Author: Dan White

I know my three readers keep checking for new content (I can see you from here). I am working on a piece about my journey to Los Angeles, but meanwhile here is an interesting profile. Also, in the unlikely event that you’ve never heard of them, I love these literary blogs: The Millions, Bookslut, and The Rumpus. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

This just in. Someone just sent me a link to a preview about a movie starring Martin Sheen, and directed by his son, Emilio Estevez (remember Repo Man?) concerning a certain famous long-distance hiking trail. But it’s not about the PCT, and it’s not about the Appalachian Trail, either. If you’re all out of guesses, go ahead and watch the trailer. Anyhow, if you’re reading this, and you feel like making a movie out of you-know-what, you know how to reach me. Forgot to mention that three Hollywood screenwriters contacted me when it first came out, hoping to get it made into a movie, but I guess these things take time. And lots of financing, too. Anyhow, you have to wonder if this is going to be first in a pack of “do the trail” movies, or if it’s just a one-off. I think long-distance trails would be good movie…

… just for a little while. Please send me your dining recommendations. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I hope you all had a good trip. I honestly think you’ll enjoy Family Fang by Kevin Wilson. Deadpan, sometimes blood-curling, surprisingly good-humored. Performance art and fame are the “lenses” into loopy family life. The potato-gun scene is an all-time classic. Can’t get enough of Lynda Barry’s Picture This, which brings me back to the days of purposeless (and therefore blissful) creation. It is, mostly, a picture book but I think you will like it anyhow. I’ve read it three times so far. I also read Robin Black’s If I Loved You I Would Tell You This with admiration. Aside from that, I’m pretty fired up about One Day I Will Write About This Place, by Binyavanga Wainana, which I’ve only just started. Anyhow, I hope you brought us back some Hungarian sausages and perhaps a few containers of stroopwafels. I’m hungry right now; I could really eat them. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Normally, I hesitate to brag about the achievements of writing friends because it makes me feel a bit like Cartman in the South Park Movie: “Yes, that’s right, I saw the Terrance and Phillip movie. Now who wants to touch me?” But I’ll make an exception in this case, because it’s a great story and I want you to read it. The name of the story is “Someone I’d Like You To Meet.” The author is Santa Cruz’s own Elizabeth McKenzie, who is a Kresge lecturer at UCSC. Here is the story, right here. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Um … I never have any idea if people are actually reading this blog unless I erase something accidentally, and then, suddenly, I get lots of complaints. Sorry. I will try to restore the things I erased by mistake. Must have pressed the wrong darned button. By the way, someone just asked me to publish this goofy link about massaging cats properly. Wow — I had no idea there were time-tested techniques for such a thing. To be honest, I think this link is kind of weird, although I thought the feline facial exfoliation part was pretty hilarious. By the way, I used to have a “spyware” program that gave me IPO addresses of people who read this blog regularly and told me where the “hits” are coming from but I got bored with it so I unsubscribed. In other words, I have no way of knowing who is tuning…

Jay Kang (an outstanding writer whose first book will be coming out next year) penned this sad, thought-provoking essay about the late Amy Winehouse. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Here is the snazzy cover for that upcoming book (I like the tassels hanging out of it like little tongues) and a link to some info about the content. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I love reading books (and writing) and yet I found this Bill Keller article perversely comforting, especially the part about making bail. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Sir John Falstaff is a boozer, a braggart, and a womanizing slob. He claims he can fight 50 men at a time, but flees from any hint of danger. He says his waistline was once as slender as an eagle’s talon. Now his stomach threatens to pop out of his shirt. Still, he’s very fond of himself. Falstaff is one of Shakespeare’s richest characters, but the great playwright had surprisingly little to say about his costume, or the clothes of any other character. How would such a vain and dissipated man dress himself? What would those clothes say about Falstaff’s past, his view of himself, and how he wants others to see him? Such questions drive costume designer B. Modern as she puts together the clothes for Shakespeare Santa Cruz’s upcoming production of Henry IV, Part One, which opens August 5 at the Mainstage Theater on campus. Read the full…