tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62730884092986965822024-03-05T20:01:14.438-08:00Tucson, the Novelan experiment in literature and civil discourseUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-62397923019237306952012-12-01T11:09:00.002-08:002012-12-01T11:12:35.416-08:00Final report, part two.<style>
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<i> It's taken me a while to post this. Below is the testimony I gave at Call to the Audience on October 16, 2012. So this blog and this project hereby go into hibernation. Perhaps to be awakened at another time, who knows. Thanks, everyone, for your kind support. </i></div>
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Final Report, Part #2
of 2</div>
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Tucson, the Novel: An
Experiment in Literature and Civil Discourse</div>
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Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. My name
is Shannon Cain and I live on Paseo Redondo in downtown Tucson. This is the final segment
of my final report on the literary performance art project called Tucson, the
Novel: an experiment in literature and civil discourse, which was funded by a
grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts.</div>
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Last week you heard my account of how real life events
caught up to my novel and how it all threw me into an artistic tizzy and
monkeyed with my genius and got me all blocked, etcetera. Which is true, but
it’s also only part of the story. The rest of it is that I realized the book
just isn’t great. I always wanted to give Tucson a great novel, and after the
shootings that desire turned into an imperative. It’s good, for sure, and I’m
sure somebody would have published it. I do think it’s good. It’s just not
great. </div>
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It’s hard to set aside a project you’ve put so much energy
into. And so much time. But I know these last six years haven’t been wasted.
They taught me to be a better writer, for one thing. They taught me about
Tucson; they reconnected me to my own community. And those pages—all those
stories within the story—may some day end up reincarnated as something else.
Perhaps as another collection of stories. Or perhaps as a different novel, one
with a certain disturbed young man not as a secondary character but as its
protagonist. </div>
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The project was called an experiment in literature and civil
discourse. In fact a professor of public affairs from Virginia Tech wrote a
paper on the project at presented it at the annual conference of the American
Sociological Association this past August. She asked me what I learned about
civil discourse. I told her that I sometimes felt foolish, and even
irresponsible, because I was taking time away from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">real </i>issues. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Important </i>issues.
Why should the bus riders union or the environmentalists get fewer minutes
because I’m insisting on this weird narcissistic exercise? </div>
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I told her I found answers in a place I didn’t expect. When
the Occupy movement came to town, I eagerly let it hijack my project. My
activist self took over. And here I started to feel hypocritical. Why was Occupy
and not some other issue worthy of me ceding my 3 minutes?</div>
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Well, I tell you I learned more about civil discourse in the
3 times I was here as an Occupy member than I did in the 33 times I appeared
here to read the novel. The Occupy movement as it unfolded inside these
chambers was I thought a stunning example of how a community’s righteous anger
can be expressed forcefully yet peacefully; directly yet respectfully.<br />
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Ironically, all I
need to know about civil discourse I learned in Occupy. I told the Virginia
Tech professor that ultimately it seemed to me that it matters less why you
come to this podium than that you’ve come at all.<br />
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Thank you for listening. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-72390962053907847322012-10-12T17:37:00.000-07:002012-10-13T03:24:30.304-07:00Final Report, Part One.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><i>Call to the Audience testimony, Tuesday October 9 2012</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 17px; text-indent: 48px;">Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. My name is Shannon Cain and I live on Paseo Redondo in downtown Tucson. This is Part One of a 3-part final report on the literary performance art project Tucson the Novel: An Experiment in Literature and Civil Discourse, funded by the <a href="http://www.tucsonthenovel.blogspot.com/2011/04/5-arizona-artists-awarded-arts.html" target="_blank">Arizona Commission on the Arts</a>. Over the next three council sessions I’ll tell you what I did, what happened when I did it, and what I learned by doing it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt;">Nearly every Tuesday for a year and a half, I read my novel-in-progress, three minutes at a time, here at Call to the Audience. It’s a political story set in Tucson, with a culminating scene that takes place here in these council chambers. The idea was to keep reading until I got to the end or until the book was in stores, whichever came first. Well, neither came first. Neither came at all. I got about 75 pages into the 300 page manuscript, and then I stopped.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">What happened? A lot of things happened. Six months after I began, my manuscript of short fiction—a different book, one I’d been writing off and on for 8 years—unbelievably</span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><i style="font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">won</i><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1929197799">a great big fat prize</a></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><a href="http://www.upress.pitt.edu/BookDetails.aspx?bookId=36258">.</a> I found myself on a national book tour that included thirty-three readings in nineteen cities, over the course of 10 months. A huge event, a wonderful blessing, and a terrible thing, timing-wise, for this project. I was out of town as much as I was home. I managed to wrangle a few amazing <a href="http://www.tucsonthenovel.blogspot.com/2011/10/spending-our-words.html" target="_blank">guest readers</a>—you’ll remember the teenagers from the Tucson High School drama department—but sustaining this became logistically difficult. How many of you could be persuaded to read somebody else’s unfinished novel at a council meeting, utterly out of context?</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguk6x0I83_M3VvlfGektvRQNOXOZhDC87CSDRX1YWdCBPhD7k8jtjzEUzcafbtmSFtmXR7bIwbh4DwrN38yp23VMibzNnkWUefilczKFj22A2b08GoOHE7yUYM7Y7MjzaA_c6RiedE06E/s1600/11-9.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguk6x0I83_M3VvlfGektvRQNOXOZhDC87CSDRX1YWdCBPhD7k8jtjzEUzcafbtmSFtmXR7bIwbh4DwrN38yp23VMibzNnkWUefilczKFj22A2b08GoOHE7yUYM7Y7MjzaA_c6RiedE06E/s200/11-9.tiff" width="200" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">On the bright side, the book tour was bringing me into contact with audiences of college students and faculty, many of whom were fascinated with the project. I discussed Tucson the Novel before hundreds of listeners at places like Purdue University, University of Colorado, Colorado State, UC Davis, Middlebury College, Bowling Green State University and the University of Indiana.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The second thing that happened, though, was more profound: nine months into the project, we had <a href="http://www.tucsonthenovel.blogspot.com/2011/01/tucson-learning-to-live-with-discomfort.html" target="_blank">the shootings at Safeway</a>. That day, I was on a writing retreat in a house on a wintry beach in New Jersey, working on the novel. The book seemed to be coming along pretty well. It was changing through the process of reading it aloud to you, and a new voice was beginning to take over the narrative: sharper, cleaner, more precise. I liked it. At that desk in New Jersey I was just getting to the part where a boy named Jason enters the story, a character who is pivotal to the plot. Jason is eighteen and on the brink of schizophrenia. He’s also profoundly influenced by the political rhetoric of the left wing. He’s obsessed with Tucson’s evil developer, Eric Emerald, and in protest over a luxury shopping mall that Emerald plans to build at Tumamoc Hill, Jason plans and carries out a public act of violence against him. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">I went for a walk on the snowy beach to clear my head and get ready to revise the next chapter, Jason’s. The shootings were happening as I stood on that beach, thinking about the ocean and the snow and about Tucson.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLH9ReFXP2FeZ87SRnhNIhWMzTJfh-R10wP876dblwhl_FSg1HuxgjUykJOa1_PxPKkCAQIoae1_a-iJHx0otNVNcOawVCn3qQIwApF3EGrlVgIAqaVL82ve9TmBTe97qO6RlHZyDFhg0/s1600/P1010999.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLH9ReFXP2FeZ87SRnhNIhWMzTJfh-R10wP876dblwhl_FSg1HuxgjUykJOa1_PxPKkCAQIoae1_a-iJHx0otNVNcOawVCn3qQIwApF3EGrlVgIAqaVL82ve9TmBTe97qO6RlHZyDFhg0/s320/P1010999.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Avalon, New Jersey. January 8, 2011, 10:23 am</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13.0pt;">As you can imagine, the similarities
between Jared Loughner and my character Jason stunned me. And pretty much
stopped me cold. When I got home to Tucson I went back to the manuscript again
and again, over the course of months. But I could not get past page 80, the
chapter where we are introduced to Jason. In my fictional world, Jason is a basketball star at Tucson High,
lives in Dunbar Springs, and is falling in love. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13.0pt;">I was writing a novel about
contemporary Tucson. How could I possibly write a story about a young man
deluded by mental illness and out for violent political revenge? Then again,
how could I not?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13.0pt;"><i>Coming soon: Part II</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13.0pt;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13.0pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-33553395003585386832011-12-26T14:45:00.000-08:002011-12-26T14:47:30.532-08:00Today at Occupy Tucson: Kozachik & Villasenor play the child abuse card. Bad move, guys.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFCibXrMsrtNLU8XI6lSW1xAMaM9HdFUtrIqIYAdO8hvRuuQnrv1106EkglgJwN2L_kcOLirPvTyRMWZdAHCUi50mE3k5iMRrlogpBC2SjTIAA9Qx4GAEJmyioP358IGM5MDL-_cW5224/s1600/Occupy-Banner-Option-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="92" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFCibXrMsrtNLU8XI6lSW1xAMaM9HdFUtrIqIYAdO8hvRuuQnrv1106EkglgJwN2L_kcOLirPvTyRMWZdAHCUi50mE3k5iMRrlogpBC2SjTIAA9Qx4GAEJmyioP358IGM5MDL-_cW5224/s320/Occupy-Banner-Option-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="byline"></div><div class="byline"><span class="reporter">Reposted from <a href="http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/opinion/report/122611_occupy_letter/occupy-tucson-open-letter-kozachik-villasenor/" target="_blank">The Tucson Sentinel.com</a> </span></div><br />
Dear Councilman Kozachik and Chief Villaseñor,<br />
<br />
Recent communications from the Ward 6 Council Office and the Tucson Police Department have pointed to incidents of crime at the Occupy Tucson encampment at Veinte de Agosto Park as justification to evict protesters.<br />
<br />
But TPD's own statistics show that during the 46 days of the Occupation at Veinte de Agosto, the downtown crime rate was 20 percent lower as compared to the 46 days before Occupy Tucson established its encampments.<br />
<br />
Yes, gentlemen, you're hearing this right: downtown was safer with Occupy Tucson present. Twenty percent safer. This despite the fact that the normally deserted park was full of people. And that many of those people were struggling with mental illness and addiction.<br />
<br />
The prevailing narrative about Occupy Tucson is that we haven't accomplished anything. Yet in our 46 days at Veinte de Agosto, we fed and sheltered dozens of our most vulnerable fellow citizens, raised awareness around global and local economic injustice, disrupted home foreclosure auctions, secured three supportive votes from city councilmembers, proudly racked up the Occupy movement's second-highest civil disobedience arrest rate in the country (New York being at the top), and left the park cleaner than we found it. Astonishingly, as we were doing all this work, the crime rate in the neighborhood went down.<br />
<br />
Wow. Must have been our beloved Peacekeepers from Veterans for Peace patrolling our perimeter, as well as dozens of eyes looking out for one another. Looks like Occupy Tucson set up a pretty good neighborhood watch.<br />
<br />
Councilman Kozachik and Chief Villaseñor, how dare you use the threat of public endangerment against us? How dare you peddle fear to the public as justification to clear out a peaceful protest?<br />
How dare you continue to inject the words "child abuse" and "child molestation" into your newsletters, media interviews and press releases? Steve, your newsletter of December 14 reported the false information that "there was a child molestation inside one of the tents at Occupy Tucson." The clarification you issued a week later was weak and self-serving, and failed to correct the biggest falsehood of all: the implication that our presence was somehow responsible.<br />
<br />
The truth is that we rescued those girls. They had been drinking—one of them was too drunk to walk—and none of us had seen these men before. Before the men disappeared, they admitted to us it was they who had bought the girls alcohol. One of them was in his late forties.<br />
<br />
What really happened that night, Councilman Kozachik and Chief Villaseñor, is that we kept those girls warm and safe and called their parents, and prevented what might have been the worst experience of their young lives. Our encampment—that village it takes to raise a child—was there when those girls needed us.<br />
<br />
Councilman Kozachik, your clarification also says "there were two incidents, not one," and that the other incident was "an ongoing TPD investigation into 'child abuse' that involves one of the people associated with Occupy Tucson." Chief Villaseñor, you've cited this incident to the press as well.<br />
<br />
Seriously, guys? An investigation that involves one of the people associated with Occupy Tucson? Let's assume for a moment you're talking about one of our active organizers rather than, say, one of our 8,000 Facebook supporters or the hundreds of community members who brought us food and other supplies over the course of our Occupation of the parks. There are roughly 200 active organizers, I'd say — people who have participated in working groups, volunteered in the kitchen, served as Peacekepers and regularly attended our General Assemblies. So let me ask you this: what if we took a random sample of 200 people "associated with TPD" or "associated with Ward 6." Do you suppose that among those people there might also be an ongoing investigation or two of child abuse? And how quickly would you respond with indignation that one bad apple was being used to besmirch the whole institution?<br />
<br />
Chief, you hid behind the "ongoing investigation" excuse to decline further comment on the incident. Did the alleged incident even occur at Veinte de Agosto, or is this "ongoing investigation" something that happened before this person came to Occupy? It's an abuse of your authority to drop the "child abuse" bomb into the public discourse and let it sit there, unexplained, for public speculation. <br />
<br />
As a survivor of child molestation, a girl for whom nobody intervened, I am so offended by your repeated suggestions that Occupy Tucson's presence led to harm against children. It is underhanded and shameful of you both to try to use child abuse against us politically. We are Occupy Tucson, and this village isn't going anywhere.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-55144061924136645762011-12-18T14:50:00.000-08:002011-12-18T15:06:59.868-08:00Today at Occupy Tucson: The Citizen Misses the Point<span style="font-size: small;"><i>In which I respond to a <a href="http://tucsoncitizen.com/quantum-social/2011/12/18/occupy-tucson-needs-to-grow-up/#comment-826"> bit of tediously substandard journalism</a> by Rai Goldin over at the Tucson Citizen about <a href="http://tucsonthenovel.blogspot.com/2011/12/today-at-occupy-tucson-dramas.html" target="_blank">my most recent post</a>.</i></span> <br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Indeed, Occupy Tucson has had a really difficult time getting down to the work of overthrowing the status quo. It's been--what?--ten weeks? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Geez, give us some time here. We're trying to fundamentally change an entire system. Any decent community organizer knows that groundwork must be laid. Plans must be made. Organizations must be built. Easy enough to judge from the outside when the pace isn't quick enough. Easy enough to judge our lack of concrete progress when you don't consider the fact we're both trying to change the world and tend to its ailments at the same time. The Occupiers at Veinte de Agosto are radical humanitarians, caring for the hungry and the addicted and mentally ill who have found refuge among us. Imagine the resources we've devoted to the hard work of keeping other people alive; resources we could have been using to fight the system that put them in such dire straits to begin with. The irony of our situation at Veinte de Agosto is astonishing: we've been sidetracked by the symptoms of the very social illness we came here to cure.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Speaking of Occupy becoming sidetracked by internal issues: go ahead and dismiss public accountability for one's misbehavior as "he said/she said." Go ahead and demean the courage it takes for an Occupy insider to finally call out the damaging actions of a colleague, despite knowing it will be characterized by the mainstream media as a catfight. If anything, my action proves that Occupiers aren't insular and driven by dogma. There's plenty of room for alternate opinions in this movement, and the beauty of the "leaderless" part is that it allows for and encourages autonomous action. Which includes public disagreement about what constitutes good strategy and responsible community organizing.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The truth is that we aren't a leaderless movement; we're a movement of leaders. Go ahead and minimize that, too, with the "too many chefs in the kitchen" argument. But we Americans have let someone else do the cooking for far too long. We need to re-learn how to be citizen leaders. Occupy gives everyone this opportunity. And if doing so looks a little messy and disorganized, so be it. The drafting of the U.S. Constitution wasn't exaclty a smooth process either.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The process of consensus decision making--one of the core values of the Occupy movement--is an easy target for those who'd rather condemn than understand. To judge our horizontal structure--the direct democracy we're trying to model--through the lens of traditional representative democracy is to miss the point. We're trying to bring about a fundamental shift, and fundamental shifts take time. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">How about a little support from our allies, especially those who wield the power of the media? Use your position more responsibly, Rai. If you really want us to succeed, give us better, in-depth, more truthful coverage. By which I don't mean you should stop criticizing the movement, because all movements rely on the accountability of a free and independent media. If the media were holding irresponsible hotdogs like Jon McLane publicly accountable rather than swallowing his stories without criticism, I wouldn't have had to do it myself. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">How about this: you do your job better and we'll do ours better. I'm guessing that the resulting accountability and creative tension will bring about swifter economic justice for us all.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-20674051889969092612011-12-16T14:14:00.000-08:002011-12-17T07:31:44.949-08:00Today at Occupy Tucson: Dramas Manufactured by Angry Boys<style>
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</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: Garamond;">In which I hijack my own blog, normally dedicated to my (yes, still ongoing!) literary performance project, for a post about Occupy Tucson, my current obsession and the reason for the relative dormancy of this page. I’ve been so preOccupied!</span></i></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFCibXrMsrtNLU8XI6lSW1xAMaM9HdFUtrIqIYAdO8hvRuuQnrv1106EkglgJwN2L_kcOLirPvTyRMWZdAHCUi50mE3k5iMRrlogpBC2SjTIAA9Qx4GAEJmyioP358IGM5MDL-_cW5224/s1600/Occupy-Banner-Option-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="115" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFCibXrMsrtNLU8XI6lSW1xAMaM9HdFUtrIqIYAdO8hvRuuQnrv1106EkglgJwN2L_kcOLirPvTyRMWZdAHCUi50mE3k5iMRrlogpBC2SjTIAA9Qx4GAEJmyioP358IGM5MDL-_cW5224/s400/Occupy-Banner-Option-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">Shaun McClusky has come after Occupy Tucson again. McClusky was this year's failed Republican candidate for mayor and <a href="http://www.teapartytribune.com/2011/04/27/meet-shaun-mcclusky/">Tea Party darling </a>who has so far been disqualified from two separate local elections for failing to follow rules such as listing top contributors on his disclosure forms and for screwing up the <a href="http://www.topix.com/forum/tucson/T02RO22A17T53P5KV">collection of signatures on his nominating petitions</a>.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">McClusky, <a href="http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/shaun-mcclusky/Profile?oid=3166637">who has characterized Occupy Tucson as a “smelly stinky presence” and has said he hopes TPD takes our “unemployed asses to jail,”</a> was yesterday awarded a permit by the City of Tucson for Veinte de Agosto Park and De Anza Park—the only two Occupy-related encampments in Tucson—for one-time events on December 28. McClusky’s planned party: a food drive by a group called “Take Care of Tucson” that would benefit the Community Food Bank and three local animal shelters.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">Ah, the evil of McClusky’s plan! Canned food! Cats & dogs! How American! How reasonable! How...legal!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">Except that McClosky’s events clearly aren’t motivated by a desire to feed the hungry. His is a ploy to kick Occupy Tucson out of Veinte de Agosto Park. McClusky is using hungry people and abandoned animals as a political shield for his real agenda: to silence this global economic revolution and squelch its impact in Tucson.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">Good luck, McClusky. You think that forcing Occupy Tucson to move a few tents is going to stop this movement? This movement is too big, too important, too timely, to be slowed down by the likes of you.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">It also doesn’t take much digging to discover McClusky's personal vendetta against Jon McLane, the activist behind Occupy Public Lands. OPL is a renegade offshoot of Occupy Tucson that irritates the hell out of many of us, myself unquestionably at the top of the list, for unnecessarily confrontational tactics, camera hogging, dramatic grandstanding, a tenuous grasp on the meaning of “leaderless movement,” and/or a general disregard for the well-being of the mother Occupy organization. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">Be that as it may, McClusky and McLane have their own tawdry history: they ran against one another in the mayoral race, and were both disqualified over a failure to follow basic election rules. McLane ran as a Green Party candidate. Yet when McLane’s campaign came to its abrupt halt, he threw his support behind X-treme Republican McClusky, <a href="http://www.voteshaun.com/2011/05/12/green-party-mayoral-candidate-jon-mclane-withdraws-endorses-mcclusky/">even joining his campaign</a> as chair of the sustainability committee. From Green Party to Tea Party? Wow, there’s a leap. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">Now it seems the boys once again aren’t getting along. Yesterday on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Jon.McLane.for.Tucson">McLane’s Facebook page</a> he accused McClusky of orchestrating this weirdly amateur <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12i7UxqFyhI">YouTube video attack</a> against him. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">Bottom line is that a silly combination of male ego and a small-time act of revenge from a frustrated political loser shall result in Occupy Tucson leaving its encampment once again. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">It’s okay. This stuff is small potatoes. Dramas manufactured by angry boys shall come and go, but this movement is here to stay. We are riding the wave of global change, tossed in the tumult, exhilarated. The people are waking up. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">We’re <a href="http://occupytucson.org/">Occupy Tucson</a>, and we aren’t going anywhere.</span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-61885038638656960812011-10-11T22:51:00.000-07:002011-10-11T22:52:15.761-07:00Spending our Words<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">While I was in Leipzig this summer, fiction writer <a href="http://wilcoxwrites.com/">Erin Wilcox</a> filled in as a guest reader for the project. Lately I’ve been out of town some more, doing readings and visiting classrooms, (come see me if you’re in Boston or Middlebury), and Erin’s kindly pinch-hitting again. So in honor of what will be her </span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">third<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> appearance at the podium (at this Wednesday's council meeting), I’m posting a note she sent to me back in June, reflecting on her experience. Enjoy, folks. Erin gets it so right. </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_495194904" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS0CPCFKCNB5aP_XTwJzN1JFXtaA4Mxp92dEsdRzRdakEi5YQTLcGLBXByVwGX6Y_WFW2528Z5bDaX9ZZWiLJYdbPxqXKMRFh_zPHScj_VohPhca2jZULccE3iV_-0ED6F8ZZS7wXqS88/s200/DB_Headshot.jpg" width="148" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://wilcoxwrites.com/">Erin Wilcox</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">A traffic light contraption at the podium’s edge blinked green to signal my three minutes had started. I took a breath and began to read.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> About a page in, my worry that I might suffer spontaneous aphasia or paralysis of the tongue faded. I took on the point of view of Alice Alexander, a restaurant owner who uses her curb sign to advertise daily specials and political commentary. This literary activist was so easy to connect with, I actually felt a little exposed. Couldn’t I have been given an old man or a morose six-year-old to play? Was I being typecast here?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> I read about Alice sweating in the sun, debating how to arrange her limited letters to create today’s message. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Today</i>, I thought, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we have so few words and letters to spend</i>. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Our readers’ attention doesn’t hold out like it used to</i>. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> Between sentences, I scanned the row of faces I had watched throughout the public comment period. This was city government in action, but I didn’t get the feeling our citizens’ words were swaying anyone with power. It felt more like a cathartic space in which the civically oriented were called upon to vent their grievances so they would go home feeling they had made a difference. The mayor and council members sat onstage and played their bland parts, allowing the production to unfold as it does week after week. The public participated, fulfilling its circumscribed role. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The traffic light blinked from green to yellow. I sped up, just perceptibly, to fit the whole excerpt within my allotted time. Alice demoted her dinner special to lunch status and sacrificed two dollars a plate so she had enough letter Ns to post: ELIMINATE CORPORATE WELFARE. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">I liked Alice. She gave me the opportunity to say the words “right-wing shenanigans” to a Republican mayor, on TV, in a state that recently wrote bigotry into its legal code. In my heart I was again the young UC Berkeley student whose protest sign, meant for a cardboard coho salmon, read “<span style="text-transform: uppercase;">Save Headwaters or I’ll Go Extinct.</span>”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4-dXEE0qW3rYRf8AKRSctIPx18DULsAC-4PXxs6fFB_CBbNvo8dx1mep9CJQOabrTCkmdNXqRs_ERd16aFrJUOSYt0LKk2bzAO74i8u8k2hTA9_TIjad7NjwkNG4e1PIIc93p312P-hM/s1600/Wilcox_UCBerkeley_1997.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4-dXEE0qW3rYRf8AKRSctIPx18DULsAC-4PXxs6fFB_CBbNvo8dx1mep9CJQOabrTCkmdNXqRs_ERd16aFrJUOSYt0LKk2bzAO74i8u8k2hTA9_TIjad7NjwkNG4e1PIIc93p312P-hM/s400/Wilcox_UCBerkeley_1997.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tucson, The Novel</i> was not likely to find favor among anyone invested in the script of local government process. I knew this even as I reached the final sentence, wishing my contribution to the project were received with uproarious applause. For citizens offering their three-minute public comment in earnest and expecting others to do the same, this Brechtian denial of cathartic release might chafe. For the mayor and council members, the performance shifted their usual role of actors in a civic drama to audience for a work of art. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them enjoyed the reading, but their stonewall expressions should not have surprised me. Whatever the city council members’ internal reactions, it would be a breach of character to show them. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Mayor Walkup was itching to cut me off—I could see it in his eyes—but I finished my segment just as the traffic light turned red. One person, my husband, clapped as I took my seat. The pattering of my heart decelerated. As the next member of the public approached the podium, the room seemed a bit less hostile.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><style>
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</style> </div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://wilcoxwrites.com/">Erin Wilcox’s</a> writing has been featured or is forthcoming in <i>Soundzine</i>, <i>Stoneboat</i>, <i>Cold Flashes: Literary Snapshots of Alaska</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(University of Alaska Press),<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Veil: Journal of Darker Musings</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(Subsynchronous Press), and in radio broadcasts including KXCI Tucson’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>A Poet’s Moment</i>,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Broad Perspectives</i>, and Alaska Public Radio’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>AK Radio.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>In 2010, she exhibited a collaborative poetry installation at the Front Gallery in Tucson.</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"> The assistant nonfiction editor of <i>Drunken Boat</i> and former copyeditor for<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Alaska Quarterly Review</i>, Erin maintains a vigorous freelance editorial practice and writes about writing for various magazines, including<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Copyediting<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses</i>. </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; line-height: 115%;">She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Alaska, Anchorage</span> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br />
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-59762066770511322702011-09-21T13:39:00.000-07:002011-09-21T13:39:59.796-07:00It's a new day in Tucson, pardnerCoinciding in the most fortuitous way with my announcement of Tucson, the Novel: Season Two, <a href="http://azstarnet.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_7f24a8e4-f107-5d96-85f2-a257ebd0f407.html">an aggrieved and fed up Tucson city council</a> delivered big drama this week over the question of civil discourse. Last Tuesday, within fifteen minutes of announcing new expectations around civility at Call to the Audience, Mayor Bob Walkup held an offender accountable and had him removed from the council chambers.<br />
<br />
Like: escorted out, by police officers. Which, y'know, from a First Amendment perspective rankles me pretty bad. But from the good-riddance-asshole perspective, I'm thrilled. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.kold.com/story/15510485/warden-to-file-action-against-city-of-tucson?autoStart=thttp://www.kgun9.com/multimedia/videos/?bctid=1161773261001">KGUN 9 News did a good job summarizing the situation.</a> This guy, Roy Warden, is one of Tucson's more famous podium jerks. He's been spewing bile at Call to the Audience for decades, and for decades hundreds of electeds and public servants have been made to sit quietly and allow his hateful rhetoric to poison their workplace. So hooray. The rules that have allowed this situation to continue and to escalate are now under review. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for standing your ground.<br />
<br />
And let the First Amendment conversation begin. Roy Warden has filed a lawsuit, of course, claiming the abuse of said rights. As vile as this man is, his rights must of course be protected. If anyone, after all, could be accused of irrelevant, repetitive and/or inappropriate speech--adjectives used one form or another at yesterday's council discussion--that would be me. I'm a fiction writer hijacking a space meant for the democratic process and using it as a stage for an oral serialization of her novel in progress. While I can (and certainly will) make all sorts of arguments for the political and social relevancy of this project, surely a whole bunch of others, including, let's say, lawyers, might disagree. So let me just go on record as saying that I'm very very invested in the protection of the Asshole Roy Warden's rights under the First Amendment.<br />
<br />
So, dear readers: How do you like Season Two so far? I'm thrilled to begin the project's second year with an individual artist grant from the <a href="http://www.azarts.gov/">Arizona Commission on the Arts.</a> Under this grant, I'll be using the first twenty seconds of my three minutes at the podium each week to reflect on questions of civil discourse, literature, free speech, the arts, and whatever other crazy thing jumps into my head. <br />
<br />
I have so much more to say, and will say it soon. In the meantime I'd love to hear what you're thinking. Comments here are moderated for civility, of course.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-85186915302727478452011-05-01T08:30:00.000-07:002011-05-01T08:30:03.628-07:00Viewing Tucson from afar<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy3SeVF2V0G34ZKyN7ghNjSYrqmmoxlVia88zXjlkGm8y10-GeRRI9Lj6xsAZO0PhspIDLSOSL4E7Iw6b3BHp5u9u-RscEVLaavGItXvr2T2Y6cr8Q9xq0ar4tUqQnwlmMti1K2bLKe50/s1600/IMG_0038.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy3SeVF2V0G34ZKyN7ghNjSYrqmmoxlVia88zXjlkGm8y10-GeRRI9Lj6xsAZO0PhspIDLSOSL4E7Iw6b3BHp5u9u-RscEVLaavGItXvr2T2Y6cr8Q9xq0ar4tUqQnwlmMti1K2bLKe50/s320/IMG_0038.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is not Tucson.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>What an adventure. I've been appointed the <a href="http://americanstudies.uni-leipzig.de/blogs/128/new-picador-professor-shannon-cain">Picador Guest Professor in Literature</a> for summer 2011 at the University of Leipzig, in Germany. So here I sit, blogging (oh dear, lord help me) from a Starbucks in the Innerstadt, less than a kilometer from the <a href="http://www.thomaskirche.org/r-architecture-a-820.html">final resting place of Johann Sebastian Bach</a>. Believe me, if there were wireless access at the Thomaskirche, I'd be logging on from one of the pews in that magnificent place.<br />
<br />
But not to worry: I've recruited guest readers to continue the weekly readings at the city council meetings, beginning with drama students at Tucson High Magnet School.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/zHZNc4UYNIU?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
Auf Wiedersehen for now--Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-7484028571730318742011-04-03T23:06:00.000-07:002011-04-03T23:29:13.840-07:00My New Sponsor, Believe it Or Not: the Arizona Commission on the Arts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<a href="http://www.azarts.gov/news-resources/press/5-arizona-artists-awarded-arts-commission-project-grants-to-create-new-works/">5 Arizona Artists Awarded Arts Commission Project Grants to Create New Works</a><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div> Seriously, this blows my mind.<br />
<br />
I started this project in June 2010 with a fairly vague idea of what would come of it, and while the ultimate outcome remains (productively, creatively, flexibly) vague, the journey has proven fascinating. I could never have predicted this project would be selected by the state arts commission to receive funding. I am surprised and grateful.<br />
<br />
(Pledge: I shall not to allow government support of the project to take the wind out of my literary activist sails.)<br />
<br />
Well. Thank you, Arizona Commission on the Arts.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-89481511087734531492011-03-06T03:43:00.000-08:002011-03-06T16:18:55.916-08:00I try to be kind.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH7mU9ZyMR6t_QrdFyBVVQj7USBfa6CfXAvyfzo0tUrSeE7Xdl4eYPowjL5f95XcsnZGpcrWQgSVywox5mjRLMuelEDa8KUKXhVXPA7fPOnhF-sNK9EsCRyR7I-dVyXOQjIHfzyYJy4B4/s1600/P1010634.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH7mU9ZyMR6t_QrdFyBVVQj7USBfa6CfXAvyfzo0tUrSeE7Xdl4eYPowjL5f95XcsnZGpcrWQgSVywox5mjRLMuelEDa8KUKXhVXPA7fPOnhF-sNK9EsCRyR7I-dVyXOQjIHfzyYJy4B4/s320/P1010634.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
As time goes on the project gets harder, not easier. The shootings have changed everything. My patience for the incivility grows thin.<br />
<br />
And yet. The problem comes only from a few, only a few. A few angry people. The anger spills over, and fixates. In this room, the anger fixates on the podium. On that microphone. Anger seeks amplification. He who says it loudest makes it true. Why else would humans invent a means to amplify our voice if not for our desperate need to be heard?<br />
<br />
I try to be kind, sitting in the white molded plastic chairs. I send the angry men kind thoughts. I respond to their anger by naming it, by pointing it out, by modeling civility. They are angry, I tell myself, at something else, something that has nothing to do with what's going on in this room. Their rage hides unsuccessfully behind a cool, disdainful machismo. These men maybe have good reason to be angry. Life might be dealing them a supremely rotten hand. A dying wife. A lousy childhood. A house in foreclosure. Their own mental illness. As <a href="http://www.bensbells.org/">Tucson's kindness maven Jeannette Mare</a> would say: we cannot know what's going on in other people's lives. So I breathe, and I try to be kind.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-357740978419237242011-01-30T22:57:00.000-08:002011-04-03T23:24:18.769-07:00This is Not Civil Discourse<div style="text-align: left;">Tucson City Council </div><div style="text-align: left;">Call to the Audience testimony (edited)</div><div style="text-align: left;">January 25, 2011</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div>Mr. Mayor, members of the city council, city staff:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">Last week, shortly after I addressed the audience here in a plea for civil discourse, a member of the community came here to this podium and called you "vampires."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I repeat this here not to fan the flames of rhetoric but as a step toward accountability. When we see uncivil discourse, we should name it. He said these words: "we are not your slaves that you should drink the life blood from our bodies like vampires." And he was referring to the members of this council.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">This is not civil discourse.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">The first time I was booed at this podium I walked away shaking. The following week, a friend said to me that I looked different when I did my reading. I looked more tense, heavier. And he was right. I'd been made to feel unwelcome. And the second time I was booed didn't get any easier. I think I was a little bit traumatized, and still am. Sometimes just the silence from the chairs behind me is enough to set me shaking again. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I cannot imagine what it must be like for the council. I sit in this audience week after week with a knot in my stomach from the vitriol that comes into in this room. Everyone here deserves better than this, including the members of the public who have made time in their lives to come here and participate sincerely in the democratic process. Including the people for whom this room is a workplace. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Councilmembers, we know you make extraordinary personal sacrifices for this job and that you each operate out of sincere desire to improve this community. You deserve better than this.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Mayor Walkup, your civility accord is a wonderful and important first step and we (let me speak for the thousands whom I know agree with me) are grateful for your leadership. I'm eager to learn more about its details. I'm glad and relieved to hear your position on abusive remarks. This podium does indeed need a firm facilitator. I was so glad and proud <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/01/22/133136737/Tucson-Mayor-Urges-Fellow-Mayors-To-Be-Civil">to hear you on NPR</a> saying "Not in my house," and that your intention is to stop the vitriol when it occurs.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">But we also need to prevent the behavior so that such scolding becomes unnecessary. We aren't, after all, children. We the people need to take ownership of this room and of the culture we create here. </div><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-67655670982229200062011-01-15T16:42:00.000-08:002011-01-15T23:17:51.893-08:00Tucson as birthplace of the civil discourse movement<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje4J2Ah0k4B7DG1HZNuK2GRjHBVvuhCTtqqnVVIwUVLnIbeIhZ5rM-BeNKt9EN6sz3m_tks44V_MuhRTZvAliBlBuik-SuoUtuSW3qZhfzFjwOXHbYARrryvkvzBQkqWImr7kzmxtCzwk/s1600/P1010649.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje4J2Ah0k4B7DG1HZNuK2GRjHBVvuhCTtqqnVVIwUVLnIbeIhZ5rM-BeNKt9EN6sz3m_tks44V_MuhRTZvAliBlBuik-SuoUtuSW3qZhfzFjwOXHbYARrryvkvzBQkqWImr7kzmxtCzwk/s200/P1010649.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">public art in Presidio Park</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Tucson's heart has broken wide open. And to our pride we discover that out pours love.<br />
<br />
This loss of innocence has not closed us down and filled us with fear, as it might have done. We are wide-eyed, America, at what has happened on our doorstep. We're grateful for one another. There's a lot of hugging going on. We're not afraid to show this country a thing or two about <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/41083387#41083387">kindness</a>, not to mention heroism.<br />
<br />
What good might come? What if these events began a new way toward democracy? Here on the eve of Martin Luther King Day, what if Tucson were to become the Selma of the civil discourse movement? We already have the attention--and respect!--of the country. What if Tucson were to lead by example, what if we pledged henceforth to engage in the democratic process with civility and compassion and respect? <br />
<br />
Tucson, America loves us. They love us out of empathy for our loss and also because we have been so openhearted in the media about our pain and grief and our resolve to move forward as better versions of ourselves. If any city can bring America back to civility, it's Tucson. And what better way to return the love of our country.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-38530025755328306482011-01-11T23:24:00.000-08:002011-01-12T07:47:24.879-08:00Tucson: learning to live with the discomfort of unknowing<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">This week, the sort of familiar violence we watch on the news has come home to Tucson, and our hometown seems suddenly unfamiliar. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">So I did what used to be done in this country, not really so long ago, when the senseless struck: I consulted a novelist. The writer of stories, the reasoning goes, has spent a good amount of time thinking about the human condition and might have something interesting to say about it.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbODuS3CIAe53O8mOECLkK-NnXvXmpDhums9j8uPo0exOVoS23X6P-bSVnhl6AS7WWhO1tqpE1f5Bhyu9h3Ge9swFR38IItPrTxnuoreK_zLrJW0rGafQIZ_jI9p-JyKEJEfT-9u2_YXY/s1600/P1010739.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbODuS3CIAe53O8mOECLkK-NnXvXmpDhums9j8uPo0exOVoS23X6P-bSVnhl6AS7WWhO1tqpE1f5Bhyu9h3Ge9swFR38IItPrTxnuoreK_zLrJW0rGafQIZ_jI9p-JyKEJEfT-9u2_YXY/s320/P1010739.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Redtailed hawk over downtown Tucson, December 2010</td></tr>
</tbody></table>The loss of innocence, says the American novelist Charles Baxter, is partly a recognition that there are depths to things, that what you see isn’t always what you get. The loss of innocence leads us to explore, to try to figure out what it all means. To gain insight.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">But the mass production of insight in America is a dubious phenomenon, says Baxter, and some of these insights can seem disturbingly untrustworthy. There is a smell about them, he says, of recently molded plastic.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">My call today is for reflection, and calm, and a strong yet passive resistance to the demands all around us that we participate, at top volume, in efforts to neatly wrap up this experience. Perhaps, for a while, we should let it dwell in the realm of inexplicability. We should live with the discomfort of unknowing. Soon enough we’ll be compelled to make sense of it all, but maybe for now the most appropriate and most dignified response is to sit quietly and reflect. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">Let's not allow this tragedy to be commodified for the national and international media. To join in the noise of a debased and thoughtless rhetoric, the kind that people use gleefully without really knowing what it means or understanding its consequences, is fundamentally disrespectful. We ought to give these deaths and grave injuries and indeed our own grief the dignity of their own complexities.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">We are free to reject toxic public discourse.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">We can be grateful that Tucson has a history of investing in the arts. In the months and years to come, we're going to need our artists. The role of the Tucson artist in the wake of these events is the same as it always is, in good times and bad: to consider that which she sees and to reflect it back to us in all its beauty and pain. To show us who we are, and in so doing to help us see ourselves differently. Said James Baldwin on his eloquent public resistance against the pain and struggle of black Americans: "I have never seen myself as a spokesman. I am a witness." In moments like this, when our hearts are broken open, when the familiar seems strange, when a parking lot becomes a killing field, the artist shows us how to expand our vision. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">The story of what happened on January 8, 2011 in Tucson, Arizona is a moral mystery. Good storytellers understand that tales overcontrolled by their meaning, as Baxter says, start to go a little bit dead. When a story hits us over the head with what it’s trying to tell us, it can become false to its own shadings and nuances. Perhaps we should take a cue from the artists and try not to explain this right away, but just to see it. Perhaps we ought for now to reject the self-satisfied declarations and false authority of others who are trying to tell our story. Perhaps for now we ought to allow the mystery to unfold without judgment, without attaching a meaning to it, because when we are too busy interpreting, and then yelling out our interpretations, we can't listen.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Gratitude to Charles Baxter in "Against Epiphany," <i><a href="http://www.graywolfpress.org/index.php?option=com_phpshop&keyword=burning+down+the+house&page=shop.browse&Search=Search">Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction</a> </i>(Graywolf Press, 1997)</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-3996594601651786982011-01-09T11:58:00.000-08:002011-01-09T11:59:25.994-08:00Tucson, I love you.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV2IBPgjV1KYEt9UC4M7P5aoOYatwo2ovDRb2pKtD_O2pf4jsulomDIEimZQxksMuwYVdSa_fhbG4HZmQJDLctQZku5O1dH0ejiEyLVGFQ-w1NZtRimigmqbHeES8EUObhAS40wUa6RzI/s1600/P1010530.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV2IBPgjV1KYEt9UC4M7P5aoOYatwo2ovDRb2pKtD_O2pf4jsulomDIEimZQxksMuwYVdSa_fhbG4HZmQJDLctQZku5O1dH0ejiEyLVGFQ-w1NZtRimigmqbHeES8EUObhAS40wUa6RzI/s400/P1010530.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>Tucson, my home my inspiration. I hate you I love you. My heart is cracked wide open. I've spent five years writing a novel about you. It's too soon to respond, that much I know, but respond I must. My incoherence in the face of these events is profound. We're just one city in America, one city with problems. We're a microcosm and we're an anomaly both. We speak for everyone and we speak only for ourselves. I'm a writer and a citizen, an agent for social change, a mother and a person just making her way. I feel responsible for what happened and responsible for interpreting it, for reflecting it back to an equally confused community. I write, I grieve, I don't know what to do.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-91224123713150248372010-12-18T14:40:00.000-08:002010-12-18T15:27:58.706-08:00Revelations on a Tucson Saturday afternoonPatio doors wide open today and the winter sun past its midpoint. The Gila Woodpeckers making a racket in the skinny palmtops just outside my 7th floor balcony, downtown. I should slide the screens shut on the patio doors--a fly has been harassing me--but I love too much the feeling of being outside. Traffic on I-10 whispers along, whooshing white noise. <br />
<br />
Day before yesterday I closed the doors against the wind and rain, a blustery storm front having blown in from someplace. I was sitting at my desk and suddenly there was a red tailed hawk on my balcony railing, rusty tailfeathers backlit, astonishing wingspan. <br />
<br />
My balcony is five feet wide. My narrow desk is pushed up directly to the the window. The hawk is eight feet from my face. He stares at me. I dare not move, not even to close my mouth. He tucks in his wings. He settles warily. For two minutes, a standoff. During which I convince myself he's not looking through the plate glass. The light must be such that he cannot see inside. This bird of prey attuned to the movement of a mouse from fifty feet above cannot see the wide blinking eyes of the awestruck human a wingbeat away. He shifts, he settles further, he seems to be looking directly at me still. Finally he turns away his gaze, rotates his head like an owl (they can do this?? I had no idea...) to check out the cityscape below him, and swivels his head back to look in the window some more.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDtJuBOvuaEqYw6LIWUDWlV-nOZ1Wg_2C_QZpjFPx1Q1A5lCY7e9iMYDPNNyJbk8nNXMBpkI0fonzTikau1Y_xmVxJEYFcGW9T2c8yLCvoaPOlQ7uOdYw_QNRJ2iX9WzOpUiQr6uBdhhQ/s1600/P1010747.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDtJuBOvuaEqYw6LIWUDWlV-nOZ1Wg_2C_QZpjFPx1Q1A5lCY7e9iMYDPNNyJbk8nNXMBpkI0fonzTikau1Y_xmVxJEYFcGW9T2c8yLCvoaPOlQ7uOdYw_QNRJ2iX9WzOpUiQr6uBdhhQ/s320/P1010747.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>Then he turns his back to me. He shifts his big yellow talons and he's looking at my view, the Arizona State Building and its parking garage in the foreground and beyond that the Federal Courthouse, the Greyhound Station, the interstate, the Santa Ritas in the distance and of course the huge open cloudy sky and the misty rain coming down.<br />
<br />
Gingerly I go for the camera, moving in tiny increments when I believe he's not looking. Soon I realize he doesn't react when I stand up, move about the apartment, take pictures and even video from both windows, nor when I just sit there and watch him. <br />
<br />
He stayed for 30 minutes. He finally left when I could not stand it anymore and human that I am, I pushed the boundary. I opened the patio door to poke my camera outside. He saw me, tolerated my presence on the balcony for a minute or so, and then he leaned forward and was gone.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7fbPG4wJtlIZO6AEXoRuTy-AYuswBUQ6iutYtYeXLos8wpwyURFEMeRWNTO_J70XAIdaAuo2LPUxNOXHLHgIgOhjyLGCpSXz46mPnkosh3KkSEhjUKYanKh5lwCCrPQZo5pdgmRo7Owc/s1600/P1010727.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7fbPG4wJtlIZO6AEXoRuTy-AYuswBUQ6iutYtYeXLos8wpwyURFEMeRWNTO_J70XAIdaAuo2LPUxNOXHLHgIgOhjyLGCpSXz46mPnkosh3KkSEhjUKYanKh5lwCCrPQZo5pdgmRo7Owc/s400/P1010727.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Today on this beautiful Tucson Saturday I sit before my novel manuscript and consider what a reader told me about his first impressions of Virginia: that she didn't seem happy. It's true, Virginia is grumpy. She isn't, of course, grumpy throughout the whole novel. I know her as a fuller, more complicated character, but at this point the reader doesn't. Thank you to this particular reader, who happens to be affiliated with <a href="http://www.empirepizzapub.com/">my favorite downtown pizza joint</a>, for reminding me. And in turn for challenging me to think about Virginia's happiness. What brings her joy, anyway? Unlike Theo and Charlie, she doesn't have a passion. Theo is passionate about urban planning and Charlie is an artist.<br />
<br />
I remind myself that we must give our characters' joys as much weight as their woes, otherwise the joys aren't joyful and the woes aren't woeful. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjCv0UCZMjiOS9HPQwyRIDg6KHnvxCUOUBM_xZFBXPkUNrbF0rJqOmPcLfnST41FOQdRVv5_7uOIQdaBxyNycLMxNL74bgSkAjtO49yzv9tBAEoIvrP7C43y45kpfvVGPnJJcrqG63Cmw/s1600/P1010757.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjCv0UCZMjiOS9HPQwyRIDg6KHnvxCUOUBM_xZFBXPkUNrbF0rJqOmPcLfnST41FOQdRVv5_7uOIQdaBxyNycLMxNL74bgSkAjtO49yzv9tBAEoIvrP7C43y45kpfvVGPnJJcrqG63Cmw/s320/P1010757.jpg" width="240" /></a>This realization collides with another: that all along I've been trying to get to a way to bring the desert more fully into the story. I keep thinking I've got to send Theo on some hikes other than those he takes up Tumamoc Hill. But for some reason I've resisted writing those scenes and I don't know why, exactly.<br />
<br />
Today, a revelation. It's Virginia I need to send out into the desert. The desert is Virginia's passion. I didn't see it before because I've put her into a different mold. But she's offended by what's happening to Tucson ultimately because she sees what's been lost. She's been here all her life and she remembers. She's angry because she loves the desert. I've shown the anger, now I've got to show the love.<br />
<br />
Because, really: that's the what's-at-stake of the novel, isn't it? The landscape, and the city we've put inside it. The conflict isn't anything new. It's humans versus nature, that uneasy relationship, that accommodation, that Red-Tailed Hawk who visits your urban balcony to say hey, Shannon: Don't forget about the desert.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-44822411405703877762010-12-12T09:17:00.000-08:002012-10-12T15:50:05.843-07:00Artist's Statement<br />
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Artist's Statement<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-60255882813095965552010-10-03T17:39:00.000-07:002010-10-03T19:09:12.975-07:00Notes on a Work in Progress: A Huge Gaping Hole<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQuH8-Ja-VjvvxAmuNkd2pL0-vfbeGeF7ttbCQAtxrJS8oZvyNxW8THvGQ04SrVAn6SZSKz0E70hY8JEEP2svBmCy7Xau_k_e-m17FQ118M6v_8BKCHJGUPgq74eJ2ZLzjCuPXCRlGCxw/s1600/hole+in+the+ground.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQuH8-Ja-VjvvxAmuNkd2pL0-vfbeGeF7ttbCQAtxrJS8oZvyNxW8THvGQ04SrVAn6SZSKz0E70hY8JEEP2svBmCy7Xau_k_e-m17FQ118M6v_8BKCHJGUPgq74eJ2ZLzjCuPXCRlGCxw/s1600/hole+in+the+ground.jpg" /></a><br />
You can write and write and write. The same scene, in fact, over and over. You can stare at the sentences, you can ponder the subtext, you can worry over the dialogue. You can practice reading it out loud in your living room. You can sit in the chairs at the council meeting as you wait your turn and tinker with the prose, adding a comma and then taking it out again.<br />
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And then you're at the podium and you realize there's a hole in the narrative. The part where Charlie is in her car, wondering why that woman from the fiction stacks has been spying on her? The part where she says hm, how odd and then just changes the subject so abruptly, without so much as a whisper of transition? That's the hole. That's the huge gaping hole that's crying out for a paragraph--even a few damn sentences--of physical description. What does Virginia look like, through Charlie's eyes? This is the moment, the only moment, where such a description would be possible (critical!), and for three years I've been skimming right over it. Missing the opportunity.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>The act of revision means to see again, to see anew, to re-see. Reading the novel aloud to the people of Tucson has changed my relationship to the novel, just as writing it has changed my relationship to the city. I'm seeing them each differently now, holes and all.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-68263131359097482172010-09-09T16:52:00.000-07:002010-09-09T23:22:38.460-07:00Got the Grant! Didn't get to Speak!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvajEbxdpPzppioWe04JkM0ztttJgbr5EbuR1nLlfXmEf09ckcb-0p3jcAlP_VyBT9NAM2JTq10EFySrajoVTuJeZHoFUFF7dstqWcjnnDdp5KpeWekwa3KkCQTEpw-WfqE37UVvUUEeY/s1600/goddard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvajEbxdpPzppioWe04JkM0ztttJgbr5EbuR1nLlfXmEf09ckcb-0p3jcAlP_VyBT9NAM2JTq10EFySrajoVTuJeZHoFUFF7dstqWcjnnDdp5KpeWekwa3KkCQTEpw-WfqE37UVvUUEeY/s200/goddard.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Got the call from the Goddard Got Art people yesterday: I'm among the five recipients of a $1,000 grant to use my art to help <a href="http://www.terrygoddard.com/">elect Terry Goddard</a>.<br />
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The inspiration for starting this oral serialization project was moral outrage over SB 1070, and now I get to use my art to help get Jan Brewer the hell outta office. How perfect is this collaboration? I'm totally stoked.<br />
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So yesterday I show up at the council chambers with my novel excerpt and my excitement, ready to jump back in after my summer hiatus, read the next excerpt, and make my elect-Goddard statement.<br />
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Agenda Item Number Six: Call to the Audience. A guy from the Teamsters speaks, then a woman from Access Tucson, and then another, and another, and before long it becomes clear that the mayor is not going to call my name.<br />
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I've been expecting this to happen. Sometimes the place is just full of people with something to say. <br />
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There were other things going on. Like <a href="http://azstarnet.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_945f05f6-71cf-56c6-8a0e-f84b2af9e672.html">budget cuts</a>. In these moments--when the council chambers are packed with citizens with an opinion to voice about their bus service or their public access television--I question my project. Who am I to take three minutes of participatory democracy from a person whose story isn't even close to fictional?<br />
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But then: a rant from a guy who sounds like your grandfather on Thanksgiving after a several shots of Irish whisky.<i> Stop spending so damn much money!</i> Thanks, Grandpa, for your nuanced and insightful perspective on how to deal with the city's $51 million budget shortfall. Artistic/moral crisis averted: I now feel fully entitled to my three minutes.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-1679722030467923292010-09-01T13:24:00.000-07:002010-09-09T23:19:54.869-07:00An Open Grant Proposal<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Today I applied for a grant. In my life as an artist and activist and nonprofit administrator and fundraising consultant, I've applied for about four thousand grants. But never have I made my application public. I'm just so damn excited about this one, and whether or not I'm one of the five winners, I think the <a href="http://tucsoncitizen.com/art/2010/08/30/local-artists-support-terry-goddard-for-governor/">Goddard's Got Art</a> project is brilliant. Creative thinking in politics: bravo. </span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
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</span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>GODDARD'S GOT ART!<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>POLITICAL COMMITTEE LAUNCHED WITH RFP TO ARTISTS<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;">TUCSON—The political committee, Goddard’s Got Art!, has been launched in Tucson this week to engage the arts community and the community as a whole to elect Terry Goddard the next Governor of Arizona. The independent expenditure committee has created a competitive $5000 fund for the creation and production of new works of art by Arizona artists. <span style="color: black;">The works are to be commissioned and will be premiered at an event in Tucson, AZ in October 2010. Five artists will be granted $1,000 each for a political work of art that celebrates, motivates and excites the electorate with the purpose of electing Terry Goddard to the office of Governor of Arizona. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</style> </div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Tucson, the Novel: </b></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>An Experiment in Literature and Civil Discourse<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>A proposal to the <a href="http://tucsoncitizen.com/art/2010/08/30/local-artists-support-terry-goddard-for-governor/">Goddard's Got Art Committee</a><o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Shannon Cain, September 1, 2010<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The vision.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It began with SB 1070. I thought, goddammit, for three years I’ve been writing a novel about this place, a novel that ultimately presents a vision for the kind of Arizona city, the kind of American city I’d like to live in, a place where the arts are valued, the environment is protected, civil rights are defended and the relationship between social justice and economic prosperity is understood. And then here comes SB 1070, as if to assert that my vision isn’t possible for this state. And indeed if it isn’t possible for Arizona than it isn't possible for America. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Artistically, this was a bummer. Morally it was an outrage. I sat at my desk, gazing across my balcony at the State of Arizona Building, whose wavy brick and mirrored glass began to exude a certain funhouse effect. This sort of shit ignites the literary activist in me. I sat there, looking out over the city I’ve been writing about. All this business about denying civil rights, all this business about banning ethnic studies? That’s not the city I know, not the city I’ve lived in for 30 years, not the city where I’ve raised my child and worked a hundred different jobs and grew up and got married and divorced and married and divorced again and drove the boulevards and hiked the canyons and experienced joy and betrayal and hope and fury and love. I know this place, and all that racist fearmongering is not who we are. Maybe that’s Arizona, but it’s not Tucson. </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">So I’ll just share my <a href="http://tucsonthenovel.blogspot.com/2010/06/artists-statement-and-introduction.html">vision</a>, I decided. I’ll read my novel to the city. My readings will spark conversations about civil rights, and democracy, and land use and water and immigration, all the concerns at work in the story. I’ll do it in a venue that doesn’t cost anything, and that reaches decisionmakers, and that has a huge audience. Like, thirty thousand people a week. I’ll give it an X-treme element, the kind of thing that calls attention to itself for its ridiculous height, or weight, or duration. An act of literary flagpole-sitting. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The project.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">A novel-in-progress called <i>Tucson</i>, serialized as three-minute oral testimonies to the Tucson City Council. Readings at Call to the Audience every Tuesday for roughly six years or until the manuscript is published, whichever comes first. A companion blog for audience participation and civil discourse.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>How the project will encourage the electorate to <a href="http://www.terrygoddard.com/">vote for Terry Goddard</a>.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: small;">1.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>During my three-minute literary presentation at Call to the Audience at the nine Regular City Council meetings between September 8 and Election Day 2010, I will speak for 20 seconds on the importance of electing Terry Goddard as Governor of Arizona. The content of these messages—which could change from week to week—will be developed in collaboration with the Goddard's Got Art committee. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: small;">(</span><span style="font-size: small;">Mayor and Council meetings are televised on Channel 12. </span><span style="font-size: small;">According to the folks on staff, the station reaches 200,000 households in Tucson, unincorporated Pima County, Green Valley, Marana, Oro Valley and Sahuarita, on both Cox and Comcast. The most recent breakdown figures they had were from 2007, but at that time the mayor and council meetings had 30,000 viewers per week.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: small;">2.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>Each week, my blog entry will include the <a href="http://www.terrygoddard.com/">Goddard for Governor</a> message as well as a graphic that links to the campaign website.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: small;">3.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>I will announce new blog entries on Facebook (651 friends) and will finally get my Twitter act together.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: small;">4.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>I will be available for any public events the Committee is planning. This might include reading particularly appropriate excerpts from the novel, speaking about the arts and social change, and/or leading socially-inspired creative writing exercises or <a href="http://www.shannoncain.com/Shannon_Cain/Shannon_Cain__Online_Workshops.html">workshops</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: small;">5.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>In addition to my own twice-weekly blog posts, I will invite guest bloggers and/or interview members of the Goddard's Got Art committee, and will welcome other creative ideas the committee might have.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I should acknowledge that this project revolves around an existing novel manuscript that the committee might not consider a “new work of art.” Yet as a work-in-progress, the novel is in a continual state of renewal and change. New writing will occur based on the experience of performing this serialization. New blog entries will be written as well. And the reading component of the project offers, each week, a new performance.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The budget.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Aside from some video editing software I’d like to buy so I can embed video of my weekly three minutes on the blog instead of naively linking viewers to the Channel 12 website and directing them to “forward to 14:45,” the only project expenses are for basic living. Rent, for example: 720 bucks a month at [an undisclosed location]. One bedroom, 7<sup>th</sup> floor, southfacing. Killer view of downtown and the monsoon thunderheads. At night the freeway is an electric river humming past my window. The project will require about 15 percent of my time for 9 weeks, so $972, prorated. Also groceries: dark chocolate covered edamames from Trader Joe’s ($1.99) and meals, specifically the <a href="http://www.hotelcongress.com/cup/">Cast Iron Baked Eggs from The Cup Café</a>—with cubed ham, leeks and gruyere cheese baked in fresh cream with fine herbs—(a couple of Sunday brunches at $9 each, plus tip & tax: $24). Add that video editing software ($50, more or less), and the total comes to $1,047.99. But I’ll round it down to an even grand.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">There are no safety concerns, no space or insurance needs. The beauty of this project lies in its simplicity, and in its use of existing infrastructure and systems. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Some civil discourse questions to be explored on the blog.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: small;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>What is the relationship between art and politics? Art and commerce? Art and economic development? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: small;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>How does my acceptance of sponsorship money from the Goddard's Got Art committee effect the perception of this project? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: small;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>How would that perception change if the sponsor were a local business instead of a politician? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: small;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>How does the acceptance of sponsorship money effect the novel itself? How slippery is this slope? (What’s next, product placement?)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The politics of this art.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The novel’s subject matter is controversial. It calls into question the status quo. I figure I might as well make this clear upfront, and also say that sponsorship of a work of art does not equal the condoning of its content. <a href="http://tucsonthenovel.blogspot.com/2010/06/dancing-crazily-for-man.html">When City Council Member Regina Romero made me Artist in Residence for Ward I</a>, she did not ask to read my manuscript in advance, nor did I offer it. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Still, I would be happy (and frankly relieved) to work with the Got Art committee on a disclaimer that makes this clear. In addition to the disclaimer, maybe the statement could say something about <a href="http://tucsonthenovel.blogspot.com/2010/06/one-i-feed-civil-discourse-and.html">the role of the artist in a civil society</a>. And something else on the direct correlation between the arts and a healthy economy. Some stuff about a measure of the health of a community being the vibrancy of its art and literature. Maybe a few words about the reliance of a functioning democracy upon an electorate that values independent ideas.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-43310658310061565512010-07-28T14:02:00.000-07:002010-07-28T14:07:52.106-07:00<a href="http://www.blogger.com/%20http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6190/p/salsa/event/common/public/index.sjs?distribut...ed_event_KEY=143"> </a><span style="font-size: small;">Hi all,</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMcbw7MNwYe3zHZj5T6cNHLvDDyRrsNd_6kC58hugRKjzHRzxpyLe7WSwFFpbBdrvHM57X_1YE7-Ed-x36JaVhkl_NBbo6Swszf9PlJBjl5eTTzoxdq0P6H3lmE2PhfuXzXlxzz_BM5-w/s1600/artists+against+1070" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMcbw7MNwYe3zHZj5T6cNHLvDDyRrsNd_6kC58hugRKjzHRzxpyLe7WSwFFpbBdrvHM57X_1YE7-Ed-x36JaVhkl_NBbo6Swszf9PlJBjl5eTTzoxdq0P6H3lmE2PhfuXzXlxzz_BM5-w/s200/artists+against+1070" width="185" /></a><span style="font-size: small;">The City Council is on hiatus, and so am I. Will return in September. Meanwhile, this from Artists Against SB 1070: a Week of Solidarity against the anti-immigrant attacks in Arizona. Please get involved!<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_884552560"> </a><wbr></wbr><a href="http://www.altoarizona.com/events.html">Click here for a list of events</a></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-14648736703177761742010-07-09T21:04:00.000-07:002010-07-09T21:09:16.882-07:00Reading #3<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; line-height: 150%;">Virginia leaves the armchair and enters the fiction stacks, trying to pretend she feels better. But the book titles are wavering on their spines, just a little bit. When she was a kid there was a Food Giant in this space. Her mother used to send her here for milk and eggs. Virginia would stand before the open refrigerator case, letting the air wash over her hot skin. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><br />
<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; line-height: 150%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5zRvM7X26rV5B00GwZJfMY0nyTfqORChyyIxnYpJxNNSzCyE7zQ2yxDrBlEEVa6QNwERdtCPeJYS8-K6k36IxDV2QWQ3divoDJy6bdmgeRzcfXNB_8ocp4PHDCPOuuxI81SF6FdqRZ1g/s1600/bookmans+logo" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5zRvM7X26rV5B00GwZJfMY0nyTfqORChyyIxnYpJxNNSzCyE7zQ2yxDrBlEEVa6QNwERdtCPeJYS8-K6k36IxDV2QWQ3divoDJy6bdmgeRzcfXNB_8ocp4PHDCPOuuxI81SF6FdqRZ1g/s320/bookmans+logo" /></a></div>She gazes wearily at the books. She turns the corner into the next nook and becomes caught in a symbiotic browsing pattern with another customer. Together they make their way through the early alphabet, then the middle. The stranger moves to the next nook, and Virginia follows. The woman’s hair is pulled into a rubber band, a fringe of wisps curling at the back of her neck. She pulls a Kingsolver novel from the shelf and examines the back cover. Virginia wants to tell her it’s a good one, she should read it, but then she doesn’t. The woman carries one of the mesh shoulder bags provided by the <a href="http://www.bookmans.com/">store</a>. Inside are cardboard infant books. <i>Runaway Bunny, Goodnight Moon</i>. Stories Virginia read to her daughter, Gretchen, years and years ago.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">The woman returns the novel to the shelf—too bad, Virginia thinks—and with her high reach exposes a tiny belly-button ring and silvery remains of stretch marks on her abdomen. Virginia glances sideways at her face. Strong-featured, with a wide forehead and high cheekbones and full lips and a pointed chin, she’s beautiful in the way of those women who don't wear makeup. When they reach the end of the alphabet the woman gives her a little smile of farewell and wanders away. She looked like the sort of person Virginia might befriend. A person more interesting than a place like Tucson.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">The movie starts in ten minutes. Going to the theater in the middle of the day is part of an effort toward marital rejuvenation. Virginia isn’t entirely on board with the philosophy that more time together is just the thing for a floundering marriage, but they’re in couples counseling and it’s bad form to resist. Their therapist has the creative spirit of a stripmall architect. She characterizes their marital crisis as a case of the doldrums, and cheerily prescribes matinees as a means to kick up a little breeze, to set the sails fluttering again. They’ve been in therapy for six months, every Wednesday, yet their situation feels less like a temporary stillness than it does a permanent dead calm.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">As Virginia moves toward the exit she spots Theo, standing in the magazine section. He’s smiling into the eyes of the belly-ringed woman with the baby books. They stand a few inches too close, as if they’ve just hugged. On his face is an expression of delight and discomfort. He knows this person. And she, it is clear, knows him. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-2954467658628408852010-07-08T09:23:00.000-07:002010-07-08T09:54:24.133-07:00A Roomful of Teamsters.Agitated Teamsters, acutally. Last night's council meeting is packed with them. Spilling out into the foyer, the crowd out there so noisy their conversation breaks in distracting waves over the council chambers each time the door opens. Which it keeps doing.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8WLmDWlzUBX7pNBXvy46ZK8ktk3mNI6JtprlObKslRfYHDI5j5sseQdhh7uNAlTpN_-A0k8ify_h2RMDlJH3BqlUZ1mp0SP0Mnoq74D7Xp2VG5wOBR-Ahm9wd7oxEnViKna2xKvy_pAk/s1600/Teamsters_Logo-1(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8WLmDWlzUBX7pNBXvy46ZK8ktk3mNI6JtprlObKslRfYHDI5j5sseQdhh7uNAlTpN_-A0k8ify_h2RMDlJH3BqlUZ1mp0SP0Mnoq74D7Xp2VG5wOBR-Ahm9wd7oxEnViKna2xKvy_pAk/s200/Teamsters_Logo-1(2).jpg" width="153" /></a>And me in my summer dress and white sandals and pale skin (alabaster, let's call it, ok?) in the front row, flanked by serious-looking men. Big ones. I'm the girly pastel center of a Teamster sandwich. The place is mobbed. Three news cameras on tripods are set up inches from my feet, their operators standing over me, aiming their lenses as the podium in anticipation of newsworthy Teamster action.<br />
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I'm hoping for a little peace, some calm, and to get a bit of beauty into my head before it's my turn to speak. So I've opened a collection of stories by <a href="http://www.shannoncain.com/Shannon_Cain/2010_Master_Class_Workshops.html">Paul Yoon</a>. The title story, "Once the Shore," is doing the job nicely.<br />
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I always get nervous beforehand. All over again, I doubt myself and this project. The Teamsters--the union representing our local bus drivers--are here over their <a href="http://www.kvoa.com/news/teamsters-prepare-for-possible-strike/">contract negotiation and a possible strike</a>, a reason is far less frivolous than mine, this weird flight of hubris I'm calling performance art. <br />
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The mayor adjusts the agenda to allow the Teamsters to speak earlier in the meeting. A nice courtesy, considering these people need to get home to their families. Still, I'll be speaking before they do. I'll be reading the scene in which Charlie, the object of my married couple's love triangle, appears for the first time. It's a scene in which the two of them perform a metaphorical introductory dance together in the fiction stacks at Bookman's. It's meant to foreshadow the emotional intertwining to come. It's sort of subtle.<br />
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Out of context, my project is puzzling. Up at the podium, it's hard to ignore the bubble of confusion at my back. I read the scene over the waves of conversation from the lobby, which have now spilled into the room itself. The Teamsters are talking amongst themselves. I finish, thank the council, turn away from the podium and get booed.<br />
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There's applause, a little bit, I think...but I don't hear it. All I hear is that boo. Just one guy, somewhere in the back of the room. For the record, I don't think boo came from a Teamster. I think it came from one of the council meeting audience regulars. It was an anemic boo. Tentative, a little tired. When a Teamster is booing you, you know it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-49983428762098571772010-06-24T13:18:00.001-07:002010-06-24T13:27:12.771-07:00Reading #2<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-size: small;">Here in the air-conditioned bookstore, the nausea begins to recede. Virginia has endured this year’s hundred-degree May and hundred-degree June, and now the first week of July brings more of the same. Next will come another hundred-degree August and hundred-degree September. Yesterday at the office she blew an hour clicking wistfully through online real estate listings in the Pacific Northwest, where the sun has the decency to leave a person alone. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">She’s a fundraising consultant, specializing in multimillion-dollar capital campaigns for universities and hospitals, but these days she struggles to keep her tiny firm afloat. In this economy, nobody wants to build a new wing. In January she laid off two of her three employees, and yesterday her accountant said she has four weeks’ operating revenue left. The mortgage on their house is thirty days past due.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; line-height: 150%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZPkqN6Zke1kdl4172gLqrLxacD3N6K2Yso0fheqcIXz0odwsU11-D_uTWR6Az7ao-KaAYPzPTc5IANqcaVcenekuY8DV3d4zP3mS9LbFoA_Ut48Tz3DLPtG74zDzl-xhUYMvETYenoco/s1600/ugly+speedway" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZPkqN6Zke1kdl4172gLqrLxacD3N6K2Yso0fheqcIXz0odwsU11-D_uTWR6Az7ao-KaAYPzPTc5IANqcaVcenekuY8DV3d4zP3mS9LbFoA_Ut48Tz3DLPtG74zDzl-xhUYMvETYenoco/s320/ugly+speedway" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">Head throbbing, she watches traffic through the front windows of the store. For as long as she can remember, the idiots in charge of Tucson have been letting it grow in the least attractive way possible. In 1972, LIFE Magazine named Speedway Boulevard the Ugliest Street in America. Eventually the city fathers planted trees in the medians and passed a sign ordinance, but on Speedway as everywhere else, low-slung stripmalls line the wide boulevards, as do massive parking lots and billboards that block the mountains.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">She’d rather be sitting in a café in a truly interesting city, watching a weird diversity of people pass by. She’d rather be stumbling upon a troupe of street performers doing oddball dance maneuvers in a city plaza. She wants to wander down avenues lined with funky gift shops and gelato parlors and used bookstores crammed with dusty merchandise. She wants to puzzle over mysterious public sculpture, consume a designer martini in a boutique hotel lobby bar. She wants a district where art galleries line the blocks like storefronts of creativity. She wants urban schoolyards full of screeching happy children and she wants to ride modern mass transit to work and she wants civil rights activists blocking intersections and she wants lecture series featuring important global thinkers and she wants hip friends with tiny apartments over Cuban-Japanese fusion restaurants and she wants experimental jazz ensembles in the concert halls. She’s been waiting a lifetime for Tucson to deliver her these things, and she hates it for letting her down. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">To watch the video of this reading, click <a href="http://www.tucson12.tv/programs/MayorandCouncil/index.php?view=MRS062210lo&p=1&viewhi=MRS062210hi&p=1">here</a> and forward to 14:45.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXq3Jy4-7nIpe_qeUXjDOGzzPbY8-RAO9Hu-EgYgy7x43iIu-Fk31vcUW-65xv8DtlAIWyf2Hq0aPTpP5rs98ZF4D374v_67nCOCTk6OiJD1jlpTQpCC4Jrea6r2Q6rG7SsJGoxuCGi_I/s1600/web_banners_mayorandcouncil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXq3Jy4-7nIpe_qeUXjDOGzzPbY8-RAO9Hu-EgYgy7x43iIu-Fk31vcUW-65xv8DtlAIWyf2Hq0aPTpP5rs98ZF4D374v_67nCOCTk6OiJD1jlpTQpCC4Jrea6r2Q6rG7SsJGoxuCGi_I/s320/web_banners_mayorandcouncil.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-56953270976552068702010-06-24T13:14:00.000-07:002010-06-24T13:28:32.466-07:00Process Note: Something about the PaceWhatever success I might have as a teacher is based almost entirely on repeating little bits of wisdom I've heard from other writers. On the question of pacing, I use my former teacher Jim Shepard's advice: we must make sure not to let any more than, say, two manuscript pages go by without letting something happen. Something like advancing the plot or revealing character. This is the pace the reader demands.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn5-TElKkQ7T1HhF7v5JT6AyVkHcfK2Rno2qLp0EPnwtJHhuCCLs4sB92bW6M8-uQQ1Ne3Lj_-PK3VSahP-XhDTX1kH5TGlTuOe0t0yWuY9f9kbOTrkBIyVctzGMWfz8_-HGLswdOcuCI/s1600/100_0607.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn5-TElKkQ7T1HhF7v5JT6AyVkHcfK2Rno2qLp0EPnwtJHhuCCLs4sB92bW6M8-uQQ1Ne3Lj_-PK3VSahP-XhDTX1kH5TGlTuOe0t0yWuY9f9kbOTrkBIyVctzGMWfz8_-HGLswdOcuCI/s200/100_0607.JPG" width="200" /></a>There is nothing like serialization to bring this premise into shocking focus. As I chop this story into 3-minute, 500 word increments--which by the way translates almost exactly to two manuscript pages--I've got to make sure each week that <i>something happens</i>. Sounds ridiculously simple, but isn't that just how it goes with the best ideas. <br />
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But what do I mean by "something?" Luckily for me, "something" is generously vague. Wide open for interpretation.<br />
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Yet I also found myself recently repeating to a student a bit of wisdom I picked up who knows where: beware of the word "something." For example: <i>In that moment, she felt something like loyalty for him</i>. I've written countless awful sentences like this, in which a character feels "something like" an emotion, as if such vague nonsense made my sentences more oblique and therefore more literary. But this won't do. We're writers; we trade in the specific. If it's "something like" loyalty my character is feeling, it's not exactly loyalty, is it? If it's something else, then what is it, precisely? It's our job to know, and to describe it.<br />
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So, what do I mean by "something?" Plotwise, that's easy: a character acts, or an external force imposes itself, or someone makes a decision. Character development wise, "something" is also fairly clear: we might learn about a fear, or a desire, or a habit, or a memory. But what about description? Is description "something?" Can I spend two pages in rumination about the ugliness of Speedway Boulevard, or the ways in which Tucson fails to be an interesting city? I'm deciding that yes, I can...because that description comes through a close narrative stance and is filtered, heavily, in this case, through the character's desires. And with an attitude that illustrates her bitterness and disappointment. Description reveals character. That's the idea, at least.<br />
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But will I be able to keep this up? It's a lot of something. I welcome all ideas on the definition of something, not to mention how to make it happen every three minutes.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273088409298696582.post-24288143490073267992010-06-18T10:41:00.000-07:002010-12-11T14:10:26.304-08:00Reading #1<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><br /></div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dw4hnvRJx0XhV_KLeEtIDeqZmgh8auIzQMp7DGaJy9qHR1M0CLCeA94yxz9TD2mrq8Z0yN9Kwfy5cvrhPF9Ww' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br /><br /><div style=";font-family:";"><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size:small;">Chapter One</span></b></div><div style=";font-family:";"><span style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div style=";font-family:";"><span style="font-size:small;">The rainclouds have bypassed Tucson again. They’ve released their blessed contents not on the hot city center but instead on the subdivisions, the stick-and-stucco tickytack. When Virginia Walker was a kid there’d be a monsoon every July afternoon at four o’clock. Now they don’t come until dinnertime, or in the middle of the night. </span></div><div style=";font-family:";"><span style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div style=";font-family:";"><span style="font-size:small;">Here at the beginning of a new century, when she’s supposed to be filled with Hope, she stands nauseated on the hot sidewalk outside Bookman’s and watches another cool dark storm in the distance as it relieves the undeserving morons who settled in the sprawl: the transplants who warm the asphalt and the atmosphere itself with their cars, who create a shimmering island of rising heat that misdirects the storms, that changes the weather itself.</span></div><div style=";font-family:";"><span style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div style=";font-family:";"><span style="font-size:small;">It’s the Fourth of July, 2009. Virginia’s heat allergy is acting up. She pauses queasily at the cement trash barrel outside the front door of the bookstore. Its metal opening is dotted with glistening gobs of chewing gum. On more than one hot afternoon, she’s lost her lunch into this garbage can. At six years old, her mother holding back her hair; at 17, a rum-spiked slushie from eegees exacerbating the heat nausea; and again at 29, caught by the shock of morning sickness as she came out of Walgreen’s with a home pregnancy test in a plastic bag. Now 45, she leans over the can, just in case. The woman who sells tamales out of a grocery cart lays a firm hand on her back. “It’s okay, mi’ja,” she says.</span></div><div style=";font-family:";"><span style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div style=";font-family:";"><span style="font-size:small;">Virginia smiles to ward off the kindness of this stranger. It’s 107 degrees out here. As a kid at play in the baked backyard of whichever low-rent house the family was occupying, these summertime attacks would send her mother dashing to the kitchen for a baggie of ice, which she’d apply to the top of Virginia’s head. Her mother would fill a kiddie pool and the two of them would sit in the shade, dumping plastic cupsful of water over one another’s heads.</span></div><div style=";font-family:";"><span style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div style=";font-family:";"><span style="font-size:small;">Virginia heads inside the store and lowers herself into a tattered reading armchair. She’s come to meet her husband, Theo, for a Saturday afternoon matinee at the Catalina Theater next door, but she’s arrived too early. She parked at the wrong edge of the lot and trudged through the heat under the white sky without her sunglasses. The glare off windshields sparked her headache, a warning she should have known better than to ignore.</span></div><div face=""" style=""><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2