Blog Mash Up: Spreading a Little Blogging Warmth

I received a Liebster award yesterday, thanks to my blogging and real-life writing friend Nancy, and I've been following the thread to find out where it came from and why it carries a German name. I've been discovering all kinds of writing blogs in the process, which I guess is part of the purpose, but no origin yet. However, the award rules are clear:

This award is intended to connect bloggers, specifically those with less than 200 followers. In accepting the award, I must:

* Show my thanks to the blogger who gave me the award by linking back to him or her.
* Reveal my top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
* Post the award on my blog.
* Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the internet—other writers.
* And best of all – have fun and spread the karma.

So, while I was wondering why this blog award is called "Liebster" (= darling or lover in German, in the male form), once I found this picture it became a little clearer:

The term is meant as an address: "Lieber Blog" means "dear blog" as if you were writing a letter to your blog, and "liebster Blog" means "dearest blog" but can also mean "favorite blog" as in you're making a list of your favorite blogs.

That's it for a little German lesson.

So, in spreading the love, here are my nominations:

Writer Granny's World (Nancy Julien Kopp) - I'll give this reward right back to you because you were one of my first supporters as a blogger, and I really appreciated that. You immediately signed on as a follower and made me feel less alone in the blogging world. And I'm always curious to read your book reviews.

blulbhulaiyan (Anjuli) - Thank you for your steadfast comments - it is such a gift to have a steady reader who also leaves comments and lets you know what she thought. Something was definitely missing in my life when you took a break from commenting over the summer! And I appreciate the inspiration insights on your blog.

Lawthenticity (Alison Law) - Thank you for your questions about getting an MFA that launched my MFA Q&A series - clearly that hit a nerve. And thanks for the insights into Atlanta life on your blog.

Swimming in the Trees (Jessica Handler) - You are truly my big sister in writing - thanks for everything! And I'm always amazed at some of the off-the-wall posts on your blog.

Traveling Through... (Julie Farrar) - Thank you for your support, your thought-provoking questions, and the stunning photos on your blog.

MFA Q&A: How to Pick a Program

Thanks to my blogging friend Julie Farrar, my MFA Q&A series has an encore to answer her question: How did people pick their programs? Did they visit them first or just go on someone's recommendation?

My answer: For me, low-residency programs were the only option and my criteria for applying were:

1.       Did they offer a creative nonfiction program?

2.       If so, did they have more than two faculty members dedicated to teaching nonfiction? (I wanted to learn from as many people as possible, and also hedge against the issue of perhaps not jiving with the one or two that some programs have on staff.)

3.       Reputation – until Poets & Writers came out with a ranking  – a low-res program’s reputation and quality was a hard thing to figure out, and could only be done by researching the faculty and alumni. One caveat here is that a great writer does not necessarily make a great teacher, thus speaking to alumni is helpful in determining whether that Pulitzer Prize winning author is actually somebody you’d want to study with.

4.       I applied to six programs and was accepted at five. I then asked to speak not only to faculty but also to alumni – this helped greatly in making the decision. But then again, unless you know an alumna/us, you have no idea whether his or her bias matches yours. If I’d had a writer friend back then who had gone to a particular program and was recommending it, I would have given that a lot of consideration.

I did not visit any school beforehand – I assume this would be somewhat standard if you are applying to a campus program. For low-residency programs, traveling around the country just to look at a campus wasn’t practical for me. Plus you don’t spend that much time there – it’s more about who you work with than where you work. But I do love Queens University of Charlotte’s doll-house style campus very much.

Turns out that for writers considering residential programs, funding and teaching opportunities are important, if not the most important, criteria in choosing a program. Unfortunately, these are typically not available in low-res programs. In the end, though, I would say even there the quality and the type of program are paramount in making the decision.

Road Trip Report 13 (the last one): Homestead National Monument

Then, as now, windmills dot the flat landscape.
They provide the crucial source of power
to pump up water.

After catching our breath at the alpine views of the Rocky Mountains, and before that, the stunning canyonlands, it was, in an way, soothing to hit the undulating grasslands of eastern Colorado, and then the flat greenery of Nebraska: space to breathe and think, and to watch the clouds.

I contemplated driving straight through, with only a stop at the Iowa State Fair, but I am glad we made the 40 mile detour from I-80 to visit the Homestead National Monument in Beatrice, Nebraska. I knew the Homestead Act had a huge impact on the settling of the American West, and I figured after so much nature a bit of history would provide us all with some perspective. How did people actually live 150 years ago when the landscape we now associate with endless cornfields was open prairie?

The Homestead National Monument provides a good glimpse into that life, but it also provides the historical context - the Native Americans who suddenly found their land given away, the barbed wire that put an end to free-roaming cattle, the endless wind that would blow away the fertile top soil that the prairie grasses had held in place for centuries. And the interesting fact that the Homestead Act was passed in 1862: In the midst of the Civil War they had time for this? But as it turns out, one consideration was that the federal government wanted to make sure the western territories would not be claimed by sympathizers of the South. Thus an "orderly" approach to settling the West was the goal.

Walking the rather flat loop trail through the open prairie was a reprieve for our mountain-terrain-trained legs, and the air was so delightfully fresh - there was some humidity again, not much, but enough to sniff the fullness of the air rather than suck on our Camelbacks for moisture.

Last but not least, I had to take a picture of a Sinclair gas station in Nebraska - we do not have them where I live. They have a wonderfully retro feel to them, and I fell in love with their green dinosaur.

Reading: An Exclusive Love by Johanna Adorján

Article first published as Book Review: An Exclusive Love by Johanna Adorján on Blogcritics.

On the surface, Johanna Adorján’s An Exclusive Love is about her grandparents’ suicide. But it is really a love story, in more way than one, with all the requisite tragedy. And to any student and lover of memoir, it is an interesting study.

Adorján’s handling of time is deft – she imagines her grandparents’ last day and uses it as the frame for the book, embedding in it their story as Hungarian Jews who survived the Holocaust and later relocated to Denmark after the failed Hungarian anti-Communist revolution of 1956. She also folds in her reminiscences of this glamorous pair as her grandparents.

The depiction of their last day becomes increasingly poignant, as the reader is aware that the grandparents do all those mundane things – fixing coffee for breakfast, listening to classical music –  for the last time. Invariably, we are engaged in the story simply because we start imagining what we would be doing on our last day. Would we be testy, would everything suddenly be more important? Or would we go about it as business-like as Adorján imagines her grandparents did? Some squabbling, but no references to “this is our last chance.” I was gulping back tears when they drop their dog off with a neighbor under the pretense that they are going on a vacation to Munich to visit their son. Adorján even dares to intersect both timelines, hers and her grandparents’, when she calls them two days later, the phone ringing through the empty house where their bodies still lie undiscovered.

Adorjan only subtly faults her grandparents’ for deciding not to continue on, not to live for their family. This applies especially to the grandmother, who was healthy and clearly decided that she did not want to go on living without her husband who was older than her and obviously deteriorating. Her suicide carries the message that the rest of the family, son and daughter and their families, were not important enough for her to live for them. Having to live with that implied rejection is certainly part of why Adorjan set out to learn who her grandparents really were, apart from being her grandparents.

She openly shares her research, her visits to her grandparents’ friends in her quest to learn more about them. After all, they killed themselves when the author was twenty, i.e. not at an age at which one necessarily has gone about asking the older generation about their lives. In the end, she finds out very little that she did not already know because her grandparents were an “exclusive” couple. Close to each other, and very rarely close to anyone else. The word “exclusive” means so much here – something exquisite that the grandparents were fortunate to have, something others admired (more than once, the couple is referred to by friends and relatives as “glamorous” and “beautiful”), but something that also excluded those who might have been close to them.

The book is also a tribute to another generation that perhaps did not put too much weight on self-examination but rather on putting the past behind them to focus on living the good life. In one instance, a friend of the grandmother remarks that she cannot understand why nowadays people make a big deal out of rape. She was raped by Russian soldiers who were “careful” as she was pregnant at the time. It happened to everybody, OK, so you take the hit and move on. That seems to have been the attitude of that generation. I was left wondering: Clearly these people survived horrific traumas, and yet they moved on, to live successful and sometimes happy lives. How’s to say theirs is not the right approach?

More than once Adorján mentions that her grandparents, especially her grandmother, implied that she wouldn’t have anybody else decide when she would die but that she would decide that. Coming from a Holocaust survivor, I could somewhat understand that choosing their own death, when and how to die, was in a way an ultimate triumph, although I must say that all the Holocaust survivors I have known were quite the opposite: fierce lovers of life.

An Exclusive Love also had me wondering whether in the U.S. we take the genre of memoir a little too seriously. Adorjan remarks as much in her interview with SMITH Magazine. One of my students, representative apparently for many U.S. readers, had an issue with Adorján’s reimagining her grandparents’ last day because this account is obviously fictionalized. No matter how much of it is based on research (she does, chillingly, quote the police report at the end of the book) and her knowledge of her grandparents’ usual way of operating, the reader knows that the narrator was not there.

I read the book in the original German, and I noticed that its cover does not have any reference to “memoir” or nonfiction. I went to my bookshelf to look at other books I’ve read in German that we would classify as memoir in the U.S., for example, Ruth Klüger’s weiter leben, or Lenka Reinerova’s Mandelduft. If anything, they say “Erzählungen” on the cover, which means nothing more than “tales” or “stories.” There is no mention of memoir or nonfiction. The authors tell their stories and because they didn’t imagine the whole thing, the cover doesn’t say “a novel” or “short stories,” they are simply stories. Like the stories we tell around the kitchen table. Stories of their lives, of our lives, as they remembered them, heard about them, and maybe imagined them. It could be as simple as that.

Road Trip Report 12: Mesa Arch Photo Essay

Mesa Arch @ Canyonlands National Park

My son has this view as a wallpaper on his computer, and I have to admit I always thought it was fake until I spotted it in a brochure of Canyonlands National Park. So then of course we had to see it for real even though that meant getting up at five to squeeze that into our trip.

We did well for our last destination in red rock country, didn't we? How is this for a farewell glimpse of Utah?

It looks rather harmless as you walk up to it.

View in the other direction.

My kids leaning in on the precipice.

Taking pictures of taking pictures.

MFA Q&A: Was It Worth It? – Perspectives from MFA Grads

This last installment of my MFA Q&A series on the benefits and practicalities of getting an MFA in Creative Writing covers the value of an MFA with perspectives from students at other MFA programs:

Q: How has the MFA credential helped advance your career? Have you been able to quantify it in terms of more money made, more work, etc.?

Bonnie ZoBell: I got an MFA because I was depressed and since writing was the only thing I was any good at, I decided to do that. I suppose I had an eye on teaching, but really I wanted to do something I enjoyed with other people who were into it too. I had a great time going to Columbia, though there were those there who hated it. All different kinds of people, big enough for at least three separate fiction workshops.
Publications definitely trump an MFA, and I think that goes for just about anything, including teaching. MFAs are wonderful for the community, to see different parts of the country, and to get to work under admired writers.
I did get my community college job because of my MFA, though I suspect I would have gotten it with an MA, too. I started the fiction writing classes at my school, and now a lot of people would like to teach them. I don't know that I would get my job now because what they really want is people who have taken a lot of rhetoric classes who can teach composition. I teach composition because I've been doing it for so long.

Sequoia Nagamatsu: I think people have to go into an MFA program realizing a few things:

1. You don't need it to succeed (but you do need it to teach if that's what you really want). Still, you'll need AT LEAST a book to teach with the MFA (if you are looking at tenure-track positions).
2. There are great writers and not so great writers both inside and outside of MFA programs (and "great" doesn't usually have to do with quality of writing so much as the ability to keep pushing forward).
3. MFAs aren't exactly the best place to practice novel, commercial, or genre writing.
4. MFA programs can and do help people network but knowing somebody doesn't get rid of the fact that you have to be able to write something that people outside of academia want to read. Many MFAs may get into a "literary rut."
5. Not all MFA programs are the same. Some will do more for what you're aiming for than others.
6. MFA programs are often more about your cohort/workshop mates than faculty. Make sure you're in good company, i.e. in an environment that welcomes what YOU value. Ignoring the differences between programs (and I'm talking mostly about residential programs here, but I'm sure non-res have differences as well), will probably result in not getting very much from an MFA program.
7. The buck stops with you. Don't listen to your professor or your workshop cohort if YOU know what you want to do. Sometimes you have to hold your ground. Writing professors aren't God and neither are your workshop mates. Take what they have to offer. Take what you need and throw the rest away. It seems to me this last point is difficult for some people which results in stories "written by committee"
8. An MFA program is primarily about TIME and COMMUNITY. If you already have time (or are able to juggle with your job) and you have a community, you don't necessarily need it. But it can be nice.

Road Trip Report 11: Arches National Park Photo Essay

To quote my daughter: "This is cooler than Monument Valley."

Some whining from my sons was involved because we were "hiking again" until they realized the arches offered climbing opportunities. All of a sudden, they were totally engaged with the place. Here Turret Arch on the Windows Trail.

A lone succulent survives in the gravely ground by the Windows.

South Window seen from the Primitive Trail where a little serenity might be found - the crowds tend to hop out of their car, stand under an arch and then drive on.

My kids climbing up under the South Window.

Delicate Arch of Utah license plate fame - as seen from the viewpoint. Getting closer would have meant a 3 hour hike in 95 degree heat.

I loved these verdigris hills - green earth from mineral deposits.

Sand Dune Arch - the only trail where flip flops are appropriate because you wade through drifts of corral sand in between cool rock walls to reach it.

The split in the rock on the way to Sand Dune Arch - one of the few cool places in an otherwise blazingly hot park.

Writing Postcards

This summer has revived the art of writing letters and postcards for me. While my daughter was at camp, the only way to communicate with her was to write her old-fashioned letters. So I did. And she wrote back.

Our road trip had me pick up my old love for writing postcards, sending greetings to friends and family as I thought about them on our vacation. I especially thought about my sister, not only because this road trip retraced, to some degree, the one she and I had taken many years ago but also because on the second day of our trip I found out that she'd suffered a mountaineering accident and was in a hospital in the Italian Alps. While all her wounds and breaks are expected to heal, her recovery will take a long time, and so I started sending her daily postcards. Some to remind her of places we'd been together, some to introduce her to new sites and vistas, and all to say "Get well soon."

We did talk on the phone, too, but not that frequently as the time difference made that difficult. But she told me that the stream of almost daily postcards cheered her up. And it gave me a small way to do something for her and also include her in my experience.

Writing postcards is an old tradition in our family. On mutual vacations, she and I would sit at a café table, often on the last day of the trip, to write a stack of postcards. Sometimes my hand would ache, but would tease her that it took her much longer than it took me to get through the stack.

Funny enough, not only I was writing postcards, my daughter was too, sending greetings to her friends who had remained at camp. Together, our daily challenge was to find an actual mailbox. It seems that in many rural towns you can only find them at the post office. We got good at finding post offices.

The habit of writing postcards seems to not yet be extinct as the gift shops at each destination, be it a national park or a museum, offered at least one caroussel of postcards. Perhaps people don't necessarily send them anywhere but simply collect them. I do that, too, as I sometimes feel a postcard captures a view better than I could. So there my daughter and I were, looking through the offerings to find postcards with views we liked, just like my sister and I used to do, to either send them on or keep them for ourselves and the scrapbook we hopefully will put together some day. A family tradition lives on.

Road Trip Report 10: Salt Lake City

My number one goal for our visit to Salt Lake City was to float in the Great Salt Lake. A few years ago on a trip to Israel, we'd all floated in the Dead Sea, so I wanted the kids to experience that there was a body of water only second to the Dead Sea in saltiness. What a folly of an idea! At least close to Salt Lake City floating is not possible because the lake is so shallow. However, we did make it out to the beach by Saltair to see a beautiful sunset over the lake. Unfortunately the sand flies were so pesky that we hurried back to our car.

These haulage trucks are as big as a house, cost more
than $2 million each, and travel at 10 mph. "Smaller" vehicles have
flag poles attached so the drivers up in the truck
can see them. Oh, and the mine has its own traffic
control center to regulate the movement of all
vehicles in the mine.

After visiting Temple Square and learning about the Mormons, we followed the tip of a former colleague of mine who'd moved to Salt Lake City to visit the Kennecott Copper Mine. What a sight! I love seeing real working places like that, and learning about how actual products are made, in this case, how copper is extracted from relatively low-grade ore in one of the largest open pit mines of the world.



The Bingham Canyon Mine as seen from the Visitor Center.
It is more than a 3/4 mile deep with much more ore below.



Road Trip Report 9: Las Vegas with Kids

One thing I liked at the Hoover Dam:
Those cool 1930s Art Deco towers.

What to do in Las Vegas with kids? First of all, I must say Las Vegas, i.e. the Strip, is not my kind of place. So what to do there? Visit the Hoover Dam, I was told. We did that. We went, we saw, we left. Too many people, too hot, and too expensive! A tour costs $30 per person, parking is $7. And we'd already seen the Glen Canyon Dam which is just as stunning, only a few feet shorter, not as crowded, and more reasonably priced ($5 per person, parking is free). So, my advice is: If you want to see a dam in spectacular canyon scenery, head for the Glen Canyon Dam.

Since we cut our Hoover Dam visit short, we had an afternoon left, and thankfully I'd picked up a tip from Time Out Las Vegas to check out the Atomic Testing Museum. We got there at 1 p.m. and left at 5. Need I say more? The day before we'd been to see wild horses in the Spring Mountains, opposite the Nevada Test Site (NTS), so we were familiar with the location. For me, learning about the NTS also oddly connected back with my recent reading of Terry Tempest Williams' Refuge. She had seen one of those blinding light atomic explosions as a child.

This museum walks you through the timeline of the first split of the atom, the Manhattan Project, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the establishment of the NTS during the long Cold War, and the current use of the site for catastrophic first responder training. From one of their movies I understood, finally, how so much energy is generated by splitting an atom. Or how underground testing is actually done. And what is tested.

We did drive down the Strip with the kids at night, and it is a sight to see. The kitsch amazed me, and I was glad we were in the car because the crowds rolling down the sidewalks were equally amazing. But we got some great pictures of the neon signs. Again, we came, we saw, we left. Not everything you see on a trip has to be your thing, right?

MFA Q&A: Was it worth it? - Answers from Fellow Alumni

This installment of my Monday MFA series covers the value of an MFA with answers from some of my fellow alumni from the MFA in Creative Writing program at Queens University of Charlotte. Thanks again to my blogger friend Alison Law who asked the questions.

Q: How has the MFA credential helped advance your career? Have you been able to quantify it in terms of more money made, more work, etc.?

Val Nieman: My Queens MFA was truly life-changing. I had been a newspaper reporter and editor, and didn't see a different route ahead, until the program gave me the skills and courage to make the leap into teaching. I'm now a tenured associate professor at North Carolina A&T State University, teaching creative writing, and truly happy in my new career. The residencies and independent work were crucial to the development of my thesis novel, published as Blood Clay in the spring of this year by Press 53.

Cliff Garstang: I wrote an essay on this subject a few years ago: Competition is Good or What's RIGHT with MFA Programs. The value of the MFA is the community, more than the credential and more than the skills. And I think it's hard to dispute that connections can be valuable in the business.

Jim Walke: [My MFA] had an unexpected side benefit: I'm the only member of the research faculty at VT, as far as I can tell, with an MFA. The rank requires a terminal degree and I had one, so that bureaucratic box was checked. (I write and manage research grants at a scientific institute.) I got my MFA for the community and the feedback, and I'm very happy with what I received in return for my time and money. I went to a low-residency program, which worked well for me because I don't have interest in teaching writing as a career.

Beebe Barksdale-Bruner:  I never heard of a terminal degree until after I got one. It was just plain ol learning for me. I was interested in dissecting poetry and what makes it work and if I could do it. I didn't even like poetry. I looked up haiku in the dictionary and wrote one and said to myself I'm ready to learn more. I am a curious person. I was too old to be making a career of it. I don't like that word "terminal" because I am as we all are. I like poetry a little more now. I don't understand why airports are called terminals.

Mary Akers: My MFA didn't do anything for my writing that I couldn't have gotten being on a forum like Zoetrope. But I didn't know about Zoetrope at the time (learned about it through a fellow student in my MFA program). I would regret having borrowed/spent all of that money (which, ten years later, I still haven't even half paid off) except it's where I met so many wonderful people, and worked with some great writers. But the learning could have taken place any number of ways--reading, workshopping, attending conferences. My MFA also forced me to produce work on a schedule, which was good, but I'd already written a novel (now a doorstop) while raising three kids, so I didn't exactly need that push, either.

Tracy Crow: I didn't go after an MFA with a teaching goal in mind. After finally completing a BA in creative writing at 42, I just knew I hadn't gotten all I needed about the craft of writing.
Along the way, I fell in love with teaching, thanks to the workshop model offered at Queens. I held a visiting position at the University of Tampa for nearly three years. In the end, however, the provost marshal denied a more permanent position, preferring to search for someone with a PhD in CW. Apparently, schools are ranked on their number of "terminal" degrees, and she no longer considers the MFA the terminal degree in CW. :( I'm afraid we're likely to see more of this... But, I've been teaching for 2 years now at Eckerd College, where my MFA is considered a valuable terminal degree for our Creative Writing program, in terms of SACS accreditation. The other two full-time faculty hold an MA in English.

Sam Wilson: I have a hard time recommending an MFA as a career booster unless you know for sure you want to be a teacher. My wife teaches high school English and was bumped to a slightly higher salary schedule when she finished her MFA. I think it's ...about $1,000 a year extra...which sounds nice but doesn't really pay for the degree (her traditional MFA tuition was $60K). My career as a sales rep is indifferent to the MFA degree, but my writing has definitely improved. That's probably a more reliable outcome than the salary bump....

Linera Lucas: Each semester saved me at least 3 years of working on my own or taking local classes. Since I started writing seriously at 50, this was important.

Dorothy Spruzen: Ditto Linera's experience, although I'm slightly older . . . Also, I love to teach and this provided the credentials I needed. Because of my age, I did not try the academic route - Comp 101? No thanks, and it's not worth paying my dues doing this as I think it's too late to get anywhere at the college level, especially considering you need good publications under your belt. Moneywise? I made more teaching ballet 20 years ago.

Dartinia Hull: While I was laid off from my old job TWO DAYS after getting my MFA, part of the reason I have the current job, communications manager at a large church, and a few freelance teaching gigs, is because of it. The people at the church liked my newspaper background but loved the fact that I managed to get an MFA while working a full-time job. They also loved the flexibility (career journalist with an MFA in fiction) and the appreciation for words. But I didn't get the MFA for a career-advancing thing. My writing is better, my world is wider, and I have amazing new friends; that was why I did it.

Road Trip Report 8: Wild Horses near Las Vegas

My daughter's number one wish for this road trip (every family member got one) was to see wild horses. I was nervous about that - after all, they are wild, and you can't schedule seeing a wild being. I did a lot of research: Nevada seemed promising. But where to go? Blogger Kellee @ Vegasjuhl helped me out, responding to my email and describing exactly where to possibly find them at Wheeler Pass, off US-95, which ended up being "just" on the other side of the Spring Mountains from where we were staying in Pahrump.

Early morning drive north on SR-160 to US-95

Joshua trees grow abundantly in the higher altitudes on the road to Cold Creek off US-95.

This sign is promising! As were the frequent horse droppings on the road.

Success! We saw these wild horses after turning right on the dirt road by the ponds where all the Cold Creek mail boxes are. The dirt road winds around a bunch of private properties and we spotted this herd right after the fences end and before the road leads up higher onto the mountain. The wide grin on my daughter's face was priceless and I was plain happy that this excursion had met with success. We were all surprised to see how healthy those horses looked - judging by their shiny coats and muscled bodies, life in the mountains must be good.

And then, unplanned, the gift of spotting wild burros off route 156! We were heading down the mountain after hiking in the Mt. Charleston Wilderness Area when we saw those three burros on the side of the road.

Goes to show you can almost plan to see wild animals in the mountains around Las Vegas! I was really impressed by how easily you can get away from it all so close to a major city - the wilderness seems untouched, and far from human habitation. There is one resort in those mountains; other than that, trails are virtually empty, ATVers and horseback riders galantly share them, and views are wide open. That is quality of life!

On Vagueness - "And he was like, you know..."

In case you thought the overuse of the word "like" is a new phenomenon, or at least one of the recent decade, you will be as surprised as I was by Clark Whelton's astute analysis of The decline and fall of American English, and stuff. My husband brought his article in City Journal to my attention because I often bemoan the dismal state of English capabilities of my composition students.

According to Whelton's analysis of interviewing college students for internships to support New York Mayor Koch's speechwriting staff in the 1980s, telling stories in playback mode and soundbites took hold in the mid-1980s. "Like" was quickly joined by "I go," and "he goes," or "I went." Nowadays we don't even notice anymore that the capacity for proper description has been lost in everyday conversation. For a while, my son made it a sport to count how many times the worst "like" offender in school used the word in one conversation: The record was 73.

At least we don't write like (proper use of word!) that yet but pretty soon writers will have to capture the insertion of like in any dialogue to make it sound authentic. Whelton did a remarkable job with that already at the beginning of his article:

"I recently watched a television program in which a woman described a baby squirrel that she had found in her back yard. 'And he was like, you know, 'Helloooo, what are you looking at?' and stuff, and I'm like, you know, 'Can I, like, pick you up?' and he goes, like 'Brrp brrp brrrp,' and I'm like, you know, 'Whoa, that is so wow!'"

I assume he played back that program several times to capture that talk. It definitely sounds like (!!!) what I overhear all the time, waiting in line at Starbucks, sitting in a café, or listening to my kids talking to their friends. Except I don't have a replay button to get the placement of the likes just right. For now I will just have to sharpen my ear and wish I could write like that.

Road Trip Report 7: Death Valley Photo Essay

This photo is a tribute Cath Barton's cover photo "Eleven" of Prime Number Magazine's Issue 11 that also features my essay "Waiting in the Dark." I was about to take a picture of my shadow on the Salt Flats at Badwater in Death Valley when my daughter walked up and, as our shadows aligned, I was reminded of Barton's picture.

Driving into Death Valley from the east on SR190 at sunrise - about 5:45 a.m.

Going lower..

Badwater Pond - salty rather than poisonous as it is fed by water leaking from an aquifer that picks up minerals before it pools at this lowest point in the Western Hemisphere (282 feet below sea level). Rare snails live here.

View of the Salt Flats at Badwater

I kept touching the salt as it looked moist but it's not. Only snow and ice come close to those crystal formations.

My son watches the shade recede as the sun rises over the mountain.

Powerwashing the visitor parking lot at Badwater - obviously fresh water isn't that much of a luxury, even in Death Valley.

Devil's Golf Course where, at 6:30 in the morning, a hot wind already whistles in the spires of the eroded rock salt.

Artist's Drive where rocks are splashed in pink, verdigris, yellow and lavender, thanks to mineral deposits.

Road Trip Report 6: The Canyons

I haven't quite figured out yet what it means to visit great places like Bryce Canyon, the Grand Canyon, and Zion National Park a second time, except that it is a privilege. I was fortunate enough to visit these national parks again, now with my family in tow, after having seen them 22 years ago when I did my first big cross-country road trip with my sister.

One aspect of me having been there before is that my family deferres to me: "So what is there to see?" But how could I possibly describe what there is to see in Bryce Canyon? You can't even describe it - yes, it's created by erosion and is full of hoodoos, as the rock formations are called, but what makes it different from other canyons?

Bryce Canyon: Hiking the Queens Garden Trail
back up to the rim after going
down the Navajo Trail

Like any natural wonder, it's its own place, and you will grasp what it is when you spot it for the first time, and perhaps, if you're lucky like me, you will take another deep breath when you see it again for the second time - ah yes, this is why people drive miles to see this, and hike hours in the heat to see it from the bottom, and to press their shutter buttons a thousand times to catch this view or that formation.

Based on my two prior visits to the Grand Canyon, I chose to go to the North Rim again - it's less crowded and cooler, and the sites are just as - well, grand. Luckily, we even found a shady, moderate trail that not "everybody and their mother" was on, to quote one of my sons. After the rather crowded hike we'd done in Bryce, he wanted peace. The Widforss Trail winds up a wooded mountain side and, through the pines now and then, provides breathtaking views of the canyon.

On our way back, a thunder storm chased us and we just made it to our car before it started to rain. So - we experienced the wide open views of the Grand Canyon from the North Rim Visitor Center right after the air had been washed clean.

Driving into Zion National Park from the east, the rocks look as if scraped into their conical shapes by some some giant wire brush. The hairpin curves and steep inclines reminded me of another such road - the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park, except at Zion the rocks are that rich, russet red, and the whole park is a festival of sharp color contrasts: red rocks, cloudless sky, and abundant trees.

Zion National Park - the hole in the middle of the
picture is the entrance to the 1.1 mile long tunnel
on the Mt. Carmel Highway.

Waterfall at the Lower Emerald Pool

Zion is also a furnace as it gets hotter as you descend, and by 11 a.m. it's 90F. We opted to arrive early to take the shuttle (the main part of the canyon is closed to traffic) and were hiking to the Emerald Pools at 8 a.m. On our way up, we were rewarded by a fairly serene trail that was swarming with people on our way back. We made it all the way to the Upper Emerald Pool but having done that I must say the Lower Emerald Pool is, in my opinion, the most beautiful.