Had some time this weekend to return to Julian Schnabel’s film Before Night Falls. There are several aspects to the film that I admire. I like watching films about young writers and this film was based on Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas, a young writer living through interesting times such as the Cuban Revolution. What I also enjoyed was the episodic structure to the film, moving from Arenas’ experience as a young peasant boy, to his openly gay adult life and to his time as a political prisoner inside a Cuban prison.
This trailer hides the fact that Arenas sexuality as a young man is explored fully in the film, maybe more so than the man as a young writer. I’ve read excerpts from his novel Singing From the Well mentioned in the film and I hope to read the novel he wrote during his two years incarcerated. I also hope to read his autobiography with the same title. The scenes with Johnny Depp stand out with him in a dual role as a Cuban official and also as a cross dressing inmate who smuggles Arenas’ manuscript out of prison. Javier Bardem’s acting also stands out as I’ve read he studied with Arenas’ surviving partner to perfect mannerisms.
I also admired how the film was unapologetically filled with Arenas’ poetry and prose read in Spanish. My favorite scene was when his mentor and editor referred to his type writer as the most important possession he could ever own.
Had some time to watch The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada this weekend. I’ve been meaning to watch more Latino themed films for the blog. I admired Guillermo Arriaga’s screenplay which I read won best of at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. I enjoyed the fractured sense of time and how we see the same event from several points of view and out of sequence. The same fractured sense of time he brought to the 21 Grams screenplay and also Babel. A couple of other films I’ve watched and admired.
More so than the other films written by Arriaga I admired the representation of Mexico and the Mexican people. The film presented Melquiades as well as other Mexican workers as hard-working and human. Also presented them as complex. A representation unfortunately difficult to find in film. I also admired the character of Norton the Border Patrol Agent and how he was forced to experience something similar to an immigrant’s travels across the border. As in Babel we see characters forced to experience something outside of their social class or outside of their particular bias. We’re immersed in characters as their consciousness expands. I also admired Tommy Lee Jones’ direction even though he’s not known for direction. I’d like to write more on this film and more on Arriaga’s other scripts as I have the time.
Last week–despite mountains of grading and student conferences–I spent time with Troncoso’s sweeping novel From This Wicked Patch of Dustand found so much to admire. I admired the form as well as the content. Told in a third person limited omniscient narration the story drops into the thoughts, feelings and questions of each member of a Mexican American family–the children and parents–working and struggling in Ysleta, Texas. The narration hovers above the family and drops from section to section into certain family members thoughts and feelings. I also admired how the story fragments and separates by jumping years in between chapters. Something I work on in my own writing. One week later and the story stays with me. Overall the narrative gave me such a realistic and positive representation of an American family and quite simply it spoke to me. And I’m happy to say I sent Troncoso a quick message on Goodreads stating that and he was prompt in responding a kindly thank you.
This week I’m spending time with Luis Alberto Urrea’s Six Kinds of Skyand hope to have some thoughts soon.
Months back I began making notes on the book Bringing the Devil to His Knees: the Craft of Fiction and the Writing Life. My hope was to use the book in my Lit 150 class in place of Burroway’s Writing Fiction: Guide to Narrative Craft. I’ve never used a collection of essays and have always used more of a textbook so this term should be interesting. Don’t want to over think the course but for some reason I’m beginning with the last essay in the book called “How to Tell a True Story” by Margot Livesey. I’m beginning here because I always begin Lit 150 with a non-fiction assignment. Always begin with a focus on factual essays and memoir type pieces. I think it important students begin utilizing their own lives for their fiction that will come later in the term.
And I suppose it fortunate the essay come in the section called Facing Up to the Reader. Teaching students to decide on the narrative strategy in moving from essay writing or working on and reading creative non-fiction. Trying to encourage my students to figure how their own lives will play out in their fiction. How their own human failures will play out in the drama and conflict of their own work. I always find it important that my favorite non-fiction writers are my favorite fiction writers. Tobias Wolff, Joan Didion and Denis Johnson to name a few. I guess I feel this way because I enjoy the ways these authors convince readers of their fiction the events they write on are true. Perhaps this comes from their skill with non-fiction. Perhaps it is because as Livesey explains the work is “messier, more confusing, in other words more lifelike.” She calls this anti-fiction.
And I guess I begin with non fiction because I am trying to push my students towards this style of writing because this is more or less my style of fiction writing–or rather anti-fiction writing. Livesey also explains how she believes that most writers make this decision or thought process unconsciously. And I guess I do value memory over imagination in my own work. And she argues we value author’s “credentials” over their creativity. The narrative authority coming from the real world of facts and the details of their lives over creative license. But I do want them to find out the line between themselves and the book. I do want them to think of how their lives and identity find their way into the work.
I’ve been obsessing over this question for weeks now. What to label the book? I’m putting the final touches together for my first book and after reading more and more on the subject of genre I seem to be more confused than ever. After reading The Composite Novel–The Short Story Cycle in TransitionI am more and more informed on how I make fiction and how that fits into a tradition and also into a developing genre—I have a better sense of where my work fits rhetorically. Sort of. I mean I’ve always known I have a sort of disjointed sort of style. I have always wrote smaller stories following the same characters and I’ve always felt these smaller stories as “complete and autonomous” as labeled in the book. Interrelated enough yet at the same time creating a complete whole. Creating a story arc the way a novel would. And I’ve never liked fiction too on-the-nose. I like a rougher feel to the writing. Like punk music or something. But as it comes down to the wire on revisions and I get closer and closer to turning over the manuscript to the publisher I struggle with labeling the work a novel-in-stories, composite novel or just plain stories.
The one guiding organizational principle to the book is thematic but also follows the same characters and quite nearly stays in a similar place. Like Drown or Jesus’ Son and also All My Friends are Going to be Strangers, the books that have inspired and guided me, and they all have a guiding principle bringing the stories together.
The books feature what Chapter 1 from The Composite Novel classifies as the following:
Setting–(all my work takes place in the old neighborhood)
Protagonist–(I follow the Ortiz family)
Collective protagonist–(the family in different time periods and perspectives)
Pattern/patchwork—(identical or similarly themed stories focusing on trouble, problems, work etc.)
And I recognize this in my own work. The telling of a longer story as in a novel with the form of shorter and more disjointed stories making the reader work a bit harder in understanding the time and arc of the overall story. Though the stories do shift from first to third and to a mix of first and third…
More on this as I think of it and finish reading the book.
I’ve long been a fan and admirer of Hunter S. Thompson’s work. I’m also a big fan of literary adaptations and so when a new version of Thompson’s work comes out, especially in wide release, I’m always excited. It began with Where the Buffalo Roam, the Bill Murray, Peter Boyle and Art Linson/John Kaye adaptation way back in 1980. I have to admit I saw that movie before I was familiar with the writing. I remember the “Fuck the Doomed” scene with Nixon and Murray’s Thompson. Really good stuff.
Later I would find out this movie was based on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the CampaignTrail. Two great books I have on my shelf and every once in a while pull and re-read. The last Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas film adaptation I saw was of course the Terry Gilliam, Benicio Del Toro and Johnny Depp version. This film was much truer to the book and showed so much of Gilliam’s imagination and wild visions—so similar to Thompson’s surreal take on journalism. And I have to say while I enjoyed that movie—especially the “Wave Speech” scene. I also enjoyed Gilliam’s direction. I mean I’ve been a fan of Brazil, Time Bandits and the Baron Von Munchausen trilogy.
And those movies are wild and surreal but I have to say I enjoy Thompson’s book Hell’s Angels and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail much more. I think the straight story telling of those books—I guess moreso in Hell’s Angel’s reflects a younger and developing writer. And I guess that is what I liked about the novel the Rum Diary. A young writer finding a voice.
Some of the reviews I’ve read praised Johnny Depp and a straighter, less surreal story. And the movie was much straighter, I have to admit. The novel is straighter. But still reflecting Thompson’ humor and struggle to stay straight and sober in a wildly unjust world. For this novel that surrounding was 1960’s Puerto Rico. Of course the familiar Thompson themes are there—a fight against authoritarian rule and of course fight against poverty and greedy land development. Something I know Thompson fought against his entire life living in Colorado. The most memorable scenes are of Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Paul Kemp finding the true story of Puerto Rico. The poverty and corrupt US government land development. I have to say Rango and this film show me that Depp is a dedicated performer/comedian. Hard to remember so much since he’s so famous and is in some really bad films. I’ve only seen two of the pirate movies and wasn’t that impressed. Haven’t seen the Jolie/Depp movie that critics hated and probably won’t. But Depp really entertained me as a young struggling writer learning the corruption around him. I enjoyed the struggle with debauchery and excess as in all of Thompson’s work. What I didn’t like was what I interpret as making the movie marketable to mass audiences—the female character as sex pot and as a pretty one dimensional character. I think the film cut out some other female characters but the book was written in the sixties. I didn’t like what seemed as Thompson throwing in a bit of his 1990’s knowledge into a 1960’s era book. Things like knowing Kennedy would be killed and a few others. Nitpicking I guess.
I also didn’t like the ending and the final scroll over giving us a mix of the character of Kemp and Thomspon’s life. And I know a two hour film is so different from a 25 or so chapter novel but the third act of this film was a little anti-climactic and “clean” for me despite the R-rating. I mean the book is somewhat violent in the end but this vesion was a bit tame. Not as dark as I remember of the book. I’m nitpicking too hard I guess.
And D said that she thought it would be a bit more about writing and I agree. Oh and Giovanni Ribisi steals quite a few scenes as the alcoholic reporter Moburg.
Oh and found these videos about Thompson’s struggle to get the film made:
Here are my notes for today’s Banned Books Reading at Lincoln Land Community College:
Anthony Burgess’ classic 1962 dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange is 49th on the American Library Association’s Banned and Challenged Classics’ list.
According to the ALA website:
In 1973 a bookseller in Orem, UT was arrested for selling the novel. Charges were later dropped, but the book seller was forced to close the store and relocate to another city. Removed from Aurora, CO high school (1976) due to “objectionable” language and from high school classrooms in Westport, MA (1977) because of “objectionable” language. Removed from two Anniston, AL High school libraries (1982), but later reinstated on a restricted basis.
I was first introduced to this book, I’ll honestly say, through the film adaptation by Stanley Kubrick. I like Stanley Kubrick movies.
That led me to searching out the book in bookstores and I have to say the book is much more brutal and disturbing than the film. Alex is played by a 28 year old actor yet in the book Alex is 15. In the film the girls attacked are over 18 and in the book they are ten years old.
Perhaps what I found in this philosophical novel and in the character of Alex, Burgess’ fifteen year old narrator and protagonist, was an intellectualization of violence in society. Our hero is a gang leader as well as a intelligent lover of classical music, he lives with his parents, and he is also a rapist and a convicted of murderer, a very unique and yet also a very contradictory character to say the least. I’m all for complication in literature.
In the course of the book Alex is sentenced to a fourteen year sentence and also volunteers for aversion therapy—only to shorten his sentence—and after this experimentation by a team of doctors he loses his choice and also loses ability to make a moral choice. He becomes good—involuntarily—with no ability to defend himself. An ingenious satire dealing with the question of youth and psychological conditioning–behaviourism (or “behavioural psychology”) of the 1940s to 1960s as propounded by the psychologists John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner. Alex is not punished but rather dehumanized. (Side note this is very similar to CIA’s Project MKULTRA of the 1950s. Yes, the US Government has invested in mind control and also chemical castration.)
As I read I was consumed with themes of morality and also free will, also flawed Christian interpretations of morality. Critiques of modern criminal justice systems.
Simply I found ideas in this book—an intellectualization of incredibly important subjects such as gang violence and crimes against women, the nature of good and evil, ethics of social engineering—I found these rather heady ideas in place of a glorification of social problems as I find in contemporary mainstream films and pulp novels. Most films really glorify violence or exploit violence rather than intellectualize the problems and systemic causes of such violence.
In short this book made me think, a thing mass media television and movies rarely ask me to do.
I’m going to read a passage from Alex’s aversion therapy—where he is shown graphic scenes of violence after being shot full of chemicals.
Also I think it is important to mention the idioms or slanguage that drives the narration, so I found the mix of Russian and British slang utilized to tell this story so unique in representing a possible future youth culture of metropolitan London.
This morning I’m reading the stories from Mark Richard’s book The Ice at the Bottom of the World. I’m doing it because Amy Hempel advised us to do it in her summer workshop and because it came in the mail last week–usually I try not to read so much when I am revising. My first thought, the syntax is unique and rough to get through but the language so unique. Also I love the stories of childhood told in a present tense. Uncle Trash reminds me of Lolo and should get me through the day of sitting and revising.
Isis Artze–contributing writer to The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education–and her article “Spanglish is Here to Stay” obviously have a similar point of view to Ilan Stavans’ article I studied yesterday morning. She writes it is here to stay and needs attention. She also quotes from Stavans’ article and calls him the foremost scholar on the “linguistic phenomenon” of Spanglish–good to know–and agrees with him that Spanglish is closer to Yiddish than Ebonics, describing Yiddish as more “regional varieties” of language. I was also interested in her writing that Spanglish has reached a new status–she writes Stavans is teaching a course on the subject and publishing academically and also mentions a dictionary of Spanglish–also good to know. And both these writers seem to agree with Spanglish having attention also inevitably leads to anxiety and xenophobia. I was also interested to see another author giving much insight into opposing points of view–those scholars who disagree with Stavans. She quotes Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, professor of comparative lit at Yale University, and also Ana Veciana-Suarez a Miami Herald columnist as both being in staunch opposition to Stavan and I guess my point of view. Glad to find opposing views…I should have more time to read these articles in a few days…
This morning I’m reading “Spanglish: Tickling the Tongue” by Ilan Stavans. Ilan Stavans is a Professor of Spanish at Amherst College in Massachusetts and published this article in 2000. What interested me most about this article was Stavan’s focus on some background of language mixing and–the 150 year history–and his point of view which seems to be similar to mine. I particularly like the way he expresses how the languages in the Americans “cohabit promiscuously”. Yet he also points out opposing views and differing perspectives on mixing of Language–the main stream English point of view as well as the conservative/intelligentsia Latino point of view–the need for a common language. I like the idea that he also focuses on literature and how writing becomes the place where there is the most “experimentation”. He describes that there are many Spanglishes representing many writers and cultural communities. I also had no idea that the Spanglish movement as her refers to it again had so much history and also organized as somewhat of a crusade. I was particularly interested in the comparisons Stavan makes–compelling comparisons of Spanglish to Ebonics and Yiddish–comparisons to the Avant Garde of the Harlem Renaissance. Particularly I was interested in the comparison at the literary level of Yiddish and how Yiddish has become prominent to represent communities publicly and openly and also established by writers and poets. And again it seems Stavans sees Spanglish as fighting integration rather than a giving in to English–Latinos breaking the pattern of assimilation or the pattern of Eurocentric control. A more mutual acculturation and not a surrender. Spanglish as a “hybrid street register.”
I’ve been thinking more and more about Spanglish and why it feels so natural to write in a certain style–or speak in a certain style. I think I like Spanglish so much in the fiction because I am trying to capture the way the old folks spoke to me. I’m not trying to create something new or something of my generation though that is partly it I guess. Something essence rare. But the Abuelitos spoke in Spanglish. Simple as that. The old man said things like: I need to wash that old truckito, or That cabron pulled his pistola and nearly killed him, or he would say, I need to fill my thermos with some of that café your Abuelita has got there. Or get the stropajo and clean this shit up.
And I love the way they spoke–the cadence and the ease of tongue. It wasn’t Cervantes’ language and it wasn’t Langston Hughes’ but it was theirs and it was real. It became mine. And I want to breathe new life into the old folks in the fiction. Show you what it was like for me and how I further imagine it was for them. I want to represent as well as recreate the old folks.
And the other day I received a rejection letter from a publication I assumed was okay with Spanglish and Spanish idioms I use in my writing. I send so much work out. And after following the link sent to me to check the submission guidelines, I surmised that the criteria of English-only is what I violated. I can only guess. I met the deadline and the word count and the theme. Had to be the English. (Oh and I guess the strength of the writing.) And I’ve blogged about Spanglish before and my feelings on the importance of bilingual bi-cultural publications for bilingual bi-cultural writers. So today as my students wrote their formal essay assignment I researched a listing of articles on Spanglish. I was surprised as to what I found. And I’ve been thinking about writing about it. Here’s what I found and what I’ll be working on for a while with posts to follow:
“Spanglish: Tickling the Tongue” by Ilan Stavans
“Spanglish is Here to Stay” by Isis Artze
“bilingual wordplay: variations on a theme by hemingway and steinbeck” by Mimir Gladstein
?Que, que? Transculturation and Tato Laviera’s Spanglish poetics by Stephanie Alvarez Martinez
Demystifying Language Mixing: Spanglish in School by Peter Sayer
The Power of Theme and Language in Multi-Cultural Communities by Kathleen Kelly
On so-called Spanglish by Richard Otheguy and Nancy Stern
“Spanglish”: The Language of Chicanos by Rosa Maria Jimenez
I’ve been participating in a writing group for the spring semester and it’s been going pretty well now. I was pretty loose with the group though I wanted to be clear with everyone early on in communicating my hopes we would not be a writing group but rather we would be more rigorous and approach the work as a writing workshop. The distinction is important to me. And we lost a few writers along the way because of the distinction I’m afraid.
But I think it is important for me to know when I need to be back in a workshop type atmosphere and of course I use workshop or the MFA model of work shopping with my students in creative writing–and I do wish I could implement more of the workshop model from composition but the logistic never seem to work out– but it is quite another thing to have “my” work in writing group. To have my work or my stories “work shopped”. I do try and stay objective about my own work and the whole experience has been about opening up my work to those around me a bit more other than anonymous editors. But the issue lately for me has been less about the form and more about the content. Funny because I always preach the most important part of writing is dealing with form. My pedagogy and theory concerning writing and the teaching of writing is all about structure and brush strokes. But this last workshop reminded me of the problems with opening up work to others. Just sitting in a room where everyone is discussing my family–talking about my Lolo–and the persona I’ve created in my work is difficult. The therapy aspect of writing comes out I guess. And dealing with those ghosts has been a problem in my personal life and the work I do as a writer makes it all spill over into the professional. Makes me have to deal with fictional relationships within stories and within scenes but also somewhat makes me deal with those ghosts from the past and the family. Funny that I tell my students in ethnic lit that past voices and texts are so important for the individual to create a sense of identity and most of the time I am fighting those past voices and text—yes texts because the family writes me letters from time to time—and part of my survival technique has been to suppress those voices and stay focused on the present—focus on not ‘how it was’ but rather ‘how it is’. This way I have learned to endure and stay strong but again it is difficult to when you are sitting in a room discussing characters and actions based on actual folks from the old neighborhood. And I imagine most writers consider this idea of what is real and what is created and the distinctions and the limitations. I need the real world Lolo to reach further into the fictive space or the fictive world of Huerfano County/Pueblo County of my youth. I know how important those real paper are in finding those ghosts/wraiths that are also created in the stories. I rely on them to talk to me and inform me of line and trajectory for these little stories. So as much as I hate them and fight at them I realize how important they are to my work. Even those I am completely lost too.
And maybe it is all due to me rereading Maxine Hong Kingston and re-viewing old interviews of her for my ethnic lit course. In “No Name Woman” she writes of her real and imagined aunt: My aunt haunts me—her ghost drawn to me because now, after fifty years of neglect, I alone devote pages of paper to her.
Carlos for example. A man I have no idea as to his life or his thought process. A man who only exists in picture and story from the Abuelita and from other relatives and their lost voices. I think I only met the guy once but I return to him almost every other night or so at my desk trying to get him down. The work trying to give life to him–turning the ghost into flesh and blood on the page. I look at his picture and try to recreate those old stories. It’ll be odd for me when the group reads some Carlos stories and speak of him.
I recently read an article about a Philly area teacher, Natalie Munroe, who lost her high school teaching gig after ranting about students, coworkers and administrators on a blog. And after reading and thinking about my own blog and my own need to write about teaching and teaching practices, I ‘m on the fence about this one.
Here’s a quote from the Phillyburbs.com article:
“My students are out of control. They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners,” she wrote in one post dated Oct. 27, 2009. “They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire and are just generally annoying.”
Now I say this to myself nearly everyday. I hear coworkers talk about this and also about strategies for improving student performance–should we be more or less strict. How can we engage our students. Perhaps every instructor says this. But should we blog about it.
Since the school I teach at has no internet policy–or at least I am uncertain of the internet policy–I wonder about the material I place on this blog. Mostly this log is about my own failed writing and minor successes at creating text as art. And only recently have I opened this blog up to more on the subject of teaching and writing practices. And I do keep weblogs here on WordPress for my students to follow and more often than not they find their way to my personal blog. A few students have commented and posted on my blog. I don’t invite them here but I can honestly say I wouldn’t write anything here that I wouldn’t tell my students in conference–in my office or in the classroom. In fact, I lecture about suburban mediocrity quite often and mostly I joke with my friends and colleagues how my students must hate me. So should this Natalie Munroe be penalized for telling the truth in an open forum where she is open and honest about her identity? The article also shared how her photo and full name was on her blog so it was not as if she were hiding from her students. On the other hand I do teach at a community college and Natalie Munroe does teach at a public school so the guidelines and thought process is different.
And yet what is the same is how I feel instructors should be–more open and honest about thoughts on classroom practices. I also think this is better than the anonymous Rate My Professor site colleagues tell me to stay clear of–and certainly honest blogging should be a preference over anonymous comments or YouTube responses that can be brutal and spiteful.
And this might be off topic but recently my hometown newspaper wrote a similar article on the local police department in a very similar issue. Some cops were blogging or posting on Facebook on their work and daily experiences and the Chief in a pretty controversial move is now requiring cops to limit or stop posting on Facebook–the article implied these cops were asked to close their Facebook accounts. Here’s a quote from the article titled Officer’s Website Get Limits:
The policy says officers cannot identify themselves as an officer “directly or indirectly, in any public forum,” post photos of themselves in uniform or show department patches, emblems, equipment or property — unless authorized by the chief of police.
Should professionals be required to limit their free speech? And at the same time shouldn’t professionals know to be thoughtful and careful about what they share online and in new social media forums?
I should be reading the sixth essay in Bringing the Devil to His Knees. I still want to get through that book but the brain of school has me and I also wanted to finish up the Frank Waters memoir I’ve had on my desk for months. Interesting that the last two books I’ve read have been memoirs of writers I admire rather than fiction. I’ve been rereading my own fiction but can’t get vested in longer narratives lately.
And this summer I became so interested in the six armed cross at La Garita this summer in Colorado.I was so taken by the cross. So when I read about Four Corners and read about Taos and Waters’ life traveling around Colorado and New Mexico I had to finish the book. First it made me homesick for Colorado and then it gave me some ideas for another writing project—or rather an old project I’d like to return to. I thought about why I write fiction in the first place. Why anyone wants to create fictive places or imaginary worlds. I thought about how I could add a bit more of the surreal into the writing—more strange dimensions to the writing.
Here is what Waters’ has to say about the cross—and as he writes cross I can’t help but think of the cross on the map the borders make marking the Four Corners area—and the meaning of the cross to the Hopi people and their migration across the continent in their creation myth:
The cross is one of the oldest and most universal symbols known to man. The center point always has been profoundly significant. For if the four arms of the cross extending in opposite directions represent division and conflict, their point of intersection signifies reconciliation and unification. Regarded another way, the horizontal arms represent linear, secular time, the vertical arms represent durational, eternal time. At their intersection they merge into one unbroken timeless time. The center point, in effect, is the meeting point between the conscious and the unconscious.
Anyway, to the Hopi the place and the cross represents the search for spiritual unity—the outer and inner movement of all humanity. Like the Ute or the Hopi concept of space I have been reading from Frank Waters’ book Of Time and Change. A place is neither two nor three-dimensional but four. In the San Luis Valley—New Mexico and Four Corners place in the country—finite concepts of time and space seem inadequate. And of course this reminds me of fictive space…a continuum of time and space…
Anyway I’d like to return to this concept in a piece I wrote called House of Two Bears—a story that follows the Abuelito or where I follow the Abuelito through some of his crazy stories in fiction. I also like the idea in Hopi religion—the idea that if you have a great loss in one of the four worlds you can move on to the next and look for reconciliation. And only in fictive spaces can I follow the Abuelito through time and space. And like Frank Waters notes in his memoir–some people from the southwest just seem more in tune to those “otherworlds”. So maybe the Abuelito was in touch and so maybe I can in a small way get in touch with those otherworlds” via the fiction.
