Year: 2011

This just in: the Board of Supervisors in Pima County, Ariz., have voted unanimously to rename an Arizona desert trailhead after Gabe Zimmerman, the hard-working, socially conscious UCSC grad who died in the Jan. 8 shootings at a “Congress On Your Corner” event in Tucson, Arizona. The trail travels from the Cienega Creek Natural Preserve to the Arizona Trail. The supervisors also voted to rename the Cañada del Oro linear river park for Christina-Taylor Green, the 9-year-old girl who also died in the attack. Markers along the Zimmerman trailhead will also honor other victims of the attack. Read more here. [Photo courtesy of Ross Zimmerman.] http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Thanks to everyone who showed up for Saturday’s grand event. I couldn’t have hoped for more. Sorry I lied about serving chocolate cupcakes. Technically, it wasn’t a deliberate untruth; I just changed my mind at the last minute. (See previous blog entry about cupcake imbroglio.) Anyhow, we lucked out on the weather, the bench and everything else. Hope to see you all again soon. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

And meanwhile, here’s a really important news story you might have missed because it happened in Wales, a place where people take their baked goods seriously. . http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Thank you for all the “Yes” responses. Keep in mind that we’ll go indoors if the weather does not cooperate. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

One month and counting. I’ve booked my travel plans, made lodging arrangements and ordered the chicken. Everything is set in place. There is still time for you to register for Literary Orange… but you’d better do it quickly. The spots are starting to fill up. T. Jefferson Parker will speak there. So will Ron Hansen, me, and many other folks. The conference will, unfortunately, not take place in a building shaped like a giant orange. (see photo.) http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Problem solved. The robot shall rise again soon. I think I typed the wrong stuff into the “TEMPLATE” function on my blog. Somehow, stuff got scrambled. It is almost unscrambled now. Stay tuned for a Q and A with an award-winning fictioneer, a Literary Orange update … and more. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Having technical difficulties. Back soon. (I found this busted robot photo on zagart.com) http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

The other day, I made my way through the crowds of people picking over the remains of the local downtown Borders book store. I saw a floor manager standing near the entrance, and told him I was sad to hear the store was closing. As I spoke to him, I remembered the huge to-do about this store when it opened: protests, recriminations, nervousness. There was a lot of worry that Borders would become an overwhelming force driving out all indie bookshops. Now it turns out that Borders itself is a casualty of more overwhelming market forces. Read more of the story here. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

If you’re heading downtown, there’s a guy standing on the corner of Cooper and Pacific, singing folk songs at the top of his lungs and looking forlorn. His guitar case is open for spare change, and he’s got a sign asking people to give him whatever they can spare. “Expensive girlfriend,” the sign says. “Anything helps.” http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

On a rainy night in downtown Santa Cruz, a dozen UCSC students, most of them math and hard-sciences majors, gathered in a church meeting room. No one wore nerdy bifocals or carried slide rulers in their pockets. No one talked about proofs, conjunctions, flash points, or continuously differentiable functions. They were too busy staring into each other’s eyes with expressions of longing as they performed tango, the sultry dance that began in the working class districts of Argentina more than a century ago. Read the rest of this story right here. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default