How to use this Page

Skyhorse's Madonnas: CACA

From amigo Rigoberto Gonzalez comes word of his El Paso Times Book Review of Brandon Skyhorse's The Madonnas of Echo Park.Does Rigo sound negative about the novel? Sounds more like the book deserves my CACA award for double cultural appropriation. The article's entitled Ouch: Stereotypes, clunkers fill stories in 'Madonnas' (special to the El Paso Times).

Here's a sample from the review:
"One character says, 'My sisters had left America and moved South, to a small Mexican village in Guadalajara.' (Don't see the problem? Guadalajara is a city.)"

Simón, like I live in the small American village of Sunnyside in Denver.
Check out Rigo's biting analysis here.

Chicano SF in FLURB

Ernest Hogan of Charla-Interview fame, and Chicano author of Cortez on Jupiter has a new story up on Rudy Rucker's FLURB, A Webzine of Astonishing Tales. It's entitled Doctora Xilbalba's Datura Enema, a story about what can happen to The Man if he gets too deep into a futuristic Narcolandia. Who said Chicanos don't make good SciFi characters? Hogan also gave La Bloga a nice plug at the end.

8.29.10 Denver celebration 'taba suave

Described in Manuel Ramos's post last week, my wife Carmen and I made to Rick's Tavern (Denver) to help fin

My participation in formal ceremonies has varied as much as the results. Decades ago as best-man at Jose's wedding, I had to intervene in the parking lot brawl where the bride's kin wanted to knife the "communist" groom. (They were a little conservative and he, the opposite.) That marriage eventually dissolved.

Giving a testimonial to the audience at my brother David's wedding from the pulpit of the San Anto Cathedral pretty much left most gente's mouths open and led to my never being reinvited to that church. Said marriage, dissolved.

I was elated to do the eulogy at my brother-in-law Rick's funeral, not only because it could never be undone like previous events, but also because of the difficulty of the task, given the sometimes opposing assessments of his character. I made him shine. That performance was so well received, I was allowed to do the Xmas "prayer" that year at the in-laws' celebration. But not the following year.

This year, performing the wedding ceremony for teacher friends Josh and Darcy amounted to a higher calling. An outdoor March service in Colorado is always a gamble and of course it snowed the day before, threatening to put a damper on festivities.

Loving Neil Gaiman's 100-word Xmas story and inspired to attempt the same, I decided to create a micro-story for the occasion. If you've never attempted one, you may not know how difficult a task it can be. In truth, I failed. Not only couldn't I contain my fiction within the word limit; mine pales in comparison to Gaiman's.

I chose to call upon the ancients gods and incorporate the discordant weather for a wedding audience presumably unaccustomed to either. The image above is of Ichpuchtli, the Aztec goddess of Sacred Prostitutes, invoked, among other things, for beauty, sensuality, sexual pleasure and a fruitful marriage. The ancient Indians embraced irony like that into their world, something our own would do well to realize the value of.

Below is my piece. The title refers to the fact that I couldn't do it in less than 111 words. 4 represents the word "for." The remainder is the date of the ceremony. I share it with the thought that this one will not suffer dissolution.