Venho contar pra vocês
um cordel de três irmãs
simpáticas e bonitas,
inteligentes e sãs,
porém elas são humildes,
não altaneiras nem vãs.
Moram numa ilha tranqüila
bem no meio da Bahia---
a que é de Todos os Santos--
nadando a periferia,
brincando e cantando estranhas
e aquáticas melodias.
Elas nadam nuas sempre--
assim descoberto o peito--
sem malícia, sem pudor,
naturais, sem preconceito,
porque estas irmãs são iaras.
Vivem nuas desse jeito!
Moqueca é a irmã mais velha.
Alta, negra, responsável,
toma conta da família,
mantém a harmonia estável.
Quando acha oportunidades,
procura a recomendável.
A segunda é Mariscada.
Moreno tem o cabelo,
pele canela, olhos verdes,
e um balanço muito belo
pois nada contra a corrente
seguindo um sonho sem vê-lo.
A mais nova, ainda pequena,
de nome Macarronada,
é ruiva, baixa, gordinha.
Disposição animada
tem, pois em todo momento
atua precipitada.
Macarronada é produto
de outra família; é adotada.
Não é baiana; é mineira.
Tem a pronúncia alterada.
Mesmo assim ela faz canto
e com suas irmãs nada!
O caso é que resolveram
cuidar da Praia da Barra
protegendo-a de inimigos
de uma maneira bizarra,
pois vão ouvir como elas agem
segundo este cordel narra.
Foi numa noite de nuvens,
acesa a luz do farol,
o lampião quase visível
como faíscas de sol,
que apareceram dois barcos
da frota do rei espanhol.
As três irmãs, espreitando,
ouviram esta conversa:
"Estos brutos de Bahia
tienen su armada dispersa."
"Después de nuestro saqueo,
¡cómo quedará de adversa!"
"Ataque!" as iaras gritaram,
e agitaram as correntes
fazendo bater as caudas.
As águas ficaram quentes
e os madeiros dos navios
soltavam fumaça, ardentes.
Com raiva na água fervida,
fizeram-se cozinheiras.
Moqueca mudou de canto,
pediu favor das palmeiras
mandarem voando os cocos
pelas brisas passageiras.
Atingiram nos navios,
dando leite em goteirões.
Chamou os outros ingredientes:
cebolas e pimentões,
alho, azeite de dendê,
tomates e alguns limões.
Chegaram voando no ar
e cairam perto dela.
Então tudo misturou.
Fez da bahia panela,
e cozinhou quanto fruto
do mar que cabia nela.
Mas Mariscada achava ruim--
sacrifício insuportável--
deixar tanto peixe morto,
pois curtia o "sustentável."
Então com Macarronada
fez um plano formidável:
Magicamente teceram,
usando uns grandes novelos
feitos de uma coleção
familiar de seus cabelos,
uma rede limitando
a área desses bons apelos.
Assim ficaram presos
os espanhóis nos seus navios:
a zona interior fervia.
Protegidos pelos fios,
na zona exterior pulavam
peixes e animais sadios.
"¡Por Dios! ¡Nos están guisando!"
os marinheiros berraram.
Suando, desesperados,
rapidamente tiraram
casacos, camisas, calças
até despidos ficaram.
As iaras os viram nus,
desarmados e perplexos.
Aí falou Macarronada:
"Os jeitos não são complexos.
A comida já está feita e
pro baile, ambos os sexos!"
Adotando aquela idéia,
lembraram dicas maternas:
morderam-se os rabos, jeito
de dar mudanças internas,
transformando o que é de peixe
numas belas e fortes pernas.
Convertidas em mulheres,
subiram nas caravelas
trazendo moqueca quente
numas mágicas tigelas.
Os homens, maravilhados,
não desistiram de vê-las.
De novo elas cantaram,
os guerreiros convidando
a comerem e dançarem
toda a noite, desfrutando
a festa náutica e nua,
o farol iluminando.
Os espanhóis aceitaram.
A festa foi um sucesso.
Foi mostrada a cortesia
naquele alegre congresso.
Quanto aos bons fins diplomáticos,
A nudez virou progresso!
Muitos fazem homenagem
à mensagem dessa lenda.
Com apreço se reúnem
a fazer da nudez, senda
da humanidade instruída
a ver o mundo sem venda.
Por isso é que o dia de hoje,
quando vem alguém à praia
dançar e comer ao sol
sem sunga, tanga, nem saia,
deve ter zona marcada,
todos respeitando a raia!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
El oratáculo
Anduvo por el desierto
los cuarenta y tres días
con su unánime noche.
Supo lo que es la intimidad con los escarabajos,
el convivio con las lagartijas,
el comerse las agrias ansias
y volver bien redondas las dudas
de tanto reciclarlas.
Deambuló por ambos lados de la frontera
de la lucidez.
Y ahora, en extremos de fertilidad desatada,
chorrea disparates que envuelven--
de manera ya cotidiana--
alguna que otra profecía.
Está como nublado, obnubilado,
emitiendo un perpetuo chipichipi
de nostalgias hipotéticas
y fantasías cimentadas
cuando rederrepente se despeja,
se escucha el acorde sostenido y triunfante
de un coro angelical,
y estalla de su rostro iluminado la expresión
inconfundible pero instantánea
de la Verdad,
para luego seguir ensartando
otras sandeces insospechadas.
Entre azul y buenas noches,
cuando no es orate, es oráculo.
Acaso viene siendo lo mismo.
los cuarenta y tres días
con su unánime noche.
Supo lo que es la intimidad con los escarabajos,
el convivio con las lagartijas,
el comerse las agrias ansias
y volver bien redondas las dudas
de tanto reciclarlas.
Deambuló por ambos lados de la frontera
de la lucidez.
Y ahora, en extremos de fertilidad desatada,
chorrea disparates que envuelven--
de manera ya cotidiana--
alguna que otra profecía.
Está como nublado, obnubilado,
emitiendo un perpetuo chipichipi
de nostalgias hipotéticas
y fantasías cimentadas
cuando rederrepente se despeja,
se escucha el acorde sostenido y triunfante
de un coro angelical,
y estalla de su rostro iluminado la expresión
inconfundible pero instantánea
de la Verdad,
para luego seguir ensartando
otras sandeces insospechadas.
Entre azul y buenas noches,
cuando no es orate, es oráculo.
Acaso viene siendo lo mismo.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Europe Syrup
There's a kind of a sticky-sweet pap that pervades Latin American cultural discourse: a syncretic residue, patina of questionable glories, that many accept at face value. It is a treacle preferred worldwide, and its main ingredient is Eurocentrism.
A majority of us in the Americas speak and write European languages, but try as Neruda might to declare that the barbarism of the Spanish conquest was forgiven by the wondrous gift of the Castilian language, European languages merely replaced indigenous ones. Many of these were already quite complex, and although they did not have, at the time of European contact, the chirographic and even typographical advances that some of the European languages had so recently developed themselves, they were rich in other ways, including synesthetic picture writing in Mesoamerica, and the tactile essence of the Andean quipus as well as the stelae of several cultures. In the case of Nheengatu, the língua geral of colonial Brazil, the vocabulary of an indigenous language (Tupinambá) was grafted onto the syntax of a European one (Portuguese). The happily wed pidgin functioned fine, far and wide, over several centuries and is still spoken today.
It is telling that nouns are the part of speech in which the indigenous languages most greatly enriched the European ones. Flora, fauna, and objects unfamiliar to the Europeans were either assimilated via their indigenous signifieds (often mispronounced or "adapted" to European pronunciations) or misnamed to fit European experience (i.e. tigre for jaguar). But verbs, as in ways of doing and being and thinking? Precious few. And yet certain cultural practices and cognitive processes persist in the Americas, evident in behavioral preferences. For example, why does traditional Mexican pedagogy continue to focus so intensely on penmanship, to the detriment of content, in the instruction of writing skills? Perhaps it is the result of a double legacy: the Mexica tlacuilos--scribes whose job was to copy words as objects, not produce new sequences of them--and the colonial New Spanish Catholic focus on teaching Latin, more than Castilian, as a language already set in stone, a language to memorize in inalterable prayers.
Inquisitorial proscriptions (among other factors) delayed the establishment of printing presses in the Iberian colonies.Yet in the Lusophone world today, Brazil dominates the publishing industry as well as film and television production. Huge and powerful Brazil is the "gigante acordado"; however, in the Spanish-speaking world, the majority of the main publishers are now Spanish-owned, despite strong growth in the publishing industries of Mexico, Argentina, and Chile in the late 20th century. Nonetheless, this imbalance pertains only to print. The Spanish American countries, and Brazil, compete very well with Spain and other countries in terms of television and film output. Such video productions often aim to promote, say, Mexican tourism or Brazilian landscapes, foregrounding contemporary interpretations of the autochthonous for viewers both domestic and foreign.
It is perhaps surprising that so many manifestations of autochthonous lifeways survived the Iberian invasions. But I find it more surprising that there still exists, in the 21st century, so much deference to Europe. European writers, especially theorists and philosophers but even creative writers, continue to be more widely studied in Latin America than their homegrown counterparts. But those European theorists and thinkers have so much to say, and they've said it so well, and produced so much over a longer period of time in the language, and it's so widely discussed!, one might object. Well, one thing leads to another, doesn't it? I would suggest that the underlying assumption is that certain kinds of thinking don't happen outside Europe or the Anglo West. As much as we like to think about how the expressions of a given language can shape (and thus limit) thought in that language, to assert that philosophy has not and cannot be expressed in a non-European language is absurd. The challenge is to not just take for granted that philosophy is all about the Germans or the French.
In Larry Baxter's novel The Mayan Glyph, the cure for an unknown epidemic hinges on the deciphering of classic-era Mayan glyphs that show that at least one Mayan scientist was on the track of the periodic table of the elements. The visual design of his discovery had been expressed in a way unfamiliar to Western convention. The premise is fictitious though not implausible, given how much we know about Mayan advances in math and astronomy. One wonders just how much can be recovered, or rediscovered, regarding American indigenous and also African attainments in the various fields of knowledge, including definitions of (or variations on) epistemology itself. It all comes down to language: visual, oral, even tactile.
Hold the syrup.
A majority of us in the Americas speak and write European languages, but try as Neruda might to declare that the barbarism of the Spanish conquest was forgiven by the wondrous gift of the Castilian language, European languages merely replaced indigenous ones. Many of these were already quite complex, and although they did not have, at the time of European contact, the chirographic and even typographical advances that some of the European languages had so recently developed themselves, they were rich in other ways, including synesthetic picture writing in Mesoamerica, and the tactile essence of the Andean quipus as well as the stelae of several cultures. In the case of Nheengatu, the língua geral of colonial Brazil, the vocabulary of an indigenous language (Tupinambá) was grafted onto the syntax of a European one (Portuguese). The happily wed pidgin functioned fine, far and wide, over several centuries and is still spoken today.
It is telling that nouns are the part of speech in which the indigenous languages most greatly enriched the European ones. Flora, fauna, and objects unfamiliar to the Europeans were either assimilated via their indigenous signifieds (often mispronounced or "adapted" to European pronunciations) or misnamed to fit European experience (i.e. tigre for jaguar). But verbs, as in ways of doing and being and thinking? Precious few. And yet certain cultural practices and cognitive processes persist in the Americas, evident in behavioral preferences. For example, why does traditional Mexican pedagogy continue to focus so intensely on penmanship, to the detriment of content, in the instruction of writing skills? Perhaps it is the result of a double legacy: the Mexica tlacuilos--scribes whose job was to copy words as objects, not produce new sequences of them--and the colonial New Spanish Catholic focus on teaching Latin, more than Castilian, as a language already set in stone, a language to memorize in inalterable prayers.
Inquisitorial proscriptions (among other factors) delayed the establishment of printing presses in the Iberian colonies.Yet in the Lusophone world today, Brazil dominates the publishing industry as well as film and television production. Huge and powerful Brazil is the "gigante acordado"; however, in the Spanish-speaking world, the majority of the main publishers are now Spanish-owned, despite strong growth in the publishing industries of Mexico, Argentina, and Chile in the late 20th century. Nonetheless, this imbalance pertains only to print. The Spanish American countries, and Brazil, compete very well with Spain and other countries in terms of television and film output. Such video productions often aim to promote, say, Mexican tourism or Brazilian landscapes, foregrounding contemporary interpretations of the autochthonous for viewers both domestic and foreign.
It is perhaps surprising that so many manifestations of autochthonous lifeways survived the Iberian invasions. But I find it more surprising that there still exists, in the 21st century, so much deference to Europe. European writers, especially theorists and philosophers but even creative writers, continue to be more widely studied in Latin America than their homegrown counterparts. But those European theorists and thinkers have so much to say, and they've said it so well, and produced so much over a longer period of time in the language, and it's so widely discussed!, one might object. Well, one thing leads to another, doesn't it? I would suggest that the underlying assumption is that certain kinds of thinking don't happen outside Europe or the Anglo West. As much as we like to think about how the expressions of a given language can shape (and thus limit) thought in that language, to assert that philosophy has not and cannot be expressed in a non-European language is absurd. The challenge is to not just take for granted that philosophy is all about the Germans or the French.
In Larry Baxter's novel The Mayan Glyph, the cure for an unknown epidemic hinges on the deciphering of classic-era Mayan glyphs that show that at least one Mayan scientist was on the track of the periodic table of the elements. The visual design of his discovery had been expressed in a way unfamiliar to Western convention. The premise is fictitious though not implausible, given how much we know about Mayan advances in math and astronomy. One wonders just how much can be recovered, or rediscovered, regarding American indigenous and also African attainments in the various fields of knowledge, including definitions of (or variations on) epistemology itself. It all comes down to language: visual, oral, even tactile.
Hold the syrup.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Cumbia del calambre
Yo tengo mal de amores, caray,
y me tiembla todo el cuerpo.
Por eso fui al consultorio
y así me dijo el médico:
"Con esa calentura que tienes,
muchacho, que para curarte,
hay que bailar la cumbia,
¡la cumbia del calambre!"
Esos ojazos que tiene mi amor
me taladraron el pecho.
Por eso me recetaron así
cuando fui con el curandero:
"Con esa presión alta que tienes,
muchacho, que para curarte,
hay que bailar la cumbia,
¡la cumbia del calambre!"
Baliando con ella me siento feliz.
La tengo conmigo y la estrecho.
Por eso todos me dicen lo mismo
que no existe otro remedio:
"Con esa comezón fuerte que tienes,
muchacho, que para curarte,
hay que bailar la cumbia,
¡la cumbia del calambre!"
y me tiembla todo el cuerpo.
Por eso fui al consultorio
y así me dijo el médico:
"Con esa calentura que tienes,
muchacho, que para curarte,
hay que bailar la cumbia,
¡la cumbia del calambre!"
Esos ojazos que tiene mi amor
me taladraron el pecho.
Por eso me recetaron así
cuando fui con el curandero:
"Con esa presión alta que tienes,
muchacho, que para curarte,
hay que bailar la cumbia,
¡la cumbia del calambre!"
Baliando con ella me siento feliz.
La tengo conmigo y la estrecho.
Por eso todos me dicen lo mismo
que no existe otro remedio:
"Con esa comezón fuerte que tienes,
muchacho, que para curarte,
hay que bailar la cumbia,
¡la cumbia del calambre!"
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
seis sóis
seis sóis de seis céus
coleção que são
coleção colagem
alguns mexicanos
outros estadunidenses
mais um dominicano
mas no mosaico
mais universais
vários sorrisos
só um sem raios
tem de metal, de barro, de vidro
naturais, pintados, até transparente
tem de metal, de barro, de vidro
naturais, pintados, até transparente
todos capturados
pela minha câmara
em dias de sol
quanto sol neste verão
quantos sóis verão?
seis sóis sós
cada sol no seio do seu céu
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Echoes of Nezahualcoyotl
A Brief Commentary on “Tezcotzinco” by Alan Seeger
Though thou art now a ruin bare and cold,
Thou wert sometime the garden of a king.
The birds have sought a lovelier place to sing.
The flowers are few. It was not so of old.
It was not thus when hand in hand there strolled
Through arbors perfumed with undying Spring
Bare bodies beautiful, brown, glistening,
Decked with green plumes and rings of yellow gold.
Do you suppose the herdsman sometimes hears
Vague echoes borne beneath the moon’s pale ray
From those old, old, far-off, forgotten years?
Who knows? Here where his ancient kings held sway
He stands. Their names are strangers to his ears.
Even their memory has passed away.
Alan Seeger (1888, United States-1916, France), a poet and soldier who died in battle in WWI, is perhaps best known for his poem “I Have a Rendezvous with Death.” Seeger spent part of his youth in Mexico and decided to write about Tezcotzinco, the park and spa designed by 15th-century tlatoani Nezahualcoyotl for his own use, not far from his palace in Texcoco (present-day Mexico state). Maybe Seeger felt an affinity with Nezahualcoyotl, a fellow poet. Chapultepec Park in Mexico City, also originally designed by Nezahualcoyotl, is infinitely more utilized as an actual park, but I have a feeling that the Tezcotzinco park area is not as abandoned or forgotten today as Seeger’s poetic voice suggests. Nonetheless, the sonnet is a finely wrought treatment of the ubi sunt theme in a Mesoamerican setting.
The first quatrain, in spite of the elevated register, and in spite of referring to the garden that the ruin once was, consists of short phrases that describe the ruin’s absence of life and movement. In contrast, the second quatrain, evoking the garden of old, is one long, lush phrase. It is linked to the end of the previous quatrain through the anaphora “It was not,” but it is much more extensive, and suggestive of a Garden of Eden. Colors abound (brown, green, and the pleonasm “yellow gold”), with ornamentation, perfume, and movement (the “bare bodies” stroll and glisten). For extra measure, Seeger bestows on “Spring” the modifier “undying,” an ironic choice given the poem’s theme and conclusion.
True to form, the tercets restate the theme, in this case through a question and a two-part answer: (1) the quick rhetorical question “Who knows?” and (2) the rest of the final verses, characterized by a return to short, sparse statements like those in the opening quatrain. The poetic voice contrasts the second quatrain’s communality of “bodies,” “arbors,” “plumes” and “rings” with the tercet’s solitary figure of the herdsman. The herdsman’s lonely occupation echoes the first quatrain’s ambiance of loneliness, even though the hypothetical “echoes” in the question refer to the glory years of activity in the garden. The correspondence is highlighted by alliteration: the “h”s and “b”s of “herdsman sometimes hears / Vague echoes borne beneath” effectively echo the “h”s and “b”s of “hand in hand” and “Bare bodies, beautiful, brown” in the second quatrain. Another solitary figure in the tercet is the moon, whose “pale” (and singular) "ray" contrasts with the rich colors of the second quatrain.
And in the final verses, the herdsman “stands,” fixed like a column among the ruins, in opposition to the movement of the strolling bodies earlier. The verb “stands” also plays off the word “sway” at the end of the previous verse; the kings “held sway” or controlled motion, but the herdsman merely stands. The questioned echoes from the first tercet dissipate here into unrecognizable “names” and then “Even their memory has passed away,” an allusion to an ultimate death as the unremembered and unknown. This reinforces the “old, old, far-off, forgotten years” at the end of the first tercet, and also recalls a trope frequently employed in this kind of sonnet: nouns of diminishing substance that, together with the short phrases and the loss of words’ substance (visual as well as aural) at the end of the poem, conjure the death itself.
A gem of a sonnet, but fortunately the ubi sunt theme is overstated here. Seeger composed the poem before the victors of the Mexican Revolution began an official revindication of indigenous cultures as part of a renewed national identity, supporting Vasconcelos’s La raza cósmica; the murals of Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros; the color and symbolism of Kahlo and Tamayo; and many other manifestations, culminating perhaps in the monolithic construction of the Museo Nacional de Antropología. Here are some terrific photos, by the highly creative visual artist Bernard Perroud on his outstanding blog, of the park at Tezcotzinco and of the structure known as Nezahualcoyotl’s bath. Long live the memory of Tezcotzinco!
Though thou art now a ruin bare and cold,
Thou wert sometime the garden of a king.
The birds have sought a lovelier place to sing.
The flowers are few. It was not so of old.
It was not thus when hand in hand there strolled
Through arbors perfumed with undying Spring
Bare bodies beautiful, brown, glistening,
Decked with green plumes and rings of yellow gold.
Do you suppose the herdsman sometimes hears
Vague echoes borne beneath the moon’s pale ray
From those old, old, far-off, forgotten years?
Who knows? Here where his ancient kings held sway
He stands. Their names are strangers to his ears.
Even their memory has passed away.
Alan Seeger (1888, United States-1916, France), a poet and soldier who died in battle in WWI, is perhaps best known for his poem “I Have a Rendezvous with Death.” Seeger spent part of his youth in Mexico and decided to write about Tezcotzinco, the park and spa designed by 15th-century tlatoani Nezahualcoyotl for his own use, not far from his palace in Texcoco (present-day Mexico state). Maybe Seeger felt an affinity with Nezahualcoyotl, a fellow poet. Chapultepec Park in Mexico City, also originally designed by Nezahualcoyotl, is infinitely more utilized as an actual park, but I have a feeling that the Tezcotzinco park area is not as abandoned or forgotten today as Seeger’s poetic voice suggests. Nonetheless, the sonnet is a finely wrought treatment of the ubi sunt theme in a Mesoamerican setting.
The first quatrain, in spite of the elevated register, and in spite of referring to the garden that the ruin once was, consists of short phrases that describe the ruin’s absence of life and movement. In contrast, the second quatrain, evoking the garden of old, is one long, lush phrase. It is linked to the end of the previous quatrain through the anaphora “It was not,” but it is much more extensive, and suggestive of a Garden of Eden. Colors abound (brown, green, and the pleonasm “yellow gold”), with ornamentation, perfume, and movement (the “bare bodies” stroll and glisten). For extra measure, Seeger bestows on “Spring” the modifier “undying,” an ironic choice given the poem’s theme and conclusion.
True to form, the tercets restate the theme, in this case through a question and a two-part answer: (1) the quick rhetorical question “Who knows?” and (2) the rest of the final verses, characterized by a return to short, sparse statements like those in the opening quatrain. The poetic voice contrasts the second quatrain’s communality of “bodies,” “arbors,” “plumes” and “rings” with the tercet’s solitary figure of the herdsman. The herdsman’s lonely occupation echoes the first quatrain’s ambiance of loneliness, even though the hypothetical “echoes” in the question refer to the glory years of activity in the garden. The correspondence is highlighted by alliteration: the “h”s and “b”s of “herdsman sometimes hears / Vague echoes borne beneath” effectively echo the “h”s and “b”s of “hand in hand” and “Bare bodies, beautiful, brown” in the second quatrain. Another solitary figure in the tercet is the moon, whose “pale” (and singular) "ray" contrasts with the rich colors of the second quatrain.
And in the final verses, the herdsman “stands,” fixed like a column among the ruins, in opposition to the movement of the strolling bodies earlier. The verb “stands” also plays off the word “sway” at the end of the previous verse; the kings “held sway” or controlled motion, but the herdsman merely stands. The questioned echoes from the first tercet dissipate here into unrecognizable “names” and then “Even their memory has passed away,” an allusion to an ultimate death as the unremembered and unknown. This reinforces the “old, old, far-off, forgotten years” at the end of the first tercet, and also recalls a trope frequently employed in this kind of sonnet: nouns of diminishing substance that, together with the short phrases and the loss of words’ substance (visual as well as aural) at the end of the poem, conjure the death itself.
A gem of a sonnet, but fortunately the ubi sunt theme is overstated here. Seeger composed the poem before the victors of the Mexican Revolution began an official revindication of indigenous cultures as part of a renewed national identity, supporting Vasconcelos’s La raza cósmica; the murals of Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros; the color and symbolism of Kahlo and Tamayo; and many other manifestations, culminating perhaps in the monolithic construction of the Museo Nacional de Antropología. Here are some terrific photos, by the highly creative visual artist Bernard Perroud on his outstanding blog, of the park at Tezcotzinco and of the structure known as Nezahualcoyotl’s bath. Long live the memory of Tezcotzinco!
Friday, July 30, 2010
Café con piernas
¿Qué cosa es café con piernas?
Escondido tras vidrio ahumado,un local de misterio donde apenas
se vislumbran unas piernas
esbeltas
que pasean,
desarticuladas,
por la única banda de transparencia
en la fachada.
Venga y pruebe una taza de sabrosa sinécdoque
con leche, con azúcar, con piernas de mujer.
¿Quiere Ud. un descanso, caballero?
Aquí hay reposo y ambiente
acogedor
para refrescar la sed de la mirada.
Aquí no tienen precio las carnes,
propiamente,
pero, eso sí, tienen aprecio.
No están a la venta,
sino a la vista.
Venga y pruebe una taza de sabrosa sinécdoque
con azúcar, con piernas, con leche de mujer.
¿Quién se entera de que Ud. está aquí?
Sus compañeros clientes,
y más nadie.
Aquí tapamos rostros para que no vean los peatones,
pero hay mucho más que está bien
destapado.
Entre santiaguinos y turistas,
el frecuentador y el explorador,
abrimos otro hueco en el mostrador.
Venga y pruebe una taza de sabrosa sinécdoque
con piernas, con leche, con azúcar de mujer.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Amazonas: Saudades de um Restaurante Brasileiro
Ah, as saudades que tenho dessa época da minha vida! Sendo aluno pos-graduado em literatura latino-americana na Universidade de Virginia, lá pelo meio da década dos noventa, decidi trabalhar de garçom em um dos três restaurantes brasileiros que houve então na pequena cidade de Charlottesville. Eram os restaurantes ABC: Amazonas, Brasil-Brazil, e Copacabana.
Eis o caso que essa área do estado de Virginia recebera uma grande porção da muito comentada emigração da cidade de Governador Valadares, no estado brasileiro de Minas Gerais. Então os donos desses três restaurantes, mais o dono de um restaurante italiano, representavam, localmente, essa diáspora em particular. No caso do Amazonas, a cozinheira era que tinha chegado de GV em Minas. O namorado dela, peruano da região amazônica (Iquitos), era o dono e pôs o nome do restuarante, mesmo que a comida tinha tendência muito mais mineira e baiana do que amazônica!
Foi, agora entendo, um trabalho ideal para mim nesse momento, porque me ofereceu a oportunidade de praticar constantemente não só o português e o espanhol falados, mas também a contínua mudança entre eles. O dono e eu éramos os únicos que falávamos os três idiomas bem. Num procedimento típico, eu tomava a ordem em inglês, passava pela área de pratos e colheres e garfos etc. falando com os outros garçons em espanhol, e dava a ordem na cozinha em português. Muito embora, também era normal ter freguês hispano-falante, ou mesmo luso-falante de vez em quando. Houve também garçons brasileiros, e garçons americanos que expressavam-se só em inglês.
Mas o grande desafio para mim era manter separados estes dois idiomas ibéricos transplantados. Observava, com fascinação lingüística, como era que a cozinheira e o assistente dela, mexicano de Jalisco, falavam-se no calor do momento e às pressas um estranho portunhol, feito sempre ou de cognados culinários mutuamente compreensíveis ("pão" e "pan," "cebola" e "cebolla") ou da opção, de entre as duas línguas, que oferecia menos sílabas: "faca" mas não "cuchillo," "piña" e não "abacaxi"!
E em aquele ambiente bem bohêmio de muros de estuco decorados com artesanatos peruanos, eu também absorvia a MPB (música popular brasileira) que sempre ouvia-se no restaurante (sobretudo a coleção Brazil Classics compilada por David Byrne); experimentava a excelente comida da cozinheira: feijoada, moqueca, mariscada, macarronada, quindim, etc. e tal; aprendi a preparar caipiroskas (ou seja com vodka, e não caipirinhas, porque a venta da cachaça era prohibida pelo governo estatal!); e mais que nada, fiz amizades e vivi belos momentos, mesmo quando berrava algum freguês chateado!
Eis o caso que essa área do estado de Virginia recebera uma grande porção da muito comentada emigração da cidade de Governador Valadares, no estado brasileiro de Minas Gerais. Então os donos desses três restaurantes, mais o dono de um restaurante italiano, representavam, localmente, essa diáspora em particular. No caso do Amazonas, a cozinheira era que tinha chegado de GV em Minas. O namorado dela, peruano da região amazônica (Iquitos), era o dono e pôs o nome do restuarante, mesmo que a comida tinha tendência muito mais mineira e baiana do que amazônica!
Foi, agora entendo, um trabalho ideal para mim nesse momento, porque me ofereceu a oportunidade de praticar constantemente não só o português e o espanhol falados, mas também a contínua mudança entre eles. O dono e eu éramos os únicos que falávamos os três idiomas bem. Num procedimento típico, eu tomava a ordem em inglês, passava pela área de pratos e colheres e garfos etc. falando com os outros garçons em espanhol, e dava a ordem na cozinha em português. Muito embora, também era normal ter freguês hispano-falante, ou mesmo luso-falante de vez em quando. Houve também garçons brasileiros, e garçons americanos que expressavam-se só em inglês.
Mas o grande desafio para mim era manter separados estes dois idiomas ibéricos transplantados. Observava, com fascinação lingüística, como era que a cozinheira e o assistente dela, mexicano de Jalisco, falavam-se no calor do momento e às pressas um estranho portunhol, feito sempre ou de cognados culinários mutuamente compreensíveis ("pão" e "pan," "cebola" e "cebolla") ou da opção, de entre as duas línguas, que oferecia menos sílabas: "faca" mas não "cuchillo," "piña" e não "abacaxi"!
E em aquele ambiente bem bohêmio de muros de estuco decorados com artesanatos peruanos, eu também absorvia a MPB (música popular brasileira) que sempre ouvia-se no restaurante (sobretudo a coleção Brazil Classics compilada por David Byrne); experimentava a excelente comida da cozinheira: feijoada, moqueca, mariscada, macarronada, quindim, etc. e tal; aprendi a preparar caipiroskas (ou seja com vodka, e não caipirinhas, porque a venta da cachaça era prohibida pelo governo estatal!); e mais que nada, fiz amizades e vivi belos momentos, mesmo quando berrava algum freguês chateado!
Monday, July 19, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Una lotería mesoamericana
En el tradicional juego de la lotería mexicana, el que "canta" las figuras lo que hace primero es dar una descripción o metáfora de ellas conforme aparecen seleccionadas, incluyendo el nombre después si hace falta. Así, por ejemplo: "El abrigo de los pobres... ¡el sol! El que saluda al amanecer... ¡el gallo!"
Ofrezco a seguir metáforas o descripciones para poder "cantar" los íconos prehispánicos pintados en la imagen de esta artesanía que conseguí en Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas. Originalmente fue calendario, pero como ya se acabó aquel año, escondí esa parte de la tela, ¡y ahora parece más bien tablero de lotería! Muchas de las descripciones o metáforas aluden a la cosmología mesoamericana, por lo que incluyo aquí los nombres de los animales en uno de los idiomas mesoamericanos: el náhuatl.
El alma del guerrero (el colibrí / huitzilin)
La base de la tierra (la tortuga / ayotli)
El retrato en la luna (el conejo / tochtli)
El hijo de los hombres de palo (el mono / ozomatli)
El que se paró en el nopal (el águila / cuauhtli)
La mascota comestible (el perro / izcuintle)
El que por poder hablar, no deja de mentir (el perico / queletzu)
La madre que lleva a sus crías en un bolsón (el tlacuache / tlacuatzin)
El relámpago envenenado (la serpiente / coatl)
El bufón hocicón (el tejón / pezotli)
El baile de los yaquis (el venado / mazatl)
El cacaotero que fecundó la tierra (el lagarto / cipactli)
El cazador bajito que grita alto (la comadreja / cozamatl)
El león de las montañas (la puma / miztli)
El plumaje precioso (el quetzal / quetzalli)
El que ilumina la noche con sus ojos (el jaguar / ocelotl)
Ofrezco a seguir metáforas o descripciones para poder "cantar" los íconos prehispánicos pintados en la imagen de esta artesanía que conseguí en Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas. Originalmente fue calendario, pero como ya se acabó aquel año, escondí esa parte de la tela, ¡y ahora parece más bien tablero de lotería! Muchas de las descripciones o metáforas aluden a la cosmología mesoamericana, por lo que incluyo aquí los nombres de los animales en uno de los idiomas mesoamericanos: el náhuatl.
El alma del guerrero (el colibrí / huitzilin)
La base de la tierra (la tortuga / ayotli)
El retrato en la luna (el conejo / tochtli)
El hijo de los hombres de palo (el mono / ozomatli)
El que se paró en el nopal (el águila / cuauhtli)
La mascota comestible (el perro / izcuintle)
El que por poder hablar, no deja de mentir (el perico / queletzu)
La madre que lleva a sus crías en un bolsón (el tlacuache / tlacuatzin)
El relámpago envenenado (la serpiente / coatl)
El bufón hocicón (el tejón / pezotli)
El baile de los yaquis (el venado / mazatl)
El cacaotero que fecundó la tierra (el lagarto / cipactli)
El cazador bajito que grita alto (la comadreja / cozamatl)
El león de las montañas (la puma / miztli)
El plumaje precioso (el quetzal / quetzalli)
El que ilumina la noche con sus ojos (el jaguar / ocelotl)
Friday, July 2, 2010
El don de la palabra
The word don in Spanish is an honorary title for men, as in Don Felipe or Don José or Cervantes's Don Quixote. The women's equivalent is doña. But don also means a special gift or talent, as in the phrase don de gente to describe a "people" person like Bill Clinton, or don de la palabra, sometimes translated as the "gift of gab" but more like the gift of being well spoken and expressive.
Don Pablo Ramírez, "La Torre de Jalisco," is someone who definitely has el don de la palabra. Jalisco, Mexico-born Ramírez, a long-time resident of the Univisión channel's República Deportiva, is one of the comentaristas for the World Cup soccer games. Listening to the games in English is, frankly, listless and clinical. Listening to them in Spanish on Univisión is just as analytical but much more fun, and not only because of don Pablo's famous phrase "gol. [big breath] ¡¡¡GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL GOL GOL GOL GOL GOL AZO AZO AZO GOLAZO GOLAZO!!!"
I've had memorable communal experiences watching World Cup games in Mexico (1990, 1998, 2002) and Spain (1994): listening to verbose TV commentators and bombastic viewers gathered in hotel lobbies, corner bars, restaurants, or private residences, with beer or coffee (depending on the hour of the day) flowing in abundance. Here in the States, don Pablo exemplifies soccer commentary in the Spanish and Portuguese-language tradition, with a penchant for witty phrases and intriguing imagery. For example, at one point in a recent game in this 2010 edition of the World Cup, to describe a failed head-butt attempt for what would have been the team's third goal, don Pablo elaborated the following metaphor: "¡IBA a meter el tercer CLAVO al ataúd! ¡Pero no sacó el MARTILLO a tiempo!" meaning that the player was going to put the third nail (goal) in the coffin (the other team was losing) but he didn't get out the hammer (his head) in time!
Describing a beautiful Brazilian goal exemplifying that nation's jogo bonito tradition, he enthused, "¿Quién DICE que para apreciar una obra de ARTE tienes que ir al museo o al teatro? AQUI estamos VIENDO que nomás hace falta un balón y un BUEN jugador!" (Who says you have to go to a museum or theater to appreciate a work of art? Here we're seeing that you only need a ball and a good player!) You want literary allusion? Praising a formidable goalie, he compared him to "el Can Cerberos," or Cerberus, the three-headed canine guardian of Hades, while discreetly explaining the mythological reference "cortesía de Univisión." He frequently takes the name of his colleague, "El Profe" Bracamontes, "in vain" to dramatically invite his opinion, yelling "¡Háblame Jesús!" which means "Speak to me, Jesus (Bracamontes)!"
One more masterful example: After a ¡GOOOOOOOOOOL!, don Pablo added "¡¡¡LO COLOCO LO COLOCO LOCOLOCOLOCOLOCO!!!" This is a terrific play on words which, slightly altering the G of GOL to a C, takes on at least three meanings: "lo colocó" (he placed it), "lo coló" (he slid it in), and of course "loco."(I don't remember which game this was, but if it was a goal made by the Chilean team, then there would be a fourth meaning as well: Colo-Colo, Chile's best known soccer club, from which several of the national team players come.)
Sin DUDA los comentarios de DON PABLO hacen mucho más ALEGRE el juego, ¡hasta el partido más DESABRIDO!
Don Pablo Ramírez, "La Torre de Jalisco," is someone who definitely has el don de la palabra. Jalisco, Mexico-born Ramírez, a long-time resident of the Univisión channel's República Deportiva, is one of the comentaristas for the World Cup soccer games. Listening to the games in English is, frankly, listless and clinical. Listening to them in Spanish on Univisión is just as analytical but much more fun, and not only because of don Pablo's famous phrase "gol. [big breath] ¡¡¡GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL GOL GOL GOL GOL GOL AZO AZO AZO GOLAZO GOLAZO!!!"
I've had memorable communal experiences watching World Cup games in Mexico (1990, 1998, 2002) and Spain (1994): listening to verbose TV commentators and bombastic viewers gathered in hotel lobbies, corner bars, restaurants, or private residences, with beer or coffee (depending on the hour of the day) flowing in abundance. Here in the States, don Pablo exemplifies soccer commentary in the Spanish and Portuguese-language tradition, with a penchant for witty phrases and intriguing imagery. For example, at one point in a recent game in this 2010 edition of the World Cup, to describe a failed head-butt attempt for what would have been the team's third goal, don Pablo elaborated the following metaphor: "¡IBA a meter el tercer CLAVO al ataúd! ¡Pero no sacó el MARTILLO a tiempo!" meaning that the player was going to put the third nail (goal) in the coffin (the other team was losing) but he didn't get out the hammer (his head) in time!
Describing a beautiful Brazilian goal exemplifying that nation's jogo bonito tradition, he enthused, "¿Quién DICE que para apreciar una obra de ARTE tienes que ir al museo o al teatro? AQUI estamos VIENDO que nomás hace falta un balón y un BUEN jugador!" (Who says you have to go to a museum or theater to appreciate a work of art? Here we're seeing that you only need a ball and a good player!) You want literary allusion? Praising a formidable goalie, he compared him to "el Can Cerberos," or Cerberus, the three-headed canine guardian of Hades, while discreetly explaining the mythological reference "cortesía de Univisión." He frequently takes the name of his colleague, "El Profe" Bracamontes, "in vain" to dramatically invite his opinion, yelling "¡Háblame Jesús!" which means "Speak to me, Jesus (Bracamontes)!"
One more masterful example: After a ¡GOOOOOOOOOOL!, don Pablo added "¡¡¡LO COLOCO LO COLOCO LOCOLOCOLOCOLOCO!!!" This is a terrific play on words which, slightly altering the G of GOL to a C, takes on at least three meanings: "lo colocó" (he placed it), "lo coló" (he slid it in), and of course "loco."(I don't remember which game this was, but if it was a goal made by the Chilean team, then there would be a fourth meaning as well: Colo-Colo, Chile's best known soccer club, from which several of the national team players come.)
Sin DUDA los comentarios de DON PABLO hacen mucho más ALEGRE el juego, ¡hasta el partido más DESABRIDO!
Friday, June 25, 2010
Flush
Slick
Slick
Slick
Dispersants.
The Gulf is so big.
Slick
Slick
Slick
Crustaceans.
The shrimp are so small.
The encabpsulated drobps of bpetroleum add ubp
bpeyond where anybpody can count.
Blackened fish? Fish oil?
This is not what the health guides mean.
Pelicans gulping
for air / not fish.
Dolphins diving
for clear water / not fish.
This mess is so huge and so smelly and so dirty
that the only plumber who can
flush this bowl
is the ancient one-legged storm-bringer,
pan-Caribbean creator / destructor
Hurakán.
Natural solution / divine intervention
to a manmade problem.
What will happen then?
Slick
Slick
Slick
Dispersal:
Drobplets encabpsulating Houston.
Drobplets encabpsulating Atlanta.
Drobplets encabpsulating Washington.
And at least a few little drobplets sent
along the Gulf Stream
to London.
Hurakán can see to that.
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