Year: 2011

I see a Mayflower truck out there right now. Hooray! I mean, “Bon voyage”! http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

There is a violent gardener in my neighborhood. Call him Mister Green Fist. He put a defeatist sign up in front of his victory garden. The sign (which faces a busy thoroughfare) warns that he’ll “beat the crap” out of anyone who messes with his flowers. Will upload a photo of that sign when I work up the courage to take a snapshot. Speaking of wickedness and extreme gardening, I am eager to go see Amy Stewart, bestselling author of Wicked Plants, when she arrives in Capitola to read from her new book, Wicked Bugs, on Wednesday June 8 at the Book Cafe. The talk begins at 7:30 p.m. I didn’t realize that Ms. Stewart is a former Santa Cruzan. For the sake of this book, she tracked down 100 of our most horrifying bug enemies, from disease-vector flies to bugs that can turn entire libraries into mulch. Stewart’s books…

I’ve read so many memoirs that skirt around issues like race, class, family dynamics and the “prestige track,” the rut that can trap aspiring editors and authors into low-paying but impressive and privileged positions. Ben Ryder Howe’s My Korean Deli jumps into these issues right from the beginning. Here’s what happens when an author and editor refuses to get off the prestige track altogether (he refuses to abdicate his low-paying position at the Paris Review) even while taking an extreme step toward possible financial independence (he and various in-laws pool their resources to buy a delicatessen in Brooklyn.) As the book progresses, you can see the author struggling to maintain his footholds in the store and at the magazine — an increasingly difficult task, as you’ll see. I did not know that an author could extract so much narrative juice from store ownership. If you think it looks like a…

Since moving back to Santa Cruz, I’ve added a new tradition to my life: heading up the hill, jostling for parking, and making my way to the UCSC student Print Sale, which is coming up next Friday. Some of the stuff is dirt cheap. Other stuff is quite expensive. All profits go to the artists. They have all kinds of handmade books, posters, children’s illustrations, portraits and lithographs. Last year I saw pictures of bristlecones, moths, Easter Island heads, dancing bears, possessed clowns, and recreated old-time California maps. Last year I bought a wood-block print showing five owls standing in the crook of a moonlit yew tree. It’s hanging above me as I write this. Below the owls, there are five dangling ribbons with an inscription running across them in French. I have no idea what it means. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Here are a few new or new-ish books that you — both of you — might like. Stewart O’Nan’s Emily, Alone is marvelous. In this slender book, old people live in an in-between world. Just driving across town — braving roundabouts, moving in and out of tight garages in a big clunky boat of a car — is an Odyssey in itself. Emily, the title character, lives in a crooked piece of time. She’s trying hard to hold on to her routine, her memories, and her vitality. At the same time, she’s moving toward resignation. At one point in the story, Emily is filling out holiday cards, a task she despises but can’t bring herself to give up. She glances at her address book and notices a near-perfect split between the list of friends who are still alive and those who died years ago, or moved away. It’s just one…

If you’ve never been to Nisene Marks, get in your car and go there now. It just rained, and the place is oozing with giant banana slugs — skinny ones, fat ones, short ones, curly ones, straight ones, green ones, yellow ones, old ones, baby ones. I was only there for an hour, and I saw 25 of these slime-covored creatures without trying. Strange that I saw exactly that number, considering this is the 25th anniversary of Sammy the Slug, the mascot over at UC Santa Cruz. Coincidence? Yes. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

On Cinco de Mayo, one of neighbors got really drunk, staggered out into the street and began to shout a list of specific grievances to his housemates. Since I couldn’t sleep anyhow (he woke me up at 1:55 in the morning with his shrieking, bellowing and sidewalk stomping), I took out a pen and wrote down his rantings, verbatim. Here is his list of grievances: 1. His friends are insensitive to his needs.2. His friends (male as well as female) refuse to touch him in affectionate ways. He was especially concerned that his housemates touch each other’s knees during conversations but rarely if ever touch him on the knee. In fact he cannot remember “one freaking time” when they’ve touched him on the knee.3. His friends rarely hug him.3. He has low self-esteem. His friends are responsible for his lack of self esteem. The lack of knee-touching and hugs makes…

Hoping you will have kind words and perhaps some canned cling peaches with syrup for Free Range Amelia, who is representing for Santa Cruz on the Pacific Crest Trail this year. She’s doing a full-on through hike and should be arriving in Campo soon. My impression is that Free Range Amelia can throw down quite a lot of miles per day so you’ll have to keep up as best you can. She will update this journal regularly. This blog post has been amended to remove the word “GORP.” Gorp is disgusting. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I just found out about this free Web application that lets you blast white noise through your computer or iPhone. By the way, if you’re a Pacific Crest Trail hiker, you’re out there hiking with an iPhone, and you want to drown out your chatty trail companions, you might want to think about this, too. Just put on those headphones and put the volume on full blast. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

O.K. That’s enough about the goose for now. Here’s the rest of the series. I’m staking out my parking spot; don’t swoop me. Scroll down to the bottom for the full schedule. Why didn’t someone tell me there was a typo in here? (pictured: Aimee Bender) May 5Jessica Hagedorn May 12Aimee Bender May 26Neo Benshi, Roxi Power Hamilton, Jen Hofer and Konrad Steiner Here is the full schedule. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default