Want to read something cool? My old pal, that bandido Bobby Byrd, published my book of stories called Six Kinds of Sky. It has had a funny life all its own, that book. After all, the story, "Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses" has had a great run on NPR on their Selected Shorts show. And it has been included in a Best Stories of the American West hardcover anthology. And Vikki Wagner (of Hummingbird movie fame) and my dear former boss-lady at the Theater Arts Guild, Judy Bell, are talking about buying it for a movie. Among the six stories in that book there's this one I have always been really fond of, "Mr. Mendoza's Paintbrush." I used to do it at readings for years, and it always brought the house down. Perhaps I should take a cue from Shawn Phillips on his current tour and go back to opd hits the fans love. (See last posting, below.)

Well, Papa Byrd has gotten this mad idea that my story would make a great graphic novel. It hit me with a shock: absolutely right! If you don't know the story, I won't spoil it. But somebody does walk into the sky. You've got to see that kind of thing for yourself. And, my piratical side awoke--with all these movies flying around me lately, a hipster director could see the visual possibilities right away in this format.

So hot young artist Crisopher Cardinale is signed up, and he went down to Sinaloa to see what the town I write about looks like. Sketching and painting and drawing the various wonders of the kind of place you find below the Tropic of Cancer where trees drop mangos and iguanas are four feet long and the spiders in your bnedroom can be as big as plates. And people walk into the sky. My family pitched in when he got there.

Byrd wrote about it on his blog. Take a look--it's a good story. Click HERE.

Me--I'm reeling. Got good edits from my animal-trainers in NYC, and some ass-stomping from my agents in CA. Trying to figure out what I'll do to make Beautiful North the inevitable and potent amazement it almost is. I'll be done with it in a month or so, and to hell with quibbles. I have to get to Hummingbird II.

Luis

# posted by Luis @ 12:45 PM