MONDO BIZARRO -- OUTER, INNER, SECRET

by Tara Carreon

The precious human body
So difficult to obtain
As rare as a one-eyed
turtle, or a turtle
blind in one eye
Who surfaces every
1,000 years, that he
should place his head inside
a golden yoke floating
randomly on the ocean ...

Remember that story
about the one-eyed
turtle that you heard
from your grandma
when you were a kid? Well, here is
the secret meaning, dearie
Let me just whip this one-eyed
turtle out of my pants here
And guess what is the golden yoke?
The dharma is a randy joke.

_______________

Women and Spanish Fascism:  The Women's Section of the Falange, 1934-1959, by Kathleen Richmond

Part of the construction of Isabella as SF’s role model was her representation as emblem and icon. Her monogram, ‘Y’, was chosen as the principal SF award and became the title of SF’s main journal (Revista ‘Y’ para la mujer nacional-sindicalista). This appeared monthly from 1938 and combined propaganda with items of more general interest to women. Revista ‘Y’ had originated from Pilar’s wish to create a parallel to the male Falange’s Vértice, and generally maintained the latter’s critical quality, with well-known contributors writing for both. [52] The symbolism of the letter ‘Y’ was many-layered. It was the Isabelline monogram and also the conjunction ‘and’. Moreover, it was the first letter of another symbol with which she was associated -- the yoke. All three were representations of unity, and in the Falangist context, symbols of what José Antonio had called ‘the poetry of the State’. [53] Above all, SF literature represented it as the symbol of service:

The ‘Y’ unites and the woman’s mission also was to unite: city with country, the powerful with the needy, pain with joy, harshness with gentleness. The woman must give cohesion -- union -- to the members of a family; she must secure that vertical union which is the continuance and survival of the home in the course of all the trials of life. [54]

The Isabelline yoke was an SF modification of the Falangist emblem of the yoke and arrows. In the SF version, the yoke was depicted separately and the arrows were lashed to it. This never entirely replaced the official Falange emblem but was used in much of the official literature. The size and design of the yoke (longer and wider than the arrows) reinforced SF’s claim for a role and identity of its own. Its work would have a shared historic constant with the male Falange but a separate expression.
 

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