The Tex[t]-Mex Galleryblog: 10 May 2009

Saturday, May 16, 2009

A Loving Shout Out!

Chicano Rock in the LA Times...

Homer From Salinas: John Steinbeck's Enduring Voice for California, a New Book from SDSU PRESS

The cover proof has just been greenlighted for my next edited collection with the San Diego State University Press Take a peek:

You can read the first few pages from the introduction here. The conference that gave birth to this edited collection is still online here and you can scoop up a copy of your own here. Here's an ad for the new book I have been working on this afternoon:

English Literature Loving Mexicans that Direct! Carlos Cuáron

Here's the trailer for Rudo y Cursi, now in wide release in Southern California:

{high res trailers via apple.com}

Friday, May 15, 2009

Lisa Orozco, Life Through a Chicana Lens: Xicanosmosis Between Califas y Tejas

One of my fave shots off the site:

Remembering Rosario Castellanos

One of the original Mexican literary independents, Rosario Castellanos left behind a broad body of literary work in multiple genres that, in my view (and anticipating the dynami French duo of Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva), ushered in, along with Luisa Valenzuela, a Latin American new-wave of feminist critical theory.

I was looking for a good picture of Castellanos (click the cool poster, opposite, from a conference in Chiapas last month) and stumbled upon a New York City based artist, Alicette Torres, who recently incorporated Castellanos into a photographic series that muses upon Latin American literary suicides--I always thought Castellanos died accidentally, electrocuted in Israel with the less-than-fortuitous combination of a bathtub and an electric appliance; regardless, Torres's photos are well done, and the series concept breathlessly clever!

Find more photos like this on Brooklyn Art Project

Here's another recent gallery show with xicanosmotic brilliance that I scooped off of Torres's postings! Gracias, gracias.

Castellanos's ghost and legacy looms large in Tex[t]-Mex--in particular, the key Lupe Vélez chapter, "Lupe Vélez Regurgitated; or, Jesus's Kleenex: Cautionary, Indigestion-Inspiring Ruminations on 'Mexicans' in 'American' Toilets."

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Shwepps! King ***holes of the Universe

Regular internets spelunker, Michael Harper sends in this chance stumble.....

update: As Burro Hall notes below, they took the post down; here's a permalinked copy:

{click to enlarge; not a link}

Framed "Mexicans" For Your Living Room and More!

...and, not so bad,

Literature y Los Narcos!

English version here. (warning: googleTRANSLATOR is as pocho as I am!)

abrazos to laura gutierrez for the link!

Black and Brown: The African-American, "Mexican"/Latina|o Mix

Me and Gustavo Arellano are screening an ambitious schlock Hollywood classic, 100 Rifles, this coming Monday at the Tin Can Alehouse in San Diego--hit the image opposite or this link for the details.

The film caused scandal when it appeared owing to an erotic scene between Raquel Welch and Jim Brown--no doubt this "scandal" was hyped by the publicity hacks at Marvin Schwarz Productions along with 20th Century Fox, the film's distributor. But the appearance of this scene and the attendant uproar it ostensibly spurred or spermed, pardon the pun, does give us the chance to re-screen the film with a prepared cultural studies lens, to understand the narrative that unfolds in a way that sensitizes us to African American and Latina/o relations.

The next time you hear someone rant about tension between ethnic bodies or worry about changing demographics in the Southern California and beyond, remember that the answer to all these problems is a little bit of understanding and whole lotta love. End of sermon. Here's some shots I have grabbed from across the internets of/from 100 Rifles: