The Ambassador

President Obama appointed Carlos Pascual as the U.S. Ambassador to México last summer. Ambassador Pascual was born in Cuba and grew up in the United States. He graduated from Stanford and Harvard. Previously, he worked for USAID in Africa, was the ambassador to Ukraine, and most recently served as vice-president of the Brookings Institution. He is considered an expert in the post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction of states.

We had the honor of attending a reception at the ambassador's residence as part of the Fulbright-García Robles mid-term conference, and I was impressed with how Ambassador Pascual spoke about the relationship between the U.S. and México. He referred to the beautiful artwork on display at the ambassador's residence, and said that he very specifically had chosen pieces that challenge boundaries, that encourage us to re-think the lines that divide us. The well-being, the vitality, of the United States and México are linked inextricably, he said. The two nations share responsibility for shaping a positive future for their collective people, nuestro pueblo.

In his formal presentation speech to México's president, Felipe Calderón, in October, Ambassador Pascual stated,

[N]uestra fortaleza está en nuestro pueblo -- en nuestra creatividad, honestidad, decencia, compromiso de trabajar arduamente y en la convicción moral de que debemos y podemos, juntos, dejarles un futuro mejor a nuestras familias y a las generaciones por venir.

Our [the United States' and México's] strength is in our people - in our creativity, integrity, decency, work ethic, and moral conviction that we should and we can, together, leave a better future for our families and the generations that come.

After he spoke, we all went into the garden, framed by calla lilies glowing under the full moon, and listened to (and whooped for!) a most fabulous mariachi band.

La Casa Azul

"Pintada de azul, por fuera y por dentro, parece alojar un poco de cielo. Es la casa típica de la tranquilidad pueblerina donde la buena mesa y el buen sueño le dan a uno la energía suficiente para vivir sin mayores sobresaltos y pacíficamente morir." - Carlos Pellicer

Painted blue, inside and out, it seems to house a bit of the sky. It is a house that epitomizes small town tranquility, where good meals and good sleep give one the energy to live fearlessly and to die peacefully.

La Casa Azul, the Blue House in the Coyoacán neighborhood of México D.F., frames the life of the artist Frida Kahlo. She was born here in 1907; she grew up here; she convalesced here for months after she was in a terrible bus accident as a young woman; she lived here with her husband, the famous muralist Diego Rivera, and she also lived here apart from him when they were separated; they provided refuge to the Russian revolutionary León Trotsky here; she died here in 1954.
The one hundred-year old house seems firmly rooted; the stone walls and patios, the floor tiles worn by footsteps, the black-and-white photos on the walls - give evidence of its history. But it feels vibrant, not like a dusty archive. The blue walls and the reaching calla lilies shout joy.

Frida's art studio perches on the second floor; one corner is framed by large windows set in volcanic rock, opening the studio to the light of the patio garden. A long, tall bookshelf stretches along a third wall, holding volumes of prehispanic and Mexican history, world art history, political theory, and Walt Whitman's poetry. The middle of the room is filled with her art tools: tables, easels, pastels, glass bottles of oils and ink, brushes, pencils, palettes. And a wheelchair. On the far wall is a large scientific poster mapping intra-uterine life. Frida's pelvis was crushed in the bus accident in her youth; she endured pain throughout her life and could never bear children.

The house, like Frida, is both cosmopolitan and grounded. It belongs in this Mexican neighborhood. But with the artifacts and art objects and history that Frida collected and created here, it holds a little of the world in its rooms. It is both intimate and universal. In this home, Frida painted sadness and she painted pain; she entertained illustrious guests with grandiose dinners; she retreated from the world when she ailed. And she composed a life of beauty.

Viva la vida, she inscribed on her lush painting of watermelons the same year that she died. Live life.

Sorpresas en el Bosque de Chapultepec

The world's great cities, it seems, also provide extraordinary respites from their own frenetic energy. In México D.F., a thousand acres of trees, lakes, and winding paths extend through the city in the Bosque de Chapultepec, or Chapultepec Park. Today, running through the park, we encountered two surprises.

First, as we approached the main lake through the forest, we heard classical music and a voice giving staging directions over a loudspeaker. As the view of the lake emerged, we saw a stage extending over the lake and sheltered by a canopy of trees. A ballet company was rehearsing Swan Lake. I cannot imagine a more magical setting for this ballet. Just the rehearsal was enchanting - but punctuated by rather curt corrections by the sunglass-shaded director. She wanted to see the ballerinas' feet move faster.

Then, we climbed the hill to the Castillo, a fantastic castle first built in 1785, remodeled by Maximilian (who was sent to Mexico by Napoleon) in the mid-1800s, and later inhabited by the rebel-leader-then-president Porfirio Diaz. We were amazed by the views of the Valley of Mexico from the hilltop castle's terraces - We could see across the park's green and the shiny skyscrapers and miles and miles of buildings to the distant mountains. The guide book states, "There should really be wonderful views from here, across the city to Popocatépetl and Ixtaccíhuatl, but of course there never are." But on this unusually sunny and smog-free day - a gift of last week's rains - we could see all the way to those two giant, snow-capped volcanoes.

Paseo Pintado

The Zócalo, Mexico City's central plaza, opens the city to the sky. Mexico's greater metropolitan area is the largest in the Americas, with more than 20 million people. Many of the streets are narrow and full of people and crammed with cars. But at the center, the Zocalo, the city unfolds in a wide square and takes a long breath. It is lined on three sides by stately, elegant stone buildings, and it is crowned by the National Cathedral. Aztec temples used to rise from this same spot; their remains are still being excavated. A paseo around the square takes awhile, perhaps 20 minutes at a brisk pace. Thousands of people walk through it; vendors sell their wares; but it is so vast in the midst of a teeming city, and it holds such history, it somehow feels peaceful.

On one side of the Zócalo is the National Palace, and inside the palace are walls emblazoned with Mexico's history. Diego Rivera painted these murals over years in the middle of the twentieth century. The paintings stretch up a central staircase and around two hallways of the second floor of the palace. First, the colors are stunning; then the detail. The murals depict Mexico's history, from the vibrant indigenous cultures of Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan, through Spanish conquest, independence, revolution - and ending with some workers reading Marx. The paintings illustrate a story of struggle, oppression, and liberation, repeated.

In the Zócalo, all of the walls seem imprinted with deep memories; in the murals along the palace halls, those memories flare and shout.

XXXI Feria Internacional del Libro

Huck Finn got me into the Palacio de Mineria and the XXXI Feria Internacional del Libro in Mexico D.F.

The Feria Internacional del Libro is a two-week celebration of books. The location, the Palace of Mines, is a wonderful 18th century building in the Centro of Mexico City. During the Feria del Libro, its stately halls and terraces are filled with thousands of books and displays from dozens and dozens of publishers from around Mexico - novels, art books, science books, children's stories, medical books, all kinds of books. Every hour, various conference rooms are filled with literary talks and presentations and roundtables. I was deeply impressed by this effusive display of honor and affection for literature. Leer es estar vivo, is the festival's theme. To read is to be alive.

The conference organizers wanted to commemorate Mark Twain because this year is the centenario of his death. It was an interesting proposition, to speak about this American author to a Mexican audience, and to discuss a novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which is so deeply immersed in its time and place on the Mississippi River, and which uses vernacular language to remarkable effect. How would it translate? Well. Many of the audience members had read Huckleberry Finn - twice. They asked thoughtful questions about Twain's development as a writer, about the status of the novel today, about themes conveyed by the relationship between Huck and Jim.

This is what great stories do; they connect us across time and space.

Read books.

The Promise of Pan

Up a narrow callejón from the pretty Plaza del Baratillo, just past a small store that always has pineapples piled in front, is a short flight of stone steps that lead to a dark wooden door and small framed window. Each day, at one in the afternoon, bright loaves of steaming pan appear in the window in two tidy rows.

To climb the steps and then see the loaves beaming from the window, to carry a loaf away in a crisp brown paper sack that warms your arms as you carry it, to slice the bread at home and slather it with golden honey - this is comfort.

El Abue is one of our favorite restaurants in Guanajuato. The food is delicious, the atmosphere is cozy, and the people are friendly. But we would love it just for the bread in the window.

Translation

Language is slippery.

The last several days I have been immersed in translating my essay on Mark Twain from English into Spanish. It has been a fascinating - if tedious - exercise, involving two dictionaries, www.wordreference.com, at least four different brains, countless cups of coffee, and about 15 hours of work for 10 hours of English text. It has heightened my awareness of the depths of language and its relationship to culture. I know that if I wrote an essay in Spanish, originally, it would have a whole different rhythm and construction, different word choices and nuances.

I feel like each word is a stone that I toss into a pool of ideas. In English, I know how the words ripple - how they will affect the surface of the pool. In Spanish, I don't know the ripple effect; I don't know the connotations. If I describe Huck Finn as "rough and naive," it is different than saying he is "brutish and ignorant."

And some words don't translate. I have struggled to find an equivalent word for "reinvention" - to refer to reinventing oneself - in Spanish. And I'm not sure about an equivalent word for "place," meaning more than a location, but a sense of place.

I love this about language. But I also feel like when I present this essay in Spanish, its meaning will be sliding all over the place.

Besos

The Callejón del Beso, the Alley of the Kiss, one of the most famous alleyways in Guanajuato, narrows to just 1.5 meters across - so tight that lovers in opposite houses could steal kisses across the balconies. The legend of the Callejón del Beso is about one such kiss - clandestine and tragic.

Doña Ana was the only child of a powerful and violent man. When she fell in love with the young don Carlos, her father was furious and threatened to send her away to a convent or to marry her off to an old nobleman across the ocean in Spain. Devastated, the two lovers sought a way to prevent their separation. After discovering that the neighboring house was only an arm's length away from doña Ana's house across the callejón, don Carlos spent his fortune to buy the house, making it possible for the lovers to meet in the balconies across the alleyway. When doña Ana's father discovered them there, he erupted in a rage, and he stabbed his daughter in the chest. Don Carlos was still holding her hand as it went cold, and he placed one final tender kiss upon it.

La Bufa

La Bufa dominates the southeast corner of Guanajuato. Several large slabs jut out of the hillsides, and pine trees, cactus, and shrubs skirt the stone flanks in dark green. This afternoon we ran up La Bufa, scrambling the final stretch over a moonscape that reminded us of the contoured rock of southern Utah.

A good trail climbs the mountain because it is also a pilgrimage route. Midway, tucked into a wide grotto, stands a statue and shrine to San Ignacio de Loyola, one of the patron saints of Guanajuato. Each year at the end of July, La Bufa is lit with floodlights, and people walk to the shrine, have picnics, and honor San Ignacio de Loyola.

I like the idea of a saint tucked into the mountains, watching over the town below.

El Bicentenario y el Centenario

2010 marks the 200th anniversary of México's independence from Spain and the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution. The state of Guanajuato is known as la cuna de la independencia - the cradle of independence - because it was here that the priest Miguel Hidalgo led the initial rebellion of the common people against the Spanish aristocrats. Banners and posters with the image of Hidalgo (above) adorn streets and buildings; TV and radio commercials promote pride in México. The government website for the anniversaries pulls out all the stops - it is an amazing multimedia extravaganza that provides a great history lesson. I recommend, in particular, the Ruta de la Independencia link which takes you on an audiovisual tour of Miguel Hidalgo's journey to the city of Guanajuato where he and his men attacked the Spanish stronghold at La Alhóndiga.

This afternoon in my literature class we discussed how national identity is constructed. Our focus is on western literature, and we discussed how the West's cowboy mythology has shaped a national identity for the United States, one that promotes rugged individualism, stoicism, and freedom. Then we drew parallels with México's bicentennial and centennial celebrations and promotions - another rich example of an illustrious national mythology, of how a country can rally around particular figures and events and symbols that provide a meaningful story of origin for a diverse group of people.

The U.S. has Paul Revere and George Washington and the Boston Tea Party; México has Miguel Hidalgo and Pípila and the Alhóndiga. Different figures and events, but similar cries for independence.

Mexican Cinema - Comedy and Tragedy

Two more Mexican film recommendations:

First, a comedy. The computer technician who oriented me to the multimedia set-up in my classroom recommended Cantinflas. Cantinflas is a Charlie Chaplin-esque character played by Mario Moreno in a series of 1950s black-and-white Mexican films. The character is an endearing and bumbling misfit; he does not work and he gets into trouble but he also does good. The technician loaned several of the Cantinflas movies to me, including "El bombero atómico" (The Atomic Firefighter) and "Gran Hotel" (Grand Hotel). They are clever and fun and slightly subversive as Cantinflas disrupts social norms.

And a tragedy. Tonight, in my "Cine y Literatura" class, we watched Rojo Amanecer (Red Dawning), a film about the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre of student protesters in Mexico City. I knew nothing of this historical event that preceded by 10 days the Olympics in Mexico City. The film is profound. Rather than dramatize the events that occurred in the city plaza, the film remains within the small space of a multi-generational family apartment as chaos ensues outside the window. The film covers the span of a single day as the family's normal routine erupts into horror. Really, it is one of the most powerful films I've seen, and it is pivotal in Mexican cinema.

Intercambio Café

I am collaborating with a colleague at the College of Southern Idaho to have my students here at the Universidad de Guanajuato correspond with students there at CSI via the online learning platform, Blackboard. The students have just begun the dialogue, writing a little bit about themselves and about their hometowns. This evening I've enjoyed perusing the start of their conversation.

I hope this is not just a useful rhetorical exercise (it requires the students to think deliberately about their audience and how to build common ground), but also a meaningful cultural and literary exchange. Already, it is interesting to see how the students choose to identify themselves (through work, family, interests, etc.) and how they describe their place (through landscape, architecture, events, etc.).

In my course on the literature of the U.S. West, we will be reading literature that pays close attention to place, so I think it is particularly pertinent for the students to create their own representation of the place they know best, and present it to others.

I'm looking forward to watching the conversation develop.

The Romance of Guanajuato

Really, what could describe our time here better than Enrique Iglesias singing "Nunca te olvidaré" on the steps of Teatro Juarez, right here in Guanajuato.

Happy Valentine's Day (week), mis amigos!

Sundays Mean Strawberries

The Sunday market at Embajadoras is an espectáculo. We set off from the house with a list and our bags, prepared to be efficient shoppers and stock up on produce for the week, but really, we just enjoy the show. The colors – walking through the market is like walking through the center of a roll of Life Savers – the sounds of people, guitars, dogs, accordions – the smells of fried tortillas and barbecued meat and fresh fruit. Kids walk down the street with ice cream cones and bags of goldfish.

We get a little stunned and wander aimlessly for awhile before we actually do any shopping. And then we want to buy crazy stuff - like giant griddles and armloads of calla lilies.

A Run in the Sun

The rains subsided on Thursday night, and things have begun to dry out - though many rivulets still course down the mountainsides, and many puddles remain in the streets. The sun shone adamantly today, and we were glad to go for a run and stretch our legs after a week of feeling cooped up. Bill, the dog, was really glad.

We ran and hiked our way to the top of one of the hills near our apartment, where there is a large white cross. Guanajuato is circled by peaks crowned with plain white crosses, and the highest peak has a giant statue of Christ. Today, at this cross, we met a man named Manuel. He was smiling, and, unlike us, not catching his breath, though he had just run faster than us up a steeper slope in jeans and carrying a liter of Coca-Cola and a plastic bag of tacos. He proudly gestured all around Guanajuato to point out various landmarks to us. He said he runs to the top every day, for his health - except on Sundays, when he plays fútbol.

On our way down the mountain, we thought of our friends finishing the Boulder Mountain Tour ski race at home!

Tell Me the Landscape in Which You Live

Today I was thinking about the relationship between place and identity as I wrote a summary of my project here in preparation for a Fulbright-García Robles reunion that will be held in Mexico D.F. later this month. In outlining my research interests and my motivations for coming to Guanajuato, I wanted to begin with a quotation by the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset: “Tell me the landscape in which you live and I will tell you who you are.” I was not sure if I was remembering the words exactly, so I plugged them into Google. And I was taken home: The very first link in my search results was for the Monastery of the Ascension, right next door to Mark’s parents’ house on the butte east of Jerome, Idaho.

The landscape in which I live.

In the online oblate manual for the monastery, one of the monks, Father Feiss, quotes José Ortega y Gasset as he describes the significance of the contemplation of place in a spiritual pilgrimage. He begins with another quotation, from On Pilgrimage by Jennifer Lash:

I found myself wondering. . .what was I really exploring? Place. . .or self? And what anyway, in that context, is exploration? Is it standing back and sorting out, or is it moving on? Maybe it is all three at once. And maybe place and self share this curious compelling unity. Perhaps going out towards places where there are others, or where many, many others have been before, perhaps such a journey reconciles our sense of impermanency, to the mysterious continuity we share and make and are, with all mankind.

Into the Classroom

My class on "The Literature of the West in the United States" began this afternoon at the Valenciana campus of the Universidad de Guanajuato. I loved walking up the concrete stairs of the former convent, across the courtyard, through the tall double wooden doors, and into the narrow classroom with a high brick boveda ceiling. (The photo above is the view from the classroom door to the courtyard.) And it was such a pleasure to meet the students and begin a conversation.

It was a bit like beginning a class on a snowday in Idaho, though. Because of the torrential rains, some classes had been canceled and things seemed a bit discombobulated in general. I was told some more students will likely join the class at the next meeting. I am going with the flow.

But we began today with a small and eager group of students who are finishing their licenciatura (bachelor's) program. They come from towns in the surrounding area - Celaya, San Miguel de Allende, Leon. During the semester, they rent a room or an apartment in Guanajuato for the weekdays, and they go home on the weekends. There are no dorms here. University life seems integrated into the general community.

Because we are focusing our study of United States literature regionally, on the West, I asked the students if they had any images or associations with the U.S. West. They responded that they thought of stereotypes and movie images, and they giggled a bit as they listed:

the Wild West
cowboys
Indians
horses
cattle
sheriffs vs. bad guys
gunfights
the Grand Canyon
desert

I am fascinated by how pervasive these western images are, and I wonder what kind of common ground they will offer as we proceed with our discussions of novels such as Willa Cather's The Professor's House and Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose. As I gave a brief background of 19th century western expansion today, I kept catching myself at various assumptions of cultural knowledge - remembering to identify who Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and Thomas Jefferson are; wondering how to quickly explain the Civil War.

Perhaps one of the most valuable aspects of this experience so far is that sense of having my viewpoint de-centered, of having the taken-for-granted called into question, challenging my cultural as well as my linguistic vocabulary.

La Lluvia

Really, the rain has been incredible.
Persistent.
Voluminous.
Everyone seems to be in awe of it.
Callejón Temezcuitate is more of a waterfall than a street.
For most of today, we could not even see the town below the hills;
it was a pool of clouds.

A Little Diego Rivera

The great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera was born in Guanajuato in 1886 and lived his early years here. In the 1970s, two decades after Rivera's death, the government converted his birthplace into a museum: Museo Casa Diego Rivera. On this, another rainy afternoon, it was good to take a break from Mark Twain research and walk through the rooms of the Rivera house.

At the center of the house is a very small square patio with a fountain on the main floor and open sky several stories above. A wrought iron balcony lines each of the three upper floors wrapped around this central opening. (I LOVE this central patio feature of Mexican architecture.) The tile floors are a warm coffee brown, shiny, smooth, and sloping from many years of footsteps. The first floor of the house is decorated in late 19th century style with some of the Riveras' furniture, and the upper floors contain an interesting spectrum of Diego Rivera's works, including many paisajes (landscapes), retratos (portraits), and bocetos (sketches). Many of the works are from Rivera's earlier years, and many seem to be drafts or details for larger mural works. One of my favorite pieces was "La maestra rural;" one of Mark's favorites was a landscape of a hacienda.

I think of Diego Rivera as a huge hulk of a man (in Barbara Kingsolver's novel, Lacuna, one of the characters describes Rivera as an enormous toad) with an expansive vision; his great public murals reach from floor to ceiling along broad walls, conveying big spans of history. So, it was funny to pass a diminuitive statue of Rivera (pictured above) as we approached the house, and it was intriguing to see many of his smaller works. And then to read this delicate description by his wife, Frida Kahlo, next to a model of the artist's hand:

Sus hombros infantiles, angostos y redondos, se continúan sin ángulos en brazos femeninos, terminando en unas manos maravillosas, pequeñas y sutiles como antenas que comunicaron con el universo entero.

(His child-like shoulders, narrow and round, continue without angles into feminine arms, ending in marvelous hands, small and fine, sensitive and subtle like antennas that communicate with the entire universe.)

On Mark Twain, in Mexico

Today it continued to rain
and I sat at my desk with Mark Twain.
I ate a few fresas
And nada cervezas
As I worked on my research in vain.

I said I would speak in Mex. City.
At the time it made me feel giddy.
I now say caramba!
There’s no time to rumba
If I’m going to make this talk pretty.

Twain has an incredible wit.
And Hemingway says Twain is IT.
But in español?
Well, Huck, let’s roll,
And show your place in U.S. lit.