More Burning Man

Masked Woman at the Black Rock City Airport, 2004. Strange flowers bloom on the playa. Burning creates new growth. The man burns Saturday. The temple burns Sunday. This year the windmill burns, too.
Mutant vehicles criss cross the playa. Art blooms. Music pounds. The lamplighters don't want us to curse the darkness. Booze flows. God, it's great fun and spiritually cleansing. Why aren't you there?

Burning Man or Bouchercon

This is one vehicle from the DPW parade in 2002. Gee, don't you wish your DPW looked this good? Bet its pot-bellied guys in overalls, with attitude.

These ladies also have attitude. Note the desert and the mountains and the sky. What a great place to get in touch with the inner you.

Off to Bouchercon

I'm off to Bouchercon, which is the Biggest Mystery Convention in the U.S. It's a collection of fans, writers, agents, editors, booksellers and all the people who make up the world of written mysteries. This my first Bouchercon and I'm very excited. I'm even on a panel, and Rue Morgue is selling my books. The advertising materials, post cards and book marks (really cool bookmarks) are packed, and the wardrobe selections have been made. Business cards printed. Cat care arranged, and all those endless details that make you wonder whether going out of town is ever worth it. Once you get there, it usually is.

My heart is really at Burning Man in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada this weekend, but one can't be two places at once, and the man will burn without me. Next year, it's back to the heat, dust, creativity and craziness of that big playa in Nevada. I'm going through withdrawal, and it isn't pretty. So here's a picture to let you know what I'm missing. The Globe had a big article in Sunday's Travel. Boo hoo.

The Football Fathers

On my evening commute, I drive by a grade school that has a practice football field. It's really a hillside, not flat at all, and I don't know why the boys practice there, except for maybe there isn't anywhere else. This is a blue collar town without amenities. Practice begins the first of August. Last year, the boys looked young, maybe 7th grade. This year, they appear older and bigger and even stronger.

A few fathers hang out to watch the practice. Last season, they hung back, standing on the sidewalk, watching from afar, but their focus and concentration on the team and, I suspect, their sons, was intense. This year, they collect in a little group at the bottom of the field. Their demeanor still seems wistful, even in the intensity of their interest. The dashed hopes and expectations for themselves have been translated into hopes for these kids. It's a completely different thing from Moms hanging out watching softball or tennis. To me, the dads appear more vulnerable, somehow sad.

Random thoughts while driving. If you read this blog, you'll recognize that I like to think and observe on the way to and from work. This is life and you have to look around and be a little involved. But maybe not so much as the football fathers.

Aloha

Grapeshot

Dinner is served

These critters provide us with a lot of pleasure. The calf's tail wags a mile a minute.

The Cows versus The Cats

The cows are content in their bovine stolidity. Even the young calf knows her place, which is by the side of her mother and within the little herd. Sure, they reach under the fence for the extra fresh grass, but it is truly greener. The mother hogs the food from the two younger cows, (one must be a young but not mature bull), but she needs food to produce milk for the calf, and no one seems bent out of shape. They enjoy the extra treat of fruit and veggie scraps once a week, and come running, but I have the feeling they don't stand around wondering "where the hell is she?" The cows are content with grass, shade, and water. They don't even seem to mind the flies.

The cats are another case. Thisbe, the younger, fatter one has needs. In the morning when I pad down into the kitchen, she follows me from her spot on the little rug next to the bed. Meow, meow. There is not enough food in the dish. Meow, meow, my water dish is low. Meow, meow, I would like my catnip, now. Meow, please pet me. Meow, meow, let me into the garage to roll on the concrete. Meow, I am bored, please pet some more. Meow, I would like a fresh grey toy mouse. Meow, please open the front door; I want to look at the yard and the street and especially the birds and the chipmunk that steals the bird food. Meow. Will you please brush me?

Such a small (fat) critter and so opinionated. Kind of like some people we know.

Aloha,

Grapeshot

Is Turnabout Fair Play?

When they send form rejection letters, agents address me as "Dear Author." Does that mean I am permitted to query them as "Dear Agent."

I wonder.

Grapeshot

La-di-da with a slice of lime.

Two Bloody Idiots

I am idiot number one. Those who read this blog regularly (all two of you) know that I have a great fondness for the Scottish Highland Cattle who inhabit a pasture nearby. They get blogged periodically and photographed often and I'm like a ga-ga grandma when a new calf arrives. Weekly I schlep one or two bags of fruit and vegetable scraps to the pasture and feed the cows. Mostly, they come runnning when they see me, unless the day is hot and the shade too tempting. Like today. So there am I with my bag of stuff, some of it none too fresh by now, waving it in the air and whistling at the cows who are deep into the shade. The big mama raises her head and stares at me for a few minutes. No baby in sight but I do see the baby from last August who had been isolated from the others this week and who I was afraid had been sold into cow slavery. He and the "shy" cow looked at me but didn't budge. I'm whistling and waving the garbage bag like (sic) a bloody idiot. Finally I start to heave lettuce cores, orange peels (yum!) and bits of produce into the pasture. Mama takes notice and moves a few steps out of the shade. The other two stand up. Progress. More waving and tossing and whistling. At last they are coming. Not a stampede, but steady progress. The baby finally breaks into a gallop. He/she has started eating people food. He spurns the scallion tops but eats a piece of lettuce. Finally they are at the fence. Cucumber not to their liking. Lettuce and orange peel gobbled up. Flies omnipresent. Mama is always mean to last year's baby. Not her calf. Finally they wander back to the shade, but I have delivered the food scraps and the food scraps are gone.

Second bloody idiot. This morning, we are leaving the health club, and I have hefted almost 8000 pounds and deserves a decent breakfast, none of this cereal with skim milk and a few little dribbles of fruit stuff. Significant other mentions home fries. I remind him that the yummy cakes we used to buy in Chicago can't be found in New England. Still, the taste buds quiver. We debate going into the (nameless) supermarket close to our gym, because there is invariably a hassle of some kind at the check out line. Sunday at 11:30 a.m. Who could there be?

At the frozen food aisle, we care barely find frozen home fries, never mind the nice little cakes that serve two and also serve as portion control for middle-aged waistlines. Seems to be mostly french fries and weird stuff that you put into a toaster. What kind of crap potatoes would that produce? We settle on the only home fries. To the check out line with our potatoes and 4 plums at .88 per pound, such a deal.

Three people ahead of us. The man (no gentleman) checking out has either 11 or 12 items in the 10 item line. I feel a curmudgeonly churlishness coming on. This is bad enough, then he whips out a checkbook and the clerk has to find someone to approve the check. Wait wait wait. What I want to do it take his photo and tell him he is under symbolic arrest as today's checkout idiot, and that I will post his photo on the web with a history of his checkout misdeeds. Instead, I stare daggers. Leave Significant Other standing there to keep our place (now 5 more people are behind us. In a loud voice, I tell S.O. I'lll check for quicker lines. Next guy in line looks to have about 12 items, too, and is either using a debit card (fast) or a credit card (not as fast). When I return to say that all the lines are long, three carts average, the person who was supposed to approve the check has arrived. The clerk tells him to take care of us, whose grumbling and grousing cannot have a positive effect of the morale of the quick, well, supposed-to-be-quick checkout line. I hope the checkout-idiot gets behind some ancient lady whose trembling fingers count out 89 cents very slowly and then decides she needs a package of cigarettes which have to be fetched from locked cabinet with a key. I hope he gets behind the woman who has a $2 off coupon (expired) on a ham and tells the clerk that she has a special dispensation from the manufacturer to use the coupon. I hope he gets behind Significant Other in a wool-gathering mood who once let a clerk ring up the woman in front of him together with our groceries and was that ever ugly except I couldn't stop laughing.

I cooked the potatoes in canola oil and bacon greast (the yin/yang theory) and they weren't half bad. Thank you Ore-Ida.

The first idiot

Grapeshot

The Quick Red Fox Ran Across the Road

Driving to work this morning. Decent day, cool air, a bit of sun, good-to-be-alive-in weather. I am tooling through the woods, looking for the new sign that just went up announcing, "scenic drive." About the same location where the deer cross the road, an animal runs in front of my car. I slow down. It's a red fox, looking neither right nor left but trotting across the street at a leisurely clip. I watch him run into the woods. Really cool. Look at the road ahead. See a black cat run across the road ahead of the driver in the Ford SUV ahead of me. Obviously a morning where critters will cross the road. Wonder if the Ford driver is superstitious. Cat ran in from of him, not me.

This person is a really poor driver, half the time on the other side of the road, signalling on the least important turns (by now we are both driving by the lake), and ignoring others. Erratic driving, still. I decide the Ford person is on the phone. That usually accounts for the weird weaving. Can't see if man or woman. Still wondering if freaked out by black cat. Hmmmm.

He or she leaps ahead when I have to wait for traffic. By now five cars separate me and the Ford. I'll never see the driver. Damn. Then we get into the congested part of Stoughton, and I close the distance. Other cars have turned or changed lanes by now. I zip by the Ford to cut thru the CVS parking lot to save three minutes (running late as usual). Ditzy-looking woman in the Ford. Decide she was spooked by the cat and immediately got on the phone to call everybody she knew for advice. The little stories I tell myself (and now you).

Really neat to see the fox, although I think he should run a lot faster. Hope the cat didn't make him a meal. I always have to change channels when the lion catches the wildebeest.

Minor success at work. Can't get thru an afternoon without chocolate, though. Comes from always eating a wimpy diet lunch. Bring on the burger and fries, she cried.

Tomorrow is my day to write. The story is out of the desert and back in Reno, getting ready for the 2nd murder. In the meantime, a really good idea for a short story, based on a true and tragic incident. Thinking about changing the part of the country, and lots of other stuff. Can't change everything. Kind of shameless, really, but that's how we writers are.

Aloha,

Grapeshot

Yahoos on Yahoo

At work, I come into the web thru Yahoo and so I glance at the news headlines several times a day. A few hours ago, there was a blurb about the publishing industry's disappointment with book sales, and looking for the next Dan Brown or the next literary writer who would pump life into publishing. At the bottom of the article, there is a link to "talk about it."

Now anyone who has been following this (and other) blogs, know that getting anything published, much less something A LITTLE DIFFERENT, is to take a walk thru the valleys of paranoia, rejection, disrespect and angst. You sure as hell better be ready to suck it up.

With this in mind I posted a very mild little riposte stating that agents and editors, while purporting to be looking for the next new thing, are usually looking for the same old thing, tarted up in new clothes. Actually, my words weren't even that colorful.

When I read the posts, and there were lots of them, I was astonished at the vitriol, both from conservatives and liberals. People, there is a lot of hate and venom out there, and it is scary. Many of the posts were way off topic, but these people are frenzied with anger: about Bush, about Iraq, Kerry, even The Catcher in the Rye. The posters trying to have a reasonable discussion were totally outnumbered. Alerted to this cyber-screaming, I visited the posts about African animals on the great plains and the Ohio governor, and they were all just as vile, vicious and defamatory as the so-called literary discusssion. Is this another kind of talk-radio, where people post hatred instead of calling it in?

I am appalled. Some of us do not play well with others at all. Shame on you!

Grapeshot

Next Blog

What is with the weird advertisements that frequently pop up on "next blog?" Who strafes thru blogs looking for ad crap? Not me. Some of them are too outre for words. I love next blog when I find someone from India or New Zealand or even Europe with something interesting to say. Or someone blogging new baby or cats or art, music whatever. It's so intriguing, like on the way home this evening and looking in all the lighted windows of the houses without the blinds drawn and catching glimpses of cozy rooms, TV sets, kitchens, paintings, mirrors, even people. Peeking into someone's life. That's what a blog is. Life as opinion, life as thoughts, life right out there in front of everybody. Some people blog porn. Up close and personal. Now that makes me feel too much like a voyeur. However, in the great scheme of things, blogging porn is better than blogging ads, some of which are too dumb for words. I hit the "next blog" button at warp speed. Portugal? Korea? Whipping along thru the blogosphere. Really cool.

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Bra Straps as a Fashion Statement

We know I need to get out more, but all summer and last year, too, I have observed hordes of otherwise attractive young women exhibiting their bra straps underneath thinner spaghetti strap tops. This is not an attractive display, and one who grew up when women were gleefully burning bras, wonders why they can't a) forego the bra or b) buy one of those all in one camisoles with the built in bra.

Speaking of camisoles, we've had a long hot summer and a few weeks ago I noticed the dress code at work (which is actually very liberal) was being flaunted with spaghetti straps and belly baring slacks. Sure enough, last week the email edict went out reminding the work force, but really the young ladies (why is it always young ladies?) of the corporate "business casual" dress code. Young ladies, or rather girls and women, have nice shoulders and belly buttons and want to display them. But not at work. And no bra straps please. Looks so tacky. And in your face. And so on. Leave your bras at home, girls.

La la la

Grapeshot

The manuscript is in the mail

Promiscuous Mode is en route to the agent. Far fewer little flags than I thought. Had morphed two hours work into two days work. Whew! I also got the first 15 pages off to the Debut Dagger Contest. Sent another off to Salvo contest earlier. Realized I had missed umpteen Bouchercon deadlines. It's been a busy, as in busy-good, summer.

Need to research more agents to send the books out to. My suspicion is that if someone doesn't recommend you, they send the dreaded AHFL and that is it. Hint: FL stands for Form Letter. Need to get going some more on Festival Madness. Need to weed and groom the garden. Need to shower. Need to go to work on my last day of vacation. Need to need to need to.
Need to suck it up!

Aloha

Grapeshot

Whither Mary Seagull

When we first began summer visits to the island of Nantucket, one of the galleries had wooden sculptures of a character named Mary Seagull. They weren't sculptures so much as flat painted cutouts of a woman of a certain age: short-haired, sturdy ankled, broad in the beam, and wearing a skirt, no-nonsense shoes, and toting a large handbag. She was a 'type,' prowling the island for sights and bargains. I loved these painted cutouts because they so clearly and lovingly evoked a certain kind of mature woman as tourist.

One year, I realized Mary was gone, and over time I almost forgot her, but every now and then I would actually see a woman who so perfectly resembled Mary Seagull that I would harken back to her again and wish I had bought one of those painted wooden cutouts of this classy lady.

These days, Mary still has short hair, a broad butt and sturdy shoes, but she sometimes has a fanny pack, or a day bag and may even wear shorts. But she stalks the island and was glimpsed today at the MFA in Boston. Came to see the Gee's Bend Quilt Show, no doubt. You should go too, should you happen to be in town with a spare hour or two.

A web search does not turn up any lost "Mary" art for sale, alas. I suppose she isn't jazzy enough to sell in a gallery nowadays, but it was such fun when she was a presence on the island.




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Nantucket Revisited

"My god, we're going to look like Day Trippers!" was Significant Other's comment when he saw the bags of sun glop, beach towels, sweatshirts and all the accoutrements of our venture. "But we are Daytrippers," I reminded him.

Monday morning we boarded the Hyannis Ferry for the faraway isle of Nantucket. I have been making this trip since my children were in diapers. Everything about it is familiar and known and yet it is always thrilling.

I was curious to see if Nantucket had changed, because in the donkey's years since we began traveling there it has been discovered by new money and six million dollar homes have sprouted like weeds, and the island has become the in home to the heavy hitters. There has always been money there, but it didn't scream itself from the rooftops, and life was laid back and casual.

Our last trip there was the weekend before September 11th, and the juxtaposition of those two events lent the expedition a certain amount of dread. But the ferry plowed through the water in the usual somnolent pace, and no windmill farm sprouted in Nantucket sound, and soon the lighthouse at the far end of the island came into view, then the jetties and thank god Brant Point looked the same, with the old houses still there, and the kids poking around on the beach.

Lunch outdoors at the Ropewalk. Couldn't imagine anywhere else. Delicious corn tortillas with very fresh cod, black beans, tomato, onion and cheese. Tostadas New England Style. It just really worked. Looking around, the people looked the same. Lots of Lily Pulitzer on tiny tots and their moms, as was right and proper. Lady with facelift and enhanced pouty lips. Older foursome with no enhancement whatsoever. Big boats tied up. We always ignore the warning that only boatowners are welcome on the pier. Phooey. The docks used to have more sailboats and fewer stinkpots, but that's been changing for a long time. Always cool to look at the boats.

Afterward, a stroll through town. Way too much traffic, but many of the same stores and still the butt-busting cobblestones, if you are on a bicycle. Whaling Museum much expanded, but the Dive Shop hadn't changed. Children's beach deja vu. New houses, but at least not intruding on the familiar places. Ice Cream place still next to the Dive Shop. Rum raisin still outstanding. Life is good. Yacht club looked like the days of yore.

Back on the ferry and the return trip to Hyannis. Years ago it was said of the Daytrippers, that they brought a clean shirt and a five dollar bill and changed neither. Not quite true.
Fortunately, there are few signs of the new money except for a zillion jewelry store ads in the tourist guide. Like Palm Beach for cryin' out loud. But the rhythm of island life seemed unchanged. The good island life. Ah, New England!

Yet again to Fanieul Hall

Fanieul Hall for the third time this summer! We are spending lots of time in Boston which is good, better than the boonies. A trip to the Children's Museum, where the kids were very good and everyone seemed to be having a real cool time and absolutely no one was bawling until the very end. Great people watching. Amazing how much some types looks like their parents! Lots of energy and racing around. Almost tiring to watch.

On to Fanieul Hall for dinner. Nice sidewalk place. Chipper waitress, decent food. Juggler afterward, which was fun for the younger set. Altogether a good day.

We had a thunderstorm the day before late in the afternoon. Lightning, wind, almost scary. Then the sunset, which was an eerie red sky, seemingly without cloud, just all red, blood red. Really cool.

I haven't written jackshit and the typos and the bad sentence sit uncorrected. Real soon now, as we saw in the computer culture.

Aloha,

Grapeshot

What Is A "Finished" Manuscript

Arrrrgggghhh! At last an agent asks for the manuscript of Promiscuous Mode! That was two weeks ago and I finally cobbled it together into chapters from 74 scenes. This is like, work, and of a mind-numbing variety. So finally we have 574 pages, including recipes, and Significant Other thinks maybe one last proof-read is in order. Omigod! Typos! Many pages of typos. And even worse, kludgey sentences, the kind you wonder how could I have actually gone to bed and slept after writing a sentence that miserable and convolulted? So, now the manuscript is still unmailed and there are about 60 jillion of those little plastic marker tabs in various color. Plus editorial stuff. Will the reader know where "the Cape and the Islands" are? At this point, who the hell cares? The things is, no one who lives around here would ever think, "Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket." That's a pretty big cumbersome thought. "Cape and the Islands," hey, that's cool, rolls right off the tongue. So, caveat lecteur, as they say somewhere very literate.

In the meantime, we are on our second batch of houseguests. One very small, very active guest, and the cats are freaked out. Thisbe cowers in the furnace room under the stairs and only comes out for a scratch in the litter box and a quick quaff of water and some cat food. Annie, long suffering, endures petting and combing and lots of special "forts" for her to hide in. She is so exhausted she appears to have forgotten about escaping into the yard for a few hours of grass nibbling and chipmunk chasing.

Grapeshot is wondering if she will ever find the time and the energy to deal with the typos and the kludgey sentence and the Cape and the Islands business. Probably not. Time to crawl into the cat's new fort for a nap. Ciao.

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Goodbye means different things

Two of my poems are posted in Boston City Hall (by the south elevator on the 2nd floor). Boston is celebrating its 375th birthday this year, and 375 items of art and poetry were selected from 1200 Boston artists. If you are a Bostonian or nearby, it is worth the trip to city hall to look at and read this stuff. Fantastic photographs, great paintings, nice poems and essays. All of Boston. Due to a missed email or whatever, my poems weren't posted at first, and then finally were. So there they are on the wall and the people waiting for an elevator either read them or not.

Then something touching happened.

A woman called and wanted a copy of one of the poems, because it reminded her so much of her late father and all the good times they had in the locales I mentioned.

Of course I said, yes. This poem was written on the occasion of the company I worked for leaving Kendall Square for the 'burbs. No more public transportation, no more choice of lunch places, no more cool walks at noon or staying in town for a meal or a movie or scooting down to Harvard for a lecture or even a class. No more. No more. So this was a goodbye to a place, not a person, but I guess it works for both.

Poem is below.

Goodbye

I said goodbye to the river
Where the sculls slice the water in the pre-dawn.

I said goodbye to the seasons of the river
The willows in spring, creeping from yellow to green
The water glassy and unperturbed in August's dog days
Choppy in the coarse winds of autumn
Gelid in January.

I said goodbye to the mysteries of the river
Flowing swift and oily in the dark,
Nourisher of cormorants and carp, herring and gulls,
Spanned by stone bridges that arch
Above the darting, tacking flotilla of sailboats.

I said goodbye to the city
Fabulous construct of stone and steel rising over the river.
Goodbye to statues and parks, gardens and boulevards
Glitz and grime. Goodbye. Goodbye.

I said goodbye to the Squares.
Goodbye, Kendall.
You're a clean well-lighted plaza, pulsing and bustling,
A re-gentrification of nobelists and nerds,
Intellect and pragmatism rubbing shoulders,
While green herons fish in the Broad Canal.
The mystique of Lotus Notes and
The ghost of the 'F & T' will endure.
A long ago goodbye to Vinnie's place
And the counterman who refused mustard on a meatball sub.
Goodbye Kendall.

Goodbye to Central,
Funky, ethnic, down and dirty.
Goodbye to falafel and franks, curry and catfish,
Farmers markets, stores where nothing costs more than a buck.
Goodbye, some might wave good riddance to radical politics,
and sleazy bars, but the world needs a little decadence.
The world needs Cantabs.
Goodbye to all that, Central.

Goodbye Harvard.
Farewell to wine bars and street musicians,
Au revoir your shady yard, the newsstands
The bookstores and Tory Row and all the places
George Washington slept.
Adieu to making the scene and hanging out.
Alas, Harvard.

I say I'll come back to visit.
Well, maybe. Promises are cheap, you know,
And the road to hell is paved with pledges.
Goodbye is sorrow, not sweet, but lying like a lump.
Goodbye is hard.

Flavor of the Day

Lately, I've been noticing that food items are all acquiring new (and unnecessary) flavors. To wit: first we had milk, then chocolate milk (yum), and now there is vanilla milk (easy to make your own) and even strawberry milk. Can cookie dough milk and butter pecan milk be far behind?

Water is now flavored. I'll stick to a wedge of lemon (or nada) in my h20. I used to blame the yuppies for all this excess, but I actually think it's their children.

Grapeshot's recipe for vanilla milk: 8 oz milk in a glass, your choice of whole, 2 percent or 1 percent (skim is for wimps, soy is for mega-wimps). Add 1/4 teaspoon vanilla, a handful of ice cubes, and a tiny bit of sugar or equal. Stir. Drink. Enjoy on a hot day.

Coffee flavors are the worst. At work, the flavor of the day is presented. Would you believe Blueberry Cobbler and Pumpkin Pie. Folks, we are discussing coffee, not Thanksgiving desserts. Yuck. And what usually happens is that the 22 year old belle dumps in about a cup of cream and 1/4 cup sugar. This is coffee? This is atrocious. Have to bite my tongue. Yuck and double-yuck. If this is your daughter, you did something horribly wrong.

Sigh.

Grapeshot

Thisbe is a 'fraidy cat who rarely ventures out from under the bed when a stranger is in the house. She likes catnip and being brushed in the morning. She hates water and being carried. End of rather traditional hopefully not too boring cat blog. Hey, if you can't blog your cats, why have a blog at all?  

The outdoor swimming pool at Montreal's Hotel Bonaventure on a cold February morning. A reminder of winter in midsummer.