Issue 16 | Page 3 | The Common

People Who Go to the Beach Alone

October 29, 2018 Fiction, Issue 16, Issue 16 Fiction, Translation

Bimbo has gone to the beach alone three times.

The first time was when he bought the used car which he would drive for the next decade, at nineteen. As soon as he arrived at his house after having finalized the transaction and showed it to his family, and as soon as his grandmother had gone back to her telenovela after congratulating him, and his brother back to the phone, stuck talking to his girlfriend, Bimbo went into his room, put a bathing suit on under his jeans, threw two towels into his backpack, got into the car, and descended, alone, from the mountains of Caguas, where three generations of his family still lived. He went alone in his new-but-old Toyota Corolla without air conditioning and with the windows down and the radio tuned to the only English music station that reached them up there. He felt nervous. It was 11 a.m. on a Wednesday.

To The Women Who Feel It In Their Bones

October 29, 2018 Issue 16, Issue 16 Poetry, Poetry

By PEGGY ROBLES-ALVARADO

Excerpt from a speech given by Don Pedro Albizu Campos, Ponce, Puerto Rico, October 12, 1933:

A people’s sense of unity has to come from women … the woman nurtures the unity of a race, the unity of a civilization, the unity of a people … Puerto Rico will be free, Puerto Rico will be sovereign and independent when the Puerto Rican woman feels free, sovereign and independent. And for the Puerto Rican woman to achieve this unity, she has to feel it in her bones…

4,645+

October 29, 2018 Issue 16, Issue 16 Poetry, Poetry

By MARÍA LUISA ARROYO CRUZADO
June 2018

Ten months ago, rich Puerto Ricans & tourists had the means
to flee first after the hurricane. What about the average María y José?

Where are the names of the dead to make them more human?
Why do the deaths of these U.S. citizens matter less?

Easter, Bonifacio High Street

October 29, 2018 Issue 16, Issue 16 Poetry, Poetry

By JOSEPH O. LEGASPI

a “mixed-use development”—huge shopping mall—in Bonifacio Global City, Metro Manila

Between the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and The Body Shop
a station of the Cross. On a trodden lawn browning into
desert, two lines are formed for shoppers to be Christ-like.
Christ-lite, puns the Pinoy. The devout come forward to suffer,
put their suffering on display. They’d strap a stretch of varnished
four-by-four across their shoulders, ropes tied around their wingspan
arms, the weight of sins redeemed by Jesus on his march to Calvary.

Muerto Rico

October 29, 2018 Issue 16, Issue 16 Art, Studio

By ADÁL

Introduction by Mercedes Trelles Hernández here.

Viviana García Meléndez Jumping Portrait, 2017

Hurricanes Irma & María in Puerto Rico

October 29, 2018 Issue 16, Issue 16 Poetry, Poetry

BY MARÍA LUISA ARROYO CRUZADO

Born near the Cape Verde Islands, Hurricane Irma swished
her skirts of winds & rain, toyed with Puerto Rico,
stole light from 1,000,000 Puerto Ricans, her eye
on Florida. Some say she roared past like a train

After the War, in the West

October 29, 2018 Issue 16, Issue 16 Poetry, Poetry, Translation

By POLINA BARSKOVA

Translated by VALZHYNA MORT

Old Lady Gippius
of a tumorous Adam’s apple
from a damned balcony
watches
an officer fool with a puppy.

When Weathermen Insist Storms are Feminine

October 29, 2018 Issue 16, Issue 16 Poetry, Poetry

By PEGGY ROBLES-ALVARADO

they say it’s because they are hard to predict
and even harder to forget

their naming ceremony broadcasted over live feeds, satellite images
insisting she settles on the tongues of both faithful and atheist

Santurce, un libro mural / Santurce: A Mural Book

October 29, 2018 Issue 16, Issue 16 Art, Studio, Translation

Text by FRANCISCO FONT-ACEVEDO

Images by RAFAEL TRELLES

Santurce, originalmente llamado Cangrejos, fue municipio desde el siglo XVIII, aunque luego fuera anexado como barrio de San Juan. Fue también el primer pueblo fundado por negros en Puerto Rico en 1773, cien años antes de la abolición de la esclavitud en el país. A partir de la construcción del trolley (primero a vapor en el último cuarto del siglo XIX, luego eléctrico a partir del 1901), se cambió el nombre de San Mateo de Cangrejos al de Santurce, en homenaje a Pablo Ubarri, Conde de Santurzi, encargado de la instalación del tren. Durante el siglo XX, en especial durante la modernización del país a partir de los años 40, Santurce se convirtió en el centro económico y cultural del país. Llegó a tener una población de 195,000 personas en 1950. Luego del proceso de suburbanización del país y la construcción de los centros comerciales a partir de finales de los años 60, la importancia de Santurce decayó notablemente. En la actualidad su población ronda los 82,000. Aun así, sigue siendo el barrio más poblado del país.

Los textos que siguen están narrados por Santurce/Cangrejos mismo. Las imágenes son de los murales tal como se reprodujeron e instalaron por todo el barrio. En todos los murales hay una imagen, un texto, el título del libro, un mapa y unas instrucciones para el peatón.

Para más información puedes ver nuestra página web: www.santurceunlibromural.com.

Although it was later annexed as a neighborhood of San Juan, Santurce—originally called Cangrejos—has been a municipality since the eighteenth century. It was also the first town founded by blacks in Puerto Rico, in 1773, one hundred years before the abolition of slavery in the country. Since the construction of the trolley (first the steam model in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, then the electric one in 1901), San Mateo de Cangrejos was renamed Santurce in homage to Pablo Ubarri, Count of Santurtzi, responsible for building the commuter railroad system. Throughout the twentieth century, particularly during the modernization of the country which began in the 1940s, Santurce became the island’s economic and cultural center, with a population of 195,000 people in 1950. After the suburbanization of the country and the construction of malls at the end of the 1960s, Santurce’s importance declined significantly. Its population now stands at approximately 82,000. Even so, it remains Puerto Rico’s most populous district.

The texts that follow are narrated by Santurce/Cangrejos itself. The images are of the murals just as they were reproduced and installed throughout the neighborhood. Each mural includes an image, a text, the title of the book, a map, and instructions for pedestrians.

For more information, visit our website: www.santurceunlibromural.com.

Review of Dosso Dossi’s Jupiter Painting Butterflies, Mercury and Virtue, 1555

October 29, 2018 Issue 16, Issue 16 Poetry, Poetry

By AMY LAWLESS and JEFF ALESSANDRELLI

The way the godly Jupiter paints them,
                        each butterfly comes to life
                                   upon his brushing of the canvas,
                                                   inanimate specter becoming animate