Michael Casey | The Image Mirror

Moving a family from one hemisphere to another is a time-consuming exercise.

But that’s a poor excuse for the long hiatus in updates to the blog. I think it’s best that I publicly acknowledge the influence of one of my favorite Aussie bumper stickers. In bold, colorful, all-caps, it read “PROCRASTINATE NOW!”

So, without further ado…Live from New York, it’s … The Image Mirror?

It’s funny how the world continued to go on without me or my blog during these past two months - including, it seems, book reviews. Some of the more notable ones to weigh in on Che were The Nation, The L.A. Times, Curled Up With a Good Book, The Learned Fan Girl. Mostly good, I’m very happy to say.

One review, however, begs comment. But before I do, a warning: Writers who tell you they are happy to read criticism of their work are lying.

Anyway, I was oddly satisfied to find Maurice Isserman’s review at The Nation segue from a mostly very positive analysis into a critique of my dehistoricizing of Che. Besides the fact that he misses the whole point of the book – i.e. the central premise that it’s possible to view Che not as a historical figure but as a socially-constructed icon – I can at least now feel confident that I’ve been hit from both the right and the left. I was worried there for a while. All I had was Roger Noriega and the loonies in Miami to go on. Would I forever be labeled as a commie Che lover? Now at least I’m also a guy who – unavoidably, apparently, due to his business journalism background – is “overly enamored with the language of advertising and consumption.” As proof of how I’ve purged the distorted image presented by Noriega et al, I can now happily report that one poor, misguided conservative has defended me against Isserman by – wrongly, of course – describing my work as an “anti-Che book.” A golden rule of journalism holds that if you’ve pissed off both sides you’ve done your job. I hope that means I can rest easy.

Havana’s Plaza de la Revolucion. Photo by Michael Casey

Che’s childhood home in Alta Gracia, Argentina, with a sculpture of him as boy. Photo by Michael Casey

Billboard outside the Che memorial in Santa Clara, Cuba, with the classic Cuban catch cry, “We will be like Che!” Photo by Michael Casey

A monument to Che outside a hospital in Santa Clara. Photo by Michael Casey

Bolivian women at the giant bust of Che in La Higuera. Photo by Michael Casey

Argentine sculptor Andres Zerneri in front of his then-unfinished national monument to Che Guevara, which was eventually cast with the household bronze items of thousands of donors. Photo by Michael Casey

Omar Sandovar, “El Che” of Havana, who charges tourists for his photo in front of Hemingway’s old haunt, the Ambos Mundos Hotel. Photo by Michael Casey

Another Omar. No impersonator this one, Omar Pérez López is thought to be the unrecognized son of Che Guevara. Photo by Michael Casey

Lilia Rosa López, who says she had an affair with Che in 1964 and that he is the father of her son, Omar Pérez. Photo by Michael Casey

Che is everywhere. Look carefully. A photo snapped from a passing car by Jim Della-Giacoma even finds him on Rockaway Boulevard in Long Island, NY. Comfortable in whatever surroundings, here Che occupies a water tank next to a “Car Spa” car cleaning outfit.

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