Latin Dancing Expresses the Love of Being Human.

Wow, so I don't even know where to begin. I just love Latin music and dancing so much! It embodies everything I love about Latin culture: the vivacity, the happiness, the boldness, the spontaneity, the energy, the joy of living. I just LOVE it! It's so great!

I discovered Salsa dancing when my sister married the Salsa club teacher at Utah State and brought him home a few years ago. It changed my life. No, but it really did cause I'm pretty sure Salsa dancing was my first exposure to Latin culture, being from Alaska and all. In fact, I'm fairly certain I didn't see a real-life Latin person till I was like...in college probably. You think I'm joking but I'm not. I'm actually really glad it happened that way because it gave me the chance to fall purely in love with the culture without getting influenced by a lot of the negative perceptions out there. And now, a few years later, here I am with my entire career plan centered around Latin people! All because of Latin dancing.

I'm definitely not the best salsa dancer (probably because I don't show enough bare midriff), but I feel waaaay more legit now that I know what son clave and tumbao are. People would always start clapping out son clave when I went dancing but I just thought it was this special rhythm that manifested their natural Latin-ness. And now I can manifest that I'm a Latina too! It's just a richer touch to the expression of love of life through dancing.

The point is, don't you want to celebrate being human too? Great! Here's your chance to bring out your Latin side :) There's a Latin dance on Friday, November 2, 2012 at 8:30-11:15pm in the Wilk Ballroom and you need to be there. So here you go :) You can find more moves where this came from at...Youtube! Plus you never know what you'll find at a Latin dance: a career, true love...who knows. It's a magical place!

And let's be honest, it's the best way to study the humanities.

"¡María Candelaria!" "¡Lorenzo! ¡Lorenzo Rafael!"

Once upon a time when I was a freshman in college, I took a class called Intro to film. And it rocked. Unfortunately, it has been quite some time since that class and I'm afraid that with my abstinence from movies for 18 months on my mission, I have forgotten how to actively watch movies. So I'm a little bit rusty with analyzing them.

While you keep this valid excuse in mind, I'll confess that when the ending of Maria Candelaria wound down, I was left with the following feelings: 

A) "Wait, whaaaaaat???"

B) Depression

I mean, yeah the cinematography was great and yeah, the Taj Mahal, I mean, Dolores del Rio did a pretty good job acting/looking flawless but I didn't really get the point of the movie. But between then and now I've been pondering over the theme of Maria Candelaria and this is a major one I picked out: Innocence/Pure Love. Alright, alright, I guess it does count as two. Innocence and pure love.

Sooo in class we talked about how parallels were drawn between Christ and Lorenzo Rafael and between Maria Candelaria and the Virgin Mary. I was like, "Yeah, yeah. I see it--wait, um, no, Lorenzo Rafael stole stuff. That's not like Christ." But then I continued musing about it and have gained some insight.

                                       

(By the way, when Lorenzo Rafael is in jail and the light is shining on him, this is the painting I thought of.)

The strongest qualities that I noticed about Maria Candelaria (why do they always say everyone's full name in the movie?? I don't know. But I'm going to do it too.) and Lorenzo Rafael was their innocence. It went beyond being naive of the world, they were like children. Pure children, which explains why they didn't do anything when people did bad things to them. They were incapable. It also explains why Lorenzo Rafael can get away with stealing stuff from a store and yet is still pure. Yeah, it wasn't the best thing to do but his motives were pure. He only wanted Maria Candelaria to get better and he only wanted to be able to marry  her because he loved her. With pure love.

Their innocence also fulfilled the meaning of Maria Candelaria's name--bringer of light. The painter gained redemption, aka repented, aka changed, because he had known her. I think that when we come in contact with people with pure hearts our lives are uplifted because it gives us a view of the world as it should be. And that's what Maria Candelaria gave to the painter.

Fathers and Sons

Justino got up from the pile of stones which he was sitting on and walked to the gate of the corral. Then he turned around to say, "All right, I'll go. But if they decide to shoot me too, who'll take care of my wife and kids?"

"Providence will take care of them, Justino. You go there now and see what you can do for me. That's what matters."

--------------------

"Guadalupe Terreros was my father. . . . They told me he lasted more than two days and that when they found him, lying in an arroyo, he was still in agony and begging that his family be taken care of."

(Rulfo, Tell Them Not to Kill Me!)

I'll be honest, this story was kind of painful to read because it portrayed such a sad relationship between Juvencio and Justino! What kind of father tells you to possibly abandon your family because his life is more important??? A bad one! That's who! This guy is repulsive. And poor Justino gets to see the contrast between his relationship with his father and the relationship of Don Lupe and his son's relationship:

Juvencio Nava was willing to risk his son's life to have a chance of surviving. Don Lupe was mortally wounded and would not let himself die until he was sure his family would be taken care of. 

Pretty stark contrast.

Unfortunately, strained relationships between fathers and sons is a pretty common problem, as shown in the media today. Here are just a few pop culture examples that came to mind.

1. Faramir and Denethor in Lord of the Rings. Faramir loves his father and would give his life to gain Denethor's love but...Denethor's a jerk.

2. Buddy and his daddy in Elf. Buddy only wants his father to be proud of him. 

3. Tommy (and his brother Brendan) and their dad in Warrior. Tommy and Brendan's dad basically caused their family to fall apart.

And although these are just a few examples, Rulfo's story shows that this problem is universal. Why is it such a common problem? Wouldn't the world be a better place if father's would just love their sons?

Faith in a Fortune Teller? Sketch.

"But the woman, the cards, her dry, reassuring words, and her goodbye--"Go, go, ragazzo innamorato," and finally, that farewell barcarolle, so lively and gracious,--such were the new elements which, together with the old, formed within him a new and abiding faith." (Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, The Fortune Teller)

Bam! There it is, the
                                    true
                                        downfall
                                                           of
                                                               Camillo.

The silly man had apparently never read Alma's explanation of faith!

"And now as I said concerning faith--faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true." (The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, 289)

Camillo, like so many people before and after him, wanted something to reassure him and let him know that everything was going to be alright. Human experience, right? Everyone wants to know it's gonna be ok. You want it, I want it. Unfortunately, human experience also teaches us that when you place your faith in sources that are not true, you lose in the end, as Camillo found out.

It just doesn't work out so well if we place our faith in things other than Christ. We'll just be disappointed in the end. It reminds me...

Once upon a time there was once a man named Symonds Ryder who apostatized from the Church because of a misspelling of his name by the Prophet Joseph. (That wasn't the entire reason he apostatized, but that was his excuse.) Like Camillo, he placed his faith in a person and was disappointed. Point is, no one's perfect. And imperfect beings will disappoint every once in a while.

The only perfect source for our faith is Christ. It's just a shame, really, that Camillo picked such an imperfect person to put his faith in, haha.