2, El Diablito

In some syncretic religions of Latin America, worshippers use little red-horned plaster statues of the devil to represent aspects of Exu, or the trickster spirit who inhabits the crossroads. The crossroads is both literal and figurative, where things could go either way, up or down, left or right, good or bad, and a deserted intersection is as good a place as any for an impromptu little shrine. In these religions -- like Macumba in Brazil, cousin though not sister to North American Lucumi/Santeria -- these little devils often look like comic-book illustrations of "The" Devil we're accustomed to in American fairytale horror stories for gullible semi-religious people not well versed in actual theology. This Exu is an aspect of the Yoruba Eleggua or Elegba, but a wild and earthy one caught mixing it up with the ancestral spirits. One aspect of Exu is Pomba Gira, a female gypsy-spirit consorting with the dead: I have a little statue of her where she is represented as a beautiful dark-coffee-colored naked woman cavorting on a lavender coffin. But these little red devils are not in any way equivalent to the great symbolic evil of the Abrahamic Satan; they're not the Manichean darkness duking it out with God's lightness, and they're not a nihilistic force of revenge summoned up by anti-social teenagers or mentally-impaired would-be mass murderers.

Instead they're a recognition of mortality and the human condition, including knowing that we don't always do the right thing, especially when we're trying to get where we want to go. Above all Exu is neither evil nor morbid, though the intended playfulness of laughing at death is often colored by the worldly knowledge that death is indeed everyone's eventual visitor. Temptation, sure: people who play with Exu are definitely playing with fire. Do the right thing? Well who's to say exactly what that is anyway: is God really a micro-manager? We make plans but things don't always (usually?) go as we hope they will. Enter the little devils.

Which brings me to what I'd actually like to contemplate, which is what I'm going to call the lesser evil of lesser evilism in American politics, our very own political little devil.

When I was a child in Chicago in the 1960s, I remember a senatorial election in which my very political parents announced they were supporting Charles Percy, a liberal (inconceivable now) Republican. I remember telling all my little friends at school that I was a Republican! At age eight I wasn't yet hip to the complexities of Chicago politics and given the progressive liberal atmosphere I grew up in, this seemed sort of logical given the dark and looming machine of the first mayor Dailey who was anything but progressive. Of course two years later as my parents dove into working for a succession of anti-war Democratic Party presidential candidates in 1968 I remember eating a bit of crow as I went around telling my little friends that I was now a Democrat. Well, we know how that ended.

Fast forward to the heady days of my young adulthood. At college I became a communist and soon learned the lessons of Leninism: the Republicans and the Democrats are the twin pillars of American capitalism, tweedle-dum to tweedle-dee. Any difference between the two was surely cosmetic, and the elaborate dancing exchange between the two a well-rehearsed trick to keep the working people from exercising their own independent class power. There might be publicity value in fielding a leftwing third party candidate, but the slogan of the hour was, "Don't Vote, They're All the Same!" And dutifully, that is what I did. And, speaking of evils that aren't so lesser, in 1980 Ronald Reagan was elected president.

The left was minuscule in 1980; its influence was nil. It wasn't their fault. But I soon learned that, in fact, "they" weren't all the same. Ronald Reagan turned out be a very bad man, and he did some very bad things, including laughing and whistling while quite a few of my friends contracted the mysterious and then always-fatal AIDS. Say what you will about the cannibalistic unsustainability inherent in capitalism, Reagan and his inane trickle-down economic theories are one of the reasons the American economy is in shithole today. And while it's simplistic to ascribe the death of the left only to Ronald Reagan, nevertheless it was during his presidency that the organized Marxist left, whether or not it was overtly sympathetic to the Soviet Union or not, followed the Soviet Union into the dustbin of history. Left parties that had thousands of members soon had dozens of members; left sectlets that had hundreds of members soon had none.

Anyway by the time 1988 came around I was no longer convinced that voting in presidential elections was irrelevant. Like many leftists I worked on the Jesse Jackson campaign, which it must be said, was inside the Democratic Party. Of course he lost. I set aside organized political activism shortly thereafter.

There is a very intelligent Maoist website called Kasama. Once upon a time that would have been quite a nonsequitur, but now two decades on from the fall of the Soviet Union and well into the revolutionary egalitarian democracy of the internet, all sorts of leftists are leaving the worst of their dogmatic trappings behind and trying to regain their footing. Kasama has initiated a discussion of the upcoming elections based on the lessons of Obama. I contemplated participating in this discussion as it's one of the handful of leftist sites I read daily. But I was immediately confronted by the reality of my position: I voted for Obama, and so far, I plan to vote for him again. Because the main point of many leftists, Kasama included, remains: don't vote, they're all the same. Kasama and other leftists I've read say that the Democrats are whipping up fear of the teabaggers to scare people into supporting Democrats. My response is, yes, I'm scared!

The great American socialist Eugene Debs had an opinion on lesser evilism: "It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it." A beautiful quote but I'm not sure that in our current era it's true. Elections have results; one side always wins. It would be great if there was a viable electoral alternative to the Democratic Party. It would be great if the great majority of working people organized themselves in their own class interest and rejected the Democrats who are always selling them (us!) out. But there is not... yet. Leftists, and I do count myself on that side, should advocate for independence and try to raise consciousness and condemn the actions of both Republicans and Democrats that need condemning. But at the same time we do this, I believe it is necessary to recognize the reality of the balance of forces in society and vote for viable candidates, which usually means Democrats. In 2000 many many leftists got behind the independent candidacy of Ralph Nader (with, I would argue, many many right-wing independent voters since "independent" voting in the United States is in recent history almost always right-wing populism). The result? A close election went to George Bush, the right-wing Republican. We can see from the 2000, 2008 and 2010 elections how it is not irrelevant who wins an election.

President Obama and the Democrats have done some terrible terrible things. They have continued old wars and started new ones. They have continued to steal from working people and rewarded the rich and the corporations. They have continued to erode civil liberties. They will inadequately defend the social safety net that is being whittled away. All these things are true: each one of these things makes me furious... including being furious at myself for believing that Obama's sometimes brilliant lofty speeches meant anything at all. But if you're frustrated by President Obama, imagine President Palin or President Trump or President Bachmann or even President Pawlenty or President Christie, and be very, very afraid. That's not fear-mongering, that is the real choice before us.

I am utterly unconvinced by today's left discounting the danger from the right wing. I don't know if it's because as a gay man I'm sensitive to things that many straight white people don't see or what, but I think the left's failure to identify the teabagger movement as nascent fascism is a crucial mistake. The mainstream media like the New York Times have been busy perpetuating this absolute myth, no make that lie, that the so-called Tea Party is all about economic issues and not about the social conservatism that has been festering on the right wing for decades. Perhaps it's because the leaders of the "Tea Party" are so careful to stick to their coded dogwhistle approach, it's hard to pin them down. But anyone who cares to look can see that this new right-wing is deeply and profoundly racist and antigay; its mixture of populism and corporatism is missing only the brown shirts or white sheets. History does not repeat itself exactly: the fact that the teabaggers have not mobilized actual lynch mobs is I think irrelevant, given the right-wing infiltration of the military and militia movement. The Democrats and elections will not, I don't think, be able to defeat this new rightwing threat, but I believe for now, until the left finds a way to make itself relevant again, Democratic victories may stave off the worst of it.

Obama and the Democrats are going to do what they're going to do. I'm not so naive as to believe that "we" can do something like "hold their feet to the fire." This is the president of U.S. Imperialism we're talking about: it's in his job description, his very nature, to do terrible terrible things. But at local levels especially, leftists should be weighing the possibility of finding viable, not symbolic, candidates who can begin to change the game.

That game will change only when the Democratic and Republican parties explode and factionalize. While the people -- the working class if you will -- have tremendous power and social weight, they don't know it. And that's the task of leftists I think, not to build better sectlets and tiny little parties like they tried -- and failed at -- before. But to focus on raising the self-awareness of the people who should be fighting back against the class war of the rich people. I'm not sure I call myself a Marxist anymore, that's true. But in today's world I'm just not sure what the hell that means anymore. The Marxist left has always said that the revolution will not come from the ballot box. Okay then: I'm not seeing any revolution from outside the ballot box on its way, at least in this country. But that election's happening whether any of us like it or not. While we're building the idea of the world that could be, let's commit a little lesser evil and participate in the world that is.

Better the little devil you know?

UPDATE: I feel compelled, almost four years later, to say I'm extremely glad that I changed my mind from this piece, and in the 2012 elections decided to no longer vote for Democrats. Indeed, I question the process of voting in the United States as being singularly delusional and worthless. It strikes me now that Democrats, far from being a lesser evil, are the more effective evil, siphoning off social movements and sending them off to die. The kind of cynical realism I mused with at this stage of my life was thankfully and forcefully unravelled by participation in the Occupy movement. #LessVotingMoreRevolution


(This is part of a continuing series of meditations on the archetypal Mexican Loteria bingo cards. For earlier essays in the series click here.)

20, El Pajaro

I've been staring at this picture here in January and thinking about birds and when I would see one that I could write about. There's a wonderful world of birds in the back yard in summer, jays and cardinals and sparrows and teeny birds I don't know what they are. I'm sure the community of feral cats that lives in the center of our block enjoys these birds even more than I do. But it's winter. Not waking up to birdsong lately.

Walking to the subway in the snow this morning I saw a mottled black and white pigeon hopping up some steps. Maybe it was just looking for something to peck, or frustrated at the snow in the sky, or maybe it was sick, I dunno, but I realized once again I like pigeons. More of my friends than not have called them "rats with wings," but I'm not a pigeon h8er. Actually I saw a rat in the subway yesterday that I thought was cute so maybe I'm just having a weird winter reaction to urban vermin, er, fauna, but that's another story.

When I was a kid my mom took me to Venice. In St. Marks Plaza for a few lira (this was 1970, pre-Euro) you could buy a sheet of newspaper rolled into a cone filled with corn and feed the massive pigeon population that rivalled the massive American hippie population lying about the sidewalk. I remember being happily swarmed with appreciative pigeons, and I'm pretty sure I hadn't yet seen what happened to Tipi Hedren and Suzanne Pleshette in Hitchcock's version of that situation so I was fearless. They landed on my head and outstretched arms and it was awesome.

My boyfriend of the early 1990s lived in a wretched tiny little apartment in the Village. His apartment had a window opening up onto one of those unique features of NYC tenements, the airspace. This airspace was teeny, maybe five foot square, and it was infested with pigeons. He hated them -- the feathers and pigeon poop was a bit much to take, I accept -- so he kept that window closed and covered, defeating the alleged health-giving benefits of the airspace in the tenement architect's intent. But in his apartment you could always hear this cooing sound through the darkened window. Oh it probably drove him crazy but I found it comforting somehow. The super in my Brooklyn apartment building at the time kept pigeons in the basement, though special ring-necked ones, beautiful and sleek. I don't know if he raced them or what, but they made the same beautiful cooing and it made a trip to the laundry room like a trip to the performance of some strange avian choir.

Pigeons are everywhere in New York City. You see them lazily riding the Staten Island Ferry crossing the harbor and sometimes in some elevated subway trains. They walk around in the Port Authority Bus Station imitating rushing commuters. In neighborhoods like mine there are organized flights of kept pigeons swirling over the rooftops in summer. And I remember the corner near my old apartment where the poorly designed lampost that hung over the sidewalk in an unusual way made waiting for the light to change particularly dicey. When the pigeons who always perched there had to go, they had to go. Do pigeons laugh? I know these pigeons were enjoying themselves and their target practice.

Most pigeons are not beautiful birds. Like the one I saw this morning they can look like doves who passed an exploding inkwell. Or the dark gray ones with the shimmering green and pink metallic feathers about their necks: there's something greasy and insect-like about those colors. But momma pigeons love their pigeon babies no matter what they look like. (Where the heck ARE those baby pigeons anyway?) Urban people look different than suburban and country people, so it's only fitting that urban birds would have a toughness about them.

They could fly off to warmer climes, but they don't. They stick around, braving winters like the one we're having now. They like the hum of the city beneath them; the grit, the hustle and bustle. And they're social beings. Bobbing around, being pigeons together. I give them credit.

20. The Bird.

(This is part of a continuing series of meditations of the Loteria Deck; a Mexican bingo game with archetypal images that resonate like Tarot cards. Click here for more Loteria stories.)

54, La Rana

I'm too old for Kermit! Yesterday I noticed several facebook friends marked the 41st birthday of the seminal children's television program Sesame Street. Of course I know who Kermit is, who Bert and Ernie are, who Miss Piggy is. But I was already almost 11 when Sesame Street came out, and frankly I don't think I noticed. That was for little kids. I do remember loving The Electric Company, a PBS franchise that must have tapped my age group more appropriately, but if I have some sentimentality for the teevee of my childhood and youth, I have none at all for Sesame Street. Zilch.

We didn't have a television when I was very young, even though my father worked in the advertising business (very Mad Men, actually). I think it was a form of rebellion on his part. I think we got one about 1963, because I'm pretty sure I remember seeing at least the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination on it. We didn't get a color teevee until way into the 1970s.

There was children's programming that felt mind-numbing and false: Romper Room, Captain Kangaroo, Bozo the Clown. The time I got to actually attend a taping of Bozo the Clown disillusioned me for years: the studio audience sat practically in another room and we had to pretend we could see what was being taped and clap enthusiastically when asked; it was torturously unpleasant, but a useful lesson for life. I loved Saturday morning cartoons: Astro Boy and all that other weird out-of-synch puppetry and animation so mysteriously from Japan. Underdog was a favorite; so droll and witty.

And while I know that Kermit is legendary, and "It's Not Easy Being Green" is a great song (look for the Lena Horne version!), he doesn't move me. A coworker at my old job gave me stuffed Bert and Ernie dolls to decorate a shelf in my office; you could tell this was a significant "remember these eternal icons of childhood fun?" moment for her. I can hear the Bert and Ernie voices in my head, but it's a memory of an adult time not a treasured echo of being a kid. Many times in my adulthood I've tried to track down some childhood experience to try to recapture a flash of remembered magic, sometimes quite successfully. But sorry, Bert, Ernie, I'm glad you've become gay icons, but you don't mean anything to me either! And I've never seen "The Muppet Movie."

Back in the pond, giant green frog.

42, La Calavera

Alexei Kondratiev and Len "Black Lotus" Rosenberg were two friends of mine back in the 1990s when I was a Neo-Pagan. Both men were brilliant, hugely knowledgeable about Pagan paths and fonts of lore and tales. Alexei was a Celtic scholar, and Black Lotus was a student of the Shakti path of Hinduism; both were also "witches" of NeoPagan tradition. They projected a kind of quirky eccentricity. Len was a bit of a bear, bearded and bellied and balding; Alexei had a wild mane of unruly graying hair. They both had the air about them of being too concerned with the cosmic forces swirling around them to be too concerned about such trivialities as unwrinkled clothes, but they were wonderfully warm and open men. In a fortuitous stroke of cosmic fate, they found love in each other and were partners as long as I knew them. Len had some terrible health problems; when I knew him he walked with a cane, often grimacing though never complaining about his physical limitations. I ran into Alexei out and about a few times after I left that circle and he seemed always unchanged. Both Black Lotus and Alexei passed on this past year, a few months apart. Ibaye. I'm sad to think I won't be running into them again this side of, well, that cosmic veil said to be so thin on Halloween night, what Len and Alexei would have called Samhain. But I'm hoping their spirits, having shuffled off the proverbial mortal coils, are running together, united in the mysterious world on the other side.

It's what Halloween is traditionally for, this day of the dead, besides donning amusing costumes and projecting momentary alternate egos: remembering the transformational passage at the end of this plane of life. Those skulls and bones make us laugh, but they're a reminder of both the temporary nature of our flesh and also the core of bone at our center: a dialectical alchemy of the ephemeral and material.

This world lost a lot of wonderful musicians this year. Marion Brown, the creator of hauntingly evocative jazz suites in the early 1970s. Aminata Moseka Abbey Lincoln, who brought the fire of the civil rights movement into jazz in the 1960s and then aged and mellowed like fancy cognac. Soul singer Solomon Burke. Calypso singer Arrow of "hot hot hot" fame. Lena Horne, actress and singer, one of the most elegant women who ever lived. Malcolm McLaren, innovator of punk rock, hip-hop, and house music who approached and then curated urban music as high art. Ibaye. Fortunately for us still on this side, the music, the sounds they made, are left behind.

It's a good night to light candles for the spirit world. It's a good night to offer up a few prayers for the spirits on this side and for the spirits on that side. It's a good night to remember those who have passed, and to ponder the mystery of it all. You can't know yet what happens in that fearsome transition. There are hints, and you can hear whispers from the other side, but get used to it, sooner or later you will know. And this is the night when it's not dark or morbid or obsessive to look at the skull like a kind of magic mirror. What do you see there? Boo!

10, El Arbol

A tree does grow in Brooklyn!

When looking for the house I live in now the most important thing was actually whether it was on a block with trees. Our block, where the houses were all erected in 1907, is one of those blocks in Brooklyn still full of trees. From the look of them they're probably not the original trees of the block. I'm imagining long-gone elms. Anyway there's a big plane tree that rises up by the top-story window I look out of as I type away on my computer. In summer its leaves remind me of green life and block the worst of the sunlight. In winter, coming soon, it's a little stark but the branches rock wonderfully during a storm. When we moved in there was also a sad little empty spot where a thin tree's sawed off stump remained. This past spring the city came and ripped out that stump and planted a small cherry tree, the first on the block to bloom this year, which seems to be so far doing fine.

Out back the neighbors have a northern magnolia, a wonderful huge tree that bursts into pink bloom the minute a whisper of spring is in the air. It took a hit with all the snow last winter, a big bough crashing to earth with the weight of snow, but the amputee seems to be holding up well despite its loss.

We haven't had frost yet in Brooklyn, so the leaves out front are mostly green, though a tired, brown-at-the-edges, read to give up color. The cold is coming soon I'm sure, and I imagine it will be a quick burst of red and yellow before the leaves all fall to the street below.

I can't bear the thought of not seeing trees outside my window. As much as I love cities, this city, I need that connection to the world below the concrete. I'm not sure how they survive here, but they do.

Thanks, Tree!

16, La Bandera

It's emotion on a stick, that's what the flag is.

Though I was born in Mexico the green, white and red holds no feeling for me, pro or con. With no disrespect meant, it amuses me to no end that the Mexican food vendor around the corner offers a choice of salsa roja, salsa verde, or "a la bandera" on his excellent handmade sopes, huaraches and gorditas: a ladle of red sauce, a swath of cream, a strip of green sauce, laid side by side.

What doesn't amuse me is the stars and stripes. I know it brings grown men to tears. I know that its broad stripes and bright stars are comforting to many, symbolizing some powerful vision of fury and righteousness. I understand that it is revered as a sacred pennant, dripped in the blood of the fallen. I know you're supposed to love it, to respect it, to salute it, to pledge to it, to keep it from touching the ground. To keep it safely away from flame.

But it doesn't work that way with me. Never has. Maybe it was growing up in the 1960s, but the pledge of allegiance always seemed wrong to me, under or above God. I won't say it. I can't say I never have said it, but I know it was in that long ago decade that I stopped mouthing those words in school. I won't rise for that awkward anthem. I won't hold my hand above my heart for it. I suppose I'm lucky I'm not a sports fan.

I quoted my grandmother here a couple days ago about the intense patriotism of her grandfather, a Union Army veteran, and God bless him; he was devoted to the better of two flags. But forgive me, I can't follow in that tradition.

I don't take comfort in seeing it on every truck and bus and subway train. I don't feel kinship with someone wearing it on their lapel or their hat or their jacket. I don't feel my testicles expanding and my cock hardening when I see it paired with a white-headed bird and some defiant slogan like "these colors don't run" or "never forgive or forget." Speaking of never forgetting, do you know what's been done in the name of that flag?

The red-white-and-blue represents to me the absolute worst of America: its entitled arrogance, its narcissistic cluelessness, its bull-in-a-china-shop way of stomping about the world. It's a substitute for substance, an end to the conversation. I remember that horrible amazing picture from the 1970s of a white racist in Boston wielding a flag like a weapon as he attacks a black-skinned Haitian immigrant. Go ahead, Google "American flag as a weapon" and it comes right up. 5 seconds of typing and an icon appears.

See? Emotion on a stick. I guess it brings up rage in me. Where others see promise and hope in it, I see despair and deception. With liberty and justice for all, really? Is that what it has fluttered over all these years?

Oh I know America can be better than that. I'm grateful for my constitutional rights. I'm grateful for a march of progress. And I'm grateful it's not the stars-and-bars floating overhead: now there is a repulsive flag that should be condemned to fire.

In truth some flags don't bring out this reaction in me. Like red ones. I would stand and sing for James O'Connell's "The Red Flag": The workers flag is deepest red/It shrouded oft our martyred dead." Even with the mockery that Russia and China made of the crimson banner, it still has the power to make my own spirit rise. Against the odds the red flag does mean promise and hope to me. Go figure.

But The Flag? The stars and stripes? As Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane said long ago, "Point that thing somewhere else."

8, La Botella

I'm not a big fan of ketchup. Nor catsup, in its peculiar alternate spelling, thank you Hunts weirdos. I do like kecap, the sweet Indonesian soy sauce from which ketchup gets its name. But ketchup, meh. It's okay on fries. But I loathe it on hamburgers, where it leeches away all the beefy flavor. And hot dogs? It transforms them into vile sugary meat lollipops. But what comes in a ketchup sized bottle, among other things, that I am totally obsessed with? Hot sauce.

Oh God I love hot sauce. Let's start with the rich orangey red garlicky goodness of Sriracha. Which turns out to be a not particularly traditional American melting pot sauce inspired by Asia but realized in Asia-America. Then there's Kutbil-Ik Mayan hot sauce from El Yucateco. An unlovely brown, made from unbelievably hot habanero peppers, it burns so good.

Tabasco sauce? It tastes like slightly tangy vinegar to me. Pleasant, but not even slightly hot. Trappy's Indi-Pep with its hint of Caribbean flavor? Getting closer. Matouk's sauces, rich with tropical fruits and habaneros? It even comes in ketchup-sized bottles; delicious.

At my Santeria Ita almost fourteen years ago, the life divination new initiates into the religion receive during the week-long initiation ceremony, I received a letter that said I should avoid red foods. The people around me gasped and I am thinking, I am so off the hook for ketchup! Chango himself, kabiosile, would prefer I stay away from it. At first I was somewhat concerned that my love of hot sauce would suffer from this proscription. Salsa verde to the rescue. Green hot sauce turns out to be richer in flavor and variety than I ever dreamed: Indonesian green hot sauce. Mexican green hot sauce. Homemade sauce of tomatillos, cilantro and serranos. And, thank you Caribbean, for yellow hot sauce. All that 'Badian hot sauce with scotch bonnets and mustard? Mmmmm.

My kitchen is full of hot sauces for cooking. My table is full of hot sauces for condiments. Returning from vacations my travel bags are full of hot sauce souvenirs. Heck there was an after-work social function today that happened to showcase Latin food in the neighborhood of my office and I bought a bottle of hot sauce there.

I don't think Gil Scott-Heron wrote his classic song "The Bottle" about hot sauce. "And don't you think it's a crime, when time after time, people in the bottle". Oh man, no crime when that bottle is full of hot sauce. That's the taste of life!

29, el tambor

Yesterday I went upstate for the celebration of my Santeria godfather's 21st birthday as a priest of Yemaya. Two of my godsisters were giving him the ultimate honor, a tambor fundamento, or fundamental drumming. Many people honor their orisha birthday, the anniversary of their initiation as priest/ess in the religion, by throwing a tambor: Hiring a group to play conga and shekere and sing to the orisha, this is called a guiro. But fundamento is different: the sacred and powerful triple bata drums, the anya, are played. These drums are so sacred that initiates in the religion must undergo a separate ceremony where they are presented to the drums before they are allowed to dance in front of them. A priest is specially selected at a fundamento to dance for the orisha being honored: this priest will always be mounted by the orisha who comes to earth to grace the celebration with their presence.

My godfather, called Asinyabi in the religion, is a priest of Yemaya Okute, the warrior aspect of Yemaya. He is completely and utterly devoted to Yemaya: his home shrine to his Orishas among the most beautiful I have ever seen. Though he no longer lives in New York City, he belongs to a Brooklyn-based Egbe Yemonja, a society of other Yemaya priest/esses who carry on important traditions of Yemaya outside the normal ile, or house, structure of the Santeria/new world Yoruba religion. Anyway the birthday celebration, even being held so far outside the city at an elder's house upstate, had a terrific turnout.

I'm not a great santero. Although I was fully initiated over thirteen years ago as a priest of Obatala, I'm not very active in the community, I don't have godchildren, and I don't usually throw celebrations for my own orishas, and I attend tambores rarely, either guiros or fundamentos. But I love the religion, I love the orishas, and I love my padrino; it was important for me to be a part of this event.

A huge altar, called a throne or trono, literally a sacred seat for the orisha, to Yemaya was set up in the back. While some Santeria lines are not strict about this, in my padrino's ile there is no photographing the orishas or the celebrations, so there are no pictures of the beauty that was this event; only the pictures in the memories of the participants. The throne was like an art installation to Yemaya, a kind of beach scene with rich cloths and even sand, seashells and a pool with fishes. The throne was surrounded by fresh fruit offered up to Yemaya and then handed out as blessings to the participants afterwards. The room is filled with priests and priestesses dancing, or greeting each other by prostrating themselves at the feet of those older than themselves in orisha years. It's a sacred occasion but a joyous one.

The bata drumming was extraordinary. It's an oddly syncopated sound, instantly recognizable, and unlike what a person would think of as the typical "Afro-Cuban drumming" that came out of Yoruba religious tradition to become a foundation of Latin music and jazz. Each of the three drums is covered in a special cloth decorated with symbols of the orishas, and the center drum, the iya, is draped in bells. Their rhythm coaxes the orishas to earth: as initiates present themselves to the drums and later dance to the songs played to each orisha, the air becomes charged with sacred energy and priests and priestesses shake and twitch with the touch of the divine beings. At this tambor two Yemayas and one Oshun came down. The Yemayas were that of the priestess hired to dance for Yemaya, and my own godfather's. A number of Changos, Oyas and Obatalas lingered briefly, mounting their horses just enough to remind us of their presence. The singer would engage in a dialogue with the descending orishas, trying to persuade them to fully come down and bless the crowd with their mysterious presence.

The details of how exactly all this comes to be are secrets of the initiated. There are details that those of us who have sat in the room and been crowned with orisha are sworn not to reveal to those who have not experienced them. But those secret details are of little importance next to what one experiences at an event like this. We who are believers don't really talk about how what we have just witnessed and experienced works, we just bask in its blessing, doing what is necessary to maintain the tradition that keeps the orishas alive. The orishas, the divine beings of Yoruba legend, come to the new world in slave ships, come to the north on the backs of immigrants, they actually materialize in flesh and blood at tambores like these to remind us of the miraculous world of nature and the spirits, to remind us of our destinies, to bless us with their touch. It's not an intellectual experience of religion but an emotional one. What must look a little crazy to people outside the wall of believing and accepting is to those who know a revelatory thing of beauty. I can't tell you what it feels like, exactly, to feel that energy, that aché, in your head, that open connection to God's messengers, but it's like nothing the secular world has to offer.

One of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed in the religion I saw last night as Yemaya closed the ceremony. A bucket is filled with water, and normally a dance is done with the bucket by priests, carrying the bucket about the room to cleanse it before being carried outside where the water is flung into the street. But last night in the golden hours before dusk, even inside you could feel this, Yemaya herself seized the bucket. She swirled in her brilliant blue skirts with multicultured panels flying, the bucket outstretched from her hands yet not giving up a drop. It was a vortex of divine spirit, the crowd calling out to her as Yemaya spun around and around. I was in awe. And reminded of why I believe things that other people cannot see. And why I see things that other people will not believe. And I was so so grateful that I heard that drum, el tambor, calling what turned out to be my own name so long ago, and whether or not I am a model santero or a slacker, how profoundly blessed and lucky I feel that Yemaya, that Obatala, that all the Orishas, that God him or her self, has chosen my eyes, my heart, and my head for the mysterious revelation of the presence of such transformative magic in the world. Maferefun Yemaya; all praises due. Aché.

25, El Borracho

(25, The Drunkard)
It's been really hot outside! Enjoy my recipes.

The Block Party
1/2 package frozen Parcha/Maracuya/Passion Fruit
1/2 package frozen Mango
1 cup orange juice
few tablespoons sugar
ice
gold rum

blend. enjoy. vegetate.

Trans-Europe Express
1 package frozen Mora/Blackberries
1 cup cranberry juice
lingonberry syrup
handful fresh berries if available
equal parts Kentucky Bourbon, Benedictine, Aguardiente
ice

blend. enjoy. laugh.

The Perfect Salsa
2 very ripe Mexican mangoes (the big green and red ones)
2 to 5 fresh serrano chiles, depending on size
5 small limes

Peel the mangoes; cut the flesh away from the pits into small bits, toss in a bowl. Dice the chiles. Juice the limes. Add a little seasalt if desired. Let sit in the fridge an hour for the flavors to blend.

Sweet, picante, refreshing; it looks like shiny fresh egg yolks. Delicious on chips or meat or tacos while you're enjoying your cocktails.

The best way to juice limes without a juicer: cut a thin slice off the top and bottom end. Make three vertical cuts down the length of the lime, leaving a thin triangular core of flesh with no skin in the center. All 6 pieces, squeezed by hand, will yield more juice this way.

22, La Bota

I bought a pair of black "engineer" boots once, a little more urbanly masculine and a lot less sleek and gentlemanly than the ones shown above, many long years ago. I thought they would look hot. They were the most uncomfortable fucking things I have ever worn in my life. I didn't feel like an engineer, or a biker, or any kind of stud. My life as a gay leatherman was immediately cut short. Blisters are not sexy.

I've done female drag a handful of times. The first time was probably Halloween, 1981. My friend Steve took me to the Village to the Halloween parade: in a sort of sparkly bluish-silver shift I looked like a seriously frumpy housewife out on the town for the first time in twenty years. Yes, that's me in several photo albums of Japanese businessmen who were visiting at the time. Hi Mrs. Businessman! No, your husband only took a photo of me. But those equivalent-to-men's-size-12 heels...I was hobbling in minutes, neither beautifully nor glamourously. My life as a drag queen was cut short: when I tried it again at an office party in this century I wore sensible flats.

I don't really understand the urge to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on shoes. I like shoes, I mean who doesn't. Set me loose in Century 21 and if they fit I can happily leave with two or three boxes under my arm. But that Sex and the City nonsense, the decadently expensive Manolo Blahniks and all, hundreds and hundreds of dollars for a few ounces of dyed leather cut in bizarre shapes. Redonkulous. I guess I'm glad I'm a boy. Or maybe the relatively expensive engineer boots were a lesson. I did see a Manolo Blahnik shoebox artfully arranged for maximum label exposure in a clear plastic garbage bag in the Village a couple weeks ago and briefly fantasized about taking it home. Still not sure what I would have put in it. My cat's old, male, and not likely need a place to drop a litter of kittens.

I learned to tie shoes like most people when I was a kid. I had a lot of Keds, and Converse. I think I only once had a pair of Golden Goose shoes, the ones that came with a toy in a plastic egg; Captain Kangaroo assured me I wanted those. It was a pretty good marketing gimmick. This was when sneakers were made of just canvas and rubber, smelling a little bit like a new car when you bought them. There were no fancy lines, and you pretty much had a choice of red, white, blue or black. Thing is, as an adult I seem to do a terrible job of tying shoes. They always come undone. Is it modern laces? Or did my training lack commitment? It's one of the reasons I've taken to wearing, weather and pride permitting, the world's ugliest shoes, Crocs. Like walking on ugly little plastic clouds. With no laces.

In Santeria it's very important not to wear shoes on the sacred straw mats you use in building shrines, altars and ceremonial thrones. The mat symbolizes the earth itself in an extraordinarily sacred way, and trodding upon it in shoes is like flinging shit on a Bible: it's breaching the sacred symbolism by walking mundanity all over it. Also, if you're not initiated into Santeria and you set foot on the sacred mats of a throne, with or without shoes? You better save your money cause it's commitment and you're gonna need it because that means the Orishas want you to join them on the mat and get initiated. Interestingly enough, some Santeros receive a letter in their lifetime Ita, or sacred divination upon initiation, that they should never go outside barefoot. Thank God, literally, I didn't get that letter.

The truth is I would rather be barefoot than anything else. In winter I hate that my house is cold and drafty and I have to wear slippers, because all summer long I'm flinging off shoes and socks the minute I arrive home and putting them on again at the last minute before I have to go back out to work. I like the feel of warm wood, or cool tile, or soft grass -- less hot sand -- or soft worn carpet, or wet sidewalk after a rain, or sacred straw mats under my feet. My favorite moment of the year is when my Brooklyn block turns on the fire hydrants twice a summer in the morning before a block party so that we can all wet down our stoops. I stand in the once-hot gutter by the curb feeling the cold cold water rush over my bare feet. At those moments I never want to wear shoes again. It's the urban earth beneath my sometimes achy and gnarly tired feet blessed by the lifeblood of the city and I feel hot and glamourous and alive and sacred and clean until my feet are as cold as though I was wading in snow.

46, El Sol

I'm late for the summer solstice! Yesterday was the longest day of the year here in the northern hemisphere. Owing to the shortage of virgins, no human sacrifice was organized for the day. Perhaps next year. Any sun gods requiring appeasement, please send a statement in triplicate with your requirements.

I'm not really a sun worshipper. I mean, I love the sun, who doesn't. But I can't really go outside and lie in it. The pale pink skin my northern European ancestors predetermined for me gets red but it doesn't really tan. Why provoke my skin's cells into cancerous subversion? Oh I love the water, as in the Caribbean, where the sun has made it warm and the goddesses of the waters have kept the water invitingly clear. But I pay a stinging price no matter how much sunblock I coat myself with.

So to the Sun I say, thanks for the warmth of the days, and thanks for not exploding into a supernova, and thanks for making the world around me lush and green, and for making a warm spot on the bed for my cat to curl up in, and for inspiring the flowers in the backyard to beauty, and for brightening the mood, and for providing much better light than eco-friendly curly fluorescent bulbs, and for glorious lightshows at sunset, and thanks for allowing me to wear bermuda shorts and sandals, and thanks for that balmy warm breeze you've sent through my open windows. Thanks for keeping the pansies on my stoop glorious, thanks for still shining when I get out of work, and thanks for what you're doing right now to all the tomatoes and fruits growing here and there so in a month or two we'll be able to taste you. Thanks for coming back every morning.

Hey, sorry about the mess down here.

34, El Soldado

From the Loteria, card 34, The Soldier. It's Memorial Day in the United States, originally the post-Civil War holiday called "Decoration Day." It's considered the beginning of summer; a good excuse for a short vacation. I detest sanctimonious celebrations of those "who have served" and "those who have given their lives for their country" offered up by politicians who think of soldiers as pawns and expendable currency. If I'm not a fan of the armed forces and I think enlisting is a poor career choice even in a wretched economy, I recognize the humanity of all those soldiers killed in wars led by politicians united in their disregard for life.

30, El Camaron

For mother's day I took my 78-year old mom out to Brooklyn's Chinatown. We ate a tasty meal at a Vietnamese pho restaurant. Looking for a complement to our bowls of soup and noodles I asked my mother if she'd enjoy an order of shrimp. "Oh yes, we should have some while we can still get it."

It's now a month since the explosion at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. In the interim an incredible volume of crude oil has spilled out onto the fertile gulf waters, so much that it is visible from space. We've been treated to the spectacle of the BP oil company, the sinister Halliburton corporation, and the Swiss company that actually owned the destroyed rig all pointing fingers of blame elsewhere, except at themselves, while testifying before congessional inquiry. We've seen BP offer estimates of how much oil and gas are leaking into the waters of the gulf that are a tiny fraction of what non-oil company sources estimate. We've seen politicians and infotainers deny that the spill is much of a deal--"accidents happen" says idiot/racist Senatorial candidate (Ayn) Rand Paul. And we've seen the US government seemingly place all its trust in the dubious ability of BP to clean up its own mess. Unbelievably, it's not yet about clean-up of this spill, it's still about turning off the out of control spigot on the ocean floor which BP has lackadaisically failed to figure out how to do. I suppose not surprisingly President Obama is talking about a commission of inquiry; what he should be doing is seizing all the assets of these companies.

I would like to know what will happen when the inevitable hurricane hits this oil slick?



Meanwhile the oil is beginning to wash up on the shores of the gulf, and commercial fishing has been curtailed in large areas. The wildlife of the area: birds, sea turtles, dolphins, whales, fish, shrimp and oysters face imminent catastrophe. The livelihoods of the local fishing industry (ironically including thousands of immigrant Vietnamese shrimpers) are deeply challenged, and the population of the region, already complaining about an unpleasant smell in the air, face unknown health risks.

So yes, 30, El Camaron, the shrimp. An ugly, insect-like creepy-crawling, scavenging little crustacean that God hates, yet sweet, plump and delicious. Soon to be endangered on these shores. But it turns out 90% of shrimp consumed in the United States is imported. So everything's okay, right?

14, La Muerte, or a Musical Meditation on the Art of Darkness

I've been listening over and over, as is my wont, to a few songs lately, and wanting to find a way to say something about them. There's a theme to these songs, though, that seems so morbid to set words down about them, especially when the songs themselves don't actually produce morbidness as one of their emotional responses.

What I love about Tarot cards, so resonant and laden with meaning -- and by extension the Mexican loteria, on the one hand nothing more than a paper bingo game and yet somehow also a set of archetypes upon which one might meditate -- is that they become keys to unlock mysteries of meaning. They're like visual wordless poems that allow our minds to wander and learn. Tarot card images are full and complicated: every little piece of the design has a little bit of meaning and correspondence. They're deeply loaded with all sorts of occult symbols and suggestions, as well as the simpler meanings suggested by the parts of the design. Loteria cards are much simpler images, the details quite unimportant. Here's the thing about the death card in Tarot, though. It's not exactly about death. Oh, I know enough about a fortune-teller's trade to know that in context it could mean that. But what it means above all is transformative change.

Which brings me to the three songs I've been listening to. The first is probably the most well known. It's the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson singing "Trouble of the World." Here's how I first heard it; you too, probably:



That's the climactic scene from the classic Douglas Sirk melodramatic tearjerker "Imitation of Life." Susan Kohner, who has been "passing" for white, has missed the death of her mother Annie (played by the great Juanita Moore), and now must suffer the guilt of discovering that her mother was a figure beloved by everyone except her own light-skinned daughter; so beloved, in fact that at her jam-packed funeral the greatest gospel singer of our time sings her a parting spiritual. It's a great flick, full of 1950s repression and a very complicated, surprisingly un-racist depiction of African-Americans, setting aside of course the casting of a white actress as the passing daughter.

Anyway "Trouble of the World" is a classic Christian spiritual: "Soon I will be done with the trouble of the world, going home to live with God. No more weeping and wailing, going home to live with my Lord." It's somber, in that it's a song about death, for sure, but it's really more reverent than sad. It's used in the film to force all the tawdry soap-opera characters to think about what they've done and how empty and barren their own lives were compared to the late Annie, who though a humble maid saved enough money to take care of her family and send herself out in style.

I'm not a Christian; I don't share this certainty of "going home to live with God," but the powerful faith revealed in Mahalia Jackson's completely committed delivery is inspiring to me. That death could be transformed from the object of fear and dread to something else entirely is quite a leap. But this is remarkably powerful message music and that leap is made convincing. There are a lot of things people can do in this world, but that finality must be met: and here Mahalia Jackson's steely determination and spiritual optimism says, "have no fear."

The second song I've been listening to is much less well known. Jazz trumpeter Charles Sullivan released the album "Genesis" on the Strata-East label in 1974; it was reissued on the Inner City label a few years later, and actually was recently reissued on CD by that reactivated label. Most of the album is some excellent instrumental jazz, typical of what the indie Strata-East musicians were recording at the time. But the young Dee Dee Bridgewater, then taking a guest turn on the albums of many jazz musicians, was brought in to sing an absolutely devastating suicide ballad, "Now I'll Sleep." You can hear it on Youtube:



"Why am I alive what have I got to live for
I'm through with playing games they just add up to zero
Life is war and war is hell and I'm no hero
I tried I failed but I tried I'm sorry
I can't begin again no chance to change my story
The end is just the end forget those dreams of glory
I had my chance to win I chose to lose
that's funny
Afraid to love so you die unhappy

And those who have no love to give
they have no need to live
how senseless it all is to me

And so I say goodbye with just a hint of sadness
For lonely is the road that leads me from this madness
But frightened though I am I feel a rush of gladness
And peace more peaceful than night
It's the peace I've searched for all my life
Now I'll sleep and never be afraid of waking up again."

It's pretty shocking to hear the sweet voice of the woman who sang "If You Believe" in the original production of the Broadway musical "The Wiz" sing these dire, hopeless lyrics. At the same time, I find this a beautiful, witty song. I love the line, "Life is war and war is hell and I'm no hero." This is an utterly convincing portrayal of someone who has had enough. And though I have lived my life without any bouts of suicidal depression, I find myself checking my mood when I listen to this song just to make sure I'm doing so with a healthy mind. I think that's powerful art.

Hearing this song we put ourselves in the position of its singer, brought to life by such a gifted vocalist as Bridgewater. We're allowed to experience a flash of this terminal disappointment and sense of failure, and the grasping desperation of taking matters into her own hand. But we're also allowed to walk away at the end of the song: surely the phrase "There but for the grace of God go I" has never had a better testament. Interestingly on the album, the graceful piano and voice of this song is immediately followed by driving bass and percussion of an extended suite called "Genesis." To me it's almost like trumpeter/composer Sullivan is immediately repudiating the pessimism and self-doubt of "Now I'll Sleep" by saying that life, creation, genesis, is complicated, challenging, sometimes chaotic, but worth staying awake for and ultimately rewarding in its gift of experience, both bad and good. All that existential angst? Get over it!

Art, like the tarot cards, is full of meaning and symbolism: it should make us confront the deep and dark things as well as the light and joyful ones. Both the solemn inspiration of "Trouble of the World" and the brutal self indulgence of "Now I'll Sleep" ask us to confront our assumptions.

The third song I've been listening to is "How Glory Goes," from an obscure musical called "Floyd Collins" by composer Adam Guettel. The version I enjoy the most is sung by Audra McDonald, the title song of her second solo album, released in 2000. (Another excellent version of the song is performed by Brian Stokes Mitchell on his own eponymous album.)

The song is a meditation on what happens when you die: as in "go to glory," the rapturous revelation of heaven at the moment of passing in Christian teaching. It begins:

"Is it warm?
Is it soft against your face?
Do you feel a kind of grace inside the breeze?
Will there be trees?
Is there light?
Does it hover on the ground?
Does it shine from all around, or just from you?
Is it endless and empty, as you wander on your own?
Slowly forget about the folks that you have known?
Or does rising' bread fill up the air
from open kitchens every where?
Familiar faces far as you can see, like a family?"

Audra McDonald is an art singer; and her theatrical training suits this song well. Her voice is almost operatic, soaring; the arrangement behind the song delicate and restrained with the flavor of theater music or classical music not pop. The gorgeously sung lyrics muse on all those unknowable mysteries of mortality.

"Do we hear a trumpet call us and we're by your side?
Will I want, Will I wish for all the things I should have done,
Longing to finish what I've only just begun?
Or has a shining truth been waiting there
for all the questions everywhere?
In a world of wondering suddenly you know;
And you will always know..."

In my own religious tradition, the Yoruba-based Santeria faith, there's a proverb attached to one of the sacred divination oddu: "The one who knows does not die like the one who does not know." To my mind, rather than promising some kind of special treat upon death to the initiated, some heavenly reward or playground of virgins, what these words are avowing is more profound. They're saying that when you explore the mysteries of your faith, of spirituality, you gain a level of consciousness that is what other religions might call grace. You find peace in being given a peek at the mysterious workings of the universe, seeing the transformative changes of life and death as not something to be dreaded, but something that simply is, trusting in the cosmic machinery that in the end, everything is as it should be.

Which I think is why I find "How Glory Goes" so special. It strips out the fatalism, the morbidness, the darkness, if you will, of that most human of predilections, worrying about what happens next. It doesn't say it's wrong to ask unanswerable questions, but it gives us the tools to move on with our lives lifted of the burdens of uncertainty. It offers a kind of spiritual serenity, which becomes a call, I think, to experience the living of the now with reverence and wonder and joy, welcoming the changes that need to come as the unfolding mystery of being.

As the song concludes:
"Only heaven knows how glory goes,
what each of us was meant to be.
In the starlight, that is what we are.
I can see so far..."

38, El Apache

Colorfully decked out in dyed-in-Taiwan turkey feathers, El Apache stands at the crossroads of Indianism. Simultaneously having nothing and everything to do with real native American people, he's both a travestic joke, a kind of clown, and an idolized fantasy of the eternal noble savage. No actual Apache ever looked like this, while millions of little white (and brown?) boys certainly donned similar exotically preposterous outfits in childhood play. And yet, he is tinged with the regret of the centuries that this continent of immigrants is what it is today only by the subjugation, destruction, and marginalization of its original inhabitants.

It's interesting that this card comes from Mexico, whose capital city was founded by the Aztecs with broad clean plazas, fertile gardens, and running water while the citizens of the capitals of Europe were rolling about in "nightsoil" and sharing their muddy hovels with rats, whilst hawking up bloody mucus into the dark corners. Today's Mexico is inescapably the fruit of its mostly poor native masses and its European-ancestered elite.

El Apache lives on in the erring imaginations of today's North Americans. Objectified as the wise spiritual being at one with nature or as the terrifying savage archer stoically dressed inappropriately for any season, our native American caricature reflects our aspirations and fears for a human nature much more complex; an inner conflict for generations of immigrants' heirs with exposure to few actual descendants of the survivors of the Europeans' American genocide.

(In addition to continuing The Cahokian's series of meditations on Loteria cards, this post marks the first of a series of posts on the phenomenon of Indianism, with all respect due to the late Edward Said, author of Orientalism).

23, La Luna

The following is from spiritualist Allan Kardec's "New Devotionary Spiritualist: Collection of Selected Prayers," the incredibly badly-translated and poorly-typeset prayer book used in spiritual masses by Santeros. All typos are as printed.

Contemplation

What a beautiful moon, its silver rostrum
Shows her face among the clouds widening its tulle
How beautiful in the seas her image reflects
With brilliant inks in blue mackground.

What gratefull aroma imparted by flowers
That bathe the brook with deaf rumor.
How beautiful and tranquil the song of love
Extend in the first the happy nightingale.

How pure the beams reducing my soul,
That lovely the ecoes I eager to hear:
How mighty oh! God your love reproduce
The fowls of the air, the flowers, the moon and the seas.

How beautiful the moon, how grateful the flowers...
How sweet is the song of the nightingale:
How pure when seeing you, ressembles my love...
How mighty oh! my God is your pure love.

I think I'll leave it at that.

7, La Escalera

The ladder is a useful thing. You use them, well, to get high. To reach things you can't reach without help. You could use a ladder to get out of a tight spot, to escape; or you can you use a ladder to bridge the place you are and the place you want to be.

I guess I once didn't think of the ladder as a spiritual symbol, but interestingly, both my Yoruba orishas Obatala and Eleggua asked for ladders to go with their sacred tools.I've thought about that a lot, and I guess a ladder can be seen as a reminder that there is a way out of one's problems, a way, that, coincidentally, involves looking up. Although in truth you can use a ladder to go down, hopefully preserving your route of escape; perhaps it's a kind of 3-dimensional metaphor for that most famous of occult sayings, "as above, so below." Obatala, whose number is eight, no doubt likes the fact that there are eight rungs on this ladder; eight steps toward one's higher self.

As a spiritual symbol a ladder also says that if you want to take yourself higher, you have to exert yourself; to focus hand over hand and climb toward your goal. If something is wanting in your life, it's kind of a reminder that even if you would really rather have the clouds open and shower you with blessings, ultimately you have to work to reach something new and better. Faith, of course, is necessary in thinking that our spiritual ladder is resting on something solid and that our goal is up there just out of sight.

I'm reminded also of those giant seige ladders of olden days: a ladder could be the means for a bunch of serfs storming the king's castle. There's resilience there as each time the ladder is pushed from the walls somebody pushes it right back and tries again. But most modern ladders are pretty plain and utilitarian: certainly this one, from the Loteria Mexican bingo deck, is actually just a flimsy paper card from a game. But real life is often pretty plain and mundane, and that's just fine; because here in a simple wooden ladder is a reminder of hope.

Besides, they sure do come in handy for changing light bulbs.

27, El Corazon

I love this completely unsentimental card from the Mexican Loteria deck: The Heart. It seems fitting for Valentine's Day. It's sort of the gritty truth about love: it's not always that fanciful, symmetrical and ever so hygienic valentine shape. Sometimes it's a messy hunk of meat and it bleeds when pierced.

I've been single for more of my life than not; but having spent the last five years in a relationship I'm reminded how different my life is now. One's priorities and needs and values change completely, at least for me (well, middle-age probably has plenty to do with that also). I didn't feel incomplete when single, it's not like that. But I tell you, love really doesn't suck. Thanks Jesse.

21, La Mano

I love the Mexican "Loteria" cards. It's kind of a bingo game played with cards that look like a simplified modern tarot deck. The images are archetypically powerful to me. Funny to imagine a bingo game where the winner wins cosmic fortune. I wonder what it would be like to play poker with tarot cards?