La Prensa de San Diego Sends Tex[t]-Mex Some Love

Just a quick bow, tip of the sombrero, an abrazo, and, if I could, a six-pack of Negra Modelo to the editors and writers at La Prensa, San Diego, California's Latina/o periodico of choice, for their feature story on Tex[t]-Mex. Gracias as well, for running the ridiculous picture of me kissing Rita Hayworth via my Mac-monitor as well (talk about an Obscene Machine moment!).

A Spanish language version of the story with a different salacious of me kissing Rita Cansino by proxy and written by Pablo Jaime Sainz appears here.

Kindred Surveyors of Mexicans in American Mass Culture

Those delightful search-robot-spiders at google.com just tipped me to a blog doing fine work on issues of semiotics and representation--not too shabby either when it comes to the curiosities of Mexicans in the imagination of Americans.

XicanOSMOSIS, Cinema, and the Bottom Line

I just got a dispatch from SDSU Chicano Studies graduate student Ana Bodoy to check out this new film--the trailer is amazing and displays all the visual dynamics of what I call XicanOSMOSIS in chapter five of Tex[t]-Mex. Check out the site with trailer now!

Director Ollalo Rubio's myspace site is bookmark-worthy as well!

Washing the Taste Out of My Mouth of that Last Posting

Sometimes you just need a shot--a shot of something feverishly brilliant to wash that foul taste out of your mouth, cleanse the palate of the latest, fetid cyberblast of rage that sticks in your stereotype-weary craw.

The next time some sleeping Mexican or Taco-dude costume gets you down, do yourself a favor and buy and read a copy of Tomás Riley's Mahcic--here's a my riff on it from the book's intro (and yes Derrida's coinage Différance is misspelled, and yes, it is my fault!):



Mahcic is available from the fine folks at Calaca Press in San Diego/National City, CA. Check them out!

Next Halloween, I Swear, I am Going to be a Taco

The first gallery of two "Seductive Hallucination" chapters contained within the image-laced pages of Tex[t]-Mex, harbors the sad-but-true tale of my Taco Wagon days at the University of Connecticut. Then a winsome 26-year old Phd-lad from Laredo with a Candide-like innocence, I was enjoying my first professorship in the bucolic, land-grant miasma that was Storrs, Connecticut, when a budget-crisis inspired parodic memo landed in my in-box informing all of the English professors of their new jobs.

Long story short? I was to be manning the Taco-wagon outside Arjona hall. I can't remember if it was J.D. O'Hara or Richard "Dick" Reynolds who penned that ribald missive--if I had to bet, I would say it was Dick, who is still at it apparently in Connecticut.

Never let it be said that this Chicano does not have a "sense of humor." Next Halloween, I vow to be-robe myself in the humble togs above. Like-minded, demented souls can peruse a plethora of "Mexican" trappings courtesy the fine folks at costume-craze.com. I do not, however, as has been rumored by friends and dastardly enemies, promise to wear this getup if Tex[t]-Mex goes to a 2nd edition!

Not all of UConn was bad, of course. Rufus Blanshard, my mentor, my friend, recently passed--he was the best of the best, a lovely, caring, mentoring old leftie. RIP. Bill Rosen, my first Chair, was a mensch-and-a-half as well!

Trynamic Trio of Mexico Wunderkinds...

News just breaking regarding the deal that closed yesterday between Universal Studios and Mexico's amazing trio of cinematic wizards. More here.