Satori Kick

If I was New York City, I'd never sleep, either

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 04:41:00 +0000

This past July, I loved walking around Manhattan late at night, buying a chili dog from a street vendor, hitting a comedy club, talking to taxi drivers, people-watching on busy corners, browsing the paperbacks at an all-night Duane Reade, and exploring Grand Central Station, watching the trains, talking to some of the cops and national guards on duty. And, every once in a while, I'd look up and be struck by the sheer grandeur of the greatest city in the world.

We are the poor people

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 17:45:00 +0000

As Labor Day marks the unofficial end to summer in America, I'm going to officially end my summer silence on this blog. Like most working people, I look at the long holiday weekend as an excellent chance to catch up on, uh, labor.

But I can't help but reminisce about all the summer picnics and barbecues of Labor Days Past, with my sisters, my parents, and my grandparents. Whenever there was a family get-together or a holiday or a meal around a picnic table, my Grandma (Jeanette Hanson, pictured left) would impishly grin and ask us all, "I wonder what the poor people are doing today?" As a child, I always laughed at the question and never quite grasped how rich Grandma felt when surrounded by her family. A few years later, we were spread across the country, rarely traveling home for the holidays.

This past July, I was fortunate to spend a few days in New York City with the International Thriller Writers, getting to know the genre and some of its best authors. I also explored the midtown Manhattan setting of the conference, took some photos, went to a comedy club, and wandered through an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.

Unfortunately, I had to leave NYC three days early because of the passing of Grandma Hanson, who was 91, and who, I realized, had been born before women had the right to vote. While waiting in LaGuardia Airport for my flight to the midwest for her funeral, I thought about how much Grandma loved to travel. She had visited many places in Europe, including Italy, France, and England, and she had been to parts of Canada, Mexico, and Alaska. At age 75, she and a friend drove from Iowa to Arkansas to visit me (where I worked at a small college), then traveled way out west to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, a round-trip of thousands of miles.

Growing up in a large, poor family during the Great Depression, Grandma had worked hard to help care for her many brothers, often raising money by cleaning the homes of well-to-do families in Sioux City, Iowa. She expected others to work as hard as she did and was often disappointed by people who were unwilling to improve themselves. "No one is too poor to buy soap," she would say.

At age 45 she earned a nursing degree, which was a natural step for her, in retrospect. Once, late in her career while working in a nursing home, she took a tray of poorly prepared food (intended for the elderly patients) to the manager's office, dropped it on his desk, and asked, "Would YOU eat this shit?"

You gotta love her.

These days, with our iPhones and frequent flyer miles and diasporic families, it's not easy to find a respite or a common table we all can sit around on a rare holiday, breaking bread and sharing stories about faraway places like Rome, Nome, Quebec, or Chichen-Itza.

But when we do gather, we will certainly have the legacy of Grandma's rhetorical question, "I wonder what the poor people are doing today?"

--RAC

On the Road is on the road: Jack Kerouac's $2.4M scroll is in Santa Fe until May 28, 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 20:55:00 +0000

According to the publicity, "Kerouac is back, Jack." But, in fact, ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac has never been out-of-print in the last fifty years. Its first month saw three printings, and after about 150 paperback editions in over 30 languages it is now considered one of the hippest and most controversial books of the 20th century.

Back in the day, Truman Capote (who adored being the darling of the New York culture-vulture glitterati crowd) decried the book's instant notoriety with an infamous cocktail party critique: "That's not writing--that's typing." Kerouac was hurt by such attacks and was never comfortable with fame or the high-society shindigs that come with it. Sadly, both men were "drinkers with a writing problem."

Kerouac's scroll is 120 feet long, contains about 120,000 words, and was typed single-spaced without margins or paragraphs during a coffee, benzedrine, and jazz-filled three weeks in April of 1951. (See a high-res image from the University of Iowa.) The fragile scroll has a different first sentence than the published book, and uses real names for the book's main characters: the misfit hero Neal Cassady, the poet Allen Ginsberg, and the novelist William S. Burroughs, all changed in future drafts.

Because Kerouac was raised in a print shop and could type at the speed of light, he preferred to feed 12-foot strips of thin teletype paper through his Underwood in order to not break his train of thought. And despite the seemingly "spontaneous" creation of the scroll, Kerouac had been readying On the Road's events and characters for several years, as evidenced by his various notebooks and drafts.

Just as Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises spoke to a so-called Lost Generation, Kerouac's book spoke to a young Beat Generation which rose up poor and bewildered and "beat" after the Great Depression and World War II--an opinion that first appeared in the New York Times book review by Gilbert Millstein in 1957, which (literally overnight) made Jack Kerouac famous. Before the NY Times review, he was borrowing bus money from his girlfriend, Joyce Johnson. Afterwards, he was embarrassed to be mobbed at parties: "Women wanted him to make love to them, men wanted to fight him. People kept mixing him up with Neal Cassady" although his identity in the book was that of the narrator, Sal Paradise. (For more background, please read and listen to the reports at NPR.)

The engaging exhibition at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is scheduled through May 28, 2007. About forty feet of the scroll is displayed under glass and a projected video shows Kerouac reading his work in 1959 while Steve Allen plays soft piano jazz. If you haven't seen or listened to Jack Kerouac reading his own work, you're missing an integral, joyful piece of the Beat experience. Additionally, the exhibit features an interactive writing room where visitors may use an antique Underwood typewriter to write spontaneous Kerouac-style "American Haiku" (Kerouac sometimes called them "Pops"; Allen Ginsberg, "American Sentences") or anything else inspired by On the Road.
...the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"
One of the common misconceptions about Kerouac was that he was primarily a counter-culture author, but when you read On the Road it feels more like a love poem to America than a treatise for rebellion (as co-opted during the 1960s). Personally, at the opening night party on Friday, April 13th, I found myself a little annoyed with the wine and cheese crowd: several "fans" had obviously NOT read On the Road, or did so in college before the LSD scrubbed their gray-matter. Ask them them about The Dharma Bums and their eyes reveal their well-coiffed ignorance. Some of these ritzy folks attend every glitzy opening in Santa Fe, preceded by their money, reputations, and colognes. Sure, our museums and the arts need muy rico patrons, but could these angel-headed hipsters at least figure out who actually wrote Howl before they brag about "loving Beat poetry?" And, for the record, Ms. Snottipants-with-the-engraved-whisky-flask, David Cronenberg (who directed an excellent film adaptation) did NOT write Naked Lunch, despite what you think you know about auteur theory.

Using the old Underwood in the anteroom, I pounded out a few words and posted them on the public wall:
Starting to feel better, and before leaving the exhibition, I took the time to lean over the scroll's protective display case to read various portions--and I could see the corrections and pencil marks Kerouac made throughout his work. His authorial spirit was definitely present, and I (unsurprisingly) felt like hitching a ride on a crowded flat-bed truck and sharing a bottle of rotgut with my fellow lonesome travelers in search of satori.

--RAC

Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 16:01:00 +0000

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.
(Billy Pilgrim, Slaughterhouse 5)

If you don't mind, I'd like to interrupt the hedonism of Hollywood worship to save some women's lives

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 23:45:00 +0000

Please take a moment to read Elizabeth Krecker's important post, "The Power of a Cardboard Oven and a Story."

Her blog: plein air sketches - stories, tales and ponderings from the landscape of daily life

Fat Tuesday: Mardi Gras

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 19:48:00 +0000

Moonlight on the bayous
Creole tunes fill the air
I dream about magnolias in June
And I'm wishin I was there...

Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Santa Fe, NM

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 03:00:00 +0000

One week into 2007 and loving the outlook.
All my resolutions seem doable now.

Notes from the belly of the great snow beast on the eve of New Year's Eve

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 05:30:00 +0000

So as to not worry our next of kin: This post is a fictionalized account of some actual events. We're perfectly safe, warm, well fed and watered. Oh, and certain events were probably altered to make the author appear to be more wise and witty than he is in actual reality… at least according to "She-of-the-South."

Santa Fe, New Mexico, 7,000 feet altitude:

It is nearly suppertime on the third or fourth day of the freak storm, which has buried us in 27 inches of snow. Interstate 25 is impassable and closed. Food supplies are running low. Cabin fever is running high.

She: Could you stoke the fire?
Me: We're running low on firewood.

Begrudgingly, I throw on a log, and check the refrigerator. It is nearly empty, and I notice the last beer is MIA; I kick myself for being a slow drinker as I realize She-of-the-South has beaten me to it. Same story for the pinot noir, which ran out two days ago, and the crackers and cheese, yesterday. Pretty soon we'll have to break into the champagne we were saving for New Year's Eve, tomorrow.

She: Could you thaw out some salmon for supper?
Me: There's no time for that. How about some mushroom dip and chocolate chip cookies?
She: I ate those while you were napping in front of the fire.
Me: That explains the crumbs in the sink, and the second degree burns on my face.
She: What?
Me: How about some champagne?
She: Um, you'll need to go to the store—here's the list.

Begrudgingly, I throw on my boots and ski jacket, and trudge down the buried stairs to the buried street along the thin path created in waist-deep snow by dog-walking neighbors, and encounter my buried Pontiac Grand Am. I do not own a snow shovel, and it is obvious none of the neighbors do either. I check the other vehicle. She-of-the-South owns a Jeep Cherokee, which is perpetually low on gas and has only two-wheel drive—but it does have a higher wheel base and is slightly less buried.

The evening temperature is 23 degrees Fahrenheit. The streets are icy and vaguely defined. It will be a brutal and dangerous trip, and I'll have to gun a Jeep out of a snowdrift.

Cool.

Thirty minutes later, I've managed to get the Jeep stuck on the ice right outside my house, spinning the wheels. My cell phone rings, Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own by U2. I briefly register the irony.

She: Where are you?
Me: In your Jeep on the way to the store, sweetie.
She: Why didn't you walk? It's only two blocks.
Me: Couldn't. The snowdrifts are six feet deep in the arroyo.
She: Buy some chocolate stuff.
Me: Is it on the list?
She: No. You can add to the list, you know.
Me: Okay, chocolate.
She: And get more food.
Me: Okay, more food. And chocolate.

A burly dog-walking neighbor helps me push the Jeep onto some semblance of traction and I slide away to Albertson's. There are about twenty SUVs in the parking lot, all of them four-wheel drive. Wimps.

Inside the store, I take a look at the grocery list: White wine; champagne; Newcastle Brown Ale; Gouda cheese; crackers. That's it? Too funny. I'll have to add to the list. I load up my cart with spaghetti and sauces, frozen shrimp skillet meals, cheese, crackers, and booze. Lots of booze. Booze, in fact, seems to be everybody's most popular item in the check-out lane this evening.

You can't make it on your own.

She: Don't forget the chocolate.
Me: Of course not, sweetie.

Begrudgingly, I throw some luscious-looking brownie mix into my bag, and head for home. The only vehicles I see on the shiny ice are Hummers, police cruisers, and fire trucks. The two block drive takes thirty minutes, and as I approach my parking space I misjudge the angle and plow into a snowdrift, partially blocking the road again. I spin my wheels and the not-snow-tires sink deeper into the ice and snow.

Not-quite-home again, jiggety jig! I use the speed dial on my cell:

She: What is taking so long? The fire went out. Are you okay?
Me: Hi Sweetie. I think I can get the Jeep off the street if you'll toss down the claw hammer so I can break up the ice behind the wheels.

She throws the hammer over the balcony into four feet of snow in the shadows. I swim into the drift, desperately searching for it. No such luck. The beastly snowbank swallows me whole, and I begin a curse-laden rant having something to do with how She-from-the-South throws like a girl!

It's very cold now, and my feet and hands are beginning to tingle. The Jeep, which I left running, coughs and dies.

Miraculously, another kindly neighbor pulls up in his burly SUV and offers to help me move the Jeep. He says he has some spare gas in a can. His vehicle is properly equipped for the weather, and he is as happy as a white fox in winter as he shows me how to attach his brand new tow-rope to the frame. After the job is done, I shake his hand, and She-from-the-South says thank you from the balcony.

I realize I forgot to buy a shovel while at the store, and by the time the snow melts next Spring, my claw hammer will be a rusted artifact of these events.

Begrudgingly, I throw the grocery bags over my shoulder and head up the snow-covered stairs. My foot slips, and the bag with the wine begins to get away from me. Somehow, I fabulously fling the wine to the top step, with no breakage, just at the feet of She-from-the-South.

She: Don't worry, I saved the wine.
Me: Nice catch. Your pitching needs work, though.
She: You were gone so long, I thawed the salmon and made you dinner.
Me: I'll make brownies for dessert.
She: Chocolate! A nice surprise.
Me: Thought you'd like that.
She: You know, the weatherman says we should stay home for a couple more days.

Begrudgingly, I kiss her, for auld lang syne.

--RAC

Happy Boxing Day, whatever

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 06:39:00 +0000

Boxing Day is seen as a mysteriously quaint Canadian or British tradition upon which redcoats, horses and hounds hunt a fox, if Boxing Day is given any thought at all by Americans. Some may recall an old M*A*S*H television episode in which military officers traded places with enlisted men on the day after Christmas, and others might mistakenly believe it's the day when all those gift boxes are cleared out after the eggnog has gone sour.

But originally it probably had a lot to do with the haves giving the have-nots a generous box of food or coins or tools or leather or something to help them survive the cold winter and get their serfly duties accomplished on time and under budget.

Thankfully, our Forefathers here in America eliminated most ancient Boxing Day traditions, which clearly were meant to preserve the patronizing class lines between kings and shepherds, lords and serfs, masters and servants. (Too bad they didn't also extinguish another socio-economic tradition, slavery, which lasted another 100 years.)

Many deliberate alterations of British manners were purposely instituted to tweak silly old King George--such as changing the spelling of words like patronise to patronize, and using a fork with the right hand (zig-zag style) instead of in the more efficient (yet sinister) European or Continental left hand. (There are reports indicating it was the Europeans who changed, later in the 1840s, but you may ignore them as aristocratic propaganda.)

Not everyone was ready for the egalitarian New World. General George Washington had to isolate his own mother in a cabin for the duration of the Revolutionary War because of her annoying habit of shouting "God save the King" in mixed company, and, presumably, for using her knife to herd peas onto her left-handed fork.

During the late nineteenth century, the Victorians made Boxing Day an official banking holiday when it became apparent the rising (and scary) middle class was gaining power and accumulating new-found wealth. Certainly, every good Englishman deserved to be reminded of his superiors.

Hmmm… maybe the rarely seen "holiday bonus" is the last vestige of Boxing Day in America, as obscenely wealthy CEOs lord it over their serfs. Sure, we can all pretend to be equal in America, but we know who butters our porterhouse steak (don't we?) as we lift fork to mouth in anti-Continental fashion.

So bless us all, every one, and Tally Ho!

Season's Greetings

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 05:33:00 +0000

Roy Kesey: an author interview wherein "Nothing in the World" is explained

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Thu, 04 May 2006 05:12:00 +0000

Roy Kesey was born in California, and currently lives in Beijing with his wife and children. His fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in more than forty magazines, including The Georgia Review, Other Voices, Quarterly West and Maisonneuve. His short story "Scroll," first published in Prism International, will be appearing in the upcoming New Sudden Fiction anthology. His novella "Nothing in the World" won the 2005 Bullfight Press Little Book Prize, and will be published this month, May 2006. His dispatches from China appear regularly on the McSweeney's website, and his "Little-known Corners" meta-column appears monthly in That's Beijing.

Satori Kick: So, Mr. Kesey, we've heard "Nothing in the World" has been happening to you lately--would you care to explain?

Roy Kesey: Oh yeah, it’s happening everywhere these days. Just this morning I tripped over a small stack of it on the way to the coffee-maker. Broken ankle, forehead lesion, the works. Dangerous stuff, this Nothing.

Satori Kick: Is the switch from writing short stories to writing novellas a difficult transition?

Roy Kesey: Not in this case, because it was completely accidental. “Nothing in the World” started as a short story, or rather, as four story fragments jammed together for no apparent reason. But all four fragments shared a common character (albeit observed from different points of view) who eventually morphed into the character of Joško Banović, the main character in the book. Then the not-quite-story became a novel, alternating chapters between Joško’s story and that of an American photographer who was trying to track him down. This took several years. Unfortunately, the photographer story-line wasn’t very good. So I let the novel sit for a while, and finally went back to it, stripped out the photographer altogether, and the thing gradually took on the shape it should have had all along.

In general, though, for me writing novellas now is mostly an exercise in anxiousness. I mean, I’m working on this thing, and it’s already too long to be a short story, and I have no idea if it’s going to be worth running to three or four hundred pages, no clear sense of any light at the end of this particular tunnel. But once I come to terms with what it is--the arc’s complete and the characters are full and the whole thing just happens to happen in a hundred pages or whatever--it’s a form I really enjoy.

There’s also the question of trying to sell them, of course. Not an easy thing. Which could lead one to wonder why I’ve spent the past several months writing another one. But hey, maybe I could become Novella Guy. Is that position still open?

Satori Kick: Regarding your work habits, when do you find time to write between raising two children and attending diplomatic diversions in Beijing?

Roy Kesey: I’m very fortunate in that my two toddlers are actually spirit-beings who never spill their juice, never hit each other with tennis rackets, never put toast in the DVD player, and never, ever make noise while Daddy is trying to work… The diplomatic stuff, sure, there’s a time investment there, but it’s what pays most of the bills, so I can’t really complain.

Satori Kick: How do you feel about the effectiveness of online writers' workshops (such as Zoetrope.com) during your process? Is it difficult to find readers for your drafts? When is a piece actually ready for submission? Do editors really "edit" these days?

Roy Kesey: In order, then:

a. Zoetrope was a godsend for me. I was living in Peru when I first heard about it, and at the time I had no opportunities for feedback of any kind--I had a couple of local poet- and writer-friends, but none of them read much in English. It was also an important time for me, learning-wise, because I’d figured out a little about voice and character on my own, but still didn’t have a good feel for arc, among other things--I was always taking the first available exit, and my stories were just kind of stopping instead of coming to an end. So then I found Zoetrope, and like any other on-line (or off-line, for that matter) community, there are a fair amount of loonies, but I’ve been fortunate to find a group of very dedicated, very talented writers, and they’ve been of great help. All of which is to say, I owe Francis Ford Coppola a huge debt for setting up Zoetrope and running it on his own dime, and here’s hoping that he just happens to be Googling himself when this interview goes up, and sees this, and knows that I am grateful, and decides to email me to ask if I have any stories he can turn into a movie.

b. A story’s ready for submission when it’s at once full and agile. For me, this often takes five or six months, and eight or ten drafts. But then, I’m kind of slow.

c. Sure, I think most magazine editors really do edit these days--and most of them do so very, very well, and for little or no money. I’ve had editing sessions on some stories that have lasted weeks, back and forth over phrasing and tone, and for me that’s one of the richest, most interesting parts of the process. I’m always grateful to see that they care so much about a story that they’re willing to put that kind of time into it. Other stories have gotten less work, or even none at all, but I think that’s usually because the story in question simply needed less work--some come out cleaner than others, after all. I’ve heard all kinds of horror stories about editors mucking stories up to the point that they were unrecognizable, but that’s never been my experience.

Satori Kick: I was pleased to see your marvelous story, "Instituto," in the Iowa Review (Winter 2004/05). The editor, David Hamilton (my former undergraduate professor at Iowa) once let me re-take a final exam essay question when a jack-hammer outside the EPB classroom pulverized my Wordsworth concentration. I don't suppose David Hamilton cut you any slack?

Roy Kesey: Thanks. David was great, as was Lynne Nugent, the managing editor there. They even let me make one relatively major last-minute change, clearing up a harmful ambiguity that I noticed very late in the game. I was really pleased with how that story ended up looking.

Satori Kick: In "Probably Somewhere" (Zoetrope All-Story Extra, Issue 28), you created lonely and suffering characters in dire need of human contact. Then, in "How It Happens That Our Senses Do Not Perceive Certain Bodies" (Night Train, Issue IV) there's a line about giving "color and form to all the lives we could have lived ourselves." And in "The Holidays Here" (The Mississippi Review, April 2005), the story is set in the midst of Halloween, All Saints' Day, and the Day of the Dead, which seems to imply the inexorable intertwining of suffering and celebration. Is your work particularly informed by a consciousness of the human condition?

Roy Kesey: Well, maybe, but only to the extent that everyone’s work and lives are informed by it, I think. I am interested in how people deal with the consequences of bad decisions or bad luck, and I do think that suffering and celebration tend to go together more often than we think--the universe’s idea of a practical joke, I guess.

Satori Kick: I've been reading your dispatches on McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and in Dispatch 24 you wrote about finding yourself dangling fifty feet in the air on a broken ladder--which is how how I imagine some people feel when encountering experimental or somewhat difficult literary fiction. How should a reader (or a writer, for that matter) get safely to the ground?

Roy Kesey: Good question. For me as a writer, it’s usually a matter of reminding myself again and again that the gimmick can’t be the only thing. I mean, I like gimmicks, I like tricks, I like word-games and lateral leaps and circles within circles within Matryoshka dolls within Himitsu-Bako boxes--that’s just my idea of fun. But I try to keep in mind that there has to be something fundamentally human threaded through all that--fear and pain and love and worry and jealousy and generosity and spilled juice, say--for it to be worth writing or reading.

For me as a reader, well, same deal: if the gimmick is the only thing, I feel titillated but empty when I'm done reading. And if the work is truly inaccessible to me for whatever reason, well, no harm done--I'll go read something else. But I think that if you truly give yourself to a piece, and bring all your attention to bear, that just doesn't happen too often--which is what I keep telling my students. Most days they believe me. Those days are the best of days, when you see the light go on, when they finally suss the relationship between (to take one example from the Wallace Stevens poem we worked on last week) empire and ice-cream. Just magnificent.

In terms of the bigger issues--the questions, say, that were at the heart of the tremendously entertaining Jonathan Franzen v. Ben Marcus spat--I tend to trust that things will sort themselves out in the long run, though I do get frustrated with people on either side demeaning the work of the other for no reason other than form. Sure, there's plenty of experimental work that fails on its own terms, but there's just as much realist work that does so, and it seems churlish to me to spend much time pointing out either of those facts. Fiction is a huge house, with room for all of us, both as readers and as writers.

--For a list of Roy Kesey's upcoming tour events while he's stateside, see http://nothingintheworld.com

Cats and clocks

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 15:21:00 +0000

There was a time in my life when I'd do anything to stay under the warm covers as long as possible, especially on the weekends. But ever since the advent of my girlfriend's cats, I've been up before dawn more times in the past two years than in the prior twenty.

For self defense, I keep a squirt bottle and a couple of rolled up socks near the nightstand to toss at any early-rising cat attempting to wake me. But anytime after six a.m. I'll usually give in, get up, and feed the kitties.

How she-who-owns-the-cats can sleep through the daily pre-dawn feline attack is a mystery. How can she possibly not notice I'm at war with her two plotting cats? Especially when they tag team my toes or run across my pillow or scratch at my side of the mattress?

Occasionally, Wolfie and Stanzi will jump from the dresser to the bed, and then very quickly retreat to the doorway, pausing to see if they've been successful in their maneuvers to jump-start their favorite lackey.

This morning, these creatures decided to wake me up at 5:15 a.m. (which was 4:15 a.m. yesterday) and I was too tired to fight them. After devouring separate bowls of crunchy morning delight, they have retired to my abandoned side of the bed to bask and purr in the glory of a victory nap.

So, that's my day so far: feeding and watering the thundering herd of cats, springing forward the clocks, fighting the urge to go outside and enjoy the sunshine.

But why fight it? I'm beginning to love the smell of Frisky Vittles in the morning.

Maybe a trip to the Cowgirl restaurant is the best way to lick my wounds: Yes--I'll go make a fuss at the Cowgirl--I'll order a bowl of grits and a plate of huevos rancheros and a steaming cup of coffee, and beg for some cream.

Ah, the first day of daylight savings time is simply glorious, isn't it?

Happy Birthday George W

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 04:46:00 +0000

Thanks for greasing my bicycle's chain for all those summers, and for teaching me how to fix flat tires.

Thanks for "allowing" me to watch the Lawrence Welk Show at your house every weekend.

Thanks for taking us to Pizza Hut and letting me order the pepperoni and Cokes.

Thanks for getting me jobs mowing and raking your neighbors' yards.

Thanks for giving me your National Geographic magazines and for all those paperback novels from the drug store.

Thanks for all the iced tea and black licorice and salted peanuts.

Thanks for showing me how to check your crossword puzzle's answers in the special dictionary, for quizzing me with the Reader's Digest vocabulary builder, and for tolerating me while I clattered away on that old typewriter for hours at a time.

Thanks for the story from your immigrant parents about the mysterious Norwegian man who (every single day for years) carried a heavy bag of dirt from near the fjord to his high mountain home--until he "suddenly" owned a fantastic garden among the boulders.

Thanks for telling me that the "W" that served as your middle name was just a single letter (like the "S" in Harry S Truman), even though you were born on George Washington's birthday.

Thanks, Grandpa, for things that weren't obvious when you were here.

Happy Birthday--I miss you.

Is it okay if I can't get the Crescent City out of my mind?

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 23:00:00 +0000

I'm going through my photos from New Orleans and it's making me feel homesick for a place that's never been my home. All I wish I could do today is take a walk around Jackson Square, browse through the books at Faulkner House, and put my feet up at Café Du Monde with coffee at hand.
I can't fully explain this strange attraction to the Big Easy, but it does make me wonder if it happens to everyone who visits.

Alive and nearly home for the new year

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 16:12:00 +0000

Sitting in the Tampa airport, using the free internet access, I suddenly feel it's important to wish everyone a belated Happy New Year! So: Here's wishing you health and wisdom in 2006! [Insert party noise here.]

For the record, we partially traversed the Gulf Coast, all the way from the Faulkner House Bookstore in the French Quarter to the Salvador Dali Museum in Tampa, Florida. It has been a long and surreal Southern gothic adventure…

On a minor note, I was a little torqued about yesterday's outcome of the Outback Bowl, as it appeared to be a game of errors--mostly errors by the officials, sadly enough for this Iowa alum.

After I process a few things from this trip, I'll be back to share the highlights, I promise. (Stop groaning immediately or I'll make you sit through the entire slide show!)

For now, in the airport, we're just counting the moments until Santa Fe and the typically inscrutable reunification with our cats.

Books, beignets, and "big ass beer" in The French Quarter

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 22:40:00 +0000

On the way from the Louis B. Armstrong airport to the French Quarter, one of the first things you notice in New Orleans (besides the above-ground cemeteries) is the Superdome's new-temporary roof covering. Our cab driver said the roof was one of the city's first highly visible accomplishments in the wake of Hurricane Katrina: "It is such a symbol--and with a new roof, it helps the people feel better, more hopeful."

In the French Quarter, one of the first things I noticed was that it's completely legal to walk around with open containers of beer and other alcoholic beverages. In the past these streets would have been packed. Today the police seem to outnumber the revelers.

We're staying at The Inn on Bourbon Street, and our second floor room has a wide balcony with amazing east and west views of the street. A few strings of Mardis Gras beads are strewn about, and Christmas decorations hang from the iron railing. Yesterday afternoon (and evening, and night) music emanated from several uncrowded bars and bead shops, pounding the bricked streets.

Across the way, I couldn't help but notice three businesses advertising topless and "bottomless" dancers, "female impersonations," and "famous sex acts." In fact, the busiest places on Bourbon Street (other than bars) are all advertising entertainment of the naked kind. We didn't go inside any of those, but I took some pics of the exterior signs to post later (maybe, if I can figure out how to post a slide show).

Instead, I peeked into all of the t-shirts and beads shops, bought myself a "big ass beer," and wandered down Bourbon Street to stare at all the neon and look for live music. For dinner, we decided on the Court of Two Sisters and ordered the delicious Louisiana Shrimp Creole and Crabmeat Au Gratin.

Today, the loud music started up again around eleven a.m., and we took a walk over to Jackson Square (statue and cannons), enjoyed café au lait and hot beignets at Café Du Monde (open 24 hours), and browsed through books (including rare and signed first editions) at the Faulkner House bookstore in Pirate's Alley. I picked up a copy of Faulkner's New Orleans Sketches, and Dawn (working on her master's in Art Therapy) bought a small, signed children's book intended to help kids deal with the recent hurricane: Catte Au Lait: The Big Hurricane, story by Sean Gerowin and illustrated by Karoline Schleh-Gerowin. Later, we ate gumbo and po' boys at the Gumbo Shop on St. Peters for lunch.

Firmly esconced on Bourbon Street

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 00:05:00 +0000

We've safely arrived. More later.

The Fruitcake Song: Does anyone actually eat this stuff?

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 07:34:00 +0000

The Sounds of Fruitcake (Sung to The Sounds of Silence)

Hello fruitcake my old chum
Glad to smell you reek of rum
Because a chunk I downed while weeping
Gave me gas when I was sleeping
And the chewy fruit that planted in my teeth
Still remains
Within the sound of eating

In restless dreams I ate alone
Narrow kitchens bare of bone
‘Neath my ribs I felt a cramp
I touched my cheeks and they were damp
When my eyes were flashed by the stab of a Ginsu knife
That cut the strife
And touched the edge of fruitcake

And in the crazy cake I saw
Ten thousand colors maybe more
Chunks of chewy chopped dried cherries
Chunks of chewy dried blueberries
Chunks of strange currants that I would never share
And no one dare
Disturb the sound of eating

“Fool” said I “You do not want
Hunger like a childish taunt
Hear my words that I might lead you
Take my fruits that I might feed you”
But my words like Christmas trinkets fell
And shattered
In the bleats of snoring

And then I bowed and prayed
To the fruitcake god I’d made
And the dream burped out its warning
In the stench that stayed ‘til morning
And someone said “The words of the fruitcakes are written on the tummy walls
And bathroom stalls"
And belch’d in the sounds of eating

--By Richard Cooper, with sheepish apologies to Paul and Art.

Chestnuts roasting by an open fire

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 02:44:00 +0000

Someone important told me that no "real blog" has a legitimate right to exist until it contains photos of cats. So, here's one. It's a cat's life, to be sure.

ME: Sweetie, look at Wolfie!

HER: Are you trying to burn the house down? Get that plastic bag away from there!

We may walk where They walked, but not in their shoes

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 18:42:00 +0000

As I hiked solo around the Pecos National Monument with a digital camera in hand, I experienced an overwhelming feeling of not being alone. But there were no other tourists that summer day; my only companion was a small, whip-tailed lizard which skittered along the rocks, trailing me.

Respectfully, I passed through the ruins of the 15th century Pecos Pueblo and imagined each abandoned and decaying wall as though revitalized, with long-gone Pecos inhabitants grinding corn, herding animals, carrying water, and firing new pottery. At one point, there were approximately 2,000 Pecos* living here, and the pueblo building had 660 rooms, surrounded by a defensive wall, with irrigated fields outside.

When Coronado visited Pecos, he noted in his journal: "It is feared throughout the land."

By 1620, Franciscan monks had established a church and a convent here. By 1838, the last surviving twenty Pecos left this place to join their relatives in the Jemez Pueblo.

Around a bend in the trail, the 17th century ruins of La Misión de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles de Porciuncularose rose from a high meadow, and I paused to take a photo of the once-grandest church north of Mexico City. The sky was alive, and it looked like rain. The digital camera became a strange, new relic in my hands.

In the churchyard, I discovered a kiva (an underground ritual center) built after a famous revolt which only temporarily evicted the Spanish settlers.

Climbing down the steep ladder into the earth-covered kiva, I felt the centuries drift, and my soul seemed to float.

I sat there in silence, at the bottom of the ladder, for a very long time.

*See comment dated 12/10/05.

Let it snow! And other lateral cognitions

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 19:03:00 +0000

I sincerely adore the first snow after Thanksgiving--it really puts me in the holiday mood. Too bad I have a twenty-five page paper due this week or I'd be tempted to go gift shopping.

Isn't it too bad the lift in spirits that we feel (as the seasons change) is coopted by crass commercialism? Which makes me think maybe I shouldn't run those little google ads on my blog… but then again, this is America, the grand-daddy of free enterprise, and we are all so used to ignoring inline advertising anyway, what could it hurt?

I will NOT be bummed out by the ethical dilemma--I will regard this as an opportunity to practice the art of compromising with reality.

Yeah, that's the ticket…

…besides, it's so darned beautiful today, here in the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

Satori á Santa Fe: An Army of One in the Wild, Wild West

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Cooper) — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Well, here I am, planning to test the waters of Blog Mania with bits and snippets from my life, my work, my reading, my continuing education, and other nebulous dark regions.

If you were to ask me why, I'd probably answer with some flip, vague explanation about needing to share my vast lack of knowledge with my fellow unwashed masses. Or, perhaps more thoughtfully, I would say something about needing a place to collect my thoughts and chase (and share) random pennies dropped from heaven.

At the very least, I might describe myself as merely another thirsty soul seeking a welcome kick-in-the-eye: the notoriously rare flash of understanding known as Satori.

(Thank you Dawn, my sweet; thank you Jack Kerouac; thank you Universe…)

I believe every bit of experience, every human contact, every turn of the wheel has the potential to… what? Torture us? Forgive us? Wake us? Rock us?

Let's find out!

Yes, I have a lot to learn about web logging, and I hope you'll feel completely obligated to toss bricks at my head as I progress in this eclectic endeavor…

Endeavor.

Now that's a good word--endeavor--it always reminds me of something I learned from the classic western film The Outlaw Josey Wales, starring Clint Eastwood. It was actually the character of Lone Watie (Chief Dan George), the elderly Native-American who joins Josey Wales on his heroic journey to peace, who kicked me in the eye by recounting a humiliating trip by recently defeated tribal chiefs to meet the President in Washington, D.C. He describes how he drew inspiration from the President's speech (encouraging the chiefs to "endeavor to persevere"), and took the words to heart:

We thought about it for a long time, "Endeavor to persevere… endeavor to persevere." And when we had thought about it long enough, we declared war on the Union.

So, let's declare war on the dark regions, the so-called mundane and enslaving details of everyday life, and, now, endeavor to persevere together, okay? Are you with me?