The Atherton Book Club: Packing For Mars and much more

Last year I was proud to be the inaugural author featured in the brand-new Atherton Book Club, otherwise known as Reading In Good Company. Now the book club continues with a whole new lineup of great events. Book Club leader Annie Pena tells me that Mary will be participating via Skype during the June 14 meeting about Roach's latest book, Packing For Mars.Even if you don't live on the Peninsula, this is worth the drive. (Mothra/Godzilla photo from Toho Archives.)

"I'll just try to eat around it" --- (never eat an apricot with a hole in it)

Just got back from a Santa Cruz-area farmer's market, where I paid $5 a pound for fancy apricots. One of them looked so good that I started eating it in spite of the obvious hole in it. "I'll just eat around it," I said to myself.

So there I was, chomping away, but when I got to the pit, there was a fat, juicy, disgusting earwig sitting in the middle of that apricot, clacking its mandibles, wiggling its antenna, with a "what the &%$@ are you looking at?" expression on its face.

The weird thing is, the bug was so much bigger than the hole it must have crawled into to go inside the apricot in the first place. I guess he hung out there for a while, eating the inside of the apricot and getting so fat that he couldn't get out again, like the squirrel protagonist in Timmy Tiptoes. Next time I'll stick with the nectarines.

Rise of the Slug: the once-subversive banana slug mascot turns 25 at UCSC

At the bottom of this blog entry, you will find a link to my brief cultural history of the UCSC Banana Slug, published on UCSC's news page. Just so you know, the slug mascot turns 25 this year. As I mention in my story, the slug is popular now but it used to be a counter-cultural upstart, caught in a rivalry with another animal that wanted to represent UCSC. To find out which animal I'm talking about, you'll just have to click on that link and read the whole thing.

As part of my due diligence for this story, I asked for (and received) permission from Hank Card of the Austin Lounge Lizards to use their unofficial UCSC banana slug fight song in the story. You can hear it in both video clips. By the way, Hank Card was kind enough to give me a bit of background about the song.

"As far as the origins of the song go, you're right that we've got a connection to Santa Cruz and have played at the Kuumbwa (concert venue) many times. We always thought the banana slugs mascot was really funny and even got slimed at the Strawberry Festival."

"I'm from Oklahoma, where football is big, so the college fight song is part of my culture. I just got curious to see if there was a UCSC fight song. Since there wasn't, my wife Kristen and I wrote one just for fun. The S-U-L-G-S spelling in the middle was a mistake we made at practice, but we thought it was funny so we left it in."

And here is the story. The video is by Mara Waldhorn.

Things you should never do in the backcountry. Selected Cactuseaters re-runs, part 17

OK, this post is older than the hills, but a couple of people mentioned it to me so here it is a second time. It's a list of things you should never, ever do during any outdoor excursion.

The Cactuseaters List of Backcountry "Don'ts'' (the unexpurgated version!)

NEVER bring a fondue maker into the woods with you. The bread crumbs, fruit wedges, gas and molten cheese will form a white magma that will spew all over you, leaving fourth-degree burns all over your entire body.

NEVER cook a meal while sitting inside your tent, even when it’s raining outside. (Trust me. Your tent will explode.)

NEVER forget that “freeze-dried’’ and “chili’’ is a very bad combination. (Trust me. You will explode.)

NEVER try to reason with anyone riding an All-Terrain Vehicle --- especially if he or she is drunk and holding a 12-gauge Mossberg hunting rifle and wearing a knit cap that says "I Like Big Jugs.''

NEVER try to make your girlfriend, or boyfriend, hike faster by calling out a military cadence in a fake Southern accent. ("Sound off, sound off, one, two, three, foe!")

NEVER attempt to brush your teeth in total darkness. Preparation H does not fight gum recession. And it tastes fishy.

NEVER bring artisan-quality cheddar cheese into the Mojave Desert with you in mid-June. A horrid white pus will extrude from the cheese, and you will vomit.

NEVER set up your tent in the middle of a mule trail in the North Cascades. Brighty, Big Snort and Old Thunder will trample you to death in your sleep.

NEVER underestimate the amount of toilet paper you will use in the backcountry. Sticks and stones won't break your bones but they will leave nicks and abrasions on your derriere.)

NEVER camp at a suspiciously beautiful, yet strangely empty, lakeside campsite. It is probably empty for very good reasons (think “flood plain,’’ “poisoned water’’ and “spaniel-sized mosquitoes.’’)

NEVER eat the freeze-dried stroganoff. It has been mummified and sealed away for good reason.

NEVER cut the handles off the toothbrush “to save pack weight.’’ Toothbrushes weigh less than an ounce – and if you try to brush your teeth with the head of a toothbrush, it will fall down your throat and lodge in your trachea, and you will die.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for my comprehensive history of the banana slug mascot, and for my report on the Wicked Bugs reading. But I can't be rushed. I've got brain freeze and it might take me a while to upload all this stuff.

My neighbor is moving.

I see a Mayflower truck out there right now.

Hooray!

I mean, "Bon voyage"!

Violent gardeners and Amy Stewart's Wicked Bugs

There is a violent gardener in my neighborhood.

Call him Mister Green Fist.

He put a defeatist sign up in front of his victory garden. The sign (which faces a busy thoroughfare) warns that he'll "beat the crap" out of anyone who messes with his flowers.

Will upload a photo of that sign when I work up the courage to take a snapshot.

Speaking of wickedness and extreme gardening, I am eager to go see Amy Stewart, bestselling author of Wicked Plants, when she arrives in Capitola to read from her new book, Wicked Bugs, on Wednesday June 8 at the Book Cafe. The talk begins at 7:30 p.m. I didn't realize that Ms. Stewart is a former Santa Cruzan. For the sake of this book, she tracked down 100 of our most horrifying bug enemies, from disease-vector flies to bugs that can turn entire libraries into mulch. Stewart's books are witty and informative, but she also deserves props for the design, layout, and artistry.

I found out about Stewart from the incomparable Mary Harden, my botanical illustration teacher up in Golden Gate Park up until last year, when I relocated to Santa Cruz.

Hope to see you all there.

Cactuseaters Book Club part four: Read this one next: My Korean Deli

I've read so many memoirs that skirt around issues like race, class, family dynamics and the "prestige track," the rut that can trap aspiring editors and authors into low-paying but impressive and privileged positions. Ben Ryder Howe's My Korean Deli jumps into these issues right from the beginning.

Here's what happens when an author and editor refuses to get off the prestige track altogether (he refuses to abdicate his low-paying position at the Paris Review) even while taking an extreme step toward possible financial independence (he and various in-laws pool their resources to buy a delicatessen in Brooklyn.) As the book progresses, you can see the author struggling to maintain his footholds in the store and at the magazine -- an increasingly difficult task, as you'll see.

I did not know that an author could extract so much narrative juice from store ownership. If you think it looks like a static enterprise, think again.

I've been to so many New York delis, and I had no idea what it took to run them, even though I've spent years of my life as a bag boy at places like Von's and Safeway. If you buy one of these places, beware. 1. You have to deal with tobacco enforcement raids. First offense: a thousand bucks. 2. You have to deal with the intimidations and strange behaviors of packaged snack cake suppliers. 3. You may find yourself inheriting pistol-wielding employees who are not afraid to take extreme measures if someone tries to rob the place.

Another thing about this book: It really captured (for me) the best as well as the most horrible aspects of living in NYC for several years. While reading it, I remembered the heights of my experience (martinis at the Temple of Dendur, hearing a talk by Joan Didion, staggering home from an all-night gathering somewhere in Brooklyn, etc.) and the staggering lows (having a rat jump over my foot, having my car break down in frozen weather in the middle of Broadway at 1 in the morning, eating horrible falafel in Williamsburg. The chef thought to put pickles in the falafel. I was drinking Maalox for three days straight.)

A good book club choice.

Print sale: possessed owls, bristlecones, moths, weird bears and much more

Since moving back to Santa Cruz, I've added a new tradition to my life: heading up the hill, jostling for parking, and making my way to the UCSC student Print Sale, which is coming up next Friday. Some of the stuff is dirt cheap. Other stuff is quite expensive. All profits go to the artists. They have all kinds of handmade books, posters, children's illustrations, portraits and lithographs. Last year I saw pictures of bristlecones, moths, Easter Island heads, dancing bears, possessed clowns, and recreated old-time California maps. Last year I bought a wood-block print showing five owls standing in the crook of a moonlit yew tree. It's hanging above me as I write this. Below the owls, there are five dangling ribbons with an inscription running across them in French. I have no idea what it means.

Read these next: Stewart O'Nan and Francisco Goldman (and more)

Here are a few new or new-ish books that you -- both of you -- might like.

Stewart O'Nan's Emily, Alone is marvelous. In this slender book, old people live in an in-between world. Just driving across town -- braving roundabouts, moving in and out of tight garages in a big clunky boat of a car -- is an Odyssey in itself. Emily, the title character, lives in a crooked piece of time. She's trying hard to hold on to her routine, her memories, and her vitality. At the same time, she's moving toward resignation. At one point in the story, Emily is filling out holiday cards, a task she despises but can't bring herself to give up. She glances at her address book and notices a near-perfect split between the list of friends who are still alive and those who died years ago, or moved away. It's just one of the many quiet and powerful moments in this book. Reading through this, I asked myself, "Why hadn't I heard of this author before? Looks like he's written many other books before this. Who has been hiding him away from me for all these years?"

I've just started Say Her Name by Francisco Goldman, who recently spoke at the Capitola Book Cafe. In just a couple of lines, he sets up the story: from the first few opening lines, we know (in this autobiographical work of fiction) that the protagonist has lost his much-younger wife in a freak accident and that her mother blames him for what happened. Then, flip the page and see how the narrator particularizes their relationship with a description of an axolotl, "a species of salamander that never metamorphose out of the larval state, something like polliwogs that never became frogs." We learn that Aura, the young wife, was fascinated by these creatures, and loved a famous short story by Julio Cortazar in which an axolotl, and a man staring at the creature through the glass of a terrarium, swap souls; the man is trapped behind the glass, and the axolotl, in its new human skin, walks away. It's a strange and beautiful way to begin this story about love, grief, art, and identity slippage. Sarah Bakewell's How To Live is a terrific introduction to Montaigne, his essays, his adventures, friends and antagonists. I plowed right through this so quickly that I wanted more. Maybe the paperback version will include an addendum chapter in which Bakewell maps out one of those crazy, rambling, shape-shifting essays from beginning to end, stop by stop, like a tour guide. Speaking of "tour guide" and "shape shifting," Karen Russell's book Swamplandia is a jungle-boat cruise through an enchanted bog. All for now.

Also, here's an addendum: one of my readers told me that she didn't want to read Francisco Goldman's book because "it's about some lady who turns into a salamander. That sounds scary to me." That is a bit of a misreading of my blog post. His book only refers to salamanders (in a specific context) in that one scene. It is about the arc of a relationship and coping with loss, and while the book does have some fantastical elements, the work, as a whole, is most certainly not about amphibians.

Banana slug stampede in Nisene Marks

If you've never been to Nisene Marks, get in your car and go there now.

It just rained, and the place is oozing with giant banana slugs -- skinny ones, fat ones, short ones, curly ones, straight ones, green ones, yellow ones, old ones, baby ones.

I was only there for an hour, and I saw 25 of these slime-covored creatures without trying.

Strange that I saw exactly that number, considering this is the 25th anniversary of Sammy the Slug, the mascot over at UC Santa Cruz.

Coincidence? Yes.

"How come you guys never touch me on the knee?" Drunk neighbor's list of grievances

On Cinco de Mayo, one of neighbors got really drunk, staggered out into the street and began to shout a list of specific grievances to his housemates. Since I couldn't sleep anyhow (he woke me up at 1:55 in the morning with his shrieking, bellowing and sidewalk stomping), I took out a pen and wrote down his rantings, verbatim.

Here is his list of grievances:

1. His friends are insensitive to his needs.
2. His friends (male as well as female) refuse to touch him in affectionate ways. He was especially concerned that his housemates touch each other's knees during conversations but rarely if ever touch him on the knee. In fact he cannot remember "one freaking time" when they've touched him on the knee.
3. His friends rarely hug him.
3. He has low self-esteem. His friends are responsible for his lack of self esteem. The lack of knee-touching and hugs makes it worse. If his friends would only massage his knees on a regular basis, he would feel good about himself.
4. His friends do not understand him.
5. On certain occasions they will do "fun things" without alerting him to their plans. Then, when he'll find out about the fun plans, they will lie about it and cover it all up. "You make it seem like you've assembled spontaneously, when in reality, you've planned ahead and gone somewhere and never told me."

I hope my neighbor gets the comfort and knee-petting that he craves. I'll upload an illustration soon.

Pacific Crest Trail 2011: Free Range Amelia lights out from Santa Cruz

Hoping you will have kind words and perhaps some canned cling peaches with syrup for Free Range Amelia, who is representing for Santa Cruz on the Pacific Crest Trail this year.

She's doing a full-on through hike and should be arriving in Campo soon. My impression is that Free Range Amelia can throw down quite a lot of miles per day so you'll have to keep up as best you can.

She will update this journal regularly. This blog post has been amended to remove the word "GORP." Gorp is disgusting.

Drown out your annoying neighbors (and get some writing done)

I just found out about this free Web application that lets you blast white noise through your computer or iPhone.

By the way, if you're a Pacific Crest Trail hiker, you're out there hiking with an iPhone, and you want to drown out your chatty trail companions, you might want to think about this, too. Just put on those headphones and put the volume on full blast.

Living Writers series continues in Santa Cruz ... with Aimee Bender and more

O.K. That's enough about the goose for now. Here's the rest of the series. I'm staking out my parking spot; don't swoop me. Scroll down to the bottom for the full schedule. Why didn't someone tell me there was a typo in here?

(pictured: Aimee Bender)

May 5
Jessica Hagedorn

May 12
Aimee Bender

May 26
Neo Benshi, Roxi Power Hamilton, Jen Hofer and Konrad Steiner

Here is the full schedule.

Memorial service for iconic goose

I know I have been posting quite a bit about Lucy the iconic goose. Just wanted to mention that there is a memorial service at 6 p.m. today. It would feel kind of weird for me to go to such a funeral, and perhaps hypocritical [I'm eating a glazed roasted chicken for dinner this evening with all the trimmings] but I admired Lucy and will leave some kind of note if there's a visual memorial.

Lucy demise update

This is a much more detailed report than the one I read yesterday. It also includes Lucy video.

Rest in peace, Lucy the Goose

I was saddened to hear that Lucy the Goose, a tireless and resilient Santa Cruzan, was killed over the weekend.

She was an older goose -- well into her teens, which is pretty old in the goose world. She had dirty gray feathers, a baritone voice that could carry for a half mile, and a bright-orange growth, roughly the size and shape of a walnut, over her upper beak.

I know that there is a long and embattled history surrounding Lucy, and that some local neighbors were upset about the noise and droppings, etc. Did this sentiment have something to do with her demise? News reports didn't say. According to one account, she may have been the victim of an animal attack. I suppose that's possible, though it wouldn't have been easy for a creature to get her. She was fairly well-protected behind a fence, and often slept and rested in areas that were completely surrounded with water.

One of Lucy's longtime fans told me that she used to live out near that big lagoon in Live Oak, once known for its large flock of loud, knee-pecking geese. According to one account, she was "dumped" in the harbor one day. Over the years, local publications have mentioned the controversy over Lucy's noise and messes, mostly as an excuse to fold in every pun you can think of involving "fowl" and ruffled feathers, etc.

Lucy was not perfect. For one thing, she was lazy. Her trumpet was so loud you could hold your cellphone up to it, and it would hurt your listener's ears. When she walked, she swung back and forth so much that she sometimes bowled herself over just walking up a hill. Lucy could go from retiring to aggressive and back again with little warning. Sometimes Lucy would preen for her fans, then turn her back on people or shout at them for no reason.

But she was part of the harbor landscape, and a testament to perseverance. Preferring her own company, she ate and played alone, but she was indulgent towards the people who served as her unofficial caretakers.

Even the tsunami storm could not drive her out of the channel for long.

Lucy will be missed.

I hope someone gets to the bottom of this soon.

(above: image of Lucy at full wingspan)

Helene Wecker: The Golem and the Djinni

Ever read a book that isn't published just yet but you have a feeling that it will be -- and that it's only a matter of time? That's what I thought when reading early drafts of Helene Wecker's novel-in-progress, The Golem and the Djinni, which has been taking shape in various cafes and BART train rides for the past few years. Helene, an East Bay resident, just found out that her radical (and masterful) reworking of the Golem legend will be coming to a bookstore near you in 2013, from HarperCollins.

A recap of Literary Orange

I just found this one online. I remember speaking briefly with the young author in between panels.

Anyhow, my brother and I are going to put our own thoughts together about the conference. We're comparing notes and should post something soon.

Chaos, caterpillars and still life: an evening with Harry Berger

This one goes out to one reader in particular (you know who you are.) Looks interesting, doesn't it?