Postcards from the Edge

Here are some pics from my weekend trip to northern New Mexico or, reasons to visit.


View from a road between Christ in the Desert Monastery and O'Keefe's Ghost Ranch.

View from inside the church at the monastery.

From the Rio Grande Gorge bridge, near Taos (there's a scene from Natural Born Killers that was filmed here).

DH Lawrence memorial.

View from the Lawrence ranch.

Road to nowhere.

Things you find when lost that don't make you feel any better.

My dot

Everyone is moving around. I see the dots on the map. Mine is Black Mountain, NC--even though that is half an hour from where I am right now. I see Michael's and Carmen's and Amelia/Jack/Rebecca's and I see Jack's in the valley dot and I see Sarah and Bearden on opposite ends of the country. I just want to know where you each are. Emotionally, creatively, physically.

I guess that is a weirdo question. Because I don't know how to answer it. I don't even know where I am. I busted out of Texas so fast, I feel like I don't recognize anything. I didn't know how to say goodbye, so I didn't. My house sold. I told the lady who bought it that Dago and Denis had been there and that Barry had stayed across the street. She listened, but I could tell she'd never heard of any of them. It felt haunted by us though, I'll tell you that. The emptier it got, the more I remembered our time there. North Carolina is pretty and it smells good. But I am not here yet. I'm here. But I'm off in the clouds. Running errands all the time.

I miss you. check in.

AGNI online

My story "City of Bridges" (formerly "Slanina in Prague"...sex, graveyard, ashes) has been accepted for publication on AGNI-online. Details TBA.

Sweeping Generalizations

This caught my eye today while I was on the Chronicle website. The article defends the notion that lecturers shouldn't be evaluated on students opinions alone -- and with good reason! I'm sure I've had students complain about me to department heads using all the standard gripes: grades ("I don't understand why this essay got a C"), fairness ("I think she hates George Bush and therefore hates all Republicans, which is what I am), and rigor ("She expects us to read this ten page Alice Munro short story!").

Besides the fact that my number one way to deal with students when they come to me with their excuses is to say: figure it out.

So yeah, I'm definitely on it.

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/05/2008052001c/careers.html

Announcing

My story "Backbone" is a finalist in Redivider's 2nd Annual Quickie Contest, and "There Will Be Sense" is a finalist in the DIAGRAM Innovative Fiction Contest. The latter will appear in DIAGRAM's summer issue.

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

The New York Times has a piece on a new British book called “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.” (It is technically 1002 books if you count the guidebook.) The actual list can be found here.

I was surprised to see House of Leaves, personally, and Finnegans Wake might be better suited for the sequel, "1001 Books You Must Pretend to Read Before You Die." Which books on the big list could you do without?

Lynda Barry

I'm big fan of Lynda Barry, thanks to Bianca. I teach the first chapter of her novel Cruddy in 1320, and every single semester, there has been at least one student to go out and buy the book and read it and come back to me completely freaked out.

Cruddy is truly the most harrowing book I've ever read. So much so that it took me about three months of putting it down and picking it up again to get through it the first time. I have yet to read it again in its entirety, but it's up there in my top five books of all time.

She's a cartoonist, and she painted the first draft of Cruddy (it's about 250 pages). I'm just saying.

Bianca found this today. She has a new book out about process.