of his life as here and now - no matter what, he would survive. And when the time came, he would go home to his people. Wakan Tanka would see to that" (104-107).

SMART Goals, Thanksgiving, 2007

• Buy and thaw turkey earlier


• Start drinking later


• Refrain from altering recipe of or making disparaging comments about nasty green bean casserole (or anyone's "sacred cow" Turkey Day foods, for that matter)


• Avoid sending anyone to store


• Find "prayer" alternative to the hackneyed, though usually insightful and non-intimidating What-are-you-thankful-for?-let's-start-with-you-and-go-around-the-table activity (note: cannot substitute this question, as there will be some under-12s there)

Recent Quotes

Of course, the quotes that follow most likely have no significance to anyone other than me, but I do want to remember them and those who uttered them (names will be changed to protect the...)

Picasso print jackets

"It's probably a sign of a mental problem that I can't wait until I'm old enough to wear things like that." --R.R. 16 nov. Glen Cove Safeway

"Holy shit! I didn't know that casket store back there was called The Casket Store!" (as though he knew all along that there even is a casket store "back there") -- aug. or sept. driving East on Tennessee St.

"My crotch feels just rotten." -- Special Ed. teacher Charlotte R., getting into her truck at 3:00AM after teaching all day and suffering the worst session of contract negotiations, 1992.

"Yo vi una película? y no me acuerdo como se llama? pero hay un viejo que está amamantando...?" ("I saw a film? and I don't remember what it's called? but there's this old man breastfeeding...?") #2 and I exchanged looks across the table, each wondering whether the old man was simply breastfeeding or breastfeeding someone.

Hola, Valerie: Espectacular accidente con el pie y el teléfono, digno de apuntarse en los anales de la intrahistoria del Dpto. Puedo imaginar al teléfono en el fondo del arroyuelo, como Ofelia cuando decidió lanzarse al río." ;-) ("Spectacular accident with your foot and the phone, worthy of note in the annals of intradepartmental history. I can imagine the phone at the bottom of the creek, like Ophelia when she decided to throw herself into the river.")--Álvi en su respuesta a mi e-mail re: el accidente telefónico, nov. 2007.

My classmates rock! Two from E.

Hi Val,
That sucks!  (But I got a kick out of your description, I could imagine the
whole thing in slow motion).  Glad your ankle is ok. My phone number is...
Have a good weekend :-)

One more thing that I hope makes you feel better, I dropped my phone in a
toilet in the bathrooms of the social science building during a break from
I's class once, and I reached in and got it!  On the upside it still
worked.