Pau was never gone from our radar, so don’t call it a comeback. But La Chica Dorada has a new album out, and she ain’t playing folks.

Will Pausión take her to the next level?

That smoky voice that we all love so well is coming back to sing us some really sick muscial lullabies.

But will it top Ananda, Planeta Paulina and Celebridades, her previous albums? Other than Richard Ajorna, Latin music hasn’t exactly been doing gangbusters lately, but we can always expect Pau to shake things up.

Photo via PauR

Mario Lopez has written a book (to be released October 15th) with a little help from his friends. Friends as in his sister Marissa Lopez-Wong and artist Marilyn Roos. It’s called Mud Tacos. According to a release sent to Hissip by the book’s publisher Celebra:

“Mud Tacos!, a picture book written by Lopez with his sister Marissa Lopez-Wong, is a loving tale about their family and the nurturing bond between a brother and sister. The story follows Mario and Marissa and their cousins Chico and Rosie playing in their nana’s backyard and using their imagination to have fun.”

M.Lo previously authored a workout book called Mario Lopez’s Knockout Fitness. You’d think this time around he’d write a book more in the vein of a relationship manual or something. Or something along the prescriptive self-help angle like How to Spot a Douche Bag from Kilometers Away. But I guess Mario loves the kids.

So much Latin music, so little time, so let’s go. First off, Ojos De Brujo, the nine-member Spanish band have released their newest opus Aocaná. There’s also a 2-CD deluxe version with some remixes, feauturing the flamenco, hip-hop, salsa-beats they’re known for. Interesting album art, no?

The Fania All-Stars compiled selected performances from their Puerto Rican tour back in 1973 and slapped them on a live CD so you can experience their greatest hits like “Congo Bongó”, “Que Rico Suena Mi Tambor”, and “Mi Debilidad” (which they perform with Ismael Quitana) with a lot of noise and screams in the background.

Alexis and Fido are back.

People are always talking about Wisin Y Yandel and Baby Rasta and Gringo, but Alexis and Fido are a sick musical team too, now. With tierra-shaking tracks like “Súbete” (with Don Omar), “Superhéroe”, it’s pretty obvious that this isn’t the same Alexis and Fido from Sobrenatural, but a new and improved more authentic duo. Also worth checking out is “No Debe Tocarte” which suprisingly features Toby Love.

Julia de Burgos, a Puerto Rican poet who was born in the year of the first world war, is the poet of choice for this edition of the Latino Book Club. Other than Jose Vilson, I don’t really dig poetry these days.

Over 200 of her poems have been compiled for this poetry collection entitled Song of the Simple Truth Obra Completa poética the Complete Poems, translated from the Spanish by Jack Agüeros, himself a poet with introduction notes by Gareth Price.

De Bourgos actually died in 1953, but is she like the Hispanic Emily Dickinson or what? Or more potent?

In poems like “Momentos”, she drops it like this:

“Yo fatalista, mirando la vida llegándose y alejándos de mis semejantes/Yo, dentro de mí misma, siempre en espera de algo que no acierta mi mente.”

“Me, fatalist, watching life coming and going from my contemporaries/Me, inside myself, always waiting for something that my mind can’t define.”

In another poem she calls “Cuando me enamorabas”, she talks about the discrepancy in a man’s behavior when he’s courting a woman, and afterwards—when he actually has her fallen for him.

“Mi alma”, another poem, seems to have some autobiographical overtones:

“My soul? A broken harmoney/that hops over its dementia/on the cushion of time.”

Wait, I know I said her style is reminiscent of Emily Dickinson, but scratch that, make that Sylvia Plath, for the majority of the poems, heck I’d say the bulk of the poems, are very pensive, sometimes depressing in their tone, but always fluid. Heck, she’s in her own category, that poetic mami Julia de Bourgos, and am I glad that she’s in this week’s edition of the Latino Book Club.

Rodrigo Santoro was in Che, one of the most talked about movies of the 2008-2009 season. So how come this Brazilian papi is just now beginning to get some tangible notice from Hollywood.

Appreciate a talented Latino, won’t you Hollywood?

Well, looks like they’re starting to show my boy some love. He’s going to be in The Post-Graduate Survival Guide later on this year opposite fellow Latino actor Alexis Bledel, as well as in the sci-fi fantasy Talking with Dog with Hillary Duff and John Cusack in the cast.

Pic Credit: David Livingston/Getty Images North America

Our boy Esai Morales is in the “Battlestar Galactica” prequel “Caprica” and spoke to IGN about his character Joe “Adama” Adams, who raises his son William Adama to preteenhood after his wife and daughter are killed by monotheists terrrorists.

And the plot thickens, as Esai explains things further:

“I meet Eric Stoltz’s character, a very wealthy technical industrialist, whose daughter was involved, I find out later, in this whole thing,” he continues. “But until that point, I’m grateful that he’s kind of taken me under his wing and that he wants to show me this technology that he’s claiming can bring his daughter back to life.”

“I’m the moral compass in this, where Eric Stoltz is the intellectual mad genius who is willing to do anything to not only succeed in this business but also bring his daughter back,” he says. “They kind of go hand in hand. The technology that could make this robot, well, they want to make mechanical soldiers [with it too].”

Esai Morales, the moral compass? Well, dang; this show has that many wicked villains? Welll, this is television after all folks, not real life.

Pic Credit: Scifi Cool

Some time ago we told you about Sofia Vergara’s debut on Broadway. The day has come!

La Vergara is actually making her debut today in the Broadway version of Chicago. The show will go on until May 24th, so if you’re in the area, be sure to check my girl out.

You just know she’s going to be killing it as Mama Horton the character Queen Latifah played in the movie version.

Pic Credit: Joe Corrigan/Getty Images Entertainment