Dee Tremens returns for his BD

I am happy to say I am back in La Plancha, Califas to finish celebrating my 500--I mean 50--birthday. You thought 50 was bad and you were over the hill then. Try outliving Noah and his crew; Shakespeare and Hal and Sir Toby Belch, and Falstaff; even Cervantes and Sancho from across the pond.

The recent fires and CHP tried to keep me out of La Plancha but to no avail. I am here. The food was heavy and spicy, the beer too light, the tortilla soup insipid.

500 years is really nothing. I am older than your two-bit institutions of heavy earning.

The dangers of culturally relevant literature....

I was recently search for videos on youtube. I came across a video on the topic. I watched the video, very aimed at elementary educators. Below the video are comments from the public. One critic repeated the same word over and over, trying to criticize the use of culturallly relevant lit and pedagogy.  There were comments like, why are there no courses in white literature? etc.

Some observations... first, when I took many courses in American lit at univ. it was almost all white writers. Yes, there was some diversity by age, location, gender, but not much.

Now flash forward to using almost all Latino literature in college settings.... Actually, some latino students do not want to read latino authors; they feel uncomfortable. Now whether it is a good uncomfortable as in, I am like this and I am thinking like this but I don't want to admit it. you called me out but I can ignore it and pretend it is not an issue.... some seem to be wondering, and these are those who have lived in the US a long time and are Americanized.

There have also been resistance from parents and school boards about novels by latino authors, such as The Rain God. I received a complaint by a white fundamentalist parent that the book was sexually harassing her son, who was in my high school class.

First, I am not sure that a novel can sexually harass anybody. Second, the lawyers did not know how reading a book was sexual harassment and how a boy would be sexually harassed by a gay character in the novel.

The parent apparently thought I was gay so would use a novel with a gay character on purpose. To me the book was not even about gays, but the saga of a Mexican family living on the border. The gay character was just another example of secrets the family of Mama Chona had to deal with.

I will expound upon all this matter in a later post. My point now is that when so many students now are basically now readers, even at community college, we need some type of intervention and if it is culturally relevant lit and pedagogy, then so be it. We need to try to do something. This is an attempt to build a bridge and to have students read. We just need them to read and starting with their culture is just that, a start. They should go on to realize that all great literature is the same. We can relate to any characters in any culture because they are human. And perhaps American studies is world studies.

Seedfolks...

Interesting collection of narratives... Recording is good but we need to be good listeners, which is tough. Very much like a mosaic... watch how you spell that word.

Each character has a distinct voice and "back story." We have to be good detectives and figure out how what experiences have influenced each character.

Free write: what experience have you had with a garden or even a community garden?

dt on it all

she corrected him on her name; she said chay only had 2 comadres, her and some other married friend with 3 kids. dee said there are too many tortas and women with problems. and fat of course.dee asked how she is one. babysitting anyone? what is the competition between the two? why arguing over x and y?

age matters...

I can't remember much about my 20s, since I was becoming educated and working and finding what I wanted to do. Then my 30s. I simply don't remember much. conclusion?

I feel I missed out of a lot of life, which I refuse to leave behind. So I will reclaim those lost years. I still feel young and inspired and will therefore have them.

more later, dt.

origins...

Then there is Jowls... a nickname of course for the man who is becoming more alcoholic with each day, and his jowls drip and dip with each new pint of ale. Each day he starts to drink earlier and earlier.

Dad, can you please part my sandwich?

Yes, and can you please cut my fart?

But back to the woman. I merely asked, in the fashion of dt, if anyone had a comadre for me. Not one who was left at the altar 30 years ago and has never left her house since. It was a joke. I was not serious. Then you asked dt if he had found someone or not. he said of course not and went into detail about the lack of femininity of some such wench.

she responded with we don't know many people; we don't have comadres...

Not even at church?

Maybe she had an ulterior motive which at the time I failed to understand. it is another fantasy, but blame dt.

dee tremens lost in the big picture...

chili, tomate, cebilla, mete la pata en la olla....so dee thought that there must be some deeper meaning involved. It holds some great significance like... canabalism, that's it!!!