A woman who greatly influenced my writing is gone. We were not acquaintances. I seem to recall seeing her speak once, but I might have been remembering a video I watched in a Bruce Taylor poetry workshop long ago. Her work is on my bookshelf, and – if she would allow me to say so – between the lines of my own pages.
Some of her work is here. Hear the power of her reading here. [Sometimes that audio link doesn't work. Here's the text of the poem she's reading.]
In the process of researching the history of my hometown (New Auburn, Wisconsin) (now Population: 562) (urban sprawl!) for the book Population 485, I discovered that the town’s founder David Cartwright had written a bestselling book in 1875. I tracked down an actual copy of the book, but it took some doing. This morning a reader sent me a Tweet with a link showing me that along with everything else in the world the book has now been scanned into Google and you can read it here.
Here’s a portion of how I described the book in Population 485:
I have never seen any photographs of Cartwright, but the title page of Western Wild Animals is faced by an engraving tagged with the caption, “David’s Return to Camp.” He wears a white beard and a flat cap, and he is striding down a wooded trail, a rifle in his right hand and a dead deer balanced over his left shoulder. In short, he looks like a forbidding version of the Quaker Oats man. A selection from the preface seems a continuation of the furrow in his brow:
He is…not a professional book maker, and he knows that it is only by practice that there comes any great degree of perfection in any art or trade. What he gives you, he puts upon the basis of an experience of forty years, and gives it with that assurance that he believes should come of practical knowledge, as opposed to any hypothetical and visionary trash.
No dancing ‘round the campfire with patchouli and rain sticks, then. All well and good. But here’s where my ears really pricked:
Since the author of this book claims for himself an incompetency to the task of putting it into shape, and the more exact wording of its pages, and has placed that part of the work into the hands of another, it is due to him to say that…
Just a cotton-pickin’ minute. Back to the title page. Western Wild Animals, etc, and etc. By David W. Cartwright. In much smaller print: Written by Mary F. Bailey. Turns out David W. had a ghostwriter.
Pursuant to this post, someone asked me how I record interviews. In just the past year I switched to a Livescribe pen. It has so far been nothing short of amazing and worth every penny. Quite literally a magic wand. Pen and ink, paper and electrons, all talking to each other. However: when they released the most recent software update they removed the ability to use keystrokes to control the player. When transcribing the recording, I often toggle back and forth between a Word document and the Livescribe Desktop page. Previously, when I would toggle to the Livescribe page I could get the audio to back up and start over just by hitting the Enter key (rather than having to move hand from keyboard position, grab the mouse, move the cursor over the arrow, and click) (sounds like nothing much but when you’re transcribing hours and hours of interviews it quite literally adds up to hours of delay). After updating the Livescribe, I now find I can no longer use keystrokes as shortcuts.
Why do software/equipment makers remove things like this? It was a fundamentally useful option. Without the keystroke ability, transcription takes twice as long. When I contacted customer service, they said:
We are aware of this issue, and hope to have it resolved in a future release but do not have a timeframe for when this will be fixed.
I’m not yelling at anyone, just honestly baffled by any process in which an “upgrade” includes removing a fundamentally useful capability.
I have mentioned Barry Lynn in my books and other writing often. Perhaps you’d not think a fellow like this would be an inspiration to a clunky-footed knucklehead like me. But he is. Profoundly so. Past his mid-90s now, and still performing new dances. My friends John and Julie have been documenting Barry’s life for many years. The clip below is from their film, One Million Years is Three Seconds.
Back in the hotel room after spending the evening at the Midwest Booksellers Association Trade Show. I was on hand to say thanks for Coop being given a nice award.
I said thanks because the room was full of people who spend their every working day introducing readers to books, one by one, hand-to-hand. I would be nowhere without them. Above all I thanked them not so much for helping me tell my stories but for helping me share the stories of others…because it is in the unanticipated stories of others that readers seem to find resonance and – sometimes – a measure of peace. With these comments I had my brother and his little family in mind.
Before the event, I signed a mountain of books. This is only one stack. There were many more. Still, it seems easier than logging. Again, a tip of the hardhat to my brother.
After giving my heartfelt thanks, I used the remainder of my time to share critical insights related to bovine artificial insemination, because that’s what I think people expect at a literary gathering.
Most of all, though, I gawked. I love my mostly non-literary life. As in: I fed the pigs sour goat milk and old bread right before I left for this event (did shower first). And took the dang garbage out to the mailbox. But then a short drive later, I was listening to Neil Gaiman spin an effortless, wry, witty tale of how he came to discover he had accidentally become Midwestern – even as he spoke in his fabulous burbling English accent. I got to talk shop with David Wroblewski, a gentle man and engaging conversationalist. I was able to witness as Elizabeth Berg paid loving tribute to her parents. I got to hear Todd Boss read a poem that brought my father to mind and tears to my eyes. I got to look over three tables and think, “Holy shnikies, that’s Jonathan Safran Foer!“ I got to hear children’s book authors discuss the creation of books I’ve read to my own little girls. And I got to meet some of the people who put my books in boxes and ship them all across the United States.
In short, it was kid-in-a-candy-store time.
Finally, in the category of things a guy never anticipates when he’s in nursing school twenty-some years back, I got Twittered by Neil Gaiman. I would be a disingenuous fakey-fraud if I pretended that’s not the coolest thing since the new chickens started laying. Thank you, sir.
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