More fun with dated topic: identity politics in sports

Saw a powerful documentary last night called "Thrilla in Manilla". It could almost be seen as having a misleading title because the movie spends so much time on the whole 8 year history of the personal rivalry between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier that preceded the famous 1975 boxing match. This was the last of the three between them.

It really challenged my view of, among other things, Ali, who has always been the closest thing to a hero.

The story justly focuses on the POV from the Frazier camp. Basically Ali, after being publicly supported by Frazier during the 3 and 1/2 years of his being banned from Boxing for refusing the Vietnam war, demeaning and racial attacks against Frazier to promote each fight they had, calling Frazier ugly, dumb a gorilla, and uncle tom.

Most of you probably have a familiarity with the very complex context in which the action occurred. Ali was very aware of his influence as a black figure in the US. Other than Paul Robeson and a handful of others, no other famous African American before him was ever so assertive as a realized individual--Ali was also more famous than all of them. The levels racism that persisted well into the seventies are an intrinsic part of Ali's and, as this documentary shows, Frasier's experience. The tragedy suggested in this documentary is that Joe Frasier was unjustly identified with the old white slave owning and segregationist establishment.

In the middle of this racially charged feud between the two fighters...is class, which is pervasive in many narratives in our culture, but always on the basis of "culture" rather than real economics. It was Ali, who had a relatively privileged upbringing in Louisville Kentucky. Frasier was the working class guy from the deep south. A man, who as heavy weight champion of the world from 1967-to 1973, still found himself rejected at public places when visiting family back in SC.

Another hegemony to defeat...

...hyperbole aside, there is another underdog that has reminded the consciousness. The people of the world who are fat and do not have any beauty in the classical sense of the world.

this morning a popular TV show was brought to my attention by the somewhat lame but very important (for artists, community activists and to small businesses) Lawrence.com

It's the British version of American Idol. Even if you haven't even stumbled upon one episode (like myself in a bar), you know what it is.

Evidently a recent episode of "Britain's Got Talent" auditioning before a crowd of tens of thousands Susan Boyle, a fat forty seven year old Scottish woman with thick eyebrows. The Camera editing made sure to capture the snooty confounded reactions on the faces of the conventionally beautiful audience when Ms. Boyle answered in the interview with the three judges that her dream is to be a singer. Then, once she started singing, the crowd roared in pleasure. At the end of the song (fuck it, click here. She's a more than competent singer), the crowd and the judges each gave lots of praise to her. Most of it strikes me as condescending. But the blond female judge gave an interesting statement acknowledging that everyone in the audience was "against her" and did not expect such a wonderful performance.

People love the underdog, and the line between condescension and genuine unassuming empathy gets quite blurry. The way Boyle responded was extremely classy. It's hard not to wonder whether she shares my same lack of concern for cosmetic stigmas--which is certainly something that can be characterized as a social adaptation of sorts. She either genuinely sees her physical body and self as beautiful and/or she doesn't give a fuck about what others think. But the underdog love is something to be exploited. She must be conscious of it by now.

One Pollyanna speculation is that sooner or later after more fat and classically ugly people gain exposure for their talents, maybe spectators won't be so obsessed with what a person looks like(other than maybe pornography and modeling)--or even better, allow the natural embrace in themselves of fat people. Speaking for myself: some women as overweight as Susan Boyle do turn me on. But in this situation, where Susan Boyle is still being written about and about to make an album, meet celebs, etc., there is nothing redeeming in this story. The people who watch this shit are either patting themselves on the back for their positive reactions to Boyle's very good voice, immersing themselves in a mental masturbatory orgy of schadenfreude irony, or are very fat and ugly themselves. If this woman were an amazing singer to me, like Nina Simone or Karen Dalton, my reaction would have been different. Something like: "wow, regardless of how idiotic the hype is about the collective audience surprise , it's so nice that a singer with that emotional depth can be heard by this big of a mainstream audience". But since she sung the disneyfied song that she did, and when the ears listen her voice does not reach the deepest parts of my viscera, the real story is about how disgusting these people involved in making and watching the show really are.

If you are offended by that statement, you will get no apology. This is not said out of seething anger. A little anger, but not much.

Praise of female beauty amongst females in those ridiculous magazines and other media will continue,and the embrace of exceptional people who happen to be fat may never fully escape the possible condescension charge. Changing the topic slightly, it would be nice to see a near future where these "beauty mongers" are made more aware of how stupid and vacuous they appear in their attention to themselves (their hair, their faces, their nails their skin, etc).

[the opinions expressed in this blog are not necessarily the opinions owned by the pubertyless Junior high and high school years of low self esteem]

it must be acknowledged there is one friend of mine, an old fuck buddy, who caters to herself cosmetically--in excess. The other day as we were walking in KC she mentioned that she loves how so many guys she talks to in bars always get stumped in finding out how smart she is. Her narcissism seems to come from a purer and healthier source. The fact that she is friendly with people from all walks of life and seems to also protect my image of her from the usual associations--for instance, it really is hard to see her in a sorority or a beauty pageant or some other awful social institution for girls.

The praising of and the presence of female beauty should never go away. But it seems to count for disproportionately too much to a woman's ego. And it gives heterosexual men like myself a lot of power (which can be great!), but damned if women didn't have their own ideas of beauty that run counter.

Now there is too much empty space

Though the big green lawns are forever sniffed and loved by my person.

The fly in the bottle syndrome adjacent plastic to glass

There is a difficulty in writing about the recent past. The portal of the Spanish language probably has something to do with it. It feels like a year as past since being in Lawrence despite how quickly time went by --feel hesitant referring to "time" like that, as if it were a subjectivity on equal footing with an individual human-- and there is the same old inertia felt. Meeting women is just as difficult as it has been for the last three out of five years or so. Or it is made difficult by my unwillingness to engage in social situations where the risk of boring conversations is not eliminated. Already there are too many good friends with whom valued time is spent.

It did not take long to dive back into reading about the political affairs of my home country. It's exciting, terrifying and frustrating as always. Luck is felt if a poem every other day can be written--even if it's just a fragment. It usually is.

Reading list: one of the most recent university texts on Colonial Post Colonial Literature. It's an anthology of English language short stories. England, the Caribbean, India-Pakistan, Canada, Ireland Australia, New Zealand and former African colonies are all represented. There is more difficulty in understanding some of these stories than expected. It is usually due to rich indigenous religious traditions that are evoked or represented. The question arises: maybe some more history is needed on some of "these people" (to be said with a slight KS-MO Oakie drawl) before going any further?

This goes against my general feeling about how literary narratives should be read. The ignorance of the cultural context in which a story is written can bring about a radical and sometimes more fundamental human interpretation. There is a fear of being trapped in the old identity politics that simply reinforce the legitimacy of racial, ethnic and other worn out dialectics. Still the way that the average human appropriates for him/herself conventional cultural memes, icons, religious and consumerist narratives requires some basic understanding of the culture. As a matter of culture wars debates, it doesn't seem like the multi-culturalists (political if not classical Liberals and other Leftists)have argued their case too well. But that may be more an indication of how segregated and homogeneous most communities in the world are. So many Individuals and images thereof have yet to be born.

The anthology contains a lot of loaded and stupid questions following each story. E.g. stupid as in obvious: "who is the narrator? What is his perspective on the events related to history?"; loaded (also obvious): "What do you think the story is saying about 'progress', machinery, debt and imperialism?". The story in question is about an old cobbler who is talked into buying a more advanced sewing machine that promises to increase output, but the interest on the loan (this is in British occupied India) breaks him.

Then again, it is still remembered how new everything involving literature is to most students.

A Longer stay is wanted

Random titles

Factory-Only Niches

Member/Customer - Associate/Employee

From Pluto Water to Swiss Kriss

Pie Panties (Whereas the Oldest Cereal to Have Existed Was Only Instant)

Redundance: being watched

Hair Bands On the Floor Beneath My Bedroom

discovered this Ennio Morricone composition...

...and it is incredible. Click here

Perfect for the last week of winter

It was forgotten, what the flu felt like. The bones are not as smarting so perhaps it´s only a cold. Of course my last day in a foreign country would turn out like this.

The only cold medicine at hand was the same injested into my body a couple of weeks ago. It is advised that person with diseases of the thyroid (posit loud faux cough here) should not take ¨GT¨ and that one should not take corticosteroids (cough)with it. When the medicine was taken two weeks ago, my chest received an hour or so of mild pain around the heart. It didn´t feel like an artery, but more like heartburn. But it cured the cold really fast.

The hot shower taken did not. After one efervescent tablet, the pressure is already building in my chest. A little bit.

Almost as if something had been locked away, kept down out of my reach during that whole time in Xela, now coming out violently.

Digesting my lunch is difficult. At best, one can observe all of the little details,the nuances of the movement of the food going down. People always respond to the idea perplexed. But it´s a good habit to get into.

It´s remembered now that the heartburn was preceded by super slow digestion. Urgh.

The lense of ¨Orientialism¨ in Central America

Back in Guate with Jessica´s family who are so insanely endearing and our conversations have provided a good metric in determining how well the Spanish is improved.

Miguel Angel Garcia still speaks rather slow when trying to explain things, perhaps because he wants to speak more in english, and because we are usually talking about things that bring out our differences. While watching CNN ¨En Español¨, he said something to the affect that Islam was a violent religion. He was responded to by my reminder that the media in the west doesn´t really give a fair representation of the middle east. But before the point was solidified, it occurred to me that the Koran does not condemn violence to the extent that the bible does. The words that came out of my mouth can be translated into the following: it wasn´t until the 13th century that christianity was given an intellectual justification for violence by St. Thomas Aquinas.

This noticably shocked him which provoked me into explaining further by contrasting the bible with the Koran. He then explained with great difficulty --which is still currently attributed to his kind accomadation, thinking that my listening comprehension is even worse than it is-- his catholic beliefs, mentioning the planets in the universe and taking a turn to an anecdote where the governmentin France once declared that God has died. It is almost suspected that he was going to follow that one up with bad luck that followed France. He was about to receive the question which surely causes rifts within many christian communities: does he believe in an interventionist god? If so, what does he not intervene in? But he received his seventh phone call from clients who want to stay at his hotel.

For example:

What can for one person who is an object as easily as a subject
Is doable for all

The car sells itself, bread sells itself

and...it can be done (no human interlocutor intrudes upon the pure commerce)

surely not from brand USA
the self esteemer

Don´t make me say it with a straight face: yes it can.
What can? The aforementioned action

Another random list

Would be curious to see the results of experiments testing how Guatemalan reflexes and peripheral vision compare on average to the average gringo; the side walks are very narrow here, which means that you have to be much more careful when passing somebody. The polite thing to do is walk on the edge, usually not more than three feet or less from the passing cars on the busy street. We also must take into account the cracks on the edges.

Smoking in public spaces with at least a roof or one wall is now against the law in Guatemala. And yet no one pays much attention to pollution from the many automobiles (many without mufflers) or the garbage on the street. Although it must be said that the city of Xela has a clean up crew that works a lot.

All of the great coffee from this country is exported.

While many families still prefer honey and other natural sweetners, we can say that high fructose corn syrup, referred to in lazy (thus deceptive) spanish translations as ¨jarabe de Maize¨ (corn syrup), has made a full invasion.

¨War of the End of the World¨ by Mario Vargas Llosa is currently being read. It´s a well told fictional tale based on the famous 1896-97 ¨War of Canudos¨ between newly empire-turned-republic Brazil and a very diverse but mostly religious group of peasants in Canudos in the north eastern state of Bahia. It´s written by a Peruvian and has been sighted by multiple critics as the ¨War and Peace¨of Latin America. Although it does not seem as philosophically or narratively ambitious--but don´t think that size has anything to do with it. It seems that Vargas Llosa has a penchant for revealing the futility and destructiveness that ideologies (and ideals)brings to individuals who hold them. It is wondered how much of this is in turn from his own ideological bent. We´ll see years later. It cannot be resisted that he had a falling out with the new Left almost 40 years ago (by extension many of his contemporary literary friends like Marquez), but autobiography should be resisted. So far his depiction of characters is flawless.

It was formerly assumed that only eccentric old men in twenty something bodies like my good friend Konrad (very much influenced by his Southern Kansas grandfather who never wore his work clothes into town)held the view that people shouldn´t run unless they´re formally exercising. After two and a half months in Guatemala, this view seems more widespread in the states. Here it is not ignoble to be an adult (and overweight) to be running from point a to point B. Local Guatemaltelcos do it here all of the time--that is to say they run in their regular clothes to get to where they´re going.

There is a certain body type of woman that always rides a scooter of Vespa in these parts. They are voluptuous, with big breasts, slightly big bellies and always wearing business slacks, if not the full attire and always wear their long hair far down. It is almost as if the shape of the seat and the space between it and the handle bars carved the woman´s curves. It´s really tantalizing.

In San Pedro Laguna it was discovered that the face was finally able to grow real sideburn hair! This is the kind of news usually told to a friend at random. In April of 06 it was armpit hair that was discovered, in August of 04 it was butt hair. It seems to have come in the wrong order. Is anyone else interested in comparing notes?

Still wanting to probe the subjunctive and the use of impersonal clauses with or without reflexive pronouns. It is also interesting that the passive voice is used so often and likewise with the refelexives, stores advertise themselves with their products rather than using themselves: ¨Se Vende tortillas¨ (tortillas sell themselves)
Poetics: more radically literal phrases have been translated from Spanish. There´s quite a lot of ¨accidental metaphysics¨ that comes out of it.

Slow and deliberate

More slavery to time is what keeps the alienation lit. Or rather slavery to the questioning of the perception of time (how much is available). Actually, the parinoia that has been there for what seems like forever is more culpable than anything else.

That is to say that no one else should be blamed.

Some of the fellow volunteers are extremely kind and generous in the information they offer and ask for. One in particular, Andrew from California, who at the beginning introduced himself as Andrès, has the most endearing disposition. If it were not for my more extreme circumstances, more big sibling instincts would have been felt for him. Instead, it´s the other way around. After being mugged at knife-point in the most dangerous spot in the town he expressed very sincere sympathy for me, as if my body and my idea of myself had been violated. After comparing host families, where it was indicated that Estuardo and Alejandra treated me merely as a guest than a member of the family, Andrew again apologized with sympathy as if my body and my idea of myself had been violated.

It´s not what he says. It´s how he says it. He just started Spanish and it´s been impressive how continuously he speaks it. More than anyone else, he will keep speaking it with non native spanish speakers...slowly and deliberately. Chillingly reminiscent of Miguel, my friend in Guatemala City with fragile health ...was also reminded of the way a childhood friend, Travis Stiffler, who taught me half of the dirty US english words, performed in street fights. Travis always appeared to be hitting like a slug if not an outright typical girl, but he actually packed a powerful punch. To my knowledge, he never lost a fight and not many would fuck with him.

Yes. Slowly and deliberately--also like my best friend and giant of a human being, Mauro Nobre. Mauro has a towering intellect and it is maddening to have debates with him due in large measure to the slow pace in which he speaks (that it is probably due in part that he didn´t pick up english until 17, past the peak of the brain´s plasticity, does not make it more acceptable).

Andrew walks, talks and dances very slowly without mistakes. His gentle disposition makes it seem as if he would not do much, but he was the most enthusiastic dancer in the whole bunch. His body willed itself around to salsa way more than mine. On his last night in Xela, at a table of twelve volunteers in a restaraunt/apartment house (amazing dutch styled curry!) he and Claire, this tall beatiful spunky nursing student from central Minnesota did some turns. It was strange to see them together, she and her long limbs and thespian constitution and he, shorter, low toned in his puffy beard, faded jeans that are baggy at the ankles and in streaky eyeglasses, moving like a patient with a terminal illness--and yet with such grace. While he did make some mistakes amid the attemp of familiarizing himself with her significantly longer reach, he obviously knows how to dance. And so gentle.

Even though there is only one week left here, Andres will be missed.

Waiting for Catastrophes

Last Tuesday and Thursday mornings, a wonderful 25 minute bike ride was had, to and from a primary school that calls itself La Cuchilla, to teach english. The roads are dangerous and the bikes are in bad shape. Wearing a helmet is resisted. Fear of violent crash against the pavement is only had when alone in my room. More experience is needed to learn to be even more alert and safe which ironically will help attenuate or exterminate the fear of death.

Down to my last physical Quetzal, as the Lawrence Bank has discovered that my debit card became compromised. Almost two weeks were spent attempting to withdraw cash from about 6 machines around the city of Xela. Before making the phone call, my host mother, Alejandra thought she might of overheard on the news that a major problem has occured with many banks in Kansas. Something about them being out of money -- we still have the FDIC right?
It should be noted that my person could not and did not confirm the story. No one else has confirmed and there is no time to look it up. Amidst the US-led world economic crisis, the worst has been anticipated, though not prepared for.

It now turns out that it was a problem with Visa.

Even if money had been posessed these past couple weeks, not much more would have been bought. No desire exists to go out. Tourist traps abound, and most of the fellow volunteers at the school seem to reveal little enthusiasm for one on one conversations. Is it possible that one on one conversations actually make most people more timid than in large groups? After several attempts at conversation, which should not be had anyway given the need to practice my tortured spanish, most of the volunteers worked with betray an inpeneterable gloominess and tepidity (lack of intellectual curiosity).

This is not a judgement on them (although a couple of them are quite cold), because most of them undoubtedly suffer from what will be referred to here as the ¨fulltime student syndrome¨. They have very little time to enjoy actual academic learning. After an informal studying of this syndrome in friends and acqaintences a hypothesis occured to the the question of why so many mistake my mere average intelligence for above average intelligence: it´s because at the end of most days my embodied mind is not as fatigued as theirs. Having slightly less than a full two years of actual formal university training as allowed more time to enjoy the intellectual discoveries made and discuss them

After studying and teaching, the days are spent in my bedroom trudging trough ¨cien años de soledad¨, 495 pages in over three weeks. The richness of the vocabulary is amazing and maddening. Looking at the english translation by Gregory Rabassa, it is obvious that he grew lazy at times omitting whole sentences or replacing words to get the idea of the function of an object across to the english reader rather than also allow its aesthetic properties to carry over.

When breaks are taken, capricious and sometimes half hearted attempts at writing are made. Reading poetry in english is strictly reserved for the toilet. Attempts at conversation with Sedi (Alejandra) and Estuardo are made, but seldom successful; there was a night in which an explanation of the health care system in the US and the proposed Single Payer plan was given. Another night where comprehension of their religion was gained. Comprehension of the sentences which formed a theological view point taken in the evangelical church they attend (not that religion as a practice will ever make sense to me).

Overall the lesson learned is that my body should have been armed with a vocabulary used by young parents. Everything revolves around little David Estuardo, also affectionately called, ¨Pappy¨ and ¨Nini¨. El Nahual, contrary to what is indicated by their website, is currently functioning ONLY as a school (english, spanish, art and cooking) with a garden and a construction site for a new building. It is hard to practice Spanish with kids who are either there to learn from you or ride your shoulders. Nothing to talk about.

And fuck the weather 365 days and 20 Nahuals over!! Though it must be qualified that the wind´s impact on the accumulation of dust in conflict with our bearings is something to behold.

It would be nice to meet one more guatemalteca who could at least humor me with some plàtica (conversation). There are two females reappearing in my fantasies and they are both great friends in Lawrence. Knowing that deep bonds with native Spanish speakers are impossible to make in the three weeks that are left, Lawrence is finally missed.

Inside my head is much more comfortable. It has managed to house a lot of dreams in Spanish. But thinking in it requires much more.

Failure. A big headache is forming and it could not be dehydration. Weeks have passed since yellow has been pissed. ¿A donde se va desde aqui?

Coming soon: either a story from one of those previously surrendered titles, or an article about a progressive model of education witnessed at a school. Pedogogy in general as gotten into the gears, possibly replacing butterflies on my list of infinite would be hobbies.

a lecture from Zadie Smith...

...an amazing writer (also, a novelist)not much older than myself. before you read it, you are urged to read this not as a take on what our (us gringos)political future has in store. It is a wonderful addition to the ongoing culture wars as it affirms very cleverly and undogmatically the value of pluralism. Her essay happens to be about the current president of the USA, Barack Obama, but it is actually a very astute take on human identity and refreshing denouncement of the small mindedness of those whose expectations of others are always limited by the assumption that a human being is a fixed personality who can only speak with one voice. By voice, we are refering to tone, syntax and most importantly, sensebility.

After quoting ¨passages in his book, ¨Dreams of My Father¨, passages in which Obama quotes himself from youth sounding like a stereotypical American inner city black youth, Smith writes:

¨The tale he tells is all about addition. His is the story of a genuinely many-voiced man. If it has a moral it is that each man must be true to his selves, plural.¨

This is the, if not political genius, the personable genius of Obama who is able to address empathetically without being gushy the multiplicity in others and not simply the archetypal and for-all-too-long-pretended singularity of the multitude. She puts Obama in the company of Shakespeare and George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax the famous English statesman in the sense of their ability to function as ¨philosophical historians¨. She then turns to developing her theory of how this role comes into being:

¨The first stage in the evolution is contingent and cannot be contrived. In this first stage, the voice, by no fault of its own, finds itself trapped between two poles, two competing belief systems. And so this first stage necessitates the second: the voice learns to be flexible between these two fixed points, even to the point of equivocation. Then the third stage: this native flexibility leads to a sense of being able to "see a thing from both sides." And then the final stage, which I think of as the mark of a certain kind of genius: the voice relinquishes ownership of itself, develops a creative sense of disassociation in which the claims that are particular to it seem no stronger than anyone else's. There it is, my little theory—I'd rather call it a story. It is a story about a wonderful voice, occasionally used by citizens, rarely by men of power. Amidst the din of the 2008 culture wars it proved especially hard to hear.¨

Earlier on, Smith notes that the multivoiced quality that the ¨philosophical historian¨, a term coined by a historian of Halifax, defined for Smith´s article´s purpose as someone who ¨always saw passing events, not in the point of view in which they commonly appear to one who bears a part in them, but in the point of view in which, after the lapse of many years, they appear to the philosophic historian.¨This type of being requires is something that we generally dislike in politicians but love in our artists. She is hoping Obama embraces the artist in him--namely the poet. According to her, that will make him a better statesman to the world. Her point is well taken.

But the illusion of singularity which makes a shallow and conformist type of patriotism (you know the type) so popular can easily be reinforced when a president is trying to keep a majority together. A majority is kept together by staying on message and speaking with one voice. Of course this goes back to a point alluded to last month: that those at the grasroots, the PROGRESSIVE CONSTITUENCY in its perpetual state of becoming, will have to engage in their dialogue and provide a ramrod counter to those mediocore and ugly elements that keep us stupid (and certainly unhealthy). They also have Obama´s ear. Regarding the political future, the future of the world (with the US still at the driver´s seat) the devil is in the details.

But it´s nice that Smith uses the current President (obviously way more popular than any poet and all of art and Literature) as a springboard for discussing a point that is all too often lost in the midst of the majority of people cowardly trying to fit into extrinsic personality molds that are directly harmful to human instincts--and by extension, our world(s)

What´s worth saving?

¨...the world is hungry and not concerned with culture, and that the attempt to orient toward culture thoughts turned only toward hunger is a purely artificial expedient.

¨What is more important, it seems to me, is not so much to defend a culture whose existence has never kept a man from going hungry, as to extract, from what is called culture, ideas whose compelling force is identical with that of hunger.¨

This comes from ¨The Theatre And Its Double¨, by Antonin Artaud. The words have stuck in the craw for a long time.

later in the same piece, he writes:
¨We must insist upon the idea of culture-in-action, of culture growing within us like a new organ, a sort of second breath: and on civilization as an applied culture controlling even our subtlest actions, a presence of mind; the distinction between culture and civilization is an artificial one, providing two words to signify an identical function.¨

Änd a little later:
¨A civilized man judges and is judged according to his behavior, but even the term "civilized" leads to confusion: a cultivated "civilized" man is regarded as a person instructed in systems, a person who thinks in forms, signs, representations – a monster whose faculty of deriving thoughts from acts, instead of identifying acts with thoughts, is developed to an absurdity.¨

It is shocking how steadfast he was in acting under the belief, or at least the desire to change the world with art. Especially given his proposals for doing away with written language, which came from his erroneous view that thinking is independent of language.

Speaking of cultures disappearing

Watch this trailer.


The only thing that should be mentioned is that all of the amazing beautiful Cambodian rock would not have been possible were it not for the brutal US invasion of Vietnam. The US military rock radio stations blasted next door.

Ambiguous expressions of indigenous pride

In the town of Todos Santos Cuchumatán lives a Mam community

Every November a big group of Jintes (manly horse back riders) celebrate what is called La Carrera. It is a 300 KM race around town on horses, in which, while insanely drunk and carrying a rooster in the hand, they try to balance themselves. On the night before,they have a ritual in preparation for the expected death of at least one of their fellow Jintes. They wear very elaborate and colorful costumes (big hats included)which you can view here if you scroll down.

They have been doing this for at least 300 years. The story goes back to the peak of colonial oppression from the Spanish. It was they who brought the horses to the western hemisphere. The belief was that indigenous people could not ride horses. The Mam proved them wrong. It is how they identify themselves. The act alone is something to behold. The only object is to survive and if possible stay atop the horse by the end of the race.

To me it´s another revealing example of a certain aspect of the compexities of a world-surviving-in-the-post-colonial-era. It is complex provided that we can see that the values with which many persons identify themselves in activities and things that come from Spain the conquistedores.

Generally, when a society has a culture through which it can celebrate itself in grand spectacles we view it as a healthy thing. A proud people entails a proud individual. It seems impossible not to view a people from the prism of an individual body, the word self esteem lingers, extending to the body of a group of people. The Jinetes say they do La Carrera for honor. Which is when the presence of self esteem goes without saying...or is honor only a glorified version of...it´s a literary prejudice of mine: honor is such an archaic word for a vanity that is not kept sufficiently inward. It´s not clear to me what significance La Carrera has to the participants, but from what has been read they seem to enjoy it.

My current spanish teacher and friend, Angel prefaced his introduction to them, which was a small article in the Quetzaltenango newspaper, by saying that there was huge support in Todos Santos for the old military regime. Obviously a machismo exists in large quantity. It should be noted that Angel is very bookish and perhaps even dovish. He has a very sober and cool temprament, but by the way the conversations start --he loves to talk about all sorts of things (Frankly he´s the first Guatemalan that has peaked my instincts for real friendship)-- he´s not unaware of the fact that we live in a world where sports is much more popular than art and academics. So the bias surrounding the story of the Jinetes should be taken into account.

Archelogical evidence does show that the Mam were quite the warriors. Interestingly enough, by the time the Spaniards settled in the area, the Mam were tamed and reduced in numbers by Catholic missionaries and not by violent invasion.

The idea of a slave beating his master at his own game is certainly appealing. The 2002 world cup comes to mind when Senegal defeated France. The Pakistani and indian cricket teams who occasionally give the Brits a whipping. And almost every sport in the US! The idea of a people celebrating itself by in this rough fashion, a couple fifths of rum in the tank on a rapid horse with arms flailing in the air amidst the screams of roosters, in and of itself is exciting to me. That it is a self conscious indigenous people requires some more background.

If you have not done so, click here to see the clothing. It is supposedly traditional. But according to Angel, there exists quite a lot of evidence that this clothing originated from Spain. There is no evidence indicating that the Mayans made or wore pants until after the arrival of the spaniards.

But what other people on earth dress like this today? And the clothing is distinct from the 21 other ethnic groups (they all are, it doesn´t take long to notice) In a manner of a few hundred years of habits, the Mam have distinguished themselves. All cultures reflect certain values. But where do those values come from? Are not the ways in which those values expressed merely incidental to the values themselves? If the only path on which a foreigner can verify those values is through viewing the persons when the express them, does it even matter that the horses and clothing came from Spain or that the happiness shown on the Jinetes´ faces after the ride has something to do with measuring up to the strength of the Spanish?

The perception on the part of us culture canibals is often amiss. We get too bogged down by the taxonomised epochs established by archiologists and historians and assume that one time period spells the end of everything that came before. A people´s culture still lives on simultaneously with its destruction. One only has too look at the present day rituals of many Mayans to see how much the spanish missionaries had to conform to Mayan beliefs to get any of their christy message across. The overall impression received is that what is esteemed aesthetically is not pure to a region or race, but highly mongrelized (Literature may be an exception in many parts of the world, but we should also consider the timeframe through which we´ve arrived at our current veranculars).

It is easy to point out the irony: that these people, the Mam are celebrating something that is contingent on the domination of the old way of life. What weighs more is that the old customs (whatever they were) are lost and can never be recovered. However, it seems more important that the individual be the measure rather than the more abitrary ethnic group or culture. This is an opinion indigenous to western civilization. It may have its drawbacks. But is the individual being served well in this (or any culture)?

There is not enough information yet to give a just assesment of La Carrera itself. There is broader issue of indigenous identity. Amidst the intense racism that still exists in this country, it would hard to make the following conclusion that is local to the assimilation animating US: that culture and ethnicity do not matter. The divisions, the poverty and illiteracy in Central America run so deep--what else is there to fill the void? The arts and the humanities are not funded. The business of professional sports, like the government, is filled with corruption. That leaves the church and the lifestyle models presented from abroad in a convenient store, television program near y...me.

Cambodia still rocks

While looking for old psychadelic music from around the world, I found this to watch and listen.

Random things out of desparate fear of not writing anything in english for over a week.

No thing has smelled like my sister just coming out of the bathroom since my self was little. It was a bitter smell which at the time was asumed to be the universal smell of all pubescent women. The truth is that it is inextricably associated with other things as well. Admitedly, if the smell came across the olfactory apparatus again, it would be greeted with much nostalgic pleasure. It is fitting that she is such an amazing and power figure. Everyone agrees. not sure if she´s retained any bit of that scent.

Funny how my gaining on her in height (what age 13, 14...) was not only a non event, there is no memory of the awareness.

True events always involve a 2nd party´s participation (readers of Hegel and Bakhtin will doubly understand).

¨Baby, if I could just convince you to hold up this plastic cradle for the symbolic sacrifice of the nostalgia of adolescence that I have just birthed, our diaspora would set its course.¨

You´d be amazed at how many people show zero interest in the notion of a potentially new culture lying within each individual. Or no you wouldn´t. The amazement is mine.

But what about the notion each set of two individuals containing the seeds for a potentially new culture?

The funny thing is that this particular loftiness is not coming from someone who is miserable in his resistence to accept the world as it is.

10 short story titles with synopses

TOWER ON APHASIA

A first person narrative account of an adolescent orphan attempting to preserve the creation of the dialect he shares with four other --to be named-- persons amidst the serving out of juvenile court mandated communtity service


REGRESSION PLACE

Story about a young married couple`s trip to a theme park in which adults can experience the life of a baby infant


SPAGHETTI STRAPS

A retired social worker runs away from her abusive and indifferent family to rediscover her white trash roots.

ENDOCRINE BY NUMBER

A young physically immature Lawyer turns to con artesanry to build intimate relationships with younger people, but his partner at the law firm makes things complicated.


LEGS, THE PERSON TO TALK TO

An amusing story about 1 city block told from the point of view from a pair of legs


SUPLICAS DEL MURO DEL CEMETARIO

About the erotic experience of being mugged at knife point


IN THE MOLD OF CERTAIN DISTRACTION

A young alluring border in the house of a working family in a mining community becomes the object of everyone´s schaudenfraude after making deals with the town´s de facto story teller.


INVOLUNTARY TRUST

A community garden turns into an unforseen nightmare when the trophy wife of it´s executive director becomes supervisor.


DEATH WITH LESSONS

A young intellectual tries to convince himself and others of a conspiracy behind the death of a well loved professor


KARINA REVALES

A nymphet of a Honduran mercado owner makes a startling self discovery after using her beauty to win attension from customers.

promise

Dammit, it is meant this time: no more writing about politics! Some measure of, not courage necessarily, but...audacity! Audacity --this is just a mocking allusion to the new figurehead that everyone in the states so lazily identifies with-- is needed to post things which preoccupy the self and have no relevance to any of your lives.

The only thing that can be said for both poetry (literature in general) and politics --which is to say, that allows for some coherence and continuity to this conscious life-- is that there is a strong concern for things not said, or not said enough. And that the aesthetic impulse, more pampered than most any other (if your single, childless and largely without immediate and challenging social responsibilities), leads me to the agony of considering how the way things are could be so many different ways.
****************************************

Things as hidden,
the inexhaustible loved source

for the simple effort
of keeping some lost thing intact
or of fingers under the crotch

crotch as if putting on a mask
in order to dream.
Some omissions will be emitted

Some omissions inspire reproach
always
reaching another lost detail

Teaching...learning

The crayon drawing is a gift received in Guatemala by one of our (my) english students, Miriam. This immediately provoked me into telling her about the band DEVO.
Miriam is kind of the leader of the rest of the kids, a real smart trouble maker. We call each other Monstrua y Monstruo.
The volunteer program of the school in which Spanish is being studied is a little disorganized. There is no training for teaching. The volunteers whose Spanish is most advanced simply take charge. However, one cannot expect much since most of these kids have little experience even being in a regular school. Most of their parents cannot read and have little time for the most basic of parent-child interactions.

Thus my other position at the school is that of the caballito or caballo (horse). Two of the boys in particular love to take rides on the shoulders. It´s a lot of fun but no nutritional substitute for my lifestyle back home. Because we are so many thousands of feet above sea level my lungs feel like a smoker´s.

The classroom feels comfortable and you can tell when you really have the kids´attention. My self is now found as the most experienced Spanish speaker in the group that teaches english to the older kids. The acting international coordinator has set our expectations low--otherwise hoplessness would be felt all around. The problems run really deep.

The temptation is felt to take pictures of the water line construction on the school´s block. My dad, a plumber might have some criticisms just by looking at the ditches. On top of the lack of comprehensive sanitation services, mentioned in a previous post (and can someone answer where the hell our garbage goes), there is very poor if any water treatment.

40 + to 60 percent of the women during pregnancy in this country die just prior to child birth. About the same percentage of kids age 3 or younger die from malnourishment.

Many ¨Reds¨ a term of endearment for members of the US Republican party, stolen from Lawrence based writer, Patrick Quinn, and in fact many North Americans in general believe that poverty is caused primarily by laziness. Does this belief of theirs extend to the poverty around the world, it is wondered? The historical iliteracy is astounding.

Almost all of Latin America and much of the third world has suffered from a poverty that can be traced to the issue of Land rights, land use, land exploitation, land theft, land degradation, land ¨expropriation¨. Although there is much evidence of enviornmental degradation prior, the massive inequality started with the arrival of the Spaniards by taking over land that was nurtured by the Mayans (all thirty + groups of them, each with their own language) and pushing them up into the mountains where land was less valuable. This is not simply history. This is still the issue. Most indigenous peoples were subsequently exploited for slavery and then cheap labor. After being ¨freed¨ from slavery it was impossible for many to go back to their way of life since what little land they held onto was in inherantly horrible condition. In most countries where land reform has taken place, like Mexico, the indigenous people are given the crap. It is not a result of self reliant hard work that about 7 families (of European origen and in mansions in the US)own an overwhelming percentage of the land.

It is economics 101: those who have lots of land have the money and thus the political power.

We also know from history that widespread individually owned private property can be an insanely beneficial thing for the public as a whole. This is one of the prime features of classical Liberalism, the foundations of which were made concurrent with the rapid decline of the Spanish empire between the 17th century and early 19th century. During this time the spanish were defeated and most of the leadership was maintained if not transfered to wealthy landowning elites. A kind of feudalism persisted.

Often when debating informally opposing theories of social change with fellow Leftists, the issue always comes back to the origen of private property. How to define it. The legal empire (that is to say the legal literature) protecting oligarchs from conceeding even a small portion of this land back to those who cultivated it in the first place is immense. And how is it possible to have a debate when the indigenous conception of the human relationship with the land is so radically different?

Land reform is possible and has been done in almost every country in the Western hemisphere, but Hati--and Guatemala. In recent years, as most of you know, a huge wave of grassroots activism in Latin America as led to amazing victories for indigenous people--and working people in general. (In hindsight, when we look at the power brokers involved in these victories, they would not have been possible without the help of many non indigenous, non poor and in some cases, even non Latino). In 1954 land reform was almost achieved for Guatemala under the democratically elected presidency of Jacobo Arbenz-Guzman until a CIA backed military coup sent the country back and sent many of the indigenous supporters of the legitimate government back to the mountains. A 36 year civil war followed. The US Supported the thugs, democracy was squashed, intellectuals, activists , students and campesinos (farmers, rural citizens) were arrested, disappeared, tortured and killed.

Bolivia has just won a stunning victory in a recent referendum on the establishment of a new constitution assuring not just land *re*distribution to the indigenous people but assuring that natural and other vital resources, such as gas, water, electricity and communications belong to all bolivians under public trusts. Worker´s rights have now also been written into the constitution. Something that must sound like gibberish to many Estado Unidodensians. Then again, outside of California and a few other places, so does the idea of voting for actual laws.

It does help that Bolivia has Evo Morales, an indigenous man (an Amarya indian) as President, that he actually comes from the same economic background as those who make up a majority of that country.

About the same number of indigenous make up Guatemala, but unlike Bolivia, there is a lack of communication (behind which a practical geographical explanation lies) among the 22 different Mayan clans. Each with their own language. Moreover, a deep suspicion exists among many if not most Mayan decendents towards participating in national or even departmental politics. There are places in this country to which no outsider can go because of the rawness felt over the government sanctioned genocide that took place during the early eighties (over 200,000 thousand Mayans were systematically slaughtered). Corruption in government is also still a problem. Although Alvaro Colom was able to win the 2007 with a huge indigenous turn-out, groundwork has to be laid for a grassroots infrastructure. Most of the indigenous communities are so small and scattered that it is unlikely to see the kind of political coalition that Evo Morales was able to utilize. However the shared experience of poverty (inextricably linked to racism) in numbers are there. Like loosing weight, the simplicity of achieving political victories depends on the numbers.

It feels extremely draining to the body to write about this. But the assumption exists that a lot of if not most of this is new to you.

discovered Manfred Krug

Musical narcotic from across the
Atlantic
Manfred Krug - Laß Mich Nicht Gehn

Retail

In many ways this country serves a Libertarian fantasy (that's capital L, not for the political party necessarily, but for right wing Libertarians). If any zoning laws exist they do not restrict a person from selling almost anything out of his or her house. Only in this atmosphere could an empathy be attained for the L position in the states. Ofcourse the history of Guatemala is entirely different. Vigilantism is very common because the police here, while not corrupt like the police in Mexico, are not very reliable due to the lack of resources. Taxes are avoided frequently.

Sometimes things come across my person that provoke a liking of capitalism. Not love, but some significant measure of affinity.

People produce things here. While the productivity level is not as high as the US (including per capita), the density here is such that one cannot help but noticing all of the factories that make different and useful things. Strangely, tons of used US clothing is being shipped to and sold here. The NYU student that was met by myself and Jessica three and half weeks ago was studying the impacts of it. Every other person seems to sport an MTV backpack(?)--in Xela at least. Laundary mats cost a little bit more but they do your laundry for you. Where are all the factories in the US?

This is not a rhetorical question.

People are always fixing things too. Automobiles especially. There have been no sightings of new car sales lots. But tons of old cars shown individually for sale by a regular neighbor who works a regular job. The local mechanic close to my school is always smiling. Full of greased and dirt, and smiling. If this sounds simply banal and not charmingly banal to you, go outside and take a look.

Of course this means things are always broken. The problem is that there is no developed infrastructure for what is naively referred to here as an "preventative service economy". (And it seems like it would be hard to find a person who coud be called a perfectionist in this country. As opposed to Japan.)

And instead of building a bunch of new ugly suburban houses in patches of potentially productive land, the tons of new construction that is going on my neighborhood in Xela is all being performed in, on and around existing structures. It feels like the past and future all at once.

(With the excessive corn and flour Central American diet, there is no surprise. Thought for awhile that the starch was the cause of my decreased sex drive and need for excessive amounts of sleep. But it just took a while to get used to the altitude.)

The abundance of cars from the 70s also touches the core. Lots of Datsuns! And they are all given those wonderful Electric company Sesame Street bold primary and secondary colors. The lack of new cars on the streets has even allowed me to see the actually unique designs of the cars from the eighties.

Because internet availability at the home is still low, there is an abundance of internet cafes (this person pays $3.00 for 7 hours of internet usage).

And the chcken buses! It is nice to not have to buy a bus ticket. It is nice to be cramed cheek to cheek and shoulder to shoulder in a room full of people. It allows for a very in depth observation of others. Even putting up with all of the street vendors who are allowed to come in before take off to sell junkfood and bric a brac are more than tolerable. Often a hungry vendor will go on in detail about the colorful Disney character designs of a key chain. The desire to say, ¨do you have any cut off limbs to show off instead¨ enters the mind.

It´s hard to get used to: that a large sum of the impoverished in this country have to get by with doing this crap. Who are their employers? In moments of utmost clarity it becomes easier. There is a simple desire on their part to survive another day or week. In this you can see that it´s a human being performing their current craft. At the very least it is easy to respect once one sees the honesty in their eyes. Still a day with the least amount of human interactions involving monetary transactions is ideal.


There is a curisoity that won´t go away. Hard scientific data on the numbers of those in Guatemala doing retail would be very welcome. And how Many of them are actualy small businesses? It´s obvious that those seling food are. (Something crossed my path from a trusted source: the average Guatemalan woman makes over a hundred corn tortillas a day) To what extent is it an indication of what we could define as freedom?

To be continued... socio-economic questions must be asked that are not happening in the brain currently. It can be blamed on a woman.

A contradiction about the country is finally showing up

Every house surrounded by concrete and metal. Barbed wire topping the walls which house the half indoor patio to the front of the living quarters. Many check the little door slot to see who's there before opening the gate. Private security guards are all over.

And yet the people here are surprisingly open and publicly communal. People actually converse all over the streets. The parks actually get played in. Lawrence, KS. does have its South Park, where younger parents with small children can be found every day. But other than Central Park in NY, the eyes have never seen such a per capita use of public park space.

Plus people run mercados (little convenient stores), restaurants, hotels and sell tortillas or fried plantains out of their homes.

Honeymoons are not for presidents

Excuse the metaphor bashing, but this moment in history where the majority of Progressive minded US citizens bask in the glow at the inauguration first president since LBJ (maybe Carter) to be considered Progressive, the first to have black skin and a non Christian surname must end. Please stop making goo goo eyes towards the screen every time he appears or is talked about. please stop assuming that this president is going to do your will and/or please ask for more out of the history to come.

Granted, amidst the inertia presented by opposition backed by the motives of capital and general political repression, political movements need to be able to speak with one voice, thus human beings inevitably end up attributing (for all intents and purposes)divine power to one human being. It's unavoidable and it's why we, on paper and 8 hrs of less work anyway, celebrate MLK. But the actions of a president, like a party, a nation state or any organization are not holistic entities. They are only the sum of very complex parts that come together by a polyphony of forces. Power relationships are built and nourished, deals are made, some people will get more time to be heard from the decision makers than others. And you are extremely naive if you think that the quality of a person´s logic is what gets his or he point across to the decision maker.

Oh yes, it is not forgotten on my end, we know that you already know all of this. But step back and look. You don't realize that you still act(mostly addressing fellow activists here) under assumptions that contradict this simple insight.

Because his motive is to hold together a winning majority, Obama will very likely continue a lot of really dumb, immoral and perhaps ilegal things. He is going to allow idiotic *non national security related* military spending to increase with out fighting members of Congress. It is Congress after all that forces the Defense Department and the Pentagon to carry on with the buying idiotic cold war toys.

His secretary of agriculture is very close with the corn ethanol lobby. These guys are into selling us into the idea that we can achieve energy and oil independence in part by using ethanol from corn. If you haven't looked into it, you should. To produce Ethanol you actually have to spend more energy, that is to say a below zero net gain. Much of that energy is currently dirty and non renewable. Not to mention the burden it places on food.

Obama is going to continue cultivating the cozy relations we have with the current number one terrorist state, Israel. The US contributes 9 billion a year to this favored nation. Egypt and Columbia (also governments that are currently occupied by thugs) are 2nd and third. A majority of this 9 billion dollars, based on a previously signed agreement between the US and Israel, must be spent on US defense contractors.

Obama, in the spirit of "radical centrisim" --my term for doing something to make every one happy which results in just the opposite-- is going to throw some meaty bones to the very unethical health insurance companies by allowing them to remain in the paracitic business of sickness care. This will be a part of the universal health care plan, that is unless the Single Payer campaign (whose link, http://www.pnhp.org/action/organizations_and_government_bodies_endorsing_hr_676_single_payer.php, cannot be smoothly applied on this current computer) wins out...


This is not a judgement of the man or even the president. A request is being made here: Let´s start thinking in terms of building a progressive constituency connected by a series of issues that we can all more or less agree with. That constiutency is not always going to succede by partisanship. That is of course another problem: identifying with the Democratic party too closely.

Again not a judgement of the party. What the hell is a party? That question is not merely meant to be rhetorical. As with the new president, the party likewise is a maleabe fiction which can mutate into many different things depending on the actions of those engaged in those power relationships. Currently the Dems are largely under the excessive influence of a few private interest who do not share a stake in the public interest. Look at who contributes to each representative´s campaign chest, look at who is drafting the legislation and what Special interest is directly or indirectly funding that legislation. The enemy is not always the Republican party as much as those scattered elements of corporate lobbyist who court both parties.

The problem is that the organizational infrastructure that we have is being utilized too much to simply elect Democrats and, even worse, reelect the same old Democrats who have bought into the status quo (imperial foreign policy, free trade with out fair wages and environmental protection, welfare handouts to factory farmers and deregulation of the financial sector). More effort needs to be made in developing a broad non partisan coalition that acts at the grassroots level. That means more lobbying at the state and US congressional district level. It also means putting more money into public advocacy campaigns. But more important: Progressive lobbyists who have a network of PAC (Political Action Committees) and policy think tanks behind them.

Yes, it is easier said than done. But assuming that long lasting progress is on its way simply by having the Democrats in charge is not doing very much.

Before receiving a straw man arguement response please know that what the activist in me is proposing in this post requires pragmatism.

Misreading from Spanish

From just the three weeks full of mere impressions, the poverty witnessed means almost nothing to me. What´s meant by that is that there is no accessible empathetic laden perception of what the poor go through--more precisely is that what has been witnessed of the people is barely different than back home. People live in houses, put their kids in school, go to work, shop, eat, attend social functions and drive cars. The differences do not seem to lie in abundance vs. scarcity. People here have a lot of (mostly useless) crap here just like in the US.

One big difference is how little the cosmetics of the public and private outdoor spaces seem to matter. Yards do not exist much. No big loss for me. The cemetary to your right speaks for itself. Appearently the public sanitation service is not comprehensive because people burn their garbage or leave it on the ground.

When it is said, that the poverty means almost nothing to me, what is also meant is that an aethestic reverence exists for all of these surroundings. It is an aesthetic pleasure to walk around in hills obviously intended for cow grazing, skipping over cow and dog shit, a pile of ripped plastic, paper and dry grass to get to the top of the final hill, say hola to the cows, homeless dogs and humans only to walk a block full of dirt pits exposing water lines underneath wooden make shift roughly 1 meter long pedestrian bridges and make single-foot-filed steps across the narrow sidewalks to get to school.

And the cemetary speaks for itself.

It must be talked about next: The appearently radically different retail economics of Guatemala. Where 150 page books are expensive and liquor is cheap. Where people sell all kinds of things from there houses.

Poem: ¨Kept¨¨ (to be followed by the landscape that birthed it

KEPT

Sad, kept
in our house
without your
loved shadow

No one believes in shadows
any more
¨Shadow¨ always
refers to something other

than a silhouette on the ground

We try to work up
the concept:
memory as the deity

No one goes for it
Aware of the sad
if not themselves
sad.
kept to themselves

like inside a meme
No light. No high light
on your death.

Xela What?

My sensiblities hate cute as much as the next...cuteness hater. But just to give you a POV of the life being led here. My host brother, David, to the right. He has just picked up a lesson from me on how to shake one´s head and make noises by manipulating the exploding cheeks and frenectomy connecting the gums and inner lips.

The apartment is very nice. The sparseness of it is great. And then there is a subtle haunted feeling one obtains from the acoustics of the concrete edifice. (another Pretty Things song in the head: ¨He´s got one room
in a house of ten¨. Though it is a house of 5) The floors resemble marble, but am not sure.

Alejandra and Estuardo are wonderful hosts. It is very likely that they are younger than me. We talk about food. Alejandra happens to be a very good cook. The nerve is not quite there to tell her to go lighter on the corn and bread. But there may be no substituting them anyway. The difficulty lies in obtaining safe greens in this country. 3 meals a day at home suffices. My body is that of the third student to live with them through El Nahual. They are probably relieved that a vegitarian is not living with them.

The school is in somewhat of a slow period due to the time of year which is like summer break. Plus there is no running water on the block due to major
reconstruction of the water lines.
But the instruction is excellent. And being surrounded by kids for 6 to 15 hours a week is a blast. The clown is easily played. Laughter abounds.

The perception of being the odd man out is there. That will always be the case. Por lo tanto, it may be easier to play the clown to a more experienced volunteer´s straight man.

Speaking of that all too humbling and comfortable role. The attempt was made to wash my clothes in a Pila, a three sink counter to be found outside of most Guatemaltecos´ houses. One sink has a washboard like surface. Alejandra laughed at, then pitied me.

Anita, is thought about a lot. Right before, during and after sleep. She´s the Mayan from San Pedro. A cell phone must be obtained this weekend.
Calls within the country. To Anita and the Molina´Garcia family.

Spanish still rusty. This log entry made for a half broken radio waves...like so much that doesn´t work well.... while refugees still seeking asylum amidst the radio anouncer on top of a skaffold, half burnt. Admist a pile of garbage...palid subsistence farmers´ cows. A bomb could go off any minute...at least a cohette (rocket, firecracker), the left-overs from New Years. No where to go but a tidier yard... to be found somewhere...we know it exists. Over.

my home for the next two months

Oh! This is why they call it a Chicken bus.

The actual finding of a bus that would bring my person to Xela well before the night felt like a success. Jessica is very much missed. But the tranquility that followed our parting constituted one of the best 24 hours of my life.

While waiting on the highway with twenty plus others, easy conversation was made with locals. All friendly and all eager to let me know that they knew where Kansas and Kansas City was. It was much appreciated and still pathetic that my educated self could not reciprocrate. A funeral procession made its way across the road. Women were crying and singing and the casket that was being carried was beautiful. Frankly, more beautiful than any of the pyramids seen in Tikal. Those pyramids are profound, bu not beautiful.

Met a Guatemalan dentist named Jonathan who had worked a few years in Omaha, Nebraska and Harper, Kansas as a farm hand.

Within the last hour and a half, my body was the third on the left seat with one butt cheek out, the other half of me being supported by another fellow in the same spot on the right seat. People came in and out, but there was always only room for body to body and always one to four people forced to stand up. Chicken buses are also characterized by the two people who run the show, the driver and the guy who collects the money, hops around on the outside of the bus packing luggage on the roof and helping the older and crippled passangers on board through the back exit door. This one was, just as the trip to San Pedro a very boyish looking man--more boyish looking than myself. At one point the old man next to me refused to pay, but what looked like insolence then revealed itself as the informal rate for the disabled. The boy moved on to collect from the other new passengers. The old man smiled at me in a semi demented tone: ¨ya!¨

¨huh,¨ my spanish accent asked. Then, grinning big, he raised his shrunken right arm with a very crippled, twisted and almost doll like hand with fingers ten times more bent then those received from my dad over the years of plumbing and softball.

¨Ya¨, he defiantly repeated letting out a gust of the morning breath, then turning his attention towards the alluded to diety-chicken bus celing, almost laughing. ¨Ya!¨ Ya means already.

¨Ya ha pagado?¨ So you´ve already paid, was my response as the subtle increase of bliss fixed with eyes on this happy fellow who was obviously un-suffering something wonderful.

People were all scrunched together in silence. It´s never different: the closer bodies of strangers find themselves together, the more likely they remove themselves from opening their mouths.
A wonderful song led by a strong flamenco styled guitar began to play about a forbidden romance. A lover is telling his beloved that he could lie about everything in the past, change his name and lie about everything he is, but he could not forget the secret he shared with his beloved. The blood was flowing so well across my head. The right pre frontal cortex as well as the left was fairly flexed. During the whole ride the high speed of the bus and the bumps of the road not that much worse than the state of Missouri, were felt.

In the Xela bus station, the filthiest place ever inhabited in my 31 years, the attempt was made to get a hold of the El Nahual (my school) preferred taxi driver, Carlos D´Leon. After wasting a whole quetzal (two phone calls), my attention was turned to the taxis that were already there. Two of them, both appearently competing for my attention. It is sight worth considering for a very long time. The first guy gave me a price while the younger looking second driver was waving his arms at me from behind him. When my light footed body marched up one foot to the second driver, who had a much safer looking car, he indicated the same price. He then gestured for me to go to the car with the other guy.

Once at the home of my host family, Alejandra Reyes and Estuardo Rivas, there was only the desire to explore the roof top with the amazing view and take a cold shower.

First four songs in order that popped into the head (ad hoch, as certain persons would say) while unpacking¨:

¨Who Are You¨ by Tom Waites
¨Janet Jangle¨ by High Llamas
¨13 Blues for 13 Moons¨ by Silver Mt. Zion
¨She Says Good Morning¨ by The Pretty Things

Was reminded that something is always burning in in the air this country. It is killing the lungs more quickly. But it smells so great. My memory has only the wonderful bonfires and barbecues with Aunt Patty and uncle Mike at single digit years of age and the late October bonfires of ¨the poor farm¨of my paternal grandparents to compare. But there are combinations of smells here that will never be experienced En Los Estados Unidos.

IT´S NOT JUST THE MAGIC STUFF THAT THE ISRAELIS PUT IN THE ICE CREAM

The bus ride from Xela was the best yet. Through out the dangerous school bus´s path we came upon small indigenous villages some of them that sold all of the main brands of Guatemala, Tigo (cellular stuff), Claro (cellular stuff again), Gallo (beer) and Alka-Selzer. A voluntary fantasy appeared of me living in one of these places, riding around in a mule (mules handle the topography better than horses) sharing the highway with beat up automobiles as we turn steep narrow roads, a foot away from a fall down the mountain.

San Pedro la Laguna, a small frenetic and busy town of about 6,000 bordering the lake of Atitlan was to be our longest stay anywhere as tourists. We fell in love with it instantly. The whistles and Oomph, Oomph Oomphs did not spring up much, but the people, especially the children, were all super friendly. Jessica was still bummed out that no one wanted to party in Xela, so our goal was to find dancing. The attempt was made to master the Salsa at a place called Chile. Mind you, these hips are powerful fucking forces on the dance floor. But the series of steps to learning Salsa is so simple that it renders them useless. At first there was a determination to master the dance with Jessica, who is an extremely talented and long time trained dancer, but either Jessica´s ADD kicked in or she had no patience for learning with shabby me. To the bar where a girl from Wasilla Alaska was bartending. Back in Lawrence, a relationship was recently had with a girl from Wasilla and gosh darn it, it´s always fun to get a general consensus attitude about the same place from multiple sources. The night went on in lively conversation with a group of four friends, guys from Scotland. The opportunity was had to translate from Spanish to English and back between the Brit (living in Scotland), Joe and French girl who knew no english. By the time the speaking grew to second nature my person was probably too drunk to carry on with her. While her spanish was already atrocious. Intresting how presciently bad pronunciation of Spanish becomes from the mouths of Europeans and Asians.

The walk home was somewhat of a success although we had planned for a taxi to be there since almost all of the bars were located on the doc right behind us. The success was that Jessica and myself were civil to each other and found our hotel like a team. (less than 6 football fields between hotel Peneleu and Chile and it took more than an hour to get home).

In the morning we were on our way to a hipper hotel. Hipper, according to an unnamed travel book that has a household name. Also withheld from this post is the name of the hotel. Though it would be fairly easy to figure it out. It is owned by some Israelis who like to have the proverbial good time. Most of the guests there were also Israeli. All of the guests, we noticed were extremely good looking twenty somethings; it should be qualified that they resemble conventionally beautiful people. Healthy beautiful people, some to the point where they bordered on boring looking. The would-be concierge, Tomas a slightly older guy from Belgium appeared to Jessica as a Luke Perry (Beverly Hills 90210 fame) look alike. He certainly dressed like it. Further down you´ll see my visual reference for the guy. From the very beginning, Jessica astutely felt an atmosphere of cliqueishness. It was not that the guests were being intentionally exclusive. All of them were very nice and invited us to sit with them. But they couldn´t help but speaking their womb comforting tongue of hebrew. Almost none of them spoke any Spanish and when you tried to speak it to the ones who did, they looked annoyed and told you to speak english.

Overall, we were made to feel at home there amid the staw bale and palm tree thatched canopy and the middle eastern style seating in the back. Everything on the menu, especially the Israeli stuff was scrumptous. Never had Taboule like that before. And the Bango Lassie with ice cream...and cookies, which Tomas made hints about several times.

Inspite of a hang-over, a strong attempt was made to observe the social dynamic in the hotel. All of the people working in the kitchen were Guatemaltecas. Mayan girls, mostly in their traditional dresses---aesthetic note: one of the best things about the places so far inhabited by my person in Guatemala is the shortage of obnoxious women´s clothing and women´s clothing stores. For the most part, the women are either dressed in the mildy conservative traditional and colorful Mayan dresses or are very non descript, almost tom boyish. This is my preference. Granted there are a lot of hot girls who dress up. At the very least my longtime purveyorship of pornography has desynsitized me into accepting that some hot women like to dress up like some semi distant relation to the western circus clown. Ahh, digression.

The girls in the kitchen were giggly. When they flirt they are confident enough not to be coy. (big sigh of contentment). After making a little conversation with them it became obvious that a rapport was established between myself and a girl named Anita. The rest of the group teased her, asked if Jessica was mi novia and when the accurate response was given (only when she needs to protect her self), they pulled Anita´s hand up. A streak of determination led me to the counter across from the hotel kitchen many times. Unfortunately the hangover set the body back another day.

The attempt was made more than once to fraternize with our friendly Israeli neighbors in room 3, but they were truly boring, bordering on vaccuous. Questions were asked from me about the Hebrew language and they didn´t have any knowledge or intrest. At one point, Simon, the one who made me feel best, said that Hebrew was the oldest language in the world. That is clearly not true. He could have meant that it´s the oldest language of the Jewish people since the topic started by my seeking further elaboration on the impressive fact that Hebrew was a once dead and recently revived language concurring with the establishment of the Israeli state. Still a bad taste in my mouth settled in. Other times my curiosity about their culture reached out but all they could do was wave their dicks around in praise of everything Israeli.

One morning for breakfast while the eyes an conscious mind were reading the Prensa Libre, Simon came to sit with me. He asked if there was any news about Israel. While it makes sense to want to know what`s going on in one´s country, he explained that he only looked at the paper for news about Israel. By the end of that day it was clear to me how bankrupt the whole scene was. Understandably, there is a lot of the natural pre-nation state world to explore in Guatemala, the horses, the boats in the lake, the mountains and the ruins. But how is it possible for one to be either completely without curiosity or able to ignore the curiosity within about the living breathing culture he or she must navigate amidst. The ethnocentricsm was disconcerting and it made me think of numerous examples of the european explorers and conquerors. Coming to a land and trying to make their posts resemble back home.

Jessica is a vegiterian, which means she has to take her protein powder with her in Guatemala. Otherwise she sleeps. We slept more than anything else those last two nights in San Pedro Laguna. The hangover was my first day´s excuse, and through out that night Jessica expressed a slightly inebriated feeling of pre-enlightenment. We had a good conversation as it seemed that she had finished a lot of reflection. The eyes and ears had never witnessed her like that before. The final day, only the desire to read poetry and flirt with Anita lasted longer than the chance to go out. In the morning Jessica and myself agreed to spend time in the afternoon walking around the labrynth of San Pedro, which has an absence of streeet signs, trying to find bus tickets to our next, separate, destinations. Because of the magic stuff they put in the ice cream drink, it took a lot of funny effort in the midday. Jessica brought in a couple puppies to cuddle with us. At one point, balls of fury laughter blasted out of our room due to the dog licking my left ear. Still insanely stoned, we finally made it out to a host of taxis and persons on the street. It seemed impossible. The only place that was open to sell tickets was an actual travel agency. We found out after going in two circles, that other place was across the street from that agency. A crotchetyold man --crotchety for jovial Guatemala any way-- said that he could sell tickets , but we´d have to come back at 7 at night to buy them. `por que no esta abierto hasta siete de las noche`, I asked. He would only answer in repeating: ``Esta abierto en siete de la noche. Venga entonces¨ (it´s open at 7:00 PM. Come back then.)

Still stoned and immersed in the confusing beauty of the narrow cobble stone streets, we decided to take care of things later. The desire to not speak any Spanish was strong. Our taxi driver back to the hotel wanted to make conversation. He was humored and the humor was worth it. Of course he wanted to know if Jessica was my girlfriend. ``Solamente cuando necesita protegerse`` which means, only when she needs to protect herself. At this he started laughing the ýou guys are alright´ laugh.

After making him laugh a little more in total self deprication, the request was made to obtain a story of the worst client. He replied that the worst are the Israelis. Although not the answer to my question it was quite revealing. ¨Todos de ellos?¨ came the question from my mouth.
¨Si¨, he responded, going on at length about how snobbish they are and how they always complain about the prices of things.

Jessica and myself went to our room and cuddled with the puppies. More sleep was obtained and dream was had in which appeared the belief that my former step father, who killed himself 4 and a half years ago, was alive and writing a vampire novel. Garry Schulkind had also fit a racist stereotype (Jewish American). The dream was surely triggered by the atmosphere.

After waking up, all that was wanted of me was a nice long read. Jessica talked me into hanging out in the dining room area where Tomas was to schmooze. The night seemed to go on for ever, and the only interesting thing to come out of Tomas´s mouth was when he was responding to Jessica´s zany thoughts-- only because the things he said set the scene for more of her zany comments. There was another waiter guy, 40 something, curly haired, obviously gay, very theatrical, confrontational in a fun way, wearing a Harley Davidson T-shirt and a leather vest. He set the shores of the scene wider lensed--at least we had a lot to laugh about. Actually the guy reminded me of Axon, the police chief in the 1973 Alejandro Jodorowski film, ¨The Holy Mountain¨. He´s the one that performs the public castrations of pubescent boys, collects their scrodums in jars and then introduces them to the holy book that is all about wourshiping him. After telling him what my occupation was back home, Tomas went out of his way to say that it sounds boring. This didn´t bother me at all, but it was interesting how much he had to repeat himself as if he did not want to hear a contrary POV. Our police chief waiter pointed out to Tomas the present excitement of Tomas´s employment at the hotel. It was then that my famous person association was gained. Tomas from the eyebrows up looked like a mid sixties Paul Newman. For what it´s worth.

We laid out the story of our misadventure for the day. Tomas had confirmed that it was the cookies in the lassi that made us feel the way we did. They both laid out suggestions for getting out of San Pedro Laguna. For Jessica a ride with a professional streamlined bus might be difficult to obtain the next day. My best bet was a boat to Panachjel, then a bus to Xela. Another option was a chicken bus. ¨Chicken bus¨, Jessica exclaimed. The image was strong¨riding on the back of a wagon truck surrounded by chickens. She wanted to ride it. Both Tomas and the chief made it sound like it was not a fun time.

The next day, Anita´s phone number was obtained, and she was promised a visit in two weeks from then. She and the town were too beatiful not to come back to, even if it required walking back to the hotel and sharing excellent food with the arrogant Israelis. In the end we found a chicken bus that would take us both to our separate destinations. It was no different than the school bus we took to San Pedro. Er, the bus by itself was no different.

A la vuelta a Guate y entonces Xela

No diarrhea yet.

In Guate the pleasure of meeting Miguel Angil Garcia, the husband of Telma (Jessica´s aunt)was had. Telma was sweet enough to tell him of the previous search for a novel by Miguel Ángel Asturias, ¨Los Hombres de Maize¨. (This was primarily the novel that won the Guatemalteco the Nobel and Lenin prizes. It details the lives of traditional Mayans.) Miguel took me to the store to obtain it. On the way we got a chance to talk about many things. He talks much slower so naturally there was never a problem understanding him (thus boosting my already undeserved confidence). He's in fairly bad health and a curiosity arose as to whether he had experienced a mild stroke that causes him to talk and move slow. by the looks of him, he could not be more than 65. And during the drive he was going much slower than Telma. Worry came from under my chest and images were put voluntarily into my head of a nightmare scenerio in which he dies of a heart attack, either on the road or in the store.
Miguel treated me to coffee and went on at personal length about his two full grown children who live in the states and the beachfront hotel he recently bought subsequent to his newfound restlessness in retirement. It was so nice to have that kind of conversation in Spanish again. Un millon de gracias a mi amiga de Panama que vive en Lawrence, Duby cordoba!

Later that evening, we had a light dinner, as is the general custom with dinner in Guatemala, follwed by the last night of their traditional Catholic celebration. Pictures were taken and Maracas and wood blocks were shaken in between the mostly Mamatina led encantations. Sometimes the question is wanted to be asked: who is this jesus fellow? But there is no innocence in it. Just a desire to remind the religious of their anthropomorphic tendancies. Everyone was so kind. Telma made sure to offer their contact information in case something was needed from my quasi green person.

A wonderful 4 hr bus ride to Xela the next day brought Jessica and myself closer together after a couple nasty spats earlier in the week. Xela was more beautiful than imagined. One curiosity is that many of the regular newspapers in Guatemala also contain tabloid features. A wrinkly old women-little boy in a sparkely goun and bouffant hairdew predicting the fate of 2009 bordered on the next page by a report on the recent avalanche that killed over 35 people in the department of Verapaz.

Xela was very close to what had been imagined in my brain except that in those images the sun was always at late afternoon and the surrounding areas of interest were always to the north. We managed to find El Nahaul, my school, and met its director (his name escapes me right now). His face seemed very tired, peaceful but extremely intelligent. He was on crutches and interestingly enough our taxi driver of his recomendation, Carlos D´Leon, had also broken something.

We stayed in the Black Cat hostel. 60 quetzales (about 8 or so dollars) including free breakfast was more expensive than what we were used to. Tourists with whom instincts of warm comaraderie naturally sprung up in an instant were finally met. Two girls from Austin in particular, Andrea and Xoe cought my ears and eyes. We talked about Spanish (in English and Spanish), Marxism, George Orwell, Austin and much more. It must be said that a little aversion is felt to those who want to speak English. Xela is ideal for me because it does not rely on tourism and most all of the non Spanish speaking people there (other than perhaps a Mayan population) were there to learn Spanish. Jessica was not as at home because the kids staying there were less social and more studious. Another girl with whom my words were exchanged was an NYU grad student doing research on Central American garment cooperatives. Another was a handsome and pensive skater from Portland. He accepted our invitation to drink some of our wine, but it was obvious to me that he was more interested in reading his book (travel book about Africa by a Polish journalist). Dancing was on Our minds and we finally found the Salsa place listed in the tour guide. Strangely, you had to walk into the building to see the sign with the bar´s name. It took a lot of fighting with Jessica to get there and in the end, there were not enough people in the room to make her want to get the dancing bug out. Walking all those many blocks sufficed for the body´s exercise and we obtained good sleep.

The next morning we obtained our free breakfast and information needed to get to San Pedro for the afternoon. Traveling with someone as flighty with Jessica is difficult. A temptation was felt to stay in Xela,but it may not have been safe for her to travel alone. Moreover, my pockets would not empty as fast with Jessica. Contact information was exchanged with Andrea and Xoe (Xoe is single and cute as a Mario Bros. toadstool´s button, next to a sign that says no toads allowed). after a wonderful and candid exchange of simple words, a mental note was also made telling me to build a rapport with the Black Cat´s cleaning girl named Rosa when I returned.

Another thing that may have contributed to Jessica´s luke warm feel for xela was that we actually came across extremely rude people at this cosomopolitan restauraunt. It may be that they had a problem with Jessica´s persistent english. Also, in Xela, all of the guys whistle at cute girls. Jessica in her hipster above knee length vintage dress, stood out. By the end of our time there, we had distinguished three local sounds of the horny hombres of Xela. two of them cannot be reproduced. Is there a typographical language for whistles?

But the other one goes like: OOMPH! OOOMPH! OOOMPH!

Random and perhaps all unflattering notes about guatemala:
Roosters always crow in the morning--you know the sound.
So many locals have absolutely no interest in avoiding litter. It is very common to see a person throw a food wrapper on the ground. At the 100 busses or more station, my left over food had to be dropped by the edge of the road next to a completely trashed creek of water because the only trash can looking things were for the containment of bus fuel.



Mr. Pollo, Pollo Campero and Pollo Reye are the kings of fast food Guatemala
Public restrooms suck a tourist´s ass!

But no diarrhea yet.