Soul Sistahs - America and the Coyote

My vote for MVP of the book may not be an obvious choice, but I believe America’s character is critical to the story - specifically, her scene in part two, chapter, two where she finds herself alone in the woods.  I mean, while everyone is out there fighting and grinding, she is forced to hide in the bushes. She has no money. No roof over her head. Her husband can’t do anything right. She’s just been raped, and she’s pregnant! And it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better any time soon. This is why I vote for America: It’s not because I feel sympathy for her; it’s because

I’m inspired by her faith. She deals with the adversity in her own way. When things get rough for the other characters in the novel, they have a tendency to blame others. Delaney becomes obsessed with Candido. Candido is more and more frustrated with all gavachos. Kyra is ready and capable of killing anyone who gets in the way her business dealings. There is a lot of anger to go around. It’s a rat race out there!

But while all this is going down, America is more “Down to Earth.” She seems to be the one who has a special connection to who she is.

I love the scene where she is sitting there all by herself in the shadows of the woods. It must be both frustrating and frightening . She’s tired and hungry and hurt, and she hears something but she doesn’t know what. It’s kind of like a dream, but it’s real – she’s staring face to face with a coyote. And instead of screaming or panicking, “she looked at that coyote so long and so hard that she began to hallucinate, to imagine herself inside those eyes looking out…”

America, then, in my opinion, is most valuable to the novel because she connects us to nature. Her spirit seems to rise above all man-made obstacles.  Without her, the novel does not distinguish itself. It basically is about money and property values and immigration controversy, things we could read about in the newspaper on a daily basis.

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Delaney Off the Rails - Crazy Train

You may have heard this: one out of every hundred people you meet is going to be a psychopath. You may stand behind one in line at the 7/11.

You may sit next to one in math class. These are people who don't think or feel the same way you do. Whatever they show you is not going to be their true self. They are manipulative, dishonest, hypocritical. They are charming, seductive and delusional. Whatever they say to you, they think something else. In the novel, The Tortilla Curtain, Delaney Mossbacher Delaney appears to be a man of high integrity. He lives in upper-class suburban community near Los Angeles with his wife and son. He is a loving father. He is a nature lover. He describes himself as a liberal humanist.

He cares! But, on the way to his recycling center in his Japanese import, his world is turned upside down and inside out when he accidently hits an illegal Mexican immigrant walking along the side of the road. He finds the man bleeding and on his back flailing his arms like a rag doll. Delaney tries to help, but the man wants nothing of it. “It was crazy to refuse treatment like that, just crazy,” Delaney thinks. “But he had. And that meant he was illegal – go to the doctor, get deported. There was desperation in that, a gulf of sadness that took Delaney out of himself for a long moment...” (12). But only a moment, or, only like 10-12 chapters. From here on, a gradual change comes over Delaney. He begins to notice more and more Mexicans on the streets. He sees them working. He sees them in the stores. He sees them on the trails he hikes. Although he vehemently distances himself form the racial sentiments of his neighbors, he can’t avoid this feeling like he’s choking on it. He feels under attack. He “was drawn so much closer to the black working heart of the world he’d ever dreamed possible” (352).

By the end of the novel he realizes he has become angry and vindictive. He’s crossed over to the other side. On the last pages, we see Delaney headed down his beloved nature trails, not with a walking stick in hand, but a gun. Deep down, I know he wants to stop what he’s doing, but he can’t. If he wasn’t a racist at the beginning of the book, he is one now. He’s my MVP.   He is out of his bleeping mind!

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My Tortilla MVP - The Coyote

I nominate the coyote, or the coyotes, as the Most Valuable Part of the Tortilla Curtain. They may only show up a few times in the book, but their impact and significance is huge. Like Delaney says in his column, “They are cunning, versatile, hungry and unstoppable.”   I’m into “relentless.” They make me think about the book on another level.

I know. I can imagine some readers objecting to me choosing an animal over any one of the main characters in the novel. After all, T.C. Boyle strived to create deep and well-rounded characters that we could all root for. Each one of them displays qualities that deserve some mention in this discussion.

However, to me, the coyote rises above them all. The coyote is more than an animal or a character; in this case, he (or she) is a symbol. The coyote in Tortilla Curtain represents the forces of nature. Who or what is going to top that?

In part two, chapter five, Delaney writes about the coyote with awe and respect. He knows that there is nothing anyone could do to stop this animal. The coyotes have this special innate ability to adjust to their environment. When there is no water, they will chew through PVC pipe. When there is no food, they’ll find it in your backyard. When you trap or kill them, they’ll simply repopulate and come back at you in bigger numbers.

That’s why it was important that not only did the coyote take the one dog, but after the Mossbachers took the preventive measures to build the wall, the coyote came back and took the other. On both occasions, Delaney watched the attacks with both shock and awe. He knew he was witness to the forces of nature, and there was nothing that he or anyone else could do about it.
In this way, the coyotes made me think of immigration in a much different way. Instead of objectifying Mexicans, I think Boyle draws up a much bigger picture for us to consider:
We're all in this together.

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Quote Sandwich - My Tortilla MVP - Soul Sistahs

We've almost completed the novel The Tortilla Curtain, but I already know who my MVP is.  That's my Most Valuable Part.  It's going to be about America.  While the men are the LOUDEST, America is the STRONGEST.  She never gives up. 

America is my MVP.  Through the chaos and violence of The Tortilla Curtain, America keeps her cool.  She has her dream. She knows life is rough, but she’s not going to let anything or anybody get between her and her goal. 

My favorite scene comes when she meets face to face with a coyote in the woods.  She doesn’t even blink: "She looked at the coyote so long and so hard that she began to hallucinate, to image herself inside those eyes looking out...” ( Boyle 179 ).  They have no money.  Her husband beats her.  She has just been raped.  But, she’s not taking a step back.  She focuses on this little white house that she wants to live in.  The one with a gas stove and a refrigerator and chickens in the yard.  Like the coyote, she keeps moving forward,   She is a survivor.  She is relentless.

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Quote Sandwich - "Not Enough Hours in the Day" - Hissie Chrynde

In English 61, we are learning to insert quote sandwiches into our research papers. After I get done with this one, I'm going to quote the great John Lennon.  At the height of Beatlemania, he made the mistake of saying the Beatles were bigger than Jesus.  Below is a quote sandwich I made from a group discussion on "The COD College Experience." That's my classmate Hissie in the photo. She needs to learn to slow down. 


Hissie is a first-year student studying theatre arts.  She is from Ohio.Her dream is to be accepted at UCLA.  Right now she is taking as many classes as she can fit into her schedule.  To become a successful actor, she wants to know a little about everything.  

“The problem is,” Hissie sadly admits, “there are not enough hours in the day to get everything in.” You don’t have to be from Ohio to understand what Hissie is talking about.  As a first year student she is finding difficulties to manage her time effectively.  She is taking a full load of courses and working part-time in a shopping mall.  She gets up early and comes home late.  The little free time she has is devoted to completing her homeworks assignments. College isn’t as fun as she thought it would be, but Hissie is not complaining about anything.  She has her dream, and she is sticking to it.

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Quote Sandwich - "We're More Popular Than Jesus Now" - John Lennon

In English 61, I'm writing my research paper about  the famous Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Band.  It came out during the Summer of Love.  At that time, you could say everyone loved it.  You could hear it everywhere you went.  But, you could also say many people hated the Beatles.  John Lennon joked in an interview that The Beatles were bigger than Jesus.  That didn't go over to well.  Below is a quote sandwich from my research paper. 

In 1966, the Beatles were at the top of their game and at the end of their rope. Beatlemania was in full force.  Everywhere the band went, the fans became louder and crazier.  No one had ever heard music like the Beatles before.  No one had ever seen a band like the Beatles before.  To accommodate their fans, The Beatles were forced to play before huge crowds in baseball and football stadiums.  At one point, the band’s leader John Lennon joked in an interview, “We’re more popular than Jesus”  (Borack 80).  Of course, John’s words created a huge controversy.  Not so much back in England, but in the United States religious groups began to organize massive protests against The Beatles. This is when all Hell broke loose. Radio stations across the South began public burnings of Beatles records. 

Anonymous death threats came flooding in.  The Ku Klux Klan turned up at Beatles Concerts to cause trouble.  John felt that his words were misinterpreted, but he apologized anyway.  He feared someone in his bad getting hurt.  Very soon after, the
Beatles   stopped touring.  They were making better music than ever, but the screaming was so loud, they could not even hear themselves sing.    

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Community Profile Anecdote - On the Run with Suzy

Mr. Lewenstein asked us to begin our Community Profile with an anecdote.  He said establishing  a personal connection would bring our writing to life.  Below I try to paint a true picture of my friend and teen mother Suzy.  ( It's kind of hard - she's always on the move! ) 

Before Suzy became pregnant, we were very close friends. In high school, we used to sit together in the back of the room in all of our classes.  Suzy always used to take the spot next to the window and draw pictures in her notebook.  She was a dreamer.  She was also a runner.  She was on the cross country team.  She spent a lot of her time in class drawing pictures of running shoes she liked in her notebook.  She was good with the Nike and Puma symbols.  They covered her pages.  Her teachers didn’t seem to mind.  They said she was very talented.  Suzy planned to continue running and drawing in college.  She was going to study art.

When she told me she was pregnant, we both cried.  We both knew she wouldn’t be able to go to college any time soon.  Suzy had to drop out for a while.  I was the one who sat by the window.   While I was able to go to college, Suzy worked to take care of her family.  She has different priorities now.   I miss her.   With our crazy schedules, we don’t see each other very often.  Lately, however, I’ve see she’s running again.  I see her in her Nikes pushing her stroller along the side of the road when I go to school.  She doesn’t look like your typical drop-out.  She looks determined and full of life. It’s just that she has a whole new set of goals.  I always HONK:  “You Go Girl! Nothing can stop you!”

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Meet My Community Profile: An Intro to Suzy - Teen Mother on the Run

Here we go.  My community profile focuses upon the phenomenon of Teen Pregnancy.  The subject of my research starts with Suzy - a teen mother I know from high school.  We used to sit next to each other in English class.  After school we ran cross country together.  Pregnancy hasn't slowed down Suzy at all.  She is still as hard as ever to keep up with.

Suzy is a dreamer, not a “dreamer” the way we use the word today, but she has always had the goal of being the first in her family to graduate from college.  She came to this country without knowing a word of Spanish, but she persevered.  Not only did she learn English, now she wants to teach it.  However, When she  became pregnant in her senior year of high school, all her plans had to be put on hold.  The father of the child wanted nothing to do with marriage.  When it came time to have the baby, Suzy found herself all alone.  Suzy’s mother was a full-time nurse.  Her father was so angry at his daughter, he refused to speak with her.  He certainly wouldn’t support her. 

Suzy had no other option but to take matters into her own hands.  Suzy decided to raise her child as a single mother.  Yes, she knew of the hardship and challenge of raising a baby by herself in today’s economy,  but this was Suzy being Suzy.  She still had her dream of becoming an English professor.  Nothing was going to get in her way.  A counselor on the COD campus told her that with her grades, she was eligible for a Pell grant.  With this subsidy, she would be able to raise her child and continue her education.  Although many single mothers may feel trapped in their lives, Suzy saw no obstacle in her way for moving on in her life. She is inspired by the idea of becoming a role model for her daughter.  Every day she wakes up, she wants to be strong for her.

Whatever people think about her decision to go at it as a single mother, she just doesn’t care.  “The look at me from the outside,” she told me, “but they don’t know me.” Suzy doesn’t feel trapped at all with her baby.  No matter what happens, she will always have  her love and dream and vision.  Her baby will be her guiding light.

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Sandra Cisneros: Not So "Only" Daughter

This was the first week of class.  Mr. Lewenstein shared one of his favorite authors.  Her name is Sandra Cisneros.  Mr. Lewenstein said she writes with an edge.  We all agree!  We worked in groups to respond to her essay "Only Daughter."  She writes about her life-long struggle to gain acceptance from her father.

Sandra’s childhood experience of being “the only daughter” proved to be a great training ground for a writing career. In fact, it was her feelings of isolation and abandonment from her fathers and brothers that pushed her towards reading and writing. When she grew older, her skill for transferring her plight to the page enabled her to enter UC Berkeley and later become on of our most renown Latino authors. Her “ House on Mango Street”, for example, reflects many of the same childhood frustrations she describes in her essay. One story after another boasts the voice of a poor young girl struggling to make sense of her loneliness. When she writes in “Only Daughter” that she values her mistreatment from being an only daughter, We believe her. She learned how to convert her pain and confusion into beautiful, meaningful stories. In my opinion, her anger is her juice.

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Book Out of My Past - Poster Child - Emily Rapp

At the end of Emily Rapp’s memoir Poster Child, thethe author writes of her participation in an international conference to address the needs of disabled women throughout the world.   Emily was born with a congenital bone-and-tissue disorder that would eventually force doctors to amputate one of her legs just below the hip.  She’s sitting at a table with six other disabled women when she is handed a piece of butcher paper and asked to illustrate a timeline of her life. By this time in the book, we know about Emily’s childhood and her religious background.  We know of her inner strength that drove her to overcome any obstacles that ever got in her way. 

When she draws herself on the paper, we see her in front of a mirror without any legs.  She’s devoted her life to holding her head high.  Emily Rapp is the “Poster Child.”  When she was six years old, the March of Dimes put her image on their posters and calendars.  She would proudly proclaim to her audience, “I might have one leg, but I’m not disabled.”

Poster Child is a portrait of courage. Emily Rapp tells us of things we areafraid to know.  When I first read her, I learned of the smell of her stump.  She was traveling through Africa, and at night she would have to take her leg off to rest.  She couldn’t handle the odor of burning rubber and stale sweat.  In Poster Child, she describes  her operations and challenges with intimate detail.  She grew up and grew out of one prosthesis after another.  The sockets were too tight.  The legs too short.   As normal as she tried to become, she often bled with the friction of movement.  Much of her childhood was spent hopping one-footed around various medical centers while doctors disappeared with her leg.   Much of her teen years were spent assembling her leg and her spirit to cope with her changing body.  In more than a few chapters, Emily shares her fear and apprehension of her first sexual encounters.  I mean, she is a “poster child.”  Very attractive, but is there a man out there that wants to sleep with a disabled woman.  Will she leave the leg on, or take it off?

I thought it was pretty cool that Emily worked her way towards the international conference at the end of her memoir, as if she was writing a mystery, and the conference would reveal the truth.   By this time we know two things: one, Emily is a very intelligent and determined young woman; and two, this book isn’t all about her.   Somewhere along the way, she has decided to stop hiding her disability but share it with others to set them free.

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The Loved One - John Lennon

The writing business Evelyn Waugh knows probably isn’t much different than the music business I know. Everybody loves you for one thing: your money. Literature, music, and here in Waugh’s novel “The Loved One,” even death is all too commercial. The money, the pressure and all the craziness pushes at you from all sides until you have to completely humiliate yourself to be what people want you to be.

In “ The Loved One,” Evelyn Waugh pushes back at all the money grubbers and phonies. His story takes place in L.A. in the forties. He writes of English ex patriots that have come to Hollywood to work in the film industry, and he writes of Americans that work in funeral parlors and cemeteries. In his novel, these two worlds collide, and whether the characters are British or American, all of them are fakes. Their sentiments are shallow and/or selfish. Just about the only people who are sincere and truthful in this novel are already dead and being prepped for a funeral.

I probably read this book on my own. I like books with unexpected endings, and this author is famous for going against tired formula. Just when you think you are getting into a serious romance, you'll get totally surpised. This book is sick and hilarious. I love it for both reasons.

The main character Dennis is a young English poet who has come to L.A. with the hopes of writing screenplays, but the only job he can find is writing condolence cards at pet semetary. Good! He gets his shot of reality really quick. His roommate, a fairly successful screenwriter, doesn’t receive his wake-up call until it’s too late. After twelve years of working for the same company, he is unceremoniously fired. No one even bothers to tell him. One afternoon, early in the novel, Dennis returns to their apartment to see his dejected roommate hanging by his neck from the rafters. That’ s sick, but I suppose the most disturbing aspect of this suicide is that it disturbs Dennis very little. From the people he’s met, and the things he has seen, this is par for the course in L.A. When Dennis is obligated to take care of the body, he appears to have all the feeling and compassion of the corpse itself.

I love this novel because Waugh gives us a character in Dennis that both attracts us and disgusts us. In the process of disposing of his roommates body, Dennis falls in love with a young woman who works at the mortuary. Wow! I suppose you have to have an insane amount of romance in your heart if you can lock in on a woman without being distracted by the image of dead bodies and the smell of embalming fluid. This guy Dennis just doesn’t care. What follows is the strangest love story that you will ever read. You will want to root for the guy, even though you know it’s going to end in a disaster. Someone is going to get burned (ha ha).

Peace,

John

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Amy's Pocket Tattoo - Descriptive Detail

Amy’s pocket tattoo is located just above her left breast.  Just above, the name of her former husband is emblazoned in cursive writing. It doesn’t just say “Blake” like a typical nametag would read.  It says “Blake’s” as if to say Amy feels comfortable tucked away inside.   The pocket and the nametag appear in black and white.  Actually, there is no white unless you count Amy’s skin.  My point is there is no red like the color of the valentine or blue like the color of the sky.  She is not trying to be dreamy or fancy here.  It’s like she is saying their love is every-day, working people’s love.  It’s not rainbows and unicorns.  It’s pure and simple.  I think it’s important that the pocket Amy wears above her breast closes with a button and a flap. From all accounts, Amy loved Blake with all her heart.  In my opinion, she feels settled in.  Like she is safe and protected.  Whatever she wears, whether it’s on the street or on the stage, people are going to see the nametag and know her heart belongs to Blake.   For all of us who love Amy and her music, we will see the irony in this tattoo.   We were inspired by her passion for her love and her art, but we were saddened by the way her obsession with Blake led to her downfall into drugs and depression.   Her most famous song – about her breakup with Blake – is still played all the time on the radio:  “We only said goodbye with words/ I died a hundred times/ You go back to her/ And I go back to Black..”  Clearly, there was nothing pure and simple about Amy’s relationship with Blake.      

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Furious - Crazy for You - Love - The Marriage(s) of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor

Here is what I like about reading:  You Never Know!  I expected to a lot of crazy stuff  in this book - that was there.  But, I also saw real love.  I mean, deep and unmistakable real love.  Not even all the money, drugs and alcohol could destroy what Dick and Liz felt for each other. In the end, they loved each other as much as they did from the beginning. 

I just finished Furious Love by Sam Kasner and Nancy Schoenberger.    It’s the story of Electric Love on the set of Cleopatra January 22, 1962.   When Richard Burton laid eyes on Elizabeth Taylor for the first time he laughed out loud.  He was dressed in a short-short tunic. His muscular thighs were bursting at the seams. Elizabeth was made up bright green eye-liner.  It was so thick it looked liked it was applied with a spoon. 

 But, that wasn’t the funny part.  As Marc Anthony fell madly in love with Cleopatra,  Richard and Elizabeth began a life-long love affair.  Richard would soon abandon the wife and children he dearly loved. Elizabeth would turn her back on her husband Eddie Fisher.  This was the funny part: from that very first scene everything they believed in – their families, ambitions, moralities – no longer mattered.

I liked the read from the beginning to the end.  The passion they shared for their craft never wavers.  Le Scandale distances them from their fans but brings them closer together.  The booze and drugs ignite vicious fights and inspire tearful reunions.    There’s money, diamonds and jets.  They live their dreams out in front of us.  My favorite part, however, is the letter Richard writes to Elizabeth just before he dies.   This is the one that appears in the book’s preface and sets the tone for the narrative.  I mean, beyond his brilliant talents as an actor, Richard can write.  Throughout three marriages and three divorces, he professes his love for Elizabeth with a series of letters, poems and apologies.   Drugs and alcohol ate away his talent and health, but they couldn’t touch his heart.  On his deathbed, Richard wrote  Elizabeth he loved her more than ever.  He just wanted to come home, he said.

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