Thursday, May 24, 2007

Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler-quote response

Page 175:
"Or maybe I just had Juantoomanys. Everywhere I look there is a Juan. Can't help it."
*Juan Herrera brings an important point to the end of the story with his mentioning of normality. Everyone seems to be the same and is then considered normal. To be abnormal is to be different. Herrera demonstrates tehat everyone seems to be the same with examples such as physical appearances and behaviors. No one dares to be different and it has been that way ffor years.

Page 180:
"Oh, excuse me, I am straying (like a good gato) from the subject at mano."
*Perhaps one of my favorite quotes, the author incorporates both spanish and english in this sentence. Being both completely serious and totally humorous I like this quote because I can understand spanish and what he says is funny. Straying liek a good cat from the the subject at hand. That made me happy to know that even under stress a man can still have selff composure.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler-quote response

Page 172:
"All I want to do is take some pictures. Maybe the silhouettes have somethign to do wit me and my familia, wit all of us. Mexico. America--wit Hollywood."
*This made no sense to me. I couldnt figure out if Hollywood was a nickname that Juan knew somebody by of if he was relating to the place in California. The fact that he mentioned taking pictures seemed to incorporate paprazzi but since hollywood was mentioned as somethign possibly important at the dinner conversation I was not sure.

Page 173:
"Five minutes, we close, brotherito. So get your tortillas together."
*In a way this quote makes sense. It seems to be a figure of speech in joke formation. Either that or it is a variation of the American expression : Get your act together. I ffound this quote interesting because it was similar yet diverse.

Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler-quote response

Page 141:
"Peanut bag with salt next to Tomato juice plastic glass marvelous. I need a Zen quote that will slap my ears, say, Juan Boy! Something like this & blam! I am drinking tomatoes as I write."
*This quote strikes me as rediculous. I had no idea what Juan was talking about when he said this. New York City Angelic: Need a Zen Quote i thought was one of the worse stories in the book because I didnt really understnad any of it and it reminded me of the Dharma Bums. ( I didnt really enjoy that book.)

Page 144:
"Oyeme, Mamita, oyeme--now that you are gone into the deep and silent luminous fallen side of the night. Oyeme."
* Listen, mama, listen. Juan speaks to his dead mother, showing her respect by talking to her and listening to her in Spanish. He watches her signs that she sends to him. I thought that this quote seemed very sentimental and that it proved how much Juan and his mother loved each other. The family theme in this book is very strong.

Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler-quote response

Page 114:
"Ain't nothing better, than pulling over--after the pizcain Fresno, on the way to the next one in Delano. On a hot day leave the troke running, snap off a half dozen of the grower's naranjas for the sweet road ahead. Que no?"
*This quote made me laugh soo hard when i read it because it is like he is just takign a road trip and then randomly stopping on the side of the road and stealing fruit from peoples groves. The way Juan narrates this story makes him sound as if he were a truck driver however. The fact that he stops along the roadside for some home fgrown oranges is hysterical.

Page 119:
"At sixteen, at midnight they came knocking. Said my father had died of complications. My mother shuddered. Fell. Something dropped inside of her and grew above us. A tiny flame of sweetness and black. For years, in that wild shadow, she smoked and kissed a stray that crossed our window."
*The name of this story is called The Cat My Mother Cradled. It symbolizes the last sentence, which I believe to be a metaphor. Although I'm not sure what that metaphor means I figure it to be important and relate to loss and mournings of lost ones that we love.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler-quote response

Page 90:
"But, it was the loudest poem, the most magnetic. A swollen tear, a naked vein, a deep green vine with the ability to turn its head in any direfction, day or night and scream and breathe and live."
*When Juan says this about a poem he finds taped to a front door, it makes me think that the poem must be really moving. It makes me want to read the poem and understand for myself why the words are so great. The way that he describes it as so many powerfful things makes me inclined to wonder about poetry and why people write poems. The poem on the door had been written by a woman whom had been stabbed to death. She had not tried to publish or sel her poem. This is what Juan says makes the woman's poem stand out so much. The fact that it pulls you near it in order to read it without having any media or publicity to recreate the meaning of it is amazing.

Page 101:
"Visit Chiapas and Guatemala the hydroelectric prostitutes of this continent, where are the pimps? That is the question where are the power pimps? Or is the word energy?"
*This quote comesfromareadign all about power and how come veryone needs/wants it. People are always looking to increase themselves and raise their status level. Today it is all about power when it comes to countrie, especially in times of war. The quote mentions countries who crave power with the analogy of a prostitute. Prostitutes have cravings and usually abide by an idividual who has power over them such as a pimp. So what country acts as the pimp and develops the power over the"energy" prostitue countries in the quote?

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler- quote response

Page 59:
"Jet burns overhead as a Hindu woman in pink-milk patch sari sits in ffront off me with her face up through the skylight & a flowery ribbon on her hair, she looks up to the sky region-the jet- boom blows & tears another pattern through the dome."
*This quote confuses me because I don't understand what the narrator is talking about here. He says that he is sitting at a gate in the airport and that the plane's engine is getting fixed but he is worried about his luggage. When he says the very last sentence, which is this quote, it confuses me. The way he words it makes me think that the plane is in the air right over head and the engine keeps blowing out jet fuel which is tearing apartthe ceiling.

Page 66:
"Yoli, I said, maybe you can talk to the manager, tell him I'm famous or something, get me a suave deal on the ranfla."
*Juan is telling a story about a girl named Francis whom he called Yoli. She apparently works at a car dealership and Juan would like to buy a car, but for very cheap. Therefore, he tries to get Yoli to rip the manager off and lie to him about the true identity of Juan. Yoli gets mad and tells him off.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler-quote response

Page 32:
"New age gargoyle trilingual lowriders."
*This quote seems to de-emphasize the meaning. Its funny because when you try to imagine the image, what comes to mind is not a typical car. (A lowrider= a car.) How can a car symbolize a gargoyle and symbolize three languages at that? Or does it mean that the car symbolizes a trilingual gargoyle, which is silly a gorgoyle can in fact not talk at all?

Page 33-34:
"Burnt tortillas...Yo' bones on the rocks."
*This whole snippet of words strikes me as somewhat oddly intelligent. It also strikes me as stunningly shocking andsomewhat brilliant. I thought that all of the things said in this section were quite interesting. A marijuana grocery bag? An executive chicken? Teriaki ink, midwest brick, baby gila fangs in tights, asbestos lobster? What do all of thses things mean? In a way, some of them make sense in a scary, yet realistic way. Some, even after a long thought process I cannot figure to be literal in any form. I like this piece because its both logical andillogical at the same time.