Saturday, September 09, 2006

fall

Fall is here. Yesterday we had our first real rain in months, the crickets are chirping, the days are growing shorter, and already the power has been out twice this week. In the winter, once the storms start, it's not unusual for the power to go out for days, and when it does, everything slows way down. We eat by the light of a kerosene lamp and go to bed early. It sounds a lot nicer than it is. We do have a generator and can run the water pump, the refrigerator, a few lights and the computers for as long as the gas holds out. We get our internet connection via satellite, so we can stay on-line, even when the phones go down. There is one place where we can get cellular reception, at the end of the Whaletown dock. If we really have to telephone someone, we drive to the end of the dock and sit in the car in the rain, taking turns making calls and staring out through the windshield, past the wipers, at the infinite, steely grey sea.

But that's in winter, and I'm getting ahead of myself. It's still fall and lovely and golden. Everyone is harvesting like mad. We had a crazy abundance of figs this summer, and the blackberries are heavy on the bushes. Three baby chicks hatched this week. They really should have come in the spring, but something held them up, and now they're here, better late than never. I wanted to take a picture of them, but the camera was freaking out the moms.

Oliver took the above picture for my Israeli publisher, Am Oved, who is going to be publishing All Over Creation this month. It's really exciting, because My Year of Meats was apparently quite popular in Israel, or so I've heard. One day, I think it was in 2001, I got a phone call from an Israeli civil rights lawyer, who was staying at a local B & B here on the island. He had brought his family here on holiday after reading an interview I did in a Tel Aviv newspaper, in which I mentioned how nice it was. He told this story to the innkeeper, who knew me (it's a small island - everyone knows everyone). She gave him my number, and he called and asked if we could meet. He wanted to tell me about a case he was working on, representing a group of DES daughters in a class action lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company who had distributed the drug. He told me that after My Year of Meats was published in Israel, the story of DES poisoning was covered by the media, which resulted in an additional 80 or so women calling his office and joining the plaintiffs in the suit. So indirectly it seems my book had helped his case, and this made me quite happy.

Here's a picture of the Hebrew edition of My Year of Meats.

I think those are slices of pastrami on her head. I have to say, I think this is one of my all-time favorite editions of the book jacket. It's totally original.

posted at 9/09/2006 06:44:00 PM [::]

 

 

As will be gathered
from these notes of mine,
I am the sort of person
who approves
of what others abhor
and detests
the things they like.

—Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book
circa 1000 AD

Clearly,
if Sei Shonagon had had access
to the Internet,
she would have had a weblog
instead of a Pillowbook.

—Ruth Ozeki, Weblog
circa 2000 AD

 

 

It starts with the earth. How can it not? Imagine the planet like a split peach, whose pit forms the core, whose flesh its mantle, and whose fuzzy skin its crust - no, that doesn't do justice to the crust, which is, after all, where all of life takes place.

—Ruth Ozeki, All Over Creation

"A feast for mind and heart."
—Kirkus Review

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