Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Monday, January 06, 2020
Patti Smith's "Just Kids" and David M. Wrobel's "Global West, American Frontier"
>> CONTINUE READING THIS POST ON THE NEW PLATFORM, WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM
Monday, December 23, 2019
Q & A with Poet Barbara Crooker on the Magic of VCCA, Reading, and Her Poetry
>>READ THIS POST ON THE NEW PLATFORM AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM
Monday, June 26, 2017
Recent and Current Reading: Cather, Bogard, Kunstler, Padilla, Abbey
by Willa Cather
In one of the strangest, most elegant and powerful novels I have ever read, Cather combs apart the strands of the very DNA of North America.
by Paul Bogard
If you still want to vacation in Las Vegas after reading this...
by James Howard Kunstler
For those who have not yet drunk the Kool-Aid of Geewhizdomerie. Kunstler, maestro of colorful metaphors and hilarious diction drops, is always a wicked pleasure to read.
By Genaro M. Padilla
At once a brilliant work of scholarship and a powerful personal essay, The Daring Flight of My Pen is vital reading for anyone anywhere who would attempt to understand North American history.
Edited By James R. Hepworth and Gregory McNamee
One cannot go far into reading about the American West without encountering Edward Abbey and, in particular, his iconic Desert Solitaire. This eclectic collection of essays and interviews is like an adventure in the fun house of Edward Abbey's mind.
For those of you who follow this blog: As you might guess from this reading list I am at work on the book about Far West Texas. Stay tuned for podcast #21; I really am going to post it soon. In the meantime, I welcome you to listen in to the other 20 podcasts here.
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Cyberflanerie: Reading, Writing, Podcasting Edition (and My Newsletter)
The Kindle edition of the anthology by Mikel Miller et al, Mexico: Sunlight and Shadows, which has been garnering scads of enthusiastic reviews, is free this Saturday August 29 and Sunday August 30. (This anthology includes an excerpt from my memoir of Mexico's Baja California peninsula, Miraculous Air.)
My mailchimp newsletter went out, fi-nal-ly. I try to get it out every other month-ish, but it's been a busy spring and summer, and to show for it, several new podcasts, articles and other news (my latest book won the National Indie Excellence Award for History!!!)
May you enjoy the podcasts with rodeo barrel racer Lisa Ferndandes and historian Lonn Taylor. I certainly did... P.S. You are, of course, ever and always most welcome to subscribe.
What I'm reading (and relishing):
What I'm working on:
May you have a splendid weekend.
Your comments are always welcome.
My mailchimp newsletter went out, fi-nal-ly. I try to get it out every other month-ish, but it's been a busy spring and summer, and to show for it, several new podcasts, articles and other news (my latest book won the National Indie Excellence Award for History!!!)
May you enjoy the podcasts with rodeo barrel racer Lisa Ferndandes and historian Lonn Taylor. I certainly did... P.S. You are, of course, ever and always most welcome to subscribe.
Graham Robb's The Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts
Thomas Hockey's How We See the Sky: A Naked-Eye Tour of Day & Night
Earl Swift's The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways
What I'm working on:
Editing the Marfa Mondays podcast #19, "BBQ Pitmaster Israel Campos in Pecos" (Listen in to the other 18 Marfa Mondays podcasts here.)
For Literal, writing a review (rave-rave-rave!!!) of Sam Quinones' Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic
What I call a "mini-clip," that is, a brief, edited video, of barrel racers and steer wrestlers at the Pecos Rodeo. (View my other mini-clips for the Far West Texas book here.)
May you have a splendid weekend.
Your comments are always welcome.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Reading Tonight for PEN in San Miguel de Allende (Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution)
This evening in San Miguel de Allende in Bellas Artes at 6 PM I will be discussing my new book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual.
The small admission charge of 100 pesos benefits PEN International San Miguel Center, one of the 145 centers of PEN International, the worldwide association of writers with centers in 104 countries, to promote friendship and intellectual cooperation among writers everywhere, fight for freedom of expression and represent the conscience of world literature.
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| President of Mexico Francisco I. Madero and the First Lady, Sara Pérez de Madero |
The cover of Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution features San Miguel de Allende artist Kelley Vandiver's "Gerbara and Eye". And another San Miguel de Allende connection: the opening pages of my book, the chapter "Roots, Entanglements, Encounters," are in SOL Literary Magazine's latest issue, (thanks, Eva Hunter).
Herewith, my article for San Miguel de Allende's Atención which, thanks to Huertista duendes, I guess, did not make it into this week's issue:
MADERO’S SECRET BOOK
When Halley's comet, that star with the quetzal's tail, flared across Mexican skies in 1910, it heralded not only the centennial of Independence, but a deeply transformative episode, the Revolution launched by Francisco I. Madero on November 20, what Javier Garciadiego calls “the true beginning of a process, the birth of the modern Mexican state.” The great chorus of Mexican historians agrees. And yet, almost unknown and curious as it may sound, a vital taproot of this revolution lies in the Burned-Over District of New York state.
So opens my book about Francisco I. Madero’s secret book, Manual espírita, which he wrote during the Revolution of 1910 and brought into circulation in 1911 when President-Elect— but under a pen name, “Bhima,” taken from the Hindu holy book, the Bhagavad-Gita. When I happened upon the Manual espírita in Madero’s archive in the National Palace, I knew at once I should translate it. A literal translation was an easy task, but understanding its metaphysics, origins, and rich esoteric context, required years more of reading and archival research— including multiple visits to the remains of Madero’s personal library. That little-known library, housed in Mexico City’s Centro de Estudios de la Historia de México, turns out to be one the most outstanding collections of 19th century and early 20th century esoterica in the Americas, comprising many extremely rare volumes from authors such as Annie Besant, Madame Blavatsky, Maestro Huiracocha (Dr Arnold Krumm-Heller), Camille Flammarion, Dr. Peebles, and Swami Vivekananda.
My book about Madero’s secret book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution, is an odyssey in three senses: Madero’s own, from norteño merchant prince to Spiritist medium, gun-slinging revolutionary, President of the Republic and, ultimately, martyr; my own; and the reader’s— for I assume most know little or nothing of Madero’s life and political career, nor of the Spiritism Madero encountered as a student in late 19th century France, and less of that religion’s roots in Upstate New York.
As Mexican historian Enrique Krauze writes in his seminal 1987 biography, Francisco I. Madero: Místico de la libertad, “Politics does not displace Spiritism: it is born of it.” In other words, we cannot understand Madero and the 1910 Revolution without taking into account his Spiritist beliefs and his mediumship. Neither can we understand his beliefs without reference to his own statement, which is his ardent and thoroughly astonishing Spiritist Manual.
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Article for ATENCION, San Miguel de Allende, January 2015, apropos of C.M. Mayo’s reading for PEN International San Miguel Center, January 13, 2015. Her new book, which includes her translation of Madero’s Manual espírita, is Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual (Dancing Chiva, 2014). The book is also available in Spanish, translated by noted Mexican novelist and poet Agustín Cadena as Odisea metafísica hacia la revolución Mexicana, (Literal Publishing, 2014), together with a transcript of the original Manual espírita.
(Talk for the American Literary Translators Association, 2014)
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