THIS MONTH:  "Apparitions” goes to Querétaro

 

 

December, 2007

 

Dear friends and readers,

 

            I’m happy to report something of a FIRST for my humble little Website and it happened just last week.  You see, it seems someone saw my BOOK/OBJECT “Apparitions” (of Osama bin Laden, you remember) on this site, and invited me to present them in a collective art show called “Fetishes” at the Querétaro Cultural Center opening on December 7 in the capital city of that northern Mexico state.  Wow!  I mean, can’t you just imagine all those little, earnest faces staring out at all those citizens of Querétaro passing by?  I can.

 

 

 

 

 

            So, of course, I dusted them off and tried to make them look real good.  I decided to protect them in a double layer of melted candle wax so they would look a little more like, well, works of art, you know.  (I’m melting wax in my coffee pot!)

 

 

 

 

 

            And then I sealed the little circles of candle wax in nice new sheets of transparent contact paper.  (You didn’t know they made transparent contact paper?  Oh, down here in Mexico we have just about everything you could want, you know?)  They looked real nice and my friend Diana Ricci came over to help document them with these nice photos.  Thanks, Diana.

 

 

 

 

 

 

            Then I suspended them with strips of gaffer tape (yes, gaffer tape) and wrapped them up for their trip to Querétaro.

 

 

 

 

            They went out the door just yesterday.  Whew!  Good luck, fellas.

 

 

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            And say, there’s lots of new stuff on my site, my friends, and I invite you to burrow around a little.  I’ll here mention just a few.

 

            First, I hope you’ll notice that my little Encyclopedia is really growing with lots of new entries.

 

            One of the most exciting, to me anyway, is a moving account of the massacre of the Mexico City students in 1968 in the plaza of the Three Cultures ahead of the Olympic Games of that year.  Look under Tlatelolco.  It has lots of recently released photos as well as excerpts from Elena Poniatowska’s beautiful address at the opening of the University of Mexico’s Tlatelolco Cultural Center.

 

            .  Be sure to look at the big, new entry on my good friend, Oaxaca artist Alejandro Santiago, and his beautiful sculpture, “2,501 Migrantes.”  It has been several years in the making and was recently installed in the northern city of Monterrey for the International Forum of World Cultures.  Congratulations, Alejandro!

 

            There’s a new piece on Susan Sontag.  Susan was always a favorite of mine and was a good friend of lot of people we knew.  There's a nice photo of her with Bob Wilson, for example.  Do look!

 

            Then there’s a sort of campy entry on Mohammed VI of Morocco, and the good work he’s trying to do (especially against the evil government of Spain trying to take over northern Morocco, hmmm.), a nice entry on Gustavo Dudamel, the conductor of the Venezuelan “Simón Bolívar” Youth Orchestra (CUTE!), a new entry about the wonderful writer and thinker, Carlos Monsiváis, and the support he's always shown for our group, as well as a short look at an artist who had a strong influence on my own artistic development (can you guess?), the great Cy Twombly.  Check ‘em out.

 

            I should also like to mention that I’ve gotten some nice comments and even a few requests to give folks a “heads up” whenever new pictures of hunky guys appear on my site (Hmmm).  OK, here’s a big one!  Heads up!  I just put up a soon-to-be-everybody’s-favorite, Men of Mexico under the M’s on my Encyclopedia.  You’re welcome.  (And you might as well also look at the latest addition to Pugilism while you're at it.  Mmmm!)

 

            And I know how you’re all anxious for me to get to the Z’s in my Encyclopedia (e-hem) and will be happy to know the first installment (more to follow) of our own wonderful ZAP COMICS (!) is up and live on line!  Juicy!

 

            As well as my usual smattering of newly UN-SORTED IMAGES at the bottom of the Encyclopedia.  (Heads up!)

 

            Under BOOKS, too, you’ll find some new material; the grim CAMP X-RAY from 2003, a short collection called Bill Wolf’s COMPUTER SKETCHBOOK, our own huge and growing PRESS SCRAPBOOK and a recent BIG book called “GRONDA” which you’ll have to like.

 

            On the TIME-LINE be sure to see an inspirational new entry called BIG GAME TODAY from 1986, about the big baseball game (!) between Ready Set and AAA Productions, two of about the LEAST athletic groups of people on the earth, to collect lots of food to help start the San Francisco AIDS Foundation Food Bank!  It’s nice.

 

 

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            Finally, my friends, I would like to mention one further thing.  I received a moving letter this week from my long-time friend, the Doctora Bertha Elena Muñoz, a strong activist in AIDS causes, human rights and the People’s Assembly, APPO.  She was the voice of the University Radio during the government repression in Oaxaca and nick-named “Doctor Shotgun” in the national press.  She has been in forced exile from Oaxaca for the last year and I have no idea where she is.

 

            She wished me well and all the members of our Frente Común.  She said she was “filled with joy” to see her entry on my Encyclopedia.  She remembered fondly, “how the years have passed!”  She said, of the doctora in those pictures, “hardly a skeleton is left,” except for the “spirit to keep up the good fight, which will never die.”

 

            She sent a “warm hug” and promised to keep in touch.

 

            Thanks, Doctora.

 

 

 

            So, before I begin my lengthy P.s.’s, I’ll here just say:

 

I love you all!

 

Bill Wolf

 

 

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P.s.  (And you know how much I enjoy these)  I did note the cover of last week’s LA JORNADA supplement, “Letra S,” which featured this old photo of two Mexican cowboys.  Nice.

 

 

 

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            This just in from the Madrid, Spain, newspaper EL PAÍS, below, seems one Roberto Escudero, pictured, of some 17 years old, is the new Spelling Champion of, like, well, all of Spain!  Wow!  He says he reads the newspapers every day with a dictionary sitting by his side.  Boy!  He says he likes to listen to “pop music” and especially records by the group “Chenoa.”  Golly!  So, aren’t you just PROUD of this fine young man?  I mean, like, couldn’t you just …?

 

 

 

 

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            And, say!  Look who’s adorning the Mexico City entertainment pages these days!  (Below, LA JORNADA, December 3, 2007)

 

 

 

            That’s right!  It’s our boy, "Legend of Punk," Iggy Pop, converting the big Azteca stadium into a “fonqui” hole.  Golly, doesn’t it just make you feel, well, thirty again?  Me too.

 

            Good goin’, Iggy!

 

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            Last Monday marked one year since Flavio Sosa was arrested by the Calderón government after being invited into the government offices to "negociate."  A small but noisy demonstration observed the anniversary, below.  There is rumor that he may be released soon though he's still being held, of course, without formal charges.

 

 

 

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MORE SOON!

 

 

 

   ...LAST MONTH'S LETTER