Wednesday, December 26, 2007


The envelope from Paris arrived on Christmas Eve like clockwork. I never suspected that the French postal system was any better than the Mexican one! But for the last few years we have received a Christmas card from poet/novelist/environmentalist/diplomat/etc Homero Aridjis and his wife Betty. Aridjis is now the permanent Mexican representative to UNESCO in Paris. Of Aridjis I have written at length in this blog.
Here is one with a connection to Vancouver's George Bowering. The Christmas card always has a little cellophane bag with a Mexican tin Christmas ornament. I have a long string of them (I use red wool and Rebecca hung them on the inside of our front living room window this year). To this collection we can now add the watermelon. The card was not an ordinary one but a postcard announcing a documentary film by Homero and Betty's daughter Eva (screenplay, director and producer) La Santa Muerte narrated by actor Gael García Bernal.



I have yet to see the film but I read with relish Homero Arijis's own interpretation of the Mexican cult for death in his book La Santa Muerte. Since it has yet to be translated into English, an inkling of the plot can be read in this essay from the New York Times.



While the picture on the poster was on the sombre side I was delighted to find out that Aridjis has a new book out called Sicarios (Spanish for a hired assasin, lat. sicarĭus). The little deathly candle stick seen here is Pancho El Esqueleto. His story is here.