October 2008 Archives

Last Monday morning at Sunset Beach, the ocean puts the breaks on and tames the desert-born winds. They've dropped leaves and basin dust on driveways and grassy medians before dying at the shore. The leaf blowers should have taken a holiday. The tubular steel wind chimes, the ones that deliver periodic whole notes on most days, are rattled like brittle skeletons. If he'd sailed today, Columbus would have gotten here quicker, or ended up farther away.

Tuesday, 5:00 a.m. through the Sepulveda Pass, heading to the San Fernando Valley, the sun's about two hours away.  The full moon's ahead, above the mountain tops behind Chatsworth.

More

So, after the Phillies' win we had to hear the theme from the film Rocky. Of course, right? When the Red Socks stomped on the Angels, Fenway Park resonated to the guitar from "Dirty Water" by The Standells. No other song says Boston, right?

Well, that got me thinking about city anthems, whether organic, manufactured or imposed. And in particular it reminded me of what my friend Jesus Velo tells me about "Dirty Water."

More

Forty years ago Day of the Dead came a month early in Mexico City. And plenty of people in Los Angeles will not forget.

In 1968 Mexican soldiers opened fire on a peaceful protest in a large plaza in Mexico City's Tlatelolco neighborhood. Imagine the Kent State killings of 1970 taking place in New York City's Washington Square at a mass protest organized by students at NYU, MIT and some elite public high schools, in which organized labor joined in. The big difference, scores of people, not four, were shot dead.

More

"Sólo tú sabes lo que traes en la mochila."

For years my mother's been telling me only I know what I'm carrying in my knapsack. Duh! It was the most recent time she told me, on the phone, about a month ago when it finally hit. Maybe because at this point in my life I feel the backpack bulging. Maybe I have to unload some things.

At the bottom, weighing it down, tezontle; the porous volcanic rocks, like the ones used to build the chapel of San Miguel, in Tlatelolco, Mexico; where I was baptized. The stones are wrapped in the translucent, gum wrapper-size used bus transfers from the Tijuana bus lines of my elementary school years.

More