by Ann Marie Thornburg
In his autobiography A Man With A Camera Almendros describes the quality of North American light by way of a comparison. He writes: “In France the light is very gentle, because it is almost always filtered though the banks of clouds; this makes working with exteriors easy, since the shots are matched together with no difficulty when they are edited. On the other hand, in North America the air is more transparent and the light more violent. A figure standing against the sun appears as a silhouette.”
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by Lily Brown
Beck has a slow-jam my sister and I used to love when we were growing up. It’s called “Debra,” and it goes like this: “I wanna get with you / And your sister / I think her name’s Debra / I pick you up late at night after work / I said lady, step inside my Hyundai / I’m gonna take you up to Glendale.” “Debra” is important to this tour blog entry for two reasons: 1) Three ladies—Cynthia Arrieu-King, Claire Becker, and I—just spent four days in a royal blue Hyundai Accent and 2) We spent the tour driving the California freeways, including the 210, which we took through Glendale on our way from Pomona College to UC Merced on November 18th. This tour blog entry will consist of photos that provide a blow-by-blow of our travels in California, alongside some reflections on the tour experience.
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by Lily Brown
Next week, I’m embarking on one of two little first-book tours, and I’ll be blogging about those tours here. The first tour is in California, and I’ll be doing readings at Pomona College, at University of California Merced, in San Francisco, and in Santa Cruz. The second tour will include stops in Richmond, Raleigh, Philadelphia, New York City, Providence, and Northampton. More on that tour in a future post. I’ve never blogged before, and I’m nervous because I have this idea that blogs have to be funny, and I don’t think of myself as being funny, at least not on purpose. I told this to my friend Claire Becker—who I’ll be on tour with in California—and she told me she would trade me funniness for beer on tour. I took her up on her offer.
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by Nik de Dominic
I teach developmental composition in the Westbank of New Orleans, over the bridge from my home. If you were to keep on driving out there, away from New Orleans, you would be in the area on the map that looks like it’s breaking apart into the sea. If you followed any of the spill (spill always feels like the wrong word, let’s call it THE FUCKING EARTH HEMMORAGE) that occurred recently, you’re familiar with some of these areas: Plaquemines Parish, Lafitte, Barataria. I’m from California; I ride my bike most days; my father was an artist; and my mother was responsible for negotiating minority contracts for the City of Los Angeles during the 80s. It’s easy to say that if I lean, I fall over left. For me, indentifying the enemy here is easy – oil.
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