My writing assistants Uliberto Quetzalpugtl and Washingtoniana Quetzalpugalotl snoofling at the mysteries.
For those interested in my publications, podcasts, and writing workshops, after a loooooong hiatus, I am resuming the newsletter, herewith commencing a new schedule of posting it on Madam Mayo blog every fifth Monday of the month (when there is a fifth Monday, that is to say, a few times a year).
I will also be sending out the newsletter to subscribers via email. If you would like to receive only the emailed newsletter, just zap me an email, I’ll be delighted to add you to my list. (If you’ve already signed up, stay tuned. I’ve had to switch my emailing service from Mailchimp to Mad Mimi, a bit of a process. Long story short, I give Mailchimp a black banana. Mashed in the noggin!)
If in addition or instead you’d like to sign up for the Madam Mayo blog post alerts every Monday via email, just hie on over to the sidebar (or, if you’re on an iphone, scroll down to the end of this post) for the signup. Welcome!
PODCASTS
“WORDS ON A WIRE”: Award-winning writer and Chair of the UTEP Creative Writing Department Daniel Chacón interviews me about my book Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual (which includes my translation of Madero’s 1911 book). This interview with Daniel Chacón was a special honor and delight for me because while my book is a work of scholarship, it is at the same time a work of creative nonfiction. It turned out to be a very fun interview, if I do say myself. >> Listen in anytime here.
Still in production, but allllllllmost ready: The MARFA MONDAYS Podcasting Project resumes with #21: a reading of my longform essay “Miss Charles Emily Wilson: Great Power in One.” Researching and writing this rearranged all the furniture in my mind about Texas, the US-Mexico border, Florida, the Indian Wars, and much more… Miss Charles is someone everyone should know about.
My gosh, it’s unsettling to read a story I wrote so long ago (maybe 1993 or 1994?). And “Majesty” is a strange story, and stranger still to be rereading in this age of the iPhone. It’s set in an Arizona luxury golf resort / spa in the late 1980s / early 1990s–another world, so to say, and on multiple levels. I recall the fun I had playing with the Alice in Wonderland imagery– I had recently been introduced by Douglas Glover to the German novel The Quest for Christa T. and the idea of the story as a net, an important influence on my fiction writing ever since.
Get your copy from all the usual suspects, including amazon.com
GIVAL PRESS POETRY AWARD CONTEST JUDGEDBY YOURS TRULY
Back in January, as the winner of the most recent Gival Press Poetry Award (for Meteor), I selected the winner for this year from an excellent batch of anonymous manuscripts. Here’s the press release from Gival Press:
February 6, 2020 For Immediate Release Contact: Robert L. Giron
(Arlington, VA) Gival Press is pleased to announce that Matthew Pennock has won the Gival Press Poetry Award for his collected titled The Miracle Machine. The collection was chosen by judge C.M. Mayo. The award has a cash prize of $1,000.00 and the collection will be published this fall.
“With a craftsman’s deftest precision and a thunder-powered imagination on DaVinci wings, the author recreates a lost world within a lost world that yet—when we look—shimmers with life within our world. Elegant, wondrously strange, The Miracle Machineis at once an elegy and a celebration, tick-tock of the tao.” —C.M. Mayo, author of Meteor
About the Author
Matthew Pennock is the author of Sudden Dog (Alice James Books, 2012), which won the Kinereth-Gensler Award. As per the terms of that award, he joined the board of Alice James Books in 2011, In 2014, he co-created AJB’s editorial board with executive editor Carey Salerno, and then became the board’s first chairperson, a position he held until 2020. He received his MFA from Columbia University and his PhD from the University of Cincinnati. His poems have been widely published in such journals as Gulf Coast, Denver Quarterly, Western Humanities Review, Guernica: A Magazine of Art and Politics, New York Quarterly, LIT, and elsewhere. He currently owns and operates a learning center outside of Washington, D.C.
I am working on a book so I have no workshops yet scheduled for 2020. For my students, and anyone else interested in creative writing, I will continue to post on some aspect of craft and/or creative process here at Madam Mayo blog on the second Monday of the month.
> View the archive of Madam Mayo workshop posts here.
Meanwhile, I’m putting together a new workshop on applying poetic techniques to fiction and creative nonfiction… More news about that in the next newsletter.
Clifford Garstang, who did a Q & A for this blog in 2019, has posted his annual Literary Magazine rankings. Dear writerly readers looking to publish, while of course his, mine, yours, or anyone’s rankings of literary magazines are subject to debate, take this as a valuable and free resource!
Speaking of publishing, that usually involves a heaping helping of rejections. Well, I say, micro freaking deal! Rev that sense of humor! Need some assistance in that department? Here’s what Jia Jiang learned from 100 days of rejection:
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There’s more to Mexico than beaches & pyramids & Frida chunches… (Chunches: That’s Mexican for tchotchkes. Not to be confused with Ughyur raisin-drying facilities.) For anyone interested in the rich cultural heritage of Mexico, check out Richard Perry’s long-ongoing blog, Arts of Colonial Mexico. Richard writes: “For the New Year, we plan to highlight monuments and art works in Oaxaca and Yucatan as well as in Guanajuato, Puebla and Tlaxcala.”
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An email from Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka, editor of Loch Raven Review:
Dear Fellow Translators,
I want to spread the word about Loch Raven Review’s role in showcasing poetry translated from a variety of languages, featuring as a rule one language per each issue’s bilingual section. Since 2011, when I accepted the responsibility of the Poetry Translations Editor, Loch Raven Review has featured 21 sections of poetry in translation. I’ve compiled a list of all the sections, starting with the Spanish language, followed by the expected and unexpected languages, such as Catalan, Mayan or Kurdish, at http://danutakk.wordpress.com/loch-raven-review/
I’ve made it a point to engage local area translators, starting with Yvette Neisser and Patricia Bejarano Fisher, then Nancy Naomi Carlson, Barbara Goldberg, Katherine E. Young, Nancy Arbuthnot, Zeina Azzam, and then Zackary Sholem Berger, Xuhua Lucia Liang, and Maritza Rivera in the most recent LRR Volume 15, No. 2, 2019.
Starting in 2018 we have nominated four translations for the Pushcart Award.
I feel proud and happy to be able to bring together poets who write in such a variety of languages, and the translators who make the poems available to the English language readers.
Wishing you all a peaceful, creative, and joyful 2020,
Danka
Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka
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Emma Lawton on “What Parkinson’s Taught Me”:
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There is nothing you cannot do! Says Tao Porchon-Lynch, the world’s oldest yoga teacher– who recently passed away at 101. She made 98 look like 18. Bless you, Tao.
A nutty month it’s been, dear writerly readers. Herewith another old but extra-crunchy interview– one of my favorites. Why so? Among many reasons, in my book-in-progress on Far West Texas I am writing about Xavier González, an artist who worked in the Big Bend (among many other places in his long life, which began in Spain in 1898 and concluded in New York City in 1993), and it’s fun to realize, via his teacher Diego Rivera, he has a link to Santiago Rebull…
An Interview with Alan Rojas Orzechowski about Maximilian’s Court Painter, Santiago Rebull
Santiago Rebull: The Outlines of a Story, at the Museum of the Diego Rivera Mural in Mexico City. Through February 15, 2015
He was Maximilian’s Court Painter, a leading figure in 19th century Mexican painting, and one of the important influences on Diego Rivera, yet few people have heard of Santiago Rebull— until now.
If you’re anywhere near Mexico City, come in and visit the Santiago Rebull show at the Museo Mural Diego Rivera. >> More information here. << For those aficionados of the history of the French Intervention, and in particular the brief reign of Maximilian von Habsburg as Emperor of Mexico, this is an especially important show not to miss, for Rebull was Maximilian’s Court Painter and, interestingly, one of the few individuals close to the monarchy who managed to remain in Mexico and even thrive in subsequent decades under the Republic. Herewith, my interview with the show’s curator, Mexican historian Alan Rojas Orzechowski.
Santiago Rebull, Self-portrait, 1852
C.M. MAYO: What gave you the idea for the show?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: The exhibition Santiago Rebull: Los contornos de una historia (Santiago Rebull: The Outlines of a Story) presented in the Museo Mural Diego Rivera is our own way to pay homage to one of the most creative minds of the Academic Movement in Mexico, an illustrious painter and educator who molded the minds of pupils such as Roberto Montenegro, Ángel Zárraga and Diego Rivera.
As an outstanding teacher, he taught Diego Rivera as a young student in the San Carlos Academy of Arts. Rivera in return, always considered him as a mentor and guide, respecting him as both, as an instructor and fellow artist. Exploiting this connection, the Museo Mural Diego Rivera and external curator Magaly Hernández, thought suitable to present an exhibition which honored Rebull’s artwork, underlining his influence on Rivera and his generation.
C.M. MAYO: How did Santiago Rebull, so close to Maximilian, manage to remain in Mexico and continue working as a successful artist for decades afterwards?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: I personally think that it was his undeniable talent as an artist which enabled him to continue teaching in San Carlos Academy during three more decades.
In the immediate years after Maximilian’s fall he did receive severe reproaches from fellow artists and local newspapers as a monarchist and “afrancesado” (pro-French), but he carried on painting members of the political, economic and cultural elite. As a testament of this, the portraits of Presidents Benito Juárez and Porfirio Díaz are shown in the exhibition. Both pieces are dated in the 1870s, less than a decade after the monarch´s disgrace.
He retained his position as a teacher in San Carlos and also imparted drawing lessons to female pupils in the Colegio de Vizcaínas which was the only female and secular school in Mexico throughout the XVIII and XIX centuries. Along with his academic career, he remained a prolific painter, authoring remarkable pieces such as La muerte de Marat (Marat’s Death) and several portraits.
Santiago Rebull, La muerte de Marat, 1875
C.M. MAYO: What has been the reaction from art historians and historians of the Second Empire?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: The Academic reaction towards the Second Empire, from both, historians and art historians, has changed through time. During the first half of the XX Century, the posture was very much aligned to the official history, characterized by a nationalist stance in which Maximilian was portrayed as an invader and many of his actions as an imposition to Mexicans.
Nevertheless, this has shifted to a fascination for both, Maximilian and Charlotte, partly thanks to literature. En example of this, the book Noticias del Imperio (News from the Empire) by Fernando del Paso or The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire by C.M. Mayo.
Historians have now a much more benevolent gaze to the Second Empire, emphasizing on Maximilian’s liberal measures that assisted the indigenous groups and regulated Ecclesiastic influence on civilians—which certainly made him unpopular with his original supporters. Art historians tend to be cautious with their judgments, stressing the continuity on San Carlos Academy trough its curriculum, academic cluster and board, all of them dramatically modified with the Republic’s restoration.
For instance, Eduardo Báez Macías, in his volume History of the National School of Fine Arts (Old San Carlos Academy), mentions Maximilian’s patronizing attitude towards Mexican art, believing it to be provincial to what he was used to in Europe.
My personal view is the opposite. Maximilian was a very intelligent ruler, he was aware of the necessity of his government’s legitimacy, and knew that the main way to achieved it was through art and Court protocol. In the first case, he arose from the liberal vs. conservative´s discussion over national heroes and entrusted several talented young artists to create a portrait gallery of the libertadores, including characters such as Hidalgo and Iturbide along. Also, in several Imperial projects he preferred to employ talented Mexican students over well-known established European teachers as Eugenio Landesio or Pelegrín Clavé.
C.M. MAYO: Which of all the 68 pieces do you consider the most essential for understanding Rebull and his place in Mexican art?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: Santiago Rebull is one of the most relevant XIX century painters in Mexico’s history. He is a fundamental artist of the Academicism generation, and keystone to understanding the shift in the Art Scene towards the Vanguards and the Mexican Painting School of XX century, since he was an inexhaustible teacher to many of its participants.
One of Santiago Rebull’s anchor pieces is La muerte de Abel (Abel’s Death). It was painted in 1851 and earned him a scholarship to travel to Rome.
Santiago Rebull, La muerte de Abel, 1851
He there attended the San Lucas Academy, a conservative catholic art school that followed the principles of the Nazarene Movement, specially influenced by the German painter Johann Friedrich Overbeck. Rebull studied under the guidance of Academic artist Thomaso Consoni, who molded and perfected his technique through a careful series of exercises consisting on copying masterpieces from Renaissance maestros. Therefore, La muerte de Abel best represents the Academic ideals of trace, color use and proportions so faithfully followed by Rebull.
C.M. MAYO: Was it difficult to find these 68 pieces, and were there any you couldn’t get for the show that you wish you had?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: Unfortunately there was a piece we were unable to obtain, El sacrificio de Isaac (Isaac’s Sacrifice) painted in 1858 during his sojourn in Italy and displayed in the Centennial Exposition of Philadelphia and later shown in New Orleans. The image is almost 118 inches tall and it’s a flawless sample of Rebull´s work during this formative voyage under Consoni’s guidance. Alas, it was a crucial piece in the National Museum of Art (MUNAL), therefore, they were unable to lend it.
Santiago Rebull, El sacrificio de Isaac, 1859
It was relatively unproblematic to secure the greater part of the assortment since it belongs to the painter’s descendants, most of them eager to promote their ancestor’s work. The rest of the pieces were graciously provided by significant institutions such as the San Carlos Academy, the National Museum of Art and the Colegio de Vizcaínas.
C.M. MAYO: Was the museum at Il Castillo di Miramar involved in any way? The original of Rebull’s portrait of the Emperor Maximilian was sent there, is that right?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: The original full length portrait of Maximilian was painted by Santiago Rebull in 1865. The Emperor took such pleasure on it that resulted on the appointment of Rebull as court painter; he was also awarded the Order of Guadalupe, the Empire’s uppermost honor. The monarch relocated the painting in Miramar Castle in Trieste, Italy that same year. Nonetheless he commissioned Joaquín Ramírez, another Academic painter to produce an exact copy of his portrait. Currently, the latter is part of the National Institute of Fine Arts collection and it’s shown at Chapultepec Castle. We exhibit a contemporary reproduction of Ramírez painting.
Joaquín Ramírez, Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I, ca. 1866.
C.M. MAYO: The decorative bacchantes that Rebull painted for Chapultepec Castle– were these Maximilian’s idea or the artist’s? What do you think was the message of such decorative paintings?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: The decorative bacchantes of Miravalle (Chapultepec) Castle were the Emperor’s idea but Rebull only painted four of them during Maximilian’s reign since the remaining two were created later, during President Porfirio Díaz administration when he occupied the castle as his summer residence.
The message behind the bacchantes is clear: the ideal of graciousness that courtesan life implied. Maximilian was convinced that through art and elaborate court rituals his regime would gain the legitimacy and acceptance of Mexican elites. The creation of new titles, honors and reinstated old colonial titles were strategies followed by the sovereign. Thus, art and protocol were undeniably intertwined in the imperial residences.
Santiago Rebull, Bacante para la terraza del Alcázar de Chapultepec, 1894
In the words of art historian Justino Fernández “Rebull planned six bacchantes figures […] the romanticism of the epoch finds here one of its classical expressions, these women, or better said, demigoddesses, highly idealized, wear the magnificence of their figure, in a movement attitude.” * *Justino Fernández. El arte del siglo XIX en México, Mexico, Imprenta Universitaria, 1967, p. 77.
C.M. MAYO: What do you consider Rebull’s most essential achievements as an artist?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: His personal career is bound to the history of San Carlos Academy; we may consider him as a founding painter of Mexican art of the first decades of independence, when the elite and middle classes were shaping an identity of their own, which they found in the expressions of Academicism and Neoclassic Art.
He perfected his education with the European sojourn—not remaining solely in Rome, but traveling extensively through Spain—and returned with a refined paintbrush imbibed by Purism and Nazarene precepts.
The preparative drawings are a testament of Rebull’s expertise of trace and copying, the two cornerstone of a XIX century Academic education. Upon his return he grew as a prolific portraitist, the most important being that of Emperor Maximilian.
But his talent was enjoyed not only by royals; both Presidents Benito Juárez and Porfirio Díaz were also depicted by the artist. The latter, is embodied as a young aspiring president, unlike later representations where an elderly and heavily ornamented military men is shown. Furthermore, common and quotidian characters were also portrayed by him.
Santiago Rebull, Portrait of Porfirio Díaz, 1872
Santiago Rebull, Portrait of an unknown man, undated
C.M. MAYO: Why is the show in the Museo de Diego Rivera? Can you talk a little about Rebull’s influence on Diego Rivera?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: Since the Museo Mural Diego Rivera has the commitment of preserving Diego Rivera’s legacy, promoting the artistic expressions created during the XX century and especially those influenced by Rivera himself, we thought there was a great breach with his predecessors. Who were they? Who particularly influenced him?
Rivera was educated at the San Carlos Academy of Arts in Mexico City where he was an accomplished student, tutored by the great artists of the XIX century Academic movement. He received a refined instruction from painters such as José Salomé Pina, José María Velasco and Santiago Rebull. Diego always felt in debt towards the latter, recognizing him as his mentor.
I am off again this week, dear writerly readers, but I offer you this post from the archives about one of my very favorite and most secretly wondrous places on the planet.
THE SOLITARIO DOME
Originally posted on Madam Mayo blog March 13, 2015
Inside The Solitario. Photo: C.M. Mayo, March 2015
Flora and Vegetation of the Solitario Dome by Jean Evans Hardy, Iron Mountain Press, 2009 (Whoa, call the chiropracter, I brought this one home in my carry-on!)
Geology of the Solitario by Charles E. Corry, et al. Geological Society of America Special Paper 250, 1990.
“Igneous Evolution of a Complex Laccolith-Caldera, the Solitario, Trans-Pecos, Texas: Implications for Calderas and Subjacent Plutons” by Christopher D. Henry, et al.Geological Society of America Bulletin, August 1997 (Super-crunchy PDF)
The Solitario: Sentinel of the Big Bend Ranch State Park” Megan Hicks, The Big Bend Paisano, Winter 2004/2005 (PDF)
“Geology at the Crossroads” By Blaine R. Hall, Big Bend Ranch State Park (PDF)
Entering the labyrinth of the Solitario via Los Portales (That’s my guide, Charlie Angell, he’s the best, check him out on Tripadvisor.com). Photo: C.M. Mayo, March 2015
This past Friday I had the honor and delight of being interviewed for the Words on a Wire podcast by Daniel Chacón, an award-winning creative writer and Chair of the University of Texas El Paso Creative Writing Program– and not about my latest book (Meteor, poetry) but about an older book of mine which, over the years since it came in 2014, surprisingly few people have dared to ask me about. Yep, it’s super spooky! Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual. I often refer to it as a chimera of a book, for it is not only my book about Madero’s book + my translation of Madero’s book, but my part of it is a work of scholarship that is at the same time intended to be a work of literary art in itself.
Just as soon as that link to the Words on a Wire podcast is live, I will post it here.
In the meantime, because I wish I’d thought to mention it in the interview, herewith a post from 2014 about a very rare but very important Mexican book, Una ventana al mundo invisible:
Una Ventana al Mundo Invisible (A Window onto the Invisible World): Master Amajur and the Smoking Signatures
Una ventana al mundo invisible. Protocolos del IMIS Editorial Antorcha, Mexico City, 1960. [A Window to the Invisible world: Protocols of the IMIS]
I was a long ways into into the labyrinth of research and reading for my book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution, when I happened into Mexico City’s Librería Madero, expressing a vague interest in Francisco I. Madero and “lo que sea de lo esotérico.” When the owner, Don Enrique Fuentes Castilla, set this book upon the counter, I confess, the cover, which looks like a Halloween cartoon, with such childish fonts, did little to excite my interest. But oh, ho ho (in the voice of the Jolly Green Giant):
A Window to the Invisible World: Protocols of the Mexican Institute for Psychic Research Mexico City, 1960
This book, Una ventana al mundo invisible, is nothing less than the official, meticulously documented records of the dozens and dozens of research-séances of the Instituto Mexicano de Investigaciones Síquicas or IMIS (Mexican Institute of Psychic Research) from April 10, 1940 to April 12, 1952, members of which included– the book lists their names and their signatures— several medical doctors and National University (UNAM) professors; an ex-Rector of the UNAM, the medical doctor and historian Dr. Fernando Ocaranza; several generals; ambassadors; bankers; artists and writers, including José Juan Tablada; a supreme court justice; an ex-Minister of Foreign relations; an ex-director of Banco de México, Carlos Novoa; Ambassador Ramón Beteta, ex Minister of Finance; and… drumroll… both Miguel Alemán and Plutarco Elías Calles. *
Close up of the subtitle. Oy, the font. (Dude, what were you smoking?)
*I hate giving wikipedia links but as of this writing, the official webpage for the Mexican presidency doesn’t go back more than four administrations.
For those a little foggy on their Mexican history, Plutarco Elías Calles served as Mexico’s President from 1924-1928, and Miguel Alemán, 1946-1952. At the time of the séances documented in Una ventana al mundo invisible, Calles was in retirement, having returned from the exile imposed on him by President Cardenás in the 1930s.
President of Mexico, “El Jefe Máximo” Plutarco Elías Calles. In retirement he joined the IMIS and was a regular participant in the research-séances documented in Una ventana al mundo invisible
When Una ventana al mundo invisible was published in 1960, Alemán was long gone from power, and Calles had passed away.
I had heard, as has anyone who goes any ways into the subject, that Alemán and Calles and other Mexican “public figures” were secret Spiritists, but here, dear readers, in the Protocolos del IMIS, are the smoking signatures.
Yes, There are Other References to Una ventana al mundo invisible
Mexican historian Enrique Krauze was one of the first to cite Una ventana al mundo invisible in his chapter on Calles in Biography of Power, as does Jurgen Burchenau in his biography, Plutarco Elías Calles and the Mexican Revolution. But, as I write these lines, Una ventana al mundo invisible remains surprisingly obscure.
The Revolution as dolor de cabeza
Of course, I googled. A Mexican writer, Héctor de Mauleón, had discovered Una ventana al mundo invisible in a different Mexico City antiquarian bookstore and written up a summary for the October 2012 issue of Nexos. (But he complains of his copy’s missing the picture of the conjured spirit, “Master Amajur.” More about that in a moment.) And also recently, Grupo Espírita de la Palma, a Canary Islands Spiritist blog, which has posted several important bibliographic notes as well as a bibliography of Spanish works on Spiritism, posted this piece about the Jesuit Father Heredia’s involvement with the IMIS–thanks to his friend, none other than Calles–and about this book.
(A research project for whomever wants it: to delve into the Mexican hemerotecas of 1960-61 for any newspaper coverage, and 1979 and 1994 for anything about the Posadas and Planeta editions. My guess is, not much, for the press was largely under the thumb of the ruling party and this sort of information about Mexican Presidents would have been, to say the least, unwelcome. But that’s just my guess.)
So, Now, Delving into the Contents…
Rafael Alvarez y Alvarez (1857 – 1955), Mexican banker and founder of the Instituto Mexicano de Investigaciones Síquicas (IMIS)
The copy Don Enrique was offering, and for a very reasonable price, still had its dust jacket, small tears in places along the bottom and the top, but intact (the image on this blog post is a scan of my copy). The rest of it was pristine; the pages had not even been cut. Don Enrique slit open a few for me in the bookstore, and once home, I continued with my trusty steak knife (read about my other steak knife adventure here.)
I dove right in and learned that the founder of the IMIS, to whose memory the book is dedicated, was Rafael Alvarez y Alvarez (1887-1955), a distinguished Mexican banker, a president of the Monte de Piedad, and a congressman and senator. (Looking at his portrait with my novelist’s eye– that gaze! the bow tie!– yes, the intrepid maverick.)
The introduction is by Gutierre Tibón, an Italian-Mexican historian and anthropologist, professor in the National University’s prestigious faculty of Philosophy and Literature, and author of numerous noted works, including Iniciación al budismo and El jade de México.
A Brief Bit of Background on 19th Century Parapsychological Research
The goal of the IMIS was to progress in the tradition of pioneer American, English, and European parapsychological researchers. From my book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution, the first chapter, which provides 19th century background for Madero’s ideas about Spiritism, which he considered both a religion and a science:
“The exploits of mediums such as the Fox sisters, D.D. Home, the Eddy Brothers, and later in the nineteenth century, prim Leonora Piper (channel for the long-dead ‘Dr Phinuit’ and the mysterious ‘Imperator’), and wild Eusapia Palladino (whose séances featured billowing curtains, floating mandolins and, popping out of the dark, ectoplasmic hands), spurred the studies of investigators, journalists and a small group of elite scientists. Noted German, Italian, and French scientists, such as Nobel prize-winning physiologist Charles Richet undertook the examination of these anomalous phenomena, but the British Society for Psychical Research, founded in 1882, and the American Society for Psychical Research founded three years later, led the fray. Though their ranks included leading scientists such as chemist William Crookes, naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, physicist Oliver Lodge, and William James (the Harvard University professor considered the father of psychology). Yet their researches almost invariably met not with celebration, nor curiosity on the part of their fellow academics, but ridicule, often to the point of personal slander.”
Medium Luís Martínez and “Spirit Guide” Dr. Enrique del Castillo
Luis Martínez, Mexican medium
As James et al had Leonora Piper, and Richet and Lombroso, Eusapia Palladino, the IMIS employed the medium Luis Martínez, who was able to evoke a broad spectrum of phenomena, from ringing bells to apports, ectoplasm, breezes, raps and knocks, levitation, and so on.
In séances with Martínez, the IMIS heard from its spirit guide on the “other side,” one Dr. Enrique del Castillo, a Mexican doctor of the 19th century. According to Dr Tibón in his introduction to Una ventana al mundo invisible (p. 20, my translation):
“The way he looked was perfectly well known because once he “aported” his photograph, which was later made into a larger size, framed and displayed the Institute’s workroom. Another aport of Dr. del Castillo were his spectacles, identical to those in the portrait. He brought them on October 24, 1944, at 10:30 pm, in a séance that was documented in Cuernavaca, and he said these words, directing them to Rafael Alvarez y Alvarez: ‘In leaving my spectacles to you, dear son, it is with the wish that you will see clearly the future road we must take. May these spectacles take you on the path where we will always be companions.’”
Enter “Master Amajur”
Of special note was the séance on the evening of September 24, 1941, when Plutarco Elías Calles invited Carlos de Heredia, S.J., author of a book debunking Spiritism– and Father Heredia, sufficiently awed (and according to Calles, converted) affixed his signature as witness to genuine phenomena. That séance is documented in its entirety in Una ventana al mundo invisible. From Dr. Tibón’s introduction (p.21, my translation):
“That memorable night there materialized another spirit guide for the circle: an oriental doctor named Master Amajur; and he did not only show himself completely to Father Heredia, he also spilled a glass of water, saturated it with magnetic fluid, and gave it to him to drink. Then there appeared the phantom of Sister María de Jesús and, before the astonished cleric, illuminated her face in a most unusual manner. Finally, Dr Enrique del Castillo appeared, surrounded by many tiny lights. These levitated the medium, chair and all– the equivalent of raising almost 100 kilos– and silently left him in the other end of the room. This phenomenon was verified for the first time. Later, I had the fortune to attend its repetition and I literally saw the medium fly two meters into the air.”
Master Amajur started showing up from the first documented séance of May 8, 1940 (p. 89, my translation of some of the highlights):
“Master Amajur [appeared] very clearly, he touched all of us and he wrote a message which says: Go forward and I will help you. When we asked him [for a message] he left a message for Colonel Villanueva that says: It would be good for you to attend a séance. [… ]The first materialization produced an electric spark above the lightbulb that was loose in its socket [… ] There was an aport: a small bottle of perfume and its essence sprinkled above us. The music box passed over our heads. The Master gave us his cloak to touch, which seemed to all of us a piece of gauze. One again he produced a fresh breeze: it smelled of ozone.
On June 12, 1940 (p.90, my translation):
[…] the Master came in. This manifestation appeared first as a human hand covered with a veil, imitating a human figure. Then it increased in size and luminosity until it came txo a height of about 1.5 meters. Only the head and bust could only be seen. It was covered in a bluish white veil which I touched with my face. It gave me the impression of being a cotton fabric… It gave me a large glass of water to drink… It put flowers in our hands, it gave us a perfumed air, and when luminous blobs passed near my face I perceived the smell of phosphorous.”
On June 22, 1941 (my translation, p. 92):
“In front of all of us, Amajur left on the wall an inscription that said: Go forward. Upon request, he gave fluid to a magnolia and then he began to cut the petals. One by one these were deposited in the mouths of the participants.”
And so on. Séance after séance after séance–96 in all–with sparks, music, levitations, ectoplasmic this & that, perfumes, flowers, and frequent appearances not only by Master Amajur and sundry others, but also a childlike spirit, “Botitas” (Little Boots), who would tug on the participants’ pant legs.
Photographing Master Amajur
Close up of “Master Amajur” From the cover of Una ventana al mundo invisible
Skipping ahead to the séance of June 17, 1943– which Plutarco Elías Calles attended– Master Amajur has agreed to pose for a photograph. At first this doesn’t work; the photographer only captures a hand and then, suddenly, falls into convulsions. But then, after some further bizarre phenomena and friendly intervention by the spirit Dr. del Castillo, the photograph is achieved (p. 194, my translation):
“According to Mrs. Padilla [wife of Ezequiel Padilla, ex Minister of Foreign Relations, also in attendance on this occasion], and in agreement with all the other participants, at the moment of the explosion or flash from the photographer’s lamp, in the shadow could be seen the complete figure of the master, as if a statue of about 2 meters covered in a cloak, from head to foot. It was also noted that Master Amajur received a powerful shock and on asking him if he would permit another photograph to be taken, he said no.”
According to the dust jacket flap text, this is the very photograph that adorns the cover of the book. But, um, it looks more like a drawing to me. (As, by the way, many purported “spirit photographs” do. Google, dear reader, and ye shall find. Lots on eBay, by the way.)
Madame Blavatsky. The monumental figure of modern esotericism. Author of The Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled, etc. Founder, Theosophical Society
For historians of the metaphysical, it is interesting to note that Master Amajur claimed to be a member of the Great White Brotherhood, a term which came into use in the West with Madame Blavatsky, co-founder of the Theosophical Society, in the 19th century. She claimed that her teachers, who often met with her on the astral plane, were the Great White Brothers or Mahatamas, the Ascended Masters Koot-hoomi (Kuthumi) and Morya. Later, her follower A. P. Sinnett expanded on this topic in a sensational book of its day, The Mahatma Letters (1923). Over the decades, other psychics claimed to receive channeled messages from various Ascended Masters, most notably “St. Germain” and Alice Bailey’s “Djwahl Khul” or “The Tibetan.” It would seem that “Master Amajur” falls into this rather blurry and ever-morphing category.*
*So are the terms Great White Brother, Mahatma, and Ascended Master one and the same? In this article in Quest, modern-day Theosophist Pablo B. Sender elucidates.
Interesting to note also that a google search brought up the tidbit that “Amajur” was the name of an astronomer of 10th century Baghdad– though I hasten to add, according to the IMIS reports in Una ventana al mundo invisible, “Master Amajur” spoke Mexican Spanish. And of further note: there are Spiritist groups that continue to channel messages from Master Amajur today.
Dear readers, conclude what you will, and whether this finds you embracing a gnosis that “resonates” with you, cackling like a hyena, or just numbly confused, surely we can agree that this is all very remarkable.
So What, Pray Tell, Does All This Have to Do with Don Francisco I. Madero?
Francisco I. Madero, President of Mexico 1911-1913; leader of the 1910 Revolution; and as “Bhima,” author of the 1911 Spiritist Manual
My book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution, is about Madero as leader of the 1910 Revolution and President of Mexico, 1911-1913 and how his political career was launched as an integral part of his Spiritist beliefs. (The book includes my translation of his secret book of 1911, Spiritist Manual, which spells it all out– all the way to out-of-body travel and, yes, interplanetary reincarnation.)
Not all– Enrique Krauze, Yolia Tortolero Cervantes, Javier Garciadiego, Alejandro Rosas Robles, Manuel Guerra de Luna, among others, are important exceptions– but most historians of Mexico and its Revolution sidestep, belittle, or even ignore Madero’s Spiritist beliefs. In my book, I have quite a bit to say about why I think that is (key words: cognitive dissonance), but in sum, few have any context for Madero’s ideas which, for most educated people in the western world, fall into the category of absurd nonsense and “superstition.”
My aim in my book– and this blog post– is not to convince the reader of the truth or falsity of any religious beliefs (ha, neither do I poke tigers with sticks for the hell of it), but to provide a sense of the history and richness of the matrix of metaphysical traditions from which Madero’s beliefs emerged. And with this context, I believe, we can arrive at the conclusion that Madero was not mad, nor so naive and weak as many have painted him, but that, in fact, he was a political visionary of immense courage who found himself on a counterrevolutionary battlefield of such rage and chaos that, if it was fatal for him, would have been for almost anyone else as well.
Madero did not, like some mad alchemist, cook up his ideas by himself; they fit into what was then and is now a living tradition. Madero’s Spiritism was French, itself an off-shoot of American Spiritualism, and with roots in occult Masonry and hermeticism and mesmerism; in the early 20th century, Madero also adopted ideas from a wide range of difficult-to-categorize mystics, such as Edouard Schuré, and from the Hindu holy book so beloved of the Theosophists, Thoreau, and Mohandis Gandhi: the Baghavad-Gita.
After Madero, on the one hand, we see Spiritism melding with folkloric and shamanistic traditions, as with the mediumistic healers Niño Fidencio, Doña Pachita, and the “psychic surgeons” of Brazil and the Philippines. On the other hand, a very small and adventurous group of what was primarily members of the educated urban elite– as we see in Una ventana al mundo invisible– continued the international tradition of parapsychological research that, as we know from his Spiritist Manual and his personal library, Madero greatly admired.
“Oscar Wilde arrived here yesterday evening or rather, at our house at the Falls. I took a short walk with him before tea. He talks well but a little loud and with a little too much assertiveness…” — John Bigelow, Jr.
Early last month I made a supersonic visit to New York for two ultra-intensive days in the archives at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.* My object: to consult the diaries of Col. John Bigelow Jr., an officer in the Indian Wars and one of the personalities I am writing about in my book on Far West Texas. I’ve posted on this unjustly little-known officer and military intellectual elsewhere on this blog (here and here) and published a paper about him for the Journal of Big Bend Studies. One of the several things I was searching for in his archive were any mentions of his encounters with the Irish writer Oscar Wilde–for I knew that in between postings to remotest of Texas forts with the 10th Cavalry, Bigelow had returned to West Point to teach, and there, a short walk away, where his family had a country house at Highland Falls, his parents hosted Oscar Wilde. Yes, theOscar Wilde, international literary celebrity, who told U.S. customs on his arrival that he had “nothing to declare but his genius.” I found some choice quotes, not from Bigelow’s diaries, as I had expected, but in his letters to his fiancée, later wife, Mary Dallam. To wit:
West Point, November 21, 1881 …I hear that Oscar Wilde, having played himself out in England, is coming here to infatuate the American demoiselles. He will probably experience the disappointment of finding us on this side of the water in advance of England, rather than behind her, in recovery from the aesthete craze. There are not many symptoms of it now in New York. Yet one may once in a while see a girl on the street in a dress covered with gold colored patterns that make her look as if she were clothed in wall paper. February 10, 1882 ..I am especially sorry I could not be home Sunday as I missed seeing Oscar Wilde, who dined at our house that evening. I had seen him before at one of our receptions but had never had a good chance to hear him talk or to talk with him myself. From everything I learn about him I judge him to be a very companionable man. From the nature of your allusions to him I infer that he was not a social success in Baltimore. I think as little of his poetry as you do; nor do I much like his face. His mouth is not expressive of a delicate and refined instinct, and his hands are of the consistency of fresh bread. Nevertheless I am disgusted with the way in which he has been treated by a large part of our press and of our respectable population. There are young ladies in New York who talk about him as if he had come over here for the express purpose of captivating them and would have to regard his time and money wasted if he should not succeed in doing so! I believe Oscar Wilde is a man of rare talent and rare good taste. He believes in men dressing according to their individual taste and characteristics, not in knickerbockers unless that style of unmentionables especially becomes them. August 29, 1882 …Oscar Wilde arrived here yesterday evening or rather, at our house at the Falls. I took a short walk with him before tea. He talks well but a little loud and with a little too much assertiveness. The loudness is due partly to nature and partly to his speaking in public, the assertiveness is due to his public speaking and to his being lionized. There is more grace in his body than in his voice or features. He went to the ball with Anny and Jenny + my mother… His coat was a black velvet swallow-tail of the style of the last century, with ruffles in the place of cuffs and a white puffy frill-trimmed kerchief… He wore black knee-breeches, black silk stockings, buckled shoes and white kid gloves. When he went out to get into the carriage I saw him in his long easy cloak, his old-time high-crowned soft-felt hat, with its broad brim turned up one side, showing to advantage his long hair underneath; he looked like a typical cavalier. I know that if you had seen him you would have wished as I did that there were such costumes to be seen… August 31, 1882 Oscar Wilde left us today. He says he is to have a theater decorated to suit himself next winter in New York. He told us a good deal yesterday about Greece…
Sorry, no photos of that very photogenic snow-dusted campus at West Point. It was all I could do to work in the archives, then catch the shuttle to my hotel both days.
*It can be expensive indeed to travel to consult an archive, hence one must carefully guard one’s energies for long hours of laser-focus. My strategies include minimal socializing (I beg forgiveness of friends and family); no hither-and-thithering; eating only very lightly (preferably room service in the evening); sleeping as much as possible; showing up as close to when the archives open as possible, and staying glued to my seat, pencil in claw, until closing. I owe the warmest of thanks to the staff at the archives, most especially Susan Lintelman.
HONEY & WAX, ET AL
On this supersonic visit to New York I had but a mini-micro portion of a morning for shopping, and this being December, I had some to do. Since my dad’s family is from New York, the Rockefeller Center and the rest of tourist-clogged Fifth Avenue wasn’t anything novel for me, so I hopped over the river to peek into the Brooklyn Holiday Book Fair.
As those of you who follow this blog well know, I’m a rare book aficionada– as both a collector (in the peewee leagues thereof) and a writer with a few things to say about it all (see my Dispatch from Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla, a longform essay on the Mexican literary landscape and the power of the book). I also have a background as a (now armchair) economist, so I’ve had an eye on the rare book business from that angle, as well. Like the antiques business, and publishing, the rare book business has changed beyond recognition with the advent of Internet. Many of the changes frankly strike me as tragic losses. But there are some upsides. See for example these oral histories with members of the ABAA (Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America): Garrett Scott; Henry Wessells; and Heather O’Donnell of Honey & Wax Booksellers. The latter has been on my radar as one of the very few women in the trade and one of most dynamic of the new generation of rare book dealers. And here she is at the 2019 Brooklyn Holiday Book Fair!
Heather O’Donnell, proprietor of Honey & Wax Booksellers, member, Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America
The latest Honey & Wax Booksellers catalogue
Her Honey & Waxcatalogs are exemplars of elegance. And her inventory, whew! In the latest catalog: “Autumn Rain, Autumn Wind: Memorial for the Executed Revolutionary Qiu Jin,” 1907, USD 20,0000; a 1930s edition of the novels and some letters of Jane Austin, inscribed to E.M. Forster by Lytton Strachey, USD 9,500; and so on. Most of the Honey & Wax catalog items are a galaxy beyond my budget, but the offerings here in the Brooklyn Holiday Book Fair, if just as fancifully varied, and all in exquisite condition, were vastly more economical. For the price of pair of Keds, she sold me this sweet treasure, which I ended up keeping for myself:
Also from my Brooklyn Holiday Book Fair haul, this handsome first edition of The Saga of Texas Cookery from Lizzy Young Bookseller:
And for the price of a burger and fries (!!) I found this fine first edition from Enchanted Books:
Note my Texas Bibliothek bookmark. Yep, that’s where this handsome puppy goes. Dissanayake is also the author of the recently published Early Rock Art of the American West: The Geometric Enigma, which I look forward to reading.
Enchanted Books, antiquarian bookseller at the Brooklyn Holiday Book Fair
#
This blog posts on Mondays. Next post will be the fourth Monday Q & A with another writer.
This blog posts on Mondays. As of 2019, the fifth Monday of the month, when there is one, rounds up my news plus some cyberflanerie.
Dear writerly readers, my writing assistants Uliberto Quetzalpugtl and Washingtoniana Quetzalpugalotl and I wish you a very happy, healthy, prosperous, and inspiring 2020!
RECENT PUBLICATIONS, PODCASTS & BLOG POSTS
(I finally got an email sign-up working– it’s there on the sidebar.)
New longform essay (soon to be a podcast):
Great Power in One: Miss Charles Emily Wilson If I do say so myself, this is my best essay of creative nonfiction to date. Dear writerly readers, over the past two decades I have published essays of creative nonfiction in some mighty fine places: Creative Nonfiction, Letras Libres, Massachusetts Review, North American Review, Southwest Review... But such was not to be the fate for “Great Power in One: Miss Charles Emily Wilson.” It ended up being what it wanted to be– too short to stand as a book, yet too long for a literary journal or magazine (to cut it down would have ruined it), so forthwith, I posted it on my blog, and also read it aloud as the Marfa Mondays Podcast #21. The podcast is currently in production; I will update this post just as soon as the podcast is live.
New book:
Meteor. My book of poetry won the Gival Press Award. Read all about it on my webpage for the book here.
Scholarly article:
John Bigelow, Jr. (1854-1936), who served as an officer in the Indian Wars and went on to become a military intellectual of distinction, will be accompanying me in my memoir of Far West Texas, in a manner of speaking. I do not usually write scholarly articles all a-bristle with footnotes, but for him I did: John Bigelow, Jr.: Officer in the Tenth U.S. Cavalry, Military Intellectual, and Nexus Between the West and the Eastern Establishment, Journal of Big Bend Studies, 2018 (actually came out in 2019). This month, December 2019, I finally made it to the US Military Academy’s archive in West Point, NY to delve into his diaries. I’ll have something to say about some of those curiously fun pages in a later post.
From a Frederic Remington illustration in John Bigelow Jr.’s collected articles, On the Bloody Trail of Geronimo.
New short story:
“What Happened to the Dog?” was wicked fun to write, and to type! The idea was to write a story about a typewriter set in the far future, and then actually type it on a typewriter for Escapements: Typewritten Tales from Post-Digital Worlds, edited by Richard Polt, Frederic S. Durbin, and Andrew V. McFeeters.
Zip! This winter 2020 I’ll be working on my book about Far West Texas. (Stay tuned for more of the related “Marfa Mondays” podcasts, which you can listen into anytime for free here.) Nonetheless, I will continue offering a post for my writing workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing on the second Monday of every month throughout 2020.
P.S. Check out the substantial archive of workshop posts here.
Writers looking to get published, take special note: Allison Joseph’s long-time Creative Writers Opps listerserv is now a blog.
Madam Mayoin 2020
Madam Mayo blog posts on Mondays. As in 2019, in 2020 the second Monday of the month will be dedicated to my creative writing students and anyone else interested in creative writing, and the fourth Monday to a Q & A with a fellow writer. A fifth Monday, when there is one, will offer my newsletter and cyberflanerie. Bookmark this page or, better yet, sign up for new posts by email– right there on the sidebar.
For this crazy-busy third Monday in November, herewith a post from the archives, originally posted on April 3, 2017:
In the shadow of the National Palace: La Casa de la Primera Imprenta de América, the House of the First Printing Press in the Americas, Mexico City. Photo by C.M. Mayo, 2017.
…There is one more a pearl of a place that cannot go unmentioned in any discussion of our sister republic’s literary landscape…
From the Claustro de Sor Juana, in less than twenty minutes’ walk north and slightly east—weaving your way through the shoppers, touts, tourists, beggars, businessmen—honking cars and buses and motorbikes—and a skate-boarder or two—blaring music, freighters with their trolleys piled to toppling with boxes—don’t get run over by the pedicabs—and once at the Zócalo, wending around the Aztec dancers in feathers and ankle-rattles, the toothless shouter pumping his orange sign about SODOM Y GOMORRA MARIGUANA BODAS GAY, and an organ grinder, and to-ers and fro-ers of every age and size, you arrive, out of breath, at a squat, terracotta-colored three-story high building.
This is where the first book was printed in—no, not just in Mexico—then New Spain—but in the Americas. La Casa de la Primera Imprenta de América.
To step into the foyer of its museum and bookstore is to relax into an oasis of peace.
The uniformed guard hands me a pen to sign the guest book. It’s late afternoon; I am the third visitor for the day.
I take a gander at the exhibition of contemporary textile art—a few pieces reference one of Frida Kahlo’s drawings in the Casa Azul of a tentacled monster of paranoia, each limb tipped with a staring eye.
In the second gallery I find the replica of our continent’s first printing press soaking in sun from the window. The wooden contraption is taller than I am, but so spare, it occurs to me that it might serve to juice apples.
How my Mexican amigos scoffed at the auction of the Bay Psalm Book in 2013. Not about the record sum—14.2 million US dollars—for which that little book, printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1640, went to a private collector, but about the report in the international media that the Bay Psalm Book was “the first book printed in America.”
To Mexicans, America is the continent, not their sister republic. Mexico is part of the same continent, of course, and so the first book printed in America—or, as we estadounidenses prefer to say, the Americas—was
Breve y más compendiosa doctrina Cristiana en lengua Mexicana y Castellana (Brief and Most Comprehensive Christian Doctrine in Nahuátl and Spanish), printed right here, in Mexico City, in this building, in 1539.
Mexico beats out Massachusetts by 101 years! But this sinks to silliness. That printer in Cambridge, Massachussetts, was English, and the one in colonial Mexico City, a native of Lombardy named Giovanni Paoli, Hispanicized to “Juan Pablos.” The technology that found its way to the Americas with these printing pioneers—to the north, Protestants, to the south, Catholics, separated by religious schism and the whirlwinds of European politics, and that century, and moreover, by the staggering distance of desert, swamplands, oceanic buffalo-filled prairies, and sunless and unmapped forests—had one and the same root: the fifteenth-century workshop of a German goldsmith by the name of Johannes Gutenberg.
Gutenberg was inking his little pieces of movable type more than half a century before Christopher Columbus “sailed the ocean blue,” and the indigenous on this continent chanced to hear the first stirrings of vaguest rumors and weird omens.
Still, 1539 is an early date indeed for that first book printed in the Americas: only eighteen years after the fall of Tenochitlán. Three years after Cabeza de Vaca’s miraculous arrival in Mexico City. Fray Sahagún was still a year away from launching the research that would result in the Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España, or the Florentine Codex. The lodes that would turn Mexico into an industrial-scale silver exporter had not yet been discovered. The Manila Galleons, treasure ships bringing porcelain, spices, and silks from China to Acapulco, would not begin their annual crossings for another twenty-six years.
In England, Henry the VIII was between wives three and four. It would be sixty-eight more years until the first, disastrous English settlement at Jamestown. The Pilgrims who would land at Plymouth Rock? As a religious community they did not yet exist.
Tucked in the shade of the National Palace and a block east from Mexico’s cathedral, the Casa de la Primera Imprenta was built, it turns out, over the ruin of the Aztec Temple of Tezcatlipoca, Smoking Mirror, trickster god of the night sky, of time, and of ancestral memory.
Aztec snake head on display, 2017.
Who knows what still lies beneath in the rubble? Dug up in the eighteenth century during a renovation, a gigantic Aztec stone snake head was, no doubt with a shudder of horror, reburied. But we live in a different time with a very different sensibility. In 1989 when renovations unearthed that same Aztec stone snake head—elegant with fangs, nostrils, scales, eyes the size of melons—it was carefully excavated and cleaned by archaeologists. This monumental sculpture, heritage of the nation, is now displayed atop a roped platform in the Casa de la Primera Imprenta’s Juan Pablos bookstore, surrounded by a shelf of fiction, a table of poetry, and a sign informing us that the Aztec snake head is carved from grey basalt and weighs approximately one and a half tons.
The Juan Pablos bookstore, named for that original printer Giovanni Paoli, retails books from the press of Mexico City’s Universidad Autónomo Metropolitana (UAM). Such are my interests du jour: I came away with a copy of the first Spanish translation of an eighteenth-century Italian’s journey to Mexico and the 2015 El territorio y sus representaciones.
A splendid and very important book: El territorio y sus representaciones by Luis Ignacio Sainz Chávez and Jorge Gonzlález Aragón Castellanos, winner of the 2016 Premio de Investigación. Published by the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico.
UPDATE: “Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla,” my long essay pon the Mexican literary landscape and the power of the book, is now available in Kindle at amazon.com.
Special Note: I ever and always invite comments at the end of each blog post but for this post in particular I would especially like to hear comments and any tips from those of you who have been wrestling with your own working libraries. (It strikes me that in all the many writers’ workshops and writers’ conferences I have attended over the years I have never seen this vital practical necessity addressed. And what I have seen in terms of advice from librarians and personal organizers is not quite apt for a working writer’s needs. Have I missed something?)
Selected titles at-hand as I was writing an essay about Black Seminole oral historian Miss Charles Emily Wilson. This essay is destined for an anthology and will also be the Marfa Mondays podcast # 21, apropos of my book-in-progress about Far West Texas– for which I have a scary-big working library. I call it the Texas Bibliothek. My writing assistant Washingtoniana Quetzalpugalotl says it’s been exhausting, all the thinking going on, and books of so many smells going hither, thither & zither. She would like to take a siesta.
The scene as I was revising my essay. No worries, I certainly would not shelve my books over a radiator! They were here only temporarily. Shortly thereafter, I used my supersonic reshelving method, described anon.
Still working on the same essay… on this day, my other writing assistant having appropriated the chair, I was using my StandStand.
Why a Working Library?
Why should you have a working library? Well, dear writerly reader, maybe you shouldn’t. It depends on what you are writing.
Poetry or, say, a novel of the imagination might require nothing more than a dictionary and thesaurus–– and of course, you could access those online. Perhaps, should you feel so moved, for inspiration you might keep a shelf or two of books by your favorite writers, and perhaps another shelf devoted to books on craft, on process, etc. Or not.
The need for a working library arises when you attempt to write historical fiction or in some genre of nonfiction, for example, a biography, history, or travel memoir. And the problem is–– if I can extrapolate from my own experience––which perhaps I cannot–– but I’ll betcha 1,000 books and three cheesecakes with a pound of cherries on top that I can––you are going to ginormously underestimate how fast and how very necessarily your working library expands, how much space it gobbles up, and how quickly any disorganization unravels into further disorganization, and to muddle the metaphor, makes a clogged up mega-mess of your writing process.
you are going to ginormously underestimate how fast and how very necessarily that working library expands, and how much space it gobbles up, and how quickly any disorganization unravels into further disorganization, and to muddle the metaphor, makes a clogged up mega-mess of your writing process.
In short, by underestimating the importance of first, acquiring, and second, adequately shelving, and third, maintaining the organization of this collection, writing your book will turn into a more frustrating and lengthy process than it otherwise would have been. (Trust me, it will be frustrating and take forever and ten centuries anyway.)
Yes, I know about www.archive.org–– I oftentimes consult books there–– and I have accumulated a collection of Kindles. I also make use of public and university libraries when possible. (There is also the question of keeping paper and digital files, which would merit a separate post.) Nonetheless, my experience has been that a working library of physical books at-hand remains by far, as in, from-here-to-Pluto-and-back, my most vital resource.
About My Working Libraries, In Brief
First understand: I am not a book hoarder! When I do not have a compelling reason and/or space to keep a book, off it goes– to another reader or to donation. (See my previous post “How to Declutter a Library.”) I don’t live in a house the size of an abandoned aircraft hanger; it would be impossible for me to keep every book I’ve read in my life and still find my way in and out of the front door. Aside from a handful (literally maybe 10) that I hold onto for sentimental reasons, the books I keep for the long term I have a precise reason to keep: to assist me as I write my books. And I maintain them scrupulously organized as working libraries.
No, I do not have OCD. Scrupulous organization is terrifically important! My motto: A book I cannot find is a book I do not have. Disorganization is a form of poverty.
A book I cannot find is a book I do not have. Disorganization is a form of poverty.
Over many years of writing several books, each with its own working library, and also teaching, and so gathering an ever-growing working library on craft and process, I have accumulated a daunting number of books, and to keep them all accessible I have had to tackle some eye-crossing challenges. (Add to that moving house a few times in mid-book and, boy howdy, did I get an education in organizing!)
My books for which I assembled and continue to maintain working libraries include:
The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire This working library is more substantial, as it should be for a novel based on the true story set during Mexico’s most complex, tumultuous, and thoroughly transnational episode. (So why did France invade Mexico and install the Austrian Archduke as emperor and then why did the latter make a contract with the family of Mexico’s previous emperor giving them the status of the Murat princes?!!! It took me several years to get my mind around it all…) Some very rare Maximiliana.
World Waiting for a Dream: A Turn in Far West Texas (in-progress) I call this one my “Texas Bibliothek.” This one is just… sorry for the cliché… GIANT. Texans are far more literarily industrious than most people imagine, and there is endless celebration of and controversy about their culture and history. Some of the works published just in the last decade are paradigm-smashers. I’ve had a heap of very necessary reading to keep up with… Plus understanding Far West Texas requires fathoming what surrounds it– New Mexico to the west, Coahuila and Chihuahua to the south, the heartland of Texas and Gulf to the east, the Llano Estacado to the north…and the larger geological, geopolitical, and cultural context. Oh, and all about oil!! This has been my most challenging book yet. Wish me luck.
Plus, as mentioned, I maintain a working library on the craft of writing and creative process which I consult for both my writing workshops and my own writing. Accumulated over some twenty years, this is a substantial working library, but it is the smallest. I haven’t counted but I’d say this has some 250 books.
(Did I mention, I’m not 25 years old? If I live to 100… uh oh…)
Why, pray tell, keep all of these books, and even add to the collections, year after year?
(1) I often reference works in one collection for another another book (for example, in writing my book on Far West Texas I have consulted works in all four collections), and I expect this will continue with the projects I am contemplating for the future.
(2) I plan to see more of my books published in translation and so will require consulting some of the original texts (many in Spanish, some in German, a few in French) from which I quoted. This may or may not be an issue for you. But if it is, take heed. It can be crazy difficult and expensive to track some of these things down later.
(3) I often receive email from researchers, both amateur and academic, and I am delighted to assist, when I can, in answering their questions and for this oftentimes I need to reference a book or three in my collections. And what goes around comes around.
(4) I do not live near a relevant library and even if I did, many of the works in my collections are nonetheless exceedingly difficult to find. Plus, even if a nearby library were to have each and every book I would want to consult when I want to consult it, it’s a bother and a time-mega-suck to have to go to a library and call up so many books.
Yes, my working libraries take up a lot of space. This cranks my noodle. But a painter needs an atelier, no? Um, you aren’t going to bake bread in your lipstick compact.
Tips for Your Working Library (Future Reminder to Take My Own Advice)
With all due respect for the operations of institutional libraries, earning a degree in Library Science is not on my schedule for this incarnation. But as a writer with my own absolutely necessary working libraries, none of them large enough in scale to require professional cataloging, yet each nonetheless larger than I was prepared to manage efficiently, alas….. painnnnnNNNfully…. I have learned a few things. What I offer here for you, dear writerly reader, is not the advice of a knowledgeable librarian but what I, a working writer having muddled through writing several books, would have told myself, had I been able to travel back in time… to the late 1990s.
(1) If you have good reason to think you’ll need it, don’t be pennywise and pound foolish, buy the book! To the degree possible, it is better to buy a first edition in fine condition; however, cheap used / ex-library copies are fine for a working library. Many ex-library books in good condition cost just pennies. (Or did you plan to write an sloppily researched, amateurish book?)
(2) Go head and mark up those ex-library books and mass-market paperbacks, but if you happen to have in your hands a hardcover first edition in fine condition, take care! Keep the dust jacket, protect it from any bumps and the sun, and if you must mark the pages, use only very light erasable pencil. Drink your coffee and eat your snacks at another time, in another room. (I shall spare you the super sad episodes…)
P.S. More tips on care and preservation of books here.
A first edition of a Very Important book! Grrrr, I marked it up and I mistreated the dust jacket!! And I already knew better!! I used a highlighter!!!!! WAHHHH
(3) You will need bodacious amounts of bookshelf space. And more after that, and even more after that…. If you do not have it, make it. If you cannot make space, then probably you should reconsider embarking on this type of writing project. I am not kidding.
(4) For keeping the books organized you will need a system that is at once flexible, easy-peasy, and supremely useful to you. It may not make sense to anyone else, but Anyone Else is not the name of the person writing your book.
It may not make sense to anyone else, but Anyone Else is not the name of the person writing your book.
For example, for my Texas Bibliothek, right now I have about 30 categories, each with from 10 to approximately 50 books in each. Each category I have defined to my liking, broad enough that it doesn’t occupy more than a brain cell or two to figure out, yet narrow enough that I don’t need to bother organizing the books alphabetically.
For my writing workshop working library however, I do have the craft and process books organized by author alphabetically. I have never been able to find a reasonable way–– reasonable for me––to break down the collection beyond books on “Craft” and on “Process.”
(5) Of course, some books could fall into more than one category, e.g., Jeff Guinn’s Our Land Before We Die: The Proud Story of the Seminole Negro could be in U.S. Military; African American/ Seminoles; Texas History; Regional History / Fort Clark; US-Mexico Borderlands. (I chose African American / Seminoles. But I might change my mind.) For such endless little categorization conundrums, well, say I, just apply deodorant and do what seems most sensible to you. You can always change your mind, and you probably will.
To make sure you do not overlook important works in your collection, as you work with your library, and as you dust it, make an effort to let your eyes rove over the whole of it.
(6) Dust regularly using an ostrich feather duster. Seriously, go for the ostrich.
(7) For the shelves use BIG, READ-ICU-LOUS-LY EASY-TO-READ LABELS. I print these out on my computer, cut and tape them to index cards, and tape them on the shelves.
This is what I mean by a READ-icu-lous-ly big label. Huh, I can read it.
Tom Lea was a most elegant artist and novelist, El Paso’s best. And, yay, I found a place for my super chido “Honk If You’ve Seen La Llorona” bumpersticker! Maybe one of these days I will put it on my car!
That portrait on the spine of that book to the left is not actually Cabeza de Vaca. Everyone seems to think it is. Which kind of annoys me.
(8) Key is to be able to not only find, but lickety-split, without a thought––look, Ma, no brain cells!–– reshelve any and all books in your working library. Institutional libraries have catalogs you can consult and usually affix a sticker with the catalog number on each book’s spine, but for you, with your writer’s working library, this is probably going to be too fussy a process. And anyway you don’t want to be sticking anything on a rare or first edition book unless it has a mylar cover, in which case, you could put the sticker on the mylar cover. Mylar covers are nice… buying more is on my “to do ” list… but….
What works splendidly well for supersonic reshelving is a labeled bookmark. Yep. It’s this simple.
(9) To label each bookmark, get a typewriter because, for all the many other good reasons to use a typewriter, you can quickly type up legible labels on your bookmarks.
(=You can stop laughing now=)
Trying to make labels for bookmarks using a wordprocessing program and printer will give you a dumptruck of a headache. I used to be a fan of labelers such as the Brother Labeler. No more. Batteries, replacement cartridges… fooey. Yes, using your own handwriting may be the easiest of the peasiest, but it will slow you down when you are trying to reshelve books because the eye groks machine-written words so much faster.
Get the typewriter! A workhorse if you can, such as a refurbished Swiss-made Hermes 3000 from the 1960s-1970s.
No battery, no click-bait, no wifi! No need for any Freedom app, either. (And ecological. Um, my little tree huggers, have you ever actually seen a server farm? Or where and how they mine the stuff to make batteries?)
(1o) To make the bookmarks, use paper strong enough for the bookmark to always stand straight. I cut up left over or ready-to recycle file-folders for this purpose.
(11) To identify each working library (should you have more than one) place a sticker or stamp on each bookmark.
The sticker reads “C.M. Mayo’s Texas Bibliotek.” Make your own at www.moo.com.
(12) Another advantage of these plain paper bookmarks is that you can easily change them. Just cut off the top and type in the new label! As you delve deeper into researching and writing your book, you will undoubtedly find it convenient to both add to and reconfigure the categories in your working library, and perhaps several times.
(13) Further consideration: While many book collectors write their name in the book or paste in a book plate, I stopped doing this several years ago because I found this made it more difficult for me to let go of books that, after all, I wanted to declutter. I might change my mind about this. A custom-made ex-libris has always seemed to me a lovely idea. It’s in my Filofax for my old age when, maybe, I live in a house the size of an aircraft hangar.
(14) Cataloging? Nah. Even with a wall or six or seven or ten filled from floor to ceiling with books you are still far from operating at the scale of an institutional library. A catalog, whether low-tech or high-tech, will take too much time to figure out and maintain (ugh, more glitch-ridden software updates). Ignore anyone who tries to sell you library cataloguing software. Seriously, trying to do it digitally in some-fangled DIY way may also end up proving more trouble for you than it’s worth. (… cough, cough… ) With adequate bookshelf space (see tip #3, above) and meaningful categories with BIG, RIDICULOUSLY EASY-TO-READ labels (see tip #7, above) you can grok your whole enchilada at a glance, or two.
However, it may make sense to catalog the books when you get to your long-term plan (see point 16 below).
(15) Ignore ignorant people who tut-tut that you should declutter your books. Have they ever tried to write a book? No, they have not. Smile sweetly as you shoot them eye-daggers.
(16) Make a long-term plan for your books because obviously, at some point, perhaps when you move into smaller digs for one reason or another, or you die, they have to go. If you are incapacitated or dead, these working libraries may prove a heavy burden for your family, literally, figuratively, and financially. Chances are your family members won’t have a clue what to do with them, nor the time, and possibly, alas, they may not even care. I aim to write more on this sticky wicket of a subject later; for now, I point you to a fantastic resource, the Brattlecast podcast #57 on “Shelf Preservation” from the Brattle Book Shop.
One of the special treasures in my Texas Bibliothek is Cloyd I. Brown’s Black Warrior Chiefs.
Tipped inside my copy of “Black Warrior Chiefs” I found this letter from the late author (I blocked the name of the recipient to protect his privacy). Hmm, he says he has several hundred unsold copies… Only a very few show up for sale online as of 2019.
What has been your experience with your working libraries? Do you have any tips to share?
