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Missing Mariachi
- University of Arizona Press
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60 Missing Mariachi Maybe one of the trumpeters, head held back, haloed by a black felt sombrero, maybe the wax-mustached guitarist in mid-strum, or the round one with a guitarrón. Hard to tell; they’re so small and so many standing two inches high on the living room mantel. They appeared one day like distant relatives you’re supposed to love. It was easy when one wasn’t missing. I simply smiled when my mother purchased dime-size zarapes, tiny blue paper flowers, microphone stands made of bobby-pins, miniature earthenware jugs and plastic shrubs materializing by a wife and kids off to the side eating the smallest pink ice cream cones. It was only a matter of time. Soon they might inhabit bookshelves, window ledges, computer tops, insinuating songs neighbors haven’t heard before: a huapango littered with irrational rhythms or a son jarocho, the harp and the horse bone baptizing us with sweat. ...