Indianapolis Opens Museum to Honor Its Literary Native Son

In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Cat’s Cradle,” the narrator meets a woman on a plane who is delighted to discover that he is from Indiana. Holding his arm tightly, she tells him, “We Hoosiers got to stick together.”


Read more about the Vonnegut museum at the New York Times.

When You Forget What You Read

By Steven J. Dubner, co-author of "Freakonomics"

Very interesting essay by James Collins (this one, not that one) in the New York Times Book Review about forgetting what you read.

I have just realized something terrible about myself: I don’t remember the books I read. I chose Perjury as an example at random, and its neighbors on my bookshelf, Michael Chabon’s Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (on the right) and Anka Muhlstein’s Taste for Freedom: The Life of Astolphe de Custine (on the left), could have served just as well. These are books I loved, but as with Perjury, all I associate with them is an atmosphere and a stray image or two, like memories of trips I took as a child.

This is of interest to me because I read a lot and seem to forget nearly as much. From what I can tell, I tend to remember non-fiction better than fiction; for non-fiction, I tend to remember journalism better than books (at least when it comes to factual details).

Read more at the New York Times.

This article refers to a previous article, "The Plot Escapes Me," by James Collins and also at the New York Times.

Lawsuits That Kill Books

Litigious billionaires and foreign courts are as much a threat as book-banning fundamentalists
By Laura Miller

Last week was Banned Books Week, a worthy institution calling attention to efforts to remove books from public libraries and school curricula. This annual event has become so successful that, although the American Library Association reported "460 recorded attempts to remove materials from libraries in 2009," a close examination suggests that many of these amounted to mere "challenges" -- written objections submitted to librarians or teachers by isolated crackpots or control freak parents with minimal chances of seeing their censorious desires fulfilled.

Read more at Salon.com.

Chicano poet alurista at UT Pan American Monday, Oct. 11

alurista will be at UTPA on October 11 as the 2010 speaker in UTPA Library’s Innovative Voices Series. He will also be part of the “alurista Tunaluna Texas Book Tour” organized by his book publisher.

He will be guest of honor at a Merienda/Plática at the Library Faculty Lounge from 4:00-5:30 p.m. Then he will give a formal address that evening at 6:00-7:00 p.m. in the Student Union Theater. Students, faculty, staff as well as the general public will have a chance to meet alurista and purchase his latest book, Tunaluna. The UTPA Bookstore will be selling the books as soon as they arrive and at these events.

alurista (real name Alberto Urista) is one of the seminal and most influential voices in the history of Chicano Literature. A pioneering poet of the Chicano Movement in the late 60s and 70s, he broke down barriers in the publishing world with his use of bilingual and multilingual writings in Spanish, English, Nahuatl and Maya. A scholar, activist, editor, organizer and philosopher, he holds a Ph.D in Spanish and Latin American Literature from the University of California in San Diego and is the author of ten books including Floricanto en Aztlán (1971), Timespace Huracán (1976), Spik in Glyph? (1981) and Z Eros (1995). His book, Et Tú Raza?, won the Before Columbus Foundation National Book Award in Poetry in 1996. Author of “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán,” he is a key figure in the reclaiming of the MeXicano cultural identity, history and heritage through his integration of American Indian language, symbols and spirituality in his writings. (Source: Juan Tejeda, publisher/editor of Aztlan Libre Press, publisher of Tunaluna, alurista’s tenth book of poetry and first publication in ten years).

In the introduction to the book Tunaluna Tejeda writes: “alurista is a Xicano poet for the ages and a chronicler of la Nueva Raza Cózmica. With Tunalunahe trumpets the return of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered-serpent of Aztec and Mayan prophecy, and helps to lead us out of war and into the dawn of a new consciousness and sun, el Sexto Sol, nahuicoatl, cuatro serpiente, sun of justice.”

For more information on the “alurista Tunaluna Texas Book Tour,” go towww.aztlanlibrepress.com or call 210-531-9505.

For more information about alurista’s visit to UTPA, contact Virginia Haynie Gause, Media and Marketing Librarian at vgause@utpa.edu or call 956-665-2303.

Ven a oir alurista!

Celebrate Banned Book Week

This is Banned Book Week, September 25-October 2; sponsored by the American Library Association in conjunction with several other organization, Banned Book Week is meant to call attention to our freedom to read what we want and the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Celebrate Banned Book Week by reading a book or part of a book that's been banned, either recently or one of the classics that's been frequently banned.

For a list of the top 100 banned and/or challenged books of the 20th century, go here: ALA top 100 banned books of 20th century

For more about Banned Book Week and the ALA's efforts to combat censorship, go here: ALA Banned Book Week

Explore the ALA site for more information about libraries, books, and advocacy/issues sponsored by the ALA.

Origin of the Word, Penny

The Penny's British Heritage

Like so much else American, the name penny comes from England. The first modern English coin was the silver penny of Offa, the 8th century king of Mercia. By the 18th century — when the first U.S. coins went into circulation — Brits still used the word penny as the singular for pence, just as they do today. The coin's name derives from the Old English pennige, pronounced, roughly, penny-yuh.

Read more at Time magazine.

Review of Howl Film

Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's movie "Howl," which features one of James Franco's best performances to date, as legendary Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, is a very mixed bag. It's an oddly dry fusion of documentary and narrative film that arguably doesn't quite click on either level. But I honestly feel bad about pissing on a movie that has so much beauty and purity of spirit in it, so let's accentuate the positive. Fans of either Franco's acting or Ginsberg's poetry absolutely have to see this, of course, and it features a memorable, if controversial, animation by Eric Drooker that illustrates both the themes and the literal story of Ginsberg's eponymous poem.

Read more at Salon.com.

Kafka's Kafkaesque Legacy

During his lifetime, Franz Kafka burned an estimated 90 percent of his work. After his death at age 41, in 1924, a letter was discovered in his desk in Prague, addressed to his friend Max Brod. “Dearest Max,” it began. “My last request: Everything I leave behind me . . . in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others’), sketches and so on, to be burned unread.” Less than two months later, Brod, disregarding Kafka’s request, signed an agreement to prepare a posthumous edition of Kafka’s unpublished novels. “The Trial” came out in 1925, followed by “The Castle” (1926) and “Amerika” (1927). In 1939, carrying a suitcase stuffed with Kafka’s papers, Brod set out for Palestine on the last train to leave Prague, five minutes before the Nazis closed the Czech border. Thanks largely to Brod’s efforts, Kafka’s slim, enigmatic corpus was gradually recognized as one of the great monuments of 20th-century literature. ...

Read more at the New York Times.

Conference at South Texas College Feb 24-26, 2010

Call for Submissions

“De Diosa a Hembra to Chicana: Celebrating the Last
40 Years of Chicana Activism.”
2011 NACCS-Tejas Regional Conference
South Texas College, McAllen, Tejas
24-26 February 2011

The Mexican American Studies Program at South Texas College is accepting
submissions for papers, exhibits, performances, or cultural productions for the
2011 NACCS Tejas Regional Conference at South Texas College. The year
1971 can be considered a turning point in Chicana activism as a group of
Chicana leaders from across the United States came together to voice their
concerns as women. These concerns stemmed from discrimination in the home,
work place, school, and within the Chicano Movement itself. Other issues
addressed at the conference included concerns over healthcare and the
relationship to other feminist movements and sexuality. These women,
numbering in the hundreds, united and disunited in Houston, and sought various
resolutions to their concerns as they strived for social, cultural, racial, gender,
and sexual equality. This is the historical spirit that will be celebrated and
examined during the 2011 NACCS Tejas Regional Conference that will be held
on the 24th through the 26th of February at South Texas College. The NACCS
Tejas Regional conference will provide a forum through which we can
collectively explore the past, present, and future of Chicana activism.
While the primary theme for the conference centers on analyzing and reflecting
on Chicana activism, other topics related to the Chicana/o, Latina/o, or Mexican
American experience are also welcomed. A 100-250 word abstract should be
submitted for the paper, panel, exhibit, performance, or other.

Deadline for Submissions: December 7, 2010

Send questions and proposals electronically to Victor Gomez at
vgomez@southtexascollege.edu

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