NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Mad Boy's Love Song (After Mad Girl's Love Song) I close my eyes and the world drops dead The curtain of blackness falls, blanketing a cruel reminder that I think I made you up inside my head You as a thunderbird is all I see roaring, splitting silence Trailing behind you twinkling smiling newborn stars thatform a shower up above In your afterglow, I hear the stars trickle down the blackcurtain of a world dropped dead I feel them fill the lines in my face, finding their way into the strings that tie together my life, dripping along and spiraling deeper and deeper until my every moment becomes bewitched When I lift my lids, all is born again, but now water-colored with you instead  The straining of my grocery bags, is the crinkling of your skirt The scratch on my car hood, follows the curves of your leg   Every bump in the road, is my eyes tracing the tempting lines of your fingertips The red of the shampoo bottle, glistens with the faintness of your lips White sheets of paper,

I once had the experience of being in a short, intense and confusing relationship with someone for a single month. Desde gualafon asta gualafon. From full moon to full moon, we fell in love and then I watched as she, following the phases of the moon, disappeared into the darkness of the sky and rapidly fell out of love. It was a strange experience because it felt deep and felt real, but then disappeared, out of my grasp like trying to catch the moon or its light between finger-lengths.  At the end of that bewildering experience, I wrote this poem, trying to take stock of what had happened, but also somehow hoping that with the changing of the moon again, she might come back, and the light that lit up her face and the sky might return. It did not.  *********************** Pulan Kada puengi  Anai hu atan hulo’ gi langhet Ya hu li’e’ i pilan Bai hu hahasso hao Ya bai hu na’hasson mamaisa yu’ Na hunggan i pilan yanggen tumaigue Guaha triniste gi tinaigu

These pictures are from NASA's Juno spacecraft which has been orbiting the planet Jupiter for more than a year and a half. The images are stunning to say the least and make me wish I was painting again. The colors and the textures are so engrossing. When I finished sending out emails tonight I may actually break out some paints and canvas.

I'll be at the Sukicon this weekend at the Phoenix Center at Father Duenas school in Mangilao. I will have a bunch of interesting things to display and even some stuff to sell. Sukicon is a gathering or cosplayers, gaming nerds, anime/manga nerds and even comic book geeks. There is an artist alley and different booths by exhibitors. For me, I'll be displaying/selling the following things: 1. I'll be displaying some of my grandfather's tools. I have a nice complete set of the seven traditional tools that I'll put out, as well as some examples of the 150 year history of Chamorro blacksmithing in my family, most notably a machete that is more than 100 years old, and made by my great-grandfather Mariano Leon Guerrero Lujan (Bittot). I also have some tools that my grandfather made and one or two that I helped him make more recently. This will be interesting as I'm sure most of the people attending Sukicon think of "culture" a bit differently, as usually

Eight years ago on my blog, I started a series titled "Paluman Marianas," meant to feature different native birds of the Marianas and my drawings or paintings of them. I only did one, for I Tettot or the Marianas Fruit dove, and never got around to posting another one. I have plenty of drawings and paintings that feature Guam's birds, in fact with my daughter Sumahi, I've added quite a few more. Sumahi loves to draw in general, but I've tried to teach her as much as I can about the native birds of the Marianas. She can name many of them, probably more than most kids nowadays. But sharing this part of our heritage with her reminded me of my long forgotten series of Paluman Marianas. I wanted to add another one today, #2: I sihek, the Micronesian Kingfisher. ************** Micronesian Kingfisher - Guam Information courtesy of http://guamendangeredbirds.com/wst_page4.html The Micronesian kingfisher (Halcyon cinnamomina cinna

In terms of situating Chamorro pasts and giving a founding meaning to their history and identity, Fu'una and Puntan, the two siblings who created Guam and Chamorros are generally given that great honor. They are thought of more and more as being the founding spirits, whether you see them as Gods, historical figures, metaphors or fantasies. They are taking a key place of meaning in terms of rooting Chamorro identity today, not as a spirit that was created in 1521 or 1668, but as something longer and having its own distinct origin. Even those who refuse to believe in Fu'una and Puntan as being spirits, but see them as possible historical figures, who may have been the ones to lead a voyage to Guam long ago, nonetheless reinforce their primacy. In one of the earliest references that we have to Fu'una and Puntan, Fu'una herself is not even mentioned. Puntan is mentioned and so is his "sister," but she is hardly given a role. In this passag

--> It is a surreal experience being a "professor" and a "doctor" in the sense of being an academic. Although I have the degrees and the background to give these labels the appropriate meaning, I still feel first and foremost that I am actually an artist. My sensibilities and my approaches to almost everything are more like that of an artist than that of a scholar. I constantly learn towards creativity and innovation rather than seeking the usual stability of disciplinary sheltering that characterizes most academics. This is why even though my career and so much of my reputation is tied to things such as development of Chamorro language programs, curriculum, Guam History research and the development of programs related to Chamorro culture and identity, I still yearn to create "art." I try my best to force it into the things I do, but I also want to actually create art in the sense of comic books, writing fiction and often times just painting a

When I read the short story, "The Sun, The Moon, the Stars" by Junot Diaz, he had several lovely passages, and on the advice of my male' Victoria Leon Guerrero I used to use it when I would teach composition at the University of Guam. There is one moment towards the end where the narrator talks about when one reaches the end of one relationship it brings you back to the beginning. You see the first moments in a color that was more vivid than when you actually experienced them. That is the sign that a relationship is coming to an end, like when the brain starts to shut down and it is gasping for life, the another moment after the next and it fills the abyss of your mind with a maelstrom of desperate exploding stars. There is an obvious poetry and symmetry to this, but I haven't really felt it to be true. Each time I have come to the end of a relationship, or even like I do now, where I can see the end ahead like a depressing oasis impervious to this r

I feel that stupidity and selfishness are the two main things that are wrong with this world and people in this world.  Each is like a vice that can be irritating and frustrating on its own, but with their powers combined they can bring the universe to a standstill.  Even if you are the most selfish person in the world if you aren't stupid then there will eventually be a limit to how greedy you are and how destructive you are. At some point you have to realize that if you act too selfishly there will be nothing left to possess and be selfish about.  Even if you are the stupidest person in the world, if you aren't selfish then you will ultimately be harmless. You will be too stupid to actually affect anything around you in any real way. The fact that you aren't selfish means that you won't constantly seek pathetic ways of hiding your stupidity and blaming all others for your failings. The last time I met someone who combined sheer stupidity

O Tano' Gof triste hao pa'go Sa' i mas gefpago na diamante Esta gaige giya Guahu O Mapagahes, Triste hao, Sa' taya' mas "fluffy" Kinu i guinaiya-ku O Uchan, Un na'matmos i tano' Lao esta masmai i korason-hu ni guinaiya O Isa, Manayao hao kulot Ginen i mitkilot na guinaiya-ku O Atdao, Hosguan hao Nu i minaipen i guinaiya-ku O Pulan, Gof hosguan Nu i mina'lak i nobia-hu   Kao toninos hao? Sa' toninos yu' Kao toninos hit gi i tasin guinaiya?      

The Battle of Guam/Okinawa project took several months but it was well worth it. After visiting the Sakima Art Museum in Okinawa I was consumed by a painting that is in their permanent collection, "The Battle of Okinawa." This painting was designed to show the horror of World War II in Okinawa, when the island was destroyed in a typhoon of steel. This painting was the height of the Museum and filled with imagery that intrigued, haunted and horrified. I knew I could never match up to the intensity of that image, but felt the need to try to create my own intervention. After traveling and visiting Okinawa so many times in the past few years and seeing the way our tragic histories have given us similar difficult experiences, I wanted to build upon the intent of the original Battle of Okinawa painting, but also put my own wishful solidarity, in whatever form I could find it. I decided to try to paint an image that could combine the effects and impacts of World War II in both

This is the painting of the saddest person I know.  She lives in delusions and fantasies about herself and paints herself up everyday as if she is perfect and beautiful. Many people accept that surface of her not because they believe it to be true, but because they instinctive find that she offers to little to the world, that there isn't really any reason to consider her further.  I tried to paint that surface that she words so hard to pretend is real, to duplicate the sometimes comforting but also draining and taunting shell that she wishes others would accept as real.  But each time I would try to paint her, the sadness,  the loneliness, the insecurity, the self-hate, the pathetic inability to accept the truth of who she is, would come to the surface of the painting.  It is one thing when someone does not realize that they wear masks and live in fantasies, but she knows the truth, but still stubbornly and fearfully clings to lies. As a result she

This coming year looks so exciting for me in terms of the many projects that I will be organizing or be involved in. For the next few months I will literally have three full time jobs. I will be teaching Chamorro language and culture classes at UOG. I will be leading the writing team for the Guam Museum. Finally I will be coordinating a 3 year grant, totaling more than $600,000 to create a standardized text for teaching Chamorro at the college level. This is in addition to all the other many activities that I will be continuing. I may find it hard to even find time to play any SC2 before the end of the year. One thing that has unfortunately suffered as I become more and more busy is my painting. For years I would have every couple of months marathon painting sessions, where I would paint for hours and cover the entire floors of apartments with paintings and often times paint splatters. I have a CAHA grant that I received to paint an image that combines the experiences of both Cham

In a few weeks it will be the anniversary of the dropping of the A-Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I recently picked up a book, titled White Flash, Black Rain: Women of Japan Relive the Bomb, which features poetry and testimonials from Japanese women who survived the bomb. The language and imagery are haunting and chilling in the way writing about such an inhuman experience should be. ********************** The Sky by Horiba Kiyoko I I want you all to know how blue the sky was the sky toward which the millions of rain-struck and sunburned eyes were turned How blue the sky was the sky silently embracing moans of the inflamed earth a hell more cruel than hell instantly imprinted for eternity on the retinas of dead embryos How blue the sky was after the white parachute clouds flew away far beyond the mountain range their poison mushrooms floating away on our Acheron II August 6, 1945 The day that stains humankind that day the blue sky bloomed splendid cr

I haven't been painting much lately, but I decided to do something about that last week and ended up painting several faces using watercolors. These are two that I submitted to the Creative Hands Exhibition at the Isla Center for the Arts. There titles are "Hot Woman" and "Cold Woman." I really like how they turned out. I hope they accept both pieces as I think they contrast each other nicely.

The past few months have been difficult in terms of writing. I still write quite a bit, but I just don't find as much time as usual. I am currently the program coordinator for the Chamorro Studies program at UOG and in addition to this I have two kids and teach five classes and so down time where I can type or scratch out my thoughts feels about as rare as seeing a sihek in my backyard. But since November is National Novel Writing Month, I've decided to set aside time each day to work on a novel. Gof magof yu' put este, ya gof excited yu' para i mamaila na mes. My idea is one I've been thinking about for years and I've written about a few times on this blog. I call it "The Legend of the Chamurai." It is a story about how prior to the Spanish colonization of Guam in 1668, an event took place that has almost been completely lost in Guam History. This is the period where the Spanish interacted with Chamorros and visited Guam, but did not settle ther

Happy Valentine's Day!!!! *************  "You Is All I Want" Michael Lujan Bevacqua 2011 The waitress at Coco’s is happy I am not. She sashays to my table as if she has just stolen the sunshine of everyone in the room and beams at me with her conquest I am not in the mood for anything. I miss you, and it is the kind of missing that makes you feel like something is pushing your heart through your chest, giving it the sense of being released and set free as it is being choked to death by the bars of your rib cage. As the song says, there ain’t no sunshine when you’re gone, and every sunny soul makes me wish I was some cartoonish DC universe villain, with a ray-gun that would suck out your happy soul and then stab you in the eye with a spork afterwards. The waitress leans over and asks me, smile stuck between her teeth, “What do you want today?” I look at her wishing I was the protagonist of a movie and so when I glare, extras jump, cameras zoom, the soundt

For my Marianas Variety article this week I'll be writing up some "love" related phrases in the Chamorro language, in honor of both Chamorro month next month, Valentine's Day coming up and in general the fact that we should celebrate and use this language which is part of Guam's unique heritage. Last year, one of my most popular columns was something similar, where I came up with more than a dozen interesting and special ways to say "I Love You" in the Chamorro language. I thought I would post that below, but also I wanted to solicit from people any phrases, pick up lines, song lyrics, poetic turns of phrase, anything that you would want translated into Chamorro to tell someone special on Valentine's Day on Tuesday. If you have something in mind, please email me at mlbasquiat@hotmail.com and I'll try to include it in my column this week and I'll also email it back to you.  *************************** "Love in Chamorro" Michael

I have not painted for a while. Apmam desde mamenta yu’. Halacha’ gof tinane’ yu’ ni’ i che’cho’-hu, ya sesso gof machalpon i hinasso-ku siha yan ti nahong i semnak gi i ha’åni. The other day, as if to start the new year fresh, my daughter Sumåhi pressured me to paint with her and her brother. They had received a brand new set of paints for Christmas and had been eager to use them. So even though I had plenty of things to do, I relented and got out several sheets of paper for us to paint with. When Akli’e’ paints, he primarily uses his fingers. Dipping the tips into the paint cups and then smearing them on his arms and occasionally on the waiting paper in front of him. Sumåhi is much more controlled when she paints, and sometimes appears stoic and almost pained as she attempts to force the paints to form familiar animal shapes. She ended the night with an impressive painting of two afula’ or manta rays. The manta rays were pink, while the ocean around them was a color-coordinated gr