Aphorism

Those who do not know ‘fear,’ know it by some other name.

Patterns

As I look at the audience of this blog, I wonder: has it always been like this? More importantly, is it going to stay this way?

It seems only two things are expected from me: silence and tranquility.

xkcd

Ha-ha! The only difference between this and my situation is that she and I were never anything. Maybe "ex-infatuated"?

Fukú (Zafa!)

“They say it came first from Africa, carried in the screams of the enslaved; that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles. Fukú americanus, or more colloquially, fukú—generally a curse or a doom of some kind; specifically the Curse and the Doom of the New World. Also called the fukú of the Admiral because the Admiral was both its midwife and one of its great European victims; despite ‘discovering’ the New World the Admiral died miserable and syphilitic, hearing (dique) divine voices. In Santo Domingo, the Land He Loved Best (what Oscar, at the end, would call the Ground Zero of the New World), the Admiral's very name has become synonymous with both kinds of fukú, little and large; to say his name aloud or even to hear it is to invite calamity on the heads of you and yours.

“No matter what its name or provenance, it is believed that the arrival of the Europeans on Hispaniola unleashed the fukú on the world, and we've all been in the shit ever since. Santo Domingo might be fukú's Kilometer Zero, its port of entry, but we are all of us its children, whether we know it or not. . . .

“Whether I believe in what many have described as the Great American Doom is not really the point. You live as long as I did in the heart of fukú country, you hear these kinds of tales all the time. Everybody in Santo Domingo has a fukú story knocking around in their family. I have a twelve-daughter uncle in the Cibao who believed that he'd been cursed by an old lover never to have male children. Fukú. I have a tía who believed she'd been denied happiness because she'd laughed at a rival's funeral. Fukú. My paternal abuelo believes that diaspora was Trujillo's payback to the pueblo that betrayed him. Fukú.

“It's perfectly fine if you don't believe in these ‘superstitions.’ In fact, it's better than fine—it's perfect. Because no matter what you believe, fukú believes in you.

“A couple weeks ago, while I was finishing this book, I posted the thread fukú on the DR1 forum, just out of curiosity. These days I'm nerdy like that. The talkback blew the fuck up. You should see how many responses I've gotten. They just keep coming in. And not just from Domos. The Puertorocks want to talk about fufus, and the Haitians have some shit just like it. There are a zillion of these fukú stories. Even my mother, who almost never talks about Santo Domingo, has started sharing hers with me.

“As I'm sure you've guessed by now, I have a fukú story too. I wish I could say it was the best of the lot—fukú number one—but I can't. Mine ain't the scariest, the clearest, the most painful, or the most beautiful.

“It just happens to be the one that's got its fingers around my throat.


“I'm not entirely sure Oscar would have liked this designation. Fukú story. He was a hardcore sci-fi and fantasy man, believed that that was the kind of story we were all living in. He'd ask: What more sci-fi than the Santo Domingo? What more fantasy than the Antilles?

“But now that I know how it all turns out, I have to ask, in turn: What more fukú?


“One final final note, Toto, before Kansas goes bye-bye: traditionally in Santo Domingo anytime you mentioned or overheard the Admiral's name or anytime a fukú reared its many heads there was only one way to prevent disaster from coiling around you, only one surefire counterspell that would keep you and your family safe. Not surprisingly, it was a word. A simple word (followed usually by a vigorous crossing of index fingers).

“Zafa.

“It used to be more popular in the old days, bigger, so to speak, in Macondo than in McOndo. There are people, though, like my tío Miguel in the Bronx who still zafa everything. He's old-school like that. If the Yanks commit an error in the late innings it's zafa; if somebody brings shells in from the beach it's zafa; if you serve a man parcha it's zafa. Twenty-four-hour zafa in the hope that the bad luck will not have had time to cohere. Even now as I write these words I wonder if this book ain't a zafa of sorts. My very own counterspell.”

From the Pulitzer-Prize winning book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz.

Missing

“Love is the liberty of being a prisoner to your beloved, and somehow that is not a contradiction.”

O secret poet, O secret poet! Where art thou, artificer?

It seems I can only keep bad company.


(More Nietzsche and some Junot Díaz to follow.)

Eating up words

Turns out I did get chosen (Math “Summer” Camp; see “From ‘no-life’ to ‘too-much-life’”), even though they said “only 50 students,” picked “only 50 students,” and those “only 50 students” did not include me. I would think it fate, if I didn't know any better. . .

In other news, the College Board Customer Service representatives speak over 9,000 words per second, and do not know fear. To make things worse, none of them spoke Spanish, which forced me to use my perfectly-written-but-horribly-pronounced English (I have this terrible accent, and I kept trying to speak faster than the person that was attending me; I'll leave the rest to your imagination).

Well, I've made it so far; let us see if I can reach the top of the mountain. Thirteen out of fifty—will I be one of them? Ha! I haven't the option to ponder such things. I must reach the top—an incomplete ascent is not a laudable accomplishment.

Memoirs?

I might (or might not) copy some old ‘journal’ entries to this blog; it all depends on my self-esteem at the moment, though—don't expect much.