Sunday, December 12, 2010

CHICANONAUTICA MEETS THE SPACE VIRGIN

This time, Chicanonautica on La Bloga investigates the Virgin of Guadalupe, in honor of her December 12 holiday, finds a UFO connection, and as usual, more stuff that makes for extras over here at Mondo Ernesto.

A few days before my posting, La Bloga reproduced a poster from the National Hispanic Cultural Center that translated her actual name, Tlecuahtlacupeuh (she spoke Nahuatl, not Spanish), as “She Who Comes Flying From the Region of Light Like an Eagle on Fire.” Talk about strange lights in the sky!

In Passport to Magonia, Jacques Vallee, siting the research of Helen Behrens and Ethel Cook Eliot, suggests the the Virgin called herself Tetlcoatlcaxopeuh, “Stone Serpent Trodden On.”

Ah, the complications of transcultural transliteration!

I also noticed two Mexican actors who appear in La Virgen Morena (1942) who deserve to be mentioned:

Abel Salazar, who plays Temoc, Last King of the Aztecs, went on to produce, direct, and act in many films. These included a lot of deranged horror films that were dubbed into English, and blew peoples minds when they appeared as part of Saturday afternoon monster movie programs in the U.S. of A. He starred in Brainiac (AKA El BarĂ³n del Terror) that influenced Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart.



Alfonso Bedoya is famous, or rather infamous, for his part in the 1948 Humphrey Bogart/John Houston classic, Treasure of Sierra Madre. His portrayal of the bandit Gold Hat offended Chicano activists back in the Sixties, and for years the film was banned for the airwaves of Los Angeles. As for me, “We don't need no stinkin' badges,” has always sounded like words to live by.



And getting back to UFOs, here's a musical tale the suggests what really may be going on with the Drug War:



OVNI, being Spanish for UFO, as in Objeto Volador No Indentificado.

Keep watching the skies!

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