On the road again

I write from St Louis, MO. Home of my alma mater, Washington University, for a Founders Day Celebration which includes a nice honor for me as an alum. Am also here for an appearance at Left Bank Books, which is celebrating its 40th birthday -- a minor miracle in these days of amazon and walmart sales.

I was briefly and peripherally a member of the collective that started and ran Left Bank in its original location. The details are all a bit fuzzy in my memory, but I do recall the pleasure of getting to read through catalogs and order books. Kid in a candy store.

This is the middle of a ten-day trip to promote the new novel, and so far, everything has been better than great. In Toronto, I got to spend three days with daughter as well as husband at the Reform movement biennial convention, where I also saw people I've known for years and years. (Including youth group pals from high school days, two of whom I had not seen in more than 40 years!)

Sitting between Emilia and Jim at Shabbat services last night (beautiful music and the energy of singing and praying with 3,000 people) was a profound joy.

Airplane reading: Gail Collins's history of the modern women's movement: When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women From 1960 to the Present. Having lived through this,participated in some,I find it riveting. Just finished the part where Nixon vetoed a bi-partisan bill that would have supported childcare. What a difference that could have made for so many of us...

Boston Book Festival '09

Today was the first Boston Book Festival and what a big WOW. Thousands of people converged on Copley Square for panel discussions, readings, and a first-class celebration of literacy in all its forms.

If you've never been to Boston (and please do come visit), Copely Square is an architectural jewel, featuring two stunning churches (Trinity and Old South), and the Boston Public Library -- all of which hosted events.

Festival is really the right word for what I saw in the crowds, in the focused attention to what was said and read, in the stress-free lines to buy books or score a cup of free coffee or ice cream. No one kvetched even about the drizzly weather, which gave way to clearing skies and warming temperatures.

Altogether, readers and writers left feeling good about the fate of writing and storytelling, whether delivered on the page or the screen.

Everyone who participated and attended agreed: WE WANT THIS TO HAPPEN AGAIN.

Here's to Boston Book Festival 2010.

The Bookstore

Tomorrow evening, I'm doing a reading at THE BOOKSTORE in Gloucester, Mass.

It is, along with a handful of other nearby independent bookstores (Toad Hall in Rockport, Newtonville Books, Brookline Booksmith) a place that I love for the way it supports authors and readers.

I just finished a book on my Kindle, a device that is perfectly lovely on an airplane, but has a couple of big problems. The first is that I can't tell where I am in the text (table of contents not so helpful in many novels) which is very disorienting. Like not knowing what time it is, as friend and writer Steve McCauley put it.

But e-books also lack the face-to-face association of a book that was purchased in a particular bookstore, from a human being that I know and like. It adds another mysterious and delightful layer to the pleasure of a book.

Please support your local independent bookstore. I cannot imagine life without such islands of sanity, good cheer, and really nice people.

Awesome

It escapes so often and so lightly from the lips of preteens and their hapless parents, I thought the word had lost its purchase. And then I stood at the rim of the Grand Canyon, the address of awe.

People from around the planet showed up beside me and, regardless of language, we all said the same prayer.

Oh.
My.
God.

And then we took pictures. Millions of pictures. On fancy cameras with long lenses and tripods, also on cell phones.

Regardless of the equipment, the photos will be puny. There is no way to capture a view that knocks the wind out of your lungs, brings tears to your eyes, and beggars speech.

It was my first time there. I held up my cell phone. (See attached postage-stamp-sized image of the ineffable.)

Hallelujah.

I believe...

By Yehuda Amichai:

I say with perfect faith

that prayers preceded God.

Prayers created God,

God created people

And people create prayers

that create God who creates People.

Graphic Poetry

On Thursday evening, I went to the opening of an art show by my friend, Joel Moskowitz, and was amazed, amused and moved by his miniature masterpieces.

Based on 3X5 inch library catalog cards, some are heavily embellished with layers of paint, others sport cut-outs from an old dictionary or buttons, beads, even wine corks. But in each of them a bit of the text from the catalog card peeks through so they all "say" something in a literal sense. Making the poetry three-dimensional -- color plus texture plus language equals ... something fresh and new and delightful.

The show is up until October 30 at Gallery 1581 at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis (where I imagine faculty and students analyzing the heck out of each and every) which is located at 1581 Beacon Street in Brookline, Massachusetts.

5770

Today is the birthday of the world, symbolically at least, for us Jews.

I spent much of the day in synagogue, singing, smiling, marveling at the faces I've known for more than 25 years now, growing up, growing gray.

Sacred stuff (friendship, gratitude, sympathy, recognition) happens everywhere in/near/around the temple on a day like today: in the foyer, in the garden, in the parking lot, even in the ladies room.

Yes, the ladies room. Running in and out of the freshly painted W.C., I had at least four meaningful --though very brief -- conversations with women I had not seen for many months. We kissed, checked in about our kids, praised each others' outfits -- the nuts and bolts of human connection, which is so fragile and so fraught and so powerful.

Wishing you all a sweet beginning.