Author Archives: Jon

Here’s Where the Story Ends

In yet another lovely blog post, which raises a whole host of questions and issues that I hope we get to address, as always Craig left us with a song. And, as well as being one of my favorites, it’s no doubt a much better choice of song than the one (REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It”) that I put on our playlist.

It’s a better choice, I think, because it resonates in a host of ways both with Lost Children Archive, with its focus on stories and endings (destinies), and perhaps also with our experience in this class in this strange Pandemic year.

So I thought it’d be worth providing the lyrics:

People I know, places I go
Make me feel tongue tied
I can see how, people look down
They’re on the inside

Here’s where the story ends

People I see, weary of me
Showing my good side
I can see how, people look down
I’m on the outside

Here’s where the story ends
Ooh here’s where the story ends

It’s that little souvenir of a terrible year
Which makes my eyes feel sore
Oh I never should have said, the books that you read
Were all I loved you for
It’s that little souvenir of a terrible year
Which makes me wonder why
And it’s the memories of the shed that make me turn red
Surprise, surprise, surprise

Crazy I know, places I go
Make me feel so tired
I can see how people look down
I’m on the outside

Here’s where the story ends
Ooh here’s where the story ends

It’s that little souvenir of a terrible year
Which makes my eyes feel sore
And who ever would’ve thought, the books that you brought
Were all I loved you for
Oh the devil in me said, go down to the shed
I know where I belong
But the only thing I ever really wanted to say
Was wrong, was wrong, was wrong

It’s that little souvenir of a colorful year
Which makes me smile inside
So I cynically, cynically say, the world is that way
Surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise

Here’s, where the story ends
Ooh here’s, where the story ends

The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez: The Movie

Especially given that one of the themes of Américo Paredes’s “With His Pistol in His Hand” is the different ways in which the same tale can be told (History, newspaper sources, oral legend, corrido, not to mention Paredes’s own book), I recommend you also take a look at yet another medium in which the same tale has been told: the movie adaptation of The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez. Here it is: