It's part of special section called “Dossier: Latino Speculative Literature, Film and Popular Culture.” They even used some of my drawings to illustrate the introduction.
Along with my manifesto is an essay: “From Code to Codex: Tricksterizing the Digital Divide in Ernest Hogan's Smoking Mirror Blues” by Daoine S. Bachman.
Also discussed are Chicanafuturism, Latino@futurism, Jamie Hernandez's comics, Afro-Latina and Mexican immigrant heroines, Chicana/o cyberpunk, Gloria Andzaldúa's sci-fi roots, speculative rasquashismo, and Chicano@futurist visual art!
The first encierro looked out of control. More like a riot than a staged event. Like the scenes in old monster movies where crowds are running through the streets, trying to escape a gigantic monster. Only wilder.
The encierros, or runs, during the the Fiesta de San Fermín in Pamplona, Spain are scored by Time (Duración), Corenados (Gorings), Tramatismos (Injuries) and Peligrosidad (Dangerousness). Oddly enough, Time isn't as important at the rest. Dangerousness is what makes a good, or great encierro.
This is not sport as practiced in Western Civilization. This ritual is more like religion. Like the pre-fiesta protests where PETA beauty contest winners wear plastic horns, take off their clothes, and smear themselves with fake blood. See Richard Wright's Pagan Spain: It is the conquering of fear, the making of religion of the conquering of fear.
Why not a Church of Tauromachy? Isn't America supposed to be all about freedom of religion?
In that first encierro, a woman, after making it to the corridor into the arena, stopped running, and covered her ears. She had reached a personal limit. I watch for people like her, who are facing their fears. Sometimes it reduces you to a pile of quivering jelly, but what you gain from it is the courage of self-knowledge. There is a heroism in it.
This is a truer thing than America's “horror” culture, where fake blood and gore are mass produced and celebrated. Sometimes you need to reach out of your artificial consumer environment and touch the gooey mess of reality. It will teach you about your place in the universe, and the food chain.
It does cause visions of alternate universes to dance in my head: What would Hemingway think of what San Fermín has become? How and when did bullfighting become illegal in Aztlán? What if the Spanish influence was stronger and bullfighting was part of the cowboy/beef culture? Where would the running of the bulls be held in America? Would MacDonald's and Burger King be sponsoring bulls?
There's a Burger King along the encierro route. And a space that is for rent . . .
I really need to find time to finish that science fiction bullfighting novel.
How I enjoyed the high-Dangerousness – it got an 80! – encierro on Saturday! At one point, a bull named Finito had three men pinned to a wall. Finito charged into the arena with blood on his horn. Later, he threw Iván Fandiño, who had been gored in 2013. With blood on his face and no jacket, Fandiño killed Finito.
On the last day's encierro, the bulls from Miura made history for being the fastest in history. It set a new record at two minutes and five seconds. It also rated a 60 for Dangerousness. The real action was at Dead Man's Curve.
The bulls were muy bravo, and pretty badass, this year. A speed record, 10 gorings (8 were Americans, we're number one!), and 27 injuries. One bull even refused to run.
But it's all over now. Back to the alternate universes that are America and Arizona. Comic-Con? Really? And there's all this political turmoil, racist rhetoric, violence, and fighting over flags. So civilized.
Riots in the streets. Conflicts spreading like viruses. And a presidential election looming. Looks like it's time to go searching for America again.
It's not that we lose America. It's more like we lose track of it. It's especially easy in this days of social media, when you can fine tune your input according to your tastes – then, oh, the shocks when your step out of your comfort zone onto . . . the road.
That's where you find the real America, on the road. Huckleberry Finn knew it. So did Jack Kerouac. And Hunter Thompson.
And so does John Waters.
His latest book, Carsick, is another fine example of the Great American Road Book. He tells of hitchhiking across America, and more.
Carsick is another work of American literature that straddles the borders between fiction and nonfiction. After an introduction, he presents two outrageous novellas: one presenting the best case scenario, the other the worst. Waters' own twisted utopian and dystopian visions. Magnificently outrageous. The kind of stuff that makes you fall in love with America as the fantastic place where anything is possible, the way it should be, if only so many Americans weren't afraid of everything.
This gets into speculative fiction territory, crashing through alternative universes and all. Maybe John deserves a Hugo award for this.
Then, he goes on to document his real trip. Celebrity hitchhiking in the time of interwebs. Real people that are strange in ways his imagination didn't expect. The amazing, mind-blowing thing is – and I'm fighting the urge to commit spoilers here – it leaves you feeling good, and hopeful about this country.
It's the sort of book we need right now. And it makes me once again think of John Waters as a Great American.
Hogan's debut, first published in 1990, introduced the subgenre of Chicano SF to a startled, dazzled American audience. Now, 25 years later, the book's Spanglish prose and freeform plot still amuse. All Pablo Cortez cares about is creating art, whether it's humongous graffiti sprayed across Los Angeles or zero-gravity paint slinging in space. Uncool authorities and timid collaborators can't stop him. When he confronts the alien Sirens of Jupiter, who have zapped the minds of earlier explorers, he takes their overwhelming flood of bizarre images as subject matter for new masterpieces. Hogan keeps Pablo's obsessive rants from becoming too intense by working them into a collage of comments from friends and enemies, along with hefty chunks of Aztec mythology, as he builds a jangling, rambunctious picture of artistic genius. This is tons of fun for freethinking readers who appreciate heroes with cojones. (Mar.)
As if there weren't enough turmoil sweeping across the planet, it looks like not even the art world is safe. After years of being seen only in obscure publications, the interwebs, and on those rare occasions when I show off my sketchbooks in person, some of my drawings are making it into an art gallery.
On view in the Project Space from May 09-Jun 13 2015 Josh Rios and Anthony Romero will present Part Two of Please Don’t Bury Me Alive!—a project space installation that features various arrangements of the artifacts from their inaugural performance alongside other works that deal with Chicano centered imagery and histories. In addition, a suite of drawings by Chicano sci-fi writer Ernest Hogan will be on display. The collection of works on paper represents the smallest of fragments culled from Hogan’s vast archive of sketchbooks, notes, and drafts, which Rios and Romero are working to curate for an exhibition in the Summer of 2016. Did I mention that said drawings will also be for sale?
They mock the secessionist petitioners in Texas and other states, celebrate the infestation of even the smallest American heartland towns by African, Asian and Aztec cultures . . .
The above is a quote from Vox Day, one of the puppies who has caused the current shitstorm over the Hugo awards. For those of you who have not seen the wide-ranging media coverage this story is getting, a bunch of guys who don't like the trend in diversity in speculative fiction hijacked the nominations of the Hugos, throwing the future of the awards into doubt. Personally, I haven't paid much attention to the Hugos (or the Nebulas) in decades, but this is starting to hit close to home.
Because, Aztecaphobia is alive and well!
They're afraid of Aztecs coming to their hometowns. The Wild West stereotype of the blood-thirsty, half-breed never died. In Arizona, we still hear people talking about rumors of cannibalism and human sacrifice in the barrio. Schoolchildren speaking Spanish can trigger panic attacks.
Or as a little old lady from Phoenix once said, “We don't want downtown smelling like tacos!”
I've always considered the smell of tacos to be a sign of an advanced civilization.
The idea of an Aztec future must be their worst nightmare. I wonder if they've read any of my books or stories?
Dell Harris' cover painting (he called it “Scorpio”) for the self-published High Aztech ebook must put stains in their underwear.
If you want to get that edition, with that cover, you should buy it now, because Digital Parchment Services is working on a new Strange Particle Press edition of High Aztech, that – among other things – will have a new cover, that and incorporated imagery by a famous Communist artist!
Don't listen to the puppies, folks! Dream the dreams you lust after. Create the futures you want, be they African, Asian, Aztec,Texan or Arizonan. We need more visions, not less. Everybody, let your imaginations go wild!
Don't worry if it scares anybody. They may pull dirty tricks and try to shut you down – it's been the story of my life – but it's worth the fight. If they can't face Aztec cultural warriors, they are doomed.
Besides, one persons dystopia is another's utopia. One culture, one civilization, isn't enough. Imagine more. It's what sci-fi is supposed to be all about.
Yup. Another Victor Theremin story, “Where Civilizations Go to Die,” has been unleashed on a shell-shocked world. And you can read it free online! In Bewildering Stories Issue 609.
For those of you don't know about Victor, he's a science fiction writer who has lost track of where the science fiction ends and his life begins, probably because some Singuarity-spawned artificial intelligences are using him to figure out humanity.
If you're curious, you can read another story in the series – also free online: “Hindenburg's Vimana Joyride” in DayBreak Magazine.
For some money that will go to the American Diabetes Association, you can buy James Palmer's Voices For the Cure anthology, and read “Human Sacrifice for Fun and Profit,” the very first Victor Theremin story.
If this wasn't all enough, I just started another story – that looks like it'll probably be more like a novella or (GASP!) a novel: Bring Me the Brain of Victor Theremin, that will take this madness as far as it will go.
Because things just haven't gotten crazy enough for me.
Look out! Ancient Chicano Sci-Fi Wisdom will be coming at you at the 38th Annual Writers Week at the University of California, Riverside. I'll be teaching a master writing class on Feb. 4. The knowledge I've picked up from decades of writing will be free for taking.
Or, to put it in proper sideshowese:
"Step right up, folks! We've got one of the weirdest mutations to come out of East L.A. here for your examination -- a Chicano with sci-fi growing in his brain! Don't be afraid! Come on, get a good, close look! We're pretty sure his rare condition isn't contagious . . ."
Sedona keeps calling us back. Emily and I were just there a few weeks ago. And we also, for some mysterious reason, honeymoon there. We never really thought about it the first time, or the second time. And this third time, it justs seemed right.
It was dark when we reached Sedona, and it was festooned with Christmas lights. Like before, Google Maps got us lost. We had to ask directions at a fast food joint with a flying saucer out front, and they didn't know anything. Eventually we found the Baby Quail Inn.
