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(I found this busted robot photo on zagart.com)

Borders is bankrupt: "No worries!"

The other day, I made my way through the crowds of people picking over the remains of the local downtown Borders book store. I saw a floor manager standing near the entrance, and told him I was sad to hear the store was closing.

As I spoke to him, I remembered the huge to-do about this store when it opened: protests, recriminations, nervousness. There was a lot of worry that Borders would become an overwhelming force driving out all indie bookshops. Now it turns out that Borders itself is a casualty of more overwhelming market forces.

Read more of the story here.

She'll be mad when she finds out about this

If you're heading downtown, there's a guy standing on the corner of Cooper and Pacific, singing folk songs at the top of his lungs and looking forlorn. His guitar case is open for spare change, and he's got a sign asking people to give him whatever they can spare. "Expensive girlfriend," the sign says. "Anything helps."

Passion on the dance floor: Hard science, math students cut loose with tango

On a rainy night in downtown Santa Cruz, a dozen UCSC students, most of them math and hard-sciences majors, gathered in a church meeting room.

No one wore nerdy bifocals or carried slide rulers in their pockets. No one talked about proofs, conjunctions, flash points, or continuously differentiable functions.

They were too busy staring into each other's eyes with expressions of longing as they performed tango, the sultry dance that began in the working class districts of Argentina more than a century ago.

Read the rest of this story right here.

"Sunburned, dirty, smelly"

The other day I was minding my own business and heading towards my local bank to deposit a check. (That alone is remarkable; usually, I'm giving checks to somebody else.) On the way there, I walked past a tattoo parlor with a sign in the front spelling out the kind of people they don't want in their store. The sign was remarkably inclusive. Here it is, for your reading pleasure:

"NO CHILDREN. (Ningunas ninos.) IF YOU ARE drunk, on drugs, sick, pregnant, sunburned, dirty, smelly, eating, drinking, broke, trying to sell us something, looking for a deal, or otherwise obnoxious, please come back when you're not!!"

Near the sign, someone has put up a sticker: "People love us on Yelp!"

Cactus Eaters and "Reading in Good Company" in Atherton (new and improved posting)

Thank you, everyone, for a great event. There is always that scary moment -- just before starting -- where you wonder: "Are people going to show up??" That's how I felt right around the starting time. "Where is everybody?" Then, right at 1 p.m., a good crowd came in all at once, bearing platters of cheeses, breads, tortilla chips, salsa and a home-made torte with almond flour, orange peel and chocolate. I met people from throughout the Peninsula including a ranger who patrols a nearby park (I was glad to see he was in the middle of reading David Wicinas's Sagebrush and Cappucinno, which he saw on my list of reading recommendations at the back of The Cactus Eaters.) and a Palo Alto resident who is just about to through-hike the Pacific Crest Trail with her college-age daughter. She is a veteran of the Camino de Santiago -- in fact we were both talking about Jack Hitt's excellent book about his own camino journey, which she read in her tent during that European trek.

It was a really good, candid conversation. In fact, we talked about quite a few things that I would hesitate to post online. We discussed place writing, creating a voice in a nonfiction work, the weird history of this project and more.

Anyhow, thanks to everyone for showing up and to Annie Pena for setting this up. I also want to encourage everyone to stick with Atherton's brand new book group. Lately, we're seeing a sad decline in the number of places where people can meet, talk books and have a bit of orange-almond cake together. (Too many community centers, libraries and post offices are closing down or being consolidated, especially the smaller branches.) Anyhow, here's a list of their upcoming book choices:

March: Sex with the Queen: 900 years of vile kings, virile lovers and passionate politics by Eleanor Herman

April: The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner.

May: Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How small differences grow into troublesome gaps by Lise Eliot

June: Reader's Choice

July: Shake off the Devil: A true story of the murder that rocked New Orleans by Ethan Brown

August: The Forger's Spell by Edward Dolnick

September: The Lost City of Z by David Grann

October: The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

Check here for more information about the book club and contact information

Book Club

See you at the book group Saturday (see Jan. 25th's blog entry below).




Photo courtesy of Jen.

Santa Cruz UFO incursion?

Around 10 p.m. WST I saw a slow-moving orb of light traveling over the Seabright area.

I thought it was a star at first but it kept shifting position in and out of the clouds and making a long, slow arc.

Bands of light came out of it on all sides (it looked like a badly drawn hydra) -- and I thought at first that the bands were retinal flashes -- but the shape of the bands remained the same even after I blinked my eyes several times.

It took a total of five minutes for whatever-it-was to make its way from one horizon line to the next.

Peculiar, to say the least. A satellite or an experimental aircraft, I would guess? It's probably not aliens, but I'll bake muffins just in case.

About me (a brief bio)

My name is Dan White. I am an author, lecturer, freelance writer and web editor. My first book, The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost My Mind and Almost Found Myself on the Pacific Crest Trail, was published by HarperCollins and was a San Francisco Chronicle and West Coast indie bookstore bestseller.

I have taught poetry, creative nonfiction, fiction and a required essay-writing class at San Jose State University, and a freshman essay writing class at Columbia University. I also led the inaugural Bookshop Santa Cruz Outdoors writing and hiking event, guiding a group of Cactus Eaters readers into the woods for reading, poetry and nonfiction writing. My travel writing appears in the New York Times and other venues.

Between 2007-8, I was a Steinbeck Fellow at SJSU.

The desert and fatality: Edmund White on learning from Paul Bowles

This was a great event; at some point I will post some thoughts on this (linked to another page so it doesn't take up too much space.)

The desert winds blow through the work of Paul Bowles.

"Why go?" Bowles once wrote. "The answer is that when a man has been there and undergone the baptism of solitude he can't help himself. Once he has been under the spell of the vast, luminous, silent country, no other place is quite strong enough for him ...''

This Saturday, Edmund White, celebrated author and creative writing professor at Princeton University, will reflect on the dry country's beauty and dangerous magnetism during his keynote address, "The Desert and Fatality: Learning from Paul Bowles." The talk begins at 3:30 p.m. at UC Santa Cruz's Humanities Lecture Hall. Here is a complete itinerary of the weekend's scheduled events. I'll be there, taking lots of notes.

And, speaking of upcoming lit events, don't miss Jasmin Darznik, who appears Monday, February 28 at the Capitola Book Cafe at 7:30 p.m. She will read from The Good Daughter, her memoir about three generations of Iranian women. Here is an article by Jasmin in the New York Times. And this just in: TC Boyle will read at the cafe on Monday, March 7, at 7:30 p.m. I would get there early if I were you. Try to get a seat near the silver elephant that hangs above the magazines. (my favorite spot.)

Slob driver alert -- now updated and fully illustrated

Out on Beach Street, I saw a young woman steering an SUV with her elbows. She was holding a breakfast burrito in one hand and what appeared to be a new-model iPhone in the other hand. Pedestrians scrambled (so to speak) to get out of the way. Not only that but she was talking with her mouth full. Illustration at left.

The countdown begins: Literary Orange in 70 days

The countdown begins for Literary Orange. I'll be speaking on the adventure panel in the morning, and will stick around for the rest of the festival. See you April 9 in Southern California. (oops. In the previous post, I said it was 90 days. Whatever. I wasn't a math major.)

Reading in Good Company: Bay Area book group leads Cactus Eaters discussion

Thank you to the newly launched Bay Area book group Reading in Good Company, which has chosen The Cactus Eaters as its inaugural choice and invited me to participate. I will be there for the discussion, which will take place at 1 p.m. on February 12 at the Atherton Public Library in Atherton, Ca. Forgot to mention that this is a casual pot luck so bring a dish.

This Mothra photo is from the Toho archives.

36 Hours Anthologized

A slightly different version of my New York Times piece on Santa Cruz will be featured in an upcoming, illustrated travel anthology. Times Books will publish the book, in collaboration with Taschen Books.

Look for it this summer in your local bookstore. Meanwhile, the article also got picked up in the Huffington Post with comments.

The book version of the article won't mention my favorite tourist attraction in the entire idea, the Glaum Ranch Egg Vending Machine, but you can't have everything. I guess you'll just have to see the 24-hour chicken vending machine for yourself. Make sure to bring your own close-able egg cartons and three crisp dollar bills or you will regret it. I'm speaking from personal experience.

Another attraction that I did not mention: on Cayuga Street in Seabright, there's a history marker on one of the houses, close to the main entrance. The marker says, "In 1873, in this location, nothing happened."

Where the cactus flowers grow: Robert Earl Keen rocks the Rio in Santa Cruz

Halfway through Robert Earl Keen's two-hour show at the Rio, he stopped to reflect on his days as a college student and country music fan. "We only played the good stuff," he said. "Carrie Underwood! Rascal Flatts! The fragile harmonies of Sugarland!"

He was being sarcastic, of course. Keen is a favorite of fans and critics, but he's never been a Nashville insider or had much affection for mainstream country radio. His songs about outlaws, oil workers, aspiring losers and faded border towns are edgier than most anything you'll hear on 99.5 F.M.

Judging from his between-the-songs banter, he's proud of the dues he's still paying: they're a clear sign of character. At one point, he talked about the box of moldering doughnuts that remains on the tour bus after three straight months, and his band's willingness to play a gig just about anywhere, including a festival with 4,000 fans and only two motels, or a down-in-the-mouth town in Mexico, where the lack of a green room forced the band to hang out in a potholed, trash-strewn alleyway near some vomiting college students and a possible corpse. (Not surprisingly, the motel and alleyway turn up in his songs.)

In the past, he seemed uneasy with the mixed crowd he tends to draw: the "frat boys from Abilene" who come to hear the rowdier stuff, the ever-reliable KPIG contingent, the curious hipsters and the bookish folks who like his quieter, more literary material. At one point, he coolly deflected a shouted request for an early raunchy sing-along, "Copenhagen", with a quick wink and a thumbs-up gesture.

But he seemed more comfortable last night, and he wasn't afraid to mix up the formula. He threw in a great Todd Snider cover ("Play A Train Song"), and he bookended an old song ("Dreadful Selfish Crime" between two familiar Grateful Dead melodies -- an instrumental of "China Cat Sunflower" and a full-tilt performance of "I Know You Rider," a traditional folk/blues song adopted by the Dead.

The slightly rejiggered band (missing the muddy fiddling, and with an added steel guitar player) offered a cleaner, more stripped down sound. The venue seemed to make more sense in the quieter moments, but less so during the noisy rave-ups; with all those rows of seats, the fans couldn't really dance unless they joined the manic scrum of folks to the left of the stage. REK had to work extra hard to whip the crowd into the briefest display of rowdiness.

All in all, I'm glad I went to this concert, and I don't have any real regrets about naming my cat after him, either.

Even if, technically speaking, it isn't my cat.

Toby Keith/REK

Heading to the concert now

Wondering if he'll mention the boring new Toby Keith song that rips off "The Road Goes On Forever.'' Will post something within the next week or so. I thought it was just my overactive imagination, but apparently the Courtyard Hounds agree with me.

Cat photo inundation begins in earnest

Oh man. I should have seen this coming. I post one lousy photo of a beer-drinking cat, and the cat photo avalanche begins in earnest.

Here is a photo taken by another reader, Carolyn L, who reports that her cat flies --- and she has photographic evidence to back this up.

I've got to say, this is a pretty amazing shot. And there's no trick photography in it.

Lazy blogger.... plus cat-naming controversy

My apologies for being a lazy blogger over the past couple of months.

Lots and lots going on.

And I sure do appreciate my blog readers (both of you.)

Incidentally, my own cat is just as fat and lazy as the one pictured here. But I don't think he drinks beer unless he sneaks it behind my back.

By the way, my cat happens to be named after the great singer/songwriter Robert Earl Keen, who will be performing at the Rio Theatre this Thursday.

I am so there.

Forgot to mention that I sent an email to Robert Earl Keen's concert promoter about 10 years ago informing him of my decision to name the cat Robert Earl. To my surprise, I got an email response just a few minutes later, saying "Robert Earl is standing right here while I write this -- and he thinks that's a very bad idea.''

Scholarship honors Gabe Zimmerman

Read the story here

My very favorite book blogs

Here are the blogs

Here are my favorite book blogs. This is mostly for me so I don't have to keep searching for them individually. However, I think you'll enjoy them, and if you're an aspiring author, reading these sites is so much healthier than self-Googling or checking your infernal Amazon stats. In no particular order, here they are. The Millions. Maud Newton. Rumpus. Bookslut. Paper Cuts. Levi Stahl's I've Been Reading Lately. Koreanish. American Fiction Notes. The New Yorker’s Book Bench. Jacket Copy.

Coveted books:

Paul Murray, Skippy Dies

Karen Russell, Swamplandia (put this at the top of your reading list; it's great)

Benjamin Percy, The Wilding

Leo Tolstoy, Childhood, Boyhood and Youth, Michael Scammell translation

Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies

Good books:

Brock Clarke: An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes In New England. (I give this book seven stars out of five. No, make that eight stars.)

Sigrid Nunez: Salvation City. (spare, plausible, creepy.)

Kobo Abe: The Woman in the Dunes (not new. You overlooked this when it came out.)

Emma Donaghue: Room

Julie Orringer: The Invisible Bridge

Jennifer Egan: A Visit from the Goon Squad

Elif Batuman: The Possessed

Michael Cunningham: By Nightfall

Saul Bellow Letters edited by Benjamin Taylor

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