The Hunt – Chapter II: The Great Bear

This is a serial story told over many chapters. To see the first chapter click here.

“One wintry day, the sky-mother lowered her most beloved son down to Earth in a golden cradle. Pondering her child’s fate in the land of men, she tenderly held the little bear one last time before returning to her starry home above…”

Yaloki continued chanting in a low gravelly voice, as he methodically beat a tambourine covered in rattling beads. The music reverberated into the night air, accompanying the wind in its lonesome haunting lament.

A solemn group of villagers sat in a circle around the old man, whose figure glowed in the light of a bonfire behind him. Like baby hawks devouring food their mother has brought them, they listened intently and let the music fill their being.

Several women in bright red and blue shawls stood up and started dancing. They twisted and turned, and turned and twisted, and spun this way and that, all the while carefully rotating their hands above their heads.

After the women sat down, a man draped in a bear pelt stood up. He looked into the eyes of each of the villagers as he fiercely stomped around the circle. Another man in a fur coat stood up and the two wrestled, locked arm in arm for several minutes. Finally the man in the coat grabbed a knife and pretended to stab the man in the bear pelt, who collapsed to the ground. Then they both returned to the circle.

Yaloki put down his tambourine and slowly rose from his deerskin covered chair. Clutching a gnarly twisted stick, he turned and stared into the enormous blaze for a long time before lowering his eyes to the ground. Suddenly, he let out a deep guttural cry and began to speak:

“For many years, we have shared our herds, our songs and our hearths with the Smirin people, and the great bear has rewarded us with peace. But now, the sly hand of greed has taken hold of them, and I fear that we shall soon have war.”

To see the next chapter click here.

- Carlos de la Gringa

TES Artist of the Week III

“Así que mala mia si me pongo perverso

Pero es que tu me tienes escupiendo versos”

-Calle 13, “Tango del Pecado”

For our third Artist of the Week here at TES, we’ve decided to honor one of our favorite rappers in the game today.  One of the crudest, rudest, smartest (he has a master’s!), most controversial and most creative rappers that I’ve ever heard.  And he does it all in Spanish!

He is the writer and lead singer for rap/reggaetón/electronica /cumbia/batucada/etc. group Calle 13, which has recorded four albums so far, filmed one documentary and won countless musical awards.  They are also a group known for making people mad: already having criticized the FBI, the Puerto Rican police forces, the mayor of San Juan: Jorge Santini, and more than half the reggaetón industry, having recorded a music video with significant nudity and having had several songs banned from the airways.

When I first heard the group my freshman year of college, their music took me by surprise.  I expected typical reggaetón with its energetic beat and its vulgar lyrics. While it definitely provided that, when I listened closely to the lyrics, I realized they were a lot more offensive than I had imagined; they were also clever, funny, thought provoking and honest – something not found in most music of any genre these days.  While I disagreed and still disagree with many of his views, I came to find that I still agreed with at least the spirit of a lot of what he was saying.

For challenging us to think differently about issues such as poverty, violence, drug trafficking, sexuality, Latin American identity and Latin American – US relations, we are proud to name René Pérez Joglar aka Residente as the third TES Artist of the Week.

-Carlos de la Gringa

TES Artist of the Week I – Bezerra da Silva

That’s right. We have an “artist of the week” column. Got a problem with that? Read no further. Is it going to be pretentious? Absolutely! But don’t worry about it; we know more than you. So sit down, be quiet and you just might learn something. (Didn’t your mother ever tell you to respect your elders?)

As the first ever TES Artist of the Week, we’ve chosen Bezerra da Silva (beh-ZEH-huh dah SEEW-vah), a Brazilian musician of samba. Da Silva (1927 – 2005) was born in Recife, Pernambuco (in the northeast of Brazil). At a young age he moved to Rio de Janeiro where he would spend the rest of his life. Overcoming extreme poverty, he achieved enormous success as a singer, guitarist, percussionist and composer, recording more than thirty different albums.

Da Silva’s music depicts the difficult life of the inhabitants of favelas (Brazilian shantytowns), discussing criminality, illicit drugs, snitching, political corruption, police brutality, and discrimination with an ever ironic and humorous tone. His lyrics neither glamorize a marginal lifestyle nor condemn it. They simply portray the realities faced by the poorest members of Brazilian society. However, the songs do praise the malandro, a figure traditionally associated with con-artists and gangsters. According to Da Silva, a malandro is a smart but poor person, who makes the most of what life has given him, even if this means occasionally deceiving others. In this sense, whether someone would be considered intelligent or a malandro is solely a question of economics, not ethics.

In recognition of his consistent combination of brutal honesty, pointed sarcasm, and unsettling moral ambiguity, all set to a lively samba beat, we here at Tales of Extraordinary Sanity are proud to name Bezerra da Silva as our first artist of the week.

Where you should start:

• “Malandragem Dá um Tempo”

• “Candidato Caô Caô”

• “Seqüestraram Minha Sogra”

• “Pai Véio 17”

- Carlos de la Gringa

-Ed. There are currently no good translations into English of these songs. However, we will keep you posted if we find any or if we decide to do some ourselves.

In Defense of Carnival

Today is Ash Wednesday (or it was when I wrote this) and I am sad. Another Carnival has come to an end. Another frigid Carnival spent indoors following coverage on the internet and dreaming of tropical weather, beautiful women and exuberant sounds, colors and smells. But I’m not complaining. Well, maybe a little.

Did the Puritans have to take away everything fun in life? New Orleans is the only place they didn’t touch in this country, the last bastion of pure unadulterated pagan (and vaguely Catholic?) fun. What a pity! It truly is one of the most beautiful and most inspiring celebrations of the year. Seriously!

Now you are welcome to call me a stupid, self-absorbed, Bohemian frat boy, who is only looking for a good time (something I won’t confirm or deny). But if you do, you clearly are missing the point. While Carnival does involve a good amount of having fun, getting drunk, hooking up with strangers, loud music, excessive tourism and commercialization and widespread disorder, there is also something a little more profound going on. For Carnival, is also about letting go of all of your problems for a couple days and allowing yourself to simply enjoy life, stress free, it is about working together to turn a couple of seemingly unimportant days into the most magical time of year, and it is about celebrating life in spite of all the trying difficulties that mankind faces. What could be more beautiful and inspiring than that?

So keep criticizing, if you want. Call me self-centered and uncaring. But don’t expect to be able to save the world, if you’re incapable of occasionally letting loose.

Happy Carnival and see you again next year!

- Carlos de la Gringa