3/31/2009
Here we come, Pasadena! Thank you for selecting The Hummingbird's Daughter as you all-city read! We're almost packed. I have pictures for you in my bag. And, as Teresita would have it, we're meeting her familia in California for some history/story sharing. I'm also bringing you Huila's rebozo. Women like to touch it. Men...not so much! See you soon. If you catch us in the bookstore or on the street, say hello.
Love,
Luis and the Family Stone
Catch us on Twitter.com/Urrealism
Snow
Love,
Luis and the Family Stone
Catch us on Twitter.com/Urrealism
3/28/2009
Snow's coming again. All that western torment that dumnped on Colorado and drowned North Dakota is finally staggering into Illinois. Ill Annoyed. Our lilacs and our crocuses are going to be shocked to freeze tonight. Small garden tragedies. Small purple and orange bursts of hope under returning white. But sooner or later, spring will win out. Then I'll be complaining about the summer heat.
Many nice people have been writing from California, in advance of our visit to Pasadena for their One City/One Book events. I look forward to the trip--and not just to get away from the snow! You know, when I lived in So Cal, I was a poor boy and would have cut off a leg to escape. Now that I've frozen my butt off since 1982, and am not such a po' boy anymore, So Cal looks great to me! I want to stand on the beach barefoot on Christmas Day! I want to spray faux frost in my windows again! Soap flake snow sounds good as I creak down the AARP highway!
Cinderella and the girls and I will pack up and fly to CA on Wednesday. I'll look for you out there. We are, at the urging of my publisher, maintaining a Twitter record of all the adventures and misadventures. So, as always, if you want to check in with the touring, I can always be found at Twitter.com/Urrealism. Tweet me!
Thanks for your support, and I can't wait for you to read Into the Beautiful North. It'll be out in English and Spanish--and in audio--in May.
In the inimitable words of Chuck Berry: I'm gone like a cool breeze.
XXX, L
Immigration Monday Returns
Many nice people have been writing from California, in advance of our visit to Pasadena for their One City/One Book events. I look forward to the trip--and not just to get away from the snow! You know, when I lived in So Cal, I was a poor boy and would have cut off a leg to escape. Now that I've frozen my butt off since 1982, and am not such a po' boy anymore, So Cal looks great to me! I want to stand on the beach barefoot on Christmas Day! I want to spray faux frost in my windows again! Soap flake snow sounds good as I creak down the AARP highway!
Cinderella and the girls and I will pack up and fly to CA on Wednesday. I'll look for you out there. We are, at the urging of my publisher, maintaining a Twitter record of all the adventures and misadventures. So, as always, if you want to check in with the touring, I can always be found at Twitter.com/Urrealism. Tweet me!
Thanks for your support, and I can't wait for you to read Into the Beautiful North. It'll be out in English and Spanish--and in audio--in May.
In the inimitable words of Chuck Berry: I'm gone like a cool breeze.
XXX, L
3/23/2009
Remember the presidential election? Remember how everybody on both sides and the idependent middle kept throwing around this word, "immigration"? Remember how immigration was a meat-cleaver of a subject, divisive, explosive, paramount, urgent? Now it's all over, and I keep asking myself: where did immigration go?
I haven't done this in a year or so. I swore I'd never get back to Immigration Monday. I turned my immigration readers over to Bender's Immigration Bulletin, and good riddance to that crap.
But I had to tell you something. Then I'll drop it. I am not a prophet. Yet, all my predictions in The Devil's Highway and in my endless DH related speaking events have come true. From the drops in illegal immigration numbers for a period along the Yuma/Wellton corridors, to the changes in the Border Patrol. From the rise of narco violence, to the boondoggle of the border fence. I long thought the border would be militarized--what I did not figure out was that the border would be militarized by the Mexican army. I watch the Mexican surge in Juarez with real interest. I don't want to. I am sick of the whole sad ugly border and its endless depravity, stupidity, duplicity, violence, despair, racism and lies. But I can't tear my eyes away.
You see, I love the people of the border. I am from the border. I love its optimism, its hubbub, its warmth, its humor. If you have read any Immigration Mondays, you know I love its literature (yes--there is a florescence of border lit that is beautiful and potent). I love its music (Nortec, Artefakto, Bostich, etc.). I love its food, colors, joy, toughness. I'll admit it--I sometimes love its danger. Makes me feel like Joe Bad when I'm romping around the Tijuana garbage dump or Sasabe. I happen to like Juarez. And hey--I was born in Tijuana.
However, I told you that the narco war was the new paradigm. I rang that bell for years and felt that nobody listened. I kept insisting that the narcos were going to take over the coyotes' work, and when they did, the level of horror would escalate in ways nobody could imagine. Didn't get a lot of traction.
Now look. Front page of today's Chicago Tribune. CARTELS' LATES EXPORT? HUMANS. Here's the URL so you can read it: http://tinyurl.com/d2nn54. I warned people five years ago that some Scarfcace would consolidate the criminal enterprise of the border into a conglomerate cartel of drugs, weapons, professional violence, illegal immigration and sexual slavery. And here 'tis.
Coincidentally, the New York Times ran a front-page story today, too: narco violence in the USA. It's here, and it's not going away. Phoenix is the kidnapping capital of the country. The cartels have operations flourishing in Atlanta, Boston. Operatives are in the Carolinas, Illinois. This is not a question of coyotes with walkie-talkies. This is a multi-national operation. It's like SMERSH. Send in James Bond.
I know a Mexican politician in a major US city who has had to change addresses and has had to hide his email because the cartels have started to make moves against him. It's on, people. The war is on. The border is Pakistan on your back step.
Read Don Winslow's The Power of the Dog if you want to know the truth.
Let's Play
I haven't done this in a year or so. I swore I'd never get back to Immigration Monday. I turned my immigration readers over to Bender's Immigration Bulletin, and good riddance to that crap.
But I had to tell you something. Then I'll drop it. I am not a prophet. Yet, all my predictions in The Devil's Highway and in my endless DH related speaking events have come true. From the drops in illegal immigration numbers for a period along the Yuma/Wellton corridors, to the changes in the Border Patrol. From the rise of narco violence, to the boondoggle of the border fence. I long thought the border would be militarized--what I did not figure out was that the border would be militarized by the Mexican army. I watch the Mexican surge in Juarez with real interest. I don't want to. I am sick of the whole sad ugly border and its endless depravity, stupidity, duplicity, violence, despair, racism and lies. But I can't tear my eyes away.
You see, I love the people of the border. I am from the border. I love its optimism, its hubbub, its warmth, its humor. If you have read any Immigration Mondays, you know I love its literature (yes--there is a florescence of border lit that is beautiful and potent). I love its music (Nortec, Artefakto, Bostich, etc.). I love its food, colors, joy, toughness. I'll admit it--I sometimes love its danger. Makes me feel like Joe Bad when I'm romping around the Tijuana garbage dump or Sasabe. I happen to like Juarez. And hey--I was born in Tijuana.
However, I told you that the narco war was the new paradigm. I rang that bell for years and felt that nobody listened. I kept insisting that the narcos were going to take over the coyotes' work, and when they did, the level of horror would escalate in ways nobody could imagine. Didn't get a lot of traction.
Now look. Front page of today's Chicago Tribune. CARTELS' LATES EXPORT? HUMANS. Here's the URL so you can read it: http://tinyurl.com/d2nn54. I warned people five years ago that some Scarfcace would consolidate the criminal enterprise of the border into a conglomerate cartel of drugs, weapons, professional violence, illegal immigration and sexual slavery. And here 'tis.
Coincidentally, the New York Times ran a front-page story today, too: narco violence in the USA. It's here, and it's not going away. Phoenix is the kidnapping capital of the country. The cartels have operations flourishing in Atlanta, Boston. Operatives are in the Carolinas, Illinois. This is not a question of coyotes with walkie-talkies. This is a multi-national operation. It's like SMERSH. Send in James Bond.
I know a Mexican politician in a major US city who has had to change addresses and has had to hide his email because the cartels have started to make moves against him. It's on, people. The war is on. The border is Pakistan on your back step.
Read Don Winslow's The Power of the Dog if you want to know the truth.
3/19/2009 The Sea
Here's the thing: you have to dive into the sea inside you. It's dark and cool. Sea caves are even darker, but they're full of secrets. Casks and fossils, bones and gold. You swim into yourself, and you find luminous things in the depths. Evanescent, sometimes translucent. They flutter, slither, speed, dance. All the colors dazzle you. You put out your hands. Sometimes, you catch one or two. You rise, toward the sun that flickers above you like glitter on a child's art project. Suddenly, you're there--the beach before you. The page or the screen. You open your hands. You write. Glory, glory.
Tucson Festival of Books
3/18/2009
Linda Hogan once told me she had met fifteen different men who claimed to be the reincarnation of Crazy Horse. We wondered at the time if Crazy Horse had somehow gone condo in the afterlife, if he had managed to subdivide so guys who like to wear a fang on a thong around their necks, or wear dangly silver feather earrings, can claim to be him. I have, in the wake of The Hummingbird's Daughter, met a small army of experts, scholars, channelers, healers, urban shamans, re-enacters, and reincarnated Teresitas. The Saint of Cabora is in the house, y'all! In, apparently, about 75 houses! Go, tia, go! On our recent adventures in Tucson (Teresitacson) and the lovely Silver City, we encountered elements of the Teresista army. Every one of them, from grand and cosmic new age mavens to angry and clenched historical guardians took strange credit for my accomplishments, small as they are, and even for my work. It seems strange to me that so many people make some kind of living off the blood of my family...while challenging me to my own heart full of that blood. Thing that make you go hmmm. Still, that was a small element of an amazing and joyous touring event.
Cinderella and I flew down to Tucson, not sure what to expect. It was the first ever TFOB. An event, by the way, that turned out to be huge and extremely well-run. The planners of the event have done a heroic thing for Tucson, and I believe it will bring many wonders to that eccentric and lively place for years to come. I was amazed that Elmore Leonard, CK Williams, JA Jance, Billy Collins, et al, would be there. Sadly, I was scheduled to read at the same time as Mr. Leonard. I told everyone I'd rather see the legend than myself!
We picked up a 100 foot long red Impala at Hertz, and we tooled around town, remembering our past as desert rats. We met there, you know. Cinderella was a newspaper reporter when I was in town, fighting ghosts and devils in haunted adobes, walking the desert with javelinas, bikers and medicine women, drinking afternoon coffee with the local writers and starving. We drove along my favorite street--KOLB! Where the giant airplane graveyard spreads out for acres of surreal excellence! Dead planes! Yes!
On up to the Loew's Ventana Canyon resort. They did right by us at TFOB--a lovely room with city views out one side and a saguaro-studded slope up to the mountains in back. A waterfall spilled out of the vermillion/orange/salmon cliffs about a half mile from our door. That night, the first banquet. I hate these things--you sit at a table with really nice folks who paid a lot of money to watch you chew. You try to be funny and engaging. You scan for famous people.
Fitz, the great Tucson editorial cartoonist, was the m.c. for the evening. He actually called me by name and made me stand up so the room could turn in their seats and murmur, Who the hell is that? But Fitz came up with my new stage name. He said, apropos of The Devil's Highway: "Luis is the Capote of the coyotes." Dude! I am so putting that on a t-shirt.
I have pals who write. I put out this disclaimer because, when you blog, and have fans as involved as I do, when I mention somebody famous, I start getting piquant missives that say li' things like: "whore," "name-dropping whore," "careerist whore." But these are my pals and my colleagues. We work together--it just happens that our particular satellite office of Dunder Miflin is spread out in planes, hotels, bookstores, lecture halls, bars, festivals. Think of the next famous guy I mention as Dwight Shrute.
So I wanted to meet the insane novelist, Josh Bazell. If you haven't read Josh yet, git on it! He wrote the freakish and rabid Beat the Reaper. You read it and don't know whether you should laugh out loud or cringe. Some will no doubt retch. IT'S THAT GOOD. So I'm looking for him so I can introduce myself, and this guy shows up looking for me. Josh Bazell! OMG, as my kids might say. We were hugging and carrying on when I spied the legend, the 800 pound gorilla of desert writers, Charles Bowden working out some red vino. I put Josh and Chuck together for some more awesome author hook-up, but I turned away for a minute. By the time I'd turned bac, Chuck was grilling Josh on Jewish history, and apparently on the stupidity of the Bible. "You people walked around the desert for forty years being fed by angels? Is that what you believe? Some guy came down off a mountain with a rock with squiggles on it written by God? What about the one who walked on water! You believe that?" Josh cast an eye in my direction and sent me the psychic message: WTF? I could not stop laughing. Welcome to Tucson, baby. Let's see you beat this reaper. But Chuck went off to set a few banquet tables on fire, and Josh and I traded phone numbers and slapped each other on the back some more. Cinderella and I snuck off to the hotel, fried by exhaustion to a crusty golden hue.
The next day was the big bang. I started the morning trying to film a book trailer for the real deal, the big kahuna of Urrealism, my next novel, Into the Beautiful North. Eric, the filmographer, drove down from Phoenix. We walked up the mountain in back of the resort, and he set up his cameras and miked me and we got placed for the filming when, suddenly, The Man busted us! The Ventana Canyon Resort's Weekend Activities Director burst out of the undergrowth and ascertained that we were filming highly restricted cacti without a permit! He had a muscular Mexican standing guard on the path, lest the camerman and I try to escape! Yet another Al Qaeda assault on the resort's back yard thwarted in the nick of time.
In shame, we snuck to dntn Tucson and gathered ourselves at the University of AZ for the interview. Then I skulked around the green room, sipping water and getting to know my onstage iunterviewer, KVOA newsman, Tom McNamara.
I won't go into my speaking event too much. (Media whore.) But I will say it was jammed--SRO. People sat on the floor. I was startled by that. Lots of old friends there, lots and lots and lots of new friends, and about nine Teresitas. Tom was warm and open to anywhere weird place I wanted to go, and we had easily the most uproarious gig I've had in a long time. It was wild in there. When we were done, the audince gave me an unexpected standing O.
So, you know, time to sign books! I was looking around for one of my ol' writing pals, Craig Childs. Rumored to be there, but I never found him. We were also looking for our other pal, Amanda Eyre Ward, but it was a tsunami of bodies. I went to my tent, next to Dutch Leonard's, and I realized that I was never going to even get to shake his hand. Because there were...lots...lots...of people in my line. I'll get to that in a moment. But as I was signing, someone suddenly gave me a note. The best note of the weekend: "Craig Childs says DUDE!" Ha ha. I don't know where he was, but he sent a dispatch. (Name-dropping fame-slut.)
About an hour into the signing, a dapped slim fellow stepped up and sai, "My name is Joey Burns and I sing with Calexico." OMGx2. Readers of this blog know that Calexico recorded "Across the Wire" on their epochal cd, Feast of Wire. How good is that? How fulfilling? To hug Joey Burns and tell him you love him.
That's where it's at.
I signed for almost another hour. Started signing at 3:30, finished around 6:00. We staggered over to the Cinco Puntos Press booth to say hi to Bobby and Lee Byrd. It's all about love and art and friends. So were were happy.
All in all, like I said, the Tucson Festival of Books was a great success. Long may the reign. I want to thank them here and now, and give thanks to all the hundreds of kind people who visited with me there. I get hugged and kissed a lot--it's a real benefit of the job. Lots of senior prom pictures. Lots of friends both old and new. And a great hamburger at the hotel.
The next morning, we had to drive for three hours to Silver City, NM. Go, Detroit iron: I glanced at the speedometer and was creeping well past 100 mph and never noticed. We never turned on the radio once--just talked about all that had happened in Tucson.
When I got home, I was astounded to find out I had signed so many autographs that my right arm was slightly injured. The pain feels good. I know what it means. We had a similarly astounding time in Silver City (Billy the Kid's Homestead Cabin! Which isn't really Billy's cabin at all! But is Tommy Lee Jones's cabin from the movie The Missing! Donated by Ron Howard and put on the bankl of the stream where Billy's mom's cabin might have been! Now attracting scads of German tourists with Karl May cowboy paperbacks!) A Teresita scholar, during his lecture, pulled out a rifle, cocked it, and eyed me angrily and strangely announced, "I can kill a man at 500 yards with this weapon!" Cinderella whispered, "Is he threatening you?" Yee-haw, buckoes. Viva la Santa de Cabora.
It was great. You should go there. I will write about the wonderfulness of Silver City and Sandy's fine B&B, The Inn on Broadway, where you should go stay, in a subsequent blog. I'll just say that after the various events there, we drove back to Tucson--no radio again--and began our many hours of trying to fly home. Crawled into our bed at 2:30 a.m.
Up early the next morning to speed to UIC and try to fit my soul back into the English professor envelope.
When I pray, I usually just say: "Thank you."
See you out there on the road, amigos.
Ever Yrs., L
Thunder Road
Cinderella and I flew down to Tucson, not sure what to expect. It was the first ever TFOB. An event, by the way, that turned out to be huge and extremely well-run. The planners of the event have done a heroic thing for Tucson, and I believe it will bring many wonders to that eccentric and lively place for years to come. I was amazed that Elmore Leonard, CK Williams, JA Jance, Billy Collins, et al, would be there. Sadly, I was scheduled to read at the same time as Mr. Leonard. I told everyone I'd rather see the legend than myself!
We picked up a 100 foot long red Impala at Hertz, and we tooled around town, remembering our past as desert rats. We met there, you know. Cinderella was a newspaper reporter when I was in town, fighting ghosts and devils in haunted adobes, walking the desert with javelinas, bikers and medicine women, drinking afternoon coffee with the local writers and starving. We drove along my favorite street--KOLB! Where the giant airplane graveyard spreads out for acres of surreal excellence! Dead planes! Yes!
On up to the Loew's Ventana Canyon resort. They did right by us at TFOB--a lovely room with city views out one side and a saguaro-studded slope up to the mountains in back. A waterfall spilled out of the vermillion/orange/salmon cliffs about a half mile from our door. That night, the first banquet. I hate these things--you sit at a table with really nice folks who paid a lot of money to watch you chew. You try to be funny and engaging. You scan for famous people.
Fitz, the great Tucson editorial cartoonist, was the m.c. for the evening. He actually called me by name and made me stand up so the room could turn in their seats and murmur, Who the hell is that? But Fitz came up with my new stage name. He said, apropos of The Devil's Highway: "Luis is the Capote of the coyotes." Dude! I am so putting that on a t-shirt.
I have pals who write. I put out this disclaimer because, when you blog, and have fans as involved as I do, when I mention somebody famous, I start getting piquant missives that say li' things like: "whore," "name-dropping whore," "careerist whore." But these are my pals and my colleagues. We work together--it just happens that our particular satellite office of Dunder Miflin is spread out in planes, hotels, bookstores, lecture halls, bars, festivals. Think of the next famous guy I mention as Dwight Shrute.
So I wanted to meet the insane novelist, Josh Bazell. If you haven't read Josh yet, git on it! He wrote the freakish and rabid Beat the Reaper. You read it and don't know whether you should laugh out loud or cringe. Some will no doubt retch. IT'S THAT GOOD. So I'm looking for him so I can introduce myself, and this guy shows up looking for me. Josh Bazell! OMG, as my kids might say. We were hugging and carrying on when I spied the legend, the 800 pound gorilla of desert writers, Charles Bowden working out some red vino. I put Josh and Chuck together for some more awesome author hook-up, but I turned away for a minute. By the time I'd turned bac, Chuck was grilling Josh on Jewish history, and apparently on the stupidity of the Bible. "You people walked around the desert for forty years being fed by angels? Is that what you believe? Some guy came down off a mountain with a rock with squiggles on it written by God? What about the one who walked on water! You believe that?" Josh cast an eye in my direction and sent me the psychic message: WTF? I could not stop laughing. Welcome to Tucson, baby. Let's see you beat this reaper. But Chuck went off to set a few banquet tables on fire, and Josh and I traded phone numbers and slapped each other on the back some more. Cinderella and I snuck off to the hotel, fried by exhaustion to a crusty golden hue.
The next day was the big bang. I started the morning trying to film a book trailer for the real deal, the big kahuna of Urrealism, my next novel, Into the Beautiful North. Eric, the filmographer, drove down from Phoenix. We walked up the mountain in back of the resort, and he set up his cameras and miked me and we got placed for the filming when, suddenly, The Man busted us! The Ventana Canyon Resort's Weekend Activities Director burst out of the undergrowth and ascertained that we were filming highly restricted cacti without a permit! He had a muscular Mexican standing guard on the path, lest the camerman and I try to escape! Yet another Al Qaeda assault on the resort's back yard thwarted in the nick of time.
In shame, we snuck to dntn Tucson and gathered ourselves at the University of AZ for the interview. Then I skulked around the green room, sipping water and getting to know my onstage iunterviewer, KVOA newsman, Tom McNamara.
I won't go into my speaking event too much. (Media whore.) But I will say it was jammed--SRO. People sat on the floor. I was startled by that. Lots of old friends there, lots and lots and lots of new friends, and about nine Teresitas. Tom was warm and open to anywhere weird place I wanted to go, and we had easily the most uproarious gig I've had in a long time. It was wild in there. When we were done, the audince gave me an unexpected standing O.
So, you know, time to sign books! I was looking around for one of my ol' writing pals, Craig Childs. Rumored to be there, but I never found him. We were also looking for our other pal, Amanda Eyre Ward, but it was a tsunami of bodies. I went to my tent, next to Dutch Leonard's, and I realized that I was never going to even get to shake his hand. Because there were...lots...lots...of people in my line. I'll get to that in a moment. But as I was signing, someone suddenly gave me a note. The best note of the weekend: "Craig Childs says DUDE!" Ha ha. I don't know where he was, but he sent a dispatch. (Name-dropping fame-slut.)
About an hour into the signing, a dapped slim fellow stepped up and sai, "My name is Joey Burns and I sing with Calexico." OMGx2. Readers of this blog know that Calexico recorded "Across the Wire" on their epochal cd, Feast of Wire. How good is that? How fulfilling? To hug Joey Burns and tell him you love him.
That's where it's at.
I signed for almost another hour. Started signing at 3:30, finished around 6:00. We staggered over to the Cinco Puntos Press booth to say hi to Bobby and Lee Byrd. It's all about love and art and friends. So were were happy.
All in all, like I said, the Tucson Festival of Books was a great success. Long may the reign. I want to thank them here and now, and give thanks to all the hundreds of kind people who visited with me there. I get hugged and kissed a lot--it's a real benefit of the job. Lots of senior prom pictures. Lots of friends both old and new. And a great hamburger at the hotel.
The next morning, we had to drive for three hours to Silver City, NM. Go, Detroit iron: I glanced at the speedometer and was creeping well past 100 mph and never noticed. We never turned on the radio once--just talked about all that had happened in Tucson.
When I got home, I was astounded to find out I had signed so many autographs that my right arm was slightly injured. The pain feels good. I know what it means. We had a similarly astounding time in Silver City (Billy the Kid's Homestead Cabin! Which isn't really Billy's cabin at all! But is Tommy Lee Jones's cabin from the movie The Missing! Donated by Ron Howard and put on the bankl of the stream where Billy's mom's cabin might have been! Now attracting scads of German tourists with Karl May cowboy paperbacks!) A Teresita scholar, during his lecture, pulled out a rifle, cocked it, and eyed me angrily and strangely announced, "I can kill a man at 500 yards with this weapon!" Cinderella whispered, "Is he threatening you?" Yee-haw, buckoes. Viva la Santa de Cabora.
It was great. You should go there. I will write about the wonderfulness of Silver City and Sandy's fine B&B, The Inn on Broadway, where you should go stay, in a subsequent blog. I'll just say that after the various events there, we drove back to Tucson--no radio again--and began our many hours of trying to fly home. Crawled into our bed at 2:30 a.m.
Up early the next morning to speed to UIC and try to fit my soul back into the English professor envelope.
When I pray, I usually just say: "Thank you."
See you out there on the road, amigos.
Ever Yrs., L
3/11/2009
All right--I'm on my way. Back on the road again; though I get weary and start to complain, I think I belong out there. We ought to get a tour bus. Too bad about all the bad chili, though.
I'll be going to Tucson, then to Silver City, NM. If you're anywhere near there, I hope I see you. We're renting a car and doing some atomic desert driving to get around out there. Fly home Monday night. Teach Tuesday. Get back out to NYC for meetings. Followed by gigs in Kansas, back in Chi, in Pasadena, in L.A. Then book tour really begins, in our beloved Kankakee, Illinois!
Cinderella and I will be keeping up a stream of twitter...uh...tweets? Is that what they call 'em? Twits, twerps, whatever those are, we're doing them. If you want to come along on the adventures between now and August, join me on twitter.com at Urrealism. (Snappy handle, innit?)
We'll probably toss up some pix for you here.
See you soon.
XXXXXXXXXXXXX, L
Today's Commute
I'll be going to Tucson, then to Silver City, NM. If you're anywhere near there, I hope I see you. We're renting a car and doing some atomic desert driving to get around out there. Fly home Monday night. Teach Tuesday. Get back out to NYC for meetings. Followed by gigs in Kansas, back in Chi, in Pasadena, in L.A. Then book tour really begins, in our beloved Kankakee, Illinois!
Cinderella and I will be keeping up a stream of twitter...uh...tweets? Is that what they call 'em? Twits, twerps, whatever those are, we're doing them. If you want to come along on the adventures between now and August, join me on twitter.com at Urrealism. (Snappy handle, innit?)
We'll probably toss up some pix for you here.
See you soon.
XXXXXXXXXXXXX, L
3/10/2009
die cast open forge
rust steam wreathes poor-hospital
cold Chicago rain
Pasadena's Hummingbirds
rust steam wreathes poor-hospital
cold Chicago rain
3/02/2009
Getting ready for the big blowout in Pasadena for their One City, One Story program. They have an amazing schedule over the next couple of weeks and I hope you can get to some of these lectures and presentations (wish I could!). For more info, here. The local paper did a nice profile too (Cindy says, but I hate the picture ...).
For the rest of us, here's a great tale Cindy found in the Pasadena Star-News:
"Christine Reeder (great name for a librarian) has been working on the "One City, One Story" events for "The Hummingbird's Daughter" that start this week.
The novel by Luis Alberto Urrea is set in revolutionary Mexico, "full of cowboys and outlaws, Indian warriors, cantina beauties, silly men who drink too much and desert women who in their dreams travel to the seashore," Reeder's info says.
At last Saturday's discussion-leader training, Reeder said, "We actually opened up a door at the San Rafael Library because we became too warm - and in flew a hummingbird. I though it was particularly symbolic of the book and the magical realism in it."
Cue "The Twilight Zone" ... "
Hah! I LOVE that kind of stuff!
For the rest of us, here's a great tale Cindy found in the Pasadena Star-News:
"Christine Reeder (great name for a librarian) has been working on the "One City, One Story" events for "The Hummingbird's Daughter" that start this week.
The novel by Luis Alberto Urrea is set in revolutionary Mexico, "full of cowboys and outlaws, Indian warriors, cantina beauties, silly men who drink too much and desert women who in their dreams travel to the seashore," Reeder's info says.
At last Saturday's discussion-leader training, Reeder said, "We actually opened up a door at the San Rafael Library because we became too warm - and in flew a hummingbird. I though it was particularly symbolic of the book and the magical realism in it."
Cue "The Twilight Zone" ... "
Hah! I LOVE that kind of stuff!
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