>> Read this post on the new platform at www.madam-mayo.com
Showing posts with label Mexico. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mexico. Show all posts
Sunday, October 25, 2020
Monday, June 01, 2020
From the Archives: A Visit to Las Pozas, Xilitla, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
>> READ THIS POST ON THE NEW PLATFORM, WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM
Monday, July 29, 2019
From the B. Traven Conferences in Berlin / Plus Cyberflanerie
By C.M. Mayo www.cmmayo.com
Back in May of this year I posted on the historic conferences in Berlin about the work and the true identity of the naturalized Mexican novelist B. Traven. Traven was the author of a long list of best-selling novels, best known among them, The Death Ship and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
>>CONTINUE READING THIS POST AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM
Monday, June 24, 2019
Q & A: Diana Anhalt on her Poetry Collection "Walking Backward"
By C.M. Mayo www.cmmayo.com
This blog posts on Mondays. This year the fourth Monday of the month is devoted to a Q & A with a fellow writer.We have never met, but I feel as if we have. I think this is always true when one has read another’s such wonderful writing. But I did “meet” Diana Anhalt, in a matter of speaking, when years ago, she sent me a selection from her powerful and fascinating history / memoir of growing up in Mexico City, A Gathering of Fugitives: American Political Expatriates in Mexico 1948-1965. When, sometime later, I read the entirety of that beautifully written book itself–which I admiringly recommend to anyone with an interest in Mexico–I wrote to her, and we have kept in touch ever since. Apart from writing poetry and essay, we have this common: a lifetime, it seems, of living in Mexico City, and married to a Mexican. By the time we found each other’s work, however, Diana and her husband Mauricio had left “the endless city” for Atlanta, Georgia. (But ojalá, we will meet one day outside of cyberspace soon!)
Her latest, just out from Kelsay Books, is Walking Backward. From her publisher’s website, her author bio:
>> CONTINUE READING THIS POST AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM
Monday, June 17, 2019
Journal of Big Bend Studies: “The Secret Book by Francisco I. Madero”
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| Nope, that is not Francisco I. Madero, pictured right, but J.J. Kilpatrick, subject of Lonn Taylor’s fascinating article in this same issue of the Journal of Big Bend Studies, vol. 29, 2017. |
A belated but delighted announcement: my article, “The Secret Book by Francisco I. Madero, Leader of Mexico's 1910 Revolution” which is an edited transcript of my talk about my book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution (which is about and includes my translation of Manual espírita), came out in the Journal of Big Bend Studies in 2017.
Because I am a literary writer, not an academic historian, it is a special an honor to have my work published in an outstanding scholarly journal of the Texas-Mexico borderlands.
For those rusty on their borderlands and Mexican history, Francisco I. Madero was the leader of Mexico’s 1910 revolution– the first major revolution of the 20th century– and President of Mexico from 1911-1913. This was not only a transformative episode for Mexico, but also for Texas.
My book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual, came out in 2014 (also in Spanish, translated by Agustín Cadena as Odisea metafísica hacia la Revolución Mexicana, Francisco I. Madero y su libro secreto, Manual espírita, from Literal Publishing.) So far so good: it has been cited already in a number of scholarly works about Madero and the Revolution.
Yes, Metaphysical Odyssey, is a peculiar title. In the article, I explain why I chose it and why, much as readers groan about it, I would not change it.
> Read the article here. (I had posted an earlier only partially edited PDF at this link; in case you’ve already seen it, as of June 17, 2019, it has been updated.) And you can order a copy of the actual printed article with all photos, and of the complete issue from the Center for Big Bend Studies here.
Yes, Metaphysical Odyssey, is a peculiar title. In the article, I explain why I chose it and why, much as readers groan about it, I would not change it.
> Read the article here. (I had posted an earlier only partially edited PDF at this link; in case you’ve already seen it, as of June 17, 2019, it has been updated.) And you can order a copy of the actual printed article with all photos, and of the complete issue from the Center for Big Bend Studies here.
A few of the photos, not in the PDF:
>>CONTINUE READING THIS POST AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM
Monday, October 01, 2018
Cyberflanerie: B. Jay Antrim's 1848 Journey Across Mexico; Paxman on Jenkins; Kunstler Talks to Strand about Electric Light; Do the Math; Wolfe on McLuhan
This finds me catching up on email, mainly, doggedly, heartfully, and working on the Far West Texas book and related podcasts which I hope to announce shortly. Meanwhile, for you my dear adventurously curious readers, herewith some fascinating items that have popped up on my screen in recent weeks:
Over at Mexico News Daily John Pint covers Steve Wilson's discovery of a most extraordinary collection of watercolors and memoir by B. Jay Antrim about his 1848 journey to California by way of Mexico. (Why not by way of Texas? Back then a chunk of that was Comancheria.)
Historian Andrew Paxman talks about his biography of William O. Jenkins, Jenkins of Mexico: How a Southern Farm Boy Became a Mexican Magnate, at PEN San Miguel. A splendid biography, and a must-read for anyone with any interest in Mexico.
Abidingly fascinating: James Howard Kunstler talks to Clark Strande about electric light.
Ye olde wet towel (wet as in wet cement) Chris Martenson interviews Tom Murphy about Doing the Math (and whether you're freaked out or you totally don't care, here's Murphy's intriguing theory about your reaction).
Tom Wolfe on "Why is Marshall McLuhan Important?"
Long, but it's ceaselessly interesting.
Over at Mexico News Daily John Pint covers Steve Wilson's discovery of a most extraordinary collection of watercolors and memoir by B. Jay Antrim about his 1848 journey to California by way of Mexico. (Why not by way of Texas? Back then a chunk of that was Comancheria.)
Historian Andrew Paxman talks about his biography of William O. Jenkins, Jenkins of Mexico: How a Southern Farm Boy Became a Mexican Magnate, at PEN San Miguel. A splendid biography, and a must-read for anyone with any interest in Mexico.
Abidingly fascinating: James Howard Kunstler talks to Clark Strande about electric light.
Ye olde wet towel (wet as in wet cement) Chris Martenson interviews Tom Murphy about Doing the Math (and whether you're freaked out or you totally don't care, here's Murphy's intriguing theory about your reaction).
Tom Wolfe on "Why is Marshall McLuhan Important?"
Long, but it's ceaselessly interesting.
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
Monday, November 20, 2017
Three Fabulous Things About Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
Today, November 20, is the anniversary of Mexico's 1910 Revolution, a national holiday in Mexico, so this post is especially apt.
This past week I had the delightful privilege of presenting my work about the leader of that revolution in Ciudad Juárez's Museo de la Revolución en la Frontera (Museum of the Revolution on the Border).
From El Paso, Texas, snap your fingers and you're in Ciudad Juárez. Yes, alas, Ciudad Juárez is notorious for its troubles but, with another snap of the fingers, I can mention three fabulous things about this historic Mexican border city:
1. El Museo de la Revolución en la Frontera
The elegant and restored customs house is now a museum dedicated to the Mexican Revolution on the border. The Mexican Revolution, which began in 1910, convulsed all of Mexico, but it began in the north at the border. Well worth a visit!
This video gives an overview of this impressive museum (in Spanish):
2. La Nueva Central
¡Café con leche! ¡Huevos con machaca! I could eat breakfast here every day for the rest of my life and I am not kidding! Check out the raves about this historic café, like a journey back to 1958, on TripAdvisor.
Here's a screenshot from my video of historians Roy "Ben" Brown, John Eusebio Klingemann, having just finished breakfast, heading out to the conference... I was going to make a GIF from this video of us all laughing for some reason I cannot recall, but demonios, my GifGrabber app went wiggy.
3. The conference, "La Revolucion vista desde los extranjeros" (The Revolution as Seen by Foreigners) in the above-mentioned museum
It's over, y'all missed it, but there should be another conference next year, and isn't the photo fun? It shows businessmen on a rooftop in El Paso watching the Battle of Ciudad Juárez-- the two cities are that close, separated only by the Rio Grande (or the Río Bravo, as the Mexicans call it).
Thanks to Dr. Roy "Ben" Brown, Dr José Francisco Lara, Jorge Carrera Robles of INAH, and Liliana Fuentes, Director of this beautiful museum, and Ana Hilda Vera, who makes everything happen, I was greatly honored to be invited to present Odisea metafísica hacia la Revolución mexicana, the Spanish translation by Agustín Cadena of my book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual.
Commenting on my book about Madero's book was noted historian of the Mexican Revolution and the Escobarista Rebellion, Dr. Georgette José Valenzuela, of the UNAM (Mexico's National University in Mexico City).
My book has been out since 2014, so there are several talks and other information up on my website, notably:
Dr John Eusebio Klingemann, who chairs the Department of History at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas, presented his research into the archives of the US consuls in Chihuahua 1913-1914. This was the tumultuous period after the fall of Madero's government, the revolution against the usuper government of Victoriano Huerta-- and as with the 1910 revolution, fighting in the north of Mexico, and especially around the border, was leading and vital.
Commenting on Klingemann's work was UTEP's Samuel Brunk, expert on the Mexican Revolution, author of a noted biography of Emiliano Zapata, and a specialist on borderlands environmental history.
Pictured left, below, is Dr. Georgette José Valenzuela as she delivers her paper, "La Revolucion mexicana comenzó en 1910, pero ¿cuándo dice la historiografía al respecto que terminó? (The Mexican Revolution Began in 1910, but What Does the Historiography Tell Us About When It Ended?) It was a fascinating and superb work covering the many controversies and standing questions.
Mexican Revolution and diplomatic history scholar Heribert von Feilitzsch gave his talk the previous day about Felix A. Sommerfeld. For anyone interested in the Mexican Revolution, von Feilitzsch's books about the German spies in the Mexican Revolution and also operating in the US during WWI are essential reading-- and, in particular, von Feilitzsch's work on Felix Sommerfeld and Arnold Krumm-Heller was essential for my own on Madero.
(And for anyone wondering, hmmm, what's going to happen now that the Tweeter-in-Chief has seriously pissed off the Mexicans for the next two decades, a snap of the finger's worth of reflection upon von Feilitzsch's In Plain Sight: Felix Sommerfeld, Spymaster in Mexico should provide more than a few... shall we say.... unsettling possibilities.)
For my money, the Mexican Revolution, so crowded with personalities and events, is one of the richest and most complex events on Planet Earth, a veritable palace of opportunity for any historian or novelist. And it looks like I will be writing about it for awhile... as those of you follow this blog know, although I happened to have written this book about Madero and his secret book, I am not an academic historian but a literary essayist, novelist, and poet. My work in-progress, modeled on my previous work on Baja California, is a book-length literary essay about Far West Texas, which of course includes a significant stretch of the US-Mexico border... My next blog post will be about the work I presented the following day at the Center for Big Bend Studies, from my book on Far West Texas, not about the Mexican Revolution but a most unusual officer who served with the Tenth Cavalry in the Indian Wars. More next Monday.
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
This past week I had the delightful privilege of presenting my work about the leader of that revolution in Ciudad Juárez's Museo de la Revolución en la Frontera (Museum of the Revolution on the Border).
From El Paso, Texas, snap your fingers and you're in Ciudad Juárez. Yes, alas, Ciudad Juárez is notorious for its troubles but, with another snap of the fingers, I can mention three fabulous things about this historic Mexican border city:
1. El Museo de la Revolución en la Frontera
The elegant and restored customs house is now a museum dedicated to the Mexican Revolution on the border. The Mexican Revolution, which began in 1910, convulsed all of Mexico, but it began in the north at the border. Well worth a visit!
This video gives an overview of this impressive museum (in Spanish):
2. La Nueva Central
¡Café con leche! ¡Huevos con machaca! I could eat breakfast here every day for the rest of my life and I am not kidding! Check out the raves about this historic café, like a journey back to 1958, on TripAdvisor.
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| View of the cathedral from the front of La Nueva Central coffeeshop Ciudad Juárez, Mexico |
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| Roy "Ben" Brown and John Eusebio Klingemann |
3. The conference, "La Revolucion vista desde los extranjeros" (The Revolution as Seen by Foreigners) in the above-mentioned museum
It's over, y'all missed it, but there should be another conference next year, and isn't the photo fun? It shows businessmen on a rooftop in El Paso watching the Battle of Ciudad Juárez-- the two cities are that close, separated only by the Rio Grande (or the Río Bravo, as the Mexicans call it).
 |
| Visit this book's webpage at www.cmmayo.com |
Commenting on my book about Madero's book was noted historian of the Mexican Revolution and the Escobarista Rebellion, Dr. Georgette José Valenzuela, of the UNAM (Mexico's National University in Mexico City).
My book has been out since 2014, so there are several talks and other information up on my website, notably:
> Transcript of my presentation at the 2016 Center for Big Bend Studies: "The Secret Book by Francisco I. Madero, Leader of Mexico's 1910 Revolution" (For scholars this is the go-to PDF.)
> Why Translate? The Case of the President of Mexico's Secret Book
My talk for a panel on politics and translation at the American Literary Translators Association conference
> My review of Whitey Strieber and Jeffrey K. Kripal's Super Natural, which is also an essay about my own encounter with a mystical text, that is, Madero's Manual espírita
> Films and videos
> Gigazoodles more at "Resources for researchers"
> Y en español, chorros más
Dr John Eusebio Klingemann, who chairs the Department of History at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas, presented his research into the archives of the US consuls in Chihuahua 1913-1914. This was the tumultuous period after the fall of Madero's government, the revolution against the usuper government of Victoriano Huerta-- and as with the 1910 revolution, fighting in the north of Mexico, and especially around the border, was leading and vital.
Commenting on Klingemann's work was UTEP's Samuel Brunk, expert on the Mexican Revolution, author of a noted biography of Emiliano Zapata, and a specialist on borderlands environmental history.
Pictured left, below, is Dr. Georgette José Valenzuela as she delivers her paper, "La Revolucion mexicana comenzó en 1910, pero ¿cuándo dice la historiografía al respecto que terminó? (The Mexican Revolution Began in 1910, but What Does the Historiography Tell Us About When It Ended?) It was a fascinating and superb work covering the many controversies and standing questions.
 |
| Georgette José Valenzuela and Heribert von Feilitzsch at the Museo de la Revolución en la Frontera, Ciudad Juárez November 9, 2017 |
For my money, the Mexican Revolution, so crowded with personalities and events, is one of the richest and most complex events on Planet Earth, a veritable palace of opportunity for any historian or novelist. And it looks like I will be writing about it for awhile... as those of you follow this blog know, although I happened to have written this book about Madero and his secret book, I am not an academic historian but a literary essayist, novelist, and poet. My work in-progress, modeled on my previous work on Baja California, is a book-length literary essay about Far West Texas, which of course includes a significant stretch of the US-Mexico border... My next blog post will be about the work I presented the following day at the Center for Big Bend Studies, from my book on Far West Texas, not about the Mexican Revolution but a most unusual officer who served with the Tenth Cavalry in the Indian Wars. More next Monday.
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
Dispatch from the Sister Republic
or,
Papelito Habla
(This is a link to the page about my longform essay on the Mexican
literary landscape and the power of the book. The page
offers several links to posts on this blog about Mexican literary history.)
Guiseppi Garibaldi's A Toast to Rebellion
or,
Papelito Habla
(This is a link to the page about my longform essay on the Mexican
literary landscape and the power of the book. The page
offers several links to posts on this blog about Mexican literary history.)
Guiseppi Garibaldi's A Toast to Rebellion
Monday, September 25, 2017
The Liberator Without a Country
Last Thursday in the Club de Industriales in Mexico City historian Luis Reed Torres presented his latest book, El Libertador sin patria (The Liberator without a Country), a most extraordinary and illuminating collection of 19th century texts by liberals about Agustín de Iturbide, many of which Reed Torres rescued from the deepest, mustiest recesses of the archives. For anyone interested in Mexican history, El Libertador sin patria is a must-read work, and a must-have reference.
I hope to post a link to where you can find El Libertador sin patria on-line very soon. In the meantime, for your reference, the ISBN is 978-607-97750-0-1.
> Read my prologue in English
> Read my prologue in Spanish
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
Monday, August 14, 2017
What's Happening in Mexico City: Bridges Not Walls!
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| www.bridgesforunderstanding.com |
Did you know that there are some 1.5 million U.S. citizens living in Mexico? Many of them, including myself, have been here for decades and have binational families, and we are profoundly aware of the importance of maintaining good relations between the US and Mexico.
Here is some excellent news in this direction.
Last week, thanks to the digital wizardry of Helena von Nagy, the website of Bridges for Understanding went live from Mexico City. Anyone and everyone who cares about US-Mexico relations, please check out this grassroots effort in the American community here to help promote better understanding, and so better relations, between the US and Mexico. Their mission is:
To contribute to the preservation of US-Mexican relations based on an exchange of ideas, personal narratives, and advocacy.
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| Mary O'Keefe and sons |
Here's what they say about who they are:
Bridges for Understanding (B4U) is a grassroots, non-partisan, membership and advocacy organization comprised of primarily U.S. citizens and bi-nationals living in Mexico and elsewhere working side by side with their Mexican neighbors.
Founded in January 2017, B4U strives to promote the shared principles of freedom and economic prosperity that bind the two nations. We seek to combat the deterioration of bilateral relationsand its impact on human rights, commerce and economic stability on both sides of the border.
Many U.S. and Mexican academic and nonprofit institutions are networking with Bridges for Understanding, among them, the American Benevolent Society, CIDE, Global Jewish Advocacy, New Comienzos, Rotary International, the Wilson Center, and many more.
I am proud to report that that my blog post is the first for the B4U cultural blog: "A Visit to the Casa de la Primera Imprenta de América in Mexico City."
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| READ THE FIRST B4U CULTURAL BLOG POST "A Visit to the Casa de la Primera Imprenta de América in Mexico City." |
So check out Bridgesforunderstanding.com, surf around in there, and if you like what you see, become a member, sign up for the listserv, tweet, FB, whatever you can do to help build bridges.
P.S. You will find Bridges for Understanding on Twitter @Bridges4underst
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
Monday, June 26, 2017
"Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla" A Longform Essay About the Mexican Literary Landscape and the Power of the Book
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| Get this essay about the Mexican literary landscape and the power of the book in KINDLE |
Featured on the cover are my writing assistants, Uliberto Quetzalpugtl (aka Uls) and Washingtoniana Quetzalpugalotl (aka La Wash), both thinking profound thoughts... probably about the neighbor's cat. (As for books, they go for the corners.)
If you have been following my blog (in which case, bless you), you might be wondering, what in Timbuktu does this long essay on the Mexican literary landscape have to do with my current work in-progress on Far West Texas? Plenty, actually, starting with Cabeza de Vaca's gobsmackingly bizarre Informe.
One of the several reasons I wrote this essay was to get my mind around the literary nuns of the baroque period— in Mexico, the prime and cherished example is Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Another literary nun not mentioned in this essay, but who will appear in my book on Far West Texas, is María de Agreda, the Blue Lady. Much more about María de Agreda and her exterioridades anon.
Above all, I wrote "Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla" for U.S. friends and colleagues who want to get past the heavily-retailed clichés about Mexico. This essay is at once my love letter to Mexico and a distillation of all that I have come to understand after 30 years of living here and over two decades of writing about Mexico and translating Mexican literature. I sincerely hope it will invite you to consider our southern neighbor in new ways— and so, consider our own republic in new ways as well.
Read some excerpts from "Dispatch from the Sister Republic":
> Lord Kingsborough's Antiquities of Mexico
> What the Muse Sent Me About the Tenth Muse, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
> A Visit to the Casa de la Primera Imprenta de América, Mexico City
>> Get "Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla" in in Kindle here.<<
# # #
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| Kindle edition |
Also in the Kindle store you will find my memoir of yore, Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico. Available as always in Kindle from Dancing Chiva, it will be for free in the Kindle store—yes, free—for two days later this month, July 22 and 23. So, I invite you to note those free days in your calendar, or shell out the clams. Or not. Or whatever. I invite you to read more about this book, reviews, and excerpts here. (The original hardcover was published by the University of Utah Press and the still in-print paperback is available from Milkweed Editions and all the usual online and independent booksellers.)
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> Your comments are always very welcome. Write to me here.
Monday, June 19, 2017
Tulpa Max or, Notes on the Afterlife of a Resurrection (On the 150th Anniversary of the Execution of Maximilian von Habsburg)
It's a riff on writing historical fiction-- and my novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire (Unbridled Books, 2009), which was beautifully translated by Mexican writer Agustín Cadena as El último principe del Imperio mexicano (Random House Mondadori-Grijalbo, 2010). I am hoping my Spanish has continued some progress up the steep hill toward matching my English: I dared to translate this essay for Letras Libres myself.
The novel, by the way, is not about Maximilian per se, but rather the little half-American prince, Agustín de Iturbide y Green, whom Maximilian brought into his court (true story), much to the child's parents' consternation.
For the occasion, a few links about Maximilian:
> On Seeing as an Artist or, Five Techniques for a Journey to Einfühlung
> Podcast of the book's presentation at the Library of Congress
> A Conversation with M.M. McAllen About Her Book, Maximilian and Carlota
> Q & A with Mexican historian Alan Rojas Orzechowski About Santiago Rebull, Maximilian's Court Painter-- Later Diego River's Professor
> Oodles more at my novel's webpage, on the Maximilian and Carlota Blog, and the research page Maximilian von Mexiko
> Your comments are always most welcome. Write to me here.
Monday, May 15, 2017
A Glimpse of "México Profundo" in a Visit to La Santa Madero in Parras de la Fuente, Coahuila
Having written a book about the leader of Mexico's 1910 Revolution, Francisco I. Madero--Mexico's "Apostle of Democracy"--I am often asked if I have visited his native town, Parras de la Fuente. As of two weeks ago, thanks to an invitation to give talk about my book there, I can now answer, with the easiest of shrugs, why, of course.
An oasis of a mission-and-farm-town in the arid border state of Coahuila, Parras de la Fuente is one of Mexico's 111 officially-designated "pueblos mágicos," or "magical towns." Apart from its historical importance and its charming downtown, Parras de la Fuente's biggest draw is Casa Madero, the oldest winery in the Americas--at one time run by Francisco I. Madero.
If you're interested in visiting Parras de la Fuente--and for anyone at all interested in Mexican history and culture I warmly recommend it--check out Tripadvisor for information galore. (If you read Spanish, there is a very informative article about the town in the magazine Mexico Desconocido.) I won't aim to cover the gamut here, just one of several worthy attractions, La Santa Madero.
LA SANTA MADERO
It's impossible to talk about Parras de la Fuente without making some reference to the Madero family. Not only was native-born son Francisco I. Madero (1873-1913) the leader of the 1910 Revolution, but he served as president of Mexico from 1911 until his assassination in 1913. Moreover, there was his grandfather, industrialist Evaristo Madero (1828-1911), founder of a veritable dynasty. In many ways, Parras de la Fuente is, if you will excuse my anglosajonismo, Maderotown.
Speaking of looming, perched above the little town on a bulbous hulk of rock sits La Santa Madero.
Perhaps you wonder, is that a misspelling? (Shouldn't it be El Santo Madero?) Was there a Saint Madero? Or could this be a sanctuary of some sort donated by the Madero family?
La Santa Madero, it turns out, refers to the Holy Cross, a purported splinter of which is enshrined in the early 19th-century chapel at the top of that craggy overlook.
Ring-a-ling to Dr. Jung! In the Names Department, La Santo Madero overlooking "Maderotown," this is quite the bodacious synchronicity... And this does bring new texture to a quote in my book:
An oasis of a mission-and-farm-town in the arid border state of Coahuila, Parras de la Fuente is one of Mexico's 111 officially-designated "pueblos mágicos," or "magical towns." Apart from its historical importance and its charming downtown, Parras de la Fuente's biggest draw is Casa Madero, the oldest winery in the Americas--at one time run by Francisco I. Madero.
If you're interested in visiting Parras de la Fuente--and for anyone at all interested in Mexican history and culture I warmly recommend it--check out Tripadvisor for information galore. (If you read Spanish, there is a very informative article about the town in the magazine Mexico Desconocido.) I won't aim to cover the gamut here, just one of several worthy attractions, La Santa Madero.
 |
| View of La Santa Madero from the parking lot |
It's impossible to talk about Parras de la Fuente without making some reference to the Madero family. Not only was native-born son Francisco I. Madero (1873-1913) the leader of the 1910 Revolution, but he served as president of Mexico from 1911 until his assassination in 1913. Moreover, there was his grandfather, industrialist Evaristo Madero (1828-1911), founder of a veritable dynasty. In many ways, Parras de la Fuente is, if you will excuse my anglosajonismo, Maderotown.
Speaking of looming, perched above the little town on a bulbous hulk of rock sits La Santa Madero.
Perhaps you wonder, is that a misspelling? (Shouldn't it be El Santo Madero?) Was there a Saint Madero? Or could this be a sanctuary of some sort donated by the Madero family?
La Santa Madero, it turns out, refers to the Holy Cross, a purported splinter of which is enshrined in the early 19th-century chapel at the top of that craggy overlook.
Ring-a-ling to Dr. Jung! In the Names Department, La Santo Madero overlooking "Maderotown," this is quite the bodacious synchronicity... And this does bring new texture to a quote in my book:
As even his great admirer, Isidro Favela put it, Madero was a Don Quixote with “the fury for freedom.” Others who loved him said Madero was “made of wood for the cross.”
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| Starting up the hill to La Santa Madero |
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| About half way up... sun setting through a cloud Parras de la Fuente below |
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| Nearing the top, about to go around the curve... |
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| Final staircase to the top... |
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| Pug Puppy Alert! |
c
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| Close up of pug puppy at La Santa Madero |
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| This Chapel of the Holy Cross... Alas, the chapel was locked. But you can view photos of the interior on Tripadvisor |
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| On the way back down the hill: Sunset over Parras de la Fuente from La Santa Madero |
On the way down we passed a girl in a huge poppy-red quinceañera dress (15th birthday celebration) and her photographers-- probably brothers, cousins and friends. One of my companions on this hike, an eminent Mexican scholar, gravely remarked that with this--the girl in her fabulous dress, as much as La Santa Madero--we'd had a glimpse of México profundo.
More anon.
> The webpage for my book about Francisco I. Madero is here.
More anon.
> The webpage for my book about Francisco I. Madero is here.
> Your comments are always very welcome. Write to me here.
Monday, April 03, 2017
A Visit to the Casa de la Primera Imprenta de América in Mexico City
>> READ THIS POST ON THE NEW PLATFORM AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM
This is an excerpt from my long essay, of creative nonfiction, "Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla," which isforthcoming now available in Kindle.
...There is one more a pearl of a place that cannot go unmentioned in any discussion of our sister republic’s literary landscape.
Who knows what still lies beneath in the rubble? Dug up in the eighteenth century during a renovation, a gigantic Aztec stone snake head was, no doubt with a shudder of horror, reburied. But we live in a different time with a very different sensibility. In 1989 when renovations unearthed that same Aztec stone snake head—elegant with fangs, nostrils, scales, eyes the size of melons—it was carefully excavated and cleaned by archaeologists. This monumental sculpture, heritage of the nation, is now displayed atop a roped platform in the Casa de la Primera Imprenta’s Juan Pablos bookstore, surrounded by a shelf of fiction, a table of poetry, and a sign informing us that the Aztec snake head is carved from grey basalt and weighs approximately one and a half tons.
From "Disptach from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla" by C.M. Mayo
Copyright 2017. All rights reserved.
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When the Kindle is available I will be sure to announce it here. If you'd like to get my very occasional newsletter, I welcome you to sign up for that here.
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
> Another excerpt from this same long essay, on Cabeza de Vaca's Relación, isforthcoming in Scoundrel Time; another, on Mexico's great baroque poet, Sor Juana, appeared in this blog Monday before last; and yet another, on Lord Kingsborough's colossal Antiquities of Mexico, was posted back in February.
UPDATE: "Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla," my long essay pon the Mexican literary landscape and the power of the book, is now available in Kindle.
This is an excerpt from my long essay, of creative nonfiction, "Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla," which is
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| In the shadow of the National Palace: La Casa de la Primera Imprenta de América, the House of the First Printing Press in the Americas, Mexico City. Photo by C.M. Mayo, 2017. |
From the Claustro de Sor Juana, in less than twenty minutes’ walk north and slightly east—weaving your way through the shoppers, touts, tourists, beggars, businessmen—honking cars and buses and motorbikes—and a skate-boarder or two—blaring music, freighters with their trolleys piled to toppling with boxes—don’t get run over by the pedicabs—and once at the Zócalo, wending around the Aztec dancers in feathers and ankle-rattles, the toothless shouter pumping his orange sign about SODOM Y GOMORRA MARIGUANA BODAS GAY, and an organ grinder, and to-ers and fro-ers of every age and size, you arrive, out of breath, at a squat, terracotta-colored three-story high building. This is where the first book was printed in—no, not just in Mexico—then New Spain—but in the Americas.
La Casa de la Primera Imprenta de América.
To step into the foyer of its museum and bookstore is to relax into an oasis of peace.
The uniformed guard hands me a pen to sign the guest book. It’s late afternoon; I am the third visitor for the day.
I take a gander at the exhibition of contemporary textile art—a few pieces reference one of Frida Kahlo’s drawings in the Casa Azul of a tentacled monster of paranoia, each limb tipped with a staring eye.
In the second gallery I find the replica of our continent’s first printing press soaking in sun from the window. The wooden contraption is taller than I am, but so spare, it occurs to me that it might serve to juice apples.
How my Mexican amigos scoffed at the auction of the Bay Psalm Book in 2013. Not about the record sum—14.2 million US dollars—for which that little book, printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1640, went to a private collector, but about the report in the international media that the Bay Psalm Book was “the first book printed in America.”
To Mexicans, America is the continent, not their sister republic. Mexico is part of the same continent, of course, and so the first book printed in America—or, as we estadounidenses prefer to say, the Americas—was Breve y más compendiosa doctrina Cristiana en lengua Mexicana y Castellana (Brief and Most Comprehensive Christian Doctrine in Nahuátl and Spanish), printed right here, in Mexico City, in this building, in 1539.
Mexico beats out Massachusetts by 101 years! But this sinks to silliness. That printer in Cambridge, Massachussetts, was English, and the one in colonial Mexico City, a native of Lombardy named Giovanni Paoli, Hispanicized to “Juan Pablos.” The technology that found its way to the Americas with these printing pioneers—to the north, Protestants, to the south, Catholics, separated by religious schism and the whirlwinds of European politics, and that century, and moreover, by the staggering distance of desert, swamplands, oceanic buffalo-filled prairies, and sunless and unmapped forests—had one and the same root: the fifteenth-century workshop of a German goldsmith by the name of Johannes Gutenberg.
Gutenberg was inking his little pieces of movable type more than half a century before Christopher Columbus “sailed the ocean blue,” and the indigenous on this continent chanced to hear the first stirrings of vaguest rumors and weird omens.
Still, 1539 is an early date indeed for that first book printed in the Americas: only eighteen years after the fall of Tenochitlán. Three years after Cabeza de Vaca’s miraculous arrival in Mexico City. Fray Sahagún was still a year away from launching the research that would result in the Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España, or the Florentine Codex. The lodes that would turn Mexico into an industrial-scale silver exporter had not yet been discovered. The Manila Galleons, treasure ships bringing porcelain, spices, and silks from China to Acapulco, would not begin their annual crossings for another twenty-six years.
In England, Henry the VIII was between wives three and four. It would be sixty-eight more years until the first, disastrous English settlement at Jamestown. The Pilgrims who would land at Plymouth Rock? As a religious community they did not yet exist.
Tucked in the shade of the National Palace and a block east from Mexico’s cathedral, the Casa de la Primera Imprenta was built, it turns out, over the ruin of the Aztec Temple of Tezcatlipoca, Smoking Mirror, trickster god of the night sky, of time, and of ancestral memory.
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| Aztec snake head on display, 2017. |
The Juan Pablos bookstore, named for that original printer Giovanni Paoli, retails books from the press of Mexico City’s Universidad Autónomo Metropolitana (UAM). Such are my interests du jour: I came away with a copy of the first Spanish translation of an eighteenth-century Italian’s journey to Mexico and the 2015 El territorio y sus representaciones.
END OF EXCERPT
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| A splendid and very important book: El territorio y sus representaciones by Luis Ignacio Sainz Chávez and Jorge Gonzlález Aragón Castellanos winner of the 2016 Premio de Investigación Published by the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico. |
From "Disptach from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla" by C.M. Mayo
Copyright 2017. All rights reserved.
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> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
> Another excerpt from this same long essay, on Cabeza de Vaca's Relación, is
UPDATE: "Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla," my long essay pon the Mexican literary landscape and the power of the book, is now available in Kindle.
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| amazon.com |
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