Santiago!

Indigenous peoples of Latin America -- and its former outposts now part of the United States of American (Goddamn) -- are understandably leery of the term "Santiago!" since it was what the Spanish Conquistadors shouted out as they commenced one of their periodic massacre/slaughters of the Indians. Santiago is St. James, the patron saint of Spain and the saint under whose blessing it was believed the conquest took place, took root, and succeeded.

So. Hundreds of years go by, a raza in the Americas is created of an amalgam of Indio and Spanish ancestors, and the name Santiago is distributed like honey candy throughout the Spanish speaking population. The name may or may not inspire dread any more, depending not so much on the collective past but on the individual present.

"Jimmy" Santiago Baca, born of Santa Fe, reared in Estancia, Albuquerque and the Arizona State Prison at Florence, is one of those Santiagos you can't be quite sure of. He must have been a holy terror in his mad, wild youth, but then something happened in jail forty years ago that changed him forever. He stole a book, he said, from the desk of an Anglo woman intake worker at the Albuquerque jail who was laughing at a poor drunken Indian getting beat up by guards. He said he wanted to hurt her, and the only thing he could do at that moment was take her book with the intention of burning it once he got back to his cell.

He was functionally illiterate, but he could read enough that he could puzzle out some of the words on the pages he was burning, and those words opened another world to him, as if by some magic, and they worked their way in, until he was able to work his own words out.

"Jimmy" Santiago Baca became a poet, a nationally renown poet while he was still in prison in Arizona. He was released eventually in part because he was nationally renown and a poet of great substance, a Chicano poet at a time when that was the new and coming thing. José Montoya, also from New Mexico, up in the hills above Estancia, had pioneered the Chicano literature movement a few years before, and Santiago was able to ride the wave. It's been a good run.

So. Daniel Glick, the movie's director from New York, told me last night that some years ago he visited a prisoner at Auburn State Prison in Upstate New York, and that he was quite horrified and moved by the experience, vowing one day to make a film about American prisons, and the fellow he went to visit, a guy named Tommy, told him that if he wanted to do that he should read "A Place to Stand," by Jimmy Santiago Baca, before he did anything else.

Daniel read it and said he was "blown away." Instead of a movie about prisons per se, he made a movie based on "A Place to Stand" -- and Jimmy Santiago Baca. The movie, titled "A Place to Stand", premiered in Santa Fe on Friday. We went to see it on Saturday afternoon, since the premiere was sold out by the time we found out about it, and they didn't even have room for standing in the back by the time I called up for tickets.

The film was remarkable. The picture is excellent, really one of the finest personal documentaries I've seen, and Jimmy (or Santiago) and Daniel are moving spokesmen for it. (Jimmy's son, Gabriel, the producer of the picture, was supposed to be there, but he didn't make it -- he was "working," doing what they didn't say, but he was too busy to sit and chat with the audience on Saturday).

Jimmy and Daniel spoke after the picture was shown on Saturday to a mostly elderly, mostly Anglo matinee crowd (yeah, well...), answering questions and making passionate statements about... language. For it was through language and its use that Jimmy found his way out of hell and he has committed his life to sharing with others, particularly those who are behind bars in this most incarcerated of nations, what he did and what they can do if they learn to use language -- as opposed, say, to violence -- to express their deepest being, their souls, their presence, and they learn to love themselves.

Jimmy Santiago Baca is a powerful poet, there is no mistaking that. As he and Daniel Glick went on at some length about language and its power, I was quite taken with the fact that Jimmy Santiago Baca writes almost entirely in English -- with some admixture of prison Spanglish for authenticity's sake -- though as far as I could tell, his first language was Spanish.

Well, no. His first language -- he said -- was silence.

So far as I know, he doesn't use Spanish in his work except as a kind of decoration, a finish or a fillip, though he knows the language and speaks it well enough. I could be wrong about that, but for a Chicano poet, the near-absence of the Spanish language in his work -- or at least in most of it -- is striking. But then given the nature of some of the stories he tells,  it is understandable and forgivable.

Language is indisputably key, but... what language?

During the "Shedding Skin" symposium at the Museum of Contemporary Native Art last weekend, one of the speakers brought up the problem of translation in the context of indigenous art, not the lack of work and brilliance and what have you, but the lack of translators and translations, which had the effect of limiting communications and interchange across national and cultural lines, especially for indigenous peoples who speak such a multiplicity of mutually unintelligible languages and who work in styles and with techniques not known beyond their immediate societies. True enough.

Unless you are in the right place at the right time -- with the right kind of translation -- you may well remain ignorant of something you might otherwise be moved by, something that could in fact be life-changing.

I think, too, of Virgil Ortiz and his Translator character in his themed work -- including video -- dealing with the 1680 Pueblo Revolt against the Spanish in New Mexico. Translator, says Virgil, is the commander of the Rebels in a 2180 version of the Pueblo Revolt. But why is he called "Translator?" I don't know, maybe I'm not meant to know.

Jimmy primarily uses English. Many others are dedicated to communicating in English when another language -- if translated properly -- might be more effective. But that's often the problem. Where are the translators, and how do you translate effectively? Originating the work in English is the simpler course, isn't it? Or originating it in Spanish -- or maybe Portuguese -- if you're in Latin America...

Except this is the definition of "colonialism". In order to communicate to the widest number -- or at all -- it is necessary for the colonized (not the colonizer) to abandon their native tongue or a different colonial-imposed tongue and use the language of the latest conqueror and colonizer in order to be heard and understood by the widest number or at all.

I'm struck, almost dumbfounded, by the implications. And I'm very conflicted about it.

I find Jimmy Santiago Baca's poetry remarkable and effective in ways that I'm coming now to appreciate fully. I've been aware of him, of Chicano literature, of the movement he's part of and many of the participants for many years. You don't live the kind of life I have and where I have and not be aware. But being aware can also mean "taking for granted." Like an acquaintance. You know them to say hello or share a few moments with, but not intimately, and your knowledge isn't the grounding of your own existence.

I can come to appreciate his work more fully because most of it is in English. If he were writing in Spanish, it would be more difficult for me. Much more difficult, but I know too, that were he writing in Spanish, I'd be able to muddle through it or most of it, and come to a different appreciation. This is how languages work for me. When I read or hear in Spanish or French, the two foreign languages I can get by in best (though not well enough in either), I hear or read a different deeper meaning than I would in translation. That's just the way language works -- at least for me.

So... in the end, much as I appreciate Jimmy Santiago Baca's work, and much as I am learning to appreciate it more, I might see it quite differently if he were writing in Spanish rather than English.

I will probably have more to say about this issue of language once we return from this afternoon's performance of "When the Stars Trembled in Rio Puerco" -- which is written and performed in both English and Spanish, New Mexico Spanish, though, which is not the same as most Spanish spoken in North America, but which is distinctive and sometimes difficult for me to comprehend because of its unique idioms and anachronisms, many of which I haven't learned yet.

Santiago!  Indeed.

A Rucksack Revolution

First Page, "Dharma Bums" Manuscript

Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac read by Allen Ginsberg from Sal Paradise on Myspace.

My man Jack Kerouac let it be known back in the 1950s -- 1958 I think it was -- that when the Revolution comes, it will come via a cohort of Rucksack Revolutionaries:

See the whole thing is a world full of rucksack wanderers, Dharma Bums refusing to subscribe to the general demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consuming, all that crap they didn’t really want anyway such as refrigerators, TV sets, cars, and general junk you finally always see a week later in the garbage anyway, all of them imprisoned in a system of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume, I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of ‘em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures.

Except my man himself is quoting here, quoting a character in "The Dharma Bums" named Japhy Ryder (a fictionalized version of American man of letters Gary Snyder of Mt Aukum and Bixby Canyon and so on and so forth) who is predicting the surreal events of a Revolution yet to come some years down the road. And so it does.

It does and then something happens to it, to the Rucksack Revolutionaries, who, like Gary Snyder, or like Japhy Ryder, become tamed somehow and take up their positions of honor, trust and majesty, with their awards and sinecures and their hail-fellows. They continue on their Way, to be sure, but they no longer know or practice revolution, rucksack or otherwise. Their dharma caught up with them.

Can't say when I first read Kerouac, but I was pre-teen, 12 maybe even younger. "The Dharma Bums" was first, and it left a huge impression on me, more even than "The Catcher in the Rye" would when I read it later. I remember reading "Dharma Bums," then "On the Road," and finally, when I was about 14, "Big Sur", devouring them really wondering what would come next, and how could anyone write like that?

Now I wonder why no one writes that way any more.

Of course, Kerouac was fucked up on liquor and drugs, a basket case, dead well before his time, aged 47, in 1969.

His later output could not match the three exquisite novels I read when I was barely an adolescent. At least for me his later stuff didn't. Others may disagree.

I know I have a copy of "Big Sur" here at the house somewhere, I remember packing it -- probably in a box out in one of the sheds -- but I doubt I have copies of either "Dharma Bums" or "On the Road" any more.

I find things now and then, though, so maybe if I dig around enough, I'll find them. You never know.

In the meantime, there's a Dharma Bum Temple in San Diego, and for those more Catholic-ly inclined -- we must recall Jack Kerouac was Catholic and never left the faith -- there is the San Juan Diego Friary in Albuquerque which seems so similar in so many ways...

To Kill A Mockingbird at Albuquerque Little Theatre

"Don't you say 'Hey' to me, you ugly girl." -- Mrs. Dubose, "To Kill A Mockingbird"

During the course of events, Jean Louise Finch points out that "baby steps" are being taken toward the future in the South, and the story of Tom Robinson is -- as tragic as it is -- one small step toward redemption.

We saw Albuquerque Little Theatre/Mother Road Theatre Company production of Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" (adapted for the stage by Christopher Sergel) on Easter Sunday, and somehow it apropos for the season and for the day.

I've been pondering the production and its many strengths and flaws ever since.

The story is one of the iconic stories of the South, as strong as any that has come out of that hotbed of literary ferment. The Pulitzer Prize winning novel was published in 1960, the extraordinary motion picture from which the clip above was taken premiered in 1962. Ever since, "To Kill A Mockingbird" has been a perennial favorite of readers, theater-goers and movie fans around the world.

We've seen "To Kill A Mockingbird" once before on stage, at the Nevada Theatre in Nevada City, California, perhaps 20 years ago. It was a not particularly memorable experience for me for a number of reasons that had little to do with the production itself. Unfortunately, I remember so little of it, I can't use it as a comparison.


Albuquerque Little Theatre is an institution in the Duke City, one of the foundational theater companies in town -- if not actually the first community theater in Albuquerque (accounts vary) -- celebrating its 84th season this year. I've been involved with some of these historical community theaters over the years, and while I have a great deal of respect for them, they tend to become encrusted with... well, let's call it tradition which they can't break from without somehow destroying their essence.

I blame it on Eva Le Gallienne who founded the Civic Repertory Theatre in New York in 1924 (or thereabouts) thus triggering the notion of Civic Theaters -- as community based theatrical and cultural institutions -- throughout this great land of ours. The Civic Theater idea is clearly still alive in Albuquerque, for which I'd say 'Burqueños can be both grateful and a mite miffed. The strength of the City's Civic Theater, ALT, has meant that professional theater has had a somewhat lower profile than it might otherwise have had -- especially given the remarkably active and vibrant screen and television production schedules in the region. Consequently, in New Mexico, while I'm aware of a few professional theaters (or maybe just one company that performs in many venues), most of the professional actors and directors work on stage under the community/civic theater concept.

Albuquerque Little Theatre performs in an iconic building designed by New Mexico's premiere architect, John Gaw Meem, and built by the WPA in 1935, opening in 1936. It was, they say, the first WPA project in Albuquerque, and I must say that despite its significant age (and only slight remodeling over the years, slight but not very judicious), it's quite a handsome and comfortable performance venue all things considered. I will have more to say about the staging of the play, however, which indicates the director didn't take into consideration all the limitations of the hall...

The stunning historical-deco mural painted on the entrance front of the building by Dorothy Stewart is no longer visible due to one of those injudicious remodelings. I imagine that given the fact that the mural depicts a battle between Christians and Moors derived from a New Mexican play of ancient date, it was considered at one time to be a dubious depiction from a culturally sensitive perspective and was covered up. I think I read somewhere that it was actually destroyed, but I can't be certain any more...

At any rate, the building is surprisingly large (Albuquerque was quite a small town in 1935), and commodious. It looked to me like the capacity was close to four or five hundred what with the balcony and all, and Easter Sunday it was nearly full.  Our seats were on the far house right, fifth row, which presented some sightline challenges, as it meant that nothing that happened at the Finch house door or very much of what happened on the Finch porch was visible to my own self. This is something that could have been easily corrected, and in my view should have been, as the Finch porch and front door are some of the key locations of the play. To stage the play so that what happens there is invisible to any significant portion of the audience -- or to any of the audience at all -- is an indication that neither the director nor the set designer checked the sightlines of the house, and to me that is a major fault. The easy correction is to angle the Finch house porch and front door more toward the center of the stage (there appeared to be ample room on the setting to do so) and to have any cast members who perform on the Finch porch or at their front door cheat toward the center of the stage. Any number of alternative locations for the Finch place were possible on the stage as well...

More problematical, however, was the fact that the children were barely comprehensible through pretty much all of the play. If one was not already familiar with the story, one would be hard-pressed to understand much of what the children were seeing and learning, let alone what they were saying.

The three main child performers (Mackenzie L. Jarrell playing Scout Finch, Traeton Pucket playing her brother Jem, and Logan Smith playing their friend Dill, on summer vacation from his home in Meridian, Mississippi) were really quite good in that they knew their lines and staging perfectly, and they appeared to have good handles on their characters and an understanding of the play itself. The problem was that they were using Southern accents that were not natural to them, and their accents destroyed their diction to the point where what came out of their mouths was mostly mush, well chewed to be sure, but not identifiable as any known language.

The fact that apparently no one involved with the production noticed that the children could not be understood, and no one intervened to correct their diction -- or to have them drop the accent -- is almost beyond belief and makes me wonder if the principals were paying attention during rehearsals and the run to date.

If one knows the story, I suppose it's not such a great loss if the dialogue between the children and between the children and the adults is mostly lost. And for those who don't know the story, the narration of the grown up Jean Louise Finch (played by Mother Road Artistic Director Julia Thudium) fills in some of the missing pieces, but I, for one, was appalled that every time the children opened their mouths, 90% or so of their lines were lost. Both the sightline problems and the children's hideous diction are basic issues that should have been resolved in rehearsal. The production, after all, was cast last year, and there's been more than enough time to deal with these matters.

The diction problem was particularly curious given the fact that Atticus Finch, father to Scout and Jem, though no relation to Dill, did not have a Southern accent at all.  No, he did not, and he didn't need one. The issue is not the way the Finches talk -- although note is made during Tom Robinson's trial that Atticus does not speak the way the Ewells do nor the way many of the townspeople do. That is part of his character, after all, though his speech pattern and accent are not the issue. Seems to me that if Atticus doesn't have an accent, his children wouldn't necessarily have one, either. Given the fact that the children performing in the main roles were not accustomed to using a Southern accent I would have simply dropped their use of an accent so as to enable their lines to be understood by the audience.

Overall, the staging was serviceable but somewhat pedestrian in that the cast tended to line up to converse or declaim. The size of the stage actually permitted a good deal more varied blocking which could have been used to some interesting and varied effects (so long as those sightlines were kept in mind!)

The only other questionable aspect I would point to is that the actor playing Atticus (Christopher Atwood) tended to overplay rather than underplay his scenes, especially the trial scenes, and too often, he seemed to be rushing his lines rather than letting them play out and giving the audience an opportunity for the import of what he's saying to sink in. Taking a beat here and there for emphasis could really have helped, and lowering rather than raising his voice could have helped even more. I realize the size of the place may have been a primary consideration in how 'Big' the actors played their parts, but still... Harper Lee makes quite clear that Atticus's "way" was to soften rather than to raise his voice and to speak slowly and clearly rather than to rush.

The other actors -- especially Hakim Bellamy as Tom Robinson, and Yvonne Mangrum as Calpurnia -- did what I thought were outstanding jobs. Hakim Bellamy is Albuquerque's poet laureate who's apparently done quite a bit of acting, but this was the first time we'd seen him onstage. He was close to perfect in the role. Yvonne Mangrum also has an extensive stage and film resume, and it showed in her strength and assurance in the role of the Finch household's necessary and trusted servant.

What we saw, all in all, was well done and for the most part it was satisfying.

 That's one of the things about theater: the production can have all kinds of faults and yet still be an effective drama that moves an audience. And so it was with the Albuquerque Little Theatre's/Mother Road's "To Kill A Mockingbird."

I suppose one of the most remarkable things about it is that the story is as iconic a Southern story as has ever been written, and it celebrates "baby steps" of progress... But think about that "progress". The setting is rural Alabama, 1935. A "Negro boy," Tom Robinson -- who is married, with three children -- is accused of "crime" against a white woman, actually a teenaged girl, Mayella Ewell. The "good citizens" of the town (ie: white men) want him lynched and they try to accomplish that end, but Atticus Finch, Robinson's lawyer, and Atticus's daughter Scout prevent it. There is an actual trial of Tom Robinson -- which Atticus knows he will lose and says so. There was no way at the time for a jury -- an all white and all male jury, let it be known -- in the South to acquit a Negro of a "crime" against a white woman, no matter the facts and truth. Atticus's goal is not so much the acquittal of Tom Robinson, which he knows he cannot secure, but he vows that no matter what else happens, the truth will be known. He knows Tom Robinson is innocent without question. Atticus makes known the truth of his innocence at the trial.

Tom Robinson still must die, of course, for there is no way to gain his freedom in the South as it was, and he is shot while trying to escape from the prison farm while awaiting an appeal, an appeal which he knows he cannot win.

So what, exactly, are the "baby steps" here?

That Tom Robinson got a trial at all? That a prominent white attorney represented him? That an appeal of his conviction was lodged? That some white children learned to "wear another's skin?" Or that the truth was told in open court about what happened to Mayella Ewell -- that she had expressed her gratitude and even love to a black man, and that her father had been the one who beat and molested her?

Perhaps all of them together amounted to the "baby steps" Harper Lee was writing about. By 1935, lynching in this country was starting to fade out. In the South, it was largely due to activist (white) women engaged in anti-lynching crusades, town by town, person by person. By that time, thousands and thousands of Negroes had been lynched for crimes real and imagined, in a brutal terror campaign that had long sullied the reputation of the Solid South. Southern culture and peculiar ways? Well, if you want to call it that. But lynching was by no means confined to the South and its victims were by no means all black.

Lynching was a mob reaction common through much of the country and through much of its history. Practically anyone whose status was low enough could become a victim of lynch mobs, no matter where they lived or what their race.

It took herculean effort to overcome the mob reaction that led to lynching, and even now, it's far from extinct, though it is much more sublimated.

Tom Robinson stands for so many men and women -- and children, yes, children -- who were so cruelly used and died during the hey-day of Lynch-law in this country. We're still a long way from the ideals of dignity and justice that Tom and Atticus stand for and that Scout and Jem and Dill begin to learn during the course of the play.

But look how far we've come... and it is still a sin to kill a mockingbird.

[Atticus] would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning. -- last line of Harper Lee's novel...