My recipe for ‘ugly latkes’

I know this blog has run its course, but Chanukah and Thanksgiving won’t coincide again until about 25,000 years. By then, we’ll all have four brains and gills like Kevin Costner in Waterworld. Maybe we won’t even have tastebuds. Truly, it’s now or never. Hope you like this recipe. And remember, cook the hell out of them!  Douse them in oil and fry them until they can take no more. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

My new book, and mothballed until further notice

I am temporarily mothballing the Cactuseaters blog as I gear up for my second book, which is now under contract with HarperCollins. The working title is Soaked to the Bone: 15,000 Years of American Camping, and should be in your hands by 2016 I hope. I will try to update this from time to time, but meanwhile, I have embedded my Twitter feed in the right hand corner of this blog so I can at least keep you up to date about new adventures, etc. I am contemplating a new website built around the upcoming book project. And, if you are seeking information on The Cactus Eaters, here are reviews and related links, and here is the recently updated Frequently Asked Questions link.  Meanwhile, please take a look at forthcoming issues of Catamaran for my essays about — and interviews with — T.C. Boyle, Lawrence Weschler, Helene Wecker, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and others. By…

Writers who won’t quit: responses to “The Man in the Shoebox”

Hi everyone. I found a couple of lovely pieces inspired by my Poets & Writers piece from last fall. I loved reading these, and here they are, from The Heart of the Memoir and Pam Parker. I would send you a link to my story, too, but I can’t because it’s behind a paywall, but perhaps at some point I’ll figure out a way to put up a link here. Anyway, it was an honor to read these, and sorry to be tardy about linking to your stories on my blog. I almost never check up on online responses to anything I write (and if you have read my story in Poets & Writers, you’ll know why I only look once or twice a year!!) Also, it was fun to see a mention of Annie Dillard in The Heart of the Memoir; she was one of my teachers a long…

Now in bookstores nationwide (and in Canada)! Latest issue of Catamaran is hot off the presses

I’m hoping you’re all getting your hands on the latest issue of Catamaran (which is analog-only, by the way, and you’ll see why when you get your hands on the magazine. Reading it is a very tactile experience.**) And thank you to all the great feedback and messages about the new issue. Catherine Segurson did a beautiful job with the design and layout; you will not find a more beautiful-looking lit magazine anywhere. Here is a brief excerpt of my interview with Lawrence Weschler, “Convergences, Chance Discoveries, and Going Back to Kindergarten,” featured in our summer issue. Weschler has been a staff writer for the New Yorker, and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Of late he has directed the New York Institute for Humanities at NYU. Here he is describing an ongoing artistic disagreement between the artists Robert…

Images from the Pacific Crest Trail

in light of my recent return to the PCT, I thought I’d post some shots (new and vintage) and some illustrations and cartoons from various locations on and around the trail. Here goes. And by the way, I am so impressed by this new generation of clean, well-scrubbed trail hikers. As you can see, when I hiked the PCT, I did not place much of a premium on cleanliness at all. I’ve scrambled the sequence to test the memories of all you trail obsessives. (Do you think you can identify the various forests and mountains where these pictures were taken?)  If you’re a true PCT old timer, you surely remember the kind-hearted, porkpie-hat-wearing fellow who appears in two of these pictures … http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

My return to the Pacific Crest Trail (and I just saw a big fat bear!!!)

Happy to report that I returned to the PCT for the first time in a very long time, and I had the chance to meet five through hikers and talk to them for a little while. Four were polite but slightly grumpy and tired looking — probably because they are lugging 50 pounds of pack weight across the mountains! Oh man. My back ached just looking at all that pack weight. I met another through-hiker near the San Joaquin River. He was carrying very little, his pack looked really light — and he was smiling like he was having the time of his life! Anyways, it sure was great to meet all those hikers. I told them all that I was a PCT walker, class of ’93 and ’94. By the way, I found it really strange that none of the hikers had seen a bear at all when I…

A chomp-induced hiatus from blogging, and a message to all Pacific Crest Trail hikers

Hi everyone. I’m a little out of sorts after being chomped by an exotic, long-necked Gruiform and getting a tetanus shot, which has made me rather sleepy over the past 24 hours, so I’ll check in with you all a bit later on. On top of this, I am annoyed about the fact that this blog (from what I hear) keeps getting traffic from online porn sites (!!!) If you are scanning through this blog in search of online pornographic stuff, you have come to the wrong place, my friend. Nothing all that racy here, unless you’re turned on by pictures of cookies, wildflowers, scenery, etc. Also, if you are out there just setting off on the Pacific Crest Trail, heading northward down in Southern California, here is some second-hand advice, pulled straight from the pages of my first book. (when I say ‘second hand,’ I mean to say that…

At long last, a new Cactuseaters format for the 21st century (?)

If you’re so inclined, here is my Twitter feed. I’m a latecomer to this thing because my blog posts are so short anyway that it felt kind of redundant. Some of you have complained that you can’t figure out how to get onto my Twitter feed. Will try to figure out a way to make it scroll across the top of the blog like a news alert. Far from having figured that out just yet. Here it is. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Coming soon from Catamaran Literary Reader: a conversation with Lawrence Weschler

The other day I had an hourlong phone conversation with one of my favorite creative nonfiction authors, Lawrence Weschler. We talked about everything from the “uncanny valley” of digital animation to the grisly fate of the legendary Cameroonian stink ant (see above) and the creative interplay between the artists Robert Irwin and David Hockney. It felt more like a real conversation than an interview, and that’s what I liked about it. Anyhow, you’ll  get to read all about it in the upcoming issue of Catamaran. As a matter of fact, I just might publish a few outtakes from the talk (the original transcription came in at more than 6,000 words (!!) at some future date.  There were some gems that wound up in the cast-off box.  I don’t want to suppress them for too long. In other news, I am taking a wilderness survival course this weekend at UCSC in preparation…

Think twice before renting a Victorian in San Francisco (especially if you have little kids)

In honor of Mother’s Day this Sunday, Amy Ettinger agreed to be a guest on Lead Free SF’s web forum, speaking to San Francisco parents on a “mom to mom” level about the dangers of lead paint. (Don’t expect SF landlords to come clean about their lead situations. Our chatterbox of a landlord could not stop crowing about the apartment’s history and every element of its construction, but he somehow ‘forgot’ to mention there was no lead abatement whatsoever…) The second we realized there was a problem, we hired up a moving truck and cleared out of SF. Fortunately, Santa Cruz was waiting for us! Here is that link. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default