Reading a new brain book,"Rewire Your Brain," by John B. Arden, Ph.D. (Maybe when I'm done with the book I'll be able to refrain from pronouncing that as Phud. With apologies to all my Phuddy Phriends).

However.

In the book is this paragraph (pg 3,4), which I found compelling enough to read out loud to my sister:
"The corpus callosum of a woman is denser than that of a man. This means that the two hemispheres of a woman's brain work more evenly together. The female brain is more symmetrical. The male brain has an asymmetrical torque, which mean that the right frontal lobe is larger than the left frontal lobe, and the left occipital (back of head) lobe is larger than the right occipital lobe."

To which my sister remarked: "So ....we can legitimately say that they are warped, right?"

"Or that they are legitimately warped," I replied.

Take your pick. In reality, I suspect that this arrangement has its advantages, for both genders.

WIR: Wellspring, Part 4: Random Notes

Random Notes from the last few days.

The more birds I learn to identify, the more birds I see, both individuals and new species. It's sort of spooky. Now that birds are not just blue/somewhat blue, mostly brown, all black, raucus or quiet but rather Steller's jays, scrub jays, western bluebirds, white-capped sparrows, ravens, woodpeckers, chickadees, I've come to notice all the other birds that before escaped my notice: northern flickers, phoebees, juncos, yellow-capped sparrows, acorn and downy woodpeckers. Because they were all there. Without the name, I just didn't notice them. The world has expanded with the simple act of identifying, of recognizing and remembering.

This evening, as the sun faded, the birds burst out in a collective chorus, the squawks and peeers! of jays, the buzzzzy chirps of a Bewick's wren, the melodies of finches, the calls and clucks and squeals that I don't recognize (yet), often overlapping, resembling those wonderfully chaotic moments when an orchestra tunes up, though this would be more like tuning down, the last vocal hurrahs before dark.

Walked down to the river. On the way back, I found a collection of heart stones arranged on a bald spot in the grass near the edge of the bank. Suddenly it seemed like the best place for the three weighing down my jacket pocket. How many do I really need? So there are here.

Writer in Residence: Pt 3: Elk, California

Last Thursday, a side trip to Elk, a small town on the very edge of the coast, clinging like a limpet to bedrock jutting out into the Pacific.

....let's get a closer look at that bedrock...

I was hoping to visit the Greenwood State Park Visitor Center and Historical Museum, but alas, due to our rotten state budget, it was closed.

...but I got a shot anyway.

And besides which, there is a certain historical quality to the town in and of itself.

This is what I call the South Shore...a sand-barred cove with the Greenwood Creek seeking the ocean.

and this is the North Shore...stony bluffs, broken, toothy rocks strung out into the ocean. 

Usually, the ocean is the ceaseless noise of Elk unless, like today, it's the wind. A fierce sort of wind, with a stern roar that overwhelms mind-chatter. A wind that requires buttoning up, requires pulling down into one's self, requires paying attention, watching where it comes from, where it's going to. The scuttle of clouds against the brightest blue sky. Little birds tucked under low bushes.  Hawks and ospreys struggling, flying into the wind at a stand-still before tilting a wing and swinging around to try again later.

The sort of wind that livens the blood, stirs up the appetite and makes ducking into Queenie's Roadhouse Cafe more of delight than ever.

hmmmmm, corned beef hash, eggs over, a small tower of toast...

Writer-in-Residence: Part Two

Today, sun. Lots of it. The meadow held the warmth all afternoon, the air hot enough to bring up thoughts of swimming. Thoughts only and then quite fleeting. I wouldn't even stick a tiny toe in the river; it is galloping for the coast at what looks like several knots an hour to me.

The sun made for some true basking on the porch though, watching red-shafted northern flickers (Colaptes auratus cafer) investigate the eucalyptus, stab for ants in the grass and dash around, with orange wings, white body in the air. Otherwise, the flicker is one fine dapper dandy of a dresser: soft grey basic coat, like dress-up flannels, with a tidy black ascot at the throat, a speckled waist coat and a striped jacket over that. The male sports a flamboyant red mustache-- or is it lipsitck from his lover? He only needs the sporty fedora ... with one of his own feathers in the brim.  My camera sucks at getting bird pix (no real telephoto, slow as molasses) so I'm posting a link to about a thousand pictures of the creature.

In contrast, I just have to say, those Acorn Woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus) are too much. As I said, they look clownish, with white eyes in a half-mask of white, a black bill and red topi. In flight they remind me of the Harlequin, black wings with a wide white stripe, a black back but a white rump. From the rear, as they fly away from me, they seem to be making wing-angles in the air; flying towards me, they just seem....goofy.

This is by far the best photo I found online, at Steve Velo's pix.
These are very interesting birds, residing in sizeable groups of 4 or 5 or more, and sometimes several groups at a time.  They are larder-hoarders, hiding acorn like squirrels in granaries by drilling holes into old trees,  stumps, the side of the water tower, then stuffing acorns in the holes, which the birds defend against all comers. Pretty fascinating.
We think of it as storage, maybe they think of it as art.

Jeepers, sounds like our family, stuffing things in boxes and bundles and defending them against anyone with plans to "organize." Must have some woodpecker in our DNA.

Writer in Residence - Trial Run

To write about Wellspring Renewal Center, is to write about nature. The place sits just outside the hamlet of Philo, California, in Mendocino County; 50 acres of woods and meadows with the Navarro River running right through it. One long meadow, hemmed with small oaks and manzanitas along the north bank, parallels the river. Across it, redwoods spire to the sky, filling the horizon, topped only by trees of the hill commanding the horizon.  Hendy Woods State Park is adjacent to the property, across and to the west down the river; it feels like the redwoods go on forever. Which they did once, but no longer.

The buildings cluster on the northern, top edge of the gently sloping meadow which rolls down to the deep banks of the river. In recent summers, the river has slowed down to barely more than a large creek in spots, winding in a shallow trench across the rocky river bottom; this winter the channel is filled all the way across as an astounding volume of water barrels out to the ocean. Nevertheless, the river hasn't risen to the top of these banks in living or even recorded history. If it did - now that would be scary-or a different eon..

The meadow runs east to west the long way and thus is graced with sun the full day long. The cabin I like to claim has a generous porch facing south, overlooking the meadow, several majestic oaks, the scrim of trees and brush hiding the river and the redowwds across the way. The river, even as full as it is right now, sits so far below the tall banks it is invisible; only the noisy rush and tumble of the high water gives it away.

To write about Wellspring is to write about nature; it is to write about the birds first, for they truly abound. Acorn woodpeckers, clownish in their half-masks of yellow and black, flit about, working their way, knocka-knocka-knocka, around the tall wooden water tower and the oaks; they are everywhere with their a-whacka-whacka-whacka calls. Vultures wheel around the sky, blue, grey or blustery. The call of hawks and ravens echo off the redwoods; closer by I hear the brash squawks and burry chirrrs of the scrub and Stellar jays, the funny whistles of the northern flickers, the pips and peeps of towhees, juncos, phoebes, sparrows, chestnut-backed chickadees.

(psssst: don't take this Writer-in-Residence bit as official, it's not authorized in any way by the Wellspring Renewal Center. I just wanted a project. Anything to distract me from the dang-blasted novel.)

Wrting, writing, writing, keep those authors writing....

On my way up to the Wellspring Renewal Center for my Personal Writing Retreat (created by moi, funded by moi), I stopped at my favorite Indy Bookstore (Copperfield's Books in Petaluma, but of course) for some reading material. Some inspirational and reference books to keep me on task, some sexy-trashy magazines for the downtimes: Best American Essays 2009, a pocket-sized field guide to birds in California and The Writer mag. Yeah, so now you know, sexy-trashy = writer's mags.

But wait, before you dismiss outright, here's the article that got my attention in the middle of yesterday afternoon on a long covered porch in full view of meadow, with redwoods and mountains. " 'Writer in Residence' ? Sign me up!" by Kathy Stevenson...aside from the wonderfully complex instance of punctuation, I was struck by the circs that opens the essay: Alain de Botton had the gig of Writer in Residence for a week at ... wait for it....London's Heathrow Aiport. That's right: he spent a week at the airport * and wrote it up for a book.

Now how cool is that? Kathy Stevenson thinks like me: "Where do I sign up?" she asks.

As you imagine, these gigs are not growing on trees, and Kathy Stevenson puts her fertile good mind to use and comes up with all sorts of alternate locations where she might shine, W-I-R at Godiva Chocolates, for instance.

Which  is when I wondered: couldn't I be the Writer in Residence at Wellspring?

* cool photo on  that link

link to article on Kathy Stevenson's blog

3 a.m.

Sky padded with fog, silvered by a thickening moon; a secret privilege to be awake feeling this quiet.

The jangle of day is not far ahead but for now not even the refrigerator hums and the owls are still.

Absolutely a Big F'ing Deal

Just have to shout YAHOOOOIEEEE for the passage of the Health Care Reform Bill! To quote Joe Biden, yes, indeed, it's a big f**king deal. And I have to hand it to Obama, he's not sitting on his laurels; in the week since, he's given the Won't Do Party (the  Great Obstructionists Party, whatever you want to call it) plenty of fodder to choke on: a jobs bill passed, a seder in the White House, an end run around their inability to cooperate by appointing officials during recess and today, he popped up in Afghanistan. He's a blur; they don't know where to focus or when to get riled up next, and by the time they do, he's onto some other thing they can't stand. Good for him! The Republicans showed their stripes as rabble-rousers and leaders of the ignorant. Their fears, their over-the-top rhetoric about Health Reform and what they think it will do to America....well, it just tells us more about them, about their ignorance and deep prejudices than it does about any of the issues.  I predict that their resistance to Health Care Reform will hurt them in the next round of elections, even as they continue to bluff and posture otherwise.

Back in the day, the rhetoric about Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid was just about as vitriolic and insensible, and yet now I don't think there is one American who doesn't view either program as their inalienable right. Not even rabid right-winger Republicans. Except for GW Bush, perhaps, who seemed to think that the social security funds were fair game for the stock market. I don't hear anyone singing that tune now - no, siree bob.

And credit goes to Nancy Pelosi, too, who fought the good fight, didn't give up and produced results. Now is the time for us to support her: click to StandWithNancy

Paper Fan Shout Out

Wanted to thank anyone and everyone who not only read the Paper Fan story, but jumped over to Girls Write Now or bid for it on E-Bay. Someone won the fan for $21.50, a fair showing for the item+story, I thought. (Is this the sort of someone who will do something creative with the story+item, and send  a photo of it into Sig Obj, as some bidder/buyers do? one never knows... ) But! more importantly, the money pot is filling up for Girls Write Now, well over $300 and rising.

There are more items+stories to bid on, so if any of you get E-bay fever....

But here's a nice shout out to Significant Objects from Girls Write Now that features a very familiar fan...

and if you enlarge the type, some familiar words... at least to me.  

Fanning the Flames of a Bidding War....

oh, dear...I forgot to mention that Japanese  Fan item is only up for bid for a week at Significant Objects...and the week ends tomorrow morning at 6 am!  so ...if you intended to bid but procrastinated, the time is now! 


The fan is at $20 now (a steal for that and an inspiring story!) but the S.O. organizers are hoping to get a significant amount of money to give to for Girls Write Now. This wonderful organization, singled out by Michelle Obama for its successes, "provides guidance, support, and opportunities for New York City's underserved or at-risk high school girls, enabling them to develop their creative, independent voices, explore careers in professional writing, and learn how to make healthy choices in school, career, and life."


You can read more about at:  http://www.girlswritenow.org/gwn/

And if you have the inclination, swing by http://significantobjects.com/2010/03/03/paper-fan/   tonight!


Muchos gracias, in advance!

Fan Mail from Your Favorite Flounder-er

Hey, guess what! Significant Objects just posted a story I wrote about this sweet Japanese fan.  As I've mentioned before, I have been fascinated with Josh Glenn and Rob Walker's project which seeks to show how our emotional entanglement with an object increases that object's value. All that makes sense, of course. But the beauty of the Significant Objects project is that they've devised a method to measure that increased value using the auctions on E-Bay.

So, here's the deal...swing by and read the story, then click the link that takes you to the ebay auction for it..and bid, bid, bid! You may win ... and if you do, you gain three things: the sweet little fan, a copy of my story to have and to hold, and the warm feelings of contributing to a very worthy cause, Girls Write Now.

And I'd love to hear what you think of the story, too.

True Confections & NPR

Off to the side is a brilliant red and white Follower Badge belonging to Katharine Weber.  It is the image of her book cover (on the left)  of her latest novel, True Confections, which was published  January 5th, 2010... and has already garnered a very tasty review from NPR  Her blog, Staircase Writing, is one of my fav go-tos on my bloggy-bloggy list, so there is no excuse for me not trumpeting her pub date earlier. But do visit her blog for candy-lore, "staircase moments" and book-tour reports. And I'm sure you'll be tempted as I am to snag her book, too. It looks delectable. Like chocolate.

Significant Objects Volume 3

Significant Objects is doing it again, yep, yep,  Volume Three, proceeds to benefit the organization Girls Write Now. A great line-up of writers, too, for a worthy cause...including Charles Baxter (yes, the Charles Baxter) whose story is already up. So excuse me, I'm on my way to bid on the meteoric paperweight he so brilliantly created out of whole cloth.

Writing Lysacek Style

Watching the Olympics these past nights, suffering from Olympic Narcolepsy all the next day...man, it starts late here on the West Coast and then goes later.  Doesn't make sense, since we're  pretty much in the same time zone as Vancouver, but there you have it.  Media playing yank-the time-zones.

Still, it's worth the sleep deprivation, as long as you're not one of my co-workers, who have to bear the brunt of my Olympic-sized crankiness the next day.

The Men's Figure Skating Shoot Out at the Pacific Coliseumn...omg...Lysacek! * What a stunningly beautiful five-minute eternity on ice. The perfect flow of energy, grace, power, control. Nothing broke my attention on his flawless execution; I wasn't caught up in how high he leaped or how many times he spun. I was enthralled, enraptured, transported to those moments of lost-to-the-world concentration. It hit me then: we want this same sort of focused, breathless attention from our readers; we want them  to be so caught up in our world that they are not aware of how high we leap or how many sentences it takes to construct the scene and setting; we don't want them to see any clunky transitions or biffed landings.  We just want them there, an engaged witness to the story.

So I went out to the woodshed and began revising. Again.

But I work with hope in my heart and a somewhat clearer vision of the way forward: ditch the un-essentials, streamline,  streamline, streamline and weave in about eight triple axels.



* Because NBC controls all video coming out of the Olympics, this link takes you to YouTube of Lysacek's 2009 Championship Free Skate. Pretty amazing stuff, but his performance at the Olympics was even more so.

Napa Valley Writers Conference - Summer 2010

And speaking about the Napa Writers Conference ...  it looks like another bang-up summer of writing and workshops for what I (personally) consider the Best Little Writing Conference in the West.

Okay, so yes, I'm involved (Fiction Director this year), but I was a workshop participant for two years and loved it just as much then. This summer, check it out: Ron Carlson,  Lan Samantha Chang, Curtis Sittenfeld and Michael Byers as fiction faculty; C.D. Wright, Arthur Sze, Brenda Hillman and Major Johnson as poetry faculty.  Spending the last week of July in one of the most beautiful valleys in California, working with fabulous writers...really, what's not to like?

Rolling admissions worked well last year, so we're doing it again, which means we'll be accepting applications beginning March 1st  (in one week -yowzers! -- better get my eyeballs oiled and tuned up.) Scholarship deadline is April 1st....so, writers, grab your keyboards; send me some apps!

Some photos from last year, courtesy of participant Charlene Kwon:

Some plein-air workshopping with ZZ Packer's group

  After the workshopping and writing, come the readings.

Gathering for wine and conversation before the Robert Boswell and Jane Hirschfield reading at Rubicon Winery (previously known as the Niebaum-Coppola Winery).

Ron Carlson - "The Signal"

Speaking of Ron Carlson (previous post, down at the bottom), I was so impressed with his latest novel, "The Signal." (Of course, I am an RC fan, so not soooo much of a surprise there.) Still. The man can write.

(Although dedicated to local indie bookstores, I've included the link to Amazon above, simply for the excellent Washington Post review posted there. Read that, then log off and order/pick up the book at your LIB. )

The Washington Post reviewer, Ron Charles, notes that Carlson "writes like Hemingway without the misogyny and self-parody." Amen. It is one of the Carlson's qualities that I most admire (aside from his prose, that is). He writes both men and women characters with full respect for their humanity, rather than privileging one over the other, or parroting the cultural baggage of being male in this society. His stories that involve parenting are gems for revealing the depth of emotion and reality of being an engaged father.

Carlson's prose has a poetically tensile strength that is at times simply amazing; it defies description and must be read to be truly appreciated.  In "The Signal," he brings all the skills he's honed from crafting short stories, cutting out all the fluff usually acceptable in the form, so that it reads almost like a novella and yet.. it isn't quite. The prose is absolutely complelling; once I dip my eyeballs in the pool, I have to be yanked out by some obligation standing in front of face and shouting, "Hey, Mom, hey, Mom, hey, over here!" or the smoke alarm wailing because I've left the toast in the toaster way too long or the teakettle boiling to the point of a flamed and red bottom. And few authors can write the mountains the way he has in story after story, in "Five Skies", the previous novel, and now "The Signal."

And, even more fun, Carlson is one of the faculty this summer at the Napa Valley Writers Conference, the Best Little Writing Conference in the West, imho. So, folks, get your keyboards running: applications open March 1st and as Fiction Director this year, I'm waiting for your submission, yes, I am!

Objects of Significance, Objects that Signify

The Significant Objects Project rocks on. They're now at the end of the second round (the last object is up, folks, time to start bidding) the proceeds of which benefit 826 National, the writing program that Dave Eggers and crew began in SF and now has gone, umm, national. Sig. Obj. has now raised over $2,000 by  e-baying various thingamabobs, doohickeys and tchotchkes after they've been value-enhanced by a pertinent albeit invented history.  Rob Walker chats more about the project here at More Intelligent Life.

This past week, Sig Obj has been dedicated to objects collected by Underwater New York, which...well, to get the whole story you'll have to go there, but suffice it to say, these evocative objects have another whole layer of meaning sloughing off them; they've been underwater before being salvaged by the intrepid band of New Yorkers dedicated to seeing what is under their water. (hell yeah, they're brave! or... foolhardy?)  Yep, hop on over there, it'll all become clearer. But -- remember: come back!

So the Sig Obj project is looking at how a story enhances an object. It's fascinating that once we've engaged with an object, once we've attached value, symbolism, meaning to a thing, that thing becomes precious to us, even though it itself hasn't (usually) changed one iota and is probably, on the grand scheme of things, inherently worthless. Although Jamie Madigan's blog is about gamers and why they do what they do, this particular post considers the assigned vs absolute values of objects and he quotes some very interesting research about what happens when objects carry an emotional charge. Go there for the research...come back here to find out what the hell I think I'm talking about.

Okay, a story making objects valuable, we got that. But it got me thinking about the role of objects in fiction; how they carry meaning for the story. Not just symbolically, though that can happen. I'm thinking more like the inventory that Ron Carlson talks about: the stuff that arrives at the start of the first draft, the objects, attitudes, names, weather, etc., and how these things both define the story and can be used later in the draft to keep the story moving along. But the idea is that these specifics bring significance to the story, they give it life. To me it is the reverse of story granting significance to things; it's things granting significance to the story.

Professions that Require Large Shoes

Anyone up for a new curious list (as described in previous post) ?
Let's roll!
Professions that Require Large Shoes:

Father
Carpenter
Carpenter's son

Winter trapper
Shepards
Mythical Characters with a seven-league stride


More suggestions needed!

Lucia Galloway: "Venus and Other Losses"

Great news! My friend and fellow-Antiochian Lucia Galloway's new book of poems, "Venus and Other Losses," has just been published by Plan View Press. I don't have copy to quote from yet, though I will soon. I've always admired her poetry; she has a great feel for formal structures, using them to her advantage, all the while messing around with them in most delicious ways.

I do have a link to a recently posted poem of hers, Seasonal, that will give you a taste of the delights to be found in her work. And if you go to her webapage, Lucia Galloway, you'll find other poems on her Portfolio page as well as links to other published work.

But wait, wait, update! Lucia generously sent me this poem, found on page 32 from "Venus and Other Losses," to post for you all.  Enjoy!

Poem without the Piano

Even if you’re expecting

just notes—

in tunes and rills

chords and counterpoint—

you may get minnows silvered

darting in little schools

or sumo wrestlers panting

groaning with the contest.

You may get Chinese acrobats

stacked up in pyramids

or paddle balls

or yo-yos

whirligigs

Pick-up-Stix

painted turtles

crawling from fissures

between the keys. Things

whose happening

takes shape in spaces

between the sounds.

~ Lucia Galloway

Breakfast for Dessert, anyone?

You know those mad, rushed, over-the-top days when breakfast-for-dinner is the best thing going?

Well, today I had dessert-for-breakfast. That's the sort of day it's been. You'd think things would have calmed down a bit at work, now that we're into the second week of the semester. But no.  Students are still duking it out for classes, and in my office, no less.

So I had my dessert first today, just in case. And besides which, a home-made eclair will get you though times of Big Trouble better than anything I know. Thanks, Gran'mom Marilyn!

Breakfast is the handiest, most satisfying meal there is and it never hurts to have two or three of them in a day. Guess lots of people had that urge when the forecasters called for a few feet of snow last week in the mid-Atlantic states. See the results: Snowpocalypse

Or as one commenter from Philadelphia said, when observing that stores sell out of bread, milk and eggs before a storm,"Why do people in Philly feel the need to make French Toast whenever it snows?"

As one who grew up in very Upstate New York (Potsdam and Buffalo), two feet of snow, well, it's snow, but I doubt we would have had a snow day. Of course, we were prepped for it with snow tires, winter woolies (down and fleece these days) and our pantry was kept topped up. No one rushed anywhere in the winter.  Unless they were on skis.  And then when we came in from a bit of cross-country or other snow-play, ahh, the  aromas of warm maple syrup and hot chocolate. And French toast. Fast, simple, hot.

So maybe it's an atavistic thing.

Diagram A

Two weeks ago,  my dentist (yes, he's mine, he's too good to share ;-} ) drilled out a huge hunk of disintegrating silver amalgam from a lower front molar in preparation for yet another manufactured tooth. I think that gets me down to just a crooked little picket fence of bottom teeth, and maybe about 4 others, that are original issue from the gum up. All the other teeth are gold crowns or porcelain caps cemented onto some mighty stubborn roots, although most of those have been gutted by root canals. (see diagram A). By the time I'm done, my genetically worthless teeth will have become the best part of me, sturdy and hale, while the rest of me falls apart. 

I began my life terrified of dentists. In the fourth grade, whenever my mom told me I had an appointment after school, I'd run away from home. Not so far that my father couldn't find me by driving around the block a few times and ordering me into the car when he spotted me hiding behind a tree. My panicked escape was understandable. At the time, Novocaine was just beginning to make its way into the profession and our dentist didn't believe in using it. Yes, way back in the mists of time.  And there was so much work to be done; Dr Hart had a long list of cavities to tackle.  Dr Hart, my mom would say, flicking an inch-long ash off her Chesterfield, I'm not sure he has one.

Perhaps Dr Hart wasn't comfortable about being able to administer the proper amount to children, or maybe I was just too wiggly for him to get a good purchase on me with a needle in one hand. Anyway, the body memory stayed with me for a very long time, even after I went to many (hundreds, it seems like) other dentists and Novocaine became an essential of the procedure. All my adult life I've avoided making appointments, missed them, reset them. When I did get into the chair, I made sure I was numbed to my eyebrows. 

Today, I got the double-crown glued on (without Novocaine, too -- no drilling!) and I feel ready for another 50,000 miles. I bless the advances of the dental profession and the excellent technique and skills of my dentist.  But it's only the first installment, And so, bit by bit, the re-build begins. 

Wordless Wednesday: Windows and Doors

Curious Lists: Unlikely Ice Cream Flavors

One book acquired over the holiday, "Curious Lists," is basically a bunch of suggested Lists to make, in any way you'd like. So, yeah, its mostly blank ... but what great lists!

For instance: Knots Used for Sailing or Declarations of a Furious Chef or True Things About Cats or Hiccup Cures or Unlikely Ice Cream Flavors. These can be taken seriously or whimsically, depending on mood or any surrounding mayhem you might find yourself in.

Kinda reminds me of the "Pillow Book," the Japanese book written around the year 1000 by a Sei Shonagon.  Part of its charm are the lists the author included, though this current book is more, uhh, interactive. (God, that word is becoming, like, poison.)

So I thought I'd throw one of those lists out there and see what folks come up with. Post any suggestions in comments and remember, fictional or literal suggestions equally acceptable (just not overly scatological or un-family friendly; those can go on your personal list you keep in your car's glovebox for the times you need to convince an officer of the law that you're more wacky than drunk and should simply be delivered home into the waiting arms of your patient but worried spouse).

So how about the last one mentioned:

Unlikely Ice Cream Flavors 

1) Aloe Vera

2) Spaceship Exhaust

3) Copper Shavings

4) Fairy Dust

5) Belly Button

Send me more!

Good News from the Publication Fairy

More good news for the New Year (and beyond) from our buddy Paul Lisicky:

1) SmokeLong Weekly chose his story, "Palo Alto," as their kick-off publication piece.
SmokeLong Weekly—"Palo Alto" by Paul Lisicky—January 4, 2010

BUT, even better! his novel, The Burning Man, will come out in Spring 2011! Yahoo!!!! Major, major congrats! If you want, you can wish him your own congratulations at his blogpost.

Feckless Frazzled Furlough Friday

First working Friday of the year and it's a Furlough Friday. Fah! It all seems rather feckless to me--a half-assed, ineffectual band-aid to a problem that requires systemic change and some big-picture thinkers up in Sacramento. Fancy that! But I'm not even going to attempt to crack that nut today. Don't want to ruin a perfectly fine Friday with frazzled and fried brain cells and a bad, sizzling attitude. 

What I want to do is get beyond the fecklessness, go past the fulminating and even facetiousness and develop something more .... fortuitous, forthright, fulfilling, maybe even frothy. I've decided they'll be Fiction Fridays. Instead of going to the office, I'll go out to the my little garden-shed-turned-into-studio and crank out some scenes on the novella. What the hey. Maybe by the end of the Economic Downturn, I'll have the dang thing finished. 

Wordless Wednesday

I took the two pix above at work on the last Wednesday before the end of the semester, and the one below on the first Wednesday we came back (today).

Wandering the Interschnitzel

Being home for ten days gave me with plenty of time to wander the grassy plains of the Interschnitzel. When I should have been working on my novella, yes... but. Sometimes you gotta take a break.  And the weather was too rubbishy (rain. cold. more rain.) for a comfortable meandering, humming actual walk.
Anyway, thought I would share some of my discoveries.

Miss Buckle...love her photos and sensibilities.

Staircase Writing... the blog of a bonafide follower of my blog, not kith or kin!  A nice take-off from stairway wit (as opposed to the elevator pitch), that includes lots of tidbits about candy. All due to research for her  novel "True Confections." May we all be blessed with such sweet research.

ohfortheloveofblog ... love reading Molly's blog, lots of spirit, lots of compassion, lots of sass. And she's got a good reading list. Plus, she makes some stunningly yummy-looking food.

That's it for now, folks. Back to work tomorrow, in the vacant, echoing halls of academia, in Darwin Hall, to be exact, where evolution is not so much a theory as an under-funded concept.

To the Persistent, Go the Rewards

Good news for the new year! My friend and grad-school compadre, Cecilia Ward Jones, had her essay, Art of Perseverance, published in the latest Poets and Writers (Jan/Feb 2010). Three cheers, hip-hip-hooray and a thousand kudos!

The link, unfortunately, will not take you to her excellent essay, just the listing on the P and W website noting that it's available in the print edition.  But I think most of you are already subscribers,  a few of you can come by the house and read my copy (in the back room by the computer, kids), and as for the rest of you, there's the library, or lingering at the newstand or loitering at your fav indie bookstore. Just don't get arrested and try to blame it on me.

You could also buy it.

Cecilia's essay addresses that age-old conundrum: why we write, and particularly why we write when, even after years of fighting our own doubts, working against everyone's expectations (she has some personal doozies to tell you about), and slaving away in isolation, improving story by story through sheer finger-sweat, brain abuse and neglect of human relationships, there are such meager crumbs of recognition, i.e. publication. Like, usually, none.  As her (putative) friend said, and I quote from the essay: "' but that's like a hobby, right? Your writing. Since you don't publish.'

"Okay, everyone, in unison: GRRRRRRRRRRR! 

Cecilia wonders, "I'm not published, ergo I'm not a writer?" which leads her to that question in the back of so many of our minds:  If I'm not getting published, then why do I do it? 

The irony is not lost on Cecilia, no siree bob, that her published essay is about her not being published. 

Struggling with that same question, a bloggin' buddy, Kathleen O'Hanlon posted this on her blog Southern California is My Desk :

" It is my pleasure and my burden to get to spend time inside my head everyday, to the detriment of exercise, professional development, home-cooked meals, going to movies with friends. This is what I do for better and worse. And most days it feels like this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Don't know why. Don't know if I ever will know why. But there it is." 

It's similar to Cecilia's conclusion: "a normal person probably would have gone on to other things, but I continue to write. Stubborn? Maybe. But it's what I do. I write. I get up every morning, sit in front of my computer and work away."

Cecilia and Kathleen have nailed it: we don't know why, but we do; we write. For better or worse, we write. In sickness and in health. In rain, snow, sleet, dark of night and bright of day, under blue moons and during monsoons. We write, ergo we are writers. So there.  

So Many Books, So Little Time

yes, yes, absolutely, you're right: lame-o blogger, haven't posted in weeks. Though, between the end of the semester and the whole holiday thing, those were some pretty intense weeks. Lots of things went by the wayside: correspondence (email, FB, LinkedIn, and otherwise), tidyness around the house and office, excessive attention to grooming, etc. Don't get me wrong, I took showers - almost everyday, in fact. Just wasn't rat-tailing the bangs or buffing up the nails. Course I don't do either of those things anyway, so that didn't save me so much time. Let's just say that I kept myself presentable, just not dolled up.

So the blogging suffered. But my family is happy and I'm still employed; what more can you want? Time, of course... mostly for various writing projects. Which is another reason the blogging is on the back burner. This week off  has been an opportunity to woodshed, as the jazz-cats say, out in my garden-shack studio. Helps that it's been raining, too. Easy to stay inside.  It's been raining in my novella, too, come to think of it.

The library project is on hold for now. In an attempt to meet their slashed budget, the Sonoma County Libraries are closed all this week. I know they have little choice, but these are sad times.

On the upside, I've been able to indulge in some fabulous reading: The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery (translated from the French), a book that had been recommended to me several times. And with damn good reason. This is some book. I haven't finished quite yet, but almost; I'm at that point where I'm slowing down, so it lasts just a teeny bit longer.  I'm completely impressed with the author's ability to mess around with philosophical ideas and yet keep a compelling tale going. Not only that, but there's been few words I had to look up in the dictionary, like incunabulum. I  love it!  The French can be like that, though. I highly recommend it; has anyone else read it yet?

This is Barbery's second novel but the first to be published here. Her first novel, Gourmet Rhapsody, has subsequently been published on this side of the pond and it's next on my list.

Some of the rest of the list:
The Help by Kathryn Stockett...I want to see what the fuss is about.
Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver, 'nuff said.
A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore, ditto
Too Much Happiness, by Alice Munro, ditto, ditto.
The Art of Subtext, by Charles Baxter as suggested by Cliff Garstang on his blog Perpetual Folly, a blog to check out if you're of the writing clan.

Prep, The Man of My Dreams and American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. One of the faculty at Napa Writers Conference this summer; I like to be prepared. It's that Inner Scout thing.
Long for This World, and Coast of Good Intentions, by Michael Byers, for the same reason.

Woman's World, by Graham Rawle, a novel written using text (words, phrases) entirely cut out from women's magazines. This is an Xmas gift from my bookseller daughter--she knows her stuff.

Well, that's a good start. Here's some links, if you're interested in other good book lists.

KList...by Kathleen O'Hanlon
S.Krishna's Books  authors from South Asia and a whole bunch of places not America; includes book reviews and reading challenges. A great place to be introduced to unfamiliar authors.

With that, I think it's time to pack 2009 away and get ready for 2010.

Significant Mention

So today, Significant Objects commented on my comments about them and posted a link to my blog and the story I had created from one of their SO's. How cool is that?  Yep, just about that cool.

No matter, here's the link...you might have to "read more" to find me. Then cruise around and check out their current project, Significant Objects 2, which is raising funds for 826 National, which I realize now, duh, is 826 Valencia gone national.

And then, writer-ettes, find an object of significance and write its story.

Significant Sauce

Sooo ...apropos the previous post about Significant Objects and their usefulness as writing prompts, here's the narrative I wrote using the pictured object as a prompt, which was originally posted here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

She brought it back from Kansas City, because he loved bar-b-que so much. A token of gratitude for being so agreeable about her mandatory sales managers conference scheduled on the weekend of their third anniversary.

"Doesn't hold enough sauce to cover a chicken wing," he growled. He stood up, grabbed his beer, went to watch the news, leaving the jar, barely three inches high and the dour color of baked beans, on the kitchen table where he'd unwrapped it.

Soon, however, he didn't have enough scruples to come home every night or hide the emails or even pretend he was looking for work anymore.

She left for good after coming home early from a horrendous day at work to hear a voicemail from the third girlfriend in as many years, accusing her of being the "other woman," of wrecking his happiness, of holding him back. He was nowhere to be found, maybe out buying more beer, maybe just out. With sudden swift arcs of her arms, she swept everything off the kitchen table, reveling in the clatter and crash of the breakfast plates, coffee cups, empty beer mugs, catalogs, cutlery, a jelly-jar of pens, the chipped cow-shaped butter dish his mother had given them for a wedding gift.

Only the miniscule bar-b-que jar survived, dancing around in the middle of the table, the top off and rolling, the brush-bristles stuck to its underside describing wacky circles. She grabbed it, put the top back on and placed it in the exact middle of the empty table. She stuck this message to it: "This holds just enough sauce to coat your teeny-tiny heart as I roast it over the spluttering flames of your entrails on a spit made from the long bones of your legs."

He boxed the jar up and mailed it to her at her sister's house, a scrawled note rubberbanded around it. "This will hold all the money you'll ever get out of me."

She folded an SASE envelope in half and rolled it around the bristles, stuffing it all back into the jar, and mailed it back: "One check for half your gross worth in the enclosed envelope? Good enough for me. Never seeing you again? Priceless!"

He returned it: "You'll see me, alright - in court."

When the new keys to their old house arrived, she put them in the Bar-B-Que jar, tucked upright around those bristles that had never seen any sauce.

A few months later, she put the hefty check from the sale of the 3BR/2BA, vault ceils, hrdwd floors, gd neighborhood (and nicely appreciated) house into her new bank account.

At least that's the way she'd tell the story at our Single and Sassy meetings.

Lazy Blogger & the Significance in Objects

Yes, it's been weeks, almost a month, something like that, since I've dropped by my own blog. I've become that bane of the bloggerdom, an irregular correspondent. Some of that was due to having a good time: a short trip with friends to the mountains (close to Donner Summit, well before the snow flew), and after that, a longer, more solitary visit to Wellspring (in Philo, CA) for a writer's retreat.

And then some of it's due to the pile-up of work: registration for the Spring 2010 semester started last week and it's been a wang-dang doozie from the get-go. In between was the Thanksgiving holiday, with folks hanging out here, food prep and a day or two of recovery, and so there you have it.

Meanwhile I've been playing around with S.O. (Significant Objects, honey, not Significant Other, this is a family-friendly blog). Significant Objects, as noted in previous post, is a coalition of folks who ran an experiment in the value of desire, as I interpret it.

These folks decided to discover if increasing the significance of an object would increase that object's desirability, as measured by an increase in price on eBay. The set-up was to purchase tchotchkes on eBay for a song or a song-and-a-half, then ask writers to provide a narrative that created and illuminated significance for that particular object. They then reposted the object on eBay, accompanied by the narrative and kicked back to see what happened.

Boy, did it happen. They've completed one such project of 100 objects and you can see the results at the website, as well as checking out the objects, stories, charts and figures.  It definitely shows the power of narrative.

I, of course (you did, too, I bet), thought right away what cool writing prompts these objects would make for a malingering writer, looking for a jump start. But that's the gist of another post.

6. Sebastopol Library

On one of the first serious rain days of the season a few weeks ago (yes, sorry, it's been that long), I left work and drove out to visit the library in the unique, quirky little town of Sebastopol, a good half-an-hour away. So let's say it's 40, 45 minutes from my home in Petaluma, depending on traffic (isn't all life in the Bay Area dependent on traffic?).  It had been raining all weekend, but that Monday it was wrapping up-more than a drizzle, not quite a shower.

Sebastopol Library
7140 Bodega Ave
Sebastopol, CA 95472
Visit time: Monday evening, 5:30 - 6:30 pm

Ratings

Architecture/Atmosphere: 3

Seating: 3

Books: 4

Librarians: 4

Two books checked out:
Salt by Mark Kurplansky.
A fascinating look through history at a basic element so necessary for life. Once upon a time, one could pay their bills with salt. And be paid with salt. Thick going in spots, but compelling.
Why I Write The Secret Lives of Authors by Philip Oltermann.....another example of the importance of punctuation. I thought the author was going to tell me why he writes about the secret lives of authors, because, as we well know, writers are equal parts nosy, tight-lipped and show-offs, confident that folks desperately want to hear about why the hell he spent hours in a cramped garret churning out text-docs about the hidden lives of other authors. But the book is far more than that.

The library is just up a small hill from the city center, on one of the main arteries of town, the one that goes right out to the coast, another 45 minutes or so down the road. It's one of those brick-clad buildings from the 70's (1976 to be exact) but with a whole bunch of style. The clean angles and spare lines have a pleasing balance of weight and shape. Anchored on one corner, of course, by a large, very red, apple, the icon of Sebastopol, once the Apple Capitol of Sonoma County.  Although the orchards have dwindled and the last apple processing plant closed shop several years ago, it's still the Apple Capital, at least in the hearts and minds of the populace. They still have the festivals and parades and a million apple icons around town to prove it.

But back to the library.

The entrance is somewhat disguised; walking up the terraced steps past a water garden is an act of faith, but it leads us to a lobby whose door is set back, not quite seen from the street. The lobby is actually a wide hallway, with another entrance on the opposite side; to my left is the Community Room, to the right, two entrances into the library. The hallway is pretty much all brick. In the wall between the two library doors is a long narrow window, shoulder height, resembling  a theater box office window somewhat, only much much longer, that gives a glimpse into the circulation desk area. We can see, through this wide slot, the clutch of library techs assisting patrons, and the patrons themselves on their way in or out.

Okay, so the pictures are kinda blurry, but if you squint your eyes....and maybe stand on your head, it'll start to make sense. I kinda like the ghost-patron in the second photo.

The Community room is hosting a very lively art show of masks, puppets and costuming; a fitting exhibit for pre-Halloween.

After shaking off the dribs and drabs of the drizzle, I spend some time at the art exhibit and then cross the hall to enter the library, dropping several books on the return counter. The place is packed: all study tables are occupied, many are shared, and all computer terminals are in use. Once again, a very large  square with cubby-nooks running along two edges, yet on this rainy day, it feels more cozy than oppressive or crowded.

At one table, a chess game is in progress, at another, math tutoring.  One young girl makes the circuit from the children's area near the front (below, outfitted with two reading couches), to her mom, working at the computers a few aisles away.

I admire the supreme patience of the reference desk librarian who responds to several people trying to get  their uniquely individual laptops to access the inter-schnitzel.  I wander a bit, investigating the shelves.  The collection seems very robust in non-fiction; self-development, crafts and gardening in particular.  It feels like an accurate reflection of the town, known for its self-reliant, back-to-the-land, do-it-your-selfers. Before I leave, I grab a shot of some books, these biographies below; there is something soothing about these full shelves, rich in the lore of poets.

Sonoma County Libraries to close for ten days

I better hurry up with my library reviews, look what's happening!

article one

article two

Another sign of the damn times.

Here I am, bumbling along, confident that libraries will always be there - until they are not, that is. I'm still not used to them being closed on Sundays and that happened years ago. (Maybe even a decade ago. Hush!) I'm thinking of the school children without a place to study or do research, of the moms who rely on the library as an inexpensive educational and recreational resource and just plain quiet time. Holy moley!

I understand that the library administration had to make some tough decisions; I see the same tough decisions being made on campus where I work. But I worry about a society that hesitates to fully fund schools and libraries and parks, that when they are needed most, they are least available.