Mayra Lazara Dole's Blog - Posts Tagged "deconstructionism"
As an older teen, I needed to leave my culture's homophobia far behind so I hopped into my tiny convertible and drove to Boston.
For a few years, and in my spare time (way before my English-lit-professor-to-be Cuban girlfriend moved in with me), I practically lived in bookstores.
I loved the feeling of stepping into a cramped, musty-smelling, cavern-like space in search of first editions and out-of-print treasures. Surrounded by tomes and scents reminiscent of history (Paul Revere's attic, maybe?), helped me feel less lonely at a time when I missed my family and friends in sunny Miami more than you can imagine.
I worked part-time at a library in the morning, part-time at a whole foods store in the afternoon, and I cut hair at home at nights and weekends in order to pay bills and the few college courses I could afford. I always made time for friends, drumming, dancing, thrift-shopping and hitting yard/garage sales in search of antiquated/rare books sold for pennies.
Weekend mornings (when I didn't have hair appointments and I wasn't hiking tall mountains), I'd walk bundled up for miles through sludge to Jamaica Plain (Boston's most ethnically diverse/Latino and gay barrio), or into the heart of Cambridge, to café bookstores for steamy cups of espressos. That's where I sat to write my best, most heartfelt, rhythmic poetry before going through shelves, plucking a few books, and sitting on the floor by a pile of tomes to lose myself in other worlds.
Most afternoons, for lunch, I'd patronize dimly lit, Indian tea restaurants with chaotic ambiance. I'd sit sandwiched between intellectuals heatedly discussing Postmodernism over aromatic Ceylon, Earl Gray or other pungent teas. I acted as if I were reading. But, in fact, I was learning from the best. These lit students and professors never stopped challenging modern literature practices, parody, or magical realism. They were obsessed and I loved every second of it.
A conversation would go something like this:
"You might be a scholar, but you're missing the point. Language isn't flexible, Theo!"
"It is, Margo! You're a fool to think literary works only have ONE meaning. Language NEVER describes what we really want it to mean."
They took language apart and scrutinized it. They'd pick a text, examine the ambiguities of its language, and describe how one can come up with many different readings of the same book. Lit scholars formed critical theories right there in the midst of a teen who read her first book/novel at eighteen (in case you're interested, scroll down six books till you get to Siddhartha for my article: http://www.chasingray.com/archives/20...).
I was fascinated and absorbed it all.
The following day, I'd rush to find tomes professors mentioned. For years I did this. I wasn't getting a formal college education, but I was learning from scholars.
Still, what I loved most, was leafing through first editions of Camus, Woolf, Kafka, Audry Lorde, Cervantes, Dostoyevsky, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, Llorca, Zora Neale Hurston, Garcia-Marquez, Chaucer, Angelou, Shakespeare ... surrounded by dark, weathered walls, plastered with black and white photos of authors whose words lived on within the written pages.
In those times, I imagined myself a writer and that's what gave me the passion to start writing my first teen novel. Now, some of my inspiration comes from the opposite: online book sharing in brightly lit blogs "surrounded by" thousands of readers.
For a few years, and in my spare time (way before my English-lit-professor-to-be Cuban girlfriend moved in with me), I practically lived in bookstores.
I loved the feeling of stepping into a cramped, musty-smelling, cavern-like space in search of first editions and out-of-print treasures. Surrounded by tomes and scents reminiscent of history (Paul Revere's attic, maybe?), helped me feel less lonely at a time when I missed my family and friends in sunny Miami more than you can imagine.
I worked part-time at a library in the morning, part-time at a whole foods store in the afternoon, and I cut hair at home at nights and weekends in order to pay bills and the few college courses I could afford. I always made time for friends, drumming, dancing, thrift-shopping and hitting yard/garage sales in search of antiquated/rare books sold for pennies.
Weekend mornings (when I didn't have hair appointments and I wasn't hiking tall mountains), I'd walk bundled up for miles through sludge to Jamaica Plain (Boston's most ethnically diverse/Latino and gay barrio), or into the heart of Cambridge, to café bookstores for steamy cups of espressos. That's where I sat to write my best, most heartfelt, rhythmic poetry before going through shelves, plucking a few books, and sitting on the floor by a pile of tomes to lose myself in other worlds.
Most afternoons, for lunch, I'd patronize dimly lit, Indian tea restaurants with chaotic ambiance. I'd sit sandwiched between intellectuals heatedly discussing Postmodernism over aromatic Ceylon, Earl Gray or other pungent teas. I acted as if I were reading. But, in fact, I was learning from the best. These lit students and professors never stopped challenging modern literature practices, parody, or magical realism. They were obsessed and I loved every second of it.
A conversation would go something like this:
"You might be a scholar, but you're missing the point. Language isn't flexible, Theo!"
"It is, Margo! You're a fool to think literary works only have ONE meaning. Language NEVER describes what we really want it to mean."
They took language apart and scrutinized it. They'd pick a text, examine the ambiguities of its language, and describe how one can come up with many different readings of the same book. Lit scholars formed critical theories right there in the midst of a teen who read her first book/novel at eighteen (in case you're interested, scroll down six books till you get to Siddhartha for my article: http://www.chasingray.com/archives/20...).
I was fascinated and absorbed it all.
The following day, I'd rush to find tomes professors mentioned. For years I did this. I wasn't getting a formal college education, but I was learning from scholars.
Still, what I loved most, was leafing through first editions of Camus, Woolf, Kafka, Audry Lorde, Cervantes, Dostoyevsky, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, Llorca, Zora Neale Hurston, Garcia-Marquez, Chaucer, Angelou, Shakespeare ... surrounded by dark, weathered walls, plastered with black and white photos of authors whose words lived on within the written pages.
In those times, I imagined myself a writer and that's what gave me the passion to start writing my first teen novel. Now, some of my inspiration comes from the opposite: online book sharing in brightly lit blogs "surrounded by" thousands of readers.
SATIRE using Latino cliches:
I’m sure it’s every literary person's fantasy to awaken next to a voluptuous Latina. For valor, you grab Beowulf, the Old English heroic epic poem you were reading before falling asleep, and quickly flip to the page you left off: http://www.lone-star.net/literature/b...
Your eyes veer over to the seductress you just met...
For some reason she's in your room and suddenly, you remember spooning her last night.
She slips on a spandex mini-dress decorated with mandarin orange ruffled sleeves. With a flick of a finger, she turns on the CD player and sensual music fills the room. Her hips jiggle, feet shuffle, shoulders shake and bootay bounces as she cakes on neon glitter eye shadow.
Your Ping Pong eyes bounce from her stiletto heels clickety clacking towards you, to her EXTRA LARGE…
gold hoop earrings and fruit-filled sombrero.
In a Spanish accent, and sultry, dripping-in-caramel-voice, she whispers into your hair, “I’m going to serve you breakfast in bed, Papi (or Mami). I’m saving the ripe banana for desert, before I set off to teach Borges at the university. Afterwards, I'm giving a lecture on deconstructionism and why 'the interpretive movement in literary theory rejects absolute interpretations and stresses ambiguities and contradictions in literature.' Later on tonight, I'm flying to Venezuela to save female authors from oblivion..." http://www.laht.com/article.asp?Categ...
You wag your head in disgust and wish she'd STOP the literary nonsense and either peel your banana or sing to you, "I'm Chiquita Banana and I've come to say/I eat the Banana in a special way...." http://www.oldtimeradiofans.com/old_r...
Now, let me show you why some Latinos and people of color would love the opportunity to write our own books: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC7v0G...
What it looks like when authentic Latinos and people of color write our own stories:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4e7Vc... (check out the footwork/moves of the guy in the chartreuse shirt and white pants).
Oops, gotta go! It's time to shake my maracas and whip out an exquisite breakfast in bed for my special mujer!
Tidbits:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLTUC7... (brilliant, artistic manipulation of how advertisers make Americanos think we look like and behave in the kitchen. Do you blame me for loving it and wanting to RUN to buy Tostitos and salsa or perform a little cha-cha-cha of my own in the kitchen?).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFDOI2...
http://www.wikihow.com/Peel-a-Banana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uKACm...
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=h...
I’m sure it’s every literary person's fantasy to awaken next to a voluptuous Latina. For valor, you grab Beowulf, the Old English heroic epic poem you were reading before falling asleep, and quickly flip to the page you left off: http://www.lone-star.net/literature/b...
Your eyes veer over to the seductress you just met...
For some reason she's in your room and suddenly, you remember spooning her last night.
She slips on a spandex mini-dress decorated with mandarin orange ruffled sleeves. With a flick of a finger, she turns on the CD player and sensual music fills the room. Her hips jiggle, feet shuffle, shoulders shake and bootay bounces as she cakes on neon glitter eye shadow.
Your Ping Pong eyes bounce from her stiletto heels clickety clacking towards you, to her EXTRA LARGE…
gold hoop earrings and fruit-filled sombrero.
In a Spanish accent, and sultry, dripping-in-caramel-voice, she whispers into your hair, “I’m going to serve you breakfast in bed, Papi (or Mami). I’m saving the ripe banana for desert, before I set off to teach Borges at the university. Afterwards, I'm giving a lecture on deconstructionism and why 'the interpretive movement in literary theory rejects absolute interpretations and stresses ambiguities and contradictions in literature.' Later on tonight, I'm flying to Venezuela to save female authors from oblivion..." http://www.laht.com/article.asp?Categ...
You wag your head in disgust and wish she'd STOP the literary nonsense and either peel your banana or sing to you, "I'm Chiquita Banana and I've come to say/I eat the Banana in a special way...." http://www.oldtimeradiofans.com/old_r...
Now, let me show you why some Latinos and people of color would love the opportunity to write our own books: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC7v0G...
What it looks like when authentic Latinos and people of color write our own stories:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4e7Vc... (check out the footwork/moves of the guy in the chartreuse shirt and white pants).
Oops, gotta go! It's time to shake my maracas and whip out an exquisite breakfast in bed for my special mujer!
Tidbits:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLTUC7... (brilliant, artistic manipulation of how advertisers make Americanos think we look like and behave in the kitchen. Do you blame me for loving it and wanting to RUN to buy Tostitos and salsa or perform a little cha-cha-cha of my own in the kitchen?).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFDOI2...
http://www.wikihow.com/Peel-a-Banana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uKACm...
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=h...
