A day with don Carlos

On a whim, or more an advisor-inspired non-option option, Cheyla and I found ourselves, quite hysterically on a mini-road-trip to Irvine to the annual Mexicanistas conference to see Sarita talk and then, and here, of course, was the more imposing reason, to hear Carlos Monsiváis speak.



But let me backtrack. This week was looking ok. Not wonderful, ok, in reality, terrible given that last week's trip took a lot more out of me than I actually believed. While I do not experience jet lag, as I have devised a system whereby I deprive myself criminally of sleep before and after said lag-provoking travel to destroy any naturally forming cyrcadian rhythms or sense of what body time should be, I am suffering varying and sundry other physical insatisfactions (lack of... being one of them). That said, I did fail to bring my grading on the flight, and therefore was unable to do any more than stare out the window and watch sappy (and highly satisfying, I must admit) romance comedies on the color-distorted television that forced me to crane my neck in weird ways from my position in the window seat (I always choose this seat if I can, preferring to be trapped and have something to look out at, than to be untrapped and forced to stare at my travel companions.) My neck still hurts, and I'll admit, I need a massage in more ways than one, but that is surely not the point of this exposition.

So, while I madly created work for myself, and managed to solve all sorts of technical and grammatical difficulties, I did not get advanced in any of my actual work, and in fact am, if anything, moving backwards. A three hour drive on Friday, abandoning my child, again, to the kindness of strangers was not high on my list of priorities, and I had even scheduled meetings for Friday, beyond my weekly duty at her school. So I picked up the phone, having just spilled hot Chai down my skirt and on my student's papers while at my work café (I go there when I desperately need to focus, don't ask, but it works). Fuck.

Her mother, the raging hippy that I have heard so much about answers the phone in her gravelly voice. I am informed that Cheyla is not home, and before I can tell her mother that I am bailing on our plan to go to Irvine, she asks, "are you the lady that might go with her to the conference?"
"Well," I laugh, "I'm not so sure I'd call myself a lady, but yes... we had talked about that. Actually I was thinking I can't go."
"Well, if you are worried about me taking care of your daughter, I love kids, and I have had a day care for fifteen years..."
"No, it's not you, it's me..." (I can't believe I am using these words in conversation with a woman I have never met)...
But somehow in the course of our 10 minute conversation in which we try to figure out where Cheyla might be and what the phone number is (she is a new cell-phone user and often has technical problems) I am suddenly convinced to go after all, and I quickly shoot off three phone calls and two emails cancelling my Friday, and getting myself ready for a long haul.

So C. and I find eachother in desperate need of caffeine at 2:45, and determine to go to a talk by Willis Barnstone, one of Borges' translators and a dear friend of his for 18 years (we found out). He is charming and when we are introduced to him he clutches our hands and crosses our arms playfully and won't let go! We manage to untangle ourselves, and he truly is a poet, what he did with Borges' sonnets is sheer beauty (and reminds us of the plaguing thoughts that we are indeed frauds in this bizarre academic world). Before leaving though, we are ensnared in a conversation that to C. is read as "crazy talk" sexual harrassment, but which merely amuses me, as our tolerance for toying with men in linguistic combat is significantly disparate. She being shocked and appalled by slightly drunken erudites making lude remarks, and me, baiting them when they tell me that usually beautiful women pretend that they have never met before, and then run the other way.
(Aside: we all know that I am a terrible, horrible, incorrigible flirt, and that flirtation by no means presupposes further interest on my part. C. tells me that discussing my preference to work in the nude is flirtation, whereas I find it merely descriptive of my creative process. She reminds me that men are still men, and I concede that in my raging liberalism and drive for equality I assume that my words are interpreted equally by members of any sex or gender. Not so. And still, I think I won't change just yet.)

We smile through a parting salute in which our mutual hands are clasped for a period far-extending social norms, and being told that it is a pleasure that such beautiful open faces be present in the audience. This time it is she that gets her cheek pinched, and we duck out of the hall giggling. We run to get my kid, and then her mom, and we all go out to Edomasa and I watch in vague amazement as she slurps down an Uni shooter in lieu of dessert (I split a strawberry Mochi with I.) and Chrissy, her mom, has one last hand-roll with creamy raw scallops (I actually liked the texture, praise be... there are some raw things that I can stomach) and crunchy shrimp tempura.

We rehearse the following day's pick up and drop off (her mom is from out of town and we show her exactly how to get to I.'s school) and I. and I race home for clothing, popcorn and the requisite bottle of wine for our slumber party. Nico is out of town, perhaps in Peru? I didn't ask. The girls rent Emma (I am on a Brittish chick-flick bender, it would seem, having seen Miss Potter, and The Holiday, on the flights) and we spent most of the two hours drooling over Gwenyth Paltrow's perfectly curved neck. Terrible!

So Jane Austen, aside, we finish off, oh no! the whole bottle of an apricot-overtoned Syrah in a matter of minutes, and giggle our way to our respective mother-daughter beds, only to haul our sorry asses from their warmth at 5 am. I somehow manage to avoid heinous LA and Orange County traffic, and while we dream of bacon and coffee, we are thwarted at every turn, just barely making it to the colloquium's doors, skating in at 9:05. Sara was about to begin her ponencia, looks up and announces our arrival, and we try desperately to slink... heading to the front row. Claudia and Beatriz are there looking at us as we try not to spiral into sleep-deprived desperation. We cast longing glances behind us to the table peopled with coffee, danishes, and fruit (no bacon) and squirm in sheer envy at those who are not in the hot seat and can freely move about, serving themselves the direly needed caffeinated beverages at hand.

I fail to mention the highly interesting descriptions of the Viceregal city, its readers, book catalogues and the Inquisition, the diglossic state of affairs and ephemeral art, as well as the plagiarizing (primarily López de Gómara)Thomas Gage, but this is only because there was not enough oxygen running to my brain, leading to later bouts of hysterical laughter (although this may well be a symptom of C. and I spending copious amounts of time in the other's presence). Carlos Monsiváis came next, and while his talk was interesting, pondering the upcoming Bicentenial Latin American Independence celebrations scheduled for 2010, I found it difficult to understand how exactly the academic world was to do anything to combat such systematic exclusions (that Monsiváis forecast). Sometimes it seems that all we ever do is preach to the choir. There may well be some of that.

The day passed in a whirlwind of talks and presentations, some more informative or performative than others, and throughout we honored our dear and erstwhile friend Tim by drawing inappropriate pictures and making slightly snide or off-color remarks to each other, passing pen and notepad back and forth surreptitiously.

By 6:30 we had devolved into a complete and utter spectacle, (think Lucille Ball and Carol Burnette) we took the show, quite literally, on the road, acting as slightly psychotic chauffeuses to two of the younger and unspoken-for conference-goers. Incidentally one was the nephew of María Luisa Puga, and I whipped out my class reader to show him her micro-cuento that he did not know, and that I had just taught to my class the day before. He was a cheerful witness to our madness and even indulged and accompanied us over dinner, along with a film professor from the UNAM, in multiple bottles of vino tinto, at which point Sari caught me, slightly wobbly on the way to the bathroom and made me come over and introduce myself personally to don Carlos himself.



I generally avoid foolish and adulatory contact with famous people, thinking that they would probably be much happier if everyone were to stop fauning over them and leave them in peace, and yet, how could I not sit down and talk for a few brief moments? He was kind and engaging, and we talked about the "Peque" one of my great literary loves, and, incidentally, a great friend of his before her death in 1988. He didn't think of her as a cinephile, and I probed... no, she didn't love the movies, it was just a job, he insisted (though she was great friends with Matilde Landeta). She was so sad after Anita died (I ascertained that Anita was indeed, though she never flaunted her sexual preferences, her long-time partner). He pointed me to a film by Julio Bracho in which Anita appears, and pointed me towards a childhood friend of Vicens', the only person still living, he suggested, that knew her since she was a youngster. I thanked him, and retreated to my table when I sensed that he was getting antsy, and realized that (in the same way that I had been imagining Borges at 80 the day before) I had been in the presence of a truly great mind, and man.