Why Translate? The Case of the President of Mexico’s Secret Book

Just back from ALTA, the American Literary Translators Association conference held this year in (brrr) Milwaukee, which had the theme “Politics & Translation.” If you’ve been following this blog, you’ve already read reams about my latest book which is, indeed, about politics: Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual.

Visit the book’s webpage here.

At ALTA, I spoke on two panels and read an excerpt from my translation of a work by Mexico’s great novelist and short story writer Ignacio Solares. (Had the scheduling permitted, I would have loved to have also shared new translations of works by Mexican writers Agustin Cadena and Rose Mary Salum. Here’s to ALTA in Tucson, Arizona in 2015!) 

Herewith the transcript of my talk for the second panel, “Why Translate?”

WHY TRANSLATE?
THE CASE OF THE
PRESIDENT OF MEXICO’S SECRET BOOK

A (slightly edited and expanded) transcript of C.M. Mayo’s talk for the panel “Why Translate?” 
American Literary Translation Association (ALTA) Conference
Milwaukee, November 15, 2014

I translate for the same reasons that I write. There are many, but we have limited time, so I will focus on two, which are: I want to understand, and I want to share that understanding. 

Sharing might just be with myself, as in a diary entry, or with a cadre of of loyal readers and any Internet surfers who happen onto this blog, Madam Mayo. Sharing ramps up, of course, when we start talking about books. 

People have many different and varied motivations for writing and publishing books— and for some, one of them is nothing less than to change the world. Or maybe, to change our understanding of some aspect of the world— and so change the world.

FRANCISCO I. MADERO, President of Mexico, 1911-1913

TWO SYSTEMS: 
THE HEAVILY INTERMEDIATED AND THE RELATIVELY DIRECT


Whether in its original language or as a translation, a book is a vector for a set of ideas, a very unusual and efficient vector, for it can zing ideas from mind to mind, spreading out over great distances and, potentially, far into the future. 

Books can travel through two systems, or rather, an array of systems: at one extreme, the heavily intermediated, and at the other, the direct.

Our commercial publishing industry constitutes that first extreme. To give a stylized example, a book comes into the hands of an agent, then an acquiring editor, perhaps a developmental editor, a copyeditor, a book designer, a formatter, a cover designer, the proofreader, the printer, the delivery truck driver, the warehouse employees, the distributor, the sales rep, the bookstore’s buyer, and so on and so forth until, finally, the cashier hands the book to its reader. Very possibly multiple corporate entities and dozens of individuals play some role in bringing a book to any given reader. 

At the other extreme, I scribble on a piece of paper and hand it to you. 

I submit that we tend to over focus on this heavily intermediated system; we often overlook the fact that it is not the only or even necessarily the best way for a book to fulfill its purpose.

TWO BOOKS BY FRANCISCO I. MADERO

I’m going to focus on two books, both political, both by Francisco I. Madero. 

If you are at all familiar with Mexican history, Francisco I. Madero needs no introduction. If Mexican history is a mystery to you, the main thing you need to know is that Madero was the leader of Mexico’s 1910 Revolution and President of Mexico from 1911 to 1913. 

His first book, La sucesión presidencial en 1910, or The Presidential Succession in 1910, published in 1909, served as his political platform in challenging the old regime. Though it was after the stolen elections of 1910 that Madero declared the Revolution on November 20, 1910, informally, we could say that the Revolution was launched with this book. 

The first page of Madero’s La sucesion presidencial en 1910. “To the heroes of our country; to the independent journalists; to the good Mexicans”
Francisco I. Madero’s secret book, Manual espírita, written 1909-1910 and published in 1911.

Madero’s second book is Manual espírita or Spiritist Manual, which he finished writing as he was preparing for the Revolution; it began to circulate in 1911, when he was president-elect. It is this second book which I translated, and my book about that book, which includes the translation, is Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual. 

Apropos of Madero’s two books and the two systems to bring a book to its readers, the heavily intermediated and the relatively direct, a bit from the opening of chapter 2 of my book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution:

When we talk about a “successful book,” usually what we mean is one that has a brand-name publisher, enjoys prime shelf space in bookstores, and earns its author buckets of royalties. In other words, we talk about it as a commodity—or, if we’re a mite more sophisticated, a hybrid commodity / work of art / scholarship. I say “we” because I am writing and I presume you are reading this in a time and place where books are no longer banned by the government, their authors no longer casually imprisoned—or worse. Lulled by endless streams of made-for-the-movies thrillers and romances, we forget that, as Ray Bradbury put it, “A book is a loaded gun.” 

Francisco I. Madero intended his Manual espírita to be a beam of light, to heal Mexico and the world with his consoling concepts of the nature and meaning of life. However, it is a book that stands on the shoulders of his first book that was, indeed, a loaded gun: La sucesión presidencial en 1910, published in the winter of 1909 when Don Porfirio Díaz, the dictator who had stolen the presidency in a coup d’état and ruled Mexico on and off for over thirty years, was about to celebrate his eightieth birthday and, as Mexico’s so-called “necessary man,” take for himself a seventh term.

Madero had no interest in the capitalist concept of a book’s success; he wanted La sucesión presidencial en 1910 in people’s hands, and as fast as possible, and for that he did not need bookstores, he needed a jump-start on Don Porfirio’s police. He paid for the printing himself (a first edition of 3,000, and later more) and, as he noted in a letter:

[T]he first precaution I took was to hand out 800 copies to members of the press and intellectuals throughout Mexico, so when the Government got wind of the book’s circulation, it would be too late to stop it. . .

MADERO’S SECOND, SECRET BOOK

Now when we come to Madero’s second book, Manual espírita, or Spiritist Manual, there are two reasons the subtitle of my book calls it his “secret book”: First, he wrote it under a pseudonym; second, incredible as it may sound, for the most part, historians have ignored it. A few have begrudged it a footnote; only a very few— so few that I can count them on one hand— have dared to write about it in any depth and seriousness. 

The 1924 edition published by Casa Editorial Maucci
in Barcelona

In 1911 five thousand copies of Madero’s Manual espírita went into circulation, one assumes, among Spiritists. It was reprinted in part by Madero’s enemies, the Reyistas, as an attack– their message being, “Madero is the true author, you see what a nut he is.” And I discovered that in 1924 Casa Editorial Maucci in Barcelona brought out a reprint (print run unknown). I do not know what influence the Manual espírita may or may not have had in spreading Spiritism, whether in Mexico or abroad—it would make a fine PhD dissertation to delve into that question— but as far as historians of Mexico are concerned, until very recently, and apart from a very few and very hard-to-find editions published in Mexico, essentially, the Manual espírita disappeared into the ethers. 

In 2011, one hundred years after its publication, I published the first English translation as a Kindle. Earlier this year, 2014, I published my book about the book, which includes Madero’s book, under the title Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual in both Kindle and paperback editions.And like Madero himself with both his books, I self-published.

THE WHYS AND WHEREFORES OF A PUBLISHING STRATEGY


I hasten to clarify that I did not self-publish after a string of rejections. I have already published several books, two with university presses and two with major commercial publishers, among others, so I know that, with patience and persistence, should those have proved necessary, my work would have found a home. My decision to self-publish was a deeply thought-out strategy, specific to my circumstances and specific to this title. In short,  I decided to skip the heavily intermediated system, which for this book probably would have been a university press. My three reasons:

First, I am not an academic angling for tenure, and as I have already published several books, as a writer and a translator I did not see much to gain by going to a traditional publisher, and in fact I had a lot to lose, mainly time and control;

Second, in English, alas (would that it were otherwise) books on Mexico are not particularly commercial, which makes me suspect that, whatever its merits may or may not be, mine would have taken a shoulder-saggingly long time to bring forth a contract I would have been willing to sign;

Third, for many readers, Spiritism is at once disturbing and beneath their notice. Let’s say, all this concern with the Afterlife and communicating with the dead creeps them out, as would a book on, oh, alien abductions or crop circles. And I believe this explains why even many of the leading historians of the Mexican Revolution do not know about Madero’s Spiritism, or know next to nothing about it. To give you an idea, one major textbook does not deign to mention it, while another textbook, also published by an important university press, blithely labels Madero an atheist, which is rather like calling the Pope of Rome a Protestant.

In our day, what we think of as self-publishing usually includes intermediaries such as amazon.com. In my case this would be amazon.com and Ingram. Ingram’s recent move into the realm of self-publishing is really the topic for another panel, but suffice it to say that for traditional publishing, no exaggeration, this is as momentous as Hiroshima. Ingram is a major book distributor and now also an on-demand book printer, and what listing with Ingram means is that all major on-line booksellers can now, on demand, easily source that self-published book. Libraries can order it, just as they order many of their books from Ingram, and while Barnes & Noble as well as many other major bookstore chains and independent bookstores may not necessarily stock it on their shelves, it’s right there, as easy to order as any other book, on their webpages—again, sourced from Ingram. 

As for getting my book into people’s hands, that is a challenge, for without a publisher, I do not have a marketing staff and sales reps. Like Madero with his La sucesión presidencial en 1910, I simply identified key individuals and gave each a copy. These individuals, mainly but not exclusively academics, are experts on Madero, on the Mexican Revolution, Mexican history in general, the history of metaphysical religion, and Masonry (Madero was a Mason).

The process of the book, my little turtle, finding its readers may be a long and winding one, but it is underway [see reviews] and I feel no urge to hurry. Unlike a traditionally published book, which must dash out like a rabbit, digitally available books (ebooks and print-on-demand paperbacks sold on-line) are not so heavily dependent on “buzz” generated to coincide with the fleeting moment when a book, thanks to the efforts of marketing staff and sales reps, might be available on physical shelves in brick-and-mortar bookstores. Like grocery stores, brick-and-mortar bookstores must move their merchandize with the seasons and oftentimes, as with the proverbial cottage cheese, even more quickly. Digital bookshelves, however, are of a different nature; at the click of a button, they can unfurl vast dimensions, additions to which impose a marginal cost approaching, or in fact, zero. Now if, on a Tuesday at 4 am, say, seven months or, say, seven years in the future, someone in Oodnadatta, Australia wants to download my Kindle or order my print-on-demand paperback, with a click, he can do just that. 

BLASTING THE SOMBRERO OFF THE PARADIGM
OF THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION


Will my book with its translation of Madero’s Spiritist Manual change our understanding of Mexican history? Well, I do think it blasts the sombrero off the reigning paradigm to consider that Francisco I. Madero, the leader of Mexico’s 1910 Revolution— an absolutely transformative episode in Mexican history and the first major revolution of the 20th century—was a not only a Spiritist but a leading Spiritist and a Spiritist medium (and, it all relates, a devoted student of the Hindu holy text known as the Bhagavad Gita).

Madero believed that he was channeling written instructions and encouragement from spirits in writing both of his books, and furthermore, in his Spiritist Manual, he detailed his beliefs about such esoterica as astral travel and interplanetary reincarnation, and the moral duty of political action. 

For anyone who chooses to open their eyes and look at the overwhelming evidence, the connection between Madero’s beliefs and his politics is clear. As Mexican historian Enrique Krauze writes in his seminal 1987 biography, Francisco I. Madero: Místico de la libertad, in the case of Madero, “Politics does not displace Spiritism; it is born of it.”

I do not deny other motives and the millions of other participants in that Revolution. But its spark, and the way it played out, and, I believe, Madero’s murder, are a radically different story once we take into account his Spiritism.

My aim with my book and my translation of Madero’s book is to deepen our understanding of Madero, both as an individual and as a political figure; and at the same time, deepen our understanding of the rich esoteric matrix from which his ideas sprang, in other words, not to promote his ideas nor disparage them, but explain them and give them context. 

It is also then my aim to deepen our understanding of the 1910 Revolution and therefore of Mexico itself, and because the histories are intertwined, therefore also deepen our understanding of North America, Latin America, the Pacific Rim, and more— for as long as a book exists, should someone happen to read it, it can catalyze change in understanding (and other changes) that ripple out, endlessly. 

Such is the wonder, the magical embryonic power of a book, any book, whether original or in translation: that, even as it rests on a dusty shelf for a hundred years, or for that matter, an unvisited digital “shelf,” if it can be found, if it can be read, it holds such potential.

Podcast: C.M. Mayo at UCSD’s Center for US-Mexican Studies

Translating Across the Border

What Is Writing (Really)? Plus Yours Truly Talking About Four Exceeding Rare Books Essential for Scholars of the Mexican Revolution

Find out more about
C.M. Mayo’s books, articles, podcasts, and more.

Guest-Blogger Short Story Maestro Clifford Garstang on 5 Favorite Novels About a Dangerous World

Guest-blogger Clifford Garstang is the author of In an Uncharted Country and What the Zhang Boys Know (Winner of the 2013 Library of Virginia Award for Fiction) and editor of Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet, an anthology of 20 stories set in 20 countries by 20 well-travelled writers. Here’s the description:

“Assembled from over six hundred submissions, this collection reminds us that our world is dangerous: a man disappears in Argentina, despair reigns in post-Katrina New Orleans, teen bandits attack in Costa Rica, wild boars swarm in a German forest, biker gangs battle in New Zealand, security guards overreact in Beijing, rogue militias run wild in Africa, and more. These are not ordinary travel stories by or about tourists; the contributors are award-winning authors who know their way around—former Peace Corps Volunteers, international aid workers, expatriates—and dig deep beneath the surface. “

FIVE FAVORITE NOVELS
ABOUT A DANGEROUS WORLD
by Clifford Garstang

Clifford Garstang

Some of my favorite American writers create dark stories set abroad. That’s what I like to read and it inevitably informs my own writing and my selections for the book. Here are 5 of the best:

Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder
I also liked Patchett’s earlier novel set in South America, Bel Canto, but this book, set in Brazil, really grabbed me—it has mystery, a heroic structure, and explores fascinating, credible science. One researcher has gone missing and another goes searching for him in the heart of darkness—classic. 

Russell Banks’s The Darling
Set in Liberia, Banks’s novel (which is said to be based loosely on The Tempest) explores failures of both American and Liberian governments. A former member of the Weather Underground faces exposure back home, but also faces a near-constant civil war in her adopted home.

Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna
Kingsolver’s agenda-driven fiction isn’t for everyone, but I was drawn to this novel, set mostly in Mexico. Having grown close to Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in Mexico City, the protagonist settles in the U.S. and attracts the scrutiny of the Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committees.

Robert Stone’s Damascus Gate
This is a sprawling book that explores the history of Israel and the forces that would destroy it. The book is a fascinating look at one of the Middle East’s most dangerous flashpoints.

Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried 
Like O’Brien’s fantastic Going After Cacciato, which won the National Book Award, The Things They Carried explores the horror of the Vietnam War and the intense personal toll it takes on all. 

— Clifford Garstang

Q & A: Clifford Garstang, Author of The Shaman of Turtle Valley

“What Happened to the Dog?” A Story About a Typewriter, Actually, Typed on a 1967 Hermes 3000

Why Translate? The Case of the President of Mexico’s Secret Book

12 Tips for Summer Day Hiking in the Desert (How to Stay Cool and Avoid Actinic Keratosis, Blood, and Killer Bees)

C’est moi on (whew) August 30, 2014 at Meyers Spring, an important rock art site of the Lower Pecos, on the US-Mexico border near Dryden, Texas. As you can see, in my left hand, I am carrying a
white umbrella. So I didn’t need the hat. And that black backpack wasn’t the best idea. I also should have worn a lightweight bandana. Oh, and more sunblock. Always more sunblock. The long-sleeved white shirt and hiking trousers were both excellent choices, however.

Just returned from hiking with the Rock Art Foundation in to see the spectacular rock art at Meyers Spring in the Lower Pecos of Far West Texas (yes, there will be a podcast in the Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project, in which I exploring the Big Bend & Beyond in 24 podcasts. More about that anon). 

UPDATE: Listen in to the podcast interview recorded at Meyers Springs, “Gifts of the Ancient Ones: Greg Williams on the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands”

I got a few things very right on this trip and a few things, well, I could have done better. Herewith, for you, and for me– this will serve as my own checklist for my next rock art foray– 12 tips for summer day hiking in the desert:


1. Don’t just bring water, lots of water, more water than you think you can possibly drink– bring it cold and keep it cold.

Everest Lumbar Waistpack

Of course, not drinking enough water can be seriously dangerous. But warm water when it’s this hot is just bleh–and if you’re carrying a plain old plastic water bottle in your hand, out here in Texas, boy howdy… (Last year, I hiked this way over Burro Mesa in the Big Bend National Park. Six hours. Head-slapper.)

The thing is, you don’t just want to hydrate; you want to keep your core from overheating, so every swig of cold water really helps. Before heading out, fill your insulated water bottles with lots of ice. In your car, keep them in an ice chest or, if that’s not possible, wrapped in a blanket, or whatever’s handy, until the moment you have to take them out. I did this for the first time, and wow, what a difference. 

> Recommended: Camelback lightweight insulated water bottle

> Recommended: Everest lumbar waist pack that holds two bottles (and carry a third in-hand).

2. Slather on the sunblock.

Yes, sun block stinks and feels gross, but if you’re like me — a descendant of those who once roamed the foggy bogs of the British Isles– if you don’t, you may end up helping your dermatologist buy his ski condo. And no, he probably won’t invite you.

> Watch this fun video, “How the Sun Sees You.”

> For those with actinic keratosis (that’s the fancy term for seriously sun-damaged skin), try Perrin’s Blend. If that doesn’t work, off to the dermatologist you must go. 

> Here’s how a bald guy, Tony Overbay, dealt with actinic keratosis using the latest in dermatologist-recommended chemotherapy (uyy, I am hoping my Perrin’s Blend works…)

>Recommended: Whole Foods article on how to choose the best sunscreen.

3. Wear a long sleeved white collared shirt.


This protects you against the sun, keeps you cool (the white reflects the sun), protects you from bug bites and scratches. Light clothes always beat dark! Flip the collar up to protect your neck. About scratches: the desert tends to be filled with cactus and thorny scrub. 

4. Knot a light-colored scarf around your throat.


This protects you from the sun. A bandana works fine. Mike Clelland (more about the guru in a moment) suggests cutting the bandana in two, so it’s lighter. Porquoi pas? But I didn’t do this. Alas. Bring on the Perrin’s.

5. Wear tough but lightweight trekking trousers.


For the same reason you want to wear the long-sleeved white shirt: trousers protect your body parts, in this case, calves and knees, from sun, scratches, and bugs. Do not wear shorts unless, for some reason you probably should be working on with your psychiatrist, you don’t mind scarring and blood.

And do not wear jeans. I repeat, do not wear jeans. 

> Recommended: Northface trekking convertible trousers.

6. Keep your pack as light as possible, in both senses.


Hey, you’ve not only gotta stay cool, but you’ve gotta hump all that water! 

A few specifics:

> Use a lightweight pack and carry it on your hips, rather than the flat of your back (see photo of lumbar waist pack above). This helps keep your back cool. But I don’t speak from experience on this one: I’m going to try this for next time.

> Carry lightweight insulated water bottles.

> Ditch the hat and ditch the heavy hiking boots (more about that below. There are, of course, other places and times when a hat and hiking books would be advisable).

> Skip the camera or use a lightweight camera (I use my iPhone).

> Eat a light breakfast and bring only a little food– since this is a day hike, you can eat a big dinner when you get back. But you will need sustenance on the trail. I recommend date, fruit and nut bars– love those Lara bars— that is, food that is high in energy but won’t spoil in the heat, and that doesn’t require any dishes or utensils. Don’t bring anything with chocolate in it. (I brought a Snicker’s bar. Ooey… gooey.)

>Bring a white plastic grocery bag and use it to cover your pack. Two advantages: the white reflects sunlight and keeps it cooler than, say, an unprotected black or other dark-colored pack, and, in case of rain, will help keep it dry. 

> Highly recommended: Mike Clelland’s Ultralight Backpackin’ Tips, a superb resource for keeping it lighter-than-light, yet making sure to bring what you need for comfort and safety. 


> And be sure to visit Clelland’s blog for many helpful videos and more.

7. Watch out for killer bees!


Africanized bees have arrived in some desert locales north of the Mexican border. What do bees want? Sweet things and water. So don’t carry around open cans or bottles or suddenly pick up open cans or bottles– bees may smell the water or soft drink from afar, crawl inside, and then, if you do anything they don’t like, such as pick up that can, they will go bezerk, and call in their buddies who will also go bezerk and might sting you hundreds of times.

No kidding, people and animals have died from killer bee attacks.

So be especially careful around any blooming plants where bees might be feeding. Ditto any open water, such as a tank, spring, or any puddle. And whatever you do, if you see a hive, don’t go anywhere near it. Normal honey bees, however, are not a problem. Unless you have a severe allergy, a few stings might actually be good for you! (Read more about bee sting therapy on the Apitherapy Association webpage). Your real problem is, it’s hard to tell the killers from the honeys until they attack. 

8. Wear gaiters.

I followed Mike Clelland’s tip and bought a pair from Dirty Girl Gaiters (they’re for guys, too). They weigh about as much as a feather, they’re easy to attach to your lace-up running shoes and indeed, they keep the dust out.

Their biggest advantage is that you can therefore avoid wearing those ankle-high and heavy hiking boots. You’ll exert yourself less and therefore, on the margin, stay cooler. (I’ll admit however that on this last hike, a loose ball of bubble-gum cactus went right through the gaiters and stabbed me in the ankle. Oh well!)

www.dirtygirlgaiters.com

9. Forget the hat and trekking pole; use a white umbrella.


Really! Who cares if it looks nerdy? It’s nerdier to pass out from  heat stroke or end up looking like a tomato. So let those guys in jeans, black T-shirts, and baseball caps cackle all they want, as they sweat & burn & chafe.

The white umbrella protects you from sun and the rain and– crucially– helps keep your head cool. A hat will trap heat on your head– not what you want out here. Plus, in a tight spot, you can also use the umbrella as a trekking pole. Added bonus: scares mountain lions. I would think. Don’t take my word for that, however. Also good, once folded, to toss a rattlesnake or tarantula. Not that I’ve had to do that, either. Just saying.

> Golight Chrome Dome Trekking Umbrella

> Francis Tapon on Why Go Hiking with an Umbrella

Cootie alert! But this white cotton parasol worked for me.

10. To avoid chafing, first apply an anti-chafe roll-on or cream.

Fortunately for me, I don’t have this problem, but a lot of people do. Why suffer?

> See Top Chafing Prevention Products

11.  Take it slow and rest often.

In shade, if possible. (Oh, right, you have your umbrella!)

12. In your car, leave a reflector open on your car’s dashboard and another over your stash of cold water.

If you’ve had to park outside, after a day of baking out in the desert, it’s going to be an authentic Finnish sauna in there– unless you use a dashboard reflector. In which case it will still be a chocolate-bar-melting warm, but infinitely more bearable. I picked up my pair of dashboard reflectors at Walgreen’s for $3.99 each and I was glad indeed that I did. Certainly, you could also just use ye olde roll of aluminum foil.

Notes on Tom Lea and His Epic Masterpiece of a Western, The Wonderful Country

Podcast: Cynthia McAllister with the Buzz on the Bees

Find out more about
C.M. Mayo’s books, articles, podcasts, and more.

The Harrowingly Romantic Adventure of US Trade with Mexico in the Pre-Pre-Pre NAFTA Era: Notes on Susan Shelby Magoffin and Her Diary of 1846-1847, “Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico”

As a writer who has been living in Mexico for nearly three decades and, for an ongoing hairy spell, working on a book about Far West Texas, I am tardy in the extreme in reading Susan Shelby Magoffin’s diary of 1846-47. Only recently did I pick it up in a bookstore on a visit to Santa Fe, New Mexico. I promptly devoured it and am still shaking my head that I had not happened upon this marvel of a chronicle before. Indeed, the diary stands an essential document in US and Mexican economic history. 

Herewith, a few notes. (In other words, this post is not a polished essay but for my own reference– and may it also serve you, dear reader, as an inspiration for further surfing and reading.)

YEA, VERILY, IN THE PRE-PRE-PRE NAFTA ERA

At the time that Mrs. Samuel Magoffin, or “Susanita,” as she called herself, began her diary on “the Great Prairie Highway,” few people apart from hard-bitten traders, Indians and Indian fighters had traversed the Santa Fe Trail. This was, as historian Howard Lamar writes the diary’s forword, “the West’s newest and most romantic business.” In fact, a best

Josiah Gregg

seller of the day, read and reread by the exuberantly admiring Susanita, was her husband’s colleague Josiah Gregg’s Commerce of the Prairies, published in two volumes in 1844– only two years before Susanita began her diary.

>>Rare book collectors alert: A first edition of Gregg’s Commerce of the Prairies, both volumes and in good condition, is offered by James Cummins Bookseller for USD 4,500. Now worries, dear reader, it is now in the public domain and you can read it for free on archive.org.

See also the online edition available for free at http://www.kancoll.org/books/gregg/

The enticement: furs, and mules, and Mexican silver. From Independence, Missouri, the well-armed caravans of wagons packed with cloth and clothing, books, and other manufactured goods rumbled across the oceanic prairies of not-yet-bleeding Kansas and the southeastern corner of Colorado to the old Spanish city of Santa Fe– then in its sunset days as part of the Mexican Republic. From Santa Fe, some traders then turned south on the old Spanish Camino Real de Tierra Adentro to Albuquerque, El Paso del Norte, Ciudad Chihuahua, and yonder into deepest Mexico. 

Mexican silver coin, 1844

According to historian Lamar, the trade began in 1822, when Mexico, having separated from Spain, abandoned its mercantilist trade prohibitions. One Captain William Becknell ventured down from the Plains and reported “fantastic success bartering with the New Mexican at Santa Fe.” By 1825 James Wiley Magoffin had entered the trade, bringing along his younger brothers, including Samuel, the husband of Susanita. 

Susanita Magoffin believed that she was the first white woman to traverse the Santa Fe Trial– although that distinction may belong to Mary Donoho, who traversed the trail in 1835. [See the article by Kelley Pounds.] Remarkably for a diary of such careful observation, its author was a teenager: she celebrated her 19th birthday on the trail at Bent’s Fort. Even more remarkably, her journey coincided with the US-Mexican War. More about that war in a moment.

>> See the website for the National Park Service Santa Fe National Historical Trail ]

>> Read more about the trail at the website of the Santa Fe Trail Association.

CLICK HERE to visit the interactive map at the Santa Fe Trail Association website.
Map of the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, from Santa Fe down to Mexico City. From the National Park Service website.
Route of Samuel and Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847

NO WINDMILLS, NO BARBED WIRE, 
NO RAILROADS, NO BUFFALO GUNS, 
AND SCARCELY A COWBOY TO BE SEEN
— YET

Susan Shelby Magoffin’s journey with her husband’s caravan was not to Mexico City but Ciudad Chihuahua, and from there, a jog southeast via Saltillo and Monterrey to board a steamer bound for the Gulf of Mexico, thence home via New Orleans. In other words, the Magoffins’ semi-circle of a route took them to cities in the north of Mexico while circumventing the then vast no-go zone known as the Despoblado (Empty Quarter) or Apachería and Comanchería. Even on the Santa Fe Trail itself travelers could anticipate an Indian attack at any time.

Mid-way through their journey they heard that her brother-in-law, James, had been attacked by Apaches, and robbed of everything from his mules to his very clothing. “[H]ow he escaped is a miracle to us,” she wrote. “In robbing they always want the scalps, the principal part of the business.” (p.151) 

Nearing what is now the US-Mexico border at the Pass, Susanita and her husband encountered James White, with whom he did some business. Two years hence, White would be murdered, his wife and child captured, the former mortally wounded and the latter never to be found (presumably also murdered). Near the Rio Grande, the attack on her brother-in-law no doubt vivid in her mind, their caravan passed the graves, marked by crosses, of fourteen Mexicans massacred a few years earlier by Apaches. 

Apart from the clatter and clop of the caravan itself, the quiet of the sparsely populated the plains, the mountains, and the open desert must have been eerie. Susanita’s diary records entire days without seeing any other travelers or, perhaps, a single person.

She also saw thousands of buffalo. Herds often crossed the road within range of a gunshot (p.49):

“They are very ugly, ill-shapen things with their long shaggy hair over their heads, and the great hump on their backs, and they look so droll running.”

Her dog, Ring, chased after them, to her delight.

BENT’S FORT

Built in the 1830s for trade with Comanches, Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho for buffalo robes, Bent’s Fort was known as the “Castle on the Plains.” It was days upon days upon days of dangerous travel distant from any other permanent settlement. Susanita had been on the road for 45 days and nights– and this only about a quarter of the entire journey– before reaching Bent’s Fort in July of 1846. She found it milling with U.S. soldiers, preparing for the invasion of Mexico.

From Susanita’s diary (p.60):

“Well, the outside exactly fills my idea of an ancient castle. It is built of adobes, unburnt brick, and Mexican style so far. The walls are very high and very thick with rounding corners. There is but one entrance, this is to the East rather.

Inside is a large space some ninety or an hundred feet square, all around this and next the wall are rooms, some twenty-five in number. They have dirt floors– which are sprinkled with water several times during the day to prevent dust. Standing in the center of some of them is a large wooden post as a firmer prop to the ceiling which is made of logs. Some of these rooms are occupied by boarders as bed chambers. One is a dining room– another a kitchen– a little store, a blacksmith’s shop, a barber’s do an [sic] ice house, which receives perhaps more customers than any other.

On the South side is an inclosure for stock in dangerous times and often at night… They have a well inside, and fine water it is– especially with ice.”

Bent’s Old Fort on the Santa Fe Trail. 

>>Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site, is about 3 hours’ drive southeast from Denver International Airport near Lamar, Colorado. The adobe fort is a meticulous reconstruction. 

According to Pekka Hamalainen in Comanche Empire, Bent’s Old Fort was destroyed after the 1849 cholera epidemic and a new fort built 38 miles downstream on the Arkansas River. But with with collapse of the bison population, the massive influx of prospectors in the Pike’s Peak or Colorado Gold Rush in 1859, and increasing tensions between American traders and indigenous peoples, as well with the US Army which considered Bent a squatter, Bent closed this fort in 1860, “and with that ended 150 years of organized Comanche trade in the Arkansas Valley.” (p.300)

>> Bent’s New Fort on the Santa Fe Trail. 
(This site has links to several PDFs rich with history and maps.)
>> See also directions to the ruins of the new fort, which is 10 miles west of the town of Lamar, Colorado.

MARCHING TO THE HALLS OF MONTEZUMA

It was only two weeks before their arrival in Santa Fe that Col. Stephen Watts Kearny had occupied that city, and it was Susanita’s brother-in-law, James Wiley Magoffin, who had rushed from Washington DC to catch up with their caravan — and Col. Kearny at Bent’sFort– and raced past them to Santa Fe in order to negotiate with Mexico’s governor of New Mexico, General Manuel Armijo– fortuitously, a cousin of his late wife– for a peaceful US occupation. (President Polk had chosen James Wiley Magoffin Magoffin’s as his agent for his Spanish skills and good relations with the Mexicans.)

In occupied Santa Fe Susanita notes meeting Col. Doniphan (whom she calls “Donathan”).

>> More about the Doniphan Expedition 

Zachary Taylor

Much later, of General Zachary Taylor, whom she met in his army camp outside of Monterrey, Susanita writes (p.253):

“The general was dressed in his famed old gray sack coat, striped cotton trowsers [sic] blue calico neck-kerchief. With all of this I am most agreeably disappointed in him. Most of the wild stories I’ve heard of him I now believe false and instead of the uncouth back-woodsman I expected to have seen I find him polite, affable and altogether agreeable.”

A TAMALE AND A SOUFFLE 
OR,
AN ASIDE ON MRS MAGOFFIN’S CONTEMPORARY,
MADAME CALDERÓN DE LA BARCA

One might compare Susanita Magoffin’s diary to the letters of Fanny (Frances Erskine Inglis) Calderón de la Barca, which were published in 1843 as Life in Mexico: Both Magoffin and Calderón de la Barca were educated American women writing about Mexico in roughly the same decade (the latter arriving via Veracruz in 1839), and both had the rare gifts of natural curiosity and the ability to write generously, vividly and perceptively.

But Magoffin and Calderón de la Barca served up experiences as different from one another as say, a tamale for a picnic and a soufflé for a palace banquet. The author of Life in Mexicowas in her mid-thirties and wife of the first Spanish ambassador to Mexico– a uniquely privileged position from which to observe the highest levels of Mexican society and political intrigue, as she so shrewdly and wryly did.

Frances Erskine Inglis de Calderon de la Barca, author of Life in Mexico,  1843

>> See my review of Calderón de la Barca’s Life in Mexico for Tin House.

Susan Shelby Magoffin, on the other hand, was fresh off her family’s estate in Kentucky and on the Santa Fe Trail as the 18 year old bride of a prosperous veteran Irish-American trader–Samuel Magoffin. A rustic adventure hers may have been; nonetheless, Susanita was a granddaughter of Kentucky’s first governor and she traveled with her own carriage, driver, personal maid, and other servants. 

Of her tent house Susanita writes:

“‘Twas made in Philadelphia by a regular tent-maker of the army… It is conical shape, with an iron pole and wooden ball; we have a table in it that is fastened to the pole, and a little stand above it that serves as a dressing bureau– it holds out glass, combs &c. Our bed is as good as many houses have; sheets, blankets, counterpanes, pillows &c. We have a carpet made of sail duck, have portable stools they are called; they are two legs crossed with a pin through the center on which they turn as a pivot, the seat part is made of carpeting. To be brief the whole is a complete affair.”  

A STAY IN SANTA FE

Of Santa Fe Susanita records the tree-lined plazo [sic], delicious durasnos [sic] or peaches, fresh air, and grapes “though quite small are remarkably sweet and well flavored.” At a Spanish ball given by the US Army officers for the traders, she gamely attends, though nonplussed by the custom of women smoking cigars. 

“I had not been seated more than fifteen minutes before Maj. Soards [Thomas Swords] an officer, a man of quick perception, irony, sarcasm, and wit, came up to me in true Mexican style, and with a polite, “Madam will you have a cigarita,” drew from one pocket a handfull of shucks and from another  large horn of tobacco, at once turning the whole thing into a burlesque.” (pp. 118-119)

Susanita was keenly aware of being a focus of polite if at time inebriated attention from the US Army officers and of intense curiosity to the locals. On her way to a dinner invitation (p. 134):


“We left here at fifteen minutes to 2 o’clock P.M. passed through the plazo [sic], of course attracting the attention of all idle bystanders– my bonnet being an equal object of wonder with the white woman that wore it.” 

Camping on the trail south of Albuquerque, no doubt near one of the pueblos (p. 159):

“…how these people annoy me. This whole afternoon I have been sitting here, an object of curiosity to them– querido mio [my darling] was reading to me when they commenced flocking about the tent and we thought for him to continue they would soon leave, but it only attracted them more, and in a few minutes they were peeping under the sides of the tent, which has been raised to let in air–as thick as some flocks of sheep and goats I see. They whispered among themselves, picked at my dress– a great curiosity– fingered the bed clothes, the stools, in short everything “en la casa bonita” [in the pretty house] as they call this. Here they staid and apparently with the intention of remaining till the dark curtain of night should hide me from their view, till mi alma [her husband] got up and ordered the tent to be staked down, nd they went off to think and talk for the next muchos años [many years].”

(I’ve experienced something like this myself: In the early 1980s in China, when it had just been opened to tourists, crowds of Chinese would surround individual tourists and simply stand there, entranced, staring at us as if we were animals in a zoo.)

MORE ABOUT SUSANITA

Her youth and spirited personality tempered with the primness of a Southern belle shine through in so many passages, for example, this early one on the wagon train’s teamsters (pp. 2-3):

“It is disagreeable to hear so much swearing; the animals are unruly tis true and worries the patience of their drivers, but I scarcely think they need be so profane.”

And for example, this entry about a pueblo near Taos (p. 35):

“…it is repulsive to see children running about perfectly naked, or if they have on a chimese [sic] it is in such ribbands [sic] it had better be off at once. I am constrained to keep my veil drawn closely over my face all the time to protect my blushes.”

In Santa Fe (p.114):

“What an everlasting noise these soldiers keep up– from early dawn till late at night they are blowing their trumpets, whooping like Indians, or making some unheard of sounds, quite shocking to my delicate nerves.“

And this entry, towards the end of the journey as her caravan was nearing Mier, having passed by the charred bones and wagons of US soldiers fallen in battle (p.259):

“At this place I made a comadre of an old woman witch, who brought eggs and bread down to the encampment to sell; she stopped at our tent door, she looked up at me, and said, ‘take me with you to your country,’ ‘why,’ said I. ‘le guerro V. los Americans’ [You are at war with the Americans]? She neither answered yes or no, but gave me a sharp pinch on my cheek, I suppose to see if the flesh and colour of it were natural– and said ‘na guerro este’ [there is no war]. The pinch did not feel very comfortable, but I could but laugh at her cunning reply.”


THE FATES OF THE DIARY AND ITS AUTHOR

As far as we know, Susanita did not write with the intention to publish; she kept her diary on the Santa Fe Trail as she kept the diary of her honeymoon in New York and Philadelphia– for herself, perhaps for her children. Her diary ends abruptly in 1847, just before she was struck by yellow fever at Matamoros and lost her baby. Home in Missouri, she gave birth to two more children and then, for reasons unspecified, she died in 1855. She would have been 28 years old. 

Her diary might have been another of the untold numbers forgotten in locked trunks of musty attics, and disposed of, willy nilly, a generation or three later. But in the 1920s, in which way is unrecorded, Stella M. Drumm, a librarian in the Missouri Historical Society, discovered the diary and and persuaded Susanita’s daughter to allow her to publish it. The edition with Drumm’s annotations was published by Yale University Press in 1926. My edition with the forward by Howard Lamar, is the 1982 University of Nebraska Press reprint of Yale University’s 1962 edition.

>> See also the brief biography of Susan Shelby Magoffin on NewMexicoHistory.org.

>> See also brief news video from 2012 of the unveiling of the Susan Shelby Magoffin statue in El Paso’s Keystone Heritage Park.

LOS MAGOFFINS & MAGOFFINSVILLE 
(WHAT WAS TO BECOME THE NUCLEUS OF EL PASO, TEXAS)

James Wiley Magoffin

Writes historian Howard Lamar in the foreword to the diary (p. xxi): “Like the Phoenician traders of old, the Santa Fe traders had broken the cake of custom, caused two distinct peoples and cultures to blunder into contact, and had prepared the way for political as well as economic conquest.”

Apart from Josiah Gregg, famous for his book Commerce of the Prairies, the best-known Santa Fe traders were James Wiley Magoffin and his younger brothers– among them Samuel, Susanita’s husband.  James, known as “Don Santiago,” opened stores in Chihuahua and Saltillo, and made advantageous marriage to Doña María Getrudes Valdez de Beremende, daughter of a leading family in Chihuahua and a cousin of Manuel Armijo, a wealthy trader who would become New Mexico’s governor.

James had several children, including Joseph Magoffin (1837-1923), who became one of the leading businessmen and bankers of El Paso, and a civic leader, elected mayor of El Paso four times. (The house he built in 1875 is now the Magoffin Home State Historical Park.)

Back in Susanita’s day, the city we know as El Paso did not yet exist. The “El Paso del Norte” she passed through is now the neighboring Mexican city now known as Ciudad Juárez (renamed in honor of President Benito Juárez, who led the victory of the Republic over the French Imperial Army and its puppet monarchist regime under Maximilian von Habsburg).

James had several children, including Joseph Magoffin (1837-1923), who became one of the leading businessmen and bankers of El Paso, and a civic leader, elected mayor of El Paso four times. (The house he built in 1875 is now the Magoffin Home State Historical Park.)

Back in Susanita’s day, the city we know as El Paso did not yet exist. The “El Paso del Norte” she passed through is now the neighboring Mexican city now known as Ciudad Juárez (renamed in honor of President Benito Juárez, who led the victory of the Republic over the French Imperial Army and its puppet monarchist regime under Maximilian von Habsburg).

James had several children, including Joseph Magoffin (1837-1923), who became one of the leading businessmen and bankers of El Paso, and a civic leader, elected mayor of El Paso four times. (The house he built in 1875 is now the Magoffin Home State Historical Park.)

Joseph Magoffin

Back in Susanita’s day, the city we know as El Paso did not yet exist. The “El Paso del Norte” she passed through is now the neighboring Mexican city now known as Ciudad Juárez (renamed in honor of President Benito Juárez, who led the victory of the Republic over the French Imperial Army and its puppet monarchist regime under Maximilian von Habsburg).

Last spring I visited Magoffin House, which is now a state historic site and museum. Here is my snapshot of the front entrance:

Inside the parlor, which is to the left just inside the entrance: a piano, the portrait of his father, James Wiley Magoffin and, for mysterious reasons, a puffer fish hanging from the chandelier:

#

For my recent Literary Travel Writing workshop at the Writer’s Center, I offered several quotes from Susanita’s diary for the handouts on “The Alchemy of Specificity.” 

>>For more about specificity in fiction and literary travel writing see “The Number One Technique from the Supersonic Overview.”

#

THE ALCHEMY OF SPECIFICITY:
SOME EXAMPLES
FROM SUSAN SHELBY MAGOFFIN’S DIARY

Just past the border into New Mexico Magoffin writes (p. 79):

“Many a one of these long hills do I walk up and down, beside rambling thought the bushes, along the banks of the little streams & c. in search of ‘what I can find.’ Some times this is a curious little pebble, a shell, a new flower, or the quill of a strange bird.”

Of buffalo, Magoffin saw thousands, and herds often crossed the road within range of a gunshot (p.49):

“They are very ugly, ill-shapen things with their long shaggy hair over their heads, and the great hump on their backs, and they look so droll running.”

Of a church altar in Saltillo (p. 242):

“The center of it is covered with a curtain and on sight contrasts strangely with the rich trimming of the altar, it was raised (by our attendant– a little boy) in a moment by means of a pully, and opened to our view an image of Christ crucified as large as life, made of a highly polished wood, and inclosed [sic] in a large glass case gilted and decked with flowers, it looks so like a human figure I shuddered as I looked upon it: his accusation* is written above on a plate of solid gold, some ten or twelve inches by six. When we had looked at it for some time, the little boy lowered the curtain with deep respect– shutting the sacred image from our view.”

*”INRI,” the acronym for  Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum or “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”

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P.S. In case you were wondering, dear reader, ayyy…. yes, I am still working on the Marfa Mondays Podcast #21. And in case you don’t already know what that’s all about, these podcasts, exploring Marfa, Texas and environs, are apropos of my book in-progress on the Trans-Pecos or Far West Texas. Twenty of a projected 24 podcasts have been posted to date. I invite you to listen in to the podcasts anytime >> here.

Peyote and the Perfect You

Q & A with Carolina Castillo Crimm,
Author of De León: A Tejano Family History

Q & A with Sergio Troncoso, Author of 
A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son

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Find out more about
C.M. Mayo’s books, articles, podcasts, and more.

30 Deadly-Effective Ways to Free Up Bits, Drips & Gimungously Vast Swaths of Time for Writing: A Menu of Possibilities to Consider

Where do you find the time? (Was it hiding in the crawlspace?) It’s not so much finding time as it is prying your physical presence and attention away, either permanently or for a spell, from someone, something, someplace less valuable to you—if you really do want to write, that is, not just pretend and fantasize and gripe. Herewith, 30 ideas— some of which might make you shake your head, but some just might work for you. For me, most of these have always been no-brainers, but I confess, a number of them took me awhile to recognize and/or fully appreciate.

Possibility 1. Give up TV and social media. 
Just give them up, deep-freeze turkey & freakin’ forever and oceans of time, vast and sparkling, shall spread before ye.
> Adiós, Facebook! The Six Reasons Why I Deactivated My Account

Possibility 2. Cut the digital leash, the crackberry, whatever you want to call that soul-sucking hypnotic thumb-twiddler. That’s right, I am suggesting that you turn off all notifications and do not “text.”The price of this is that you must therefore continually combat tidal waves of exasperation from loved ones and others that you are not instantly and always available to them. Find the humor in this. Because really, how blazingly ridiculous.
> This Writer’s Distraction Free Smartphone (Plus an App Evaluation Flowchart to Tailor-Make Your Own)

Possibility 3. No drugs. 
Duh. And I include prescription drugs here, too. Exercise, eat lots of vegetables, drink raw juice, meditate… do whatever you possibly can to avoid adult onset diabetes and joint issues and so having to take drugs, for aside from suffering from lousy side effects, you’ll waste countless hours waiting for doctors to write prescriptions, then getting them filled at the pharmacy, dealing with insurance, and complications, and so on & so forth. Ah! But I am not a medical professional, so I have no idea what you should do.

Possibility 4. Reduce, better yet eliminate, or at least make use of your commute. 
If you can possibly live closer to where you need to be during the day, even if you have to sell half your furniture to fit into a smaller place, do that. Otherwise, try to get into the habit of writing while commuting. I hear some people have been able to do that. I admire them genuinely.

Possibility 5. No drama. 
Mantra: not my circus, not my monkeys. If you relish fighting / debating / gossiping because you find it entertaining, that’s your writing mojo leaking like water onto the asphalt. Incessant worrying about other people’s problems that are not yours to solve is also silly. You can be aware, you can be concerned, you can be compassionate, and when they are your problems, then they are your problems.

Possibility 6. No ruminating over the past. 
Regrets, nostalgia, whatever, writing gets done in the now.

Possibility 7. Less fantasizing about the future. 
Again, writing gets done in the now.

Possibility 8. Quit nursing grudges against editors / agents / other writers / reviewers / readers. 
Oh, the injustices of the literary world! These can vacuum up untold hours with yammering in workshops, at conferences, and over sad and grumbly cups of coffee. But listen here: the so-called gatekeepers and the clueless readers and half-literate kids glued to their handheld devices, they’re just doing the best they can, too. So are the peasants wading through their rice paddies in Burma. You are luckier than a lottery-winner to even be able to write at all. So strive to always improve and write for those who appreciate what you do, knowing that, of course, even if you one day win the Nobel Prize, only the teensiest portion of the population of Planet Earth will have heard of you, never mind actually read anything you wrote. Bottom line: If you can’t stay focused on doing your own best work, you’re not writing, you’re back to ruminating.

Possibility 9. Stop picking up the telephone. 
As Marie Antoinette might have put it, Let them send email. If you can, pay for an unlisted number and caller ID and change your telephone number at least every other year. If that little click to voice mail distracts you, why, just unplug it! And, pourquoi pas? Plunk it in the oven!

Possibility 10. Eliminate recreational shopping, aka “retail therapy.” 
Whew, this one adds up over a season, a year, two years. So never, ever shop in stores or on-line or in fact anywhere anytime without your list. If an item is not on your list, do not buy it. Shopping malls are time- and money-gobbling maws and believe it, the marketers, watching your every move on their cameras, are more sophisticated than you think you are. Not only does recreational shopping squander prime writing time, but it tends to fill up your house with clutter– a time-suck in itself. Go to a park, a museum, a library, the seashore, a basketball court, have fun and refresh yourself as necessary, but stay way away from the maw. I mean, mall.

Possibility 11. Do not accumulate a large and varied wardrobe based on navy, brown and/or beige. 
And better yet, give all that away to Goodwill. If you wear clothing that is black and/or coordinates with black, you’ll be able to make fewer shopping trips, pack faster, and do far less laundry and dry cleaning. And since black makes colors “pop,” your blue sweater, say, will appear brighter. Yet another advantage: black makes you look slimmer. (Ha, maybe I was a Jesuit in my last life.)

Possibility 12. Cancel the manicure. 
Horrendous time sink there. Plus, the polish is toxic and it flakes. (Nobody notices or cares about your fingernails anyway except manicurists, I guess, and those who get manicures themselves. Last I checked, they aren’t getting much writing done.)

Possibility 13. Quit following the stock market on a daily basis. 
This is a tick-like habit that achieves nothing but a heightened sense of anxiety. On par with spectator sports.

Possibility 14. Quit playing computer games. 
On par with drugs. Or any other addiction. Including following the stock market on a daily basis.

Possibility 15. Do not color your hair. 
Depending on how often you feel you must cover up the roots… for most people who color their hair this is about once a month. If you add highlights or lowlights (which, my dears, if you do color, you probably should lest you sport that “helmet look”), you’re talking about two hours-plus in the salon chair. You might be able to read something fluffy but you probably cannot write while someone is poking and pulling at and washing and blowdrying your hair. Go au naturel for as many as 30 hours a year, free and clear.

Possibility 16. Ignore spectator sports. 
Do not attend games, do not watch or listen to or otherwise follow games, do not discuss games, and whole weekends for writing will emerge from the sea of froth. 

Possibility 17. Do not indulge in expensive, time- and space-consuming activities such as, oh, say, collecting and expounding upon various types of fermented grape juice. 
Come on, folks, once it goes into a carafe, 99% of your guests won’t know the difference between one chablis and the next chardonnay. Pick a reasonable brand and stick with it, white and red. For me, it’s Monte Xanic— or else it goes into the pot for coq au vin.

Possibility 18. No more hauling laundry. 
You’ve got to get your clothes clean so, failing a maid to do it for you, get a washer / dryer for your house or apartment. If you do not have space, if it’s not allowed, or you cannot afford this, then consider a portable washer/dryer because hauling bags to the laundro-mat or down to the basement only to find the machines full, that is one woolly mammoth of a time suck. (If you’re paying for each load at a landro-mat, you might find it cheaper in the long run to use your own portable washer. I wouldn’t know, since I’m fortunate enough to have a washer/dryer, but a little bird told me…)

Possibility 19. Never hunt for your keys / wallet / purse / cell phone. 
This is an easy fix. The moment you step in the door, you always, always put them in the same place, a designated hook or a bowl or a basket. This might seem minor, but those two to ten minutes of running around with your hair on fire add up.

Possibility 20. Never hunt for Internet passwords (or wait for the “resend password” email). 
Keep track of passwords, some way, somehow. I use Grandma’s recipe box, which was deemed seriously uncool on the Cool Tools blog, but it works beautifully for me and, so they tell me after reading that infamous blog post, many of my friends. (So there.)

Possibility 21. No boat. 
Do not ever even shop for a boat. Do not even think about shopping for a boat. Unless you plan to sell your house and live in the boat. Ditto RV, camping equipment, or motorcycle. And anyway, you cannot live in your motorcycle. If you like to go out overnight into nature, check out Mike Clelland’s Ultralight Backpacking Tips. (Watch out, though, he features a link to his UFO page.)

Possibility 22. No second home. 
On par with the boat. No, worse.

Possibility 23. Stop buying loads of soft drinks and bottled water. 
Take into account the time it takes to shop for them, carry them to the car, lug them out of the car, store them somewhere in the pantry or the fridge, then recycle the bottles and cans… Drip, drip, drip goes your time (and money). A good water filter will pay for itself and quickly. (See also #3, above. Whoa, just read the list of contents on those soft drinks. Ick.)

Possibility 24. Prepare your meals with mis-en-place. 
Even when making a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich, it sure does help to do mis-en-place. If you hate cooking, you probably never heard of the mis. Check it out. (If you want to keep it easy by microwaving everything or relying on take-out, see #3 above.)

Possibility 25. Take email seriously. 
In other words, stop letting it pile up and become a giant, throbbing source of lost opportunities, embarrassment and guilt. Email is vital for a writer— as vital as letter writing in days of yore, so do it well. This also means get quick-on-the-draw to delete spam.
> Email Ninjerie in the Theater of Space-Time

Possibility 26. Use a metaphorical “bucket” for all your to do lists and ideas. In other words, quit trying to keep everything from next week’s dentist appointment to the ideas for your novel in your head. I use David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) system and thereby free up yottabytes of short term memory for more creative work. (One day I may set up a little altar in a corner of my office to St. Allen.) For me, a Filofax is an indispensable tool for implementing GTD.
> Why I Am a Mega-Fan of the Filofax.
> Listen to this podcast of November 6, 2013 about the GDT method for creative people. (I couldn’t find the direct link; you may need to scroll down for it once you land on that page.)

Possibility 27. Keep your closet decluttered and organized. 
Clutter not only makes it difficult to find things when you need them, it pulls and yanks and pinches your attention to decisions you haven’t made (like, whether to get rid of that old mustard-colored shirt, but which might maybe go with something, or sew back on the two missing buttons?) So you’re rushed and addled, right at the start of the day. It all adds up over a week, a month…

Possibility 28. Fie to piles. 
Piles are sinkholes of chaos and, to pile on another mongrel of a metaphor, they tend to sprout and ooze all over the place like fungi. (Yeah, did that need an editor.) Any time you need to do anything important, pay taxes, file a claim, send out a manuscript, if you have to paw and dig through piles to find what you need you will add possibly hours, possibly days, possibly weeks or even months to the process— not to mention a walloping dollop of time-sucking anxiety. So get a filing cabinet, even if it has to be a cardboard box, and make proper, labeled files, and dagnabbit, file things.

Possibility 29. Let go of things you won’t use but someone else might. 
This might sound strange as a source of time for writing, but think about it: any clutter, anywhere, becomes a drag on your time and attention. So all those old winter coats, faded towels, mismatched dishes, clothes than haven’t fit for 10 years, overflows of flower vases, toys… For heavenssakes, sell that stuff, gift it, and/or make regular runs to Goodwill or the like. (But remember, trying to sell it will take up your time.) As my favorite estate lady Julie Hall puts it, “the hearse doesn’t have a trailer hitch.”

Update— on Cool Tools 12/12/14:

“My top recommendation for the holidays is the Kindle of Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing ($10). A one-time Shinto shrine maiden, Kondo bases her “KonMari” method on the assumption that one’s house and all the objects in it have consciousness but, boy howdy, even if you’re a die-hard materialist, follow her method and you’ll zoom to a wiggy new oxygen-rich level of tidy.” — C.M. Mayo

And last but far from least:

Possibility 30. Remember your pen and notebook. 
Always, except in, say, a swimming pool, keep these on your person; you never know when the muse may whisper. What I’m saying is, some of the most valuable writing time arrives in snatches— while you’re standing in the dog park, about to get out of the car, riding an elevator, etc. In other words, you might not have been planning to write, but write you do because write you can.

Conjecture: The Powerful, Upfront, Fair and Square Technique 
to Blend Fiction into Your Nonfiction

On Seeing as an Artist or, Five Techniques for a Journey to Einfühlung

The Book As Thoughtform, the Book As Object: 
A Book Rescued, a Book Attacked, and 
Katherine Dunn’s Beautiful Book White Dog Arrives

Find out more about C.M. Mayo’s books, shorter works, podcasts, and more at www.cmmayo.com.



Why I Am a Mega-Fan of the Filofax

It was wicked fun doing a post a for Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools blog on my seriously uncool Internet password management system, so I just had to write again for Cool Tools about my other favorite paper-based organizing tool, the Filofax Personal Organizer. (Note: I have no connection whatsoever with this company except as a delighted customer.)

Sturdy, Customizable, Portable Paper-Based Organizing System: The Filofax Personal Organizer

Why a paper-based organizing system in this digital age? First, as Get Things Done guru David Allen puts it, “low-tech is oftentimes better because it is in your face.” Second, last I checked (channeling Jaron Lanier here), I am not a gadget. I cherish the tools that help me stay organized, yet allow me to abide within generous swaths of Internet-free time—formally known as normal life (you know, when you didn’t see everyone doing the thumb-twiddling zombie shuffle). The Filofax personal organizer is one of them. 

I got my first Filofax over 25 years ago and it has been a love story ever since. Part of this English company’s century-old line of organizers originally developed for engineers, it is a beautifully made 6-ring loose leaf binder. With the Filofax diary, address book, paper inserts and other items that get tucked in there, for most users, it fattens up to the size of a paperback edition of Anna Karenina. Or, say, a Philadelphia cheesesteak sandwich. Right, it does not fit in a coat pocket.

Depending on the model, the Filofax personal organizer comes with an assortment of pockets on both the inside and outside flaps. Mine also includes a pen holder on the right and a highlighter holder on the left, and it closes securely, so no loose items (such as that drycleaner’s ticket) can fall out.

Filofax sells a cornucopia of inserts for the 6 ring binder, from a wide variety of configurations for the diary refill, to a personal ruler/ page marker, maps of most major cities, a pad for assorted sticky notes, checkbook holder, business card holder, super-thin calculator, extra paper in a rainbow of colors, index tabs, a portable hole punch, and an address book, among other items.

Countless are the ways to configure one’s Filofax personal organizer. I’ve evolved into using the Week on Two Pages diary for noting appointments, birthdays, and any time-sensitive to-dos; two rulers/ page markers; the assorted sticky notes pad (though now with my own, more economical, Post-Its); the address book at the back; plus a “page” of plastic sleeves for business cards. I stash items such as stamps and paperclips in the front inner pocket (especially handy when traveling). Tickets (drycleaners, concerts) go in another pocket.

In addition, I made up several tabbed sections to index my personal, financial, business, and other to do / might one day do lists, to which I slap on ideas scribbled on Post-Its as they occur to me. The tabbed sections follow my personal interpretation of David Allen’s Get Things Done  (GTD) system—his basic idea being, capture all your to dos in one “bucket” you regularly revisit, and thereby can clear your mind for more clarity and creativity in the present moment. (To track more complex medium and long-term projects, I use the Projecteze system of a Word.doc table which relies on the sorting feature—that’s another post.)

As for address book, it’s not my main nor my only address book, just the addresses I like to keep handy in this particular system—so, in part, it serves as a paper backup for the most vital addresses, and those I regularly consult when making appointments or sending birthday cards and such.

Usually the Filofax stays open on my desk– which works for me, but clearly that won’t be ideal for those who work in less private and/or mobile situations. I take it with me when I travel or attend meetings where I might need to review my schedule or consult the to do lists and/or address book. 

High-end stationary, luggage, and department stores often carry the Filofax line of organizers and inserts—as does amazon.com— but to ensure that I get exactly what I want when I want it, I order the refill for the following year from the Filofax USA’s on-line shop on September 1st. At year’s end—following the advice of my tax accountant who says it could be handy in case of an audit—I file the diary with the rest of that year’s tax documents.

There are four major disadvantages to this system. None of them torpedo it for me, but they might for you:

(1) It’s a paper-based system, and for those who want their hand-held and/or laptop to be their all, and the many bells-and-whistles of a cloud-based system, clearly, it’s a head-shaker.

(2) High cost. You get what you pay for, however, and I have been happy to pay for the refills and other accessories because their simple and elegant design inspires me to stay better organized. For those who bristle at such prices, however, it would certainly be possible to make a homemade version of many of the inserts.

(3) Security risk. One’s office or house could burn down or someone could steal the Filofax—but then again, they couldn’t hack into it at 3 in the morning from Uzbekistan, either. 

(4) Bulk and weight. I can easily toss my Filofax into a briefcase or shoulderbag, but without an on-call chiropractor, I wouldn’t want to haul it around on a walk. That said, when I go for a walk, I go for a walk. 

It Can Be Done! This Writer’s Distraction Free Smartphone (Plus an App Evaluation Flowchart to Tailor-Make Your Own)

Consider the Typewriter (Am I Kidding? No, I Am Not Kidding)

The Strangely Beautiful Sierra Madera Astrobleme

Find out more about C.M. Mayo’s books, shorter works, podcasts, and more at www.cmmayo.com.


Una ventana al mundo invisible (A Window to 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. Madam Mayo disapproves of 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.

How about WordCat? Yes, there are several copies of the 1960 edition of Una ventana al mundo invisible in libraries in Mexico City. And three copies in the United States: the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and (why?) the University of West Georgia. Ah, and WorldCat also shows several copies in Mexico of an edition © 1993 and published in 1994 by Planeta and another, expanded edition published by Posadas in 1979.

(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.”

On that note, for anyone interested in learning more about 19th century parapsychological research, a very weird swamp indeed, I recommend starting with science journalist Denorah Blum’s excellent Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death. (See also Blum’s website.)

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.

Relevant Links:

>My book, now in paperback and Kindle: 
Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution:Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual

>En español (Kindle):
Odisea metafísica hacia la Revolución Mexicana.Francisco I. Madero y su libro secreto, Manual espírita

>Resources for Researchers: Blogs, Articles, and More

>Mexico City’s incomparable Librería Madero

Why Translate? The Case of the President of Mexico’s Secret Book

Translating Across the Border

A Visit to El Paso’s “The Equestrian”

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Find out more about
C.M. Mayo’s books, articles, podcasts, and more.


Bruce Berger’s “The End of the Sherry”

Blue collar and provincial Puerto Real in the police state that was Franco’s Spain might seem an unlikely venue for an amusing, eccentric, and very sensitive artist’s memoir. A graduate of Yale and a grad school drop out, pianist and writer Bruce Berger’s whole life seems unlikely, lived wildly out of sequence, and in The End of the Sherry, the Spanish chapters thereof beset by, in his words, “a curious passivity.” From the moment Berger washes up in a bar in Puerto Real, he and his beer-slurping dog drift and bob in the flow of happenstance. There are gigs with a rock band, a flash-in-the-pan career as a fishmonger, a pointless foray into Tangiers– yet always with sails set toward his true loves, music and writing.

I first came across Bruce Berger’s work in his travel memoir of Baja California, Almost an Island, and was enchanted by the beauty of his language, his courage in always pushing past clichés, and, best of all, his scrumptiously puckish sense of humor. Yes, I laughed out loud a lot in reading The End of the Sherry, too, and shook my head in wonder at the strangeness of his adventures and enthusiasms, and prodigious talent for cross-cultural friendships. Masterfully poetic, this belated coming-of-age / travel memoir throws a weird and wonderful lava-lamp light on his other works, even while standing solidly on its own, an exemplar of those genres.

In sum, a five star read.

Q & A with Bruce Berger on A Desert Harvest

On the Trail of the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos

A Visit to the Casa de la Primera Imprenta de América in Mexico City

Visit my website for more about my books, articles, and podcasts.

Writers’ Blogs (and My Blog): Eight Conclusions After 8 Years of Blogging

This is the edited transcript of my talk for the Associated Writing Programs conference panel discussion “Homesteading the Digital Frontier: Writers’ Blogs.”

How to blog, how not to blog… that was a hot topic a few years ago, when blogging was new, and indeed in 2008, for the Maryland Writers Association conference I gave a talk on the best practices for writers’ blogs. But that was then and this is now. Now I don’t have so much advice; what I have are some conclusions about what’s right for me and, sort of maybe kind of, by extension, for other literary writers. There isn’t any one right way to do this– what might annoy this reader enchants another, and anyway, someone is always barging in with something new.

To switch metaphors: this genre is built of jelly. Electrified jelly in rainbow hues.

I started blogging with Madam Mayo back in the spring of 2006. I kept at it, blogging once, twice, sometimes more often, every week. By the end of this March it will have been eight years. What have I concluded?

# 1. Maybe not everyone else is, but I remain charmed by the name of my blog, Madam Mayo. 

It seems almost nobody gets that it’s a play on Madam Mao. Oh well! It still makes me chuckle.

As a reader, I appreciate fun or at least memorable names for blogs. A few examples:
Mr. Money Mustache
Pigs, Gourds and Wikis (Liz Castro)
Jenny Redbug (Jennifer Silva Redmond)
E-Notes (E. Ethelbert Miller)
Real Delia (Delia Lloyd)
Cool Tools (Kevin Kelly)
The Metaphysical Traveler (John Kachuba)
The Blue Lantern (Jane Librizzi)
Chico Lingo (Sergio Troncoso)
Quid Plura? (Jeff Sypeck)
Poet Reb Livingston’s now unavailable blog, Home Schooled By a Cackling Jackal, that was my all-time fave.

#2. Whoa, blogging has an opportunity cost!

For me, looking back at eight years, it’s probably a novel that didn’t get written, plus a few essays and articles in newspapers and magazines that didn’t get polished up, submitted and published. Do I regret that? Yes, but not hugely because in those eight years I did manage to publish three books (Mexico: A Traveler’s Literary Companion; a novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire; and Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual), plus I published several Kindles (Miraculous Air; From Mexico to Miramar; The Building of Quality; El último principe del Imperio Mexicano), plus I promoted a paperback edition of my travel memoir; I also published several articles, scads of book reviews, poems, more translations, and over 30 podcasts. Oh, and I wrote an ebook of writing exercises and an ebook, Podcasting for Writers. So you can’t say I’m not a productive writer. But yes… (sigh)… I do wish I could have written that novel.

# 3. But on the plus side, like a workout sprints for a marathoner, blogging helps me stay in shape as a writer.

Indeed, if I hadn’t been blogging over these past 8 years, perhaps I would not have been as productive as a writer. So maybe the opportunity cost was the other way around! But that’s probably wishful thinking. My sense is I blogged just the right amount for me at the time. I blogged more frequently the first couple of years, back when I was still trying to get my mind around the nature of the genre. Looking forward: Best for me to blog once a week, maybe twice.

# 4. Although my ego would like Madam Mayo blog to draw legions of passionate followers, all perched at the edge of their seats for my next post, ready to fly to their keyboards with their hailstorm of comments…  The fact is, writing that strives for an ever-larger following is not the best strategy for me as a literary artist or as a person.

Egos are like big dogs. They protect you, they love you, but they bark a lot and sometimes they slobber. For me—a literary writer whose focus through several books in multiple genres has been examining various regions and aspects and periods of Mexico in an international context, numbers of followers… well, let me put it this way: If what I’d really wanted was a mass following, I wouldn’t be writing the kinds of books I’m writing. QED.

# 5.  Not all, certainly, but a sizable number of people who trouble to comment on blogs seem stuck in Emotional Kindergarten.

One day they shall evolve to their next educational opportunity; meanwhile, I am not in the business of managing snotty little brats pushing each other off the swings in Blogland. Therefore I do not manage nor publish comments on my blog. But because I hope I am not shouting into the wind here— I do care about hearing from thoughtful, civilized readers— I always include a link that goes to a contact page on my website. So, with two clicks away from my blog post, any reader can send me an email. What I have very happily learned is that spammers and trolls don’t bother. That extra click and knowing in advance that their comment will probably not be published, wow, that is a Mount Rainier-sized barrier. With my no comments but email link in place, so far, fingers crossed, I have yet to receive an email from anyone but the readers I want to have, that is, courteous and intelligent people.

# 6. Blogging is very much like publishing a literary short story or book— it goes out into the world to an opaque response. 

We might scare up some numbers, say, as how many people clicked on a blog post and at what time of day via which search engine, or how many bookstores ordered how many copies of a book. But even with endless hours of crunching through, say, Google Analytics, we may never know the reaction of every single reader. All of us read thousands of things we never comment on, dozens and dozens of books we will never review, we will never write to the author—although some of these works may prove deeply meaningful to us in the course of our lives. As anyone who has published a blog or a book knows, sometimes the silence can be downright eerie. So if you want to write a book or a blog post, it helps to have the tough-mindedness to accept that maybe… you will never know the true, full nature of the response. Maybe the person who will most appreciate a given blog post has not yet been born. Or maybe my best blog post will find its biggest fan next week. Maybe what I said yesterday changed someone’s life today in… Australia. I don’t know. And that’s OK. I write anyway. That is the kind of writer I am.

# 7. More on the plus side: sharing what I call cyberflanerie and celebrating friends and colleagues and books and all wonder of things is a delight.

(In ye olden days, we would take scissors and cut things out of magazines and end up with overstuffed files full of yellowing papers. Difficult to share.)

# 8. Madam Mayo blog is not so much my so-called “platform,” but rather, a net that catches certain special fish— the readers who care about the things I care to write about.

This last conclusion is the one that took me the longest to reach. It seems obvious to me now, and it probably will for you also, but back when blogs were new it was difficult to appreciate both their nature and their potential. Back when, most people thought of them as a diary—a web log— which is how we got the term “blog.” The idea, supposedly, was to talk about yourself, frequently. I know it turned off a lot of writers at the time. I had zero interest in blogging about my personal life.

Another way writers thought about blogs— and at first I had a foot in this camp— was as a digital newspaper column. If you were good, if you put out well-crafted and witty and super informative posts, you’d get readers. You’d be famous! You could sell more of your books! Wow, maybe even sell ads and ka-ching, ka-ching! 

But of course, anybody can start a blog. The gates blown open, suddenly, there popped up a million wonderful and a zillion crappy blogs, and everything in between, all muddled up together. Back in 2007, 2008, most serious writers I knew turned their noses up at blogging, as something for wannabes, for kids. But by 2009, 2010, those same writers, nagged by their publishers’ marketing staffs, had started blogging to promote their books. (From what I can see from all those blogs that petered out once the book tour was over, or sometimes not even halfway through, if marketing a book is the only goal, one is unlikely to be able to sustain the energy to keep at it for more than a few months, at best.)

But here’s the wonder: The diary and the newspaper column of yore were not searchable the way digital material is. The paper diary was tucked in someone’s drawer; the newspaper, after a day, lined the bottom of the proverbial parrot cage. OK, a very few people might go search things cataloged in a library. And a collection of newspaper articles might end up in a book… one day. But basically, massive an audience as some newspapers columnists enjoyed, before the digital revolution, their writing was ephemeral.

A blog, however, can be found at anytime by anyone anywhere (OK, maybe not in Burma). As people search for words, phrases, topics, names, and come upon Madam Mayo, and its many blog posts with many links to whatever interests me and all about my works, books, ebooks, podcasts, articles, newsletter, and so on and so forth, it serves as a kind of net that catches a certain kind of fish. Over time, as I continue to blog, to add tags and links, my fishnet grows. So now, after 8 years, I have a very big fishnet. And some very nice fish have come in. Though I don’t know who you all are, I sincerely appreciate you, dear readers. Cheers to you!

More anon.

The Manuscript is Ready—Or is it? What’s Next?

“The Typewriter Manifesto” by Richard Polt, 
Plus Cyberflanerie on Technology

An Interview with Alan Rojas Orzechowski 
about Maximilian’s Court Painter, Santiago Rebull

My Uncool “Cool Tool”: Grandma’s Recipe Box Solution to Internet Password Management (The Backstory and Two Lessons for Me as a Writer)

THE BACKSTORY AND TWO LESSONS FOR ME AS A WRITER

Oh, what a chuckle I had the other day morning to find my post about Grandma’s Recipe Box Solution to Password Management on Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools blog. Though I admit, I was dismayed by the  torrent of grouchy comments. After having published several books, I’m an old war horse for this sort of thing, but this time, ouch, even as I chuckled, I took a little shrapnel.

Since I thought it might be useful for other writers, here’s the backstory– and the two lessons for me as a writer.

Backstory: I’m a huge fan of Kelly’s Cool Tools blog. Featured tools range from the beautiful free ebook, Butterick’s Practical Typography, to the Weber Rapidfire Chimney Charcoal Starter (a $15 miracle), a solar lamp,  a book on how to grow your own seeds, and the $600 Hilty PX-10 Transporter. Whether high-tech or low-tech, new or ancient, it’s a blog about tools– whatever works. So when I saw a call out for Cool Tool blog posts, I thought, ah ha, I’ll write up my low-tech, super cheap but amazingly useful desk tool: a plastic recipe box and index cards for keeping track of my ever-proliferating Internet passwords.

In its humble way, this system works beautifully for me. I remember how I used to struggle to keep all the many email addresses and passwords in some semblance of order– and how others I know struggle with that, too. (For instance, one relative keeps his passwords on Post-Its stuck to his computer monitor, another pins them to a bulletin board by his desk, and another, alas, keeps them, or rather it, in her head: the same easy-to-remember password for everything.)

I dashed off my Cool Tools blog post in about 5 minutes. The blog editor said he liked it, send more.

Well, fine for my ego, but I had not stopped to consider my readers. (Which is ironic; I just spent most of this year thinking very deeply and very carefully about my audience for a book about a controversial and, for some, disturbing subject.) Distracted by the holidays, I just hit that “submit” button to Cool Tools as sunny, helpful me. And as my readers here at Madam Mayo— also a sunny, helpful and literary bunch– would probably appreciate it, so I thought, oh, I’ll just rerun the Cool Tools post on Madam Mayo when it comes out, two birds with one stone.

If I’d thought about it for, like, a split second, it would have occurred to me that, not all, but probably most readers of the Cool Tools blog are younger, tech-savvy guys– or at least they want to see themselves that way, surfing in for their daily dose of cool. A blog post about Grandma’s recipe box method for keeping Internet passwords would most likely rub their fur the wrong way. 

A head-slapper, I know.

Immediately comments came in like, April’s Fool Day, right? And, Did Cool Tools get hacked?

The multitude of indignant comments have not enlightened me about using encrypted on-line services for managing Internet passwords; I knew all about that back when. (I didn’t grow up in Palo Alto for nothing.) And I can certainly understand that mobility– having one’s passwords in the palm of one’s hand at all times– is key for many people (you know who are, texting in your sleep). For many, their office is the last place they’d want to leave all their passwords. And, gosh, an astonishing number of people seem to think their house is more likely to burn down than their computer get hacked!! (Could be true if they live in certain parts of California…)

I do love my Internet password management system, I stand by it, and I am confident– and subsequent, more positive, commenters have noted– that it could work well for many people. But if I could rewrite the opening of my Cool Tools blog post, I would have said:

This is a low-tech and easy-to-grok system for those with the following profile:

* A less than photographic memory; 
* An appreciation for the need to use unique and difficult-to-guess passwords for their various Internet accounts (shopping, blog, twitter, FB, YouTube, websites, etc); 
* No (or a very low) need for digital access away from one’s desk;
* A highly secure and private home office or studio;
* An appreciation for why the KGB recently bought typewriters.

So this system might not be for you– although it just might be for someone you care about who happens to fit this profile. 

The lesson for me is not that such an opening could have avoided negative comments. It’s a free country (or at least pretends to be), different people have different opinions, and if some have nothing better to do than spew in the comments section of a blog, well, may they be Buddha in their next incarnation! When writers publish, whether in print or on-line, there are always reactions of all kinds. Taking negative comments seriously, ruminating about them, that’s an amateur’s game. But when comments do bother me… and the overall tone of these did… it’s because some part of me knows that I could have done better. In this instance– lesson number one– I could have more respectfully considered my probable audience.

Or, as Grandma would have put it, not everyone likes duck stew, but whatever you do, don’t serve it cold.

What’s the second lesson? Under the crap, find the pony. The comments of those so indignant at the uncoolness of my paper-based system got me thinking: why paper? And what’s the problem with assuming a digital solution is always superior? Later that afternoon, I went for a walk and couldn’t help noticing how many people were shuffling along like zombies, twiddling their thumbs on their hand-helds. And it occurred to me that old-fashioned paper systems– when appropriate for the user– can, ironically, serve as the most avant garde of tools to help loosen the digital leash. That is my next Cool Tools blog post, if they’ll have it: The Filofax planner.

[ UPDATE: Filofax review has been posted on Cool Tools.]

Key idea: the power of organization in service of a productive and creative life– a life requiring digital prowess, yet rich with large swaths of digital-free time. How to balance that, the digital and the digital-free? On other words, how to leave the hand-held at home and yet remain on-the-ball? Highly efficient paper systems can come in.

I’m also thinking about how this ties into collections of rare books. It’s all about organizing, organizing as adding information.

More anon.

#

Grandma’s recipe box solution to password management
By C.M. Mayo

Originally published in Cool Tools, January 8, 2014

When the Web was new (I climbed on board in 1995) like everyone else, I started accumulating passwords. Slowly at first, but with two websites to manage and a fondness for on-line shopping, by 1999, I was pinning scraps of paper to my bulletin board, jotting in notebooks, tucking them into my wallet, in various files in the filing cabinet, and, oh heck, just sticking Post-Its to my computer monitor. And more times than I’d like to admit, I forgot to write them down at all. I knew some people who kept their passwords straight by using the same one for everything, but that seemed to me an invitation to hackers. 

About ten years ago, I started noting each password on its own 4 x 6 inch index card, then filing it alphabetically by service (e.g., Amazon.com under “A”) in a little box that looks just like my grandmother’s cookie recipe box. 

Call it the Grandma’s Recipe Box Solution to Password Management.

On each index card I note:

Name of Service (e.g., Amazon.com)
My password
My username
My email address for this account
Any other relevant information

Now that I’m still on-line in 2014 and managing a plethora of websites, a batch of blogs, two YouTube channels, Vimeo, three Twitter accounts, and do my banking on-line, use PayPal, and have not set foot in a shopping mall in more time than I can remember, I have accumulated a prodigious stack of index cards. But my little plastic index card holder, with its alphabetical tabs, is still right here by my desk, doing the job. 

I have found that there are several advantages to this method: 

1. I can keep all my passwords at my fingertips (so when it’s time to check my bank balance or tweet or shop on-line, if I cannot recall the one I need password, I just pluck it out); 

2. Filing the cards alphabetically allows me to plunk one back in quickly (and find it again just as
quickly); 

3. I can use longer and more varied passwords without having to remember them nor go through the hoops of waiting for it to be resent to my email, and then having to click on some link to confirm;

4. If I need to change a password, I just pluck out the card, note the change, and put it back;

5. When I had to cancel one of my email accounts, I was able to whip through the stack of index cards to see which accounts needed updating;

6. It’s cheap and after 10 years the plastic index card holder still looks like new;

7. Its small enough to stash in a locked drawer;

8. Finally, should anything happen to me, my family knows where to retrieve all my passwords to put my affairs in order. That’s a gruesome thought, but a realistic one. Last I checked, no one gets off this planet alive (except astronauts, and only temporarily). 

Translating Across the Border

James McWilliams’ The Pecan: A History of America’s Native Nut

Cal Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You