Bad Texas: noviembre 2008

Worn out and spun around a pole. Knit into a corner of holey concrete. Arranged for sale. Time would be a savior of tulips and glass vases. Tomato sauce smothered on everything. Gone for a moment please.

(This is a reprint from the Catalogue of Feeling.)

An Australian Joke

You're such a wimp, you probably step out of the shower to piss.

(As told by an Englishman.)

Dee Ef

Inspiration wasn't the same today as before. The muse who before swept me along and up and dreaming now sits down on a bench and stairs me in the eye. The muse is a man with a haggard face stained and dusted by the metropolis' grimy reach. The muse is something else much more sporadic and random. Today my friend swore he saw Gael García Bernal at a table in the back of the Argentinian restaurant but it wasn't him, it was a guy with the same haircut sitting alone looking slightly sad with a similar face but rounder, more bulbous, and with something of a round ball attached to the tip of his nose. Maybe inspiration would be watching a marital fight over traffic that just doesn't move, the nervous silences followed by rapid fire excuses and pleas for understanding. Perhaps trying to make yourself understood in a language you barely understand is the most inspiring. Perhaps walking and connecting with asphalt, sweat, mandarin oranges and cabbage would be. Rivers of grime outpour into a gold-lined gulley.

Half an Hour

Never made it with you and don't expect
I will. Some talk, a slight move closer,
as in the bar yesterday, nothing more.
A pity, I won't deny. But we artists
now and then by pushing our minds
can––but only for a moment––create
a pleasure that seems almost physical.
That's why in the bar yesterday––with the help
of alcohol's merciful power––I had
a half-hour that was completely erotic.
I think you knew it and
stayed on purpose a little longer.
That was really necessary. Because
with all my imagination and spell of the drinks,
I just had to see your lips,
had to have your body near.

- A poem by Cavafy translated by George Economou. More here.

Videocadáver: Futboléame la orgía

Cutouts on Street Corners in Tucson, Arizona

Activists in Tucson, Arizona have been placing life-sized cutouts of Maricopa County’s insidiously regressive anti-immigrant law enforcement officials around town on street corners and at intersections, including one of the chief of armed despicability himself, America’s self-described “toughest sheriff” Joe Arpaio, and another of a Border Patrol agent, presumed to depict Nicholas Corbett, who just recently faced a hung trial for the second time after being charged with the murder of Mexican immigrant Francisco Dominguez in January of 2007.

Text and image from Subtopia.

If only a poet could treat his singing as a mania or ritual: if only he would sing as those who must sing even though they know they sing in a vacuum.

- Javier Huerta

Notes for the Future, Obama and the Northamericans

I just got back from a presentation at the Book Fair in Tampico, Tamaulipas, México. I gave a talk in a tent in the main square on translation and also set up a desk in the square and did free translations for passers-by: letters for kids to their English teachers, love letters y más. At the end of my talk, I passed out cards to the audience and asked them to write their hopes, dreams, recommendations, suggestions for the new Unitedstatesian president and for the Unitedstatesian people. I told them I would translate what they wrote and post it on this blog so that my readers would have a look into what people in one small port city at one hopeful moment had to say about los Yunaites. Here are their notes translated into inglés:

Obama: I want a better world I want peace on Earth I just want love I think that's what everyone wants. Race or whatever color you are doesn't matter it doesn't matter if you're from here or if you are someone from somewhere else. Now I want the best for the world that the war stops that the dawn breaks once again that the land provides fruit again but you what do you want... - José A. Pérez Mtz

Open your eyes. Watch out for the Right. Hope isn't everything.

I hope for more human relationships between you Northamericans and us Mexicans, I wish you a lot of prosperity. - Adriana

Well what I think is that Obama is going to be the change because he is between two races his mom and his materal grandparents his dad of color so there isn't any mistrust of him on my part and I do hope that he gets papers for all the Mexicans that are over there and don't have family here and already have their roots there that he helps everybody over there all the Mexicans. - Rosalba Gómez Hdz - his American mom his dad of color

That the hope entrusted in the President elect of the U.S. is reflected in real change and that it doesn't happen to them like it happened with us Mexicans, the change promised by Fox never happened.

That he eradicates racism hopefully it happens since he's of color he could be the perfect person to do that. - María Olivia Ibarra Hernández

My hope for the whole world especially those who govern the nations is to work, work and work to find solutions to worldwide poverty. - Joel Guerrero Morante

(i am a grandmother) i was pleased that Obama won since it represents a change that was needed for a long time - Maria Jesus Ramirez

That he can follow through on his campaign proposals and fulfills the hopes invested in him.

Obama: Never forget the common man Never forget to respect equality of opportunity, justice for everyone equally Never kill anyone with your power. - Martha Izaguirre

Remi sans famille

As I've discovered over the last few months, Remi is universally known to all Mexican young adults of a certain age. Unaltered Remi image here. No, Remi is not normally dressed up in leather and standing on Corazón Alegre his pet monkey. So sad. Remi is always very sad. Did anyone in Gringolandia watch this when they were little?

La imagen es de Manuel Meza. Hay más de sus ilustraciones aquí y más de un colectivo de ilustradores chilangos aquí. Check them out!

Un vocabulario shihuahuense

acá - Y mi mamá, todo acá, diciendo no salgas a esta hora. Musho sholo ahorita.

aguaje - Vamos al aguaje ya, esta pinshe ciudad no tiene de otra.

reborujado - Pinshe narco, la ciudad está bien reborujado.

reborujo - Puro reborujo esta ciudad.

repunoso - Cuidate con ese mushasho m'ija, está repunoso el tipo.

°°°

Y quiero saber cómo le llamas o qué palabra usas cuando el hotel donde te estás quedando en Shihuahua llegue a ser la base de operaciones para la Policia Federal. Frente a mí, una alberca de hotel, al otro lado más de dos cientos policias federales uniformados y con ametralladoras. Más vale que me fuera de aquí ya, opino yo. Si no fuera por las dos mujeres vestidas de monjas a mi lado, tendría más miedo aún. Uf.

Dos chistes baratos chihuahuenses

Translate into Spanish Please:

I want to see gas.

°°°

¿Cincuenta topitos deliciosos más cincuenta topitos deliciosos te da cuántos?

People dancing on top of cars chanting OBAMA! OBAMA!

yo: yeeeeeaaaaaahhhh¡
sara: yesyewsyesyeyseyseyeasa!!
yo: so awesome
sara: we did it!
yo: yeah¡
new day
sara: morning in america
yo: new amazingness
hhahahha
but this time for real
where r u?
sara: brooklyn
it's crazy
i walked home
yo: r people in the us freaking out???
sara: it's insane
yo: hahah
sara: people just gathering on street corners, cheering
yo: thats awesome
sara: hugging strangers
chanting
cars honking
police cars running their sirens for fun
yo: awwow
sara: then i got up to bedford ave
and folks were jamming the street
it was a total street party
yo: wow
sara: an entire city block just jam packed
yo: amazing
sara: people dancing on top of cars
yo: oh my god
sara: chanting OBAMA! OBAMA!
yo: life changing

Piensa en Obama y endereza la columna

Yo: ganò mi obamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Gaby: sahuevo!

Yo: estoy sùper feliz

Gaby: ya sé ya sé, me imagino

Yo: :)

Gaby: de neta, qué chido, esto representa un cambio súper fuerte

felicidades!

Yo: siiiiiiiiiiii

Gaby: y pues lógico que el cambio nos conviene a todos en el mundo

Yo: me voy a las 2am a chihuas

Gaby: estás en hermo, verdad?

Yo: sip

Yo: ya me voy a las 2am
15 horas en camión
q hueva
pero feliz feliz pensando en obama

Gaby: ay, claro
piensa en un personaje que va en un camión mexicano, recorriendo parte del norte de México mientras piensa que Obama acaba de ganar, novela histórica
el mundo se regocijaba y tomaba su verdadero curso mientras yo viajaba en un autobús desde Hermosillo hasta Chihuahua
qué chido qué chido
piensa en obama y endereza la columna
y duerme, piensa, cuéntate un cuento

Yo: aw q linda
gracias

Gaby: yes we can

Yes We Can

Sí podemos. Sí sí sí.

Estás son las imágenes que no sé traducir a tu idioma. Cuando mi dices que hablo bien me pongo a pensar en las obviedades que todavía se me escapan. Igual y soy demasiado ingenuo. Estas trampas que tienden me son extraños. Imposibles de saber cuando se aproximan. De repente, estoy atrapado y no me puedo escapar. Son explicaciones que uno repite hasta el cansancio y que terminan confundiéndole a uno más que resolviéndole las dudas. Toda explicación tiene hoyos. Un colador de sueños.

(This is a reprint from the Catalogue of Feeling.)

AdBusters goes after the worldwide hipster clique:

An amalgamation of its own history, the youth of the West are left with consuming cool rather that creating it. The cultural zeitgeists of the past have always been sparked by furious indignation and are reactionary movements. But the hipster’s self-involved and isolated maintenance does nothing to feed cultural evolution.

But the writer seems to end up sounding like one of what founder of Vice Gavin McInnes calls those "chubby bloggers who aren’t getting laid anymore and are bored, and they’re just so mad at these young kids for going out and getting wasted and having fun and being fashionable.”