Not your neighborhood stink bug expert

For some reason I am getting a lot of emails and inquiries lately about stink bugs, perhaps because I blogged about them a couple of years ago. I just want to point out that I am (sad to say) not a stink bug expert, but if you are interested in a one-stop-shopping site with interesting factoids and pictures of stinkbugs, I suggest you look at this website instead. It covers the topic from every angle.

Coming soon: the dumbest author reading Q and A questions of all time

How many times have you gone to an author's reading at a book store and heard someone ask a question that made you want to crawl under your chair? Groan? Cover your ears? Flee the store? Cry? Move to another neighborhood?

There's one in every crowd -- that one person who's got to raise his hand and ask Alice Munro if she's related to Marilyn. Personally, I think these questions -- and the responses -- are often the most revealing part of a Q and A because they reveal more about authors' personalities, their capacity for empathy, and their ability to think on their feet, than any of the usual questions.

I'm putting together a partial list of the daffiest Q and A questions of all time --- and no, I won't spare myself on this list because I've asked a few staggeringly dumb questions to authors over the years, including a question to Janet Malcolm that was so confounding, even to me, that she couldn't answer at all. She just stared at me. And after a while, I think she said: "Next question?''

So far I've got a list of teeth-grinding questions that people have asked to Toni Morrison, Joan Didion and others.

If you have any examples of your own, send in.

If not, stay tuned.

Coming soon: the dumbest author reading Q & A questions of all time

How many times have you gone to an author's reading at a book store and heard someone ask a question that made you want to crawl under your chair?

Cover your ears?

Flee the store?

There's one in every crowd -- that one person who's got to raise his hand and ask Alice Munro if she's related to Marilyn. I'm putting together a partial list of the dumbest Q and A questions of all time --- and no, I won't spare myself on this list because I've asked a few doozies in my time, including a question to Janet Malcolm that was so confounding, even to me, that she couldn't answer at all.

So far I've got a list of dumb, cringe-worthy questions that people have asked to such luminaries as Toni Morrison, Joan Didion and others. If you have any examples of your own, send in. If not, stay tuned.






Here is a partial list of some of the loopiest questions I've heard during the many author events I've attended. Most are verbatim (or, at the very least, I've tried to remember them and reproduce them as accurately as posisble.)

I think i'm entitled to write about this since I, personally, have asked incomprehensible questions at authors events. I once asked a question to Janet Malcolm that was so nervous and loopy that she literally did not know what I was talking about and could not provide any answer at all.

Here are some of the choicest moments:


asked to Joan Didion in New York City during an event to promote The Year of Magical Thinking: "So what I want to know is what made you feel the worst? When your husband died or when your daughter died?''

asked to Laurie Garrett, the author of the Coming Plague, at a reading in the Capitola Book Cafe. "I want to know if you think the e bola outbreak was timed to coincide with the release of the movie Virus starring Dustin Hoffman.''

asked to a Steinbeck biographer Jay Parini by drunk person. "Steinbeck knew he was good, didn't he? I mean, he really, really knew he was good!''

asked to a Steinbeck biographer by same drunk guy. "that Steinbeck, he was a real sonovabitch wasn't he? I real sonavabitch!''

asked to Toni Morrison in New York City (during the middle of a Q and A): "Can I read you some of my poems right now?''

“J-Dog’’ launches book tour: Jonathan Franzen and Freedom at the Capitola Book Cafe

It’s hard to believe nine years have passed since I saw Jonathan Franzen read from The Corrections at the Book Café. He was so much more of a performer this time, and relaxed enough not to take offense when someone shouted out "Go, J-Dog" right when he approached the podium. There was a distinctly local flavor to the reading, his very first for this book tour and his only Bay Area book store appearance. His friend Claudia Sternbach introduced him by sharing a funny, rueful story about giving him some advice before The Corrections came out.

“I told him that my book had sold dozens of copies and it didn’t really change my life all that much.’’

Of course, The Corrections went on to sell three million copies, win a National Book Award for fiction and end up at the center of an Oprah’s Book Club kerfuffle. Last time around, Franzen seemed ill at ease with all that attention, and the reading was a little stiff. This time he claimed to be so nervous that he appealed to the audience for a way out:

“It’s a little bit like the NFL pre-season but the starter can’t come out after the first quarter. Should I even do the reading?’’

Of course, the willful Santa Cruz audience refused to let him wiggle out of it, and he delivered a reading so powerful that I wondered if the pre-amble was a put-on to mess with expectations. The reading itself seemed to use that rhetorical trick. I’m not going to put any spoilers in here, but I’ll just say that he read a long section from Freedom that started light --- with a funny, expository section leading to a scene of violence, followed by a betrayal. The satirical humor of the first section took on a corrosive edge by the time he was finished. The effect made me uncomfortable. It's hard to pull off a reading with that emotional range, especially considering he hadn't read publicly from the book at all this year.

Often, at bookstore Q and A sessions, at least one person in the audience asks an off-kilter question that makes you do a double-take. At a recent Gary Shteyngart reading, someone asked him something completely incomprehensible involving the trading and raising of sheep across international borders. You should have seen the look on his face. But this time all questions were on point. One person asked Franzen about his reported misgivings about the title.

“Freedom is a good old word that’s kind of been misused for political purposes,’’ he said. “If you don’t have a question mark or scare quotes around it, it is an incredibly pompous seeming title. It seemed self important – and gave me something to write towards."

Someone asked him that old Q and A chestnut – do you have any words of advice for a young, struggling writer -- and he came up with a great answer.

“Be prepared for the struggle,’’ Franzen told him. “Read lots and lots of books. Good writing gets internalized. Sentences become less mysterious and daunting. Find someone who will be really, really hard on your prose while still loving the writer.’’

In closing, he was asked “What gives you the courage to commit to a premise, shut off the (inner) critic and begin writing. ‘’

He responded, “The critic is not shut off at the early stages. Right from the first page, it starts rejecting every attempt out of hand, with insults to the writer. Sometimes you can get that critic to shut up for 20 or 30 pages. One tries to be friendly with that critic. I’ve gone as far as I can with that metaphor.’’

The end of Barnes and Noble?

I heard they were hurting, but this story about my neighborhood Barnes and Noble (two moves ago, I used to live just a few subway stops away from this) took me by surprise.

Wearing a hat this week

I just went to one of those 'cheap haircut' strip-mall places. Bad move. It looks like someone worked me over with a Rototiller.

I'm going to try to fix this when I get home (with a couple of mirrors and culinary scissors.)

Jonathan Franzen poses in front of decrepit barn

Time Magazine recently ran a cover story that (coincidentally) showed Jonathan Franzen posing in front of a barn that I wrote about in one of my recent stories. Incidentally, he'll be speaking at Bookshop very soon.

"We don't sell dank.'' (Reruns, part two.)

My eccentric neighborhood has some of the most unusual signs I've seen in a long while. Here is my latest sampling. The words are unchanged but the italics are all mine.

This is from two signs hanging up at the Daljeet's Boutique.

"No photos. No brats. No cellphones. no restroom so don't ask. No loitering. This is not the place to eat your pizza, tie your shoes, smoke whatever you smoke or hang out.''

Wow! Thanks, Daljeets, for making us all feel so cozy and welcome. And here's another one, from the Cannabis Company: "We don't see weed, bud, herb, dank, ganja, trees, or marijuana, and not even reefer. We don't know where you can get some. Thanks for reading, and welcome to the Cannabis Company.''

Well, that just about covers it, although they didn't mention green bud or fat nuggs. And here's one more sign, at Murio's Trophy Room. I'm wondering if an over-vigilant bartender put it up there:

"If you look under 125, be prepared to show I.D.''

PVHS Reunion at MotoArt

Had a great time at the PVHS reunion. Still, I sensed I was growing older when my father, who drove me to the event, walked into the venue and asked if we were in the right place -- and someone came up to him and asked if he was part of my graduation class! (My Dad just turned 84 years old.) It was great to catch up with everyone, and the venue looked like a bit of Soma right in the middle of Torrance, CA. It was part aircraft hangar, part art gallery, with bits of airplane rejiggered as furniture, sculpture, etc.

Had to cut out earlier than expected after imbibing a mysterious libation known as a "Sea King.'' Will not confirm or deny rumors that my parents drove me home from this event.

Revenge of the microphone: Gary Shteyngart at Bookshop Santa Cruz

The microphone kept cutting out on Gary Shteyngart during his informal Q and A this week at Bookshop Santa Cruz. “Technology hates me, obviously,’’ the 38-year-old author and writing professor explained. The danged thing cut out three times.

The world of gadgetry has every reason to despise Mr. Shteyngart. His new book, Super Sad True Love Story, is a funny, scathing response to shortened attention spans, the waning of books and reading, and the dominance of the digital world. In his new novel, reading is so marginalized that people think books smell like unwashed feet, and sometimes spray them to conceal their odor. Instead of reading, the people of SSTLS check in regularly with their apparat, a gizmo that, among other things, helps people log onto the Web, keep tabs on their health and broadcast their “hotness’’ rankings. To prepare himself for this book, Mr. Shteyngart broke down and got an iPhone. “It pings all the time with useless information all day long,'' he said. While Shteyngart said he had no problem with digital reading devices, he fears that books “are becoming yet another file that gets transmitted through the air like so many millions of other things.’’ Reading, he said, requires “a huge act of empathy” and emotional commitment, which is becoming increasingly difficult '‘when all day long we are being bombarded with little packets of information.’’

According to Shteyngart, his new book is not a cautionary glimpse into the world of tomorrow.

“Speculative fiction is not about the future,’’ he explained. “It’s about where we are right now.''

(I chose this illustration because it looks vaguely like the bear on the cover of his first book.)

Reunion stripper

I found that link I was talking about in a previous entry. Could hardly believe this. She hired a stripper to go to a reunion in her place last year -- and had the stripper wired with an earpiece so she could give offstage directions!

I think the big running joke from this 'documentary' is that people always look so different at reunions anyhow (so how would someone really know if it wasn't you?)

This person grew up in the same town as me but technically it wasn't the same high school (I think her high school was a temporary merging of my high school and a rival nearby high school, unless I'm mistaken ...)

Anyhow, looking forward to my own reunion -- if any PVHS friends are out there reading this, would you let me know if you're going?

Formerly Hot book

Enjoyed reading this article about a college classmate's book, which creates a new demographic. I don't know Stephanie very well but I wish her success with this.

Politically correct used cars

In my new hometown, "used cars'' is considered an offensive expression, and highly insensitive.

In fact, there's a car lot, two blocks away from me, in which the words "used cars'' cannot be found anywhere on the parking lot or on the merchandise.

Instead, there are little stickers on the windshields saying "this car has been previously loved.''

My new Author's Photo.

Here it is.

You'll notice that I'm not smiling in this one either.




The photographer is Carolyn Lagatutta.

Going to my high school reunion

I've only been to one before in my life. Determined not to look at any of the name tags and see if I can recognize everybody.

There is an outside chance that I will have a most unusual chaperone (or driver) for this particular event.

By the way, I just stumbled across this crazy story about a woman who went to the same high school as me, but instead of going to her 10th reunion, she hired a stripper to go in her place! Wondering if this is a true story. Personally, I don't think I'd get away with doing something like that.

Yarnbombing in Santa Cruz?

Thank you to Helene, who wondered if my Fuzzy Tree (see below) is part of the Yarnbombing trend. Check this out.

A warm and fuzzy tree

In Santa Cruz, people knit sweaters for trees.

See below.

Advice needed for DIY mollusk puppet

Trying to make a reasonably sophisticated-looking mollusk puppet for an art project that is due in the coming weeks. It must be made out of cheap, easily available materials. It needs to have large and bulging eyes, a moveable mouth, etc.

Send me advice or links off-blog if you've got them. (Nope, I'm not kidding.)

The Literary Orange: a literary conference at UC Irvine

Just wanted to let you know that I will be speaking and signing books at the 2011Literary Orange, a literary festival in Southern California. I know it's a little early to get the notice out -- it's not happening until next April -- but I'll send reminders out before then on Facebook and elsewhere. It will be great to see everyone. I will be part of a travel-writing panel. Check the website in early fall for the full line-up. Last year the keynote speakers were Karen Joy Fowler and Dean Koontz.

Do you suffer from an irrational fear of chickens?

Disclaimer: There is some chance that the chickens described in a previous blog entry could cause Alektorophobia.

Review: chicken ranch vending machine surpasses expectations (four stars out of five.)

Cactuseaters review: Glaum egg vending machine. Aptos, California.

The Glaum chicken farm egg vending machine exceeded expectations, combining good nutrition with wholesome family entertainment and overall dollar value.

Here's what you should do: drive down Highway One from Santa Cruz and take a left on Freedom Boulevard, then take another left on Valencia. Soon, on the right, you will see the chicken farm, and signs pointing to the vending machine, which is open all the time. Seriously. You could drive up there at three in the morning.

Anyhow, make sure to bring three crisp dollar bills (no quarters.) Insert the bills into the machine. Suddenly the curtain (blocking a small window) will go up, and 10 dancing chickens will emerge. They will sing. They will dance. They will wiggle their small, feather-covered butts to the tune of a loud Benny Goodman song. The song will go on for a very long time. You will notice that some of the chickens are dressed in patriotic colors. Then, when the song is over, the nearby vending machine will give you 24 huge eggs, which is a good deal. On the down side, the machine will hand the eggs to you on a large and awkward pallet without any cover, forcing you to drive home very carefully, watching for speed bumps, lest any of those eggs rolls out and splatters all over you.

I give this tourist attraction four out of five stars, though some people seem to disagree with me. I saw a grouchy woman pull up, slam her three bills into the machine, grab her eggs and drive off, leaving those robot chickens singing and squawking into the nothingness.


I will post pictures at the soonest available opportunity.

to Southern California Cactuseaters readers ...

I will be taking part in a big literary event in springtime down in So.Cal (where lots of family lives.) Will post more when it's official. Sorry to be vague, but it will involve a discussion of travel writing, plus book signing and more.

Congratulate them when you see them

My parents have just gotten back from their 60th(!!!)wedding anniversary cruise. (That really puts things in perspective, in this day and age when people can't even buy futons together anymore.)

In other news, my visit to the Glaum Egg Vending Machine (featuring a group of dancing robot chickens) was a big success. Will post pictures when I figure that out.

The most exciting weekend I've had in a long, long time

This weekend, I met a live bat, and now I am about to visit the famous Glaum Egg Vending Machine.

Full report soon.

Huge rattlesnake

I just saw the biggest, juiciest rattlesnake ever in Rancho San Antonio. I stood in the middle of the path and tried to direct people away from the snake. I warned everybody that the huge snake was on the right side of the road and that they had "better watch out." The trouble is that everyone thought I meant my right side of the road, so they did the opposite of what I told them and walked left instead of right, straight into the coils and dripping fangs of that rattlesnake.

If I had to guess, about 15 people walked straight into the jaws of that snake because of my attempt to help them out. It probably chomped and maybe even swallowed every one of them. (sorry, everybody.)

My bear encounter.

On Sunday, while strolling through the mountains, I almost walked right into a black bear yearling with white-and-cinnamon fur and a hulking Mama Bear, who was jet black, and right on the side of the trail near Crescent Meadow.

Someone warned me in the distance. "There's a bear!'' According to several witnesses (I have blanked out everything that happened next)I put my hands up to make myself look bigger and took small steps backward, away from the bears, who were only 20 feet or so away from me. After a while, they snurfled around through the bushes and took off.

I am not bragging about this at all, but it's worth mentioning because I've made such a mess of my bear encounters in the past.

It just goes to show that people can learn from their mistakes.

But I have no proof of this. I know that someone videotaped the whole thing but I don't have any way of reaching them (no contact info.)

Cactus Eaters review on Oh Ranger, plus Save Me From the Disgusting Ants

Here is the most recent review -- and thanks to the reader who sent this in today. (I'm counting on you guys, since I don't have much time to trawl through the Internet these days.)

In other news, disgusting ants have entered my residence and they keep trying to carry me off so they can feed me to their ant queen.

When I wake up in the morning, I am exactly one foot closer to the door than I was when I went to sleep. This means the ants are trying to carry me off incrementally, in the hope that I won't notice until it's too late.

Anyhow, if you have any non-toxic solutions, please let me know. It's getting really bad.

Reading list

Colum McCann -- Let The Great World Spin.

Steve Almond -- Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life. The Toto lyrics chapter just about killed me.

Daniel Okrent -- Last Call. This book is a riot, and it's the most precise and engaging book on the subject. Now nudging its way up the bestseller list.

Dan Chaon -- Await Your Reply. Identity-theft nightmare. Will make an insomniac out of you.

David Howard -- Lost Rights: The Misadventures of a Stolen American Relic Real-life historical crime caper. Gripping and real. See blog entry below.

Rebecca Skloot: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

John Richardson: My Father The Spy. Your parents' secret career.

Dave Cullen: Columbine. Everything you thought about Columbine turns out to be wrong.

On order: Beth Raymer, Lay The Favorite. The last time I saw Beth Raymer, it was four or five years ago, and she was giving an hilarious reading from an excerpt of the as-yet-unfinished manuscript. Now it's out, and soon it's going to be a movie directed by Stephen Frears. (movie should be out next year)

Bad service: "This is not Baker's Square!!!"

Every once in a while, I am going to post brief stories about the truly horrible service I've experienced or witnessed in local restaurants. Feel free to send in if you have a tale to tell about exceptionally bad service. Meanwhile, here are two stories.

Not so long ago, I took my parents to a fancy downtown restaurant that is known for its home-made lemonade, its chicken entrees and its snide owner. My father complimented the waitress on the lemonade. "That is very, very good,'' he said. "Do you give free refills?''

"No!'' she said. "You think we serve refills for free here? This is not Baker's Square!''

My father took this in stride -- in fact, he thought it was pretty funny. Just to show that there were no hard feelings, when the waitress came back, he decided to give her some good-natured ribbing. When she asked if he would like some dessert, he said, "Thank you very much, but I think we'll go out to Baker's Square instead.''

"They put lard in their pies!'' she snarled.

On another occasion, I was standing in line at a high-end coffeehouse in the same city. A man was at the front of the line. He ordered up an orange juice. The man behind the counter came back a few minutes later with a container of murky liquid.

"Is that orange juice fresh-squeezed?" the customer asked.

"Fresh-squeezed compared to what?'' the barista replied.

On hiatus

Quite busy.

Sorry I haven't returned your email.

Today is National Doughnut Day!

Do your part. Do it for Rue McClanahan.

Kara Levy makes her Huffington Post debut!

Way to go to my friend Kara Levy. Here she is, reading a prize-winning fiction story that is now featured prominently in one of the world's most popular media blogs.

Indie bookstore isn't dead after all

I was upset to see that a former haunt of mine, Bookworks in Aptos, California, seemed to be kaput. I used to spend hours in the store, guzzling coffee, reading the magazines and buying just enough inventory to upgrade myself from "loiterer'' to "frequent customer.'' Stopping in to browse through this charming store, I saw some ugly brown wrapping on the windows last week, along with a notice saying that the space was being turned into, of all things, a bike store. (I love bikes, but this area has bicycle outlets the way Haight-Ashbury has creperies and stinky bong emporiums.)

Fortunately, the store has merely moved, although it's smaller than before.

Street poet bids farewell to Cactuseaters in SF (edited version. I wrote this in a hurry.)

Before relocating, I chatted with Lynn Gentry, the famed street poet of Haight-Ashbury, about leaving town. Among other things, I explained to him the staggering amounts of lead in my Victorian apartment (up to 45 times the permissible levels of lead according to the SF Health Department.)He sat down at his typewriter and came up with this nice farewell verse:

"Calls come suddenly and time is too late
to dawn upon minds that wished for so much more but
beauty sits so fragile; who could have known yesterday
the mystery that calls us to protect oursevles
From the dreams of ourselves where questions sit
in mind but little girls sit in view
about to turn two
and we turn our back on fantasies to realize paradise.''

Good one, Lynn Gentry.

David Howard's Lost Rights and Daniel Okrent's Last Call

I've been hearing from readers asking for more information about the Lost Rights nonfiction book and David Howard's Lost Rights book tour. Here is all the info you need. Also, make sure to get your hands on Daniel Okrent's highly entertaining portrait of Prohibition, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, another book that has been making the rounds this month. Amy and I did a bit of research work on Last Call, and it was very exciting to see it arrive in bookstores.

Lost Rights --- David Howard charts the strange journey of a stolen American relic

Who stole the Bill of Rights? I'm not speaking metaphorically here. One of General Sherman's infantrymen pilfered one of the fourteen original copies of the Bill of Rights in the North Carolina statehouse. The stolen relic (a real-life National Treasure) changed hands again and again as it made its way across America. The longtime journalist and author David Howard received a rave from Publishers Weekly for this highly anticipated book, which hits stores this summer. I had the privilege of reading this one in an early form, and I can tell you that it's a jaw dropping combination of investigative reporting and narrative, with memorable characters and so-strange-it-could-only-be-true situations. PW gave it a starred review and named it as the nonfiction pick of the week.

Cheap thrills for book lovers part XXXXXVI: Tim Cahill at SJSU

Tim Cahill will be speaking at SJSU on Wednesday night, (April 28th) and it should be a great event. By the way, I was once at a San Jose gathering where he was present, and I can attest to the fact that he is exactly like his writing persona: the life of the party, funny, self-effacing and smart, roaming from room to room with an endless supply of stories. Currently he's the Lurie Professor at SJSU, teaching adventure writing to graduate students and undergrads here on campus.

It's pretty unusual when you meet an author and find that he or she squares with the voice that you 'hear' on the page and the persona that comes across in the stories. Alas, I've met a couple of my other adventure/outdoor writing heroes and found that one of them in particular was ... well, let's just leave it at that.

Thank you, and wash your hands

Thanks to all the many, many people who wished me a happy birthday yesterday. I'm glad to report that my entire family has now recovered from the horrible, horrible stomach flu that had us all out of commission and off-blog for a long while. (I'm telling you, it's nasty stuff, this bug that's been going around. Don't even think about going to Babies R Us or the doctor's office without lathering up with hand sanitizer. Preferably something non-toxic like CleanWell.

Lots of folks are asking where I moved. Not to be cryptic, but here's a riddle. Suppose you were to drive south from San Francisco for roughly an hour and thought you were leaving behind all the slow food, weirdly high housing prices, Victorians with fishscale shingles and mansard roofs, lovely vistas, hippies and pot smoke of SF, only to find all these things waiting for you upon arrival?

NY Times' rave about American Idiot.

Darn. I should have seen this when it was playing at the Berkeley Rep, but I got sticker shock when I saw the ticket prices. Oh well.

Free drugs in Golden Gate Park?

Why do I always see a small army of beady-eyed, scuzzily dressed drug dealers hanging around the sign that says "DRUG-FREE ZONE'' at the park's eastern entrance? (Maybe they think the sign says "FREE DRUG ZONE.'')

Cactuseaters relocates suddenly

This won't affect you, my readers, (both of you. Hi, Mom!) but I want to let you know that the Cactuseaters blog is relocating out of San Francisco. I've been bracing myself for this moment by eating thousands of English muffins from Arizmendi bakery every day. And playing that Journey song over and over. Just kidding about the second thing.

I will miss this city. On the good side, the endless dumb jokes about my name will (probably?) cease.

In honor of my move, Lynn Gentry, the Street Poet of Haight-Ashbury, wrote a farewell-oriented poem. I will blog it soon, verbatim.

Read these books

It's the 50th anniversary (more or less) of Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King. I can see how elements of this book would rub people the wrong way, but what a voice. It's like an undertow. I can imagine Wes Anderson making a risky movie out of this, with Gene Hackman in the title role. He'd be perfect. You read that here first. Don't be put off by the morbid title of David Shields' memoir/meditation, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead. Yes, it's about mortality and decrepitude, but mostly it's about living well. I read the first part of Sam Lipsyte's The Ask at my friendly neighborhood Burgermeister but I had to switch to something else because it was making me laugh too hard for public appearances. At the risk of oversharing, I was worried that my happy-hour pint of Prohibition Pale Ale might pour out of my nose. Also, you must read John D'Agata's About A Mountain. And that's all for now.

Ugly Glasses reposted (my most popular blog entry of all time.)

I have no idea why this is so -- but this is my most popular blog entry of all time. which is weird because it has nothing to do with succulent plants, weirdoes smoking pot in Golden Gate Park, or New York City's famous rats. I will repost it here.

Ugly glasses

When I was a kid, if you wore big goofy angular frames like the ones worn by Elvis Costello on his first record, or Oscar Wao, or Piggy from Lord of the Flies, you would get beaten up or stuffed into a Dumpster. Today, these are your only options! I wonder what poor old Piggy would think, to know that he has been reborn as a fashion icon. Today's trendiest glasses are all awkward, expensive and absolutely enormous, with huge black bug-eyed frames with weird jagged edges. Anyhow, I was at the eyeglass store in Noe Valley yesterday. The salesman tried a bit of divide-and-conquer. He had me try on some really big frames, and when my wife made a sour face, he waited until she was out of earshot and said, "I disagree with her but it looks like she has the say-so.'' Tired of the hard-sell, I went to Sears to try out their options but they were even worse. They have spindly frames that sit crookedly on your face no matter what you do, while pinching your nose and squishing the sides of your head. Instead of investing in new glasses, I'll stick with the ones I have and buy a seeing eye dog

Cactus Eaters wins relentless profanity award

I am humbled and grateful about winning the first annual MPORB (Most Profanity in Outdoor-related Book) Award, given bi-annually to the author of an outdoors or hiking-related book with the most relentless and gratuitous use of profanity. The judges declared that there were "certainly other hiking books with large numbers of very bad words, but a search through the pages of the Kindle and eBook version of the Cactus Eaters revealed that Dan White's book had more expletives per page than any of the competition.''

Thank you, judges. I am &@$&!$%& grateful for this honor.

Translation of Chinese Cactuseaters comment

You might read my blog and think that it's a very small operation with only one unpaid employee. But you would be wrong. In truth, the tentacles of the Cactuseaters blog reach all over the world. I have a staff of highly trained volunteer translators who help me decipher messages that I receive every week from all over the world. For instance, I received a Chinese comment just the other day. An attentive reader translated it as follows: "When an individual's heart can embrace conflicting ideologies, he/she becomes more appreciated."

Thank you, translator. This is a useful comment. I could use a few conflicting ideologies in my life. And to my readers: keep sending in those comments, whether they are in English, Mandarin, Tagalog, Sanskrit, Cantonese, Vietnamese, French, Greek, Spanish or Esperanto. (My team of translators will be standing by.)

Coming soon -- the Cactuseaters interview with nameless folk supergroup (featuring Wolf Larsen, Kelly McFarling and Megan Keely.)

Stay tuned for my interview with Wolf Larsen, Kelly McFarling and Megan Keely, who put on an incredible performance at the Blue Six in the Mission last Friday. I suppose I should have alerted them to the fact that I want to interview them for Cactuseaters before posting this, but I'll stick it up on the blog as soon as I'm finished.
The group is great, although they do need a name (and a bass player!)The three musicians -- who each have devoted followings -- perform 'hootenanny'' style, alternating lead vocals on original songs and then uniting to sing three-part harmony. They are all outstanding songwriters, but they also throw some wild, off-the-cuff covers into the mix (ranging from Whitney Houston to Don Ho.)By the way, the Bluesix Acoustic Room is the best place to see acoustic music in the city right now. It's like sitting in someone's living room right in the center of the Mission.

The Cactus Eaters -- now available in multiple formats

That's right. It's now available as a book, on Kindle and on the Ipad. You can also have it printed on Silly Putty. By the way, I had no idea that it was up on Kindle until I saw someone reading it at a party recently. Seriously.

A day of remembrance, with a few words from Pawprints

Here are a few words from my brother Phil.

Eastern Sierra stormfront

Reposting this image in memory of my brother, David Gordon White aka Zooknoone. Thank you for your remembrances and messages, and feel free to send in again. This pen and ink drawing was done a year ago while returning home from a celebration of his life.

Pecked by disgusting bird in Golden Gate Park

Details to follow.

Rush Limbaugh: bring your own hot sauce

Just wanted to wish Mr. Limbaugh well on his permanent and irrevocable sojourn to Costa Rica. In fact, I hear he will be jumping on a plane any minute now. Some travel advice: bring a large bottle of Tapatio hot sauce. The food is great but it can use a little seasoning. Once he gets there, he should ease into the lifestyle gradually. Perhaps he'll rent a cabana near the Arenal volcano, and then light out for the cloud forest, or the Pacific coast. Happy travels!

(Revised to correct the spelling of 'embarrassment): An embarrassment of riches: many author events this week (clear your calendars.)

Do not miss Sam Lipsyte when he speaks in SF tomorrow at the Tosca Cafe. He will read from his acclaimed new book, The Ask. Peter Malae will be at City Lights Bookstore this Thursday to read from his just-released novel, What We Are. Also this week: a slew of author's events at the Booksmith, including a talk by Alex Lemon, subject of a fascinating profile in the latest P & W. Alas, I can't go to any of these events, but I'm reading all the books in tandem, starting with What We Are this week.

Cheap thrills for book lovers, part XXXV???: Soul Making Literary Contest winners converge on SF Public

Congratulations to my friend, Professor Sam Autman, who will speak at the Koret Auditorium today. He is a Soul Making Literary Contest winner and is here in SF to mark the occasion. The event is at the main branch of the SF Public, and if you would like to go, try to get there around 1230 when the doors open. The talk runs from 1 to 3 p.m. And my apologies for the extremely short notice.

Translations of Cactus Eaters comments in Chinese

This just in. One of my readers has stepped up and translated all of the recent Chinese comments on my message board. Stay tuned for the translations. I will post them next week.

Dog with stupid name

I was minding my own business in the park over the weekend, reading Michael Slater's new Charles Dickens biography (which I recommend very highly, by the way. A fascinating and beautifully researched book. But don't drop it on your foot.)Anyhow, a small and yappy dog ran out of the bushes with a little kid and her mom running right behind it. To get the dog to stop running, they called out its name. "Here, Zagat!'' they said. "Come on, Zagat! Time to go home, Zagat!'' And it made me wonder: what kind of a person would name their kid's dog after a customer rating system? I hope this isn't part of a trend. ("Yelp," at least, would have made some sense.)

Bicyclist stops at stop sign in Golden Gate Park

I saw the weirdest thing in the park yesterday. I stepped out in front of a stop sign, not realizing that a bicyclist was barreling straight towards me. And then, to my astonishment, the bicyclist actually stopped at the stop sign -- in San Francisco, no less! Not only that, but she said, "Please go ahead of me. I'll keep riding after you cross the street.''

For a moment, I was speechless. I have only seen this happen once before; see below for details. For the uninitiated, out in San Francisco, if you are a bicyclist and you see a stop sign, you are supposed to barrel straight through it, as if the stop sign did not exist. In fact, most folks actually accelerate when they see one of these signs. Even police officers on bikes will do this, too. In fact, the cops --- from my personal experience -- seem to ignore more stop signs than anybody else.

In her defense, the bicyclist was only six years old. She'll learn. For the record, this has only happened to me once before, out on Waller, when another bicyclist stopped at a stop sign and let me pass. She turned out to be a foreign exchange student.

Michael Ondaatje at the deYoung

Sounds like another great event; will try in earnest to be there. (I'm a proud member of the deYoung Museum, so the discount will be nice, too.)

Cheap thrills for book lovers, part ??: Big literary goings-on at the JCC

It looks as though everyone in my teaching syllabus is showing up to my town, and all within the same time frame. Andre Aciman, Richard Rodriguez, Ruth Reichl and Elizabeth Strout are all coming to the JCC soon. Clear your calendars. By the way, I think I spied Mr. Rodriguez in the crowd at a recent ACT play, but I might be wrong.

You and me could rent a Betamax

I was surprised the other day when I turned on the radio and heard Lady Gaga celebrating the virtues of a clunky, outmoded and long-forgotten videocassette recorder that was popular starting in the mid-1970s but soon went out of fashion.

"I want your love and all your lover's revenge
you and me could rent a Betamax!"

How refreshing, to hear the electronic/dance superstar extolling the virtues of a long-forgotten technology, a clunky and oft-ridiculed cultural artifact, once featured in an Itchy and Scratchy episode of the Simpsons.

But the very next day, I was walking down Masonic, near the Haight intersection, and noticed that a Gaga fan had scratched out the actual lyrics to the song, including the line: "You and me could write a bad romance.''


As John Prine once said, "It's a happy enchilada and you think you're gonna drown.''

You must make a circle out of cupcakes (do not haste)

Thanks to everyone who joined me in today's grand 12-month celebration in honor of the family's shortest person. See Wall Post for uncryptic version.

Strange fortune cookie promotes misgiving, confusion

I frequented a New York City restaurant (now out of business) that specialized in fresh-kill chicken specials and incomprehensible fortune cookies.

On my last night there, I got a cookie with the following fortune:

"YOU MUST GO HOME AND MAKE A CIRCLE OUT OF MINTS. DO NOT HASTE!!"

I went home, as directed, and made a circle out of Altoids.

I left it out on the kitchen table all night long, and let the circle remain there for the next two days.

Absolutely nothing happened as a result of doing this.

Thumbsmoker

I keep trying to wean myself from blogging about weird goings on in and around Golden Gate Park -- but I found it hard to resist this one. I was walking down the block just the other day and saw some guy asking people to smoke his thumb. Indeed, when I looked closely, I could see a plume of smoke rising up from beneath his thumb. One person actually stopped and smoked it, and then the guy started smoking his own thumb. Eventually, the (presumably illicit) contents of his thumb burned down and singed the inside of his finger. "Ow,'' he said, and the demonstration was over.

A disgrace to jugglers around the world

Just got home from shopping and saw the very worst juggler I've ever seen -- juggling only one ball at a time and still dropping it on the filthy city sidewalk. In her defense, she was also trying to play the ukelele and drink a beer at the same time.

Recession dents local bong industry. (Ugly glassware priced for quick sale.)

I can't help but noticing 20 percent discounts at several cheesy local bong emporiums in my neighborhood. Now you can pay a few bucks less for a hideous and highly breakable five-foot-tall bong shaped like a demon or a grinning skeleton. I guess these places are getting desperate. Alas, the price of alcohol remains in a holding pattern.

First ever National Magazine Day in the Haight

Looks like fun. Count me in. And it's happening right now.

Cactus Eaters book on tape?

Lots of people have asked about this. Right now you can find portions of the book in recorded versions, but only in small bits and pieces. Could happen, though. However, it would have to be the 'clean' version because I can't read swear words out loud.

Reading...

Sigrid Nunez, The Last Of Her Kind

Meloy, Maile. Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It

Stop self-Googling!

This blog post made me laugh, but it's all too true, I think.

Sawing Wood: a chronicle of the joys, struggles, and artistic endeavors of a young working-class family in the city of San Francisco

Here it is.

A quotidian amount of pastry pain

selected reruns, part IV

NYC has a very good bakery called Pain Quotidien --- but the people who wait on you aren't very nice, at least when I'm there. You might even say that it's the Kim's Video of pastry. The other day, I went into the east-side branch to get a French Cream Bun. I asked the guy behind the counter what was inside the bun. "FRENCH CREAM,'' he snarled, pointing at the sign. This cream bun was beautiful to look upon --- two wedges of pastry with a finely sculpted layer of goo inside it --- but when I told the guy that my order was to go, he took out a little plastic cup and squashed the pastry inside of it, literally pounding the cup with his fists until the pastry flattened out and spewed its custard-cream guts all over the packaging!

It was still edible but looked very bad by the time I brought it home. If you go, bring your own packaging.

Scalping free tickets in Golden Gate Park (plus "Extreme Mammals'')

I saw a scalper asking $25 per for tickets to the King Tut exhibit at the DeYoung this morning. The problem is: tickets are free today! Not very nice if you ask me. Also, I saw some employees of the California Academy of Sciences moving a big, scary-looking crate into the museum's loading area. The crate said "EXTREME MAMMALS" in bold letters. What was in that crate, I wonder? I'm imagining a yeti or a sasquatch. Or a pair of snow-boarding giraffes.

Books

Someone had a wall post on Facebook griping about the lack of funny fiction books. The griper obviously has not read Homeland by Sam Lipsyte. I don't want to wreck it by giving anything away; just go out and get it. You'll never look at high school reunions in quite the same way again. I've exhausted Homeland by reading it twice. Now I need to get my hands on The Ask, his latest. Not that she needs my help, but you need to read Lit by Mary Karr. Look at the seamless way she incorporates the reflections of her older self and the way she uses poetic language and compression without gunking up the motor. She's earned the right to be grumpy about other memoirists. I read the large-print edition, which is kind of like having a low-fi Kindle.

Positive change inspired by book (hooray for Lemmy)

I just heard from someone who has started listening to quite a bit of NWA and Motorhead after reading my book. I'm glad that I'm doing my bit to promote Motorhead awareness -- although I must confess (sheepishly) that "Ace of Spades'' is the only Motorhead song that I have ever heard.

Conquering the NCT in winter

Get a load of this. An impressive journey, to say the least! Any one of these trails would be accomplishment enough -- but all four?

Valentine's Day in the Haight

The sun was out, which was remarkable enough. People were lawn-bowling and guzzling cases of Pabst. A famous author walked unnoticed through the Panhandle. Dogs ran amok with no owners in sight. And some guy was standing there in the middle of the field, cracking two bullwhips at once. Lion tamer in training?

Discovering Joyland

A hub for short fiction.

Beef Monster Taco

selected reruns, part two:

Back when I was a hardcore backpacker, I spent up to 10 days in the woods. Most of the time, when I arrived at a supply town, I would take a pay shower at a campground, load up my food, and slip back into the forest. In those days, motel rooms were a rare treat. I wasn't discerning at all. A motel had to fulfill four basic qualifications: 1. It needed to cost twenty-eight bucks a night or less, 2. It needed not to be a working brothel, 3. It had to be across the street from a place where you could get a two-dollar breakfast, and 4. it had to have running -- and, if possible, warm --- water. My younger self did not care if the curtains smelled like Salem Lights, or if there were mystery splotches on the comforters and on the ceiling, or if there were shirtless burly dudes hanging out in the parking lot all night, slurping Boones Farm Strawberry straight from the bottle. I didn't even mind if the doors to my room would not close unless you propped a bunch of couches against them. As far as I was concerned, a motel was a motel. Right?

But not anymore. These days I've grown a little soft. For example, I just got back from a whirlwind visit to Seattle. The trip itself was fantastic, but I had some concerns with my accomodations on Aurora Avenue. A certain online cheap reservations service (I can't tell you the name, but I can tell you that it rhymes with Shmavelocity) stuck me in a chain motel room that was exactly seven feet from a Jack In the Box drive through window. I was so close, I could have leaned out and ordered myself a shake at three a.m. All night long, I had to put my hands over my ears because of all the people driving up and bellowing orders: "I WANT A BEEF MONSTER TACO, A STEAKMELT, CHOCOLATE OVERLOAD, TWO PITA SNACKS, TEN ORDERS OF CHEESY MACARONI BITES and A SOURDOUGH ULTIMATE CHEESEBURGER.'' And then the perky woman in the drive-through counter couldn't quite hear them, so she would shout back at them, and then they would shout their order even more loudly until my motel room began to quake. I put several pillows over my head, and even put on the kind of industrial strength earplugs that jackhammer operators use on the streets of Manhattan. In spite of my best effforts, the hungry, shouting customers and the perky-voiced attendant just got louder and louder. Next time, I'm going to stay in a nicer, more quiet place. (Or maybe I'll just pitch my tent in the middle of a Jack In the Box and see if anyone notices.)

Cactuseaters Reruns Part-One: Dancing the Muni Macarena

As I've said before, this is a nice city. However, I am not enjoying MUNI. Part accordion, part bus, part cable car, part marionette, the MUNI takes forever to arrive. The MUNI squeaks as it makes its slow, poky way through the city. I hate sitting on the little reversible seats while waiting for MUNI. They aren't really designed to hold a human being's weight. In fact, they have a tendency of dropping you down onto the indescribably filthy sidewalk if you aren't careful. But the worst part of it is the 'transfers' they give you once you pay your fare. The transfers are printed on what seems to be one-ply Charmin Ultrasoft Toilet Paper. These transfers start to disintegrate the moment you put them in your hand. Also, they are insanely easy to lose. That's why you always see all kinds of panicked people on the MUNI, clutching their chests and hips while making all kinds of desperate faces and mad gyrations as they tear open their wallets and turn their pockets inside out in their efforts to find the vouchers. It looks as if they are dancing.

Free Beer and Bacon at SF 1/2 Marathon

What a race. A group of young folks was handing out warm, gristly bacon and Coors Light to the runners while blasting GNR's "Sweet Child O' Mine.'' Remarkably, some of the runners actually accepted these dubious treats and did not throw up. I did not partake. The course was beautiful -- wrapping around the Panhandle, then weaving around the GGP and stretching out to the Great Highway, finally turning back at the entrance to the SF zoo. I did just fine, although I was overambitious in the first eight and a half miles (for which I paid a stiff price in the last five!) My pacer was a woman dressed up as a unicorn, complete with a floppy horn made out of felt. No kidding. It must have been very uncomfortable to run like that! By the way, I saw the front-runner, finishing up the race. Can you imagine, being able to run 13 miles in roughly an hour? Scary. From the look of it, he wasn't even breaking a sweat.

Sold out: half marathoners stampede through the GGP

Here's the course route. See you all tomorrow. (and don't rush me. I go pretty slowly.)

One hundred writing blogs.

Thanks to Samuel for sending this in.

In-training for Marathon Number Five

Too late to back out now. For starters, I'll have to conquer a scary-sounding, hilly 13 miler right here in SF in a couple of days. Yikes.

Spammers beware

Lately I have been getting large, smelly piles of Spam in the "bulk file'' section of my Cactuseaters inbox every morning, so I need to institute a brand new policy. Spammers, please read this carefully.

1. From now on, all senders of Spam (messages starting with "dearest,'' people offering me millions of dollars from fake sweepstakes, etc) will be subject to seven years of bad karma.

2. Not only that, but their teeth will turn green, their hair will fall out in ragged clumps and they will have halitosis for the rest of their lives.

I don't wish to implement this new policy but the Spam has gotten out of hand.

So Spammers, please print out this message and put it somewhere close to your computer terminal and read it before you send.

Swap books and hang out with Stephen Elliott

Tomorrow in the Haight.

Read these too...updated yet again

R. Crumb's Genesis will make your eyes bug out. I've heard people describe it as irreverent, while other people say its literal-mindedness is a form of reverence. You'll have to decide for yourself. It's best taken one small bit at a time. I don't advise plowing through the whole thing at once. I loved At Swim, Two Birds by Flann O'Brien, nee Bryan O'Nolan. What a riot. To read this book is to find yourself caught up in an elaborate prank. Sometimes you're in on the prank. Other times, the joke's on you. This novel feels very contemporary, so it's a shocker to look at the publication date. I also enjoyed Flannery, by Brad Gooch. Flannery O'Connor once said, "As for biographies, there won't be any biographies of me because, for only one reason, lives spent between the house and the chicken yard do not make exciting copy.'' She was wrong for once. The Gutenberg Elegies by Sven Birkerts provides great insight into the fallout from new technologies "at the expense of the printed word.'' And the weird thing is, it was published back in 1994!! Joe Queenan is best known for his hilariously nasty essays and reviews, but he's turned out an excellent memoir, Closing Time, which has much more pathos than his usual work, but with moments of guilty hilarity sprinkled in.

Cactus Eaters FAQ

Here is a compendium of frequently asked questions. I removed some out-of-date information and made a couple of additions.

This has been updated slightly. I should tell you right now that this contains some spoilers so stop reading right here if you haven't finished the book.

What is your biggest single piece of advice for PCT hikers?

Use a rolling resupply bucket (my book goes into detail about that) and always remember to hike your own trail. Everyone's out there for a different reason. If people are out there to bag miles, don't make fun of them because that's their goal. By the same token, if you're taking it slowly, you don't have to feel bad about the fact that you're only going a few slow miles a day. There's no 'wrong' way to hike the trail as long as you aren't harming the trail or the environment or other people (or yourself, for that matter.) Take the longview. Think in terms of 15-20 mile days, not a 2,650-mile journey. Otherwise it's too intimidating. Also, always help other hikers who need it. Oh, and one more thing. Don't use water-based ink in your pens. You never know if you'll want to draw from your journals 10 or more years from now so use pencil or a waterproof ink. I learned this lesson from painful experience. And one more thing.

What are you working on now? 

My second book. It's nonfiction. That one should be out in a couple of years. It is now under contract with HarperPerennial.

Why name the book Cactus Eaters instead of Cactus Eater? 

I  like the way it sounded.  It's a big improvement over the original title, Magnets of Adversity, suggested to me by a former professor. The other proposed title was The Lois and Clark Expedition, but I thought that was too cutesy.

What happened to Allison" from the Cactus Eaters?

I am glad to report that she is doing well in every respect. I hope I'm not revealing too much by telling you this, but she's been re-conquering the Pacific Crest Trail piece by piece. Recently she bagged a large chunk she hadn't hiked before -- in fact, she has now conquered every last millimeter of the California PCT, all 1,700-odd miles of it-- and my prediction is she'll bag the entire thing before too long. In fact, she probably hiked right past you if you happened to be on the trail last year. That's all I can say about that right now. To be honest, she's doing much more long-distance backpacking than I've done in recent years.

If I go on to the Pacific Crest Trail and return home, will I have a nervous breakdown? Look -- if you go on any adventure and then resume your normal life, there is bound to be some kind of letdown. Don't let that factor dissuade you from hiking on a national scenic trail!! Chances are you'll feel a little down in the dumps and antsy for a short while and then you'll get over it as you discover new adventures. Besides, fearing a letdown is not a reason to avoid doing something enjoyable. That's kind of like saying you won't drink a milkshake because you will get a slight stomach ache and brain freeze afterward. In other words, it's worth it.

Have you undertaken any adventures since the trail?

Yes -- a whole bunch. Here is one of the more recent ones in The New York Times -- a great trip, but it will be a long while before I get on a bicycle again. I hate panniers. Here's an account of my journey in Eastern Kentucky. I loved it out there, but this is the last time I've gone overnight backpacking. You'll understand why.

Would The Cactus Eaters have taken place if you'd been carrying a reliable GPS?

Most of the incidents would still have taken place but I don't think I would have gotten lost so much. The fact is, I took two recent trips -- one to Maine, with a GPS and extensive studies of the terrain, and    pre-programmed coordinates, and another to the Kentucky backwoods for the NY Times -- no GPS at all, and only a foggy understanding of the terrain. I did great on the Maine trip, even though there was no map at all, and in some sections, no trail. The Kentucky trip was scary at times, but when it was over, some good people in Whitesburg, Kentucky, invited me to their house, and we stayed up most of the night drinking Bulleit Bourbon. So I bought a whole bunch of it and put it in my backpack and brought it home to California, only to realize that they stock the same bourbon at Trader Joe's.

What was the timeline of your hike? 

I finished my PCT journey in the fall of 1994. The trail scenes all took place in 1993 and 1994. The book spans a 14-year period of my life, starting in 1993 in California (when the opening scene takes place) and coming to a close in the winter of 2007 in Manhattan. The post-trail Santa Cruz 'blue period' unfolds in 95 and 96. The book ends in 2007. A lot of the narrative hinges around the 1990s-- and that is very important for the book, mostly because there were no telecommunications devices at our disposal. It wasn't just the fact that we were greenhorns. We also had no cell phones, no way of calling out, and there was certainly no means of 'texting' anyone about what was going on. In a sense, it was extremely primitive compared to hiking these days. That definitely ramped up the adventure.

What has changed on the trail since you hiked it?

It's important to note that my experience was atypical, if not downright weird, for reasons that go beyond the year I did it, though that was certainly part of it. My trip was peculiar because we left too late and were not part of a large social group of hikers. This meant we ended up hooking up with fast-walking stragglers, who were bringing up the rear of the pack, and were probably quite a bit more eccentric and extreme than your everyday thru-hiker. As for the changes: There are more 'trail angel' networks and trail communities, and much better dissemination of updated trail information (up-to-the-moment trail conditions as well as recommended gear.) The upkeep and maintenance of the trail is much-improved. Trail advocates have gotten a lot more sophisticated and much better organized. The trail is a lot more visible, well publicized, and better managed these days. These days, it's easy to go on the net and get consumer information about the best and worst hiking gear. When I did the trail, I pretty much had to test out all that crap myself. There are (from what I hear) many more women hiking the trail, including solo-hikers (I know two of them, and one of them has a PCT book in the works.)

Why wait for more than a ten-year period before writing the book?

I didn't really wait.  it just worked out that way. I could not see my way around the trail, or see the shape of the narrative, or, to be honest, see anything the least bit funny about the hike (!), until I waited for a long time.

I am hoping to publish my own trail narrative. Any advice?

Do everything you can to get your work out there -- blogging, newspaper columns, or anything else at your disposal. If you have an interesting story to tell, you're sure to find an appreciative audience. Write from the joy of creation and try -- at least early on in the process -- to not drive yourself nuts wondering about how people are going to react. Write to help you understand what you think. Don't rush the process, ever. Someone once said that art is not a potato-sack race. Also, don't be afraid to take risks in terms of style, structure, content. Read constantly, while seeking inspiration from unexpected sources. Personally I love photography and sculpture exhibits because they awaken a playful kind of creativity I can't find in literary sources.

Did you know you were going to write a book when you set off on the trail?

Yes and no. If I was serious about it in the beginning, I would have put specific dates on more of my journal entries (and not written the entries in such messy handwriting and all out of sequence, which made it annoyingly difficult for me when I dug up those scattered to some extent, rain-smeared journals more than 10 years after the fact.) I also would have done a better job of protecting my journals from the elements. About 25 percent of my journal entries were decimated by El Nino storms while sitting in a box in an outside shed in Pleasure Point, California. My landlord accidentally threw out lots of stuff from that shed, including my rolling resupply box. And, come to think of it, I would have gotten photo releases from everybody, too. That would have been a smart thing to do. Every once in a while, someone gripes about the lack of photos.

Read on, but only if you are planning to hike any major trail:

Are you thinking of a through-hike? Make sure to read up, make plans, get in shape and talk to as many PCT trail vets as you can. For starters, order the official guidebooks and at least skim them in advance, marking up the water stops, supply stops, etc. Get inspired. Hike yourself into the best physical shape you conceivably can before setting out. To fire yourself up, you've got a heap of top-notch books to choose from. Tracks by Robyn Davidson is one of my favorites. I also liked Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit (if you would like to read a beautiful, sweeping literary overview of pilgrimages on foot), Footsteps by Richard Holmes (in particular the section when he is tracing the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson in Europe) and my all-time-favorite fictional account of a long walk, To The End of the Land by the amazing David Grossman, about a mother trying to evade tragedy by walking through Israel. Lately, the book I keep hearing about -- in a positive way -- is Gail Storey's I Promise Not To Suffer. I can't wait to read that one!

The various experiential trail books and weblogs will give you some sense of what to expect. But, quite frankly, many of the published accounts are better for the sake of pure inspiration and entertainment than for actual trail preparation, simply because the trail is so wide open. Any two people are bound to have vastly different experiences. I've heard a couple of people describe my book as a "guidebook,'' and that's asking for trouble. The memoirs aren't supposed to be trail guidebooks. If you're really trying to get the most up to date picture of what is going on right now, there are countless weblogs now available, as well as informational clearinghouses on lightpacking that you can find on the web.

Of course, you will get updated information from official as well as unofficial PCT sites maintained and updated by enthusiasts. I recommend both Jardine books because they were the 'starting gun' for the lightpacking movement --- but there are countless lightpacking blogs and websites to choose from these days.

Choose your gear wisely. Don't go for flashy brands. Find out what successful through-hikers have used in the past, especially when it comes to stoves and water filters, two devices that can make your life a living hell out there if they are difficult to use or poorly manufactured. (I love my old warhorse Katadyn -- not kidding when I tell you that it can filter liquid mud into potable water, no problem!!! - but I'm not sure if they make my old-school 'pocket filter' anymore.) Find out about sewing your own lightweight packs from a kit if you're handy with a needle and thread. Ask a recent through hiker to share his or her itinerary and list of contacts (good cheapo restaurants, local 'trail angels' and the like.) In almost all cases, they will be more than happy to share their schedules. Do long prep hikes to determine your pace. Also, it would be a great idea to take an orienteering course taught by an experienced, savvy leader. Don't set unrealistic expectations for your MPD (mileage per day.) Find a comfortable pace and learn to stick with it. And whatever you do, don't make big batches of home-made granola. The nuts will spoil, and you will find yourself throwing that stuff away in the trash can or leaving it in the 'freebie' box at a trail stop. I hope that answers your question.

And, since we're on the subject of reliable trail information ...

Here is one of the most comprehensive Web clearinghouses I've found for PCT links, planning forums, PCT trail logs and the like. 


Also, make sure to check out this inspiring site if you are either thinking of doing the trail or are interested in trail lore (or other trails.)

And here's some stuff about the Continental Divide Trail:

I just finished "hiking" it vicariously; Lawton "Disco" Grinter sent me his inspiring videographic memoir of his CDT adventures.

And finally, here is the clip-and-save Thank You's and Acknowledgments section for the Cactus Eaters

The "thank you" and "acknowledgment" section of my book was amended and updated two and a half years ago because it was overly long and woefully incomplete.  Thank you to everyone who helped out with my book, The Cactus Eaters. My wife, Amy Ettinger, worked hard in NYC (her employers, among other people, included the Metropolitan Museum of Art) so I had time to finish the project while holding down a 20-hour-a-week teaching load. She is the one who shlepped out to all those book readings and events, and dealt with the ups and downs of this from the beginning. Without her, there would be no book at all, period, end of story.

Thanks to my advisor Patricia O'Toole, to Michael Scammell, Lesley Sharpe, and the students in the nonfiction workshop.

Thanks to all the folks who inspired the work. A big thank you in particular to "Allison," and not just for being such an essential and good-humored part of the crazy journey, keeping a clear head and persevering on the trek itself (and choosing the PCT as the L&CE's expedition of choice, after considering several other options, including the AT and the Camino de Santiago). Allison also read and reviewed a number of my emails in regard to several essential scenes, most notably the cactus-biting incident, which was, as it turns out, even more perverse and horrible than I even remembered. Allison's feedback was incorporated into the section involving a tick attack (which was also worse than I remembered). In case you are wondering, Allison is doing very well. That's really all I can say about that for now.

Thanks to Mark the Postman, too. You saved me, big time, when you convinced me to throw all that junk out of my pack and send it home. Without you, I would have collapsed from heat prostration for sure. Sorry I couldn't figure out how to reach you and thank you before the book came out. I was relieved to hear you liked the book.

A rough draft of this book was completed in 1996 (I am not kidding. In some sense, the Cactus Eaters actually predates a certain other, much-talked about book about a different trail), but it sucked, severely, so I threw it away completely. The book began to take shape again around 2003-4 or so, when I drafted up a few lengthy emails and started to 'grow' them into a manuscript. Without the help of the Cheese Wheel Book Group, consisting of Vito Victor, Elizabeth McKenzie, Richard Huffman, Richard Lange and John Chandler, that task would have been impossible.

My sister, Edie Achertman, and brother-in-law Doug Achterman, and my pal Dave Howard, all contributed feedback and advice. So did my mother-in-law, Sheila Ettinger. Thanks to my parents about being good sports about the "Grampa Gappy" stuff, etc, and to my brothers Phil White and the late David Gordon White, (1965-2009) whose own writings and songs were always a huge influence on me.

Finally, I taught quite a bit of undergraduate essay writing, fiction, nonfiction and poetry while working on this thing. That experience really helped with the writing process, so I'm grateful to all the students (and so far, I've had about 300 of them, if you can believe that ...)

That's all for now .... Thanks for checking in every once in a while. I like hearing about all the places where the book turns up (including a hostel in India, and, from what I hear, all across Australia.) If you come across a copy of the book in an extremely far flung location, let me know. Even better, send me a JPG photo.

Peace,

DW

Cheap Thrills for book lovers, part five: Literary lights in San Jose

Here is the latest schedule, and keep in mind that all these events are free.

Disclaiming the disclaimer

Ok -- I solemnly swear that this is the last time I will blog about this subject, but I'm getting a few emails, and links, from folks who say I spoke too soon about the nausea factor.

Disclaimer: 3D won't make you vomit

I'm in trouble (again) because someone read my recent Cactuseaters post and was scared to let her mom see "Avatar'' because she thinks the 3D sensation will make her mom seasick and nauseous. For the record, I did not feel dizzy or vomitous during the movie. It's worth mentioning, because I once saw a movie, "The Blair Witch Project,'' during which five people in the audience fled the theater to throw up. Seriously. I think it was the herky-jerky hand-held camera style that did it.

Scolding people accidentally during "Avatar''

Good movie. But 3D can lead to social problems. You can get so caught up in the screen, and what's going on in the movie, that you lose sight of the people sitting next to you, standing in front of you, or scooting between the aisles, trying to get to the restroom. Yesterday at the Kabuki, someone butted in front of me during an intense scene, and I yelled out, "Oh, give me a break. Get out of the way,'' without realizing that I did this until after the fact. Also, I almost spilled my drink on someone. (Sorry.)

My first 3D movie ever

Today is my big day. I'm going to the Kabuki Sundance Theater to see you-know-what in 3D. But I don't know what to expect. The last time I saw anything in 3D, it was a short feature at Disneyland, starring Michael Jackson, a bunch of dancing people in space outfits and a poorly rendered "meteor" that looked like more like a giant levitating baked potato. So these are my questions and concerns. Where are you supposed to sit for the best results at a 3D movie? Are you supposed to find the 'dead center,' like the old Grateful Dead shows? Will the glasses give me a headache? I already have glasses. Am I supposed to put the 3D glasses over the glasses?

Do I have to give the glasses back when it's all over?

Does the theater provide air-sickness bags?

Signing the Cactus Eaters on Kindle --"This bespells doom.''

The other day, someone asked me what I would do if asked to sign a copy of The Cactus Eaters on Kindle. I was stumped. How do you sign a Kindle? With a Sharpie? Can you hack into a Kindle and place an electronic 'signature' on a book file? Or burn the author's initials into the Kindle using a cordless Craftsman soldering iron? But as it turns out, it can be done. Check out this article in the New York Times, and find out how David Sedaris dealt with this.

Read these books now

Not that these people need any of my help. But you need to read Alice Munro's Too Much Happiness. In fact, you really need to read it twice. I love the way each character casts a shadow; Munro finds brilliant ways to add depth and backstory to characters that normally turn up 'flat' (crazy intruder, nasty husbands, etc.) When you're done, clear your palate with Wells Tower's Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. , by far the best debut story collection you will find this year. Lavinia Greenlaw's The Importance of Music To Girls is a lyrical memoir about the power of music. She messes with the formula along with chronology. Don't expect another variation on Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. Marie Brenner's Apples and Oranges uses an unusual lens -- the joys and hardships of the apple-growing industry -- to examine her relationship with her brother. Francine Prose's Blue Angel is a highly entertaining academic horror story. It's satirical, and yet it contains some sound writing and workshopping advice.

If you hate your cell phone ...

...then you should read my brother's latest blog entry on Pawprints.

Coping with PTB: (Post Trail Blues), and readjusting to your life after a big hike

I've received so many emails about this that I will try to answer this question (with your input) in a few weeks. Stay tuned! And if you are a long-distance hiker with post-hike life readjustment experience, feel free to send in. I'll incorporate your responses into my blog post.

Kirkus Reviews: not gone after all?

I was relieved to see that Kirkus may not be gone after all, (and I'm not just saying that because they liked my book. ) We're losing book review outlets every month, with constrictions and layoffs in the newspaper and publishing industry.

Cactus conspiracy

One of you asked about the wildest email I have ever received in relation to my first book.

Well, here is one standout. A few months ago, someone (here on the West Coast) said he could prove that I did not hike any of the Pacific Crest Trail, and that he was going to show up to one of my readings one day and confront me with his dossier of "evidence."

"I can't wait to see your face,'' he wrote.

According to his conspiracy theory, I basically sat around on a couch all summer long and somehow convinced my loyal hiking companion, "Lois'', to hike the trail for me and ghost-write the book for me too.

After voicing his theory to me, he then invited me to go hiking with him!!!

I will share more from the mail bag very soon.

And if anyone can prove this conspiracy theory is true, I will gladly pay that person $50,000 in gold Sacagawea coins to be delivered -- by me -- in a Peterbilt 18 wheeler.

Daniel White to conquer the John Muir Trail

Be nice to Mr. Daniel White if you see him out on the JMT in a few months. Mr. White, a group leader in a computational engineering group, is setting out to do the trail very soon.

"My mother bought your book for me as a joke. But I really enjoyed it,'' he explained. "I'm a hiker myself, been hiking the Sierra Nevada for 20 years. I plan to do the whole JMT on my 50th birthday, coming up shortly.''

Good luck to you, Daniel White. Enjoy the Rae Lakes area. Watch out for Bear Creek. Also, watch your footing up on Glen Pass. There are a couple of sketchy sections.

Cactus Eaters photographs (make your own special edition.)

Here are a few classic shots, straight from the vault. Now, before you email me saying "Why don't you have any pictures of (insert names here.)" I want to tell you that this is a work in progress. I still have to fish through a few more waterlogged boxes of PCT slides.

You can use these photos to make your own illustrated special edition. All you need is 1. three copies of the book, 2. an Exacto knife, 3. a color printer and 4. Elmer's glue. Good luck with this project, and if you go through with it, make sure to send me pictures of the completed book.


















Spiky Joshua Trees beckon travelers in the Mojave desert.















Desert scene in early morning














Actual Golden Oak/cactus-bite diary entry
















The expeditioners fighting suncups under Forester Pass.














Peaceful, alluring meadow under Mount Whatever.


























Here are two of my photos of the late, great "Mayor'' Milt Kenney, who helped up to 60 Pacific Crest Trail hikers per season when they passed through Castella, California.
























Cascades in northern Oregon.












Cascades, adrift in clouds and fog.








This picture corresponds (exactly) to page 320, paragraph two. I will post more photos when I have a spare moment.

Wow -- did you feel that earthquake?

My Haight-Ashbury apartment turned to Jello for a couple of seconds. And the windows rattled like crazy. (no damage that I can see. It must have been a pretty small one.)