Cuba in Mind

Film notes

2009-03-20T14:45:00.002-04:00

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)

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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)

Edel Rodriguez

2009-03-17T22:13:00.004-04:00

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.

Cuban reads

2009-03-12T22:10:00.003-04:00

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

2009-03-12T21:52:00.005-04:00

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:

No word on when the winner will be announced.

Seven Finalists Chosen for the 2009 Emilio Sanchez Award in the Visual Arts

Cuban writer Margarita Engle honored for children's book

2009-03-08T20:24:00.003-04:00

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)

The Woman in Battle

2008-03-24T23:01:00.004-04:00

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)

The Mambo King

2008-03-23T18:34:00.003-04:00

Israel López, 1918-2008.

Rest in peace, Cachao.

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

2008-03-23T15:48:00.006-04:00

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)

Back to Cuba with José Mateo Ballet Theatre

2008-03-22T17:57:00.003-04:00

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.

Arsenio Rodríguez Limited Edition Box Set Released

2008-03-17T21:22:00.005-04:00

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.

Exhibit of Photos of Cuba by Walker Evans

2008-03-11T13:45:00.005-04:00

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.

"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 exhibit is organized by the Key West Museum of Art & History at the Custom House, Florida.

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

Meta Global Beat

2008-03-08T15:29:00.004-05:00

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

The Cintas Foundation: Fostering Culture and Creativity

2008-03-07T19:19:00.006-05:00

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.

Curious and Curiouser

2008-03-05T13:34:00.006-05:00

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.

Antonio Orlando Rodríguez wins Alfaguara Prize

2008-02-25T21:04:00.003-05:00

From the Associated Press today:

Rodríguez Wins Alfaguara Literary 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.

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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.

Here are the award announcement and author biography on the Alfaguara website.
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

2008-02-25T20:11:00.002-05:00

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)

Cuban Connection Part 2: The Zombie Edition

2008-02-19T23:01:00.007-05:00

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

2008-02-19T21:46:00.006-05:00

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)

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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

2008-02-19T18:53:00.004-05:00

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.

Lam @ MAM

2008-02-07T11:04:00.000-05:00

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.

Celestial Eyes

2008-02-06T22:01:00.001-05:00

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.

Cuban Incantations with the Elio Villafranca Octet

2008-02-01T14:27:00.000-05:00

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

New books from Oscar Hijuelos announced

2008-01-31T16:21:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-31T13:27:00.001-05:00

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.

Carlos Luna: El Gran Mambo

2008-01-29T21:38:00.000-05:00

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.