Artist's hideaway

My friend B has a little place to go when she needs to clear her mind. She calls it her "garret," and like the little artists' hideaways of story and song, it is an attic room, up among the rooftops of the old French Quarter near Jackson Square.

B lives in a nice double shotgun in the Marigny now, but she keeps her garret for the use of family and friends who come to visit. She showed it to me yesterday. Just off a tiny alley near St. Louis Cathedral, you climb a narrow, winding staircase up to the top of the building.

B on her deck

The room is within, beneath sloping ceilings. A daybed piled with pillows provides seating and sleeping in this tiny space. a small desk and chair are arranged beside a window that looks out into the gardens behind the cathedral. A door leads to a rooftop deck with marvelous views of the chimney pots, slate roofing, and (modern) airconditioning units above the touristy hubub.

Wouldn't you like to hideaway in such a lovely little place?

The Fixed

In Chapter Four of Annie Dillard's Pulitzer Prize winning book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, she recounts an experiment by the 19th century French entomologist J. Henri Fabre. Working with pine processionary caterpillars, who travel through forests in single file, led by a silken marker laid out by the leader, Fabre lured them onto the rim of a large vase, where they marched around in a circle. Fabre wanted to see if they would realize they were trapped in useless motion, and do something to change their path. But, to his amazement and horror, the caterpillars continued marching in the same circle for over a week, unable or unwilling to change their course despite lack of food, the heat of day and the cold of night.

Out on the gallery at Vaughan's Lounge one afternoon here in New Orleans, a tussock moth larvae was trapped in its own lonely circle of hell, going round and round the rim of an ashtray. My friends and I saw it, and then, repelled at its bizarre, almost dangerous tufted yellow appearance, turned away and sat at the other table. Yet when we passed the ashtray again a little later, it was still there, marching around and around.

Dillard contemplates this "blindered and blinkered enslavement to instinct." Fabre calls it the "abysmal stupidity of insects" who "lack the rudimentary glimmers of reason" that would lead them to abandon a futile effort.

This has been an odd summer for me; one of tremendous change and yet numbing stasis. I procrastinate and put off creative work. I fall into mindless routines to take up my time, and though my kitchen is sparkling clean, my inner life is neglected. I fixate on the same emotions that repeat like an endless loop in my head, reliving old arguments or seeking to undo old mistakes. Like Fabre's caterpillars, I sometimes try to stray from the path, seeking nourishment, adventure, or escape, but am so often pulled back to it.

The inability to change, to gain a higher understanding of our place in the world and our own agency to forge a path for ourselves is what Dillard calls "The Fixed." It is, she says

a world without fire - dead flint, dead tinder, and nowhere a spark. It is motion without direction, force without power, the aimless procession of caterpillars around the rim of a vase, and I hate it because at any moment I myself might step to that charmed and glistening thread.

At Vaughans, once she realized the caterpillar was trapped, my friend Becky decided to rescue it. Together with another friend, LJ, she lured it onto a piece of cardboard and then took it across the street to a young cypress tree and coaxed it onto the leaves.

I first read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek just after it came out, in 1975. It was my last year in college, my first painful experience with love, and a time when I learned to let go of some childhood myths. I still have the same tattered paperback copy I bought then. Its pages are fragile and stained now, but I remember how her exploration of nature, and the cosmos opened my eyes and helped me orient myself in whatever new world I would inhabit.

A photo of Becky - posted with her permission. I think this is the night she rescued the crawfish - which is another example of how much of a hero Becky is!

Wish me luck

That moment of re-orientation is what I'm dealing with now. And now it's about time to lift my eyes from the fixed path and view the world around me, experience its wonder.

Publication

My piece about the mule deer in Topanga Canyon has been published by University of New Orleans' literary journal, Ellipsis.

Here's the link:

http://scholarworks.uno.edu/ellipsis/ 

My first publication!

I've got a piece on the Bayou Magazine blog! Go read it HERE.

Deep into the mix

Oh, I am deep into the work now! I am reading 18th Century feminist tracts, while also trying to decipher a Deconstructionist's take on William Blake ( GAH!). I'm also writing a paper on a heartbreakingly beautiful memoir about growing up on the Mississippi Coast in a poor, African-American community, as well as reading pieces submitted by my classmates to our Writing Workshop, and writing my critiques of them

I am not in over my head, but I am definitely treading water!!

Today I worked from about 9:00 am to about 4:00 pm, and then I took a break and went down to a neighborhood bar for a beer and a burger.

While I was there, a ferocious rainstorm came down, clattering on the tin roof of the gallery, and sending people running inside with their shirts spattered with raindrops. I waited it out and then came home to walk Jack the dog.

There was a rainbow over the Poland Street Wharf. Things are going great.

September rain

Bar room at Tujagues

Yesterday around noon, the skies opened up and it rained hard for about an hour. We were on the number 5 bus to the French Quarter, and watched the water sheet down the windows as the driver expertly threaded through the narrow streets.

We got off on Decatur Street, and went into Tujagues for lunch. The bar-room is narrow, with a stand-up bar dating from the 1850s along one side. When we walked in, the tables were all full, so we went through the passage to the dining room.

The dining room, with its hexagonal-tiled floor, bentwood chairs and white linen cloths, was charmingly old-fashioned and utterly empty. We were the only diners, though it was mid-day lunchtime. Septembers are slow, the waiter told us.

Tujague's dinner menu is extensive, but the lunch menu was simple. I chose shrimp creole, [The Man I Love] chose crawfish etouffe, but the waiter pointed out that we could split a sampler platter with those two dishes and red beans and rice, so that's what we did. I loved the shrimp creole with its bright tomato and vegetable sauce. The etouffe was rich, dark, and intensely concentrated in flavor. The red beans included nice chunks of smoked sausage. There was just enough food to satisfy.

We walked through the streets of the French Quarter. Though it was rainy, there were still tourists out, and street performers doing their thing.

We were in search of bookstores, and went into the one run by the William Faulkner Society. The cashier there was another student from the Creative Writing program; a third year poetry student. We talked a little. I told her I was curious about the fabled bar hang-out evenings I'd been told about - kind of a literary salon for the program, taking place after the writing workshop classes. "Are they only Monday nights, or is it after every workshop?" I asked, noting that my non-fiction workshop was on Tuesday night.

"Oh," she said. "You're non-fiction. They don't seem to drink much. You might want to hang out with another genre."

Living in New Orleans makes you unfit to live elsewhere

I went into the French Quarter today - my experiment with public transportation. Parking in the French Quarter is ridiculously expensive, and aggravating, to boot (yes, I used that word on purpose).

But the RTA Number 5 bus, Marigny/Bywater runs down Royal Street, and there's a stop right at my corner. So this afternoon, I checked the schedule and walked to the corner. Damn if it didn't come right on time!

It was comfortable, not too crowded, and it got me to the Quarter in about ten minutes. The only quibble I might have with it is that a city bus bounces and lurches on pitted, potholed Royal Street even more than my little car does. But I can get used to that. It's $1.25 a ride, or you can get a monthly pass.

Napoleon House

I didn't really have anything in mind, I'd just wanted to try the bus. But I wandered up and down Royal, looking into art galleries and antique stores. I went to Hove Perfumes, and bought a cologne sampler of three scents - Verveine, Tea Olive, and Spanish Moss. I checked the bus schedule on my phone and headed in the direction of Decatur Street.

I had a half hour before the bus came (the only drawback about the bus is its infrequency - every 45 minutes), so I stopped at Napoleon House, one of my favorite places, for a Pimm's cup. And after I'd been sitting there for a while, listening to the classical music they always play there, and sipping my cool drink, a man sat down two barstools over.

I forget what started us talking. Perhaps I started it - I might have told him that I spent my morning trying to write an abstract about British 18th Century poet William Blake while my next door neighbor played second-line music in the street outside my house. But when he mentioned he was a writer, he said that this coming 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina was hard for him. I asked his name, and he introduced himself  as Chris Rose.

Chris Rose is a writer and former journalist for the Times-Picayune. His book about post-Katrina New Orleans, "One Dead in Attic" was a best-seller that I have on my shelf, and I read it again before moving here. In 2006, he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary for the columns that became the book; his contributions also won a Pulitzer Prize for the Times-Picayune.

We talked, and I told him why I'd moved to the city. He spoke of his mixed feelings about this anniversary - a funny thing to celebrate, the drowning of your city. Most people who were here in 2005, he said, would rather forget what happened.

Another coincidence - while we spoke, he was approached by another person. This was Maurice Ruffin, a writer and an alumnus of the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Program I'm enrolled in. I remembered him, because he hosted our incoming class's welcome celebration at the restaurant he owns with his family on Elysian Fields.

Before I left to catch my bus home, Chris invited me to check out a reading he was doing later in the evening, at a performance venue in the Ninth Ward. So... I bought a ticket and went, parking in a grassy field by the railroad tracks, and entered what looks like a warehouse.

Port Event venue

Chris Rose is not the person he was in 2006. Life's travails have changed him. Even his appearance is different from the photos and publicity shots from those years.

On stage, he's always in motion, turning and feinting, his long feet at the end of his skinny legs pointing one way or swiveling the other. Sometimes he balances on one foot, pointing the other toe in the air like an unsteady dancer, almost staggering across the stage. His voice is a rasp - often hard to hear, or going quiet with emotion. But that suits the material he's reading perfectly.

He didn't read from the book this evening; he read new material. Some painful, some hopeful. It is the anniversary of the drowning of his city. At one point, he said, he planned to leave, abandon the city. But, he realized, living in New Orleans makes you unfit to live anywhere else.

The word "resilience" is batted around these days, and he says most New Orleanians don't want to hear it. I'm with them - that was the word used by the HR counselors during my long year of losing my job. It's a word that means "suck it up."

Chris Rose says that The Big Easy is neither big nor easy, and he's right on at least one account. It's a small town, where encounters seem to happen almost magically. The fact that I ran into him - and at the same time, re-encountered another accomplished New Orleans writer - is just one of the odd miracles that seems to happen to you in this town.

Hope I'll see you around Napoleon House sometime.

Welcome aboard

Mural at Rampart and France Street

Yesterday I attended the official orientation for new students at my program. This was followed by the unofficial orientation, at the Parkside Tavern on Carrollton, near City Park.

I met my fellow students and program faculty. I spoke with one of the professors whose class I'll be taking this semester - he teaches the non-fiction writing workshop I'll be taking on Tuesdays. He remembered me from my spring visit, which was flattering.

I also met several other program professors, a couple of fiction writers and another non-fiction prof. And I really enjoyed meeting students - they are a diverse group. Some quite young, others, like me, returning to grad school after busy lives. This is a group with a lot of good stories.

This evening there's another event at a local restaurant, with food and - I'm told - killer daiquiris.

I feel so welcomed, and I am really looking forward to jumping in and getting to work.

How New Orleans sabotages seriousness

 

Yesterday, we attended a literary event. It was hosted by the Faulkner Society and featured readings by four novelists. They had all been winners of the annual prize given by the Society; they had been invited to read their new works.

The event was held in the Cabildo, a structure dating back to 1799 when New Orleans was still a colony of Spain. It is now the home of the Louisiana State Museum, and we ascended a gracious marble staircase past historic portraits of long-forgotten dignitaries to a long, windowed gallery facing Jackson Square and running the length of the building.

The room, with its wood flooring and high ceiling, was enough of an acoustic challenge for a reading, where it's important to be able to hear every word. But I had to feel sorry for the second author to speak. The moment she opened her mouth, from the pavement below in Jackson Square, a brass band struck up, playing a lively second-line march, trombones blatting and the mighty sousaphone bump-bumping in rhythm.

Gamely, she carried on. I looked around at the audience faces, wondering if they were having as difficult a time as I did hearing her. But everyone seemed to be used to it.

The band played its set, obscuring her reading and then upstaging the Chairwoman's introduction of the third author. When it ended with applause, it was only the street noise of playing children, hawking vendors and honking car horns the fourth and final author had to compete with.

This is how New Orleans sabotages seriousness. Those with literary aspirations should take heed.

Shoe shopping

A POEM


I fell in love with a pair of cute shoes;

I thought I’d wear them forever.

But I see now they’re out of style.

Scuffed, battered and run-down.

In fact, they never really fit me;

They pinch my toes, they strain my back,

They rub me in the wrong place, and I hurt.

I'm thrown off-balance, I teeter and fall.

Maybe I’m just too old for heels.

Lessons in leadership

A workplace fable. Resemblance to actual individuals is purely coincidental

The new boss called his senior administrative staff together for a meeting.

Someone should have brought a recorder. The meeting begins at 3:00 and for a solid hour he talks at the six people sitting around the conference table. Motivational seminar clichés pour out as though from a fire-hose.

March photo album

Although I haven't been posting very much, I've been out and about and exploring with my camera. Here are some photos taken this March.

Miner's lettuce, found during a hike in Tuna Canyon.

Jack and me at the Tuna Canyon look-out. 

Homemade buttermilk white bread.

The Busy Bee hardware store on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Wild mushrooms at the Pacific Palisades Farmers Market

Lobster risotto, made by our friend Ernie, for our friend Patty's birthday.

The lobby of the Beverly Hilton Hotel. 

When I look through my photo album, I realize how every day has been full of wonderful things, each one holding its own story.  It's a reminder to me to write those stories.

Similes

I'm taking another writing class through UCLA Extension this quarter. Here's a short fiction piece I wrote for our weekly assignment exploring the use of similes. It's based on an observation of two random people I once saw in a bar.

She perched on the second barstool over, stirring her margarita with the little red straw. She looked like a real-life Bratz doll, oversized head, big tits and attenuated limbs. Her pillowy lips were glossed a shining toy-like pink.

She wore a hot pink knitted shrug over a black t-shirt, and a hot pink plaid newsboy hat pulled low over her hair, though it could not completely contain the bronzy waves spilled out around her shoulders and down her back. Dark glasses big as saucers shielded her eyes completely, though the bar’s light was dim.

Sharing a sketch

My current writing class assignment is to write a sketch, 240 words or less, describing a character. We are to write an external description, with details one can get only by observing the character - there is to be no dialogue, internal thoughts, or interaction with others.

This is not truthful - it's a fantasy - but it's based on a person I actually saw in my local supermarket yesterday:

She stood by the yogurt case, basket over one arm, considering flavors. She wore a 50’s style circle-skirt, cotton sateen in a pink-and-black “Hello Kitty” print. She selected four containers of Yoplait on sale at four for $3, then continued down the aisle. As she turned, the skirt twirled out, floating above her still-shapely calves and her black patent ballet flats. Her matronly waist was cinched by a wide belt, closed with a rhinestone buckle. Her black leotard top had a modest jewel neckline, but stretched tightly over her substantial bosom.

Pausing in the cat-food aisle, one hand idly touched up her dyed garnet up-do, which sadly revealed the grey tresses at the roots. Two 12-can cases of Fancy Feast went into the basket – Elegant Medley Tuscany Collection, and Gourmet Ocean Seafood. That finished, she made her way to the liquor department, where she glanced over her shoulder cautiously before slipping a pint bottle of Popov vodka into the vast recesses of her leopard print tote. She sashayed up to the checkout stand, her confident smile marred only slightly by a touch of lipstick on her teeth.

Tree trimmers

 

Perched, like bright birds, green weskits and orange hats flashing, they call and respond in high pitched staccato Spanish. Bright yellow ropes hang and loop like vine tendrils over the oak's twisting branches, and clip back to belt harnesses as, scabbards strapped to leg, the climbers straddle the tree’s limbs.

Tethered orange chainsaws dangle when idle, bar-down, like jagged plumb bobs. The men brandish long-handled pruners to lop and snip, pulling, pushing, sweeping. Another shout, and the saw growls, pulsing low then howling out in exultation. Cut green wood tweaks the nose like menthol, and a leafy branch jangles down. The tracery opens and sunlight pours in.

Goodbye, friend, and thank you

I just learned today that Southern California journalist and Topanga's own man of letters, Al Martinez, passed away Monday.  He was 85. Al had been a columnist for the LA Times since 1985. He had also written for many other Southern California print and online publications.

I knew of Al because he wrote of Topanga Canyon, the community where he and his family had made their home since the early '70s, and where I have lived since the mid '90s. His writing made me feel a part of here.

I also knew Al because in the fall of 2012 I pulled a tab off a flyer thumbtacked to a bulletin board at Pat's Topanga Grill that said "Topanga Writers Workshops" and called the number. For a couple of months, I attended Al's Writers Workshops at his home, up the hill from my house in Topanga's "Post Office Tract" neighborhood.

The first time I attended, I realized I had another connection with Al - his wife Joanne had been a member of a book club I'd participated in sporadically a few years earlier. A smart, intelligent woman with incisive comments about the books we read, she was intriguing, yet during those years I didn't really take the time to know her well. This will teach me - and I hope it teaches those who read this - don't overlook people you encounter. You could be bypassing jewels.

Al was a wonderful guy, and very encouraging in his workshops to a novice writer like me. He gave me great feedback and strong praise for the embryonic works I submitted to him. But he didn't give specific criticism about structure or form or voice, or all those technical details I felt I needed; nor were his workshops a collaborative environment where students critiqued one another. Al followed a different kind of model, one that was not like the writing classes I'd attended at college. So, eventually, I told Al I thought I might take a break from his workshops, and check out the classes at the UCLA Extension Writing Program.

I often thought about going back, but I didn't. When I decided to apply for MFA programs, I thought about asking Al for a letter, but I also didn't. I told myself it was because it would be an imposition, since I hadn't spent that much time with him. I told myself it was because his health was fragile, which by that time, it was quite obvious that it was.

And I also felt a little ashamed at having abandoned his workshops.

And now, I feel even more ashamed. Because, when it really comes down to it, I didn't really do Al justice.

Though he didn't help me tinker with structure or form or voice or all those things that writing classes give you - what Al gave me was unconditional confirmation that I am a writer. He gave me the confidence and the motivation to go forward to do what I hope to do in the next years.

Thank you, Al, and go softly. What you gave me was the spark, the start. Who could give me more than that? I am so grateful to you.

UPDATE: Another memory of Al, from a better writer than me, Patt Morrison.  I'll have a vodka martini, straight up, with an olive, for you, Al.

Done

Today, I've completed all my applications for graduate school. Ten schools, applications are complete and paid for and at least three letters of recommendation have been sent to each school.

The schools I've applied to are:

• University of Iowa Non-Fiction Writing Program
• University of California at Riverside Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts
• Otis College of Art and Design MFA Writing Program
• Mount St. Mary's College MFA Creative Writing Program
• Louisiana State University MFA Creative Writing Program
• University of Pittsburgh MFA Creative Writing Program
• University of Alabama MFA Creative Writing Program
• University of Arizona MFA Creative Writing Program
• University of New Mexico MFA Creative Writing Program
• University of New Orleans MFA Creative Writing Program

Now I want to contract a case of amnesia, until I hear from each school some time in March.

Making seasons bright

This morning it is clear, bright and cold, after the storm.

My trip to Riverside was a good thing. I was invited to sit in on a three-hour graduate seminar, discussing regional fiction. There were about a dozen students around a long conference table, and three of the students gave multi-media presentation based on a work of fiction, that they supplemented with facts, history, photos and video to tie in the work with a larger issue. Although I didn't have a syllabus so I'm not sure, I concluded that the notion was that, as grad students, they were preparing how to teach about literature this way.

The three presentations I saw were all well put together, ably presented, and fascinating. One was about the high plains, based on Annie Proulx's "Brokeback Mountain." Another was about gentrification in poor neighborhoods of Portland, based on works by two local Portalnd authors. The third was based on an older work by a local Southern California writer, Victor Villasenor.

For each presentation, the discussion was lively yet respectful; analytical and targeted. The students clearly were engaged in the work, and in the issues raised. But in addition to this, the professor always brought it back to the main point - the writing. Yes, we are passionate about, say, the displacement of poor African Americans by hipsters in Portland's north east neighborhood. But how does the author Michael Jackson, in his novel, convey this to the reader? We kept circling back to the craft, the work.

The professor was encouraging and open and drew out responses from the students. She made the seminar a 'safe place' to have a discussion, even when it went into tricky areas  like race.

I sat, mostly silent, sometimes nodding my head or uh-huh-ing, but really I was itching to join in the discussion. As a guest I felt it would not be right to do so, but every once in a while I couldn't prevent a "gosh, that's great!" or other brief comment from escaping my lips. It was exciting to witness - it would be even more exciting to be a part of it.

The students and the professor were very welcoming to me, and though I didn't really get a chance to talk in depth to any of them (it wasn't the right context), I felt I learned a lot about the program.

The following day I met with another professor, over coffee, and he generously gave me an hour of his time. This time, I was able to share about my ambitions and the work I want to do - he drew me out, even asking me questions about the work that I hadn't thought of before.  I came away inspired, and very hopeful that my application to the program at Riverside would be accepted.

The other schools on my list are too distant for me to visit before applying, so I won't have this opportunity to observe them. Some of the programs invite accepted students to visit before they make their decisions, and I will take full advantage of that - if accepted.

When I finally made it home to Topanga, I felt excited and inspired, and felt like a thrilling future is on the horizon. What a good feeling.

Poem in October

Click to "embiggen"

Today is the centenary of the birth of the poet Dylan Thomas, born October 27, 1914.

It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.

You can read the rest of this poem HERE.

Getting the brunt of it

Over the weekend, something overseen by my office went horribly wrong, and dozens of phone calls and emails have come in to complain about it.

It wasn't our fault - in fact, a third party violated the terms of their permit. And the people who were supposed to enforce the permit didn't do so. But it's my office who is responsible in the long run.

I have spent hours on the phone, listening to people rant and rave, and murmuring my sympathies to them. It's mainly a complaint about noise, and people have a lot of opinions about that!

The powers-that-be are also going to make adjustments to the rules, so that this can't happen again. In theory. Unfortunately the way they tend to adjust the rules make them more complicated, which means that getting people to follow them is even more difficult.

One day I'll write a comic novel about stuff like this!