THE COMIC SOUTHWEST
by Clyde James Aragon
Pull up a chair, take your boots off, and enjoy a few moments of mirthful relaxation with this sampler of Southwest humor in six short stories featuring such topics as Pancho Villa, the Frankenstein of the Americas, mythical fruits and vegetables of the Southwest, and more.
$1.50; 8 1/2" x 5 1/2" 16-page paper booklet; Humor - short story collection
available from Cliff Zone Books
1808 Cherokee Road NW
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87107
Here is the Table of Contents and description of stories in THE COMIC SOUTHWEST (and below that, sample material from the book):
1) Poor Pancho's Almanack - Pancho Villa's contribution to science and literature rivals only Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack with his sayings and interest in weather forecasting (also found in the book TALES OF DELIGHT AND SHAME)
2) The Fall Of The House of Estrada - a man loses his chile-cooking crown and vows to regain it (also found in the book ABANDON ALL HOPE!)
3) Spanish For Dogs - dogs worldwide prefer Spanish 20-1 to cover their day-to-day affairs. There is no better idiom for the canine crowd
4) Mythical Fruits And Vegetables Of The Southwest - only the barest scraps of Indian legend remain of what was once an amazing, perhaps cosmological, produce stand of the ancient shaman-cook. Mmm-mmm good
5) Frankenstein Of The Americas - the Frankenstein tale rears its ugly-bolted head in the Rocky Mountains (also found in the book TALES OF DELIGHT AND SHAME)
6) Relevant Dichos For The Ages - the memory of Pablo Antonio Campanas, eccentric and thinker, is kept alive in a short collection of his pithy sayings (also found in the book TALES OF DELIGHT AND SHAME)
and now here is sample material from THE COMIC SOUTHWEST by Clyde James Aragon:
MYTHICAL FRUITS AND VEGETABLES OF THE SOUTHWEST
The area of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico is often thought of as a forbidding zone of sand, cactuses, rattlesnakes, and gila monsters. But it is also aboil in mystery, where history pervades the land like the aroma of cheap popcorn in a movie theater.
And when history and mystery collide, you get myth.
The most interesting corner of Southwestern mythology, and the least explored, is that of fruits and vegetables. Only the barest scraps of Indian legend remain of what was once and amazing, perhaps cosmological, produce stand of the ancient shaman/cook.
THE JACKALOUPE
Not to be confused with the Jackalope, that jackrabbit-antelope cross with the gamy taste, the Jackaloupe was more a jackrabbit-muskmelon hybrid. It was said to be the size of a basketball, lightly-netted, and yellow when mature. Its inside was orange and was full of Vitamins A and C, potassium, fiber, and probably glutamine, whatever that is.
In legend, the Jackaloupe gave the produce attendant fits as it was so hyperactive. No sooner would the fellow turn his back on the melon when it would be up an about, rooting around the corn, hiding in the chayote, and nesting amidst the peppers. Strange behavior indeed, for a fruit.
THE PINTOAD BEAN
This was a large bullfrog-shaped legume which reportedly grew to immense sizes in swamps and bogs. It had the unusual ability to rise and sink at will in the fetid water and thus was difficult to find. After a large dnner of pintoad bean, the consumer was often kept awake late into the night with an irrational need to drink water and catch flies with his tongue.
(sample from THE COMIC SOUTHWEST)
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THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF ESTRADA
On the day of Francisco Estrada's death, I was there. It was I who telephoned the police, talked to the coroner, and identified the body from the remains of the St. Christopher medal he wore around his neck.
Poor Estrada. A culinary genius and yet so misunderstood.
But I understood him.
It all began at the yearly chile cook-off held by the chamber of commerce. For ten years straight, it was Estrada who held tenaciously to the title of chile cooking champion. His recipes, designed over months of trial and error in his kitchen, provided the township with its one major source of pride and heartburn. (Forgive my comment on heartburn, but isn't it true that genius always travels hand in hand with suffering?)
But this year's turned out to be different. On the podium where the winner was announced, Estrada was upset and unseated as chile king by a Girl Scout who had entered a recipe as part of a troop project. Estrada took the loss stoically but you could sense the sting of loss in his demeanor. He went home that day shaken and bruised and later, after hours and hours of pondering the events, something snapped inside Estrada.
And it wasn't a small sort of snap, it was more of a loud, booming crash.
Estrada began to work feverishly on clandestine recipes concocted in his dreams and in his waking moments. His thoughts turned away from simple chile powder and water and he began mixing in such exotic items as cinnamon sticks, jasmine blossoms, and wormwood root. He even arranged for the smuggling in of tapir hooves from Sumatra.
All this because of the loss of the small gold-plated medallion that was passed on from winner to winner in that chile cooking contest.
"Girl Scouts," Estrada confided to me with more than a small dose of venom in his quivering voice. "They have no business in the kitchen. They should spend their time crocheting and building birdhouses and helping old people cross streets. Take it from me, Aragon, they should leave cooking to those who know how."
Little did we know how deeply Estrada hated to lose.
(sample from THE COMIC SOUTHWEST)
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RELEVANT DICHOS FOR THE AGES
To many people, the name Pablo Antonio Campanas does not ring a bell and it shouldn't for his eccentric and somewhat recondite ways kept him in the limelight of obscurity until only recently. And even then, he would have remained forever trapped on the back shelf of history were it not for a Mexico City librarian who became curious over a handwritten manuscript on its way to the paper recycler. It was this wink of fate which brought to light El Dichonario Tapatio, as it has been dubbed, for Campanas was too modest to pick a title, only hinting in its preface that it should be subtitled The Book of Relevant Dichos since, if you followed its sage advice, your life would improve dramatically and you would also save a bundle on your next home purchase.
Nevertheless, before we wade into the dichos, or sayings, a quick glimpse at the man and his life would be in order if only because I say so.
The birthplace of Pablo Antonio Campanas remains clouded in mystery. Even he does not know so we will discard that item. When he became old enough, he set out on his travels throughout what is now the U.S. southwest looking, as he explained in the book's preface, for the secret of life or, at least, directions on where to find it. This led him to undertake various jobs such as vaquero, prospector, dental hygienist, snake chaser, and streetlight cleaner.
Campanas had a scientific streak to him, as one might find in any man who can be called a great thinker, and he was enthralled by biology and taxonomy and spent much time in the Sonoran Desert trying to show, futilely though, that the porcupine and the cactus were related. His research in the hot area did lead him to prove that the roadrunner's speed is actually an optical illusion and that the bird merely walks instead of runs.
...
Campanas' wealth of knowledge, which he stored much like a giant hydroelectric dam holds water, burst forth finally and sometime in the spring of 1839, shortly before his tragic death at the hands of an enraged husband, he poured out his considerable experience and wisdom into a book of dichos. Here are a few of them:
Cada perro tiene su sombrero - every dog has something up his sleeve
Corcho suelto, vino revuelto - a loose cork makes waves
Lechuga que ladra no muerde - beware of rabid lettuce
(sample from THE COMIC SOUTHWEST)
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from THE COMIC SOUTHWEST by Clyde James Aragon
$1.50 paper booklet
available from Cliff Zone Books
1808 Cherokee Road NW
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87107
