Best Things I've Read This Year So Far

It's time for my first annual, completely-random selected day of Best Things I've Read This Year So Far. Few of these things were published this year, and a few I even started last year but haven't finished until now.

Mark Jenkins, "Ghost Road", Outside Magazine sometime in 2004, republished in Best American Travel Writing 2005: not just a hell-of-an adventurous account of sneaking into Burma, but also an epiphanic summarization of the conflicts of traveling "off the beaten track".

Poe Ballantine, "501 Minutes to Christ", from The Sun Magazine, sometime in 2005: "Tom Waits in book form" chronicles the random meanderings from one skid row to another. I think he just had a collection under the same name published; I just finished Things I like about America, which is pretty much the same (though 501 is better).

Christopher K. Miller, "Literary Mary": I found this on an online writer's forum, and it's one of the most riveting, captivating short-stories I've ever read. It makes me want to throw down my pen and go back to harvesting pumpkins. (Luckily, I write with a computer). I don't know much about Chris, except he's received hand-written, hate-filled rejection letters from Glimmertrain. You may have to sign up to read it: http://www.writingforums.com/writers-workshop/72802-literary-mary.html

Sherman Alexie, "Ghost Dance", McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, March 2003, and not just because several scenes flash about Billings, MT. I've been meaning to ask if he's going to write a whole novel on this. Sherman, if you're reading this blog, can you finish this one book please? I liked it and it was a helluva lot better than Flight.

Finally, "Dating as a Jerry Bruckheimer Movie", though it's criminal to put it on this list as such blatant self-promotion. But hey, this IS my blog, afterall!

Waiting for the ferry outside of Clinton, WA.

Mark Jenkins wrote "Ghost Road" for Outside magazine in 2003, appearing later in the Best Travel Writing of 2004. I call it a pivotal piece in my writing development.

Poe Ballantine wrote "501 Minutes to Jesus" which appeared in the August 2005 edition of Sun Magazine. I'd also say that's a pivotal piece in my development as a wannabe writer. I'm now reading "Things I like About America", a collection of personal essays, and so far it's funny. I'm also reading "Cuba Diaries" and so far, I hate it. I can write a hundred antidotes to every anecdote conveyed in that piece. I think it's rather like "Before Night Falls": despite it's packaging as left-wing (with Cuba, everything is framed as either pro or contra revolution) packaging, it's really right-wing anti-revolution propaganda. A corresponding diary about living in the US with the same skewered point of view and "my experience reflects the absolute reality of the country" would never be published. But she's writing about Cuba, so it's gotta be true.

The line for the ferry is moving very, very slowly. Briana is driving. Trixie is navigating. I'm sitting in the back writing, noting how the stereo has blown out half of the back speakers as well as both up front. We need to get a new stereo and sell this one.

Now, back to that essay on Mexico.

Ideas to expound on, part 15

I had an idea or two about novelty books. One would read for a whole chapter:

But the book down.
Hey hey, PUT the BOOk DOWN.
Put the book down.
Hey hey
Put the book down!
Put! The! Book! Down!
Putthebookdown
Put the book down?
Put the book down;
Put the book "down"
"put" the book "down"
put the book down
hey hey, yeah baby, put the book down
repeat.

The book would be called something about self-deprecation and all that, how I'm humble but wanting to be a writer/artist, and how it calls me out to be things that I'm not, like egotistical and self-centered, etc etc. maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

Failed Attempt to Write About Cuba, #6

I'm trying to write about Cuba.

I arrived a month ago and stayed for nine days.
Last night I dreamed of the mangoes, a humid sweat interrupted at dawn with the rooster next door. Shifting back to sleep, I awoke a few hours later with aching bones from the lumpy mattress and the neighbor blaring Orishas from his stereo, feet away from my ear.

I'm trying to tell people about Cuba, but I get swamped by the senses, the feelings. I get overwhelmed by the details. After all, this country is in many ways radically different than the US. For starters,

A socialist country, even a nominally one, under an embargo of the world's last (and crippling) superpower, is vastly different than the world's largest economy and perpetrator/enforcer of mass, hallow, consumerism.

Talking to people about Cuba back in the states, I find that their heads are filled with misinformation, propaganda, and weird assumptions.

Don't they hate Americans there?
No, I say. In all my travels (35 and counting, not including Liechtenstein) no one's ever viewed me as the enemy or "hated" me because of where I'm from. Of course, I make pains to blend in or at least learn something of where I'm traveling –I once knocked an old farmer outside of Saigon to the ground with laughter with my fledging phrases in Vietnamese.

It also helps –no, is essential- not to travel with any sort of "American #1" patriot attitude. It works well in the movies –shown to Americans, who return to mimic what they see- but not traveling. Especially in countries we've obliterated (short list of countries I've been to that have been blatantly obliterated by the US: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Germany, Japan; covertly obliterated: El Salvador, Guatemala; severely fucked with: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma… ok, now I'm just listing places)

Damn, this is completely tangential. Maybe I should put it on my blog…

Try this, it's for my environmental research

I'm a Conservation International Eco-warrior. What are you? Measure your ecological impact at <a href='http://www.conservation.org/ecofootprint'>www.conservation.org/ecofootprint!

Yet Another Blog!

I've sorted through all my Cuba notes and Cuba entries and put them under one, separate blog:

seattlecuba.blogspot.com

It reads like a diary (instead of a blog) and come to think of it, I need to write a conclusion. As I left it, I'm sitting in a teeny-boppers room in Mexico City with a hundred plastic dolls staring down at me. Funny, I thought the end would be something like that...

To All Those I've Met Along This Trip...

I'm back home after nearly five weeks on the road. It feels good, I'm glad to be back -the air is fresh (if overcast and cool) and the water drinkable.

Right now, the girlfriend and puppy have fallen into a nap on the couch next to me.

The plants in the garden have grown, some are bearing fruit and most have died.

My car runs.

Mom loaned us a flat screen TV.

I'm excited to catch the Simpson's Movie tonight.

I had an excellent journey that took me to four states, three countries, and two of the largest cities in the world (three if you count my two-hour layover in LA).

I didn't do a whole lot except for write and visit old friends, which was my exact goal. So thank all of you. I apologize for the impersonal mass letter, but I know I'll write you all individually soon.

For the rest of my summer I'm going (continue) to try getting some old stories published, as well as finish some new ones spurned by this trip (oh, what I didn't blog about the 12 year old Cuban's birthday party!).

I also want to finish some articles, at least one about Cuba and another about the future of travel based on the carbon emissions of my trip. (I wanted to come home overland, as air travel is a huge contributor to global warming, but due to some familiar factors I decided to fly.) I'll let you know if I have any success at all with any of this.

I'm also going to smooth out this blog and probably post the Cuban version on a separate one, uniquely chronicling my time in Havana. I cringe at the blatant self-promotion, but hey, it's America. To compensate, I'll blatantly promote my friend Joe Szwaja who's running for Seattle City Council and was recently endorsed by the local weekly The Stranger. Check him out at joeforcouncil.org, as I'll be spending a lot of time there, too.

And Montana.

And gardening.

And promoting sustainable development.

And sometime this summer, work will start again.

Argh!

It reminds me to start my new book, "Why We Work".

So much to do...

Thank you all! I swung from friend to friend like Tarzan on vines, rekindling old friendships and learning more about myself and our world. You are all great people and I thank you sincerely.

Until then...

Love,

Chris

Adriana and Natalia at the Frida Kahlo Museum

Mario and Me

Cheche Dancing with a Broom