Archive for the ‘Books’ Category
April is National Poetry Month : Gabriela N. Lemmons
10:46 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Books| Women| literature · Comments Off
17 Apr 2009
Today’s poema by Gabriela N. Lemmons comes from the libro Primera Pagina : Poetry from the Latino Heartland published by the Latino Writers Collective.
Sin Calzon
I want to roam
the streets at night
pantiless
loose
when only the sidewalk
watches
stay up all night
read your diary
broadcast your secrets
on the 10 o’ clock newsmemoir
of a serial bore
you kill me with your consonants
the way those r’s
roll off your tongue
like leather
in those shoes at the foot of your bed…
There’s more to the poem pero you really should buy the book.
Amazon Fail Was Due to a Hacker or the French?
6:00 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Books| Controversia| GLBT| Internet| Shopping| literature · Comments Off
14 Apr 2009
Amazon says that it deleting the sales ranks of many many books that are marketed to or are about gays, lesbians, transpeople and or have the word “sex” in it was an error . Who or what caused the error is still out.
One theory is that a lone hacker is behind the mess.
Weev says he organized an army of off-shore computer users to make a bunch of fake Amazon accounts and flag all the gay and lesbian books they could as inappropriate. Also, he got several friends with high-trafficked websites to embed an iframe code that made their visitors automatically send the flags without their knowledge.
The issue with this theory is that some of the sales ranking deletions go all the way back to February.
There is also the theory that a French employee (blame the French!) misunderstood the term “adult”—which refers to porn stuff in Amazon’s system—with “erotic” and “sexuality.”
Regardless if it was a glitch, a hack, right wing organizing, or just bad decision making, Amazon.com has apparently removed the feature that lets users flag books as “inappropriate.”
Via / Gawker (I know, I’m ashamed I read that site too), Consumerist
Amazon Fail : Amazon Shows its Homophobic, Anti-Sex Side
6:00 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Books| GLBT| Internet| Marketing| Shopping| literature| sex · 1 Comment
13 Apr 2009
After a full day of Easter activities yesterday, I came home to find that Amazon was hard at work, disappearing sales rankings from “adult” books. Amazon seems to have interesting fucked up way of deciding what is “adult” though, especially since the deleting of sales ranking and the blocking of the books from appearing in some searches, and appearing on some best-seller lists seems to target books dealing with gay, lesbian and trans themes, and no not all of them are even “dirty”. Take for example the following from Meta Writer who seems as of last night had compiled a list of the books affected :
The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students
http://www.amazon.com/Advocate-College-Guide-LGBT-Students/dp/155583857X/
No protagonist, but intended for LGBT college-bound students.
(Sales rank removed)Robert Adrich Who’s Who in Gay and Lesbian History (amazon.ca)
(Sales rank removed)
Really these are offensive perhaps? Adult?
Here are some other books impacted: “Heather Has Two Mommies”, A Biography of Ellen Degeneres,
Oh just to show that they are equal opportunity haters and that Amazon doesn’t think disabled peeps should be getting down: “The Ultimate Guide to Sex And Disability” has been stripped of its sales ranking.
No se, some of it seems random and not unified pero it still feels dangerous especially since Playboy books and a book about porno guy Ron Jeremy still have their sales ranks up as do hateful books like “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality”. Certain glbt films/dvds still have sales rankings.
Amazon is saying that the stripping of sales ranking, which impacts searchability and therefore accessibility is a “glitch”, one that has been going on since at least February according to some. More likely is that this is a result of some organized “pro-family” orgs who have been complaining to Amazon via flagging certain titles.
For more information follow #Amazonfail at Twitter
In the meantime you can contact Amazon executive customer service via email: ecr@amazon.com and the customer service phone number is 1-800-201-7575 if you wish to share your views with them.
There is also a petition up here.
Via / Jezabel, LA Times, Mark R. Probst, Smart bitches, Trashy books
Mala’s Sabado Morning Links
8:37 am By Maegan La Mala · Blogs| Books| Nicaragua| Politics| Quicklinks| race · 1 Comment
3 Jan 2009Grab your cafe and sit down for a moment with me before we start our errands and enjoy the first weekend of 2009.
What challenges does the incoming Obama administration face specific to brown and black communities?
Forget Mother Goose. How about some Mamá Goose?
Nicaragua harnesses el viento.
And last pero certainly not least, have coffee with our amigo Nezua moves into a nuevo blog groove.
Now that Bush is finally leaving the Oval Office, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales decided that he wants to set the record straight by writing a book (or maybe he just wants a job).
Alberto Gonzales, who has kept a low profile since resigning as attorney general nearly 16 months ago, said he is writing a book to set the record straight about his controversial tenure as a senior official in the Bush administration.
“I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror,” he added.
Problem is, there isn’t even a publisher for the book.
He said he is writing it if only “for my sons, so at least they know the story.”
Via / The Huffington Post
Junot Diaz’s Pulitzer Winning Libro to be a Movie Directed by Motorcyle Diaries Director
8:22 pm By Maegan La Mala · Books| Dominicans| Movies · Comments Off
25 Nov 2008
Junot Diaz’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, will be adapted into a film and directed by Brazilian director of Central Station and The Motorcycle Diaries, Walter Salles.
I liked both Central Station and The Motorcycle Diaries, so hopefully the film adaptation of Oscar Wao will be as good as the actual book.
Via / Remolacha
Lunes Libro : Digital Copy of Fidel Castro’s Libro : La Paz en Colombia
11:10 am By Maegan La Mala · Books| Colombia| Cuba · Comments Off
17 Nov 2008
Last Week we told you about Fidel Castro’s latest book, La Paz en Colombia. Now you can see read the entire book via a digital download.
In the book, Fidel develops three central ideas: one, the characterization and development of the deceased FARC chief, the evolution of the guerrilla movement and his role in the complex Colombian political framework; secondly, the incidence of the oligarchic power, its instruments of exploitation and repression and its alliance with U.S. imperialism in the genesis of and constant exercise of violence; and thirdly, the real nature of Cuba’s links with the Latin American revolutionary movements and its long and sustained contribution to the search for a just, realistic and humanitarian solution to the armed conflict that is bleeding Colombia.
Tonight : VivirLatino Editor, Maegan la Mala Acts Just Like a Girl
8:12 am By Maegan La Mala · Books| Events| New York City · Comments Off
11 Oct 2008
Join editor Michelle Sewell and contributors Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai, Maegan “la Mala” Ortiz, Sara Herrington, Jade!, Ellen Hagan, Tanisha Christie, Penelope Laurence, and K. Coleman Foote for a sizzling, provocative, and boundary pushing reading.
Saturday, October 11, 2008 – 7:00pm
Bluestockings Books
172 Allen Street
New York, NY
www.bluestockings.com
Just Like A Girl is a rough-and-tumble, sassy, kick-ass travelogue through the bumpy, powerful, action-packed world of GIRL. A world where girls and women know how to pick themselves up and brush themselves off. These are the clever girls. The funny girls. The girls who know there is no sin in being born one.
Rican Writer Edgardo Vega Yunqué Passes
9:45 am By Maegan La Mala · Books| Puerto Rico| literature · 1 Comment
5 Sep 2008
Sad news from the Rican literary/culture community this morning. Puerto Rican writer Edgardo Vega Yunqué passed away at age 72. The Cidra, Puerto Rico native, who lived in Brooklyn, wrote 17 novels founded the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center in the Lower East Side.
Vega Yunqué moved to New York from Puerto Rico in the mid 1940s. He was the stepfather of singer Suzanne Vega. He was divorced and was not very close to his relatives, said Colchie [his agent].
The feisty writer, who was the director of the Clemente Soto Velez from 1993 to 2000, managed to alienate a lot of people throughout the years though lately he had been patching things up.
“He was a brilliant, conflictive man,” said media activist Marta García.
His last novel was a comic false memoir about a Jewish woman who meets a Puerto Rican Romeo and falls in love. It had been tentatively titled “Rebecca Horowitz, Puerto Rican Sex Freak” but publication was cancelled by the publisher recently, said Colchie, who’d been trying to find another publisher.
Edited to add: Caro over at Soundtaste has an interesting post up about her last conversation with Vega. I had no idea he was considered machista. I’ve been to Clemente Soto Velez a few times (I dance with Junot Diaz there YEARS ago at a fundraiser) but I am sad to say I’ve never read a book by Ed Vega. Time to start I guess.
Via / NY Daily News
Lunes Libros : The Politics of Latino Faith
11 Aug 2008
Latinos and organized religion have had a long, complicated history. Starting from our native religions and how they clashed and struggled to survive in the face of European conquest to the current growth of Latinos moving from Catholicism to Protestant evangelism, a new book, The Politics of Latino Faith : Religion, Identity, and Urban Communities by Catherine E. Wilson, looks at three faith based organizations in major urban areas and how they meld religious belief with service within the community.
This book is especially timely given the high profile of the Latino community as a key voting bloc in the upcoming presidential election in the United States.
Hola!
VivirLatino is a daily publication published by 2 Mujeres Media, dedicated to featuring all the latest politics, culture, entertainment of interest to the diverse and influential Latino and Latina community in the U.S.
About | Advertise with us | Contact | Twitter
- AmeRICAN: Calle 13 is a bad luck charm brought on Puerto Rico ex-Boxing Champion Miguel Cotto a BEATING by Pac [...]
- Maegan La Mala: I don't think so [...]
- Maegan La Mala: I was thinking about this...how the two are connected [...]
- Maegan La Mala: Well I certainly don't condone an eye for an eye politics and don't think that that kind of "justice [...]
- Raymond Lee: This is an outrage, again a young gay man attacked and killed and the fact that they where gay or bi [...]
- Pedro Julio Serrano on the Murder of Lopez Mercado
- Bay Area Community Members to Hold Vigil and Release Statement about Murders in Maryland and Puerto Rico
- Transgender Day of Remembrance and Latin@s
- Dear Troll(s):
- Puerto Rican, Latino Clergy, Theology Professors, Community Members To Condemn Brutal Hate Killing of Gay Puerto Rican Man
- Vigils for Justice y en Memoria de Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado
- Russell Athletic rehires fired union organizers
- When Things Go Wrong…Terribly Wrong.
- Official VivirLatino Statement on Lou Dobbs Leaving CNN
- Sexual Violence Against Women in Immigrant Detention
VivirLatino RSS Feed
- Pedro Julio Serrano on the Murder of Lopez Mercado
- Bay Area Community Members to Hold Vigil and Release Statement about Murders in Maryland and Puerto Rico
- Transgender Day of Remembrance and Latin@s
- Dear Troll(s):
- Puerto Rican, Latino Clergy, Theology Professors, Community Members To Condemn Brutal Hate Killing of Gay Puerto Rican Man
- Vigils for Justice y en Memoria de Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado
- Russell Athletic rehires fired union organizers
- When Things Go Wrong…Terribly Wrong.
- Official VivirLatino Statement on Lou Dobbs Leaving CNN
- Sexual Violence Against Women in Immigrant Detention
