The 1985 Mexico City earthquake: an excerpt from "Shooter"
Shooter: Network slang for a cameraman
A book in progress by Bob Dutru
Being a "shooter" was "A Job" that kept me nervous, excited, slightly off balance most of the time; kept my adrenaline pumping...
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Breaking Even by Alejandro Grattan-Dominguez
"What Val saw as his long period of involuntary servitude was about to come to an end. In the prison movie parlance he liked to affect, he had done his 'hard time.' He had finally reached his eighteenth birthday, and Texas law entitled him to make his own decisions now." The time is 1955. Val has just graduated from high school - although barely. He's finally free to escape the tiny Texas town of Big Bend, which he detests, and go off to California. Val's mother, Guadalupe, is Mexican and his father, who has long since flown the coop, is Anglo, which at least makes Val part Mexican.
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Telenovelas - My Secret Obsession
I have another confession: I don't speak a word of Spanish.
Bare of make-up, the only discoloration in her olive skin is the hint of a moustache over her upper lip. Thick ey...
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Did you know? Anglo vs. Mexican sayings
Anglo and Mexican sayings are often subtly different.
For starters, consider your pet cat. In Canada or the U.S., cats are considered to have nine lives; in Mexico, however, cats only have seven ...
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Midlife Mavericks: my first book on Mexico
Whatever it is, it's been three years in incubation. Over the course of these years I've often mentioned my book, my interviewees, my agent, my excitement and my depression over the labor of my first n...
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Only Once In A Lifetime - A Novel by Alejandro Grattan
During the late 1970s, the first major Hispanic motion picture, Only Once in a Lifetime, premiered in Texas at the San Antonio Film Festival. The reaction was, according to the city s largest newspaper...
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The Stuff Of Dreams By Alejandro Grattan
Alejandro Grattan's latest novel is a rip-roaring adventure tale which swiftly takes the reader from the bright lights of Hollywood to the mysterious jungles of the Yucatan. The book is filled with int...
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Carl Franz on learning Spanish
Spanish is the world's second language. According to many people who do not speak it, Spanish is also a very "easy" language to learn. For example, I recently met a young Danish traveler in northern Me...
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Burying Eula - A Day Of The Dead Story
Eula died during the rainy season, when the earth is soft and moist and a grave is easy to dig. Esperanza said that the damp weather was hard on the ancianos, and indeed, in those months, many a house in town bore over its gate the black ribbon which in central Mexico signifies a death in the household.
read moreLegends and lore of Oaxaca: A man named Crecencio
A strange force descended upon Crecencio, giving him a supernatural power.
read moreThe Lake Chapala artistic and literary scene in the 1960s and early 1970s
Lake Chapala’s literary and artistic reputation was enhanced in the 1930s, '40s and '50s by a long string of visiting writers and artists. Here is a brief alphabetical listing of some of the stalwarts of the Lake Chapala art and literary scene in the 1960s and early 1970s.
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