Readers Write: “Should I Move to Mexico?” A Lengthy Meditation in mid-March 2022 (With an Assist From Charlie Chaplin— and No, That Does Not Mean I Think Your Question Is a Joke, As Chaplin Knew, Humor Can Be Dead Serious)

BY C.M. MAYO — March 14, 2022 
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

This blog posts on Mondays, usually. Second Mondays of the month I devote to my writing workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing. Welcome!
> For the archive of workshop posts click here.

This makes me a popcorn-poppin’ party-pooper, but I’m going to give away the ending of Charlie Chaplin’s 1923 “The Pilgrim,” about an outlaw in stolen priest’s garb— not because this is what I’m saying you’ll find in Mexico, necessarily, but to point to enduring stereotypes that might mislead you.

A still from Charlie Chaplin’s 1923 silent movie “The Pilgrim”

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Speaking of law and order, I did notice, more than a few some nooks and crannies of this world are looking more than a little bit bio-medical police-state-y. Because I have written books on Mexico, a number of readers write, urgently asking, Should I move to Mexico?

In case you were wondering about my sympathies: I stand for respecting and defending the rights enshrined in the constitution of the United States, of which I am a citizen. Rights are not “privileges,” I didn’t buy that switcheroo. I could give you my screed on civil and human rights, enriched with quotes by Thomas Jefferson and Hannah Arendt, but I’m sure you didn’t come here for that, so I’ll vacuum-pack it down to the memes:

That said, in this literary blog I do not purvey
(a) individual personal advice;
(b) medical advice;
(c) commentary on contemporary national or international politics; nor
(d) natter on about the arcana of public health policy (many other people can do that much better than I can— to take but one example, Dr. Martin Kulldorff).

This is, after all, the second Monday of the month, when I post something for my writing workshop students. Normally on a winter month’s second Monday, such as this one, I might be reporting on the San Miguel Writers Conference in San Miguel de Allende, that enchanting bougainvillea-bedecked (if increasingly traffic-clogged) colonial town some three hours north of Mexico City. Because of concerns about the-virus-that-shall-not-be-named, however, that conference has been bumped out to February 2023.

Hint: Maybe Mexico—or at least the nook or cranny of Mexico that you, as a foreigner, might happen to land in— isn’t quite the free-for-all that some of you imagine.

And there are, as there always have been, many Mexicos— to borrow the title of Lesley Byrd Simpson’s landmark history.

This is my “armchair sociologist” hat. Because I write fiction I spend a lot of time observing and noodling about human society, which is to say, being a sociologist. By “armchair” I mean, I don’t have a degree in the subject. (What’s with the “Meat Science”? I got it when attended a weekend BBQ workshop there at Texas A & M University. My inner “armchair sociologist” finds people’s reactions to this hat endlessly interesting!)

But to begin to address your concerns: Putting on my hat as an armchair sociologist— (that would be the baseball cap I also use for dog-walking that says MEAT SCIENCE)— I would point to a strong presence at the San Miguel Writers Conference of both Mexican writers and US, Canadian, and other English-speaking writers living in Mexico, but also many writers winging in from tonier parts of the US East Coast and US Southwest. Some writers dig that scene (there are agents! and editors!). The last time I attended, I chaired a panel on Global Migration: People and Their Stories (with Elizabeth Hay, Lisa See, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Juan Villoro. Best-selling author Naomi Wolf, down from New York City, was a standing room-only keynote speaker (here we are in March 2022, but oh my, how things have changed, I’d be surprised to see her on the mainstream media again anytime soon.)

My inner armchair sociologist will suffice, before dropping the curtain on all of this— and hanging my TEXAS A & M MEAT SCIENCE baseball cap back on its hook— to note that the other day I received an invitation to a reading in Mexico by a writer, one closely associated with the above-mentioned writers conference, that was for “vaccinated only.” Those among the un- who might wish to hear that speaker (a speaker outspoken on the need for more freedom, I am not making this up) are to be segregated into that pathogen-free zone known as Zoomlandia. Just an anecdote, for your sociological edification.

As I write this, in March 2022, that I know of, the Mexican government has not imposed jab mandates, nor health passports. In the future, what will Mexican policymakers do, or not do, you ask, in regards to public health policy and public policy generally?

Sorry, but in the winter of 2020 my Aztec obsidian scrying mirror crack-a-doodled.

I’m not being flippant. Seriously, honestly, I have no idea what to expect when, after the winter of 2020, all over the world, including in Mexico, so many strange things have happened that I never could have imagined. And hey, I write fiction.

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Oh, there’s Mexico! A still from Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 movie “The Great Dictator.”

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Writing in Mexico— that’s something I can confidently say more about. For now, March 2022, while I don’t know of any upcoming writers conferences other than the San Miguel Writers Conference scheduled for February 2023, if you can get to Mexico, and if you have a pencil and paper, no one can stop you! Write that novel! Scribble out that memoir! You might station yourself at a table under a palapa, by the sounds of the sea… (and if you could use any writing prompts, you’ll find 365 of them here).

No worries, you do not need documents attesting to your medical history for entry into Mexico, just a valid passport.

However, as of March 2022, attending the above-mentioned literary event— or, say, certain Mexican weddings, or other social gatherings among certain groups in certain places— might be a dicey proposition if you are not prepared ***and willing*** to present at the door documents confirming that you have been injected with the number and nature of medical treatments that satisfy your hosts’ definition of “vaccinated.”

FYI, your European “recovered-from-covid” genesen certificate doesn’t count with many of these folks. (Then again, Mexico is renowned for its culture of flexibility. You might try it and see.)

As I write this in March 2022—the situation, of course, is evolving— for many Mexicans, as for many foreigners resident in Mexico, “fully-vaccinated” means that you’ve had your two, plus your booster, for a total of three injections. My inner “armchair sociologist” notes that “vaccinated” (without the “fully”) seems to be employed a little more loosely.

In Mexico, a Sputnik jab will pass muster, but puts you perilously low in the pecking order.

Ditto anything Chinese.

AstraZeneca is a notch up, then J & J.

Prime are the mRNA vaccines (the word “vaccine” having been legally redefined to encompass what was previously known in the pharmaceutical industry as “gene therapy”), made available in 2020 under the US FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization, for which, early on, many Mexicans and many foreigners resident in Mexico traveled to the US to roll up their sleeves. I refer to Moderna and Pfizer.

Moderna or Pfizer? In some places in Mexico, it’s the conversation. Be prepared.

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Dear writerly readers who have been so urgently writing to me, as you may already be aware, in its storied past, Mexico has given refuge to those fleeing slavery, pogroms in Russia, the Russian Revolution (most famously, Leon Trotsky) the tumult of the post-Weimar Republic (B. Traven), Spanish fascism under Franco, German fascism and the Holocaust under Hitler, Communist witch-hunts of the 1950s in Hollywood, Cuba of the 1960s, Argentina and Chile of the 1970s, & etc., so, yes, if you are fleeing something, it might stand to reason that Mexico might arise on your horizon as a possibility.

Moreover, true it is that many Mexicans, as well as many foreigners resident in Mexico, have wholly different ideas about the virus-that-shall-not-be-named than the ones retailed by the vaccinators. There are those who have a variety of religious and/or other objections to taking the jabs. Vaccinators might dismiss most of these people as, shall we say, rustic characters, but that could not be said of those who follow the likes of el gato malo, Eugyppius, Steve Kirsch, realnotrare.com reports (this one’s a doozy), and watch censored and shadow-banned videos, such as the latest in mind-furniture-rearranging from Oracle Films. (And if you were heretofore unaware, and happen to be curious, está Usted servido.)

As it could be said of opinions about and attitudes towards the topic-at-hand in many other countries, from stringent Australia to strictest Austria, in relatively laissez-faire Mexico there appears to be a profound divide between urban and rural populations, and between the higher and the lower social classes, with many exceptions sprinkled all about.

Ahoy, sociologists, and that includes you novelists!

I have many hats. This is my “armchair modern art critic” hat. I will be wearing it often in 2022-2023 as I write about Donald Judd (and maybe also about Dada).

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As for whether you should or should not go live in Mexico, I would not presume to say. Like I said, I cannot see the future, and I don’t dispense individual personal advice.

What I can tell you, after some three decades of living in Mexico City, and traveling all around Baja California, and elsewhere throughout Mexico, and writing several books about Mexico, and also translating oodles of Mexican fiction and poetry, is that I love Mexico, and I find it endlessly fascinating. Moving there in 1986, which I did for personal reasons, was one of the best decisions of my life.

However, as you might guess, my years there (interspersed with some spells abroad) have not always been a stroll with an ice-cream cone on a sunny morning in the park.

As for questions along the lines of, what’s it like to live in Mexico, is Mexico safe, what do I think of (insert name of prominent politician), in all seriousness, humbly, and in all compassion, my wish for you being that you take the best decision for yourself as possible, I toss these questions back to you—

What is it like to live in your country?

Seriously: How would you answer that? What is your full knowledge base, which are your areas of ignorance, what aspects of life there most concern you, and whom are you addressing?

Is your country safe? How quickly, and how accurately, could you answer that?

What do you think of (insert name of prominent politician in your country whom you are very upset about)? And where, exactly, do you get your information about (insert name of prominent politician in your country whom you are very upset about)? And upon reflection— reflection lasting more than 11 seconds— how genuinely objective and reliable do you think that source information might actually be?

My point: a penthouse in Manhattan is not an off-the-grid farm in Idaho is not a modernist house in the historic district of San Antonio is not a 4th floor walk-up in Milwaukee with a view of the railroad tracks and a den-o’-nefarious-activities next door. What it’s like to live in the US? That depends on where you are in the US —among many other factors, including your history, your social network, financial resources, your own attitudes, and, I would venture to suggest, most crucially, the stories you tell yourself. Which can change.

I’m telling you, while I know some things about living in Mexico that might help you if you are considering moving there—and I gladly share them with you below— I am not the oracle for all questions about Mexico.

Mexico, too, is a large and extremely heterogeneous country— ethnically, culturally, geographically. It has some 130 million people and borders all sorts of oceans and three different countries, not counting Texas.

Speaking of Texas, I hear things are a little different there, than in, oh, say, California. And in Texas, as in California, if you’re on the ground here, you’ll observe important differences from one county to the next. Santa Clara County, California, Placer County, California: different planets.

Same story in Mexico. Coahuila isn’t Oaxaca isn’t Veracruz. Torreón isn’t Tijuana isn’t Monterrey isn’t Mexico City. And it so happens, I haven’t set foot in Oaxaca, Veracruz, Tijuana, Torreón or Monterrey in many years.

This is my “armchair baseball expert” hat. It’s from El Paso, Texas.

As for how safe living in one place or another place in Mexico might or might not be, sometimes you can have a gander at some data, if you make the effort to find it; mostly you’ll have to go by feeling “the vibes” and hearsay, and the closer to your target, the better, of course. This is true in the US, and this is especially true in Mexico.

The news, and the entertainments currently showing on TV or Netflix, could at times be, but generally, probably, are not your best orienting resource about Mexico. Please read this again: The news, and the entertainments currently showing on TV or Netflix, could at times be, but generally, probably, are not your best orienting resource about Mexico.

Now, I’m going to be annoying and say it a third time:

The news, and the entertainments currently showing on TV or Netflix, could at times be, but generally, probably, are not your best orienting resource about Mexico.

Ninety-nine percent of them will give you about as much information as the still from last scene in Charlie Chaplin’s 1923 “The Pilgrim.” It’s not much, and it’s almost a hundred years old. And you’ve already seen it.

For the most part, books are a far better resource than popular visual media for learning about Mexico. Nonetheless, there too, clichés and time-wasters abound. I get to recommended books below.

But a lot of journalists have been getting killed in Mexico, you say. Yes, tragically. And there’s a lot of narcotrafficking. Yes, alas. But a question for you: In your own country, where the murder of a journalist might be only very rare an occurrence, might this rarity possibly be because certain persons’ acts of engagement in certain nefarious activities generating important cash flows are not deemed “news”? I cannot say I know the answer to this question in all its florid details. But, really, do you?

(Did the drugs arrive north of the border to be distributed by faeries waving wands? And, hmmm, might there be other nefarious activities generating important cash flows that are not deemed “news”?)

As for what I can say about safety in my own little barrio in Mexico City I would compare it to my experience living on the South Side of Chicago in the ’80s in that, you need to use your street sense, or get some, like, yesterday. Otherwise, usually, it’s a fine place to live. But Mexico City, a megalopolis of some 20 million people, has a lot of neighborhoods; some are more dangerous than mine, others safer. There’s a lot I simply don’t know.

As for (insert name of prominent politician you are very concerned about), different Mexicans have different opinions about him, ranging from his being Jesucristo reencarnado to something, um, better wear your garlic necklace! In short, the answer you get will depend on whom you put the question to, and that may well, might I shyly suggest, depend on what you might, maybe a little bit subconsciously, like to hear. Or what that person you have queried imagines you might want, or might be willing, to hear.

Who knows, they might just make sh*t up to yank your chain.

I cannot say I haven’t seen that happen.

Politics in Mexico, like politics in the US, or anywhere else, is pretty much a lucha libre. It’s a lot of show, and tougher than unshelled Brazil nuts to know what’s really going on. I can also tell you this: In years past, when I was in-the-know on a sliver of what was actually going on, and then read about it in the press, I just rolled my eyes and laughed, if I didn’t want to cry. Or just spit. I stopped reading or watching “news” a long time ago. I much prefer Willa Cather novels.

This is LUUUUUUCHA LIIIIIBRE!

But! There’s More!
Six Questions for You
About Moving To Mexico
That Might Be Helpful For You
To Noodle On Some More

#1. Can you easily and lustily cackle like a coyote?

Because seriously, if you want to live in Mexico it really, really helps to have, and to deliberately cultivate, a wacky, high-vibe sense of humor. If you can take one thing from this long post, this is it.

As you might imagine, moving to Mexico is not easy for someone, such as myself, who grew up speaking a different language and in a different culture. Ask a Hungarian how it is to live in Berlin, or a Berliner to make a new home in Toulouse, or, say, an Uruguayan in Philadelphia; they will assuredly inform you that they have faced, and not always managed to tackle, a multitude of gnarly challenges.

To start with, people talk funny. The people there don’t think your way of understanding and of doing things is the only way, and in fact they oftentimes consider what you think is normal and/or wise and/or good to be plumb crazy and/or stupid and/or stinkingly bad. Their system for recycling is…err, something else. Etiquette— there’s a bramble patch.

Plan on offending a ton of people you never intended to offend (and also the inevitable little phalanx of unhappy souls who project their own nasty whatnot upon your innocent and clueless self, and who relish being So Offended by You! You Foreigner, You!)

To make your way living in another country can take more patience and flexibility and sheer head-banging lonely frustration than you can summon.

But maybe you can. Only you can know. And you won’t know for sure until you try.

A few people might think, “but I am Mexican-American, I speak Spanish, so it would be easy for me to go live in Mexico.” Well, there, too, I wouldn’t know what’s going to work, or not, for you.

But I do know that as a native English speaker of (partially) English descent, one who adored Beatrix Potter and C.S. Lewis and tea with cucumber sandwiches, I found living in England, as I did for a season many, many years ago, more of a challenge that I ever could have anticipated. Did I mention, they talk funny. They have a most peculiar social structure wherein one is expected to address certain persons as lord and lady & such-like. They use pounds sterling, their electric outlets take a concatenation of weird prongs, they set their thermostats at freeze-your-fingers-off, they drive on the wrong side of the road. Their “hamburgers” and “catsup” are absurdly horrible!! I was young, it did not last. Oh well.

Certainly there are many foreigners who have made their way in Mexico. Here is a picture of my American amigo who had the most rockstar Olympic champion high-vibe sense of humor: the poet and writer Bruce Berger (he passed away in 2021). Having learned Spanish while playing piano in Spain, he came back over the pond to spend his winters in La Paz, on Mexico’s Sea of Cortez (the balance of the year he lived in Aspen, Colorado). For a sampling of his humor, and his enchantingly poetic tales, you might enjoy Almost an Island: Travels in Baja California. The chapter about the nuns is my fave.

A photo that brings back fond memories: Yours Truly (C.M. Mayo) with Bruce Berger (seated) and James Tolbert (standing), after a public reading in the Ida Victoria Gallery in downtown San José del Cabo, Baja California Sur, Mexico, sponsored by Tolbert’s Baja Books. I read from my memoir of Baja California, Miraculous Air, and, as I recall, Bruce Berger read from his, Almost an Island. Bruce was the author of numerous works of memoir and poetry. His last was a collection of his luminous essays, A Desert Harvest. Read my Q & A with Bruce here.

Another high-vibe American friend I very much admire, who has been living in Mexico City for many years, is historian and biographer Michael K. Schuessler. I invite you to listen in to my podcast interview with him about some wildly talented Mexican literary ladies.

#2. Do you have plenty of spare cash to pay your Mexican lawyer?

Because if you want to work in Mexico, legally, you will need to $$$hire$$$ a lawyer (and be very, very patient). Many an American, or other foreigner assumes that he can land in Mexico as a tourist and just stay indefinitely, oh, say, teaching English, or SCUBA diving. They learn differently when they get arrested by the Mexican authorities, and then deported.

Let me say that again:

Many an American, or other foreigner assumes that he can land in Mexico as a tourist and just stay indefinitely, oh, say, teaching English, or SCUBA diving. They learn differently when they get arrested by the Mexican authorities, and then deported.

And meanwhile, funny how that is, when employers realize you’re an undocumented worker, they don’t give you benefits, and they tend to pay, when they pay, very poorly.

In short, don’t be too quick to assume things about the ineptitude of the Mexican state, especially if your main source of information is popular entertainment and the mainstream media in your native country. (I hereby desist from saying again what I already said three times.)

#3. Are you OK with the fact that when you do achieve residency status, with the right to work, as a noncitizen, you will not have the right to vote or otherwise participate in the Mexican political process?

Once you have an opinion or seven, you might find this intensely frustrating! If you decide to go for Mexican citizenship, don’t ask me about it, talk to your Mexican lawyer. See again #1 and #2.

Now a brief intermission for more from the great Charlie Chaplin— in character as Adenoid Hynkel from his movie “The Great Dictator,” a classic of anti-fascism from 1940:

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#4. Got Advil? For US citizens banking in Mexico can be a bit of a headache.

I know, banking in the US isn’t always a picnic, but for a US citizen it can take longer to open a bank account in Mexico than even the niños who believe Santa Claus lives in the Polo Norte would believe, and one fine day, as has happened to some Americans I know, including myself, you might find your balance wiped out— not stolen, exactly, just, oh, err, wiped out.

(You answered “yes” to the question about high-vibe sense of humor, I trust?)

How banking in Mexico is for other nationals, I have no idea.

#5. Can you define for yourself clearly what you mean by “living in Mexico”?

“Living in Mexico” and “living in Mexico cocooned in an expat community” might be entirely different galaxies of experience— and one expat community a different galaxy of experience from another.

I have never lived in an expat community, however, I’ve visited some of them, and I know a number of delightful Americans and Canadians who thrive in them.

Alas, however, it has not escaped my notice that, for not all, certainly, but for many expats, one of the prime attractions of an expat community is that it’s just like home but a heap cheaper and with better winter weather, you can squidge by without having to learn Spanish, and you’ll easily find friends who will sit around and whine and complain about Mexico with you while (a) watching CNN, MSNBC or (those are very deliberate italics there) Fox News (b) playing games (c) gossiping (d) commiserating about other peoples’ atrocious political opinions (e) drinking alcoholic beverages (e) ingesting other things it would probably be wiser to not ingest.

Ahoy, you novelists, rich pickings here!

FYI, Democrats Abroad is very active in Mexico, last I heard. But if you’re on the lookout for Republicans, they’re not hiding under rocks down there, either.

#6. Would you like to check out some books about Mexico?

As I said, books can be a far better resource for learning about Mexico than popular visual media. I can warmly recommend some superb literary art and illuminating histories…

The last time I received a flurry of readers’ questions about Mexico was in 2016 when Donald Trump… sigh. Was that a hundred years ago? Sure feels like it. I answered those readers’ questions by way of this reading list:

READING MEXICO: 
Recommendations for a Book Club of Extra-Curious 
& Adventurous English-Language Readers

A tiny sampling from a very long list

I need to update that list, most urgently with Alice L. Baumgartner’s magnificent work of original scholarship, South to Freedom: Runway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War (Basic Books, 2020). (I touched on this topic myself in this long essay, “Great Power in One: Miss Charles Emily Wilson.”)

Highly recommended, a major work of original scholarship

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See also:

Q & A with Timothy Heyman on the Incomparable Legacy 
of German-Mexican Novelist B. Traven

“Traven’s Triumph” by Timothy Heyman (Guest Blog)

Sam Quinones’ Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic

“A Traveler in Mexico: A Rendezvous with Writer Rosemary Sullivan”

How Wide is Your Overton Window? Plus from the Archives: 
“On Writing About Mexico: Secrets and Surprises”

Some wild hombres south of the border

I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

Q & A with Lynne Sharon Schwartz About Crossing Borders

More on Seeing as an Artist or, 
The Rich Mine of Stories About Those Who “See” the Emperor’s Clothes

From the Archives: My Review of Heribert von Feilitzsch’s 
In Plain Sight: Felix A. Sommerfeld, Spymaster in Mexico, 1908-1914

From the Archives: A Review of “Desert America: Boom and Bust in the New Old West”  by Rubén Martínez 

BY C.M. MAYO — March 8, 2022 
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

This blog posts on Mondays. In 2022 first Mondays of the month are for Texas Books, posts in which share with you some of the more unusual and interesting books in the Texas Bibliothek, that is, my working library. 
> For the archive of all Texas-related posts click here.
P.S. Listen in any time to the related Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project.

The end of March 2022 marks the 16th anniversary of this blog, after which point, until further notice, I will be posting approximately two Mondays a month. The posts on Texas Books, the writing workshop, my own work, and a Q & A with another writer, will continue, each posting every other month and, as ever, when there is a fifth Monday in a given month, that’s for the newsletter.

DESERT AMERICA:
Boom and Bust in the New Old West 
by Rubén Martínez 
Metropolitan Books, 2012
Review by C.M. Mayo originally published in The Washington Independent Review of Books, February 18, 2013

What is the West? That cross-borderly mashup of music, footwear and haberdashery known as “cowboy cool”? Or is it indigenous? The Big Empty, healing refuge, Hispano, Chicano, Mexicano? Or is it now found in the scrim of “underwater” water-sucking tract houses? What is this landscape, if not seen through millions of different eyes each with its own needs, lusts, filters and projections? And how is it changing? (Radically.) In Desert America Rubén Martínez tackles these immense and thorny questions in a narrative of multiple strands masterfully braided into a lyrical whole.

A memoir of living and traveling through both iconic and off-the-path places from Joshua Tree to Sedona, the Arizona borderlands to the heroin-infested farming communities of New Mexico and, briefly, the artist colony of Marfa, Texas, Desert America is also the story of a son and grandson of Salvadoran and Mexican immigrants trying on and struggling with various identities —guitar-toting “brown cowboy”; Roque Dalton-quoting poet-activist; addict, farmer, husband, father. But more: Desert America is a work of literary journalism in the finest tradition, a novelesque interweaving of vivid and telling detail with interviews and original research.

In the chapter “Water in the Desert,” Martínez profiles Mike Wilson, a member of the Tohono O’odham reservation, who makes a spiritual practice of leaving gallon jugs of water in the Baboquivari Valley, a deathtrap of thirst for uncounted hundreds of migrants. Not far from Wilson’s house are tract houses for a different kind of migrant — many of whom take a dim view of Wilson’s endeavor. Wilson named his various depots after the Gospels. After an exhausting day of following him around, writes Martínez:

“John Station is in the sun-dappled shade of a mesquite thicket, and with all the splashing from the ten-gallons containers and the hoses, soon there are diamonds of light glinting on every surface, drops of water whose brilliance disappears within seconds as the blazing air sucks the moisture away.”

Later, Martínez joins Wilson and a party of Guatemalans in a search for the body of a teenager named Sergio, whose cousin Lucas, residing in San Diego, learned had died two days into his journey from the border. In the car on the way to where they will start the search, Martínez learns that Sergio was 19. He was overweight; he carried a fake Mexican birth certificate. In Guatemala he’d driven a bus and gone into debt for the privilege. A husband and father already, he’d come north for fast cash. His body, Lucas had been told, “was left at the foot of a tree in a wash next to the highway to Arizona City, near a cemetery.” But after a brutal day of searching micro patches of immensity, Wilson, who knew the desert, said, at last, and in good Spanish, “Do you know how many places that could be?”

On the flip side of the coin, with “a postcard view of Baboquivari Peak,” on “640 acres of stunning Sonoran desert” is “a handsome house, 1920s vintage with Moroccan arches, tall ceilings and an exquisitely tiled kitchen,” where Martínez interviews its owner, who holds a Ph.D. in anthropology and carries a shotgun. Apart from the menace of rattlesnakes, migrants cross her land. At night, from the house, she can hear the rumbling of the Border Patrol SUVs.

“She visualizes them coming down the saddle between the two hills behind the ranch house. Walking up to the house, up to the bedroom window, peering in at her.

‘You must understand, Rubén. These are not Juan and María.’ They are, she says, like feral dogs.

I tense. There is a great contradiction between us, in the way we imagine who is on the land. Who is the figure crossing the desert?”

In “Where the River Bends,” Martínez arrives in Texas’ Big Bend country, to the tiny town of Marfa as a Lannan Fellow, assigned one of their several beautifully refurbished writers’ residences. He covers the basics of the art colony’s history as well if not better than anyone: the filming of the iconic Elizabeth Taylor-Rock Hudson-James Dean vehicle, “Giant”; the arrival of visionary artist Donald Judd, “mad emperor of the rectangles filled with the soul-stirring vistas of the Chihuhuan Desert,” and then, on Judd’s heels, the jet-in multimillionaires in search of space and creatives displacing the old ranching families. But more than a personal memoir or press release-fed bit of travel section fluff, Martínez delves in, hiking with Jeff Fort, ex-Tyco CEO who bought Judd’s fabled Chinati Hot Springs, among other and vast properties; and, recounted with often painful detail, Martínez attends a party at a sleek mansion surrounded by an ocean of plains and mountain views. And more: he looks into Marfa’s Blackwell School, which was the Mexican school — for Marfa’s public schools were not integrated until 1965. That famous scene in “Giant,” where Rock Hudson gets punched out by the waiter who had refused to serve Mexicans, was, alas, based on an ugly reality.

There are myriad ugly realities in the new West — migrants perishing in the deserts, unsustainable sprawl, conflicts, poverty, an epidemic of addiction — and while Martínez explores these, yielding powerful insight into the changing mosaic of peoples, he also shows us the magnet that is the West’s breathtaking beauty. And it all makes a symphony of sense. As Martínez writes in his introduction, “the only way to tell my story, it seemed, was to tell theirs.”

I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

Journal of Big Bend Studies: “The Secret Book by Francisco I. Madero”

Edna Ferber’s Giant & A Selection of Related Books,
Plus Two Related Videos On (Yes) the Nuremberg Trials

From the Archives: 
A Review of Pekka Hämäläinen’s The Comanche Empire

Q & A with Michael Hogan About “Guns, Grit and Glory: How the US and Mexico Came Together to Defeat the Last Empire in the Americas”

BY C.M. MAYO — February 28, 2022 
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

This blog posts on Mondays. Fourth Mondays of the month I devote to a Q & A with a fellow writer.

“I knew that there were many people on both sides [of the US-Mexico border] who were capable of a more nuanced understanding and wanted a better relationship between our countries. Those were my ideal readers. “—Michael Hogan

Michael Hogan, author of Guns, Grit and Glory
Guns, Grit and Glory by Michael Hogan

Michael Hogan has been publishing some of the most fascinating and important works on US-Mexico history that we have. I don’t say that lightly; for my historical novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, I spent nearly a decade, in some of the very same archives, researching this period that he writes about in Guns, Grit and Glory: the French Intervention in Mexico, which allowed for Mexico’s Second Empire under Maximilian von Habsburg. This period overlaps, and in no way coincidentally, with the period of the US Civil War. Because governments and school boards have their political agendas, and of course time for teaching history to children and teenagers is limited, “the narrative” of such episodes that they learn is, by its nature, biased and severely truncated. Sometimes it just gets skipped altogether. So it sometimes happens that some episodes and actors and factors that are hugely important come to light decades, even a century or more later. But this light shines only if and when someone has had the burning curiosity, determination, skill, and perseverance, to dig out the evidence and then recraft a new narrative.

Michael Hogan is an American author of twenty-five books including the critically acclaimed The Irish Soldiers of Mexico and Abraham Lincoln and Mexico. He holds a PhD in Latin American Studies and is Emeritus Humanities Chair at the American School Foundation of Guadalajara. He lives in Mexico.

C.M. MAYO: What inspired you to write Guns, Grit and Glory?

MICHAEL HOGAN: In 2017 I wrote Abraham Lincoln and Mexico, a book that fully revealed for the first time, Lincoln’s support of Benito Juárez when the Mexican president and his Republican forces were driven from the capital by the invading French Army. They were forced to fight an unequal war with poorly clothed, sometimes barefoot, and poorly armed retreating soldiers. I discovered that besides moral support, Lincoln also allowed Mexican agents to raise funds in the US to help feed those troops and provide medicines. But many questions remained. How did Juárez avoid capture by the combined French forces? How did he acquire uniforms and boots, grooved cannons, and other sophisticated weapons for his men? How did his soldiers develop the expertise and training to use them effectively? How did a small retreating army overcome what was the most powerful military force in the world? 

Most of these questions plagued me when I finished that book, although I had some clues. One was an article written by the late historian Robert Ryal Miller about the American Legion of Honor, a group of US volunteers who joined the Mexicans in their fight. In fact, members of this group rescued Juárez when he was in mortal danger of being captured and killed.by French forces in Zacatecas. Another was the discovery that, at the end of the Civil War, African American soldiers from the US Colored Troops joined the Mexican Army after being mustered out of the Union Army at the end of the Civil War. By 1866, there were over 3,000 US volunteers helping the Juárez forces, several were former officers and non-coms, others were sharpshooters and cannoneers. All were tested combat veterans. That story had not really been told, nor the tremendous amount of funding provided by the sale of Mexican bonds (worthless if the war was lost) which Mexican Consul Matias Romero was able to sell, thereby raising in excess of 15 million dollars.

C.M. MAYO: As you were writing, did you have in mind an ideal reader? If so, how might you describe the ideal reader for Guns, Grit and Glory?

MICHAEL HOGAN: I wrote it during the period when there was quite a bit of tension between the US and Mexico. I thought it might be a valuable contribution to show that there was a time when the US and Mexico came together to fight for a common cause. My ideal reader was someone who was open to have a new (but researched-based) understanding of US-Mexican relations. For this reason, there is also a Spanish edition. My thirty-plus years in Mexico had convinced me that there were misgivings and misunderstandings of the US-Mexican relationship on both sides of the border. Many Mexicans still resented the invasion of 1846 and loss of their northern territories. Many people on the US side were too willing to blame Mexico for the current migrant crisis on the border. Yet I knew that there were many people on both sides who were capable of a more nuanced understanding and wanted a better relationship between our countries. Those were my ideal readers.  

C.M. MAYO: Researching a book like this requires extraordinary organizational skills. Can you talk a little bit about your working library and how you keep track of the books you read / consulted? And how do you keep track of articles, both on-line and on paper? And what were some of the things you did for this book that worked especially well for you? 

MICHAEL HOGAN: I was lucky that I was teaching history at an institution that gave me free access to several academic subscription services which I could download and print. I am also fortunate in that my wife, Lucinda Mayo, and I have accumulated a large personal library over the years of over 5,000 titles in both English and Spanish. So, for many sources, I kept track the traditional way, with markers and notes, and separate file folders for each theme, battle, or personage. Since the COVID crisis had not yet struck I was also able to access archives in Chihuahua, where Juarez had his headquarters, and the archives of the Banco de Mexico in the capital, where Romero’s papers were stored. He had been the treasury secretary and head of the bank under Porfirio Díaz.

C.M. MAYO: What was the biggest surprise that you came across in your research?

MICHAEL HOGAN: There were several. The first was that many of the details I found were not in the Archivo de la Nación but rather in the Banco de Mexico. I think perhaps a decision was made to keep them there so that Porfirio Díaz could claim his great victories were without any significant help from the gringos.

Another surprising discovery was that trustworthy French eyewitnesses claimed they observed over 10,000 Americans at the Battle of Querétaro whereas Professor Miller only credited 300 or so in the American Legion, and Romero said there were only 3,000 Americans total, which included the African American soldiers.

However, it was unlikely that the French were wrong; besides theirs was a primary source. So, secondary sources, a Mexican consul who was not present and a US professor writing a century later, must have been mistaken. How to resolve the dilemma?

Quite by accident, I discovered purchase invoices for several thousand Union uniforms in the Mexican military archives. There was the answer. The thousands of bluecoats that the French saw on the hills of Queretaro were mostly Mexicans in surplus US Army uniforms! 

C.M. MAYO: What was the most challenging aspect of writing this book?

MICHAEL HOGAN: So much of what was occurring doing those years was clandestine. The US could not openly aid the Mexicans because to do so would alienate the French who might then join up with the Confederacy. Besides the French were historic allies who helped the US gain its independence. On the Mexican side, Romero representing Juárez, would have to offer foreign investors in those high-risk Mexican bonds either parcels of land, or mining concessions, or other significant incentives if the government were to default. This fact needed to be kept secret lest Juárez be accused by his own people of signing away large swaths of Mexican territory and the patrimony of the next generation. In fact, there were defaults, and by the end of the next decade over 20 percent of Mexican territory was owned by foreigners.

C.M. MAYO: What has most surprised you about its reception?

MICHAEL HOGAN: On the positive side, I was both surprised and delighted by the critical acclaim especially from academics whose work I highly regard such as William Beazley at the University of Arizona, John Mason Hart at the University of Houston, Don Doyle at the University of South Carolina, Brigadier General (Ret.) Clever Chávez Marín, editor of Estudios Militares Mexicanos, and others. Sadly, although the book received quite a bit of positive critical acclaim, the book’s release in March of 2020 at the beginning of the COVID pandemic ensured that all my in-person events were canceled. Three major events (which in the past had garnered audiences of several hundreds) in Chicago (Union League), Lake Chapala (Open Circle), and a historical society in Texas were all postponed or canceled. Two were rescheduled for the fall, and then canceled again because of COVID resurgence. I am hopeful that the first in-person event scheduled for this spring will take finally take place, and also that this interview and on-line reviews will encourage new readers.

C.M. MAYO: For readers who are just getting to know Mexico, what would be your top three book recommendations?

MICHAEL HOGAN:
1. The Course of Mexican History by Michael Meyer and William Sherman. A highly readable text which tells the history of Mexico from pre-Columbian times to the present. With a rich bibliography for those who wish to delve deeper.

2. Mexico: Biography of Power by Enrique Krauze. A compelling history about the evolution of power politics in Mexico from the origins of the nation-state after the War of Independence to the present day.

3. The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz. Insights into the Mexican character, origins of the macho culture, and the evolution of post-colonial bureaucratic elements in government. A controversial exposé by a Nobel Prize recipient of his own people and their character.

Visit Michael Hogan’s website at http://www.drmichaelhogan.com/books/the-irish-soldiers-of-mexico.php

I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

From the Archives: My Review of Heribert von Feilitzsch’s 
In Plain Sight: Felix A. Sommerfeld, Spymaster in Mexico, 1908-1914

How Wide is Your Overton Window? Plus from the Archives: 
“On Writing About Mexico: Secrets and Surprises”

Q & A with Jan Cleere on Military Wives in Arizona Territory: A History of Women Who Shaped the Frontier

From the Archives: “Some Old Friends Spark Joy (Whilst Kondo-ing My Library)”

BY C.M. MAYO — February 21, 2022 
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

Originally posted July 31, 2017

I moved. And of course, this involved oodles of Kondo-ing.

For those who missed the phenomenon of Japanese tidying expert Marie Kondo: She says the way to do it is to pick up each object and ask yourself, does this spark joy? If so, keep it (even if it’s a raggedy T-shirt), and if not (even if it’s a brand new suede sofa that cost a heap), thank it, then chuck it— or donate it or sell it, or whatever, but get it out of your space. Many organizers and sundry pundits have dismissed Kondo-ing as “woo woo.” Too bad for them because, by Jove, by whatever Shinto spirit you want to name, or the god Pan, or Elvis Presley, it works.

My personal and working library is at last in good order, and I am delighted to share with you, dear and thoughtful reader, just a few of the many old friends that sparked much joy:

See this post that mentions the luminous Sara Mansfield Taber: “So How’s the Book Doing? (And how many books have you sold? And what was your print run?)”

Both of these books made my annual top 10 book read lists. 2011 Wandering Souls: Journeys with the Dead and Living in Viet Nam ; 2014 Finding George Orwell in Burma. (Note: links goe to old blog platform; soon to be updated)

Post re: Bruce Berger’s amusing, eccentric and very sensitive artist’s memoir. I often quote from Rupert Isaacson’s The Healing Land in my literary travel writing workshops.

Taking the advice in Neil Fiore’s The Now Habit enabled me to finish my novel.

David Allen’s GTD saves the bacon every time.

Back in 2010 Regina Leeds contributed a guest-blog:“Five Plus 1 Resources to Make a Writer Happy in an Organized Space”. (Note: link goes to old blog platform; soon to be updated)

I have a sizable collection of books about books. Books for me are heaven. I wrote a bit about book history in my recent longform Kindle,“Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla” .

Sophy Burnham is best known for her works on angels, but she has a sizable body of outstanding work of literary essay / sociology. Her The Landed Gentry was especially helpful for me for understanding some of the characters in one of my books. Doormen by Peter Bearman… that merits a post…

Drujienna’s Harp was one of my very favorites when I was first starting to tackle reading young adult novels. As for The Golden Key, pictured right, my copy was left for some days by an open window in the rain back in 1960-something, but I have saved it, and I always shall.

I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

Meteor, Influences, Ambiance

Reading Mexico: 
Recommendations for a Book Club of Extra-Curious 
& Adventurous English-Language Readers

Una Ventana al Mundo Invisible (A Window to the Invisible World): 
Master Amajur and the Smoking Signatures

From the Archives: 5 Super Simple Tips for Better Book Design

BY C.M. MAYO — February 14, 2022 
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

This post was originally published on February 4, 2016.

This blog posts on Mondays. 
Second Mondays of the month I devote to my writing workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing. Welcome!
> For the archive of workshop posts click here.

While it may have become far easier to self-publish, and most self-published books look a sight slicker than they did in days of yore, alas, they still more often than not look (ahem) self-published. So for my dear amiga who recently asked me— and for you, dear writerly reader—here are my top tips for making your self-published book look professionally designed, which is to say, reader-friendly. 

1.
For your text choose an easy-on-the-eye font.

Do not get lost “shopping around” in that gnarly list of fonts already installed in your computer!

The best way to grok this issue is to get up from your computer and walk over to your own bookshelves. Pull down some 3 – 7 books that you have already read and loved. My bet is, these books are well-designed or else you wouldn’t have managed to finish reading them.

So look at those fonts. Emulate those fonts! And in he unlikely event that any of them do happen to be hard on your eyes, why, pray tell, subject your readers to them? 

In case you were wondering, this blog uses Merriweather, an easy-on-the-eye font for print text. 

The image below shows the sort of fonts to avoid like the devil because— I’m sure we can agree— they’re a pain to read:

2.
Consider pairing a sans-serif font for chapter titles
(and possibly also subtitles) with a serif font for the text. 

What’s serif? It’s a typeface with itty bitty thingamajigs on the letters.

What’s sans-serif? It’s a typeface without those itty bitties.

Pick one of each, et voilà.

This isn’t a must, but it often works nicely. Here are some examples of sans-serif and serif font pairings that might work for you:

A few sans-serif fonts I like:
Arial, Gill Sans, Helvetica, Verdana

A few serif fonts I like:
Baskerville, Garamond, Georgia, Sabon, Times Roman

3.
Be a Midas with the margins!

More often than not the first thing that screams “self-published” and “amateur” is a page with text splatulaed into every corner. Why such Scroogerie with blank paper is so common mystifies me because everybody knows from their own experience that it is, indeed, ex-haust-ing for the eye to follow long lines of crowded text. Badly designed books usually end up, sooner or later, in a dump— now there’s a waste of paper.

Compare:

4.
Break up the text, where appropriate.

Another thing that makes it easier on the reader’s eyes: Where appropriate (I know, sometimes it’s not), break up big chunks of text into smaller  paragraphs and/or sections. For example:

5.
For chapter and/or section openings,
consider using a drop cap 
and/or some variation to the text such as caps
and/or bold and/or italics
and/or even another font.

Yet another trick to make it easier on the reader’s eyes is the drop cap, which is just an unusually large capital letter to kick off the text. This first example shows a bold drop cap (from the opening chapter of my latest book):

This next image is the opening chapter of my novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire. This design was done by publisher, Unbridled Books. My point is: you can really get wiggy with those drop caps!

Here is an example without a drop cap but with the opening text in capitals and bold:

Again, look through the books on your bookshelf that you have already read and loved and see if you can identify some of these elements— and more. 

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A Note on Adobe InDesign

If you plan to print a paperback book, as opposed to something you run off at Office Depot or your local copy shop,  you will need to get your design into Adobe InDesign, and from there, make a PDF. Adobe InDesign has a frighteningly steep learning curve— and picture at the top of the cliff some ogres readying to roll down a boulder or three. I venture that unless you’re a software whiz or are planning to make a profession of graphic design, the few hundred dollars to hire a professional to format your book would probably be money well spent. 

There are oodles more notions about book design and a hundred and seventeen ways to get started on that monster of a subject. My number one recommendation is to take Edward Tufte’s one day workshop if you possibly can. 

Apart from all of the above, I have little more to say on this subject because I am not an expert on designing books; what I do is write them, and read even more of them.

P.S. See also the excellent post on formatting a book interior by Holly Brady.

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I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

More on Seeing as an Artist or, 
The Rich Mine of Stories About Those Who “See” the Emperor’s Clothes

Q & A with Katherine Dunn on White Dog and 
Writing in the Digital Revolution

A Review of Claudio Saunt’s West of the Revolution: 
An Uncommon History of 1776

From the Archives: My Review of Heribert von Feilitzsch’s “In Plain Sight: Felix A. Sommerfeld, Spymaster in Mexico, 1908-1914”

BY C.M. MAYO — February 7, 2022 
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

This blog posts on Mondays.
In 2022 first Mondays of the month are for Texas Books, posts in which share with you some of the more unusual and interesting books in the Texas Bibliothek, that is, my working library.
> For the archive of all Texas-related posts click here.
P.S. Listen in any time to the related Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project.

Texas shares its southern border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas, so of course “Texas Books” must include those about the US-Mexico border. Soldiers, spies, civilians, weapons, and supplies going back and forth across that border played a crucial role in many conflicts, most especially the Mexican Revolution. This Monday’s post is a review of Heribert von Feilitzsch’s In Plain Sight: Felix A Sommerfeld, Spymaster in Mexico, a work I consider one of the most astonishing, original, and important contributions in recent years to the history of that Revolution— which first battle, the Battle of Juárez, was watched from the rooftops of El Paso, Texas.

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IN PLAIN SIGHT:
FELIX A. SOMMERFELD, SPYMASTER IN MEXICO, 1908-1914
by Heribert von Feilitzsch
Henselstone Verlag, 2012
Review by C.M. Mayo originally published in Literal Magazine, October 2016

It was Mahatma Gandhi who said, “A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.” Like Gandhi, Francisco I. Madero was deeply influenced by the Hindu scripture known as the Bhagavad-Gita and its concern with the metaphysics of faith and duty. And like Gandhi, Madero altered the course of history of his nation. From 1908, with his call for effective suffrage and no reelection, until his assasination in 1913, Madero received the support of not all, certainly, but many millions of Mexicans from all classes of society and all regions of the republic. But the fact is, during the 1910 Revolution, during Madero’s successful campaign for the presidency, and during Madero’s presidency, one of the members of that “small body of determined spirits,” who worked most closely with him was not Mexican. His name was Felix A. Sommerfeld and he was a German spy.

We must thank the distinguished historian of Mexico, Friedrich Katz, author of The Secret War in Mexico, among other works, for shining a bright if tenuous light on Felix Sommerfeld. Other historians of the Mexican Revolution have mentioned the mysterious Sommerfeld, notably Charles H. Harris III and Louis R. Sadler in their 2009 The Secret War in El Paso. But it is Heribert von Feilitzsch, by his extensive archival detective work in Germany, Mexico, and Washington DC, who has contributed our most complete—albeit still incomplete—understanding of who Sommerfeld was; Sommerfeld’s relationship with Madero; and his role, a vital one, in the Mexican Revolution.

Writes von Feilitzsch:

“No other foreigner wielded more influence and amassed more power in the Mexican Revolution. From head of security, Sommerfeld took on the development and leadership of Mexico’s Secret Service. Under his auspices, the largest foreign secret service organization ever to operate on U.S. soil evolved into a weapon that terrorized and decimated Madero’s enemies…”

While Sommerfeld was unable to prevent General Victoriano Huerta’s coup d’etat, and his warning to Madero escape arrest came too late, he himself escaped the capital. Continues von Feilitzsch:

“Sommerfeld became the lynchpin in the revolutionary supply chain. His organization along the border smuggled arms and ammunition to the troops in amounts never before thought possible, while his contacts at the highest eschelons of the American and German governments shut off credit and supplies for Huerta.”

Von Feilitzsch reveals that Sommerfeld was reporting not only to the German ambassador in Mexico City, Paul von Hintze, but from 1911 to 1914 to Sherburne G. Hopkins, lawyer and lobbyist par excellence in Washington. Hopkins had initially been brought on board for the cause by Madero’s brother and right-hand man, Gustavo Madero. To quote von Feilitzsch again:

“As a lawyer and lobbyist for industrialist Charles Ranlett Flint and oil tycoon Henry Clay Pierce, Hopkins enabled Sommerfeld to hold the entire keys for American businessmen trying to gain access to the Madero, Carranza, and Villa administrations.”

Sommerfeld was operating at the highest level of sophistication. And perhaps most telling of that sophistication is something surprisingly simple. It is a photograph of him taken in El Paso, Texas during the Revolution, the one that appears on the cover of von Feilitzsch’s book.

In a light-colored suit and dark tie, Sommerfeld stands at Madero’s elbow, protecting his back. On Madero’s opposite side journalists Allie Martin and Chris Haggerty crowd close, seemingly mesmerized by the glamorous revolutionary. Haggerty holds the brim of his hat, pale circle, as if he had only just swept it from his head. But on the other side, just slightly behind Madero, Sommerfeld, bareheaded, craggy-faced, with eyes that belong to an eagle, looks out— a secret service man’s gaze. It is an iconic photograph; those who study the Mexican Revolution will have seen it.

The telling thing, though, is this: that in the archive which has the original, the Aultman Collection in the El Paso Public Library, Sommerfeld, the man with the eagle-gaze, that man who so often appears right by Madero’s side, and here and there in other iconic photographs of the time, including one of the guests at the dinner with Madero and family to celebrate the Battle of Juárez, is unidentified. Or at least he was unidentified there at the time von Feilitzsch wrote his book. In short, during the Revolution, and for over a century to follow, Felix Sommerfeld had been hiding in plain sight. In Plain Sight: the title of von Feilitzsch’s book.

AN ESOTERIC CONNECTION?

I am more grateful than I can say to have encountered In Plain Sight when I did, and I believe that anyone who studies the Mexican Revolution, after reading this book, will say the same. The Mexican Revolution has thousands of facets, of course, but for my own work, the key questions were, Who was Francisco I. Madero? How, in the nitty-gritty, did he pull it off, to lead a Revolution and win the presidency? And, in the face of inevitable and ferocious counter-revolution, how did Madero manage to hold the presidency for as long as he did?

My work, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution, was prompted by my encounter with Madero’s secret book, Manual espírita (Spiritist Manual). A blend of Kardecian Spiritism, Hindu and other esoteric philosophies, Manual espírita was published in 1911 under the pseudonym “Bhima.”

Never mind what was in Manual espírita, this slender volume with now yellowed pages: the fact that Francisco I. Madero, leader of the 1910 Revolution, had written it and moreoever, published it when he was president-elect in 1911— I could not but conclude that its contents must been exceedingly important to him, and hence, offer profound understanding into who he was and what he stood for.

But my intention here is not to talk about my book about Madero. I suffice to mention that, apart from benefitting so much from the information and insights in von Feilitzsch’s book, I took the liberty of emailing von Feilitzsch a question: What kind of person was this Sommerfeld—might he have been a Spiritist? For there was another German spy working closely with Madero, a Spiritist who turns out to have become a major figure in esoteric circles in the first half of the 20th century: Dr. Arnoldo Krumm-Heller.

Von Feilitzsch was kind enough to permit me to include his answer in my book. He writes:

“With respect to Madero’s Spiritism, Sommerfeld not only knew all about it. I am convinced that he was a kindred soul. I have scoured the earth for a book Sommerfeld wrote around 1918, likely under a pen name. I cannot find it. This might be the only possible source for a glimpse into this man’s deepest convictions and emotional structure. Sommerfeld became so close to Madero at the exact time, when Madero must have been under the most emotional pressure. Madero hated bloodshed and violence and exactly that he set off when the revolution started. In his innermost circle were Sommerfeld, [Arnoldo] Krumm-Heller, his wife Sara, and Gustavo, which is documented. … (Sommerfeld was [Sara’s] bodyguard in Mexico City and the last address I have for Sommerfeld reads: c/o Sara Madero, Mexico City. This was in 1930). Just like…Madero, Sommerfeld did not drink, gamble or smoke. In that time and considering the background of Sommerfeld as a mining engineer in the “Wild West,” this is a very unlikely coincidence. In his interviews with the American authorities, he said that Madero was “the purest man I ever met in my life. When I spoke to him, he took my breath away—the child’s faith of this man in humanity.” (Justice 9-16-12) In his appearance before the Fall Committee [of the US Senate] in 1912 he testified: “President Madero is the best friend I have in this world…” Senator Smith “…you became interested in him?” Sommerfeld: “Yes, we became very close friends.” And so on. I definitely hear undertones of esoteric connection. Sommerfeld was very private, rarely allowed a picture taken, and certainly never talked about his faith or personal life to anyone. As someone very rational he kept his distance to others and never described any other relationship in these highly emotional terms. Until I can put my hands on his personal papers or his book, these are only indications but still worth thinking about.”

MORE THAN WE MIGHT HAVE DARED HOPE FOR

In many ways Felix Sommerfeld remains a mystery. Von Feilitzsch however, has given us much more than we might have dared hope for: That Felix Sommerfeld was born on May 28, 1879 near Schniedemühl, then in Prussia. As owners of a grain mill, his family was relatively wealthy. Like many Germans in the late 19th century, he had relatives, including brothers, who emmigrated to the United States. As a teenager Felix lived with his brothers for a time in New York. He joined the US Army and received training in Kentucky—then went AWOL, back to Germany. In the first years of the 20th century von Feilitzsch finds Felix Sommerfeld serving in the Prussian cavalry in China during the Boxer Rebellion. Then, he pops up as a mining engineer in Arizona and then northern Mexico—perhaps by then already reporting to the German consul in Chihuahua. Then he’s back to Germany, then, back again in Mexico as a journalist—and all of a sudden, in charge of revolutionary leader Francisco I. Madero’s secret service.

One more of so many things von Feilitzsch brings to us about Felix Sommerfeld: He was Jewish. We do not know his fate, but if he lived into his sixties he may have perished in the Holocaust—or perhaps he disappeared, as secret agents know how to do.

In the Bhagavad Gita, which we know that Francisco Madero read and reread, penciling copious notes in the margins, Lord Kirshna, incarnation of cosmic power, advises the warrior Arjuna to have heart, to do his duty. For Madero, that meant putting aside material concerns and gathering around himself that “small body of determined spirits,” who would help him to alter the course of Mexico’s history. As Madero understood it, those “spirits” would have been both disincarnate and incarnate. Whether and to what degree his chief of secret service shared Madero’s esoteric inclinations remains an open question. But in revealing that, both during and beyond Madero’s lifetime, Felix Sommerfeld was an indispensible member of that “small body,” von Feilitzsch has made a contribution to the history of the Mexican Revolution that is at once disquieting and sensational.

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I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

From the Archives: My Review of Edward H. Miller’s 
Nut Country: Right-Wing Dallas and the Birth of the Southern Strategy

Synge’s The Aran Islands and Kapuscinski’s Travels with Herodotus 

Notes on Stephen L. Talbott’s The Future Does Not Compute

Newsletter & Cyberflanerie (Rob Braxman on the Neural Hash New World Edition)

BY C.M. MAYO — January 31, 2022 
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

It’s the fifth Monday of the month: time for the newsletter and a dollop of cyberflanerie.

POSTS AT MADAM MAYO BLOG 
SINCE THE LAST NEWSLETTER


TEXAS BOOKS
= First Monday of the Month=

“What Is a Film Outside the Audience’s Mind?” 
Notes on George Stevens: Interviews
January 3, 2022

Edna Ferber’s Giant & A Selection of Related Books,
Plus Two Related Videos On (Yes) the Nuremberg Trials
December 6, 2021
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WRITING WORKSHOP POSTS
= Second Monday of the Month =

More on Seeing as an Artist or, 
The Rich Mine of Stories About
Those Who “See” the Emperor’s Clothes
January 11, 2022

Bringing in the Body
December 13, 2021

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MISC & C.M. MAYO NEWS
= Third Monday of the Month =

From the Archives:
“Tulpa Max or, Notes on the Afterlife of a Resurrection”
January 17, 2022

Top Books Read 2021
December 20, 2021
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Q & A WITH OTHER WRITERS
= Fourth Monday of the month =

Q & A with Thaddeus Rutkowski on Tricks of Light
January 24, 2022

Q & A: Some Hard-Earned Advice on Publishing
from Poets, Novelists and Historians
December 27, 2021
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OTHER NEWS

Look for the Marfa Mondays podcasts to resume in early 2022.
By Jove & by Jimmy Dean, this will happen.

WORKSHOP NEWS

In 2022 look for my monthly workshop post on
the second Monday of every month.

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CYBERFLANERIE:
ROB BRAXMAN ON THE NEURAL HASH NEW WORLD EDITION

Big Tech companies have their own political agenda, and if you don’t happen to be on board with that— whether now or, perhaps at some point in the future— they have some other ideas about what information is good for you, dear writerly reader, to be able to access and to communicate. Are you on FaceBook or Whatsapp? Do you use gmail and/or Google search? Do you have an iPhone? If you can answer yes to any of these—and many more such questions— you might appreciate learning about the astonishing new ways that Big Tech companies have to identify you, your relationships, your locations, and much more about what’s in your mind than you might imagine, and thereby, to their advantage, game the information that you see and don’t see. Cookies and trackers are “old school” now. Herewith, a selection from Rob Braxman’s tech savvy advice on how to handle Big Tech’s Neural Hash New World.

Apple Client-Side Scanning Ruins Phone Security for Everyone

How Big Tech Finds Your Exact Location—
Even When You’re Hiding It

We Have Been Chipped— And Nobody Cares

iPhone Neural Hash — SHOCKING AI Tech

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Newsletter & Cyberflanerie: Mexico Edition

Duende and the Importance of Questioning ELB

Q & A: Ellen Cassedy, Translator of On the Landing by Yenta Mash

Q & A with Thaddeus Rutkowski on “Tricks of Light”

BY C.M. MAYO — January 24, 2022 
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

This blog posts on Mondays. Fourth Mondays of the month I devote to a Q & A with a fellow writer.

“I’d rather read in person than on Zoom. In person, the audience can (usually) see the whole body, not just the face, of the reader, and I like to think that larger picture is part of my delivery. “— Thaddeus Rutkowski

Thaddeus Rutkowski reading “Right and Wong”

It was in an AWP Conference Book Fair some years ago that Thaddeus Rutkowski first popped up on my writerly radar. Then, at the 2019 AWP, I attended the Gival Press authors reading. Wow! Rutkowski reads his poetry like no one else. No surprise to later learn (check out his bio on his website) that he is a one-time winner of the Nuyorican Poets Café Friday slam, the Poetry Versus Comedy slam at the Bowery Poetry Club, and the Syracuse poetry slam.  He lives in Manhattan but travels afar to read. If you ever have a chance to attend one of Rutkowski’s readings, or can catch one on Zoom, throw your schedule to the buffalos!

Rutkowski’s latest publication is a collection of poetry, Tricks of Light (Great Weather for Media, 2020), and apropos of that:

C.M. MAYO: What inspired you to write Tricks of Light? Can you talk about its genesis?

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: In 2018, I started writing poems for a new book. I’d published my first book of poems, Border Crossings, in 2017. 

Jane Ormerod of the small press Great Weather for Media heard me read from Border Crossings and asked if I had another book like it. I didn’t, but I thought I could write one. I told Jane I would work on it, and I kept in touch with her about the project. 

I began with pieces about the sights and sounds from my daily routine in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. But I needed some pieces to fill the beginning of the book, which goes back to my childhood. After about a year, I completed a new manuscript and sent it to Jane. She was very patient in waiting for it.

C.M. MAYO: If a reader were to read one poem in this collection, which one would you suggest, and why?

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: I’d pick the one the editors of Great Weather—Jane, Thomas Fucaloro, David Lawton, and Mary Schlecta—chose to promote the book, “Farmers and Dove.” I wrote this poem while sitting on the front steps of my mother’s house in central Pennsylvania. Across the road, a couple of farmers were harvesting corn. At the same time, a mourning dove was calling. The scene reminded me of my childhood in this same village; it also reminded me of my brother, who had recently passed. But the reference to my brother isn’t spelled out; I refer only to “what’s lost.”

The publisher made a handout of this poem to give away with any book purchase—mainly at book or poetry festivals. 

C.M. MAYO: Which of these poems is your personal favorite? Why?

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: What comes to mind are the poems that are family snapshots. A number of the poems are snapshots of my current family: my wife and daughter. So all of those would be favorites. 

While I was working on this book, our daughter was living with us. She is now in college in Ohio.

C.M. MAYO: As you were writing, did you have in mind an ideal reader?

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: This doesn’t answer your question, but as I was/am writing, I have in mind an obligation to the reader. That is to be clear as I can be, so that the meaning that is taken is what I intended. This is not to say that everything is spelled out, but that the tone is clear, whether it is ironic, humorous, observational, etc. Ideally, I will be able to connect with the reader cleanly and directly.

C.M. MAYO: Which poets have been the most important influences for you? And for Tricks of Light in particular?

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: When I was younger, I read books of poetry by Richard Brautigan and Raymond Carver. I never heard Brautigan read live, but I understand he was a great reader. I heard Carver read prose, not poetry—I believe he is better known for prose.

Also when I was younger, I would photocopy W.S. Merwin’s poems from the New Yorker—the trade magazine where I worked had a subscription. I probably still have those photocopies. I also saw Merwin read aloud once, at the New School in Manhattan.

I have enjoyed hearing a number of poets read live: Paul Beatty, Russell Edson, Reg E. Gaines, Tess Gallagher, Thom Gunn, Joy Harjo, Charles Simic, James Tate. But perhaps the most compelling was Patti Smith—I’m talking about her spoken-word performances, not her singing, though I’ve also heard her with her band. When she spoke, you paid attention, and there was the feeling that, true or not, she had some wisdom to pass along.

C.M. MAYO: Which poets and writers are you reading now? 

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: For myself, I’m reading only Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She opens up the world from the point of view of an African Black woman who travels the United States. The view is as complete as it needs to be; it is expansive. It is sort of the opposite of my own Minimal approach.

C.M. MAYO: How has the Digital Revolution affected your writing? Specifically, has it become more challenging to call down the Muse with the siren calls of email, texting, blogs, online newspapers and magazines, social media, and such? If so, do you have some tips and tricks you might be able to share? 

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: I understand the internet is distracting—for me as much as for anyone. But I also see the upside. Research has become easier; I can look up facts, people, concepts more quickly than before. Also, it allows people to connect with one another—an effect that is both good and bad. Good in the sense that one has more connections. Bad in that much information is misunderstood and misused.

Good or bad, the digital universe is part of life. I can’t imagine (anymore) the times without it. 

C.M. MAYO: Have you done readings on Zoom? (How has it been to read poetry on Zoom? Do you see the future all Zoom-y?)

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: I’ve done a number of readings on Zoom. The launch of Tricks of Light was on Zoom in 2021, and it went well. It allowed people from all over to “be there.” We haven’t had an in-person launch for this book, and at this point I doubt we will. 

That said, I’d rather read in person than on Zoom. In person, the audience can (usually) see the whole body, not just the face, of the reader, and I like to think that larger picture is part of my delivery. I saw on the TV news yesterday that the stock value of Zoom is going down. This could be a sign.

C.M. MAYO: For those looking to publish a book of poetry, what would be your most hard-earned piece of advice?

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: My advice, other than to take as much care as possible with the writing itself, is to be aware of and connected to the poetry world. Go to readings, take workshops, read in open mics, keep in touch with like-minded people. Your writing might be strong enough to find its place without these other factors, but if you’re like me, you’ll need all the help and support you can get.

C.M. MAYO: What’s next for you as a writer / poet?

THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI: I think my next book will be a collection of flash fictions, but hopefully it will be something more than a collection. I’ve been gathering short prose pieces and arranging them in what I hope will be a linked sequence. It’s what I’ve done with my earlier books Roughhouse, Tetched, Haywire, and Guess and Check. My book Violent Outbursts was different; it was a collection of unlinked short prose pieces, most of them begun as exercises with my workshop students.

 My next project probably won’t be a book of poetry, because I’m mainly a fiction writer. Still, I write poems, and I save them, so maybe they will be collected in another book. 

By Thaddeus Rtkowski
From Tricks of Light

FARMERS AND DOVE

When sunlight hits the higher points
and the lower places remain in shadow,
two farmers harvest corn together.
One drives a pickup truck,
while the other follows alongside,
stripping ears off stalks
and tossing them into the truck bed.

On a telephone wire above the farmers, 
a mourning dove coos for what’s lost,
for some unspecified thing that’s missing
The calls aren’t sad for the dove,
only for those who are listening.
For those of us who know what’s missing, 
the sounds of the bird remind us of what’s lost.


EMPTY NEST

I have a feeling that something is missing,
because our child is no longer living with us.
I was focused on her, and on her only,
and now I’m not focused on her
unless she contacts me,
and she doesn’t contact me often.

I could contact her, 
but I would need a good reason.
She and I aren’t in the habit of waving
at each other over distance, in cyberspace
just for the sake of waving.

I can see this emptiness as freedom,
a space in which to do what I like.
I don’t need to fill the space
with someone else to take care of,
someone like a pet: a dog or a cat.
I don’t need a pet to feed
and/or walk on a regular basis.
I don’t need to worry about a pet’s survival
when I go away from home for a while.
A pet wouldn’t make me happier,
though I would make a pet happier.

Visit Thaddeus Rutkowski at www.thaddeusrutkowski.com

I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

Q & A with Joanna Hershon on Her New Novel St. Ivo

Q & A with Biographer David O. Stewart on the Stunning Fact of George Washington

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

From the Archives: “Tulpa Max or, Notes on the Afterlife of a Resurrection”

BY C.M. MAYO — January 17, 2022 
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

This blog posts on Mondays.
In 2022 on the third Monday of the month I post some of or something related to my own work.

This Monday finds me working on my Far West Texas book. More about that anon. Meanwhile, an essay from the archives:

TULPA MAX
OR,
NOTES ON THE AFTERLIFE OF A RESURRECTION
by C.M. Mayo
Originally published in Catamaran Literary Reader, summer 2017
(and in Spanish in Letras Libres)

Coffin used to transport Maximilian’s body from the Cerro de las Camapanas. The table it sits on is the table used for embalming the body. Photo by C.M. Mayo

In a manner of speaking, we historical novelists are in the resurrection business. But who, or rather, what precisely is it that we bring to life? These characters infused by our imaginations, yet based on beings who were once flesh, blood, and bone, can they escape the page and, like the tulpas of Tibetan esoteric tradition, take on a will of their own and haunt their creators? In the case of Maximilian von Habsburg, that Archduke of Austria who ended both his reign as Emperor of Mexico and his life before a firing squad in Querétaro one hundred fifty years ago, and whom I made a character in my novel based on the true story of Agustín de Iturbide y Green, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, I must confess that yes, he haunts me.

To start with, soon after the novel’s publication (more years ago than I would care to count), Tulpa Max, as it were, prompted a little avalanche of correspondence that continues rumbling into my email inbox to this day.

Had I seen the mega alebrije, “Amor por México, Maximiliano y Carlota”?

Did I believe that Maximilian was a Mason?

What did I think of the legend of Justo Serra, was he really Maximilian, having escaped that firing squad to make a new life in El Salvador?

From another reader, Maruja González, friend of a friend in San Miguel de Allende, I received, along with her generous permission to post it on my blog, a family story about the dessert prepared for Maximilian on his visit to that city in 1864. It so happened that Maximilian had stayed in her great great grandparents’s house.

“…and there they made him a very solemn banquet with music and soloists, and the all ladies, their hair coiffured, lamented very much the absence of the empress, Carlotita, as they were already calling her with affection. All these ladies of the cream of San Miguel society jostled to outdo each other in making the most elaborate, brilliant, and exquisite delicacies. One of my aunts had the honor of preparing some pears in syrup for the monarch, who turned upside down in praise for this most wonderful dessert… “

An email as if from beyond the tomb, for it literally had to do with a tombstone, came from Jean Pierre d’Huart, great grand nephew of the officer shot in the head on the highway near Río Frío in March of 1866. That officer was a high-ranking member of the delegation that came to Mexico after the death of Carlota’s father, King Leopold of Belgium, and the assumption to that throne of her brother, Leopold II (yes, he of Congo infamy). That bandits would so brazenly attack such a party on that highway—the major artery connecting Mexico City and Veracruz, gateway to Europe—was at the time and to this day widely considered, both in Mexico and abroad, a turning point for Maximilian’s reign, a harbinger of its end. I had it wrong in the novel, my correspondent gently informed me. The Baron d’Huart murdered near Río Frío was not Charles, then serving in Mexico with the French Imperial Army, but his distant cousin, Frédéric Victor. Attached was a photograph taken in Tintigny, Belgium of the very tombstone, wreathed in vines and its base tufted with moss.

But the most Edgarallenpoe-esque email to date came from a friend, Roberto Wallentin, with the Spanish translation by his father, Dr. Roberto Wallentin, of an Hungarian newspaper article of 1876 by Dr. Szender Ede. Experts on the period will recognize Dr. Szender Ede as the individual responsible for the grotesquely inept embalming of Maximilian’s corpse. Dr. Szender Ede tells us:

“While I was working on the embalming, and afterwards as well, many people asked if I could get for them some of the personal belongings of the deceased. To my knowledge, during his imprisonment in Querétaro, through varios different people, he sent all of his personal belongings to members of his family. The only thing left in his room was the iron frame of the bed in which he slept. Dr. Rivadeneyra assured Dr. Basch that the Emperor had promised him that and so, on good faith, Dr. Basch authorized the “donation” to him. On the other hand, Dr. Licea (and this was also commented upon in the Mexican press) made a genuine business with objects that, according to him, had belonged to Maximilian. I kept some clippings of Maximilian’s hair, and most of those I gave to my friends in San Luís Potosí.”

More than messages from the depths of cyberspace, however, Tulpa Max prompts comments, generally kind ones, but on occasion cutting. As the latter have revealed, and not entirely to my surprise, many Mexicans are dead-certain that, for having published a novel that has to do with Maximilian, its author must be enthralled by both the red-bearded charms and anachronistic political philosophy of that antique aristocrat. Obviously, such persons have not read my book, in which, closely following the documented history, Maximilian is capable, as in his dealings with the young American mother of Agustín de Iturbide y Green, and in his Black Decree (that anyone found with a weapon could be summarily executed), not to mention his reinstating slavery, of dunderheaded heartlessness. True, I bring as much empathy as I can muster to my portrait of Maximilian, but empathy—seeing with the heart—is the novelist’s first, best, and most powerful faculty, and it does not necessarily imply sympathy for that character’s actions or ideas.

There are many ways to buy a yacht; uness your name is J.K. Rowling, writing a novel is not one of them. By far my richest reward for having resurrected Maximilian has been the cornucopia of opportunities for “the feast of reason and the flow of soul.” I quote the English poet Alexander Pope, as I like to think Maximilian would, to describe tete-a-tetes with readers, fellow writers, and scholars of that exotic, bloody, labyrinthian and transnational firecracker of an episode of Mexican history.

So I must thank Tulpa Max for my romp of a tour through Querétaro with novelist Araceli Ardón. And also for that lunch in the Zona Rosa with historians Amparo Gómez Tepexicuapan and Michael K. Schuessler where, over eggrolls and sweet-and-sour shrimp, I think it was, and a minor earthquake in the middle of it all, we talked about Maximilian’s declarations in Nahuatl and Maximilian’s gardener, Wilhelm Knechtel, and the 1865 visit of the Kickapoos.

Because I knew it would be fascinating fun, I interviewed Mexican historian Alan Rojas Orzechowski for my blog about his research on Maximilian’s court painter, Santiago Rebull—later Diego Rivera’s professor. On Guadalupe Loaeza’s radio program I chatted with her and Verónica González Laporte about Maximilian’s palace balls, Carlota’s madness, and that unlikely wife of French Marshal Achille Bazaine, Pepita de la Peña.

And there was one shining moment of an afternoon on the cool and plant-filled terrace of the Centro de Estudios de Historia de México in Chimalistac when I chanced to talk with Luis Reed Torres about one of Maximilian’s undeservedly forgotten generals, Manuel Ramírez de Arellano, who escaped a firing squad only to die of fever in Italy.

I went to Puebla just for the joy of listening to Margarita López Cano talk about operas by Bellini and by Verdi in the time of Maximilian.

Most memorable was an entire afternoon of a lunch with Guillermo Tovar de Teresa in his old (and assuredly haunted) house in Colonia Roma—lace tablecloth, and rain pattering on the windows. I had always wanted to meet the author of that glorious book about Mexico City, La ciudad de los palacios (The City of Palaces). We talked until it grew dark about Maximilian and the Iturbides and Miramón and the rarest of rare books.

Speaking of rare books, I treasure my autographed copies of the works of Austrian historian Konrad Ratz, untill his passing in 2014, a tireless researcher into the life and government of Maximilian. It was a great honor to have presented his and Amparo Gómez Tepexicuapan’s book, Los viajes de Maximiliano en México (Maximilian’s Travels in Mexico) one twinkly night in Chapultepec Castle, no less.

Tulpa Max, who so loves nothing more than to hear about himself (even his dessicated corpse with eyes pried from a statue of the Virgin laid over his orbital sockets, and his legs broken so as to fit into the box), is standing a little straighter now. The color has risen to his cheeks and his eyes shine open and bright like a fox’s. He runs a gloved hand down his beard, and he sniffs what he wishes were a sea breeze. But it’s just the humble perfume of my mug of coffee. No garlic, not yet.

Now if you will excuse me, dear reader, I must check my email.

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P.S. A German translation by Rebecca DeWald is posted on my German language website, www.cmmayoschriftstellerin.com

I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

Edna Ferber’s Giant 
& A Selection of Related Books,
Plus Two Related Videos On (Yes) the Nuremberg Trials

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

From the B. Traven Conferences in Berlin / Plus Cyberflanerie

More on Seeing as an Artist or, The Rich Mine of Stories About Those Who “See” the Emperor’s Clothes

BY C.M. MAYO — January 10, 2022 
UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).

This blog posts on Mondays. 
Second Mondays of the month I devote to my writing workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing. Welcome!
> For the archive of workshop posts click here.

Jackie Coogan, looking at you.

A few years ago I gave a talk for the Women Writing the West conference, “On Seeing as an Artist: Five Techniques for a Journey Towards Einfühlung.” I recently reread it and, rare for me to say, I wouldn’t change a word (although I did fix a typo). Of late, I’ve had some conversations on this very subject, so I thought I’d take it up again for this second Monday of the month’s writing workshop post.

If you’re ever flummoxed for something to write about, a rich source of narratives you can do endless permutations upon are fables and fairytales. Something is at stake, characters are at odds— go to it! Make the fox who doesn’t want sour grapes, say, a stockbroker who doesn’t want that condo in Aspen. Make the princess and the pea a university student who tweets about her upset with outrageously insensitive professors. Rename the tortoise Ludovika and make her a STEM major; the hare, that’s her cuz, Jimmy the Adderall-addicted skateboarder. And so on.

Speaking of seeing, one of my personal favorites among that vast corpus of European fables and fairytales is Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor Has No Clothes” (sometimes translated as “The Emperor’s New Clothes”). Dear writerly reader, I am confident that you are already familiar with that story, so I won’t recount it here, but if you need a refresher or if you grew up in, say, the highlands of Papua New Guinea, here is an English translation. (And if you did grow up in the highlands of Papua Guinea I sincerely ask you to tell me the equivalent fable from your culture; I have no doubt that you have one!)

As I often take pains to point out in my workshops, reading as a writer is a very different endeavor than reading for entertainment or for scholarly purposes. Of course most people would come across “The Emperor’s New Clothes” in a children’s book, and read it for entertainment. The hero of the story is the little child who cries out: “But the emperor has nothing on at all!” Most readers are most entertained when they can identify with the hero. What’s to identify with? His shining innocence, his honesty, his courage in speaking truth to power. We can be sure, he’s as cute as Jackie Coogan, too.

Jackie Coogan wows the investors in the Charlie Chaplin film “The Kid”


As for that foolish emperor and his hypocritical courtiers, we give them the big, fat, farty raspberry!

Jackie Coogan, much later in life, in character as Uncle Fester. Well, OK, whatever he’s doing, let’s call it raspberry-esque.

What I would suggest to you, dear writerly reader, is that the more interesting characters in this fairytale, and that are worthy of exploration and fleshing out in literary fiction, are the emperor and his courtiers. What might they think and what might they say after the child, in his innocence, has broken the spell?

We know from the story what the emperor thinks and feels in that moment—he knows that the child is right, he recognizes that the crowd of his subjects agrees with the child, but he, in his underwear, and his courtiers, their hands in the air “holding” his imaginary train, continue the procession more seriously than ever.

But what about that night? The next day? A week later? A decade later?

At the end of their lives?

Use your imagination to go to those points, and tell us how, concretely, the life of the emperor and his courtiers lives have been upturned— or not? With whom are they now allied / upon whom do they now depend ? And what it is that, a day later, a week later, a decade later, or on the last day of their lives, they deny, although it is plainly before them? Describe the state of their self-images, and of their souls. You might use imagery, specific detail that appeals to the senses, dialogue, action.

For symphonic effect, tell about, say, their relationships with their dogs. Or, dogs in general. Do they prefer beagles? Or German shepherds? And so on.

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Speaking of emperors, courtiers and clear seeing, a few months ago I began a side project of translating Eine Reise Nach Mexico, a German language memoir by Countess Paula Kollonitz, an Austrian lady-in-waiting who traveled to Mexico as part of Maximilian and Carlota’s entourage in 1864. (It is a memoir I originally read in Spanish translation, and I made use of many of the details she recounts in my historical novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire. For those unfamiliar with the history of Mexico’s Second Empire, I warmly recommend my podcast interview with M.M. McAllen, author of the superb narrative history, Maximilian and Carlota: Europe’s Last Empire in Mexico.) You can read Eine Reise Nach Mexico now for free in the original (if you can handle Gothic font) and in a 19th century English translation on archive.org. My purpose, apart from a more modern English translation, is to provide an introduction and notes.

Eine Reise Nach Mexico
by Paula Kollonitz

Countess Kollonitz writes about her journey some two years afterwards, when it was obvious to even the most deluded adherents that Maximilian von Habsburg’s Mexican adventure was doomed. It makes for uncanny reading— and it’s interesting to note what she, a lady-in-waiting from the Hofburg, dares to say, and what she doesn’t say, but that would have been obvious to her either at the moment she chronicles, or later, as she was writing. Eine Reise Nach Mexico was published in Vienna in May of 1867, the month before Maximilian’s execution in Querétaro. It so happens that I saw the elaborately pleated shirt Maximilian wore for that occasion, on display in a museum in Mexico City. It was pierced by several bullet holes and stained with blood.

I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

How Wide is Your Overton Window? Plus from the Archives: 
“On Writing About Mexico: Secrets and Surprises”

From the Archives: 
Sam Quinones’ Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic

One Simple Yet Powerful Practice in Reading as a Writer