El Paso: Mariachi Festival at Sunland Park

Mariachi Festival at Sunland, El Paso, Texas. February 2017. Flores Mexicanas.

February 2017

OK, the Mariachi Festival was technically in New Mexico, and not in El Paso, but only just.

Mariachi Festival at Sunland, El Paso, Texas. February 2017. Son de Mexico.

The first and only mariachi festival I attended previously was the 2012 Mariachi Conference in Las Cruces: 

1. An introduction to mariachi and the conference here
2. My first revelatory exposure to matachine dancers here (at the Mariachi Conference)
3. The splendiferous Mariachi Mass here

The Mariachi Festival at Sunland Park occurred in February and it was my second visit to the Sunland Park Casino and Race Track.


Standing room only!

Mariachi Festival at Sunland, El Paso, Texas. February 2017. Mariachi Aguilas de Las Cruces.

Terrific appreciation of the musicians by the audience, with glad calls for "Otra! Otra!" after most of the bands' last songs of their sets.

Mariachi Festival at Sunland, El Paso, Texas. February 2017. Flores Mexicanas.

As with zydeco, cajun, and - I suppose - just about every musical genre - there is a repertoire of song standards in mariachi, which most life-long adherents know all the words to, and thus sing along. This conversation, this connection, between the musicians and audience members, creates that exhilarating oneness, that inter-connectivity, that sense of "us" and "we," that I so love.

I've posted quite a number of videos from the festival here (via a search on my youtube channel with the words mariachi and sunland).

The one below, by Son de Mexico, makes me smile hugely because of its gleeful, rascally showmanship:

In the video below, the all-woman mariachi band, Flores Mexicanas, even includes a harp!

In the video below, featuring Mariachi Aguilas de Las Cruces, you can get an idea of how many mariachi lovers were present:

"Otra, otra!"

El Paso: The Yandell Christ

Yandell Christ, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

El Paso is a bowl of eye candy with its murals, varied architectures, daytime and nighttime vistas of the mountains, the sister cities, the pendulous moon.

Yandell Christ, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

The first time I saw the jumbo, three-dimensional Christ on a wall on East Yandell, my mouth may have fallen open a bit as I stared while driving by, exhaling a long "wahhhhhhhh" of admiration.

Yandell Christ, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

The site is the La Fe (Faith) Health Center on the corner of Brown and East Yandell. The artist is Cesar Inostroza.

Muralist Cesar Inostroza, El Paso, Texas. Source: Talent Pages.

Yandell Christ, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

I look at the mural section above and, frankly, I get angry. I get angry because the mainstream political chatter never recognizes the power that fused cultures bring to the United States - the respect for one's current patriotic home and for one's heritage home, the bedrock connections to family, community, and faith. The artistic symbols such as those above - the flags, a father and daughter, religious affiliation - are everywhere. Everywhere. We. Are. All. Americans.

Yandell Christ, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

Yandell Christ, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

Yandell Christ, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

Do you think Christ gives a fuck about a wall?

The Creative Life: Cinquain #3

Pink Schoolhouse Gallery, near Taos, New Mexico. October 2007.

Belly
Tightened, frightened
Clenching, calling, keening
Come to me, pick me up, hold me
Baby

Related posts: 

The Creative Life: Cinquain #2
The Creative Life: The Cinquain

El Paso: Writers Resist

Benjamin Alire Saenz, Writers Resist, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

January 2017


I'll confess. I saw Benjamin Alire Saenz' name on the Writers Resist flyer and that was all it took.  He is my literary cultural interpreter for El Paso. I would be there as a literary groupie.

But the Writers Resist event also promised a warm, lit shelter in advance of the cold front approaching America on January 20.

The Writers Resist event, in alliance with others around the country, ignited from a social media post by poet Erin Bilieu, when she wrote:  "We will not give in to despair. We will come together and actively help make the world we want to live in. We are bowed, but we are not broken."

The El Paso Library's Main Branch was the venue of El Paso's Writers Resist.

Dr. Rosa Alcalá - poet, literary translator, and UTEP faculty member - facilitated.

Dr. Rosa Alcalá, Writers Resist, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

Writers read their own works or those of others, and two writers sang iconic folk songs.

Mike Duncan's throaty cover of a Bob Dylan song (A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall) was a highlight:

Daniel Chacón's story of what he brought to a cultural-diversity potluck delighted, both for its charm and its message:

And, of course, Benjamin Alire Saenz' soft-spoken but strong love song, as son to mother, to the river, and to all of humanity:

Writers who performed included: 

Rosa Alcalá
Bobby Byrd

Bobby Byrd, Writers Resist, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

Andrea Beltran
Daniel Chacón

Daniel Chacón, Writers Resist, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

Sasha Pimental
Robert Gunn 

Robert Gunn, Writers Resist, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

Roberto Santos

Roberto Santos, Writers Resist, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

Robin Scofield

Robin Scofield, Writers Resist, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

Jeff Sirkin
Kathy Staudt

Kathy Staudt, Writers Resist, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

Lex Williford

Lex Williford, Writers Resist, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

My regrets to the writers whose names I didn't catch.

Writers Resist has moved from a one-day protest to a standing one - in the centuries-old tradition of artist protests in all lands, against tyranny of the spirit or the flesh.

The Creative Life: Cinquain #2

Can't see
Entombed, afraid
Bumbling, fumbling, stumbling
I feel for the switch and turn on
The light.

Related posts

The Creative Life: The Cinquain

El Paso: UTEP: Vellum and Velvet

Early spring flowers, UTEP, Chihuahuan Desert Gardens, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

February 2017

Graceful fold of a tangerine sarong.

Early spring flowers, UTEP, Chihuahuan Desert Gardens, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

Brave little beings venture out in early-early Spring.

Early spring flowers, UTEP, Chihuahuan Desert Gardens, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

Vellum riplets invite a barely-there stroke of one's fingers to feel the tiny geography.

Early spring flowers, UTEP, Chihuahuan Desert Gardens, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

Velvety blossom babies emerge like new mammals, eyes closed, but seeking light and warmth.

Early spring flowers, UTEP, Chihuahuan Desert Gardens, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

Early spring flowers, UTEP, Chihuahuan Desert Gardens, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

Early spring flowers, UTEP, Chihuahuan Desert Gardens, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

El Paso: Dove Tail Memoriam

Dead dove on UTEP parking lot. El Paso, Texas. March 2017.

Found on the pavement of a UTEP parking lot.

The upright tail. Yellow corn nuggets spilled out of its gullet.

An addition to the carcass gallery:

El Paso: UTEP: Pretty in Pink

Pink flowers in March, UTEP, El Paso, Texas. March 2017.

Dainty pink loveliness on the UTEP campus in March.

Pink flowers in March, UTEP, El Paso, Texas. March 2017.

El Paso: UTEP: Gold-in Light

Leaves in light, UTEP, El Paso, Texas. March 2017.

Rose gold, perhaps.

Suffused, infused, enrouged by a liquidy gold light.

Leaves in light, UTEP, El Paso, Texas. March 2017.

Brilliance

Leaves in light, UTEP, El Paso, Texas. March 2017.

Leaves in light, UTEP, El Paso, Texas. March 2017.

Leaves in light, UTEP, El Paso, Texas. March 2017.

El Paso: Steps to Nowhere #2: A News Shoot

Steps going nowhere, Sunset Heights, El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

December 2016


Those steps going nowhere - they are popular!

Back here, I saw a photo shoot in the same place.

Today it was a news crew.

Steps going nowhere, Sunset Heights, El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

I don't blame them - the top of the steps to nowhere have a killer view of I-10, downtown El Paso, and Juarez.

Steps going nowhere, Sunset Heights, El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

These steps to nowhere climb the cusp of Sunset Heights. In Hurting Game, a short story in Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club, Benjamin Alire Saenz' protagonist talks about Sunset Heights:

I lived in Sunset Heights, an old neighborhood that had old houses with a lot of class. It also had a lot of shabby houses that were falling apart. I like the shabby houses. I liked that I could walk downtown. It was February and the night was cool, but it didn’t feel like winter. It was as if spring was knocking at the door again. Not that I liked spring in El Paso. The winds came after us and left us beat up to hell, the taste of the desert sands being shoved down our throats by a God who didn’t love us much.

Steps going nowhere, Sunset Heights, El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

Steps going nowhere, Sunset Heights, El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

El Paso: The Disappeared Mountains

The Disappeared Mountains over UTEP, El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

December 2016

Clouds, dust, mist, spirits - whatever - enveloped the mountains behind UTEP, disappearing them.


This is the usual view: 

Reminds me of Alamogordo's disappearing mountains here.

Below are two videos I took in Alamogordo, on the same street, one with the mountains visible and the other when they were invisible.

El Paso: BSC: We Work on the Margins

November 2016


That word, sustenance. On the flyer posted on a church bulletin board. The word whispered to me on a Saturday morning in November. A source of strength and nourishment.

I wasn't familiar with BSC at the time, and when I returned home, I looked it up and, while poking around the internet, found this article by Sister Janet, one of the speakers for this Issues Night: The Face of God's Mercy at Santo Niño.

Luci, Nena, and Sister Janet. Anapra, Chihuahua, Mexico. Credit: Global Sisters Report. Photo: Peggy Deneweth.

She and other sisters and volunteers give service at the Santo Niño Project in Anapra, that colonia just on the other side of The Wall, visible from Mt. Cristo Rey. Some 17,000 hearts beat in Anapra.

Mt. Cristo Rey, El Paso, Texas.

Sister Janet and her fellows know and walk with women, men, adolescents, children there.

But I'm doing a lotta yakking when I could be sharing some of the sisters' sustenance with you. I'll paraphrase.

As sisters:

It is our job to go where no one else wants to go and do what no one else wants to do.

We work on the margins.

We try to live as though there is no border. Those of us who can cross, should cross and behave as if there is no border.

We need to tell the stories to those people in the country who don't have the privilege to live here, on the border.

It's not important to [the mothers at the Santo Niño Project] that we solve a problem; it's important that we accompany them.


~~~~~

In a time this November 2016 when it seemed every day brought new, nasty threats against individuals and groups, it was good to be in the company of the sisters.

El Paso: UTEP: Tender Tendrils

Oh, so delicate. Like tiny pink fairy fingers.

Pink tendrils, UTEP, El Paso, Texas. March 2017.

Pink tendrils, UTEP, El Paso, Texas. March 2017.