![]() ![]() ‘Fart spray’ senior prank leads to felony charges for Texas students.Massive hammerhead shark filmed on TikTok near Galveston Island.Lovable ‘Brady Bunch’ star immersed herself in San Antonio-area church.He smiled and said, “And Juan Rulfo and Miguel Cervantes - but for now, concentrate on your voice.” I remember asking Rivera if he had read James Joyce and William Faulkner. Later, I spoke with a good friend who told me “in medias res” was Latin for beginning in the middle of things. My eyes centered on his tapping index finger. “Begin in medias res,” Rivera said and pointed to a paragraph. He spoke about “stream of consciousness” and respecting the reader by not telling too much and allowing critical thinking to do its job. It was marked up on the margins with insightful editorial remarks. The story “Las Manos” (“The Hands”) was about a Vietnam vet who had lost his hands and committed suicide. He had my story in a folder and slipped it to me. A week later, I met with him at his office. After class, I asked him if he could read one of my short stories, and Rivera smiled and graciously took it. In our literary theory class, we talked about “structures of feeling,” and I quickly understood the reference because it applied to those innate feelings of “connectedness.” His novel made me connect, and it influenced me in my quest to write and develop my skill.Īs for Rivera, he was down to earth, soft-spoken and erudite in his lectures. In fact, I was a graduate student studying for my master’s degree in bilingual-bicultural studies in the early ’70s, and I remember Rivera substituting as a guest lecturer when our instructor was in Austin defending his dissertation.Īs part of our assignment, we read “… And the Earth Did Not Part,” and I was immediately struck by the simplicity of the language, the rhythm of his words, plus the sheer ability to connect with the narrator’s consciousness. I knew Rivera when he was vice president at the University of Texas at San Antonio, when the public university was just starting out there in the wilderness on Loop 1604 near Boerne. Don Simon is a very important character in Zoo Island and may be even more interesting than you think.Nevertheless, his paragraph on Tomás Rivera was on target. That way you know you're not only here but that you're alive." He took a huge change from being grumpy and uninterested to being supportive. ![]() By counting yourself, you begin everything. He drastically changed, though, because after Jose took Don Simon in the census, he said, "Well, you know, I kinda like what y'all are doing. When Jose first began questioning Don Simon for the census, he wasn't very enthusiastic.He barely answered and wasn't to happy about it as well. The 'island' part relates to them because they are isolated from other people. When Don Simon sliced Stumpy with a knife, no one did anything about it, for example. ![]() I think he called the town that because the first part, "zoo", relates to them because they don't have very many laws. But there was something in his eyes that made people jump.Įven though Don Simon only appeared towards the end of the story, he still has many important roles to play. When Jose went to question him for the census, he used the vaguest answers possible. Without this the story would be much more boring and not very complex. When he got angry with Stumpy for needling him, Don Simon chased him all around the field with a knife. ![]() One of Don Simon's points is to cause a little conflict in the story. Don Simon is a grumpy guy that makes Jose scared. When Jose, the main character, takes a census count, they counted everyone but a man named Don Simon. The story, "Zoo Island", by Tomas Rivera, talks about immigrants. ![]()
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