Swordplay

Selling my latest Baron Von Hugenstein book at a recent Belegarth sword fighting event.

Homecoming 2016 at the haunted college

Peddling my ghost lore at the Homecoming events of my alma mater, Point Loma Nazarene University.

Mamá Lola conoce el libro de los chaneques

Un momento histórico:

Por primera vez, Mamá Lola conoce el libro que contiene las historias de los chaneques que ella vivió en carne propia.

Comentó:

"Está muy bonito el libro, y todo eso es cierto. Yo lo sé porque yo lo viví. Pasó hace muchos años, pero yo me acuerdo. Qué bueno que existe el libro, porque ahora muchas otras personas pueden conocer estas historias también. Y no van a desaparecer."

El libro "El grito del chaneque" está disponible aquí. 

"The Narrators" storytelling hour

Action shots of the storytelling hour, "The Narrators" podcast, that took place October 11 at "Tiger! Tiger!" Bar in San Diego.

Me telling my own thrilling tale of adventure, "Cyril, the Friendly Russian Skinhead."

Eating a crap roll this Friday

One of these sushi names could use a little marketing help...

My encounter with The Raven

My first encounter with a live raven. I feel like Odin up in here.

" But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered – not a feather then he fluttered –
Till I scarcely more than muttered "Other friends have flown before –
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said "Nevermore.""

Los gatos del cementerio - Cemetery cats

[English below]

 En un cementerio de Coyoacán, incontables gatos hacen guardia en las puertas. Como macabras sentinelas, se congregan en silencio. No se mueven, no se acercan a los transeúntes ni se van corriendo, nada de maullidos, apenas si parpadean.

Aquí se quedan. Sentados, viendo. Esperando a alguien...o algo. ¿Estarán aquí para que nadie entre a profanar el camposanto...o para evitar que alguien salga de ahí?

Lo cierto es que estos felinos se alimentan de las ratas del panteón. Ya sabemos de qué se alimentan las ratas. No cabe duda - de manera indirecta, estos gatos consumen carne humana.

* * * *

In this cemetery of Coyoacán, Mexico City, dozens of cats stand sentinel at the gates. Sitting in silence, barely moving, never crying.

They sit and they stare. Waiting for someone...or something. Are they here to keep someone from coming in...or from getting out?

One fact cannot be avoided - these cats eat the graveyard rats. The rats...well, you can imagine what they eat. Thus, these are cats that, indirectly, survive by consuming human flesh.

Festival Macabro: "Histeria"

Con Carlos Melendez y otros creadores de "Histeria", una de las mejores películas de suspenso que he visto jamás.

Ganadora del premio de Mejor Dirección en el Festival Macabro, Ciudad de México 2016.

Festival Macabro: clausura con Tyler MacIntyre

La ceremonia de clausura del Festival Macabro, en el Museo de la Ciudad de México.

Con la presencia de Tyler MacIntyre, director del largometraje horror-comedia "Patchwork".

Macabro film festival: Stuart Gordon

Chilling with Stuart Gordon, director of "Re-Animator" and many other horror greats.
Bloody good time.

Festival Macabro: María Aura

Con la actriz mexicana María Aura, de "Y tu mamá también", "Niñas mal", "Testigo Íntimo", y muchas películas más.
Gracias, Festival Macabro!

El director Valentín Javier Diment

Conociendo a Valentín Javier Diment, el director argentino del largometraje "El eslabón podrido".

Es, sin lugar a dudas, una de las películas más creativas, más originales e inéditas que he visto jamás. Una verdadera joya.

Dennis Paoli in Mexico City

Just hanging out in Mexico City with Dennis Paoli, the screenwriter of "Reanimator", and giving him a copy of my book.

Death walks the streets

Random sighting of Death on the streets of Mexico City.

Nazca-like humanoid figure somewhere over Texas!

Is this humanoid figure the evidence of some ancient alien civilization that left its mark on the American Southwest?
Or was I just really bored on a plane?

Only in the South

Only in the South...

A nice big wine display - with a sign telling you that you can't buy any of it, because it's Sunday.

The Jesus billboard

First religious advertisement spotted during this trip to Georgia.

I bet so many people convert to Christianity because of this billboard. They go, "Man, the only thing holding me back was that I just couldn't remember the guy's name!"

How to learn a language in a day, Part 1: The 200 most important words

What if there was a simple list of the 200 most important words to learn in any language? What if by learning the words on that list, you could have a conversation about almost anything?

What if there was a really smart guy out there who created such a list?

You're in luck pal...there am such a smart guy. And that smart guy am me.

THE 200 MOST IMPORTANT WORDS TO LEARN IN ANY LANGUAGE

A few folks have attempted to compile such a list in the past. One of the most well-known lists was published by Tony Buzan in his book, "Using Your Memory." Unfortunately, Buzan's list of 100 words is very Anglocentric. It includes many words that do not exist in other languages.

As a person who speaks ten languages, I have figured out a thing or two about what words and concepts are the most important.

Of course, it's impossible to claim that this list is universal. That's the beauty of linguistic diversity--certain languages have words, concepts, and structures that don't exist anywhere else in the world. Still, if you can learn how to say these 200 words in a language, you'll be well on your way to speaking it.

It goes without saying, learning these 200 words is just the beginning. It's not enough to just translate an English sentence word-for-word. In addition to basic vocabulary, you'll need to learn:

1. Grammar
How do you conjugate verbs? Do adjectives change? Are there genders? Are there declensions and grammatical cases? (These can make one noun change, depending on where it is in a sentence.) Does the language use certain articles before or after words, to show how the word is being used?

2. Sentence structure
Word order can vastly vary from one language to the next. If you don't believe me, watch an old kung fu movie with a very literal translation.

3. Certain concepts aren't contained in just one word
I've singled one of them out in my list: the idea of possession, "to have." In many languages, there isn't a simple verb to say "to have."
EXAMPLE: In Russian, to say "I have a cat," you literally say, "By me [genitive case] there is a cat."
Many indigenous languages of the Americas are the same.

4. Tonal languages
Some languages, like Mandarin Chinese, Mixtec, Barí, are tonal. The tone (musical note) you give to a word will change its meaning. This means you don't just have to learn the words and grammar--you have to take a music lesson as well.

* * * *

Without further ado, here's the list, with words roughly arranged by category. I'm always open to suggestions for perfecting it.

THE LIST 

Greetings, courtesy 

hello

goodbye

yes

no

not (negation)

please

thank you

Question words

who

what

where

when

why

how

because

Prepositions

with

on

under

in

out

next to

here

there

up

down

before

after

for

from

now

Pronouns

I
you
you (formal)
he
she
you (plural)
we
they (male, female, both)

possessives - my, your

Verbs

use

have

see

hear / listen

be able to (do something)

say

speak

find

to be

to like

love

come

go

take

bring

make / do

to exist, be around ("there is / are" in English, "haber" in Spanish)

think

know

sleep

eat

drink

work

Adjectives

comparisons: more, less

good

bad

large

small

hot

cold

old

new

pretty

ugly

fat

thin

clean

dirty

strong

weak

alive

dead

Basic nouns

person
man
woman
friend
house
town / city
animal
tree
water
food
thing
time
sun
moon
land / earth
sky

Body parts

body

head

eye

mouth

nose

hair

arm / hand

leg / foot

stomach

back

Other random common words

if

also

but

either / or

other

different

same

this

that

all

none

always

often

sometimes

never

more

less

a little bit

much

again

and

almost

only

Basic colors

white

black

green

blue

red

yellow

Numbers, one through ten

What kind of "cutz"?

Here's a pro tip for you: if you're going to use a number in the name of your business, try to make it clear what number it's supposed to be.

I spent 15 minutes wondering why this place was called "grtwo cuts"...until I figured out that was a mutilated 8.

Calle Gabacho

Sin lugar a dudas, la calle más gringa de Gringolandia.

Bathroom reading

Some classy fellow at the public library decided to take a bunch of magazines into the restroom.

Apparently, what "does it" for this guy is:
a) Cinematography
b) Mission Impossible
c) Articles about "va jay jays"

To each his own.

Jacking pad, dump valve

Apparently, all the components of the Amtrak train were named by seventh grade boys.

Intercambio de libros con el autor Fabrizio Mejía Madrid

Tuve el gran honor de conocer al autor y periodista mexicano Fabrizio Mejía Madrid en la Feria Internacional del Libro. 

Después de recibir su autógrafo y dedicatoria en su libro "Nación TV", le regalé un ejemplar de mi colección de historias de duendes, "El grito del chaneque". 

También aproveché para decirle que sus textos son una chingonería singular, que me encantan.

Watch me learn a language in a day

That's right. I plan to learn a language in one day.

This Sunday, February 21, is "International Mother Language Day." It's a holiday established by the United Nations in 2000 to promote linguistic diversity, multilingualism, and to rescue and promote languages that are in danger of going extinct forever.

How will I be observing this holiday?

I plan on learning an entire language in one day.

"Monumento a los Mazahuas"
Image courtesy of Wiki Commons.

Why am I doing it? 

For one thing, I'm extremely vain. I already speak ten languages, and I think I'm up to the challenge. I have what it takes to learn the basics of a language in just one day.

More importantly, I'm doing this to promote the "International Mother Language Day" and to raise awareness about dying languages.

In the past few centuries, hundreds of languages have died out. Humans currently speak between 6,000 and 7,000 languages, but at least half of those languages are in danger of disappearing in the next century.

When humanity loses a language, we don't just lose a different set of words and sounds--we lose all the knowledge and wisdom that language contained. We lose a different way of thinking, of perceiving the world, of solving problems. It's like setting fire to an entire library of books that have no other copies.

At least 13 languages have died out in the past decade alone. These include:

- The Klallam native language of the northwestern United States. (Last speaker died in 2014)

- The Livonian language of Latvia (2013)

- The Pazeh tongue of Taiwan (2010)

- Nyawaygi, an aboriginal language of Australia (2009)

The UNESCO established the International Mother Language Day in 2000. The date commemorates a massacre that took place in Bangladesh in 1952, when students were killed by the police for demanding the right to speak their own language.


What language will I learn? 

I thought about doing Portuguese, since it would be an easy one. I already know Spanish and French, and Portuguese is somewhere in between these two languages.

But then, I decided to go for one of the languages that is actually endangered. I will be learning Mazahua, one of the indigenous languages spoken in Mexico.

There are currently between 150,000 and 170,000 people who speak this ancient language, but the numbers are going down at a rapid rate. Mazahua native people who are younger than 40 are switching almost exclusively to Spanish. This is the case with many indigenous languages, both here in Mexico and across the world. When the younger generation forgets how to speak a language, they are no longer able to fully communicate with the elders. Their cultural identity becomes endangered. All the traditions--legends, wisdom tales, songs, myths, folk memory--could be lost forever.

After I've learned Mazahua, I will do what I can to promote and protect it, to keep it from dying out forever.


How will I do it? 

I was going to learn Mazahua on the 21st of February, since that's the actual U.N. holiday. But then I realized I'm going to have guests in town that day, so I don't think I'll have time to learn a language. Instead, I will be doing it tomorrow, Thursday. If all goes well, by this time tomorrow I should have a basic knowledge of Mazahua.

Of course, I'm not silly enough to claim that I can become fluent in a language in just one day. However, I do plan on knowing enough Mazahua to have a basic grasp of it. I will be able to carry on conversations with native speakers. After studying ten languages, I've learned one or two tricks about how to quickly learn a new tongue.

So how will I do it?

I'll be explaining my strategy in upcoming blogs. Stay tuned for more...

My haunted college mentioned on Prairie Home Companion!

Very honored that Garrison Keillor mentioned my haunted alma mater on the air this evening!

[image courtesy of Wiki Commons]

He said that he always visits the seaside campus of Point Loma Nazarene University when he's here in San Diego. Of course, Keillor included a few snarky remarks about how most Evangelical colleges are not nearly as beautiful, looking like unpainted warehouses.

He even wrote an entire song dedicated to Evangelical surfers! Check the program out on the Prairie Home Companion website. You should be able to listen to it from Monday, Jan. 25 until the following Monday.

I wonder if he happened to run into the ghost of Madame Tingley while he was on campus?

Philosophical graffito in the park

A thoughtful graffito spotted in the men's restroom in Balboa Park.