Them Like Us Too


For truly scary news from the People of European Descent, click here.
(A translation of the anti-immigrant poster from Spain:
Act right or get out! Against the high levels of foreign crime.)

Picnic



Pues salió un relato mío, "La promesa de la fruta", en esta revista. Y no pudo haberse publicado en un momento mejor. Porque me anima a seguir a pesar de. Bueno, ojala que puedan conseguir una copia. Si no, supongo que van a poner algo de la revista en el sitio web de Picnic.

O, muchísimas gracias a Sylvia y a mis correctores del texto (ya saben quiénes son).

Languages Controls Thought

Tell me if this seems wrong crazy, but:


Why are thousands of Palestinians, cut off from the world, hungry and without basic necessities, streaming into Egypt to stock their homes referred to by the NY Times as being on a "shopping spree?" Sorry, but it's not Christmas at a mall in Dallas. That would be a shopping spree. Reminds me of the days after Katrina when the media referred to hungry people in New Orleans taking food and basic necessities as "looters."


And also, why are Fatah and Hamas referred to as "factions?" Are the Democrats and the Republicans also "factions?" No, these are all political parties. But when Palestinians have legitimate political differences, they are breaking into "factions." Sort of like ethnic groups in Africa are "tribes." Makes everything so much more exotic and strange and scary and irrational.


My NY Times corrections for the day.

A Maze of Days


These were days when falling down was impossible. When we stumbled through patches of oil and salt, searching for ports where our dimes would be accepted. An epoch of Viagra and other distasteful aides. A future imagined which would change all preconceived notions of wood and of benches. No longer for small towns and ranches and farms from Korea to Mexico to Texas. These were not the presents we had all around us. We tripped pleasantly professionally together around barriers and skipped the portions we could not rearrange to meet their expectations. Somehow there was a unity in remaining standing. Somehow as we waved goodbye through steaming glass and barbecue shacks, a way forward had already been found.


Learn to Count in Arabic! ¡Aprenda a contar en arabe!

Más o menos es: wahid, ithnen, theletha, arbaaya, khamsa, sitaa, sebaa, themeniya, tisaa, ashara.

Me encantan los números que bailan. Y los números que usamos en el Occidente proceden de los árabes. SIn embargo, los que usamos nosotros vienen de la parte del oeste del mundo arabe y los que ven en el video vienen de la parte este. Ya.

Nuevos posts en el catálogo de sentimiento. New posts.

Hay nuevos posts en El catálogo de sentimiento. New posts in the Catalogue of Feeling.


Run run run check it check it check it. Corre corre corre chéquelo chéquelo chéquelo.


Ahora tiene traducciones homofónicas y otros juegos. Now with homophonic translations and other games.


Fun fun fun a day in Jiuston. Fun fun fun a day worldwide from Art Clash.


And you can't miss Dish a Day for a new Thai snack every day. Tienen que ver Dish a Day donde tiene un nuevo bocadillo tailandés todos los días.

El rancho y mi barrio tejano

A veces pienso que vivo en un rancho remoto del Norte de México, trasladado a la ciudad de Jiusten.

Hoy en la mañana, como casi todos los días, en la casa haciendo tacos de huevo con papa. En la banqueta frente a mi casa, cuatro hombres gritando, riéndose, chupando cerveza Busch de lata a las nueve de la mañana. Cuando salí de la casa para ir a trabajar, pasa una patrulla de la policia local, baja su velocidad frente a los borrachos pero no se para, ni siquiera les dice algo. La patrulla sigue en su camino y yo también. En la esquina, hay una mujer saliendo de la lavandería, pues es una Washateria más bien. La mujer agarra la mano de su niño pequeño y mantiene en equilibrio una canastota de ropa recién lavada y doblada sobre la cabeza. Sus caderas balancean mientras camina y el viento casi tira la ropa al suelo, pero ella corre para que no se le caiga todo, levanta al niño a su pecho y sigue caminando. En la esquina, dos gallinas residentes del barrio buscan granos en las grietas de la banqueta.




Si no fuera por la cerveza Busch y la Washateria dándole el toque bien tejano a la historia, bien podría estar en cualquier rancho de Nuevo León o de Tamaulipas. Y las mañanas como ésta, me hacen querer más a mi humilde barrio.

Coetzee Woos Me Finally

One line about the main character of Disgrace, Professor David Lurie:

He has always been a man of the city, at home amid a flux of bodies where eros stalks and glances flash like arrows.

And then one of his thoughts:

To me certain animal-welfare people are a bit like Christians of a certain kind. Everyone is so cheerful and well-intentioned that after a while you itch to go off and do some raping and pillaging.

He is a complicated man, probably more evil than good. And totally unlike any of us and totally the same.

Iraqi Arabic Novelistic Language Play

Laila Lalami reviews a new book from Sinan Antoon, I'jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody, in The Nation.

I`jaam is presented to us as a manuscript found in 1989 in a file cabinet of the directorate of general security in Baghdad. An introductory page informs us that the manuscript was handwritten with no diacritical marks anywhere on it, which made the task of reading it very difficult. Nevertheless, a state employee named Talal Ahmad is charged with typing the text, and adding diacritical marks and punctuation, but Ahmad chooses to preserve the ambiguities suggested by the absence of dots. For instance, when we encounter the expression "Ministry of Rupture and Inflammation," a footnote alerts us that the words can also be dotted to mean "Ministry of Culture and Information."

Read the whole review here.

FYI & PS - I'd love a copy.

Catalogue of Feeling

For the month of January, a new blog has been started for Fun A Day. Called Catalogue of Feeling. Decided to do a daily drawing or photo with words attached to it. And I'll post the combopiece on the blog. Keeps me moving and honest and motivated. Sometimes might take me a few days to post it, but it'll be done on that day, just maybe not posted each day. So check it out.

Lots of thoughts about what to draw & photo & write & how all of these are to be connected or unconnected. And many ideas about what the Catalogue of Feeling means. Pero mejor lo empiezo este mes y después lo analizo y así el proyecto seguirá creciendo. More interesting así. Ok?

On the Ground in Pakistan

My good friend Sehba Sarwar is posting and has posted a lot of her on the ground thoughts, experiencies and observations on the ground in Karachi, Pakistan on her blog, Daily Noise.

Of course, right now the main writing subject is life post-Bhutto. A good place to find some pictures and info that is often hard to find. And to understand how the images we do see are discovered, taken, packaged, repackaged, produced and distributed for us to see. Right to the source.




Let's go. I'm ready now. You have five minutes to get dressed and then we're leaving. If you don't shut up, I'm gonna walk out and never speak to you again. That dog at my feet is bothering me. Put on my shoes. They're on the floor by the rice paper. My grandmother is waiting. Hurry up. I want to go see my grandmother. And your daddy too. Give me your hand. Like this spread your palm out wide. Hold your hand open. Now grab my hand and I'm getting up. Help me. You're only welcome here because you're my kin and I have to accept you. This is the most attention I've had in years. The lights are off now aren't they. Now hurry up. I didn't ask about the day or the night. Let's go already. We're on the road to Houston. I have to get to the garage apartment. You have five minutes to get ready and you should put on your clothes because if you're not ready I'm leaving anyway. Did someone pick the kids up from school today. I'm ready for blue to be going now. We have to be a ready for the literary party. The railroad was following the musical instrument several months ago because it was raining so much. Who are you. My eyes aren't so good anymore. You are on young people are on their way to being established. I'm ready to leave here. Let's just walk around the bed out there and then into the circle back there. Where are we now. Right I know where we are. Not far. Drive me home. Come on. I wanna go to bed. You don't understand. You children make me nervous. I want one of the boys to take me down to the apartment. Let us go on. Put your nickel in it and start watching the birds. Do you have the keys. I have to get home already. Let's go.

The faggot's gotta be perfectly straight.




El puño de palitos tiene que ser derechito, derechito.

Tamaño Full



Pues entonces me dices que tú crees que sí es verdad que dentro de unos años ya se arreglará todo eso, que pues ya me hacen ciudadano, verdad, o sea que sí no tarda demasiado verdad, una decada o algo.

You gotta turn that beating stick into a walking stick.

Pero pues la verdad es que el chileno ahora ya nos hemos enemistado y pues ya sabes.

You gotta come in on it sometime.

No puedo creer que sea así como tú dices como una ola, pero pues sí como tú dices pues.

I've been looking for a seeinguy dog.

Me dijo que ahora está hasta dando pinches clases del español y pues yo digo que bueno pues es un logro pues.

I found out and like the government, gotta talk with them just so they can open the way and let me buy one a them Guatemala houses.

Sí pues no tiene que ser mañana pero con tal de que un día me caso con una ciudadana y pues a ver que tanto me abren la puerta.

I went to Oaxaca there were teachers in the streets like Fuck you.

La verdad quiere que regrese pero ni modo.

All the Latin countries, like an economic opportunity.

Ni pa tanto guey, como si fuera mucho.


Sanity, Lynching and the Story of Joe Horn

Last month, an Anglo man, Joe Horn, shot two undocumented, Afro-Colombians in their backs, killing them, as they robbed his neighbor's empty home in Pasadena, Texas. Pasadena is an industrial suburb of Houston, full of oil refineries and chemical plants, with a shrinking white population and surging Latino population. According to the census, in the last fifteen years, the town has gone from over 70% Anglo to almost 70% Latino. Well, the white folks are getting restless. Afraid, enraged.


Now we have a one man lynch mob, supported by a chorus of frightened, angry people. To hear what this one-man lynch mob sounds like in action, click here to listen the 911 call as he takes his vigilante (in)justice. I have to warn you the tapes are frightening. Turns out the police were there already when Horn decided to take matters into his own, fallible hands.


And many herald Horn as a hero, worthy of praise. Do we not have a system of justice in this country? Courts and due process? Since when is it every man for himself? Is murder really the appropriate response when no lives are at risk?


It seems pretty simple.


Strike out with rage.




This is what happens.




Violence breeds more of itself. Off-kilter. Madness. Makes sense though deeply. Time to brush up on the history of lynching in Texas. Nothing new here unfortunately.


.

Language as a whole is threatened.






Not only the video but also quotes from an interview with Moroccan poet (writing in Arabic) Mohammed Bennis:


Language as a whole is threatened. Threatened with becoming abbreviated to simple things for political or economic discourse.

*

It is possible for us to notice when we watch the news that all newscasts have the same language, whereas poems do not all have the same language. So, there is the language of profit. The language of poetry, however, is in opposition to this profit, and it does not enter into the logic of the market. For this reason it preserves meaning. And it leaves human experience, through language, as a live experience.


A bio of Bennis is here. The whole interview is here on the website for the journal Banipal: Magazine of Modern Arab Literature, which is out of London and dedicated to publishing Arabic literature in translation. Here is a link to a bilingual version of a poem of Bennis.