mil recuerdos

saturday night at the blue star theater in san antonio.

the theater is tranformed into a cantina, complete with dim lighting and faux smoke hanging in the air. an ample dance floor separates the stage from the audience and there are tables crowded with chicano glitterati around the dance floor.

we loiter in the standing room only section, to the right of the stage,where there is an actual bar in service, and actual beef jerky on the tables for us to gnaw on. neither me nor my roommate have worn appropriate standing room only shoes, but it doesn't matter. we are in the line of vision of two of our favorite chicana authors - sandra cisneros and denise chavez.

the house band playing tejano music inspires audience members to dance. olga and i cumbia, making the most of our dancing (not standing room) shoes.

the show is phenomenal. there are readings and songs, music. a couple of women sing those heartwrenching mexican rancheras i love so well. sandra reads one of my favorite of her stories - there was a man, there was a woman. and denise reads an exerpt from her upcoming book.

we are happy to be in the company of greatness.

we are happier when our friend, v, invites us to the after party. nervous and happy.

we cruise alamo street, passing a raucous college bar and then, seconds later, the alamo itself, all glowing yellow light and hard to forget. ;)

after a few wrong turns, we arrived at the house hosting the party. i was mortified to see sandra cisneros standing in the front, greeting people and directing them toward the backyard. i confess that i froze in my seat. olga, on the other hand, stepped out. probably the chicago chicana in her. laura and i followed suit, let her greet sandra, and scrambled pass. i was practically hyperventilating.

the party was fun. it was exciting to be among the glitterati. i met ruth behar, an anthropologist close to my heart. i was starstruck and babbled only semi-coherently to her about also being an anthropologist. laura had a similar experience with denise, who she writes about in her dissertation about new mexican literature.

even though these people are not famous famous, they are stars in our universe.

@>-->>---