NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

There is a saying in Chamoru, "mungga masse, anggen ti ya-mu makasse." Don't tease, if you don't like to be teased. It is fairly simple and straightforward, but it is always funny when you find someone who can't handle some of their own medicine, or who has trouble hearing the truth of themselves that their teasing or their negative behavior is meant to hide. That is one of the main reasons that people engage in that type of behavior. Is so that no one will look at me with critical, judging or penetrating eyes, if I keep everyone looking at the faults in someone else.  I have always tried to keep myself very distant from superficial people like that. I don't mind it if people are shallow or superficial in general, but I don't want those types of people close to me by any means. But in my dating life, sometimes people slip through the cracks. Often times there are things that I'll see in someone, or at least think I see in someone, but they may not see

Last year a graphic story that I wrote titled "I Sindålu" was published in the creative anthology Pacific Monsters edited by Margret Helgadottir. It was a fun story, that I thankfully got to write in the Chamoru language, with English translations. It tells the story of a Chamoru soldier who is dealing with the trauma of what he experienced while being deployed in a foreign land. He comes home to Guam and live in a ranch at the edge of the jungle, and begins to feel menaced by the spirits of his ancestors, the taotaomo'na. I really liked writing this story and was happy to see it in print, but I am terrible at promoting things, especially if I'm the one who created it ( ai lokkue'). Here is an interview that I did with the website The Future Fire.   ************************* Sunday, 6 May 2018 Interview with Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Future Fire http://press.futurefire.net/2018/05/interview-with-michael-lujan-bevacqua.html May 2018 I n th

While in Valladolid, on a chilly afternoon, I walked through a house with cramped staircases and low hanging doorways. There were small beds in darkened corners. Aged chairs and paintings. Iron pots and kitchen implements. No doubt much of what was in there, had been placed for effect, but you could still feel the age. This house is known as Case de Cervantes, it was a home where the writer Miguel Cervantes stayed in the early 17th century. Today it is a small museum that features small bits of information about the writer's life. You will also find similar Case de Cervantes in other parts of Spain. Miguel Cervantes is best known for his book Don Quixote, and called the greatest writer in the Spanish language and the first modern novelist. Historians of nationalism are always quick to remind us that the political history of a place doesn't have as much of a role in creating national identity as historians usually imply. Arts and culture, can play a much more profound role i

One of the presenters at the "Primus Circumdedisti Me: Claves de la Primera Globalizacion" conference focused primarily on the life of those who traveled with Magellan on his voyage. What were the things that they ate? How much did they get paid? What were the rules on these ships? What was the hierarchy like? Were captains the lords over these ships and the men like slaves? Or was there some democracy as we see on pirate ships? Much of this presentation I was already familiar with from my own study and even from the numerous pirate based video games that I enjoy playing. But there was one part that I found particularly interesting, about how men passed the time on the voyages, or what they did for fun. Trade voyages to the other side of the world, followed known routes, but still took months and years to complete, the level of ennui on these journeys must have been severe on small ships without may diversions, and a crew too poor and too cramped in to bring much with t

Connections between colonies are intriguing. They come most naturally from the gaze or the perspective of the colonizer. So colonies tend to be linked together as sites of corruption, incompetence, primitivity and overall negative binary possibility. We see this in terms of how the US looks at its colonies, describes them, produces them as objects of the law, and assume so much in the way of their nature without an ounce of self-reflection. As a continuation of the Obama Administration, the Trump Administration is now holding up foreign worker visas to Guam. They claim to be doing so because of corruption and abuse in the past. Whatever abuses have taken place are a sliver of a drop in the ocean that is American political or economic corruption. Often times people assume that the corruption begins in the colonies, but it is just as feasible that the corruption was imported or taught to the natives by the colonizer. For those of you with fancy literature backgrounds think Heart of Dar

Our Voices, Our Stories, Our Ocean Pacific Literature Conference May 13-14 University of Guam, Mangilao, Guam Call for Papers and Presentations Description of conference and its purpose
Pacific voices and stories have been marginalized in educational spaces throughout the Pacific for too long. However, with the emergence of contemporary Pacific literature since the 1970s, stories and perspectives on Pacific lives have been included in school curricula throughout most of the region (with less prominence in Micronesia). Thus, Our Voices, Our Stories, Our Ocean Pacific Literature Conference aims to provide a venue for Pacific writers and voices to increase awareness about Pacific literature for Pacific educators, students, and writers on Guam and throughout the region. Moreover, because this conference will take place just two weeks before the 12th Festival of Pacific Arts (FESTPAC) on Guam, the conference’s steering committee encourages participation in

I read Murakami as a younger man and enjoyed the first book I read, but disliked the next two and so I, in a way said abayo to Japan literature for a while after that. When I spent a month in mainland Japan over the summer I quickly ran out of English books to read and resorted to picking up some Japanese texts translated into English. I don't think I'll ever give Murakami a try again, but some of them were worth the time. I really enjoyed the book  Confessions of a Yakuza by Junihi Saga. I ended up giving a copy of it to my brother, as research for the Asian gangster books or films he is always dreaming of penning. I read two books by Keigo Higashino Salvation of a Saint and The Devotion of Suspect X, which were interesting and led me to get a copy of the rebooted Millennium series with a new author at the helm. I saw this article on Facebook and became intrigued. I might try to pick up a copy of it. ****************** Natsume Soseki goes to hell and back in "The

I'm currently reading Harper Lee's new novel "Go Set a Watchman." I am reading it after reading several dozen articles about how much people are detesting the book, because of the way it doesn't stand up to the "timelessness" and "beauty" of Harper Lee's first book, the widely read and praised "To Kill A Mockingbird." Gi minagahet, all the hate towards the book just made me want to read it more. I didn't enjoy "To Kill A Mockingbird" when I read it in school. I didn't enjoy watching the movie either. This new book is supposed to delve more deeply into many of the issues of race and class that the first book barely rubbed up against. I am excited to see where Lee takes this, or rather where she initially took it in her writing, because this book was actually written before Mockingbird. I found myself not really identifying with the Finch family in the first book and found myself more interested in the supporting

I just submitted my abstract to be considered for a very special journal edition based on indigenous activism and legends or wondrous tales. The special edition seems so exciting, as you can read below it is all based on recaptured the wonder in certain native tales and talking about the way in which they do not remain mere stories, but help to animate and activate political activity or imaginations. For my paper I'll be talking about the legend of how the women saved Guam, sometimes known as the story of why Guam is narrow in the middle. Elizabeth Kelley Bowman, un nuebu na ga'chong gi lina'la'-hu, will be co-writing the piece and helping make a connection between that story and contemporary female activism against US militarization of Guam.  The editors are still looking for more submissions. If you are interested please check out the CFP below. (the image comes from the 2014 Inachaigen Fino' CHamoru or the Chamorro Language Competition held at UOG ear