Mad Magazine: Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

I doubt I would have become the writer/scholar/etc I am without having been infected with the delights of Mad Magazine and its usual gang of genius idiots; a nice cover retrospective just went up (with limited and lame commentary) at Vanity Fair.

A Taste of Margarita Carmen Dolores Cansino, aka Rita Hayworth, To Ring in the New Year!

A taste of Rita, with Frank Sinatra, from Pal Joey (1957).

See You in San Francisco for MLA, Gilbert Hernandez, Neurobiology, and Chicano/a Erotica

Right after Santa drops his load in South Texas, I will be off on a plane out of freezing Laredo, Texas, bound West for the bucolic cultural bliss of San Francisco, California, and the annual gathering for our coven of Lit and Language profs called the MLA! I am there at the instigation of Frederick Aldama, Patrick Colm Hogan (go Huskies!), and UT Press who are all part of a gang consorting to fuse neurobiology and the humanities for a veritable clusterf*** of mega-literary proportions; here's some of their verbiage wherein they cop to their goals, an intellectual conspiracy that aims to "incorporate cutting-edge research in cognitive science, neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, narrative theory, and related fields, insofar as this research bears on ... literature, film, drama, music, dance, visual art, digital media, and comics, etc." Their cabal, should it prosper, promises to publish and disseminate "specialized scholarship and interdisciplinary investigation[s]"--ones that are "deeply sensitive to cultural particularities and historically shifting relations of power and resistance" and "grounded in an understanding of cross culturally shared emotive and cognitive principles." Me? I will be talking about graphic Chicano illustrated narrative, namely Gilbert Hernandez's memorable sci-fi, psychoanalytic porn-epic, Birdland.

MLA San Francisco
280. Cognitive Approaches to Ethnic and Postcolonial Literature and Culture
Sunday, December 28, 2008
12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Nob Hill D, Marriott
Program arranged by the Discussion Group on Cognitive Approaches to Literature
Presiding: Frederick Luis Aldama, Ohio State Univ., Columbus
1. “Neurobiology, Comics, and the Chicana/o Climax: Gilbert Hernandez’s Birdland as Prolegomena to an Erotics of the Visual,” William Anthony Nericcio, San Diego State Univ.
2. “Latin American Historical Cinema and Categorial and Practical Identities,” Richard A. Gordon, Ohio State Univ., Columbus
3. “Schematizing the Timelessness of State Terror and Violence in Children of Men,” Arturo Aldama, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder
4. “Cognitive Psychology and South African Collective Guilt in Stuart Cloete’s Turning Wheels,” Rebecca Weaver-Hightower, Univ. of North Dakota

Harvey Kurtzman's "The Psychological Indian"

Boingboing.net just published a post on a treasure-trove Harvey Kurtzman's art--among the goodies, a classic rumination on stereotypes by the EC master. A taste appears above; more here.

Mexicans Versus La Migra! Lucha Libre Madness!!!

George Luna-Peña, web spelunker extra-ordinaire, is back in the house with an Alternet story (with vimeo) of wrestling matches between Mexicans and Immigration/Customs dudes! Stop the presses! Here's the story; the video appears below:


The Good, the Bad, and the Promoter from New America Media on Vimeo.

update!

Damn, looks like Arellano beat us to the punch--by 7 years! Ouch!

Visualizing Immigration

George Luna-Peña sends in this cool vimeo posting that seeks to visually track immigration from the 19nth century forward:


Immigration to the US, 1820-2007 v2 from Ian Stevenson on Vimeo.

August 22, 2008, La Cita Bar, LA TIMES: Cantina Orosco's of the World, Unite

Just getting around to posting a Xicanosmotic clipping from the LA Times, concerning an LA Cantina that doubles as an artists' garret! Holy Picasso, Batman, Corona's and art school chicas! Right up Gustavo Arellano's alley!

In the ongoing evolution of Mexicans, public restrooms, and hygiene...

In the ongoing evolution of public perceptions concernin "Mexicans," public restrooms, and hygiene, I would be remiss if I did not post this link forwarded me by Sage Publications sage John Paul Gutierrez, regarding the activities of a certain Gringa celebrity and her diminutive "Mexican" sidekick. Hit the image for the story...

Chicano Rock! Aural Xicanosmosis--Don't Miss It!

The San Diego air-dates appear below; hit the image to see when it is airing in your neck of the woods!

Feliz Navidad and Pee-Wee: A Blast from the Past from El Ponk

La Virgen de Guadalupe, Tex[t]-Mex, Mexico, and Playboy Magazine

Leave it to the editors of Playboy Magazine, Mexico, to conspire to up the ante on "Mexican" as a synecdoche/proxy for sexuality; they've done so with a parody of the Virgin Mary, actually María Florencia Onori, on the cover of their latest issue! The Huffington Post is on it here; Guanabee here. The entire photoshoot, not safe for work or Mass, for that matter, are here--a select out-take from that batch, appears here below:

As the Imposing Shadow of 2009 Lurks Close...

As the imposing shadow of 2009 lurks close, time, once again, to give credit where credit is due and to tout the inimitable mind of Jacques Derrida, enfant terrible of deconstruction, and one of my most influential teachers--though I only got to work with him for a week. "The power of ghosts and their ability to haunt us" has everything to do with the ubiquity and unfathomable shelf life of stereotypes:

Yet Another Chapter in the Semiotic History of Latina Bombshells Shilling Product and Sexuality

Click the image for more.

source: egotastic.com

Luba as Wonder Woman

Just a quick flash of Gilbert Hernandez's genius--a depiction of Luba as Wonder Woman; part of a project you can see here.

Eyegiene Meets the 6 Million Dollar Man Meets Michael Powell

Amazing Xicanosmotic Music Event in Seattle!

Click the poster above to be transported to a blog that chronicles a landmark event in Latina/o music scholarship, curatorship, etc! A big sombrero tip and abrazo to navidad-born cultural stud Mark Dery for the link!

Classic Memories Etched on the Synaptic Motherboard

The Jetsons 1962 Intro

Christmas Stocking Stuffer Suggestion

My thanks to the little elves of Amazon for promoting Tex[t]-Mex so nicely--at 11:40 on Saturday, December 6, 2008, Seductive Hallucinations of the "Mexican" in America #2 for the Hispanic category, behind Zoot Suit, by Luis Valdez! Órale!

update: Tower has it at #7 for just a little bit cheaper.

Melatonin Debate at Guanabee

MST3K: The Robot Versus the Aztec Mummy

In terms of the pantheon of Mystery Science Theater spoofs, The Robot Versus the Aztec Mummy (originally released in Mexico as La momia azteca contra el robot humano [1957]) is certainly not the most infamous, but it does feature a series of "Mexican" jokes, most predictable, that are germane to the interests of this blog. As for the endless MST debate of Joel versus Mike--Joel, of course.

Mac vs. PC, do you have to ask? Mac!

The movie starts at the 7:23 mark of this YouTube upload:

Since 1984, I have been writing on a Macintosh...

Since 1984, I have been writing and playing and designing on a Mac--this is the best parody of the Apple Universe I have seen in awhile:

source

Proposition 8 Musical Parody!

Priceless!

Birthday Cactus Bikini Girl Tidings

One of my medievalist colleagues here at SDSU gave me a birthday card today that features a perfect poster-child for Tex[t]-Mex shenanigans! Miss Cactus Pixie, circa 1932! I have to share it! As with most images on the site, click the picture to get the full picture!

Tlatelolco on NPR

XicanOSMOSIS: Estilo Teatro | Oliver Mayer

My good friend Oliver Mayer, whose work is anthologized and studied to death in my second book, an edited collection entitled The Hurt Business, is back in the news!

Published: November 26,2008
Critically Acclaimed USC Playwright Professor Oliver Mayer Has Something to Say

Critically acclaimed playwright Oliver Mayer will jump right into the new year with the world premiere of two of his plays: *"Dias y Flores" *and *" Laws of Sympathy"*.

On January 16, 2009 he will world premiere at the Company of Angels Theatre his highly anticipated play *"Dias y Flores" *- a meditation on Love: straight, gay and filial. The play directed by *Luis Alfaro* stars an all Latin ensemble cast including his wife, Actress *Marlene Forte*, Mel Rodriguez, Alejandro Rose Garcia, and Justin Huen. Testing which love is strongest, the play seeks the musical magic of love. Its story is loosely based on "A Thousand and One Nights, and the music of Cuban Silvio Rodriguez and Beethoven. It also looks at the changing face of Latinos - Caribbean to Mexican. What does it mean to be Latino and in love?

Mayer who is best known for *his plays that investigate the Latino *and more specifically the* Chicano experience* throughout American history has had two collections of his work published as of 2008: *"The Hurt Business" *and *"Oliver Mayer: Collected Plays"* . It's only natural that Mayer is known as a Chicano playwright, being *himself half Mexican*. His career has undeniably been very much enriched by being a product of two cultures. A Professor of Dramatic Writing at USC School of Theatre, Oliver Mayer is a playwright driven by the dramatic engine of both the world around him and the one constantly turning inside of him.


He is a recent winner of a *USC Zumberge Award* for the creation of a new original six-play cycle that portrayed how various epochs of music affected American History; and the recipient of a Gerbode Grant to write the libretto for "America Tropical", a new opera composed by David Conte. He is the screenwriter for "Dare to Love Me", a movie about the life of Tango singer Carlos Gardel which begins principal photography in 2009 - the film stars Raoul Bova and Lindsay Lohan.

Mayer 's claim to fame is the acclaimed *"Blade to Heat"* which premiered at the Public Theater in New York City. The revised version premiered on the Mark Taper Forum mains stage and subsequent productions have taken place in San Francisco, Chicago and Mexico City.

He is certifiably *an important voice in American Theatre *and his work is extremely relevant today because it comes from a multicultural background - not to mention the fact that over time his artistic creations will come to represent a rich historical record of who we are and where we're headed as citizens of the United States.

Mayer describes himself as a playwright with the emphasis on "play". "All these plays are dramas, " says Mayer, "but hopefully they're really funny along the way - the best way to solve stuff is with a smile".

Mayer is a graduate of Cornell and Columbia Universities, and attended Worcester College, Oxford. His literary archive can be accessed through Stanford University Libraries. His other well known plays include THE ROAD TO LOS ANGELES, BANANAS AND PEACHFUZZ, BOLD AS LOVE, THE RIGHTING MOMENT and ROCIO! A PESAR DE TODO.

source!

Ask A Mexican Deserves My Love, But Only Incurs My Narcissus-flamed Wrath!

A big abrazote to Gust*** Are***** for hyping my book once again in his infamous column Ask A Mexican, syndicated from San Ysidro, CA to the Bronx; but a big chingazo as well for eliding my humble name! Click the image below for the whole scoop!

Cool Monstruos en Español

source: dadanoias.net

Classic Los Lobos on Austin City Limits!

...and, an old fave, "Mexicano-Americano, also from Austin City Limits:

San Antonio's Girl in a Coma's New Video

Happy Thanksgiving! Click the Mexican Turkey for a Savory Recipe!

Every Theory in "Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the 'Mexican' in America" Proved Right!

Yikes! Source here. More on the genre of 1970s-era pulp classic mags here.

Classic Frito Bandito Commercial: Mel Blanc and Friz Freleng Back in the House

Though Chon Noriega has cornered the market on the Frito Bandito in the history of American cultural studies, I like to think my notes in Tex[t]-Mex and here in the Galleryblog are useful as well! Happy Thanksgiving!

Daniel Hernandez on CURRENT TV: Santa Muerte

More on the History of Race in American Entertainment

Time and again I get asked why I spend so much energy on cartoons--as if the animated fare consumed by children did not rise to a level of importance suitable for the airy heights of the ivory tower. Moronic, but common.

That as a lead-in for a link and a blog site (with video) that feature a series of excised scenes from Walt Disney's masterpiece Fantasia. The most outrageous video, featuring a young, female, African centaur named "Sunflower," appears below. Viewer WARNING, it is quite brief, and features a new take on "spitshine" that is bracing.

Richard Rodgriguez on Gay Marriage, the Catholic Church, and the Faces of Our New America

Regular contributor and Sage Publishing editor John Paul (not the Pope) Gutierrez writes in to point my eyes to an interview with my fave Tex[t]-Mex whipping boy, Richard Rodriguez--the full text is at Salon.com; hit the image below!

Priceless Chicano Ephemera--The Blessing of the Animals, LA

Mexico 1968 Through Pedro Meyer's Eyes

The Phantom Chicano Culture of the Americas

Thanks to reader George Luna-Peña for the assist and for turning me on to a very cool magazine/project, evil monito!

Life Magazine Photo Archive Now Live on Google Images

Regular contributor David O. García writes in with a semiotic headsup!

From: "David O. Garcia"
To: "Bill Nericcio"
Subject: LIFE photo archive is available online
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:43:59 -0500

Bill,

Yesterday the LIFE photo archive became available via Google. Do a search for your favorite Mexican images and see what comes up. As a photographer I am stoked! Here is a story on the deal.

Best,

David

Daniel Hernandez on Afro Mexicans

Animation: Coraline

Xicanosmosos: Calvin Style

Click here for more.

source, neatorama.com

Post-Shatner Fetishism Revealed

We all know that Spock, half-Vulcan, half-human, is a cloaked Chicano!



More trailers here.

Culture Clash Invading USC--Get your tickets now!!!

ATTENTION ALL CULTURE CLASH FANS!!!

The University of Southern California is proud to welcome Culture Clash to USC's Bovard Auditorium on Thursday November 20, 2008. The premier Latino theatre troupe will be performing one of their famous works, Culture Clash in AmeriCCa which has been hailed as "startling, funny, and revelatory" by the Los Angeles Times. Please join us as we investigate our national character, our mythology and the lives of individuals that make up the diverse threads of our America. Don't miss out on such an amazing opportunity!

Check out a clip of Culture Clash in AmeriCCa!

Location: USC's Bovard Auditorium
Date & Showtime: Thursday November 20, 2008 @ 7:00 PM
Ticket Price: $20 General Public
SPECIAL NOTE: Mention "Culture Clash Fan" over the phone and get the ticket at half price!

Contact information: arts@usc.edu
(213)740-2167
www.usc.edu/spectrum

Shhhhhh!!! Super Secret Marisela Norte San Diego, California Invasion, Monday, November 17, 2008

Monday afternoon, November 17, 2008, East LA legend/diva Marisela Norte, will be reading at 4pm in the Little Theatre, on the SDSU campus; the reading/signing is free and open to the public! It is sponsored by my English 220.19 Introduction to Literature class AND the Department of English and Comparative Literature, SDSU. Norte is the reigning queen of SoCal poets--a singular artist whose talent and vision transform the mundane landscapes of the Southland, stripmalls and all, into an unforgetable lyric tapestry that is moving and unforgettable.

The Secret Museum of Mankind: On Mexicans and Trolls!

original posting January 27, 2008

You can't make this up: Holy Yanomamo, Margaret Mead! The Mexican Troll--banditry as a genetic given!

"He is one of a band of desperadoes who, fired with fierce instincts of rebellion and intrigue, steep themselves in a sea of lawlessness, and terrorise the peaceful populace of Mexico as did the fabled trolls the simple folk of Scandinavia."

Now I know where that animatronic Freddie Lopez elf/troll, 'half-breed' muppet came from in A Very Retail Christmas, documented in the Speedy Gonzales chapter of Tex[t]-Mex!








Just a quick update with a link to a video of the "elves" from A Very Retail Christmas, the show that features half-breed troll/elves infiltrating Santa's North Pole enclave. Thanks to Victoria Chavez of San Diego for this find! Victoria also sends in this Made-for-Tex[t]-Mex picture from People Magazine.

John Leonard, RIP

I learned more about writing from this man than just about anyone. RIP

Here is John Leonard on Joan Didion--priceless. Harpers' Magazine's archive is over the top good. A Leonard bestiary!

...and, a cool NPR retrospective.

Chicago Chicano Semiotics

David Rodriguez, Tex[t]-Mex Galleryblog reader and South Side Chicago Mexican flaneur, sends in a picture from the Windy City of a window display from one of his fave taquerias! Our friend Speedy Gonzales makes a cameo (shhhhhhh, don't tell Warner Brothers!).

Black is the New President

The Spoor of Limbaugh, Beck, Dobbs, and Coulter or a Brief Tribute to the Memory of Marcelo Lucero

Hate crimes against Latinos/as are on the rise and people stand around wondering "what is wrong with our youth." The cynical but true answer: they are learning their lessons well. More here and here. The Gothamist has a brief piece on it here and a NY Times editorial is here.

Elaine Ayala has a piece on this as well.

Eyegiene Estilo Derrida

In the following passage culled from Hydra, Jacques Derrida mulls the dynamics of religion in the high age of the vidiot--a realm where television fuses its innards with god, God, and gods. Get this, even the Pope has a cameo; in any event, this, then, is just a placeholder for a later discussion of eyegiene, or, for new readers, a chapter to be written in my new book on visual cultures:

There is insufficient space to multiply in this regard the images or the indications, one could say the icons of our time: the organization, conception (generative forces, structures and capital) as well as the audiovisual representation of cultic or socio-religious phenomena. In a digitalized 'cyberspace', prosthesis upon prosthesis, a heavenly glance, monstrous, bestial or divine, something like an eye of CNN watches permanently: over Jerusalem and its three monotheisms, over the multiplicity, the unprecedented speed and scope of the moves of a Pope versed in televisual rhetoric (of which the last encyclical, Evangelium vitae, against abortion and euthanasia, for the sacredness or holiness of a life that is safe and sound - unscathed, heilig, holy - for its reproduction in conjugal love - sole immunity admitted, with priestly celibacy, against the virus of human immuno-deficiency (HIV) -, is immediately transmitted, massively 'marketed' and available on CD-ROM; everything down to the signs of presence in the mystery of the Eucharist is 'cederomised'; over airborn pilgrimages to Mecca; over so many miracles transmitted live (most frequently, healings, which is to say, returns to the unscathed, heilig, holy, indemnifications) followed by commercials, before thousands in an American television studio; over the international and televisual diplomacy of the Dalai Lama, etc. So remarkably adapted to the scale and the evolutions of global demography, so well adjusted to the technoscientific, economic and mediatic powers of our time, the power of all these phenomena to bear witness finds itself formidably intensified, at the same time as it is collected in a digitalized space by supersonic airplanes or by audiovisual antenna. The ether of religion will always have been hospitable to a certain spectral virtuality. Today, like the sublimity of the starry heavens at the bottom of our hearts, the 'cyberspaced' religion also entails the accelerated and hypercapitalized relaunching of founding specters. On CD-ROM, heavenly trajectories of satellites, Jet, TV, Email or Internet networks. Actually or virtually universalizable, ultra-internationalizable, incarnated by new 'corporations' that are increasingly independent of the powers of states (democratic or not, it makes little difference at bottom, all of that has to be reconsidered, like the 'globalatinity' of international law in its current state, which is to say, on the threshold of a process of accelerated and unpredictable transformation).

Jacques Derrida: "Foi et savoir - Les deux sources de la 'religion' aux limites de la simple raison". La religion, sous la direction de J. Derrida et Gianni Vattimo, Paris: Seuil, 1996, p. 35-36

Irony

I don't know for how long it will be the case, but La Migra is buying ad-time on the site that tracks my hits for the Tex[t]-Mex Galleryblog!



Yikes!

Animation

Neo Retro Blaxploitation Comics

More here. With a complete Jim Rudd tale featuring Richard Nixon (!) here.

Eyegiene: Cool New Way to Search for Images

Eyegiene: the Policing of Pornography

Eduardo Santacruz, ace correspondent, is going link crazy; he sends in this anti-pornography rant as a meditation on eyegiene:



original source:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/lists/five-funny-propaganda-videos-110708

Manuel from Fawlty Towers

In Tex[t]-Mex I argue that many of the stereotypes of Mexicans familiar and cherished in the United States are rehashed and refitted mash-ups of English takes on Spaniards. Eduardo Santacruz passed me this YouTube video of "Manuel" from Fawlty Towers, which is a popular and well-known example of this view:

MLA Bound: Gilbert Hernandez, Birdland, and More!

More soon. Here's a cool interview with Gilbert Hernandez.

Mexican "Bombshell"

Gilda Redux in Elle

In a chapter entitled "When Electrolysis Proxies for the Existential," I do a number on Rita Hayworth, aka, Margarita Dolores Cansino, as I ponder the nexus of race, ethnicity, and celluloid at work in her biography. Elle Magazine recently did a fashion meditation on Rita's work in Gilda; I am in debt to one of my Naked Mirror students for bringing it to my attention: