Spicaresque

DUBIOUS STRIKES AGAIN!

2012-01-25T22:54:00.000-08:00

The hacktivist collective also known as DUBIOUS had struck again, disabling the websites of several law enforcement agencies, exposing their weaknesses and highlighting the severe limitations of their knowledge.

They had fucked with the code so that the websites for the DOJ, FBI, and HSD looked as if an imbecile had violated it with Paintbrush; they had literally defiled the site's integrity, and the violence of the strokes denoted that the fight had gotten territorial.

What to do with DUBIOUS? Most law enforcement agencies had profiles on who the leaders were and how they made their living. The problem was that many of those sought had been living off the grid for decades. And, these technicians were so nuanced, and such virtuosos, that they could pretty much ply their trade anywhere.

Their intimate knowledge of systems could be used as a tool or a weapon. And, that was what made it so hard to prosecute them: they were methodical architects while at the same time double-jointed escape artists. In other words, DUBIOUS had keys for both sides of the door, and how they used the door was completely at the disposal of their discretion.

I have a cousin, Juan Martin; he's some type of cellphone engineer or professor programmer in Barcelona. Juan's from the same jungle province as my mother, but he recently designed some concrete that conscripts your phone into acting as a visual transponder and relaying certain physical data, say for example lack of food in your upper intestine, to the vendors in your immediate digital environment.

Juan found a way to force his phone to scan and divulge whether or not he should be hungry, or could use a surge of sucrose or caffeine in his veins; it narcs on him because people are not to be trusted with knowing when their bodies tell them things anymore.

For example, I doubt whether his brain was not saying to tone it down the other day when he got all megaphone on one of his channels, egging on the efforts of DUBIOUS, the internet maven cadre, and their Denial of Service attacks. If I am not mistaken, the post was a mixture of flaming grammar, capital letters, and adolescent wit.

Something real subtle like:

La REPUTAMADRE K te pario FBI!!!! La informacion es gratis!!! YANQUIS DE MIERDA!!! FUERA DE NUESTRO INTERNET!!! Motherfucker Hijos de Puta! Que DUBIOUS te cage todos los sistemas y te resinde al Tiempo de las Cuevas.

ABEL FOLGAR'S FIRST POSTCARD

2012-01-22T15:58:00.000-08:00

I am currently engaged in a Postcard Feat with Abel Folgar. This is Abel's first postcard that I have received. As you can see it was made by a psychotic bouncer librarian; the poem on the backside is titled, Dusty Roads Beg Water. I predict that Abel will take to the roads sooner than later, and the United States will shudder as he traverses its veins. I would have put Abel's poem here as well, but what the hell am I going to sell if I let you read the actual poem. It's like someone's grandmother used to say, if you give away the milk, no one is going to want to buy your cow.

CLANDESTINE DEPTO.

2012-01-03T07:22:00.000-08:00

My mother's apartment had not been "marked" by the police for increased surveillance; word had not come down for an unmarked Ford Falcon to circle her block like a bull shark. No order came down for her to be shadowed.

Her address had not been registered at the cuartel, nor had it been the added to the lists the police were constantly smashing together. In a word, she was a nobody, and that suited her fine because of the anonymity being a nobody afforded her.

But, she had gotten to know people in the movement, and she sometimes feigned being a reporter so she could get into lectures for free. She was known to carry a tape recorder as a prop; shortly thereafter, it became her talisman. And once or twice, she even offered up her tiny departamento as a venue for lectures or presentations.

One time she hosted two Cuban compadres from the Administración Postal de Cuba. Because they called my mother, Negra, the two Cubans could pass for her brothers, cousins, or kin. The three of them together raised less eyebrows than my mother alone, somehow.

She had run away from Tucumán to Buenos Aires at 14, home being one of the thickest and at times remote provinces in Argentina's 23-stared province-diadem. On her own, my mother, stood out like a sore thumb; also, she had a mythological pair of gams she liked to flaunt in mini-skirts and boots.

PLANETESIMAL*

2011-12-23T21:07:00.000-08:00

why do crazy people always have luggage?
where are they going with so much nothing?
why can't i find that place, and where is my luggage?

how do mountains wear appalling little so unabashed?
where are they going with so much nothing?
why make my delirium look terrestrial when Jove’s pissed?

why parse yellow yarn for cage-free, locally-grown guerillaknitters?
where are they going with so much nothing?
how to stretch jejunely over trees like turtlenecks and tunics?

what engine belch to piston ratio blathering, Exude Acceleration!?
where are they going with so much nothing?
where millions of civilians say, Back Door!, without seeming Borg?

where wattage of queries somewhat supersedes your paygrade?
where are they going with so much nothing?
how interlocutoring towards “sticking” barks Brownian?

how your amperes functioned through the Great Bombardment of Acumen?
where are they going with so much nothing?
were I not an atrocious apology from an excited orbit of self-gravity?

where are they going with so much nothing?
how protoplanets wake rage at dangerous decibels of the Mach gauge?
where are they going with so much nothing?

*Portions of this poem were inspired by the Wikipedia article on "Planetesimals". Click here to access the article and support Wikipedia.

THE NOISE ATTRIBUTABLE TO DEBT COLLECTORS

2011-12-20T13:49:00.001-08:00

Harken: inappropriate calls from debt collectors in the morning.

They sound like surly birds in an inhumane timber.
And aren't they just so smug with your acct. innards on their
screens querying you about how your disburse your sesame sums.

The nerve, the unfettered nerve...
Undiluted by any type of propriety...
As if the phone were a fuchsia vibrator (unribbed)...

As if we weren't locked in a see saw of mutual squirreling (usury).

a.) you squirreling from me the amount I did not possess but that
you put up
b.) I squirreling above the threshold of the interest payment
just so I might pick away at the capital iceberg.
c.) the both of us creditors in the sense that we have, have to,
to give

The Given is a sort of
nil palette, an operator associate so callous and rife with
muted insubordination that they park a cargo van of air-
conditioners in your space, clearly marked "your space"
by incomprehensible stencils.

Back to the nerve, the gall, the thought that the debt
collector addressing me over fiber optic lines drives a black
Lincoln Navigator with illegal tints as a statement on
the illegitimacy of taste when it dawns on me and I begin to
Judge Judy the shit out of all my nemeses.

FANATICAL, FANATICODE, FANATIQUILL

2011-12-06T21:39:00.000-08:00

The young lady said, your hair,
may I touch it? And I obliged, sort
of swan in an injured, curtsied bow.

She pawed and graded my exquisite locks
and confessed the purse my hair
could fetch in the black markets of the world.

I had been summoned to slay mawfuckers
with my pizazzy Powerpoint for Playas’
and now, like a genie, I could not be rebottled.

The thought of follicle bazaars in Tangiers
or the Sarajaven mob trafficking my now
very valuable head ricocheted in my synapses tanks.

I had been thinking of nothing lucrative at all, nothing
like pure poetry strawberries as large as the heads of Shih Tzus
or contraband submarines forged in the jungles of Colombia.

I had been thinking that I don’t listen to Otis Redding enough
that I take too many scalding showers and don’t leave my hair
the chance to fume the bouquet of my wholly singular odor.

And now I am finally thinking of the young lady, her fingers
comb the epicenter of my vanity, they graze my thick head
my dull, oaken dome from which spectacular beauty glows.

CINCO DE HINCHAS!!!

2011-11-21T21:29:00.000-08:00

The fifth issue of Hinchas de Poesía went live the first week of November, right on the heels of a new harvest moon (In fact, I have recently spoken with Jim Heavily, poetry editor extraordinaire, about how our humble little digital rag follows a schedule dictated exclusively by that rock.) and the spurs of an asteroid poised to play chicken between the Earth and the moon.

According to our counters on the Hinchas site, provided by gostats.com, the third week of Hinchas cinco had seen 57 new visitors and 153 hits, which is not bad but not necessarily great. These metrics are pretty similar to what the core audience of Hinchas might be; although I am extremely grateful for all readers, it has been hard for me to overcome this audience plateau.

The banners and ancillary design elements were inspired by the bookLos Angeles in Maps by Glen Creason, the map librarian for the Los Angeles Public Library. The book is a cartographic history of Los Angeles and seemed perfect for our fifth issue since our base of operations has moved from New York City to Los Angeles. Moreover, through my current job I am traveling through Los Angeles county and meeting people in all of its myriad neighborhoods.

The variety of writers and thus aesthetics is primarily what's on view in Hinchas cinco. Jim Heavily, the poetry editor, selected 14 poets and 2 fiction writers based only on the power of voice inherent in the piece they sent Hinchas. At the same time, the voice of these poems are not only in English, Spanish, and Spanglish but Nahuatl as well.

Melinda Palacio has one poem in cinco called "Sirvenguenza Swagger" that is sexually charged and anthropological at the same time and ends with a benediction for the narrator's father who has seen jail time.

David Spicer's are dope incantations and suave cinematic tableaus. We were lucky enough to get him to let us publish four poems from a series he is currently working on called "Lena and Schopenhauer."

Louis Bourgeois' poem is a motherfucking gem! After reading it, I am left with more questions than answers, and yet the indictment the narrator mounts precludes me from doing so because the voice is so bitchy and bombastic.

In a bit of serendipity, Jeffrey Tucker's poem, "Te Quiero" is the second one that involves feral vermin and their indiscriminate slaughter. Whereas, Louis http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifBourgeois' poem, "The Bermuda Triangle" is purposefully offensive and exciting, Tucker's poem ask its readers to envision themselves as the roadkill that time has bumrushed.

Steve Busonik has written a poem so pure and honest, you know he couldn't be a writer writer; that's because he used to be a professional cellist, and entertains a force of sophisticated observation that is essential and undervalued. Busonik's poem reminded me of Carine Topal's two poems, "Apologia" and "Neon Behavior.

Carine Topal's poems are startling and kind of creep up on you; I'd also say they're wonderfully "Catholic," or imbued with a sentiment of the absurhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifdly holy. A piece of literature exhibits "Catholic" tendencies when it traffics freely in guilt and the pleasures of confession.

Juan J. Morales is a new contributor, and his poem, "The Cursing Chorus of the Mob" is about a cloister of brujas in Ecuador and the costs of inflicting violence on practitioners of Dark Arts. In many ways the violence is exacted, kind of like the violence in one of Kristine Chalifoux's poems, "Kings’ World: The Tarot Reading." She manages to mix tarot cards, gangster delirium, and the only possible Future into one poem.

Liz Dolan's poem crackles like starchy sheets. July Westhale's poem is about getting cut on public transportation and possibly not passing for a native.

Luivette Resto's got two poems, one has the word Jesus in the title and the other one is written about the 27th letter of the alphabet. Kurt Mueller's fiction piece is sly and tremendous; Frank Izaguirre's piece is a micro fiction piece that cleverly distills the history of the word, guajiro, or cowboy/peasant in Cuban Spanish.

José Hernández Díaz and Claudia D. Hernández both have poems in Hinchas #5; both poets have worked directly with Alarcon's Facebook page protesting Arizona SB 1070 called Poets Responding to SB 1070. Tapenade Chiffon-Baton's figures on multi-colored construction paper. For musical accompaniment, we have Mr. James Booker.

Last but not least, two amazing reviews. Bojan Louis reviews Melinda Palacio's first novel, Ocotillo Dreams, and Jim Heavily reviews Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas.

HINCHAS FIVE BANNERS

2011-10-09T20:48:00.001-07:00

SHE'S MY LOBBYIST

2011-09-27T21:05:00.000-07:00

In my time of need, she is there
in her power black polka dot skirt
and spartan high heels.

As the middle class folds in on itself
she's at the table with the gorgons
of several mirror manufacturers.

Then, she's flossing her rhetoric
at the no-taxes conference, rereading yore-orators
un-contextualizing Jeffersonian snippets.

Later, much later, she's up early to file motions
and throng the halls with snide press releases
that put people on high, color-coded alert.

She's dancing on tables with the daughters
of the losers of the Revolution, and battleshipping
lines with them in chic, metallic powder rooms.

She's fashioning cyanide bullets
for Albanians with pizzerias on the Concourse.

She's interpolating the fluoride in toothpaste
with radiator fluid, and selling it in dollar stores.

My lobbyist is throwing performance artists
into endless interrogation holes for questioning
the auguries of The Filter Politburo.

She's fundraising with Christian mercenaries.
She's toppling welfare caliphates.
She's fasting with Shiite and Sunni heroin herders.

EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE LETTER

2011-09-15T22:45:00.000-07:00

9/15/2011

Mr. J. Bha%@^%h
yusu&.bha%@^%h@________.com

Yago S. Cura
#$%28 Venice Blvd
LA, CA 900&*

Dear Mr. B__________

On Saturday September 10, I opened a business account with Chase for the first time. I am a switch-over customer from the days of Washington Mutual, and love the Chase service but am not crazy about the Chase fees. I am the proprietor of a small press and online journal and have been needing to open a separate business account for some time now, but have been precluded from doing so by our horrendous economic times.

I am writing today to you to notify you of the excellent customer service given to me by J_______ Br_______. I have been offered many promotions though Chase and to date have taken advantage of zero of them, but after Ms. Br______ took a look at my personal checking account, she offered me several good reasons why I should take the plunge and open a business account with Chase.

I am a part-time librarian and part-time publisher of literature and part-time interpreter, and a full-time dad. I like when people take time out of their day to explain to me in simple dollars and cents. This is something that Ms. Br_____ did for me, and it is something remarkably difficult to cultivate with employees.

I have been a teacher for most of my professional career and it has taught me a simple truth. Theories concerning things are sometimes useless because if your teacher knows the theory but can't transmit the content then that's a bad teacher. Likewise, just because you know what the price of gold is in the morning, doesn't mean that you can provide expert customer service.

Ms. Br______ knows how to do both, and she knows how to talk to people like people, which is a very difficult thing to do and almost impossible to learn. I'm afraid it's a no-theory kind of thing. Either you got it or you don't. Ms. Br_____ clearly does. I appreciate your time, and look forward to a long and salubrious business partnership with Chase. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance

Thank You Greatly!

Yago

NYC AS THE NYPD STATE

2011-09-08T19:42:00.001-07:00

I moved to New York City the summer after 9/11. I was born in Brooklyn, but raised in Miami, so it was a return of sorts. The city was still visibly stunned and the country was astir with its color-coded thing; "Ground Zero" had stopped smoldering months ago, but the clean-up was well under way. Thousands had died which meant that hundreds of thousands were being directly affected which affected the millions grinding it out in the city. A deep sense of distrust, especially towards Arabs and East Asians, descended on the city like some medieval plague. The summer after 9/11 jobs became scarce as state and federal monies were put on hold so that our "response" might become apparent (nation building price tag and all). The Department of Ed and City University of New York had freezes; this or that Association was only hiring internally. The summer after 9/11, New York City still reeled from the pelagic psychic pain and ultra-deep remorse inflicted by those two planes.

Truth be told, the blackouts of 2003 left a much larger imprint on my experience as a New Yorker. I had not survived the simultaneous attack on the Towers that day so I could not rightly say that 9/11 had directly affected me, but being left without electricity for three days in 2003 is my infinitesimally small 9/11. Especially since, everyone completely assumed that the blackouts had been caused by another terrorist attack, and not overheated, overtaxed utility and power generator stations. The blackout of 2003 was an exercise in controlled chaos because many of the people that I encountered those three days were convinced our republic had imploded. The summer after 9/11, the subways were thronged with anti-terror police in body armor, scaring the shit out of everybody. Of course, though, it was for your safety, so unless you were heading up your own cell you shut your mouth and shared the platform with the swat squadron.

We were told numerous times a day that it was the new price of freedom. According to the Daily News, by 2008, the NYPD was already "reinventing itself as an intelligence and homeland security agency" as well as "the nations largest police department". As the country's hawks played with smoke and mirrors at the United Nations to obtain legitimacy for their eventual invasion of Iraq, New York City became one of the safest and best patrolled cities in the world with "37,000 officers," and "tens of millions of dollars - much it from federal grants - on an array of high-tech security measures designed to thwart threats." This is the reason that the NYPD is the only police force in the world with an international presence as many of its officers work in conjunction with Central Intelligence Agency analysts.

I lived in New York for a total of 8 years, the last 5 living in a Harlem enclave (Striver's Row) in a neighborhood were I stuck out like a thumb because I was Latino and not Black. I have lived in an attic on Church Ave in Brooklyn, and right on third Ave in Spanish Harlem; I have lived in a Hasidic Brooklyn neighborhood where the world would shut down on Friday evenings in preparation for Shabbat. And I have been out and about to the wee hours of the night, intoxicated and stumbling, bumbling through wind-slapped city streets, industrial zones, and hipster kingdoms. And nothing has ever "happened"; I have never been mugged or pistol-whipped or knifed in the gut or taken advantage of in a violent and aggressive manner. I also taught high school for three years in the Bronx in a poor neighborhood with a large gang presence. So, I have seen fights, melees, and minor bar brawls, but I benefited directly from the safety and surveillance of a post-9/11 heavy police presence.

POSTCARD FEAT #2 BY YAGO S. CURA & JIM HEAVILY

2011-08-26T23:09:00.000-07:00

Postcard Feat with Yago Cura & Jim Heavily

By Yago Cura in Postcard Feat

40 pages, published 27 AUG 2011

BUT WHAT IF THE MEDIUM TURNS OUT TO BE A MYSTERIARCH

2011-08-25T21:39:00.000-07:00

The dead don't pull U-turns, they don't reconstitute on the wrong side of the Mirropane, or heckle the horses at the track. You won't find them returning an alternator belt, or buying peach ice cream from the Oaxacan.
The dead stay dead, like, well, like, we try to stay undead--with that verve and repugnant confidence. With that neck thrust forward to break the winning tape. With that beam of teeth and nose, with feral gumption and berzerker battery will.
Now, Harry Houdini had the eyes of a Siberian husky and the sinister countenance of a Bond villain plotting Atomic Mayhem Sequence, Doomprints, errant launch
key codes.
Inside Houdini's head possibly the closest megaphone for speaking to the dead.
And yet, he judged Spiritualists, seance mediums, and Coteries of Nostalgia to be bunkum bouyed by Philistines. And yet, Houdini went before Congress to tattle on the influence of the Fox Sisters, pesky mediums fleecing World War One widows, and the unjustly bereaved.
You can't convince me, though, that Houdini the Mysteriarch, the Emir of the Air, didn't know how to decipher frequencies of post-mortem supplication with elan.
I have seen him levitate amperes with Tesla; I have seen him juggle Torrs in Eiffel's laboratory salon. You ask me about my collection of fetters; there are none which can contaminate or contain me.

POSTAL DE JIM HEAVILY DE CANADA

2011-08-24T15:58:00.001-07:00

BERLIN'S GARGLELANGUAGE

2011-08-04T21:25:00.000-07:00

It's not words per se he peels from the air.
It's imperative Gibberish, forceful convolutions.

The front vowel "e" in see, tree, Daddy.
Over and over, with little regard for modulation
but almost identical in tenor and timbre, volume.

"e!," "e!," "e!," spliced on some Exultation Reel,
like a song long-distance swimmers repeat stroke
after stroke in their waterlogged minds.

Berlin can't rattle off the word, steam, but he's
breaking ground on ice chips and slivers of phonemes.

His tongue is starting to shove declarations, so it's only
a matter of seconds before he's gargling scaffolded utterances
and phrases mimed to our positive feedback?

How pregnant the now of his affricatives, how urgent
the "tch, tch, tch" of his future forays with words
like toy, church, judge, and eventually, torsion.

THWARTING REPUBLICAN ADVANCES

2011-07-25T14:25:00.000-07:00

That the Republican Party is busy recruiting Latinos is not surprising, http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifgiven the recent success of Marco Rubio in Florida and Raul Labrador, the first ever Hispanic elected to the senate from Idaho. The Republicans have to keep the momentum going if they plan to make a dent in the Latino, Democratic faction. According to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, there are currently 158 Republican officeholders versus 1,380 Democratic officeholders. What this means is that Democratic officeholders outnumber Republican officeholders almost ten to one. But, does that mean those figures are going to hold? More importantly, in what ways will the conservative fringes of the Latino community attempt to bum rush our progressive, Democratic core?

Should Latinos be wary of the Republican Party's current desires to enhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giftice them to the dark side? Well, according to N.A.L.E.O., "Roughly 22 million Hispanics are projected to be eligible to vote in 2012 — perhaps more — and...[turnout]... could reach...a record 12 million." And, according to NPR, "Last week, the Republican State Leadership Committee announced a plan to invest $3 million into the recruitment of 100 Hispanic candidates for state legislative seats across the nation in 2012." The Republican State Leadership Committee's "investment" is a smarmy attempt to elicit our votes without providing any assurances that our votes will benefit our communities.

So, what is to be done? How can the Democratic party cement its supremacy, and rejuvenate its scrappy creed? Well, the first thing the Democratic Party can do is use the bullhorn to extol its victories in the area of Labor and Legislation. Unions have taken most of the brunt of this economic meltdown; but, unions and the Democratic Party have been aligned since Roosevelt's New Deal; their hard work earned the working class several privileges we take for granted (the 40-hour work week, minimum wage, health insurance, paid leave, pensions, Social Security and Medicare, over-time pay, etc.). The Democrats have a reputation for being squeamish and mild-mannered, for apologizing for things that Republicans get away with all the time. If Democrats want to keep Latino votes they will need to get their elbows dirty, and start talking to people where they understand it most: in the pocketbook. And they will eventually have to address the Immigration Question, and come out strong on the side of naturalizing undocumented workers en masse because there are too many Latino families rent apart by our unfair immigration practices which allow our country to exploit undocumented workers and not provide for their basic, human needs.

I feel like I got hoodwinked by the concept of "Hope and Change," and that the Democratic party used me in the last election. It is well documented that two-thirds of Latino voters cast their ballots for Obama, which speaks leagues about how little race played a part in our decisions. The sad truth is Obama has had to make many concessions and has faced much resistance from the Republicans; I find it miraculous that he was able to get any legislation passed. But, at the same time, I would be remiss if I told you I wasn't nostalgic for a time when Democrats, like Johnson, envisioned what a Great Society might look like. I understand the Republican penchant for idolizing small government, but I look at something like Social Security, which used to stand as a guarantee that growing old didn't necessarily mean growing poor, and genuinely feel nostalgic and want to retain that image of my country.

COPA DE AMERICA: COLOMBIA VS. ARGENTINA

2011-07-06T17:45:00.000-07:00

All the stress was on the Argentines as they came out to meet the Colombian Copa de Oro squad in Santa Fe, Argentina at the Estinaslao Lopez stadium. As the host nation, Argentina was going to have to show considerably more effervescence than it had recently shown. Mediocre showings are not Argentina's strong suite, and most of the time they come undone by themselves.

The Argentine dominated from early on, moving the ball laterally and keeping control. The Colombians buzzed around the midfield like curious bees, while the Argentine squad poked it's head in places where it doesn't belong. For example, Colombia's first foray into Argentine territory came almost five minutes into the match.

Aguilar was the first player to make it personal, sliding cleats first into Messi a little after the sixth minute. This only served to ignite the Argentines and makes it's potent naptha take flame. But, then the Argentines started throwing themselves on the floor and taking every evasive maneuver like some personal affront. And this dragged on for several minutes until in the 17th minute, Negron took a penalty shot that skimmed the pole.

And then in the 20th minutes Ramos take it to the front door of the goalie and was not more successful because of a miscalculation on his part, and the tide seemed to be shifting a little. By the 25th minute the sense of touch had returned to the match, but Argentina was showing signs of the Chilean stoppage exhibited yesterday in the match against Mexico.

The game was so physical that in certain spots the match seemed dragged down and muddled by the intense physical showing. In the 26th minute, Colombia's Moreno took it, again, to the front door and was stopped only by his inaccuracy. By the 40th minutes it was getting more and more customary for Colombia to be taking shots on goal.

The 60th minutes did not see much difference. If anything, on the Argentine side, Aguero was put in and La Velce was put on the bench. It got to the point that Cantor and his sidekick were already talking about the advantage for Colombia if it tied. And withing seconds of Aguero coming in, Argentina was already looking a little more lethal. It makes one wonder why Batista would have taken so long to put Aguero in.

In the 65th minute, Burdisso gets a bloody noes and Aguilar almost scores again, but no dice. The game ended in a 0-0 score which benefits Colombia which scored two against Costa Rica, while Argentina just had 1 goal from another tie with Bolivia. Lackluster, completely lackluster match.

FIRST LINE FROM EX-STUDENT HAKEEM, WHICH HE PROLLY STOLE FROM THE TELEVISION...

2011-07-04T23:22:00.000-07:00

Anyone who says having a child was the best moment of their life never had two Kit Kats fall out of a vending machine at once.
Likewise, smoking spliffs with your daughter in Amsterdam might be an ill-advised venture or joint or whatever zanganos are calling it nowadays.
Sometimes, I even pass out for a minute from the monster toke like some somnambulant
Buju Banton, and I feel the CHiPs come after my Shiloh with dilated pupil charts.
Obviously, I am after apparent largesse randomly dolloped from the ether of boring,
dilapidated ouevres involving public dispensaries of chance and loot.
But vending machines hold special scrim with my maneuvers of faith, my rabid tautology
of disbelief when exceptional things absorb the surrounding gravity.
When spectacular decrees of hiccoughs herald the system, when nougat logs or diabetes lozenges rain from one of the floors of a vending machine to the pit below.
Listen, I've driven through terrain with my tendrils at bay; I’ve wished Tetanus
Armageddon on vending machines from Miami to Astoria to El Segundo.
And, the only thing I have to show for it is a crowbar in my heart, a boulder tome of a snow globe through the security glass, lead pipe surprise, intelligent brick.
Therefore, as they dropped their payload, I dropped pretense and waited for the register to manifest the seemingly impossible: twice the prison of vision, twice the mundane turned gloriously verboten.

"GOATS" BY EUGENIO DE ANDRADE

2011-06-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

Daniel Johnson was in town this week, and he left me this beautiful little poem by Portugese poet, Eugenio de Andrade. We were quite tickled by the randyness and simplicity of this little poem, and of course what the speaker names his goat when he gets one: Maltesa!

ALABAMA HR 56

2011-06-25T16:17:00.000-07:00

Alabama's state law H.B. 56 that passed on June 9th, 2011 is a racist piece of legislation because it deputizes state officials to carry out federal appraisals solely based on appearance and circumstance. In other words, if a child is entering kinder garden in Alabama, the school is required to determine the child's immigration status before enrolling that child. If you are thinking about getting a doctorate at the University of Alabama and subsequently renting an apartment in Tuscaloosa, you have to prove that you are a U.S. citizen. Before you take that job in Montgomery, make sure you can prove that you are authorized to breathe in the United States.

Alabama's H.B. 56 prompts Alabama school system officials to verify the status of any child entering kinder garden. But, this is not a regular function of school officials; this law burdens school officials with more bureaucracy and paperwork than they already ignore. So, worsy case scenario, Alabama's H.B. 56 creates an index of all "undocumented" children in the state of Alabama. A slightly more-worse case scenario looks something like the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II. Except, what does an "undocumented" child look like? Or, why stop there? Why not proffer legislation that requires school officials to make a list of all the red-headed children, or all the children that don't want to play dodgeball because of the inherit violence in the game.

Moreover, Alabama's HB 56 is sure to be shot down by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union. So, Governor Robert Bentley is going to have to go back to the ole' drawing board and draw on a slightly less racist piece of legislation, creating more bureaucracy and government oversight. You know the conservative sectors of the political spectrum talk a great game about not wasting taxpayer time, and making government smaller. Do they understand that wholesale repeal of hard-fought accords create more government and more need for cult of personality politicians that will tell you everything you want to hear?

One of their favorite yarns is that undocumented workers don't pay taxes, that "undocumenteds" are the only ones using food stamps or social services, that they're the reason there are no jobs in the U.S. What conservative officials don't mention is that bills like Alabama's H.B. 56 have already been proven unconstitutional. In 1982, the United States Supreme Court denied state laws that attempted to block funding for illegal aliens in Plyler v. Doe. In Plyler v. Doe (1982) the U.S. Supreme Court found that "any state funds for the education of children who were not "legally admitted" into the United States, and which authorizes local school districts to deny enrollment to such children, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."

Alabama's H.R. 56 encourages xenophobia and wholesale racist doctrines, decrees, and diatribes. Moreover, it creates more government oversight, not less, by unduly involving the federal government in what is clearly a state's right issue, or a problem encountered by state governments. This law speaks to the worse in Americans because it punishes people in the country with the least assurances. I understand that they are undocumented and illegal, but I do not think it is fair to prosecute those with zero options or demonize their desire for better lives. Maybe, the U.S. works just hard enough to ensure that undocumented workers don't throng into our country. But, undocumented workers are here, and they're an integral part of our service industry, our states, and our country.

THE GAZPACHO IS ENCHANTING & THE GAZPACHO ENCHANTS ME

2011-06-24T15:44:00.000-07:00

planetoid rules don't govern molecules
planetoid rules are all philosopher's stone
molecules are lil' anvils made of lil' anvils
they tyro their heft to better gravity's raiments
hair is the epicenter of every avatar's esteem
no, hair, nonsense, is your genes' state i.d.
the argument is about the Earth's age in years
the argument mostly coming from admiral flaneurs
telescopes that size can even pick out corpse noise
telescopes size that signature, but the calculator-
interfaces do all the aggregate recognition
piano octaves, born of woozy sentiment, sound like
guitar whineys in the pressurized cabin range
and whether you are drunk, like a Pepsi legionnaire
and whether whence is enough of a thirsty posture.

2011-06-18T19:17:00.001-07:00

Spare Parts and Dismemberment by Josh Fernandez
R.L. Crow Publication (2011)

Fernandez's 70-page book of poems is heavy on the lyricism, but medium-rare on voice and scope. Ultimately, the ethos of his message gets gets muddled by the various incantations of wry, ironic, and vengeful that Fernandez imparts to the narrators in his poems. However, poems in which he uses simple registers convey great, undiluted wisdom.

For example, the narrator in "The Outsider" begins with a simple rumination, "I wonder what happened/ to that kid/," about a kid with a kinky physical defect, "who looked like/ a dropped potato-one cruddy eye/ too close to his nose," and ends with, "And I wonder if he knows/ that we still think of him/ from time/ to time." And the poem, "There Were More of Us," in which the speaker discusses his cousin, "Carlos, the dark-skinned boy/ built like a wild mustang" that joined a "Sureño/ gang/ and inked 3 dots". The speaker's cousin is dead by the end of the poem, "a cliche," but the final image is of Carlos' stone-cold hard demeanor, even in death, "At his funeral/ he still looked mad/ even with his eyes/ closed."

Fernandez is a journalist by trade, writing music and concert reviews for publications like Spin.com, and covering crime for the Sacramento News and Review. Therefore, Fernandez is a writer that has seen a substantial amount of municipal malfeasance, personal trauma, and chemical addiction. And, there is no doubt that Fernandez has at one point have inhabited some or all of the bleak scenarios in Spare Parts and Dismemberment, but there is little in the way of guidance, redemption, or the bigger picture to take away.

And, pretty soon all that holds the book together are the anecdotals of human frailty, and the power of personal saviors (like Crystal who appears in many of the poems; the book is also dedicated to her, albeit not solely.) To be fair, the book stands as testament to the health of independent publishers, like R.L. Crow, and the hale book market present in the U.S. and specifically in northern California. If you like Bukowski or John Fante, and find their fiction entertaining then this book might be for you. If you like Sharon Olds, or Jim Carroll, then Josh Fernandez poems might be for you. Say what you want about the poems, this young poet has poured their heart into this endeavor of a book, and any missteps must be taken at face value. This is, after all, a 70 page book of poems; with that number, some poems are just going to be stronger than others.

HINCHAS #4, GUEST EDITED BY JIM HEAVILY

2011-06-15T23:20:00.000-07:00

Hinchas issue number four is finally ready to be consumed by the masses. Guest-edited by Jim Heavily, the fourth issue of Hinchas represents two months of stellar work, compiling, editing, and localizing the work contained therein.

What writers are represented in the fourth issue of Hinchas you ask? Well, we got two poems by Campbell McGrath, an amazing poet and teacher. I had the great fortune of taking several semesters with him at F.I.U. as an undergrad. We have three poems by James Cervantes, and a short story by Agustin Martinez.

In terms of art, Hinchas was able to use the work of visual artist, Ambiorix Santos, and photographers, Jennifer Therieau and Brian Hawley. This represents a new trajectory for us as we generally like to include photographs and art and have tried to for each of our issues.

I would love to hear your comments, suggestions and feedback. Next up for Hinchas and Jim Heavily is Postcard Feat #2 which was created from August 2010 to March 2011.

2010 CENSUS: WHY WE SHOULD COUNT ILLEGAL RESIDENTS

2011-06-02T22:16:00.000-07:00

It was crucial that the 2010 Census included illegal, or undocumented, and legal residents currently in the U.S. Doing so has ensured that Latinos have a more equitable dispersion of federal, municipal, and community services. A successful Census should ensure that everyone receives their share of the municipal largesse, and that the political realms cut up by politicians adhere to population and districting rules. Politically, the U.S. Census has always had an adulterous affair with the figures depicting illegal immigrants. However, undocumented immigrants use community services (like libraries, schools, and parks); undocumented immigrants pay taxes (sales tax--many own homes--property tax) and use community services, incorporating themselves into our lives. So, their need should be taken into account; leaving illegal immigrants out of U.S. Census has everything to do with the politics of intolerance.

Pretending that the needs and services consumed by illegal immigrants are negligibly invisible is not only irresponsible, it's akin to cutting off our noses to spite our faces. The U.S. Constitution instructs the Census to count all residents; whether or not the Constitution instructs the Census to count illegal residents, a.k.a. indocumentados, is not readily obvious, and arguments, I believe, can be made for both camps. However, one thing was blatantly obvious from the 2000 Census: "Hispanics", "Latinos", "Spanish" were egregiously under counted in the 2000 Census. According to a December 22, 2009 article in the N.Y. Times, "Latino groups contend that there was an undercount of nearly one million Latinos in the 2000 census, affecting the drawing of Congressional districts and the distribution of federal money."

The numbers are clear, though. For instance, there are currently 308, 745, 538 residents in the U.S.--of those, 50, 477, 594 were Hispanic or Latino residents. So, I guess you could say that Hispanics or Latinos account for a little less than one-sixths of the total U.S. population. In terms of numbers we are looking good, however, what has so many people reading the augury in these figures is the rate at which Hispanics or Latinos grew, and the rate at which Anglos and African-Americans shrunk. According to the 2010 Census, the most dominant Hispanic or Latino type is Mexican. Currently, Mexicans are 63% of the total Hispanic or Latino population; Puerto Ricans on the other hand constitute 9.2% of the total Hispanic or Latino population with 4, 623, 716. My people, the Argentineans, make up a pretty small fraction of the total Hispanic or Latino population. According to the 2010 Census, in 2000 there were approximately 100, 864 Argentines in the United States; by 2010 that number was 224, 952 which means that from 2000 to 2010 there were only 124,088 added Argentineans in the U.S. for a .1% growth in ten years (which might make many very happy...don't get me started!)

The great news is that, "The Hispanic population accounted for over half the growth of the total population in the United States between 2000 and 2010." This can only mean more leverage for Latinos at the national level and possibly at the district level as some districts get shifted. Also, if Latinos, legal and illegal, are lending their increasing numbers to the future of this country, this country has to address the inequalities in education, salary, and quality of life it has historically dispensed to Latinos. Also, even California, Texas, and Florida are the three states with the greatest amount of Hispanics and Latinos, there are several states which are seeing increasing numbers of Latinos. For example, "The Hispanic population in South Carolina grew the fastest, increasing from 95,000 in 2000 to 236,000 in 2010 (a 148 percent increase). Alabama showed the second fastest rate of growth at 145 percent, increasing from 76,000 to 186,000."

CONFESSIONS DE UN MISTER MADRE

2011-06-01T23:55:00.000-07:00

I get up at 7 and make coffee. By 7:30 my wife is looking for her keys to jet. By 8 my son is already rolling around in his bed, waiting for me to change his diaper. We gargle syllables for a spel, then I change his outfit. Shortly thereafter, I plop him in his bouncer and play a Baby Einstein video while daddy sips his coffee and seeps into his e-mail accounts. By 9 or 9:30, I switch on the Pandora or NPR and let him crawl around on his stomach. He works up an appetite and I mix some cereal and banana baby food in a plastic saucer and crane it into his mouth. If it's not too hot, we walk to the park three blocks away, and go on the swing for a bit. By the time we get back, he's ready for a nap. After noon, it's pretty much the same drill of changing diapers and feeding until my wife walks through the door and I can be relieved.

Sometimes we go jogging, and I am somewhat taken aback as middle age women give me thumbs-up a as I jog by. I also get a lot of looks of derision from my masculine contemporaries that feel that I've turned soft, somehow, by stepping up and raising my child while my wife works. Those people don't pay my bills, so I am not really interested in what they're trying to sell. Most of the time, though, I am most happy when I know that I am giving my child my undivided attention and care as he grows from infant to toddler.

According to the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of June 3, 2011, "the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 9.1 percent." Therefore, if at least almost one in ten Americans is currently unemployed, then there must be many more men in my situation. I am a Stay-at-Home-Dad via unforeseen consequences, but it has turned into one of the most fulfilling accidents of my career as a Human. After teaching high school in the Bronx for several years, I realized the best thing I could do was bestow the best of my attention, creativity, and patience to my son so that he does not grow up maladjusted, and helpless. I had seen too many kids that were going to end up statistics; instead of a statistic, my kid was going to become a Statistician. I have been there every morning he's woken up, and there are few diaper changes I have not had a direct hand in.

LABOR SECRETARY HILDA SOLIS @ ELAC

2011-05-29T08:51:00.000-07:00

On May 27, 2011, U.S. Secretary of Labor, Hilda L. Solis hosted a town-hall style meeting in the Recital Hall of East Los Angeles College. The "conversation" lasted 90 minutes and included the expertise of seven civic leaders, like Dolores Huerta, noted labor activist, Father Richard Estrada, from Our Lady Queen of Angels Church, and Laphonza Butler, president Service Employees International Union. Solis spoke with preternatural ease to an auditorium pulsing with E.L.A.C. students, card-carrying S.E.I.U. members (clad in purple T's), a column of cameras pointing at overdressed telejournalists, and a cadre of local reporters snapping indiscriminate shots of the proceedings. Plus, the amount of pressing flesh, handshakes, and brown man pounds was enough to make any person blush.

According to the U.S. Dept of Labor, "The event...[was]...a continuation of the national conversation that President Obama started in a speech in El Paso, Texas on May 10, 2011." Solis spoke in a conversational manner about immigration reform, and allowed the "stories" that lose volume behind jingoistic doggerel (don't inhale the Foxygen!) to speak leagues. She spoke with great conviction, adagio, so that every phrase carried the strength of time. And even though the purple acoustic panels in the Recital Hall surely helped Solis' timbre, her tone became resounding, and her credentials obvious: First Latina in the California State Senate, First Latina Secretary of Labor, etc.

In short, her speech advocated for the nation to realize the "economic benefit immigrants bring" and that "comprehensive misrepresentation is not in our best interest." In terms of whether states or the federal government should decide the future of immigration, Solis was transparent. She said it was "not about 50 states entering legislature, but about a federal program," hinting that it was up to the federal government to decide what should be done with illegal immigrants (asylum versus extraction). Solis used the power of stories about immigrants to drive the point home; she even cited her story of sacrifice and struggle being raised by immigrant parents, who experienced great bouts of anxiety over their work situation in the U.S.

Solis cited compelling statistics to reinforce her contentions that immigrants are a positive, vital, and law-abiding sector of our society. "For example," Solis said "In the U.S., immigrants file three times as many patents as Non-Immigrants." Therefore, what needs to change is the perception of immigrants; what needs to stop is the rampant scapegoating they are constantly subject to, and the vitriol our more conservative citizens like to concoct every time dismal unemployment figures go public. Solis' introduction was given by Dolores Huerta, the co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America. Huerta's introduction emphasized Solis' commitment to all the people of California, reminding us that Solis went after exploiters in her district, but did not let that stop her from going after agricultural employers in say Pescadero, California.

NEW BANNERS FOR HINCHAS NO. FOUR

2011-05-15T22:49:00.001-07:00

CELEBRATING CUENTOS (2011) EDITED BY JAMIE CAMPBELL NAIDOO

2011-05-14T00:50:00.000-07:00

Celebrating Cuentos: Promoting Latino Children’s Literature and Literacy in Classrooms and Libraries. Jamie Campbell Naidoo, editor. Santa Barbara: Libraries Unlimited, 2011. 381 pp. $55.00 ISBN 13: 978-1-59158-904-4

by Yago S. Cura
yagoscura@gmail.com

I like to think the results of the 2010 Census caught everyone by surprise except Latinos. Latinos have been following the writing on the wall since the 2000 Census, and its fortuitous projections. Latinos still lag in terms of educational attainment, broadly, and high school graduation rates, specifically. Moreover, even though “22 percent of all children under the age of eighteen identified as Latino,” (2010 Census) Latinos were severely absent from the children’s literature available to students. Naidoo’s book cites a study conducted by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center which shows that of the roughly “5,000 books published in the United States in 2008…roughly 48 were created specifically by Latino authors/illustrators.” Therefore, Naidoo’s book is a phenomenal resource for Latino grammar school teachers, as well as professors of Education, priming the new crop of educators that are going to tackle these disparities in achievement. The first section provides stellar reference on the history of Latino education via landmark cases; the second section of the book presents a doubletake on the development of Latino children’s literature in the United States. And, the third section delineate resources for augmenting collections and planning for seminal Literacy events like Día.

LOS ANGELES FREE_FOLEY READING...

2011-05-10T13:39:00.000-07:00

INNER-CITY TEACHERS, WAR CORRESPONDENTS, AND BEARING WITNESS: THE DETAINMENT OF JAMES FOLEY

2011-05-09T10:54:00.000-07:00

1

On April 5, 2011, James Foley, a war correspondent for Global Post was captured by Qaddafi army officials. This happened outside of Brega, a petroleum-rich town to the south of Benghazi, nestled in an armpit of the Mediterranean.

Jim was doing something that he had studied to do, and he was doing it with little to no technical, logistical, or communications support. He was documenting first-hand, and in first person, a lode of raw History: it's been more than 40 years that Qaddafi's ruled Libya unperturbed, after having power-grabbed in a paint-by-numbers coup d'etat in 1969.

2

I imagine Jim's car being taken over on some blanched highway, and that the driver slowed out of necessity. I imagine there was confusion in the air, and plumes of explosive soot--people running verso to a popping noise. Many of the posts that Jim had already uploaded from Libya were pretty Helter Skelter.

In one, a soldier operating a mortar runs away from the mechanism as it hiccups and belches its ordnance into the immediate air of a paramilitary crowd. In another, several infantrymen, dressed like Hip Hop track stars going to breakfast at IHOP, jump out of the flatbed of Toyota pick-up as it spits several surface to air missiles into the stratosphere.

3

Jim's videos show a nascent rebel army, part Gomer Pyle, part Ali G, ironing out what it thinks are wrinkles, when in reality they are major body dings. They show rebels in desperate need of the Sparknotes versions of Bootcamp, as the majority of volunteers have zero prior military training. But, they also show an army possessed of great verve and common, blue-collar courage. They show lambs dressed as lions dressed in track suits and keffiyehs, strafing the sky with Kalashhnikov spatter for the hell of it. They show unfettered idealism, brazen optimism, and a hunger for normalcy and

The Libyan rebels had taken advantage of a tactical victory in their pursuit to rent the country in two, and it seemed that they had Qaddafi's army on the run. Around this time, it was becoming very clear that Qaddafi was not going to unhinge his mandibles, and that a very clear civil war had commenced in Libya.

4

The phrase, bear witness, carries an immense connotation. For one thing, you have to carry, withstand, or bear, witness; you can't transcribe it, or pass witness; you can't even give witness. Bear witness is an devious, onerous phrase; the infinitive should come with medical labels that proffer advice on dosage.

This must be the reason that teachers make efficient social drinkers, maybe being a teacher should come with a warning label. Jim taught me everything I know about teaching, which is actually a measly inheritance; but, he taught me to be confident in my assertions and humble in my presumptions. He also taught me that if a quarter of the class you teach are with you, then that's a great minority for you to have as a teacher. In other words, convince a quarter of the class that what you bring is of value to their ears, and the other aspects fall into line.

Inner-city teaching is the only teaching worth squat in my book, which is convenient for me because I allowed myself to be consumed by a fledgling inner-city high school for three years. That's right, for three years, all the toasts I gave in my head were inextricably linked to my role as an inner-city facilitator in the Bronx.

5

The implications of the denotation of witness are fraught with living up to the definition; and yet, the anecdote of what has been seen, the story that comprises the witness you "bear" must be sieved through a narrator. Without the narrator to do the bearing, who will do the hauling when it comes time to carry the story?

This one time Jim was in New York City for the wedding of a mutual friend, and I was still teaching in the Bronx so I invited Jim to sit in on sixth period English. I was doing Othello with a mixed class of English Language Learners (ELLs) and SpEds (Special Ed kids), even though I didn't have a license as an English as a Second Language or Special Ed teacher. Jim came in with his lunch, and shortly thereafter, he put his head down and went to sleep. After class, several of my students asked me about the "teacher" I put to sleep with my boring-ass lesson. Maybe to Jim, the story was what my students would make of the person they thought was observing their teacher?

6

For all the intricacies associated with witness, you'd think that the phrase might try to hide the implicit duty of its existence. It is no easy task to carry this responsibility, and many journalists shy away from bearing witness as soon as it is convenient. In many ways, the work Jim has been doing as a teacher, journalist, fictionist all serve to bear witness to a pervasive social ill. Was Foley stockading Boyscout badges by Bruce Wayning his way into the minds of the invisibly destitute?

CYPHER ADAGIO

2011-05-04T23:52:00.000-07:00

I know Jimmy is running through cyphers, writing rhymes in his head, and staying strong through stamina epistles.
I know smokescreen dope, cilantro boudoirs, stringing the Higgs-Boson along like
a pearl instead of a pussy stone.
The writer factory done made us soft as pretzel gazelles, and all those politics
turned my seersucker into a poncho.
I know rapid-fire sobriety, pajama manamana, the sound large calibers make as they
darn kevlar at eight hundred miles an hour.
I know a bassmobile with resonate frequency turret for to wisk you from the pen
of inequity, the illegal corral.
I know you as handsome punching bag, an individual of interest with severe heat-up
doldrums, and zero violent priors.
Just a little malfeasance between friends, two rentals retired to the infirmary,
and a topless chick in the Pioneer hot tub.
I know Jimmy is looking for a word that rhymes with kaiser, or mumbling rapid core syllables, or lobbing foul balls.
I know the conditions are inexorable for you, while for us the banter makes us remember the rapport off your dome.
Hold on familial horse! Keep your regiment, adagio. Juggle the supple invocations
to return home safe, an adjunct of fortune.

INVOCATION FOR JAMES FOLEY

2011-04-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

"Still sipping wishing well water imported from Pluto/ 360 milliliters for all the believers and mouths of kilometers, most cats can not proceed us"--Mos Def on Black Star's, "Definition"

Foley, Jim, Jimmy James, I say Humongous Jimena
Hueso de Caballo, trident quiver, wolverine slipper,
solipsistic fibrosis, sloth yokel, discreet in the sleet.

I say, Former Fox Navigator, Operator of the Teal Bassmobile,
miliner of jargon, billboard dimmer, aperture craps shooter,
Snake Eyes vanguard, Cobra Khan Do Jo Floor Supervisor.

Digo, Athlete's Foot fomenter, boner knight errant,
gristle apostle, sheer tactician, squirrely progenitor,
lanky stevedore, New Hampshire Catholic Vortex,
Bumbling Bouillon Buble Bard, sylvans of Sleuth, Inc.

Foley's a rider in the Public Enemy Armored Low-Rider,
a buxom battery of sixbynines in the personnel Jeep carrier,
Bantam star ship contortionist, Ginsu Elbow Forward,

Check my Timberland Dowry, dude. Check my little brother
Dickensian Coal Dumper, and my roomate, the Quasar,
the hard-on chef that thinks you should stop
inviting the rappers over.

FLYER FOR L.A. FREE FOLEY READING BY CHAZ FOLGAR

2011-04-26T23:19:00.001-07:00

INFOGRAPHIC ON U.S. LIBRARY USAGE

2011-04-24T20:04:00.001-07:00

PRESS RELEASE FOR LOS ANGELES FREE_FOLEY READING

2011-04-22T23:51:00.000-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 4/21/11

L.A. POETS CALL ON LIBYAN GOVERNMENT TO RELEASE JAMES FOLEY, AMERICAN JOURNALIST CAPTURED BY LIBYAN MILITARY IN BREGA.
SATURDAY, MAY 7TH AT 6 PM @ AVE 50 STUDIO

LOS ANGELES CONTACT:
YAGO CURA (646)207-9441

Los Angeles, CA—On Saturday, May 7th 6 Angelino poets— Billy Burgos, Rafael Alvarado, S.A. Griffin, Jeff Rochlin, Luivette Resto, Annette Cruz, Yago S. Cura, and Dennis Cruz—will read their original work at Ave 50 Studio (131 North Avenue 50 L.A., CA 90042-3903 / (323) 258-1435) to publicize the plight of James Foley, and call upon the Libyan government to release James and three other journalists that were detained with him (Clare Gillis, Manu Brabo, and Anton Hammerl).

According to eyewitnesses, Foley, one of the first journalists to arrive on the scene of the Libyan unrest, was stopped by security forces outside Brega on April 5, 2011. Foley was an independent correspondent working for the Global Post traveling with three other journalists (Clare Gillis, an American correspondent for The Atlantic and U.S.A. Today, Spanish photographer, Manu Brabo, and South African photographer Anton Hammerl), when eyewitnesses report their vehicle was fired upon and they were taken. They were later spotted in a Tripoli detention center. No further information has been reported on their safety, anticipated release or any charges against them.

Raised in New Hampshire, James Wright Foley worked for years as an inner-city teacher with Teach For America in Phoenix and the Cook County Boot Camp in Chicago before pursuing his journalism career. He attended the graduate program in journalism at the Medill School of Jouralism. Following graduation, Foley embraced war reporting and traveled to the Middle East in 2008, where he embedded with the Indiana National Guard and 101st Airborne in Tikrit, Samarra and Mosul. Following Iraq, Foley covered the war in Afghanistan as a multimedia reporter for Global Post. He worked from the frontlines during the 2010 troop surge on volatile mountain outposts and the offensive in Kandahar. His story for Global Post, “On Location: A firefight in Kunar Province”, September 19, 2010, is a 2011 Webby award honoree.

Please help us press for the release of James Foley, Clare Gillis, Manu Brabo, and Anton Hammerl!

EVENT DETAILS-
SATURDAY, MAY 7th @ 6 PM
AVE 50 STUDIO—(131 North Avenue 50 L.A., CA 90042-3903 / (323) 258-1435)
FEATURING: Billy Burgos, Rafael Alvarado, S.A. Griffin, Jeff Rochlin, Luivette Resto, Annette Cruz, Yago S. Cura, and Dennis Cruz.

DIANE & MIKE FOLEY ON GREATER BOSTON'S PBS SUBSIDIARY WGBH

2011-04-20T22:58:00.000-07:00

TALLY

2011-04-16T20:32:00.000-07:00

After you were corralled in Brega, before they transferred you to Tripoli, Berlin starts teething hard, I mean I can hear the teeth
coming in and it sounds like slack getting waxed;
meanwhile, several other journos have disappeared,
and some have recently been released, the whole
thing is a mess of nerves, a hive of manners colliding
with a thick oak trunk. So, I'm not sleeping as I imagine
you're not sleeping so possibly there is some telekinesis
we might discharge, except I can't find sleep, whereas
you're obstructed from sleep as a way to standardize
or control the exhalation of your incarceration. Teeth,
funny conspirators, take brunt to flower, but easily
wilt away into maw, as when in dreams you chew your teeth
and the sensation is not unlike a mouthful of pebbles.
Then, I wake up at night and make homeopathic concoction
and Berlin's mother, Panda, rubs his gums until he hushes
up and whimpers to sleep so then I am up watching ribald
contraptions and flashing numbers, pure distraction but
soothing nonetheless, soothing longitudinal duress on
the glowing idiot box with zero news of your status.

PROLOGUE

2011-04-15T03:44:00.000-07:00

The first time regime-ists detain you
on the fringes of the accidental skirmish
mortars flop down on bazaars in Tripoli;

Accountants man machine-gun pick ups in Brega
and Adjabiya is like some stratus of gun-brunt powder.

Fools have rigged minivans with anti-aircraft missiles,
and the conscripts keep prostrating on the skirmishfield
or firing wildly in the air without having secured
a victory in ink, courtesy of the play-by-play machine.

All those indivisible bolts we've been peddling
assembled on the blanche Sahara tableau,
poised against the indignant citizens.

FREE JAMES FOLEY STENCIL: IMAGEN DETRAS DEL MOVIMIENTO!!!

2011-04-13T15:31:00.001-07:00

These are the images that you can download and use as your profile pic to generate awareness about the plight of journalists arrested and detained simply because they are doing their job and bringing to light abuses and civic injuries perpetrated by dictators and their beneficiaries. Without the important, balanced work of these journalists, dictators get to operate with impudence and turn on their own citizens.

The work of James Foley, Clare Gillis, Manu Brabo, and Anton Hammerl is an important function of Democracy. We can't fund dictatorships across the middle east, and then tell the citizens living under those conditions to be patient, that Democracy takes time. The work of these journalists highlights the important work Libyans from all walks of life are willing to fight and die for.

Please support their work and if you would like to apply pressure on behalf of James Foley, there are several things you can do.

1.) Sign the petition! (click here)

2.) you can write a letter to the mayor of Chicago, or Congressional reps asking them to push the State Department--Jimmy was a model Chicagoan and they can apply pressure too!Jimmy's been slugging it out in Chicago for several years, and taught at a boot camp for young offenders.

3.) Write Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) right now. She is one of Jimmy's senators. Write her office and advocate that she do something for him & the other journalists.

4.) Watch Jim's video on the Webby's awards page (click here), or on the Global Post website (click here).

5.) "Friend" and "Like" all the pages that appear in support of the four journalists, and monitor the situation, yourself. (click here)

This is a larger version of the image that was on here earlier.

This is a version that is best for web and similar devices.

SCOTCH TAPE RELEASES X-RAY POWER

2011-04-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

FREE JAMES FOLEY!!!

2011-04-09T11:52:00.000-07:00

Journalist James Foley is currently being detained by the Libyan government. According to the Associated Press, on April 7, 2011, "An American correspondent for GlobalPost and three other journalists were taken prisoner by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. (article)

Jimmy has been working in the middle east now for some time, with stints in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Libya. Mr. Foley has written for several local newspapers, Stars and Stripes, Global Post and has had video picked up by CBS Nightly News.

The very important video work (click here) he has been doing in Libya on the rebel forces is widely viewed on the Global Post website and forms a necessary part of the debate about Libya. For example, Ghadaffi has repeatedly said that the rebels in his country are part of Al Qaeda while hiring mercenaries from Sudan and Somalia to come and kill in Libya. Foley's videos clearly show the work the average Libyan is doing to free their country of Ghadaffi's rule; Foley's videos show accountants and offshore welders picking up arms and telling the corrupt Libyan government that they are fed up of the terror and instability.

What makes people run towards gun fire? What kind of constitution allows the headlong rush into danger, the rapport with mortality most of us only see on television and in the movies? Independent journalists that cover these hot spots of strife and rebellion often do so without the drivers and handlers and resources that established journalist can rely on, and yet these independent journalists break stories, and since they aren't beholden to newspapers which are beholden to advertisers then the only obligation they truly have is to the story. And regardless of the lede technology you studied, the seminal part of any piece is the story that gets related when the journalist sutures the threads.

War correspondents are fashioned out of necessity and meddle. Some are born just nosy enough, but don't have the acumen for description and analysis that necessarily makes them correspondents. Some have great writing chops, but could not connect with an Italian prostitute, and thus are resource-poor and awkward and hard to trust. Regardless, the squares out there, like myself, believe that whatever composite goes into making a war journalist, one of the ingredients has got to be a blatant disregard for one's own well-being and safety.

However, someone's got to relay the abominations as they happened, someone's got to transcribe the actions of the desperate as they transform into monsters, someone's got to stand up to these motherfuckers because they are wiping out whole brigades of humans, people, citizens in the middle. While it is true that war correspondents speak for those who can't speak, they are also referees, in writing, framing the conversation, reporting what they see like some musty camera, or absentee landlord surveillance system.

However, if you are just un-square enough, you could freely speculate that war correspondents are vital to democracy. What gives me certainty about my last statement is that one of the first things that regimes do when pressed with civic unrest is switch off the internet. This makes it very hard to get a real-time, accurate picture of what is transpiring withing the country. Dictators have an amazing propensity for fiction, and the justifications they spew to corroborate their actions provide quite a mezzanine for future absurdities, which are surely guaranteed to elapse.

HARLEM Y INDOOR SOCCER

2011-04-05T08:33:00.000-07:00

LATINOS & GRADUATION RATES

2011-04-04T21:35:00.000-07:00

One of President Obama's goals is having the "highest degree attainment rate in the world by 2020" (Kolowich, par 3). If this is to happen, the United States must seriously consider how it is going to booster Latino graduation rates, both at the secondary level and in higher education. Are Latinos facing obstacles that other demographics do not experience? Why is the achievement gap so entrenched when it comes to Latinos? Are we so busy ensuring Latino kids get into college that we haven't the slightest clue how to teach them the self determination and academic discipline that is going to keep them engaged and willing to play the game and graduate?

If you think this is a problem that doesn't have to be addressed, I can guarantee you that it is going to get tremendously worse. According to Excelencia in Education, "Between 2005 and 2022, the number of Hispanic public high school graduates in the United States is projected to increase by 88 percent, while the number of white school graduates is expected to decline by 15 percent." This is not a matter anymore of class versus ideology, of bitter inequalities that plague the system for the endemically destitute. The bottom line is that with a quarter less Anglos receiving degrees and an almost 90 percent increase in Latino high school graduation rates, to remain technologically equal and retain supremacy over nations on the up and up, the United States is going to have to rely, more and more, on Latinos for it's skilled as well as manual labor.

To remain competitive in the world, the U.S. and specifically the administrators of the Obama legacy must find ways of engaging with the Latinos that drop out after the first year, or more likely, have to leave school because they can't afford to be a student. One often forgets that to be a "student" takes a lot of money, not because students spend ostentatiously but because they apportion nothing to the market by studying Moliere or re-reading a Hemingway with a Marxist lens or translating one of Pessoa's alter ego nom de plumes. The simple fact is that only the middle class can really afford to dawdle on campus in track pants and skarf on falafel or vending machine trophies like Twizzlers and Sunkist.

One of the biggest problems that Latinos students face is that they have to work while they go to school; the majority of Latino students are forced to either take the mantle of the wage-earner or watch their families suffer as their earning power is diminished. For example, "At Northeastern Illinois, Green and Thill have found that Hispanic students are more likely than others to be working full-time jobs and supporting families" (Kolowich, par. 6). In Sam Petula's article in Inside Higher Ed, he mentions the report conducted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities that "recommends that higher education institutions search for ways to be more flexible in accomodating working students. Latino undergraduates had the highest average work-study aid award of any racial or ethnic group in 2007-8" (2011, par. 8). Another accommodation that schools and especially personnel that service Latinos are going to have to make is patience. Many of the Latino students have had to serve as translators of important school documents, and in essence, solo navigators.

People that service Latino students are going to have to realize that many Latino students would rather figure it out than ask for help, and that might include the schema that will allow them to navigate the brick and mortar library. Maybe the best thing we can do is predict the aspects that require instruction and place landmarks along the way so that we assure ourselves that these students are getting the academic attention they require while allowing them to retain some of the wonder and meddle involved in inquiry and discovery learning.

EAT ME!, DANIEL DEFOE

2011-04-03T00:27:00.000-07:00

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS OF ROBERT LOGAN'S, "THE SIXTH LANGUAGE" (2000)

2011-03-30T11:22:00.000-07:00

Education has been on everyone's mind lately, especially in lieu of unionized teachers in Wisconsin having to "justify" their "immense" pensions and wealth-killing benefits, like health care and the right to see an optometrist or dentist once a year. I believe teachers should be held accountable to standards of efficiency, but the way they are being demonized leads me to believe that the powers that be are drawing focus from the real problem: namely that we don't want to recognize that our models might be out of whack. In other words, what if what used to be taught, pre-Internet era, is not good enough anymore?

It is no coincidence Robert Logan's book starts with a section titled, "Why Our Schools Don't Work." In this section, Logan presents his main argument while highlighting the failures inherent in the history of our public education system, "Our schools are based on an industrial model, with a delivery system patterned on the factory. Millions of schoolchildren are taught the same content in the same linear sequential order, guided by a uniform curriculum dated by a centralized bureaucracy at a municipal school board or state department of education." (8) While broken, the system does work for a select few, "Many students endure. Doctors, engineers, lawyers, and accountants continue to be trained. The success of our schools is limted, however" (8).

Our schools have not kept up with the body of knowledge that needs to get know, "it is not so much that the content of the curriculum is out of date as that the style of education is not suited to contemporary needs and challenges." (9)

CAJON PASS

2011-03-24T16:44:00.000-07:00

Interstate 15 in Califas
northeast through Saguaro timpano
and flinthead basalt wrinkles
galore in the gore of gigaclouds
botched cottonous affairs
fingerbanging the stratosphere
four thousand feet from measly sea level
sticking it in third to ascend or else-up
facade start slowly slimeing back
banks de viento, wind flanks, drizzledslush
embankments of crushed glass and trapos
channels in the eyeballs, the remote
eighteenwheelers used as rotting billboards
and booster bulleting boards for Ron Paul

NEW LOOK FOR ISSUE NUMBER FOUR...

2011-03-17T13:28:00.001-07:00

My Tia Martha has this little gem of a book, aside from other great cultural talismans. From the title we get that this book is a Civic Calendar published by the National Indigenous Institute. The information inside describes key events in Mexican history, so in a sense the book is a primer on Mexican citizenship. I am certain that other countries invested in these publications; regardless, the book is a gem and a master work of mechanized printing, as it must have had the colors run seperately, one at a time.

BERLIN EATING HIS BOOKS...

2011-03-13T23:48:00.000-07:00

INTRO FOR POSTCARD FEAT WITH JIM HEAVILY

2011-03-13T23:14:00.000-07:00

Why send a letter when you can jettison an electronic mail down the backbone of the Internet? Sending an e-mail instead of dispatching a letter through the U.S.P.S. saves you time and effort; and, there is little chance that your email is going to be displaced, or flat-out lost; there is no Bureau of Dead E-mails because that type of anomaly is not built into the system. An electronic mail can not not reach it's destination (despite being imploded as a packet or getting re-arranged in "flight").

Maybe, the best part about pushing the "send" button is not having to interact with the surly clerk behind the plexiglass. The only real advantage the U.S.P.S. has over e-mail is that when you patronize the U.S.P.S. you are patronizing an institution that has been refining its "game" since 1775 when Ben Franklin was appointed the nation's first Postmaster General by the Continental Congress. By all means, the U.S.P.S. is a tight ship, but even tight ships spring leaks. Is the U.S.P.S. an ironside whose time has come? Are there other institutions out there that seem to be in as much flux as the postal service?

The idea we have outgrown libraries dovetails with the idea that the U.S.P.S. is a relic of a Norman Rockwell era in America, where John Wayne was God, Ike was Buddha, and Ed Sullivan a Cathode-Ray Jesus. Both institutions symbolize the United States in a way that little things do, and yet both are rushing headlong into obsolescence. This may or may not be saying something about Americans are evolving as a people. Technology has given us the mode to render both useless and almost beyond salvage. The electronic book has killed the print book as the electronic mail has killed the parcel affixed with postage. Perhaps, the only interesting question is how long can these institutions hemorrhage money? In other words, at what point does nostalgia become an impediment?

I read Adam Gopnik’s article, “The Information” in the New Yorker magazine recently. Stylistically, Gopnik’s writing is fluid and without frills, almost primitive, which is a ridiculously difficult bit of artifice; in Gopnik's article there are turns of sleight, sprinkles of “print” history, and a more-than-thorough assessment of where media is going vis-a-vis where it's been. And, Gopnik provides a classification of the three major media factions that have evolved: "the Never-Better, the Better-Nevers, and the Ever-Wasers." It is this last faction that caught my interest the most; the Ever-Wasers believe that "at any moment in modernity something like this is going on, and that a new way of organizing data and connecting users is always thrilling to some and chilling to other." I am hoping that both the U.S.P.S. and the Public Library system in the U.S. can stay clear of the "Better-Nevers" and make their way to the "Ever-Wasers" and hit on a way to remain relevant.

Jim Heavily is a poet Hinchas de Poesia published in its third issue. He lives in North Carolina, and has time enough to correspond with me via email and Facebook. Those are pretty much the three things I knew about him when I decided to engage in a postcard feat with him. I also knew that we shared a nostalgia for the United States Postal Service, and a preoccupation for how electronic mail was affecting the work horse of through-sleet-and-snow. And now I think that I know something else about Jim Heavily; of the three factions, he is most likely to belong to the Better-Nevers because while he enjoys the bells and whistles of an interface or platform, the analog will always feel like a more authentic experience to him. I agree with the way Jim sees it, but I have no qualms about buying stamps online.

2011-03-07T22:21:00.000-08:00

Annete Cruz and I recently read at Ave 50 studio in Highland Park. The video is courtesy of Annete's husband, Dennis Cruz. You can link to the video here.

"CIRCULO MAGICO" DE ARMANDO ARREOLA

2011-02-28T22:17:00.000-08:00

As a kid, I distinctly remember working on models of fighter jets and muscle cars as a way to satiate the curiosity I felt for the inner workings of things. This curiosity led me to perform exploratory surgery on various appliances and electronic systems with little to no success. I could take things apart, but putting them back together was the part I couldn't wrap my head around. Unfortunately, I was not endowed with a manual prowess, like a mechanic or jeweler might have; I was born always holding extra screws.

Dioramas as artistic product have a pedigree that may extend to sixth century Japan and the artform known as Bonkei, and nowadays as Tatebanko. According to Wikipedia, Bonkei is Japanese for "tray landscape" and "is a three-dimensional depiction of a landscape in miniature, portrayed using mainly dry materials like rock, papier-mâché or cement mixtures, and sand in a shallow tray." And, of course, in the last 50 years, we have Marcel Duchamp's Étant donnés, a diorama that took Duchamp 20 years to make and was the primary reason for him absconding from his self-imposed chess retirement.

The dioramas sculpted by Armando Arreola and currently on view at Ave 50 Studio in Highland Park draw viewers into them like some mystical well, or forbidden keyhole. Viewers peer into the tableaus with the senses, and are amply awarded by meticulous, wicked props which easily prompts viewers to make their own narratives. Armando is also able to construct a tiny dialect from the seemingly haphazard repetition of theaters, cinemateques, and mesmerists. The matted hair of the dolls make it appear as if the dolls have mange or some other medieval scourge. You could even say that Arreola's scenes are the frozen shards of apocalyptic doll events.

Arreola's sculptures are part dioroma, part tableau, and yet all overwhelmingly cinematic. The exhibition, aptly titled Magic Circle,is a celebration of magicians, and their retinues, cinephiles, and their haunts, and theater patrons. It's aim is to show the meditative and baroque flair of the artist, but it is also nostalgic like the work of Joseph Cornell and bulging with whimsy like the works of Tracey Snelling. I think it would be safe to say that the characters in the sculptures look like recycled dolls, and run the gamut of physiognomies.

Photo credit: Martha Benedict

Some of the sculptures depict dolls with dirty faces dressed as seers and mesmerists holding seances in dark parlors illuminted by ambient light and the sheen of turqoise ceremonial robes. A swami in matching turqoise turban is about to enact the protocols for calling the spirit world. On his neck: a dazzling star pendant; and, on top of his turban: a decadent feather that makes the doll look more like a gendarme than a palm reader/grifter.

Photo credit: Martha Benedict

Another piece depicts three dolls engaged in a bout of vaudevillian sword swallowing. As a means of titillating the crowd, the two dolls that are assisting hold up an X-Ray to prove the sword swallowing is legit. Audience members look on with bulbous, matted hair. A common element in these sculptures is a frame within a frame architecture, so this particular piece contains the symbols of the spiritual arts in several of its frames.

Photo credit: Martha Benedict

While other sculptures find dolls hanging in ticket sales booths awaiting the second coming of Goddard. As I've mentioned before, the wild card in many of these sculptures is the cinematic aura that Arreola is able to concoct. For example, in the doll sitting in the ticket buying kiosk could be right out of a little cinemateque in Montmarte, but the gigantic doll face and accompanying follicle plummage give the scene a mordant, dreamy quality.

At first sight, I was struck how much these sculptures reminded me of a filthy confessional booth teeming with Hail Mary's. Because the viewer has to peer into them, I was drawn to the immediate sense of intimacy and play the artist was able to convey. In 1822 Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, the guy who would eventually invent the process of photography, opened the Diorama theater in Paris. He entertained crowds of people by animating gigantic landscape and cathedral representations by changing the light source.

Arreola's sculptures change the light source of approach for dioramas. The people depicted in them can be grotesque, apocalyptic dolls, and the tableaus can be esoteric, nuanced tales particular to no one and thus everyone. "Circulo Magico" by Armando Arreola opened on February 12 and will run until March 6, 2011 at Ave 50 Studio, Inc. in Highland Park. You should see these immaculate, delicate sculptures before Ave 50 progresses to its next exhibition.

References:

Westbrook, Lindsey. The 'Art of Diorama' at Bedford Gallery. Artweek. 39 no7 S 2008.

ALBERTSON'S JIPPED ME...

2011-02-28T12:52:00.000-08:00

I almost had enough for penny cooking ware, but I did not cash them in on time. Now, all I have is this beautiful, commercial pattern. And an unrequited sense of sticking stickers.

SECOND TRY AT MALINCHE QUERY

2011-02-16T20:38:00.000-08:00

Recently during an interview, a professor of Spanish asked me what references and resources I would suggest for a student doing research on "La Malinche," a figure in the numerous Chicano novels and paintings. Latino Literature: Poetry, Drama & Fiction by Alexander Street Press might be a great place to start, or the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States. La Malinche was the translator and guide to Cortes and later bore him a son. I always thought of her as the Mexican Sacagawea, maybe Sacagawea is the North American Malinche? Regardless, the answer I gave highlights Malinche's suture with the myth of la Llorona, but maybe a more historically appropriate database would have been a better place to start, VISTAS: Visual Cultura in Spanish America, 1520-1820 & LANIC: Latin American Network Information Center. I might get lucky using JSTOR; lucky in the sense that I might find an article dealing with a contemporary issue of La Malinche that discusses the history.

TIMPANO

2011-02-08T20:26:00.000-08:00

Timesheet cretin parakeet
a sniveling titillate
Totalitarian astronaut
c.r.e.a.m. overdrive briquettes
eunichs in the Q-Tips
Ether zooming gizmos
gizmos nothing more Knights
of the Dungaree Order
Me: with Citizen Gravity
Cigarettes, timpano
bastardobandolier
full of soggy balas
but clavabalas nonetheless
los illest rhetoricians
on channels of irridescent
teeth, the Poconos of chompers
dilapidated winter loggia
bunga bunga apparatus
on the isthmus of my cirrhosis
delicate canal of sound
in Portugese, Italian, Spanish
any way you cut it, tambor
from the percussive rubbish
of the selector, to the jarabe
portmanteau of the vocaldome

PROFESSIONAL FLOW CHART

2011-02-07T14:06:00.000-08:00

TELEPHONE INTERVIEW DRY RUN

2011-02-06T14:13:00.000-08:00

I have a phone interview tomorrow morning with a university in the valley. I thought I would answer some of the more popular questions that people get in interviews. I am creating a flow chart that I might actually post if I can figure on how to make fit into the dimensions specified by my scanner.

Tell me about you (early years, education, work experience, recent times): I was born in Brooklyn, raised in Miami. B.A. in English from FIU in Miami. Studied Abroad in 96' (London). In 99' got a minority fellowship to study at UMASS-Amherst, where I first taught Composition and Creative Writing. M.F.A. in 02' from UMASS-Amherst. Same year (2002) moved to NYC and worked for several community colleges (Kingsborough, Hudson County) and colleges (Yeshiva) before joining the NYC Teaching Fellows in 04' to teach high school English to Bronx inner-city youth for three years. Along the way, received Adv. Cert. in Secondary English Instruction from Lehman College and my Public School teacher license(which I am in the process of transferring). In 2007, received ALA Spectrum award to subsidize M.L.S. at Queens College. Interned at Museum of Moving Image in 2008. Graduated Queens College in 2009. 2008 started working at Bronx Comm College, let go at the end of 2009 because of budget cuts. 2009 started working at The Bronx Institute and in June of 2010 moved to Los Angeles area.

What do you know about our company? According to U.S. News, The University of blah blah is a private institution, founded in 1891 with a total undergraduate enrollment of a little over 1,500 students. Tuition for the 2010-2011 year was estimated to be $29,800. In addition, "the university provides student-centered, values-based and diverse learning environment."

Why do want to work for us? According to U.S. News, the 2009 endowment was almost $28 million dollars, which means that there is a healthy dialogue on how to best services the needs of students. It also means there is manpower to do many of the amazing things we expect our libraries (especially academic ones) to do. I am also a huge fan and proponent of keeping class size small and personal. According to the Library Factbook, "In 2007-08 41% of the overall instruction sessions were conducted at other campuses while 58% of total sessions were conducted at main campus. One of the library's strategic goals is to provide equitable services for main and off campus programs." Therefore, there is a real push from the data collected to equalize or stabilize the amount of instruction at Wilson Library with other campuses run by University of Blah. From 2007-2009 there was a great reduction in instruction, but from 2009 to date the figures have equalized, which shows great effort and care went into stopping the hemorrhaging.

Why do you want to work for us? I have reviewed the literature on the Blah Library webpage and am impressed by the insistence on Information Literacy exerted. It goes beyond aligning learning standards to those determined by ACRL; the standards expressed in the literature show that the library is making earnest gains in ensuring that the concepts of Information Literacy are firmly embedded in each student. I also feel that ULV is a place where my efforts will be appreciated and incorporated into the administrative infrastructure. Moreover, I feel that my perspective will lend a greater scope of expertise and objectivity to the one already established and in use at the University and its library.

What do you look for in a job? I look for a job that will allow me the opportunity to deliver exemplary service, and utilize my people skills to champion institute endeavors. I work best with supervisors that openly communicate expectations, and provide examples/samples of the work they expect. I look for positions that will allow me to think creatively, visually, and with the full force of my verbal faculties. I enjoy cultivating connections with colleagues in other disciplines and departments; I enjoy solidifying peer networks that use the library as a hub, and talking to people outside of the immediate province of libraries. I especially like telling them what the library where I work can do for them, and how we can both prosper from collaborative efforts.

VOLVO PELIROJO

2011-02-01T11:50:00.000-08:00

was hoping the totaled crimson Volvo
was going to toe down and shape up.

it had already shown regenerative properties
and i got to thinking the calaveras
could be remanded, that the somnambulant
water pump, the spark plug wires
shredded Carbonara, the spark plugs
themselves, carbonized as they were
past mechanical retribution
might still power she

was gwowing at the gaping in millimeters
exhibited by the spark plugs, the base jump
of chispa executed with dismal effort

was praying the narcoleptic oil drip
the caked-on and sooted hoses, the inside
lamp light fixture hanging apparatus
was never going to fit snugly back in the roof

Alas! despite proving partisan, she was slayed
in a manner reminiscent of Joan of Arc

her radiator, overheated from the blood
of the battle with pubis plus dank
cascabeles and castanets from the sopping
kerotene flame in the coolant pipe

Alas! she loyal herald shepherd
moon beam public radio selector fuses

she ran all day, every day
the check engine and replace light bulb
warning light ghosted into the console

PROXIMOS DE LOS ULTIMOS DEL POSTCARD FEAT CON JIM HEAVILY

2011-01-28T22:34:00.000-08:00

ULTIMOS DEL POSTCARD FEAT W/ JIM HEAVILY

2011-01-27T13:04:00.001-08:00

This is the first of the last of the Postcard Feat with Jim Heavily. Next Up is putting our "feat" on the MagCloud website and starting a new Postcard Feat with Michael Martin of Miami, FL. I think Hinchas can squeeze four of these projects out a year, which is not a bad number, if you figure that puts your poetic output at roughly 32 poems a year, also not a bad number (8 weeks that 4 projects, etc.)

FINAL POSTCARD FEATS WITH JI M HEAVILY!!!

2011-01-16T20:43:00.001-08:00

HINCHAS GETS SUBMISHMASH

2011-01-14T10:01:00.000-08:00

Hinchas de Poesia has to date published four issues. The stewardship of the journal has fallen to two principals, poet Yago Cura and fiction writer J. David Gonzalez. One of the hardest obstacles they have had to overcome is the organization and collection of submissions.

We advertise for free on the CRWOpps listserv which has a lot of traffic and many interesting opportunities for publishing. However, because we are pretty much a two man team, even a hundred submissions can be overwhelming. Lately, I have noticed that every journal or magazine that I submit to uses Submishmash, a manager of online submissions.

Submishmash offers many advantages. First, it organizes submissions. Second, it allows writers to save on the cost of a stamp. The number of journals that only accept snail mail submissions is dwindling to be sure. Third, it streamlines the process so that principals and editors have more time to consider the actual work. Fourth, the system automatically generates emails that it sends people that have submitted. Fifth, it keeps editors and principals honest by forcing them to read, process, and decide on which pieces they most want.

All in all, I think Hinchas hooking up with Submishmash is a win-win.

HOLIDAY CARD FROM MARA...

2011-01-11T14:19:00.000-08:00

I have a cousin that lives in Barcelona. She makes a living making floral arrangements and cultivating marketing campaigns that rely on the use of puppets, marionettes, etc.

If interested in seeing more of her work, or having her arrange some flowers for you, hit me up via email and I will provide her contact information.

MY PANDA IS TUFF!!!

2011-01-07T23:18:00.000-08:00

HOW THE PHOENICIANS INVENTED PURPLE

2011-01-02T20:28:00.000-08:00

They did it without the use of lustrous vowels.
Or calculators. They could not interrogate electronics,
rely on transponders. They could not shoulder the locks
which pulley freight and cargo ships across the isthmus.

A word like "purple" must have sounded like consonantmash,
like gravel compote, pebble tapanade. I doubt whether Phoenicians
could even modulate the volume of their masticating for they
had little culture, outside of sea worship and ocean play.

They did it without timesheets or timeclocks, all those
types of clicking minute designs. They crafted Teflon
Origami from receipts of overseas orders and sliced through
several, sovereign Seaweed Seas.

They pulverized shellfish until goop oozed out dye and plumed
the robes of lieges and emirs. They had one flintlock-idea ballasted
by regional prowess and brute degree. And they ran with it. They ran
with it until an alphabet formed from the clamor of that commerce.

POSTCARD FEAT #5 WITH JIM HEAVILY

2010-12-29T22:08:00.001-08:00

Peru and Bolivia have recently overtaken Colombia as the next Afghanistan.

In addition, roughly 80 percent of U.S. cocaine was thought to be Afghans using opium to placate their children.

Archaeopteryx and Confuciusornis were found not to be flapping rubbish.

Economic hardship in the U.S. was linked to abusive head trauma; a different study concluded that Americans abuse the gene responsible for Urofacial Feces Grimace when they try to smile.

Excessive burger consumption was correlated with wheezing Herpes.

French researchers reported that 52 percent of young exposed their phone numbers to an average-looking young man who hit on them.

Physicists recorded an iridescent corona, and made subatomic particles that were found to be more watery.

Sixty-one percent of African Americans, 40 percent of Hispanic Americans, and only 23 percent of white Americans use lubricants during pond snails on Crystal Meth.

Scientists created crash helmets that stink, and fruit flies whom gonate squid, and a pelagic eel-pout, all native to the North Pacific.

African leaders discussed Trees spanning the continent from Senegal to Djibouti, to check the spread of male Topi antelope who issue alarm snorts.

Imaginary predators in the presence of Female Heat make more linger.

ODOMETROCULTO

2010-12-27T09:25:00.000-08:00

Who's in charge of assigning retinues?
Like, what Greek Olympic forward
got to rampart the elemental cuentos
we are later taught through rote
to materialize and spangle?
What is occult, often inks prehensile
doodles in a maven theater; furthermore,
a ferule with which to calibrate the dank:
Odometroculto.
Likewise, how many majestic conifers might
it take to fashion a thyrsoi that meets the
gait of demi-gods, fabulists, and fanny-ologists?
Fanny, as in the silk girder of stockings
stretched across the haunches of an Amazon.
Fanny as in Betty Page spliced with Nina Hartley
in a concert hall manned by Souza or Sondheim.
At one time, aren't we all culpable of requiring
a thiasos, a gaggle of the uninitiated waving
the fronds of inequity? Who here can honestly say
they are above and beyond, over the river and through
the woods with maeneds or bacchae? Who will remain
to walk away from the largesse of losers
who wore their hubris like pirated pelts?

BOOTLEGGERS_&_RUMRUNNERS

2010-12-20T13:10:00.001-08:00

I have an all-in-one printer, and it was having a paper jam the other night, so I yanked the page out of its maw and watched in awe as it made this pretty pattern.

POSTCARD FEAT W/ JIM HEAVILY NUMBER FOUR

2010-12-18T11:10:00.000-08:00

Scientists lack standard ingredients.

The abundance of sugary sports drinks increase in alcohol consumption when American college students study abroad.

Doctors at the American Academy of Toddlers expected small black wasps.

The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park had failed to stop elk from eating scientists.

It was found that exposing young platinum bodies rather than the researchers is currently too low to spur widespread Drosophilia flies by giving off the deceptive scent of fruity wine.

Loud noise and white noise improves Swedish children but worsens sensitivity to common painkillers.

Half of stroke victims experience phantom limbs, and two thirds of Americans fail to report Spike Lee telling harmful lies.

Following brain surgery, genitals evidence self awareness previously limited to higher primates.

An elephant named Happy can smell light.

New clocks made it possible to measure altitude on the speed of time.

Two centuries ago, the method whereby cuckoo chicks obtain Killer whales.

A U.S. murder was estimated to be urged of the newly devised Boston Bowel Preparation Scale.

Clinicians across the globe report on the cleanliness of the largest known genome, fifty-one times the size of Spain.

Scientists in New Guinea discovered a new genus of very beautiful.

WEEK THREE POSTCARD FEAT W/ JIM HEAVILY + POEM

2010-12-13T10:29:00.000-08:00

FINDINGS FROM SCRATCH

The practice of and popularity of Blindness prompted wild, American Herpitologists
in Vietnam to examine all-female lizards and to conclude that what they were really
looking at were Japanese Ichthyologists.

Only 2.4 percent of "bourgeois males" knew how to build a snail-shell house, but an overwhelming amount of female malacologists could converse about 209 yet-to-be-discovered micromollusks.

Scientists noted that strongly religious American consumers have weaker brand anger than the sight of cooked meat, regardless if that meat were on a spit or exchanged for goat meat.

Blindness accelerates a person's sense of Dogs.

The death of a child causes Slavemaker Ants to enslave the strong.

Australian researchers initiated "rude," "rough," and "mechanical" sex while asleep.

Parthenogenesis was observed in the study's lead author, as that entity proceeded to strip the honeycomb of any meaning and/or male sexual apparatus in the light of day.

Anorexia was correlated with eye damage.

Adolescent girls make the best unplanned scientists.

Overweight women had a higher propensity to use penetrative texts and find Polar bears incapable of eating modern Neanderthals.

Few Egyptian mummies had cancer, or a pen of porpoises.

TEASER: NEW POSTCARD FEAT WITH JIM HEAVILY

2010-12-11T18:56:00.000-08:00

WHAT THE PHRASE, COLLATERAL DAMAGE, LOOKS LIKE

2010-12-09T23:29:00.000-08:00

Cables get read by your eyes only type
dudes, but the Miniskirt Ministries enjoy dossiers
housed in calf-skin vacuumed minutes.

Confidential dozens cloud the secretariat
but the firm's switches are at the control
of knowledge dullards on opposing sides
of a wormhole.

An open source Trojan horse rifles through
desktop landscapes, peeping at the poker
hands of analysts, pilfering elections
from councils that can photocopy your shadow.

Looking more infiltration than honey-pot
malovolent computers first axe basic entity
then memory specs followed by revenant regiment.

And, now a true test for battery acid amendments
for the doctrine mongers who sell us short, the spectacular
incumbents: a daft, silver-haired Swede, unafraid

to delineate the contours of what collateral damage
looks like outside the foreground of the recorded.

NEW INTRODUCTION FOR NEW "RUBBERROOM," ILLUSTRATED BY CARLOS FOLGAR

2010-12-08T22:41:00.000-08:00

INTRODUCTION

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." -- Mark Twain

On the morning of November 16, 2004, in between third and fourth period, I threw a chair at a dry-erase board and went on an obscene tirade for several minutes in front of many impressionable, ghetto high-school children. I still can’t tell you what set me off that day, or what I was hoping to accomplish by lashing out so awkwardly. I was suspended indefinitely from my position shortly after fourth period; towards the end of the school day, two detectives came by to “talk” because the chair I threw had nicked a girl student as it came down and her parents were pressing charges against me. The detectives had come by to inform me that I was being charged with reckless endangerment and 2nd degree assault. Two days later, on the advice of my newly appointed U.F.T. lawyer, I walked my dumb ass to the Fordham Police Precinct and turned myself in so that I may be “processed” for a court appearance.

The Office of Special Investigations directed my principal to conduct the investigation, a lucky break. But, it did not help my case that the girl who I had managed to nick with a chair was the niece of some secretary for some bigwig ator and I was reassigned to the Regional Operation Center on Fordham Ave. in the Bronx. At the R.O.C., I was told to report to the “rubber room” for Bronx teachers in the south Bronx (not a coincidence). Even though I spent less than two weeks in that “rubber room”, I couldn’t tell you the street address, if I took the 2 or 3 to get there, or even the name of the stop. All I remember is that there was a Blimpy’s on the corner of my new “assignment,” and that the rest of the neighborhood was an industrial whorehouse. I also knew, deep in my heart, that I was the only person to blame for my present predicament. Surely, no one had prompted me to throw a piece of furniture at another piece of furniture because the children were “wilding out,” off-task and/or in a frenzy.

The document you hold in your hand has been disseminated by me to colleagues and teachers in the Bronx since 2005, but especially among the eighth and ninth cohorts of the NYC/DOE Teaching Fellows. It is a mea culpa, of sorts, written by a rookie, inner-city high school teacher; it is directed to neophyte teachers that toil in third-world conditions with third-world resources and try to deliver a first-world education to impoverished, throwaway U.S. youth. More importantly, this sequence of poems is the closest I have come to explicating to myself why I thought that throwing a chair against a dry erase board in a room full of disenfranchised freshmen was the most effective way to quiet a gregarious room. Was it a momentary lapse of reason? Had the moon assuaged its nuttiness into my cerebrum the night before? Did my melt down have an origin, a source that fed its bellows? Could I plead partial insanity?

Ultimately, I spent two weeks, “reassigned,” to the “Rubberroom” in the south Bronx. My principal, and a cadre of parents, wrote to the district superintendant and advocated on my behalf. I was back in the classroom just in time to help wrap up my school’s program before Xmas break. I finished the year and then completed two more years before resigning in 2007. By my account, I was actively involved in the education of between 300-450 children in the Bronx (20-30 students per class, 5 classes a day for nine consecutive months in the span of three years). That experience has laid the foundation for everything that I think I know about educating high school children to become better writers and readers. On February 29, 2008 Radio Diaries (Joe Richman, Samara Freemark, and Anayansi Diaz Cortes) produced a segment for broadcast on This American Life. The segement, titled “Human Resources,” told the story of several teachers that had been “reassigned” to the various “rubberrooms” located throughout the boroughs.

Of all the things I have written, in my short life as an author, this work has sparked the most interest and notoriety. Is it because it defies definition (i.e. it’s a poem written in acts and scenes)? I suspect it is because this is the most honest and accurate thing I have ever had the audacity to write.

POSTCARD FEAT # 2 WITH JIM HEAVILY: I WALK ELAN

2010-12-04T20:37:00.000-08:00

I WALK ELAN by Yago S. Cura

Saturday morning, operating on Gargantuan Blvd,
I walk an Xmas-dog I like to call, Elan.

Elan feels like an over-eager Midas associate.
Elan feels that I am trying to pull one over
on him grossly damn loud.

He is that unassembled by the elements.

However, this happens to be a particularly crisp sojourn
into the Solstice, through cobalt, and Pacific heather.

And, I am not the homestead of startling properties
that I once was when the Boulevard was therapy for the solvent.

Nowadays, I am at a branch of the library where torque is a sonata:
a pianissimo played by the collusion of automobiles "exhausting."

Elan is driving to work in a totaled crimson Volvo which
exhibits regenerative protocols; he is driving to his job
designing Ferris Wheels.

They are building one for the Sesquicentennial called,
Derelict Specter.

ARTIFACTS FROM MY OLD LIFE IN NYC

2010-11-28T22:01:00.001-08:00

This is a laundry ticket from Super Magic Kingdom, the laundromat that has been in charge of cleaning my chonies for the past five years. I was always losing these tickets when I got them from Super Magic Kingdom, so they just knew to let me recognize my laundry bag and pay what it said on the ticket. I found this ticket in a jacket that I hadn't seen in four months.

CHAZ FOLGAR, ILLUSTRATOR EXTRAORDINAIRE

2010-11-28T10:26:00.000-08:00

So this is one of the illustrations that Chaz Folgar has completed for the new edition of "Ruberroom" that I am going to unleash on the world through Hinchas de Poesia Press. This particular illustration is inspired by the poem which you see below. Of all the things that I have written or worked on, this cycle of poems has garnered the most interest and attention.

Hinchas is going to release/distribute it through MagCloud. I am not sure how much they are going to charge for each one, but I am willing to bet it's going to be on the affordable side. I will keep you updated.

ACT FOUR, SCENE TWO: WHERE IS YOUR AIM?

At Discovery High
I am the teacher
that threw a chair
at a student, except
of course, I was aiming
for the smartass
blackboard.

I was not aiming
for any student
but for all of them.

It is just that I turned
my back for a sec
after setting my cretins free
on bullshit group practice
and sat down with one group
to troubleshoot

and the next thing I know
I am hurling a chair
from myself a chair
is coming from my hands

a quixotic missile
I can not to this day
explicate.

SISTER BDAY STICKER

2010-11-27T20:48:00.001-08:00

It was my birthday recently. My sister sent me a print of one of her photographs in a rolled up tube and this birthday card. I love my sister and miss her now that we live on opposite coasts of North America.

SARCASTIC CAPSAICIN

2010-11-20T14:04:00.000-08:00

Dear Middle Age Persian Hair Coiffuirist: The "best" cut for me is not what I wanted from you; what I wanted was my hair left in luscious rivulets, but cleaned up for "business" around the edges.
Dear Dyers of Sunflowers and Perennials: In jars, your spurious creations dribble out the toxins that you so cautiously have made them compulsively imbibe.
Dear Saturday Morning Jehovah's Witnesses Operating on Venice Blvd: I have a gargantuan dog, and he celebrates Halloween, Xmas, and Kwanzaa.
Dear Over Eager Midas Associate: When you overtreat customers better than they want to be treated they feel that you are trying to pull one over on them when you in fact may have nothing but elan to offer the betrothed-to-their-car.
Dear Mountaintops of Cobalt Pacific Sylvester: On particularly crisp sojourns into the hills of the Solstice--a homeestead unassembled by the elements.
Dear Mar Vista Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library: The tutors clog your reading rooms with remedial chatterbox therapy solvent torque, the boulevard is grossly damn loud.
Dear 1990 Totaled Crimson Volvo: Through a new lease on life, it has shown regenerative properties and startling auto-correction protocols.
Dear Poignant Pop Garbage: girls unsheath their girdles for the magic collusion of ionized dungarees with phosphorous pants, pianissimos, and quizzical, telepathic sonatas.
Dear Ferris Wheel on the Santa Monica Pier: the derelict specter of Abbot Kinney enters the enamel pillar each pylon supports in the jaw of fandango.
Dear Awesome Museum Exhibit Poster: Your irregular dimensions make for a romp through the muck of quality framers versus the do-it-yourself-pantheon.

HORACIO CURA JEWELRY DESIGN

2010-11-15T22:46:00.000-08:00

Buenos Aires native, Horacio Cura, has been a goldsmith and jewel master in the U.S. for almost 40 years. He began his career with Juan Mendoza Jewelry Designs on 47th street in New York City's Diamond District during it's 70's heyday.

In 1983, Horacio moved his family to West Palm Beach so he could commence as Production Manager for Southern Time Jewelry Manufacture, which specialized in watch cases and bracelets. In 1987, Horacio accepted an offer from Ororoma Jewelry Manufacture to become Production Manager and Jewelry Designer, and stayed with the manufacturer for ten years.

Ororoma sent Horacio to Madras, India on three separate occasions to facilitate mass production techniques and logistical manufacture support for thirty bench jewelers and supervisors. Horacio has supervised large-scale, wholesale operations in the U.S., India, and Argentina, however, since 1998 he has operated as single proprietor of Horacio Cura Jewelry Designs.

98' was the year Horacio opened a taller in Miami's Seybold Building; he operates his taller there to this day. While not a manufacturer of jewelry, Horacio Cura Jewelry Designs accepts models, special orders and jewelry designs to make in 14, 18, and Platinum. Horacio is also a lightning-fast appraiser, and consultant for hire.

LIBRARIANS & CUSTOMER SERVICE

2010-11-09T08:20:00.000-08:00

"According to the Association of Research Libraries, the average per-title cost of an academic journal grew by 227 percent between 1986 and 2002; in the past five years, prices have continued to rise 7 percent to 11 percent annually."

I was talking with my sister the other day and she had a less than average experience with the clerk that checked her books out. I explained that clerks are not really customer service oriented; clerks are trained to maintain the physical and logistical appearance of the library; they are neither trained nor necessarily like to interact with the public.

Customer service has become the primary directive of most librarians. I have gone to several job interviews lately where I was told by librarian friends that I should talk up my customer service skills. I have no problem with that since I have been a teacher for ten years and have developed intense rapport capabilities. I could talk a turnip into wanting to be a potato if I had to and if my fancy was struck. But, does that necessarily mean that I can give good customer service?

I ran across this article in The Chronicle Review written by Daniel Goldstein that speaks specifically to the dominance of this trend, especially in academic libraries where I have garnered most of my experience as a librarian. The article is titled, Library Inc., and I believe it has a lot to teach the layperson and librarians alike.

In it, Goldstein makes the point that libraries have shifted from "owners of the material their patrons required" to "providers of access to information" and that "At least since the 1970s, libraries have understood that their budgets would never be able to keep pace, and they began to seek an alternative arrangement. According to Goldstein, what they've done is redefine themselves as locksmiths and abandoned the scriptorium. You may ask yourself, why is this troubling?, and what is the relationship between this and the current emphasis on customer service?

Well, to save a few bucks, academic libraries have given control of their coffers of scholarly material to information middlemen like Elsevier and Taylor and Francis instead of opting to own journals, monographs, etc. Or as Dan Goldstein puts it, "The shift from owning a journal to merely providing access to its digital incarnation has, of course, saved some money. But those savings come in tandem with detrimental changes both to the content of library collections and the ways those collections are used." In other words, to save money, academic libraries are relying more and more on access rather than ownership, but this does nothing to amplify/push/further/engender the librarie's collection. If anything, it would be like not buying a CD of music in the hopes that you could hear the songs individually on Pandora.

Furthermore, Goldstein writes, "By outsourcing ownership to mega-vendors, libraries have introduced the commercial interests of the journal providers into what had been an internal academic transaction between a library and its patrons. Purveyors of e-journals provide access to their titles on sites that are designed to bolster brand recognition and encourage repeat visits". This does nothing for the idea as libraries as repositories of information from a diverse array of sources, not just a Google-like expanse of Teflon scholarship.

NUAI REVIEW, "DETENTION & RECESS" (2010)

2010-11-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

Listening to “Detention and Recess” (2010) you get this immediate sense that Nuai pray at the altar of Afrika Bambataa, Pete Rock, and Immortal Technique. That's just me, I'm an east coast scumbag, so my frame of reference is eastcoastcentric to say the least.

If I were from the west coast, though, I might say Nuai are reminiscent of Jurrasic 5 and Pharcyde, maybe Souls of Mischief. Their new album, “Detention & Recess," is eclectic without being overtly technical, politically conscious without being "preachy", and reverent of Hip-Hop's revolutionary zeal, while at the same time, playful and raw. Ultimately, though, these three Angelino emcees, Aaron, Moses and Rahten, make original asphalt ballads that are “hardcore” but not heartless.

Track 1, "Other Side of Town," samples what sounds like the guitar riff from Das Efx's, "They Want Das Efx". Aaron and Moses joust on this track, and their chemistry is evident, but Rahten shines as well and provides a sort of verbal ballast to counteract the duo. Aaron spits "if you avoid the freeways, the streets are less busy/...conscious of when things are changing/ handshakes and fist pound indicate what part you stay in." Toward the end of his initial cipher, Aaron spits that "observation is the best way to stay upper-handed," and somehow I knew I was dealing with a trio of freestyle fanatics.

It becomes evident early on that ”Detention & Recess” is a robust critique of our Anglo-centric education system. The album serves as rebuke to those who say the educational system is equitable across socio- economic lines. I guess you could say the album concerns the many ways in which an individual can become "institutionalized"(school vs prison). The title might also refer to the way that lyricists use the flow of rhythm and silence to express themselves (Detention & Recess, if you will). Regardless, Nuai's second independent release is a work of unadulterated heart, pure in its convictions, and influenced by acts like Dead Prez and Slum Village.

Track 9, “Monster,” is lo-fi backbeat made kooky by a cartoon xylophone. Rahten ignites this track with, “it feels like I am a lost soul/ I’m facing death at the crossroads/ walking long roads painted with skulls and crossbones/ in the stone garden, cold-hearted and alone”. The track addresses the personal demons that we sometimes create for ourselves. Rathen adds, “Research and design/ the science of creating a monster that spits rhymes/first thing give em him heart, conviction/ line after line/last thing insert new eyes/now he’s alive!”

Track 4, “Tracks Needs Trains” is a soulful ditty where the piano functions as bass, reminiscent of that first Wu-Tang joint (Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers) when they dropped C.R.E.A.M. and blew everyone’s head. Feature MC “The Sicks” raps, “I know my mommas said that money shit gets old/ but shit looks new when its dipped in gold/with a touch like Midas and a gift like Hov”. The Sicks even underscores a healthy obsession with Immortal Technique and the might sword-pen when he spits, “technique like Immortal, in this world like a portal with the pen as my sword I kill microphones”

Track 5, “Sea Sick,” is a jazzy joint that could have been inspired by something Del the Funky Homosapien dropped on No Need for Alarm, or the Outro of one of the three Guru’s Jazzmatazz albums. The track recounts the physical sickness slaves must have felt during the Middle Passage. All three emcees emote a mumble Rahten “And when I am at the bank, it’s like I walk the plank/ In the water with open wounds in a piranha tank…soldiers roll up your sleeve and express one of your worse pet peeves”. The chorus intones, “Why does it smell like this?/ What’s this around my wrist?/ shackles and chains laying in a pile of shit/ Why’s everyone screaming, nah I must be dreaming/ I’m feeling sea sick”.

My standard for Hip Hop is impossibly high. What that means is you better not waste my time because like it or not I am a walking Hip Hop encyclopedia. For one thing, I am slightly older than Hip Hop; my frame of reference begins with Hip Hop's inception in Kool Herc's Bronx basement at 1520 Sedgwick and ends with the last album the radio stations have been giving heavy rotation. I may not have been there, in that basement, but I hold most acts up to the spirit of that recreation room. It’s no wonder the mainstream has appropriated Hip Hop as its next cash cow. However, acts like Nuai ensure Hip Hop remains a sonic movement of righteous populism set to music mashed up by overzealous masters of ceremonies.

BOOKS I NEED TO CHECK OUT THX TO "LITTLE BROTHER" BY CORY DOCTROW

2010-11-01T22:12:00.000-07:00

I just finished Cory Doctrow's "Little Brother" and there are a heap of books that he lists in his bibliography that I definitely need to read. Here is the list, more or less...

Andrew Huang, Hacking the Xbox (2003)
Bruce Schneir, Secrets and Lies (2000)
Bruce Schneir, Beyond Fear (2003)
Bruce Schneir, Applied Crytography (1995)
Dan Gillmor, We, The Media (2004)
Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown (1993)
Bruce Sterling, Shaping Things (2005)
Daniel Pinkwater, Alan Mendelsohn: The Boy from Mars (1997)
Scott Westerfield, So Yesterday (2004)

3 NEW ILLUSTRATIONS FOR YAGO CURA'S "RUBBERROOM"

2010-11-01T13:57:00.000-07:00

So Chaz Folgar is at it again and has agreed to illustrate my "Rubberroom" with several illustrations taken straight from the text. I like to call these interpretive illustrations and I think his are right on the money. Enjoy! And, just in case you were curious, Chaz Folgar is the curator of the current show in the Graham Center of Florida International University called, "Challengers of the Unknown"

WHY WIKILEAKS IS AN IMPORTANT VICTORY FOR DISSENTION

2010-10-24T13:17:00.000-07:00

According to the confidential military reports published by WikiLeaks, from 2004 to 2009 there were 66,081 'civilians' killed during the U.S. Occupation of Iraq while there were only 23,984 'enemy(ies)' (those labeled as insurgents) that were killed.

One can draw all types of conclusions from these figures, namely, that three times the amount of civilians were killed in pursuit of insurgents, a.k.a. our enemies. Now take into account that restitution is offered to the families of civilians that are killed. Does it not stand to reason what we are losing as collateral damage in this occupation could be the very thing that we need to be successful. In other words, think about how many hearts and minds we could win over if we were just a little more careful with our trigger fingers.

I am not talking about mistakes made during war, something of which I know nothing about. I am talking about wholesale debasement of our soldiers, and the tarnish that accompanies our martial endeavors. In other words, we have outsourced our military ability to be precise and accurate by allowing mercenaries and contractual soldiers carte blanche to not follow the rules of engagement. To play devil's advocate, I haven't really offered any solutions, maybe because I don't think there are any solutions aside from the obvious one of disengagement and neglect.

Definitely a sticky widget but I, for one, as a patriotic, peace-loving American support the dangerous work that WikiLeaks is willing to do for the rest of us and salute the conscience of the dude that gave up this information and is sitting in the bottom of a brig, counting the lifetimes before parole.

REWRITE OF SEVENEXPRESSISHMAEL

2010-10-20T00:35:00.000-07:00

Call me the pilot of my commute, the belly of the Seven.
Call me something indicative of my milieu, but that also harkens
to a harpooner that sleeps with his implement.
Call me customs agent of the feminine ingression, or mutiny
on the high stilt sea of the Queens el.
Call me pressure dyspepsia as the express barrels plaudits.
Call me jocular recluse: a farm christened, Arrowhead.
Call me unclassified tendril on terra firma, an abomination of superstitious pressured suits.
Call me Knickerbocker Clancy, South Pacific de la Carré, proto-Kipling.
Call me pulpo, octopus ink, Squid Bic, a stylus named epic tome,
didactic almanac, critical percolating rubble.
Call me alcove throne, a dromedary of solace.
Call me passed over for promotion all my lubber life.
Call me paperback flagon, symmetric synthetic, a poetry cabernet.
Call me Captain Apeshit with prosthetic pinepeg from the whirled woods
of Woodside, Corona Park, or Kissena.
Call me pip of mongrel caste, Admiral Deep Pockets.
Call me windlass of my lector time in the ratchet of Jonah’s gaze.
Call me capstan of the "stand clear of the closing doors" intercom command.
Call me something you can make more fancy by adding an "e"
Call me the great, white whale of Shea Stadium before Citifield.
Call me todos los mamones que van al U.S. Open in boat shoes.
Call me pelvis of the world, Ambassador to Foam, Prince of Cetyology.
Call me late for classes at library school on the frigate, U.S.S. Marm.
Call me “dismemberer of my dismemberer” with tact for tit for tat.

YAGO LOS ANGELES READING

2010-10-19T23:57:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends & Fam.

As many of you know, I recently moved to LA. On Saturday the 23rd of October, I am going to read as part of the launch of PALABRA's sixth issue.

PALABRA is a literary journal of Chicano & Latino literature based in LA. The table of contents for their sixth issue will feature these writers (the url for the sixth issue is http://palabralitmag.com/id13.html).

Many of you don't live in the LA area so please pass this along to friends that you might have in the LA area that would be interested in attending a reading.

Please pass along accordingly, and if you can make it out on Saturday afternoon, Amanda, Berlin, and I would love to see you there.

The reading is at the RedCat Lounge. The RedCat Lounge is located

631 W. 2nd Street (@ Hope St.)
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(in the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex)

WHY I AM THE BEST CANDIDATE...

2010-10-07T19:35:00.000-07:00

I am the best candidate for this position for three reasons: I am a multilingual, multicultural librarian with multiple life perspectives that has serviced an array of age-groups and communities. From 2004 to 2010, I serviced the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx--first as a high school English teacher and then as an academic librarian with Bronx Community College teaching Information Literacy. While at BCC I worked the reference desk, and cataloging books. In addition, during library school at Queens College, I worked at the Rosenthal Library as an Information Assistant, and volunteered to assist the registrar of the Museum of the Moving Image update their catalog and accession new artifacts.

My experience cataloging may not be vast, but I have always engaged in pursuits that cultivate an attention to details. For example, I am the publisher and co-editor of an online journal called Hinchas de Poesia, but also the designer of its website. Coding html is an arduous, time-consuming task, but it is certainly one that requires attention to detail. If one line of code contains a superfluous bracket or an extra div tag then your design will not display correctly, and you must ransack all your code for the error. Likewise, if the name of a book is misspelled and we just trust the copy, how will that item be found? The most important function of my job as a cataloger would be to ensure that people can locate the titles that they need. To do this, I will have to continue collocating accurate records and facilitate patron access to them.

Last but not least, I am a bilingual librarian, an ALA Spectrum Scholar, and a member of REFORMA. Even though English is my native language, I exert a native fluency of Spanish and worked as a freelance simultaneous interpreter for a non-profit that services Brooklyn and the Bronx Family Courts. I am an avid reader of Latin American Literature, and would love to augment the superb collection of the Public Library. My membership in REFORMA connects me with other librarians servicing Latino communities throughout California and allows me to create a dialogue with other librarians running successful Spanish language programs. Likewise, my relationship with the ALA and the Office for Diversity as the recipient of a Spectrum scholarship can only serve to reinforce ties that the Public Library has with the ALA.

WHAT IS AUTHORITY CONTROL?

2010-10-06T21:41:00.000-07:00

Is it just a phrase, or simple a concept? Is it a precept, maxim, tenet? Will it tuck me in at night and call me pretty when I am feeling down? Will it raise my children, and make sure the airlines don't jip me on my flier miles?

According to Library Technologies, Inc. authority control is the "assignment of a unique form of a heading and the use of cross-references from unused and related headings". In other words, authority control is the process by which librarians, but particularly catalogers, create and collocate a heading along with its related headings (like see alsos). Now, what I would like to know is if the catalogers create the actual heading, or just link it up with its related headings? Another question I might have is whether the sole objective of an authority file is to "overlay" it with the Library of Congress authority file?

The Libraries Technologies, Inc website offers viewers a front-row seat to the steps in authority control. If you are curious, by all means, please proceed here.

AWESOME GERMAN ANTI-PLAGIARISM VIDEO

2010-10-06T14:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwbw9KF-ACY

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PUBLIC LIBRARY REPORT

2010-10-04T21:58:00.000-07:00

I have been invited to interview for a public library system in southern California, so in an attempt to be the best candidate and land the job I have decided to conduct some surveillance on this library system in an attempt to better understand how they organize the books in their collection.

From navigating their OPAC, I have been able to tell a couple of things. For example, this particularly library uses the Dewey Decimal System because a particular book, Eduardo Galeano's "Mirrors" has a call number, 909, and that specific class is for World History. Dewey is used in smaller libraries that need an easy way to orient their clients, like public school libraries and public libraries.

Their OPAC uses SirsiDynix which is a bibliographic management system. They have recently completed projects with Carnegie Mellon, and from the website I believe that the system I am interviewing with uses the Horizon product. But bullets from the SirsiDynix brochure selling the inferior product, Symphony (for 1 location libraries), leads me to phrases I am not completely familiar with like "n-tier architecture". According to Wikipedia, which is pretty good with technical descriptions, an n-tier architecture is "a client–server architecture in which the presentation, the application processing, and the data management are logically separate processes. For example, an application that uses middleware to service data requests between a user and a database employs multi-tier architecture. The most widespread use of multi-tier architecture is the three-tier architecture."

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A VOLUME AND AN ISSUE?

2010-10-02T14:12:00.000-07:00

According to Webster's online dictionary, a volume is "a series of printed sheets bound typically in book form;" it is also "a series of issues of a periodical". Issue on the other hand is "the act of publishing or officially giving out or making available" when it behaves like a noun and seems to have no affiliation to it's meaning with magazines and publishing.

However, a look at a page from California State University Libraries, delineates a more precise definition of the word volume. According to this source (http://lib.colostate.edu/howto/gloss.html), a volume is, "physically, a gathering of pages bound together in the form of a book". In this sense, it is identical to the dictionary definition. In addition, though, "Numerically, a volume is a full set of issues (numbers) which comprises a SERIAL volume bound together." And here is where we get to the meat and potatoes of the difference between volume and issue; from this definition, it seems that issues comprise a volume when you are talking about a serial publication (magazine, journal, etc.)

HINCHAS TO JOIN CLMP?

2010-09-30T13:22:00.000-07:00

I am thinking of joining CLMP to make the work J. David and I do for Hinchas de Poesia a little more legit. They have created their own necessity and design and cultivate resources for independent and established presses. I think it will definitely advantageous for Hinchas to join them and better define the work we are striving to do with the online magazine and the micro-press.

The following are questions that I am going to have to answer with my online application. I am even thinking of calling the Membership Manager to consult...

1.) Describe the editorial focus or mission of your press or magazine

2.) Discuss future plans or goals for your organization. Are there any issues you hope CLMP can help you address?

LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE & INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM

2010-09-30T09:24:00.000-07:00

Loida Garcia-Febo interviews Dr. Carrie Gardner about LIS, Intellectual Freedom and curricula.

COLOR ILLUSTRATION FOR "RUBBERROOM" BY HINCHAS DE POESIA PRESS

2010-09-26T20:57:00.001-07:00

CUTE CHAOS BY POCKET OF LOLLIPOPS

2010-09-26T19:28:00.000-07:00

EFFING WITH WHITE PEOPLE

2010-09-26T17:52:00.000-07:00

don't eff with white peoples or they will parody you to def
as ministers, aren't they administrators with a spastic zeal
for discretion?
aloof doodlers, Nature's way of saying idle torque
making Grecian speculations about art, aren't they about as
romantic as sleeping under the gigantic night of a hobo node
and calling it camping
like the concept of Deluxe is largesse avalanched to the tits
for the sake of making the mud crumble from the lips
of the ravines
sort of freeloading bomboclots of sobriety and cucumber cool

don't eff with white peoples or you'll never get that recipe
saber-tooth generalists the lot of them, or lobbyists of hobbies
physiques excite their ire, as do the idea of conventions,
clipboards, and transparent name tags
all sorts of appropriate volleys of unpronounceable, ethnic
last names
sieved by customs agents in handlebar moustaches shushing
the lubbers that have braved silent seas, enormous leagues
and the hatred of know-nothings.

SUMMARY OF THEME OF "SAVE VENICE PADDLE"

2010-09-20T10:52:00.000-07:00

Another thing that I have been working on is a little screenplay called, "Save Venice Paddle". It concerns the locals of the Venice Beach Paddle Tennis Courts find their habitat desecrated one day by hundreds of pink fliers with three words on them: Save Venice Paddle.

The locals investigate the players of this grass roots movement while they leverage their best efforts at stalling the city of Los Angeles from closing down the paddle courts, paving them over, and creating more parking.

A history of Paddle and Platform Tennis can be found here and reviews of the Venice Beach Paddle Tennis Courts can be found here.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS

2010-09-19T22:12:00.000-07:00

My wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Berlin, mid September and life has been kind of hectic ever since. Definitely better, but definitely more hectic and less restful. My wife was thinking of starting a blog for expectant and current Latina moms because she says there is a derth of Latinas writing about their rearing experiences.

So, in case you haven't heard, Hinchas de Poesia is ready to unleash its third issue of poetry and art. The images and banners for the third issue were taken from a sketch book I unearthed a while ago, before I went to grad school in Massachusetts.

You can catch a sneak peek at the Contents page here. As you can tell, we tried to put the FB recommend button on each and every page and a counterso that our fans on FB could recommend our pages to other readers. Highlights from the issue include, Challengers of the Universe, an exhibit of comic art at Florida International University and the series, Dead in the Spring, by photographer Michelle Cura.

Also, the author of "Compound Memorandum" (Hinchas de Poesia Press, 2010) James Foley, a journalist covering the war in Afghanistan, got a video he shot on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. The video he shot was first seen on Global Post, an international journo website. It was picked up shortly thereafter and James Foley was given full credit for his work.

The Hinchas de Poesia Press profile for MagCloud is available here. Currently, we are still hawking, Odas a Futbolistas and Postcard Feat. We are thinking of adding at least two new publications before the year is out, Rubberroom by Yago S. Cura and illustrated by Chaz Folgar and a publication by Francis Raven, an artist coming out in the third issue of Hinchas.

SAMO LIBRARIAN APPLICATION

2010-09-11T17:17:00.000-07:00

Describe your experience using OCLC or a similar bibliographic utility to locate and customize records for a local catalog.

As an adjunct academic librarian at Bronx Community College, I was responsible for cataloging a nominal amount of books and monographs under the supervision of the college's cataloger. Our standard and baseline was always the Online Computer Library Center record; in fact, many institutions "copy-catalog" the record available in OCLC and super-impose it into their OPACs.

The scope and range of WorldCat (the OPAC of the OCLC) is unparalleled. For example, there are 470 languages and 112 countries constitute the catalog, but what makes it irreplaceable is its scope of format; the OCLC catalogs "books, videos, serial publications, articles, recorded books and music, electronic books, sheet music, genealogical references, cultural artifacts, digital objects,...[and]Web sites".

As an information assistant with the Rosenthal Library of Queens College, we would use WorldCat when the C.U.N.Y.+ system was down or offline for repairs and upgrades. In fact, I distinctly remember using WorldCat to accurately pinpoint the location of materials during the first week of the Fall 2008 semester. If it weren't for that bit of administrative assistance we would have never made it out of those wilds.

Last, the OCLC record also contains information that would be useful for collection development and reader's advisory purposes. You could totally recommend a book for a patron based on this function, or you could lead patrons to that portion of the record so that they may read reviews from readers on Amazon or Good Reads.

In many ways, the OCLC, and WorldCat in particular, are like that Swiss Army Knife
every librarian carries in her tool box.

Provide details on your experience in developing and maintaining web content. Specify the software applications you have used for the design and layout of graphics and web pages.

I use Dreamweaver to design and construct all my web pages, and Photoshop to correctly render images. I have been designing web pages since 2007, mostly as end- of-the-semester projects. In 2008 I designed an website for Information Assistants at the Rosenthal Library that delineated protocols and provided helpful hints for a "smooth shift" at the Rosenthal. Since the program at Queens College is the only program for librarians in the City University system, I took great pride in knowing that I had designed a resource for all the librarians coming through the C.U.N.Y. system and getting their "sea legs" at the Rosenthal like myself.

Likewise, in 2009, I saw great need for the creation of an ancillary website for the Resource Learning Center of Bronx Community College. I created the website using Dreamweaver and Photoshop in less than a week and uploaded the website eagerly. I have created an online portfolio and linked both websites, http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/~ycura100. This led me to build, develop, and maintain a literary journal, Hinchas de Poesia. We have recently completed building the architecture for the third issue, which is viewable at www.hinchasdepoesia.com, and await the integration of the micro-press which should bring substantial traffic, and possibly some revenue.

In working at a busy public service desk, what do you consider the most important criteria for offering excellent public service? Describe an experience in which you provided good customer service in a library setting. Explain what made this a successful encounter.

Offering excellent public service is not difficult; it is time-consuming and costly but it is a vital part of the "service" librarians accomplish. Treating each interaction like a singular occurrence helps to propel the success of reference interviews. But, the reference interview is fraught with many pitfalls; over time, these "failings" can alienate clientele and make staff seem unapproachable, even hostile.

Therefore, I believe that the success of a reference interview rests squarely with the interlocutor. Body language is a big part of it, so it is vital that you look patrons in the eye and give them your full attention by facing them. Also, patrons look to reference desk staff for questions, but also I suspect for a little interaction. So, a successful reference librarian will engage with the public and create a space where questions are welcome landmarks.

An example that comes to mind involves my tenure as an adjunct academic librarian with Bronx Community College. I was at the reference desk taking questions from walk-ins and dazed students; three separate students asked about the same topic so I held an impromptu lesson with these three students on the prominent, convenient, and helpful features of Opposing Viewpoints, a database of articles organized by subject and divided into pro and con stances.

Downloadable content such as eBooks and streaming media formats are burgeoning in popularity. How do you think these trends will affect public library collections and services in the years to come?

I believe that the popularity of eBooks and streaming media formats will continue to grow unabated. Therefore, for a library to remain viable as a repository of culture, it must adapt to advances in technology and format. Because all that eBooks and streaming media formats require is a platform, these formats will undoubtedly shrink the physical space of a library. The space in a library will serve to welcome and root patrons to the physical landscape not just house books.

In addition, the hardware at libraries will increase as patrons seek answers expressed in streaming media formats. Smart boards might become essential to the task of servicing inquisitive patrons and providing quality information service. The reality is that no one really knows where Technology is taking the modern library, but we all can agree that it will survive its evolution and take an earnest interest in finding a way to bridge the analog and the digital.

JENSEN RESPONSE MECHANISM

2010-09-07T15:47:00.000-07:00

Judy Jensen is the editor of Borderlands, a literary journal in Texas. She has a campaign going where she sends you a postcard and you respond. She has a Facebook page up and running on her responses so far, and I suggest you check out Borderlands because it's a banging rag.

ALA'S DISCOVERING LIBRARIANSHIP

2010-09-01T21:37:00.000-07:00

The American Library Association and the Institute of Museum and Library Services are starting a program called "Discovering Librarianship" whose sole purpose is to get young people (especially minorities) interested in becoming librarians.

You have to apply for these volunteer positions, so I thought I would publish what my response is going to be, or more clearly, I thought I would utilize the venue of my blog as a way to work out what exactly I am going to submit with my application.

One of the first things it asks me to do is delineate why I want to become a Discovering Librarianship Volunteer? So I would like to share with you my reasons and if you feel that you can add anything to this, please comment or contact me offline.

I would like to become a Discovering Librarianship Volunteer so that I may continue to engage with young people on the importance of Literacy, and assist ALA and IMLS to recruit outstanding minority students for careers in libraries and museums. I applaud ALA and IMLS recruitment efforts, and welcome the challenge of this national initiative.

I feel a personal debt to ALA, and other minority students. In 2007, I was awarded a Spectrum scholarship to attend Queens College. At the time, I was an English teacher at a high-stakes high school in the Bronx. I did not know then that I was going to combine what I knew about teaching with what I was going to learn about the organization of information. Librarianship came easy because so much of it relies on teaching students and patrons how to delineate, and then locate, their need.

I received my M.L.S. from Queens College in 2009 and had the good fortune of finding work as a facilitator of Information Literacy for Bronx Community College. The Deputy Librarian, LaRoi Lawton, himself a minority librarian, was my direct supervisor and subsequently became my unofficial mentor. Therefore, as you can see, I have been extremely fortunate in terms of mentors and opportunities; I would like to give back by speaking up about the importance of libraries and the vastness of Librarianship.

I would also remind young adults that they are constantly making decisions about what the future truly holds for libraries, whether they like it or not.