a very melodramatic and pretentious way of saying come to the book fair this weekend

-
Last night AK and I caught The Airborne Toxic Event at the Troubadour. It was a transcendent show—and I’m pretty hard to please when it comes to live music. I like comfy seating, discernible lyrics, good visuals. In other words, I want all concert experiences to be Rent. The Airborne Toxic Event comes pretty damn close. Their new song “All At Once,” with its sweet howling chorus and violin, is a meditation on life and death that made me cry like “Seasons of Love” (don’t laugh or I will show you a season of hate). The last lines:

And we all had just one hope,
there was someone looking down
to return our bodies to each other
and the ground

Simple, but so is grief, right? I used to dismiss writers who wrote about love and loss as kind of dumb and apolitical. But that’s all life boils down to, and politics are just about powerful people trying to outsource all the loss to less powerful people. Even though I feel like my mid-thirties have brought on some kind of radical if obvious paradigm shift, when I look back at the stuff I wrote a long time ago, it too seems to be about love and loss. Because that’s all there is.

A piece of something I wrote a long time ago*, about the itchy excitement of the possibility of love (love previously forbidden by the powerful!), is in the Heyday anthology New California Writing 2011. I’m in the very good company of Susan Straight and Michael Chabon, among others.

I’ll be signing it around 3-ish and hanging out with some of the other featured SoCal writers at the Heyday booth (#58) at the L.A. Times Festival of Books on Saturday. The festival is now conveniently located at USC. At 3:30 I’ll mosey over to the Manic D booth (#953) to sign Lilac Mines. If you read this blog, you either already have a copy of my novel or you’re just not into reading books (it’s okay; I’m probably not into something you really love). But maybe your cousin doesn’t have a copy, and maybe she’s into reading books. I’m just saying.**


*Meaning Lilac Mines. Can you believe I started it in 2002? I had never left North America. No one had ever broken up with me. Facebook was but a glimmer in Friendster’s eye.

**What I’m saying is, make me look like a bestselling writer in front of my editor.

Comments

Claire said…
Congratulations on the anthology!

If were near LA, I'd be there. It's a fun festival.
April 28, 2011 at 1:15 PM
Cheryl said…
Thanks! And thanks for being there in spirit!
April 28, 2011 at 6:33 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

soleil for a day

-
Image
1. cirque love Since starting gymnastics at age five—or at least since reading Geek Love in college—I’ve wanted to run away and join the circus. Actually, the problem was that I wanted to join the circus but I didn’t want to run away. How fortunate, then, that AK found out about Cirque School , where you can lea rn the trapeze arts without ever leaving L.A. She gave me a class for my birthday, which I finally redeemed last night (after reading up on it, I decided it sounded kind of hardcore, and that I needed to build up some flexibility and upper body strength before going—I’m not sure that happened, but a month passed, I was a little closer to reuniting with my left splits and I was itching to take the class). The classes are held at Absolution L.A. , a small West Hollywood studio walled with honey-colored wood and stocked with pilates machines, trapezes, a climbing wall, red vinyl chairs and other items of expensive-looking fu rn iture. It reminded me, I told AK later,
Read more

seasons of love

-
Image
Everything Cheryl does, she’s totally joking and completely serious.             --AK 2,628,000 minutes 2.6 million moments so dear 2,628,000 minutes How do you measure, measure five years? In new jobs , in boob jobs , in blog posts, in cups of coffee In coffee, more coffee, in coffee, and tea In 2,628,000 minutes How do you measure five extra years? How about love? How about love? How about love? Measure in love Seasons of love 2,628,000 minutes 2.6 million plans gone awry 2,628,000 minutes How do you measure public places I’ve cried ? In grants that I wrote, and novels on the side   Facebook rabbit holes are no source of pride It’s time to kiss Dashaboo Though he’s sticky with jam Let’s celebrate, remember five years Of making people deal with who I am Remember the love Remember the love Remember the love Measure in love Rent rent rent rent reeeeennnnnnt! In diapers, in houses In homies , in couples t
Read more

tops of 2023

-
Image
Recently one of my therapists (plural) told me I talk too much. Well, technically she said that while doing EMDR, she needed to interrupt my highly intellectualized storytelling more, so that we could prioritize reprocessing rather than letting me tip into re-experiencing trauma. And she said it very nicely. But a little part of me heard "You're too much for your therapist, and now you have failed," and of course that kind of thinking is why I'm in therapy. Today I listened to this episode of This American Life, in which Yousef (above, with his family), an incredibly determined, kind, and good-humored Palestinian man, talks about how his two-year-old son wants "a thousand kisses" before going to bed. He laughs and says he doesn't mind. In nearly the same breath, he says he regrets having kids, because what's the point of having children if you can't protect them? I wanted to jump through my car radio and hug him, or some other useless action, be
Read more