Immigration, Undocumented Workers, Simulacra, and the Ghosts of Jean Baudrillard, Jorge Luis Borges, and Rene Magritte

As I have been recently outed as a flaming pomo--an out and out cultural studies maven--in the international press, and as I am, as well, a card-carrying theory-doused 80s critic bathed in the flames of Foucault, Derrida, Irigaray, Sarduy, and Baudrillard, it makes total sense for me to foreground this April 2007 clipping from the San Diego Union-Tribune, featuring a photo by the Associated Press's Stefano Paltera. Paltera's lens captures a moment from Yolanda Araujo's performance art, a thrilling and innovative piece of street theatre that washes the taste of Guillermo Gómez-Peña from your synapses even as it challenges the politics of early 21st-century neo-fascism in the United States. The photo and the political act are, at once, instances of something I am beginning to call eyegiene. More on this neologism/concept (the child of Borges, Magritte, Varo, Oppenheim, Pynchon, Los Bros. Hernandez, Man Ray, and Sarduy) to come.

RIP David Ritcheson

Peace to David--even the vast ocean's waters cannot wash away our memory of him and his hate-laced odyssey of a life, nor the legacies of the acts that led to this denouement. Gracias to Lázaro Lima for the update.

The Dearth of Worthy Chicano/Tejano Celebs

The implausible dearth of Chicana/o tele-celebrities, implausible if only for little things like the U.S. census, and the nagging and utter invisibility of Tejanas and Tejanos on the stage of U.S. mass culture (cue paean to Selena), makes the superstardom of Alberto Gonzales (who spells his last name like Speedy Gonzales, on purpose!) all the more tragic. A recent Daily Show take on our toadying, stammering, bizarro-world poster child Chicano is available from Crooks and Liars here.

Breaking Nose, er News! Salma Hayek, Our 21st Century Rita Hayworth

Our ace North Hollywood websleuth, Josie Nericcio, chimes in with the net revelation that Salma Hayek, my cherished Mexican superstar, may have, estilo Rita Hayworth with her year's worth of electrolysis, may have altered her Mexican physiognomy in pursuit of Hollywood fame and fortune.

Holy Joan Rivers Batmans! Stop the presses!

Gustavo Arellano, Our Chicano Orson Welles with Dulcet Voice, Hits the Radio!

Just a quick, down, and dirty link to a recent NPR interview with Gustavo Arellano, everyone's favorite Ask-a-Mexican Chicano celeb.On another note: all rumors regarding Arellano, Lindsay Lohan, and margarita enemas are, to my knowledge, utterly false!

Salma Hayek, María Félix, Auctions, and Legacies

A little news item that crossed the wire services allows me to redress a grand omission in my critical study of Mexico and Mexicans in the imagination of the Americas: María Félix. It is only recently that I have been bringing myself up to speed on the career of this singularly talented Mexican icon. Here is a brief YouTube clip from Enamorada.

Chicago MCA and 21st Century Mexican Art

Just a quick link today to a recent blog entry touting an exhibit of next-gen Mexican art in Chicago. More soon!

Rita Moreno and Rex Reed, A Cultural Studies Duet

A blast from the past! As I am trapped on this hotbed of peculiar islanders called England, I am far away from the tools that make the Tex[t]-Mex Galleryblog a go-to site for nourishing tidbits of Latino/a-stained culture. As such, you guessed it!, reruns!

original posting: Thursday | January 25, 2007

Who would have thought that the veritable grandfather of celebrity-blogging, Rex Reed, would have the cultural studies skills to parse the depths of Latina semiotic complexity and notoriety, But I guess if Gene Shalit can be outed as a pre-Derridean seer (viz p.44, Tex[t]-Mex), then why can't Reed (film fetishist and would-be kleptomaniac) join the ranks of Art Aldama, Rosa Linda Fregoso, and Chon Noriega as knowing arbiters of the Latino visual culture?

This link does double service as our Tex[t]-Mex Galleryblog has done a woefully poor job warehousing untoward representations of Puertorriqueños, Dominicanos, and our other and various Latino/a hermanos y hermanas. Reed's take on Moreno begins to redress this pernicious imbalance.

Going Hollywood!

It had to happen! Spend all that time writing about movies and all of a sudden you wake up one day thinking you're Scorcese! I humbly submit to you, dear reader/viewer, Tex[t]-Mex, The Movie®. The character avatar I selected looks more like a ex-pat Chilean journalist from the 70s (¡holy stereotypes, Batman!), but it was either him or the bear. Go to the site to see what I mean!

You Cannot Make this Shite Up, or, Soylent Green, Mexican-Style

Our ace domestic correspondent for American affairs, Josie Nericcio, checks in with a link on the latest comic antics of fascist-with-good-hair, hate-anchor Glenn Beck. Our thanx to the Xicanosmotic gods for MediaMatters.org!

The Growing Career of Speedy Gonzales

A big tip of the sombrero to ENLACE cultural arts writer Pablo Jaime Sainz for letting me know about the latest breaking news with regard to Speedy Gonzales! Take a peek:



Needless to say, the "Autopsy of a Rat" chapter of Tex[t]-Mex, chapter 3, paints a slightly different picture of this ubiquitous "Mexican" rodent.

Gilda, Starring Rita Hayworth, aka Margarita Carmen Cansino

One of the oldest chapters in Tex[t]-Mex, the Rita Hayworth/Electrolysis/Existentialism piece (which began as a conference talk for the Romance Language Conference that used to go down at Purdue University), focuses on the series of events, desires, coincidences and catastrophes that went into the creation of this legendary Hollywood femme fatale. Here, in stunning youTube video, the trailer from Gilda:

Breaking News!!!!! Jessica Alba Erases Her Mexicanicity

Stretching credibility past the breaking point, Jessica Alba has, via magic, sworn off her Mexican roots. Now all of us suffering from the pains of racism and ethnocentrism, can, through the power of the word, walk away from our own swarthy histories. Do keep in mind, especially with regard to the last link there, that the source for this ethnic firestorm is Cubano web-dawlink Perez Hilton; that said, Hilton reveals himself as a dogged researcher providing a link to the full-text, in Spanish, where Alba performs her Mexi-erasure. A telling selection--echoes of Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory, appears below.

Your valiant, pedant, not-at-all-self-rightous blogger here and now swears OFF his muddled mix of Mexican, Sicilian, British, and Tunisian (a recent revelation!) DNA; from here on out, I am 'merican. No, strike that! Venusian!

As for our ethnicity-cloaked Invisible Woman, our blonde Sue Storm, what is left to say? She is at the tail-end of a living and breathing lineage that is peculiar, curious, and in flux.

In any event, while Alba's rendering her Mexicanicity invisible (holy Fantastic Four, Batman!), Dana Gioao, head of the NEA, outs his in a Stanford commencement address.

Alba interview excerpt:

PT. ¿Qué te hace sentir orgullo de ser latina?
J- Siempre me sentí fuera de lugar cuando crecía, pero ahora creo que la gente es más diversa en cuanto a raza. Siempre me sentí mal por mis labios grandes y mi piel morena cuando era pequeña porque me sentía que no calzaba con el resto de los niños, ahora somos muchos latinos y el color no tiene importancia, más bien es mejor tener la piel morena, el sol no te hace tanto daño y puedes broncearte sin quemarte.

Speedy Gonzales Stock Continues to Rise!

The fastest rat in the history of animated "Mexicans," Speedy Gonzales, continues to ride a rising wave of popularity--now, with a new line of skater-dude oriented fashionista costuming. The insider scoop is here.

A Cool Review of Tex[t]-Mex from Mexico City

An English-language daily edited out of Miami, Florida and Mexico City, DF published a kindly review of Tex[t]-Mex last week written with zest by Kelly Arthur Garrett. Two days later, it went out of business. No doubt some xicanosmotic curse is in the works here.

Readers of this blog with any heart are asked to put an egg under their bed tonight and light a candle for the University of Texas Press! Might they be next!?