I was going to post about raulsalinas, who died a few days ago and reference some of his marvelous Chicanindio poetry but I remembered that I did post about him when I learned that he had he died and I stumbled onto this while looking for something else and, well I just had to post it. It made me laugh out loud when I was feeling very sad about the loss of a great poet like Raul. The wry sense of humor in the poem that chose me for Poetry Friday reminded me of my grandfather and his jokes and I thought to myself, "this is perfect for today."

He wasn't really bad to look at
if you don't mind your men so short.
His head was disproportionate
but forceful, and his neck was taut,
his eyebrows were pointed and curly
and of course his black eyes burned
with mad glee, his arms were fully
muscled, his booted feet neatly turned.

He made his offer, good as gold,
so confident I would accept his special skill
to save my skin, but I, surprisingly bold,
countered with the skin itself, the heart, the will.
The straw was scratchy but the man was smooth,
he brought down pillows to cushion our elation;
I slept then while he labored to produce
the glitter that insured my royal station.

Read the rest here. The round-up is here at Hip Writer Mama's. Thanks for hosting!

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The 2008 Cybils Awards were just announced. I had the honor of serving as a panelist in the graphic novel category and am excited to Artemis Fowl in the winners list.

You can view all the winners here.

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The great Xicano poet, writer and activist Raul Salinas, known as raulsalinas died last night in Austin. I, along with many others are saddened by the loss of this amazing and enduring spirit of a man.

Descanse en pas hermano.



raulsalinas was a longtime fixture at South Austin's La Resistencia Bookstore. He wrote several influential books of Chicano poetry, including "East of the Freeway: Reflections de mi Pueblo," and "Un Trip Through the Mind Jail y Otras Excursions."

His most recent book, "raúl salinas and the Jail Machine: Selected Writings of raúl salinas" was published in 2006 by University of Texas Press.

To learn more about raulsalinas, you can check out his website.

Raul will be greatly missed.

A BIO OF RAUL SALINAS (quoted from the announcement I received this morning)

Raúl Roy “Tapon” Salinas was born in San Antonio, Texas on March 17,
1934. He was raised in Austin, Texas from 1936 to 1956, when he moved to Los
Angeles. In 1957 he was sentenced to prison in Soleded State Prison in
California. Over the span of the next 15 years, Salinas spent 11 years
behind the walls of state and federal penitentiaries. It was during his
incarceration in some of the nation’s most brutal prison systems, that
Salinas’ social and political consciousness were intensified, and so it is
with keen insight into the subhuman conditions of prisons and an inhuman
world that the pinto aesthetics that inform his poetry were formulated.

His prison years were prolific ones, including creative, political, and
legal writings, as well as an abundance of correspondence. In 1963, while in
Huntsville, he began writing a jazz column entitled “The Quarter Note”
which ran consistently for 1-1/2 years. In Leavenworth he played a key role
in founding and producing two important prison journals, Aztlán de
Leavenworth and New Era Prison Magazine, through which his poetry first
circulated and gained recognition within and outside of the walls. As a
spokesperson, ideologue, educator, and jailhouse lawyer of the Prisoner
Rights Movement, Salinas also became an internationalist who saw the
necessity of making alliances with others. This vision continues to inform
his political and poetic practice. Initially published in the inaugural
issue of Aztlán de Leavernworth, “Trip through a Mind Jail” (1970)
became the title piece for a book of poetry published by Editorial Pocho-Che
in 1980.

With the assistance of several professors and students at the University of
Washington - Seattle, Salinas gained early release from Marion Federal
Penitentiary in 1972. As a student at the University of Washington, Salinas
was involved with community empowerment projects and began making alliances
with Native American groups in the Northwest, a relationship that was to
intensify over the next 15 years. Although Salinas writes of his experiences
as a participant in the Native American Movement, it is a dimension of his
life that has received scant attention. In the 22 years since his release
from Marion, Salinas’ involvement with various political movements has
earned him an international reputation as an eloquent spokesperson for
justice. Along the way he has continued to refine and produce his unique
blend of poetry and politics.

Salinas’ literary reputation in Austin earned him recognition as the poet
laureate of the East Side and the title of “maestro” from emerging poets
who seek his advice and a mentor. While his literary work is probably most
widely known for his street aesthetics and sensibility, which document the
interactions, hardships, and intra- and intercultural strife of barrio life
and prison in vernacular, bilingual language, few people have examined the
influence of Jazz in his obra that make him part of the Beat Generation of
poets, musicians, and songwriters. His poetry collections included
dedications, references, and responses to Alan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac,
Charles Bukowski, Charlie Parker, Herschel Evans, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles
Davis, for example. Academics have primarily classified Salinas as an
important formative poet of the Chicano Movement; yet, while he may have
received initial wide-scale recognition during the era, it would be unfair
to limit a reading of his style, content, and literary influence to the
Movement.

There were many dimensions to Salinas’ literary and political life.
Though, at times, some are perplexed at the multiple foci of Salinas’
life, the different strands of his life perhaps best exemplify what it means
to be mestizo, in a society whose official national culture suppresses
difference: his life’s work is testimony to the uneasy, sometimes violent,
sometimes blessed synthesis of Indigenous, Mexican, African, and
Euro-American cultures. Salinas currently resides in Austin, Texas, were he
is the proprietor of Resistencia Bookstore and Red Salmon Press, located in
South Austin. Arte Público Press reissued Salinas’ classic poetry
collection, Un Trip through the Mind Jail y otras Excursiones (1999), as
part of its Pioneers of Modern U.S. Hispanic Literature Series. He is also
the author of another collection of poetry, East of the Freeway: Reflections
de Mi Pueblo (1994).

Salinas resided in Austin, Texas, were he was the proprietor of Resistencia
Bookstore and Red Salmon Press, located in South Austin. Arte Público Press
reissued Salinas’ classic poetry collection, Un Trip through the Mind Jail
y otras Excursiones (1999), as part of its Pioneers of Modern U.S. Hispanic
Literature Series. He is also the author of another collection of poetry,
East of the Freeway: Reflections de Mi Pueblo (1994).

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My apologies for the delayed round-up. As indicated in the previous post, I was crazed getting ready for the Annie Awards, the animation industry's biggest night. It was an amazing night too. The food was great, Ratatouille and Brad Bird won just about everything there was to win, one of my favorite shows El Tigre and it's creator Jorge Gutierrez won awards and I met and saw lots of interesting and fun people. I thought you'd might like to take a peek at the dress I ended up with so I'm tacking in a picture. There's this kind of weird guy in between me and my date, maybe you'll recognize him. He's a really nice guy.

I apologize if I didn't get to comment on your poems, I'll be swinging by throughout the week to do so. I did read them all and they were wonderful and I've so many new poets to add to my list.


On to the round up, I really enjoyed making these mashed up nonsensical story poems of our postings so I'm going to give it another shot.

It began in Frenzy over at the little house
Where Billy, charming Billy was looking for a pearl.
At the Wild Rose, there's everything from Lincoln to Moses, so why dream?
"Well" said The Blue Rose Girls, "how about a love poem with toast?"
Each of us has a name given by God, even when the clouds come.
The red wheel barrow puzzles us while the mother in the refugee camp
breaks out hearts and Lady Macbeth reminds us to be ourselves.
Wherever in the wastes of our days, there should always be time for haiku
At the very least poetry in 15 words or less
or things like painting in the sweet spring.
In every heart there is a room still and quiet
when it is peace.

Though I am old with wandering (welcome Laurel!),
I imagine children's faces are replacing flower pots
in a fabulous March to the Sea.
Oh to be of use!
Beetle-bop, beetle-bop!
The mouse of Amherst calls
It's time for Langston's train ride.
There's a conference you see, on the neuroscience of Mother Goose.

In the land of Nod
there is a fury of overshoes
Death's second self, the Armadillo is preening
as much as the books that fillt it.
A clear midnight, in an Irish winter
they are getting ready as if for a Bronx masquerade
He is already beside me, that honeybee
and if you will be my valentine
and write me epyllions of love
then i will stop forcing spring

Climb inside a poem
puppy poems
are good to start with.
This little bag of poetry is becoming heavy
or maybe it's just that
I'm tired.
Defenseless under the night,
the blind men and the elephant dream
of Snow White and apples, while
Miss Lee and Mrs. Fuller end Poetry Friday.

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I love hosting Poetry Friday. It's something that I am quick to sign up for and eagerly look forward to as well as every Poetry Friday whether I am hosting or not. This month is crazier than usual in my insanely paced life.

February is here and with it the heavy convention season begins for my company, of deals, heavy workload, trying to find rooms at Comic Con (come on San Diego be a little more organized will ya), trying to keep my food blog updated, starting up my book reviewing again for BOTH AmoXcalli and Cuentecitos along with my regular duties of being a grandma, trying to have a social life, trying not to be a total laptop hermit when I get home and just darn cleaning the house.

Before I even realized I was hosting sometime in February, my trusty Blackberry calendar pinged at me and told me it was tomorrow. TOMORROW!!! Holy crap! Tomorrow is the Annie Awards and I'm going crazy. I have to find a dress, decide on shoes, get my hair done, get my nails done, get back home and get ready by 4:00 p.m. To add to my stress, I have a date. My first real date since the ex who shall be nameless and I broke up. I haven't dated in 12 years! ACK!

My frenzy reminded me of a poem I've always loved by Anne Sexton, (one of my favorite poets) and I thought I'd share it and ask the Poetry Friday question, what makes you frenzied? What helps to ease it? For me, it's the realization that it always turns out right in the end and if not, well there's always poetry.

I'll be out and about tomorrow getting early Saturday getting my hair done, etc. then I will be at the awards ceremony till late. I'll be checking in and putting up your posts as much as I can, but the round-up will be most likely be a separate post as always and it will be up on Saturday morning. Leave your lovely offerings with Mr. Linky and do remember to stop back to see what poem we collectively come up with in the round-up on Saturday. Don't forget to leave a comment. Happy Poetry Friday everyone!

Anne Sexton - Frenzy

I am not lazy.
I am on the amphetamine of the soul.
I am, each day,
typing out the God
my typewriter believes in.
Very quick. Very intense,
like a wolf at a live heart.
Not lazy.
When a lazy man, they say,
looks toward heaven,
the angels close the windows.

Oh angels,
keep the windows open
so that I may reach in
and steal each object,
objects that tell me the sea is not dying,
objects that tell me the dirt has a life-wish,
that the Christ who walked for me,
walked on true ground
and that this frenzy,
like bees stinging the heart all morning,
will keep the angels
with their windows open,
wide as an English bathtub.

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I found this and thought it was lovely. The round up is over at Karen Edmenstein's shockingly clever blog.

On Speaking French after Twenty Years by Catherine Jagoe

for Massan

Strange, these words in my mouth—
the disappeared returned.
I am no longer agile,
but I offer them hamfistedly to you,
new to America from Mali,
your print skirt
the cloth of my childhood in west Africa,
the tongue between us
the green summer
I spent in France feasting
on freedom and being
twenty-one.

Strange, what is still here
and what has been removed
to somewhere deeper.
Tomorrow and today are here
but yesterday is gone
as is the verb for missing.
Low is here, but high
has vanished.

Read the rest of the poem here.

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It's been raining here in Eagle Rock for days off and on, but last night it never stopped and is still going strong. Great torrents and sheets of hard rain, a blessing on drought-ridden Southern California but I've had enough of it. I've been sick with the flu and if I go out into the wet, I start coughing. Blah. Puts me in a mood because I know I have to go out in a few hours to the doctor's office and then from there to work.

I heard a bird singing outside my bedroom window this morning, just a few minutes ago and it changed my mood. How can it sing so sweetly? It must be drenched, the poor thing. I hope it's found shelter in some strange, dry spot in the huge magnolia tree in our backyard. I hope its song isn't a cry of despair.

The brave bird (for somehow in my mind, he is now a he and a very brave he) gave me some of his courage to go out and slog through the rain and cold. He put a smile on my face and got me to thinking about birds in general. I found a poem about swallows that I fell in love with from a poet I didn't know. The bird brought me courage, a smile, a poem and a new poet whose beautiful name I covet, think is perfect for a poet and makes me smile more. I think that makes my bird an angel.

barbs of outer wing-feather
recurved into minute hooklets
from base to tip a rasping

dusky throated northern rough

as a bolus is pushed pons and pharynx
the anterior tongue lifts to hard palate
elevates to soft and seals

lores darker than eyes bill black
forager with forked tail weak feet
more wing than any other song

To read the rest of this magnificent poem click here. Poetry Friday is being hosted by Mentor Texts and More. Thanks for hosting!

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Woohoo! The AWN (I work there) 2008 Oscar Showcase is up and running, with no glitches or errors. I'm home sick today but Deron, Darlene, Bill, Kevin and Rick did an outstanding job preparing this thing to go off without a hitch. So much behind the scenes work goes into our Oscar Showcase for Animated Features and Short Subjects that I just have to stop and give the team a big shout out for being so fabulous.

Take a look below at the end product of weeks of work, getting permissions to use content, tracking down the right people, writing articles, posting images, designing things, making sure the voting mechanism works, the clips play, etc. AWN has the best people and they do the best work. They care and it shows. Stop by and show them some love. You can even vote for your favorites to win.


The AWN 2008 Oscar Showcase.

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We love pigs at AmoXcalli. In fact, we review Piglit just for my granddaughter Jasmine who loves pigs so much that instead of a princess party for her 4th birthday, she wanted a pig party. Yay Jasmine! She marches to the beat of her own drum and isn't afraid to be herself in spite of pre-school peer pressure to be princessy. She and I review piglit together in our own special series.

I found this article on Washington Post and couldn't resist adding the link to AmoXcalli. Jasmine, we've got quite the list to review. We'll hold off on Lord of the Flies and the like till you're a bit older.

To read the Post article, click here.

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The Mystery Writers of America have just announced the shortlists for
their Edgar Awards.

Best Novel Nominees

* Christine Falls by Benjamin Black (Henry Holt and Company)
* Priest by Ken Bruen (St. Martin's Minotaur)
* The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins)
* Soul Patch by Reed Farrel Coleman (Bleak House Books)
* Down River by John Hart (St. Martin's Minotaur)

Best First Novel By An American Author

* Missing Witness by Gordon Campbell (HarperCollins - William Morrow)
* In the Woods by Tana French (Penguin Group - Viking)
* Snitch Jacket by Christopher Goffard (The Rookery Press)
* Head Games by Craig McDonald (Bleak House Books)
* Pyres by Derek Nikitas (St. Martin's Minotaur)

Best Paperback Original

* Queenpin by Megan Abbott (Simon & Schuster)
* Blood of Paradise by David Corbett (Random House - Mortalis)
* Cruel Poetry by Vicki Hendricks (Serpent's Tail)
* Robbie's Wife by Russell Hill (Hard Case Crime)
* Who is Conrad Hirst? by Kevin Wignall (Simon & Schuster)


Best Critical/Biographical

* The Triumph of the Thriller: How Cops, Crooks and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction by Patrick Anderson (Random House)
* A Counter-History of Crime Fiction: Supernatural, Gothic, Sensational by Maurizio Ascari (Palgrave Macmillan)
* Deviance in Contemporary Crime Fiction by Christiana Gregoriou (Palgrave Macmillan)
* Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley (The Penguin Press)
* Chester Gould: A Daughter's Biography of the Creator of Dick Tracy by Jean Gould O'Connell (McFarland & Company)

Best Fact Crime

* The Birthday Party by Stanley Alpert (Penguin Group - G.P. Putnam's Sons)
* Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi (W.W. Norton and Company
* Chasing Justice: My Story of Freeing Myself After Two Decades on Death Row for a Crime I Didn't Commit by Kerry Max Cook (HarperCollins - William Morrow)
* Relentless Pursuit: A True Story of Family, Murder, and the Prosecutor Who Wouldn't Quit by Kevin Flynn (Penguin Group - G.P. Putnam's Sons)
* Sacco & Vanzetti: The Men, The Murders and the Judgment of Mankind by Bruce Watson (Penguin Group - Viking)

Best Short Story

* "The Catch" - Still Waters by Mark Ammons (Level Best Books)
* "Blue Note" - Chicago Blues by Stuart M. Kaminsky (Bleak House Books)
* "Hardly Knew Her" - Dead Man's Hand by Laura Lippman (Harcourt Trade Publishers)
* "The Golden Gopher" - Los Angeles Noir by Susan Straight (Akashic Books
* "Uncle" - A Hell of a Woman by Daniel Woodrell (Busted Flush Press)

Best Young Adult

* Rat Life by Tedd Arnold (Penguin - Dial Books for Young Readers)
* Diamonds in the Shadow by Caroline B. Cooney (Random House Children's Books - Delacorte Press)
* Touching Snow by M. Sindy Felin (Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing - Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
* Blood Brothers by S.A. Harazin (Random House Children's Books - Delacorte Press)
* Fragments by Jeffry W. Johnston (Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing - Simon Pulse)

Best Juvenile

* The Name of This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
* Shadows on Society Hill by Evelyn Coleman (American Girl Publications)
* Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn (Clarion Books)
* The Night Tourist by Katherine Marsh (Hyperion Books for Young Readers)
* Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things by Wendelin Van Draanen (Random House Children's Books - Alfred A. Knopf)

The Simon & Schuster -
Mary Higgins Clark Award

* In Cold Pursuit by Sarah Andrews (St. Martin's Minotaur)
* Wild Indigo by Sandi Ault (Penguin Group - Berkley Prime Crime)
* Inferno by Karen Harper (Harlequin - MIRA Books)
* The First Stone by Judith Kelman (Penguin Group - Berkley Prime Crime)
* Deadman's Switch by Barbara Seranella (St. Martin's Minotaur)

Robert L. Fish Memorial Award

* "The Catch" - Still Waters by Mark Ammons (Level Best Books)

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For more info on the awards, please visit Critical Mass. They have live blogging and all kinds of good stuff.

Autobiography

• Heart Like Water: Surviving Katrina and Life in Its Disaster Zone by Joshua Clark (Free Press)
• Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat (Knopf)
• The Journals of Joyce Carol Oates, 1973–1982 by Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco)
• Writing in an Age of Silence by Sara Paretsky (Verso)
• Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption and Death in Putin's Russia by Anna Politkovskaya (Random House)

Nonfiction

• American Transcendentalism by Philip Gura (FSG)
• What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe (Oxford University Press)
• Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet Washington (Doubleday)
• Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA by Tim Weiner (Doubleday)
• The World Without Us by Alan Weisman (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s)

Fiction

• Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra (HarperCollins)
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (Riverhead)
• In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar (Dial)
• The Gravediggers Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates (HarperCollins)
• The Shadow Catcher by Marianne Wiggins (S&S)

Biography

• Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer by Tim Jeal (Yale University Press)
• Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee (Knopf)
• Ralph Ellison by Arnold Rampersad (Knopf)
• The Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932 by John Richardson (Knopf)
• Thomas Hardy by Claire Tomalin (Penguin)

Poetry

• Elegy by Mary Jo Bang (Graywolf)
• Modern Life by Matthea Harvey (Graywolf)
• Sleeping and Waking by Michael O'Brien (Flood)
• The Ballad of Jamie Allan by Tom Pickard (Flood)
• New Poems by Tadeusz Rozewicz (Archipelago)

Criticism

• Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints by Joan Acocella (Pantheon)
• Once Upon a Quniceanera by Julia lvarez (Viking)
• The Terror Dream by Susan Faludi (Metropolitan/Holt)
• Coltrane: The Story of a Sound by Ben Ratliff (FSG)
• The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross (FSG)

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Someone opens an orange in silence, at the entrance
to fabled nights.
He plunges his thumbs down to where the orange
is rapidly thinking, where it grows, annihilates itself, and then
is born again. Someone is peeling a pear, eating
a bunch of grapes, devoting himself
to fruit. And I fashion a sharp-witted song
so as to understand.
I lean over busy hands, mouths,
tongues that devour their way through attention.
I would like to know how the fable of the nights
grows like this. How silence
swells, or is transformed with things. I write
a song in order to be intelligent about fruit
on the tongue, through subtle channels, unto
a dark emotion.

Read the rest of this poem here.

The round-up is at The Book Mine Set. Thanks for hosting John!

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Join Us!!!!!

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It's the last Poetry Friday of the year and I've found an amazing poem on the nature of belief on Writer’s Almanac today. It moved me so profoundly. It got me to thinking about belief, faith and all the things my grandparents taught me about living life well and being a good person.

It’s beautiful when poetry digs deep into your very soul and gets you to start looking deeper at the person you are and wonder if it’s enough, makes you want to do more, be more.

I’ve included the first few lines.

What My Father Believed by John Guzlowski, from Lightning And Ashes. © Steel Toe Books, 2007

He didn't know about the Rock of Ages
or bringing in the sheaves or Jacob's ladder
or gathering at the beautiful river
that flows beneath the throne of God.
He'd never heard of the Baltimore Catechism
either, and didn't know the purpose of life
was to love and honor and serve God.


Head on over to Writer’s Almanac for the rest.


The round-up is here.

Have a Happy New Year everyone and thank you for letting me part of this amazing Poetry Friday experience this year.

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Isn’t it fabulous that every week, close to 50 people stop whatever they’re doing in their so busy lives and think, consider, research, write, find and compile all these wonderful poems and stories?

I think it’s astounding and I think each of you amazing contributors are making the world a better place one poem at a time. I’m so thankful for you all. You’ve opened up the window on my world and made it a richer, more colorful tapestry. Here’s to you all and I hope you have a wonderful holiday season filled with joy and hope.

I thought I'd do a nonsense poem as a round-up, like I did last time I hosted, but your poems wanted their own way and it became a story of two friends who look to each other when illness strikes. It's still a little nonsensical thought.

This epistolary round-up is dedicated to a friend that is far away. I'm thinking of you and hope I can be as good a friend as Tom.

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Happy Solstice everyone!

Last time I hosted, I made a fun poem of all your links - am I up for the challenge again? We'll see...I will round it up in a separate post late tonight so be sure to check back for the round up.

Wow, it's only 7:30ish in the morning here and there are already 27 poems up! That's fantastic. I'm headed off to work, but will be trying to look through and read each of your poems throughout the day. Sounds like we have quite the diverse and interesting batch as usual! I'm so grateful to Poetry Friday. I'd never get a chance to find all these great poems, discover new poets and read original works without you all. I'm so looking forward to a new year of poetry with you all!

It's Solstice, the Lakota Nation has announced that they will secede from the U.S. and become their own country (!), I turned 46 and I just launched a cooking website. It's been a crazy, wild, wonderful December. What a way to end the year.

Happy Holidays everyone! Here's Mr. Linky and please do leave a comment.

My Poetry Friday offering is Claribel Alegria (her name just makes me smile), with an interesting little poem in Spanish called Tamalitos de Cambray. I'll do my best to translate it for you. I've also attached two Youtube videos, one in English, one in Spanish so you all can get to know the lovely Ms. Alegria a little better. I love when she talks about how how important reading is.

TAMALITOS DE CAMBRAY

(5,000,000 de tamalitos)

A Eduardo y Helena que me
pidieron una receta salvadoreña.

Dos libras de masa de mestizo
media libra de lomo gachupín
cocido y bien picado
una cajita de pasas beata
dos cucharadas de leche de Malinche
una taza de agua bien rabiosa
un sofrito con cascos de conquistadores
tres cebollas jesuitas
una bolsita de oro multinacional
dos dientes de dragón
una zanahoria presidencial
dos cucharadas de alcahuetes
manteca de indios de Panchimalco
dos tomates ministeriales
media taza de azúcar televisora
dos gotas de lava de volcán
siete hojas de pito
(no seas mal pensado es somnífero)
lo pones todo a cocer
a fuego lento
por quinientos años
y verás qué sabor.

Claribel Alegria

Little Cambray Tamales

(makes 5,000,000 little tamales)
- for Eduardo and Helena who asked me
for a Salvadoran recipe


Two pounds of mestizo cornmeal
half a pound of loin of gachupin
cooked and finely chopped
a box of pious raisins
two tablespoons of Malinche's milk
one cup of enraged water
a fry of conquistador helmets
three Jesuit onions
a small bag of multinational gold
two dragon's teeth
one presidential carrot
two tablespoons of pimps
lard of Panchimalco Indians
two ministerial tomatoes
a half cup of television sugar
two drops of volcanic lava
seven leaves of pito*
(don't be dirty-minded, it's a soporific)
put everything to boil
over a slow fire
for five hundred years
and you'll see how tasty it is.

*pito means to whistle, it's also an sleep-inducing herb; but there's another translation. It's slang for penis (which is why she is saying don't be dirty minded).

So wow! The Lakota Nation and Russell Means are seriously doing this. Wow. I wonder how events are going to unfold. Any thoughts? When I hear the word secession, I think of Ashley Wilkes leaving Melanie and Scarlett at the barbeque. This is serious. Wow.

That's it! You're rounded up here.

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I've been a little busier than usual lately launching my own cooking website and trying my hand at writing recipes. It's hard because then I actually have to think through the process while I'm cooking. It's also a little weird trying to figure out measurements because I never measure. I'm finally getting it though and having a lot of fun in the process. Cooking is such a huge part of my life and my history - it ties to so much I do that I wanted to share it.

On the website you'll find recipes, family stories and history, traditions, experiments and much more. You'll meet my family and friends, attend a tamalada and go on quests for ingredients. We eventually are going to have video instructions, so stay tuned.

The first few recipes are up and more are coming.

The link is here. Welcome!

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If, like me, you still have some things to get for Christmas, take a peek at my latest post at Foreword's Shelf Space: Liz's Tips for Giving (and Receiving) Books.

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On December 12th, at 2a.m. I was out at Placita Olvera (Olvera Street) dancing barefoot on the cold ground along with many, many others to pay homage to the Virgen de Guadalupe. Before I left, I wrote up a post about her and how much she means to me, my family and to the Mexican people. See the December 11th post for more about La Virgen Morena.

There is poetry to her as well as songs written in her honor. I thought I'd include some here along with the words to Las Manañitas - the traditional birthday song that we sing to her on her feast day.






Las Mañanitas is a traditional Mexican song that is sung on birthdays and other important holidays. It is often sung as an early morning serenade to wake up a loved one. At birthday parties it is sung before the cake is cut.

Las Mañanitas Lyrics:

Estas son las mañanitas
que cantaba el rey David
a las muchachas bonitas
te las cantamos aquí

Si el sereno de la esquina
me quisiera hacer favor
de apagar su linternita
mientras que pasa mi amor

Despierta mi bien despierta
mira que ya amaneció
ya los pajarillos cantan
la luna ya se metió

Ahora sí señor sereno
le agradezco su favor
encienda su linternita
que ya ha pasado mi amor

Amapolita adorada
de los llanos de Tepic
si no estás enamorada
enamórate de mí

Despierta mi bien despierta
mira que ya amaneció
ya los pajarillos cantan
la luna ya se metió


Here's just about the whole of Mexico singing it to her in the Basilica



and check this out!



The round up is here at The Miss Rumphius Effect. Thanks for hosting Tricia!

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What a great interpretation!

http://phprblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/today-is-day-of-virgen-de-guadalupe.html

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In Mexico, I think nothing is more honored and adored than the Virgen de Guadalupe or, as I know her, Tonantzin. Her image is everywhere. Statues, candles, blankets, sarapes, scarves, murals, roadside shrines - her peaceful and radiant countenance blesses you. She lives in homes, tattoos, in the marketplace, in song, everywhere, she touches everything. Even one of the most popular singers in Mexico wrote a song for her! In fact, singers of all types - rock bands, mariachis, the
pop stars, the rancheros, EVERYONE loves the Virgencita Morena, the Goddess of the Americas.









She was the image on the banners and flags of Father Manuel Hidalgo and his followers in the Mexican Revolution. She is entrenched so deeply into our culture and ideology that she’s like an old and very beloved friend. We call her little mother. She’s our collective mother, the mother of a conquered but not defeated nation, the mother who fights for us, protects us and loves us no matter who or what we are and become. We live and breathe Guadalupe. In every family, someone, boy or girl is named Guadalupe and carries that name with pride.







The Catholic Church has it's story of the Virgen de Guadalupe and Juan Diego, we indigenous people have another. Somehow, like so much in Mexico the two things blended and we have Catholic dogma mixed with indigenous belief. Tonantzin wouldn't be erased and she lives stronger than ever in our hearts and minds.



Every year on her day, December 12th - thousands of people gather at her shrine on Tepeyac to give her honor, to pay homage, to dance prayers for her, to sing Las Manañitas to her and to show their devotion. Indigenous people from all over Mexico leave their villages and walk or crawl up to the sierra de Tepeyac in an ancient pilgrimage. The actual holy ground is a little hill behind the Basilica. This hill was sacred to Tonantzin and consecrated to Her by the indigenous people of Mexico long before the conquest. The pilgrimage was happening in pre-Columbian times as well.



As far back as I can remember my life was dominated by the Guadalupe. In the sala (living room) my grandmother Lupe’s house (her name was Maria Guadalupe) in the place of honor on the wall was a huge, framed print of the Virgen de Guadalupe standing on the hill of Tepeyac with Juan Diego kneeling at her feet, tilma open and filled with roses. It was a beautiful print with a soft washed from age look to it. You could clearly see the nopales (cacti) that were growing on the hillside. Every day my grandmother would put fresh flowers in front of that print. “Flores para la virgen”, she would tell me, “Flowers for the Virgen”. I learned to cut fresh roses and other flowers from the garden for vases throughout the house, keeping only the best and showiest to put in front of the print. Just like my grandmother, I’d say a little prayer to her as I left her her flowers. She was as real to me as my sisters were and I talked to her far more freely. La Lupita was my confidant, my protector, my dear little mother.



At church, my grandmother was a member of a society called Las Guadalupanas and they were devotees of her. Every morning, my grandmother Lupe would don her lacy mantilla and head off for mass where she’d pray to the Virgen de Guadalupe. See, she’s everywhere and in everything.



In Aztec culture, Guadalupe was Tonantzin, the mother of all, Mother Earth, The Goddess of Sustenance, Honored Grandmother, Snake, Aztec Goddess of the Earth. She brought the corn, Mother of the Corn. Even then She was All and Everything. She represented mothers, fertility, the moon, the sacred number 7. In fact, she was sometimes known as 7 Serpent. She was always there and she was always our little mother.





Corn is sacred to Tonantzin. The flowers we know as poinsettias were called Cuetlaxochitl were also very sacred to her and they grew on Tepeyac in wintertime as tall as ten feet high. Tunas (cactus fruit or prickly pear) are also especially sacred to Tonantzin growing as they do on the cacti that grows on her sacred and holy ground. Filled with seeds inside and a rich, juicy red fruit, the tunas represent both fertility and the womb, the blood of women and the sweetness of life. Tomatoes are another sacred fruit to Her. On my altar, I often put flor de noche Buena (another word for poinsettias meaning flower of the good night), tunas, chiles, cacao beans and tomatoes. The colors red, white and green, the colors of the Mexican flag are sacred to Her as well.



Early tomorrow morning, the morning of the 12th at 2a.m. at the Placita Olvera (Olvera Street) in Los Angeles, mariachis, devotees of the Virgen de Guadalupe, Aztec dancers, folklorico dancers, deer dancers, musicians, priests, nuns, and many more will start paying homage to Her. We will sing Las Mananitas, the traditional birthday song, we will pray and dance. Aztec dancers will dance at Catholic masses everywhere and they will do the prayer dance Tonantzin first. They will dance various variations of Tonantzin and give Her honor. In Mexico, on a much larger scale, celebrities, the elite, the politicians, Zapatistas, narcotrafficantes, men, women and children will all pay homage to our beloved Virgen de Guadalupe. We will give thanks to her for all we’ve received from her merciful hands, we will pray for the sick, the prisoners, the homeless, the helpless and we know that She is mercy, kindness, acceptance and love. She commands a tremendous devotion from the people that love her just by being Guadalupe. I believe she has given me much – my life, my children, my grandchildren, the food I eat. She is the goddess of the harvest, she represents the mother in me and in all women. She simply is and so I say Tlaxocamatl Tonantzin, thank you virgen de Guadalupe for all you have given. Tlaxocamatl Tonantzin. Ometeotl.







From the City of the Queen of the Angels, desde la ciudad de Nuestra Reina de los Angeles,

Atonatiuh Eloxochitl
Mar y Sol Datura Flower
otherwise know as
Gina MarySol Ruiz
Who is on her way to dance for the Virgen de Guadalupe and one for her Grandmother Lupe too.

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How'd you like to increase your vocabulary, have fun doing it and by doing so be contributing to fighting world hunger?

Head on over to Free Rice and see how many bowls of rice you can donate. I managed to donate 2000 grains in about ten minutes. I'm addicted! They have great words like weald and taiga. Go! Visit! Donate rice!

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This Thanksgiving morning, I received a post about my honoring of my ancestors stating that it was unGodly and demonic. My two part response is in the comments. Anyone want to weigh in?

Leave your comments here.

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Dramacon, Vol. 1
Author: Svetlana Chmakova
Publisher: TOKYOPOP
ISBN 10: 1-59816-129-8
ISBN 13: 978-1-59816-129-8

Christie Leroux is a high school student and anime fan attending her first anime convention, with her boyfriend Derek, to sell their amateur comic book – she writes it, he draws it. This 172-page young teen comic tells what happens to Christie during the three days at her first convention; but it is less about the chaos and traditions of big fan conventions – although that is certainly captured here authentically and hilariously – as it is about the emotional turbulence experienced by a sensitive teenager on her first solo outing from home.

How will she and Derek react in the “artists’ alley” to the fan public’s response, and to the criticism of professional cartoonists, to their amateur comic book? Is Derek just being friendly and a good salesman to attractive girls who look at their comic, or is he flirting with them? What should she and Derek do when their school roommates/chaperones stay out all night, leaving the two alone? Christie realizes that both she and Derek are immature, but how much self-centeredness should she tolerate from him? When Christie meets Matt, a sophisticated college student from across the country, she is torn between an instant attraction (is this just adolescent hormones or True Love?) and loyalty to Derek – but does he deserve it? “My first anime convention… did not go smoothly. But all things considered… I can’t wait to go back.”

Svetlana Chmakova is the young Russian-born commercial artist and anime fan who is one of the leading creators of what fans call “American manga” or “OEL (original English language) manga” – original American comic books written/drawn/published in the traditional Japanese manga style. DRAMACON reads front to back and left to right like standard American books; otherwise it is almost indistinguishable from a Japanese comic book. The art is black-&-white, presented in a thick paperback format. The style varies sharply from realistic when the characters are acting seriously to grotesquely “squashed” when they are acting silly. The art is heavily shaded and toned to compensate for the lack of color, and romantic scenes are full of the “shojo sprinkles” such as hearts & stars that Japanese romance cartoonists put into their art. The dialogue is full of fan slang such as “cosplay” and “J-Pop” .

DRAMACON Vol. 1 was published in 2005, and is currently in its fourth printing. Each volume takes place at the fictitious annual anime con, and shows Christie a year older with both her personal and creative relationships more advanced. It is a success both as a romance comic book, and as a primer for what to expect at your first anime convention. Vol. 3 will be published this December 10th.

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