Author: Nathan

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borders media music photo pop culture

When will Latin Alternative music break through?

I heard this story on NPR today about Latin Alternative music having a tough time making a real market impact:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5251735

I met Josh Norek (one of the voices in the story) about 4 years ago at a Latin Alternative Music Conference in New York. He’s done a lot of work to promote the genre, including his own band the Hip Hop Hoodios. Check out their music in iTunes.

Here’s a photo of Ely Guerra I took at LAMC in 2002:

Ely Guerra in NYC 2002

For those who don’t know, I hosted a latin alternative music show on WRPI in Troy, NY called Border Pop Radio. I could post playlists if anyone is interested. The show was started by el Vampiro Fronterizo (aka Marco Loera) who spins in the deserts of Arizona.

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photo

Puddle Sunset

Puddle Sunset

Taken during a sunset a few nights ago. It rained earlier that day.

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culture crit download history news radio

StoryCorps in San Diego

StoryCorps MobileBooth
StoryCorps is an oral history project that sends their MobileBooth around the country, allowing two people to interview each other about their lives. The participants receive a copy of the 40-minute interview; another copy goes to the Library of Congress to permanently archive the voices of our time. At KPBS, I’m producing excerpted stories from the booth for broadcast. We started airing the pieces this week, and will continue into March. Check out this hilarious story:

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Ramón “Chunky” Sanchez is a musician who played an active role in the Barrio Logan protests that led to the creation of Chicano park. His parents were farm workers, and when he first started public school he spoke only Spanish. Here, Chunky Sanchez talks with his friend Jose “Pepe” Villarino about what it was like for Mexican-American students in the 1950s.

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culture crit photo web

Flickr: Social Constructs

I started a public Flickr group to focus on visualizing social constructs. There are already many photographers from all over the world contributing. If you have work that deals with social construction, please join and submit your work: http://www.flickr.com/groups/socialconstructs/

This group shares images and ideas that deal with socially constructed boundaries. Race, class, sex, beauty. Social constructs shape the way we perceive ourselves and others around us. Pink for girls, blue for boys. Do my teeth really need to be whiter? These modes of thought come out of specific social contexts (political, cultural, social, economic, scientific, etc). When the context is analyzed, their artificial nature can be revealed and often unravelled.

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borders news tijuana

Tijuana / San Diego to co-host Olympics in 2016?

It seems a bit unlikely with the current state of international politics, but it is 10 years down the road. Which is more realistic, shared binational olympics in San Diego and Tijuana in 2016, or my hypothetical campaign to “Tear Down The Border In 2096?”

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Why life in southern California is so expensive

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Video postcard from Zulma currently in Troy, New York.

I lived in Troy from 2001-2004 and my limbs still remember the numbing cold. It still hurts a bit watching that video. A snowplow once left my car packed into the snowbank up to the windows, leaving me no option but to dig it out with a piece of cardboard I got out of a dumpster. I don’t miss the pain of thawing my fingers out over the stove. One thing I do miss is how quiet it gets after it snows. Aside from that pesky sense of touch, my other senses really enjoy the winter.

For those of us not living in the tundra, it is a clear reminder why we put up with the ridiculous cost of living in SoCal. And for the rest of la raza in upstate New York, don’t forget to keep an ice scraper and shovel in the trunk.