Urban River, LA Style

The first stop on our trip was LA where we have a friend who is wildly talented and does fascinating things like write books (FLIGHT MAPS by Jenny Price) and give tours of the LA River to people like me who wondered why they had never seen the river if it runs right through LA. Well, because it is hurried elsewhere, run along concrete causeways where it often disappears to nothing, and dumped into the ocean.

Parts of the River, however, look downright idyllic. One would think they were in the country considering the reeds and the ducks, the egrets, the soft rush of water. However if you look up, there's LA screaming along the banks, across the bridges.



Much of the river looks nothing like a river. Concrete pylons and walls enclose the river so that it looks more like run-off than anything.

It is a good place to shoot a movie, however. See Chinatown, Grease.

And, man, some of the tagging is gorgeous.

I'm back and you didn't even know I left

One of the first things I did when we got home is give the guys haircuts. Not that I minded their long hair, I liked it. It is summertime,however, and they wanted short hair. So, I got out the scissors, the clippers, and cleaned them up, leaving enough hair on the floor to manufacture a cat.

Where were we? Three thousand miles worth of away. Penultimate destination-North Dakota. The new novel (full draft is finished!) required a visit. But I'll get to that later. As I said before, it is summertime, a period of travel, so I might just make this trip last for a month of blogging. First stop-the LA River.

YAY! UCROSS!

This is one of the really great things about being a writer. Writer's Residencies. I just heard that I get to go to Ucross once again. I began work on Turpentine the last time I was there and it was such a great experience, I've wanted to go back ever since. Ucross provides very nice rooms (bedroom and private study) delicious food prepared by a talented chef, lunch brought to your study every day and left quietly by your door as to not disturb, beautiful views and places to walk, and a number of fellow guests who are prose writers, poets, visual artists, film-makers, to talk to after hours.
You should apply.

roller derby for OBAMA

I went to see my darling niece chew up the competition at her roller derby bout in Seattle...(she is beautiful) and saw this button on this bag. May Obama be as successful in his bout as the Pink Pistols were in theirs!

edit, clarify, converge, clean-up, understand

Three chapters when one would do. Two scenes that are point for point alike, but set in different places in the novel. A character protests three times, four times... and all that nodding! I'm at the end of the novel, and more than anything else, I'm trying to clarify, simplify. The shadow on the edge, the out of focus figure, the attempt to see what's there (is it there?) by paring away the extra.

Protest

Standing in a crowd of people, coming to the line that the authorities say you must not cross. To acquiesce means your shout is not as loud, your message may not be heard. To go forward-risk arrest, injury, perhaps. It is a time in which a larger import, yet one distant, more abstract, is in conflict with the personal self. I don't want to get hurt, arrested. I don't even want to be rude.




Protesting is like voting, but corporeal. Standing in a crowd one easily recognizes you could go home and no one would even notice. Your body among all those bodies is negligible. However, it is the act of letting go of the ego, the insistence that only the recognition of the individual matters, that allows for the great movements of idea, of humanitarianism... and even evil. The great power is the balance between the individual and the crowd; to both think for oneself and be willing to act, vote, protest, arm and arm with many.

Closer, closer, closer...

I am at the last stages of the book. This is what I keep telling myself. However I seem to be nearing completion in a geometric progression. Once I was a hundred miles away, then fifty, then twenty five....... four inches away, then two, then one, then a half...a sort of sisyphus of the written word.

On a positive note, I did get out and run this morning before the deluge hit. It is raining right now, likely won't stop for days, but on my run I managed to jog some ideas loose and am ready to remedy a few snags in the novel. Sometimes running works that way for me, I solve problems. Sometimes I run and the only thing that goes through my head is how slow I am and wondering if I could just turn around and go home now. Here's to problem solving and that half inch closer to finishing a book.