Thursday, December 20, 2012

Schedule through Jan. 29, 2013

Writer’s Block is a weekly radio program on KFUN/KLVF in Las Vegas, NM, featuring the work of writers in most every genre. To query about booking contact sharon@vandermeerbooks.com.

Jan. 8, Michael Hebler
From Michael’s website: In addition to writing, Michael is a film publicist. He began writing in college where he was fortunate enough to watch his first penned one-act play performed on stage by the Orange Coast College Theatre Department. He was hooked from that moment and the writing bug has never left. He currently has two publications, Hunt for the Chupacabra, a free e-book short story, preceding the events of Book I, Night of the Chupacabra.

Jan. 15, Blaize Nolynn

From Blaize’s website: About the book Firefighter Down, District One: Life isn’t promised. When the tones go off you never know who needs you the most or even worst, who will you set your own life down for. My father was a captain who set his life down for me in a fire. Now it is my duty to find out how that fire started and who started it. The guy that killed my father didn’t just kill him in a normal way, he killed him with his worst nightmare. My father wasn’t killed by a gang shooting or an accident, he was killed in the most painful way this person knew how to kill my father. He unleashed the animal on him and myself. I am not talking about an animal like a wild or domestic animal, I am talking about the elemental animal, the one known as fire.

Jan. 22, Mary Hanley
About the Book “Romance and Murder in the Cinque Terre: Former Special Forces Commander Drake Harrington and his partners find themselves on a trail of lust, murder, and vengeance that lead them from San Francisco to Rome, and then to the Cinque Terre area of Italy. An unexpected encounter with a beautiful brown haired woman puts Drake’s life on the line as he strives to save her from a serial killer’s need for revenge.

Jan. 29, Alexander Valdez
The discussion will be about Mr. Valdez’ books, Your Story Begins: Advance Your Ideas into Words, and the companion Screenwriter’s Notebook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finishing Your Screenplay.”   
Alexander Valdez is a National Merit Scholar and the president and visionary for Vision Quest Entertainment Incorporated. He has edited for the Spanish language television show Buscando Amor and is the author of, Your Story Begins: Advance Your Ideas into Words, and A Writer’s Guide to the Hero’s Journey: The Eight Elements of Story with Twelve Story Question Pictographs. He received a Bachelors Degree in the Fine Art of Drama and a Masters Degree in the Fine Art of Cinema-Television Production.
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To hear samples of recent Writer’s Block programs go to http://wbvandermeer.podbean.com/. To download program format go to http://www.vandermeerbooks.com/WritersBlock_copy.pdf

This is from the mid-December issue of Happenstance Literary. Get your subscription today for only $12 at http://www.vandermeerbooks.com/Subscribe.html. Through the end of December purchase a subscription for yourself and get one free for someone else. Go to this link http://www.vandermeerbooks.com/happenstance11-15-12rev.pdf to access a complimentary copy.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving and new beginnings


Happenstance Literary

I not only have change, I have a plan... sort of


 If you have read the most recent Happenstance Literary you will know Dec. 18 is the final live Writer's Block radio show featuring writers from around the country and Canada. I make this decision with some ambivalence because I do enjoy what I'm doing and am hugely grateful to Joseph Baca, owner of KFUN/KLVF, for allowing me to be on the air with the program for more than a year, and to Nancy Colalillo, owner of Tome on the Range, for sponsoring it during that time. My decision hinges in part on my age, but also on me taking on more work and having looming deadlines to meet. Add to that the launch (re-launch?) of my e-zine and you have a formula for STRESS! Something had to go.

I hope to continue Writer's Block as a Q&A in Happenstance Literary and on this blog. I'll have to see how or if I can make that work. I also intend (read will-do-it-maybe) to have book reviews on this site, some written by me and some from other sources (maybe Tome staffers?). All of this is speculative at this point because I'm trying to scale back, not ramp up. Mostly I want to get back to writing.

Please check out Happenstance Literary. The last free issue is available for reading on your computer or tablet. Just download it as a PDF or read it right from your device. I don't mind limited sharing of the zine as I want to build a loyal subscriber base, so pass it on to those who you think would be likely customers and writers for the zine. From now to the end of December take advantage of the buy one, get one free offer to new subscribers. Pay $12 for your subscription and have a second subscription sent to a friend at no cost to you. For more information about this offer e-mail sharon@vandermeerbooks.com.

Thanks for reading and have a blessed and safe holiday.






Sunday, October 28, 2012

Writer's Block Guests through Nov. 20



Air time 9 a.m., MST on KFUN/KLVF, Las Vegas, NM
Not from the Las Vegas area? The show streams online at http://www.kfunonline.com

October 30

Gail Rubin has written an amazing book about death. A Good Goodbye is a realistic look at a fact of life. Death comes to everyone. What then? A Good Goodbye was the Best of Show winner in the 2011 New Mexico Book Awards. The book was also a national finalist in the 2010 Book of the Year Award, Family & Relationships category.

About the book: (From the author’s website) Just as talking about sex won’t make you pregnant, talking about funerals won’t make you dead – and your family will benefit from the conversation. A Good Goodbye addresses the Baby Boomer generation with gentle humor on the vital information about funeral arrangements that most people don’t learn about until faced with a death in the family. This easy-to-read book tells how to plan a memorial service and reception, ways to communicate the news, collect vital information before it’s needed, and write obituaries and eulogies. It also presents background on many religious traditions, new funeral trends and creative non-religious rituals, event-planning checklists, information forms for death certificates and obituaries, and cost containment. It even covers ways to honor the death of a pet and remember deceased loved ones annually.
_______________________

Did you know that among the state’s centennial project there was a website entitled 200NewMexicoPoems? The editor of the project was Lisa Hase-Jackson, a poet in her own right with work in multiple publications.

About Lisa: (From the 200NewMexicoPoem website) Lisa M. Hase-Jackson holds a Master’s Degree in English with an emphasis in poetry from Kansas State University and is a trained Creativity Coach. She has developed and facilitated poetry writing workshops and circles all over the world, beginning with the Washburn Writers Fellowship Program in Topeka, Kansas, and including the Peyongchon writers group in Anyang, South Korea and, currently, the Friday Poets Group in Albuquerque, NM. Her literary editorial experience includes working on Washburn University’s literary magazine, Inscape; two years with Kansas State University’s literary magazine, Touchstone; faciltating 200NewMexcioPoems.wordpress.com, a New Mexico Centennial endorsed project  celebrating New Mexico’s centennial through poetry; and a variety of trade newsletters. She keeps a blog at ZingaraPoet.net, which features poet interviews, writing exercises, poetry prompts, articles and poetry picks.

November 6

Bruce Halloran Rogers is a fascinating man who has figured out how to make the internet work for his particular skills. He is a prolific writer producing a voluminous amount of work on his website shortshortshort.com. For only $10 a year, three times a month you will receive a brand new original story by Bruce. They must be good, because he continues to grow his subscriber list and he keeps the ones he has.



For six years, Bruce wrote a column about the spiritual and psychological challenges of full-time fiction writing for Speculations magazine. Many of those columns have been collected in a new book, Word Work: Surviving and Thriving as a Writer (an alternate selection of the Writers Digest Book Club). He is a motivational speaker and trains workers and managers in creativity and practical problem solving.



 Myrna Haskell has put her popular syndicated column for parent of teens into, Lions and Tigersand Teens: Expert advice and support for the conscientious parent just like you.

About the book: Don’t throw up your hands and walk away. If your teen isn’t talking to you and acting in ways you don’t understand, maybe it’s time to evaluate the behavior and gain insight into what to do. Myrna Haskell has been writing about the very thing that has you baffled. Her book  is a compilation of the best installments of her column for parents of teens, teachers, siblings, grandparents… or anyone who interacts with today’s youth. Also included are several installments that have never before been published.


_______________________

November 13

Poet Luis Alberto Urrea wrote of Centennial Poet Levi Romero:
“Levi Romero is a strange kind of wizard. He can walk up a New Mexico arroyo and come back with a mysterious object full of quotidian magic. Like a rusted tobacco can the grandfathers used to roll their smokes. And when you pry open the lid, you can hear their laughter and gossip coming out. That’s what he does in poem after poem. I read his work and I learn again how to love this life.” 
Romero's first collection of poetry, In the Gathering of Silence, published in 1966, features Woodstove of My Childhood, an epic poem based on personal and communal histories. His latest collection, A Poetry of Remembrance: New and Rejected Works, with UNM Press in December 2008, sold out within a month of its publication.

(Excerpted from “Levi Romero Sows Culture Crops,” by Carolyn Gonzales, UNM Today, August 28, 2009.)
 _______________

Tome on the Range will fill the second half of the hour with featured children's books and upcoming events for fall and  and the holiday season. Guests will be children's book buyer Janet Chapman and associate Susan Cole.

November 20

John Murray grew up and was educated in the United Kingdom. He studied theology in Birmingham, England and in Toronto, Canada. His life experience has been in business, in pastoral ministry, in Christian journalism and for the last twenty years before retirement he was the Executive Director of Eurovangelism Canada. Eurovangelism is a British mission which has been working in Eastern Europe for approximately fifty years.

 About the Book: (From the author's website.) Real Faith covers the major issues of the Christian Faith. It begins with “Why do we believe?” It moves on to discuss who is God the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit and then asks the question, “What is Christian conversion?” It also covers “Why is it so difficult to live the Christian life?” and finally leads to “What is expected of us as believers?” In other words the book discusses what we believe, why we believe it and what is expected of us because we believe it.
 ____________________________

Jackie Carpenter never intended to become an author. And neither did she ever expect to be a resource for persons facing a crisis in life. But Jackie took the crisis in her life, and subsequent miracle, and wove it into a dramatic and heart-wrenching story – The Bridge: Between Cell Block A and a Miracle is Psalm 91. And the Reluctant Author followed up with still another book, Georgia Justice: A Journey To Faith a remarkable guide on how to build faith when overcome by doubt, depression and tragic events.

About the Books: In The Bridge, the author tells her story. After her son, Richard Jason Veitch, was falsely accused of felony murder, Jackie Carpenter found the odds seemingly stacked against her: there was no hope, money was of no value, and she was rendered helpless before a jury of 12. But by simply waiting on a miracle from God, she was able to experience deliverance from her troubles—all in His perfect timing. In Georgia Justice she tells a story of faith-building – a how to guide of what it takes to escape from the tightening grips of doubt and depression and begin the journey to renewed and strengthened faith, hope, and ultimate victory. It is a book everyone should read, believers and non-believers alike, those facing a tragedy now and those who have no idea a tragedy lies ahead in their tomorrows.

_____________________

That’s the line up through Nov. 20. The schedule is subject to change and while I hope to update the information I may miss from time to time. Thanks for listening to Writer's Block, and if you missed a show, be sure to check out the podcasts, which are generally posted within two days of air time.



Sunday, September 23, 2012

Writing and Writers: Guests Scheduled Through Nov. 20



Air time 9 a.m., MST on KFUN/KLVF, Las Vegas, NM
Not from the Las Vegas area? The show streams online at http://www.kfunonline.com

October 30

Gail Rubin has written an amazing book about death. A Good Goodbye is a realistic look at a fact of life. Death comes to everyone. What then? A Good Goodbye was the Best of Show winner in the 2011 New Mexico Book Awards. The book was also a national finalist in the 2010 Book of the Year Award, Family & Relationships category.

About the book: (From the author’s website) Just as talking about sex won’t make you pregnant, talking about funerals won’t make you dead – and your family will benefit from the conversation. A Good Goodbye addresses the Baby Boomer generation with gentle humor on the vital information about funeral arrangements that most people don’t learn about until faced with a death in the family. This easy-to-read book tells how to plan a memorial service and reception, ways to communicate the news, collect vital information before it’s needed, and write obituaries and eulogies. It also presents background on many religious traditions, new funeral trends and creative non-religious rituals, event-planning checklists, information forms for death certificates and obituaries, and cost containment. It even covers ways to honor the death of a pet and remember deceased loved ones annually.
_______________________

Did you know that among the state’s centennial project there was a website entitled 200NewMexicoPoems? The editor to the project was Lisa Hase-Jackson, a poet in her own right with work in multiple publications.

About Lisa: (From the 200NewMexicoPoem website) Lisa M. Hase-Jackson holds a Master’s Degree in English with an emphasis in poetry from Kansas State University and is a trained Creativity Coach. She has developed and facilitated poetry writing workshops and circles all over the world, beginning with the Washburn Writers Fellowship Program in Topeka, Kansas, and including the Peyongchon writers group in Anyang, South Korea and, currently, the Friday Poets Group in Albuquerque, NM. Her literary editorial experience includes working on Washburn University’s literary magazine, Inscape; two years with Kansas State University’s literary magazine, Touchstone; faciltating 200NewMexcioPoems.wordpress.com, a New Mexico Centennial endorsed project  celebrating New Mexico’s centennial through poetry; and a variety of trade newsletters. She keeps a blog at ZingaraPoet.net, which features poet interviews, writing exercises, poetry prompts, articles and poetry picks.

November 6

Bruce Halloran Rogers is a fascinating man who has figured out how to make the internet work for his particular skills. He is a prolific writer producing a voluminous amount of work on his website shortshortshort.com. For only $10 a year, three times a month you will receive a brand new original story by Bruce. They must be good, because he continues to grow his subscriber list and he keeps the ones he has.



For six years, Bruce wrote a column about the spiritual and psychological challenges of full-time fiction writing for Speculations magazine. Many of those columns have been collected in a new book, Word Work: Surviving and Thriving as a Writer (an alternate selection of the Writers Digest Book Club). He is a motivational speaker and trains workers and managers in creativity and practical problem solving.



 Myrna Haskell has put her popular syndicated column for parent of teens into, Lions and Tigersand Teens: Expert advice and support for the conscientious parent just like you.

About the book: Don’t throw up your hands and walk away. If your teen isn’t talking to you and acting in ways you don’t understand, maybe it’s time to evaluate the behavior and gain insight into what to do. Myrna Haskell has been writing about the very thing that has you baffled. Her book  is a compilation of the best installments of her column for parents of teens, teachers, siblings, grandparents… or anyone who interacts with today’s youth. Also included are several installments that have never before been published.


_______________________

November 13

Poet Luis Alberto Urrea wrote of Centennial Poet Levi Romero:
“Levi Romero is a strange kind of wizard. He can walk up a New Mexico arroyo and come back with a mysterious object full of quotidian magic. Like a rusted tobacco can the grandfathers used to roll their smokes. And when you pry open the lid, you can hear their laughter and gossip coming out. That’s what he does in poem after poem. I read his work and I learn again how to love this life.” 
Romero's first collection of poetry, In the Gathering of Silence, published in 1966, features Woodstove of My Childhood, an epic poem based on personal and communal histories. His latest collection, A Poetry of Remembrance: New and Rejected Works, with UNM Press in December 2008, sold out within a month of its publication.

(Excerpted from “Levi Romero Sows Culture Crops,” by Carolyn Gonzales, UNM Today, August 28, 2009.)
 _______________

Tome on the Range will fill the second half of the hour with featured children's books and upcoming events for fall and  and the holiday season. Guests will be children's book buyer Janet Chapman and associate Susan Cole.

November 20

John Murray grew up and was educated in the United Kingdom. He studied theology in Birmingham, England and in Toronto, Canada. His life experience has been in business, in pastoral ministry, in Christian journalism and for the last twenty years before retirement he was the Executive Director of Eurovangelism Canada. Eurovangelism is a British mission which has been working in Eastern Europe for approximately fifty years.

 About the Book: (From the author's website.) Real Faith covers the major issues of the Christian Faith. It begins with “Why do we believe?” It moves on to discuss who is God the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit and then asks the question, “What is Christian conversion?” It also covers “Why is it so difficult to live the Christian life?” and finally leads to “What is expected of us as believers?” In other words the book discusses what we believe, why we believe it and what is expected of us because we believe it.
 ____________________________

Jackie Carpenter never intended to become an author. And neither did she ever expect to be a resource for persons facing a crisis in life. But Jackie took the crisis in her life, and subsequent miracle, and wove it into a dramatic and heart-wrenching story – The Bridge: Between Cell Block A and a Miracle is Psalm 91. And the Reluctant Author followed up with still another book, Georgia Justice: A Journey To Faith a remarkable guide on how to build faith when overcome by doubt, depression and tragic events.

About the Books: In The Bridge, the author tells her story. After her son, Richard Jason Veitch, was falsely accused of felony murder, Jackie Carpenter found the odds seemingly stacked against her: there was no hope, money was of no value, and she was rendered helpless before a jury of 12. But by simply waiting on a miracle from God, she was able to experience deliverance from her troubles—all in His perfect timing. In Georgia Justice she tells a story of faith-building – a how to guide of what it takes to escape from the tightening grips of doubt and depression and begin the journey to renewed and strengthened faith, hope, and ultimate victory. It is a book everyone should read, believers and non-believers alike, those facing a tragedy now and those who have no idea a tragedy lies ahead in their tomorrows.

_____________________

That’s the line up through Nov. 20. The schedule is subject to change and while I hope to update the information I may miss from time to time. Thanks for listening to Writer's Block, and if you missed a show, be sure to check out the podcasts, which are generally posted within two days of air time.



Friday, August 31, 2012

Writers and Writing: Veronica Tiller

Books Photographs Track a Proud History

Veronica E. Velarde Tiller, PhD, and Mary M. Velarde, both members of the Jicarilla Apache Nation, chronicle the 1887–2000 history of the Jicarilla Apache through this pictorial history using more than 180 photographs from government archives, libraries, and tribal and family collections. Listen to the podcast of an interview with Veronica at http://wbvandermeer.podbean.com/2012/08/31/writers-and-writing-veronica-tiller/.




Friday, August 10, 2012

Writers and Writing: Cyn Riley and Anne Bradford

Writer’s Block airs every Tuesday, at 9 a.m. MST on KFUN/KLVF, streaming live at www.kfunonline.com

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Listen to the podcast at http://wbvandermeer.podbean.com/2012/08/11/guests-cyn-riley-and-anne-bradford/

Collaborative Script Writing Brings Out the Best

CYN RILEY AND ANNE BRADFORD
Over the Edge V, Frack You is writing at its twisted best, not that the content is twisted… exactly, but the process of developing the script for the satirical outing is a process of birth by bits. Playwrights Cyn Riley and Anne Bradford spend a year getting ready from one production to the next.

Wait, that’s not right, Cyn said on Writer’s Block Tuesday they begin talking about writing the next one right after the current production ends, and then it’s November... January… February… March… about April they get down to business, over biscuits and tea.

It isn’t quite that way. Anne has ideas percolating in her head all year and throws them out to Cyn, who catches them on the fly and runs with them, crafting them into vignettes that will be played out this year on Por Que Fun Radio. There’s a bit of a send up on that as well, but I didn’t know that until I read the Optic front page story on Friday.

Over the Edge takes no prisoners. It’s topical, a trifle political (or is that an oxymoron), suggestive, satirical and just plain fun. 

Cyn and Anne not only wrote the show, they’re actively involved, Cyn as director and Anne doing “something,” she didn’t say what.

Script writing has its challenges. Cyn said you must visualize how the action is going to play out. It’s a matter of making the dialogue work in the framework of the play and the set. Recurring characters and newbies are woven into the story line, a factor that in the past has had audiences lining up for every performance.

Anne’s wacky since of the absurd makes her a perfect foil. “I just start thinking about how this or that would work out if this or that happened,” she said in her Brit accent. “I tell Cyn and she writes it up for the character who is most likely to speak those lines.”

Does it take a while to put the dialogue and scenes to paper? Cyn says she can knock it together in two days, once the idea is there. That doesn’t mean the script is cast in concrete. “We’re rewriting sometimes up to final rehearsals. If it’s not working we make it work.”

Over the Edge is meant to be funny. Audiences are ready and willing to laugh at the situations depicted on stage understanding fully that they are laughing at life and at themselves.

“That’s the chemistry that makes theater work,” Cyn said. “It’s different with each audience. The actors have learned to be ready for that. What got a laugh one night won’t get one the next. Or something one audience didn’t think was funny, another will laugh at.”

Script development is more than writing down words and collaboration has its own chemistry. The mix of Cyn and Anne continues to work because each contributes to the process in different ways. “The best part of writing the show is going to Anne’s for tea and biscuits,” Cyn said. They both laugh at this and then talk about what’s hard. There are a lot of ideas. Because of time constraints not all of them can be used. That’s part of the collaboration as well, pulling everything together into a seamless work. 

Over the Edge: Frack You, will be performed Friday and Saturday, 7:30 p.m., and at 3 p.m. on Sunday. All performances are at Sala de Madrid on the New Mexico Highlands University campus. Advance tickets are available at Tome on the Range and from ace ticket seller, Em Krall. General admission is $10, senior citizens $8, students with ID $5 and children under 12, $3.

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Writing and Writers: Alvin Korte, Ph.D

Writer’s Block airs every Tuesday, at 9 a.m. MST on KFUN/KLVF, streaming live at www.kfunonline.com

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Listen to the podcast at http://wbvandermeer.podbean.com/2012/08/11/guest-dr-alvin-korte/

 

Author Explores Hispano Culture


DR. ALVIN KORTE
Alvin Korte has an interesting background primarily centered around education and social work. He has bachelor’s degree from New Mexico Highlands University where he majored in psychology and biology with coursework in sociology. He received his masters in social work from Arizona State University and completed a doctorate at the University of Denver. He also attended a year of doctoral coursework at Washington University in St. Louis. He says he has had many careers in social work. 

“I was a school social worker in Phoenix and later in Taos Municipal Schools.  was I also a public welfare administrator charged with everything from child welfare to food stamps and everything in between.  

He taught for 27 years at NMHU, and has conducted research in aging, developmental disabilities and juvenile delinquency. He has long been an advocate for the elderly and a “…somewhat lobbyist on housing in Washington."
    
After leaving the university in 1999, he created the first domestic violence program in Las Vegas in 2003, and continued with the program until 2011.                                                                                                
He now spends time doing a genealogy and social study of one family of Bacas and Kortes.  I am part of an effort to study some of the German immigrant families in Mora in Territorial Days. He said he is also studying corruption using matrix methods. Last year the Las Vegas City and Rough Rider Memorial Museum published a booklet called Southwest Swastikas, which explains the emblems usage in Native American and other cultures.

In the midst of all that he wrote Nosotros, a book on Northern New Mexico Hispanics, which was the primary topic of our on-air discussion. The following is a summary of our discussion in Alvin’s own words.

Q&A With Alvin Korte:

WB: In what ways is your book, Nosotros, A study of Everyday Meanings in Hispano New Mexico an academic exploration of Hispano culture? 
AK: Nosotros is an academic book in that it uses two theoretic perspectives from Sociology.  It takes as its theoretical perspective the social philosophy of Alfred Schutz and the ethnomethology of Reyes Ramos and others. 

WB: What prompted you to write the book?
AK: Schutz was interested in the way people in everyday life made sense of everyday life. Life is naturally occurring and never given any attention unless conflict causes people to examine the “what’s going on” in this scene. Reyes Ramos was also interested in the way persons in everyday life made sense of their problematic events in their lives. He was an ethnomethologist (ethno meaning folks not ethnics). One other academic besides Ramos in of course Dr. Tomas Atencio.  His idea is called resolano, the south side of the houses where old men would collect to ponder the great questions of life. Atencio was interested in collecting this wisdom which he called El Oro del Barrio from people in everyday life. It is academic in that one uses the available literature to open these areas for study. I took classes with Dr. David Franks at the University of Denver. He taught a really crazy sociology class.  Sometimes we didn’t if we were coming or going. Dr. Clark Knowlton pushed many of us to study Hispanos way after we had graduated. Both Knowlton and Franks were inspiring teachers. I also hooked into the work of psychotherapist Dr. Rollo May to put these ideas from Existential Phenomenology  into use for psychotherapy. I first posed the question of a book to Dr. Knowlton who encouraged me to attempt such an undertaking. I found so much to write about. When I used to have more freedom I taught seminars on this material. It always went well. For many years we had to teach something about “cultural competence” but the books that purportedly were about such competence really sucked.   

WB: What audience is the book written for?
AK: I think this book could be useful to people working with Hispanos in a clinical setting but I’m not holding my breath. The book was used by a former student in a cultural counseling class this summer. I don’t know if the book was useful. I didn’t intend this book to be a social problems book. I worked very hard to make the book useful for someone who needed to understand what she or he might be up against, the nature of their problem but little about what do you do about the problem. I just don’t think one can define a problem in terms of its remediation.  
As an example, the whole idea behind Mancornado is to describe what happens in situations where the old  girlfriend is running around with a new guy and this guy experiencing loss, anger stalking or in many cases lands up in domestic violence class. Presenting the idea as I developed one guy said, “¡Eso me esta pasando a mi!”  A lot of the material has applications in so called mental health settings. I would hope that not only should academics read the book, but others. I know of five anthropologists who are reading it
.
WB: What value is the book as a way to understand how modern Hispano culture is influenced by present day society?
AK: There are huge inroads being made by American culture on Hispano belief systems, values or language. Obviously if one no longer knows how to speak Spanish then one is not in a position to understand  some who have better understanding. We can’t communicate with our compatriots. Recently one gal at Walmart in dealing with an older customer apologized to him saying “Ya se me acabo el espanol” (I ran out of Spanish.) Yet one sees elements of culture being remembered, reconnected to its past. If re-membered then it isn’t forgotten. Two weeks ago I saw en entriega de novios. Not only was it well done but people in the party saw something of how it was done in the past. This is a reviving of cultural memory. Some of what we are--what we believe in--has a long history in Spain. The first corrido was written in 1060. Of course they were called romances. The corrido is very versatile. Rosita Alveres is a very old song written in 1910 and yet I still hear some of these songs New Mexico.  

WB: Talk about oral tradition. You include a lot of poetry in the book, which gives a broader sense of the depth of cultural expression.
AK: One of the chapters I didn’t want to write was the second chapter on the oral tradition. The more I got into it the more I appreciated it as a source of meaning. Dichos are highly developed social knowledge. Dr. Aurelio Espinoza from Stanford was collecting dichos, refranes in 1916. I see where they are republishing Dr. Sabine Ulibarri’s stories from Tierra Amarilla. I heard some guys doing hip hop in Spanish. This group was from Milwaukee. I thought at the time that the dicho could be used as a hip hop to teach kids value lessons. It would fit so nicely!  

I covered a lot of poetry that I found in a book by Drs. Anselmo Arrellano and Julian Vigil. It is an awesome collection of historical events. There are poems about people leaving Mora to go work as shepherds. One poem tells of the loneliness and brutal dry summer sheepherding in 1932 in Wyoming. Others tell of the 120 Combat Engineers on their way to go fight in Italy in WWII. One gets the sense of the meaning of these events. Additionally our oral tradition was used to provide grieving families with support. Andelica Gallegos would write these recuerdos for her neighbors in Taos.

WB: In the book you have a chapter on mortification. What does that mean and what is its implication in Hispano culture?
AK: We have to suspend what we believe or see in order to take a radical position toward the phenomena we are considering. It is called rendering reality strange (Natonson). I was talking in class one time about family violence. An older gentleman asked me, “Is that an example of mortificacion.”  Wow. It caused me to start an inquiry about mortification. It meant that this fellow was creating a hell for his Mexican-origin wife. She was using this word to describe what she was feeling. My folks used to say that my mentally ill sister was a mortification for them (Esta muchacha es pura mortificación, parece que nos pucieron una maldicion). Phenomenology attempts to get to the essence of a thing.  The essence of mortification is an experience of the death of a self, as an elderly couple in Questa said. “Junior’s drinking is pure mortificación for us.” They were saying that because of Junior’s drinking they couldn’t be parents to him, support him or give him counsel. They experienced this role as mortification. Schutz gave a nice idea by calling these experiences as typifications. Mrs. Benitez typified her situation as a mortificación. Hispanos have many typifications. I set out to document these typifications on a variety of everyday experiences. A woman dealing with a son-in-law who put a gun to her head experienced mortification. One cannot act in these situations. If one cannot act, meaning dies. This is mortification – a death of the self. This idea the basis of depression, as Ernest Becker taught us.

WB: Talk a little about the chapter having to do with shame, respect and joking around. I’ve been present when what started out as a joke turns into a shouting match.
AK: Carria is a joking exchange and part of the oral tradition. Every morning I hear it at the breakfast table when one of the guys gets ribbed about something he did of failed to do. It is not malicious just good natured ribbing. Carria comes from the carriles (chin straps) on soldiers’ helmets in Spain. Thus carria in a slap on the face. Sometimes these games become vicious. In most cases this goes on all the time where men are working. Cabula is also an insult only it is so abstract that the person getting it is not aware of being insulted. These are skilled philosophers plying their trade. One guy who sold rocks for a living took on an engineer. All of us caught the line he was playing out while the highly educated, credentialed engineer never got it. True cabulla. Face is what we present to the world, for others to uphold or deface. Face is also our cara. Face has a public and a private component. If the private part can be reached the face of the other can desecrate his or her value.  We have a name for such persons who disrespect. We call them descarado – literally without face or unable to handle the face or “line” the other has presented in the interaction. 

WB: What was the greatest challenge to writing the book? 
AK: I suppose the biggest problem was taking phenomenology and ethnomethodology as serious. I was trained in statistical and research methodology. Phen and ethno methods advocate  a different approach to research. They value the descriptive and the interpretive rather than the statistical, methodological based on the logical positivist.  Gertz, an anthropologist, called it thick description.   Some people have dismissed it as philosophy or irrelevant. Next would be the innumerable evaluations and re-writes. I’m sure there are bugs in the text. There were days which turned into weeks when I didn’t feel like writing. Dead spots of non-productivity when nothing productive or positive would occur. Writing is a solitary endeavor. One has to be a fanatic to write. I imagine it is the same problem in painting, or creating music.

WB: Did your research change your perceptions about how Hispano culture has evolved? 
AK: This is a difficult question to answer. This was not the goal of my studies. My aim was to look at typifications and attempt of consider issues of social interaction (inter-subjectivity), meaning (which is elusive), intentionality of consciousness, and other ideas from Existential Phenomenology and as found in the Encyclopedia of Phenomenology.  In short I also wanted to see how these ideas might be useful beyond the work of May and Becker. One of the ideas I added was the idea of a cultural history. 


Nosotros, A study of Everyday Meanings in Hispano New Mexico is available at Tome on the Range in Las Vegas, or at most online retailers. 

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