Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Growing up in Los Angeles (Part Six): El Biker


Part 6: El Biker

By Armando Ortiz

Back when my dad had volunteered us to work at the recently purchased church new people began appearing randomly for a moment or decided to stay for a long while.It seemed that the congregation kept getting bigger and bigger, hence the need to move to a larger locale. Relocating to the new church meant a lot of sacrifices for the congregation that was made up of blue collar workers. Some members would end up moving to other churches after the newly acquired church had been restored to a new glimmering sanctuary  because they felt that the congregation was no longer homely. The stained glass windows, which were in fact made of some kind of plastic, now filtered light much clearly and one saw strawberry reds, deep metallic greens, and gold chocolate foil.

During the time that was spent restoring the church there came a new member of the church who dressed like a cowboy, well more really like a stockier, taller, and darker version of Wyatt, one of the main characters of Easy Rider. In the film Peter Fonda was a more refined version of a biker/smuggler, Carlos on the other hand was Central American, and his hair was curly and his shirts seemed a bit tight at the waist. I don’t recall much of the person, though he once said he was from El Salvador. There was this one time, while he was working on the chain link fence that some of my buddies and I approached him. We peppered him with questions about all sorts of things. He wore black cowboy boots and claimed he’d been a biker. For the past five years he’d been riding here and there and everywhere. I didn’t pay much heed to what he said, but I thought the boots were cool, so was his belt. Maybe the question arose because compared to all the members of the church who dressed conservatively with their church etiquette, he stood out. 

He kept working on the chain link fence that stretched to the other end of the lot, and then pointed to the bike he rode. “I used to ride around with bikers and we’d go up to the mountains and have barbecues.” The bike was black with some orange lettering on the sides of the gas tank. The two piston motor glistened, reflecting the afternoon sun. The handles were slightly lifted and the back wheel was enamel black. It wasn’t new, but it was clean. The front wheel was chrome, and gave the motorcycle a certain character; a certain aura projected that emanated flawlessness. The church brother certainly had taste. “It’s a Harley-Davidson,” he said, “Though if you ever get a motorcycle get a Honda. Ese bolado’s given me many problems, but it’s all mine.” He seemed out of place in the church and out in the real world, but he was being helpful and doing good work.

We once found him playing the piano inside the church, we asked him what he was playing and he said he was playing Sonata Bach. We asked him if it was his girlfriend, and he said it wasn't a woman but a musical piece by a man that no longer was living, but that one day, if we remembered we’d re-discover his beautiful music. That day he wore a leather vest, over a white shirt. He continued playing on the old wall piano. We just stared at the strange cowboy that had appeared out of nowhere. He’d close his eyes, and his fingers dexterously moved left to right.

“Jose!,” someone called out. Marco, the guy supervising the restoration of the church signaled that our help was needed outside. He got up from the stool and headed towards the entrance to the church. The pack of church kids followed behind. Outside the weather was typical Southern California weather, sunny and warm. Two palm trees were on the curbside of Adams Blvd.

One day we were coming back from playing basketball. The adults had set up a half court in front of the church’s parking lot. We’d been called to go inside and help around. We were carrying some stuff to the pulpit where once again we found him sitting on the piano bench. He was having his lunch, Louisiana Chicken, which he’d brought down the street. He squeezed the ketchup package on his food, topping the fried chicken with the red sauce. I asked him why he ate his chicken with ketchup, “That’s how I like to eat fried chicken,” he replied with a smile, looking straight into my eyes. He was a jack of all trades. I don’t recall much after that and it seems that as he appeared from out of nowhere to help in the rebuilding of the church, once the project was done he disappeared in a snap, merging with traffic, either driving east or west on Adams Boulevard. He probably drove west and saw the sunset before he followed wherever his wandering soul took him.


Thursday, January 26, 2012

Aldous Huxley's Crome Yellow and Roberto Bolano's 2666: On Society

No one pays attention to these killings, but the secret of the world is hidden in them.” Roberto Bolano, 2666, p.348

Aldous Huxley's Crome Yellow and Roberto Bolano's 2666: A Discussion on Society
By Armando Ortiz
A few months ago I met up with some old acquaintances for lunch and to catch up on life. Back in 2004, we had spent time in China traveling, studying and hanging out. Now it was 2011, and at some point in our conversation I told them about the author, Roberto Bolano and his last book, 2666, but then drifted to talking about Aldous Huxley's writings. I was not prepared to talk about the books or the authors, but for some reason I told them that they were worth reading. The brief dialogue left me wondering why they were important, but then the thought disappeared, and I went on with life.
Nevertheless, today while coming back from a long walk I was reminded why they are important. Something had triggered a memory that connected to what I had read in the recent past. As I walked, at a distance, there was a man riding on the back of an electric wheel chair. The driver was handicap, of course, but the man riding on it was not. The man on the back of the wheelchair had a dark blue sweater and stood on the batteries. Some of his hair fluttered, since the electric chair seemed to move at a stead 15 miles per hour. That reminded me of two things, one, a scene/story that I read in a book, and two, Profesor Morini, a character in 2666.
I couldn’t quite remember in what book the strange tale was in so, I wondered if it possibly had been Oscar Wilde’s last short story that I had read, but it wasn’t. I was tempted to stop and ponder, but I’m a multi-tasker, and figured it’d do me some good to seriously think for a bit and briskly walk. I tried remembering the title of the story, but failed to pin point the name. So I so I kept on with my power walk. Realizing it wasn’t Wilde I began to mentally retrace the story and thought about Huxley’s Point Counter Point, but it wasn’t that story because I’d never come across anything of Huxley’s that’s as dark as the story I was trying to remember, so I thought. Then it hit me, it was Huxley’s Crome Yellow.

About the authors:
          Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) was born in England and is best known for his novels Brave New World, Point Counter Point, Island, and numerous essays that touch on topics of culture, society, the human body, medicine and religion. At some point in his life he saw his house and everything in it burn to the ground. He continued to write all the way up to his last days. Though he is not widely discussed in our perspective society he’s had a significant impact on the way many of his readers approach life.
          Roberto Bolano (1953-2003) was born in Chile, but spent part of his life in Mexico, and briefly visited El Salvador before moving to Spain. There he had several odd jobs before having success with his writing. In between his travels, temporary jobs, and writing he became addicted to drugs, but managed to get himself clean. All throughout his time he managed to create a new literary circle which was labeled Infernal Realism, and though it was a short lived circle of writers, each took it upon himself to write in that newly created genre. His hugely successful Savage Detectives, Distant Star, and Nazi Literature in the Americas catapulted him to the top of the literary world and caught the attention of international critics all along going at his writing as usual. In between his writing he spent hours devouring the great writers and those unknown. He was a writer’s writer.

Why Huxley matters:
          In Crome Yellow there is a story that is told by one of his characters where a dwarf ends up inheriting the family house along with the family fortune. What was strange about the dwarf was not his size or the fact that everyone around him was regular sized. It was the manner he went about transforming everything around him to conform to his inner ideals and desires. His parents loved him and gave him the best education that was possible. Then his family began to die, making him thinking about his life and the legacy, if any, that would be left after he died. The dwarf’s preoccupation with marriage and having children made him start dating, but in his mind stature was a problem. For a time he dated a woman that was of normal height and they got along well, but that still didn’t satisfy him. He didn’t want to live in a world that reminded him of his short stature. So he paid a match maker to go out and look for a woman that was about his height and came from a respectful and decent household.
The matchmaker ended up finding a fair woman who also was also a dwarf, and soon she was brought back to the estate. They soon married and managed to live two years together without having children, since he was preoccupied with the fear of having regular sized kids or worse, dwarf kids. The man of the house went about reducing everything inside to fit their size. The tables and chairs were reduced in height, and the doors and beds as well. He also proceeded to slowly fire his servants and replace them with servant dwarfs. The couple also found ponies to replace the regular horses. By the time their first and only baby son was born the whole mansion and people living there had been transformed.
          The baby grew, and by the time he was a few months old they knew he would be a regular sized person. What had kept them from having children in the first place came to be. All the work that they had put into their house thinking that they’d live a dwarf’s life became a bit problematic. Nevertheless, the kid grew and went to school and by the time he was eight years old was as tall as his father. Instead of dealing with the problems the child would face living in a dwarf’s house, the parents decided to send him to boarding school. The kid’s primary and secondary education were spent studying somewhere else, but of course the kid returned home for the holidays and for summer vacation. As time passed, his visits and his attitude grew more and more aggressive towards them. He’d purposely broke things and mistreated the dwarf servants. The story continues to unfold and eventually leads to some very unfortunate and sad events, but I will let the reader finish the story themselves.
In the book, Huxley briefly mentions the Nazi, but this short story found in the novel Crome Yellow can be seen as an allegorical allusion to what the Nazi would do in the years to come. The Nazi government and everyone that took part in all the atrocities during World War Two tried to change their society to the extent that they began removing Jews from the general population, then the handicap, then gypsies, then homosexuals, and even then some Jehovah Witnesses. They were moved into ghettos and then into concentration camps to be separate from the German population initiating the attempt at the slow eradication of their populations.
The Nazi believed in a pure and strong race where every German idealized quality that was prized could be seen in its people. Yet, Huxley’s story begs a question- what if they would have been successful in their attempts, and they would have cleansed their society of every perceived ill or threat? Would evil and prejudice itself have disappeared from society? What would have become of their society? Would less criminal activity exist? Would prostitution have been eradicated? Would everyone have had equal access to goods and services? Would poverty have been wiped out? Would the violent and mentally ill no longer exist? Would the chronic poor no longer exist? Huxley points to the son that the two dwarves produced and says no. Human beings are too complex to define them as this or that. Yes, there are people that have different cultural backgrounds, but to have the certainty that by ridding society of certain groups of people for the sole reason that they have some marked difference or strange tradition will never be a valid reason to exterminate other humans. Though, of course, history is riddled with such events and not one piece of land on this earth has been immune to this reality. Instead of focusing on the things that mattered in life, the dwarf focused on changing things around him, though he could not control how his own son would grow up to be.
Trying to alter your surroundings in such a way that it meets your idealized vision of how the world should run will never work. Even today with all the technological advances that we have has proven that humans still need to go out and work, and be active or else they turn into something that disturbingly unnatural. One thing remains certain, and that is the randomness and serendipitous nature of life and human nature and the human spirit. Good and evil cannot be walled in or put into an ivory castle because no matter how good a society might be or think it is there will always be an element of evil and deviance in human nature. Huxley suggests that things ought to be left alone and that we ought to just live life. Living with the aim of being aware of what is going on in our society and being the change we want the world to be.


Why Bolano matters:
          An aspect of Roberto Bolano's 2666 is that he makes us see characters that we usually over look by presenting characters that are not your common every day folk. Of course, characters that are made up by writers will usually be out of the ordinary, though in this case it seems that Bolano has purposely chosen these characters to bring home his message. At times, society can also be oblivious to the life of their marginalized population. Huxley talks about changing our surroundings, while Bolano focuses on how our contemporary surroundings and the margins of society are affected by society at large. It is either society or the powers that be that create a collective amnesia, making us blind to what really is happening to our communities.

The electric wheel chair made me think of the short tale within Crome Yellow, but it also reminded me of 2666. A reason for thinking of Bolano's book was that one of the characters that he creates is the handicap professor Morini, who is an expert on the literature of the elusive German, Benno von Archimboldi. He also happens to be the chair of one of the academic circles that oversees which papers make into the academic journals. Morini seems to have an interest in outsider art and is particularly interested in the life of a marginal artist who at one point in his artistic career decides to cut off his hand and turn it into an art piece. In the novel, the artist briefly appears in a dialogue with the professor, and explains to him that the reason for chopping off his hand was for shock value and monetary gain.
          Bolano’s characters are people who we usually don’t think about and in many ways are the forgotten people of a community that is stereotyped. When we think about authors, when we think about experts, when we think about status or power we don’t consider the characters he writes about. The novel is riddled with writers of all sorts. These are struggling writers that are barely making ends meet, but they are publishing books and articles- though in small time publications. Life for these artists is tough, but they have committed themselves to the life of a writer.
Oscar Fate is an American from the east coast, and works for an African American magazine. Though he isn't big on writing investigative articles circumstances force him to explore the seedier side of Santa Teresa's criminal underworld. On one occasion he visits the training compound of a boxer and there he finds another black man that’s from Los Angeles and is working sparring partner. Though much isn’t said about him one gets the impression that he prefers Mexico to the US. There are several Chicano characters that appear in the novel. There is the writer, Josue Hernandez Mercado, who was born in Mexico, but raised on the US side of the border and works for a small community newspaper. The books he's written and published are a written in an unorthodox manner, with a strange mixture of Spanish and English, making him an intermediary character on the crossroads of two cultural fringes. A small time literary company from Texas has published two volumes of his poetry and two novels.
Though both these men never meet they take it upon themselves to uncover the murders and atrocities that are happening on the border city of Santa Teresa. Oscar manages to escape in time with Rosa, but it seems that Josue has been murdered. The person who picks up from where Josue left off is a Chicana writer from Phoenix, who is also a writer for a small time newspaper, Mary-Sue Bravo. All of these characters point to a larger and more serious issue. The problems of a society though intimately known by the marginalized ghetto dwellers will never get resolved and understood unless the powers that be take action and find practical solutions to the ills that affect the poor.
Bolano, being the clever author that he was, reveals that this might not be possible, because in the end it is the powerful that are letting the murder of women and the disappearance of males happen. Nevertheless, one of the broader themes that he deals with is precisely the life of the poor and wanderers who live on this earth. The over looked are left to fend for themselves and to find some type of concrete solution to their daily survival, which turns into fear of being involved in anything that might jeopardize their lives. Though there are crimes and violence being perpetuated in Santa Teresa it is mostly ignored and usually gets the attention of sensationalist magazines or simply too taboo to talk about the subject. It makes one wonder how many crimes really happen in marginalized areas of our contemporary cities that never get solved or get the attention they deserve. Witnesses to crimes prefer to run away so as to not get involved and be implicated in a crime. Cops and doctors rarely show up on time, preferring to let time pass so as not to have to go through the whole process of questioning people around or not hear anything that the dying victim might say.
It seems that there is an abundance of jobs in Santa Teresa, but not enough time to get stuff done, and not enough income; pay minimal at most or delayed at worst; to rest. There is a sense that people are able to sustain themselves, but not in the manner that is intended for humans to further develop ie socially, communally and culturally. There is also a constant influx of people into the city, partly due to its proximity to the border with the US, and due to the demand for cheap labor. In essence, the fictional city of Santa Teresa is representative of the pressures that developing nations confront in their societies. The need to make enough income to survive for the day, but also finding the ways and means to make ends meet.
Another example that he uses towards the end of the book is of the soldiers that are used to fight in the Russian front. Most of them are descendants of the very same German peasants that fought the wars of the powerful and returned to their hometowns maimed and handicap attempting to resume their “normal” peasant lives. Just like some of the cops that are members of the police force in Santa Teresa that come from the chronically poor parts of Mexico, and whom allegiances fluctuate between government officials and powerful narcos, both groups are given food, pay and gun to kill or protect higher ups. In the end these cops are also powerless.
Somehow, we are also accomplices to this problem, because ignore certain ills that exist in our perspective societies. At times we fail to see the big picture and the forces behind why people migrate and why the poor fight wars for their countries. Why is it easier for the media to talk about a girl that was kidnapped somewhere in the Mid-West, yet not talk about the numerous women that get disappeared in South Los Angeles? Why does a hot dog eating contest winner get more air time on television than a war veteran who’s returned from abroad? There are those that do look at the other side of life, the grimy and overlooked side, but those eyes are few and the voices have yet to reach the ears of the general population. The people that are out there trying to serve the underrepresented come across the characters that Bolano describes.

Conclusion
Both authors touch on subjects that are rarely discussed. In 1921, when a young Huxley wrote Crome Yellow one could only gather hints as to what would happen in Europe in the next few decades, yet he was able to embed his criticism of society within his writings and look ahead to the on coming problems. Eighty-three years later, when 2666 was published, Bolano, though no longer alive, managed to touch on many issues that are over look these days. Both point to something that ought to be considered when thinking about trivial matters such as the end of the world or humanity's collective destruction via nuclear war or some type of catastrophic religious or race war. As long as humans walk this earth the greatest concern and fear is not what might become of us, but of what we are now and have been for centuries - human. 
Metaphorically speaking cannibalism does exist in our societies, and everyday people are being exploited and used for economic and political gain, more specifically undocumented immigrants, the chronic poor and women. The machine continues to churn and devour those whose voice is not heard. In the past, concentration camps segregated certain segments of the community, which in turn were sent to gas chambers and pyres. In Europe, Jews were seen as expendable, and these days its people that are deemed illegal aliens and have no rights. There will always be oppressed and ignored people and those in power will try to rid themselves of the unwanted by using force or nowadays the media with its endless entertainment will create a collective stereotype and amnesia of people that lack political and economic power.
In the past, Empires exercised force, and everyone knew empire was being created at the expense of other societies. In the 20th century empire and conquest began to take a new shape, being that the media became more refined via film, radio, magazines and newspapers. During the first half of that century those in power knew what was going on and Huxley suggested that force and elimination of the unwanted solved nothing. Now, Bolano shows us where the ills of society are. People in the Americas know that the economy of the US is what moves us and that it dominates most economies in the Americas. Yet what happens to people outside of the US becomes the insignificant collateral damage of something that is beyond our present realities The Oscar Fates of the United states have no idea that we are benefiting from the fruits of the terrible exploitation of human and natural resources around the planet, but there comes a time when chance and time reveal these things, but the irony is that all around the world, the poor and marginalized, the invincible, are the ones who become keenly aware of the forces that affect the lives of other invisible populations. To them what happens in the streets in nothing new, but what was happening in Santa Teresa and is happening in real life in parts of Mexico is shocking.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Our Relationship with Animals and the Earth

Our relationship with Animals and the Earth

            I remember, a few years back, having a conversation with a friend. We talked about his experience visiting the Los Angeles Zoo. After walking around for a few hours and checking out some of the exhibits both he and his girl started to cry. The emotions the animals projected at the subconscious level resonated with him and opened their bodies to uncontrollable sobs. He could feel the sadness and see the loneliness that the animals experienced being locked up.
            In retrospect, I think that their experience might have been much deeper than that. I recall reading a short essay found in John Berger’s About Looking, which focuses on how contemporary society views animals. Since the later part of the 19th century humans began to sever their relationship with animals. Their presence on this earth began to take a more marginal role where they play the role of entertainers or performers, and where they are looked at and observed. Prior to these phenomenon animals were integral to the human psyche. Certain character traits were said to resemble a particular animals’. Animals were viewed differently than the way we view them today. Berger suggests that people viewed animals with a respect of the other, while the other in turn kept its distance, and ever since the traveling circus and the first city zoo things have drastically changed.
            If this type of perception was experienced with all the cultures of the world prior to the 19th century then the detachment of the natural environment of the animals that now live in zoos is similar to the detachment that we, as humans, have experienced with nature. Though one must not forget that those in power, whether it was in Meso-America, Mesopotamia, Greece or China always had a proclivity to have a private collection of wild animals, and it was exclusive only to them. Now almost every city has a public zoo and we no longer have a respect for the animals that live in their natural habitats, but instead treat them as a nuisance. The hunting of wild animals for centuries was seen as a sport, but a sport that also helped expand the boundaries of human habitation. During the Qing Dynasty the emperor would send men on horses to circle wide mountainous areas to flush out animals living in the area, and soon the games would commence. Now a days cattle owners worry about losing one cow to a dwindling pack of grey wolves or the over hunted coyote that still continues to spread further north. On the other hand we’ve come to point where every other animal that is out in nature is found, tranquilized, labeled with a mini radio transmitter or with a tiny brace, and let go. 
            These past years, I’ve come across several types of animal species, and through my travels managed to observe different types animals of which I never thought I’d get to see. Let’s just say that some of the eagles we hear about or even get to see in the zoos gave me an opportunity to appreciate and be in awe of nature’s majestic fabric. Growing up in Los Angeles, I was never fully aware of the abundant wild life that exists in this city. I have been fortunate enough to see opossums run down La Brea Blvd and have seen a liter of raccoons following their mother into the gutter, I wasn’t fully aware of what was out there, besides the scavengers. I had to travel out of the states and spend time in areas where wildlife is now just an afterthought, and things wild can only be found in zoos. A few years ago I was lucky to see a bobcat, though by the time I saw it I had already jetted myself into my car. Now I can look back and appreciate the fact that this particular animal was out in its natural habitat. Though we don’t know it our ears hear about 5-7 different species of birds a day in this city. Some don’t even realize that spotting a hummingbird is one of the greatest visual treasures of the Americas. Only in the Americas can this tiny little bird be seen.
            It’s a bit disappointing though that we have just about destroyed most of the natural environment of these animals, but at the same time we have given up our old ways of living for what we have today – dishwashers, concrete rivers, computers, nice green lawns and electronic toys. Sometimes old trees get cut because they take away from the value of a home. Nowadays, we spend about 2 hours on the road on a daily basis, stuck in traffic and weaving through slow moving cars. We have 24 hour stores and refrigerators that keep everything “fresh,” but what have we given up for all this progress? What we have deemed progress might very well be our acceleration to destruction. So it is not surprising that when we are not “on” something we are not consciously aware of the fact that animals living in a zoo are living a reality that is just as unnatural as people going to the 24 hour supermarket to buy a frozen pizza. It is a complete disconnection with nature and our real being. Our sub-consciousness might be in great suffering at this very moment and crying as much as my friend did that day, though we might not know it. We have all been conceived from the very thing we alter every day, earth.

Friday, January 20, 2012

White Rocks: A Poem

White Rocks

By Armando Ortiz


Search and move

Move and search

Search under the rug

And move the couch


What’s going on?

What did I do?

What did she do?

What did we do?


Turn over

And over turn

Turn over the couch

And overturn the books


Dig and fling

Fling and dig

Dig through the pile of laundry clothes

Fling the clean shirts from the drawer


White rock

Rock white

White crystals are lost somewhere

Rocks hidden in cracks, and

Cracks become invisible rocks


Stand sad

Sad stand

We stand confused

Our sad eyes observe

The destruction of our dad


Search and move

Move and search

Do you need help with your search?

If we search with you we will find.

Move! Move out of the way!

I need to move and find my own way.


Monday, January 16, 2012

Growing up in Los Angeles (Part Five): Plum Tree

   

Part 5: Plum Tree

By Armando Ortiz

During this time, I was just in third grade, as mentioned earlier. In the front yard of the duplex where I lived was a plum tree, and every spring there was a blossoming of violet papier-mâché like blossoms. I really didn’t give it much thought back then, to me the tree was all that it was, a tree, but I do recall spending hours playing around its cool shade. Sometimes I would go up and play with my G.I. Joes, other times I would climb up and get lost in the labyrinth of my imagination, thinking of the tree house that could be built on it and of the endless vistas that I could see while resting on the branches.

The fruit that the tree bore was not that tasty; at least that is how I remember the tiny peach/plumbs being. The fruit seemed to never fully ripen and even after they reached the delicate yin yang of yellow and orange they still were not sweet. My mother would cook the peach/plums to caramelize them by mixing water, cinnamon, panela and pieces of platano along with the small fruit. This rustic process made the sour fruit edible and delicious. A few days later, when the tiny peach/plums were ready to eat my mom would let us eat them. The caramelized fruit would stay in the refrigerator for a few days inside a round glass bowl and everything inside would slowly disappear.

Something that did annoy me was the incessant amount of resin that came out the tree. Sometimes while climbing the tree my hands would get smothered by a glob of young amber. The tree trunk had it on its bark, and so did the ends of the tiny fruits, it was as if the tree was always weeping this sticky substance. In the hot summer days I especially loved climbing up the tree and lying on one of the branches pretending to be lost in the jungle, hiding in the cool shade of the dense green foliage. Now the tree is no longer there, I guess a few years after we moved out the owners decided to cut down the tree.


Thursday, January 12, 2012

Driving through South Central: Sketches of Los Angeles

Photo by Armando Ortiz

Driving through South Central L.A.

by Armando Ortiz

He witnessed the palpable urgency in the people passing by. Each street seemed to possess a small shrine on the corner, devoted to the Virgin Mary. The image of her adorned the walls of mom and pop shops, and every exchange of money was accompanied by expressions of gratitude towards the heavens, thanking them for the chance to live one more day. These celestial powers favored those who would rest with a full belly and allowed them to offer gratitude as they strolled in and out of random 99 cent stores, liquor stores, discount fashion stores and auto part stores. This part of the city’s fabric was woven with the working class, pimps, mechanics, kids sporting USC shirts and sweaters, street vendor, city employees, undocumented workers, DVD bootleggers, street women, tamaleros, sellers of pleather belts, punk rockers, rural cowboys, fruit salad peddlers, and street corner evangelists. It blended together into an exotic tapestry reminiscent of a travel journal chronicling a journey through an unknown third-world country. These streets offered anything and everything one could be purchased while driving through them.

If one found themselves running late for an appointment without having eaten, they could purchase a tamal from a sidewalk vendor. The tamalera usually sold cheese tamales with jalapenos, green chili tamales with chicken and spicy red sauce tamales with shredded beef. On cold days, selections of champurado and atole were also available. If one was on their way to pick up a date, they could drive down to the next block, buy a freshly cut bouquet of red roses, and have someone across the street expertly gift wrap a present. In these streets, no one had rest, and everyone worked on New Year’s day.


It all felt surreal, yet it was here that the true Southern California car culture thrived at its peak. This was where motorized movement converged with human movement, creating an unforgettable and distinct experience he had never witnessed before. It was a cosmopolitan scene that heightened all six senses.  Every individual, whether actively engaging or merely driving through, played a role in this grand drama unfolding. Exhaust fumes mingles with phone conversations, music blaring banda or hip hop from every speaker, and the hum of passing vehicles. The scene was punctuated by the motorcycle cop’s siren, halting an Asian man driving his BMW right in front of a beauty salon and a fish frying market. Everything seemed to dissolve into an intangible force that the wind uses to transport objects, its destination unknown.

Driving through the streets of South Central transported him to another world, replete with forgotten realities. Every other corner boasted a taco truck, with a patient line of seven customers eagerly awaiting their food. Old car lots were repurposed as outdoor diners where the aroma of freshly grilled chicken or fish permeated the air, detectable from blocks away. People gathered at bus stops, embarked or disembarked from public transportation, and walked away from MTA stations. Everyone surrendered themselves to the prevailing forces, immersing themselves in the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles as they merged with the natural ebb and flow of life, each with their own chosen destinations. So much movement transpired that he struggled to grasp its significance. It reminded him of his childhood trips to the river, where he would plunge beneath the rushing river.

Submerged in the river’s depths, he observed gray granite boulders, bubbles ascending lazily, and settled sediment that remained motionless. The river’s current forcefully pushed his body, guiding his face and eyes towards a singular direction. As a child, he wondered of the consequence of surrendering to the river’s force, but the silent boulders hinted at a painful end. He, too, was driven by the urgency to make this month’s rent. Yet amidst the bustling scene, he realized his insignificance in the grand machine of reality. He was a mere cog caught between many gears that propelled the wheel of time forward. However, dwelling on such thoughts was futile. The wheel was turning, and as long as things moved, wether forward or backward, everything would be fine. Rent could be paid, showers could be taken, and later in the night, he could join his friends for a beer.

The urgency with which people moved and acted was difficult for him to comprehend, but he yearned to capture it all. His life was a constantly changing tableau, where greens transformed into browns and grays metamorphosed into ocean blue. The views from his window had changed so frequently that he became attuned to the different cloud patterns in the sky. He noticed that the sun was less intense in the flatlands compared to the mountains, though that also depended on his current location. The air became drier a thousand miles to the east of Los Angeles, while it remained mild near the coast. Today, though, he found himself driving through South Los Angeles, navigating Central Avenue from north to south and driving east to west on Adams Boulevard, Gage Ave and Florence Avenue, zigzagging his way towards an elusive pot of gold.

Unlike his experiences in Asia, where he had traveled extensively, Los Angeles granted him the freedom to point his vehicle in any direction and drive without being confined to long queues or waiting for the next train. In his city, he had the liberty to go wherever he pleased, as long as his vehicle kept running. He was a part of the greater scene, and integral spoke in the wheel, as nature followed its course like a river overflowing its banks and streaming towards unknown destinations in search of lower ground. These invisible spokes of time devoured everything, yet birthed an infinite number of possibilities. A sense of overwhelming desperation engulfed him, causing a shiver to ripple through his body..


Saturday, January 7, 2012

Tianchi, China: Heaven's Lake: Travels

Tianchi, China: Heaven's Lake
by Armando Ortiz
          The screech of the hawk woke me up. It was the first time I’d heard a sound like that. I stepped out of the yurt and was able to see the hawk gliding over the lake. That small body of water, resembling a mirror, reflected the hawk‘s glide. It looked as if a giant fish was inside the water freely swimming. Both the bird of prey and its reflection were moving at a synchronized pace. The morning was clear, and the air crisp, but a bit chilly to the body. At the distance I could hear the sounds of yak and sheep mingling and disappearing into the pine forest. At the time I didn’t think of my good fortune for being there, but now its like a dream.

           The hawk continued to screech, and naturally the water kept replicating its movements. I walked up a few feet up the canyon. After a slight turn I found the two planks that stood above the hole. I took a piss, and peered inside the pit. Steam was coming off my piss. On my way back to the yurt where I slept that night I passed other yurts that also had traveling visitors from other parts of China and other parts of the world. The hawk kept making circles over the lake, gliding and gliding. The surface of the contained water veiled a serene calmness to the morning. Inside was dark and majestic. I couldn’t quite tell what was more blue the sky or that natural dam.

          Memories, that is what flashed past me as I looked outside the balcony a few years after visiting that place. The weather was cool outside and the cityscape of L.A. was sharp and clear, like it always is after an Autumn rain. Cars passing bye, humming motors and honking horns can be heard. The neighbor’s television blasting the football game through the speakers. I reflected on the past and thought that it all seemed like a dream. Maybe I had been part of an ancient tribe and actually lived beside the lake.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

My Mom

My Mom

by Armando Ortiz


As a child,

my mom played barefoot

on dusty playgrounds,

and snacked on orange peels

when the hunger pangs began.


She helped around the house,

selecting harvested black beans,

dusting each dark legume clean,

putting them inside a basket,

following her dad to the cornfields

selecting ears that were just right

placing each husk inside a sack


She tried

catching tiny silver fish

with my aunt who's older than her

using corn meal

sticking it inside a clay jar

then placing the earthen ware

by the river’s edge-

every time she tells that story

there's laughter.


At thirteen,

She was given a ticket to the city,

back then there were only dirt roads,

sent to work in a cafeteria.

and then my mom sent money home,

to her parents.


At seventeen,

She was lost in the concrete jungles

of Alvarado and 6th, where she bought

a gold painted rock for half her paycheck

and sent the other half of the money to my grandparents.


She worked as a housekeeper,

then as a nurse assistant,

all her life toiling,

feeding us, washing our clothes,

driving us to see the doctor,

taking us to the park on her day off,

and sending money back home.


She is still working, but now

she buys shoes when she wants a new pair,

and snacks on green mangoes,

she mainly keeps working

vacuuming the hallway,

and wiping glass windows

and sometimes she gives me money

when I don’t have any.


I don’t think she ever grew up.