Laws of perspective

Annie has posted a new poem on her blog.

I may be biased, but I love her work.

Poetry, blogging and ape errata

I'm honored that the California Poet Laureate Al Young has posted the recent interview of me by Farideh Hasanzadeh-Mostafavi here.

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Annie has finally posted again!

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Planet of the Apes revelation: Monkeys Control a Robot Arm With Their Thoughts.

Cover Girls, Cover Dog

This picture of Annie and me and Max (who smiled for the photo) appeared today in a local paper, along with this article.

Aloha

This is Annie.

For those who've been asking, she's the one who drew the picture of me at the top of my blog. (She's also my partner of 14 years.)

She creates these wonderful, expressive portraits with the drawing technique called modified blind contours. This means she doesn't look at the paper while her pen is moving. (Of course she looks later while she colors the drawings with Prismacolors or watercolors.)

She also has a new blog. In it, she intends to talk about teaching art to high schoolers--about creativity, education and being a lesbian teacher. Go over and say hi.

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Quote of the day, by Francince Prose: "No matter what a novel is about, it's finally about the individual and the complexity of human beings and humanity."

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As I wrote about at the end of this entry, I'm on my way to Hawaii, so this blog will be on hiatus until August 21. Aloha!

Yesterday Was . . .

. . . 12 hours with my mom, getting her transferred from the care facility back into the hospital since she she's been having more health problems.

Today was fielding phone calls about her care and a transfer to another hospital since there's no room in the one she was taken to yesterday.

The day before yesterday was a glorious 22-mile bike ride with Annie, here,

along the Coyote Creek Trail. Hawks with wingspans like open-doored cars swooped over our heads, and we swerved around two magnificent rattlesnakes who were grabbing some rays on the trail.

In the midst of it all, I've been continuing research for my novel. I've mostly been reading about Auden's and Britten's creation of the operetta Paul Bunyan. In the lyrics, Paul Bunyan expresses the hope that Americans will be saved from the

Pressure Group that says I am the Constitution,
From those who say Patriotism and mean Persecution,
From entertainments neither true nor beautiful nor witty . . .
From the dirty-mindedness of a Watch Committee.

Auden witnessed the devastating rise of facism in Europe. And yet he was not a blind patriot for Democracy. He recognized that all systems have their pitfalls and need their critics.

Speaking of critics, GO JIMMY. And swallow any possible apologies. I don't know why it's considered such an anathema for one President to speak his truth about another. Patriotism serves to silence.