Love, Lust, and Magic in Colonial New Mexico

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THE BRUJO’S WAY (2013)

Gerald McFarland¹

Sunstone Press, 310 pp.  ISBN: 978-086534995

* * * *

Gerry McFarland merges academia and imagination. Before his retirement, McFarland taught courses in the American West at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, research he brings to bear in his debut novel. He’s published four academic tomes and scores of academic articles and reviews. Those familiar with scholarly writing will want to know whether he can crawl down from the ivory tower and write for the masses. The answer is yes. In fact, one of my few criticisms is that sometimes he’s guilty of a bit too much middlebrow sentiment.

This is the first of a planned trilogy on Don Carlos Buenaventura, a brujo (sorcerer). The novel opens in Mexico City in the year 1684, when our protagonist is a 19-year-old son of Spanish nobility. Actually, only Don Carlos is 19; his body hosts a sixth-generation brujo. Think Star Trek’s Trills, a joined species in which symbiants inhabit new bodies when the old one dies. Like Trills, a brujo has dual consciousness; he or she has the collective memories of past lives, yet experiences the yearnings, thoughts, musings, and sensations of the host. Unlike Trills, a brujo’s past memories, skills, and lessons are hazy, must be rediscovered, and can only accessed when consciously overcoming mortal temptations such as sexual desire, materialism, bodily comfort, status concerns, and other plebian distractions. This is a struggle for Don Carlos, who has grown up with elite privileges and is used to getting what he wants. He also has a decided weakness for, and considerable success with, pretty women.

Don Carlos’ life takes a turn when his father dies and his mother remarries. In a gendered twist on Cinderella, Don Carlos finds himself under the cruel tutelage (and possible inheritance-squandering behavior) of his stepfather. His stepfather’s tyranny encourages Don Carlos to set off on the Camino Real (Royal Road) toward Santa Fe, then a remote Spanish outpost surrounded by hostile Native tribes–not all of whom were pacified by the 1680 Pueblo Revolt that nearly eliminated Spanish rule from vast sections of today’s American Southwest. There are other dangers as well. Don Carlos is a brujo of the Sun Moiety whose motto is “Do no Harm,” but sorcerers of his ilk are outnumbered by malevolent Moon Moiety brujos that inconveniently show up. Moreover, brujos good or bad had to hide their identities because the Spanish Inquisition made its way to Mexico in 1569 and lasted into 1700. A brujo would certainly be considered a witch, and at least 50 people were executed as such.

Don Carlos learns to recover some of his magical powers, though he struggles to control his sexual lust. He meets and romances numerous women, including a married woman who introduces him to Tantric sex, and another who transforms from fencing partner to romantic interest, though she too might be married and there may something even more sinister afoot. Don Carlos thrives in New Mexico, but will he follow his heart or the brujo’s way?

McFarland’s work is enchanting in subject matter and in tone. He creates memorable characters, including active female protagonists. That’s not easy while being true to the machismo paternalistic ethos of New Spain. McFarland also takes us inside the mindset and magical battles of brujos, which is to say he gives us glimpses of belief systems unfamiliar to most readers. His literary style is inconsistent. Surprisingly for a historian whose students considered him a great storyteller, McFarland’s ear for dialogue is often stronger than his expository skills. Sometimes both he and his characters lapse into lecture mode. Love scenes are also occasionally awkward­–not salacious or tawdry, but titillating and overwrought. 

I see these as minor slips in a page-turner that comes at magical realism in ways that emphasize the second factor more than the first. Who can resist a book whose elements include magic, sex, violence, the peril-filled beauty of the Chihuahuan Desert, and a journey to find destiny, virtue, and honor?

Rob Weir

¹ Full disclosure: I have known Gerry McFarland for nearly 30 years–as mentor, colleague, and friend. You’ll just have to trust me when I say I seek to review things as I see them. Those who’ve read this blog regularly know that I don’t do puff pieces!

Wasted Angst over Worthless Commencement Speeches

Here’s your spring challenge. If you have graduated from any school more than five years ago, name your commencement speaker. You can?  Okay–tell me one thing of substance that he or she said. Of course you can’t. If the speaker upstaged the grads, that person should be beaten with a bound copy of Emily Post’s Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and in the Home.

The irrelevance of commencement speeches underscores this year’s graduation embarrassments: red faces at Johns Hopkins and Rutgers when Ben Carson and Condoleezza Rice withdrew, Brandeis's shame in lifting an honorary degree for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and (just yesterday) the decision of Christine Lagarde’s to skip Smith College’s commencement because of planned student and faculty protests. It's time to stop the nonsense and follow Amherst College's practice of not using outside commencement speakers. Graduation speakers simply aren’t worth the ­sturm und drang.

Graduation speakers fall into six general categories:

            --Flavor of the Moment: A person chosen simply for being famous/infamous and who has next to nothing to do with education–like Ben Carson, Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga, or Sean Combs. If you recall your speaker, chances are good s/he fell into this category.

            --Faded Sunset: Someone who used to be famous and retains name recognition, but hasn’t done much lately–like Bill Shatner or Gloria Steinem.

            --Who? Someone that impresses the hell out of administrators, but students have never heard of–like Christine Lagarde.

            --Highly Inappropriate Speakers: Like Rice, Carson, or Lagarde. Not that they’re unaccomplished, but a commencement is no time to start a political brouhaha.

            --Famed Alum Makes Good: Perfect for those "you-can-do-it-too" speeches, but chosen mainly because administrators hope to cultivate this person as a board member and/or donor.

            --Local Business Leader: See Famed Alum Makes Good.

Smith flunked twice. Very few students actually knew Lagarde's name before she was announced. They knew of the International Monetary Fund that she heads, though. That doesn't make Lagarde a bad person, but when your majors include lots of budding economists, sovereignty savvy government students, erstwhile social workers, and idealists longing to work with grassroots development agencies and non-profits, she's not an intelligent choice. She was picked because she's an accomplished woman (which is, in a round about way, an insulting way to choose for a women's college). Moreover, Smith is still officially a liberal arts college, which meant Lagarde pushed all the wrong Smith-is-becoming-a-vocational-school panic buttons.

That said, I disagree with the notion of announcing speakers and then making it so hot that they back out. If you invite someone and they accept, debate their views before or after the speech, but practice civility toward the person. If you must, stand in silent protest when the speaker comes to the podium, but don't let your final college experience be an assault on academic freedoms you professed to cherish for four years. Besides, the real beef is with decision-makers out of touch with the campus culture, not the invitee. In the end, though, why endure angst over a commencement speech you'll soon forget?    

Want to remember the commencement speech over which you’re blanking? Here are the elements of approximately 99.6% of every graduation speeches ever delivered:

            --Congratulations to the graduates and a nod to the "difficult challenges" they've overcome (as if they've been digging coal for the past four years).

            --Thanks to parents.

            --Assurance that the graduates are really special–just what the helicoptered generation does not need to hear.

            --An inspiring story, personal or anecdotal.

            --Humorous remarks.

            --Banal and recycled comments on the value of education.

            --Observations that the world to which grads are being released will be filled with struggles, problems, and conundrums that society is waiting for them to solve.

            --An encomium to their proven track record of perseverance.

            --A call to be creative, grounded, flexible, and committed to life-long learning.

            --An assurance that grads are uniquely poised to overcome all obstacles and live a rewarding life.

Just change the order, anecdotes, jokes, and adjectives and you too can give a graduation speech. It helps if you go to the trouble to become (or have been) famous.

I say copy Amherst and just let the president deliver the speech. Eliminate angst. Bust out the boilerplate. Hand out the sheepskin. To students: Check your cell phones during the speech. Go party. Wake up the next day, pack your gear, and prepare for realities not mentioned in the speech.

             

Major League Baseball Thus Far

In April baseball optimism knows no bounds, but you shouldn’t make too much of early results. Raise your hand if you really think the Milwaukee Brewers are going to the World Series! Here’s what we’ve learned thus far.

1. The replay sucks. It simply slows down the game and isn’t any more “accurate” than the umps. Even worse, it makes the game as generic and corporate as the NFL.

2. Speaking of the NFL, those who love “parity” ought to be pleased–with the exception of train wrecks like the Astros, Cubs, and Diamondbacks, every team in baseball is either at, over, or within 5 games of .500. Count me among those who think parity is a synonym for mediocrity, not competitiveness.

3. Whatever the minors are doing to bring on young pitchers, it isn’t working. With the exception of Gonzalez, the most common name in baseball is Tommy John (as in surgery). Go back to training pitchers to toss 300 innings. It can’t be worse.

4. Anyone else think it would be a good idea to start the season later? Cleveland and 20 degrees anyone?

5. We’ll know better his second time through the league, but the Yankees’ Mashiro Tanaka seems to be everything he was advertised to be.

6. The AL East looks very weak this year. I said that 90 wins could take it. I’m feeling good about that prediction at present.

7. Local Teams I: The Red Sox sure are missing Jacoby Ellsbury so far. Bradley might be the answer, but he’s not so far. Ortiz’s bat has looked slow, and it stays that way when the weather gets hot, uh-oh. Bogaerts needs to be a third baseman or he’ll settle the debate over whether Jeter has the worst range among MLB shortstops. Everyone wants Grady Sizemore to be a feel-good story, but I fear he’s not going to be.

8. Local Teams II: Speaking of which, how much longer until the Yankees give up on Brian Roberts? It says here that June 1, he’s reassigned, Solarte goes to second, and Stephen Drew becomes a Yankee. Frankie Cervelli is the Nick Johnson of catchers. Time to cut bait–J. R. Murphy will do just fine. If I own this team, I tie Sabathia the dinner table until he’s fat and powerful again. Too early to tell if Jeter is done, but there’s no drive in his legs at present.

9. Local Teams III: I told Mets fans that Curtis Granderson was a bad signing. The Grandy Man can't.

10. Thus far I’m spot on in saying the Rays won’t hit and Toronto won’t pitch. The Orioles are good enough to stick around, but does this look like a championship caliber team to you? June 1—Kendry Morales.

11. Jose Abreu sure has excited ChiSox fans. As with Tanaka, we’ll know for sure about him when teams have seen him a few times, but he’s been awesome so far.

12. Told you that Robbie Cano would like his Seattle contract better than the ballpark. His slugging percentage is barely higher than his average.

13. I hate the Marlins, but Jose Fernandez and Giancarlo Stanton are worth seeing, which no one in Miami does. If Loria unloads them, or young pitcher Tom Koehler, MLB should veto the deals and strip Loria of the team. Think the Red Sox might want to have Saltamacchia back?

14. The Angels continue to be a team of a few thoroughbreds (Trout, Pojuls, Wilson) and a barn full of plow horses. What the hell happened to David Freese?

15. As predicted, the Giants have sprinted and the Dodgers have chemistry problems. Again Mattingly is in the hot seat and his new contract notwithstanding, I wouldn’t buy invest in local real estate were I he. The Dodgers are not a disaster, but with a roster (and payroll) like theirs, they should dominate, not hang around.

16. Who would have predicted Prince Fielder would suffer a power outage, that the Pirates would struggle, that the Phillies would play old, or that the Tigers would be better sans Leyland? I did, actually.

Don’t like what I’ve written about your team? Don’t worry; it’s only May. Last time I looked Miggy Cabrera was only hitting. 280. That won’t stand.

The Alchemist: More Lead than Gold

THE ALCHEMIST (1998/2012)

Paulo Coelho

HarperCollins 978-0061122415

*

Did you know that this novel is the best-selling translated book of all-time (65 million copies in 56 languages and climbing)? I did not, but I did know that it’s been on the New York Times bestseller list for ages, and continually comes out in new editions. My curiosity was sparked, so I read it. Although it’s a book about the search for enlightenment, I can’t say that I found any philosophical or literary gold in its pages. If I might extend the alchemy metaphor, it felt pretty leaden to me.

It’s scant volume (197 pages) centered on a bright, wanderlust-stricken Andalusian shepherd named Santiago. His wanderlust leads him to sell his sheep and head off to Tangiers and beyond. This is a book about Santiago’s longings, visions, chance encounters, desires, and treasures won and abandoned. At each stopping point Santiago meets a teacher, first an old king named Melchizedek, who tells him that everyone has a “Personal Legend” that he or she must discover, and who gives him two divination stones, Urim and Thummim.  Next he encounters a shopkeeper, from whom he learns how dreams can empower or handcuff; then a dessert lass named Fatima, who awakens love and desire; an Englishman who tells him about the Philosopher’s Stone; an actual alchemist, who identifies Santiago as a true disciple; and finally a Coptic monk, who helps him identify the things that have value from those that do not. In essence, it’s an allegory about finding one’s own destiny.

If this sounds like something Kahlil Gibran might have written, you’re right. I suspect one of the book’s attractions is that it is ecumenical, drawing upon ancient, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian traditions to make the point that the search for truth and meaning is the same across religious and cultural lines. Our multicultural portrait is completed by the fact that Coelho, the author, is a Brazilian writing in Portuguese. His heart is in the right place, but perhaps I’m too jaded–I found The Alchemist a lightweight and frivolous book. A New York Times reviewer called it more of a self-help book than a novel, and Coelho has also been accused of rewriting one of the Arabian Nights tales. Both of those critiques have merit, but my brief is with its style and message. Perhaps it loses something in translation, but to me it read like a Young Adult novel and its revelations akin to those that might gobsmack an adolescent. When read from the perspective of one who has journeyed longer, those revelations seem obvious and underdeveloped. For me, The Alchemist sparked no magic.

Rob Weir  

Neil Young: Waging Heavy Peace

WAGING HEAVY PEACE: A HIPPIE DREAM (2012)

Neil Young

Blue Rider Press ISBN: 978039915946

* * ½  

Confession: I’ll listen to or read anything with which Neil Young is associated. This is an important admission because how much you will enjoy his recent autobiography (newly available as an e-book) probably depends upon how much you already know, as this one is definitely for Young fans.

Neil Young is a heck of a songwriter, but he’s no literary stylist. This is billed as an autobiography, but it’s really a stream of consciousness memoir loaded with asides. Young is refreshingly earnest and guileless, but he’s all over the place in how he presents his story. There is no single narrative arc and Young seems to have typed his thoughts as they occurred. There is very little attempt to group likeminded themes or anchor the story in any way. Unless you have followed his life and career, you will find the book’s chronology confusing–sequencing just isn’t something that concerns Young. For example, snippets of his Ontario boyhood come later in the book and are interspersed with thoughts about recent events, friendships, concert memories, shout-out thank yous, and commentary on his hobbies.

We learn that Neil Young really likes cars, toy trains, guitars, playing with Crazy Horse, and clean sound. It would be no stretch to say he’s obsessed with these things to the point of needless repetition. We read, for example, numerous screeds on the horrid sound quality of MP3 and CD files, and of his vision for analog-based high-quality recordings. It’s been on his mind for so long that his original entrepreneurial enterprise, PureTone, changed its name to Pono because of trademark disputes–something we only learn after the fifth or sixth explanation of why he cares so much about sound. We get similar disjointed discussions of the LincVolt, Young’s conversion of a 1959 Lincoln Continental, which he hopes will become a usable large electric car. These are laudable projects, but they belong in separate chapters so Young can stop rupturing the narrative with sermons.

Of course, these projects are laudable, which is why we read about them, and Young is a man of both talent and integrity, which is why we care. Young makes no attempt at self-aggrandizement, nor does he ask us to overlook his failings. He is quite willing to admit that he was responsible for the breakup of past relationships–most famously with actress Carrie Snodgrass–that he used to drink to excess, that he has disappointed friends, and that he smoked pot regularly until ordered not to by his doctor. (Young suffers from epilepsy, about which he is also candid.)

Young fans will find interesting reflections on his parents–his father, Scott Young, was a respected journalist and sportswriter–of his early days of playing rock, doo-wop, and R & B covers, of being inspired by more mature bands, and of hanging out with everyone from Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan to Devo, Bruce Springsteen, and Pearl Jam. But this is not one of those rock biographies in which the protagonist disses other musicians or past band members–Young has little but praise for everyone with whom he has played and tells very few tales out of school. He considers himself lucky for possessing Broken Arrow Ranch in California, for his marriage to Pegi, and for longtime friends (including Pancho Sampedro, Billy Talbot, Steve Stills, and Nils Lofgren). Sometimes we wish Young was more candid; fans know, for instance, that he has had famed spats with his friends—especially Stills.

Young is now 68, and the book has the wistful feel of an aging man musing upon  the joys and losses in his personal journey. (There are loving passages to departed friends such as Danny Whitten, Ben Keith, Nicolette Larson, and Kurt Cobain.) Young adores being a father, even though both of his sons suffer from cerebral palsy and younger son, Ben, is quadriplegic, and his daughter, Amber Jean, inherited his epilepsy. When he tells us that he learned from Ben how many ways there are to communicate, we believe him.

This is not great literature. The books runs over 500 pages and a good editor could have pared it by 25%. (A developmental editor would have restructured it and made Young connect a lot of the stray dots.) But what comes through clearly is that Young considers his life the eponymous hippie dream. Who can begrudge a man who chased the Muse and found inner peace?

Rob Weir

Fighting the War on Stupidity

How dumb is your state?

I guess reality is how you spin it. Why else would the April 29 report that the U.S. high school graduation rate hit the 80% mark excite anyone? Progress is a good thing, but let’s be realistic–one of five students leaves school each year without a high school diploma. That translates to about 820,000 of the roughly 4.1 million students in high school. Each year the number of high school dropouts surpasses the entire population of five U.S. states. There are six states (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, and South Carolina) in which the high school graduation rate is under 70% and it’s less than 60% in the Nation’s Capitol. I wish we’d focus on these figures instead.   Lyndon Johnson waged a war on poverty; I want to declare one on stupidity.

A high school diploma alone won’t prepare you much. Let’s get real. This is not the United States of the 1950s; you need a college degree to manage a McDonald’s or a Wal-Mart these days. Those with only a high school degree will end up working in dead end jobs at such establishments and those without a diploma will be lucky to get employment that good. Sure–some people will go into trades, or factory work. An infinitesimal number will defy odds and become very successful, but blue-collar America is analogous to the last passenger pigeon–all we can really do is conduct the postmortem. What future will Gen X have when it has less education than the Baby Boomers? Can you say, “Your pizza will be delivered in 20 minutes?”  

The national problem is obvious–there are simply too many undereducated Americans. Our 80% high school graduation places us far behind the usual suspects–Japan, Germany, South Korea, Israel, the United Kingdom, and all of Scandinavia (including Iceland)–but it also puts us behind Slovenia, Portugal, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. How will Americans compete in the global economy? I suppose the good news is that 68% of those that do get a high school diploma will enter college–roughly 2.2 million per year. The bad news is that just 1.3 million of them will obtain a bachelor’s degree within six years–a college drop out rate of about 40%. To put it in perspective, when graduation occurs this May, America will have half as many heroin users as newly minted college grads.

Each spring bright seniors ask me why demagogues, fear mongers, and sociopaths dominate political discourse, and why so many Americans believe ludicrous things. Among these: nearly a quarter of Americans believe Barack Obama is a Muslim, 18% that he’s the Anti-Christ; 37% deny the reality of global warming, perhaps because 18% think Earth is the center of the universe; 28% still think Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, over a decade’s worth of contrary evidence notwithstanding; one-third of Texans believe that dinosaurs and human coexisted, presumably keeping good company with the 60% of Americans who think evolution is a hoax and the 51% that  thinks Fox News is unbiased. As my grandma used to say, that’s just crazy talk.

So what do I tell wide-eyed soon-to-graduates? That one of the keys to negotiating adult life is to realize that Americans hate it when they’re called “dumb.” They should avoid saying that, but realize that many American really are dumb–or at least woefully undereducated. I tell them that when they walk down the street, odds are that roughly six out of every ten people they see will be less educated than they. I also tell them to flaunt their smartness when job hunting­–in a tight job market there’s no reason for employers to hire the uneducated.

There are fruitful debates to be had about social problems and the root causes of under-education, but liberals simply need to change their yada-yada tune on this. I don’t want to sound heartless, but some stark truth is in order. We need to make high school kids realize there is no future if they drop out. Stay in school and we can talk about how much your life sucks. Stay in school and you’ve got a fighting chance of getting into college, getting out of your rut, and avoiding a life of stupidity.   

Claudia Schmidt's New Whirled Order Makes Old Ideas New Again

CLAUDIA SCHMIDT

New Whirled Order

Red House Records 275

 * * * *

 

The youth of every generation tend to believe that what’s hot is “new.” Is Claudia Schmidt’s new album folk music, jazz, or spoken word? Yes, yes, and yes. Schmidt isn’t trying to be cool–she just is. That’s the way she’s been doing things long before today’s young whipperhipsters were even born. Call New Whirled Order a mature album whose direct antecedents are a mélange of 1950s modal jazz, the ethos of Beat poetry, and the Folk Revival’s unleashing of singer-songwriters and its recovery of forgotten instruments.  Schmidt’s opening track, “Already,” highlights the way one can integrate dulcimer, accordion, percussion, and guitar, and her scale-smashing vocals occupy the space you might expect a rhythm section to appear*

Schmidt’s folk material tends toward poignant themes such as “Sea of Forgiveness,” with a lone oboe adding wistful notes to the mix, or “Jane’s Gone,” a lullaby-like lilt dedicated to her recently deceased mother. But this album’s overall tone is joyful, not melancholic. The themes in “Coward in the Face of Love” are serious, but the melody is bouncy, the hooks memorable, and Schmidt’s soaring notes are evocative of Motown. For comic relief, Schmidt offers “Strong Woman Has a Bad Day Polka,” a song indicative of her penchant for turning prosaic observations into offbeat humor. This time Betsy Dorris’ oboe sounds like it swallowed a piccolo.

Schmidt exercises her jazz muse on “Dawn Star,” whose melody she co-wrote with guitarist Dean Magraw. The lyrics are poetic and sung with a soulful coolness evocative of Chet Baker. By contrast, “Sometime Ago” is piano-based cool jazz with scat interludes–more in the Helen Morrill tradition with Ella Fitzgerald breakouts. Want more jazzy departures? I was surprised to find that “Nothing” was one of hers and not something from Leonard Cohen’s backlist. Then there is pure poetry–her paean to the unspoken in “Longing,” which is bookended by dulcimer/guitar instrumentation and Schmidt’s angelic warbles. Schmidt takes us across styles and across time, so what better way to end than with a round– also dedicated to her mother–in which Sally Rogers, Howie Bursen, and Jeff Davis add their voices. What a perfect title–New Whirled Order draws upon musical ideas so old they’re new again.  

Rob Weir

 * The YouTube version of "Already" lacks the accordion of the studio version, but this is a high-quality video that proves Claudia is even more dynamic live.