Beijing Winters

Beijing Winters 

by Armando Ortiz

Winter evenings in Beijing are frigid, and nights bring freezing winds.

Though at noon the skies are clear and sunny, you don’t want to be outside for too long.

Peddlers abound during this time, selling crab apple sticks that are sealed fresh inside, and hardened with caramel sugar or offer piping hot yams warmed inside coal heated barrels.

Seasonal preparations for the New Year begin, bringing red pasted banners and signs on the sides of doors welcoming another prosperous year, because to live is to see the magic of life unfold.

Though the eye is blind during these months the flavors that season the soul are many, and are an excuse to engage in endless conversations over hot black tea.

Handmade noodles made to order are at hand and served on steaming white bowls that are topped with thin slices of beef and for an extra five cents topped with a fried egg.

Who knows if it’s still there, but when I was there you could feast on street huoguo on random corners, where you sat on tiny chairs and miniature tables.

It’s also the time when one takes liberal servings of dumplings of all kinds; cabbage and pork,

pork and chives, mutton and onions or the veggie and egg kind.

Artificial lakes become frozen, and children along with students rent ice skates, and glide over these ancient bodies of waters that were once meant for the Emperor’s pleasure.

It’s during the night that the dry steppe air of the North passes through the city, which is further depleted of its humidity by the centralized heating.

Miles of hot tubes connect to a network of pipes that pump hot oil and water from a coal furnace that keeps blocks and blocks of people warm and with severely dry throats.

When those nights of lonesomeness get intertwined with nightmares it’s as if one were being choked by the devil’s hand and one awakens desperately reaching for water.

Yet in the mornings you stand huddled beside the radiator, thinking twice of walking to the bathroom and showering your sleep away.

Winters in Beijing also bring into focus the celebration of the Winter Solstice, which I did once, outside a pub, while eating grilled chicken wings and drinking Yanjing.

This is the celebration of the longest night and the conception of spring, when the worst has already passed, and preparations for Chunjie begin to appear.

People bundled up in layers and layers of thick cotton and synthetic wool slowly start to go back to their hometowns, and the looooooong lines at train stations become the norm.

It’s the sign of optimism that we all have survived the terrible winter and begin to celebrate, buying rolls and rolls of firecrackers and rockets, and stocking up on food.

For a week, fireworks will light up the midnight sky, and all the ghosts that crept into our lives and are fast asleep, will awaken and are scared to go back to where they belong.

For days on end, streets are closed and food stalls appear, with caramel artisans making ancient Chinese mythical characters,

And tamed birds fly high in the sky at a whistle or with the waving of a dollar bill come to you and with their tiny beaks take hold of your money and fly back to their master.

We triumphantly declare to spring to open up and begin forth the colors of life and the blossoms of spring.

The first snowfall that blanketed benches, and topped the pine trees melt from the memory as the changing jet stream shifts from Northwesterly to Southeasterly direction

Winters in Beijing are long, but now they seem short and distant, like an old recurring dream that disappears with every waking moment.

Mullholland Memorial Fountain: Short Piece

Mulholland Memorial Fountain 

by Armando Ortiz

He walked past the fountain

and childhood chatter

got intertwined with the white noise

that came from there.

In summers past,

children jumped inside

and stood under giant spigots,

dancing and celebrating the sun.

They played

in fresh waters

brought by invisible

channels.

Time got lost

in rushing waters

that in days past

cooled his body.

Laughter

joined the twang of the air

that awoke those memories

from its slumber.

Instances- forgotten,

mostly ignored,

but still there, out there,

everywhere-

were remembered.

He was soaked

in work and worries,

but that place-

the fountain

where he played,

where time lasted longer

than it does today,

was still there

that day.

Midwest Journey: A Reflection

Midwest Journey: A Reflection

by Armando Ortiz

            Yesterday I recalled driving around Kansas City, MO. It was a few years ago that I was selling books over there, in the middle of the US. It was during the autumn of 2009, and the landscape was unreal, but what could a guy from Los Angeles expect and how could he interpret what he saw? Coming from Southern California, where the sun is always out, and it seems that I never gets more than ten days of rain in throughout the whole year. Anyhow, walking past a giant oak tree brought back some memories of the fall colors in Kansas and Missouri, in fact I drove through other states, so I will say that most of the American Midwest.

            I’ve spent time in South Korea and China during autumn; this was different because it was many more times more colorful and much more magical. Trees seemed to contain the sun’s warmth in all its varying hues, even though the weather was rainy and cool. Some trees seemed to radiate pumpkin orange, and some leaves appeared to be made up of individual amber droplets that fell to the ground. The scenery here in the states was so much more vast, untamed and compelling. Trees, during the late months in East Asia seemed more like shrubs and controlled by man.

            Now I reflect and wonder, how much different is Fall in other places?

Beijing, China

Eres Mia: Spanish Piece

Eres Mia

by Armando Ortiz

Eres mi sol de mermelada

en las mañanas y una taza

de luna en las noches,

Te conviertes

en agua helada

en el desierto

de mi mente,

Revives mi alma

y calmas las tormentas

del cuerpo sin calma,

Tus sorbetes son de fresa

que derriten en mis labios

cubriendo mi ser con sabana.

Madvillainy: MF Doom and Madlib

Madvillainy: MF Doom and Madlib

by Armando Ortiz

I remember when I first heard the initial track. My friends and I were walking into Pennylane Records, a store in Alhambra, which is no longer there, and as we were looking through the cd stacks, some hypnotizing beats, with some gnarly lyrics began flowing out of the speakers. I went directly to the salesperson behind the counter, and asked who it was that was rapping, and he directed my attention to the record, Madvillainy. It was the first time seeing a rapper with a metal mask, which wasn’t the typical image I had of hiphop artists. This experience opened to the door to a diversity within a genre that I believed only had gangster and mainstream rap/hip hop.

No questions were asked about who it was or where he or they hailed from; the music resonated immediately, making me buy the cd. I wanted the album and wanted to take it home and listen to the entire thing. The comic book like lyrics, but clever word play triggered curiosity. In all honesty, this happened ten years ago, so to really gauge that moment is difficult. The cd came with the music video, ALL CAPPS, a comic book like video where the main character, who also wears a metal mask, breaks through the scenes onto other scenes.

Up to that point in my life only a handful of hiphop records had been purchased, and most of them were bootleg. I was in grad school at the time, so I had some loose cash, and enough to splurge on a cd. This happened sometime between March when the album came out and September of 2004, when I moved to East Asia. I do not clearly remember the date of when I bought the cd, but I took it with me to Beijing. I was on my way to study Chinese at Peking University. Preparing to live in China for a year, so a humble collection of music was packed which would be enough tangible things to take from the US to somehow manage to live in a foreign country, so Madvillainy, El Primer Instinto by Jaguares, Morrison Hotel and other albums by The Doors, and some heavy metal albums by Anthrax, and Megadeth’s Countdown to Extinction were put inside the suitcase. I couldn’t leave the US without Jimi Hendrix’s Life at the Fillmore East. Mp3 players already existed, but that technology had yet to make its way into my life, but that is another story.

The whole time living in Beijing, the music blasted from the speakers, inside my little apartment while sitting behind the desk, spending hours trying to decipher Chinese characters, and writing characters over and over and over and over again till I had memorized them. The symbols became internalized in my being in the same manner that the beats made me reach that level of energy of focus and creativity. The numerous tracks on the album helped me navigate through the labyrinth of Mandarin, helping to stay focused, giving a musical adventure that I never tired to re-experience.

At the end of the day I was just a consumer, and bought what I liked and never did read on the magnitude of Madvillainy till years later and hours of listening. There was no clue that it was a critically acclaimed production. The purchase had prompted me to find out more about the artists behind the album, but that happened two years later. I discovered that Madlib had produced the beats, and had his own Jazz band, Yesterdays New Quintet, where he played different instruments. MF Doom was the guy rapping and had a wide variety of other albums, such Mm.. Food.  They joined forces, and became Madvillain and produced one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the 21^st century.

Not only did Madlib have stacks of beats on his CV, and to top it off back in 2006 when I was teaching English in Korea, I heard his beats on an aspirin commercial that would reappear every 45-60 minutes on the television.  MF Doom had other alter egos which manifested themselves in King Geedorah, Vikto Vaughn. Since then, Doom always appeared mysterious to me, so whenever I came across anything that was written about him I’d devour the words only to leave me with more questions about the artist. Madvillainy is and remains one of my favorite albums, and was key to exposing me to many other artists, and also became a door from where two prolific artist have served as templates of what inspiration, commitment, creativity and hard work produce. In addition they functioned as doors that led to a variety of musical knowledge.

Xochil: Spanish Piece

Xochil

by Armando Ortiz

Xochil siempre será morena,

piel de chocolate caliente

y piernas que tocan la tierra.

Princesa con cuerpo de sirena

y ojos de diamantes-

sonrisa de ceresa.

Deshaciendo corazones de infancia,

derrite tu alma como un pequeño molcajete,

que se calienta sobre un fuego que quema.

Sus manos son de tierra

con corazón de madre

labios naturales que besan mi cachete

y su recuerdo sigue en mi mente.

Sublime Madness and Vortex of Loss

Sublime Madness and Vortex of Loss

by Armando Ortiz

It’s a religious experience

to lose it all.

A home up in flames,

being emotionally swindled,

everything disintegrating

turning into glowing

charcoal embers.

To be brought

to the edge

of madness

and with delirious steps

fall onto the ground-

tiny sand pebbles

inside a thirsty mouth

and between teeth grinding.

Though you have

the strength

of a lioness,

and the heart

of cotton candy.

Despite your delicate hand

being rough,

and the bones within

fragile-

your silence is dread.

And when you smile,

inside you cry,

and when you get angry

it’s because you hurt.

And even if you flow

like dancing willows

with a wicked wind

that make branches sway,

And thought it feeds

fires and burning hills

it all passes through you

like a blooming blossom.

Men get lost

in the echo chamber

of their voice,

but you left me

wandering in a maze

of silence.

You were my

soothing song

that opened the door

to dreams.

You demanded affection

and all I had were words.

I fed you iced grapes

that popped within lips,

while I drank your red wine-

but all that is past.

Now, I just stare

at what is before me

crumbling and black,

up in flames

and with sudden

shivers of fright.

Memories

turning into ash

At what love

does to us all

when it takes flight.