Dirty Red’s Kantina and Long Time Comin’ invite you to come celebrate the 4th of July this Saturday in Arroyo City. The barbecue goes on the grill at 4 and the music starts at 5 pm, so come early and get a good seat for the festivities.
Dirty Red’s Kantina is an increasingly popular watering hole [...]

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From Julieta Corpus
Dear Fellow Poets,
Once again, I am extending an invitation to every single one of you to come and join me at Savory Perks in Weslaco for an evening of poetry. Savory Perks will be hosting an OPEN MIC NIGHT this Wednesday, July 1st from 8p.m. until 10 p.m. This place is located at [...]

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By Jack Moffitt
Bell Rings at 8a.m., last sale at noon!
Last Market Until October
This is it. It is time to concede to the blistering sun. It all works out. We can spend some time improving our soils, our farms and fix those things that have been getting put off until market closes. It kind of feels [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky
Twilight Kiss
…and she needed the kitchen redone; her son-in-law knew the guy who could do it; for three weeks he drove into her driveway at 8 a.m., got his tools, set up sawhorses and was busy outdoors and indoors until noon. He’d go away for lunch, come back in an hour and work [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky
Fingers
He asks me to button the
Top two buttons on his
Polo shirt.
Usually he buys polo shirts
With zippers.
But he still has some
With buttons, and he’ll
Ask me for help,
Aging fingers, bent fingers,
Trembling fingers ….

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By Jack Moffitt
Editor’s note: This is Mr. Moffitt’s essay from last week’s Farmers Market Report (June 20th), which didn’t get up as I was in a place without Internet service. My apologies to both my reader’s and Mr. Moffitt for the omission.
In a backhanded way, someone makes your food choices for you. They do it [...]

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From Virginia Gause

STC Library Art Gallery at the Nursing & Allied Health Campus, 1101 E. Vermont Ave., McAllen, TX 78503 proudly presents “Monumental Ideas in Miniature Books” from June 18 to September 4, 2009.
“Monumental Ideas in Miniature Books” is an exhibit featuring a hundred and five hand-made mini artist books. Free and Open to the [...]

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Or at least that was true where I was! But I’m back in the Valley and really looking forward to a couple of days of straightening all these tangles that developed over the last ten days.
I’ve got stories and poetry from Gene, poetry from Rudy, a story from Edgar, promises from a couple other people [...]

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By Jack Moffitt
Bell Rings at 8a.m., last sale at noon!
What Have we Done?
Thirty-three weeks ago we began setting up the awnings and tables that make the familiar sight-picture we now all know as the Brownsville Farmers Market. Three weeks to go and the season will close. Thousands of lettuces from California were displaced and didn’t [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky
Cowboys and An Indian
…the cowboys stop in the New Mexico desert to give me a lift. They tell me to get in the front of the pickup, while one gets out and I climb in. He says that he’s going for a ride.
He lifts a saddle from the back over the truck’s sideboard, [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky
… voter identification issues come and go, but in the mid-1960s in the
Virgina Tidewater voting was a huge, especially the effort by whites to keep
blacks from voting; the poll tax had been abolished, but other barriers existed,
like literacy tests that involved explaining rare lines in the Constitution;
also, the registration hours, days and locations [...]

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A comment
Congratulations to Melissa Zamora and Rose Gowen, newly elected members of Brownsville’s city commission. We appreciate the strengths you’ve shown through the election cycles and wish you well in your new positions. We also look forward to your efforts to improve the city’s business and to a healthier atmosphere at city council meetings.
-Stan Raines

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By Jack Moffitt
Bell Rings at 8a.m., last sale at noon!
Vitamin pills– good? bad?
I like to listen to Dr. Dean Edell, the talk radio doctor. The guy seems like he is giving an honest opinion when he talks, and he keeps his game interesting by stirring controversies like the vitamin pill controversy. He relies on [...]

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BROWNSVILLE, May 2009-The Brownsville Heritage Complex, in historic downtown Brownsville, invites the public to the launch of the 1st Sunday Music and Merienda Series, a musical lecture program presented by Joe and Rosa Perez of Rumbo al’Anacua on Sunday, June 7, 2009 at 2 p.m. The event is free for BHA members and $2 for [...]

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EDITOR:
Inspiration, yes, and it has come from Barack Obama, and now Sonia Sotomayor. Fine, be inspired. Doors that should never have been closed are opening. I can not imagine the frustration of those closed doors, and now the joy when open.
But feelings and inspiration will not produce an end to the US’ wars, US bankers’ [...]

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From Virginia Gause

SAN BENITO—Gloria Jean Cantu plans to play her heart out at the Big Squeeze finals this weekend in Houston. With the help of a $200 travel sponsorship from the Texas Conjunto Hall of Fame and Museum, Cantu will compete against three other finalists, young accordion players chosen from across the state.
“She is a [...]

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From Virginia Gause

South Texas Ceramic Showdown: Beyond the Vessel (Schedule)
UTPA Friday, June 12, 2009
9:00am – 12:00pm Clay Demonstrations at UTPA – free and open to the public
12:00pm – 1:30pm Lunch Break
1:30pm – 4:30pm [...]

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From Virginia Gause

Soul of a People Kickoff
With Slave Narratives from the Rio Grande
by Alberto Rodriguez on June 16

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by Gene Novogrodsky
EDITOR:
As upsetting as the United States’ prison at Guantanamo, Cuba, is from a human
and judicial rights standpoint, more upsetting is the Congressional silence
about prisons: local, state and federal.
How easy it is to decry the Guantanamo situation. How much more important it is,
though to examine who goes to prison in the United States, for [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky
“After 14 months, finally, someone who can speak English.”
“Yeah, I’m here for just a week, My company will pay for the auto accident, and then I’ll be back in California, another Mexican jail experience: you’ve read about them and it looks like you’re in the middle of one But the company has paid [...]

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From Janet Wilder
Valley Byliners, a group for published and aspiring writers, will be holding its monthly meeting on June 13, 2009 at 1:30 PM in the Harlingen Public Library. Jeff Harris will present a PowerPoint program on the different types of publishing houses. A panel discussion led by published writers will follow. All interested writers [...]

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