December 26, 2014 at 4:52 pm (Conversations, Recommended)
Tags: decisions, Fridays, Literary Magazines, short story
She was grilling me about the guy I was seeing — was he the real deal, or just another fine-for-now? I told her my feelings weren’t reliable at the moment.
“You,” she said. “Always a finger on your emotional pulse.”
“But that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” I said. “No pulse. I think I’m dead.”
And, just like that, I decide to renew my subscription to One Story.
September 30, 2014 at 5:34 pm (Artists and Writers, Links, Places, Recommended, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: decisions, Literary Magazines, poetry, praise, Seattle
The latest in a series of issues focusing on “Place.” Crab Orchard Review initiated the series in 2009, at a time when, according to the Editors’ Prologue, Vol. 19 No. 2, it seemed that the magazine might go under.
The “Land of Lincoln: Writing From and About Illinois” issue became the first series on place because Carolyn Alessio, Crab Orchard Review’s Prose Editor, was born “in the Chicago suburbs and lives in the city itself today.” The issue focused on two of Chicago’s literary greats, Carl Sandberg and Gwendolyn Brooks.
Next followed “Old & New: Re-Visions of the American South.”
At that point, everyone was very aware that Crab Orchard Review was approaching its 20th year. So the editors decided to make the review’s 2012, 2013 and 2014 “special issues into a kind of anthology exploring the United States of America and its regions as a subject.”
The series developed into four issues: “Old & New: Re-Visions of the American South,” “the North,” “Prairies, Plains, Mountains, Deserts” and, finally, “The West Coast & Beyond” (California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawai’i, the Commonwealth countries, territories and areas of U.S. occupation)
Now, in this “final edition in the series,” the editors point out that they have managed to “include at least one story, poem, or essay about, or work by an author born in or living in every one of the fifteen states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.”
Here’s an excerpt from a poem by one of the writers in the issue, April Christiansen. Her poem is “The Great Seattle Fire, June 6, 1889″:
Shouts, pitched water, the surface glazed,
boiled over. Glue embers tumbled into shavings
littering a turpentine-soaked floor, and men
grabbed their coats, flew to the stairwell as flamesfastened themselves to the building’s walls,
inching towards the liquor warehouse next door.
Glass shattered, the crisp smell of burnt alcohol and paint
filled the sidewalks, and a crowd gathered.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
June 4, 2014 at 6:34 pm (Places, Recommended, Surprises, Traveling)
Tags: decisions, destinations, discoveries, Ireland, lists, summer, travel, Women's Review of Books
It turns out most of the stuff self heard about the Irish are not true.
For one thing, the Irish are really direct. They don’t mince words. If they don’t like you, you’ll know it. In about two minutes.
This is a good thing. Because, after all, who has the time? Why tie oneself up into knots trying to figure out this or that or the other thing? If self wants a wake-up call, she’ll go straight to Ireland.
But when an Irish person smiles at you, it’s like the sun! Self is NOT KIDDING! It’s better than when a Californian smiles at you because it’s not a politeness thing, it’s a sincerity thing!
Self is also really grateful that she did not push through with her decision to cancel her subscription to Condé Nast Traveler.
In her periodic attempts to simplify her life, self tries to get a grip on all her magazine subscriptions.
She must have at least 20.
The one big thing she decided to cancel this year was The New York Times Book Review, which she’d been subscribing to for at least 20 years. That subscription was over $100, who wants to keep subscribing to a thing one has barely enough time to read?
She wavered quite a while over Condé Nast Traveler. She is impatient with the articles that seem geared exclusively towards possessors of the Gold American Express card. But, in contrast to the NYTBR, the cost of a year’s subscription to Conde Nast Traveler is only $12. That’s $1 per month. Even though self barely had time to read it, especially in the past year, she did stumble upon an article about “Hidden Gems,” one of which was Ballyvolane House in County Cork, Ireland. Where self is spending tonight and tomorrow night.
The minute she walked in the door of the house (built in 1728, originally Georgian style but now Italianate — don’t ask self to explain, she’s reading this from a book she found in her room), she felt she’d landed in the middle of a Merchant & Ivory movie. No, it was better than a Merchant & Ivory movie. Because she was in it.
Ease: Self’s bed in Ballyvolane House, County Cork, Ireland
She arrived back in Dublin last night. Thank God her Aer Lingus flight was uneventful. Dublin was pouring rain. She made it by bus to O’Connell Street, but there were no taxis. She got to Inchicore drenched to the skin, an hour before dark. She stumbled out for Chinese take-out, then lugged everything on the train for Cork (from Heuston Station) this morning. But — heavens to mergatroid — self is getting good at this! Not even man-handling two full-to-the-brim rollies and a purse and a laptop threw her the slightest bit off-schedule. Not the slightest bit.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
April 13, 2014 at 12:09 am (Family, Links, Places, postaday, Recommended, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: decisions, destinations, flash fiction, Hong Kong, inspirations, Literary Magazines, memories, photography, postaday, postaweek, San Francisco, Saturdays, travel, Wigleaf, Wordpress
Hong Kong, monument to the Chinese money-making instinct: Summer 2006 (Last Trip to Asia with Sole Fruit of Her Loins)
The Golden Gate Bridge: View From Land’s End, San Francisco: December 2008
The Layout of Stonehenge: Diagram From SOLVING STONEHENGE, by Anthony Johnson. Self has always been fascinated by the abiding mystery of these stones. She even used the monument in a short story that got published in Wigleaf in 2008: “Stonehenge/Pacifica”
Excerpt, “Stonehenge/Pacifica” published in Wigleaf (1/11/2012):
It was a dream I had, some restless night. One of those weeks or months or years when we were worried about money.
But when were we ever not worried?
First there was the mortgage, and then the two.
And then your mother got sick, and your father died.
You can read the story in its entirety, here.
Right after posting this, self decided to book herself a tour of Stonehenge. An evening tour of Stonehenge, not one of the day tours that take in multiple sites, with Stonehenge thrown in. That’s on April 26. She has to find a way to get to Salisbury, where the tour starts. The tour starts in the evening, though, so she has almost the whole of the 26th to figure out how to get there.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
February 26, 2014 at 12:33 am (Food and Drink, Places, Recommended, Traveling, Weather)
Tags: AWP, decisions, discoveries, indulgences, memories, restaurants, Seattle, travel, writing conferences
The minute she gets back to the Bay Area, she’s going to have her MacBook Air’s keyboard fixed.
During one sleepless night last year, she spilled strawberry jam on her keyboard. She was trying to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but the knife slipped out of the jam jar, and fell on her keyboard. Ever since, the keyboard’s stuck. She can just manage to get some keys to register, but only if she presses with all her might.
It is a beautiful day. The last time self was in Seattle was 2007. She was hosted, so she was picked up from the airport, and she was a guest in the home of Maria Batayola.
This is a completely different kind of trip. She’s staying in a hotel.
The people on the plane were none too friendly. Everyone was absorbed in reading the papers or reading their iPads. They also looked very, very white. And healthy, in that quintessential American way. Great hair, great teeth. Neat clothing. The woman seated next to self, who never cracked a smile in her direction, had a Bally tote.
Seattle’s edges are hard and bright. The streets are surprisingly empty. Puget Sound, though, is huge: about 10x the width of San Francisco Bay. The ferry boats are enormous, they remind her of cruise ships. The snow-capped mountains glint in the sun. Just looking at them makes self feel cold. Self wonders how much a ferry ride costs. She’d love to explore Bainbridge Island, which she heard has cute little art galleries and coffee shops.
During what was left of today, self decided to walk. She wound up in Pioneer Square. The streets were really, really empty, except for a park with a giant chessboard where a young woman was trying to move the chess pieces and some old men were teasing her in a lighthearted way. Birds flew among the trees. There were Indian totems off to the side.
She walked some more. She found a bookstore:
The Globe, a bookstore near Pioneer Square
In the bookstore loft, self found a very cozy reading nook.
She also found a bustling bakery near a park:
Grand Central Baking Company, next to Occidental Park
Triple-Chocolate Cookie from Grand Central Baking Company: $1.95, and worth every penny
That triple-chocolate cookie was just about the best cookie she’s ever tasted.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
January 12, 2014 at 2:22 am (Books)
Tags: Chang-rae Lee, complaints, decisions, Just published, reviews, Saturdays, science fiction, The NYTBR
Self still has a huge backlog of NYTBR issues to go through. She pulled them out of her hopelessly muddled “Pile of Stuff” and started to go through them. The very first one she started to read was the January 5, 2014 issue.
Front page review of Chang-rae Lee’s science fiction novel, On Such a Full Sea.
Watching a talented writer take a risk is one of the pleasures of devoted reading, and On Such a Full Sea provides all that and more. It’s a wonderful addition not only to Chang-rae Lee’s body of work but to the ranks of “serious” writers venturing into the realm of dystopian fantasy.
Lost self at “dystopian,” everyone’s favorite catch-all one-word description for the Apocalyptic Future, now swarming the world on hundreds of reviews of the film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
November 27, 2013 at 4:16 am (Food and Drink, Links, Surprises)
Tags: decisions, desserts, indulgences, memories
This evening, self got an e-mail message from a young woman with a very familiar last name: La’O.
Here’s what the message said:
Hello! My name is Monica. I am the daughter of Maia La’O (Assumption ‘y4). I have a baking company based in Los Altos. Our meringue kisses make delightful hostess, teacher, and coworkers gifts. Discover that perfect little treat to share this holiday season below!
Here’s the link.
The name of Monica’s bakery is Olamola Confectionery. The address is:
146 Main Street, Suite 214
Los Altos, CA 94022
After self finished reading the testimonials, she developed a mad craving for a meringue. She got up from the bed, where she’d been nesting with many pillows, nursing a cold, and put on some leggings, socks, and a sweatshirt. She saw the time: 8:15 p.m. She knew there’d be something open — maybe not Olamola, but something similar. She made up her mind to go to Los Altos first thing tomorrow morning to meet this wonderful young woman, the daughter of someone who used to be the classmate of self’s older sister, Paz.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
October 21, 2013 at 4:49 am (Books, Links, Recommended, Sundays)
Tags: art, Asian American Writers, causes, decisions, Events, inspirations, poetry, San Francisco, Sundays, translation, Vanity Fair
Every day for the last three days, self has been driving north — to Berkeley, to San Francisco.
BART went on strike on midnight, Friday. The traffic has been horrible.
The 2nd annual Filipino American International Book Festival has wrapped. Self went Saturday and Sunday. It was exhilarating, but also a tad stressful.
So many books! So little money!
It was grrrreat seeing: Linda Nietes. M. Evelina Galang. Angela Narciso Torres. Luisa Igloria. Karen Llagas. Cecilia Brainard (who moderated panels on two successive days). Tony Robles & family. Edwin Lozada. Barbara Jane Reyes. Oscar Bermeo. Rashaan Alexis Meneses. Penelope Flores. Michelle Bautista. Jean Vengua. Gayle Romasanta. Aileen Ibardaloza-Cassinetto.
Now, self must rest her weary and over-stimulated brain.
This evening, self discovered that Goldilocks is moving from their Westborough location, to some other place in South San Francisco.
In the September Vanity Fair is an article on the painter Balthus and his last muse, a girl who began modeling for him at 8. It is rather shocking to see the painter’s Polaroids of this girl partially unclothed. But there was nothing at all prurious in his interest: his wife and daughter were fully aware of this relationship. To which self can only exclaim: How very, very European! Such a level of tolerance would not be possible in America.
She decided to re-new her subscription to The New York Review of Books, for two more years.
In the issue of June 30, 2013 is a poem by Zbigniew Herbert, translated from the Polish by Alissa Valles. Self only has time to replicate the first half:
FROM AN UNWRITTEN THEORY OF DREAMS
In memory of Jean Améry
1.
The torturers sleep soundly their dreams are rosy
good-natured genocides — foreign and home-grown
already forgiven by brief human memory
a gentle breeze turns the pages of family albums
the windows of the house open to August the shade of anapple-tree in bloom
under which a fine brood has gathered
grandfather’s open carriage an expedition to church
first communion mother’s first embrace
a campfire in a clearing and a starry sky
without omens or mysteries without an Apocalypse
so they sleep soundly their dreams are wholesome
full of food drink fleshy bodies of women
with whom they play erotic games in bushes in groves
and over it all floats a never-forgotten voice
a voice as pure as a spring innocent as an echo
singing of a boy who spied a rose on the heathmemory’s bell awakens no ghosts or nightmares
memory’s bell repeats its great absolution
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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