“LOVE NWATTA-NWATTA-NWATTA STYLE” RIDES AGAIN!

 

 

Once upon a time, I published a bizarro love story about a man and a low-gravity spider in the most dangerous parking lot in the galaxy. It was called “Love Nwatta-Nwatta-Nwatta Style.” It was in Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine, Issue Two: Winter 1988. I wonder if anybody ever read it. Now it’s available to read online at Metastellar: Speculative Fiction and Beyond for those of you who are curious.

It was originally a sequence of my first, unpublished novel Nwatta-Nwatta-Nwatta. With Tezcatlipoca as my witness, in my countercultural youth, I thought that a cross between Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy would be my key to success. The book publishers who dominated science fiction back then disagreed, though one editor told me, “it could revolutionize the field” but it was “too zany.”

Not to be daunted, I cannibalized scenes and sequences and tried to sell them as short stories. The editors of the science fiction magazines recoiled in horror. More than one of them begged me to stop sending them these awful Nwatta-Nwatta-Nwatta stories. Maybe “zany” wasn’t a strong enough word.

“Love Nwatta-Nwatta-Nwatta Style” was the only one I could sell. Kristine Kathryn Rusch was only editor perverse enough for the dirty deed. I wonder whatever happened to her? Was it my fault?

I hope a lot of people read and enjoy it now. I still fantasize about publishing it and it becoming a bestseller. Talk about perverse.

GUAJOLOTE MUSINGS

According to our not-so-sacred calendar, this will be going up on Thanksgiving, so I should say some relevant things for you to read in preparation for your guajolote rituals. 

Guajolote is a relatively modern word. David Bowles says it's from Nahuatl, huehxōlōtl meaning wild turkey, and tōtolin meaning domesticated.

A Google search says that there are three terms in “Yukatek Maya” for turkey: úulum for the domesic, tzo' for the male, and kuutz for the wild or ocellated.

And I’m still dealing with the release of Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology (buy it and read my story “Those Rumors of Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice Have Been Greatly Exaggerated”), and the Kickstarter for El Porvenir, ¡Ya! Citlalzazanilli Mexicatl Chicano Science Fiction Anthology (for which I wrote a preface, and “Incident in the Global Barrio,” to help them pay me and the other writers). To be a writer, writing is only part of the job . . .

And now we’re hurtling into what I like to think of as the Holidaze: My own personal temporal traffic jam of Thanksgiving, birthday, anniversary, that flows into the socio-economic sacrificial rites of the multi-holiday season. It usually turns into a weird blur.

I’m feeling good at the end of another pandemic-eaten year. Yeah, I know, it’s sick, with all the smoldering conflicts erupting into the streets, again, all over the world, but for me, things seem to be working out in my old age. I’m oddly confident with the illusion that I can do the juggling act of my life. Go ahead, cruel universe, toss another flaming chainsaw at me . . .

I’ve decided to do a gonzo run to finish the insane novel that I’ve been working on for the last several years!  That’s right, I’m talking about Zyx; or: Bring Me the Brain of Victor Theremin. (Don’t tell anyone that it’s part of a trilogy.)

Maybe after that, I’ll do my other bucket list novels: Paco Cohen is Alive and Well and Living on Mars, and my futuristic bullfighting novel, Our Lady of the Monsters. Dare I dream of seeing them published in my lifetime?

Meanwhile, I’ll amuse myself, imagining the recent dubbing of A Fitsful of Dollars into Diné, the Navajo language as part of La Reconquista Nueva, while remembering that the original Reconquista was a centuries long fight to retake the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors.

Transmogrification is the natural order of things.

And I thank you all.

CHICANONAUTICA HELPS EL PORVENIR, ¡YA!

 

Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga invites you to contribute to the Kickstarter for El Porvenir, ¡Ya! Citlalzazanilli Mexicatl Chicano Science Fiction Anthology. Help up make history. There's even a video:

Do it now! ¡Viva Zazaismo!

SCENES FROM CLOSER TO HOME

 

Things are different and we get into the final months of 2021. Emily has a job. We aren’t going to be doing any epic road trips for a while.

Luckily, we have all kinds of interesting places within driving distance of the Metro Phoenix Area.

And a Fall that’s more like a faux Spring makes the garden fun.

As for the neighborhood, it’s giant spider season.

Insects are on the job.

You never know where you’ll find interesting art.

This elephant has been recently touched up.

A squashed skeleton blurs the line between animal, vegetable, and mineral.

Ants are out in force.

Red Buddha is fading nicely.

I’m still working at the library.

The sage has gone purple and carpeting the front yard.

We found out that what we’ve called our Martian cactus is a Cereus Peruvianus Monstrose.

Something is always happening at our house.

 

And then there are holidays.

What is that up there?

CHICANONAUTICA UNCOVERS THE LOST LEGACY OF SPACE COMMANDER JOSÉ DOMINGUEZ

Chicanonautica finds the only mention of La Cultura in Star Trek, over at La Bloga.

Does anybody remember Space Commander José Dominguez?

He was created by my friend George Clayton Johnson.

He was being deprived of chili.

Hope real astronauts don’t have that problem.

AND THIS JUST IN!