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Dear friends

This is a little fable from one of my favorite writers. Carlos Monsiváis. I did my best to translate it, please, let me know if it can be improved. I had some problems finding nouns, since in English there are more verbs than nouns (I would say).

Antonieta

DEL NUEVO CATECISMO PARA INDIOS REMISOS
From the New Catechism for Unwilling Indians

Carlos Monsiváis

The Sin that could not hide its Punishment.

Upward mobility. That Sin was obsessed with upward mobility. Fed up with its condition of venial, tired of inciting petty disobediences, and soft ruptures of the law; the sin aspired to become mortal, to shake up earth and paradise with its demolishing deeds and its abhorrent consequences. Looking for a promotion, the sin fine-tuned its techniques, subverting, and dominating nightmares, introducing chaos in Creation, infiltrating carefully crafted lasciviousness into innocent infantile kisses, caused virgins to faint nearby satyrs.

However, no matter how skillful the Sin was, it could not distance itself from its correspondent Punishment. Punishment was always next to Sin, visible, warning it, intolerant. Sin wanted to cover like a dress, and Punishment increased its severity; Sin’s job was to captivate, and Punishment’s job was to disappoint; Sin unleashed choreographies molding to the body, and Punishment made the probable victims feel ashamed of trying.

Temper’s triumph, lustfulness’ failure. Nobody fancies to break the norm if a check is immediately presented to him or her. Abandoned, robbed from its glamour, trying to combat its insignificance, Sin increased enchantments, tied breasts and bellies with eloquent hands, exaggerated and lied. Useless exercise. When Sin wanted to conquer, next to him would appear the rectifying shadow, with soul examinations, purposes of correcting misdeeds, repentance acts, anticipating punishment. “I cannot live like this”, Sin said, and gave up his effort. Satisfied, Punishment wrote a report and got a promotion from soft to really severe.

Monsivais

This is the Spanish version

EL PECADO QUE NO CONSEGUíA OCULTAR A SU PENITENCIA

Carlos Monsiváis

El ascenso. La obsesión de aquel Pecado era el ascenso. Harto de su condición de venial, de incitar a mínimas desobediencias y leves rupturas de la Ley, aspiraba a la condición de mortal, a estrujar tierra y Paraíso con sus hazañas demoledoras, sus consecuencias espantables. En pos de su elevación jerárquica, el Pecado afinó sus técnicas, subvirtió y domó pesadillas, introdujo desórdenes en la Creación, infiltró lascivias minuciosas en besos infantiles, propició el desmayo de doncellas en los alrededores de los sátiros.

Mas por hábil que fuese el Pecado, no conseguía alejar de sí a su correspondiente Penitencia. Estaba siempre a su lado, visible, admonitoria, intolerante. El Pecado quería envolver como un vestido y la Penitencia acrecentaba su severidad; el Pecado cautivaba y la Penitencia desencantaba; el Pecado desataba coreografías que se amoldaban al cuerpo y la Penitencia inhibía a las probables víctimas.

Triunfo de la templanza, falla de la concupiscencia. A nadie se le antoja transgredir la norma si le presentan de inmediato la cuenta. Abandonado, desprovisto de glamour, el Pecado, en postrer intento de combatir su insignificancia, arreció encantamientos, ciñó senos y vientres con manos de elocuencia, mintió y exageró. Ejercicio inútil. No bien el Pecado pretendía una conquista, aparecía a su lado la sombra rectificadora, poblada de exámenes de conciencia, propósitos de enmienda, actos de contrición, anticipos del castigo. “Así no se puede”, dijo el Pecado y renunció a su empeño. Satisfecha, la Penitencia presentó un informe y obtuvo el ascenso de leve a muy atroz.
 

In this video, we see Juan Gabriel as effeminated as he is, accompanied with a Mariachi, the ultimate representation of Macho, ranchero culture in Mexico.

This is Juan Gabriel, singing a Ranchero song.

A few posts ago, in Los Compas de Huevo Cartoon,  I was talking about the limited scripts that Mexican men had about expressing their sexuality and manhood indeed. Juan Gabriel is one of the most famous singers and song-writers in Mexico and the Hispanic world. His songs are simple, romantic and elegant in some ways. He has said that, that he is not an intellectual, and this is shown in his simple songs. In fact, Alberto Aguilera Valadés (aka Juanga) was born in very harsh economic conditions in a town named Parácuaro, Michoacán.

Later, when Juanga was still an adolescent, he moved to the border, Juárez, and became attached to this city, composing several songs about the life in the border between Mexico and the US. As if Juanga´s background and fame achieved were not enough, his manners and  displays, and voice are a clear juxtaposition of the macho characters that we commonly have in ranchero music.  Despite of the overly known machismo that is attached to Mexican culture, Juanga was able to reach widespread recognition and fame among all kinds of Mexicans.

I remember that during the 1980´s Juan Gabriel´s song "Querida" was not only in the popularity lists for a whole year, but it was there as the number 1 song for most of that time. Juanga has been able to pursue his career as a versatile musician and song-writer, and keep his effeminated, non-conventional manners in front of the hiper-masculine mariachi.

An anecdote that I like to tell is that of my husband, an American born academic that went to Mexico during the 1980´s and had some of his Mexican friends tell him when he asked about "the famous singer" in order to buy his music. He was told not by one, but by several Mexican men that Juanga was very famous, but he had a secret (lowering voice).....because there were rumors that he was gay. My husband tells me that when he saw Juanga for the first time singing like this in the video, he figured! Not too hard even from listening to him.

To the question of his sexual orientation, Juanga has responded that it is nobody´s business, and that his job is to write and sing songs, and he wants to be respected in his private life. Good for him, but I wonder if tabues over his image and his persona have weighted so much that he does not want to go "officially public".

As of guilty pleasures. I have always liked Juan Gabriel, when in second grade, a friend of mine and I used to sing his songs while on class breaks, and as I was growing up, I did everything possible to buy his discs. A lot of male members in my family liked him, even my father, who had a hipermasculine personality himself. I have to admit that when I entered college, my love for Juan Gabriel's songs receded to the shades, along with my working class background, which I desperately tried to hide in order to "fit in" among the successful people in higher education.

As years have gone by, I still like Juan Gabriel very much, now he even has the recognition from a section of the intellectual elite of my country, among others, famous writer Carlos Monsiváis (openly gay himself) has written about him and is one of Juan Gabriel friends. During the nineties, Juan Gabriel offered a series of concerts in the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City. Many members of the intellectual and cultural elite in Mexico deplored that, saying that Juanga was only a "popular" singer and his songs did not have artistic value. Juan Gabriel had a tremendous success in Bellas Artes, and he sold millions of copies of the recorded concert there.
 
After Bellas Artes validation, Juan Gabriel has become openly accepted as an artist and considered a classic  in Mexican popular music.  But even before that, in 1994, after ruling party candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio was assassinated, there was an informal survey about who would make a good president among Mexicans. People voted for Juan Gabriel as the most famous Mexican at the time, and more likely to be voted if he wanted to run for office.

Being from Michoacan  (the craddle of the left-wing party leader Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas), Juanga had hinted his party preferences, but at the time he said he was not into politics. Sadly, in the elections of 2000, with the fear of losing the election, the ruling party hired Juan Gabriel to sing a song for Francisco Labastida their candidate against Cárdenas and Fox (the challenger candidates). There were some rumors that Juan Gabriel had some irregularities with his taxes and that the PRI bureaucrats threaten him if he did not supported the official candidate. It was a sad moment, but because Juanga is so talented, I decided to believe the story of the tax and the pressure and forgive him the stupid jingle of the campaign song....."ni temoc, ni chente, francisco será el presidente". Certainly a dark part of Juanga´s past.

Anyway, I will continue writing about him probably. I think Juanga is one of the first favorite artists in my life. I like his simple, unestudied songs, and I love his manners in public concerts. I went to see one of his concerts back in 1988, in the Neza stadium.  His connection with the  people when he is on stage is unbelievable.

Antonieta

I learned about Huevo Cartoon last December when I was visiting my family in Mexico. I was introduced to them by my nieces and nephews who are allowed to see it, unlike I would say, in the States, where kids are not allowed to play with stuff related to sexuality.

Anyway. I particularly liked the compadres "compas", and the way they talk, and act, and enact their "hard" macho masculinity when they are obviously gay, or at least like each other very much, as the compadre tells to his other compadre in the first cartoon: compadre, yo lo quiero mucho (compadre, I love you so much). but I love you in a pretty way compadre.

I have always been fascinated with los albures mexicanos, a form of verbal ping-pong initially reserved for working class males. There are several accounts about the origins of the Mexican Albur. Some have said that it was a way of the indigenous people after the Spanish conquest to make fun at the Spanish rulers and catholic priests, others have even said that albures existed even before the Spanish conquest, as a way for the lower classes to poke fun at the prehispanic emperors.

During the so called Mexican Reinnassance, after the Mexican Revolution when all the "leperada" and "perrada" were allowed to go out on the streets using their infamous language, around the 1930´s and 1940´s, upper middle classes in Mexico had the belief that if people were prohibited to speak bad words, they would stop having bad thoughts. Under that logic, albures were used by the lower classes as a way to speak badly without offending nice ladies and fine members of the upper classes, also as a way to express sexual thoughts without offending the ears of catholic priests and believers.

Albures have become a current way to speak for Mexican society in the last few decades, especially since the opening of television to other voices different than those from the former official party (PRI).  This kind of language is now widespread to women and to the upper middle classes in Mexico, although the prevalence of the right wing party in power since the year 2000, and the powerful and political catholic church, can overcome its mainstream use among people, as in the past. In traditional  "albures" basically two men would be exchanging clever sexual innuendos, sometimes in a joyful way, and others as a prelude for a violent fight. Basically, the one that "penetrates" the other verbally, wins the just. This form of "symbolic homosexuality" was developed in a nation that is praised by its "machismo" and the fact that men have to behave in certain macho ways. Macho behavior is expected by society´s very reduced scripts for male behavior.

The huevo compas comply to this macho behavior, but are in fact, homosexuals, as you can see.

Huevo Cartoon (Los compadres)

Huevos Compadres

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