8/25/2010
Lots of readers/fans and a few scholars have written to me over the past year asking for some insight into thde background of my novel, THE HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER. (And, I suppose, its sequel, coming next year from Little, Brown.) Although I do have piles and stacks and shelves full of rsearch, and I suspect the longest Teresita Urrea bibliography ever compiled, I don't think that's what people are after. People want stories. Some want revelations of spiritual secrets, some want adventure, some want writing tips and some just want to hear juicy yarns. And lots of you want to hear my ghost stories! I'm that way, too. Gimme a story, man.
I have suggested you check out the second volume of THE HUMMINGBIRD REVIEW (on stands and on the internet). It's a fine new lit journal. It has a long essay about all that stuff; I wrote it for a chapbook a few years ago. It's called "Haunted Arizona." You might like it.
Here's somethimng dear to my heart for ya. Cinderella can tell you that, in the deepest darkest era of working on that book, in the Arizona heat in my sad little adobe after ghosts and boogies had chased me out of my original old barrio digs, my mind was so fried that I couldn't even read. Enter haiku. I could read haiku.
So in honor of that salvation, I wrote a record of writing HUMMINGBIRD in haiku form. (OK--some of them were senryu...but why niggle?) It came out in the SONORA REVIEW, Vol. 56. For those of you who missed it, here it is.
#
SONORAN DESERT SUTRAS:
Notes on Writing The Hummingbird's Daughter in Tucson
Despairing of God
I went to the desert
to seek my own saint.
#
Haunted adobe--
candelabra's melting stubs
wax that fell was black.
#
If I went downstairs,
heard kitchen racket overhead--
nobody else there.
#
Disembodied hand
tarantula-crawled across
white shee to my face.
#
Medicine woman
cooking her green tamales
held me when I wept.
#
My teacher too ke
to ask questions of the plants--
I felt like a child.
#
Halloween midnight
one wrecked car blocking the road--
single human leg.
#
One box Minute Rice--
one old cat, half dead, half blind--
abandoned to trust.
#
Yaqui funeral--
old man in his black coffin
colder than the moon.
#
First monsoon morning--
I finally saw miracles--
frogs leaped from the ground.
#
Female medium
insited spirits told her--
I'd signed questionnaire.
#
Tinajas Altas--
couldn't find any water,
someone left a can.
#
After the car wreck
100 trucks drove over
the children's clothing.
#
At old copper mine
pondering the day's lessons
coyotes stalked me.
#
The angry scholar
called to threaten a lawssuit
if I wrote the book.
#
She said we were twins
sepatared in heaven--
did I want to aprty?
#
The Hotel Congress
was still a holy vortex--
Dillinger slept there.
#
Down in Mexico
the curanderas fed me
bowls of green Jell-O.
#
Teresita's niece
wakes up on certain mornings
floating in the air.
#
Standing in graveyards
in Clifton, Arizona--
thought I might find her.
#
"I'm their worst nightmar!"
he said in his adobe--
"Liberal with guns!"
#
Medicine woman
said she missed grandmother's ghost
since it left with me.
#
The saint's grand-daughter
heals families in Phoenix--
danced for Dean Martin.
#
Holy woman said,
"In heaven you'll have a job!"
Shaking her finger.
#
When down to nothing
the spirits bring miracles--
one dollar Whopper.
#
Hiking Sheep Pen trail
vulture flew up behind me--
my shadow grew wings.
#
Mostly it was work
alone on old computer--
Nine Inch Nails at night.
#
I learned something there
From The Saint of Cabora--
Every day's sacred.
Recent Publications
I have suggested you check out the second volume of THE HUMMINGBIRD REVIEW (on stands and on the internet). It's a fine new lit journal. It has a long essay about all that stuff; I wrote it for a chapbook a few years ago. It's called "Haunted Arizona." You might like it.
Here's somethimng dear to my heart for ya. Cinderella can tell you that, in the deepest darkest era of working on that book, in the Arizona heat in my sad little adobe after ghosts and boogies had chased me out of my original old barrio digs, my mind was so fried that I couldn't even read. Enter haiku. I could read haiku.
So in honor of that salvation, I wrote a record of writing HUMMINGBIRD in haiku form. (OK--some of them were senryu...but why niggle?) It came out in the SONORA REVIEW, Vol. 56. For those of you who missed it, here it is.
#
SONORAN DESERT SUTRAS:
Notes on Writing The Hummingbird's Daughter in Tucson
Despairing of God
I went to the desert
to seek my own saint.
#
Haunted adobe--
candelabra's melting stubs
wax that fell was black.
#
If I went downstairs,
heard kitchen racket overhead--
nobody else there.
#
Disembodied hand
tarantula-crawled across
white shee to my face.
#
Medicine woman
cooking her green tamales
held me when I wept.
#
My teacher too ke
to ask questions of the plants--
I felt like a child.
#
Halloween midnight
one wrecked car blocking the road--
single human leg.
#
One box Minute Rice--
one old cat, half dead, half blind--
abandoned to trust.
#
Yaqui funeral--
old man in his black coffin
colder than the moon.
#
First monsoon morning--
I finally saw miracles--
frogs leaped from the ground.
#
Female medium
insited spirits told her--
I'd signed questionnaire.
#
Tinajas Altas--
couldn't find any water,
someone left a can.
#
After the car wreck
100 trucks drove over
the children's clothing.
#
At old copper mine
pondering the day's lessons
coyotes stalked me.
#
The angry scholar
called to threaten a lawssuit
if I wrote the book.
#
She said we were twins
sepatared in heaven--
did I want to aprty?
#
The Hotel Congress
was still a holy vortex--
Dillinger slept there.
#
Down in Mexico
the curanderas fed me
bowls of green Jell-O.
#
Teresita's niece
wakes up on certain mornings
floating in the air.
#
Standing in graveyards
in Clifton, Arizona--
thought I might find her.
#
"I'm their worst nightmar!"
he said in his adobe--
"Liberal with guns!"
#
Medicine woman
said she missed grandmother's ghost
since it left with me.
#
The saint's grand-daughter
heals families in Phoenix--
danced for Dean Martin.
#
Holy woman said,
"In heaven you'll have a job!"
Shaking her finger.
#
When down to nothing
the spirits bring miracles--
one dollar Whopper.
#
Hiking Sheep Pen trail
vulture flew up behind me--
my shadow grew wings.
#
Mostly it was work
alone on old computer--
Nine Inch Nails at night.
#
I learned something there
From The Saint of Cabora--
Every day's sacred.
8/23/2010
ORION
Chip Blake and his staff continue to make brilliant art with their magazine, ORION. I am excited to be in the September/October 2010 issue. be sure to pick it up. Not just for my small contribution.
The cover says "Luis Urrea's Border Patrol." (Warning to my Chi-town homeboy, Carl--there's a shout-out to you in there, brother. Well, to your story.) It's not really MY Border Patrol, it's David Taylor's. His powerfukl book of USBP photos, WORKING THE LINE is coming out now. I wrote the text. Hence, the ORION feature.
I am happy to say that I also give big props to my hero, Sheriff Ogden of Yuma.
Look, that's good stuff, but my other Chi homeboy, mad Jon Lowenstein ahs a kille pohot feature as well, and a long story by TC Boyle. Delights on every page. Get it!
THE HUMMINGBIRD REVIEW
While I'm at it, I'd like to direct your attention to THE HUMMINGBIRD REVIEW. A lit journal. Their excellent second issue is on the stands now, or you can look them up on the internet.
HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER fans have asked me many many times, via this blog, Facebook and Twitter, as well as by that endles stream of emails, to tell 'em some scerets about the mystical/ghostly research-and-experience process of writing that book. And its sequel...coming soon...not telling you the title yet! OK. It's in HUMMINGBIRD REVIEW. It's called "Haunted Arizona." It's a start. Check it out.
Book Tour Texas Pt. 2
Chip Blake and his staff continue to make brilliant art with their magazine, ORION. I am excited to be in the September/October 2010 issue. be sure to pick it up. Not just for my small contribution.
The cover says "Luis Urrea's Border Patrol." (Warning to my Chi-town homeboy, Carl--there's a shout-out to you in there, brother. Well, to your story.) It's not really MY Border Patrol, it's David Taylor's. His powerfukl book of USBP photos, WORKING THE LINE is coming out now. I wrote the text. Hence, the ORION feature.
I am happy to say that I also give big props to my hero, Sheriff Ogden of Yuma.
Look, that's good stuff, but my other Chi homeboy, mad Jon Lowenstein ahs a kille pohot feature as well, and a long story by TC Boyle. Delights on every page. Get it!
THE HUMMINGBIRD REVIEW
While I'm at it, I'd like to direct your attention to THE HUMMINGBIRD REVIEW. A lit journal. Their excellent second issue is on the stands now, or you can look them up on the internet.
HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER fans have asked me many many times, via this blog, Facebook and Twitter, as well as by that endles stream of emails, to tell 'em some scerets about the mystical/ghostly research-and-experience process of writing that book. And its sequel...coming soon...not telling you the title yet! OK. It's in HUMMINGBIRD REVIEW. It's called "Haunted Arizona." It's a start. Check it out.
8/19/2010
It's hard to believe I'm doing Italian translation work
on Hummingbird's daughter via iPhone with Rome
from a speeding car in Texas.
Low clouds only 7 stories
above the plain.
90 to Hondo:
There is a novel in every hovel.
Appropriate or what:
ZZ Top in Hondo.
FM!
Pro-Ag warehouse,
roof peeled off & curling
aluminum wave.
Seco Creek, Live Oak Creek, pretty pretty Texas:
every little town graced with gardens
of highway sunflowers. Squirrel Creek.
400 hundred miles of love & freedom.
Corn
blackbirds
East Elm Creek.
#
One corn field
five
Border Patrol trucks.
Sign:
DO THE WEB-WORM WHOMP.
Border patrol check point
surrounded by
white goats.
Weirdness: radio's turned off
yet chattering with electric blips and stutters--
morse code from the UFOs.
Call Art Bell! At 11:11, the radio
sends another CIA message.
Valverde.
I'm worried:
Adult Store porn shop--
the sign is a giant pair
of scissors.
Onto N 277.
#
Del Rio sun-beat & hard:
superbikers
blat.
BORDER PATROL
FIREARMS TRAINING
near
LAKE AMISTAD.
And
DRIVE FRIENDLY.
But
DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS.
Landscape
makes the water
look like acid
baths.
Inspction station catches us.
We are suddenly suspects.
Dogs swarm the car, sniffing.
Cindy all tongue-tied
in the face of interrogation.
USBP guys rising out of the desert scrub
on ATVs, RoboCop helmets on their heads.
The whole time the dog sniffs our trunk,
smilin' Agent Perez
is sniffing our psyches.
We are freed and escape
down Seminole Canyon.
Pecos River gorge.
Giant smear of sun baked blood,
six vultures.
Every few miles, another vulture
just chillin'.
Osman Canyon: USBP everywhere. White trucks
on the hills like tiny glaciers.
"I put Glee on the ipod for Chayo,"
Cindy lies. I click to
The Sex Pistols.
BP agents beside the road,
cutting the drag--those tires
on a dirt road, just like Devil's Highway.
I feel cocky.
Prairie Creek.
Abandoned silver trailer
looking like a sardine cane
packed with ghosts in oil.
Dryden, Texas.
Perfectly named.
#
Vulture party
bowing formally
to a freshly killed deer.
Big Bend ahead--watching for pterodactyls.
We pass a semi & a deer
jackrabbits in front of us both--
followed by a buzzard, clearly calculating
the angles.
Now a bird
dives for the windshield.
Outbreak of Animal Suicides:
Thousands Flee.
OOPS.
Cindy just bew past a Texas State Trooper going
over 80.
And
he pulls a u-turn.
#
Trooper Turman had the scary trooper sunglasses.
The scary trooper campaign hat.
The scary big ol' gun in a squeaky holster.
He walked up to us looking ten feet tall.
I found myself inexplicably schmoozing him: "Sorry, man.
I'm on book tour--trying to get to Marfa for a radio interview!"
BOOK TOUR, he said. WHAT KIND OF BOOK.
"Novel. I write all kinds of books." Cindy's looking at me
like I've taken drugs. I'm leaning over her to talk out the window.
"I wrote a book about the Border Patrol."
Trooper Turman bends at the waist and peers in at me.
WERE YOU EVER A BORDER PATROL AGENT, he asks.
"Ha! No way! I had to train with them, though! Those boys
gave me a hard time!" I'm squealing like a gerbil right now.
HUH.
He takes Cindy's license and walks back to his car.
"You're talking about books with the trooper," she accuses.
I'm all proud of myself. Then I notice
a huge dragonfly hovering outside my window,
watching us. I suddenly know
God is on our side.
I'M GOING TO LET YOU OFF WITH A WARNING
THIS TIME
BUT WATCH IT
Trooper Turman reluctantly announces.
LET ME GO WRITE IT UP.
He gets back in his car.
"He loves us," I say.
I realize I have a copy of Into the Beautiful North
in the trunk and decide we must give it to him.
"Are you bribing him?" my bride wants to know.
"No! He already let us off. I'm thanking him."
Trooper Turman sits in his scary car and watches us
with bemusement on his face as we frantically dig into the trunk
and go through our bags. Is he wondering if we have a shotgun?
I find the book!
Yay!
I march back to his car and tap on the window.
I comes down slowly and he stares up at me.
YES?
"Here's my new book," I say. "I'd like you to have it."
He stares. He almost smiles.
SIR, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO THAT.
"You didn't have to be so kind, either," I reply.
I borrow his pen so I can sign it.
He takes it and looks at it.
THANK YOU.
"You're welcome."
He turns it over and looks at my picture.
Then he shouts:
YOU'RE HISPANIC?!?
#
We sped off into the water-puddle mirages
on the two-lane blacktop.
Random Book Tour Dispatch: Texas in June Pt. 1
on Hummingbird's daughter via iPhone with Rome
from a speeding car in Texas.
Low clouds only 7 stories
above the plain.
90 to Hondo:
There is a novel in every hovel.
Appropriate or what:
ZZ Top in Hondo.
FM!
Pro-Ag warehouse,
roof peeled off & curling
aluminum wave.
Seco Creek, Live Oak Creek, pretty pretty Texas:
every little town graced with gardens
of highway sunflowers. Squirrel Creek.
400 hundred miles of love & freedom.
Corn
blackbirds
East Elm Creek.
#
One corn field
five
Border Patrol trucks.
Sign:
DO THE WEB-WORM WHOMP.
Border patrol check point
surrounded by
white goats.
Weirdness: radio's turned off
yet chattering with electric blips and stutters--
morse code from the UFOs.
Call Art Bell! At 11:11, the radio
sends another CIA message.
Valverde.
I'm worried:
Adult Store porn shop--
the sign is a giant pair
of scissors.
Onto N 277.
#
Del Rio sun-beat & hard:
superbikers
blat.
BORDER PATROL
FIREARMS TRAINING
near
LAKE AMISTAD.
And
DRIVE FRIENDLY.
But
DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS.
Landscape
makes the water
look like acid
baths.
Inspction station catches us.
We are suddenly suspects.
Dogs swarm the car, sniffing.
Cindy all tongue-tied
in the face of interrogation.
USBP guys rising out of the desert scrub
on ATVs, RoboCop helmets on their heads.
The whole time the dog sniffs our trunk,
smilin' Agent Perez
is sniffing our psyches.
We are freed and escape
down Seminole Canyon.
Pecos River gorge.
Giant smear of sun baked blood,
six vultures.
Every few miles, another vulture
just chillin'.
Osman Canyon: USBP everywhere. White trucks
on the hills like tiny glaciers.
"I put Glee on the ipod for Chayo,"
Cindy lies. I click to
The Sex Pistols.
BP agents beside the road,
cutting the drag--those tires
on a dirt road, just like Devil's Highway.
I feel cocky.
Prairie Creek.
Abandoned silver trailer
looking like a sardine cane
packed with ghosts in oil.
Dryden, Texas.
Perfectly named.
#
Vulture party
bowing formally
to a freshly killed deer.
Big Bend ahead--watching for pterodactyls.
We pass a semi & a deer
jackrabbits in front of us both--
followed by a buzzard, clearly calculating
the angles.
Now a bird
dives for the windshield.
Outbreak of Animal Suicides:
Thousands Flee.
OOPS.
Cindy just bew past a Texas State Trooper going
over 80.
And
he pulls a u-turn.
#
Trooper Turman had the scary trooper sunglasses.
The scary trooper campaign hat.
The scary big ol' gun in a squeaky holster.
He walked up to us looking ten feet tall.
I found myself inexplicably schmoozing him: "Sorry, man.
I'm on book tour--trying to get to Marfa for a radio interview!"
BOOK TOUR, he said. WHAT KIND OF BOOK.
"Novel. I write all kinds of books." Cindy's looking at me
like I've taken drugs. I'm leaning over her to talk out the window.
"I wrote a book about the Border Patrol."
Trooper Turman bends at the waist and peers in at me.
WERE YOU EVER A BORDER PATROL AGENT, he asks.
"Ha! No way! I had to train with them, though! Those boys
gave me a hard time!" I'm squealing like a gerbil right now.
HUH.
He takes Cindy's license and walks back to his car.
"You're talking about books with the trooper," she accuses.
I'm all proud of myself. Then I notice
a huge dragonfly hovering outside my window,
watching us. I suddenly know
God is on our side.
I'M GOING TO LET YOU OFF WITH A WARNING
THIS TIME
BUT WATCH IT
Trooper Turman reluctantly announces.
LET ME GO WRITE IT UP.
He gets back in his car.
"He loves us," I say.
I realize I have a copy of Into the Beautiful North
in the trunk and decide we must give it to him.
"Are you bribing him?" my bride wants to know.
"No! He already let us off. I'm thanking him."
Trooper Turman sits in his scary car and watches us
with bemusement on his face as we frantically dig into the trunk
and go through our bags. Is he wondering if we have a shotgun?
I find the book!
Yay!
I march back to his car and tap on the window.
I comes down slowly and he stares up at me.
YES?
"Here's my new book," I say. "I'd like you to have it."
He stares. He almost smiles.
SIR, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO THAT.
"You didn't have to be so kind, either," I reply.
I borrow his pen so I can sign it.
He takes it and looks at it.
THANK YOU.
"You're welcome."
He turns it over and looks at my picture.
Then he shouts:
YOU'RE HISPANIC?!?
#
We sped off into the water-puddle mirages
on the two-lane blacktop.
8/18/2010
"Me and Cinderella, put it all together,
We can drive it home
With one headlight." --The Wallflowers
#
Up at 4:00, leaving Boston before sunrise.
Grind, grind, grind. Get to Dallas, and Ronnie
drives us to Dallas Morning News offices--
reporters watch the World Cup over my shoulder
as I try to answer their questions.
100 people at my luncheon talk.
One old woman had a Mexican-stroke and
raised a shaking finger at me and shouted
MEXI-KANZ! MEEEEXI-KAAAANZ!
Nobody likes immigration, lady, but I smuggle
illegal aliens all day in my luggage!
Nah, I didn't say that.
Limo saved me from the Wrath of the Queen
and rushed us to the airport.
We slept the 45 minutes to Houston--
did not awaken refreshed.
Hertz only had shite cars. I stared at the hot
Camaros in the lot and wept. Only weird
little boxes w/ no GPS. "But," we argued,
"we're driving across Texas and into New Mexico!"
We were already so bedraggled that the awesome goddess,
Miss Loretta,
snuck us into a rockin' fat bidnessman Altima w
GPS and satellite radio.
Straight to Brazos Books. 50 people. Signed many books.
Dragged over to the affable and frou-frou Zaza Hotel.
So arty it could have been made of chocolate and neon.
Too tired to love it.
Claw-foot bed!
Vibrators in the bedroom. Um....vibrators?
Fell 130 miles
into the bed
and slept
with no dreams.
#
Up. Out of bed. Aching.
Old man shower, feeling sorry
for my body.
Must rush to Austin.
Ludacris
in the hotel lobby
laying the smack down on some
poor concert promoter--
his bodyguards
giving us the stink-eye.
Toddle over to Murder By the Book
to sign copies of Phoenix Noir. (I
accidentally won an Edgar for my story,
"Amapola.")
Whole staff was watching
the world cup.
Freeway.
Starbucks.
Freeway.
ROAD PORN: we passed
a car-carrier with a new Camaro
perched nose-to-nose
with a new Challenger.
Katy, Texas: I see
cows.
Vulture circles over the freeway--
must have heard I was coming.
Hawks hunt the fields
along TX 71.
Fireworks stand: BUY 1,
GET 11 FREE!!!
House in the trees was once
a gas station. Empty
pump stands in front yard
full of bushes. People
from my first novel
would definitely be living there.
Rusty hearse in a field.
Odd:
bridge in segments
for sale beside the highway.
Wait.
Truck driving down the highway
with a friggin' stegasaurus
in the back.
Bar sign:
CINDY'S GONE HOG WILD!
I nudge my bride.
In love with
the little roadside sunflowers.
As usual, super-tight schedule, weird LSD GPS--
poor English woman likes to deliver us to
flower shops, municipal baseball diamonds.
We drive 160 miles blind.
2 radio shows in Ausin chaos.
Favorite Austin bumper sticker:
NOT A ZOMBIE.
Arrived in our beloved Omni hotel.
Upgraded to the world's biggest
executive suite. Jacuzzi! I find
a washing machine in the closet.
Bring me LUNCH! AC. CNN.
4:30 is a Santa Fe NPR interview. 7:00 reading.
I tweet that I love the Omni, and the Omni scares us
by tweeting back that they're happy we like it.
Be careful what you say!
#
McChrystal's melt-down, BP oil spill,
huge laughs radio interview then, oh no,
tornado sirens back in Illinois
and out little one crying in fear
on the phone.
Talk her through it.
Moments of utter helplessness.
Good event at Book People.
Cousin Dave Duty brought his laptop
so we could do a slide show.
Only 20 peeps at the beginning,
but over 50 at the end. Shoppers
kept wandering upstairs to see
what all the laughter was about.
Bought a book of Lucha Libre photos: I am nothing
if not cultured.
#
Couldn't sleep.
Breakfast with Amanda Ayre Ward. Wild woman.
Oops! Got to go to San Antonio!
It didn't take us long to reach--YAHOO--
Snake Farm. You bet:
I got a lovin' thang going on with a hot and depressed pig,
was flashed by a pervert monkey, held a pyton and
choked in the scent of burning hot doo-doo.
PS the monkey, when he was sure we were looking, made his nads
twitch and bounce.
Biker couple in black leather chaps
in 96 degree cloud of humid crap-steam
sat at a picnic table eating ice cream
with little wooden spoons.
#
Twig Bookstore. Lots of cousins.
Lots of Teresita/Saint of Cabora family.
We adjourned to a taco shop
and had an instant family reunion.
Hotel? Um. Our carpet was soaking wet.
Bathroom door was broken.
Found a wad of hair stuck to
the shower curtain.
Wow. Really? It's a nice chain, too.
But we were tired and decided to sleep.
Pinhead, in Hellraiser, threatens:
"Your Suffering Will Be Legendary,
Even In HELL!"
No comment.
In the morning, big scary TX skies.
A full day of driving ahead to get to Marfa and Alpine.
GPS dropped mescaline and thought Starbucks
was in Mexico.
Bumper sticker:
PALIN/JINDAL 2012.
Much coffee.
Hair metal on the radio.
It's our 100th honeymoon.
I heart Texas.
(Part 2 coming soon)
No really, this IS the last chance to vote!
We can drive it home
With one headlight." --The Wallflowers
#
Up at 4:00, leaving Boston before sunrise.
Grind, grind, grind. Get to Dallas, and Ronnie
drives us to Dallas Morning News offices--
reporters watch the World Cup over my shoulder
as I try to answer their questions.
100 people at my luncheon talk.
One old woman had a Mexican-stroke and
raised a shaking finger at me and shouted
MEXI-KANZ! MEEEEXI-KAAAANZ!
Nobody likes immigration, lady, but I smuggle
illegal aliens all day in my luggage!
Nah, I didn't say that.
Limo saved me from the Wrath of the Queen
and rushed us to the airport.
We slept the 45 minutes to Houston--
did not awaken refreshed.
Hertz only had shite cars. I stared at the hot
Camaros in the lot and wept. Only weird
little boxes w/ no GPS. "But," we argued,
"we're driving across Texas and into New Mexico!"
We were already so bedraggled that the awesome goddess,
Miss Loretta,
snuck us into a rockin' fat bidnessman Altima w
GPS and satellite radio.
Straight to Brazos Books. 50 people. Signed many books.
Dragged over to the affable and frou-frou Zaza Hotel.
So arty it could have been made of chocolate and neon.
Too tired to love it.
Claw-foot bed!
Vibrators in the bedroom. Um....vibrators?
Fell 130 miles
into the bed
and slept
with no dreams.
#
Up. Out of bed. Aching.
Old man shower, feeling sorry
for my body.
Must rush to Austin.
Ludacris
in the hotel lobby
laying the smack down on some
poor concert promoter--
his bodyguards
giving us the stink-eye.
Toddle over to Murder By the Book
to sign copies of Phoenix Noir. (I
accidentally won an Edgar for my story,
"Amapola.")
Whole staff was watching
the world cup.
Freeway.
Starbucks.
Freeway.
ROAD PORN: we passed
a car-carrier with a new Camaro
perched nose-to-nose
with a new Challenger.
Katy, Texas: I see
cows.
Vulture circles over the freeway--
must have heard I was coming.
Hawks hunt the fields
along TX 71.
Fireworks stand: BUY 1,
GET 11 FREE!!!
House in the trees was once
a gas station. Empty
pump stands in front yard
full of bushes. People
from my first novel
would definitely be living there.
Rusty hearse in a field.
Odd:
bridge in segments
for sale beside the highway.
Wait.
Truck driving down the highway
with a friggin' stegasaurus
in the back.
Bar sign:
CINDY'S GONE HOG WILD!
I nudge my bride.
In love with
the little roadside sunflowers.
As usual, super-tight schedule, weird LSD GPS--
poor English woman likes to deliver us to
flower shops, municipal baseball diamonds.
We drive 160 miles blind.
2 radio shows in Ausin chaos.
Favorite Austin bumper sticker:
NOT A ZOMBIE.
Arrived in our beloved Omni hotel.
Upgraded to the world's biggest
executive suite. Jacuzzi! I find
a washing machine in the closet.
Bring me LUNCH! AC. CNN.
4:30 is a Santa Fe NPR interview. 7:00 reading.
I tweet that I love the Omni, and the Omni scares us
by tweeting back that they're happy we like it.
Be careful what you say!
#
McChrystal's melt-down, BP oil spill,
huge laughs radio interview then, oh no,
tornado sirens back in Illinois
and out little one crying in fear
on the phone.
Talk her through it.
Moments of utter helplessness.
Good event at Book People.
Cousin Dave Duty brought his laptop
so we could do a slide show.
Only 20 peeps at the beginning,
but over 50 at the end. Shoppers
kept wandering upstairs to see
what all the laughter was about.
Bought a book of Lucha Libre photos: I am nothing
if not cultured.
#
Couldn't sleep.
Breakfast with Amanda Ayre Ward. Wild woman.
Oops! Got to go to San Antonio!
It didn't take us long to reach--YAHOO--
Snake Farm. You bet:
I got a lovin' thang going on with a hot and depressed pig,
was flashed by a pervert monkey, held a pyton and
choked in the scent of burning hot doo-doo.
PS the monkey, when he was sure we were looking, made his nads
twitch and bounce.
Biker couple in black leather chaps
in 96 degree cloud of humid crap-steam
sat at a picnic table eating ice cream
with little wooden spoons.
#
Twig Bookstore. Lots of cousins.
Lots of Teresita/Saint of Cabora family.
We adjourned to a taco shop
and had an instant family reunion.
Hotel? Um. Our carpet was soaking wet.
Bathroom door was broken.
Found a wad of hair stuck to
the shower curtain.
Wow. Really? It's a nice chain, too.
But we were tired and decided to sleep.
Pinhead, in Hellraiser, threatens:
"Your Suffering Will Be Legendary,
Even In HELL!"
No comment.
In the morning, big scary TX skies.
A full day of driving ahead to get to Marfa and Alpine.
GPS dropped mescaline and thought Starbucks
was in Mexico.
Bumper sticker:
PALIN/JINDAL 2012.
Much coffee.
Hair metal on the radio.
It's our 100th honeymoon.
I heart Texas.
(Part 2 coming soon)
8/17/2010
Please vote for Luis in One Book, One San Diego! Voting closes tomorrow and the one thing he'd love for his birthday, is the chance to celebrate in his hometown!
It's easy to vote and you don't have to live in San Diego. Click here or go to www.kpbs.org/one-book to register and make your choice.
Thanks for your support and enthusiasm. It means so much to both of us!
XOXO
Cindy
Arizona Lamentation
It's easy to vote and you don't have to live in San Diego. Click here or go to www.kpbs.org/one-book to register and make your choice.
Thanks for your support and enthusiasm. It means so much to both of us!
XOXO
Cindy
8/05/2010
We were happy here before they came.
This was always Odin's garden,
a pure white place.
Cradle of Saxons,
birthplace of Norsemen.
No Mexican was ever born here
until their racial hatred and envy
forced us to build a border fence.
But they kept coming.
There were never Apache Villages here--
we never saw these Navajos, Papagos,
Yaquis. It's a lie. Until their wagons
kept coming and coming. And their soldiers.
We worshipped at the great god's tree.
We had something good here.
We had family values and clean sidewalks.
Until those savages kept coming, took our dream
and colored it.
AZ SB1070
Last chance to vote!
This was always Odin's garden,
a pure white place.
Cradle of Saxons,
birthplace of Norsemen.
No Mexican was ever born here
until their racial hatred and envy
forced us to build a border fence.
But they kept coming.
There were never Apache Villages here--
we never saw these Navajos, Papagos,
Yaquis. It's a lie. Until their wagons
kept coming and coming. And their soldiers.
We worshipped at the great god's tree.
We had something good here.
We had family values and clean sidewalks.
Until those savages kept coming, took our dream
and colored it.
AZ SB1070
This is Cindy, hijacking Luis's blog before we head out for Squaw Valley in the morning.
Into the Beautiful North is one of three finalists for San Diego's One Book program. Right now, Luis is trailing in the voting, which seems unbelievable for a local boy who's written a book all about San Diego and Tijuana and the people who have most inspired his work. So I'm thinking maybe not everybody knows to vote!
Anybody can vote in this poll, you don't have to live in San Diego. Click here or go to www.kpbs.org/one-book/ to vote. The voting closes Aug. 9 so you have just a few days left. If you've already voted, it's OK to vote again!
All three books are incredibly worthy selections; KPBS and the San Diego Library did a great job of putting together a list. But we've had so much fun at one-city-one-book reads in other places, that we're really excited about the type of events we could put together if Luis comes home!
Thanks for your help!
The Road Goes on Forever
Into the Beautiful North is one of three finalists for San Diego's One Book program. Right now, Luis is trailing in the voting, which seems unbelievable for a local boy who's written a book all about San Diego and Tijuana and the people who have most inspired his work. So I'm thinking maybe not everybody knows to vote!
Anybody can vote in this poll, you don't have to live in San Diego. Click here or go to www.kpbs.org/one-book/ to vote. The voting closes Aug. 9 so you have just a few days left. If you've already voted, it's OK to vote again!
All three books are incredibly worthy selections; KPBS and the San Diego Library did a great job of putting together a list. But we've had so much fun at one-city-one-book reads in other places, that we're really excited about the type of events we could put together if Luis comes home!
Thanks for your help!
8/02/2010
"I've been gone away so long..." Chris Whitley
Three weeks of non-stop book tour, 48 hours to do laundry and pack, three weeks in England with a side trip to Paris. Home for ten days to try to work before going to Squaw Valley to turn my profoundly burned brain toward workshops...before my birthday...and school starting...and the Fall touring season kicks in. I've tried to keep some record of the journeys on Facebook and Twitter. Busy, busy, busy.
I hope to post some tour goodies here. Some sketches and impressions. Those of you who have read this blog for a while know that I have this little prose-sketch style I like on the road. I call these "Wastelanders." Did about six books' worth this time. Don't worry, I won't bomb you with all of them.
It was interesting, driving across Texas. My pally the Christian rock rebel Rick Elias is playing Marfa right now. I was there a few weeks ago. Small world. But when you're road dogs, you walk in each other's shadow.
#
We were slamming along the hiway from San Antonio to Alpine. All you big tea bag fans of SB 1070--if you feel the US aint guardin the border real good from friggin beaners, you ought to travel that hiway sometime. Dang. I haven't seen that many Border Patrol guys...ever. BP was everywhere. They were even cutting drags along the side of the hiway just like in Devil's Highway. They stopped us and set the sniffer dogs on the car to see if we had anything juicy. We didn't. White trucks like small glaciers on fried carmine desert peaks. Helicopters. Dudes in Terminator head gear appearing out of the bushes on ATVs.
So, off we went, doing about 81, and a Texas State Trooper caught us. But somehow, instead of writing us a ticket, he ended up talking with us about books. It was a really great meeting, out there in the desert wind. The whole time this grace descended upon us, a huge dragonfly hovered outside my car window, staring. I was trying to watch it and the trooper at the same time. I felt like The Hummingbird's Daughter is still IN DA HOUSE.
#
Out beside the Pecos River, at the west end of the high bridge out there, we once stumbled upon an abandoned building. Motel? Gas station? Don't know. It was all amazing stuff--Cinderella and I were on our first big car trip then, and we parked on the Pecos bridge and walked out into the middle and kissed. Who says life can't be like a Joe Ely song?
We were scared by the abandoned building. It was full of bones. Every room was one foot, two feet dep in big bones. There was a stained mattress in there. And panties spiked to the wall with huge nails. Gulp.
We passed that wicked li'l joint again this year. But were were going like Mad Max and didn't stop this time. It was weirdly exhilarating to see it again, to wonder at its dark rich stinky bounty inside. When I got home, I looked up my old notes about it. You see, there was poetry and...stuff...on the walls. Here's what the walls said back in 1996:
Bursack
Eric
Spytko
66
In Life The Living And The Dead
Dwell In One Another's Arms
Only the Sand's Shift
Between Them.
Time Is An Oasis.
BULLDOGS.
Travelers Come Past You
And Move Away.
But Nothing Changes.
Viet-Nam.
3rd Here.
Kill Dan.
USMC.
When was I born?
Where did I come from?
Where am I going?
What am I?
"The Hopi Questions"
Smith
Tae Kwon Do
Rules
I'm Going Only
Where I
Desire
Fast Eddie
Pony Boy
Szpytko
I'll Chaneg Highways In a While
At The Crossroads
One more mile.
My path is lit by my own
FIRE.
ON THE ROAD I HAVE
TAKEN,
ONE DAY WALKING, I AWAKEN
AMAZED TO SEE
WHERE I HAVE COME
WHERE I'M GOING
WHERE I FROM
Headhuntasz
#
One more page of the American poem, etched in the night, somewhere out there, along the howling Pecos gorge, in a white room full of ghosts, torn panties, old blood, and bones. Glimpsed for a second, while pushing books like vaccuum cleaners upon strangers in the heat.
Joes said it best: "The road goes on forever, the party never ends...."
Love, L
Three weeks of non-stop book tour, 48 hours to do laundry and pack, three weeks in England with a side trip to Paris. Home for ten days to try to work before going to Squaw Valley to turn my profoundly burned brain toward workshops...before my birthday...and school starting...and the Fall touring season kicks in. I've tried to keep some record of the journeys on Facebook and Twitter. Busy, busy, busy.
I hope to post some tour goodies here. Some sketches and impressions. Those of you who have read this blog for a while know that I have this little prose-sketch style I like on the road. I call these "Wastelanders." Did about six books' worth this time. Don't worry, I won't bomb you with all of them.
It was interesting, driving across Texas. My pally the Christian rock rebel Rick Elias is playing Marfa right now. I was there a few weeks ago. Small world. But when you're road dogs, you walk in each other's shadow.
#
We were slamming along the hiway from San Antonio to Alpine. All you big tea bag fans of SB 1070--if you feel the US aint guardin the border real good from friggin beaners, you ought to travel that hiway sometime. Dang. I haven't seen that many Border Patrol guys...ever. BP was everywhere. They were even cutting drags along the side of the hiway just like in Devil's Highway. They stopped us and set the sniffer dogs on the car to see if we had anything juicy. We didn't. White trucks like small glaciers on fried carmine desert peaks. Helicopters. Dudes in Terminator head gear appearing out of the bushes on ATVs.
So, off we went, doing about 81, and a Texas State Trooper caught us. But somehow, instead of writing us a ticket, he ended up talking with us about books. It was a really great meeting, out there in the desert wind. The whole time this grace descended upon us, a huge dragonfly hovered outside my car window, staring. I was trying to watch it and the trooper at the same time. I felt like The Hummingbird's Daughter is still IN DA HOUSE.
#
Out beside the Pecos River, at the west end of the high bridge out there, we once stumbled upon an abandoned building. Motel? Gas station? Don't know. It was all amazing stuff--Cinderella and I were on our first big car trip then, and we parked on the Pecos bridge and walked out into the middle and kissed. Who says life can't be like a Joe Ely song?
We were scared by the abandoned building. It was full of bones. Every room was one foot, two feet dep in big bones. There was a stained mattress in there. And panties spiked to the wall with huge nails. Gulp.
We passed that wicked li'l joint again this year. But were were going like Mad Max and didn't stop this time. It was weirdly exhilarating to see it again, to wonder at its dark rich stinky bounty inside. When I got home, I looked up my old notes about it. You see, there was poetry and...stuff...on the walls. Here's what the walls said back in 1996:
Bursack
Eric
Spytko
66
In Life The Living And The Dead
Dwell In One Another's Arms
Only the Sand's Shift
Between Them.
Time Is An Oasis.
BULLDOGS.
Travelers Come Past You
And Move Away.
But Nothing Changes.
Viet-Nam.
3rd Here.
Kill Dan.
USMC.
When was I born?
Where did I come from?
Where am I going?
What am I?
"The Hopi Questions"
Smith
Tae Kwon Do
Rules
I'm Going Only
Where I
Desire
Fast Eddie
Pony Boy
Szpytko
I'll Chaneg Highways In a While
At The Crossroads
One more mile.
My path is lit by my own
FIRE.
ON THE ROAD I HAVE
TAKEN,
ONE DAY WALKING, I AWAKEN
AMAZED TO SEE
WHERE I HAVE COME
WHERE I'M GOING
WHERE I FROM
Headhuntasz
#
One more page of the American poem, etched in the night, somewhere out there, along the howling Pecos gorge, in a white room full of ghosts, torn panties, old blood, and bones. Glimpsed for a second, while pushing books like vaccuum cleaners upon strangers in the heat.
Joes said it best: "The road goes on forever, the party never ends...."
Love, L
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