I’ve already mentioned how when I went to Mexico everyone seemed to comment on my American accent when I spoke Spanish. Well, my written Spanish is much better than many of my Mexican relatives. I often get letters from Mexico and some relatives just don’t use accent marks that are necessary when writing in Spanish. When I e-mail my cousin in Mexico, she is always amazed that I write much better in Spanish than her, even though she’s a native speaker. Another cousin constantly IMs me. Every so often, she asks me how her Spanish is. I tell her it’s surprisingly good, even though she doesn’t spell very well, doesn’t capitalize at the beginning of sentences, and doesn’t use any punctuation. Some of my Spanish students have seen these types of writings in Spanish and then question why I insist that they use accent marks and ñ and all things Spanish. Well, the main reason is to show that you have been educated. It works for me because my cousins take more seriously when I write proper Spanish.
Back in the 1980s, my brother Jerry told me about a writer’s group that met every third Tuesday in the Beverly neighborhood at 107th and Hale. So I joined the group because I really enjoyed writing, and reading my works for this group motivated me to write. I met a lot of interesting people and I always looked forward to every meeting.
One of the poets, introduced me to her sister who just by chance had married a Mexican whose last name was Navarrete, just like one of my aunts in Mexico. The poet’s sister just happened to be a commercial artist. Eventually, she drew a caricature of me for my comedian’s business card. (It’s the caricature you see below.) I remember that she was afraid to show it to me because I might think that she was making fun of me. I really loved it! It was exactly what I wanted. I was always proud of my business card.
Elizabeth-Anne Vanek was the president of the group and she was a published poet. She was the heart, soul, and muse of the group. Without her, the group would have disintegrated. I also met Marc Smith before he became famous for his poetry slams at the Green Mill. He came to many meetings and would read his latest poetry for us.
I also remember Frida who came to every meeting religiously and listened to everyone’s work patiently and then commented with objective criticism. She was a writer who didn’t actually write anything. She couldn’t write anymore. Her muse had abandoned her.
I also brought my friend Tony Trendl from the Marquette Park Track Club for a couple of meetings. I must admit that I did the most writing in my life while I belonged to this group. It was then that I started writing for The Finish Line and the Illinois Runner. However, I never published any of my short stories that I read to the group. My writing improved immensely while I was a member of the Writer’s Desk.
And in another one of those cosmic coincidences that frequently occur to me. I now live right down the block from where the Writer’s Desk used to meet!
I just finished reading a book of short stories in Spanish that mostly take place in Chicago: Vocesueltas: Cuatro cuentistas de Chicago written by Raúl Dorantes, Bernardo Navia, Fernando Olszanski, and om ulloa (Chicago: Ediciones Vocesueltas, 2007).
You get a real taste of Chicago in the stories of Dorantes and Navia even though they write about their adopted city in Spanish. I really enjoyed reading Dorantes and Navia, the best of the four. Olszanski and ulloa didn’t particularly focus on Chicago as did Dorantes and Navia. My favorite story in the book was “Duelo de sur” by Bernardo Navia. I could truly visuallize the subway stop that he described. The story breathed and smelled of Chicago despite being written in Spanish.
Of course, my enjoyment of this story was based on personal reasons. I personally knew, and still know, Bernardo Navia. I’ve known him for years after first meeting him at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Bernardo was the first graduate student to receive a Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies from UIC. We were enrolled in several classes together, he as a graduate student and I as an undergraduate.
One class in particular that I remember was a 20th century Latin American literature class in which we read Jorge Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Nicanor Parra, Julio Cortázar, among others, with Professor Klaus Müeller-Bergh. I really enjoyed this class thoroughly. I still vividly remember some of the class discussions, particularly the one about “El sur,” a short story by Borges.
Well, in Vocesueltas, Bernardo updates “El sur” by placing the action of “Duelo de sur” in Chicago in the present. The story is even dedicated: A Dahlmann, the protagonist that Borges toys within his story. I enjoyed how Bernardo even notes similarities and differences with “El sur.” For example, instead of someone throwing crumbs, Julián notices that someone has thrown a tooth at his feet. And then he notices another and another before he finally sees a molar. We know that Julián is in a hospital, as was Dahlmann, but in the end he remembers that at least someone gave Dahlmann a knife to defend himself. For me, this was certainly the best story of the anthology.
Well, I didn’t do much of anything today to start out the new year on the wrong foot. But I haven’t broken any New Year’s resolutions either. Of course, the whole trick is not to make any resolutions at all.
Last year, I said that I would write a Blog entry each and every day of the year. Well, gentle reader, if you’ve been reading all along, you may have noticed some exceptionally long gaps between blog entries.
Sometimes I get too involved with my life that I forget about everything else. So, this year, I won’t promise anything, but now that I have adjusted to retirement, I will write more regularly. And I will work on my website some more. I really must organize it and put some actual content in there.
Well, I’ve been thinking about all my lifelong goals and how I haven’t completed most of them. There are so many things I have yet to do. I’ve started so many things that I’ve forgotten to go back to them to finish them. I’ve started writing several novels but haven’t gotten past the opening lines. I have already finished a comedy play. Of course, I’ve been working on it for 25 years now. However, I’m almost done editing it. Really! I have about eighty pages and it’s almost done. Any day now!
But I have a lot of other things that I haven’t finished either. I have a utility sink in the basement that I probably won’t install before I sell the house. I have a set of French books so I can learn French someday. Ditto for the Italian and Latin books. I have an unopened jigsaw puzzle of the John Hancock building when it was the world’s tallest building. I’m almost done with my website that I started four years ago. NOT!
Chicago USA 