The Very Few Places I’ve Been Outside the U.S. [Updated]

1. Canada.
-Winnipeg: too many times to count.
-Toronto: only the airport.

2. England. Three months (all summer) in 1988. 18 days in 2000. Assorted other mini trips in 2003/04/05. A week in January 2007.
-London.
-Cornwall: Falmouth, Truro, Constantine.
-Assorted other towns in the Southern tip.

3. France. 2004
-Paris.
-Montpellier/Montbazin.

4. Australia. 2006.
-Sydney.
-Melbourne.
-Uluru.
-Cairns.
-Darwin.

5. Belgium. 2007.
-Brussels
-Ghent
-Bruges

6. Japan. 2008.
-Kyoto
-Nara
-Himeji
-Tokyo

7. Ireland. 2009.
-Dublin

8. Puerto Rico. 2024.
-San Juan
-Manati
-Arecibo
-Rio Grande (El Yunque)

An evening with David Mitchell and Lana Wachowski

A lovely evening. Mitchell read from the first passage of Slade House (which I read a week or so ago, I’ll try to tell you about it soon!) and then he and Wachowski had a lovely conversation about art and immortality and writing between genres (as it were).

There were quite a number of moments I wish I could have recorded, but here are the two I wrote down.

On writing between genres, or being told your book should/shouldn’t have something because you’re not in X genre:
“If a book needs a dragon, it should have a dragon.”

On reading reviews: he said he certainly never reads the bad ones, because they’re so demoralizing and haunt you for months, but then he said he doesn’t read the good ones either:
“…even the good ones are wasps at the picnic of a calm mind.”

WOW what an image.

I’ve been a huge fan of his books for a long time now (the other book I took with me to have signed was Black Swan Green, which is one of my all-time favorite books) and it was wonderful to hear Nathan (the first character in Slade House) read in his voice. He doesn’t have a straight-up English accent, there’s a bit of a lisping quality around his Rs that I wondered if originates from his time in Japan/Asia…

I can’t wait to see what he writes next.

This Is Just to Say.

unless you’re living under a rock, you’ve probably heard reference to William Carlos Williams’ apology poem (or IS IT. Reread that last stanza).

So let me tell you a funny store (hang on to the end, that’s where the funny is!)

Every year, I use that poem as a template with my students to write their own sorry / not-sorry poems. After we examine the poem’s structure, and some previously written student examples, we usually write one together as a class to get started. My morning class wanted to write to our principal. For reference: Nobel bucks are reward dollars we give out for being respectful, responsible or safe (and students can redeem them for actual items at our school store).

Here’s what we wrote:

“Dear Mr. A.,
This is just to say
We have stolen
the Nobel bucks
that were piled on your desk
which
you were probably
saving
for good kids.
Forgive us,
it was worth
all the toys
that we got.”

NOW HERE’S THE BEST PART: I emailed it to our administrators “Here’s a poem 208 wrote for you” and in the body of the email I wrote “based on William Carlos WIlliams.” Well, our principal didn’t read that part, he just clicked on the image.

Our assistant principal told us that all of a sudden he was scrambling around his desk saying “WAIT A MINUTE WHERE ARE MY NOBEL BUCKS!!!!”

Hahahahahahaha.

Best prank ever especially considering we didn’t even intend to prank. The kids are going to FREAK tomorrow when they hear about his reaction! 😉

It’s the little things, peeps.

This. Remember this.

Coretta Scott King: “I must remind you that starving a child is violence. Suppressing a culture is violence. Neglecting schoolchildren is violence. Punishing a mother and her family is violence. Discrimination against a working man is violence. Ghetto housing is violence. Ignoring medical need is violence. Contempt for poverty is violence.

Charles Eisenstein: “Love is the expansion of the self to include the other. And that’s a different kind of revolution.

both quoted in this amazing post by Eireann Lorsung.

To which I’ll add: “Love is the answer and you know that for sure.” –from another poet for peace, John Lennon.