My day can only get better (I just got chomped by my own cat!)

I am going to take a break from blogging for a while because typing is almost impossible right now. My cat took a huge bite out of my finger! It's not his fault.
Here's what happened. My cat has not been feeling well -- he's been fighting off an infection -- so I had to go to the vet in San Jose and get these gigantic, stinky brown pills for him. You wouldn't believe the size of these pills. Maybe they thought I said "moose" instead of "cat." Anyhow, he refuses to eat them on his own, even if I stick them in a "pill pocket'' that is made out of smelly cat food. Following the doctor's instructions, I had to stick the pill directly down his throat and push. That meant opening up his jaws, gently nudging my finger beneath his razor-sharp teeth, and inserting the pill into his throat and pushing it down there without choking him or having him bite my arm off. After several tries (and a pretty huge bite) I finally succeeded. And then I looked at the jar and realized that I'll have to the do thing every single day for the next freaking week! I have newfound respect for people who own tigers and lions and servals.

Mad Men, Weeds, Charlie Sheen and critical thinking

In case you're interested, I have a new-ish story that gives you an inside look at Lionsgate TV, which produces, among other things, Mad Men, Weeds and Nurse Jackie.

Poisoning Pigeons in the Park: my interview with Tom Lehrer

Here's another one from the vault, a rare interview with Tom Lehrer. This came out 10 years ago but I think it's still relevant. Too bad that America's most incisive and funny political songwriter isn't writing political songs anymore. He could have a lot of fun with Herman Cain among others.

More on whales

As it turns out, that crazy whale photo you've been seeing in newspapers and broadcasts across the country is by Santa Cruz's own Shmuel Thaler, "complete with misspelled name in the photo credit." His whale image recently made the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. Thanks, Shmuel, for sending in. If it wasn't for people sending in, I'd have no content at all. Still waiting for advice on the pie.

Thanksgiving draws near. Time for me to make another inedible, goopy pecan pie

I'm just looking at the calendar and noticing that Thanksgiving is creeping up on me again. For me, this means one thing: friends and loved ones will soon be gagging on my overwrought, undercooked chocolate-pecan pie.

Every year I screw it up in a different way. One year I burned it so badly that the outside was black as pitch, and yet it was raw and glutinous in the middle. No one wants to hurt my feelings, so everybody ends up choking down one piece -- and in some cases, more than one piece -- of my mucilaginous, viscid baked product.

Another time it was so hard that you could barely pry the pieces apart, even when you used a sharp knife and hit the handle as hard as you could with your fist. Last year it came out OK, but for some reason I accidentally added mint flavor so it had this disgusting menthol aftertaste like Listerine.

Anyhow, if anyone has any advice on baking these pies, send in (but I have a feeling you won't. You're all a bunch of lookie-loos. No offense.)

By the way, this stupendously disgusting pie is something I found online on a blog. I can't claim credit for baking that one.

Cactuseaters on True Fiction Radio

Thanks again to my brother Phil for finding this and sending it along. I knew it was about to be posted online but didn't know it was already up! Anyhow, here is that free podcast from True Fiction Radio, including brand-new readings by Wallace Baine and Richard Stockton, and also a brief reading by me (from the Cactus Eaters.), recorded recently in town. If you've got access to iTunes, download away. I'm part of the radio show #12, podcast on 10/30/11.

Extreme close-up with whale in Santa Cruz!

See. I wasn't kidding. Ignore the silly tagline -- I seriously doubt that a krill-eating mammal would ever gobble up a surfer -- but it's still a shocker when the whales appear.

Banana slug color variations

I hope you enjoy this stereotype-shattering link. Now that I've read this, I might have to redesign my cookies.

Joan Didion coming to the Bay Area

She's going to be in conversation with Vendela Vida at the Herbst Theater. Go if you can. (I can't.) I went to a fantastic Didion event in NYC some years back. She was in conversation with New Yorker editor David Remnick, and it was all going well until someone in the audience asked Didion a truly dumb and appalling question at the very end.

Skyhopping whales, part two

In case you aren't following the local news, certain Santa Cruzans have lost their minds in regard to this surge of humpback whale sightings. Kayakers are going right up to them and practically rubbing the creatures' noses. I think this is a good time to remember that humpback whales can swim 16 miles an hour and have the combined weight of 350 humans.

In other words, annoying them is a very bad idea ...

The ghosts of Torrington, Connecticut

I chuckled after watching this scary trailer advertising a new horror movie that takes place at the Yankee Pedlar Inn in Torrington, Connecticut. This struck me as funny because the Yankee Pedlar is a real place. In fact, I frittered away a certain amount of my early 20s at the bar on the bottom floor of that very inn. I have a real life, silly "ghost story" that takes place in part at the Yankee Pedlar. When I get a moment, I will upload that for you. (it's long and rather complicated.)

Spyhopping whales in Santa Cruz

I was walking on West Cliff Drive just the other day with a friend when we saw the same two 'spyhopping' whales that you'll see in this link to a story in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

The Sentinel story implied that the whales were here primarily for the food.

You might consider reading these next

(this is my scratchboard illustration of Mephitis Mephitis, whose noxious spray can render dogs temporarily sightless.)

First of all, stumbling upon this link to an interview with Tom Waits was an unexpected boon. Plus, it's nice to hear that someone's car is messier than mine, and that he apparently like Valencia hot sauce, although my brand is Tapatio. A couple of other things. It's unnerving when I read a very good book that came out a while ago without me knowing about it. One prime example is Bernard Cooper's The Bill From My Father, as good a memoir as I've read in a long while. It has poetic compression, heft, authenticity, the whole shebang, and it doesn't try to gussy up the grouchy inscrutable dad at the center of the book. Books I also enjoyed recently: Gerry Hadden's new nonfiction work, Never the Hope Itself (I even blurbed this one! Take a look at the back cover next time you're browsing in a book store), which is a foreign correspondent's tale and an alluring ghost story set mostly in Haiti and Mexico. I also liked Jonnie Hughes' new one, On the Origin of Tepees, a meme-centric look at human creativity, manifest destiny, extinction, tent design and more. I thoroughly enjoyed Robert Sullivan's The Thoreau You Don't Know, a feisty take-down of received notions about America's most brilliant transcendentalist grouch. This book made me take a second glance at just about everything I've read about the man, including EB White's endearing but cutesy take on Thoreau. Oh, and here's one more. You've got to pick up Hemingway's Boat by Paul Hendrickson. Tell me if that isn't the best opening chapter you've read in a long time.

True Fiction radio

I'm going on True Fiction Radio in less than an hour. I'd better start driving to the studio now in case I get a flat tire or run into traffic. (or both.) My reading and my talk with Richard Stockton will soon be available as a podcast on iTunes.

Something old, something new

I'm going to do a podcast soon in which I'll read something old (well, not that old -- it's something from The Cactus Eaters, involving a possible case of mistaken identity and a dirty knife) and a very small section of a work so brand-new it doesn't even have a name just yet. Will post that link when it's ready.

Scott Williamson sets speed record on Pacific Crest Trail

Exciting news, and this is the first I've heard about it. Thanks to my brother, Phil, for sending this in. Scott is the most prolific PCT hiker ever, and he's even yo-yo'd the trail (southern to northern terminus, then northern terminus to southern terminus in one sustained effort) on more than one occasion. Amazing accomplishments, to say the least.

If you guessed "Anton Chekhov," you were correct

Anonymous has won the contest. Thanks for all the people who sent in -- although now I'm wondering if only one person sent in, but did so many times. Incorrect answers included Jesse James -- who is not a novelist -- and Robert Louis Stevenson.

Dr. Abraham Verghese speaks out about bedside visits and i-Patients (PLUS: see if you can guess the identity of the guy with the mustache).

OK, sharp-eyed Cactuseaters readers. Let's see if you can guess the identity of the mustache-wearing guy in the photo projected on the big screen behind Dr. Abraham Verghese. If you think you've got the right answer, send me an email, and if you're the first one that comes in, I'll put your name in my blog. The original version of the story included a dead giveaway, but I removed it just to make it more challenging for you...)

Anyhow, here is the link to my story on Dr. Abraham Verghese. I have an alternate and much longer version that goes into (much) more detail. If you'd like me to post that longer version as well, send me an email. Otherwise, you know I'll forget to do it. By the way, I should point out that he broke down barriers between himself and the audience by making his presentation as informal as possible. Instead of hiding behind a lectern, he walked the stage, facing the audience the entire time, and never consulting notes of any kind until the very end -- nearly 45 minutes into the presentation. I've never seen anyone pull off such a thing before with the sole exception of Malcolm Gladwell, who lectured note and Teleprompter-free, and in great detail, when he visited Columbia University some years back.

(photo by Steve Kurtz.)

Dr. Abraham Verghese in Santa Cruz

How many people do you know who can remove a human appendix, and then rush home and crank out a bunch of really good sestinas? How many people do you know who can write smoothly paced novellas while waiting to be called up to perform brain surgery? Not many, I would guess. The successful doctor/successful writer hybrid is one of life's enduring mysteries. You'd think it would take a lifetime to reach eminence in just one of those professions. But that hasn't stopped such physician/authors as Anton Chekhov, Oliver Sacks, Richard Selzer, Ethan Canin, or, for that matter, Abraham Verghese, who is visiting Santa Cruz today to give a lecture and visit students. The title of tonight's sold-out lecture: The Art of Medicine In The Era of Homo Technologicus.

I always want to know: how on earth does anyone have time to be a writer/physician, or even have time to learn how to do both? At the risk of blogging about something with gravitas and import, and therefore interrupting and perhaps compromising my flow of ideas about cookies shaped like banana slugs, and candy bars with weird faces on the wrappers, I'm going to change gears for a moment and write about Verghese's visit to campus today. I'm interested in the topic of his speech tonight -- the importance of patient care and empathy in an age in which technological advances can create a gulf between doctors and patients, who often complain that they are being treated like diseases or diagnoses instead of actual people. But I'd also like to know more about the way he draws from sympathetic imagination in his writing (his latest book is the bestselling novel, Cutting For Stone) as well as his medical care. I'll post the link when the story's done.

Now that all the Slug events are over, I have absolutely nothing to blog about this week

Will need a few days to recharge my slug-depleted batteries.