Happy New Year from desde Desdemona!!

Felices Fiestas! Queremos tomar esta tiempo para ofrecerle nuestros mejores deseos a usted y sus seres queridos. Esperamos que su hogar este lleno do gozo, cordialidad y buena voluntad durante esta temporada de fiestas. Que usted y su familia gozen de paz, felicidad y buena salud durante el nuevo ano.

Seasons Greetings! We'd like to take this time to extend our very best wishes to you and your loved ones. We hope your home will be filled with joy, warmth and goodwill during this holiday season. May you and your family enjoy peace, happiness, and good health throughout the coming year.

The bird at the top is a Caribbean laughing gull. In Spanish its name is guanaguanare. This bird always appears when the fishermen are unloading their catch after a day of fishing. The bird hopes for a fish to be dropped from a basket as the boats are unloaded so it can whisk it away. Manuel Acero has watched the guanaguanare for his whole life. Whenever he unloads fish, he saves a few to throw to the gulls. He wishes them and you ease and prosperity in the New Year.

Season's Greetings From desde Desdemona!!

A special wish from all of us living in desde Desdemona for a joyful and peaceful holiday season! And may your dreams come true in 2006!

If you're in need of copies of The Dream Antilles for stocking stuffers, gifts, airplane reading, beach reading, don't hesitate to call or email. We have many copies and can get them to you quickly.

Public Reading Saturday Snow Or Shine!

Two things:
First, I'll be reading from The Dream Antilles on Saturday between 2 pm and 4 pm at Red Maple Books, 1198 Route 21c, Harlemville, Ghent, New York. I'm really happy to inaugurate readings at this new book store. For directions look here. This will be a chance to visit, to talk, to get your books signed (I'll sign mine and anybody else's). And it'll be a chance to buy copies of The Dream Antilles. Did I mention that it makes a wonderful stocking stuffer, a good companion on long flights to foreign countries, and an unusual conversation piece? And I'll read unless there is a huge amount of snow and ice; I will not cancel for bad weather unless it's utterly impossible for me to get to Harlemville. I realize this means I might be reading to myself, and I hope that won't occur.

Second, I have lots of copies of The Dream Antilles. UPS brought me 2 cartons full today! If you want a copies for the holidays, don't hesitate to call me at (518) 392-9150.

Just One More Chance in 2005

My last reading of The Dream Antilles for 2005 is between 2 pm and 4 pm, Saturday, December 17, 2005, at Red Maple Books, Route 217, Harlemville, Ghent, New York. I'm not sure what time I'll read, but I'll be there to visit, talk, sign books (mine or anyone else's), and read. The store, which proprietor Nicole Furnee just opened, is slightly down the road from Hawthorne Valley at the intersection of Route 217 and Harlemville Road. If you're not familiar with the spot, try this to find it. It's not as far away as Swamiji's mountains.

The Dream Antilles could be a great stocking stuffer or gift for the upcoming holidays. It'd be a particularly great gift for travelers: what a fantastic airplane read, what a great waiting for a train read. Depending on how quickly you read, it might take you from one coast to another, or one continent to another. You can, of course, still order The Dream Antilles from Amazon, where you can also read portions of the book on line without purchasing it, or Barnes & Noble in time to receive it before the holidays. And if time gets to be really, really short (read: December 24, 2005 at 5 pm and you still haven't gotten it) you can always call me at home. I always have copies of The Dream Antilles for sale.

Whichever one you may celebrate, if any, I do want to wish each of you a very happy holiday, and a New Year filled with joy, creativity, and most of all, peace.

Again, Shameless Commerce

Today in my secure, undisclosed location it is yet again snowing lightly. It is cold. The sun is blue. It's just the beginning of the dark, long months. We're not even up to the winter solstice. It does not look anything like this:


It's a long, wet, slushy slog from here to the first daffodils. But there are ways other than disorienting intoxication or covering your head with a pillow to get through this. Trust me.

There are a few I can offer.

First, come to a reading of The Dream Antilles. Two are coming up. This Friday, December 9, 2005 at Spotty Dog Books and Brew, Warren Street, Hudson, New York from 5 until 7 pm. In addition to the reading during Happy Hour, they have great beer and lots of it. And then on Saturday, there's a second reading, Saturday, December 17, 2005, at Red Maple Books, Harlemville, Ghent, New York from 2 to 4 pm. This will be fun. Red Maple Books is a brand new bookstore! At both you can buy The Dream Antilles, and I'll sign your books.

Which brings us to a second offer. The Winter Holidays (Christmas, Kwanzaa, Chanukah, Solstice, etc.) are coming up. Most of these involve giving gifts. So give a gift that keeps on giving: send your friends The Dream Antilles, use it as a stocking stuffer, read it for assistance in making New Year's Resolutions, read it to distract yourself from the Season's miserable weather. You can order it at any of the local bookstores, and if they cannot get it for you quickly enough, there's always Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. Not to mention about 75 other online sources you can find by googling The Dream Antilles. And even better, if you go to Amazon, they've at last installed a feature that lets you read from The Dream Antilles without buying anything! That's sure to whet your appetite for your own copy!

And finally, you can daydream the tropics. Start anywhere in this blog and move around. I hope this helps.

Those Who Forget History

As the ramp up to war in Iraq finally gets more scrutiny in the media and the Grand Jury, some of the Administration's statements on how easy and quick winning the war would be, how Iraqis would greet the invading troops with flowers and dancing in the streets, and how Iraqis would rise up to overthrow Sadam seem like a bad dream. But it's not a new bad dream; it's a very old story.

In his wonderful biography of Che Guevara Companero Jorge G. Casteneda writes about the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba:

The plan was relatively simple, and ludicrous. It relied on a series of faulty and biases analyses asserting that the Cuban population, weary of the regime's terror and privations, would welcome a brave and prestigious expeditionary force. According to CIA informers, division and unrest prevailed within the rebel armed forces; they would not hesitate to rise against the government. The plan called for the "freedom fighters" to establish a beachhead near the Escambray mountains where there was spme armed opposition to the regime. There they would receive foreign (that is, United States) recognition and support, and deploy a massive propaganda campaign. This would suffice to topple the government, or at least involve it in a civil war which would quickly become internationalized. (Castaneda, p.198)

I knew I knew that story. It has been told over and over again in the past 60 years. I've heard it a dozen times. The Bay of Pigs was probably not the first time it was told. Vietnam. Panama. Grenada. Haiti. The Dominican Republic. Iraq. It is an old, old story frequently retold. And it is, of course, festooned with the calculated lies that always seem to preceed regime change and invasion. Has this story ever been the truth? And if it hasn't, how can people still accept it? Are Norteamericanos that gullible, or do they relish the myth of being welcomed so deeply that they can't recognize that it's fallacious?

Shameless Winter Commerce

Today in my secure, undisclosed location it is snowing lightly. It is cold. The sun is blue. It's just the beginning of the dark, long months. It's a long slog from here to the daffodils. But there are ways other than disorienting intoxication or covering your head with a pillow to get through this.

There are a few I can offer.

First, come to a reading of The Dream Antilles. Two are coming up. Next Friday, December 9, 2005 at Spotty Dog Books and Brew, Warren Street, Hudson, New York from 5 until 7 pm. In addition to the reading during Happy Hour, they have great beer and lots of it. And then on Saturday, there's a second reading, Saturday, December 17, 2005, at Red Maple Books, Harlemville, Ghent, New York from 2 to 4 pm. This will be fun. Red Maple is a brand new bookstore! At both you can buy The Dream Antilles, and I'll sign your books.

Which brings us to a second offer. The Winter Holidays (Christmas, Kwanzaa, Chanukah, Solstice, etc.) are coming up. Most of these involve giving gifts. So give a gift that keeps on giving: send your friends The Dream Antilles, use it as a stocking stuffer, read it for assistance in making New Year's Resolutions. You can order it at any of the local bookstores, and if they cannot get it for you quickly enough, there's always Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. Not to mention about 75 other online sources you can find by googling The Dream Antilles.

And finally, you can daydream the tropics. Start here. I hope this helps.

George Best, RIP