UT Press is On Fire! In a Good Way: Pancho McFarland and Chicano Rap

The Alameda en San Antonio: The Smithsonian Hits the Southwest

Mujeres Asesinas Profiled in the LA Times

Really Old School Mexican Eyegiene!

...and, again, I want to thank the Academy....

Tex[t]-Mex is #1 in sales in the category "Hispanic" at Amazon.com as of 8:49 pm, Sunday, August 3, 2008! While the moniker "Hispanic," a monstrous catch-all coined by Nixon's minion-wonks, leaves this Tejano, Chicano, Mexicano, Latino feeling out of sorts, I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Gracias, gracias to the fates and the wonderful people punching their keyboards and emptying their wallets at Amazon.

y tu mamá también | alfonso cuarón's epic meditation on homo-hetero mexican libidinal exploration

I recently re-screened Cuarón's masterpiece when I was finishing up my visiting profe gig at UCR--this flick is well worth the price of admission; this is a cinematic gem and, perhaps, the most honest depiction of Mexican male friendship and psychology in the americas you are likely to rent!

The Hold Steady, Again, from 2006, directed by Moh Azima

directed by Moh Azima.

Red Sonja! Holy Chicano-crafted Super-Heroes, Batman!

Selena on BlinkBox

Another glaring omission in Tex[t]-Mex? Selena! The celebrity and the movie--to assuage the guilt and the angst, here's a series of clips from Selena courtesy BlinkBox!

Retiring Salma!

Owing to requests from two prickly readers, I am putting my new Salma Hayek-climbs-a-cool-40s-car logo on hiatus; if more than two people write me clamoring for more Hayek, I may, I repeat "may" just have to bring it back!

Junot Diaz on Colbert

Certainly not Colbert's finest moment; however, Diaz reveals himself to be a mensch! I am teaching his Pulitzer Prize winning novel this Fall 2008--the class website is here.

A Finer Shade of Brown: Jessica Alba, Revlon, and Dial-Up Color

Revlon's Custom Creations foundation lets you literally dial-up your skin tone to match the wonders of moreno/a loveliness you were born with. Sometime Latina, Jessica Alba, just started shilling the stuff on national TV. Somehow this reminds me of the Band-Aid, melanin-enhanced product I wrote about here eons ago. Here's the video:



Brown is new white, these days as corporate America jives and jukes its way into Latina/o wallets. More on this to come.

Eyegiene: R.E.M.'s Bad Day

one more for the road from an old r.e.m. fan!


R.E.M. - Supernatural Superserious from Alexander Newton on Vimeo.

Obama in the Window

Ellen Von Unwerth and Salma Hayek

click to enlarge

I just stumbled across a site that archives photographer Ellen Von Unworth's shots of Salma Hayek--for meditations on 20th and 21st century figurations of the "Mexican" in the Americas, they are priceless. Like Steven Meisel, Von Unworth will figure in a future chapter of my working Eyegiene project. I love the power and passion and everydayness (the chips, the tv) in this shot of Hayek--you can see the playful drive that drove her to play Frida; I just wish she had brought more of this bravado to the film (I blame Hayden Herrera for that, however; you just can't tell the outrageous story of Kahlo by relying on her touted bio).