Portugal Books

This story sets the reader inside the mind of 14-year-old Cecilia in a day and place most readers will find unfamiliar. The details of daily life in this rural community are told in a way that make one yearn for that simpler time. But the over-all story of a family big on love and closeness and a young girl determined to find her own way is universal. A very enjoyable book -- loved the proverbs!

"Cecilia's Year" is a great story for young girls. Cecilia is a really good role model--her goals are to graduate from high school and get a job to help her family. She loves to read. This book also exposes kids to what life was like on farms when America was a rural country. Full of traditional family values plus lots of Spanish for people who know both languages. Also has a little romance. Young girls ages 11-15 will love it. Great gift.

Cecilia's Year is a young adult novel about the dreams of a Latina girl living in rural New Mexico. She dreams of traveling far beyond her farm community, to experience high school and a job in the big city she knows through books, yet her mother feels her highest goal in life should be to run a home, cook, sew, and raise children. Written as a tribute to the author's mother, Cecilia's Year explores the tribulations of growing up and determining one's own destiny, in a heartfelt manner sure to resonate with anyone striving to find their place in the world.

Moving story set in a small New Mexican farming community during the 1930's in which 14-year-old Cecilia, who's a top student and avid reader, wants to go to high school, college, and work in a city; however, her old-fashioned mother feels that she should prepare herself to run a home. (M) I loved the way the Abrahams wove Cecilia's story into the months of the year, and the sprinkling of Spanish throughout added flavor. Cecilia's family may have been poor financially, but it was rich in love.

The title of the book was enticing, the cover, quite eye-catching... the author, a complete stranger. Fortunately, I decided to risk it. The book is hilarious, from prologue to epilogue. The author's style is humorous, witty, self-effacing... a truly excellent piece of writing. Name-dropping elevated to an art indeed, by an undeniable master. GIVE ME MORE WARD WALLACE, PLEASE!

The title of the book was enticing, the cover, quite eye-catching... the author, a complete stranger. Fortunately, I decided to risk it. The book is hilarious, from prologue to epilogue. The author's style is humorous, witty, self-effacing... a truly excellent piece of writing. Name-dropping elevated to an art indeed, by an undeniable master. GIVE ME MORE WARD WALLACE, PLEASE!

The title of the book was enticing, the cover, quite eye-catching... the author, a complete stranger. Fortunately, I decided to risk it. The book is hilarious, from prologue to epilogue. The author's style is humorous, witty, self-effacing... a truly excellent piece of writing. Name-dropping elevated to an art indeed, by an undeniable master. GIVE ME MORE WARD WALLACE, PLEASE!

Please bear in mind that I am a long-time friend of the author and am also mentioned several times in the book. Having said that, I can state that Ward Wallace has a fine writing touch and has been entertaining me with his letters from Spain for over three decades. He has been living the expatriate life in Madrid and Sotogrande, meeting world-level celebrities, and now he has put his best stories between covers where they belong. Ward's best stuff is about bull-fighting, including his own adventures in the ring. He also has some insights into famous golfers as well as Spanish dignitaries he has seen with his unreconstructed American eye. The vision of Bing Crosby suddenly materializing in a Spanish church is worth the price of the book. Ward makes fun of his own penchant for name-dropping. For all Americans who think they could have handled an adult life in another country, here is a vicarious experience. He never loses the perspective of an athlete from Hofstra College on Long Island who wound up living with his wife, Conchita, a few blocks from a great soccer stadium in Madrid. Bien hecho, amigo.

Son pequen~as historias tan simples, tan profundas... Me facina la manera en que Galeano escribe. Creo que ya he leido varias historias mas de 5 veces...
Se los recomiendo a todos...
ABRAZOS!!!

Este é definitivamente o livro que toda e qualquer pessoa deveria ter na sua estante de casa. Para grandes e pequenos. Um livro que fala da vida de uma forma deslumbrante.

Los Abrazos no es solamente un libro; es obra de arte. Dentro de sus paginas, Galeano nos ha compuesto una sinfonia de voces entregadas en historias breves, fabulas, poemas, suen~os y dibujos. El conjunto logra transmitir lo maravilloso, misterioso, ironico y horroroso de la condicion humana, jamas sin perder su enfoque en la situacion particular de America Latina. Este es un texto al que visito con frecuencia para re-encender mi coraje, profundizar mis raices y refrescar mi alma.

Beautiful book. Uno de los libros más sabios y lindos que he leído. Pequeñas historias sobre vida, amor, política, sociedad... tantas experiencias concentradas en unas pocas palabras, bien elegidas, e hasta ilustradas por el propio autor. En prosa, pero lleva por dentro la poesía de vivir con pasión.

This is the most helpful book I have seen on Barcelona. I believe it should be combined with a more indepth guidebook wo one can look up the most interesting locales in more depth. It is very hard to get perspective on sites to take in when there are so many fascinating places to visit. This helps with the highlighting and the winnowing. I got a total of five of these books and passed them out to all the other groups going with us.

I spent 7 days in Barcelona in Nov 2006 and though I did some research before I arrived, took only this book with me. As an independent traveler (no tour groups) I used it very heavily during my stay - not only as my primary map and metromap, but as my only reference for locations, hours, and priorities in determining my daily itineraries. I also occasionally used it for restaurant, tapas bar and shopping recommendations. It never led me astray.

It is very current - it even references that a few places will be closed for repair until month X to save you the effort of going there. And the way one large section of the guide is broken out by neighborhood makes it extremely easy to figure out the best way to spend your time in a given part of the city (it also suggests itineraries for each neighborhood if you don't want to plan them out yourself).

It's also a great size - easy to toss in a daypack, purse, or even jacket pocket.

I fully agree with the two previous reviews that the layout of the maps and color-coding of the sights makes it very easy to keep on track - even in a city as large as this one. And that Park Guell ought to be in the Top 10.

My only suggestion for how it could improve would be to give even more "tips" than it sometimes does on the sides of pages. For instance, visit the National Art Museum of Catalunya in the latter afternoon on a Fri/Sat/Sun and stay for the Magic Fountain display at dusk. Visit La Pedrera near sunset (unless midsummer does not allow it) and go up on the roof as the sun sets and the lights come on. It's magical.)

I've traveled pretty extensively and used a lot of different travel guides, others of which I can also recommend. But this is hands-down the very best I have ever used and I cannot recommend it highly enough if you are spending even one day in Barcelona.

It was the perfect guide for my independent trip to Barcelona. It is the most user friendly city guide I used (I've also used Rick Steves and Rough Guide). The guide first identifies the top 10 sites and then what I loved is that it marks them on a map with numbers making it really easy to spot. The map in the guide was great and in color. It made my trip so enjoyable because I knew what I wanted to do and where to get there. Also, becasue it showed all the locations of the sites on a map I could easily plan which sites to see all in one area and thus make the most out of my days. It also gives history behind each site and also lists the top 10 things to see at each attraction!
I loved this guide and wished they had one for more cities!

The one complaint I have is that I really think Park Guell should be listed in the top 10. I almost missed the park (where the tradmark colored frog is and Gaudi's home) but a hostelmate told me about it. It is listed in the top ten for parks but just be aware that that park is a must see.

I decided to check out the Top 10 guide for Barcelona given the excellent experience I had in London with a similar guide on a past trip to the UK. I noticed the same compelling points with this guide as I'd noticed with the London guide -- a concise list of things to do in city, a list of various neighborhoods, list of best cafes/bars and sample itineraries for spending an entire day in each neighborhood, the top 10 things to look for at each attraction, and the best feature: the compact size of the guide.

But I was looking for more than just the above -- I was traveling to a city where people don't talk in English after all. What I really liked about the guide was the main map that showed all the important street in an uncluttered fashion, and the mini-maps that were included in the assorted Top 10 lists, making it a breeze to locate the attraction or cafe/bar. I also loved the list of the Top 10 drinks you'll find only in Barcelona like the "Orxata", the "Granissat" and of course, the "Sangria" that is refereshingly different from what you might have had anywhere else. There are similar lists for food items (definitely try the "Pallela"), shops, etc. These are the things that make you blend in with the locals with confidence.

I also loved the section on Streetsmarts -- when you're in a country where English is not the first language, you sometimes need a helping hand with even the simplest of things -- like what is the best deal on the Barcelona Metro? Should I buy single tickets or a "T-10" for 10 tickets? How do I make a local phone call? What should I avoid? (Answer: touristy scams at La Rambla). The Top 10 guide's Streetsmart section covers many of these "small" things on your mind and also include a few pages with popular Spanish/Catalan phrases with translation in English, eliminating the need to carry a phrase book, if any.

With this guide, I was able to see Barcelona according to my schedule and tastes. I took in all the touristy attractions and spent time exploring specific neighborhoods like El Raval, Eixample and interesting detours. Not a day went by when I wasn't glad for having this guide by my side -- and at under 10 bucks a pop, I'm quickly acquiring a collection.

In late 1993, right before the new year, Toni Dorado is returning home to Los Angeles to face the lover she left abruptly and to reconnect with her family. Her niece and her mother are very excited to have her back, but her sister Sylvia isn't happy at all, and she has her own problems in the form of an abusive husband. Toni struggles to make amends with Pat, her former lover, and the two slowly begin to communicate about where to go from here. As the various women's lives and sometimes volatile relationships collide, so too does the earth as a major earthquake hits the area in January 1994, forcing the women to face some naked truths about each other and about themselves. Even though the earthquake has a deus ex machina feel (where it solves problems so the characters don't have to), "Faults" is quite a remarkable novel for creating a beautiful portrait of a present-day Chicana family to which everyone can relate.

This book is excellent and readers of Ms. De La Pena's previous books will be reunited with some familiar characters. It's also a fascinating read for LA fans and fans of lesbian literature. It's the kind of novel you wish wouldn't end but when it does you know she'll be back with an even greater read next time! I think Terri De La Pena really captures what it's like to be a lesbian and a Mexican-American!

"Faults", (a book that has very few)-- is certainly a wonderful read! I've had the great pleasure of reading De La Pena's earlier books, and throughout each, the author exhibits a delightful writing style and a penchant for giving the reader a marvelous insight into some aspects of the trials, tribulations and ultimate triumphs of some Latino families. In this particular book, you are drawn into the day-to-day relationships between Toni, her family and her close friends, and you are kept interested, long after you have turned the last page. I recommend this book highly, in spite of the use of many Spanish phrases, which might require the use of a Spanish/English dictionary if you don't have at least a rudimentary understanding of the Spanish language.

Other reviewers have outlined the plot of this novel adequately, but more needs to be said about the deft characterizations, setting, and style.

The five primary characters in Faults have each been given a distinct voice. The novel is structured through short chapters, each in the first-person voice of five very different women. Terri de la Pena has created characteristic idioms, world-views, personalities, and character strenghts and 'faults' for each person. I was fascinated as these characters unfolded; it is a risky and, in Terri's hands, successful narrative technique.

Two reviewers complained about the mix of Spanish words and phrases in the narratives, a perspective I would like to counter. My Spanish understanding is based on a couple of semesters 20 years ago, and although I didn't understand the litteral meaning of every Spanish phrase, I found the use of Spanish absolutely authentic to the characters, and actually pretty easy to decode. In fact, there is often a translation of sorts in the context, many are English cognates, and others are common Spanish heard in the US. So don't let it put you off. Even when you don't understand the phrase, the intent and mood is clear. Actually, the use of Spanish adds a great deal to the novel--how much Spanish crops up in a character's thoughts, for instance, provides insight to her personal culture. Also, the presence of Spanish is important to the sense of living as Chicanas in an Anglo macroculture. Bilingualism (and not every Chicano/a speaks Spanish) must be an enormous, perhaps a defining part of the experience. For a non-Spanish speaker of another culture to criticize what is clearly a deeply imbedded cultural characteristic shows a regretable bias, and listening to it would limit one's aesthetic. Finally, I want to say that for Chicanas and others with Spanish-based cultures, the language mix must be quite welcome. (Terri de la Pena is not the only Chicana author writing in this manner, of course.)

I appreciate the attention Terri de la Pena pays to environment in her settings--from street and business names to architectural details. Though briefly mentioned, these things add to the authentic ring of the story.

One other strength of the structure created by the five woman characters is the way time unfolds as the characters speak. Each short narrative takes place within a given moment or brief period of time; in fact, each section is dated so we have a sense of events defining a period of several weeks. What we know about the past is colored by the POV of the speaker, so the contrasting views give us various "truths" that we must sort out as we perceive the biases of each woman.

I have focused on three aspects of Terri de la Pena's writing that contribute to the strength of "Faults." The sum is, of course, much more than the parts. The book is an important addition to lesbian literature which offers a reading experience rich on many levels. I recommend it.

Aleida Rodriguez's "Garden of Exile" is an exposition of craft, from rigorously end-rhymed forms such as sestinas and sonnets to ambling meditations on identity, culture, friendship, womanhood, painting, and sex. Her voice is so settled and sure that this collection doesn't come across as a first book, or perhaps does so only in the relatively uncomplicated style of composition. Many of the poems are narrative - the "Cuentos de Cuba" section most notably, and most autobiographical - yet relaxed, the poetry resting more in verbal music than image or lyric transposition. It lends a very inviting quality to the whole enterprise, as though in reading one were simply sitting down to morning coffee in Rodriguez's garden and listening to her recount her days.

Although the book is organized into clearly-constellated reader-friendly sections, there are more than a few challenging surprises, such as "The Rosario Beach House", which freely melds English and Spanish without recourse to the conventional italicization of foreign phrases. Non-Spanish-speakers might find this mystifying, but the effect for the bilingual is more one of aural magic, a liberating weave of the rhythms and sounds of both languages.

Anyone who has experienced cultural displacement will find Rodriguez's ambivalence, her questioning and neverending sense of nostalgia and loss, immediately familiar. While there are parts of the book that don't hold up as well - her poems on painting pale next to her more passionate looks at sex and longing - on the whole it is an admirable debut.

In the poem "Exile", Rodriguez writes "After a while you begin to feel intimate with the missing part. You begin to feel it's natural not to feel pleased or satisfied. You look for houses in dead ends to live in." It is from this restlessness, this intimacy with the missing part that Rodriguez writes. She gives voice to the self that is warped through exile, that falls prey at times to fatalism, and at other times to nostalgia, while remaining self-conscious enough to avoid these pratfalls herself.

If culture is the mediation of experience, then the exiled self must learn to negotiate a double (and sometimes conflicting) mediation of her experience. And if we accept the driving force of poetry to be an urge toward mystical union, then the exiled poet has a compounded sense of loss and longing to work from. Thus it is not surprising that the poet uses an epigraph from essayist Scott Russell Sanders that states "Paradise is not a place but a condition, a simple being-alive, a drinking straight from the spring." Exile is also a condition, and it is the distance from exile to paradise, the distance of the drinker from the spring, that motivates the reach of these poems. Neither space nor time are fixed, so it is natural for the poet to mourn "what memory will do to the events of this morning" (Felling the Tree) and find refuge in "That moment as permanent as a constellation" (Still Life, June 16, 1987, Oil on Board). The same poem also serves to illustrate Rodriguez' lush language, striking images and dramatic flair when she turns from describing a calm day by the beach:

Then a storm rushes in with a dark crackle,
a candle extinguished with wet fingertips.
She notes the specific shade of navy blue
the sky turns, a blotter soaking up spilled ink.
Figures rise from the water and run toward the house.
The air is charged, a half-moon of stillness trapped under a cup.

Rodriguez' subjects (and the book's five sections) range from poetics to erotics to familial location while demonstrating control of complex forms (the sestina, the sonnet), in its successul attempt at "compressing invisible molecules together into and absence you recognize" (The Invisible Body).

Perhaps unfairly, I immediately thought of Nabokov when reading Garden of Exile for several reasons. Here we find synesthesia, visual precision, and poems of Cuba, the near-mythical land she can never return to (even while seeking refuge in it), like Nabokov's Russia: half-remembered, half-invented, still and forever lost.

"'Atlantis,' say, or 'Pompeii.'"

But there's a purity to that loss and exile. Now Rodriguez can write from the near-edenic space of pining and lament.

At the end of "Felling the Tree," the speaker's father and a man named Kique have, as you might've guessed, just felled a tree, releasing a whitefly infestation

"like arrested snow flurries,
or like the snow on a TV screen after the last show.
Or what memory will do to the events of this morning,
once these two have packed up the tools and walked,
...
down the long driveway into the flickering distance"

The static. The TV. What an effective figure for the artist's memory that seeks to retrieve and speak the dubious truth.


In Garden of Exile, especially in the Cuentos de Cuba poems, (as in Nabokov's so-called autobio: Speak, Memory) the reader finds more of these moments, what critic Roland Barthes might call "the punctum": the photographic detail that wounds; except here, poetry allows for both the motion picture and necessary pensiveness. In the first of the Little Cuba Stories, see the bad teeth in a Cuban girl-child's 'glamor shot' and the jeep ride to the photographer's. Rodriguez's concern with the visual is painterly.

Ok, enough pseudo-academic preening. Here is one of my favorite lines: "A black beetle / advances like ancient machinery"

Come on. You've got to respect that.


Even if critics find Garden of Exile to be unoriginal, an opinion I disagree with, the book is beautiful and works best when it engages the function, power, and limitations of overwhelming memories seeking form through fictions. Now I'm just being vague and banal. You should see for yourself.

"under my skin, the rice fields of my hometown were
flooding the place of language. Though my mother pulled me
toward her with one arm, she scooped up only watery absence; my
body had long drifted downriver...."

Rodriguez is the real deal. A poet who refuses to trade on anything but the beauty and the muscle of language. This is a powerful collection created out of a lived life. Each of these poems belongs between hardcovers. No fatty tissue here. It aches, it breathes, it sings. Great collection from a great poet.

I loved every essay in this book. Beautifully written. Insightful. Entertaining. Thought provoking. Brilliant but never pretentious.

The book was delivered before the estimated delivery date. The book was in the stated condition- good.

In Grammar Lessons, Michele Morano takes the reader on an unforgettable journey, a treat to the senses. She invites us to explore her thoughts and feelings as she experiences daily life in Spain in the early 1990's, while teaching English at the University of Oviedo for a year. While in Oviedo, she enrolled in a Spanish language course for foreigners or "extranjeros."

In thirteen personal essays, Morano captures the reader's heart with her descriptive and poetic style. Her themes evoke a feeling of familiarity, for her stories are organized around topics such as food, travel, and solitude versus loneliness. "I'm hungry in both body and spirit," she writes. "I crave not just a meal, not just the take-out supper I can carry to the emptiness of my room, but a complete dining experience." One pressing issue during the year in Spain was her longing for the man she left behind in New York.

Morano prefaces her book by explaining that grammar is not simply words strung together to form sentences, but the mannerisms, gestures, and ways of life that accompany language. The book is organized into three parts. The essays in Part One reveal her struggle to learn the Spanish language while living the culture. The essays in Part Two revolve around her later trips to Spain. Part Three reflects her attitude toward travel along highways and how it shapes the individual. Morano's sentiments about travel and saying farewell to relationships are reflected in these lines:

"If you move about in the world, if you live fully and fall in love--with friends, acquaintances, and places and periods of time, your heart is going to break again and again. Each time you say good-bye, you'll feel the ache of impermanence, of inevitability, of your own finite days."

I connected with this book because I would have benefitted greatly from studying in foreign lands while I was studying Spanish as my college major. However, overseas travel and study programs were not as prevalent in the late 70's or early 80's as they are now. I have since made many excursions to Mexico and Spain, although at this point in my life I live vicariously as an eager armchair traveler. I comfortably travel to many faraway places through others' spoken and written accounts.

As I read Grammar Lessons, Morano took me on a vivid tour of her daily discoveries of cultural life and relationships in Spain. The pages held me spellbound, and I wished the journey did not have to end.

by Sharon Blumberg
for Story Circle Book Reviews
www.storycirclebookreviewsorg
reviewing books by, for, and about women

Not since Tobias Wolffe's This Boy's Life have I been so moved by a work of nonfiction. Ms. Morano's economical prose, keenly observed detail and emotional honesty are a triple-threat. The essays work that magic of translating what your imagination conjures into an experience which you feel is now a genuine memory, something about which you and she have secret and sacred understanding. Everyone who has had their heart broken by their crazy boyfriend while travelling through Spain should read this book, and then everyone else should too, because after a glass of madeira or a cup of cafe con leche your mind might trick you into reminiscing about that year in Spain when your crazy boyfriend ...

Vicente Aleixander was part of that great Generation of '27 - famous for such members as Lorca, Cernuda, Alberti and Salinas. He was the least political and this perhaps explains how he survived during the years of the Civil War. Lorca was executed by Franco's troops and the peasant-turned poet, Miguel Hernandez, who fought for the Communists, died in prison in 1942. Many of the Generation of '27 fled the country. Alberti didn't return until well after Franco's death, having lived abroad in Italy and the United States, often a visiting professor. Salinas, too, taught abroad. Aleixandre opted to stay in his native land.

Aleixandre's poetry is darker than his peers. Where Alberti and Salinas celebrate music, beauty, love, and painting (especially Alberti), Aleixandre's is a celebration of loneliness, of isolation. His early poems are quite deep and almost unreadable at times, so fraught with esoteric meaning (like Hernandez's early poems) that it might turn the reader off when first presented with this book. But the further one travels into this great collection, the greater the beauty and more universal the themes of love, loss and sadness. One feels the ocean, the waves, the sand but also a woman's body, the world destroyed but renewed. There is an organic quality to his poetry, it is human but also detached and poignant.

I prefer Aleixandre's work to many of his contemporaries. He reminds me to some degree of Georg Trakl in Germany - the darkness, the silence of the world, the pulse of life in nature surrounding humanity.

This selection features translations by Lewis Hyde (also editor of the book), Roberty Bly, W.S. Merwin, Willis Barnstone and many others...

"Her hand given over" is the sweetest, saddest, truest poem I've read about a woman from a man's point of view. I'm so glad to know about Aleixandre.

No matter where I open this book, time stops. Gentle as an uncle I once knew, his words carry forward, linger on, and I find myself nodding affirmatively in of all places, this world

"Destruction of Love" and "A Longing for the Light" are the best poetry in Spanish I have ever read. Perfect language, perfect idea... The best.

This is the book you put in your coat pocket and take with you when you leave the hotel. It has the best maps, the top sights listed and detailed, the right amount of history, the best book. It is also beautifuly done, and is fun to look at for the pictures and maps. If you are visiting Madrid, you are probably also visiting Toledo and Segovia, and this book covers them as well in excellent fashion. I visited that area for 10 days, and this is the book I had on me every day. The book improves the experience of being there.

A city like Madrid has centuries of art, culture, history, and cuisine to explore. It's universities lead the world in selected areas of research, and it's museums preserve not just the world's treasures for Spain, but Spain's inheritance for the world. Even ignoring the nearby country and other cities, there is a huge amount to know about this complex place and its people.

I have a business trip to Madrid coming up, just a few days, and most of that taken up with the demands of my trade. I want to know what to see in my few free hours, know where to go, and know what I'm looking at when I see it. Lacking a native guide or a detailed program of study, this Eyewitness guide seems like just what I wanted. It's clearly organized by sections of the city (and beyond), and by different kinds of events and attractions. It includes brief, tabular summaries describing where to stay, eat, and shop. It covers the prgamatics of getting around an unfamiliar city and country, and of understanding a few gastronomic specialties that may not be familiar.

I'm sure it's missing a lot. A very big city, big in history if not in millions of inhabitants, can't fit into a small book. But I have a small time in which to enjoy Madrid first-hand. I won't know til I'm there just how good this is, but it has my hopes up.

//wiredweird

We just returned from our trip to Madrid and this book was fantastic. My sister is abroad there and my family members have all gotten different guides for their visits, but I have now loaned out both copies I had of this guide, because they found it to be much better than theirs. It has great breakdowns of the areas of Madrid and maps that are all cross-referenced. It also includes a section on Toledo that we found to be very helpful on our day trip there. We were very pleased with this purchase.

I'm taking my second trip to Europe in September...Madrid... and again referred to my favorite travel series....Eyewitness. You really can't beat the Dorling Kindersley publishing group for travel books. As I am a little ADD, the fact that not only do they offer a very reader friendly book, but that they also chock it FULL of pictures is a huge plus. To me, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I have to give Eyewitness my seal of approval. I have been relying on Eyewitness travel guides for about 10 years now and so far, I haven't found any other travel guides that come close in comparison.

Though Rivera's three plays included in this piece could very easily be described as extremely strange, they are most definitely worth reading, both for entertainment value and the thoughts behind the plays. Three plays included were; Marisol, Each Day Dies With Sleep, and Cloud Tectonics. I would encourage anyone interested in this genre of theatre or even anyone who just enjoys reading something that will really make you think to read these plays. Personally I found Each Day Dies With Sleep slightly disturbing but I believe that's part of the idea and I could definitely see where people would find Marisol to be quite disturbing as well, but if you keep an open mind and try to figure out what Rivera was getting at these plays are fun to read. I can't even imagine how amazing they must be live.

There's a quiet moment in "Cloud Tectonics" when Celestina, the lost pregnant innocent recites a love poem to the more worldly, slightly jaded male lead. She pours her love out to him in Spanish which, in true tragic fashion, he cannot understand. Each of these plays are about love, but not cliched. Its about sex, but not graphic. Its about art, but not pretension. He cries out to let us know New York, L.A., love, hope, and miracles exists outside of the facade of Hollywood and places dominated by collective commercial thought. Rivera seems angry with how race relations, interpersonal love, and culture in general is malformed by the intrusiveness of corporate agents. His anger never rants though and is carefully interwoven into the structure of the play. Having never seen one of his productions, I can only imagine his alternate worlds.

Viva la imaginación, Jose.

Jose is one of the most brilliant playwrights of the 20th century. His ability for "magic realism" or whatever you would like to call it allows for some of the most honest, inspiring and beautiful writing I have ever experienced. I am so glad he writes for the stage....his plays are exactly what the theatre needs!

marisol tackles a lot of issues regarding the human spirit and its vulnerablity. it also touches on issues of religion and its place in our lives. i've never been a person to see or even read plays but i was absolutely and am still absolutely impressed with this play. it is beautifully written. and if you live near or in a big city its theme touches home.