7/31/2008
You will notice the front page of the website mutatting. It's like The Wolfman--changing right before your eyes! Well, the Web Goddesses are busy remaking luisurrea.com into a newer, sleeker, redesigned vacation spot. Think of it as our redoing the bathrooms in your condo.
The color scheme will change, so good-bye red. You'll have the blog on the front page, and the calendar and photos (new ones--lots of new onse). On the left will be a column of all my books. And we just got permission to post the cover of Into the Beautiful North (April 2009), so you'll see it here first. I'm hoping we can just have you click on a book cover to go to info on that book.
The old and way way way out-dated "Teresita" section is gone. It will probably be replaced with Teresita/Hummingbird's Daughter photo archive and a newer more interesting piece of writing. If we can get around to it. Perhaps later, we can use it as a movie tie-in section, I don't know. When I get done with Hummingbird II, I think Cinderella will allow me to finally publish my massive teresita bibliography. That way, the snarky professor types who think I made all this happy crappy up can read 'em and weep. And write lots of PhD papers.
I'm making some other changes around here--like AUDIO. That's right. I have hundreds of hours of readings, interviews, spoken word, and blather. You ought to hear it if you want to. That'll be here in a while.
Finally, and of GREAT CONCERN to the Community at the site: Comments. People want to comment! All you Cabora Saints. (Grace and Clarke could design a t-shirt for you diehards.) But I'm sick of psychos, racists, anonyms w/ bizarre agendas, hackers and chickenheads. So here's what we're gonna do: REGISTERED COMMENTS SECTION. If we have to, we'll monitor the section too. Because there are naughty naughty boyz'n'gurlz out there who want to hurt people's feelings and insult Mexicans/me/my kids/my dead parents/the Border Patrol/ Fishtrap/my books/you. Once peeps are registered, they can say what they want to when they want to. And when Joe Anonym attacks, we can ban him. Then he can cook up another false identity and he can say some other evil thing about killing filthy Beaners, and we can ban him again. Gosh, what fun.
OK?
The community can reform and chat and get to it.
I'm also bringing back the artwork--watch for Urrealism drawings and paintings and collages and whatever.
So watch this space.
We are still getting about 200 visitors a day, not counting multiple stops by the same person(s). Upwards of 6,000 a month. Pretty good, since I don't even have a new book out. (Of course, always remember: before we get too excited about this, we must remember that Satan.com gets 2 million a month!) Anyway, both Devil's H and Hummingbird have gone way beyond 100,000 copies each, so thank you & I send you a big big beso en los labios. Even you guys.
By the way, speaking of new books, The Devil's Highway just came out in Italian; The Hummingbird's Daughter just came out in Chinese. HOW COOL IS THAT???
"Wastelander II," w/ illustrations, will be up this weekend.
I'm listening to Van der Graaf Generator, much to alarm and discomfort of my family!
XXX, L
The Wastelander's Notebook
The color scheme will change, so good-bye red. You'll have the blog on the front page, and the calendar and photos (new ones--lots of new onse). On the left will be a column of all my books. And we just got permission to post the cover of Into the Beautiful North (April 2009), so you'll see it here first. I'm hoping we can just have you click on a book cover to go to info on that book.
The old and way way way out-dated "Teresita" section is gone. It will probably be replaced with Teresita/Hummingbird's Daughter photo archive and a newer more interesting piece of writing. If we can get around to it. Perhaps later, we can use it as a movie tie-in section, I don't know. When I get done with Hummingbird II, I think Cinderella will allow me to finally publish my massive teresita bibliography. That way, the snarky professor types who think I made all this happy crappy up can read 'em and weep. And write lots of PhD papers.
I'm making some other changes around here--like AUDIO. That's right. I have hundreds of hours of readings, interviews, spoken word, and blather. You ought to hear it if you want to. That'll be here in a while.
Finally, and of GREAT CONCERN to the Community at the site: Comments. People want to comment! All you Cabora Saints. (Grace and Clarke could design a t-shirt for you diehards.) But I'm sick of psychos, racists, anonyms w/ bizarre agendas, hackers and chickenheads. So here's what we're gonna do: REGISTERED COMMENTS SECTION. If we have to, we'll monitor the section too. Because there are naughty naughty boyz'n'gurlz out there who want to hurt people's feelings and insult Mexicans/me/my kids/my dead parents/the Border Patrol/ Fishtrap/my books/you. Once peeps are registered, they can say what they want to when they want to. And when Joe Anonym attacks, we can ban him. Then he can cook up another false identity and he can say some other evil thing about killing filthy Beaners, and we can ban him again. Gosh, what fun.
OK?
The community can reform and chat and get to it.
I'm also bringing back the artwork--watch for Urrealism drawings and paintings and collages and whatever.
So watch this space.
We are still getting about 200 visitors a day, not counting multiple stops by the same person(s). Upwards of 6,000 a month. Pretty good, since I don't even have a new book out. (Of course, always remember: before we get too excited about this, we must remember that Satan.com gets 2 million a month!) Anyway, both Devil's H and Hummingbird have gone way beyond 100,000 copies each, so thank you & I send you a big big beso en los labios. Even you guys.
By the way, speaking of new books, The Devil's Highway just came out in Italian; The Hummingbird's Daughter just came out in Chinese. HOW COOL IS THAT???
"Wastelander II," w/ illustrations, will be up this weekend.
I'm listening to Van der Graaf Generator, much to alarm and discomfort of my family!
XXX, L
7/28/2008
Part One: Route 66, June 2008
This is only a little report floated
into the slow current so the wind will know
which way to come if it wants to find me.
--William Stafford
[I don’t know how other writers do tours; this is how I do it.]
#
Mother’s Day: flood. Dead sump pump.
Rain filled the basement.
Plumber after plumber, hundreds
of wasted dollars. Water.
Water poured from the house for days,
flooded sidewalks and street.
Finally, the plumber discovered we had a
spring or artesian well surfacing
under our basement—a small miracle
of unwanted water. “If you drilled thru the floor
and put in a drinking fountain,
you’d have free water forever!”
The earth,
trying to give me a gift.
Just like reading and writing.
#
Cinderella took her mom to Alaska on a cruise ship.
I didn’t go—have to watch the kids,
have to write next draft of my novel.
I’m inside my own Alaska of words: glaciers,
fjords, roving bands of brown bears
and bald eagles
of words.
I’d rather
be on a boat.
#
This is only a little report floated
into the slow current so the wind will know
which way to come if it wants to find me.
--William Stafford
[I don’t know how other writers do tours; this is how I do it.]
#
Mother’s Day: flood. Dead sump pump.
Rain filled the basement.
Plumber after plumber, hundreds
of wasted dollars. Water.
Water poured from the house for days,
flooded sidewalks and street.
Finally, the plumber discovered we had a
spring or artesian well surfacing
under our basement—a small miracle
of unwanted water. “If you drilled thru the floor
and put in a drinking fountain,
you’d have free water forever!”
The earth,
trying to give me a gift.
Just like reading and writing.
#
Cinderella took her mom to Alaska on a cruise ship.
I didn’t go—have to watch the kids,
have to write next draft of my novel.
I’m inside my own Alaska of words: glaciers,
fjords, roving bands of brown bears
and bald eagles
of words.
I’d rather
be on a boat.
#
Van is refitted & ready
for 12,000 miles.
At $4.95 a gallon.
I must be crazy.
Still,
how much is it worth
to take the fam once more
into roadside America?
How much to smell sweetgrass,
watch buffalo,
buy rubber spiders
and jackalopes?
To see. See. See again
the muffler giants, the redwoods,
the wind-storms, the Great Stony Mtns,
the sea, the
desert/rancho/farm/valley
red-rock
canyon
oceanice
America?
How much?
#
Slow days.
Draft of INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH done.
Luis Mandoki’s script for HUMMINGBIRD’S DAUGHTER
is excellent—I like to think of it as John Ford
with miracles and Mexicans.
Peter Orner & Dave Eggers have unleashed
UNDERGROUND AMERICA (w/ my intro)
to immigration consternation.
I did a call in show on KQED w/ those boys—
it was a delight! I got to talk, and callers called
and yelled at Eggers! Hoo-hah!
I love it.
Rain. Heat. Rain.
Soon, we board the Little Brown Van
& face into the
tornadic prairies
& sail.
#
Friday. Storms followed by storms.
Wind. Heat boiling up
more storms.
Oil jumps $7 overnight, radio panic-sellers
crow about apocalypse. Dollar falls. Dow
Jones dives. Road ahead
is harsh: I-90, tornadoes & floods;
I-80, floods & tornadoes; I-70, tornadoes &
floods on their way.
Trouble on the highways.
Danger on the land.
#
Father’s Day:
James Brown is telling the world:
“Papa don’t take no mess!”
I watch flood reports, read haiku.
Chayo brings me a book she made
of my favorite animals.
She started the day by asking me, “Dad,
what animals are you in the mood for
today?”
for 12,000 miles.
At $4.95 a gallon.
I must be crazy.
Still,
how much is it worth
to take the fam once more
into roadside America?
How much to smell sweetgrass,
watch buffalo,
buy rubber spiders
and jackalopes?
To see. See. See again
the muffler giants, the redwoods,
the wind-storms, the Great Stony Mtns,
the sea, the
desert/rancho/farm/valley
red-rock
canyon
oceanice
America?
How much?
#
Slow days.
Draft of INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH done.
Luis Mandoki’s script for HUMMINGBIRD’S DAUGHTER
is excellent—I like to think of it as John Ford
with miracles and Mexicans.
Peter Orner & Dave Eggers have unleashed
UNDERGROUND AMERICA (w/ my intro)
to immigration consternation.
I did a call in show on KQED w/ those boys—
it was a delight! I got to talk, and callers called
and yelled at Eggers! Hoo-hah!
I love it.
Rain. Heat. Rain.
Soon, we board the Little Brown Van
& face into the
tornadic prairies
& sail.
#
Friday. Storms followed by storms.
Wind. Heat boiling up
more storms.
Oil jumps $7 overnight, radio panic-sellers
crow about apocalypse. Dollar falls. Dow
Jones dives. Road ahead
is harsh: I-90, tornadoes & floods;
I-80, floods & tornadoes; I-70, tornadoes &
floods on their way.
Trouble on the highways.
Danger on the land.
#
Father’s Day:
James Brown is telling the world:
“Papa don’t take no mess!”
I watch flood reports, read haiku.
Chayo brings me a book she made
of my favorite animals.
She started the day by asking me, “Dad,
what animals are you in the mood for
today?”
turtle
hummingbird
praying mantis
armadillo
#
[poem]
Paw-Paw’s Summer Vacation
Before the journey
Dead old man’s hat
On the dashboard
Died lonesome,
Abandoned,
We take his ghost
To America.
#
The fiercest
territory of all
--daily life.
--John Brandi
#
SUNDAY / JUNE 15
Flood, floods: freeways west
are riots of ruin & wind, drowning cities
& farms. We consult computer maps
like the skippers on Deadliest
Catch, charting
the churning prairie sea.
& see
we need to flee
the dull I-80, I-70 corridors & plunge
down into duende-land, down funky/holy
ol’ Route 66! Suddenly
I am excited
to go. Suddenly,
I am not bored or cranky:
I’m getting out the scissors, the glue stick, the
guide books &
rubber stamps.
Suddenly, Dullsvile
becomes Coolville.
So let’s get gone.
#
JUNE 16 / LAUNCH
Only one hour late.
Hard to get up, though.
Chayo processed the experience
by simply refusing.
Big kids trying to act excited.
Basically asleep.
Good omen:
as we packed the van w/ our last things,
the neighborhood wild turkey
supervised the activities from his paranoiac
hiding place at the end of the van, peering
around the bumper and suggesting
ideas to each of us as we came to the door.
Last night,
¾ of a tank of gas:
$75.
For the first time on record,
I surrender the helm to Captain
Cinderella, let her maneuver us out of port/
out of town. Woman Power!
It’s the Hillary Clinton
Memorial Drive.
I just want to look
& write.
Wearing my red Independent Mind cap.
Feeling independent, it’s true.
Don’t know about the mind part—
too early to know if I have one.
A pause for our traditional launch-day
health food breakfast
from McDonald’s drive-thru.
#
Sad fact:
After cleaning up 3 cars,
the kids have decreed
a new family law:
Daddy
can never have
Corn Nuts
again.
#
Hey, kids! We’re
seeing America!
OK, it’s only south Naperville, but
when you come from nowhere
everywhere
is somewhere
& endlessly
fresh.
Oceanic plains.
Joy of green.
Deeper than water.
So far, so far.
44 miles: first dead deer.
#
This year, life has changed.
Megan is The Photographer, w/ her fancy camera,
making art out every window.
Eric is the Musician, jumping out at rest stops
to drum maniacally on his practice pad.
Chayo is going to Fishtrap to her first writers’ workshop—
she is the Young Author.
Me & Ma? We’re out-dated.
#
I love inexplicable visions
Of Roadside America:
Beside I-55 (Route 66), six
identical puffs of smoke
hover five feet
above the ground,
floating like tethered ghosts
in the bushes.
#
White plastic bag
perched atop a tree
like an egret.
#
Abandoned
gray dust-bowl farm: dead
windmill.
#
Heading for the tarantula-
legged tangle of Ol’ St Lou.
#
Sign:
SAVE PONTIAC PRISON.
You imagine
old cars
gone bad.
#
World’s awesomest rest-area:
A green river ambling behind, giant
dragonflies &
in the men’s room,
a gray-haired slender gent
in white tennis clothes
at the center urninal
looking back and forth
as he frantically
masturbates.
Run away!
#
I take the wheel at Springfield.
Emancipated in the land of Lincoln.
Lonely highway—
no crows.
#
More
Dead
Deer
Than
Dead
Possums.
Blood
Blood
Blood.
#
Sweetgrass scent of the prairie
so strong it floods in
thru the a.c.
#
Poor old 66 over there, weed-choked
and cracked, baking
between I-55 and the train tracks.
Passed by.
#
Shell station, writin’ on the hood of the van.
$52,50 for a half tank.
#
Skid marks off side
of elevated roadway
30 yards
across the field
a crater.
#
Modern wonders: a life-size plastic elephant.
In the distance, The Arch.
Suddenly, while looking for more
roadside attractions, we are crossing
the slowly flooding
Mississippi!
#
New one on me:
Missouri rest area sells
A $1.00
Diabetes newspaper.
#
Jesse James
Wax Museum.
Jesse James
Cavern Hideout.
Civilization at last:
The first Jack
in the Box.
Then
The World’s Largest
Rocking Chair.
#
Writer:
Every inch of the earth
Remains fresh and new: I tire:
I grow stale.
#
400 miles.
No weather.
Sirius radio.
And then one of my favorite WTF
American landmarks:
The 24 Hour Porno Superstore
with a two story bowling pin in front.
#
Best place name:
Sleeper, Missouri.
Best bumper sticker:
I’d rather Be Reading Bukowski.
#
100 times I have seen
pheasants, turkeys: just
turn out to be
weedy vines
climbing a fence.
#
In a sacred grove
one silver dead tree
wild as the head
of Medussa.
#
Detour
to Animal Paradise.
Long car-crawl thru
gnus, goats, oxen, yaks, emus,
ostriches, donkeys, zebras, “zedonks,”
cows, llamas, deer, ditant
uninterested elk, a very insistent camel, and
shaggy profoundly amused
bison.
Bags of food.
Pints of animal slobber.
#
Hampton Inn, 500+ miles.
Bad, bad, insomnia night. Hallucinatory
HUMMINGBIRD dreams. Poor Vic the Bear
came walking out of the ether from his brain-locked coma
put there by a biker beat-down
years ago now; he was
worried about his family and friends,
sad & wanting to talk all night
about his hauntings.
Give me the frissons.
Wandering spirits
in Floodland.
Megan is The Photographer, w/ her fancy camera,
making art out every window.
Eric is the Musician, jumping out at rest stops
to drum maniacally on his practice pad.
Chayo is going to Fishtrap to her first writers’ workshop—
she is the Young Author.
Me & Ma? We’re out-dated.
#
I love inexplicable visions
Of Roadside America:
Beside I-55 (Route 66), six
identical puffs of smoke
hover five feet
above the ground,
floating like tethered ghosts
in the bushes.
#
White plastic bag
perched atop a tree
like an egret.
#
Abandoned
gray dust-bowl farm: dead
windmill.
#
Heading for the tarantula-
legged tangle of Ol’ St Lou.
#
Sign:
SAVE PONTIAC PRISON.
You imagine
old cars
gone bad.
#
World’s awesomest rest-area:
A green river ambling behind, giant
dragonflies &
in the men’s room,
a gray-haired slender gent
in white tennis clothes
at the center urninal
looking back and forth
as he frantically
masturbates.
Run away!
#
I take the wheel at Springfield.
Emancipated in the land of Lincoln.
Lonely highway—
no crows.
#
More
Dead
Deer
Than
Dead
Possums.
Blood
Blood
Blood.
#
Sweetgrass scent of the prairie
so strong it floods in
thru the a.c.
#
Poor old 66 over there, weed-choked
and cracked, baking
between I-55 and the train tracks.
Passed by.
#
Shell station, writin’ on the hood of the van.
$52,50 for a half tank.
#
Skid marks off side
of elevated roadway
30 yards
across the field
a crater.
#
Modern wonders: a life-size plastic elephant.
In the distance, The Arch.
Suddenly, while looking for more
roadside attractions, we are crossing
the slowly flooding
Mississippi!
#
New one on me:
Missouri rest area sells
A $1.00
Diabetes newspaper.
#
Jesse James
Wax Museum.
Jesse James
Cavern Hideout.
Civilization at last:
The first Jack
in the Box.
Then
The World’s Largest
Rocking Chair.
#
Writer:
Every inch of the earth
Remains fresh and new: I tire:
I grow stale.
#
400 miles.
No weather.
Sirius radio.
And then one of my favorite WTF
American landmarks:
The 24 Hour Porno Superstore
with a two story bowling pin in front.
#
Best place name:
Sleeper, Missouri.
Best bumper sticker:
I’d rather Be Reading Bukowski.
#
100 times I have seen
pheasants, turkeys: just
turn out to be
weedy vines
climbing a fence.
#
In a sacred grove
one silver dead tree
wild as the head
of Medussa.
#
Detourto Animal Paradise.
Long car-crawl thru
gnus, goats, oxen, yaks, emus,
ostriches, donkeys, zebras, “zedonks,”
cows, llamas, deer, ditant
uninterested elk, a very insistent camel, and
shaggy profoundly amused
bison.
Bags of food.
Pints of animal slobber.
#
Hampton Inn, 500+ miles.
Bad, bad, insomnia night. Hallucinatory
HUMMINGBIRD dreams. Poor Vic the Bear
came walking out of the ether from his brain-locked coma
put there by a biker beat-down
years ago now; he was
worried about his family and friends,
sad & wanting to talk all night
about his hauntings.
Give me the frissons.
Wandering spirits
in Floodland.
7/24/2008
Hello,
As regular readers know, this blog has been recently hijacked by an "anonymous" commenter who insists on getting into tussles with other comment contributors. This suits neither the purpose nor the spirit of this blog.
You know what we tell the kids: "If you can't play nice together, than nobody gets to play at all ..."
So we've made the command decision to disable the comments section of the blog for the time being. You can always reach Luis directly through the contact link. And if you are bitterly unhappy, you can vent to us through the webmistress link there, as well.
We may decide at a later date to re-open the comment section, but will most likely enable it to only registered users to prevent this sort of skirmishing. We like a good clean debate as much as the next person, but sheesh ... name-calling is so inappropriate here.
Now, scoot along and find another sandbox to tussle in.
Everybody else: Let us know if you like the ability to comment, if it adds anything to your enjoyment of the blog, or if you'd just as soon bag the whole thing!
Thanks for your time. Enjoy the cool things to come from Luis in the next few posts!
Urrea's Web-Goddesses
Wastelander '08 Prologue
As regular readers know, this blog has been recently hijacked by an "anonymous" commenter who insists on getting into tussles with other comment contributors. This suits neither the purpose nor the spirit of this blog.
You know what we tell the kids: "If you can't play nice together, than nobody gets to play at all ..."
So we've made the command decision to disable the comments section of the blog for the time being. You can always reach Luis directly through the contact link. And if you are bitterly unhappy, you can vent to us through the webmistress link there, as well.
We may decide at a later date to re-open the comment section, but will most likely enable it to only registered users to prevent this sort of skirmishing. We like a good clean debate as much as the next person, but sheesh ... name-calling is so inappropriate here.
Now, scoot along and find another sandbox to tussle in.
Everybody else: Let us know if you like the ability to comment, if it adds anything to your enjoyment of the blog, or if you'd just as soon bag the whole thing!
Thanks for your time. Enjoy the cool things to come from Luis in the next few posts!
Urrea's Web-Goddesses
Dear Constant Readers,
I can't adress you all (my mind is not functional enough to remember all your names) (and I don't know all your names since so many read and don't comment), so if I miss you, don't be angry. OK? OK!
Hey Anonymous 1-50 (friend and enemy); Beatriz; Bill; Bonnie; Cathryn; Cesar; Cheryl; Cinder; Clarke; Dalia; Dave Duty; Diabla; Dirk; Ed; Esteban; Fishtrappers/Cabin 20 Participants; Frankie; Grace; Janna; Jasmine; Jay; Jennifer; Jo; Joffroy; Juan Sanchez; Karma; Kikelomo; Lakshmi; Lurkers; No Name Here; Olivas; Poage; Prudence; Red Charlie; Reverend Mike; Rich Villar; Robert P; Sarah; Takomabibelot; Warrior; Wendyleo; White Eagle; writing students;et al:
"Can I tell you about
the space out there,
the gifts gods
give to astonish days?"
--W.R. Wilkins
Here comes a big fat Wastelander's Notebook for Summer 2008.
#
What is it? Lots of blog readers have snooped and come aboard this bus (I think Rich Villar said that) recently, and may not have seen a Wastelander before. (They're posted in the massive archive of way too many writings on this blog, if you're interested.) Here's what the Wastelander is not: it is not poetry. It looks like poetry, but it's not. Think of it as a supple and playful form of instant writing, as close to experience as I can get it. Flash! Pure soul on the page. Perhaps the closest thing I can think of is Kerouac's "prose sketching" that Neal Cassady suggested. There's a swell little book of these sketches available.
I have said elsewhere (in my secret and favorite book, Wandering Time) that Walking=Writing. Also, in spite of $5.00 a gallon gas, Driving! If Cinderella drives a lot and I wear out pen after pen sketching everything I see. If C is not at the helm, then I have to see it, think it, and hold it till the next pee/gas/M&M/sandwich stop. Good for the brain. Keeps the senior dementia at bay.
At its worse, I guess it could be a "how I spent my summer vacation" exercise. But I love the freedom and the room for strange little tiny miracles to pop like dragonflies and grasshoppers hitting the windshield. Miracles are pretty small, usually. We're too busy earning paychecks to notice them.
But once you start to sketch, they crowd in all around you.
Why "Wastelander"? I have taken this awesome word on for myself. Like, "rock star" was taken, dude. Being in love with words, I always scour old and used bookstores. I found Homer Hogan's amazing Dictionary of Modern American Synonyms somewhere for fifty cents or a quarter. I love books that have out of date hip words. They're a hoot.
As is my habit, I looked under "Writer." Among such gems as "double-dome," "goose-flesh peddler," "inversionist," and "sob sister," was the fabled "wastelander." You know, guys'n'gals who ply the trade of T.S. Eliot. But hey--I'm always wandering the wastelands like poor Max the Road Warrior, or Liver Eating Johnson.. It just fit.
This kind of writing was well-suited for the wastelands, too. So there it was. A gift from above.
How and when. I first learned to write like this at Tony and Pam's donkey ranch in Holy Colorado. I just could not find any way to write the saqme ol' damned cliches in a fresh manner. You know--Rockies! Skies! Bluebirds! Coyotes! Hawks! Rain fall and sunlight! Windmills! Big western wind! So I gave up the tired narrative thread, dropped the adjectives and the adverdbs and the self and tried to just let words move...well, like that afternoon storm rolling along the high prairie.
#
It's an experiment. But it's loads of fun to write, and people seem to enjoy reading it. I hope to collect all these into a couple of sketchbooks one day. So watch this space--new revelations from the road spirits will come soon.
It just takes...a long...time...to enter the data! And to cut out the happy crappy nobody wants to read. Just going for movement and joy with no rewriting.
JOY! Hell, I'm too cranky for that right now.
Love, L
The Chicken-Heads Attack!
I can't adress you all (my mind is not functional enough to remember all your names) (and I don't know all your names since so many read and don't comment), so if I miss you, don't be angry. OK? OK!
Hey Anonymous 1-50 (friend and enemy); Beatriz; Bill; Bonnie; Cathryn; Cesar; Cheryl; Cinder; Clarke; Dalia; Dave Duty; Diabla; Dirk; Ed; Esteban; Fishtrappers/Cabin 20 Participants; Frankie; Grace; Janna; Jasmine; Jay; Jennifer; Jo; Joffroy; Juan Sanchez; Karma; Kikelomo; Lakshmi; Lurkers; No Name Here; Olivas; Poage; Prudence; Red Charlie; Reverend Mike; Rich Villar; Robert P; Sarah; Takomabibelot; Warrior; Wendyleo; White Eagle; writing students;et al:
"Can I tell you about
the space out there,
the gifts gods
give to astonish days?"
--W.R. Wilkins
Here comes a big fat Wastelander's Notebook for Summer 2008.
#
What is it? Lots of blog readers have snooped and come aboard this bus (I think Rich Villar said that) recently, and may not have seen a Wastelander before. (They're posted in the massive archive of way too many writings on this blog, if you're interested.) Here's what the Wastelander is not: it is not poetry. It looks like poetry, but it's not. Think of it as a supple and playful form of instant writing, as close to experience as I can get it. Flash! Pure soul on the page. Perhaps the closest thing I can think of is Kerouac's "prose sketching" that Neal Cassady suggested. There's a swell little book of these sketches available.
I have said elsewhere (in my secret and favorite book, Wandering Time) that Walking=Writing. Also, in spite of $5.00 a gallon gas, Driving! If Cinderella drives a lot and I wear out pen after pen sketching everything I see. If C is not at the helm, then I have to see it, think it, and hold it till the next pee/gas/M&M/sandwich stop. Good for the brain. Keeps the senior dementia at bay.
At its worse, I guess it could be a "how I spent my summer vacation" exercise. But I love the freedom and the room for strange little tiny miracles to pop like dragonflies and grasshoppers hitting the windshield. Miracles are pretty small, usually. We're too busy earning paychecks to notice them.
But once you start to sketch, they crowd in all around you.
Why "Wastelander"? I have taken this awesome word on for myself. Like, "rock star" was taken, dude. Being in love with words, I always scour old and used bookstores. I found Homer Hogan's amazing Dictionary of Modern American Synonyms somewhere for fifty cents or a quarter. I love books that have out of date hip words. They're a hoot.
As is my habit, I looked under "Writer." Among such gems as "double-dome," "goose-flesh peddler," "inversionist," and "sob sister," was the fabled "wastelander." You know, guys'n'gals who ply the trade of T.S. Eliot. But hey--I'm always wandering the wastelands like poor Max the Road Warrior, or Liver Eating Johnson.. It just fit.
This kind of writing was well-suited for the wastelands, too. So there it was. A gift from above.
How and when. I first learned to write like this at Tony and Pam's donkey ranch in Holy Colorado. I just could not find any way to write the saqme ol' damned cliches in a fresh manner. You know--Rockies! Skies! Bluebirds! Coyotes! Hawks! Rain fall and sunlight! Windmills! Big western wind! So I gave up the tired narrative thread, dropped the adjectives and the adverdbs and the self and tried to just let words move...well, like that afternoon storm rolling along the high prairie.
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It's an experiment. But it's loads of fun to write, and people seem to enjoy reading it. I hope to collect all these into a couple of sketchbooks one day. So watch this space--new revelations from the road spirits will come soon.
It just takes...a long...time...to enter the data! And to cut out the happy crappy nobody wants to read. Just going for movement and joy with no rewriting.
JOY! Hell, I'm too cranky for that right now.
Love, L
7/21/2008
What--did something happen?
Sorry it took a while for the computer team to piece the website back together and root out the virus the li'l terrorists put on it.
I don't deal with the chicken-headed sons of Pazuzu, the locust god of Gehenna. Or their unsigned cyber-insults. But apparently one of them got big entertainment out of posting naughty naughty japes about me, my Fishtrap workshops, and even my dad on the blog. As you have seen, you loyal readers, these warriors are always, without fail, anonymous. Very brave.
Then, get this! Google and my web-designer in Seattle track down a virus! Put on my website! And their investigation shows that it came in, wait for it--via the comments section of the blog! DOH! What rascals these chickenheads are!
Here's the really creative part that echoes the alleged Pazuzu musings of my anonymous pal: the virus was designed to hurt you if you came here to look at my words. Yes!!!
Knock me down 100 times. I will get back up 101 times.
Imagine the squalid and cat-piss scented little souls in which these demon-buggered sons and daughters dwell. It's sad, really. To live without a name, without any talent of your own, without any way to get attention but to throw doo-doo and wee-wee on the walls, and to occasionally drop a brick off a dark overpass into the windshield of a passing car, hoping that someone who is actually going somewhere will be hurt or killed.
If you pray, pray for them. But remember what The Good Book says: you shall know them by the fruits they bear.
I have a name.
L
Donkeys, Bulls, Chickens, Dogs
Sorry it took a while for the computer team to piece the website back together and root out the virus the li'l terrorists put on it.
I don't deal with the chicken-headed sons of Pazuzu, the locust god of Gehenna. Or their unsigned cyber-insults. But apparently one of them got big entertainment out of posting naughty naughty japes about me, my Fishtrap workshops, and even my dad on the blog. As you have seen, you loyal readers, these warriors are always, without fail, anonymous. Very brave.
Then, get this! Google and my web-designer in Seattle track down a virus! Put on my website! And their investigation shows that it came in, wait for it--via the comments section of the blog! DOH! What rascals these chickenheads are!
Here's the really creative part that echoes the alleged Pazuzu musings of my anonymous pal: the virus was designed to hurt you if you came here to look at my words. Yes!!!
Knock me down 100 times. I will get back up 101 times.
Imagine the squalid and cat-piss scented little souls in which these demon-buggered sons and daughters dwell. It's sad, really. To live without a name, without any talent of your own, without any way to get attention but to throw doo-doo and wee-wee on the walls, and to occasionally drop a brick off a dark overpass into the windshield of a passing car, hoping that someone who is actually going somewhere will be hurt or killed.
If you pray, pray for them. But remember what The Good Book says: you shall know them by the fruits they bear.
I have a name.
L
7/15/2008
Colorado, at Tony & Pam's donkey rancho/Bella Luna Books outpost. Goldfinches, bluebirds, grosbeaks and, but of course, hummingbirds.
Do you remember the 80s superstar rock band, Quarterflash? We spent the last week at Fishtrap with those guys. Rindy, the singer, is in fine rare voice. Just amazing. Marv Ross, her husband and main songwriter, is writing excellent new stuff. You ought to get their CDs as The Rosses--"Bliss" is really really nice.
Five weeks on the road. 6,100 miles. Forest fires, floods, tornadoes, sea otters, bears, appalling car wrecks, horseback rides, deer, eagles, rock stars, lost loves and old friends, snow, heat waves, guns, fireworks, bad food, Indian ruins, hikes, friendly bulls, buffalo, ostriches, zebras, bighorns, sea caves, John McCain, driftwood, dragonflies, mile long trains, cowboys.
I will start posting Wastelanders when we get "home." Home. Hmm. My heart doesn't live there.
See ya. L
Fishtrap Dispatch
Do you remember the 80s superstar rock band, Quarterflash? We spent the last week at Fishtrap with those guys. Rindy, the singer, is in fine rare voice. Just amazing. Marv Ross, her husband and main songwriter, is writing excellent new stuff. You ought to get their CDs as The Rosses--"Bliss" is really really nice.
Five weeks on the road. 6,100 miles. Forest fires, floods, tornadoes, sea otters, bears, appalling car wrecks, horseback rides, deer, eagles, rock stars, lost loves and old friends, snow, heat waves, guns, fireworks, bad food, Indian ruins, hikes, friendly bulls, buffalo, ostriches, zebras, bighorns, sea caves, John McCain, driftwood, dragonflies, mile long trains, cowboys.
I will start posting Wastelanders when we get "home." Home. Hmm. My heart doesn't live there.
See ya. L
7/09/2008
Do you remember this Echo & the Bunnymen song:
Here am I
home at last with a golden view
Looking for hope
and I hope it's you....
I'm here in heaven. Taking my coffee with Kim Stafford. Doing my workshops in my cabin. Our bedroom deck is ten feet from a rushing whitewater river. The river runs to the huge Wallowa lake where salmon and trout want it to stay cold and clear. Snowy mountain peaks surround us. The kids wake up slow--except Chayo who is in a kids' hiking/writing workshop, so she's gone by 8:30. The big kids crawl from their beds and get in my bed to go back to sleep. They're exhausted from only sleeping 13 hours yesterday. Cinderella and I straighten up the cabin and put on the coffee and grab some cherries or cereal. The Oregon cherries--well! Perhaps that's all you need to say at this point: Oregon cherries. At 9:00, my writers make their way from the main lodge to the cabin, carrying lightning and fire...perhaps a little bullshit, too. We're writers. Prone to b.s. on some days. What's it like here? Yesterday, a deer met me out on the dirt road. He walked up to me and sniffed my hand. Then he walked beside me through the woods. Then the li'l bugger tried to come in the front door with me. And the rangers had put out a bear alert--this bear seems to want to learn to write and lounges around the workshops thinking up poems.
Why, again, am I going back to Illinois?
Wish U were here,
L
Mad Max, Phone Home
Here am I
home at last with a golden view
Looking for hope
and I hope it's you....
I'm here in heaven. Taking my coffee with Kim Stafford. Doing my workshops in my cabin. Our bedroom deck is ten feet from a rushing whitewater river. The river runs to the huge Wallowa lake where salmon and trout want it to stay cold and clear. Snowy mountain peaks surround us. The kids wake up slow--except Chayo who is in a kids' hiking/writing workshop, so she's gone by 8:30. The big kids crawl from their beds and get in my bed to go back to sleep. They're exhausted from only sleeping 13 hours yesterday. Cinderella and I straighten up the cabin and put on the coffee and grab some cherries or cereal. The Oregon cherries--well! Perhaps that's all you need to say at this point: Oregon cherries. At 9:00, my writers make their way from the main lodge to the cabin, carrying lightning and fire...perhaps a little bullshit, too. We're writers. Prone to b.s. on some days. What's it like here? Yesterday, a deer met me out on the dirt road. He walked up to me and sniffed my hand. Then he walked beside me through the woods. Then the li'l bugger tried to come in the front door with me. And the rangers had put out a bear alert--this bear seems to want to learn to write and lounges around the workshops thinking up poems.
Why, again, am I going back to Illinois?
Wish U were here,
L
7/02/2008
Seattle. Huh. Slept through breakfast. $75 gas, half-tank. 4,209.5 miles. Half-way through first leg of summer Road Warrior journey. After Seattle: Wallowa, Oregon for Fishtrap. Wend our way back to Chi. Eat oatmeal and hit the treadmill for a couple of weeks, and off for New England and DC. I have kept 144 pages of notes so far. Otters, eagles, fires, McCain, Hollywood,, ocean. forest, dinosaurs, Route 66. Have been editing the new novel on the road, will send it to Little,Brown from Wallowa. Expect it in Spring '09. Thwe cover's already done. I'm tired, though. My feet hurt, and my back hurts. Still, I never want to come home. How about you meet me for coffee and poems in a cabin on a rocky point above the sea in, say, Gualala California? Up where it's cold and foggy. Where Bigfoot stops by for English muffins and jam.... When we stop for a week at Fishtrap, I will begin sending you Wastelanders. I'll be teaching the mornings, and working on the book/writing in the afternoons. Oops. The kids are waking up. I'm signing off now. Adios, buckaroos--see ye out on the trail.
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