fin ... y empezar de nuevo

Suddenly in the last two weeks I find myself singing these songs. They bubble up at times for unknown reasons, each time a different one. As if coming to express something lingering under the skin, something I am not consciously aware of.

I was trying to explain to someone how we learned the songs, because I do know them now, and it made me think back to the first day. Never a formal moment in the process, just learning by listening and doing. Becoming familiar with the rhythms and intonation little by little. Actually I wish I had a recording of our group singing these songs because otherwise I will never again hear them they way I learned and came to love them.

In a few short months I have come to know the amorphous edges of another world, its emotion, the space between its words, the way it relates to me, or doesn't. I will keep exploring, digging deeper and referring back to the scatter of word associations, films, books and artists that were whirled around before us in the course of your classes. Breadcrumbs for years to come, leading I'm sure to magical endings.

For me, as it seems to be for you, this world is not quite pinned down. There is much to be fleshed out, and perhaps it is best that way. I do think that this has kept my commentary reduced. Sometimes it is even difficult to know what questions to ask.... but sometimes learning es asi.

And too, there has been the discovery that I can work with ideas in a visual sense, not just to explain a concept or design, but to wrestle with something less defined, and that through my hand some sort of answer might come out. I will keep this knowledge and practice close, and I hope to work toward a fluency in this language, much more powerful and mysterious at times than words could be.

Gracias Tony, for opening the door, and then the floodgates. I'll be seeing your again soon and often, I hope.

la milpa

A shadowy scene evoking a feeling of helplessness at the unintended invasion of GMO corn strains into the milpa of maíz criollo. The corn which is a being, flesh and blood, with spirit and feeling- an intimate and essential part of the people who sow it- being watered down by winds of change from the north. So that now, even those who don't leave home still have their roots pulled up and washed away. Shame, shame, shame...

daydreaming los angeles

The Red Car came lumbering along, the "A" line. I climbed aboard and took a window seat... I was observing the streetlamps, an old habit. Styles change as one passes from one district to another, one era to another. Very interesting for one who travels by streetcar at night.
                                       -Ry Cooder, "La Vida es un sueño"

This story truly takes your into another world, foreign I think even to those who inhabit Los Angeles. The naive and delicate observations of the trio man could only be his. The perch of the streetcar moving through the quiet streets is the perfect vantage point for our man Arturo, who seems to glide through life seeing, but not always understanding, the strange things that come his way. The trio songs have a similar character, removed and dreamy, full of poetic sentiment behind a wooden mask.

sacrificio a la trova

the adoration renders her mute, and she drowns amongst her pretty gauzy skirts
the mysterious cenote takes another, tragically romantic, untouchable
into the underworld

nunca.

Farolito

Lara thrived in the night, and in the darker corners of the city. I was surprised to learn this, after hearing in his melodies a (bitter) sweetness, a lightness, and a polish that doesn't seem to reflect his milieu. I began to imagine that his music was loved for its ability to shine a light on, and elevate the people and activities going on in the bars and brothels he frequented. He was himself a farolito in his time.

farolito.

Preguntas IV

Ch. 5 The Conquest and Colonialism

1. While there are some real problems in the premise that "the arrival of the Spaniards seemed a liberation to the people under Aztec rule," Paz does present an interesting argument on the subject, which illuminates the power of Christianity as an organizing element of society. The fact that the indigenous people were granted access to religion and society in a way that they had not been before meant that a critical mass of people could be gathered under Christianity's influence, and feel a part of something. There is also the interesting concept that the "death" of Aztec society was essentially built in to its world view through their cyclical conception of time, and led, according to Paz, to acceptance in the face of the conquest. Did this acceptance save the indigenous world from disappearing completely, and allow it to persist under the superimposition of Christianity? Is this part of what makes the Mexican culture so rich and deep? 

2. "I want to understand [colonial society] as a living and therefore contradictory whole." p 103

I think this sums up Paz's whole approach to the world. He seems to revel in these contradictions even more than he is seeking answers or clear theses. I also love this: 

"History has the cruel reality of a nightmare, and the grandeur of man consists in his making beautiful and lasting works out of the real substance of that nightmare .[..] in freeing ourselves from the shapeless horror of reality -- if only for an instant -- by means of creation."  p 103

This love of complexity and contradiction might be why he is so fascinated by a character like Sor. Juana (and me too!) She too, was fascinated by subjects which could not be reconciled, and she didn't feel the need to do so. 

3. "...The principles that ruled society were immutable and untouchable. Spain no longer invented or discovered: she extended her rule, defended herself, enjoyed herself. She did not want to change, what she wanted was to endure." p 104

Reading this, I couldn't help but draw a comparison with the U.S. today. The situation is obviously quite different because of the Catholicism that defined Spanish society, but I wonder if the same process of petrification is not happening here in a different context. At the end of the chapter Paz introduces European rationalism as the next epoch. This, I would say is true here as well. And while rationalism was at first exciting, both spiritually and intellectually, it seems that it could be becoming "dry and immobile," just as Catholicism did. (p.109) What will replace it?

el caballo blanco

I found this wonderful anecdote about Chavela and Jose Antonio and thought it was a lovely image of two people who share the same world, at odds or 'al reves' from everyone else. Maybe this world hovered between reality and dreams, altered by alcohol and their artists' hearts. But also I think it's important to realize that their drinking was not necessary all darkness and dependence. As Carlos Montsivais wrote, in that time, "There were no critical replies to the idiocies and ignominies of machismo, and being a drunk was a feat that undermined the conformity of people enslaved by respectability.”

I tried to paint this heroic escapism and  the friendship it fostered into this scene of the trip that inspired Jose Antonio's song, El Caballo Blanco.

Dos Fuentes

Listening to the the formalized and popularized songs of Ponce, and then the gritty recordings of Cuarteto Coculense I was thinking of how art evolves and grows, and what it gains and what it loses in the process. These songs stick and persist because their lyrics and melodies say something essential or touch upon our shared humanity. Of course it is natural that the same themes (here, lots of love and heartbreak) get interpreted again and again through different lenses. It is especially interesting to see what happens when the same art form moves from the place and time that created it, and into a new and different world. From this to this.

La Paloma Negra

 

This draft presents a dichotomous comparison of heartbreak and la parranda as thresholds, with the power to transform. In both La Paloma Negra and Cuccurucucu, Paloma, the protagonists become symbols through what befalls them. Both echo the idea that love can live on as a ghost. These stories present a darker side of love while leaving its primacy unquestioned.

Preguntas III

Ch. 3 The Day of the Dead

1. "The fiesta is a cosmic experiment, an experiment in disorder, reuniting contradictory elements and principles in order to bring about a renascence of life." p. 51


I'm intrigued by how the apparently explosive nature of the fiesta might be a reaction to/expression of the mix of Spanish and indigenous cultures, a sort of affirmation and denial of aspects of both. Also in looking through the Toor book, I was amazed by the myriad masks worn in these fiestas, which reminded me of the the previous chapter. That there might be a mask within a mask thing going on here. 

2. "Modern death does not have any significance that transcends it or that refers to other values." p. 57

Is this the greatest legacy of the scientific revolution? 

3. "When we explode we touch against the highest point of that tension, we graze the very zenith of life. And there, at at the height of our frenzy, suddenly we feel dizzy: it is then that death attracts us." p. 58

He seems to be painting a picture of Mexican culture of one of extremes. Would this be a symptom of his theory about the mask, or the reason for its existence? 

máscaras

a graphic interpretation of the third quotation below, a meditation on the coming of the silence

Preguntas II

Ch. 2 Mexican Masks

 "This predominance of the closed over the open manifests itself not only as impassivity and distrust, irony and suspicion, but also as love of Form."  p. 32

This made me consider Form not only in terms of ceremony, formula and order, but also in terms of physical form. It reminded me of something I read about the pre-Columbian architectural forms of Mexico in Ancient Origins of the Mexican Plaza by Wagner, Box and Morehead: 
"Unlike the European tradition of architecture, the Maya did not create their structures with the primary aim of creating interior space. Instead, public architecture functioned like gigantic stage set to serve as the backdrop for huge processional rituals, dances and public dramas." 
 Could the idea of the mask be extended to all forms of art (including music) and design as well as social patterns? 

"Womanhood, unlike manhood, is never an end in itself." p. 36

This section brought up a lot of questions for me, including how much these social moors persist today. I wonder what a similar list of ideal attributes and analysis of North American women would look like both then and now. Through his description of the long suffering woman, I came to understand a bit more about how a personnage like Frida Khalo could come to exist. At the same time, I wondered where and how Chavela Vargas fit into all these clearly defined gender roles. 


"This circle is closed and the shadow of Nobody spreads out over our land, choking the Gesticulator and covering everything. Silence - the prehistoric silence, stronger than all the pyramids and sacrifices, all the churches and uprisings and popular songs - comes back to rule over Mexico." p 46

What is he talking about here? What does he see the outcome to be? 

 

Preguntas I : from The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz

Ch. 1 El Pachuco and Other Extremes

"It is natural that the Mexican should withdraw into himself after the explosive phase of the Revolution, to spend a few moments in self-contemplation." etc p. 11

Forgive my ignorance, but I am wondering about the nature and circumstances of the Revolution. Its outcome? Is it the most pivotal moment in Mexican history since the Spanish arrived? 

"I remember that whenever I attempted to examine North American life, anxious to discover its meaning, I encountered my own questioning image. That image, seen against the glittering background of the United States, was the first and perhaps the profoundest answer which that country gave to my questions." p. 12

Can we only begin to know ourselves through an investigation and curiosity about the other?

"But the solitude of the Mexican, under the great stone night of the high plateau that is still inhabited by insatiable gods, is very different from that of the North American, who wanders in an abstract world of machines, fellow citizens and moral precepts. In the Valley of Mexico man feels himself suspended between heaven and earth, and he oscillates between contrary powers and forces and petrified eyes, and devouring mouths. Reality - that is, the world that surrounds us - exists by itself here, has a life of its own, and was not invented by man as it was in the United States." pp. 20-21

I think this is a beautiful examination of the Mexican culture's more observant, passive, accepting attitude toward reality than to N. American's attempt and struggle to control everything.  I am also wondering what it means that a large portion of the first chapter is spent comparing these two nations. Is it because of Paz's experience in both, or their concurrent but differing histories, or because of some other more subtle cultural complex?

pues como bailar ese estilo mexicano

casa y recuerdos

in dreams                                                                                                                                   in waking

                                                                                                               the invisible impressions of time

my mother passes from room to room                                                       aggregate in shadowy corners

                                                                                                                       the dark matter of our lives

in a curio cabinet pastiche                                                                    trapped between  wood and glass

                                                                                                               

of memory and desires                                                                                   

                                                                                                                       

never enough time                                                                                  scrawled amongst dust particles

                                                                                                                         floating on morning light

to open every endless door                                                                               the thumbprint of misery 

                                                                                                                                  the dream of a lover 

but the richness held within                                                              in the creak of the dishwasher door
                                                                                                                      understandings never stated

is palpable, and beckons                                                        in the moaning roof under northerly winds

tierra y corazon

Mi corazón, ritmo biológico y axis emocional, está atarado a todos estos lugares, en la tierra donde he caminando. La cuerda cortada estaba unido a mi papá , uno fundamento para mi. Tan que duele, con esto amuleto, puedo volar un poco más alto y lejos.

I just returned from my first trip to Mexico where I fell in love with the controlled chaos of that place, so rich in culture, landscapes, flavor, dignity.... This course description dropped into my mailbox this morning and it seems fated. Because I want to know more, and keep a thread of Mexican color running through my life.

My name is Story Wiggins. My official name is Mary because I was named after my grandmother Mary Stuart and my mother Mary Randolph (anglo-saxon to the extreme) but I have always been called Story, because my parents were hippies, maybe, and liked to read. I was born in Newport, RI and grew up migrating between Newport and the coastal low country in Beaufort, SC. My parents moved there to find work in the late 80s- my mom as a teacher and my dad as a fisherman.

On my mother's side, the family roots go back to the first European settlers of Virginia (Pocahontas figures in the genealogy) and Massachusetts and my father was a first generation American whose parents came from England and Scotland. My grandmother's grandmother married an Italian count and we cling tightly to this tiny raft of exotic diversity in the family tree.

While in Mexico I found myself riding a horse along the beach at in the quickly dimming light, looking back over my shoulder at the rising sliver of moon. Our guide Ramiro began to sing to my friend and I, beginning with the classic Cielito Lindo and then moving on to boleros he had written himself. It was one of those divine moments in life, and made me want to learn more about the romantic songs of that romantic country. 

Don Octavio says, "I remember that whenever I attempted to examine North American life, anxious to discover its meaning, I encountered my own questioning image. That image, seen against the glittering background of the United States, was the first and perhaps the profoundest answer which that country gave to my questions." I suspect and have felt that the reverse is also true, and through a study of Mexican  song, culture, place and through weekly handmade explorations I hope to raise, and perhaps answer, a few questions of my own.