Theresa Anderrson @ Amnesia, 853 Valencia St.

By Camille Ikalina-Robles

Swedish-born chanteuse Theresa Anderrson makes a stop in San Francisco this Saturday, September 13th at Amnesia in the Mission. The songstress is seriously talented and will grace the stage with her impressive one-woman show, which has garnered her fans across the world wide web and packed houses in venues all over New York. Just check out her video below where she performs “Na Na Na” in the middle of her kitchen. The tour is in support of her recently released album, Hummingbird Go! (Basin Street Records). Join me and Better Blog editor Jenn Zipp at the show for some indie pop-soul goodness, and maybe then you can claim you knew her way back when she used to play cozy neighborhood bars.

http://www.youtube.com/user/theresaandersson

myspace:  http://www.myspace.com/theresaanderssonmusic

Posted by The Better Blog on 09/13 at 12:06 AM
Filed under: Camille Ikalina-Robles • Non-Fiction • Reviews •

Mi Mero Mole--A traveling girl suspects Aztec ghosts in Mexico City

By Camille Ikalina-Robles

Monday--rain, rain stay for another day.

It’s raining as we pull our luggage over puddles across the uneven concrete. It’s a cool spring rain in the late afternoon in Mexico City, like the 3 p.m. rainstorms I looked forward to every day when I was a kid during the summers I spent in Florida visiting my dad. But it’s not humid, and there is no thunder, just the steady rain in a city high above sea level, tucked in a valley surrounded my mountains.

That valley is the Valley of Anáhuac. Built upon soft land above old pre-hispanic cities, I am convinced the ancient ruins below house the spirits of old Aztec ghosts. Where I walk now is a very modern city, haunted by its own ghosts torn between modernity and the subtle hold of the hands of its past. The marks of old pagan cultures mix with the practices of the prevalent Catholic faith, and the influence of the richer land beyond its northern border is visible through the high fashion store windows. Spain exists here as well, just another ghost.

Noemi, my dear friend whom I met while in Morocco, is traveling with me. We are students and we are broke. But traveling is something that exists deep in our bones, hers from a heritage linked to indigenous Mexico, and me from my roots to the Basque gypsies of northern Spain. So we make the best of it even when we have little money. Our hotel is clean and a nice place to lay your head. It’s got a shower and clean sheets, and it’s only $35 American dollars a night for both of us. It really puts being “broke” into perspective.

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Posted by The Better Blog on 08/24 at 10:24 PM
Filed under: Camille Ikalina-Robles • Non-Fiction •

Untitled

By Camille Ikalina Robles

Dawn has a way of casting a shadow
over any night magic,
for when I awaken
and leave your side
doubt and paranoia override my momentary bliss,
the bliss where I trust your electric hands
and absorb words of sensuality and
delight.

Sometimes you are unreachable,
unaware of longing hands and curious eyes,
but when your attention finds me again
I feel like clay,
happy in a good potter’s hands.

I am a blur,
blending and receding,
somehow different under your light,
captured,
and deceptively free.

Posted by The Better Blog on 07/30 at 09:00 AM
Filed under: Camille Ikalina-Robles • Fiction •