Full Swing

Spring semester, now in full swing, has brought with it beautiful buds of new ideas and blossoms on some perennial ideas. My dissertation has taken a definitive shape, I'm applying for grants to do some travel this summer, and new projects and connections have been springing up unexpectedly. More posts to come on all of that!

Looking through my boots to stock yards below

In addition to the new semester, the sun here has been shining daily, with a renewed vigor, and the mountains are transforming from their white, snowy winter selves into bright green beacons of the fresh season.

Yesterday, my husband and I decided to take advantage of the lovely weather and enjoy a centuries-old Denver tradition: the National Western Stock Show. In 1899, Denver was host to growing numbers of stock shows and by 1905, the Denver Stock Yards were constructed on the South Platte River. We roamed through these same stockyards just yesterday, stopping to see yaks, longhorns, cattle, mules, and bison, horses, and the fluffiest, most adorable sheep.

When the first official annual Stock Show was held in 1906, an estimated 15,000 people attending, coming from as far as Chicago and the east coast. In 2011, despite harshly cold weather, 644, 818 people traveled to the Denver Stock Yards--not just to buy cattle anymore, but now to see professional Rodeo shows, buy and sell farm goods, and watch animals get groomed, primped, judged and awarded.

The stock show remains a place for people to discuss all kinds of issues around farming, like how big herds should be, best-practices in animal welfare, techniques and tricks of the trade, and how best to educate the next generation of farmers. This takes place at the same time many people, like my husband and I, come to enjoy the "finished product" (burgers) and take in the courageous and skillful rodeo performers.

Bareback Broc riding-- captured mid-toughbreak

Trained in the tradition of the slavic Cossacks, these young men did incredible tricks jumping on and off horses
and even made a 19-man pyramid on 10 running horses (see here). 

"C'mere you" - In this event, the cowboy had to rope the steer and bind its legs in under 9 seconds to be competitive.

Many of the photos of I took at the rodeo didn't turn out -- the bucking bulls, the barrel racers, the mutton-busting little ones, and the cattle roping events were filled with such fast movement that my camera just couldn't capture the excitement without being hopelessly blurred. I must say, however, that if you ever have the opportunity to go to a professional rodeo, I highly recommend it. It is a fascinating conglomeration of events, some with evident practical application for working cowboys and others that border on performance art. The modern expression of the cowboy narrative is being constructed at pro-rodeo events all across the country -- and especially at a national rodeo like this one.

Yak!

Longhorns in this historic stockyard

Getting a haircut 

They can only come in on stagecoaches.

Detail from an vintage stagecoach

I've written several posts on the cowboy narrative on this blog - check them out:

Let 'Er Buck - historiography of the cowboy narrative
Ranch Women - review of a documentary on three generations of working cowgirls
The Reason Behind the Risk - history of Bullriding and a review of the documentary "Rank"
Cowpuncher Poets - historiography of American cowboy poets, and clips of them reciting their work
Unbranded - review of a project and forthcoming documentary on 4 men who rode last year from Mexico to Canada through all uninhabited country
Anágua is Portuguese for Petticoat  - photographs from photographer Luis Fabini, whose work depicts cowboys and their animals from all over the American continents

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Until next time - keep rustling!

Faint Rustlings

Coffee and Vitamin C for fall mornings

My petticoats have been silent for a month! You must've begun thinking that I got too carried away with the apocalypse theme of the last post... But I'm back, and ready to begin rustling the crinolines of literature and art once more.

Colorado has been changing colors these days, going from green and gray to bright fiery reds, oranges and yellows. I will have to get out and take some photographs of all the beautiful leaves before we get a heavy snow (we've already had several light snows!). As a result of the changing weather, mornings have been filled with cozy sweaters, muted light, and the satisfying crunch of leaves under boots. I really love this time of year; it's great reading weather.

A short stack of reading materials and a devil sculpture made by my husband, Emiliano Lake-Herrera 

Recently, my dissertation theme has begun to take shape... a very recognizable shape, as a matter of fact, complete with pointy tail and horns. I have decided to investigate the figure of the devil in Brazilian literature, most likely as expressed through the poetry chapbooks, Literatura de Cordel. Now that I have a general direction in which to go with my research, I've happily begun shirking all other responsibilities in order to read broadly about the idea of the devil and the idea of Brazil...

                       

The devil is often portrayed not as a towering black beast, but as a man. In fact, he is so like man that characters often mistake him for a simple stranger initially (in contrast, if an angel were to appear in a narrative, there is no mistaking their presence and their divine importance). So the devil appears not as an external push towards sin or wrongdoing through fear or coercion, but rather he seems to work more like a magnet, drawing out our trickster qualities when he is near. And the human characters' task is to out trick him-- we must be more clever, better liars, and as sneaky as possible in our dealings with him (human characters must out-devil the devil!).

I am really excited to be working on this project and have already read some amazing things, including an ethnography on Candomblé (an African spiritous religion) and I should really do a whole post on that book alone! So much rustling to do, my friends...

 In the meantime, I'm just happy to be back on the blog. I hope you have all been doing well and finding good things to read. What has been on your bookshelves recently? What has been rustling your petticoats???

My most faithful reading companion, on the job, on a chilly morning

Until next time-- keep rustling!

When it Rains Five Days and the Sky Turns Black as Night

Photo Source

So perhaps you've heard about the little rain storm we had here in Colorado?

Oh, petticoat rustlers! It has been a wild month. First, the semester launched at full speed-- I'm teaching a brand new class and taking several wonderful seminars, in addition to helping to run the Portuguese conversation groups on campus. Somewhere in there, I'm also doing tons of reading to try and understand more clearly how this whole dissertation is going to unfold. And alongside all that, I'm training for a back-up career as a circus strongwoman (inspired by my spirit animal, Vulcana).

But over the course of the past week, the sky has remained ominously black and low, heavy and overflowing with constant rain. Two weeks ago, we started to get short, daily bursts of rain that were lovely-- they cooled down the 100 degree heat and helped keep the mountains from starting on fire.

But then the rain started to get heavier and more persistent, with more and more of the day remaining dark and soggy. Finally, the sun stopped peaking through the clouds at all, and yesterday was unlike anything I've ever seen before.

Photo Source

The National Guard, heading into Boulder. Photo Source. 

Torrential rain fell over our town (and all the surrounding towns) for about 16 hours straight. In 48 hours, 14.5 inches of rain had fallen on us (the annual average rainfall here is 24 inches). It was Old Testament. It was apocalyptic. Basements turned into ponds, roads turned into rivers, rivers turned into raging, destructive forces that pulled down highways, swept away cars and houses and trees.

Emergency sirens started blaring through the city on Thursday night and continued through Friday night ("MOVE TO HIGHER GROUND, REPEAT: MOVE TO HIGHER GROUND.") Firetruck and ambulance sirens screamed above the wind and constant sound of rain hitting water, rain hitting roofs, rain trickling slowly into every crack.

The National Guard was called in, the President allotted funds to help with disaster relief. The University has been closed for two days and will be closed through the weekend while they assess structural damage (here's hoping the library was spared!).

In honor of this powerful storm system and surreal past couple of days underwater, I'm dedicating today's post to--first and foremost the emergency workers and folks who lost their homes--but also to some of my favorite passages from literature on rain, storms, and floods...

"Exploración de las fuentes del río Orinoco" ["Exploring the Sources of the Orinoco River"]
Painting by Remedios Varo.

Water dripping from the roof tiles was forming a hole in the sand of the patio. Plink! Plink! and then another plink! as drops struck a bobbing, dancing laurel leaf caught in a crack between the adobe bricks. ...  For a long time, he lay listening to the gurgling of the water; then he must have slept, because when he awoke he heard only a quiet drizzle. The windowpanes were misted over and raindrops were threading down like tears...I watched the trickles glinting in the lightning flashes, and every breath I breathed, I sighed. And every thought I thought was of you, Susana. 
(Excerpt from Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo, translation by Margaret Sayers Peden).

I awoke to find the pipes had burst. Somehow, I'd carelessly left the water running in the kitchen; it flooded the floor and poured into the cellar before I'd noticed it. The dampness didn't damage the Chac-Mool ... The moaning at night continues. I don't know where it's coming from, but it makes me nervous. To top it all off, the pipes burst again, and the rains have seeped through the foundation and flooded the cellar. ... This is the first time the runoff from the rains has drained into my cellar instead of the storm sewers. The moaning's stopped. An even trade? 
(Excerpt from "Chac-Mool" by Carlos Fuentes, translation by Margaret Sayers Peden).

And at last the house surrenders its silence.
We enter and pace the abandoned rooms,
the dead rats, the empty good-bye,
water that wept in the gutters.
It wept, the house, night and day,
it groaned with the spiders, ajar,
it shed itself through its dark eyes.
(Poem by Pablo Neruda, from the book Absence and Presence, with translation by Alastair Reid).

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!

(One of Lear's lines from King Lear by William Shakespeare). 

When it rains five days and the sky turns dark as night, then trouble's takin' place in the lowlands at night. 

(Line from American blues song, "Backwater Blues," written by singer and composer, Bessie Smith). 

The birds sang because they lacked understanding; the heretics ridiculed us because they had no faith; and we who had both faith and understanding shouted to the heavens, struck our chests, and cried for our sins. 
(Excerpt from Antonio Vieira's sermon, "Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Lent," delivered in 1665, in which he describes his ocean-crossing journey on a ship filled with tropical Brazilian birds in cages, as they and other passengers were transported back to continental Portugal in the midst of an incredibly tumultuous and dangerous storm just outside of the Azores. The rest of the sermon is quite incredible-- he describes the raging seas, the way the "faithless" clung to the side of the boat, crying that all was lost, the song of the frightened birds barely audible above the thrashing waves, and his own desperate pleas shouted to God as the boat listed threateningly to one side...)

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What are your favorite passages about storms in literature?? Have you lived through a natural disaster recently?? Until next time, fair petticoat rustlers-- keep rustling!