Friday, April 24, 2009

The Pretenders Meet Radiohead

The Trope of the Latin Lover: Chapter One



Iglesias, Madrileño, is from Spain; parents from Galicia. No "Mex" in this "Tex[t]."

Mark Dery is on the Textmex Galleryblog with a Disturbing if Unsurprising Posting Regardings Latinos in the Deep South!



and, also from malcontent, prose-shaman Mark Dery:

Priceless Anti-drug Animation from Hanna-Barbera via Nistagmus



source

Margarita Carmen Cansino aka, RITA HAYWORTH: How I Came to Love the Bomb

Remarkable Animation from Scrabble via Boingboing.net

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Super Secret HOT Poetry Reading Open to All This Thursday Morning @ 8am: Jericho Brown in West Commons 220 | Engl 493 Sex in Film and Lit @ SDSU



Jericho Brown is in the house @ SDSU this coming Thursday morning to dazzle my amazing undergraduates with readings from and conversations pertaining to his jaw-droppingly compelling new collection, PLEASE. The talk begins at 8am (yikes!), Thursday, April 23, 2009 in SDSU's WEST COMMONS 220; seating is limited, so make sure to get there early to secure your ringside seat. Brown's liable to burn the house down with his searing lyric musings, so brace yourself for incoming! Here's a cool interview with Jericho Brown.

Music, classic R & B music, rules the pages of this slim, potent volume with cameos by Donny Hathaway, Roberta Flack, and Marvin Gaye rolling in and out of its pages. Here's a classic taste of Marvin Gaye to set the vibe for Thurday's reading:




Antonioni's BLOW UP and Kate Del Castillo's Camera-licked Body

I like watching the following fluff piece on Mexican (sans quotation marks!) Kate Del Castillo because of the subterranean allegory on cameras and subjectivity that unfolds as you watch it:



It evokes (the same way indigestion follows an amazing banquet) the memory of Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-up); however, where Antonioni's cinematic classic sought to out the uncanny power of cameras (as Michael Powell had with Peeping Tom), television's InStyle en español merely, and without irony, repeats the troped-out trope of stardom as the apex of identity, of the celebrity actress/model as 21st-century avatar of the ideal.

I will stick with Antonioni!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Mexican Americans as Cloaked Asians in Hollywood!

Anonymous "Mexican" from Hollywood sends this in!

Thought you'd find this funny....Yesterday I was back at {EXPUNGED} for a two week job. Now, at this place, I work in the {EXPUNGED} during the late shift. I usually just sit there quietly in front of a computer keyboard. Most of the people who come in and out are kinda dull, to be honest. Anyway, I'm back there yesterday and my co-worker (who I've known for years) tells me that two different people had asked where "the oriental girl" was. I'm the "oriental" girl!!! He says it was my black hair and reading glasses that confused them! Ha! By the way, their use of the word "oriental" will give you an idea of the kind of people I'm working around!

Texas vs. California: A Los Lobian Perspective

Monday, April 20, 2009

When a Search for Octavio Paz Goes Very Very Awry


A chance link off an Octavio Paz search led me to Paz Vega, of all people--talk about labyrinths!


For the non-cognoscenti, here's Octavio Paz

Perez Hilton, Miss California, Gay Marriage, and xicanosmosis

Cuban-American gossip queen/web entrepreneur Perez Hilton, aka Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr., has caused a bit of a stir with his question to Miss California, Carrie Prejean, last night at the Miss USA pageant. I don't know what is more curious in all this--the ignorance of Miss California, painfully palpable in the first part of her response (get yee to a CSU quick) or the xicanosmotic cheekiness of "Hilton"! Cuban-Ams, who get short-shrift here in the Textmex galleryblog, are not universally noted for their iconoclastic progressiveness. All in all, a memorable night on the boob tube.



For those keeping score, Miss North Carolina USA Kristen Dalton won the night with Prejean coming in second.

Amazon.com, Book Pedagogy, and Tex[t]-Mex

Amazon's ability to embed commentary in book-related illustrations is a pretty cool tool for writers and students alike; I haveposted on this before but wanted to post a direct link to an annotated Speedy Gonzales lobby card illustration; hit the image for the link.



It would be interesting if readers of the this blog who are amazon.com members would upload scans of their own from the book or related material from elsewhere that parallels the materials in Tex[t]-Mex and add it, with embedded commentary, to that archive. I also invite readers to leave comments on Amazon (member log-in on Amazon required) with their reactions to the book.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

El quarteto de nos

New Socal correspondent Happy Aston reaches out with a post to my facebook page that is utterly textmex galleryblogworthy! First, la musica...



Here's ace agent Aston's posting:

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and recommend some Rock en Espanol. El Cuarteto de Nos is a Uruguayan band that's awesome. I grabbed a bunch of youtube stuff and posted it here.

The lyrics are the best part, but the music is pretty good, too. Here's the track listing for "raro", their best album.

Canciones

1. Nada es gratis en la vida
2. Hoy estoy raro
3. Así soy yo
4. Yendo a la casa de Damián
5. Pobre papá
6. Ya no sé qué hacer conmigo
7. Natural
8. Invierno del 92
9. El karaoke de mi noviecita
10. Me hace bien, me hace mal
11. Pueblo podrido
12. Autos nuevos

And here's a little info on the cuarteto, the oldest Uruguayan rock band still playing (apparently).

Get your hands on one of my books ...