You may know Edel Rodriguez through his political covers, such as ones on Time Magazine re: Trump. I didn't think I knew who this guy was until later You may know Edel Rodriguez through his political covers, such as ones on Time Magazine re: Trump. I didn't think I knew who this guy was until later in the book when I saw the covers, very familiar to me. Now I know his story. "Worm" is what Castro called the folks who fled Cuba in 1980 as Edel did when he was nine as part of the Mariel Boatlift.
I'm not Cuban, and have not yet been there (though plan to go there with a class studying popular education there in June 2025) but am well aware that Fidel Castro (and Che Guevara and others exiled by Castro's predecessor Batista) remains a controversial figure in Cuban (and world) history. Cubans seem to be split (and I don't really know how evenly) on his legacy. People seem to agree that the (brutal) dictator Batista needed to be replaced, and welcomed Castro, initially. He and his compatriots put in place universal and free education for everyone, that remains in place today.
In Edel's account, Castro became a dictator, siding with Russia and Communism over connections to the US, prompting the US to create an embargo, denying US citizens the right to visit (and of course, create business connections). There's still a lot of poverty there. I'll leave it at that and not get into the debate, and continue to read about Cuba from all perspectives). Edel's story has it that his father was making money in lots of clandestine ways and not hiding his work well enough, warned the family had to leave.
The last part of the book makes the link between dictator Castro and presumptive dictator Trump, both making totalitarian moves Rodriguez finds similar, and we see how Rodriguez developed into a leftist political artist and now cartoonist. His work is striking and impressive, standing against facism of all stripes. ...more
King Hedley II (2005) is August Wilson ninth play in his ten-part series, The Pittsburgh Cycle, set in 1985 Pittsburgh. It bears similarities to all tKing Hedley II (2005) is August Wilson ninth play in his ten-part series, The Pittsburgh Cycle, set in 1985 Pittsburgh. It bears similarities to all the other plays, and features some similar characters--businessmen, dreamers, strong women, mystics/religious folks, angry rebels--and the mention of the (possible?) death of one we met in the very first play, Gem of the Ocean, the mystic healer Aunt Ester, aged 366. This is like all Wilson’s plays in the series, very good, but not among my favorites. But it has the feel of a Greek Tragedy, with an impulsive autocratic violent mc. Maybe a touch of King Lear, too, al that operatic raging.
Guns play a central role in this play, as King Hedley, out of prison and broke and angry, carries one, and we watch as one gets passed from character to character. And you know what Chekhov said about putting a gun on the stage in Act I; by the end of the play it must be fired. Oh, and there's a machete on stage, too, uh oh.
Hedley is the MC, who wants to marry Tonya. He lives with his mother, Ruby. As usual, these women are the moral bedrock of the play, the stability, as the men struggle. Hedley and his long time buddy Mister are selling (obviously stolen) refrigerators in hopes of opening their own business, but Tonya wants a life now, and she doesn’t want to live with a criminal. Elmore, Ruby’s sometime lover, returns, and he wants to marry her. One of these men get their way. One sub theme is the difficulty of creating enough econoimic stabikity to create a foundation for relationships.
Stool Pigeon is the crazy/religious/mystical seer in this play, moving in and out of the action as a Chorus figure, commenting on the action. His opening soliloquy sets the stage, the first opening soliloquy in all of Wilson’s plays. He’s the Truth sayer.
“The people wandering all over the place. They got lost”--Stool Pigeon
King does not quite have the soaring drive of Fences or Piano Lessons or Ma Rainey or Joe Turner, but it is a worthy entry in the series. It has some gorgeous language and dialogue and fascinating characters, as usual. So much poetry; so much pain.
*Cats and dogs play a central role. Stool Pigeon’s opening speech begins with commentary to a cat to stay away from the bones he is saving for a dog. Bones. The past.
This book features a preface by Wilson that had been published in the New York Times in 2000 about his series and its purposes. In it he makes his case that Aunt Ester is the most important figure in the whole series, at the moral center of the represented black experience in each play....more
I don’t usually read big splash “women's fiction” just as it comes out but it sort of fell into my hands. From the cover I thought it might be a kind I don’t usually read big splash “women's fiction” just as it comes out but it sort of fell into my hands. From the cover I thought it might be a kind of feminist reflection on “beauty,” as in Zadie Smith’s book On Beauty, or something, but nope: What emerges is a kind of contemporary update on Little Women. Is it possible that any novel with four daughters could not reference Little Women? Or maybe Pride and Prejudice? But this one mentions Alcott’s novel early on, the daughters all know the book and identify themselves as different characters throughout. It doesn’t map itself as precisely as Demon Copperhead does on David Copperfield, but it is still a sisters/family book, the Padavano family, at its very foundation.
Oh, and the title: Charming but struggling Dad greets his girls every day by saying “Hello, beautiful”. And it’s an Evanston/Chicago story, though of course there is some diaspora, including Julia’s moving to Manhattan (as in Little Women), and mom moving to Florida. There’s a sister writing a novel about the family, there’s art about the family, there’s two women in love with the same man, divorce, death, and a lesbian daughter. It’s a family saga of the eighties and beyond, not really about the world beyond this circumscribed family world.
The book sort of tacks back and forth between William, a Northwestern basketball player and each of the sisters, from their perspectives, and then Julia and William’s daughter. William is a basketball guy so I liked that, as a basketball guy.
Re: William and depression issues: “You don’t seem excited we are having this baby.” Julia says to William. It took him a moment to think what excitement is.
I liked it okay! I’m not a big sprawling multigenerational family saga novel guy, especially one told from the perspective of several different characters, but I love Little Women and like the connection. It’s more about family/character than most literary fiction I read. It’s not edgy, but inspirational, as this family and William face challenges. Was I moved by [arts of it? Of course! I'm not a jerk! Sure, I cried a couple times! Sure I screamed at mom and Julia! ...more
Apple Valley, California, in the late eighties, in the miserable desert.
I liked this memoir by James Spooner about coming of age in the eighties as a Apple Valley, California, in the late eighties, in the miserable desert.
I liked this memoir by James Spooner about coming of age in the eighties as a mixed race (black and white) teen in the late eighties. Small town, disaffected kids, mostly white kids, many of whom seem racist; many black kids seem like gangbangers. James moves to another outsider group, punks, including whites, blacks, all colors, moving to personally embrace a concept, a political movement he couldn't have named at the time, what became known as Afro Punk. The music, the vibe, to older generations seemed angry, chaotic, even nihilistic, and all these things were true of parts of the punk scene, but James identifies finally with a more useful political direction.
This book is 340 pages, detailing what life was like in James's small town, and also in many small towns across the world in the eighties, where the future laid out for young people seems bleak. Spooner takes time, too much time, imho, to establish the typical teen context, could have taken 1/4fewer pages, but in general it feels real and relatable. Inter-group squabbles, quick broken romances, lotsa partying and music dominate the teen scene. Some kids give up, some get addicted, some get violent, and some strive for something else.
Spooner's art is fine, sort of simple and visceral in keeping with a punk sensibility. I bet a lot of folks who grew up in similar circumstances around the would recognize themselves in this book, especially people of color who are minorities in small mostly white towns. I hear Spooner has a documentary on Afro Punk, too, that I might check out (though I am an old folk rock dude), because the intersection of race and punk is something that interests me. I just happen to be listening to two Audible musical story events that focus on racism and social change, one by Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and another by T Bone Burnett called Truth and Reconciliation, so I might finally like this book even better when I'm done with all this other work. At the moment I rate it 3..4,...more
Filipino Canadian Lorina Mapa pens a very interesting graphic memoir prompted by the death of her father, which led her back from Canada to Manila, anFilipino Canadian Lorina Mapa pens a very interesting graphic memoir prompted by the death of her father, which led her back from Canada to Manila, and a flood of reminiscences about her life there and its culture. It’s also a father-daughter love story, a tribute to him with anecdotes of the times they had together, but the most enduring part of the story for me is her stories of the 1986 People Power Revolution/EDSA where we read about the fall of Marcos, which was a kind of bloodless revolution, an endorsement of democracy. These stories are artfully balanced with Mapa’s stories of crushes on movie actors and singers like Sting, but I really wanted more about the political struggles, especially from her view.
I have this week read two books about the eighties (the other is My Best Friend’s Exorcism) that have as its soundtrack eighties pop music. Mapa includes a playlist/discography for you to listen to as you read the book. The Tears for Fears album The Hurting. Duran Duran. Madonna. Sting.
Some details are cute/funny: Her father lets her buy Playboy bunny tsinelas because she like rabbits. A weird set of theories about "Why religion hasn't turned Filipinos into angry, scary fundamentalists" (she claims that one factor is that the Virgin Mary is embraced in this Roman Catholic country; another is “Filipinos Just Wanna Have Fun” Is this a class-based set of ideas?)
The art is simple enough and the story of her upper middle class family is interesting, an insight into Filipino eighties history and culture. ...more