House with the blue bed by Alfred artega Chapters:11-20

1. House with the blue bed by Alfred artega Chapters:11-20 Zitlaly , Ricardo, Carol

2. plans • Summary of the chapters

3. Prince • Theme: Touch is powerful • Daughter Xochitl encounters a prince, one of her friends extends her hand to shake his hand and he refuses because letting her touch him would mean everyone could touch him. • “I ask this not merely of the translation of different social forms of touch, in the matter of styles, but also of the physical link established by touch.”pg 43-44 • Touch is a matter of power • Prince-no touch • Falling woman- touch

4. Cartas • Theme: Translation is not going from one language to another. • “Translation is most difficult, perhaps, with poetry and jokes. This is so, I believe, because both poem and joke are intricate plays of language, one aesthetic, the other humorous.” pg 45 • Translation misses the metaphor sometimes, sure it translates word for word but it loses its humor, the meaning. • Explains how difficult it was for him to switch from French, to Spanish, to English while traveling in Europe • In America, especially LA, English and Spanish.

5. THE DEAD • Theme: Irony • He spent his last teenage years trying to avoid the dead, their bodies because he didn’t like the fact that you can’t communicate with them. • He avoided Vietnam by going to college but in order to pay for college he worked for the LA County Coroner’s Office as a custodian. • Describes it as a hell for detritus of humanity, the used up, discarded flesh that had been the indigent unable to die in a doctor’s care…”pg 50 • He did however like working there for the small excursions he would take with his coworkers

6. Signs • Theme: Signs • Takes place at the Hall of Justice • Lewis, Jewish artist from Berkeley • “His job consisted of…” pg. 54 • “By the end of the summer…” pg.55 • He lost his job at the Hall of Justice

7. gun • Theme: Power • He arrives home, and the police are holding a gun to her head in an “assassination position” pg. 57 • He describes how the media presents the protesting Chicanos and peace officers

8. faith • Theme: Retaliation • Two blood incidents • First: sister throws a toy rifle at him and wounds his ear • Second: A girl, Maria Luisa, bites him continuously until he uses violence to stop her

9. fear • Theme: Fear • He wrote “A monseuldesir” pg. 62 • Takes place in winter, in Paris • Spends time with Dominique and they both go to Tour St-Jaques • They see a tapestry that show six hangings • He compares his poem to Dominique’s fear

10. Being • Theme: Being where you belong • The types of writers and writing there is. • Page 66 “But to merely insert a poetic break in a sequence of narrative logic is an attempt to figure the poetic in the line of the prosaic” • One of the main points is that one should stick to what they know, so things wont seem out of place or fake. (pg. 67 bear poem)

11. race • Theme: what can we control • In a race distance doesn't’t matter, only time in which you go a certain speed. • Pg. 70 cant control the tracks, only the speed. • Alfred used to race but let it go because of his family. • Pg. 72-73 he mentions turn nine.

12. Auto body • Theme: Protection • The tracks in Willow Springs, made him feel safe. • A car accident he gets into while racing in Willow Springs. • In LA driving to a possible riot. • He felt safe in the car he was in.