The bilingual collection from an old favorite that helps move through the holidays.

Kleber Mendonça Filho, a finely crafted, deeply elliptical film about life under persecution and the long wake of injustice, counterpointed by a precise, nostalgic depiction of Recife in 1977. In theaters.

There is always a contender in for my fave album of the year coming from Bandcamp. This year is Los Thuthanaka, by a pair of Bolivian American DJs who do great electronica mixed with Andean musical genres. Truly one of the best and most interesting music albums this year.

Reading this wonderful brick Pre-Xmas. As someone who teaches classes on Mexican cultural studies, I have for many years hoped for the publication of a history that meets three standards: 1. Focused on sociopolitical processes rather than minutiae, 2. Coverage of the whole …

A morning with the great Phoebe Giannisi, one of my favorite poets, who beautifully channels both the classical tradition and the legacy of Seferis in this collection

Edgar Nito’s Un cuento de pescadores, a superb Gothic folk horror film intertwining four dramatic stories around the Purépecha myth of La Miringua. In Hulu and Disney+ (no English subtitles sadly).

Assorted film arrivals

Tequila for the holidays

Assorted book arrivals

2:24 AM some faves of 2025 playlist Elegantly Wasted. Hermanos Gutiérrez feat Leon Bridges Lila Aleli. Silvana Estrada Honeycrash. Sasami Princesa. Meme del Real Hecho para ti. Latín Mafia feat Omar Apollo Elderberry Wine. Wednesday Lucky. Dora Jar Te quise tanto. Paloma Morphy

Enjoyable late night reading, this book that synthesizes the recent research across fields on the Proto-Indo-European language and the ways it spread around the world.

Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, a witty deconstruction of the heist film from its muted 70s nostalgia, jazzy soundtrack, background historicities and Melvillian affinities, prolonguing her exploration is the relationship between art and mediocrity. In MUBi

periodically, i post this utterly incandescent essay by @isanchezprado.bsky.social. it reminds me about the kind of work i’d like to pursue, the kind most worth pursuing, i think. and my gooooood, the prose. the prose, y’all.

Two complete poetries I’ve been reading. I have read all of Pizarnik before, unmatched in Spanish in many ways. Heaney I did not know that well, and I am bowled over particularly by his unbelievable control of the powers and affects of the language

Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, a superb drama carried by Jessie Buckley’s unbelievable performance and Max Richter’s powerful score, slowly exploring grief towards and brilliant conclusion. Paul Mescal’s insufficient acting skills were the one downside. In theaters.

Weekend with Mexican writers published by Hachette

Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s The Ice Tower, a beautiful and dense visual gem, in equal parts Lynch and Powell and Pressburger, bringing Andersen’s The Snow Queen to a dark, brutalist version of the 1970s. In VOD.

Koya Kamura’s Winter in Sokcho, an excellent adaptation of Dusapin’s novel, leaning strongly on the silences and spectralities that define everyday life, full of delicate performances. In MUBI

It’s time

One of the most beautiful films out there about food and immigration, Sarah Maldoror follows two African men who, after finding a historical French cookbook during their jobs as garbage collectors in Paris, they seek to raise money to help a dying fellow countrymen to return home. In MUBI

Move me when to a country where your cappuccino has three sugar cubes to choose from including one infused with activated charcoal and vanilla, along with a small alfajor

Que maravilla encontrarme con el querido Rafael Rojas, y que honor que mi primera presentación de libro en la FIL fuera de el.

I dressed for success because I am giving three presentations today!

A really compelling book about Pinochet’s arrest in the late 90s and the legal questions it raised, alongside the life of former SS nazi Walter Raif, who lived in Patagonia and played a role in Chilean concentration camps, to later be fictionalized by Roberto Bolaño in Nocturno de Chile.

Assorted book arrivals

These past two weeks in film arrivals

John Banville’s deliciously Jamesian new novel navigating between the noir style he has so polished in his Benjamin Black novels with drops of the exquisite prose of his literary fictions. A minor book in a master’s canon that is nevertheless superior to the best of most writers in English today

Yuta Shimotsu’s Best Wishes to All, a pitch-black J-Horror fable about the underbelly of “being happy,” delivered with masterful deadpan and minimalism. In AMC+

Preparando con mucho cariño y mucha emoción la presentación de la nueva edición de El cielo está incompleto, de mi camarada Irmgard Emmelhainz, nos vemos el viernes en la noche en la FIL!

This coming Friday I am participating on this virtual panel organized by the Society for the History of the Humanities,l. Please note that the times are European CET, it actually runs from 8-10:30 AM Central US and central Mexico time www.historyofhumanities.org/2025/10/15/d...

Med Hondo’s Sarraounia, part of a series of three of his films, a marvelous historical epic about the colonial brutality of the French in the Sahel and the Azna Queen who fended them back in the late 19th century, among the greatest films ever made by an African director. In the Criterion Channel.

Med Hondo’s Sarraounia, part of a series of three of his films, a marvelous historical epic about the colonial brutality of the French in the Sahel and the Azna Queen who fended them back in the late 19th century, among the greatest films ever made by an African director. In the Criterion Channel.

Aquí escribiendo mi presentación de La historia como arma para la FIL y revisitando mi no exhaustiva biblioteca de libros de Rafael Rojas. Nos vemos el 5 de diciembre en Guadalajara!

The new 4K Steelbook or Karyn Kusama’s much maligned Aeon Flux, an adaptation of MTV’s animated series with very good visual elements and interesting direction, but butchered into an incoherent mess by the studio’s edit, not without its pleasure.

A truly stunning, beautiful and haunting concert in equal measure, Silvana Estrada’s sold-out Chicago show, as her voice filled out every corner of the venue. Absolutely worth the fact that we have to drive back to St. Louis at midnight to avoid the snow storm.

Just a few highlights of the wonderful exhibit “Elizabeth Catlett, a Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies” at the Art Institute of Chicago, on show until January 4.

Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, a masterclass in directing and acting, the kind of drama one wishes existed more but can only exist rarely, a Chekhovian film about the emotional prelude to a masterpiece. Truly extraordinary. In theaters.

A few film arrivals

Break is a good time to clear some of my to-read shelves

Characteristically brilliant, this collection is a powerhouse built through Gurba’s uncanny skill of weaving images, events and languages through association and contiguity, fed by her curious and rhizome erudition. A great writer in the most playful control of her powers.

I did 25 minute interview in my book in St Louis in the Air at my local NPR station. This can be heard here or in your favorite podcast app www.stlpr.org/show/st-loui...

Eva Aridjis’ Goodbye Horses, a heartbreaking documentary on singer Q Lazarus, her tragic life, her disappearance and the way her royalties were stolen from her, a story of erasure of a brilliant Black woman, who befriended the Mexican director in her last years of life. In the Criterion Channel.

This weekend, catching up with poetry.

From the absolutely stunning exhibit Anselm Kiefer: Becoming the Sea at the St Louis Art Museum, paired today by a 3D screening of Wim Wenders’s documentary. Some of these are site specific. If you are in St Louis or driving distance you should rush to see this. Closes January 25

Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, a brave and powerful thriller, shot in clandestinity in Iran, triggered by the story of a man who believes to have found his torturer, riveting and brilliant in form and content, arguably the most significant film of the year. In theaters.

Para los que visitan la FIL, el cinco de diciembre tengo el gusto de presentar con Siglo XXI editores a Rafael Rojas, con Melissa Cordero Novo, y a Irmgard Emmelhainz con Aura García Junco. Por si andan por ahí.

Criterion’s 4K edition of Luis Buñuel’s El, the film Lacan taught to his students and a truly brilliant melodrama of paranoia with a subtext of rentier capitalism, in the 2022 Film Foundation-supporter restoration .

This months’s book arrivals

This month’s film arrivals

Andres Veiel’s Riefenstahl, a damning documentary on Leni’s Nazi affinities, backed up by found off-the record footage showing the ways she tried to narrate her life while negating her knowledge of the Holocaust. In Kino Film Collection.