CHICANONAUTICA GETS BACK TO A TRANSMOGRIFIED WORLD

Chicanonautica is back from a road trip, and the world looks transmogrified, over at La Bloga.

It was another search for America:

With post-Apocalyptic scenes:

And utopian flashes:

That lead to transmogrification:

A NEW ERNESTO BOOK AVAILABLE!

Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song:15 Gonzo Science Fiction Stories, a collection of my stories, is available from Amazon now!

I have been talking about as Pancho Villa’s Flying Circus, but after my publisher commissioned urban artist, student of the arts of life, traveler, and pizza-lover, EkzaOne, AKA Daniel Illescas to do a fantastic cover painting, the other title worked better.

Buy and read it now, so you can say you were among the first.

THE JUBILEE NOW

As we hurdle into another election year, the term Civil War keeps popping up. It was used in explaining by the rebel Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy, the January 6 indictments, and the Speaker of the House fiasco. I saw this as my cue to get around to reading Bring the Jubilee, Ward Moore’s classic about a universe where the South won the War Between the States. Or should I say the War of Southron Independence? Maybe there would be some insights there.

There sure were.

I had to keep checking the publication date. 1953. This book was not inspired by our current political predicament. The Grand Army is not based on the Proud Boys. The echoes of the current opinions expressed by various characters come out of the amazing, incredibly detailed world building. And Moore, a Northerner, didn’t seem to have a political agenda. He was fascinated by how changing one small thing could change history, and the world.

And what changes! The twentieth century is steampunkish  (long before steampunk). There are air pistols and spring powered guns. Bicycles dominate the street and airships fill the sky.The North and South have not turned out as expected. 

Race relations are different: Popular opinion was unanimous for Negro emigration to Africa, voluntary or forced; those who went westward to join the unconquered Sioux or Nez Perce were looked upon as depraved. Any Negro who didnt embark for Liberia or Sierra Leone, regardless of whether he had the fare or not, deserved anything that happened to him in the United States.

Not to mention, the United States' economy sucks. And then there’s the international situation . . .

This alternate universe is presented in disturbing detail through the eyes of a historian.

There are nonwhite characters, but they’re more like well-developed characters for our era, rather than the stereotypes common in the1950s, when publishers and readers expected “Negroes” to speak in thick dialect, so they were “authentic.”

It’s all made more impressive by how it sheds light on the recent talk of a New Civil War. 

As a kid in the Sixties, I found it hard to believe that there were people who believed that the South should have won. Now I realized that it is not only true, but there are a lot of people would be happy to have the intellectual life of a medieval peasant. This book helps me deal with that disturbing reality.

It also demonstrates how fragile the course of history is, and how easily it can be changed. That gives me hope, but I do realize that the changes are hard to control, but then if you sit back, do nothing, and it gets worse, and you didn’t even try to affect it . . .  

There’s that old saying about those who don’t learn from history being doomed to repeat it. Expect to hear it a lot in the near future.

They should be teaching this book in the schools, what the hell, give them something else to ban . . .

CHICANONAUTICA REMEMBERS PALENQUE

 

Its about Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico, in Chicanonautica, at La Bloga.

It’s in the news:

My memories were triggered:

It was the home of a so-called ancient astronaut:

I was reminded of this story, which may be the future of Mexico:

STILL DOODLING IN MARGINS AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

I have a notebook as well as a sketchbook. I find myself keeping them separate because in my early days, when I was serious, struggling to become some kind of professional, people who seemed to know more told me, “You have to make up your mind.” The world where they make creativity into money doesn’t like it if you’re an artist and a writer, and if you do them both at the same time . . .

The desire to be a cartoonist isn’t something teachers like. Why don’t you do real art? Real writing, instead of all this sci-fi silliness?

For years I fought off the urge to be a renaissance Chicano, writing, and drawing on the same page, with the same tool, pencil, pen, or even crayon.

In the the happy rebellion of my school daze, doodling in the margins of the notebooks while taking notes in class, trying to commit and master the painful, unnatural act of being a student, I hijacked the educational materials and space to put some of what’s bubbling in my head into some viewable form.

My personal notebooks are where I organize my writer business. I make notes of daily progress, keep track of my simultaneous projects, jot down rough ideas. Serious stuff.

These days, I doodle in the margins of my notebooks.

Unlike what I do in my sketchbooks, these aren’t intended for public consumption. I’m not being a “professional” artist. Damn, it’s liberating.

It’s putting down the burden of art, the way the Maya speak of putting down the burden of time.

At the same time, I find myself reconnecting with drawing, the act of making a mess with some kind of tool, putting the magic in my mind on a flat surface.

In the end, it makes me a better artist–whateverthehell that is.

Sometimes I take pictures of these doodles. Some of them are pretty good. Maybe they’ll somehow make their way into my Work.

CHICANONAUTICA CATCHES PANDEMIC NOSTALGIA FROM GÓMEZ-PEÑA’S MEX FILES

Chicanonautica gets infected at La Bloga:

It’s Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s fault:

Borders mean nothing:

Everything’s performance:

 

See the past, welcome to the future:

 

SCENES FROM MY NEGLECTED SKETCHBOOK

To my shame, I’ve been neglecting my sketchbook lately. It’s not any kind of “creative block”—I’ve just been busy. It’s been that kind of year.

Once upon a time my sketchbook was the main outlet for my runaway creativity. My brain would have exploded with it, but unfortunately, I attained a peculiar form of success with my writing. It demands a lot of my time, so I tend to focus on it. Also, there’s making a living and all that other stuff.

If only I spent more time drawing, I would be a better artist. As things are, I consider myself pretty good, but my skills have a hard time keeping up with my imagination. What I see in my head outshines what I manage to nail to the paper.

It frustrates me.

Another reason I should draw more is the effect it has on my brain. It’s like exercise, food and medicine. I feel and function so much better if I’ve been drawing.

So, I try to keep at it. I keep a small sketchbook on a shelf next to the bed, open to a drawing, usually an unfinished one. I stare at it hoping to get the creative juices sloshing.

What keeps me from getting down and funky with it is that I’m usually busy or just too tired. Also, I get distracted.

I try to make some spontaneous scribbling that I make into a surrealistic composition and part of a morning routine. Too bad my schedule is so wacky. 

Also, I keep having to get up early to rush off and do something.

In a more civilized world, I would get up late and do a slow wake up/breakfast ritual that would last until almost noon. 

Maybe after I retire from the day job . . .

Meanwhile, I’ll be going on another road trip soon. In the back of my sketchbook, I'll take notes for my travelogues. Lately, I've been doing my damnedest to do quick sketches in those notes. It could help.

Someday, I’d like to be a crazy, prolific sketchbook guy again.

Yup, I’m a mad dreamer to the end.

CHICANONAUTICA GOES BACK TO THE UNITED STATES OF ARIZONA

Chicanonautica returns to United States of Arizona, at La Bloga.

It’s a place people keep coming to:

And others want to keep people out:

At any cost:

And La Cultura is being deconstructed:

CREATIVITY AND ME

Unlike a lot of my fellow “creatives” or “creators” (I hate those terms, so pretentious . . . I miss the days when they just called us weirdos) I have no trouble getting down to the business of creativity. No meditative warm-up rituals for me. I just do it. All the time. I even do it in my sleep.

Creativity seems to be my brain’s default setting.

I have no idea how this happened. I don’t remember being any other way. I don’t know how to be any other way. 

Maybe it was because I was the first child of my family’s rock and roll generation. No kids to play with in my toddler years. Just me in a world of big people, talking to a lot of imaginary friends who I no longer remember.

See? Leave me alone and I get creative. It’s a bad habit I got into early. I don’t advise it as a child-rearing or education strategy. Messed up in my socialization, that I’m still working on.

 

 

I’m doing it constantly. The only times I get bored when getting along with society (y’know, school, work, and all that) I’m forced to kick myself out of the creative mind state with its interior monologue and spontaneous daydream scenarios and put the bulk of my brain’s power on all this boring shit that people pay you for or get mad at you if you don’t go along with. I understand that a lot of you live that way. 

My greatest nightmare is to get stuck there.

Lucky for me, I keep sliding back to my home sweet home in the back of my twisted brain.

The trick is to somehow plug this into a way to make a living. That’s another thing I’m still working on.

Maybe I can pull it off before I retire from the day job. Maybe my story collection Pancho Villa’s Flying Circus & Other Fictions will be a bestseller and make me rich. Maybe the same will happen with my (as of yet unsold) novel Zyx; Or, Bring Me the Brain of Victor Theremin. Wouldn’t it be great if it happened with both of them?

(See how I managed to work a plug into this piece? Always strive to be a professional.)

Meanwhile, I keep my eyes and other sensory apparati wide open, scanning my environment for interesting input–there’s nothing deadlier than a bland, orderly environment.

Nuke the suburbs!

Naw, that’s probably going too far. Beside suburbs decay from the brainpans out, breeding their own brand of creeping weirdness.

“I need to be inspired!” The wannabes whine.

I just scan around, see things like the mummified tarantula that my wife brought home. It’s a male, you can tell because of the small abdomen. I imagine a tarantula version of Playboy full of sexy pictures of females with large, sexy abdomens. I wonder what Amazonian-style roast tarantula tastes like, and could it someday be a kind of fast food . . .

That’s the easy part. Maybe someday these things will show up in a story or some other creative production.

It’s a shame this doesn’t bring me more money.

CHICANONAUTICA PONDERS BHARAT, AZTLÁN, AND OTHER PLACES REAL AND IMAGINARY

Chicanonautica is about places and names, over at
La Bloga.

Like Bharat:

Also known as India:

Shades of Aztlán:

And what about Martians?