Just this month, director León Ichaso premiered his film Paraiso (Paradise) at the Miami International Film Festival (MIFF). Ichaso made his directorial debut in 1979 with El Super and also helmed Azúcar amarga (Bitter Sugar) (1996). In an article in The Miami Herald, Ichaso notes, "I do think of the three films as a trilogy, and [Paraiso] is the end, exploring the new arrivals, these new little Cuban Frankensteins that Castro makes and sets loose on the world."
Interview with León Ichaso (Miami International Film Festival website)
'Paraiso' wraps up film trilogy on Cuban exiles (The Miami Herald)
-----------------------------------
Head to the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City at the end of April to catch the world premiere Lost Son of Havana, directed and written by Jonathan Hock. The film tells the story of Cuban pitcher Luis Tiant -- who played for the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, and other teams -- and follows him on his first trip back to Cuba.
Luis Tiant (The Baseball Biography Project)
20 March 2009
Film notes
17 March 2009
Edel Rodriguez
This blog post at straight.com about the Vancouver Opera's 2009/2010 season posters by Edel Rodriguez got me to digging around for more of his work. The Cuban-born artist is prolific, producing theater and posters, children's books, book covers, and magazine illustrations. I hope you enjoy this side trip as much as I have.
Edel Rodriguez's website and blog
A Vision of Cuba (TIME Magazine)
ICONIC Podcast Interview (IllustrationMundo)
Check out the links page on Rodriguez's website for more cool stuff.
Illustration: Figaroart: The Marriage of Figaro by Edel Rodriguez from the straight.com art blog.
12 March 2009
Cuban reads
From The Guardian's Top 10s series (via æ) Cuban writer Leonardo Padura lists his Top 10 Cuban Novels:
1. El siglo de las luces by Alejo Carpentier (1962)
2. Cecilia Valdés o la loma del ángel by Cirilo Villaverde (1882)
3. Tres tristes tigres by Guillermo Cabrera Infante (1967)
4. Paradiso by José Lezama Lima (1974)
5. Los pasos perdidos by Alejo Carpentier (1953)
6. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1952)
7. Temporada de ángeles by Lisandro Otero (1983)
8. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Óscar Hijuelos (1989)
9. Antes que anochezca by Reinaldo Arenas (1990)
10. El negrero by Lino Novás Calvo (1933)
Which ones have you read? Why no female authors in this list? What do you think about The Mambo Kings making this list? Any other novels that would make your top 10?
2009 Cintas Foundation Emilio Sanchez Award finalists announced
This week the Frost Art Museum at Florida International University and the Cintas Foundation announced seven finalists (out of 68 applicants) for the Emilio Sanchez Award in the Visual Arts:
- Tania Bruguera
- Ivan Toth Depeña
- Carlos Estevez
- Carlos Ignacio Gonzalez-Lang
- Cristina Lei Rodriguez
- Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova
- Gladys Triana
Seven Finalists Chosen for the 2009 Emilio Sanchez Award in the Visual Arts
08 March 2009
Cuban writer Margarita Engle honored for children's book
Cuban-American writer Margarita Engle's verse book The Surrender Tree (Henry Holt & Company, 2008) was named a Newbery 2009 Honor Book, the first such distinction for a Hispanic author. From the Newbery Medal website: "The Surrender Tree utilizes compelling free verse in alternating voices to lyrically tell the story of Cuba's three wars for independence from Spain. Combining real-life characters (such as legendary healer Rosa La Bayamesa) with imagined individuals, Engle focuses on Rosa's struggle to save everyone--black, white, Cuban, Spanish, friend or enemy."
The book also won the 2009 Pura Belpré Award and was named an honor book by the 2009 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award.
Margarita Engle's Historic Newbery Honor (School Library Journal)
Guanabee Interviews Margarita Engle, Newbery Honor-Winning Author of The Surrender Tree (Guanabee.com)
24 March 2008
The Woman in Battle
A link discovered over at Neatorama.com: a profile of Loreta Janeta Velasquez, the Cuban-born woman who fought disguised as a man with the Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War (from the Hispanic Americans in the U.S. Army website). Velasquez masqueraded as Lt. Harry T. Buford and published her memoirs in 1876. You can read The Woman in Battle online from UNC-Chapel Hill's Documenting the American South.
Stealth Fighter (Boston Globe)
Madame Loreta Janeta Velasquez: Heroine or Hoaxer? by Sylvia D. Hoffert (TheHistoryNet)
23 March 2008
The Mambo King
Israel López, 1918-2008.Legendary Cuban musician 'Cachao' dies at 89 (Miami Herald)
Mambo creator 'Cachao' dies at 89 (BBC News)
Cuban Bassist Cachao Dies; Mambo Pioneer (NPR)
Israel 'Cachao' Lopez, 89; pioneered mambo music (Los Angeles Times)
Videos on YouTube:
Israel 'Cachao' Lopez talks to Distrikt Magazine
Cachao, Ahora Si
Bebo Valdes y López Cachao, Lágrimas Negras
Cuban Connection Part 3: March Madness
Not typically a sport you associate with Cuban athletes, basketball. But check out Robin and Brook Lopez. I caught a bit of the Stanford-Marquette NCAA game last night. The Lopez twins are 7-footers who play for Stanford. Their father Heriberto Lopez played baseball in Cuba. Unfortunately, he's been estranged from his sons since he split with their mother Deborah Ledford when they were five years old. Ledford was a champion swimmer for Stanford in the 1960s.
Check out the Lopez twins for yourself. Stanford beat out Marquette in overtime and play on in the tournament. Here's the schedule.
Stanford all about Lopez boys; twins more than just hoops (CBSSports.com)
7-foot Lopez twins finding way at Stanford (NBC Sports)
Lopez twins continue their mother's legacy (Rivals.com)
22 March 2008
Back to Cuba with José Mateo Ballet Theatre
Ballet dancers and Cuban music will ring through the Old Cambridge Baptist Church this spring. José Mateo Ballet Theatre will feature Back to Cuba, an exploration of Cuban culture through a series of ballet performances set to a treasury of Cuban music.
Founded in 1986, José Mateo Ballet Theatre is a nonprofit professional ballet performance company and school. Born in Cuba, José Mateo moved with his family to New York in the mid-1950s. He studied art history and dance at Princeton and danced with several companies before establishing his dance school in Boston.
Back to Cuba runs from April 4th to the 20th, 2008 at the Sanctuary Theatre at 400 Harvard Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Purchase tickets online.
Photo from the José Mateo Ballet Theatre website.
17 March 2008
Arsenio Rodríguez Limited Edition Box Set Released
Today's New York Times features a review of El Alma de Cuba, a six-CD, limited edition box set of the complete catalog of RCA recordings by Cuban band leader Arsenio Rodríguez. Descarga.com calls it the "very definitive work about this legendary and pioneer musician."
"El Ciego Maravilloso" wrote almost 200 songs. His career spanned from Cuba, where he recorded with RCA from 1940 to 1956, to New York and Los Angeles. He is considered one of the most important figures in Cuban music and contributed significantly to what is today the foundation of modern salsa music.
From the NYT review by Ben Ratliff:
"Rodríguez (1911-1970) played the tres, a Cuban guitar with three pairs of like-tuned strings. He was blind, and, to simplify grandly, the Chuck Berry figure of Cuban dance music, establishing its lasting parameters. His band recorded romantic boleros as a matter of course, but in the early ’40s he was also the significant architect of son montuno. He solidified its instrumentation and arrangement into a recognizable form, which you will know instinctively if you’ve heard any of the New York salsa that drew from it 30 years later."
Read short biographies of Rodríguez from Verve Records and MusicWeb Encyclopaedia of Popular Music
Arsenio Rodríguez discography (milonga.co.uk)
There's even an Arsenio Rodríguez MySpace page!
Ready for more? Check out Arsenio Rodriguez and the Transnational Flows of Latin Popular Music by David F. Garcia.
Image: Arsenio Rodríguez y Su Conjunto with Olga Guillot seated at center and Rodríguez standing to the right of her. Courtesy of the Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami Libraries.
11 March 2008
Exhibit of Photos of Cuba by Walker Evans
"This exhibition displays 37 vintage photographic prints by Walker Evans and seven prints copied by Evans, that were found among Ernest Hemingway’s possessions after his death, along with notes, and personal artifacts. These documents and images reveal a friendship between the two men in Havana during a time of growing political instability. This set of Evans prints that Hemingway acquired in 1933 and stored away for years has never been exhibited until recently."
The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida is hosting the exhibit Ernest Hemingway and Walker Evans: Three Weeks in Cuba, 1933 through Sunday, June 1, 2008.
Hemingway, others subject of new Cummer exhibit (Financial News & Daily Record)
Havana fruit stand 1993 by Walker Evans. (c) Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
08 March 2008
Meta Global Beat
The African roots of Cuban music are undeniable and well documented. African rhythms mixed with Spanish musical traditions to result in the rich spectrum that is Cuban music, from son to rumba to mambo to conga and beyond.
So what happens when centuries of musical syncretism travel back to one of its cultural sources? What happens to Cuban music in Africa?
Check out the Senegalese band Orchestra Baobab. Read Richard Byrne's short but insightful article Orchestra Baobab: Senegal's Resurrection (The Globalist) to learn more about the band and crosscurrents of Cuban music in West Africa.
Essential listening is their Pirates Choice album (thanks to my hubby Pete for introducing me to this record).
Orchestra Baobab is part of this year's line up at Bonnaroo and playing several dates in other U.S. locations. See their Myspace.com page for a tour schedule.
Listen to Orchestra Baobab perform at Carnegie Hall in 2005 (NPR.org)
Watch more Orchestra Baobab performance videos on YouTube
07 March 2008
The Cintas Foundation: Fostering Culture and Creativity
For 41 years, the Cintas Foundation has supported the work of Cuban artists outside of Cuba, giving out more than 300 fellowships and grants to creative writers, architects, composers, visual artists, and filmmakers. Reading through the list of Cintas Fellows makes one truly appreciate the depth and breadth of the talent of Cuban artists in the Diaspora. Thank you, Oscar B. Cintas (1887-1957), for dedicating your estate to supporting our cultural richness.
Today the Foundation announced the finalists for its 2008 Emilio Sanchez Award in the Visual Arts: Ray Azcuy, Barbara M. Fuentes, Isaac Maiselman, Ernesto Oroza, Maria Perez Bravo, Juana Valdes, and Ricardo Zulueta.
The Foundation also administers two art collections: the Master Paintings from the Spanish School on loan to the University of Miami's Lowe Art Museum; and the Cintas Fellows Collection administered by the Frost Art Museum at Florida International University.
A personal plug: my cousin, visual artist Mario Petrirena, was a Cintas Fellow twice (1986-1987 and 1991-1992).
Seven Finalists Chosen for the Emilio Sanchez Award in the Visual Arts (Artdaily.org)
Photo of Oscar B. Cintas from the Cintas Foundation website.
05 March 2008
Curious and Curiouser
Take a whimsical detour and visit Elsa Mora's blog and online store at Etsy. Go ahead and be charmed! You can read more about Elsita here and see photos of her work on Flickr.
25 February 2008
Antonio Orlando Rodríguez wins Alfaguara Prize
MADRID, Spain (AP) — Cuban writer Antonio Orlando Rodríguez is the winner of this year's Alfaguara Spanish literary prize for his novel Chiquita. The award, which includes a prize of $175,000, is one of the most prestigious in the Spanish language. A total of 511 works were considered, the Alfaguara publishing house, which organizes the prize, said Monday. The novel's protagonist is Espiridiona Cenda, a diminutive Cuban singer-dancer. The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century. Rodríguez, born in Ciego de Avila, Cuba, lives in the U.S. ===================== At the Cuban Heritage Collection, Rodríguez advised us on our latest exhibition of "200 Years of Cuban Children's Books" and presented a wonderful lecture on the topic at the exhibit opening in January.
From the Associated Press today:
Rodríguez Wins Alfaguara Literary Prize
Orlando Rodríguez gana el Premio Alfaguara (El País)
Photo of the personality that inspired Chiquita (posted by dosdoce on Flickr, courtesy of Alfaguara)
Books by Antonio Orlando Rodríguez (Amazon.com)
Bilingual late nights
Maybe you caught him at the Improv in Coconut Grove when he was just starting out. Or maybe you were that guy who drove off the road because you were laughing so hard when he was on WAXY 106's morning show. Or maybe you saw him on TV when he hosted the Latin Billboard Music Awards, Miss America or Joker's Wild or Animal Planet's Amazing Tails.
If it's none of the above, you can now watch Cuban-American comedian Alex Cambert as host of Telemundo's new late-night talk show "Más Vale Tarde" on Thursday nights at 11:30 p.m. Cambert's show closely resembles its English-language counterparts with monologues, skits, live music, and celebrity interviews with Hispanic and American entertainers in both Spanish and English.
Catch up on past episodes on the show's website.
Late-Night Diplomat for Bilingual Viewers (New York Times)
Move Over Leno, Letterman, Cambert's in Town (NPR)
Q & A with Más Vale Tarde Host Alex Cambert (MultiChannel.com)
19 February 2008
Cuban Connection Part 2: The Zombie Edition
I'm no fan of horror movies, but even I know the name George Romero of "Dawn of the Dead" fame. He has a new movie out, "George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead," the fifth in his Dead series. I leave the zombies to you folks, but know this: George Romero is half Cuban. Think that has anything to do with all the gore?
George Romero: Our zombie in Havana (New York Daily News)
Sundance 08 Live @ Sundance: Gore Auteur George A. Romero (YouTube)
George A. Romero: Gratefully "Dead" Again (Entertainment Weekly)
Books: Two Very Different Cuban-American Stories
Guillermo "Bill" Vidal was 10 years old when he and his two brothers left Cuba in 1961 through Operation Pedro Pan. After four years in an orphanage in Boulder, Colorado, Vidal and his brothers were reunited with their parents and settled in Littleton. Today, Vidal serves as vice mayor and manager of public works in Denver.
Vidal recounts his family's experiences in Cuba and exile in his new book, Boxing for Cuba (Ghost Road Press).
Denver Deputy Mayor Shares Immigrant Experience (cbs4denver.com)
On the flip side, this title says it all:Storming Las Vegas: How a Cuban-Born, Soviet-Trained Commando Took Down the Strip to the Tune of Five World-Class Hotels, Three Armored Cars, and Millions of Dollars, by John Huddy (Ballantine Books).
The story of José Vigoa. Not exactly a cultural note, but he's news to me.
Read a brief review in Entertainment Weekly.
UPDATE: Seattle Times review.
Anna in the Tropics...in Texas
Teatro de la Rosa Company opens Nilo Cruz's Anna in the Tropics on February 22nd through March 9th in Forth Worth, Texas. Cruz was the first Cuban-American writer to win the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Anna in the Tropics in 2003. Anna is set in a cigar factory in Tampa's Ybor City in 1929. Juan Julian, a new lector, reads Anna Karenina to the Cuban cigar workers, and their lives start to parallel the story's desires and jealousies.
Teatro de la Rosa is Fort Worth's only Latino theater company. Tickets are available online.
07 February 2008
Lam @ MAM
The Miami Art Museum (MAM) opens "Wifredo Lam in North America" tomorrow, February 8, 2008. It is the first large-scale solo exhibition of the work of the renowned Cuban artist in a South Florida museum. Of Afro-Cuban and Chinese heritage, Wifredo Lam traveled and lived in Spain and France in the 1920s and 1930s, becaming part of the Surrealist movement there. Fleeing the war in Europe, he returned to Cuba in 1941 and there re-discovered Afro-Cuban art forms and religious practices. "Lam hybridized mainstream European Modernism with these non-Western traditions and used the unique visual language that resulted to raise questions of social injustice and redemption." His best-known work, The Jungle, was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in 1945.
The exhibition is organized by the Patrick and Beatrice Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University in Milwaukee. The MAM presentation of this exhibit is curated by René Morales and includes works from local collections.
UPDATE: Cuban artist, mature Miami, on display, by Ana Menendez (The Miami Herald)
Renowned Cuban artist Wifredo Lam's works on exhibit (The Miami Herald)
Review of the exhibit at the Haggerty Museum (Susceptible to Images)
Image: Sketch of "Omi Obini" by Wifredo Lam and dedicated to Lydia Cabrera on the verso. From the Lydia Cabrera Papers, Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries.
06 February 2008
Celestial Eyes
You've probably heard of Xavier Cugat, the Spanish-born, Cuban-raised bandleader who helped popularize the rumba and other Cuban rhythms in the U.S. You might have seen one of his movies with Esther Williams from the 1940s or his TV appearances in the 1970s with his fifth wife Charo.
It's likely you don't know much about his brother Francis, but you may have seen his work. Francisco "Francis" Cugat (1893-1981?) is responsible for one of the most iconic and celebrated book jackets in the last century for a classic of modern American literature, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925).
You can read more about Francis Cugat and his work in a "Celestial Eyes: From Metamorphosis to Masterpiece," an essay by Charles Scribner III available on the University of South Carolina's F. Scott Fitzgerald Centenary site.
Francis also worked as a designer and color consultant in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. See his credits on IMDB.com.
01 February 2008
Cuban Incantations with the Elio Villafranca Octet
The Elio Villafranca Octet will be performing "Cuban Incantations" tomorrow at 8 p.m. at Philadelphia's Painted Bridge Art Center. Pianist and composter Elio Villafranca left Cuba for Philadelphia in 1995 and is a respected name in Afro-Cuban jazz.
Elio Villafranca website
31 January 2008
New books from Oscar Hijuelos announced
Pulitzer prize-winning author Oscar Hijuelos is working on two new works: Beautiful Maria of My Soul, a companion novel to The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, is scheduled to be published by Hyperion Books in 2009. His memoir Thoughts without Cigarettes is expected in 2010 (Gotham Books).
Hijuelos plans new 'Mambo King' novel (AP)
New Hijuelos Books (New York Times)
Thanks to bilingual in the boonies for the news.
Cuban Connection
Italian author Italo Calvino was born in Santiago de las Vegas, Cuba. His parents were botanists working on the island.
French-born diarist and writer Anaïs Nin spent her earliest years in Cuba with relatives. Her father, the pianist and composer Joaquín Nin, was a Catalan immigrant to Cuba.
29 January 2008
Carlos Luna: El Gran Mambo
On display through March 17th at American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center in Washington, DC is Carlos Luna: El Gran Mambo. Born in Cuba, Luna has lived in Miami since 2002 after 11 years in Mexico.
From the Museum website:
"Cuban-American artist Carlos Luna is a storyteller and social chronicler, merging themes of fables and mysticism, eroticism and prejudice, and religiosity and anthropology, all of which are organized, disbanded, interwoven, and reorganized in the iconographic discourse he creates."
Arbol grande, guajiro y yo (2001). Image (c) Carlos Luna.
28 January 2008
In Honor of José Martí (1853-1895)
Yo vengo de todas partes,
Y hacia todas partes voy:
Arte soy entre las artes,
En los montes, monte soy.
I come from all places
and to all places go:
I am art among the arts
and mountain among mountains.
-- From José Martí's Versos Sencillos (Simple Verses), first published in 1891 in New York. Some of the verses of this poem were popularized as the lyrics for the song "Guantanamera." Translation by Esther Allen.
José Martí was a poet, journalist, orator, and intellectual who led
The Cuban Heritage Collection (CHC) at the University of Miami Libraries includes several letters and manuscripts by José Martí amongst its holdings. Selected documents are viewable online. CHC recently acquired an extremely rare first edition of Ismaelillo, the book of children's poetry published in 1882 that Martí wrote for his son. This book and many others will form part of CHC's spring exhibition, "200 Years of Children's Books" opening this Thursday.
Image courtesy of the Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries.
27 January 2008
Quick Takes
Read this article published in Friday's New York Times: "Sounds and Flavors of a Land Left Behind in Cuban Miami," by Beth Greenfield. What do you think?
Miami-Dade College's Cultura del Lobo series presents the Paquito D'Rivera Quintet at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Miami on Saturday, February 2nd at 8 p.m. Born in Cuba, Paquito D'Rivera is a Grammy-winning jazz master saxaphonist and clarinetist. His Quintet will perform works from the album Funk Tango. Tickets are available online.
Shoot Down
The documentary film by Cristina Khuly about the shooting down of four Brothers to the Rescue planes by Cuban fighter jets is now showing in limited release around the U.S. Check out the trailer and the Miami Herald's review of the film online.
From the press notes:
"On Feb. 24, 1996, in the midst of heightening political unrest in Cuba and in the wake of a revised U.S. policy toward Cuban refugees, the Cuban government authorized two military fighter jets to attack and destroy two of the volunteer planes. Cristina Khuly, a first-generation Cuban-American whose uncle was among the four victims, mined 10 years of research, government documents, transcripts and never-before seen news footage of Fidel Castro to supplement hundreds of hours of original interviews in recounting the events leading up to and following the shoot down."
24 January 2008
I Have the Power!
I loved the "He-Man" cartoons when I was a kid in the 1980s. Little did I know there was a Cuban connection.
Frontline Combat. Power Girl. Richard Dragon, Kung Foo Fighter. The more I research, the more comics and animated cartoon series I find in which Ric Estrada was involved. While most recognized for his work on war comics such as Our Fighting Forces and Our Army at War, he was a penciler or contributing artist for many titles in the D.C. library, including romance and mystery stories, two years of Wonder Woman, and the 1970s revival of All Star Comics. He later worked for animation studios Hanna Barbera and Warner Bros, providing layouts and storyboards for series such as "He-Man." Most recently he illustrated Ponytailers, the online magazine for girls written by Sarah Byam for A Girl's World.com.
Estrada was born in Havana in 1928 and moved to New York at age 19 to pursue his artist dreams. In 2000, he was honored with Comic-Con International's Inkpot Award.
Ric Estrada (Comic Book Database)
Ric Estrada (Comic Vine)
Ric Estrada (Lambiek.net)
Meet Ric Estrada (A Girl's World.com)
Interview with Ric Estrada (Alter Ego)
Image: Cover of Wonder Woman issue #207, 1973 (remake of issues from the 1940s). From Comic Vine, (c) D.C. Comics.
22 January 2008
Luna Negra Dance Theater
Chicago-based Luna Negra Dance Theater will debut in New York on January 25th, 2008 at the New Victory Theater. Founded by Eduardo Vilaro in 1999, Luna Negra commissions and performs contemporary dance by Hispanic choreographers. Vilaro, who was born in Havana and grew up in the Bronx, was a principle dancer with Ballet Hispanico of New York before establishing Luna Negra.
Luna Negra's New York run will includes three works: “Sonetos de Amor” (Love Sonnets), inspired by the poetry of Pablo Neruda and choreographed by Pedro Ruiz; “Sugar in the Raw” (Azucar Cruda), with choreography by Michelle Manzanales and music by Gustavo Santaolalla; and Vilaro’s “Quinceañera” (Sweet Fifteen).
As noted on the it's Web site, Luna Negra Dance Theater "is devoted to capturing the spiritual, sensual and historical essence of the Latino culture. He creates work that explores through contemporary dance Latino cultures’ racial and ethnic diverse movements, as well as music of Latin and Caribbean countries in fresh ways that speak to modern audiences."
You can view samples of Luna Negra's performances on YouTube:
2007 Season
4 Coreografos Latinos (2005)
2002 Season
UPDATE (Jan 28th): Seeking Raw Beauty in Fluid Movement (New York Times)
All-hispanic Luna Negra dance company debuts in New York (New York Daily News)
21 January 2008
Florida Stage's 2nd Annual New Works Festival
New works by Cuban-American playwrights Nilo Cruz and Marco Ramirez will be presented at Florida Stage's 2nd Annual New Works Festival from March 2nd to the 4th, 2008. Readings will include Cruz 's new script, The Interpreter of Desire, and Ramirez's Macon City. The Festival Web site includes interviews with both Cruz and Ramirez about their new works.
Florida Stage is located south of West Palm Beach in Manalapan. Festival schedule and tickets are available online.
What's New? (Christine Dolen's Drama Queen blog)
20 January 2008
Ralph Avila Honored
Ralph Avila is the Cuban-born scout credited with leading the Latin American revolution in major league baseball. After fighting in the Bay of Pigs invasion and playing semipro ball, Avila joined the Dodgers in 1970 as their Latin America scout. Dodgers general manager Al Campanis encouraged Avila to take a look at talent potential in the Dominican Republic . Ralph Avila pioneered the Campo las Palmas training academy and a summer league in the DR.
On Saturday, January 19th, the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation honored Ralph Avila with its George Genovese Lifetime Achievement Award in Scouting. Avila was previously awarded Major League Baseball's International Scout of the Year in 2006. Avila's son Al joined the family business, leading the Florida Marlins' scouting department before becoming the assistant general manager of the Detroit Tigers.
ESPN published a great article that looks at Avila's role in the Latin-Americanization of baseball in the context of other historical factors, including the integration of major league baseball and the Cuban revolution.
Scouts hold fifth annual fundraiser (MLB.com)
Avila picks up scouting honor (MLB.com)
18 January 2008
How I Learned English
Last summer, the National Geographic Society published How I Learned English: 55 Accomplished Latinos Recall Lessons in Language and Life. Edited by travel writer Tom Miller, this anthology includes essays by several Cuban-American writers and personalities such as Pulitzer Prize-winner Oscar Hijuelos, talk show host Cristina Saralegui, and poet Richard Blanco.
Essayists Reflect on Studies of Language and Life - audio and book excerpt (NPR.org)
17 January 2008
Photographer Abelardo Morell
I really enjoy the mysterious and experimental perspective of photographer Abelardo Morell. Much of his work is about books (which I can appreciate as an archivist and librarian), and he references historical photographic techniques in his best known images created with pinhole cameras. My favorite of his photo series are camera obscura, books, alice in wonderland, and money.
Morell was born in Havana and studied at Yale. He teaches at the Massachusetts College of Art and has been the recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship and a Cintas Foundation Fellowship. He has published several books, including A Book of Books and Abelardo Morell and the Camera Eye.
Abelardo Morell is the subject of the documentary Shadow of the House: Photographer Abelardo Morell by Allie Humenuk. His photographs will be featured in "Unbroken Ties: Dialogues in Cuban Art," an exhibit set to open on April 18th, 2008 at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art.
In 'Shadow,' an artist's genius comes to light (The Boston Globe)
Read an interview with Morell (identity theory)
Image (c) 2007 Abelardo Morell
16 January 2008
Ruben Toledo Goods
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles sells tote bags, note cards and t-shirts featuring charming images by Cuban-born fashion illustrator Ruben Toledo.
Also check out Toledo's latest book, Fashionation.
Read more about Toledo and his fashion designer wife Isabel, who is the creative director for Anne Klein:
Isabel and Ruben Toledo: A Marriage of Art and Fashion (Kent State University Museum)
Ruben Toledo (V & A Museum)
Legends Speak: Narciso Rodriguez gets a chance to show some love to Isabel and Ruben Toledo (New York Post)
Get a peek inside Toledo's Moleskine notebook (YouTube)
Thanks to toterly for the lead.
No Bounds: Luis Cruz Azaceta
The Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art in Augusta, Georgia will exhibit No Bounds: Luis Cruz Azaceta from January 11th to February 29th, 2008. The exhibition includes large-scale paintings, drawings, and mixed media constructions by the Cuban-American artist Luis Cruz Azaceta.
Pilgrim's progress (Metro Spirit)
Two Sisters and a Piano at Nova Southeastern
The Promethean Theatre presents Two Sisters and a Piano by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz at the Mailman Hollywood Theatre at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Florida from February 29th to March 16th, 2008.
About the play:
"Maria Celia and her sister Sofia, under house arrest in their family home, take refuge in their writing and music. For these two passionate, artistic siblings, their punishment is an excruciating test of the soul. When political censorship denies Maria Celia her husband's love letters, Lieutenant Portuondo, who oversees their sentence offers to read them to her, but at a price. In this play, the Cuban-born playwright deftly shows audiences the intimate joys and sorrows of one family in a politically charged country."
Nilo Cruz won a Pulitzer in 2003 for his play Anna in the Tropics.
Pulitzer Winner Nilo Cruz's 'Two Sisters And A Piano' (BroadwayWorld.com)
Félix Varela Awards
The Al Día Foundation based in Philadelphia recently unveiled the Félix Varela Awards for excellence in Spanish-language journalism with awards in three categories: spanish-language print journalism, spanish-language digital journalism, and Hispanic immigration stories in English. The winner in each category will receive $10,000. All entries must be postmarked by June 30, 2008. Visit the Félix Varela Award Web site for more information.
The award is named in honor of Father Félix Varela y Morales, the Cuban priest and intellectual. Father Varela lived in Philadelphia in 1824 and there founded one of the first Spanish-language newspapers in the U.S., El Habanero.
The Al Día Foundation is chaired by Hernán Guaracao, publisher of Al Día Newspapers, Inc.
15 January 2008
Cuban-born Elsa Murano to lead Texas A&M
A graduate of Florida International University, Cuban-born Elsa Murano was named the 23rd president of Texas A&M University on January 3rd, 2008. To quote Dr. Murano, "Only in America can a girl from Havana get to this point."
An Amazing Journey from Cuba to A&M (Houston Chronicle)
Cuban American to head Texas A&M (Miami Herald)
Elsa Murano Named President of Texas A&M University (Texas A&M)
That's Ma'am to You: Meet A&M's first female president - w. video (KHOU)
Theater Notes
'Til Sunday, written and performed by Nairoby Otero and directed by Michelle Tattenbaum, will play at the Doroty Strelsin Theatre and the Abingdon Theatre Arts Complex (312 W 36th St, New York) from February 21st to March 9th, 2008.
From the press notes:
"'Til Sunday is a one-woman play that follows the story of a young mothr coming to the USA from Cuba with her daughter, Claridad, in search of a better life. However, she finds that this 'better life' comes with sacrifices, the biggest being leaving her husband behind in Cuba. As the mom sets out to bring her husband legally and safely to the U.S., the years go by with Claridad questioning who deserves her loyalty: Cuba or America, her father or her mother?"
'Til Sunday,' a Cuban-Immigrant Family Story by Otero, Begins 2/21 (BroadwayWorld.com)
--------------------------------------------
Written and performed by Carmen Peláez and directed by Carl Andress, the one-woman show Rum & Coke will premiere off-Broadway in the June Havoc Theatre (312 W 36th St, New York) from February 1st to March 2nd, 2008.
From the press notes:
"Pain is funny in this bracing one-woman show, as Camila plunges headlong into her family history during a trip to Havana via Miami. A ferociously comic look at life seen through a Cuban lens, this is a journey that is a hilariously poignant memoir."
'Rum & Coke' with Carmen Peláez Premieres Off-Broadway Feb. 1 (BroadwayWorld.com)
--------------------------------------------
Dámaso Rodríguez was named Associate Artistic Director of the Pasadena Playhouse in the fall of 2007. Rodríguez was raised in Texas by Cuban parents. With his wife Sara Hennessey, he founded Furious Theatre Company in Los Angeles in 2001.
Playhouse protégé (LA Times )
Cuban American Children's Books Win Awards
The American Library Association announced the 2008 winners of its various book awards on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at its annual conference in Philadelphia. Among the winners:
- Pura Belpré Award for narrative: The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano written by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Sean Qualls (Holt)
- Pura Belpré Honor Book: Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale retold by Carmen Agra Deedy, illustrated by Michael Austin (Peachtree)
Havana Noir
Akashic Books has published Havana Noir, a collection of stories edited by Chicago-based writer Achy Obejas. The book is part of a series of original noir anthologies set in various cities.
Reviews:
Bookslut
Orlando Sentinel
Windy City Times interview with Obejas
