By Gene Novogrodsky
The party lasted past midnight, and I grew thirsty, so I went into the kitchen. I stopped. There was Patti, at the sink, cleaning plates into the garbage, then washing them. Another woman had been picking them up and delivering them.
Patti looked at me, and I raised my fingers to my mouth in [...]

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By Jack Moffitt
Bell Rings at 8a.m., last sale at noon!
The good ole days of veggies……
For some reason I have been eating a lot of sweet potatoes. Could be that I am lazy – 5 seconds of foil wrapping, 15 seconds of washing, 5 seconds turning on oven. That is my idea of fast food. I [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky
And when the Texas Eagle, late as always, snakes its way into San Antonio, there are women in their 50s who are meeting military men.They have served, and are now retired with full pensions and benefits in greater San Antonio. The women have met them, often on-line, and have agreed to marry them, [...]

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Battle of the gnomes.

No punches pulled: Cheney’s a liar.

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A history lesson
Editor’s note: This piece was run in it’s entirety in this month’s Harper’s Magazine. It is such a poignant statement, however, that we wanted it to be available to our readers in it’s entirety. This and other documents on the Soviet’s slow recognition of a reality outside its mythology and ideology are available [...]

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By Edgar Clinton, Jr.
The living dead are spread through many a tribe
You’ve seen them friend
I’ve been them
Even half alive
Is a lot
Convinced as we are of what we are not
Living the lie
Believing the cover
Story that’s kept us
(As much as may be allowed)
Alive
Embracing the part
Lost in the act
I love most the scene
Where the dead come back to [...]

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From Gene’s Notebook
…eating at our favorite veggie restaurant, La Naranja, on First Street, south of Morelos, in Matamoros, we’re eating and talking, and two men at the table tell us that their electrical-component companies are closing in Matamoros and are moving to China; the men, as engineers, have a chance to go to China with [...]

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by Gene Novogrodsky
The shop owners and the salesgirls
Stand under the overhang, out of the rain.
The owners hand tens and twenties,
And the girls take them, putting their plastic
Bags on the sidewalk: week’s wages to hand;
Discounts-given clothes ….
The girls, in twos, threes and fours,
Walk down the sidewalk, some umbrellas up.
The rain sprinkles, twilight falls, streetlights yellow.
The owners [...]

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By Jack Moffitt
Bell Rings at 8a.m., last sale at noon!
Healthcare Crisis or self-care crises ?
It would seem logical to conclude that the people-feeding arrangement in the U.S. is failing. Is the failure inherent in the mass production process? Is the failure endemic in a sedentary culture evolved in the glow of electronic devices? [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky

The couple had driven from Laredo
Down the river
To the nursing home.
The front door was locked.
They would walk around and try the side door.
“Are you coming to see someone?”
“Yes, it’s his brother,” she says.

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Night Walk
Through Matamoros, close to midnight,
I walk …past bricks of a hundred-plus years …
And the bricks speak to me for I tell them to ….
Away from the bricks and back streets and dim lights,
I enter sharp yellow light and cars, cars for a mile, up and down one
Lit main street, cars of parents-given-to-wealthy young men [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky
Cardiologist, listens, feels: ears, fingers.
Pharmacist, shoots pills into plastic.
Walkers and canes drag, are pushed.
Adult care, day and overnight.
Appointments, one helped in-out: respite.
Obituaries, life in black and white on a quarter page.
Elections, 2012, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, projected, demographics.
World Cups, 2010, 14, 18, 22, 26, 30, 34, new nations.
World Series, 2009 and every [...]

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Recommended reading
The New York Times Magazine ran quite a rundown by Charles Duhigg on what we had suspected has been up with the credit card companies for quite some time: psychological profiling of its customer base.
The Obama administration has proposed to do something about credit cards. We’ll see whose side it’s on. The rhetoric has [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky

Bob Dylan, out of the North Woods,
Plays in a Minneapolis coffee shop,
And the three coeds keep saying, “Man-eet-toba.”
“Let’s go up there, right now,” one says.
“Yes, to Man-eet-toba,” another says.
“Come on. It’s only 11 now and we can be there by 3, night drive,”
The third says.
I’m with them, quiet, face flushed from a moonlight [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky
Arms in flour and Corn Flakes,
Corn Flakes as noodles,
Baking, ever baking, adding sugar
And raisins, the same sugar and raisins
Her husband sipped with luke-warm tea
From a saucer ….
But before the kitchen, the milk cow
In a cool and damp underground home next to the water pump.
Milk into a bucket, then a heavy lift, and back
Into [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky

And I’d feel better, a lot better,
If the young men and women
And older men and women
Who will walk across stages
In the United States and Canada
Were going to carry grains of
Interest and questions with them
As they enter the world of work
And debt and credit and homes
And kids ….
Why go grim?
Why so pessimistic?
Won’t anyone carry [...]

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By Rudy H. García

Mid July, mid sunny day,
By the emerald sea shore was where you were
I shall not publicly describe the exuberance
Of the goddess-like beauty
Your body oozed that day
A Serena corpus transforming
In me, such tantalizing, arousing, erotic thoughts,
I will forever, selfishly keep solely to myself.
You were the lady by the sea,
A freshly scenting, blooming, [...]

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Jack Moffitt
Bell Rings at 8a.m., last sale at noon!
Food Futures
I read a great book last winter – The Worst Hard Times, by Timothy Egan. It was a very timely reminder of the Great Depression. President Bush had just announced the economic catastrophe we are working through, and President Obama was coming to office. Until I [...]

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Reading and Book Signing
Saturday, 16 May, 7:00 p.m.
Brenda Nettles Riojas will read from her new book
of poetry, ” La Primera Voz Que Oi”
Free Admission
Noche de Peña XIV
Sunday, 17 May, 7:30 p.m.
Music: Irma Guadarrama, sings original compositions
Bree Stevens, with J Tamayo and C Harris
Ensamble la Misiøn, the Foncerrados, art song
Suggested donation: $5 includes refreshments
Children’s [...]

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From Henry Serrato
On May 2, ten teams started the cycle of making a five minute film in just 24 hours!
Eight teams completed scriptwriting, directing, acting, editing, etc. within that time. At a drawing before the teams started, the required elements were picked at random. For this particular race the required character was a nerd, the [...]

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Recently read
Steve Lopez’ The Soloist is a good read. It is, of course, the basis of the movie by the same name detailing Lopez’ relationship with Nathaniel Ayers– the violinist, cellist, and double bassist who also happens to be afflicted with schizophrenia.  That’s Lopez’ theme for much of the book: we ignore an awful lot [...]

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Video from Media Matters
Apparently Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Mark Steyn and the rest of the Wingnuts have identified a previously un-noted key to American manhood — ketchup on your burger. Listen to the rants:

We’re glad, as a public service, to help unmask yet another key to Barrack Obama’s unmanliness. Somebody wake up Colonel Ray [...]

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Long Time Coming, Joel Humphries and yours truly, will be back at Harley’s Country Store and Beer Garden tonight at six and be playing till we’re done. Hope to see you there.
Harley’s is located on the backside of Bayview. Turn off 510 on Ted Hunt Road. Go approximately 1 mile. Turn left on Center Line [...]

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From Virginia Gause

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From Virginia Gause
The Brownsville Heritage Complex, in historic downtown Brownsville, invites the public to Songs of the Border Brick Culture, a multimedia musical program presented by Joe and Rosa Perez of Rumbo al’Anacua on Saturday, May 9, 2009 at 6:00 p.m. The event is free to the public and is held in honor of National [...]

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