Mexy Excitement (and Latina/o Hijinks) Your Way Cometh, Adrian College, Michigan, and the Midwest!!!!! The MEXTASY Exhibition September 2013

Streaming video updates below | August 25, 2013

The rumors I started are true--nurturing my wanderlusting Tejano fetish for the American Midwest (where even Cleveland or Columbus shimmer on the horizon of my consciousness like Reykjavic or Paris do for others), I have set my sights again on Michigan (sorry Ann Arbor, no Wolverine desmadres this time) and the balmy climes of Adrian at a college there called, you guessed it, Adrian College. Located near the financially infamous (of late) Motor City of Detroit, Adrian is known for fences. That's right! Fences--and whilst this gives your border-rat textmex blogger some pause (especially with the all the neo-fascist fervor for border walls these days), I am going to hold my tongue for the moment as the fine liberal arts college is also know for something much more important--social justice.

Here's wikipedia on Adrian: "In the late 19th century through early 20th century Adrian was known as the 'fence capital of the world,' when J. Wallace Page invented the first successful wire fence. Throughout this period, Adrian was one of the first fencing manufacturers in the world and its fences were shipped as far as New York, Berlin, Asia, and Africa." Working in Adrian's favor is the denouement of this microhistory where J. Wallace Page's company  sponsors "the highly successful Page Fence Giants Black baseball team." But Adrian is also known for Adrian College, according to USA TODAY, the "#1 Up-and-Coming College in the Midwest" and I am thrilled to bring my Tejano/Califas-drenched exhibition and lectures to Adrian's shores! The other great thing about Adrian College? It's a thriving abolitionist-era institution of higher ed!

So how will it go down? Adrian College's Shipman Library has installed the full Mextasy exhibit (Mextasy: Seductive Hallucinations of Latina/o Mannequins Prowling the American Unconscious) in its Heritage Room on the main Adrian College campus. The exhibition will be housed there from August 26 to September 13, 2013. Students and the community can see the exhibit anytime the library is open with Shipman Library regular hours running Monday through Thursday, 8am-1pm; Friday, 8am-5pm; Saturdays, 10am-5pm; and Sundays from 12pm-11pm.

more below the posterlink 

Get your own signed, numbered poster print here at the Mextasy semiotic shack!

There will be two major media-rich presentations associated with the Mextasy extravaganza. There will be a community lecture entitled  "Compulsively Desirable, Utterly Loathsome: Mexican and Latina/o Bodies in the 21st Century" on Wednesday, September 11, 2013, in Jones 110, 7:00pm–8:00pm. And there will be a campus lecture as well Thursday, September 12, 2013, entitled "Disrupting the Optical Hegemony of Stereotypes Now: Tex[t]-Mex, Eyegiene, and the Visual Dynamics of a Technosexual Tomorrow" in a room to be announced, 12:00pm–1pm.  A big gracias goes out to the Mextasy event sponsors: The Office of the Vice President and Dean of Academic Affairs, Modern Languages and Cultures, Collegium II, ALPHA/Fin-Com, Institute for Ethics, Student Life, Multicultural Programs, Department of English, and the Institute for Creativity. 

An even bigger thank you and abrazo goes out to Professor Aïda Valenzuela, without whose imagination, vision, and drive, this event would never have happened!

EXTRAS

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a video and a cartoon for the Adrian College Lectures!

1. Humphrey Bogart and Alfonso Bedoya light up the screen in a scene from TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRES

2. Classic SPEEDY GONZALES antics from CANNERY WOE

 

click image for the streaming page

last promo posters--as with most images here, click to enlarge

Movie Miento: LA MURALS on the Rise...

click image for insta-transport...

Rio Yañez on Herbert Siguenza! Chicano Nerds of the World, Unite!

What is a Chicana/Chicano? Woman and Man in the Street Edition, San Diego

Contrary to what one might expect given the economic climate for newspapers nationwide, The San Diego Union-Tribune maintains a weekly Spanish edition of their paper called Enlace--you can see it here. Every week they feature an-interview-folks-in-the-street sidebar that is usually filled with everyman pathos and humor; this week's is priceless. The question: "do you know what is a Chicana or a Chicano? Two of my faves appear below along with most of the page--you can download the whole issue as a .pdf here (this link will ONLY be good thru October 30, 2009.)

The experts on all things Chicano/a? Culture Clash!

Melinda Gates is Down With La Raza! Latino/a Education as a Civil Rights Initiative

Somebody should send this video to our Governator!

Cheech and Chong! Back Together and On Tour

Chicanodom's Martin and Lewis have healed the grief and are back out on tour--info on them and more is available through their myspace site--just click their handsome veterano mugs below!

Cheech and Chong, Laredo 1973

One of the first albums I ever bought was Los Cocinos by Cheech & Chong at Santos Grocery Store in Riverdrive Mall in 1974--the album came out in 1973. I was 13 years old and a 7nth-grader at St. Augustine High School which, in those days, was down by the Rio Grande downtown. At lunchtime, we would walk on over from the school to the mall to hang out, eat lunch, and try to stay out of trouble.

One of the mysteries of the 16-year odyssey that ended up embodied in Tex[t]-Mex is the invisibility of Cheech and Chong in that volume--next to Speedy Gonzales, they really are the best known "Mexicans" or mass cultural Chicanos on the planet. Here's a little bit of their work from Cheech & Chong's Next Movie--note their signifying play with "Mexican-American" and "Chicano" figuration:



More on this to come in these pages soon!

The Fall of our Ugly, Toadying Mexican Attorney General

He might have been the face of all our tomorrows--the 7nth wonder of the Chicano/a universe.

In the best of all possible worlds.

Instead, he was a sycophant and a stooge; a creep and a cretin; a criminal and a fool.

As Alberto Gonzales rides off into the sunset, the shadows of Abu Ghraib lighting the way, let us pause for a moment of silence.

Of all the least seductive hallucinations of a "Mexican" in the imagination of America, let this one fade and fade fast.

adios Gonzales, pinche buey!

Memo

UPDATE

A great, short piece regarding Justice Department employees response to Gonzales's exit is now online.

Cavemen, Chicanos, Situation Comedies, Warner Brothers, ABC and other Lunatics from Showbiz

The proverbial shit is hitting the Latino Cultural Studies Fan tonight as the George Lopez Show was cancelled off ABC for a pilot featuring the GEICO.COM caveman. No joke! In other Latino/a ethnic mannequin news, America Ferrera, ABC's UGLY BETTY had her teeth insured. Comments on all this madness soon! I promise!

Here's a quick shot at Lopez (probably not safe for play in your cubicle unless you are using noise-damping headphones), and, his, er, replacement.





Not to play Mengele with the clipboard and the calipers, but am I the only one that has noticed that these "cavemen" are more closely modeled on the physiognomy of a hodgepodge of Aborigines than "cavemen" proper--Neanderthal? Cro-Magnon? It strikes me that there is more than you need there for an Ethnic Studies conference panel that should not waste the time of anyone.



UPDATE 9:22am 5/15/2007
The LATimes is online now with the story.