Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Studio 17 Dia de los Muertos ART SHOW

I will be reading some poetry at this event. Come thru and bring some donations if you believe in organic community art in progress!

Saturday, October 20, 2007

SOFRITO: Music of the Word

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Come out to Sofrito this Sunday!!
Join us the 1st & 3rd Sunday of every Month
A new Open Mic Poetry/Music series
in English, Spanish, Spanglish y Lo Que Sea
THE MUSIC OF THE WORD
(LA PALABRA MUSICAL)
(Hosted by Eric Aviles & Avotcja)
@
SOFRITO
3451 International @ 35th Avenue Oakland, CA (510)533-3840 (plenty of free parking in the rear)
Sunday October 21st , 2007
MILTA ORTIZ
ABDUL KENYATTA
3 - 4:30PM No Cover

Friday, October 12, 2007

Mapping the Mission: Between Place and Memory in San Francisco's Latina/o Arts Community

DC has been great absolutely great. I spoke in two of Ana Patricia's classes yesterday and almost lost my voice from so much beautiful central american diasporic poetic dialogue. Did you know the dominant Latino Group in DC is Salvadorans? Pupusa-Eaters heaven! But tomorrow is the day. 8am east coast time this neardy hotness is going down! MC


The American Studies Association

Scheduled Time: Sat, Oct 13 - 8:00am - 9:45am Building/Room: Philadelphia Marriott / Room 415

Session Participants:
Session Organizer: Cary Cordova (Dickinson College (PA))
Chair: Cary Cordova (Dickinson College (PA))
Panelist: Yolanda Lopez (Artist)
Panelist: Maya Chinchilla (San Francisco State University (CA))
Panelist: John Leaños (Arizona State University (AZ))
Panelist: Ana Patricia Rodriguez (University of Maryland, College Park (MD))
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Abstract:
To map San Francisco’s Mission District is to chart the meaning of “America Aquí.” As a pivotal site for Chicano and Latino civil rights community organizing since the 1960s, the neighborhood has served as a locus for generations of activists and artists from all parts of the Americas. As the birthplace of the widely known Galería de la Raza, the Mexican Museum, and the Mission Cultural Center, the aesthetics of the Mission have had a wide-reaching impact. Over several decades, the Mission arts scene has produced a vast array of posters, paintings, murals, films, music, multimedia projects, and performance. In the late 1990s, the rapidity of gentrification in the Mission spurred a wave of cultural production to preserve, commemorate, and historicize the meaning of the neighborhood. This roundtable panel will bring together a multigenerational mix of artists and scholars inspired by the Mission in their writing, thinking, aesthetics, activism, and practice.

All of the panelists are engaged in the use of diverse media and technologies to capture the spirit of a community in flux, but also to advocate for social change: panelist Yolanda Lopez is famous for her iconic contributions to Chicano art, from her “Self-portrait of the artist as the Virgin de Guadalupe,” to her contemporary digital murals series that mocks the trite understatement, “Women’s Work is Never Done”; panelist Rio Yañez, Lopez’s son, uses photography and animation to document the history and people of the Mission in a surreal, or “Ghetto-lomography” fashion; panelist John Jota Leaños embodies the definition of provocateur with his performances and multimedia presentations, frequently targeting the contemporary culture of surveillance and violence; panelist Maya Chinchilla is a spoken word artist and filmmaker whose work focuses on female empowerment through the arts; and both panelists Ana Patricia Rodriguez and Cary Cordova have dedicated their scholarship to documenting the many forms and twists of transnational Latino cultural production.

Our objective is to meditate on the meaning of the Mission, to explore the themes and ties that penetrate our works, and to contemplate how our creative and intellectual explorations can evolve in a place increasingly scarred by stories of physical and symbolic displacement. By bringing together different generations of scholars and artists, we will contextualize change over time, and illustrate the diverse perspectives, technologies, and methods that cross-pollinate in our work. We will contemplate the mainstream art world’s relatively recent cultivation of a “Mission School,” which both tends to displace the long trajectory of arts practices in the Mission, as well as accords the mantle of creativity to predominantly non-Latino artists. To talk about the history of art in the Mission opens the door to discussing the state of Latino and American art in the United States and the construction of Latinidad. This is a panel on the cross-currents between art and scholarship, between activism and aesthetics, between place and memory, and between the United States and the Americas.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Super Amigos y Luchando

Once again the SF International Latino Film Festival is coming up and I want to see movies movies movies! I don't have a free pass this time but here are two movies I don't want to miss:

"Super Amigos"
Five real-life comic-book superheroes champion the causes of Mexico's oppressed in Director Arturo Perez Torres'
fun documentary, Super Amigos.
With their masked wrestling costumes, they take on the causes of tenants' rights, prevention of cruelty to animals, gay rights, and environmentalism. This heart-warming documentary shows that ordinary people can muster super human powers for change.
Super Amigos will screen at multiple Bay Area locations.

November 14 at 7pm
Skyline College
3300 College Drive, San Bruno

November 14 at 7pm
College of San Mateo
1700 W. Hillsdale Blvd., San Mateo

November 17 at 3pm
Mission Cultural Center
2868 Mission Street, San Francisco


"Luchando" at the Mission Cultural Center, November 17
Luchando, a gritty documentary by American Director Noelle Stout, takes us behind the scenes of the gay underground in Havana. Through cinema verité footage and candid interviews, it documents the physical, psychological and emotional journeys of four queer hustlers. The camera captures their most intimate moments while revealing the fight for survival in Cuba's gay underground.
Luchando will screen at the Mission Cultural Center on November 17 at 5:30pm.

Monday, October 01, 2007

My name is Baghdad



J’ai vécu heureuse - I lived happily
Dans mes palais - in my palaces
D’or noir et de pierres précieuses - of black gold and precious stones
Le Tigre glissait - The Tigris was flowing
Sur les pavés de cristal - on crystal cobblestones
Mille califes se bousculaient - thousand caliphs lined up
Sur mes carnets de bal - on my bal lists

On m’appelait - They called me
La Cité pleine de grâce - the city full of grace
Dieu - God
Comme le temps passe - how time goes by

On m’appelait - they called me
Capitale de lumière - capital of light
Dieu - God
Que tout se perd - everything gets lost

Je m’appelle Bagdad - My name is Baghdad
Et je suis tombée - and I fell
Sous le feu des blindés - under the fire of the tanks
Sous le feu des blindés - under the fire of the tanks
Je m’appelle Bagdad - My name is Baghdad
Princesse défigurée - defaced princess
Et Shéhérazade - and Sheherazad
M’a oubliée - has forgotten me

Je vis sur mes terres - I live on my land
Comme une pauvre mendiante - as a poor begger
Sous les bulldozers - under the bulldozers
Les esprits me hantent - ghosts haunt me
Je pleure ma beauté en ruine - I weep over my beauty in ruins
Sous les pierres encore fumantes - under stones still smoldering
C’est mon âme qu’on assassine - its my soul they murder

On m’appelait - they called me
Capitale de lumière - capital of light
Dieu - God
Que tout se perd - everything gets lost

Je m’appelle Bagdad - My name is Baghdad
Et je suis tombée - and I fell
Sous le feu des blindés - under the fire of the tanks
Sous le feu des blindés - under the fire of the tanks
Je m’appelle Bagdad - My name is Baghdad
Princesse défigurée - defaced princess
Et Shéhérazade - and Sheherazad
M’a oubliée - has forgotten me

Mes contes des mille et une nuits - My thousands and one nights stories
N’intéressent plus personne - don't interest anybody anymore
Ils ont tout détruit - they destroyed everything

Je m’appelle Bagdad - My name is Baghdad
Et je suis tombée - and I fell
Sous le feu des blindés - under the fire of the tanks
Sous le feu des blindés - under the fire of the tanks
Je m’appelle Bagdad - My name is Baghdad
Princesse défigurée - defaced princess
Et Shéhérazade - and Sheherazad
M’a oubliée - has forgotten me