Soledad en masa

Did you just feel that earthquake? Ah, I’m really enjoying being in L.A… All I need now is some Tommy’s and a car chase and I will be truly enjoying myself.

Welcome to L.A., PopisB.

I’ve begun deleting old pages that I maintained at a number of websites because they’re no longer of use to me. I deleted my LiveJournal account a few days ago and in a few weeks it will be completely gone. I deleted my Photobucket account, which I have not used since mid-2006. My Last.FM page is gone (there’s no use in tracking what I listen) and I deleted my Muxtape page within hours of getting it. I’ve had three MySpace accounts since I first got one in 2005. I deleted the first one in mid-2006, then got a second one in late-2006 and deleted earlier this year, and in a few days I’ll delete the third one, which I started in March of this year. Other pages at other websites have disappeared along with the website, which makes my job easier.

All these pages are worthless to me. At LJ I posted only things which I could not access because of filters, at Photobucket I had pictures of me in high school that have no reason to be up on the Internet anymore. I don’t use my MySpace to stay in contact with anyone from high school – most of those with whom I will keep in touch I have as friends on Facebook.

The only page I am keeping from high school is my page at Melodramatic. Pages at Melo cannot be deleted, but what I have done is moved all the posts at that site to private and there is nothing of me there. Melo was my journal before I moved to Blogger, then WordPress. I was introduced to it by a now-ex and I wrote in it all throughout our relationship, slowly writing less after we ended and as WordPress proved better. It’s a snapshot into my last two years of high school and I have decided against deleting all my posts in that site. If I ever want to look back at time, I can just log in and read my posts.

These sites probably remain cached somewhere or seen through the Internet Archive, but as far I care, they’re gone.

Moving on from the past has been extremely difficult in some aspects, but I am sure that I am doing the right thing. I’m 18 going on 19, will start my second year at college, and will spend most of August in México, not only spending time with family, but searching for something.

Full steam ahead.

I just finished reading Gustavo Arellano’s ¡Ask a Mexican! and now I am lost as to what I should read next. This summer, I have read Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo & El Llano en llamas, numerous essays on Mexican music, and, as a short break from Spanish, V for Vendetta. I want to continue the trend I started earlier this summer of reading books and essays about México by reading all the essays I’ve yet to read, including one on the speech patterns of Los Altos de Jalisco (i.e. my family!).

I get tired of essays quickly and they’re often finished in a few minutes. I’m itching to read books, important ones. To keep with the look at México, I ordered Vasconcelos’ La raza cósmica and Mariano Azuela’s Los de abajo and should receive them this coming week. I own Octavio Paz’s El laberinto de la soledad, but I want to read these three in chronological order to see how the arguments progress as the works use previous arguments. After reading these, I want to read another classic of México, Carlos Fuentes’ La muerte de Artemio Cruz (last time I attempted to read it, I left it after one chapter because the narration was too confusing). The more and more I read, the closer I feel to reaching an area of study for college and a way to bring order to my academic life.

On the other hand, I have City of Quartz and My Blue Heaven in front of me, waiting to be read and enjoyed. I’m hesitant to read them because I’ll most likely find courses at Harvard that require me to read them, but then again, I just want to read and write about Los Angeles and its “suburbs” (or as I call South Gate, urban suburb, since South Gate is no longer an industrial suburb). Seriously, that’s the only reason I entertain the idea to transfer to UCLA, just so I can take many courses focused on L.A. while living in it.

Any advice?

Rubén Fuentes, director and producer of el Mariachi Vargas, gave a rare interview (he rarely gives them) to the Houston Chronicle. He talked about the future of mariachi music. I reproduced the article after the jump.

On another note, Mariachi Vargas is performing in Santa Barbara on August 2nd. If anyone wants to go with me, let me know and we can start planning!

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I’m working on how to make videos show up in your RSS feeds.

This past Friday, July 11th, I attended a free Mariachi Los Camperos concert, put on by Grand Performances. I had never heard of this series of free concerts in Downtown Los Angeles until two weeks ago, when I found out about the free concert, but I am sure glad I did find out. I was able to convince the parents to come to the concert as well, so we all attended (with the younger brother, naturally). More after the jump, with a large number of photographs.

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Not all of them, but some, yes.

This past Tuesday, July 1st, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his Partnership for L.A. Schools took control of ten LAUSD schools: Ritter Elementary and Markham Middle School in Watts, 99th St. Elementary, Figueroa Elementary, Gompers Middle, and Santee Educational Complex in South L.A., and Sunrise Elementary, Hollenbeck Middle, Stevenson Middle, and Roosevelt High in Boyle Heights.

This Partnership is a result of his failed attempt at taking control of a larger number of LAUSD schools via Assembly Bill 1381, which was eventually ruled unconstitutional. These schools are under the Partnership’s control for the next five years, and if this Partnership shows results, it will most likely be instituted in a wider basis. Read the rest of this entry »

La paz del alma la regala sólo Dios

Songs about retribution always get to me. Whether the retribution comes at the hand of the original victim or from a divine power, the concept of making the other person feel pain is a sweet one. This belief in retribution is one of the cores of rancheras. Rather than having a few songs about retribution, there are thousands of this type of songs, each one different in the method of retribution.

“Sólo Dios” is one of my favorite rancheras, especially this version with Jorge Negrete. This song was composed by Chucho Monge, who also wrote “La feria de las flores” and 175 other songs, according to the Sociedad de Autores y Compositores de Música. Jorge Negrete is also one of my favorite singers (none of this “Pedro Infante is a better singer” tripe; I don’t like Infante’s voice at all) and his voice, with its quiver and strength that his opera training developed, complete this song.

This song is perfect for Negrete’s somewhat arrogant voice and personality. “Sólo Dios” is sung by someone who suffered at the hands of someone. Rather than wishing hell on earth, the singer leaves it all to God. The ambiguity in the wishes of the singer to cause suffering on the other person is also a form of retribution. The singer no longer cares enough for the other person to wish pain on the other person; he simply does not care what happens to the other person. Torturous inaction is a great method of inflicting pain on another person.

One thing I’ve always wondered is how much these songs served to impose modes of conduct on other people. It’s not something that I have the time to go into right now, Just keep in mind que la paz del alma la regala sólo Dios.