Otra vez el Santo

In my not so daring quest to become more familiar with contemporary Latin American literature, I came across the late Rafael Ramirez Heredia's collection of stories Otra vez el Santo. Today I finally finished it, and I'm a fan. Throughout the collection, characters/narrators show an inability to discern between the past and present, reality and fantasy. In the title story, the narrator, a young teen on vacation with friends, is determined to see el Santo, a Mexican wrestler/movie star, and is convinced a girl showing romantic interest in him is part of el Santo’s superhero entourage. In another story, the narrator is unsure what to call the young wife of his godfather/adoptive father, should he call her step-mother or godmother? This becomes especially confusing to him when she (step-mother/godmother) begins to dance nude in front of him.

Memory is the prominent motif in Heredia’s collection. Narrators hang on to memory as they try to negotiate the actual world, and the present. In hanging on to memory, these narrators remain children, in one way or another; their immaturities may lead them to disaster, but also, through their immaturities, by lingering in moments of the past, they survive. Here’s a wonderful paragraph (which I poorly translated into English) in the closing story that I think illustrates this:

"My age of eleven years only serves to accept that little children are the ones with the obligation to remember, adults seem to be tied to other preoccupations, their visions are not centered on the color of the breeze or the scent of the sky, those big for their age don't enjoy counting the seagulls nor do they give any importance to the looks of girls, and someone, the youngest, me, must be the voice of memory which invades when I feel the cold breeze through air conditioners, and the pines which will fill the empty mood that stays with me before the winter becomes longer, so aggressive and vast."

Work

I think I am ready to write about my job. Here's the translation I'm going to use:

"In this little town there aren’t many telephone poles; everyone uses a cellular phone. Only at night are we able to find a signal. "

The Rest of You

My roommate leaves her bedroom wearing large sunglasses and a Dolly Parton wig, blonde ringlets bouncing on her way to the restroom. In the hallway we stop for small talk, and she explains that this, pointing at her head, is for Chatroulette. I’ll let them see me, she says, playing with a plastic curl from her wig, but I won’t let them hear my voice.

The girl at the liquor store forgets to add me on the e-mailing list for wine tasting. She reminds me of this each time, and each time she makes it a point to take my email address again and again. Each time she offers a compliment. Tonight it’s my jeans. They are jeans, she asks, stocking merchandise. Yes, I say.

On the walk home I look up at an apartment building I pass everyday and find the disembodied head of the Virgin staring out a dark window from the third floor, the head so large it can fill an entire living room. It’s both terrifying and amazing, blank stone eyes the shape of sole fish in the night. I begin to wonder about the rest of her, if the rest of her is also in pieces—if her hands can be found lying somewhere in a garden, or maybe in another apartment, another living room, the open palms used as a fainting bed.

This is what I think of the internet. Sometimes we catch one another watching the other, moving through public and private rooms—pieces of us seen and then gone. And each time we’re different because of it.

C.S.

In a meeting, a former professor of mine explained to me in a very special way what an idiot savant was. In this same meeting he asked me if I ever read. Please keep in mind this was a meeting to discuss my work in his fiction workshop. This professor, whom I defeated in a dart game (I wasn't even wearing glasses), now has a chapbook coming out and I recommend you get your hands on it. I haven't even read it and i recommend it, that's how sure I am about it. Because Chad Simpson is wonderful and a talent. Order your copy here: http://origamizoo.wordpress.com/order/

Tattoo Ideas

I really want a tattoo of Edward Gorey's Donald, and Donald's mother. Get it? A good friend of mine (whom shall remain nameless due to google alert attacks) sent me a copy of Gorey's Donald Has a Difficulty. In it there is a wonderful image of Donald's mother removing a splinter and the line, "he opened the box he might keep the splinter safely." I want it.

Steve Almond

I recently finished Steve Almond's short story collection, My Life in Heavy Metal. For those of you who haven't heard of him, or haven't read this collection, I highly recommend it. He's quickly become one of my favorite writer's, and he's definitely one of the best at writing about sex and the body.



Another Almond collection I just finished was This Won't Take But A Minute, Honey. This is a self-published collection, half stories (short-shorts) and half essays (which are about how to write a story). I find that he is at his absolute best in flash-fiction. Here's a excerpt from my favorite story "Rumors of Myself",

"Up north the rains blur everywhere and trees loan us the impression of a time less hindered by travel. A man with a reliable car found me coiled by the side of the road. I didn’t ask for him to stop or open his door. He told me of his years on the police force bopping spics on the head and doted on a Doberman he nursed himself by hand. I stumbled down Mississippi looped in the loose arms of cloverleafs and slept against concrete. An insurance man in Beaumont funneled me pills as smooth as skin. He wanted to be trusted. He said I should lie still and wait till I felt the ocean."

I don't know if it's legal to post the entire story on this blog. I wish I could, it's really one of the best stories ever written. Really. You can also find "Rumors of Myself" in Flash Fiction Forward (the most recent one), which has other amazing short-shorts by writers like Amy Hempel and Michael Martone.