Beautiful Betty

Ugly Betty is a sitcom based on a Colombian (then Mexican) telenovela (are you surprised no Wikipedia links?). It's shown on ABC, and is anything but an ugly show. It was recently awarded 3 Emmys and is doing pretty... well, pretty. If you missed yesterday's season premiere, you can watch it online: here. If you want to play catch-up and watch the first season, you can buy it at your local DVD-buying-place. It looks like: so.

Power Pummeling Piñatas

As mentioned in the previous post, Google is this many years old today: 9. Happy Birthday Google!!! We all love you oodles. Right? Of course. From Gmail to Youtube. It is great. Google the Great. Catchy. It could be a ruler of a distant land.

Anyhoooo... I saw the piñata in the picture when doing a search earlier today and I got to thinking... Piñata Post!! But of course. Always thinking of the "Hispanic Heritage Month" theme. You know the drill... Let's Wikipedia, shall we: WikiAta.

Everyone loves piñatas. They are filled with candy goodness, afterall. Perhaps not the dream of dentists, but surely that of most children. XBox/Microsoft even has a game out called, "Viva Piñata." Kids can virtually beat the stuffing out of animal shaped piñatas. How sweet and loving. Teaching kiddies everywhere to love all creatures, great and paper. An empathy saturated game, I'm sure.


Well, anyhow. If piñatas are definitely your cup of chocolate milk, click the link and see how to make a piñata. There are other websites that show you how to make these Mexican beauts. You can get pretty creative with them. Just be careful with that stick (or bat, or whatever).

Stormy Storni

Congrats to 40 Forever for answering the last post correctly! You are the bomb. The answer was Alfonsina Storni. I know, I know... I reference Wikipedia way too much. It's quick and easy. Plus, the info is usually right. Well, a lot of the time. Some of the time? Nah. Most of the time.

Alfonsina Storni (May 29, 1892 – October 25, 1938) was one of the most important Ibero-American poet of the postmodernism movement.

Alfonsina was born in Sala Capriasca, Switzerland to an Argentine beer industrialist while in Switzerland for a few years. There Alfonsina learned to speak Italian. Back in Argentina the family had to, after the business failed, to open a tavern in the city of Rosario, where Alfonsina would work at a variety of chores.

(Lots happened in between these two paragraphs. To entire article, please go hyperlink yourself Wikipedia).

She taught literature at the Escuela Normal de Lenguas Vivas, and she published Ocre. Her style now showed more realism than before, and a strongly feminist theme. Solitude and marginality began to affect her health, and worsening emotional problems forced her to leave her job as teacher.

Trips to Europe changed her writing by helping her to lose her formal models, and reach a more dramatic lyricism, loaded with an erotic vehemence unknown in those days, and new feminists thoughts in Mundo de siete pozos (1934) and Mascarilla y trébol (1938).

A year and a half after her friend Quiroga committed suicide in 1937, and haunted by solitude and breast cancer, Storni sent her last poem, Voy a dormir ("I'm going to sleep") to La Nación newspaper. The following day she committed suicide, by walking into the sea at the La Perla beach in Mar del Plata, Argentina.

Storni once referred to men as el enemigo, "the enemy." Much of Storni's work focuses on what she sees as the repression of women by men. This often takes the form of personal insults directed at men in general, which sometimes reach psychotic proportions. For example, in "Tú me quieres blanca" (You want me white), she wrote, Dios te lo perdone, "God forgive you," even though the poem is about male hypocrisy regarding the chastity of women. In other words, she viewed hypocrisy by men as a mortal sin.

For more information, please read the complete Wikipedia article. Or, Google it. It's their 9th birthday today, you know. How festive.

Back to Ms. Storni... There is a Monument to Alfonsina Storni in Mar del Plata, Argentina. A picture of it can be seen in this post.

Famous Poet

Can you figure out who this is? The next post will be about this famous poet... There is a monument to her by the sea. She's Hispanic. Please comment if you know.

Addendum: This feminist was actually born in Switzerland, but spent the majority of her life in South America, where she died.

Idol Chit Chat

Congrats to my buddy the Constructed Genius (if you ask me, she's not under construction... she's already a genius) for correctly choosing Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the famous Nobel Prize winning author. The fireworks are for you, my dear!!! YAY! And it isn't even any holiday (that I know of... we wouldn't be here if it were, I suppose). Yes, he is from Colombia. I myself was made, but not born in Colombia. Anyhoo... Oprah put her seal on his book, "One hundred years of solitude." It's a great book (with or without Miss Oprah's seal (no offense to the Mighty O. I would not want to incur her wrath (or that of any of her minions, for that matter))... but, the man does have a Nobel Prize, for gosh sake. I think that trumps the O sticker any day).

NSU also carries GGM's memoir. According to NOVACAT, it should be on the shelves (here end my ASLRITC plugs for the day). Please don't hurt yourselves running to the shelves all at once. You can always ILL it if you are not fortunate enough to make it there in time (O.K. the shameless plugs end here for sure).

So, there you have it. 1st Honorable Hispanic mentioned. Many, many to go...

Trekkie Spamalot

Star Trek meets Monty Python (click here for link)

Hispanic Heritage Month

It is Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15 - Oct. 15). Don't believe me? Let's Wikipedia it, shall we? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_Heritage_Month. You should know better than to doubt me by now... hang your head in shame. Besides, there are some brochure/pamphlet things at the Main Library Circ. desk, telling all about it.

Click on this picture (if you want to, of course. This isn't a dictatorship):

'K. Digression over. So as I was saying (writing), in honor of the month of my forefathers (and mothers... there would be no "me" without those beautiful ladies either... alright... for the sake of argument, let's just say "forepeople"), I would like to sprinkle a few posts here and there about famous Hispanics throughout the next few weeks. Seeing as though this is my blog and all, I give myself full permission to do so.

Who will the first post be about? Only the greatest... You will have to wait until Monday though, I'm afraid... I'm thinking Menudo. Just kidding. But, there will be a post about them, though. I'm sure you'll be waiting with bated breath for that one. I loved me some Menudo when I was chiquita.

So, anyhow. Hasta Monday. I leave you all, now. It's been real. Thanks again for the award thingy! How cool was that?!?!?!?

Alright... since you've been so good to me, I'll give you a hint about Monday's post. This individual is from the country where the top two dancers in this post are from. This is a great person, and not just because Oprah thinks so (which she does, btw... at least I think she does. She gave her seal of Oproval on something he/she wrote). Bill Clinton also thinks this person is "the bomb diggity." His words, not mine. Well, not really. But, how awesome would it have been to hear those words coming out of Clinton's mouth? Anyhow. Put your thinking caps on, and Commentez Moi on who you think this mystery person is.

Gracias! Ciao. Beam me up, Scotty.

They like me... they really like me!

Reading is fun, I say. Read. Read. Read, everyday!!!

Go the full ten miles!!!

LeVar, from...

See... everyone is doing it. Even Luke's Daddy (if you never saw the movie... sorry for the spoiler).

What brought this on, you ask? I'll tell... Did anyone see Mrs. Bush on "The Today Show"... well... today? Today isn't Literacy Day, but it's something like it. I dunno. Watch the video. Link for you (nothing to do with Zelda... keep up and read above and below).

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032633

Read to your kiddies. Great idea. Wow. We're in a library. What a perfect place to get some books! Isn't it nice how things work themselves out?

P.S. Mad props to "The DD Traveler" for letting me know about Mrs. Bush's appearance on "The Today Show" and for linking me up.

Fun Friday! (...and Thursday... and everyday of the week, in fact)!!!

In retrospect, I probably should have thought to do this for "Blog Day." But, I was just getting the hang of it then (not that I am such an expert now).

Here are just a few cute Bloggin' Pics (as they say on the streets... which streets... I'm not entirely sure). Enjoy and feel free to steal (I got them off a Google search anyway. "Hear! Hear!" To the gods o' Google). Although I probably should cite the sources for copyright reasons. Not such a good example, am I? And in a library too... tsk-tsk on me.

I also want to give a shout out to Carrie G. and Meg K. Thanks for the Feeding Tips and comments, Chicas! Oh, and also can't forget Ms. Thursday Next, live and in person! Thanks to you all! I consider you'all Blogging Royalty. I am learning so! Much love, from me to yous.