CHICANONAUTICA FINDS LA VIRGEN MORENA ONLINE

See La Virgen Morena, in Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga.

In case you don't know about her:

The movie features Abel Salazar as an Aztec:

And Alfonzo Bedoya:

And has sci-fi-ish look:

THE GIFT OF ERNESTO RIDES AGAIN

Here we go again, Cyber Monday. The season of the gift is once more upon us. Where did this year go? Anyway, while you're busy spending money and getting the economy started again, let me offer some Ernesto products for your consideration:

All three of my novels are available as ebooks from the Kindle store, and Smashwords:

High Aztech, a merry romp with mind-altering viruses in a Mexico City where Aztec religion is all the rage.

Smoking Mirror Blues, in which a cyberresurrected Tezcatlipoca goes berzerk in a futuristic Hollywood.

Cortez on Jupiter, about a Chicano graffiti artist who makes his way from the barrio to the stars!

I've also got stories in three new anthologies:

“Novaheads,” where my cyberpunk luchador, Steelsnake, takes on the dealer of a weaponized chili drug, in Super Stories of Heroes and Villains edited by Claude Lalumiìère.

“Pancho Villa's Flying Circus,” a rip-roaring tale of death rays, airships, and revolution in We See a Different Frontier: A Postcolonial Speculative Fiction Anthology edited by Fabio Fernandes and Djibfil al-Ayad.

“Skin Dragons Talk,” a laser-edged swashbuckler on a Moon colony run by yakuza in Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond edited by Bill Campbell and Edward Austin Hall.

Other stories in other anthologies and magazines can be found on my Amazon Author Page.

Wait 'til you see what I've got coming at you in the new year!

CHICANONAUTICA REVIEWS THE INVENTION OF MOREL

Or at least I give it a good try in Chicanonautica over at La Bloga.

Meanwhile here some other versions. This one deliberately going for abstract:

Another, short sweet, and using some of the original narrative:

One that actually looks sci-fi:

The Invention of Morel, Pages 89-91, excerpts from Becky James / Meredith James on Vimeo.

There's even an emo song:

CHICANONAUTICA HEARS NAHUATL IN PRISON

Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga, reports on Nahuatl in prison, and a bad law enforcement attitude.

Greetings!

The Mexica Movement has something to say:

It's even made the news:

What about rock en Nahuatl?

Just in case this all becomes illegal:

THE ERNESTO SMASHWORDS INTERVIEW

My latest interview is up at Smashwords. Find out things about my mysterious past, current projects, and what I like to read. Get clues as to how I got this way. Heh-heh!

DISNEY, DINOSAURS, KING TUT, AND GRANDPA HOGAN

Memories . . . they tend to fade. You never know what will bring them back. And when they do, it can be hard to document them, make them history. Sometimes you have just let them become legend . . .

Like when I was watching Disney's Fantasia with Emily not long ago. We were enjoying the Stravinsky Rite of Spring sequence, the one with the dinosaurs, and memories floated up out of the murky recesses of my brain:

It was of my paternal grandfather, Grandpa Hogan. He did art projects for the WPA during the Great Depression, drew the California missions, and told of “going to the museum to draw prehistoric animals for Walt Disney.”

The timeline puts it about right – there's a possibility that the Fantasia dinosaurs were based on drawings he did!

Luckily, I asked my Aunt Teri:

I remember the stories! The same way you mentioned them. I always thought the same about the Fantasia dinosaurs. I remember him telling us that the work was temp and Disney offered him a permanent position at lower pay than another offer he got, and he took the better offer. Said he had no idea that Disney studios would become so successful.

Did he have any professional art training?












No. He just loved it. I do remember him saying that his mother kept the kitchen table covered with an oilcloth table cloth. You know the kind that had a plastic-like top and a soft cloth underside. My grandfather used to flip the cloth edge up and sketch while he drank a beer after dinner. Your Grandpa said he would keep moving around the table and sketching the underside of the cloth until it was full and then Abuelita would get a new one. This after-dinner activity was something both your Grandpa and his dad did. Art runs in the family. Your grandpa said that his dad sketched mostly wild west art and often some renderings of the old L.A. streetcars, he was a conductor on one.

What other education did he have?

He graduated from Montebello High School. I'm not sure what year but I think it was around 1929 or 30 maybe a year or two later. He was on the gymnastics team! He did relate a story of one of his teachers, a Mr. Carter, who was the brother of Howard Carter who discovered King Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt. Grandpa said his teacher brought letters to class that he read from his brother, Howard, while the actual dig was going on. This will give you an idea of the time period.

History reached out and touched Grandpa Hogan, all the way from ancient Egypt!

There's no documentation. The Hogans have never been big on documentation. Grandpa used to say he didn't have a birth certificate because “the church burned down.”

So like in John Ford's The Man who Shot Liberty Valance:

“This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

Print the Legend
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance — MOVIECLIPS.com

CHICANONAUTICA ON THE MOTHERSHIP

The latest Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga is an announcement of the new anthology Motheship: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond, that includes my story, “Skin Dragons Talk.”

It used to be, that outer space, technology, and the future were consider white things:

These days, things are different:

And, Sun Ra was way ahead of everybody on this:

I've said that Miles Davis may have invented cyberpunk with On the Corner. It also makes a great Afrofuturist soundtrack:

BRAINPAN FALLOUT REFUSES TO DIE

Last week, Søren Heinecke informed me that when he tried the links here at Mondo Ernesto to reread Brainpan Fallout – they were dead. LaSilencia.com with its archived material from The Red Dog Journal were gone. How was I going to prove that Brainpan, and all the craziness connected to it, ever happened?

I tried Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, but it was down for repairs!

Luckily, in a few hours it was back, and I found new links that can get you to the original Red Dog Journal version of Brainpan Fallout, complete with all the original typos and mistakes, and the fun, between-the-chapters self-promotional stuff. Get glimpses of my personal life! Find out about the neobohemian scene in Phoenix back in the Nineties!

Just to make it easier for you, here's the links to the Introduction, Part One, Part Two, and Part Three, as they original appeared through the pre-World Wide Web, FaxMo network, in the coffee house giveaway zine, and the original Red Dog website. Have fun!

It's all got me seriously thinking about putting the complete, annotated Brainpan Fallout out as an ebook. Who knows? The world may finally be ready for it.

If not, what the hell, it probably needs the shock therapy.

Thanks to Paul Riddell, Kevin Mcveigh, Richard Palmer, Alex Jay Berman, and again, Søren Heinecke for their interest.

CHICANONAUTICA REVIEWS AFRO-6

This time in Chicanonautica, at La Bloga, I review Hank Lopez's Afro-6, considered to be the first science fiction novel by a Chicano.

It was published back in 1969. It was a different world. Men went to the Moon:

Back on Earth, all kinds of things were happening:

Sam Greenlee's The Spook Who Sat by the Door was eventually made into a movie:

And let's not forget Ruben Salazar:

A SPECIAL PRE-DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS MESSAGE

Awk! October already? And I see Tezcatlipoca has been on the job, throwing the world into chaos. He even dropped in and did a number on my life the other day. What a god! With him around, we'll never have to worry about the human race dying off from mass boredom.

It also means Día de los Muertos is coming. And, if we include Halloween in the three-day Dead Daze fiesta, like I did in my novel Smoking Mirror Blues, it's coming fast, maybe too fast.

Meanwhile, this is the perfect time of year to read (or reread) Smoking Mirror Blues to get ready for both Halloween and los Días!

If you don't already have a copy, you can buy the Kindle edition from Amazon, where they're also offering the original trade paperback at prices from $120.00 to $186.75!

Luckily, the publisher, Wordcraft of Oregon is still offering it for $12. (Scroll about halfway down the page.)

If you have an other-than-Kindle ereader, you can buy it from from Smashwords in a variety of formats, and even read a free sample online!

So get with it. Read about Tezcatlipoca before he pops up in your life for real.