I Live In Chile: Ready for Fiestas Patrias!

Just click and check out the book you like...enjoy your book! My 63rd book, "I Live In Chile" coming in time for Fiestas Patrias! *******

Check Out "Punta y Taco" in, "I Live In Chile"

“I Live In Chile” Will Be Out In September to Celebrate Chile’s Independence Day! Have You Heard About “Punta y Taco”?

Posted on August 11, 2013by profesorbaker

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http://on.fb.me/11VrDfr My new book, “I Live In Chile” is almost ready! It is planned to be out in time to celebrate Chile’s Independence Day, the 18th of September, or as it is known here in Chile, “El Dieceocho”.

I have been experimenting with a visual solution for one comment I received from a Chilean that said, “In Chile we don’t walk around dressed as cowboys and dancing cueca all the time.” However, the exception is during the month of September, when it is a common to participate in many traditional dances and related activities.

So, how do I represent this aspect of Chilean culture, legitimately?

http://on.fb.me/11VrDfr

The answer: Meet my brother-in-law, Bernardo León, and his wife, Fabiola. They are the proud owners of a business that is intimately connected with Chilean tradition and culture, called, “Punta y Taco”. Punta y Taco is best translated as “Heel and Toe”, which are two crucial elements in dancing the national dance, “La Cueca”.

Bernardo and Fabioña, as owners of “Punta y Taco” sell traditional Chilean clothing and accessories for dancing cueca: shoes, boots, spurs, hats, ponchos, pants, dresses, skirts, shirts, handkerchiefs, etc. Also, if you would like to learn how to dance cueca, you can find no better teachers than this couple. You can find them at:
Av. 21 de Mayo 3225,
Local #92, 4030000 Concepción, Chile
email: contactopuntaytaco@gmail.com

Bernardo and Fabiola have danced cueca with their hearts and souls for the past 45 years (all their lives), since they were both old enough to walk! Have a look for yourself. Here’s Bernardo and Fabiola, dancing the national dance, “La Cueca”!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/PUNTA-…
Don’t forget to click “like” on their Facebook Page!

Also, take a look at my Amazon Author Page for updates: http://amzn.to/Qxmoec

A Book Cover, For, “I Live In Chile” (She Has Personality & She Is Beautiful)

A Book Cover, For, “I Live In Chile” (She Has Personality & She Is Beautiful)

Posted on August 6, 2013by profesorbaker

Chile, I can assure you, is breathtakingly beautiful. Snow-capped volcanoes, glistening glaciers, fire and ice to the south, moving north we begin to find turquoise blue rivers and lakes, a never ending mountain chain, the bluest of the bluest waters, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and passing the fertile central valley, we discover the worlds’ driest desert to the north, the Great Atacama. Believe it or not, flowers grow, naturally, in this desert.

Chile has it all. It’s a marvelous country. Try to dream it, and she will defy your dream. Try to imagine her, and Chile will defy your imagination. Chile, as I said before, has it all…and then some.

Yet beyond all this, Chile is also, people. In fact, after one recovers from Chile’s great natural beauty, her people remain, ever present, across the centuries of recorded time…, and then some.

The people are here. They were here. They will always be here. Close your eyes. Open them again now. The people, they are still there…

They smile, they laugh, they cry, they sing and they dance. They are real. They are here…

The Chile I live in is one of the most beautiful countries on Earth. Yet even more beautiful than Chile herself, is her people. With a great sense of humility, I proudly say, “I Live In Chile”… ¡Viva Chile!

Come along for the journey. It has taken me twelve years to discover her, and when I look at her from all the viewpoints available to me, I can only say two things, 1. She has personality, and, 2. She is beautiful…

**

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I Live In Chile: What Does It Mean? (to live in Chile)

I Live In Chile: What Does It Mean? (to live in Chile)

Posted on August 6, 2013by profesorbaker

“Negotiated meaning”: What you take from a book may be very different from what the author puts into it. We cannot ask, “what the text means”, for each reader brings to it different knowledge, experience, attitudes and needs.” – Michael Lewis, 2002, The Lexical Approach: The State of ELT and a Way Forward.

My new book, “I Live In Chile” is one in which meaning is negotiated. Once it is in the hands of the reader, nobody will be able to ask me what the text means. The interpretation of the text will be based on what the reader brings with them to the text.

As Michael Lewis pointed out, knowledge, experience, attitudes and needs of each reader will not be identical. Thus, meaning will be negotiated between you, the reader, and me, the writer. Of course you might ask: “Why is this important?”

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To negotiate meaning is important, with this book, because it is experiential, based on my experience of living in Chile for the past 12 years. Of course, you are correct if you say to me, “Thomas, that does not make you an expert on living in Chile.”

In fact, there are many people and institutions who are better sources to consult on the topic of what it is like to live in Chile. People involved in social career fields would be a good choice. Doctors and nurses would be a good choice. Mothers, grandmothers and heads of households would be a good choice.

The list of people could be augmented by organizations: governments, World Health Organization, United Nations, UNESCO, OECD, European Union, Red Cross, Un Techo Para Chile, Greenpeace, etc. Again, these are better sources of information than I about what it is like to live in Chile.

I honestly admit that, so that you, Dear Reader, can look elsewhere for those insights from official entities and better situated observers than I. So I urge you not to buy this book.

Don’t buy this book if you are looking for statistics. Don’t buy this book if you are looking for comparisons with other countries. Don’t buy this book if you are looking for extraordinary phtography. Don’t buy this book if you are looking for the voice of experts. Quite simply, you won’t find any of that in this book.

Now that I have tried to persuade you not to buy this book, why should you buy this book? That’s an easy question to answer:

It’s because you are curious to know what it is like to live in Chile, and because of that curiosity, you are interested in my story. You want to know about Chile, not from the standpoint of a tourist, or an empirical researcher, but from the viewpoint of a real person, living a real life, in Chile. In short, you are looking for Culture: “Little C”, instead of Culture: “Big C”.

Further, it is possible that our shared knowledge, shared experience, shared attitudes and shared needs, will allow us to negotiate meaning, so that what you take from this book, is what WE put into this book. Yes, I said, “WE”, meaning you and I.

That’s why WE, you the reader and me the writer, decided on a cover for the book together. I value your opinion, I truly do. I’m looking forward to what else WE can do together to make this book a shared reality…

http://amzn.to/Qxmoec

I Am More Lost Than Lieutenant Beautiful: Help Me Choose A Book Cover (Or Should WE Combine Them)

I Am More Lost Than Lieutenant Beautiful: Help Me Choose A Book Cover (Or Should WE Combine Them)

Posted on August 4, 2013by profesorbaker

Dear friends and readers,

I now ask you to help me choose a cover for my new book, “I Live In Chile”. This is important because readers tend to “judge a book by its cover.” We live in a hyper-sensitive world where time, especially free-time, is a precious commodity. If a book cover does not appeal to a reader, there are few people who feel compelled to give the book a go anyway, despite not being attracted to its external cover. This is why I ask you for your help, because books are judged by their covers, and I value your opinion.

Culture: Big C & Little C

Culture can be the surface variety (holidays, traditions, customs), or it can be the daily variety, (created by a shared linguistic heritage). The first kind of culture, the surface variety, I call “Big C”. The second kind, the daily type, I call “Little C”.

In my new book, “I Live In Chile” you will find both of these expressions of culture. Above this, I will share my life in Chile, my personal experience, in terms of what it has been like for me to live in Chile as someone who assimilates into the Chilean culture, rather than maintain a separate cultural identity. Hence the title: I Live In Chile.

In Chile, Big C is determined often by the date of a holiday, a festival, or a celebration. It is an annual event, a recurring ritual, something to look forward to, to enjoy, to spend time in the company of those whom we cherish most.

In Chile, Little C, on the other hand, is present everywhere, every day, all the time, 24/7. It finds its fundamental referential source in a shared linguistic heritage. To give one example, the phrase: “más perdido que el Teniente Bello” is nonsensical to anyone who does not share a linguistic heritage as a Chilean. Translated, it means, “I am more lost than Lieutenant Beautiful”.

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Of course, that’s utter nonsense. I know that, and so do you. What it really means,however, is, “I’m badly lost, and I have no idea, no clue at all, as to where I am.”

When one digs deeper (my source is Mr. Manuel Gallardo), one finds the original incident that give birth to the phrase. It seems that on March 9, 1914, a person named Lieutenant Alejandro Bellotook off from the airstrip at Lo Espejo.

It was a solo flight, and his objective was to complete the final requirements to obtain his pilot’s license. This was supposed to be a round trip flight (Lo Espejo-Cartagena-Lo Espejo). Lieutenant Bello was never heard from again, giving birth to the legend that is expressed in the phrase, “más perdido que Teniente Bello“.

Now you know. Now we know. I classify this shared bit of linguistic heritage as “Little C”. A tourist to Chile is almost guaranteed to return to their country of origin and never knowwho Lieutenant Bello is. I also seriously doubt that anyone will ever hear the English equivalent phrase:

“I’m more lost than Amelia Earhart“. No, because in the linguistic heritage of the USA, we have turned the early pilots, who often flew under conditions no sane pilot would attempt today, into national heroes. The early mail pilots, for example, flying without proper instruments, were often lost and never heard from again. These men and women were treated as heroes.

Heroes and heroines they became, and none more so, than Amelia Earhart. She was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, a feat that was obviously not accomplished by Lieutenant Bello. Nonetheless, to be fair, though we revere her memory, she is just as lost today as Lieutenant Bello is…

Anyway, last night, as my wife and I were returning home from attending a folklore festival hosted by, “Los Amigos de la Cueca” of whom I shall return to speak of in my book, I knew what she meant when she uttered the phrase, “estoy más perdido que Teniente Bello”. Fortunately, neither she nor I was driving, and we all arrived home safe and sound.

Choose One Book Cover
(Or Combine Them?)

You can imagine my surprise when an overwhelming majority of readers yesterday did not choose a book cover that included Chile’s majestic mountain landscape, found in theTorres del Paine National Park, in southern Chile. Indeed, it is considered by some experts to be the 8th Wonder of the World. The experts say it has everything: scale, beauty, mystery, endurance, wow factor, uniqueness, remoteness, and unmissability.

Yet the sentiment of the readers who responded to my call for help in choosing a cover were inclined toward a different view of what it means to live in Chile, putting the emphasis elsewhere, namely, Chile and her people.

In essence, what make a country is its people. In that sense, the two possible book covers I present to you here were chosen for this very reason. I’d like to share with you what the people have previously indicated to me, here:

Ruth Watson-Morris Voxian Series(University of Worcester): The first! I love the way it looks, the colour and the picture itself looks more authentic. Hope this helps a little.

Una Tiers (Chicago): The first is best!

Theodora Papapanagiotou (Thessaloniki, Greece): The right one!

Steve Bohne (Jackson College, Jackson, Michigan, USA) I like the girls–title is more readable.

*** I prefer the first one Thomas! (45 people)

Mile Aranda Rodríguez (Chillán, Chile)

Gabriela León V.
15 mutual friends

Close FriendFriends
Sherry Henton
100 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Karine Berenguer Kakakis
2 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Lorena Gonzalez Monroy
56 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Daniela Vergara Muñoz
4 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Francisco Ordóñez Arias
24 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Sandra Rojas Peralta
70 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Linda Hooks Barfield
163 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Linda Lattimer
143 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Stellar Andrea
44 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Cherye Alarcón
11 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Eldon Hendrix
9 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Ana Luisa Burgos Benitez
16 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Rebeca Ester Caamaño Mieres
7 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Theodora Papapanagiotou
46 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Karlita Danger
17 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Marian Zurita
48 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Claudia Boniche Castillo
7 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Carolina Villarroel
7 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Emily Poblete Sanchez
53 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Rossana Falsetti
358 mutual friends

AcquaintanceFriends
Roseli Serra
345 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Sergio Verdejo Oliva
12 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Carolina Arredondo
1 mutual friend

FriendFriends
Ronnie T. Wright
47 mutual friends

FriendFriends
JB Clark
18 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Alejandro Carrasco Vargas
2 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Jazmin Fuentes Valladares
3 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Susan Hillyard
392 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Claudia Salgado
179 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Lorena González Aguila
23 mutual friends

FriendFriends
David Muñoz
36 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Evelyn Andrea Labarca López
22 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Camila Andrea Montesinos Vargas
56 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Barbara Olmos
16 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Mila Álvarez Contreras
28 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Leila Melquíades
6 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Alan Robert Lindsay
40 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Jeanet Roberts
28 mutual friends

AcquaintanceFriends
Marcia Inostroza Urzúa
1 mutual friend

FriendFriends
Maly Casas-Cordero Guerra
11 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Lorena Stevens
22 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Paula Andrea Rivera Pailamilla
1 mutual friend

FriendFriends
Maritza Matz Ipinza
7 mutual friends

FriendFriends
Francisco Redin
2 mutual friends

Gonzalo Alfredo Cordovez Badilla
1 mutual friend

Michele L. Underwood
1 mutual friend

**
Mila Álvarez Contreras (Chile): I like the first one. The one with the BBQ. #ChileanWay

Deborah Davidson (USA): The first (left) one is great.

Eldon Hendrix (Florida, USA): I concur with the majority. The top right represents the culture of the people while still showing some red, white and blue. All of them are great.Be sure to send me the link to get one. I’ll share it with my students. (8th grade – 8º Básico)

Rick Carufel (California, USA):
Friends with Darlene Quinn (USA)
Neither cover works. Bottom line is the title and the author’s name must be readable in a thumbnail view. No one buys a book when they can’t read the cover.

Thomas Baker Thank you very much Rick! On the final version I hope to have a workable solution for that aspect. If I can get the title problem fixed (somehow) which cover photo would you prefer?

Rick Carufel
Friends with Darlene Quinn
I like the couple. It has a more local feel than the girls dancing, which is an entertainment event. I think the couple adds more credence to the title.

Thomas Baker Thank you kindly Rick for your help. I appreciate it very much. I hope to find a solution for the title problem (without having to change the design altogether to accommodate the photo) that you and others have mentioned to me. For any tips or tricks I might want to consider, feel free to share with me. Again, thank you, you have been very helpful.

Francisca Ignacia Quezada Leal (Chile):
The first one.

Betsabe Herrera (Chile): second one

Rodrigo Andrés Meza Sánchez (Chile): first..although I would have prefered something related to our indigenous origins (aymara people pictures, mapuche people pictures, etc) but that would depend on the context that book is written and its content itself. Good luck with your work!

Carolina Guzmán Lastra (Chile):
I prefer the second one.

M Fernanda Pozo (Chile):
The second one is clearer..

Claudia Rodriguez Avalos (Chile):
I strongly agree with Rodrigo Andrés Meza Sánchez!

Thomas Baker Thank you Claudia!

Claudia Rodriguez Avalos (Chile: Welcome!!! I wish you the best!!

Bárbara Batichika Rasse (Chile): I really think you should have a picture with the real Chile. We are not dressed like huasos all the time, actually, we remember our traditions in september and thats all. I read you are talking about our beautiful country, so the cover must be a landscape…

Thomas Baker Hi Bárbara, Thank you so much for your kind and generous words. Yesterday I had 4 covers to choose from. http://profesorbaker.com/2013/08/04/help-which-cover-do-you-like-for-my-new-book-i-live-in-chile/ One was Torres del Paine at midnight, the other was also Torres del Paine from the island with turquoise water surrounding it and the bridge leading to it that is facing the twin peaks…

Giselle Báez (Chile): The first one!

Camila Pantoja Pinilla (Chile): Second one! it’s clearer… Best wishes!!!

Betsabe Herrera (Chile): Changed my mind. Torres del Paine at the sunset is way better.

Rodrigo Andrés Meza Sánchez (Chile): Yeah…a cool landscape could be also great.

Sally Dillard (Connecticut, USA): I like the one with the girls also.

Judi Lein (Chile) N.2!!

Klaudia A Fuentes C (Chile) Second

Pablo Venegas Carrasco (Chile): There are million of better photos than these two. I have to choose….I would say number 2.

Thomas Baker Thank you very much Judi, Klaudia, & Pablo! Pablo, would you like to be a Reader of the final draft before the book is published? In that way, you can make suggestions and recommendations that I will try to incorporate into the final version before it is published.

Adele Symonds (Stamford, Lincolnshire, UK):
I also agree.

Thomas Baker Adele, which one do you like? The one with the girls dancing?

Adele Symonds Yes, on the other one the title fades into the background rather than standing out clear and bold as it does on the dancing girls cover.

ClaudiaBoniche (Chile): via Twitter
@profesortbaker
I like the flag skirts one.

Help! Which Cover Do You Like For My New Book, “I Live In Chile”?

Help! Which Cover Do You Like For My New Book, “I Live In Chile”?

Posted on August 4, 2013by profesorbaker

Which cover do you like for my new book, soon to be released, “I Live In Chile“? I have 3 covers, all three are spectacular.

Each offers the heart and soul of this country I love, Chile. First and foremost about my Chile is her history, her culture her traditions, and her rugged, resilient and lovable people.

Nothing embodies this aspect of Chile more than her national dance, La Cueca. Yet within this tradition, there is an even larger sentiment, “La Patria”, love of country. The picture on the top right carries this enduring symbolism, “Amor por La Patria”, Love of Country, that all Chileans feel for her.

Which cover do you like? http://amzn.to/12Pwr8S

With its melody and meter determined by the text or the lyrics, the cueca is a song most often interpreted by two voices and accompanied by a guitar, harp, piano, accordion and tambourine.

Any of these instruments may be absent, except the guitar, which is essential, just as the public’s clapping, which stimulates the couples who dance in the ramadas during the Independence Day celebrations, or in the folk peñas, gathering places for singing, dancing and traditional foods.

“La Cueca” has been Chile’s national dance since 1979 and is expressed in various ways in different areas of the country. There is the northern cueca, the cueca chilota, the fierce cueca or the cueca chora, the urban cueca and the traditional cueca, danced in the central zone. In the latter, a cowboy, or huaso, and a peasant woman, or china, are dance partners.

The choreography is a representation of the romantic flirtation and conquest. It is said that cueca comes from the word clueca, meaning a hen that about to lay eggs, which would mean that the dance is symbolic of the mating ritual between rooster and hen.

The lyrics tell an anecdote about a fight in a bar or at a rodeo, the typical celebration with mounted huasos rounding up a steer in the rodeo ring.

Source: This Is Chile

“I Live In Chile” is coming out very soon, within the next 3 – 4 weeks, but it needs a cover. Which one do you like?

A: Left & B: Center C: Right

There are those who say that Chile’s most beautiful feature is the midnight landscape over the majestic twin mountain peaks of Torres del Paine. Indeed, it has everything to capture the mind, the spirit and the imagination of any traveler to see something that quite simply, “takes your breath away”:

1. Scale – “…2,422 square kilometres (935 square miles) and a highest peak that stands at 2,884 metres (9,462 feet). Torres del Paine’s mountains actually look even bigger than they are, since they rear unexpectedly out of the otherwise rolling yellow Patagonian plains.”

2. Beauty – “In Torres del Paine National Park there’s more than one kind of beauty on show. Alongside the craggy mountain peaks lie fractured blue glaciers dissolving into tumbling waterfalls and vast lakes, milky with sediment. Colossal starry nights break to make way for pink and yellow sunrises whilst wild winds blow double rainbows across your path. This is beauty of a higher order.”

3. Mystery – “Romance, mystery, a certain, je ne sais quoi… call it what you want, but a World Wonder has to have it. Patagonia is perhaps one of the most romanticised regions around, with a tight grip on the global imagination. Writers and thinkers have long made the pilgrimage to this distant frontier-land in an attempt to distil exactly what it is that makes Patagonia so special. From Lady Florence Dixie to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry to Bruce Chatwin, endless pages have been spent try to capture Patagonia’s essence. And still the only way to understand it is to visit for yourself.”

4. Endurance – “The Paine Massif that forms the centerpiece of the park was formed at some point during the Cretaceous period, some 145 to 66 million years ago. To put that in perspective, that’s when dinosaurs were still casually roaming the Earth!”

5. Wow Factor – “Seeing it for the first time should feel a little bit spiritual and a little bit unreal. Even though you may have seen lots of photos of it before your trip, seeing it in real life should still be better than you imagined. Ideally, your first sight of the potential Wonder should come with an audible gasp. That’s what seeing the Torres del Paine Massif for the first time feels like. After hours of flat steppeland the triple peaks of the famous Towers suddenly heave into view. It’s a moment you never forget.”

6. Uniqueness – “To be truly wonderous, a World Wonder should have something that can’t be found anywhere else on the planet. It should be unique, a one-off, unmatched. Torres del Paine National Park is exactly that, which is why it was designated as a World Biosphere Reserve in 1978, in recognition of the distinctive habitat it represents for the 24 species of mammals, 15 species of bird of prey and countless other animals as well as a wide range of flora, much of it endemic to this small corner of Chile.”

7. Remoteness – “When the original Wonders of the Ancient World were first compiled by the Greek poet Antipater of Sidon, travel to each sight took days or weeks, making the journey itself part of the adventure. Combined with the thrill of seeing the World Wonders was the excitement of the journey’s end. In our modern world of commercial air travel, there are few places that remain truly remote and require a true journey to reach them, but Torres del Paine National Park is one of them. A flight from Santiago in Chile or Buenos Aires in Argentina to the foot of the continent is followed by an overland journey that can take a whole day. This is one of the world’s last great adventures.”

8. Unmissability – “We judge this criterion based on how much you’d regret not visiting the potential Wonder if you happen to be in the area. In the case of Torres del Paine, the unmissability rating is sky-high since visiting the National Park is the main reason that lots of people go to Chilean Patagonia at all. Torres del Paine National Park is home to some of the world’s most iconic trekking routes like the Paine Circuit and the W Trek, so the park features on many an exclusive bucket list.

As you can see, Torres del Paine National Park scores big on all of these criteria, which is why we think it should be the 8th Wonder of the World! If you agree with us, you can vote once a day until the end of September 2013, when the winner will be announced.

If you’re still undecided, maybe it’s time you took a look at our tours in Torres del Paine National Park to experience it first hand.”

Source: Cascada Expediciones

http://amzn.to/Qxmoec