Órale, we’re gonna keep with the witchcraft theme we started on last month. But we’re gonna focus on a single spell told in four episodes. Simón, it’s gonna be a spell cast as a story. The witchcraft of it is that it exposes a distortion in time and, with that, changes current reality. The distortion is an event that recurs every few generations, same event and exact setting and context and occurs often enough to keep being passed down from one generation to the next. Because it recurs, it’s timeless. A pillar of reality. All else comes and goes, but not this event.The featured word for this episode is mitote. It’s a Nahuatl (Aztec) word that means a ceremonial event. In Caló, it means a big to-do, commotion, or disturbance. In this case, the mitote arose from an encounter between two raqueteros, people who spin yarns and webs of intrigue.

Órale, the featured word in this episode of Caló is huato. It means commotion caused by the borlo. You see, the borlote can go on for a long time. It peaks and ebbs. The peak is the huato, when everybody’s excited about it in anticipation of a climax, which isn’t always a good end. Why were you late? I was at the huato, where a ruca who was fighting for a vato took off with the other ruca she was fighting, and her vato went home all agütado.

Órale, the feature of this episode of Caló is the expression, hay la llevas. In Spanish, it means there you have it. It’s a curse. There’s a classic Greek mythological tragedy behind the curse of hay la llevas, known in many languages as a Sisyphean feat. As the tragedy goes, a deviant king violated the sacred tradition of showing hospitality to visitors and was condemned by the gods to forever roll a rock up a hill, only to have it slip his grip at the precipice and roll back down. The saying is not a curse you cast on anybody, as it’s something that the cursed is already experiencing. And you can’t relieve them of it. You can only acknowledge it, perhaps wish them the best existence they can possibly have under the circumstances. You say hay la llevas to somebody whom you see trapped in such a curse, where all you are doing is acknowledge their fate. Sometimes the cursed acknowledge it themselves. How are you doing, carnal? Pos hay la llevo, ese.

Órale, we’re going to feature a very local term in Caló for this episode, marfita. It means somebody from Marfa. It’s an honorific, a label, for people who are connected in a meaningful way to Marfa.

Órale, we’re gonna talk about the once-famous term in Caló, con safos. It’s been around for centuries, but it became famous in barrios throughout the US beginning only in the 1960s, when a popular Los Angeles magazine with that expression as its name started publishing. Safos comes from the Spanish term zafar, which means to get loose, escape, untie or unburden oneself. In Caló, it’s a counter-spell you say in anticipation of a curse coming your way. In essence, it says that whatever ill or evil is wished upon you is dissolved or disassembled even as it’s being said such that it’ll come with ways for you to zafar from it. Unlike the common term in American English, “whatever pox you wish on me will come to you,” con safos means “I put up a spell that’ll render your curse useless against me even before you say it.” In its heyday, the term was so well-known that people came to abbreviate it with simple c forward slash s and ritualistically add it to graffiti, cap off poems, and even integrate it into paintings to serve as a protective spell. To be sure, con safos isn’t an innocent or purely defensive spell. It's a preemptive counterattack you lob after you’ve provoked retaliation, as in “I hope your pichirilo breaks down before you get to your date, ese, con safos.”

Órale, we’re gonna to talk about witchcraft for the month of May. Siról, a lot of the context underlying Caló is what is referred to as magical realism in Latin American literature, where people casually interact with devils, navigate curses and cast spells. In Caló, the devil’s always right there acting all mentotote, and pos you have to do something. The devil tries to put a spell on you, and you fight back with your own brujería. If you practice, you can come out ahead. If not, gatcho.This onda is called burlo or burlar. In Romaní, it means game. In Spanish it means to make fun of somebody. In Caló along the Rio Grande, it means to engage in The Borlo, where you try to be more devilish than the devil.

Órale, the featured Caló word this week is raquetero. It means a dishonest raconteur, somebody who tells fantastical stories with the aim of actually deceiving their listeners. To raquetear is a talent, and in the past when there were no movies or other avenues for entertainment, raqueteros were in demand. And they would spin seemingly endless yarns, sometimes funny and sometimes merely exhilarating, but only believable enough to keep everybody’s attention. But after they went out of fashion, the raqueteros turned their talent to intrigue, gossip and conspiratorialism, just telling stories to disrupt the order of things. The mediocre ones merely annoyed everybody. The best ones cause major chaos without anybody knowing they’re doing it. Who hates a raquetero the most? Another raquetero.

Órale, the feature of this episode is the term ir de onda. In Spanish, it means depart from or lose the wavelength, as in a connection with a radio station frequency. In Caló, it means to lose sense of direction or the thread of the conversation. You lose the onda when you’re distracted or suddenly something shinier, louder, or more urgent steals your attention.

Órale, the feature of this episode is the term por la brava. In Spanish is means by way of the brave woman. In Caló, it means in offense or, translated to the modern vernacular, in your face. When you act against the law, contrary to everybody's warning, or in pursuit of a fight, you do it por la brava. It’s indeed an aggressive term that should not be said—or taken— lightly. Also expressed in Spanglish as, a la brave, the term announces willful defiance and acceptance of the consequences. Vatos who do something a la brave, don’t whine later that they didn’t mean it.

Órale, for April, we’re going to talk about how a vato unexpectedly went on a national talk-show tour. Simón, the vato le puso out of the Southside to toriquear on the top TV shows in the country cuz they wanted to hear who fregados he was and what he had to say. So the next four episodes will be about his desmadres on TV.Pos then the featured Caló word in this first episode is vanquetear. It means to exalt oneself, as in exceed or vault over the ordinary. There’s no comparable term in Spanish or English. A close-homonym in Spanish is banqueta, which means sidewalk or walkable edge to a road—nothing close to exalt. In Romaní, there’s a near-synonym, barrequerar, which means to exaggerate. It could be vanquetear is a jumble of both words. Who knows. It could also be vanquetear is unique to Caló.