Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Literary and Arts Pachangas News. Contraband Libros. World's Most Beauteous Blossom.



Tia Chucha Literary Pachanga Showcases Chicano artists

Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore hosts a montón of artists next month, to celebrate Mexican American Literature. The free Literary Pachanga invites all to attend on Saturday, July 8.


Michael Sedano, co-founder of La Bloga serves as master of ceremonies to a stellar assemblage of Chicana Chicano writers, including Jesús Treviño, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Andrea Gutierrez, Christine Granados, and Northern California singer/songwriter Alyssa Granados.

The authors will perform from their collective works at Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural and Bookstore at 4 p.m., Saturday, July 8, 13197 Gladstone Ave.,  Sylmar, CA 91342.

The event is free and open to the public.

• Jesús Salvador Treviño is writer/director whose television directing credits include Criminal Minds, Law & Order Criminal Intent and many others. He has written, directed and produced several PBS documentaries about Latinos. Trevino’s latest effort is a video website showcasing Latino history, art, music, theater, literature, cinema and food: www.Latinopia.com He will read from his most recent collection of short stories Return to Arroyo Grande which was published in 2015 and won the 2016 American Book Award.

• Alicia Gaspar de Alba, a native of the El Paso/Juárez border has published 11 books, among them award-winning novels and collections of poetry and short fiction. Since 1994, she has been a professor of Chicana/o Studies, English, and Gender Studies at UCLA, and is currently Chair of the LGBTQ Studies program. She will read from Calligraphy of the Witch published by St. Martin’s Press in 2007, released in paperback by Arte Público Press in 2012.

• Andrea Gutierrez is a writer, editor, and educator in Los Angeles. Her work has been published or produced in make/shift, Mujeres de Maiz, Bitch, Huizache, and the Chicanas, Cholas, y Chisme theater festival in Los Angeles. She is on the editorial staff at make/shift magazine, previously brandished her red pen at Drunken Boat and Los Angeles Review of Books, and has served as a judge for the International Latino Book Awards. Andrea is a VONA/Voices writer and received her MFA in creative writing at the University of California, Riverside. She will read from her works published in Huizache Magazine.

• Christine Granados has been a Spur Award finalist and received Sandra Cisneros’ literary prize the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation Award in 2006 for her first book of fiction Brides and Sinners in El Chuco, published by the University of Arizona Press and her stories have been in many anthologies. She will read from and discuss her second book, a novella and short stories about strong Mexican American women who live along the border, titled Fight Like a Man and Other Stories We Tell Our Children.

• Alyssa Granados’ diverse catalog of guitar styles come from a range of influences spanning from folk to dub. She is half of the Electronic Funk duo Dreamers Paradise out of Boise, ID.

Author Links:
Jesus Treviño: www.Latinopia.com
Alicia Gaspar de Alba: www.aliciagaspardealba.net
Andrea Gutierrez: http://andreagutierrz.com
Christine Granados: www.christinegranados.com

Book Reviews:
NBC Latino: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/9-outstanding-latino-books-recently-published-independent-university-presses-n726651
Booklist: http://staging.booklistonline.com/Fight-like-a-Man-Other-Stories-We-Tell-Our-Children-Christine-Granados/pid=8576914
Kirkus: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/christine-granados/fight-like-a-man-and-other-stories-we-tell-our-chi/
La Bloga: http://labloga.blogspot.com/2017/03/what-does-that-mean-fight-like-man.html


 Chicago Arte Chicano Fest

You're Invited to NMMA's Birthday Pachanga!

The National Museum of Mexican Art is celebrating its 30th Birthday and we're throwing a Pachanga (that means BIG party) at the museum! We want to share this momentous occasion with YOU: our visitors, friends and community who help make our museum so vibrant.

Join us for a fun filled evening of snacks, drinks and much more as we look back on 30 years of highlights and milestones. Don't forget your dancing shoes because a live DJ will be providing the tunes for the evening.

De Pachanga en el Museo
Friday, July 7th, 6-8pm
1852 W. 19 St.
FREE

This event is family-friendly! Free art activities will be provided.



Book Smugglers Announce Recidivism Intent

Back in 2012, Latinopia's Jesus Treviño and La Bloga's Michael Sedano met up with the Houston-origin Librotraficante bus in El Paso. We traveled from there to Mesilla to meet with Denise Chavez, up to Albuquerque to meet with Rudolfo Anaya, then on to Tucson to deliver the contraband.


They're back. The book smugglers. The book ban is going on trial before Arizona's Supreme Court and the Librotraficantes intend to support the freedom to read by returning to Arizona loaded with banned books.



The 2017 Librotraficante Caravan to Tucson Launches from Houston - click link.

Wednesday, June 21, 2017, 10 am
Casa Ramirez Folk Art Gallery
241 W 19th St, Houston, TX 77008.

2012 Librotraficante bus on the road early
The 2017 Librotraficante Caravan to Tucson Launches from Houston
Wednesday, June 21, 2017, 10 am
Casa Ramirez Folk Art Gallery
241 W 19th St, Houston, TX 77008.

We make stops in: 
* San Antonio, Texas
* El Paso, Texas
* Las Cruces, New Mexico
* Albuquerque, New Mexico
* Tucson, Arizona
2012 Librotraficante contraband
Arizona Hit List - from Librotraficantes

AMERICAN GOVERNMENT/SOCIAL JUSTICE EDUCATION PROJECT 1 & 2
Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years B. Bigelow & B. Peterson
The Latino Condition: A critical Reader R. Delgado and J. Stefancic
Critical Race Theory: An Introduction R. Delgado & J. Stefancic
Pedagogy of the Oppressed P. Freire
United States Government: Democracy in Action R.C. Remy
Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History F.A Rosales
Declarations of Independene: Cross-Examining American Ideology H. Zinn
AMERICAN HISTORY/MEXICAN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, 1&2
Occupied America: A History of Chicanos R. Acuna
The Anaya Reader R. Anaya
The American Vision J. Appleby et el.
Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years B. Bigelow and B. Peterson
Drink Cultura: Chicanismo by J. A. Burciaga
Message to Aztlan: Selected Writings C. Jiminez
De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views Multi-Colored Century E. S. Martinez
500 Anos Del Pueblo Chicano/500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures E. S. Martinez
Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human R. Rodriguez
The X in La Raza II R. Rodriguez
Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History F. A. Rosales
A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present H. Zinn
ENGLISH/LATINO LITERATURE 7 & 8
Ten Little Indians S. Alexie
The Fire Next Time J. Baldwin
Loverboys A. Castillo
Women Hollering Creek S. Cisneros
Mexican WhiteBoy M. De La Pena
Drown J. Diaz
Woodcuts of Women D. Gilb
At the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria E. Guevara
Color Lines: "Does Anti-War Have to Be Anti-Racist Too?" E. Martinez
Culture Clash: Life, Death and Revolutionary Comedy R. Montoya et al.
Let Their Spirits Dance S. Pope Durate
Two Badges: The Lives of Mona Ruiz M. Ruiz
The Tempest W Shakespeare
A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America R. Takaki
The Devil's Highway L.A. Urrea
Puro Teatro: A Latino Anthology A. Sandoval-Sanchez & N. Saporta Sternbach
Twelve Impossible Things before Breakfast: Stories J Yolen
Voices of a People's History of the United States H. Zinn
ENGLISH/LATINO LITERATURE 5 & 6
Live from Death Row J. Abu-Jamal
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven S. Alexie
Zorro I. Allende
Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza G. Anzaldua
A Place to Stand J. S. Baca
C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans J. S. Baca
Healing Earthquakes: Poems J. S. Baca
Immigrants in Our Own Land and Selected Early Poems J. S. Baca
Black Mesa Poems J. S. Baca
Martin & Mediations on the South Valley J. S. Baca
The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools D. C. Berliner and B. J. Biddle
Drink Cultura: Chicanismo J. A Burciaga
Red Hot Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Being Young and Latino in the United States L. Carlson & O. Hijuielos
Cool Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Growing up Latino in the United States L. Carlson & O. Hijuielos
So Far From God A Castillo
Address to the Commonwealth Club of California C. E. Chavez
Women Hollering Creek S. Cisneros
House on Mango Street S. Cisneros
Drown J. Diaz
Suffer Smoke E. Diaz Bjorkquist
Zapata's Discipline: Essays Martin Espada
Like Water for Chocolate L. Esquievel
When Living was a Labor Camp D. Garcia
La Llorona: Our Lady of Deformities R. Garcia
Cantos Al Sexto Sol: Anthology of Aztlanahuac Writing C. Garcia-Camarilo, et al
The Magic of Blood D. Gilb
Message to Aztlan: Selected Writings Rudulfo "Corky" Gonzales
Saving Our Schools: The Case for Public Education, Saying No to "No Child Left Behind" Goodman, et al.
Feminism is for Everbody B. Hooks
The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child R. Jimenez
Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools J. Kozol
Zigzagger M. Munoz
Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature T. D. Rebolledo & E. S. Rivero
…y no se lo trago la tierra/And the Earth Did Not Devour Him T. Rivera
Always Running - La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. L. Rodriguez
Justice: A Question of Race R. Rodriguez
The X in La Raza II R. Rodriguez
Crisis in American Institutions S. H. Skolnick & E. Currie
Los Tuconenses: The Mexican Community in Tucson, 1854-1941 T. Sheridan
Curandera Carmen Tafallo
Mexican American Literature C. M. Tatum
New Chicana/Chicano Writing C. M. Tatum
Civil Disobedience H. D. Thoreau
By the Lake of Sleeping Children L. A. Urrea
Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life L. A. Urrea
Zoot Suit and Other Plays L. Valdez
Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert O. Zepeda
OTHER BANNED BOOKS
Bless Me Ultima Rudolfo Anaya
Yo Soy Joaquin/ I Am Joaquin Rodolfo Gonzales
Into the Beautiful North Luis Alberto Urrea
The Devil's Highway Luis Alberto Urrea

A Joy Forever, Or Eleven Hours, Whichever Comes First
Michael Sedano

The rat-tail cactus used to be low in my esteem. The espinas were mean, and dispersed along the penca the thorn was sure to reward even the most gingerly touch with a sharp stab of pain. It grew long pencas several feet long, and more or less a uniform inch in diameter.

Then one year it bloomed and zoomed to the top of my cactus blossom esteem. This year, the oldest plant in the collection sprouted a dozen fuzzy buds. All of them set and began to elongate. A few came in a week beyond the main crop, one bloomed last week.

I should get over a dozen flowers this season from the one plant.

It's a reluctant bloomer requiring decades to produce a bud. When the flower opens it's in the dark of night. There's not much light in the waning moon, so a few porch lights illuminated what they did. A windless location, a long exposure, "iffy" forcus in the darkness factor into whatever image the camera will produce of the fully open flower in all its glory.

It's a miraculous sight, glowing faintly white, emerging quietly but insistently out of the shadowed background. The entire process from full bloom to collapsing requires eleven hours, all of them in dark of night.

The first tightly-wrapped bud started opening around 5 p.m. It was fully open at 9 p.m. and completely faded and collapsed onto itself by 8 a.m. the next morning. Eleven magic hours is all she gives.

Click image for enlargement
Nine P.M. Faint light to both sides. 30 sec f/29 ISO 100

5 a.m. 1 second f/4.5 ISO 100

The bud on the lower left is the flower above. This is the plant in early June, the flower buds a few days old.



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