Nailed to the Wound –José Manuel Di Bella's Collection of Short Stories for San Diego State University Press (SDSU Press)

Nailed to the Wound
by José Manuel Di Bella)

In a time where Shepard Fairy capitalizes on socialist propaganda and non-conformity is more a social obligation than supporting our troops, Jose Manuel Di Bella speaks from the sutured culture clash that is the U.S. / Mexican border. The tectonic Nailed to the Wound reverberates hosts of all sorts summoning ghost of Heraclitus and Andre Breton alike. Line after line a stream of consciousness shakes U.S. relentless, daring your day to day clock in and clock out nine-to-fives. The cubicle or office job, with the view, that will hold the best fraction of your casket bound life; yet, grasping the pseudo-intellectual socialites, screaming at them, mediocre bull-shit, all the while traveling the unconscious streams of denial, loss, and nostalgia. And You are constantly challenged and constantly welcomed to find a host willing to distract you from the ever demanding palm sized drone. The particle by particle atomized landscapes build on backs of lovers, artist, travelers, bankers, and translators. Rosetta stone tales laced in the hieroglyphs of a transcontinental identity, painting divine images of Cronus, self-indulgent landlords with egos of gods, and stoned musketeers. Nailed to the Wound intoxicates with an unsettling uncertainty and irony nailing us to the borders of our arbitrary flirting identities.

Deconstructing Thomas Moore's Utopia: The Utopian Vision by E.D.S Sullivan: Seven Critical Essays from San Diego State University Press (SDSU Press)

A “map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth ever glancing at” — Oscar Wilde

Thomas More is best known for his influential writing Utopia a novel that at the time dealt with the trouble’s of England and while these troubles, over 500 years past, are still asked about society by writers of the 21^st Century.

The Utopian Vision consists of seven essays that denote the ideas of utopian thought, ranging from the concept of the “heavenly garden” to contemporary writing and analysis of utopian dystopian ideology. Each essay chronologically and identifiably makes a point for the reader to expound upon by his/her further thought or investigation. The Utopian Vision is a part of a series titled The Chautauqua Series which:

[I]ntends to provide the intelligent, educated layperson with stimulating reading on enduring aspects of thought and culture. The books in this series are not necessarily to break new ground in research or to provide complete summaries of issues but rather to stimulate further thought and investigation

An excerpt from each essay with commentary

1. Paradise and Golden Age: Ancient Origins of the Heavenly Utopia

    E.N. Genovese

“Beginning with this undocumented but not improbable event, I propose to trace a confluence of traditions of the first, eternal, and ultimate utopia— paradise” (10).

Genovese’s essay reads with ease, interest and explores the “old” idea of what utopia was. The reading is actually much more story like than an academic essay, cleverly weaving in quotes that make his case. We are given a “storyteller” as our narrative which is a touch that makes reading this essay enjoyable.   

2. Place in No Place: Examples of the Ordered Society in Literature

    E.D.S Sullivan

[W]hether humanism, neoclassicism, romanticism, or twentieth-century materialism— all the utopian examples of society’s aspirations for what could or should be are predicted on a concept of order which derives from function: the performance of certain work; the knowing and doing of one’s job (30).

Sullivan explores the similarities and differences throughout the utopian ideology. Its fundamentalism is called into check and Sullivan goes on to explore relations but let’s off enough for the reader to have their own thoughts. While this essay is informative it gives new ideas and exemplary texts for the reader to follow up on.

3. Illusions of Endless Affluence

    John J. Hardesty

“The utopia I would like to discuss is often referred to as the American Dream, but this American Dream of an anti-human, self-defeating, ecologically impossible utopia which is fast becoming a nightmare” (51).

Hardesty’s essay takes a drastic tone change and a harsher realistic approach. Examining the very confines of our “American Dreams” and while I will not give away how he achieves this in his persuasive essay I will say that this essay was rupturing when reading.

4. The Russian Utopia

    Frank M. Bartholomew

‘I believe in Russia. I believe in the Greek Orthodox Church. I-I believe in the body of Christ— I believe that the second coming will take place in Russia— I believe —‘ Shatov murmured in a frenzy.

            ‘But in God? In God?’

            ‘I-I shall believe in God.’

                                                                                         —F.M. Dostoevsky, The Devils

Bartholomew uses this epigraph in the opening of his essay it foreshadows well what is to be discussed in his essay, Christianity and as the titled suggests The Russian Utopia.

5. Auguste Comte and the Positivist Utopia

    Oscar R. Marti

“Comtian positivism is a conglomerate of philosophical views about ethics, religion and society united by a well defined vision of science and a faith in its power to change human affairs for the better” (93).

Marti divulges into the world of positivism where he discusses structure of society under its influence, their efforts to carry out and reasoning for some of its failures. This essay is weighted by philosophy, its abstract thinking gives the reader a chance to deeply think and analyze society as a whole in the view of positivism.

6. Women in Utopia

    Patricia Huckle

“The quest for utopia (and the difficulty in achieving it) has been as important for nineteenth and twentieth century feminists as it has been for other political and social critics and revolutionaries” (114).

Huckle looks deeply into the roots of feminism with her paper. Taking a close look at nineteenth century and twentieth century writings, feminist movements in literature such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Mary Grifftih and the utopia’s that are created. She looks at the evolution of a woman’s role within a commune, their ability to do equal work not based on gender. Just as More in his novel had women and men tending to fields we see a breakdown of gender where sex no longer has a defining place.

7. Kurt Vonnegut’s American Nightmares and Utopia

    Julio A Martinez

Before we look more closely at the opinions [Vonnegut] was now offering on the public occasions, and the two novels which have since issued from the presumably “new Vonnegut,” it will be useful to take a swift backward view onto the utopian themes already present in his first seven novels (139)

Martinez describes to us in a chronological fashion the writing and utopian themes described in Vonnegut’s writing. Slaughterhouse Five being of large focus in his essay Martinez does well to underline the utopian/dystopian dream and reality.

Each essay (based on lectures given at San Diego State University) completes the task that the compilation was set out to do, to create and invoke thought, to excite the reader to explore further into the realms of just what a utopia/dystopia society is, its rationality, its place and evolution in our society. Ranging from religion, philosophical, feminist, Marxist and fundamentalist perspectives it gives us as the reader a wide range of thought in very few pages.

If you’re of a curious mind and any of the quotes stimulated your mind to find out further follow this link to purchase. There can be no change without thought and this book begs for intellectual minds to ponder deeply upon.

SDSU Press's New Title by Daniel A. Olivas Reviewed in the LA REVIEW OF BOOKS!

Click the image for the link

A Talk About: Things We Do Not Talk About By: Daniel Olivas

Cover artwork by: Perry Vasquez

     Be one of the first to devour this intriguing compilation of personal essays and interviews composed into the symphony that award-winning author, Daniel A. Olivas, refers to as the Things We Do Not Talk About (2014). Born in Los Angeles, CA Olivas has dedicated his life to seeking truth in books. He received his BA in English literature from Stanford University, and furthered the course of his education to earn a law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). 

          Being a grandson to Mexican immigrants, much of Olivas' life was intertwined with the thread of Chicano/a culture. The eclectic writings Olivas has authored range anywhere from fiction, to poetry, novellas, short stories, you name it! In his most recent book, Olivas stands to serve as a contemporary representation of the voice that ties together the authors of Latino/a literature. He investigates decades of interviews, and attempts to decipher the many obstacles these authors came face-to-face with meanwhile writing. 
          Click here to purchase your very own paperback copy of the book today! 

Story of A Girl: Luster of Jade: Poetry, Painting And Music by: Catherine Yi-yu Cho Woo

"Split pea soup
                       One small can
                                            My love shared with me
   
 So rapidly
               We drank
                             Smiling
                                       Holding hands
                                                             From a
                                                                       cracked
                                                                                  bowl
 Before it leaked away............."


         As Dr. Catherine Yi-yu Cho Woo shared this split pea soup with her lover, I would like to share some of her soul-searching works with you. Dr. Woo was born in Beijing, China to a family of scholars. For much of her youth she spent moving around China until her family finally settled in Hong Kong in 1949.

figure 1: Ch'i (Life Force)

          Dr. Woo later traveled abroad to America in order to obtain a degree in Architecture at the University of Illinois. After she met her husband, Peter Woo, at the University of Illinois they decided to move to San Diego, California (at the time, not knowing that this would be the beginning of a very spontaneous life-long journey). This is where she began studying art and literature at San Diego State University, and afterwards UCLA for her masters degree. Finally, she ended up at the University of San Francisco for her doctorate.
          After having received multiple teaching awards in the early 1990's, Dr. Woo's lecture, Luster of Jade: Poetry,Painting And Music, was published in 1992. Throughout this published lecture in book form, she is able to capture herself within the various artistic outlets presented in the composition.  In just 45 pages, Dr. Woo reaches out to various audiences ranging from scholarly to mainstream. She poises her works with a certain je ne sais quoi that leaves her audience in awe and wonder of what lies between the caves and crevices of Chinese art, poetry, and music.            

figure 2: "Tian Tian Tian Lan"

According to a reviewer, "to stand in front of Dr. Woo's work is to experience the stirrings of the heart, mind, and soul of nature, as if the paintings are alive.” This goes for not only her artwork, but her poetry, and musical compositions as well. Figure 2, on the left,  s musical collaboration between Professor Lin Yun, Professor Leo Chen, and Dr. Woo. This song became an instant hit in Taiwan and is featured (along with its translation) within the book as well. It serves as one of the many ways Dr. Woo is able to take our breath away! So what are you waiting for? Find yourself in the very contemporary works of Dr. Woo with just a click of a button!    

       

THE POWER OF ONE... Enrique Morones' title wins award

We congratulate Enrique Morones for winning Honorable Mention in the Category of best Non-Fiction written by multiple authors in the International Latino Book Awards.

For fifteen years the International Latino Book Awards have celebrated greatness, partnering up this year with Las Comadres para las Americas and Instituto Cervantes. The Premium Sponsor included Libros Publishing and Gold Sponsor Scholastic. Bronze sponsorship came from Atria/Simon Schuster and Vaso Roto Ediciones. Additional support came from University of Arizona and Arte Publico Press.

International Latino Book Awards, now one of the largest award ceremonies for Latino authors, has awarded Enrique Morones The Power of One: The Story of the Border Angels out of the 190 authors meticulously picked from a board of sixty notables. Morones' The Power of One walks away garnished with International Latino Book Awards' newly released Award Winning Author logo.

Morones took to the American Southwest joining and impacting grassroot immigration reform with Undocumented Workers. His memoir, with noted Chicano Historian Richard Griswold de Catillo, unveils the struggles along "la frontera," the border, and proves the possibility toward change and reform.

Congratulations Enrique Morones for The Power of One!

Acquire The Power of One and learn more about this title by following this link.

Discover the Past with Dead Sea Scrolls by Risa Levitt Kohn with SDSU Press

"The Dead Sea Scrolls have revolutionized the study of the Bible, early Judaism, and early Christianity." -

-Michael Wise 1996.

In this sleek paperback by Risa Levitt Kohn, one will uncover the many mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls -- great historical texts that were created over 2,000 years ago.  The content of these scrolls is mind blowing; they have the earliest known manuscripts of works that were included in the Hebrew Bible.  They have changed what many people thought they knew about Judaism and Christianity.

San Diego State University along with the San Diego Natural History Museum has brought to print all the extraordinary findings in the Dead Sea Scrolls together in this book.  It contains beautifully vivid pictures of the scrolls and in depth explanations of what they mean.  Through them, you are able to look into the language and beliefs of people from thousands of years ago!  If you're up for a blast from the past this is the book for you! Both informational and exciting, the Dead Sea Scrolls is the book for any mood.

Buy it here! 

Learn more about the dead sea scrolls: http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/

150 Years of Evolution: Darwin's Impact on Contemporary Thought Culture

click to enlarge

Do you ever wonder how the world came to be and why things are the way they are? There are millions of people and events that have made the present what it is and have changed the way people think about things.  There was one man, however, that made a greater impact than most events or people and his name was Charles Darwin.  If you want to find out about what this innovative researcher  did to impact the present world, how he did it, and what he discovered, this book is perfect for you!


This wide-ranging anthology delves into Darwin's revolutionary discoveries in evolution.  Created in commemoration of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, 150 Years of Evolution: Darwin's Impact on Contemporary Thought & Culture is a combination of crucial studies on Darwin's theories and essays from scholars discussing them.  If you are interested in Darwin's theories and in discussions of life this is the book for you!

Buy it here! 

Looking for more on Darwin? Check out this fun, interactive site!

Vidas Fronterizas: Creative Non-Fiction from the U.S./Mexico Border... Somewhere Beyond the Border

Enter their lives…

The border seems to have turned into the largest iron monster- transmuting everything from wealth, art, territory, people, and dust. Yet, it seems to exist in a fractured reality, and like broken bones or scars, the land receives a blow, healing in the makeshift slings of bureaucracy. The borderland, it receives a jailhouse sentence with graffiti walls for prison tattoos. And the only people feeling it are those who have itch-a-sketched, with barbwires, the borders of their bodies with the physical land of which they belong. In the mind: a hallucinogenic Polaroid imprints its experiences, souls, corpses, and the ultimate art of life into the slings of the conscience unconscious.

And so the definitive questions is posed, and it is not who am I? But, "where are you from?"

Vidas Fronteriza/Border Lives balances and rumbles the binary border of the U.S. and Mexico, excavating between the buried and alive, flirting with past ghost and patrols-finding, and always finding the genesis of when the definitive line was drawn. But, who's asking the questions around here... anyway.

EZLN marching into San Cristobal de las Casas
January 1994. 

Existential break-downs and mental-shakes frisk the definitions of each of these essays. From Harry Polkinhorn's introduction to the creative non-fiction essay genre to Ramon Mejia's Loteria-like visions, writing a death defying game of chance. As well as William Anthony Nericcio's Nietzschean deconstruction of border memories and the ever-persistent, pesky, little TRUTH. Or the Chorizo James Bradley dishes out. Even Emily Hicks wills a kaleidoscope collage of performance in ink and paper.

Emily Hick's performance character La Marquesa

Essays like James Bradley transcend experiences from the page answering our enigmatic question:

"I am from the Border (i.e. ,Borderlands)". Or if I really wanted them to have something to think about, I'd say, "I was born in San Diego, like my mother and my mother's father, and raised in the foothills east of there along the Mexican Border." Not U.S. Border, or U.S.-Mexico Border, but the "Mexican Border, as if to emphasize the relationship with the "other" country, the proximity of the "foreign."

And it is this "foreign" nature that does not marginalize the indentations of these border text but give life to a fluid identity. These voices speaking not from a wound but a womb, the divide, Beyond the Border.
In Vidas Fronterizas

Jose Manuel Di Bella at center with friends in Ensenada B.C.
circa 1953

The Comic Trial of Joseph K.:Text and Context... as staged by Hector Ortega

{Direct purchase link from the SDSU Press/Amazon discount store: https://amzn.to/2LutR0u}

Hector Ortega’s stage adaptation

The Comic Trial of Joseph K. Text and Context

It is surprising: I have found that  more people than I realize enjoy the theater- personally I have never been one for it. I am sure that high school Shakespeare has convinced me as well.  But this is not to say that I have not matured or changed my opinion. Maybe I have not seen or read "the right one," so I start here.

After reading The Comic Trial of Joseph K.: Text and Context there are too many places to start. Everything from the introduction by Harry Polkinhorn to the last word of Emily Hicks essay astounds me. The title alone says it all. But despite its forwardness, the book does more for laughs and chair-clenching (un)satisfactions.

For us Lit-Heads, The Context surrounding this adaptation vivifies comedy, when explaining a joke usually ruins it. For example, Hector Ortega invites us in with his "Notes on the Stage Adaptation of Franz Kafka's The Trial" starting with:

Perhaps I've exaggerated in taking a [comic] side (Gogol says that a speech cannot be launched without exaggerating a little), but I'm sure I have exaggerated much less that Jean Louis Barrault and Andre Gide did, or even Orson Welles himself accentuating the tragic and pathetic side of the novel and eliminating any humorous dash that could compromise his gloomy conception and inspire a laugh.

This Book has amazing pictures by Jose Luis Cuevas detailing
what we might read and adding dimension to the work.

Moments like this the author begins a dialogue with us, animating the work that  otherwise demands viewership. Though we could say that Hector Ortega intends to print his stage adaptation; because of a interweaving thread, that of fragmentation, or fractured identity. To further explain, Harry Polkinhorn admits in his introduction:

How can any art escape the straitjacket of identity... Kafka, the Polish Jew living in Prague and writing in German (instead of Yiddish), becomes a symbol for the most extreme of fractured identity politics characterizing our time... Yiddish, German, Spanish, and now English. Each translation betrays the original, again repeating the pure guilt and consequent sacrifice visited upon the individual.

In this comedy you can be
the judge!

If we take this fractured lens of identity further away from the stage, than we see the book as fractured. Because it does not have the stage or actors in front of us, but in our mind. Betraying all the aesthetics of theater, and possibly novels, but transcending a jelly boundary that exist between live actors and that of print.

Take a gander at the actual text here…

So, this is where I find the comedy in Hector Ortega's stage adaptation- in these clashes and fractures. An irony that can break bodies of identity, but only from belly laughs. Still, comedy is very dangerous, and Hector Ortega works with meticulous pen to reveal an image and mirror. I can call it Mexicanidad, and I will. But I think we can get a little funky, and get indeterminate. Only for the sake of interpretation. So go ahead, its summer! Enjoy a laugh or two while staying cool with The Comic Trial of Joseph K. Text and Context.

Hector Ortega includes photos documentation that this play happened.
"That's enough for today; so we can say good-bye,  for now, of course."

{Direct purchase link from the SDSU Press/Amazon discount store: https://amzn.to/2LutR0u}

Nailed to the Wound... Tales by Jose Manuel Di Bella

Click to enter

Nailed to the wound

There are books, titles, works , and so on that deal with a "peculiar" literary technique that seems to have fallen into an awkward void. People seem to constantly put anything from William Faulkner to Joyce on their reading list, the title of which might read "'Summer books...' I need to read to seem more cultured, but won't understand," otherwise known as Stream-of-Conscious. And it is ok! I have authored such a list as well, and cannot begin to comment how many times I have to had re-read a page of The Sound and The Fury, at this point I should just re-read the whole book.

But by far the most moving piece I have encountered, and I recommend for anyone who wants to start maneuvering and breaking into a pair of new stream-of-consciousness reads is Carlos Fuentes "La Raya del Olvido" or "The Line of Oblivion," found in his novel of short stories La Frontera de Cristal or The Crystal Frontier. The reason why, its complexity veiled in simplicity. The language and sentence structures will not take a toll on many, but yet reveal a dramatic mentally savage end. It's also short, for those of us that say we have no time.

If yiu want to get a taste of Carlos Fuentes, this link will take you to a Dance performance video Arturo Fuentes did based off Carlos Fuentes "The Line of Oblivion." Go ahead and click on it and peer a little into the Crystal Frontier

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pEWxjAES40

Somwhere on this path do I find myself with Jose Manuel Di Bella's Nailed to the Womb. 

His sentence lines move with controlled swiftness and dissonance. For example, in his short story "The Card," which involves a translator, who takes the role of narrator, illustrates his last interactions with his lost  friend. This quote highlights their friendship and the beginning of the end..

I had thought to call Lucia to have her invite Magui, but soon this idea dissipated, too far away, on hearing the first thing he said: 'Time only exists for those who dare to measure it. I have no beginning or end.' and he cackled impressively. Used to his phrases, I also started to laugh and added somewhat uncertainly: 'If you hide a minute in a box, and then open it after 20 years the minute will still be there.' his response left me cold: 'yes, but you have to be very careful about hiding it. It can be the minute of your recapitulation.' And he again cackled, which now didn't last as long, and with that naturalness he asked me how the matter of the translations was going...

This should also provide a taste to Jose Manuel Di Bella's caliber by impressively creating vivid characters through not only the eyes of others but the characters own internal experiences in a few concentrated pages. Which perfectly portrays the power of a stream of conscious. This is as close as we can get into someone else's skin before losing ourselves. 

Another example of Jose Manuel Di Bella's narrative power resonates in each character's boundary breaking voice tearing through the pages and our atmosphere. In the main titles story "Nailed to the Wound" the narrator begins:

Well I'll tell you. I don't worry too much. As long as you don't interfere with what I want to do, good luck and good-bye. It happens that suddenly you adopt high integrator flights of dispersed masses and want- really it's a reverend ingenuity- feel yourself the inspiration of something that transcends us...but the truth is that you have an authentic leader complex.

Each ending also brands a picture of longing. I would give you a quote to peak, but I think 1) that would ruin the ending 2) you need to find out by yourself 3) if I gave you any more passages I might end up showing you the whole book. And you need to read this. It is a beautiful mental piece without the surgical price or deathly scavenge.

Just click here to get the whole text…

Jose Manuel Di Bella
if you want to know more about him visit this site, hopefully you can read spanish... http://larc.sdsu.edu/baja/autores/di_bella_jose.html