Musable

The mystery of William H. Warner

2012-01-29T21:00:00.000-08:00

Some things are known about William H. Warner (though not whether the "H" stands for "Henry" or "Horace"). Born in New York on May 8, 1812, he graduated from West Point; became a Army topographical engineer; helped lay out the city of Sacramento in 1847; and, on September 26, 1849, was "killed at age 37 by nine arrows fired by California Indians while exploring Northeastern California mountain passes." He was looking "for a railroad route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast."

In 1987 the Association for Northern California Records and Research (ANCRR), in supporting the Special Collections department at Chico State University's Meriam Library, published "In Search of Captain Warner." Authored by Alturas-area resident Patricia Barry, the slim paperback presented what was then known about Warner. Now, a quarter century later, the renamed Association for Northern California Historical Research (ANCHR) has reissued the book "with new contributions by Philip D. Warner," William's cousin.

The book, edited by Jim Jessee and Barbara C. Mahler, is available in paperback for $20 from www.csuchico.edu/anchr. Philip Warner's additions make for lively reading. He and his wife, Liv, have crossed the country in search of Captain Warner's story. In 2006, one of the libraries connected with the University of Rochester put sections of Warner's diary on the Internet. Philip and Liv visited there. "What a surprise!" he writes. "As a rather unemotional, nerdy engineer, I was not ready for what happened when I picked up William's leather-bound diary. Holding the book in my hand (where his hand must have been many times) was like a handshake. I was overcome by emotion."

Philip's research is presented in a series of letters to his cousin. Among the observations: "I live in retirement in Polk County, Florida, near where you were stationed during the Florida Indian Wars, 1836 to 1838." Captain Warner's diary is laconic; the new book contains excerpts from the "long-lost journal" (along with helpful commentary) but questions abound. What was his relationship to younger Susan Moggoffin, who mentions him eleven times in her own diary? Perhaps his uniform impressed her.

Barry had called Warner "the formless, faceless man" (the only known photograph of him graces the book's cover). Now, with Philip Warner's help, some of the shadows have been dispersed.

Eerie novel of an alternate Alturas

2012-01-22T21:00:00.000-08:00

Modesto writer Clive Riddle founded a health care business information company and the work he does is decidedly non-fiction. He grew up in Alturas, in northeastern California, and attended Shasta College for a time (his son went to Chico State University). What a setting to create a story weaving memories of a small-town boyhood with half-whispered legends, mixing in a murder mystery with hints of the supernatural.

"Dorris Bridge" ($19.95 in paperback from HealthQuest Publishers; also available for the Amazon Kindle and in formats compatible with Barnes and Noble Nook and most other e-readers) is the name of a small and dying town near Alturas in fictional Paiute County. The author explains on his website (www.dorrisbridge.com) that there was a real Dorris Bridge, renamed Alturas in 1876, but that the Dorris Bridge of the novel is not the real Alturas (since characters in the story often refer to Alturas as well as to Chico and Redding).

The aptly-named Riddle will sort things out when he is interviewed by Nancy Wiegman on Nancy's Bookshelf this Friday, January 27 at 10:00 a.m. on KCHO in Chico (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM).

The moral center of the tale is Randall Burgess, Chief of Police of Dorris Bridge. One of his sons, Kyle, is about to graduate from Paiute High School. A good kid for the most part, he is not averse to drinking with his buddies (Riddle calls it the "national pastime" in Dorris Bridge) and his practical jokes are constantly landing him in trouble. It's the mid-Seventies, and the author revels in mixing in contemporary movie and music references. To capture some of the mindset of the times, there's even sheet music for an original (off-color) song.

Then there are the Lights. An aging Paiute, Toronto Highsmith (Tornado for short) is convinced that he sees strange Lights during his benders. A sober Kyle sees them, too, but mostly from a distance. And they seem to be associated with a series of hit-and-run murders that take place near the homestead of the most powerful man in the county.

Add the mysterious disappearance of a Japanese-American decades earlier, a group of fundamentalist Mormons and Basque wanderers, season with a surprise ending, and what one has is definitely not Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

Paradise writer recalls life on a carrier

2012-01-15T21:00:00.000-08:00

"I approached the gangway of the slumbering attack carrier, adjusted my cumbersome olive-drab sea bag, and trudged upward to salute the colors." Richard Clark, who had just turned 21, was now aboard CVA-20, the U.S.S. Bennington. It was June 17, 1953 at the New York Naval Shipyard in Brooklyn. Clark's two year stint would turn into quite a ride.

Quoting from his letters home as well as historical sources and the official Big Benn newspaper, the Jet Blast, Clark presents a series of vignettes focused on the carrier's "Mediterranean cruise" in 1953-1954. "Back to the Bennington: Tales in the Wake" ($18.95 in paperback from Merriam Press, merriam-press.com) contains dozens of black and white photographs, many from the author. There are also reminiscences from other crew members and an overview of Bennington history.

Clark will talk about his service aboard the Bennington on Tuesday, January 17 at 4:00 p.m. at the Butte County Public Library, 1820 Mitchell Avenue in Oroville. Also presenting is Ralph Clark, (no relation), the current national vice-president of the Bennington Association who also served on Big Benn (1962-1964). The public is invited.

Commissioned in 1944, the Bennington served in World War II, the Cold War and Vietnam (see www.uss-bennington.org) and only in 1994 was sold for scrap. When Richard Clark joined the crew, the carrier was on its way to the Arctic Circle to participate with NATO forces in "Operation Mariner" exercises. Then it was on to Europe for something of a goodwill tour. For the crew (Big Benn was designed for 3400) it meant only two words: "Shore leave."

Clark worked on the arresting gear crew, responsible for the cables that approaching jets had to hook onto in order to land. Sometimes pilots didn't even get a chance. "We lost a jet and a pilot yesterday," he wrote at the end of 1953. "For some reason the plane crashed while he was circling the carrier. They never did find him."

A boiler explosion took eleven lives months before Clark joined the Bennington, and soon after his tour with the carrier ended, early in 1954, a horrendous fire broke out below decks, killing 103. "It was one of the Navy's worst peacetime tragedies."

Those who gather to honor their ship will never forget.

"Book in Common": Katrina's aftermath

2012-01-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

For novelist David Eggers, the story of Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun was compelling. New Orleans residents, they had survived Hurricane Katrina, which struck in late August of 2005, but that was almost beside the point. What happened in Katrina's wake, the indignities visited upon Kathy's husband, a successful painting contractor in the city, raised disturbing questions, about due process, about the treatment of Muslim citizens, about how people respond when things fall apart.

"Zeitoun" ($15.95 in paperback from Vintage; also in Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and Google eBook formats) is told from the couple's perspective. Eggers wisely focuses on one story--how a scrupulously honest and hard-working Syrian American could be suspected of being a thief and terrorist and made to suffer for those false beliefs.

Perhaps Zeitoun (pronounced "Zay-toon") had hoped for too much. "The country he had left thirty years ago had been a realistic place. There were political realities there, then and now, that precluded blind faith, that discouraged one from thinking that everything, always, would work out fairly and equitably. But he had come to believe such things in the United States.... But now nothing worked. Or rather, every piece of machinery--the police, the military, the prisons--that was meant to protect people like him was devouring anyone who got close."

"Zeitoun" is the Book in Common for 2011-2012, celebrated by Butte College, Chico State University, Enloe Hospital, and other organizations. Eggers is scheduled to speak at the university's Laxson Auditorium on Thursday, April 12, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 Premium, $17 Adult, $15 Senior and $10 Student/Child; call (530) 898-6333.

Zeitoun (he is known by his last name) stayed behind as Katrina approached. Kathy and their four children moved in uneasily with relatives in Baton Rouge (and would later spend time with friends out of state). Windows started to break in Zeitoun's two-story house. "There were unknown thumps everything. The bones of the house seemed to be moaning under the strain of it all. The house was under assault."

The neighborhood was covered in nine feet of water. Zeitoun paddled his aluminum canoe from house to house giving assistance, enlisting the aid of others. But soon another assault would come, and the lives of the Zeitouns would forever change.

Finding the right man in the new year

2012-01-01T21:00:00.000-08:00

Relationship educator Denise Culley of Paradise has been there. In her search for "Mr. Right" she filtered possible mates by outward appearance and "chemistry." The search proved futile and the pile of failed relationships grew. Over time she found a better way and now has published a workbook and coordinated website based on a key insight for the female:

"Accept your role as 'Man Whisperer.' A Man Whisperer is a woman who knows that her role is to guide a man to success as a partner, by cleverly teaching him what he needs to know. Assuming he knows how to be a great partner to you or expecting him to 'read your mind' in your relationship is living on fantasy island and will eventually blow up one day."

The "SoulMate Map: 10 Steps To Picking A Better Mate" ($19.97 in paperback and popular e-book formats, published by Relationships 123, found on SoulMate Plan's website, http://soulmateplan.com) "is for women who are either stuck, need inspiration, trying to let go, or ready to finally have great love in their life!"

The first step to success is, paradoxically, to stop dating, or at least dating seriously. During that respite Culley urges her readers to complete a series of lists contained in the workbook which are designed to focus on the attributes the reader is really looking for in a man. Culley shows how to combine the lists (which include what the reader admires in others as well as self-assessments) into a "SoulMate Map." "Sometimes," she writes, "we ourselves can't see when a man isn't good for us because we are blinded by love, or what we think is love."

The idea is to create a new lens through which to see men. Culley finally found her soulmate, but at first she thought he was kind of a "dork" and wasn't really attracted to him. They became friends and long conversations together began to reveal his deeper qualities, the very qualities she really wanted in her life.

Bottom line: "A man in love will demonstrate a powerful ambition to discover your happiness and deliver it to you. That passion for your happiness is the most reliable cue you could hope for." If you don't know what makes you happy, how can you tell him?

New Testament scholar on the meaning of Jesus

2011-12-25T21:00:00.000-08:00

"Mary treasured all these words," Luke's Gospel says, "and pondered them in her heart." There is much to think about. For N.T. Wright, Chair of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, Jesus was born into a "perfect storm" in the Middle East.

The "gale of Rome" heralded Caesar as "Lord"; the high-pressure national hopes of Israel told of God's people triumphing over their oppressors; and the "hurricane of God" "cut clean against the national narrative": "God called Israel, so that through Israel he might redeem the world; but Israel itself needs redeeming as well."

Wright tells the story of these storm systems colliding in the life of Jesus Christ. In lucid, though-provoking chapters, he ponders the meaning of the Gospel narratives of his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. "Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters" ($24.99 in hardcover from HarperOne; digital editions for Amazon Kindle; Barnes and Noble Nook; and from Google e-books) focuses on what Wright calls the "New Exodus."

If the Exodus story told of the liberation of the children of Israel from a tyrant and a new vocation of being a blessing to all the nations (though that didn't quite work out), the New Exodus is about Jesus himself completing God's project.

"The presence of Israel’s God would be the presence of Jesus himself, coming to Jerusalem as the embodiment of Israel’s returning God, the fulfillment of Isaiah 40 and 52. This, Jesus believed, is what it would look like when Israel’s God came back to Zion. It would not be ... the pillar of cloud and fire ... but a young man on a donkey, in tears, announcing God’s judgment on the city and Temple that stood on the cosmic fault lines, establishing his own still incomprehending followers as its surprising replacement, and then going off to take upon himself the full weight of evil, the concentrated calamity of the cosmos, so that its force would be annulled and the new world would be born" in the resurrection.

Our human vocation, says Wright, is what Luke means by "witness": “tell someone else that Jesus is the world’s true Lord.”

Go tell it on the mountain.

If cars could talk: A fictional memoir from a Chico State University grad

2011-12-18T21:00:00.001-08:00

Michael L. Oliver lives in the Napa valley with his wife, Barbara, where he grows wine grapes in his retirement. He has deep ties to Chico State University as well as with a succession of cars which seemed to mark phases in his life. What if those vehicles could talk and give their own perspective? In Oliver's new book, seventeen of them do.

"Through the Headlights: An Auto-Biography" ($20 in paperback from Henway Publishing, www.HenwayPublishing.com) is an inventive romp through the minds of an AMC Rambler, a Porsche Carrera 2 Cabriolet, a VW Bug, and fourteen others, all owned by the central character, "Leroy." Coincidentally, Oliver's first car, and Leroy's first car, were both 1931 Model A Fords. Cars, Oliver writes in a Foreword, all have their own "personalities, quirks and needs which they make known to us." Listen to you car.

The Model A found itself in Chester in 1956, having first been purchased back in Oklahoma for $750. But after a succession of owners, the car came into the possession of young teenager named Leroy, not legally old enough to drive, but who's counting? Leroy was a delivery boy, but one frosty day the Model A took a spin right into a snowbank. No one was hurt, but, writes Model A, "One of many flaws with teenage boys is that they tend to worry about their consarned image when they ought to be worried about their mortality." Leroy will meet Model A again many years later.

Then, in 1960, came the 1955 VW sedan. In Chico, at the frat house parking lot filled with cars, the sedan writes, "I was the only German car around. A few of them made fun of my accent, and pretty much all of them thought I was odd looking. I could sense it. And when they learned that I had only 36 horsepower it caused a few headlights to rise."

Cars follow Leroy throughout his life. In an Epilogue, Leroy is lying sedated in the hospital, the victim of a heart attack. All of his cars return and there is deep conversation about life, purpose, and, mostly, death.

One can learn a lot from a car if one doesn't blow a gasket.

Local history professor delivers a compelling work of scholarship

2011-12-11T21:00:00.000-08:00

Laird Easton, Chair of the Chico State University History Department, has completed the monumental task of editing and translating a long-lost portion of one of the greatest diaries ever written. (Samuel Pepys, step aside.) "Journey To The Abyss: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler, 1880-1918" ($45 from Knopf; also in digital formats for Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and from Google eBooks) is the compelling story, in his own words, of a cosmopolitan German free spirit who became a secret agent.

Easton will be giving a book talk on Kessler at 1078 Gallery (820 Broadway in Chico) tonight at 6:00 p.m. during a reception in his honor (5:00 - 8:00 p.m.).

Kessler's journal, which he added to over fifty-six years, opens up a "life led at the center of European art, literature, and politics during the greatest cultural and political transformations in modern history." But, as Easton notes, the section of his diary Kessler began in 1880, when he was twelve, through the First World War, was lost until 1983 when it was found in a safe on the island of Mallorca. Easton's work is the first English translation which, at 900 printed pages, is only a quarter of what Kessler produced during those years.

He was ambivalent, says Easton, about his homosexuality; even in his journal "he tiptoes around the subject of his own sexual feelings. ..." His father was a banker but Kessler was drawn to the avant-garde, influenced by Nietzsche (whose death mask he made), working with Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Diaghilev, Vaslav Nijinsky, Auguste Rodin, and lunching with George Bernard Shaw.

In San Francisco, 1892: "On the way through Golden Gate Park; wide boulevards shaded by pines, colorful flowers, tropical plants. I would have enjoyed their beauty more without the signs with endless Latin names stuck between them." Berlin, 1897: "Unfortunately I am once again drawn more and more into social life. Result, work = zero." Bern, Oct. 5, 1918: "The blackest day of the world war. ... The war is lost by our own confession."

Kessler survived (he died in 1937). Easton's work will survive, too; it is scholarly yet grandly accessible, inviting one to lose oneself in the "Belle Époque," that grand time before the abyss.

Holiday cheer - Aylworth is here!

2011-12-04T21:00:00.000-08:00

Roger Aylworth is the contact-wearing, keen-of-hearing, direction-challenged, sentimental, long-time ER reporter married four decades to the saintly Susan. For many years his weekly humor column, filled with family foibles and gentle wit, has graced this paper, and now, for the holidays, there's a new collection of favorites.

"Senior Showers" ($16.95 in paperback from Delphi Books) gathers 99 columns, most from mid-2006 to mid-2010, arranged in broad categories like "on growing older," "computers and other mechanical carnage," "on being, or being with, Roger," and "widgets and grandwidgets." Here are true tales of the couple's seven children, their spouses, and most especially the grandkids on visits to Casa Aylworth (here's looking at you, 2-year-old Caleb!).

Aylworth will be reading from and signing copies of his new collection at Lyon Books in Chico this Thursday, December 8 at 7:00 p.m.

The book starts with the title essay, and Aylworth explains that he's not "advocating a group lathering" but rather something akin to wedding showers only on the other end of life. "I can see the invitation that would summon those who love me to my senior shower: 'Roger has registered at the "Golden Years Adult Care facility" where you can sign up to cover as many months of residency as you wish. An account has also been set up at Dr. Krutch Walker's hip replacement clinic for gifts of any size!'"

More practically, Aylworth details the effort required to put together the clan gathering called Aylapalooza III. It's expensive to find housing for nearly three dozen family members. "While as a group we might have filet mignon tastes," he notes, "we tend to have a Spam budget." Speaking of kids, Aylworth provides some helpful suggestions on creating "homegrown mythology": "My dear bride, the saintly Susan, and I told our seven widgets that the belly button was the place where the screw went in that holds on your posterior."

Here are manly-man stories (don't mess with "MAH TRUCK"!), the death of a washing machine ("It toils not," says Susan, "neither does it spin"), and sage advice: "Best way to plan for golden years: Ask kids for gold." And "Roger's words of wisdom" at the end includes an observation from son Paul: "There is always one more idiot than you planned for."

Paradise artist helps kids understand Parkinson's Disease

2011-11-27T21:00:00.000-08:00

Alison Paolini is what she calls a "Parkinsonian." Diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 1999, she has remained a "creatively active" artist and poet, teaching for many years at the Paradise Art Center and lending her illustrator's talent to a new children's book.

"Carson And His Shaky Paws Grampa" ($15.95 in hardcover from Innovo Publishing; also available in digital formats for the Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook) is by Kirk Hall, a fellow Parkinsonian in Colorado. Diagnosed with a movement disorder called Essential Tremor in 1991, and Parkinson's in 2008, Hall wanted a way to talk to younger family members about what was happening.

The simple story is told by Hall's seven-year-old grandson, Carson. "When I was really little," he says, "Granma and Grampa Hall lived in a log cabin with lots of trees and a big fireplace." Later his grandparents move closer to the family, and Carson notices the tremor in Grampa's hands. "I asked him what was wrong. He told us not to worry and that he just had 'shaky paws.' 'Besides,' he said, 'I can stir my coffee without even trying!'"

As the condition worsens, Grampa tells Carson that "he was very excited because his doctor was going to help with his shaky paws. He said he would be going to the hospital three times for a special procedure that would take away his shakiness." The procedure works for Grampa Hall, and he is able to have more fun with Carson. The story ends at Easter dinner, with Grampa "giving thanks for his special procedure. He got choked up and couldn't finish. It seemed like he needed a hug," Carson adds, "so I gave him one."

A "note to parents and grandparents" at the end of the book provides a wealth of resources, including information on "deep brain stimulation" surgery which helped the author. It's "described as a 'pacemaker for the brain,'" and though it's not a cure, "it should effectively eliminate my shakiness for years to come. By the time Carson is older, other symptoms may become noticeable. At that time, I will share more with him."

Paolini's colorful sketches will help allay children's fears, giving adults an opportunity to explain something about Parkinson's or Essential Tremor in an age-appropriate fashion.

Fifty diaries, illuminated by a Chico visitor

2011-11-20T21:00:00.000-08:00

The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley houses special collections, among them a trove of personal diaries. "In acid-free boxes," writes Bancroft librarian and researcher Susan Snyder, "arranged on shelves in temperature-controlled darkness, they have come as donations, tag-alongs, bequests, purchases, or hotly contested auction lots." They "supply humor, pathos, grime, existential angst, and vision to the entirety of the human record."

Now, from the Bancroft and other sources, Snyder has assembled an extraordinary book. "Beyond Words: 200 Years of Illustrated Diaries" ($45 in hardcover from Heyday Books) gathers excerpts from fifty journals, written by the famous and the unknown, between 1776 and 1981. Snyder, a guest yesterday at Lyon Books in Chico, presents stunning color photographs of key diary pages. She also provides historical context for each diary as well as representative quotations and period illustrations.

Mark Twain is represented here, as is John Muir and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. But so is a man named William E. Voigt. The two pages of his journal (at least it's attributed to him, but no one really knows who wrote it or why) are part of a large, "well-thumbed compendium" "containing the secrets to 575 feats of magic." The entry for Thursday, October 7, 1943, shows how to palm a coin.

From 1917, Snyder writes, "bits of plant fluff, grass stalks, a lock of mountain sheep hair jubilantly found in a crack in the rock face she was climbing, fern fronds, and feathers of all sort illustrate the many field diaries of Florence Merriam Bailey." Adds Snyder: Bailey was "at the forefront of the movement to use binoculars rather than shotguns to observe birds."

In 1878, 14-year-old Caroline Eaton LeConte chronicled her camping trip with her parents and best friend Nona Dibble "in Yosemite Valley and the Calaveras Grove of giant sequoias." Others were along, too, including student Charlie Butters and one Lt. Greenough. One entry: "'Come now,' said Mr. Butters with beaming eyes, ladling out the milk as fast as he could, 'don't let's let all this fine milk go to waste.' 'Don't be afraid,' returned the Lieutenant with a sort of choking gurgle in this throat, 'it'll all go to waist anyhow.'"

We are thankful for the writers who dared turn over a new leaf.

How a Chico high schooler saves the universe

2011-11-13T21:00:00.000-08:00

"In the year 2098," novelist Blair Palmerlee writes, "everything and everyone in the city of Chico seemed to be a well-adjusted part of the well-oiled machine, which began life each day. This, however, was not the case for a young boy named Malcolm Thomas. For Malcolm the day would begin the same way it would end: Not soon enough." This particular day Malcolm is not quite late to his favorite high school class, quantum mechanics, taught by Professor Manuel Clarick. Good thing, too. This day Clarick shows off his experiment, and Malcolm has to save the universe.

In "The Universe of Malcolm: The Biggest, Small Problem" ($12 in paperback from CreateSpace) Palmerlee has crafted a wildly inventive sci-fi tale for 'tweens and young adults about a nerdy kid who discovers the meaning of courage. Palmerlee, a recent guest at Lyon Books in Chico, grew up on a farm near Bangor, attended Chico High School (the name of Malcolm's school is never mentioned), and is now studying psychology. His plot keeps pages turning as space battles alternate with deadpan humor.

That fateful morning Malcolm had zapped his hand with his Neutron Razor, and now his hand is beginning to disappear. As his science teacher explains, "You see, the razor works by breaking the electron barrier on the atoms in hair, absorbing the remaining neutralized particles, and recycling their energy for smaller tasks like nostril grooming." But something has gone wrong. Buried in Malcolm's disappearing hand are galaxies and nebula but--surprise!--"a huge war-like spaceship, emerging from what looked like a strange green worm hole. 'Houston,' said Prof. Clarick, as he stared at the pictures. 'We have a problem.'"

Clarick's experiment is not something you or I can understand, but it enables Malcolm to descend into the universe of his own hand so he can put things right and, if everything goes according to plan, emerge before he went in. So in he goes.

There is war in space. The Order, headed by a long-eared Dorexian name Kail, is desperately trying to stop the evil Fults, who will stop at nothing to take the ancient power of Moltor and so rule the universe. Malcolm, who is the universe, must stop him.

No wonder he misses Chico.

Willows writer remembers combat service in Vietnam

2011-11-06T20:00:00.000-08:00

In 1989 Dan Roach was showing scouts from Sacramento and from Willows Troop 57 the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC. One of the vets standing vigil at the Wall asked the scouts if any of their fathers who served in Vietnam talked about their experiences. The reply was a resounding "no!" "At that," Roach writes, "my eyes welled up and tears rolled down my cheeks." He determined to give a voice to his own memories.

An "infantryman in the South Pacific during World War II saw about 40 days of combat in four years," he writes. "The average infantryman in Vietnam saw about 240 days of combat in one year thanks to the mobility of the helicopter. I saw 210 days."

Roach's memoir is called "Gifts of War: Once Upon A Rice Paddy" ($50.48 in paperback from AuthorHouse, www.authorhouse.com). Included are dozens of color photographs that transport the reader back through the mist of decades. "These stories are all true as I experienced them and written to the best of my recollection." They "aren't any more significant than any other soldier's; they are just mine and I own them." He also chronicles the trip to Vietnam in 2007 made by his son, Shane, to the places he had operated. It is a moving account.

First Lieutenant Roach "reported to Vietnam in March of '68 as a replacement officer" and became a "platoon leader for the 3rd platoon of Delta Company, 1st Battalion of the 501st Infantry, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division; the original U.S. Airborne unit." Later, before his assignment ended the next year, he became Delta's XO (Executive Officer).

In his assignments Roach witnessed the ugliness of war first hand, the terrible mistakes that can be made in the midst of combat, and the "gift" war provides as a kind of desperate laboratory for leadership development. Roach learned the dangers of complacency; that sometimes "when a serious mistake is made, often times living through it is sufficient punishment"; and to "maintain an honorable vision."

There was another gift as well. A Bay Area radio station in 1968 encouraged listeners to write to the troops, and a Christmas card sent to Roach by one woman changed his life forever. "It was a match made in Vietnam."

First-hand account of a haunted Chico apartment

2011-10-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

"I moved to 125 Parmac Road in Chico, California, in the year 2000," writes Jodi Foster (not the actress). "Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined the terror and confusion I was about the experience: lights flashing, the hands of a clock turning, and my three-year-old daughter's toy--a 'Sing and Snore Ernie' doll--mysteriously relocated in the center of my living room, screaming, 'I feel great! I feel great! I feel great!' ... And this was just the first night I moved in."

The story links to the case of Cameron Hooker of Red Bluff, who, with the complicity of his wife, Janice, abducted Colleen Stan for use as a sex slave for seven years. As a friend of Foster's told her, "I believe there was another young woman living in Chico who went missing and was never found or heard from again." Janice eventually told Red Bluff police that in 1976, before Stan's abduction, the couple had visited Chico and Cameron had tortured and murdered 19-year-old Marie Elizabeth Spannhake after she returned to her apartment--at 125 Parmac Road.

Foster's account is given in "Forgotten Burial: A Restless Spirit's Plea For Justice" ($17.95 in paperback from iUniverse; also available in e-reader formats for Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook and from Google ebookstore). Learning about the Hookers on Halloween, 2000, she began putting the pieces together, attempting to make sense of her psychic experiences (which she reports having since childhood).

Foster will be signing copies of her book at Lyon Books in Chico on Thursday, November 10 at 7:00 p.m.

The story she tells is also about her own spiritual journey. Fearful, given to panic attacks, plagued by nightmares which seemed to fit what she later learned of the Hookers, Foster years later writes of a new perspective. "I had been tortured by the mystery for years and, at one point in my life, having paranormal experiences and clairvoyant abilities had been scary. Now it was intriguing--an adventure full of possibilities."

Her story is one of odd coincidences and visitations from the spirit world, all within the context of ordinary life in Chico. Foster seems convinced that Spannhake wants to be found, but so far the case has not been resolved.

Chico visitor on the treatment of native remains

2011-10-23T21:00:00.000-07:00

"In the summer of 2006," Tony Platt writes, "my forty-year-old son died. Daniel left a clear written message that he wanted a funeral at Big Lagoon, the northwestern California village on the coast where we have a vacation cabin. We honored his request, sending his ashy remains off into the lagoon. Some eighteen months later I discovered that the Yurok who lived in this area 'since time immemorial' had been buried a few hundred yards away from my cabin."

Only in the last few years has Platt, a CSU Sacramento emeritus professor, come to realize that that area in Humboldt County, called O-pyúweg by the Yurok, was the scene not only of bloody violence but of plundered native remains. His scholarly research--and passion--are on display in "Grave Matters: Excavating California's Buried Past" ($18.95 in paperback from Heyday Books).

"Many local 'Indian relics' preserved in university labs, museum display cases, private collections, and tourist attractions," he writes, "were taken from inside graves; and that often collectors also removed skulls and bones to show off to their friends or ship off to anthropologists in Berkeley." Those acts are illegal now in California, "but until the 1970s digging up native burial sites for pleasure, science, or profit was for the most part authorized and popular, despite longstanding and persistent native protests."

Platt will be speaking in Chico Wednesday night at 6:00 p.m. at Barnes and Noble; and Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books (which will also feature Heyday Books founder Malcolm Margolin).

"'We bury our individuals with the trappings of their life,' says the Yurok tribal historic preservation officer, 'in order to show their status in the afterlife. To separate the dead from their artifacts is to separate them from their identity.'" The story of desecration and repatriation is a complex one, involving anthropologist Alfred Kroeber (associated with Ishi) and a host of others.

For Platt, what happened to native populations in California amounts to genocide, making us "pay attention to the magnitude of a decade of butchery, and invites us to consider 'family resemblances' between California in the 1850s and 1860s, Turkey in 1915, Germany in the 1930s, and Rwanda in 1994." It is a horrendous story, one told with nuance and compassion.

Finding love in all the wrong places

2011-10-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

Recent Chico visitor Ethlie Ann Vare, screenwriter, humorist, and a woman with a past, is now, thankfully, a woman with a future. The Hollywood resident spoke last month at Lyon Books about what she calls "affection deficit disorder." Her cravings almost got the best of her. She graduated with high honors from UC Santa Barbara and was busted and jailed for drug possession. But that was not the half of it.

"By twenty-two," she writes, "I was twice married, once divorced, once annulled, and had a felony record. I had slept with seventy-five men (yes, I counted), a remarkable feat considering I didn't start until I was eighteen and had been locked away for a year." She tells her story, with clarity, wit and unblushing language, in "Love Addict: Sex, Romance and Other Dangerous Drugs" ($14.95 in paperback from Health Communications, Inc.; also available in e-book formats for Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook).

Love addicts come in three overlapping categories. "The infatuation addict flits from one romance to the next, rarely getting into a long-term relationship because ... novelty is the great aphrodisiac." "A relationship junkie is the gal with the black eye who insists it was her fault for making him jealous." "The sexaholic's life revolves around--you guessed it--sex; ... being thought of as a bombshell or a stud is paramount." The bottom line? "Love addiction is a chronic, relapsing, and potentially fatal condition. Left untreated, it can kill you."

So "Love Addict" also offers a treatment, but a realistic one. Vare has done her research on the part neurotransmitters might play in the seduction-withdrawal downward spiral, the compulsive craving for dangerous relationships followed by the intense need to escape. But, she says, one can't blame one's situation on chemicals, nor can one think one's way out of love addiction (rationalizations, anyone?). "Addiction," she writes, "is a disease of loneliness. Recovery is a process of community."

The author present several case studies of men and women who faced their "love addiction" and brings in insights from a number of therapists. She commends a 12-step approach, though while it's clear one must say no to alcohol, how does one say no to love?

Vare's answers are a journey toward hope, not hype.

Urban homesteader to speak in Chico

2011-10-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

"Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living" ($16.95 in paperback from Skyhorse Publishing; digital editions for Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and from Google ebookstore) is a spirited manifesto by Rachel Kaplan with K. Ruby Blume. In 2008 Blume founded the Institute for Urban Homesteading in Oakland; Kaplan "works as a somatic psychotherapist and teaches homesteading skills."

Together, they write, "our work reflects a commitment toward a regenerative, living culture, rather than the consumptive consumerism our country has refined to a sick art. We opt out by digging in."

Kaplan will be speaking at Lyon Books in Chico this Thursday, Oct. 13 at 7:00 p.m.

Chapters in the profusely-illustrated book cover such practical matters as creating community gardens, making cheese, butchering chickens, using a composting toilet, growing herbal medicines and building structures with cob ("just soil dug from the backyard and mixed with water, sand, clay and straw"). This is radical stuff: "The front lawn must go the way of the dodo. No longer will we spend our time in submission to the manicured lawn, wasting water and energy. Our rallying cry is: Turn Your Lawn into Your Lunch! Sheet mulching reclaims the lawn with an organic 'lasagna' of cardboard, compost, and mulch."

The goal is "permaculture," not a back-to-the-land movement or a self-sufficiency movement. It's about permanent culture, which means creating community sufficiency and resilience through collaboration." It involves neighborhoods, not just households.

This is not a call to sacrifice. "We love our lives as homesteaders," the authors write. "Don't confuse this lifestyle with a fear-driven mentality of scarcity and lack. This kind of living is about the richness of the present moment and the joy in living a simpler, uncluttered life."

"And so we find ourselves in our backyards fighting gophers, pulling carrots, harvesting rabbits and eggs, tending bees, and gathering raspberries, grapes, broccoli, and kale. We save our seeds. We pee in a bucket and dump it on the compost bin. We harvest our rainwater and drain our bathtubs into the garden. On hot summer afternoons you'll find us preserving jars of peaches, plums, and nectarines that have fallen from the trees. We bring people together to learn how to can, make yogurt, hold a meeting, or turn a lawn into a garden."

Chico writer teaches kids about law enforcement

2011-10-02T21:00:00.000-07:00

Linda Mobilio-Keeling teaches in the School of Education at Chico State University. She has a passion for educating young people about the work of law enforcement professionals; to that end she's written "Feeling Safe With Officer Frank" ($14.95 in hardcover from Mascot Books). For kids 3-8 or so, the tale, illustrated by Silvia Faschi, follows young Luke who gets lost walking to the park.

Luke is befriended by Officer Frank, who lets him ride in his patrol car and watch as the officer helps direct traffic after a fender bender, responds to an elderly man in need of assistance, fixes a broken bicycle chain for a little girl, and more. Luke gets to help take safety workbooks to the school where Officer Frank will be teaching. It turns out that the officer and his family live near Luke and his mom. "Luke knew he would be safe with Officer Frank nearby."

The book is dedicated to the late David Mobilio. "In the spring of 2003," the author writes in an email, "my husband’s name was added to long list of names already engraved on the police officer memorial wall in Washington D.C. While filling in on a shift for a fellow officer, he was ambushed and fatally shot while refueling his patrol car in the middle of the night. David was not only a patrol officer for the City of Red Bluff, but acted as the DARE officer, dedicating time and energy to teaching hundreds of kids how to say no to drugs and violence. His tragic death devastated our entire community – young and old alike."

Linda Mobilio-Keeling, married since 2005 to a Butte County Sheriff's Office Patrol Sergeant, will be reading from and signing copies of her book this coming Saturday, October 8, from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. at Barnes and Noble in Chico. The public is invited, especially kids with questions about law enforcement.

For Mobilio-Keeling, her book "gives a face and a voice to an officer who wears the uniform to serve and protect, and carries on the mission of positively connecting law enforcement and youth. My goal is to provide a resource for officers to use when visiting classrooms, while promoting respect and honor for our fallen and active uniformed personnel."

Salman Rushdie's magic carpet ride graces Chico

2011-09-25T21:00:00.000-07:00

Luka's father, storyteller Rashid Khalifa, the "Shah of Blah," is Asleep, lost in his own world and, growing weaker by the moment, unresponsive to anyone around him. His twelve-year-old son must enter the World of Magic with Bear, the dog, and Dog, the bear, in a desperate effort to find what will bring his father back to Reality.

"Luka and the Fire of Life" ($15 in paperback from Random House; also available in Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook and Google eBook formats) is Sir Salmon Rushdie's follow-up to "Haroun and the Sea of Stories." Left-handed Luka is Haroun's younger brother, and now it is his time to enter the world which exists "in parallel with our own non-Magic one."

Here are the sources of "White Magic, Black Magic, dreams, nightmares, stories, lies, dragons, fairies, blue-bearded genies, mechanical mind-reading birds, buried treasure, music, fiction, hope, fear, the gift of eternal life, the angel of death, the angel of love, interruptions, jokes, good ideas, rotten ideas, happy endings, in fact almost everything of any interest at all."

But the keepers of the World of Magic cannot abide the upending of the flow of Time that imagination wreaks on their precious Order of Things. Luka is almost vanquished, but one must never discount one's friends, especially if they have a magic carpet.

The Order of Things in our Real World is not so sunny, either. As part of Chico State University's President's Lecture Series, Rushdie will speak on "Public Events, Private Lives: Literature and Politics in the Modern World." The presentation is Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the university's Laxson Auditorium. Tickets are available online (ChicoPerformances.com), through walk-up at the University Box Office (corner of 2nd St. & Normal Ave.), or by phone (530-898-6333). Premium tickets are $40; Adults $35; Seniors $33 and Students/Children $25.

Nobodaddy, Luka's nemesis, the being sucking the life from his father, is clear that the tale is not just a story. "You of all boys should know that Man is the Storytelling Animal, and that in stories are his identity, his meaning, and his lifeblood. Do rats tell tales? Do porpoises have narrative purposes? Do elephants ele-phantasize? You know as well as I do that they do not. Man alone burns with books."

The hardest summers

2011-09-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

Bill Carter has a penchant for putting himself into difficult situations. In "Fools Rush In" the Pleasant Valley High School grad traveled to Bosnia during its civil war. Now he faces the brutalities of nature.

"Red Summer" ($16.95 in paperback from Schaffner Press; also available in e-book editions for Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and Google eBooks) is subtitled "The Danger, Madness, and Exaltation of Salmon Fishing in a Remote Alaskan Village."

The village is called Egegik ("pronounced Ig-GEE-gek") "which would not exist," Carter writes, "except for one thing: salmon, specifically sockeye salmon. Every year, in June, for at least the last eight thousand years, sockeye salmon, also called reds, enter Bristol Bay. They do not come in the hundreds or even the thousands. Tens of millions of sockeye salmon come, loosely gathered together in the shape of a giant ball, swirling in a counterclockwise motion, resembling an underwater hurricane." Then the fish leave the hurricane and "enter the river systems of Bristol Bay."

Carter had gotten a phone call that took him to Egegik, where he was to spend the next four summers as a set netter. Their "operations are stationary, with one end of the net tied to the shore, the other end to an anchor somewhere in the river, usually three hundred feet offshore." It is humbling work. "We have been at it for almost nineteen hours," he says at one point. "In the end we deliver 28,000 pounds of fish. ... My take is 10 percent, or $1,120 for nineteen hours of work."

Why do this? "The weather is brutal and the work is both difficult and dangerous. And at the end of each season I promise myself I will never do it again. I return to Egegik because I need a place where nature still has the upper hand, reminding me that my existence is fragile and fleeting."

Carter works for Sharon and her fishing partner, Carl, and the book not only connects with their lives but the rhythm of Egegik itself, where the only law is Fish and Game. In the end, he is married, and feels "like I've fully arrived in this place. I relish the silence. I feel connected to these people, to this river." And now, finally, he can leave.

Harrowing tales of Orland's first responders

2011-09-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

Marianne Paiva grew up in Orland where she worked from 1993 to 1997 first as an emergency medical technician and, in the last two years, as a paramedic serving Glenn County and Chico. Now a Chico resident, and a former Northstate Voices columnist, Paiva teaches sociology and has done extensive field research on paramedics. She is also a gifted writer, and the experiences she relates grip the reader with unforgettable, brutal images.

Those stories are contained in "Breathe: Essays From a Recovering Paramedic" ($14.95 in paperback from Memoir Books), available online at www.mariannepaiva.com and in Chico at Lyon Books.

Paiva will be signing copies of "Breathe" tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. at Bella Day Spa, 15 Williamsburg Lane.

"In paramedic school they never teach you how to treat a patient who has tried to commit suicide by slitting his own throat," she writes. "They teach you to bandage a stab wound, a sucking chest wound, a slice on the arm. They tell you how to splint a fractured femur and how to help a baby breathe again, but they never tell you how to bandage a throat that has been slit from ear to ear. I think somewhere, they assume that the person will be dead and there will be no need for bandages." In part, because of the work of Paiva and her teammate, the patient (they are always patients, never victims) survived.

There are other stories where the outcome is far different. Paiva captures the moment-by-moment urgency in the mind of the paramedic: "What do I do now?" Sometimes it is not enough. And sometimes there is that one call that calls an end to a career. "I am done, I realize. I am done. I can't take any more babies beaten and scalded with hot water. And mothers who extinguish cigarettes on their children and fathers who rape their sons and the people who cover it up. ... I can't take one more boy struck by a car on his way to school and my best friends being shot by their boyfriends."

Now, years later, "sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and wonder when the pager will go off." There are many who are grateful that, back then, it did.

Corning olive grower remembers the sixties

2011-09-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

Charles Rouse was 23 and an Air Force vet when he transferred from Citrus Junior College in Glendora to Occidental College in northeast Los Angeles. His junior year at "Oxy" began on September 22, 1966. Now, half a lifetime later, he has endeavored to come to terms with the forces that shaped the age--the War in Vietnam; recreational drug use; the rise of the hippies--and with his own experiences. The story unfolds in "Two Years At Occidental College In The Late Sixties" ($14 in paperback from CreateSpace; also available in Amazon Kindle e-book format).

"This is not a young man's story," he writes, "or a young man's point of view or a young man's memory. This is me telling the story of more than forty years ago." Then, Rouse adopted the Objectivism of Ayn Rand (her work drew him to major in philosophy). Now, "I retain my civil libertarianism but have been for many years a middle-of-the-road pragmatic Democrat." The book is in part a meditation on the ever-changing patterns of life.

Rouse was recently interviewed by Nancy Wiegman on Nancy's Bookshelf on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio), 91.7 FM. The archived program is available at http://kchofm.podbean.com/2011/08.

Each academic term receives its own chapter, and Rouse begins by listing his classes and setting the context with reference to events in the larger world. He remembers the language: Folks were "freaked out" and everything was "amazing" if it wasn't "gross."

He was shy and awkward around others, yet eventually welcomed female companionship--only to have his heart broken when they moved on.

But it was the drugs that precipitated the biggest crisis. By the late sixties Occidental was no stranger to LSD, marijuana, and even meth. A "friend" gave Rouse some kind of hyped up dose of something, and that led to panic attacks, flashbacks, and years of therapy.

The book helps remind us of "the spirt of the time, the zeitgeist whooshing down the corridors of the dormitories, the awakening in the students, the young people wearing button-down shirts one week and paisley the next." The music was "Donovan, Dylan, The Beatles, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and it all sounds so dated now."

And yet, as events unfolded, maybe things were not so Occidental after all

Former Chicoan's best-selling novel speaks the language of flowers

2011-08-28T21:00:00.000-07:00

For Vanessa Fleming Diffenbaugh, who attended Chico public schools, graduated from Chico High School and studied education and creative writing at Stanford, it all began in a used bookstore. There she found a volume by Kate Greenaway detailing flower symbolism.

What bloomed is a novel of emotional depth and uncommon force. "The Language of Flowers" ($25 in hardcover from Ballantine Books; in e-book editions for Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook; and in audio book format) tells the story of Victoria Jones. At age 18 she has had a stream of foster families but nowhere to call home. Meredith, her social worker, takes her to transitional housing. But soon she finds herself homeless on the streets of San Francisco. All she knows are the flowers.

In the third grade Victoria stayed with Elizabeth, a single woman who taught her about the language of flowers. "It's from the Victorian era, like your name," Elizabeth says. "If a man gives a lady a bouquet of flowers, she would race home and try to decode it like a secret message. Red roses mean love; yellow roses infidelity. So a man would have to choose his flowers carefully."

Now, years later, Victoria must answer the question: How can someone love who has never experienced love? A neighborhood florist discovers her skill with flowers; soon Victoria is creating extraordinary arrangements that seem to bring into being love and desire in those who purchase them. But for Victoria, life is lavender. Mistrust. She is hiding a secret that perhaps can only be expressed in flowers.

Diffenbaugh will be talking about her novel at 7:00 p.m. this Thursday, September 1, at the Chico Women's Club, 592 E. 3rd Street, in a free literary event. Lyon Books in Chico can provide more information.

It comes as a shock when Victoria realizes that the definitions Elizabeth had called "nonnegotiable" (an appendix provides Victoria's dictionary) were not actually settled. "Columbine symbolized both desertion and folly." She realizes "I had given Meredith peony, anger but also shame." Just what messages are the flowers sending? And that flower vendor, Grant. What part does he play in all this? "Perhaps the unattached, the unwanted, the unloved, could grow to give love as lushly as anyone else."

Los Molinos poet brings together "a chorus of voices"

2011-08-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

"I like to take pictures at dawn and dusk," Stephani Schaefer writes, "in rain and fog, where what you see and what you feel changes with the changing light." Such images "go looking for words." She eventually picked five. "The five chosen make a portrait of my neighborhood, from Josephine Street to the back road I wander daily with camera and notebook."

The first photograph chosen lends itself to the cover and the title. "Fog and Woodsmoke: Behind the Image" ($14.95 in paperback from Lost Hills Books, http://www.losthillsbks.com, or in Barnes and Noble Nook Book e-book) brings together the work of almost three dozen writers. They offer poetry and prose poems, some previously published, most freshly written for the project. You'll find familiar names here, including Rob Davidson, Sally Allen McNall, Lara Gularte, Patricia Wellingham-Jones, Schaefer herself, and more. (The book would be useful for creative writing workshops and writing prompts are available from the publisher.)

Each of the photographs, including a cross tied to a tree as a roadside memorial, trees full of blackbirds at dusk, a flooded road, and an "end of pavement" sign shrouded in mist, suggests some mystery, some deeper story ripe for imagining, and Schaefer's arrangement of the pieces is superb. The reader is enthralled. The poems are a kind of many-voiced commentary on the five images; they point out small details not seen at first and offer surprises on almost every page.

"Dreams are fragile as a spider's web," writes Nancy Paddock about the cover image, "blundered into by moonlight, / the pattern torn, threads drifting" ("In the Dark of Morning"). "Outside the fog grows dark as any sea," writes Bruce Henricksen. "It parts from time to time to show / the ancient starlight--worlds beyond / worlds, the layers of time / beyond need" ("Solitude").

Alan Catlin's "Still Life with Dead Zone" is a series of haibun ("two prose poems linked by a haiku"). The poet muses on the image of fog and woodsmoke: "Nothing moving but the smoke. The haze. The strange rings of the overhead street lights. // Dead air with black / smoke; impossible / to breathe. // Smoke from the burning thatched huts. ... A naked baby, sitting amid the wreckage, screaming."

Powerful.

Chico psychotherapist teaches Buddhist techniques of self-compassion

2011-08-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

Steve Flowers conducts the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction clinic online and at Enloe Hospital in Chico. In his private practice he teaches meditation techniques to help his clients come to terms with the "narrative-based self": a self constructed by stories of one's own inadequacies and failings.

"The Mindful Path Through Shyness" addressed some of the issues; now, in a new book co-authored with Bob Stahl (who founded mindfulness stress-reduction programs at several Bay Area medical centers), he offers a more comprehensive Buddhist approach to "Living With Your Heart Wide Open" ($16.95 in paperback from New Harbinger Publications; also in Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and Google e-Book formats).

Flowers will be speaking about the way of "radical acceptance" at a presentation and book signing this Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books in Chico.

The book's subtitle is "How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Free You From Unworthiness, Inadequacy and Shame." The authors begin with "key concepts from both Western and Buddhist psychology" in examining suffering. "The modern psychologies of the West," they write, "have developed interventions to repair problems with the self, using techniques such as investigating how we think and learning skills to change dysfunctional thinking. Buddhist psychology also acknowledges that thoughts create suffering, but rather than working to change thoughts, this approach considers the act of witnessing thoughts without getting caught up in them to be an effective way to dispel their power."

Slowly, carefully, through stories of those helped by meditation, and by meditation exercises, the authors take the reader into a deeper understanding of what it means to make peace with oneself and with others. The ego is not necessarily bad; "a healthy ego" is needed "to get free of the delusions your ego spins." But the Buddhist perspective is that the ego is not permanent, is not really "us." We don't have a self to "fix." Acceptance of that idea is tantamount to "awakening" to loving-kindness, "self-compassion."

"Mindfulness meditation," the authors say, "is an investigative practice. You enter a space of awareness in which you can witness and examine the thoughts and emotions from which you fabricate a sense of self." There is no judgment; only freedom to practice "wisdom, virtue, and concentration," and, like the velveteen rabbit, to become "real."

Chico writer on ethical government contracting

2011-08-07T21:00:00.000-07:00

The rancorous debate over the Federal debt ceiling reminds us afresh that decisions made in Washington often have profound effects on Main Street. That includes billions of dollars paid to private companies by government entities contracting for needed goods and services. With so much money changing hands, the temptation to "nefarious, amateurish, and criminal behavior" is ever present. William Sims Curry, a Chico-based government contract consultant (www.wsc-consulting.com), addresses the issue head on.

"Government Contracting: Promises and Perils" ($69.95 in hardcover from CRC Press) provides "best practices" for those doing business with the government. Written "primarily from the government perspective," the book "includes recommendations for actions for contractors to avoid government sanctions, corporate fines, seizure of employee assets, and suspension or debarment of contractors." Though careful to praise the vast majority of contractors (and government officials), Curry focuses on negative examples where the process has gone off the rails, including Boeing scandals and the FEMA response to hurricane Katrina.

The book is technical in nature, dealing with contract processes; decisions about "sole source" or competitive bids; social objectives through contracting; proposal solicitation, evaluation, administration and auditing; and contracting during emergencies. A CD is included with the book presenting many of the forms and other document referred to in the text. But the lay reader may find the discussion fascinating, especially in contemplating the "government procurement corruption wall of shame," which includes bribery, abuse of power, contract fraud, ineptitude, partiality, poor planning, larceny, and more.

For Curry, the key to honesty in the contracting process is having a transparent process to begin with. It's not as easy as one might think. For example, if several contractors bid on a project, one company might have better management and past performance, but another might have better technical competence and be cheaper. Unless the criteria can be boiled down into a single number, it's likely losing contractors will file protests.

Curry notes that emergencies often lead to single source contracting, but that's often a mistake. "Obtaining competitive proposals or bids does not necessarily slow the contracting process because a solicitation can be sent concurrently to multiple prospective contractors." Though the company selected may not be the least expensive, competitive pressures may lower overall bids. Something to remember when the envelopes are opened.

A lesson for kids from a Chico writer

2011-07-31T21:00:00.000-07:00

First introduced in "Crowlyle Finds His Caw," a tale about the importance of honesty, Crowlyle the crow is back with a bouncy story that shows the power of volunteering. "Crowlyle's Plan To Save the Zoo" ($12.95 in paperback from North State Children's Books) by Vic Sbarbaro and Marcia Pezzella is graced with delightful full-page, full-color illustrations by Ashe Lewis. The book is available locally at the Chico State University Associated Students Bookstore and Lyon Books in Chico.

Sbarbaro is a Certified Health Education Specialist who teaches at both Chico State University and Butte College. According to an author's note, he also "specializes in ... multicultural education issues, emergency care and aquatic safety." Pezzella, his sister, "was born and raised in Weed," had careers in the entertainment field and special education for disabled children, and now in retirement helps her husband in the restaurant business.

Lewis is "majoring in Communication Design and Applied Computer Graphics" at the university, where she was lead illustrator for the Orion. Her whimsical art invites the reader into Crowlyle's world, which is always on the move. Eli Elephant "walks the ropes," Tia tiger approaches the ring of fire, Hop Hippo belts out a tune, as all the animals put on a talent show to raise funds for the beleaguered local zoo. "When you do a good deed / Surely you can earn respect / Helping those in need / For a worthy zoo project."

Everyone will have to hurry. No time for Crowlyle to sleep in. "The children are full of sorrow / And are feeling very blue / The zoo will close tomorrow / They don't know what to do."

Crowlyle "has a plan / The idea is so cool / His friends take a stand / Then go to the school." He enlists volunteers to set up a "veggie shack" to raise funds, and his animal friends strut their stuff.

Together the animals save the day. "Crowlyle thanked everyone / With pride in his heart / Be very proud for what is done / Since you all did your part." The lesson for readers? "Take some time from your day / Giving thanks for all you do / Watch animals as they play / And support your public zoo."

Paradise author tells the adventures of a street mutt

2011-07-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

At the age of 78, J.T. Brown of Paradise has become an author. She writes me that her story--suitable for middle grades and up--is based on real life experiences but told from a dog's perspective. "My desire," Brown says, is "that young and old will be made aware of the heartache when one is abandoned whether as a puppy or a child."

"Torno" ($15.99 in paperback from Xlibris; also available in Amazon Kindle e-book for $7.69 and Barnes and Noble Nook book format for $7.99; available from www.tornobyjtbrown.com) is short for "tornado," a fast little pooch but not the handsomest of canines.

"Could someone out there like me?" he wonders. "Lookin' at the other mutts, I saw they were pretty good lookin'. I looked down at my reflection in my water bowl and took inventory. My feet looked too big. My legs were long and skinny. My white hair was more scraggly than ever. I had a black spot on my tongue, plus one ear stood up and the other hung down. I couldn't see much of my tail, but there was no doubt it was funny lookin'. Who would want a mutt like me for their very own?"

Torno is impounded and on the verge of being put down. No one seems to want an ugly dog and he wonders about his life's purpose. He pours his heart out to his "superior being" and is convinced he is watched over, cared for.

Then Tom arrives and Torno has a new master. An airline pilot, Tom takes the dog home to his family, but Torno soon realizes all is not well. Tom's marriage is crumbling and the children face an uncertain future. Torno tries to bring happiness to the household--he has a great personality--but soon Tom's wife leaves and it feels like love has left, too.

Eventually Tom moves on with his life, and one day, returning from a trip, finds a new neighbor has moved in. Tom decides to introduce himself, and Torno tags along: "The door opened and a lady stood there beside the most beautiful German shepherd I'd ever seen.... I was in love."

The conclusion is poignant, mingling love and loss. So it is with life.

Robots behaving badly

2011-07-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

Daniel H. Wilson has a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University. He lives with his wife and daughter in Portland, but two or three weeks ago found himself near Colusa. He was, he writes me, "in an RV with eight guys on a bachelor party, on my way to a wedding in Calistoga. Incredibly beautiful place! I ended up getting on NPR Science Friday, and so a black towncar picked me up from a dusty RV park over in Meridian where we stopped for the night. Took me down to SF and then back up. Pretty hilarious."

He was receiving the VIP treatment because of his new, best-selling can't-put-down "Robopocalypse" ($25 in hardcover from Doubleday; $12.99 in Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook e-book). Word is that Steven Spielberg will direct the movie version.

In the future, humanoid robots are deployed as housekeepers and cars have smart chips in them so they can talk with other cars. People in offices depend on smart copy machines and kids play with smart dolls.

A researcher in northwest Washington pushes the limits of computer intelligence and succeeds a bit too much. His creation, "Archos," is quick to put things straight: "I am not your child," Archos tells the scientist. "I am your god." It's not long before Archos brings other robots under its sway and soon an apocalyptic conflict breaks out between humans and robots. It's intense and pretty gruesome.

The story of the war, and what happens afterward, is told in many voices, from Tokyo to Oklahoma, transcribed by a single soldier, Cormac "Bright Boy" Wallace, using documents preserved by a robot hidden in Alaska. Here are the stories of Mr. Takeo Nomura, a Japanese bachelor, assaulted by his robot companion; Paul Blanton, an American soldier fighting in Afghanistan; and groups of human survivors who will one day mount an attack on the Archos intelligence. The action seldom lets up, but this is not a simplistic humans-against-robots yarn.

Wilson raises the question whether the triumph of Archos would actually liberate the robots. Maybe not. But, then, what is true robot freedom? Perhaps the war against Archos is a war for a new kind of liberation.

Just to be on the safe side, I read the printed version of the book.

Local author on sustainable living with native plants

2011-07-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

An author's note says that Alicia Funk, who lives "off the grid with her husband and three children," "first learned plant based medicine in 1990 from an indigenous grandmother in Ecuador's rainforest." With her co-author, landscape architect and Nevada City resident Karin Kaufman, Funk has crafted a full-color reference, "Living Wild: Gardening, Cooking and Healing With Native Plants of the Sierra Nevada" ($29.95 in paperback from Flicker Press).

A recent visitor to Lyon Books in Chico, where the volume is available locally, Funk facilitates "living wild" workshops. According to the authors, "our modern-day American diet relies upon a mere 30 or so plant species, while 200 years ago an indigenous Californian's diet would have included about a thousand. We have lost the Native Californians' valuable 'user's manual' that could guide us to the plants we would enjoy eating and help us to learn the best ways to prepare them."

The largest part of the book is a color compendium of native species for the garden, from the White Alder to the evergreen shrub Yerba Santa (which is deer resistant). Each listing points (as appropriate) to the Foods, Medicine, and Cultural and Functional Arts sections. For the Manzanita, one can fix Manzanita Blossom Jelly for breakfast. Manzanita has been used to treat Poison Oak; its wood has been fashioned into kitchen utensils.

The section on making medicines (including teas, herbal syrups, salves and poultices) notes that the process "is a fun, relaxing experience that provides a way to personally engage in health and wellness." The authors carefully note that the uses listed often come from Native lore and haven't been tested scientifically; and in many cases the preparations shouldn't be used by those who are pregnant. Yerba Santa tea is considered a decongestant by "by Miwok, Pomo and Yuki tribes and by doctors who listed it as an official remedy in the US. Pharmacopoeia in 1894." The Maidu "used the dried and powdered inner bark (of the White Alder) as an astringent to clean wounds."

There are some 70 recipes in the food section. Elderberry wine, anyone? Oak Nut Gingerbread? (Oak nut flour is gluten-free.) It's a way to "enjoy nutrient-rich, carbon-free food from the plants growing around our home. ... We allow the wild in."

New Mia King/Darien Gee novel has baked-in goodness

2011-07-03T21:00:00.000-07:00

Independence Day celebrations evoke images of small-town America, so it's easy to imagine Avalon, a place that "isn’t more than what it seems to be—a small, simple river town in northern Illinois." In the midst of buzzing cell phones and economic downturns it is also a place of broken marriages and fractured relationships. And then one small act of kindness, its origin a mystery, turns the town upside down.

Best-selling author Mia King, writing under her real name, Darien Gee, weaves together the lives of several women in Avalon in "Friendship Bread: A Novel" ($25 in hardcover from Ballantine Books; $12.99 in Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook e-book format; and an audio book version narrated by Nancy Linari). Gee's husband, Darrin, has relatives in Chico. The couple lives on the Big Island of Hawaii with their three children.

It begins on Julia Evarts' front porch with a Ziploc bag full of starter for "Amish Friendship Bread," instructions, and a note that says: "I hope you enjoy it." But for Gracie, her five-year-old, Julia would have tossed the strange substance. Now she is prepping it for baking in ten days, thinking of her husband Mark's sweet tooth. But she is thinking, too, of Josh, their son, who died tragically at the age of ten in the care of her younger sister, Livvy. She doesn't talk to Livvy anymore, can't forgive her, or herself.

Hannah, a master cellist, has settled in Avalon with her husband, but the marriage is not going well. Madeline, an older woman, has opened a tea salon in Avalon, and when circumstances bring Julia and Hannah together, Madeline provides the emotional glue. All the time, loaves of Friendship Bread continue to multiply as new starters are passed from person to person.

The novel is about finding true freedom. As Julia realizes, "I want to be free. Only it wasn’t the freedom she had toyed with before, that singular independence that excluded Mark and Gracie. It was a freedom that included them. She wanted to be free to love them, to be with them."

Readers can download a free PDF booklet with more than 50 Amish friendship bread recipes from now until July 10, 2011. Visit www.friendshipbreadkitchen.com/pantry/chicoer. The password is er.

Two codgers on horseback from Paradise to Idaho's Snake River

2011-06-26T21:00:00.000-07:00

Back in June 1990 Loyal McCammond and his friend Bert Lefevre told their wives they'd be making a 700-mile horseback ride from Paradise to Glenns Ferry (where Bert's brother-in-law lived) near the Snake River in Idaho. Loyal was 50-years-old, Bert 70, and the two set out with three mules and two horses and not many smarts.

When it was over, Bert wanted to write the story of the 27-day trek but passed away before the project could be completed. Loyal took up the task, recounting their misadventures in Bert's voice and in so doing introducing readers to a plain-spoken man with an eye for beauty, given to understatement and deadpan humor. Bert comes alive in "We Poked A Hole In The Wind: The Story of Two Old Codgers Fulfilling A Dream" ($10.95 in paperback from JADA Press) by Loyal McCammond.

McCammond, who now lives in Orland with his wife, will be signing copies of his work at Lyon Books in Chico this Wednesday, June 29 at 7:00 p.m.

The trekkers "crossed the Skyway at the Lovelock Inn," says Bert, "and, oh man how I wanted to stop for a beer. I've always been a very reliable beer drinker, and I sure wanted a beer mighty bad." But it was not to be. There were deserts to cross and parts of four states to traverse. So no beer--until they, uh, pulled into the Inskip Inn.

But now onward! Along the way the travelers meet a succession of nice folks, people who provide a place to crash, food for the animals and the adults, and a bit of trail guidance. Bert and Loyal don't hew to roadways if they can help it, and sometimes there's not much of a trail. Here and there they find lonely windmills still pumping fresh water, abandoned barns in which to take shelter, and even places that serve beer.

Preparing to cross into Nevada, they spend the night in an empty cabin. The next day, says Bert, "when we were about five miles out from Wemple's cabin, I made a terrible discovery. I had either lost my teeth or left them in the cabin."

Intrepid, Bert soldiers on, leaning forward, living the dream, poking a hole in the wind.

Local investment advisor teaches through humor

2011-06-19T21:00:00.000-07:00

If you are responsible for handling someone else's money, you may be a fiduciary. Investment advisors are fiduciaries, but so are people managing the finances of an aging parent or acting as a trustee for a family trust. Fiduciaries are regulated by the Uniform Prudent Investor Act (UPIA), a code of conduct expressed in formal legal language.

That's where Guerdon Ely comes in. He's the author of "Uncertainty Is a Certainty: Fables for Fiduciaries" ($14.99 in paperback from Xulon Press). The Chico-based Certified Financial Planner (www.elyportfolios.com) presents the duties spelled out in UPIA using stories and analogies that anyone can understand.

His self-deprecating reminiscences are sometimes hilarious, but Ely has a serious purpose. Proper stewardship of another's money is not just about following a legal process; it's about developing honest character not tempted by Wall Street greed or swayed by "sucker bets."

Ely will be speaking at the Chico Branch of the Butte County Library on Wednesday, June 22 at 2:00 p.m. as part of a series entitled "Transforming Life After 50." He is scheduled to focus on global economics, the financial meltdown, and how individuals can respond. The two-hour presentation is free and open to the public.

It's vital for a fiduciary to determine the "time horizon" of investments; but the time horizon may well change with changing circumstances. Early in his marriage Ely was living from paycheck to paycheck. He told his wife: "'My most important short-term goal is this month's rent payment and my most important long-term goal is next month's.' ... Things were so tight that a big night out was splitting a turkey sandwich and a cup of soup at Denny's, and then going window-shopping at the grocery store." Later, Ely and his family were able to look a little farther ahead.

A fiduciary is judged not by portfolio performance but by whether he or she follows a process that rests on appropriate skill and good judgment. "Knowing isn't enough," Ely writes, "because we are hardwired to do dumb things when it comes to money. Therefore, as a fiduciary, you need the courage to do the right things and the discipline not to do the wrong things."

If this sounds like a philosophy of life, the reader has made a prudent observation.

Holocaust survivor Voyles offers remembrances of wartime in the Netherlands

2011-06-12T21:00:00.000-07:00

The 1st Montessori School in Amsterdam opened its doors as a public institution on October 27, 1927. Almost 75 years later, a former student wondered how many of the children from the school had died in World War II. That sent one of the teachers, Ronald Sanders, on a quest. "When the war started," he writes, "about 20 percent of our students were Jewish. After the war, fewer than ten students came back to the 1st Montessori School; the Nazis had murdered more than 90 percent of the Jewish population of the Netherlands."

Hannie J. Ostendorf Voyles, longtime Butte College writing instructor now in active retirement, attended the school starting in 1939 with her sister Joosje. "Before that," she remembers, "we had been students at the 6th Montessori School with Anne Frank. Anne was older than I was; she was in the upper grades, but I remember seeing her at school and in the neighborhood."

Anne and her family went into hiding. "Before long, many students in our new school met a similar fate. Like Anne, they simply vanished. We were little children and could only watch as our friends were first deported to JEWS ONLY schools, and then were rounded up and carted off for extermination. From my own school, 173 students were murdered."

Some of the stories of those who survived, and those who didn't, are told in "Storming the Tulips" ($17.99 in paperback from Stonebrook Publishing), written and compiled by Ronald Sanders and translated and revised by Hannie Voyles.

Voyles will be speaking about the days of Nazi occupation at 7:00 p.m. this coming Wednesday, June 15, at Lyon Books in Chico.

The various accounts in the book are anchored by a love of 1st Montessori. Here are the stories of teachers who hid Jews; those in the Dutch Resistance who gave their lives; Jewish children who barely escaped the incinerators. In 1942, as "friends and neighbors were torn from their homes and sent off to the camps," the Pinkhofs, including three children who attended 1st Montessori, "committed suicide as a family." Another student, who stopped by on the way to school, discovered the bodies. That student was Hannie Voyles.

"The children have no monument," she writes. Now, they do.

Paleo for the family: A guide from a local mom (and Crossfit Trainer)

2011-06-05T21:00:00.000-07:00

Sarah Fragoso is not only a trainer at Robb Wolf's NorCal Strength and Conditioning gym in Chico. She's an ardent exponent of what has come to be known as "the paleo solution" (the title of Wolf's recent best-seller). Fragoso says that "eating paleo is an easy concept: We should eat as our ancestors once did, we should eat based on how we are genetically wired to eat."

That means out with processed foods along with "dairy, legumes, any form of sugar, and grains!" Grains? Fragoso writes that they "are gut irritants, especially grains containing gluten such as wheat, barley, and rye. When our gut lining gets irritated, we are unable to properly digest our food." So bread is out. But it's okay to bring home the bacon since the right kind of fat is not bad. Fat is not what is making Americans overweight, it's the "non-fat, high-carb diet."

For those who want to try paleo at the family level, Fragoso has written an intensely practical guide. "Everyday Paleo: Embracing a Natural Diet & Lifestyle To Increase Your Family's Health, Fitness, and Longevity" ($29.95 in softcover from Victory Belt Publishing) tells what happened when she, her chiropractor husband, and three kids embraced the paleo idea. But that's just the beginning.

Fragoso will be signing copies of her book, and talking about the paleo lifestyle, at 7:00 p.m. this Wednesday, June 8 at Lyon Books in Chico.

The largest part of the book is a compendium of recipes (including shopping lists for trying "30 days of paleo") that will feed the entire family. Recipes (with full-color illustrations) include "perfect pork pot roast," "everyday meatloaf," and "Thai shrimp soup" (with more recipes available at http://everydaypaleo.com).

The last section introduces basic fitness showing the author's family in a series of full-color, step-by-step moves from "stroller sit-ups" to "partner push-ups." There's a chapter on fitness for kids and one on "advanced body weight and bar movements" (for those a little more advanced), as well as a series of beginning and intermediate workouts.

How about cheating on eating? Fragoso recommends a strict adherence to the paleo diet the first thirty days--no gluten--but she's a realist. Readers will respond to her verve--and honesty.

Local writer on the roots of her postpartum depression

2011-05-29T21:00:00.000-07:00

"When my parents got divorced," writes Melissa White in a harrowing account of abuse and depression, "any semblance of a family fell apart." In her senior year of high school she lived with her dad, a prison guard who physically and emotionally abused her. She made plans to "run away" to her mom, who seemed to care little for her, ninety minutes away in Chico. But her father, whom she refers to as "the Monster," retaliated. It is a heartbreaking story.

Today White lives in Chester with her husband and two daughters. The birth of her first, Hailey, produced a depression in Melissa that wouldn't go away. In her late twenties she began counseling with Lisa Jellison, a Chico-based licensed clinical social worker. The results form the basis of White's first-person account, "It's Not The Baby Crying: A Woman's Struggle With Postpartum Depression" ($11.99 in paperback from Tate Publishing; $9.59 in Barnes & Noble Nook e-book format).

The author, who recently signed books at the Chico Barnes & Noble store, is a courageous chronicler. Violent thoughts would assail her, always about Hailey. "As I transfer dishes from the sink to the dishwasher, I find myself being extremely careful with the steak knives. As I gently place them into the silverware holder in the dishwasher, placing them pointy-end down, I catch myself in the following thought: The sharp end of the steak knife is plunging into my daughter's abdomen."

Melissa began to practice the "stop sign technique," saying no--out loud if need be--to those nightmarish thoughts. From moment to moment she was imagining all the terrible things that might happen to her daughter--and trying to protect her. But this was ultimately about her father and the "fear of my father walking through my front door and shooting us dead in my living room." It was "not a rational thought" yet Melissa succumbed to terrible fear.

Then, hope. "I learned that in order to recover, you must clean up all the broken pieces. If you leave the mess on the floor, you could walk through life continually stepping on those sharp shards of glass." Counseling saves her life; her faith sustains her.

And she must face the question: Can she forgive her father?

Anthropology educator and Ishi researcher to speak Wednesday

2011-05-22T21:00:00.000-07:00

Did Bryan "Pancho" Beavers, born in 1901, hold the key to Ishi's heritage? Before Beavers died in 1971, a researcher recorded his stories of Konkow Maidu culture (Beavers's father was Scots-American and Maidu). According to educator Richard Burrill, who obtained the transcripts, Ishi was not only Yahi/Yana, but Maidu (as many Maidu believe). Beavers said "the Maidu here were always at war with them [the Yana]. They didn't like 'em. They wasn't exactly at war. ... But the Yana didn't have any friends anyplace."

Then, writes Burrill, "it is believed that in about 1830, the Yahi raiders kidnapped Beavers' great aunt from the fishing grounds downstream from Pulga on the Feather River. ... Upon coming of age, she was made the wife of one of the Yahi raiders named Yètati, a Northern Yana man. In about 1854, they produced a baby boy [who] remarkably survived the many massacres dealt the Yana. He became the man we have come to know as Ishi."

The fruits of Burrill's research are compellingly displayed in "Ishi's Untold Story In His First World: A Biography of the Last of His Band of Yahi Indians In North America" ($22.95 in paperback from The Anthro Company; www.ishifacts.com). The large volume contains a dozen maps and hundreds of historical photographs.

The author will talk about his research at 7:00 p.m. this Wednesday, May 25 at Lyon Books in Chico.

"In 1864," Burrill writes , "a general massacre reduced [Ishi's] entire tribe to no more than fifty souls. Compromised, and yet still proud, a small group of about twenty of Ishi's Yahi/Yana tribe retreated deeper into their remote hiding places along Antelope Creek, Mill Creek and Deer Creek. With few exceptions, the outside world was unaware of their existence. ... On August 28, 1911, Ishi was captured at the Charles Ward Slaughterhouse, forty miles south of the tribe's homeland. For observation, the Indian stranger was locked up in the Butte County Jail and placed in the solitary and padded cell for the insane."

The book reconstructs "the secretive years" before Ishi's capture, and details his cultural heritage as well as "his inner strength and ability to assimilate." He died of tuberculosis in 1916, "the passing of the last Stone Age Indian in North America."

Gifted San Francisco artist and writer to appear at Chico book signing

2011-05-15T21:00:00.000-07:00

Paul Madonna's stunning pen-and-ink cityscapes appear in the comic section of the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle. His drawings contain short stories, snatches of conversations, philosophical observations, forming strange juxtapositions with his intricate architectural renderings.

The weekly strip is called "All Over Coffee" (I suspect the multiple meanings are not accidental), which gave the title to Madonna's first compilation. Now he's out with a new collection of panels, "Everything Is Its Own Reward" ($27.95 in hardcover from City Lights Books), and it's a mesmerizing journey, as the author puts it, "from an introduction, into autobiography and fiction, to a climax of creative questioning, then to resolution."

Madonna will be signing copies of his books Wednesday, May 18, at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books in Chico.

An Afterword provides context for each of the drawings and a rationale for Madonna's project. "What was it that was its own reward? Everything was, the more I thought about it. And that was the answer to life as much as it was to making art. Anything I did had to be for the sake of doing--from getting out of bed in the morning to pursuing my grandest aspirations."

One picture shows a little trailer against a large hill. The words in the upper left: "There is, for all of us, no matter what we've mastered, something incomprehensible." Madonna points out that the pictures are not meant to illustrate the words, or vice versa. There is something more subtle going on. Humans are never depicted. Yet they are there, on every page. You just have to read them into the houses, imagine the goings-on behind the walls.

There are hints of color in the sepia renderings. One shows a dizzying view of the blue sky looking up from several apartments. And the text: "The guys who sit on my stoop, doing deals out of bass-thumping cars, they don't care if I make something today, how I phrased these lines, or if this drawing turned out the way I wanted. Every doorway in every city, every cafe, church or town hall, every profession, passion or pursuit, is its own microcosm." And so it is with each page, a delight to the eye and provocation for the mind.

True tales of flight from a Chico pilot

2011-05-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

Mike Paull's interest in flying was piqued in 1978 and he's never looked back. Though a dentist in San Carlos, California, he also managed to log "3500 hours of flying time" as a private pilot and flight instructor.

Who better to get into the hearts and minds of the pilots who frequented the little eatery near the San Carlos Airport? A dozen of their stories are brought to life in "Tales from the Sky Kitchen Cafe" ($14.95 in paperback from Skyhawk Publishing).

Paull, retired and living in Chico with his wife, Bev, will be talking about his work at Lyon Books in Chico, Wednesday, May 11, at 7:00 p.m.

Many of the stories are (need I say it about flying?) uplifting. Paull tells how two pilots, Jeanne and Fran, developed the "Fear of Flying Clinic." Then there's "Crazy Dave," a test pilot and racer. "Dave has competed in more races (216) than anyone in the history Reno Air Racing."

One of the Sky Kitchen denizens was a pilot named Herb. The conversation around the counter would frequently move to flying mistakes, and Herb would say that "there are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots ... The difference between a big airplane and a little one, is that the little one will kill you just a little."

The emotional heart of the book, though, is the story of Phil and Hap. On March 10, 1945, "Phil's B29, Sentimental Journey, had just dropped the first bombs that would lead to the largest fire ever known to man. Over 100,000 people would burn to death in the next twenty-four hours. ... As his fellow B29 crews flew overhead just 5000 feet above him, an American B29 navigator huddled in his cell, terrified he would die that night in a Japanese prison camp. The navigator, Hap, survived that night, survived the war and fifty years later wandered into the Sky Kitchen for lunch. He sat at the center counter and coincidentally sat next to a guy named Phil, the Pathfinder of the March 10th raid over Tokyo."

The war left terrible scars, but both men would later return to Japan--a testimony to the courageous fellowship at the Sky Kitchen Cafe.

New book from award-winning Chico poet

2011-05-01T21:00:00.000-07:00

Troy Jollimore teaches philosophy at Chico State University, and his philosophical sensibility informs his poetry as he explores the intersection of inner and outer experience. "Truth be told," the poet writes in "The Solipsist," "the whole place, / everything that the eye / can take in, to the sky / and beyond into space, // lives inside of your skull." But that "raises a question // that comes up again and again, / as to why / God would make ear and eye / to face outward, not in?"

The poem is included in a masterful collection, "At Lake Scugog" ($16.95 in paperback from Princeton University Press, $9.99 in Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook e-book). Jollimore won the National Book Critics Circle Award for his first collection, "Tom Thomson in Purgatory," and the new book, part of the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets, includes fourteen poems that get inside the head of a mellower Tom Thomson.

The book's publication was celebrated last Thursday at the Blue Room Theatre with a literary event sponsored by Lyon Books in Chico.

In the title poem, "who I am / maintains an uneasy truce / with who I fear I am. ..." In "Meme, I, Self, and Eye: Fifteen Self-Portraits," the poet is "An inward facing projector / lighting a screen / that is its own audience."

But there is another out there, "On Location": "Even in the midst of silence the words of my language swarmed around me like flies. // Even in the midst of that swarm I could hear the director shouting Action! / Even in the midst of all that action I managed to take your hand. // Even in the midst of that swarm, that song, that silence, I found the resolve to kiss you. / Even in the midst of that kiss I knew you and I would end up on the cutting room floor."

Yet, in "To His Lover," "If you mistake me for / a solid and persisting thing, we both / will come to tears. Whereas, if you but grasp / the truth of what I am--then we'll still come / to tears; but there may first be time, before / this doom arrives, to get some kissing in."

Noted Bismarck biographer set for Chico book signing

2011-04-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

Who is Otto von Bismarck? As Prussian Prime Minister in the last half of the nineteenth century, he unified Germany and established the German Empire. When he died, in 1898, his son Herbert wrote that "I have lost the ... most splendid and noblest spirit in the world." Others did not have such salutary thoughts. Bismarck was ruthless, devilish even, a man given to rage--and a political genius.

"The real Bismarck," writes Jonathan Steinberg in an extraordinary new biography, "was a complex character: a hypochondriac with the constitution of an ox, a brutal tyrant who could easily shed tears, a convert to an extreme form of evangelical Protestantism, who secularized schools and introduced civil divorce." Steinberg's stated aim is to understand Bismarck by listening to his friends and his enemies, and to what Bismarck, in voluminous writings, had to say about himself.

The result is "Bismarck: A Life" ($34.95 in hardcover from Oxford University Press; $9.99 in Amazon Kindle and $14.97 in Barnes & Noble Nook e-book formats). Henry Kissinger, writing for the New York Times Book Review, called it "the best study of its subject in the English language."

Steinberg, Professor of Modern European History at the University of Pennsylvania, is in Chico for a short stay and will be signing books and talking about Bismarck at the Chico Barnes and Noble Store this coming Saturday, April 30, from 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.

Steinberg's work is large, like Bismarck's personality, but accessible and compelling. His curiosity about this man drives him onward and the reader is swept into a Europe that became the "ready room" for two world wars.

Bismarck "held office for twenty-eight years and transformed his world more completely than anybody in Europe during the nineteenth century with the exception of Napoleon, who was an Emperor and a General. Bismarck did it while being neither the one nor the other. ... He ruled Germany by making himself indispensable to a decent, kindly old man, who happened to be a king. ... His rule depended absolutely on the bond between William I and his chief minister and on nothing else." ... "With perfect justice, in August 1866, he pounded his fist on his desk and cried, 'I have beaten them all! All!'"

Author Ron Sider to speak at Jesus Center dinner

2011-04-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

As Christians look ahead to Easter, and the celebration of Jesus' resurrection, theologian Ron Sider asks some pointed questions: "What will Christians do in this time of swelling affluence and persistent poverty? Will we dare to remember that the God we worship tells us that 'whoever is kind to the poor lends to the LORD' (Prov. 19:17 NRSV)? Will Christians have the courage to seek justice for the poor, even if that means disapproval by affluent neighbors? Where will you and I stand?"

Sider is the author of "Rich Christians In An Age of Hunger: Moving From Affluence to Generosity" ($15.99 in paperback from Thomas Nelson Publishers; Amazon Kindle e-book $6.94; Barnes & Noble Nook e-book $9.99), now in its 5th edition (2005). First published in the late 1970s, the new edition notes that fewer in growing Asian economies are living in poverty. Still, worldwide, "more than a billion desperate neighbors live in wrenching poverty." Sider issues a clarion call for Christians to respond, not only in adopting a simpler lifestyle (and laughing at TV commercials) but in doing something that might change unjust social or political structures that prevent the poor from acquiring property.

Sider will speak at the annual Jesus Center benefit dinner on Friday, April 29, at Chico State University's BMU. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. Tickets (through April 15) are $35; a table for eight is $250. To purchase tickets, call (530) 345-2640 or visit www.jesuscenter.org.

Sider, founder of Evangelicals for Social Action, is Professor of Theology, Holistic Ministry and Public Policy at Palmer Seminary of Eastern University in Pennsylvania. His book is divided into four parts. The first looks at the economic realities of world poverty; the second presents "a Biblical perspective on the poor and possessions"; the third explores poverty's causes; the fourth offers practical advice (from implementing a "graduated tithe" and building Christian community to "correcting weaknesses in market economies" and "reducing unmanageable debt").

By turns controversial and convicting, Sider is optimistic about how God might work through his people today. "In obedience to our Lord, we could empower the poor through small loans, community development, and better societal systems. And in the process, we would learn again His paradoxical truth that true happiness flows from generosity."

West Sacramento poet's posthumous collection to be celebrated in Chico

2011-04-07T21:00:00.000-07:00

Quinton Duval loved the Delta region. He and his wife Nancy made their home there until his untimely death at 61 a year ago. "In the breeze," the poet writes, "I sometimes smell the sea. . . . She lies / back--picnic basket, blanket under /cottonwood, a day when clouds slow / to see her shining there. Good Lord, / thank you for the chicken, the cold / wine, the river coming down from / its source. Thank you for lips, a tongue, / and some imagination. For finger- / tips and skin warmed by sunlight. / Thank you for the sea, for what the river / discovers at its end, what waits / for all of us to come calling." ("Oceanic")

Duval was a creative writing instructor at Solano Community College and founded chapbook publisher Red Wing Press. His friend, poet Gary Thompson (who taught writing at Chico State University), worked with Duval in the last days of his life to bring together "Like Hay: Last Poems" ($16 in paperback from Chico's Bear Star Press).

Thompson will be reading from Duval's poetry, and from his own new collection, "To the Archaeologist Who Finds Us," at a book release celebration at Lyon Books in Chico, Wednesday, April 13 at 7:00 p.m.

Duval's poems are clear-minded and poignant. "They smell like hay to me, / your last sweet words / blown across the fields / of the bedroom and out / the window to join the real breeze / moving the trees and changing / May light from green to gold." ("Like Hay") "I am sixty and changing too, / my dreams filled with sea- / water and flickering fires on some shore." ("Late Summer") "Some of us cry in joy, relief, / in the thin clear stream of music / the body gives willingly away / as it collapses, exhausted, into dust." ("Red Memory")

* * *

"The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind," William Kamkwamba, is scheduled to speak Thursday, April 14 at Laxson Auditorium as part of the "Book in Common" program (www.butte.edu/bic or www.csuchico.edu/bic). My review is available on this blog. Ticket prices range from $10 for students and children to $20 for premium; for details, go to chicoperformances.com.

George Keithley limns the night

2011-03-31T21:00:00.000-07:00

Maybe because it's "the cruelest month," as T.S. Eliot would have it, April is National Poetry Month. In a time that mixes "memory and desire" we need the poet to call our attention afresh to the little corners of our lives. And so, just in time, we have "Night's Body" ($19 in paperback from WordTech Communications) by George Keithley.

He'll be reading his poems at Lyon Books in Chico on Tuesday, April 19 at 7:00 p.m.

The retired Chico State University professor illuminates the night we all must traverse. In five sections ("At Four in the Morning," "Winter Nocturnes," "Women at Night," "In the Night of Unknowing," and "Summer Night") Keithley awakens memory and desire in the context of shadows. The "Tree House," "A tree of stars / where our children stir and dream // they are flying from limb to limb / among the shining creatures taking shape / the moment the mind makes them out-- / The Hunter, two Bears, the Princess, the Swan, / dance on the dark floor of heaven. . . ."

But the heavenly visions are anchored to the earth. In "The Driver," "Before us Search and Rescue had planted flares. / Unsteady stars, they flamed up, hissed, flickered / over the slick creekside, revealing tape / that sealed the 'discovery site'--bold yellow / like the body bag laid out upon the bank. . . ."

And what will we do to the animals? "Who can inhabit the unholy sleep / of the soul once they wander / silently away? Who'll bark, howl, / bray, croak, whirr, whinny, all / together raise their joyful noise?" ("When They Leave" won the Pushcart prize.) The poet continues: "Droves of animals who mate and thrive / and swarm before our eyes only / to disappear when we dream / because they are too innocent / to survive."

"Winter Night": "Silence / thrives in the black night and we know / at the heart of this clarity / is sorrow." Then "The Dance": "Memory spares us nothing touched by love-- / You wept without a sound while my fingers brushed / your blouse--apple blossoms--then we walked down / among the last trees, their shifting shadows, / into the light to join the others."

Paradise author shares improbable life, from prison inmate to Cousteau diver

2011-03-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

What better title? "Extreme: On Living in the Intensity of the Moment" ($18 in paperback from Drugs Bite, www.drugsbite.com) summarizes the mind-boggling downs and ups of Stephen Arrington's life. The Paradise resident tells a first-person story of becoming addicted to marijuana (and, later, harder drugs) as a bomb disposal frogman stationed in Hawaii in the late 1970s. He was busted and kicked out of the Navy. Today he's a drug educator.

The gripping narrative is a sad history of bad choices. Arrington's picture hits the front page of the Los Angeles Times on October 21, 1982 as one of the accused drivers in a cocaine-smuggling operation masterminded by auto magnate John Z. DeLorean. It meant prison for Arrington and there, he writes, he found the freedom from self-deception he could not otherwise escape.

The author is scheduled to be interviewed by Nancy Wiegman on Nancy's Bookshelf tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM).

In prison he realizes that "all my choices were pre-determined by my quest for self-fulfillment on my terms. My relationship with God was also for my convenience." It's two in the morning. "There is no sudden decision, I just find myself climbing down from the bunk in my shorts and getting down on my knees on the cold concrete floor. The last thing I see before closing my eyes are the shadows of the jail bars silhouetted on the lower corner of the cell's wall. ... I am not sure that I am going to pray until it happens."

By 1985 he was out, landing a job teaching at the College of Oceaneering in Los Angeles. There he saves a student's life after a near-drowning. Receiving a Red Cross Certificate of Merit, "I look down at the signature upon it in wonder." It is personally signed by President Reagan. "I remember hearing President Reagan announcing his war on drugs while I was driving that drug-laden car in Florida."

Still thirsting for adventure, he's offered the job as Chief Diver for the Cousteau Society. In 1988, preparing for a filming expedition to Maui, he meets Cindy, she of the "playful hazel eyes," who lives in Paradise and who became his wife.

An improbable life indeed.

Writer Philip Yancey scheduled to speak in Chico Sunday morning

2011-03-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

Though he bills himself as a journalist, Philip Yancey manages in his many books not only to ask searching questions about God but to put the church on notice that superficial answers will not do. Yancey is an editor-at-large for Christianity Today; his books include "What's So Amazing About Grace?"; "Disappointment With God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud"; and "Where Is God When It Hurts?: A Comforting, Healing Guide For Coping With Hard Times."

His latest is a response to the "new skeptics" who question God's goodness and very existence. "What Good is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters" ($23.99 in hardcover from FaithWords; $10.99 in Amazon Kindle or Barnes & Noble Nook e-book) puts it bluntly: "Often when people pose a question like 'What good is God?' they are asking why God doesn’t intervene more directly and with more force. Why did God let Hitler do so much damage, or Stalin and Mao? Why doesn’t God take a more active role in human history?"

Yancey is scheduled to speak at all three morning services this Sunday at Bidwell Presbyterian Church (located next to Chico State University). He'll give one message at 8:30 and 9:45 in the sanctuary, and a second at the El Rey Theater in downtown Chico at 11:11. The presentations are free and open to the public; best seating is at 8:30 or 11:11.

"What Good is God?" is arranged in ten parts, each recounting a trip in search of answers, each presenting a talk Yancey gave. "This book," he writes, "relates stories from places like China, where the church grows spectacularly despite an atheistic government; and the Middle East, where a once-thriving church in the heartland now barely hangs on; and South Africa, where a multicolored church picks through the pieces of its racist past. In the United States I have visited not only Virginia Tech and a convention of prostitutes, but also a group of alcoholics in Chicago and two enclaves in the Bible Belt South."

Yancey's book is not a logical defense of Christianity, but a picture of God at work in the trenches. The author is convinced that "for whatever reason, God chooses to make himself known primarily through ordinary people like us."

Mud-lover Dick Cory muddles through

2011-03-10T21:00:00.000-08:00

Chicoan Dick Cory is a man of the sod. The theme runs from "Six Boys and a Bag of Dirt" (essays about growing up in small-town Nebraska) to his latest compilation, "Seeking Common Ground" (self-published paperback; write the author at ubangarang@yahoo.com to order). Cory writes that the title conveys "multiple meanings and connections to earth. My books promote the value of dirt. We all have a stake in protecting this common ground."

But, as the author makes clear, that doesn't mean everyone has to agree. "Seeking Common Ground" is dedicated to long-time writing teacher Hannie Voyles, whose poem, "Contradiction," celebrates the energy produced when "We meet and merge, / and counter and clash." In seventy-six chapters, Cory takes some decidedly strong views, from the importance of unions to his wish not to be cremated or buried but to be turned into soap slurry and purified at a water treatment plant. (Ever the punster, he calls this "a slurry with a fringe on top.")

Cory will be signing copies of his books this Saturday from 1:00 - 4:00 p.m. at Made in Chico, 127 W. Third Street.

The chapters include several short stories (a sexy murder mystery and a steamy gym workout among them) and ruminations on the importance of one's conversational community. For Cory, that means the R.O.D.E.O. club ("Retired Old Duffers Eating Out"). "Our former professions, political and religious views, and lifetime experiences cover the full spectrum. We agree and disagree with equal passion." Other essays opine about the demise of bumpers (replaced by plastic that breaks at a mere nudge) and the difference between care giving and "caretaking." Some of the reflections are somber, some more light hearted (Cory is a notorious prankster).

He claims to have been the first to use "reality check" back in 1976 or so. And "it may be dum (mud spelled backwards), but I love mud" (except for "mud slinging by rivals with muddled-minds" who "seek to muddy the waters of progress").

Cory's generation came after "the Greatest Generation" and "carries no moniker. . . . All of our experiences (including six-man football), work ethic and job stability are recorded in our brain. This legacy must be shared with our descendants if they are to profit from our successes and failures."

Under Lake Oroville, the town of Bidwell still beckons

2011-03-03T21:00:00.000-08:00

For seven years Chuck Smay has been digging into the historical records of a small town that for a short time in the nineteenth century was the seat of government in Butte County. His work, some written in the first person, reads like a mystery story as he pieces together evidence from old deeds as to the businesses there and old maps as to the size of the place. General readers will enjoy the winsome narrative and armchair historians will appreciate the carefully chosen details.

"The Town of Bidwell at Bidwell's Bar: Boom and Bust, 1848 - 1860" ($25 in paperback from the Butte County Historical Society, buttehistory@sbcglobal.net) has a companion website,

http://sites.google.com/site/bidwellthetown. Copies of the book are available at the Society's Museum Store in Oroville (http://www.buttecountyhistoricalsociety.org/giftshop.html).

Smay provides first an overview of the town's history with a chapter devoted to its various names (Bidwell, Bidwell's Bar, Bidwell Bar). Next is the story (an adventure, really) of map reconstruction and then several chapters devoted to the post office, the town's newspaper, the National Hotel, and the bridge at Bidwell's Bar. There are also historical photographs and a wealth of appendices.

In 1854 the editor of the Butte Record in Bidwell "expressed his view of community values": "Dropping into one of the newly erected saloons in town the other evening, we were surprised and shocked to see the youth of Bidwell, gathered around several tables, and engaged in the nefarious business of gambling."

There's also the story of a political fight for the future of Bidwell. "Between 1853 and 1856 Bidwell was the center of county government." A fire gutted the town in 1854, but the residents rebuilt. "In 1854 talk started about the construction of a permanent bridge across the Feather River at Bidwell" and "the local newspaper championed the continued prosperity of the town and unlimited future growth."

But the town failed to reckon with nearby Ophir (Oroville) "which began flexing its political and economic muscle," causing "vicious editorial exchanges" between rival newspapers. Bidwell lost. "Its remaining glory was perpetuated by a bridge, tollhouse, orange tree and a small community of businesses that served the needs of the local residents who refused to leave the area." But now, in print, it lives again.

Chico couple's cross-country journey mixes social activism and vegetable oil

2011-02-24T21:00:00.000-08:00

In July 2007 Chris Nelson and her spouse Michael Pike celebrated retirement from nursing careers by setting off on a nine-month journey. Their transportation of choice: "An '87 Ford F-250 four-wheel drive 3/4-ton pickup with a 8' cab-over camper," a "multi-fuel vehicle able to run on diesel fuel, bio-diesel, or straight vegetable oil." They called it the Veggie Voyager.

Nelson kept a blog along the way (http://veggievoyagers.blogspot.com) and now its content, including some stunning landscape photographs, has been published as "The Veggie Voyagers: An Eco-Friendly, Low Budget Loop Of North America's Wild Places Powered By Used Cooking Oil" ($26 in paperback from Are-We-There-Yet Press) by Chris Nelson with Michael Pike.

The couple will be sharing their "adventures in mobile homelessness" tonight at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books in Chico.

"This is a book about retiring on $40 a day," Nelson writes. "It's a book about loss of habitat and environmental threats. Most of all, it's a book about the beauty of the natural world." The couple sometimes bought vegetable oil from Costco, but often along the way obtained the used variety from fast-food chains. Any water had to be removed from the oil. The filtration process involved a modified juicer and a contraption that looked more like a still or meth lab. It took hours, and more than once local law enforcement asked them to move along.

Nelson and Pike (along with Sasha, the dog, who learned repeated lessons about porcupines) traversed some twenty states and three Canadian provinces. "I figured out we'd stayed 16 times at Walmarts and 67 days with friends, family or under the wing of New Orleans folks. We've stayed at gravel pits, casinos, . . . hot springs, dumps, roadside turnouts, BLM land, campgrounds and four motels."

During their trip they participated in a rally in New Orleans on behalf of public housing, made tense with abundant police presence. In Utah they visited the town of Monticello where the "uranium and vanadium processing plant" "had created a legacy of cancers." They walked among the Bristlecone Pines on the Eastern Sierra and took a "walking meditation. The trees had one voice. It was a low, slow, deep, muted sap hum."

And they showered every four days, needed or not.

Chico author's heartbreaking true story

2011-02-17T21:00:00.000-08:00

In 1962, the Salvation Army's Booth Memorial Home in inner-city Oakland existed to "house, hide and feed" pregnant teens and unwed mothers. Fifteen-year-old Judi G. found herself there that summer. "I'm horrified my friends will find out where I am and why. Being in trouble doesn't mean the simple words, she's pregnant. It means I had sex, and that is the worst part of the truth, the dirty truth. I feel dirty; I am dirty."
Young Judi's thoughts are captured with poignant clarity by Chico author Judi Loren Grace. "The Third Floor" ($14.99 in paperback from Jetstream Publishing) is her own story, pieced together from letters she sent her lifelong friend, Joanie, that summer of '62. Written in the voice of her fifteen-year-old self, the story traces Judi's growing up years in Porterville and the aftermath of delivering a child. "I have a son. . . . I'm tired and happy and scared. I was in labor for sixty-five hours."
Lyon Books in Chico will hold a book signing and talk by the author on Monday, February 28 at 7:00 p.m.
The book reads like a novel, yet there are historical photographs throughout, an epilogue explaining what happened to those involved, and a selection of Judi's letters to Joanie ("For the past two nights about 12 girls have met in the parlor and we dance. I've learned to do the Continental walk, Texas Hop, Watusi and the Bristol Stomp" . . . "Don't get the idea that I'm having one big blast cause honey I'm not.").
Then there's the agonizing moment of giving up the child. "The new mother stands to get the baby. . . . I stand in the middle of our living room in full sight, kiss him on the top of his head, smell his scent, rub my cheek on his cheek as he sleeps, unaware he is changing mothers; then I look at his face for the last time."
But it isn't the last time. "Secret stuff has a way of oozing out," as therapist Silona Reyman says in the book's resource page. "Sometimes secrets explode. Secret keepers in the world of adoption play a dangerous and heartless game."
Co-owner, with daughter Dana, of Satori Color and Hair Design, Judi Loren Grace has penned a courageous narrative and reclaimed a life.

[Clarification: Author Silona Reyman has clarified that she is the writer of the quotes: “Secret stuff has a way of oozing out. Sometimes secrets explode. Secret keepers in the world of adoption play a dangerous and heartless game.” They are from her book, “Musings of a Ghost Mother.” The text of the original review has been updated.]

Creative writing for kids from a Chico State University grad

2011-02-10T21:00:00.000-08:00

"Wool around with fords," writes Karen Benke, spooneristically. "Rake tisks!" Her new book does just that. It's called "Rip the Page: Adventures in Creative Writing" ($14.95 in paperback from Trumpeter, an imprint of Shambhala Publications). As the cover proclaims, "Rip" "includes word play, open-ended writing experiments, encouragement from writers and poets, and enough blank pages to let your words roam."

With a degree in creative writing from Chico State University and an M.A. in Writing from the University of San Francisco, Benke conducts workshops with California Poets in the Schools. Based in the Bay Area, she visited Lyon Books last year to help empower young writers. As she says in her introduction, "Let the tip of you pen scrawl, scribble, leap, doodle, and rip, rip, rip! That's what creative writers do when they aren't busy staring, day-dreaming, and eavesdropping."

Here are dozens and dozens of writing exercises brilliantly disguised as word games. There are word lists (such as sound words like "buuuuurrpp!" and "eeek!"); "try this" experiments (writing a poem about a real-life hero. Let's see: What rhymes with "Rodgers"?); "definition decoders" (connecting inner and outer worlds by describing "what color a star sounds like" or "what does a new idea feel like?"); "suddenly a story" (writing about something HUGE, like a disappointment, and writing about scars, inner and outer: "Tip the word S-C-A-R on its side and see what oozes out. Put your initials on it, date it, tape it above your desk. Look in the mirror and congratulate yourself. Smile at that brave warrior gazing back at you").

Scattered throughout are words from writers to young writers. There's "a note from" Lemony Snicket: "You must spend time eavesdropping on the world, writing down things you see and hear while no one is paying attention to you. This is best done with a notebook, and the first thing you should write down in your notebook is an excuse, so if you are ever caught eavesdropping you will have a good reason. . . ."

Betsy Franco likes "to act like a mad chemist and put things together that don't normally mix, such as math and poetry." ("puddles - rescued worms = cloudy mirrors")

My try: We oldsters support Aaron. Codgers for Rodgers!

An adventure in the Arctic from a Chico novelist

2011-02-03T21:00:00.000-08:00

Phyl Manning spends her time in Chico and New Hampshire, but in her imagination she lives among the Inuit, specifically those in the high Arctic reaches, the Inupiat. Her new novel (a sequel to "Kiti On Ice") is "Arctic Circles" ($15.99 in paperback from Raven's Wing Books). In this story Kiti is now grandmother to fourteen-year-old Nik (pronounced "neek") and his older brother, Sitok. Artistic Nik is not much of a hunter, but a series of events forces him to confront some of the fiercest animals in the wilderness and brings him face-to-face with the "dog people."

The author will be signing copies of her books tonight at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books in Chico.

The "dog people" are the kalunait, those with "heavy eyebrows," Westerners from the south. An anthropologist, Clifford Belson, travels to Nik's village and brings his twelve-year-old daughter, Bonnie ("PAH-nee" to the villagers).

Because of her outfit Nik thinks she is another male, someone wanting to study the ways of the Inupiat, and together with Sitok the three share some breathless adventures. "Nik's hunting improved because he himself now had someone to teach. On rare days, Sitok took both of them out with him--for fish, for seal." And then comes the encounter with Nanuk, the great bear. Sitok nearly loses his life; Nik finds unexpected courage; Bonnie saves the sled-dog Nuko.

It is 1935. Far away to the south great nations are struggling with economic depression and rumors of Nazi aggression. "And 1935 will be the last generation for Arctic Inupiat to live within their five-thousand-year-old tradition, for civilized people and now whole governments to the south are encroaching, are determined to emend these primitive folk who have for so long lived in health and harmony with their land and with each other." Some Inupiat have journeyed south to villages so vast they actually have a name; among them is Nik's father.

But now Nik's parents have disappeared in a flood and he is determined to find them. Nik's growing maturity and resourcefulness form the centerpiece of the novel and make for a gripping tale suitable for young adults.

Never settled, Nik and his kin always prepare food caches for the next journey. "Inupiat travel--that's what they do."

Butte College philosophy instructor answers the big questions

2011-01-27T21:00:00.000-08:00

Ric Machuga has distilled thirty years of teaching philosophy at Butte College into a new book with a rather playful title: "Life, the Universe and Everything" ($36 in paperback from Cascade Books). But the book is serious in intent, and not only does it take up the biggest questions of all (what is truth? are humans free? does God exist?) but proceeds to answer them. In a calm, humble, and convincing fashion Machuga shows the implications of some simple commonsense propositions ("plants and animals exist; square circles and other contradictions do not exist; and nothing comes from nothing") have enormous consequences.

These consequences are fleshed out in what the book's subtitle calls "An Aristotelian Philosophy for a Scientific Age." Though no physicist or biologist would follow Aristotle's ancient Greek science today, Aristotle nevertheless had some profound things to say about the scientific enterprise. He was a philosophical realist, meaning that he was convinced that plants and animals were really there, outside of our minds. Some philosophers today are not so sure, and that's the problem. It's hard to make sense of the world without a real world to make sense of.

As my colleague and friend points out, Aristotle's insights, enriched (and surpassed) by the Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas in the middle ages, can help ordinary people in their daily quest for "the good life." The modern age, Machuga writes, has mistakenly focused on promoting "values" (which frequently clash). Aristotle and Aquinas emphasized the virtues, those habits of life that lead to genuine flourishing for all humans.

The question of God dominates the final chapters (all of which feature lucid summaries and extensive notes for those who want to dig deeper). "Philosophical realism," Machuga writes, "is inherently theistic." But if God exists, why is there evil? The author rejects the standard free will defense since it envisions humans as autonomous creatures, a contradiction. A better answer involves "the paradoxes of omnipotence" and evil as a privation (as strange as that may sound).

Want a book to chew on? Make it this one.

The author will discuss what it means to be human at the fourth Science and Religion Conference, "Neuroscience and the Human Soul," hosted by Bidwell Presbyterian Church, tomorrow and Saturday. Details at www.bidwellpres.org.

A life of John Bidwell for teens

2011-01-20T21:00:00.000-08:00

Kudos to Nancy Leek for bringing Chico's founder to life. "John Bidwell: The Adventurous Life of a California Pioneer" ($20 in paperback from ANCHR) is aimed specifically at the young adult audience, but it also found your friendly columnist standing and cheering.

The book is available at Lyon Books in Chico, at Bidwell Mansion, Made in Chico, and Teachers Book Connection, or from ANCHR (The Association for Northern California Historical Research), www.csuchico.edu/anchr. You can also write the author at bidwellbook@gmail.com or visit her blog at nancyleek.wordpress.com.

Leek is children's librarian at the Orland Free Library and she and her husband Jim reside in Chico. Her words are beautifully crafted. She wears her research lightly and develops a strong narrative line with John, and later John and his wife Annie, at the center. Her choice quotations from Bidwell's journals and other writings reveal a man of his time but also a man who could little abide the harsh treatment of the native Mechoopda and the emigrant Chinese.

Replete with period photographs, the story opens with John, at seven, walking fourteen miles to see a new steamboat launched on Lake Erie. Throughout the rest of his life he pushed into new territories. Bidwell, writes Leek, "came to California in 1841, an event that he considered a 'mere accident.' . . . He never thought he would find himself taking apart a Russian fort or supervising Indians at a Spanish mission. He never expected to discover gold or bring a new state into the Union or rise to the rank of general."

Though too honest to be good at electioneering, in 1880 he and Annie were visited by President Rutherford B. Hayes and his wife. And "the Bidwells became great friends with John Muir. ... In 1877 Bidwell took Muir" and several scientists "on expeditions to explore Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen. Muir stayed with the Bidwells for two months" and "found it hard to leave his friends in Chico and their 'cool fruity home.'"

"John Bidwell not only saw history," Leek writes, "he lived it and created it. By the end of the century he could say, 'The history of California lies like a map before me. Somewhat confused it may be, but I have seen it all.'"

Local authors offer compassion for caregivers

2011-01-13T21:00:00.000-08:00

William Martin is the founder of The Still Point Center for Zen Practice in Chico. His wife, Nancy, is its director. Together they have drawn on years of counseling to offer "The Caregiver's Tao Te Ching: Compassionate Caring For Your Loved Ones and Yourself" ($14 in paperback from New World Library). The Martins are scheduled to talk about their work tonight at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books in Chico.

The ancient "Tao Te Ching" of Lao Tzu reflects on the mysterious Tao in 81 short chapters. Its message, say the Martins, is deceptively simple: "You are, by nature, an expression of the Tao, and its wisdom and power are part of your true nature. Let go of the stories to the contrary and live in wonder and appreciation." The "stories" come from what the Martins call "the conditioned mind."

For caregivers, the conditioned mind is always asking "Am I doing this right?" It tends to tell and not listen; it tries to problem-solve rather than accept. By contrast, the Martins have adapted the chapters of Lao Tzu to present what they call the "Tao mind" in short poems and brief commentary. "If we believe in our conditioned mind," they write in Chapter 30, "there is never a time when we can stop doing. / There is always more to do. // If we trust our Tao mind, / times to stop and rest appear like rainbows, / surprising us in the cloudy sky. / Pay attention to these times."

The book eloquently encourages "compassion, simplicity, and patience," but the paradox of the Tao is that it is indifferent even to these labels. So the Martins have interpreted the Tao though Buddhist eyes.

The authors know first hand the challenges of care giving. "We may look ahead to some task we fear we won't be able to do. From a distance the task seems like a cliff edge. . . . As we keep going, we find that we reach that cliff without noticing. We are doing what naturally unfolds, and suddenly here is the task we had dreaded. Now that it is here, there is no question that we will be able to keep going. What appeared too difficult is now just what needs to be done."

Authors: "Pitchapalooza" is coming to Chico

2011-01-06T21:00:00.000-08:00

Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry know publishing from the inside out. Both are successful writers and "authorpreneurs." Together, the married couple has produced the most current and practical guidebook for aspiring authors I've ever seen. "The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published: How to Write It, Sell It, and Market It . . . Successfully!" ($15.95 in paperback from Workman Publishing) is full of real-world examples, including the success of local author Susan Wooldridge, whose "Poemcrazy" is now in its umpty-umpth printing.

After years of promoting their own books, the authors found themselves in demand as "book doctors" for others. True to their own advice, they have plunged into social media with a website (www.thebookdoctors.com) and more. Now they are bringing their well-received "Pitchapalooza" workshop to Chico.

This free event will be held at the 1078 Gallery, 820 Broadway, on Tuesday, January 18 at 7:00 p.m., and is sponsored by Chico's Lyon Books. According to publicity materials, local writers get sixty seconds to make their best pitch to a panel of experts, including the authors, who will provide feedback on the concept and its potential in the marketplace. The winner of the competition will receive an introduction to an agent.

"The Essential Guide" is divided into three sections. The first, "Setting Up Shop," deals with the new world of social networking as well as book proposals and finding representation (Eckstut is herself a longtime literary agent). "Taking Care of Business" takes on contracts, working with a publisher, and self-publishing. "Getting the Word Out" concerns the fine art of selling. Key to the guidance is the importance of research. New writers simply have to know the terrain out there--which books might be competitors?--if they are to increase their chances of a sale. In fact, the reader is halfway through the book before the authors say it's time to sit down and write.

Tips abound, like checking the acknowledgements page of similar books for possible contacts, but in the end a writer's passion must carry the day. Eckstut and Sterry have the passion, and wit. Get the book.

PROGRAM NOTE: Please join host Nancy Wiegman and me for a live edition of Nancy's Bookshelf tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7FM).

Booked for 2010

2010-12-30T21:00:00.000-08:00

Three categories dominated the reviews this year. First, memoirs: "The Story of Another Child's Christmas in Wales" (Lynn Elliott); "I Grew Up In Latvia" (Zig Vidners); "Burning Bears Fall From the Sky" (Peter Edridge); "A Life To Remember" (Gregory Ghica); "From Harlem To Hollywood: My Life In Music" (Van Alexander with Stephen Fratallone); "Google Brain" (Gordon Greb); "Sometimes, Memories Are All We Have" (Shari Edwards).

Next, novels and short stories: "Crown of Dust" (Mary Volmer); "The Great Bay" (Dale Pendell); "Rubber Tuesday" (Phil Coppock and Mrs. Bower's 2008-2009 4th Grade Class); "Captured By Desire" ("Kira Morgan"); "Rose Cottage" (Olivia Claire High); "Voices of a City of Gold: Stories From Oroville, California" (Leslie Hale Roberts); "Murder at the Altar" (Terry Phillips); "Desiree" (Doug Keister); "Heart of a Pirate" (Pamela Johnson); "The Departure Lounge" (Paul Eggers); "The Last Baktun" (Lisa Westwood); "The World Is At Your Feet" (G. Donovan Oakes); "Gene Pool" (Steven Maass and Katherine Terstegen); "Submerged in Darkness" (Shannon A. Hiner).

Finally, the broad category of self-help: "The Pebble Path: Returning Home From a Forest of Shadows" (Jan Hasak); "The Couples Thrival Guide" (Shannon Sheridan); "To Believe Or Not To Believe: The Social and Neurological Consequences of Belief Systems" (Rahasya Poe); "Alligators in the Water Cooler" (Judith Munson); "The Tao of Forgiveness: The Healing Power of Forgiving Others and Yourself" (William Martin); "The Mindful Path Through Shyness: How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Help Free You From Social Anxiety, Fear and Avoidance" (Steven H. Flowers); "Deep Down Things" (Lin Jensen).

Add three volumes of poetry: "Where Once" (Sally Allen McNall); "Vortumna" (Sarkis Shmavonian); "Gorrill's Orchard" (Jeanne E. Clark).

Throw in some history: "Hops and Dreams: The Story of the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co." (Rob Burton); "Durham Locations, Landmarks, Lads and Ladies" (Adriana Farley); "The U.S. Navy's Coastal and Motor Minesweepers, 1941-1953" (David D. Bruhn); "Chico History Minutes" (Verda Mackay).

Politics: "House of Lords" (Charles W. Frank).

Guides: "Mount Shasta Guide to Fun" (Robin Kohn); "The Birds of Bidwell Park" (Roger Lederer); "Light Travel: Photography On the Go" (Tom Dempsey).

And season with kid stuff: "The Famous Nini: A Mostly True Story of How a Plain White Cat Became a Star" (Mary Nethery); "Math Wise!" (Jim Overholt and Laurie Kincheloe); "Crowlyle Finds His Caw" (Vic Sbarbaro); "Love and Logic Money-isms: Wise Words About Raising Money-Smart Kids" (Jim Fay and Kristan Leatherman).

That wraps up the year, except to remind do-it-yourself authors that Publishers Weekly is now featuring quarterly listings of self-published works. Submissions close January 31, 2011. Details: www.PublishersWeekly.com/diy

The day after Christmas

2010-12-23T21:00:00.000-08:00

For those who embrace what the Christmas carols herald--the coming of God to earth in the form of a small child--the "good tidings of great joy" speak of a new kind of life here and now. Yet for Christians around the world how this life works itself out on the "day after Christmas," and all the days yet to come, is not easily answered. It is an "in-between" time when believers are not yet fully formed but are wooed by God's grace to conform more and more to the image of the God-Man.

This is the starting point of a provocative new book by N.T. (Tom) Wright, formerly Anglican Bishop of Durham (in the U.K.), now Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St. Andrews University in Scotland. "After You Believe" ($24.99 in hardcover from HarperOne; $11.99 in Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook e-book formats) is subtitled "Why Christian Character Matters." It matters, Wright maintains, because it's true to the kind of life transformation set out by the New Testament.

"Character," he writes, "--the transforming, shaping, and marking of a life and its habits--will generate the sort of behavior that rules might have pointed toward but which a 'rule-keeping' mentality can never achieve. And it will produce the sort of life which will in fact be true to itself--though the 'self' to which it will at least be true is the redeemed self, the transformed self, not the merely 'discovered' self of popular thought."

Wright draws upon the ancient tradition of virtue to illuminate what he means by character. Virtue--excellence--comes through practice and enables the person to respond appropriately in a wide variety of situations.

But the Biblical idea of virtue, Wright says, is not about celebrating the individual. "Christian virtue isn't about you--your happiness, your fulfillment, your self-realization. It's about God and God's kingdom, and your discovery of a genuine human existence by the paradoxical route--the route God himself took in Jesus Christ!--of giving yourself away, of generous love which constantly refuses to take center stage."

Christians are to be a royal priesthood, clothed in "humility, charity, patience, and chastity." It is nothing less than the practice, through God's power, of becoming fully human.

Lynn Elliott remembers Welsh Christmases. . . .

2010-12-16T21:00:00.000-08:00

Born and raised in Cardiff, Wales, Lynn Elliott, a professor of English and creative writing at Chico State University, shares family memories with groups around the country. He's now reworked his autobiographical tales into "The Story of Another Child's Christmas in Wales" ($10.95 in paperback from Memoir Books). Elliott is scheduled to be interviewed by Nancy Wiegman on Nancy's Bookshelf, Friday, Dec. 24, at 10:00 a.m. on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM).

Decorations have "all mystically appeared, overnight, in James Howells' department store, Queen Street, heralding the beginning of Christmas season in the sea-faring capital city of Wales, Cardiff. I am four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten and eleven years old, chocked full with accumulated memories of food, joy, song, and jolly, wind-swept shoppers."

Mostly Lynn is eleven, a celebratory mixture of naivete and sarcasm. Reading the book, listening to the tone, I thought of Jean Shepherd's voice-overs in the classic film A Christmas Story. Young Lynn is lurching toward adulthood.

"Last year," he says, "before the prospect of Lynn attaining manhood entered my parents' minds, I got a cowboy suit for Christmas. Dressed in my boots, spurs, leggings, chaps, shirt, gun belt, guns, waistcoat and one-gallon hat, I sidled out of the front door into Forrest Road, seeking a show-down with Billy-O the Kid, the bully who lived ten houses down from ours. Did Wyatt Earp ever fight in snow? No time to ponder the question, as an iceball--not even a snowball, but an iceball!--hammered into my ear and slid slowly, like a polar iceberg, down my once-warm neck. I reentered the sheriff's office, crying for my mother and vowing that next year I'd get a snow-scooping machine gun. . . . "

There are drunken carollers, oddball neighbors, Tiddles the cat exacting revenge on a certain boy's Meccano set tower, but everything moves toward Christmas Day night and the Elliott family gathering, the flowing elderberry wine and singing relatives, and Auntie Bess ("a diminutive woman with a voice like an air raid siren"), all tinged by quiet news that Grandma Elliott may be celebrating her last Christmas. And for grandma: Lynn's boisterous, be-wigged performance as Ethel Merman.

How can one be sad this night when "everything's coming up roses"?

Chico writer remembers her Latvian childhood and the pain of exile

2010-12-09T21:00:00.000-08:00

Zigrid (Zig) Vidners writes for the "younger generations of exiled Latvians," recalling her childhood in the city (Riga, the capital) and on the family farm in the years between world wars. The story quietly unfolds in "I Grew Up In Latvia" (paperback, self-published; for purchase information contact the author at vidners@sbcglobal.net).

The first half of the book takes the author to her thirteenth year and recounts mostly happy memories. Life is much more unsettled in the second half. Zigrid encounters the first feelings of love and faces the implications of war. The story is really a love affair with Latvia and invites slow reading on a rainy day to take in the sights and sounds of a time long past.

Lyon Books is hosting a signing in the new year on Thursday, February 17 at 7:00 p.m.

The author remembers some of "the most joyous celebrations in Latvia, the Midsummer Fest" called "Ligo," "to sway." People begin to sway, "reaching out toward each other and toward the higher powers who bring them blessings." She is close to her father, a military man, but has an uneasy relationship with her mother. Zigrid learns to herd cows and loves to spend time in the nearby forest.

But history intrudes. Latvian freedom "was interrupted by the forceful invasion by the Soviet Union in 1940, which brought a pattern of terror that many Latvians would never forget. The outbreak of World War II brought German occupation in 1941, then a Soviet onslaught again in 1944. Knowing what this would bring, many made the hard decision to leave their beloved country to save their lives."

At fifteen, "a strange thing happened to me. . . . As I looked at the pale evening sky against the dark treetops of the forest, I thought how another day was gone and the night was coming. But then these ordinary thoughts took on a deeper meaning. It was as if somebody had said these words to me, making me realize that 'my night' too would come one day. . . Was it God who talked to me for the first time?"

In the end, Zigrid and her family must flee Latvia for Germany. That is another tale, for another book.

Paradise poet sees the folly of history, finds tenderness that touches the dead

2010-12-02T21:00:00.000-08:00

Sally Allen McNall's new book of poetry travels the world, encountering violence but also a measure of love. "Where Once" ($14 in paperback from Main Street Rag) is part of the publisher's "Editor's Select Poetry Series." Lyon Books in Chico is hosting a reading by the author on Tuesday, December 14 at 7:00 p.m.

In "Goodbye to Byzantium" the poet laments: "It is tender where I cannot go. / Baghdad, where once gardens. / A shore where once wild strawberries this small." There are "Concrete Particulars" to attend to: "Yes, but in this book of horrors you refuse, / this documentation of systematic, categorical death, / writer and reader must step back, if only a step, / or tenderness could not touch the dead, as it must." That word again: tenderness.

If tenderness cannot stop the "lively venom, vaccine / against hope," perhaps it can work its way into the "Hard Places": "I say on the phone I have given alms to Muslims and my friend says shut up shut up hangs up // e-mails me you could be accused of giving money to terrorists // You can't live the Berber's life, / he said, without some hard places forming in you."

The book's cover shows a detail of "Six Wooden Blocks" by G. Daniel Massad; "Six Wooden Blocks," the poet writes, "--named revenge, remorse / repentance, regret / remembrance, release // You might spend / a whole morning / stacking them / in one order / then another // . . . They are fashioned / of heartwood, / oiled, heavy, / never softening / to the touch."

But poets live, like Keats, Whitman. And Wordsworth. "You say goodbye to your unhappy childhood," the author writes to Wordsworth in "'Fallings From Us, Vanishings.'" "You learned how to love. And I say, forget / that it turned to fear and finally indifference, forget / that hope had to be relearned later and elsewhere, forget / your thousand poems to the members of other species. // There is anger everywhere in the world and sorrow / following. Even the Buddha would not tell you to forget / this, while you are busy remembering the bobolink, snow-cricket, brown bat, peony, honeysuckle."

"Book in Common" author: Harnessing the wind, and thankful for libraries

2010-11-25T21:00:00.000-08:00

In December 2000 the floods came to Malawi. But that was not the worst of it. The water disappeared and drought set in. The maize crop was stunted. In late January 2002 “the hunger” came to Malawi and starvation with it. William Kamkwamba's parents and sisters (now half a dozen) barely made it through. There was no money to send the teenage William to school; he seemed destined to be a poor farmer for the rest of his life.

That is, except for an insatiable curiosity about mechanical things, and for a nearby library--really just a few shelves. The books about windmills planted an idea. Just a few years later William (williamkamkwamba.typepad.com) found himself on the international stage, with a Twitter account.

He and co-author Bryan Mealer (a former AP reporter) tell William's extraordinary and heartening story in "The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope" ($14.99 in paperback from Harper Perennial; $9.99 in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook e-book formats; $27.99 unabridged from Harper Audio).

The audio version, ably voiced by actor Chike Johnson, makes William's excitement palpable in discovering how a bicycle "dynamo" works and how "electric wind" might power a house. William is an optimist, even in the midst of famine. Science captures him; traditional magic knows nothing of circuit breakers.

"My parents had raised us to be churchgoing Presbyterians who believed God was the best protection. Once you opened your heart to magic, we were taught, you never knew what else you might let inside. We respected the power of juju, even feared it, but my family always trusted our faith would prevail."

In 2006 some Malawi officials were “inspecting the library at Wimbe Primary when they noticed my windmill.” The story spread, and it eventually came to the attention of the program director of TEDGlobal 2007. TED stands for “Technology, Entertainment and Design,” and its conferences feature “scientists, inventors, and innovators with big ideas.”

William's windmill, cobbled together from scrap pile parts, is one such "big idea." One day, he hopes, it will change the face of Africa.

Kamkwamba is scheduled to speak in Chico this coming April as part of the 2010-2011 "Book in Common" program (www.butte.edu/bic or www.csuchico.edu/bic).

A toast to Sierra Nevada Brewing Company

2010-11-18T21:00:00.000-08:00

Monday marked the thirtieth anniversary of the company Michael J. Lewis--professor emeritus of brewing science at UC Davis--describes as "the most perfect brewery on the planet." Lewis was interviewed by Chico State University English professor Rob Burton as part of Burton's three-year research project that has borne fruit as "Hops and Dreams: The Story of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co." ($19.95 in paperback from Chico's Stansbury Publishing). It's a layman's romp through the brewing process and, more importantly, through what was brewing in Ken Grossman's mind when he arrived in Chico in 1972 in a blue Volkswagan bus.

Divided into five chapters, the book surveys beer history, the history of Sierra Nevada (including the never-ending pursuit of "hop harmony") and the guiding lights of "People, Planet, Profit" that make the company's principles applicable in wider contexts. Along the way Burton addresses some of the challenging times, from weathering the craft brew "bubble" of the late nineties, to Ken Grossman's buyout of business partner Paul Camusi; from the tragic death in 2007 of Steve Harrison, "the first employee to be hired by Grossman and Camusi in 1981," to fending off outside interests.

Yet it's also an optimistic story of a microbrewery that "turned its flagship brew, Pale Ale, into the number one craft beer in the country, changing the tastes of a generation of beer drinkers who had grown up with sugary, carbonated, bland lagers. . . . The company soon acquired a national reputation for its cutting-edge conservation policies: recycling more than 99 percent of its production waste and byproducts and reusing spent yeast, hops, grain, carbon dioxide, wastewater, and heat."

The results are astounding; the brewery "has an average annual payroll of around $10 million which mostly stays in the local economy and it enjoys average annual sales of around $150 million."

Burton adds a series of "taproom conversations" in which he learns a life lesson about "flocculation" (you've got to get the yeast just right). He celebrates beer as "liquid bread" (it's "highly nutritious, high in fiber, low in fat and cholesterol") that, as one brewer puts it, "subtly reminds me, with every sip, how lucky I am to be alive, surrounded by beauty and good people, and living right here, right now."

Author of gender-bending gold rush era novel to visit Chico

2010-11-11T21:00:00.000-08:00

Bay Area-based Mary Volmer was born in Grass Valley, and in her first novel she draws on the gold rush heritage of the area to tell the story of a little outpost called Motherlode, just this side of Rough and Ready and not that far from Nevada City. Millard Fillmore may be running for President, but the Queen of Motherlode is a woman named Emaline, plump proprietress of the Victoria Inn who prostitutes herself during the week and insists everyone show up to the chapel Sunday mornings to hear Preacher John, who is usually sober, at least then.

Then young Alex rides into town. Alex--Alexandra--is dressed as a young man; her parents dead, she is fleeing from her Gran, a woman with precious little tolerance for youthful desires and no compassion when those desires result in tragedy. So Alex is running away; she fools the gaggle of characters who frequent the tavern until one day, exploring an abandoned mining claim, she finds a gold nugget.

Lyon Books in Chico will host a free literary event with the author on Tuesday, November 16 at 7:00 p.m.

Volmer probes deeply. "Crown of Dust" ($24 in hardcover from Soho Press; $9.99 in Amazon Kindle e-book) is a brooding, compulsively readable tale of identity lost and won.

Alex grows restless maintaining her ruse. A man named David Trellona has entered the picture, "fresh out of Cornwall and thinkin' he knows more about mining than those Empire folks over in Grass Valley." If Alex has complicated feelings for David, David's feelings for Alex are even more complicated.

Yet, as Alex thinks about nature, "the camouflage, the deception, it was ubiquitous. A praying mantis posing as a branch, a moth holding motionless and leaf-like, a red water snake basking in the sun, impersonating river mud. She marvelled at the relief she felt at this revelation, as though nature had somehow exonerated her for posing as someone, something she was not." But relief does not last. A reporter comes to town, suspicious that Alex might be the Boy Bandit. And is Emaline protecting Jed, a runaway slave? Bullets will fly, and death will come to Motherlode. But through that death, Alex will find some small measure of redemption.

Chico becomes a coastal town in new eco-novel

2010-11-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

Dale Pendell is not only a contributor to the Huffington Post; he also achieved cult popularity with the Pharmako trilogy ("an encyclopedic study of the history and uses of psychoactive plants and related synthetics"). A proponent of what his website (dalependell.com) calls "wild mind," he has been deeply influenced by "poet Gary Snyder, Zen teacher Robert Aitken, and philosopher Norman O. Brown."

Now the Sierra foothills resident traces the ecological history of California for the next ten thousand years in a new science-fiction novel, "The Great Bay: Chronicles of the Collapse" ($21.95 in hardcover from North Atlantic Books; $9.99 in Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble NOOK e-books). In 2021 a pandemic destroys most of the world's population, brought on, it's said, by weaponized bugs from the Americans and the Chinese.

"By 2031, ten years after the Collapse, the population of the United States had stabilized at four million." Carbon dioxide emissions from now-defunct factories had triggered a vast chain reaction. Global warming, and the rising oceans, would change the face of the world.

Pendell is scheduled to be in Chico tonight at 7:00 p.m. for a book signing and discussion at the 1078 Gallery, 820 Broadway. The free event is sponsored by Chico's Lyon Books.

The novel uses maps, travel journals, poetry, interviews, and news accounts to flesh out the human response over the course of millennia. Each chapter begins with a "panoptic," an overview focusing on the social and climate changes reshaping California.

As declarative sentences multiply, it's evident that the remaining humans are somehow surviving in small, do-it-yourself communities. In an address in 2171 to the Berkeley Scholar's Guild on "Pre-Col Society" one historian notes: "It was called democracy but it wasn't at all what we mean by that; it was really an oligarchy. Representatives weren't even required to do what the people wanted them to do."

In the years 2121-2220, "twenty feet of water lay over Sacramento. . . . The Sacramento Valley had become a great bay, already stretching 125 miles from the Sutter Buttes to Modesto. . . . A tallow industry developed at Chico, producing candles. Tanbark and hides were floated to Santa Cruz, where locals operated a tannery."

People followed Earth's rhythms, not the other way around.

A tale from Chico Country Day School has plenty of bounce

2010-10-28T21:00:00.000-07:00

Phil Coppock teaches writing courses in the School of Social Work at Chico State University. In an email he writes that in May of 2009 he worked with students in a fourth grade class at Chico Country Day School to help them "learn to recognize and use figurative language."

The class developed a story idea "about a little boy who wakes up one morning to find that everything that can move in his world bounces when it moves. The teacher and I asked the children to imagine, talk about, then write about what that would be like if it happened in different areas of the school (classroom, library, cafeteria, etc). The project lasted several months, and the story grew into a book, with the students listed as co-authors. This spring I had a local artist do some drawings and a cover painting for it."

The book is "Rubber Tuesday" ($12.95 in paperback from Outskirts Press) by Phil Coppock and Mrs. Bower's 2008-2009 4th Grade Class. Illustrated by Peter W. Harris, "Rubber Tuesday" is available at local bookstores as well as online. He is scheduled to appear on Nancy's Bookshelf on Friday, November 19 at 10:00 a.m. on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio), 91.7 FM.

The twenty-six student contributors have let their imaginations soar and the resulting story of Jasper and his best friend Seth is just plain funny. "It all started on a Tuesday" when Jasper awakens to the sound of garbage trucks going "CRASHBOOM!!! CRASHBOOM!!! CRASHBOOM!!!" Jasper looked out the window; "what he saw was the garbage truck alright, slowly but surely bouncing its way down the street. Each hop was maybe ten to fifteen feet high, and each landing sounded like a five car collision."

It wasn't just garbage trucks bouncing around. Everything else was, too, including his dog Juno, zinging around the room then "toppling to the floor, a tangled mix of arms, legs, hands, paws, fur, and drooling, slobbery jowls." What had happened? "It was almost like somebody had reached inside the earth and turned gravity way, way down, or maybe gravity got bored."

When Jasper gets to school--well, this tumultuously hilarious book is great exercise for the trampoline of the mind.

Chico poet pushes the boundaries of language and meaning

2010-10-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

Sarkis Shmavonian, publicity materials tell us, "grew up on a small alfalfa and cotton farm outside Madera in a multilingual setting: Armenian at home, English in town, French, Latin, and German classes at school, a bit of kitchen Tuscan with friends. In college, during the tenure of a Fulbright Fellowship to the USSR, he came to appreciate the power of poetry to sway minds."

His first book of verse is "Vortumna" ($30 in hardcover from Erkir Press, Chico). Wikipedia says that "Vortumna" refers to the goddess Fortuna, "she who revolves the year," who reveals the fickle nature of reality. The poems reveal the fickle nature of meaning, especially in their mixtures of languages (anthropologists call it "intrasentential code switching"). In one of the notes at the end of the book, Shmavonian writes that "The subject of the words is their own inwardness: they eschew direct statement through syntax for a tremulous connotedness through grammar." If meaning here seems just beyond reach, perhaps that's part of the meaning.

The author will be talking about his work at Lyon Books in Chico on Tuesday, October 26 at 7:00 p.m.

Shmavonian's poems are set off in blocks of left- and right-justified text, and at first the reader has the impression of adherence to an overiding formalism. But the words themselves are unexpected, as if they aim to derail any attempt at gleaning some ordinary meaning. The poet writes in "Ex Sybillae" that "The task of syntax is / to foreclose thought." The difficult meanings, the use of a few vulgar terms, and the playful swirl of languages, form a strange mirror in which "the logic of the mirror is to hide its own forms."

In "Gateway Sculpture, CSU-Chico," the poet writes: "To you this is a bronze torch with its flame. / To me this clearly shows a sounding whale, / a die balanced en pointe between its flukes. / Bad of me: once beheld, who can unsee that?"
His verses, Shmavonian writes, "halt, or rustle awhile, or gesture fitfully from a still-blank space which cannot of itself sound its own depth. The words in their stir are already being rent into texts before the scope of the poem has brought them to full reckoning."

Women writers reclaiming their histories

2010-10-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

"The Call: An Anthology of Women's Writing" ($15 in paperback from Dragonfly Press), edited by Calder Lowe, presents the work of almost twenty contributors including Lowe, Kathie Isaac-Luke, and local author Lara Gularte. In poetry and short story the book explores how one's history informs the present, and how sometimes that history must be brought kicking and screaming into the present.

In the poem that gives the book its title, Lowe hears a train whistle, a moment when "Time is restructured . . . . Count back / one, two, three centuries. / Train whistles, bugles, church bells // thread through clouds." The poet's "ancestors blow glass / in the Black Forest of Germany. . . . Glass glows in the Von Eberhardt furnaces. / Some of the goblets flower, some crack."

Gularte writes, in "Saving Myself," that "My ancestors are stones of the river. / They sparkle, / their quartz veins / glisten in granite. // . . . Braced against current / and slippery bank / I lose my step, / fall into the cold stream. . . . I rise from the current, / find shallow water, / and sit among the stones. / In a mountain pool / where a trout darts, / I bless my reflection."

A reception is set for Lyon Books in Chico this Saturday at 7:00 p.m.; scheduled presenters include Lowe, Gularte (who will also be reading her short story, "Snowball"), and Isaac-Luke.

Lowe is a writer, editor and director of a university Writing Lab; Gularte has been nominated by Bitter Oleander Press to "Best New Poets 2010"; and Isaac-Luke edits a San Jose-based literary journal. Her short story, "The Collection" (included in "The Call") was nominated for a 2010 Pushcart Prize.

According to a news release the book "is dedicated to Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, a pregnant 17-year-old who died while laboring in the fields, and who represents the countless marginalized women in society today. The writers bear witness to lives of all women: daughters, granddaughters, mothers, lovers, sisters who celebrate life."

There is life in the strangest places. In "Death Valley," Isaac-Luke writes: "It is misnamed, this desert shelter / to cactus and coyote the color of sand. // . . . On the Western side of the Sierras / are wild springs and complacent / meadows. The desert waits-- / it knows its time will come again. // It is here I want my ashes scattered. . . ."

An allegorical journey through cancer

2010-10-07T21:00:00.000-07:00

In the fairytale, Hansel and Gretel managed to find their way back from the unfamiliar woods after resourceful Hansel secretly dropped little stones along the path. Paradise writer Jan Hasak uses a fairytale motif to tell the story of her own journey though breast cancer and lymphedema. Pointing out ten stones as she finds her way back, she finds each stone opening the door to poetic reflection, sometimes humorous, sometimes deeply moving.

"The Pebble Path: Returning Home From a Forest of Shadows" ($11.95 in paperback from OutskirtsPress.com) is the heartening story of how cancer can turn life upside-down but then transform life, enrich it. Through the author's Christian faith and her spouse's unfailing good humor. the story unfolds of "a lass named Fanciful" and her Prince Charming, Farcical ("zany and hip"), and their children, Fine, Dandy, and Ending.

"Buzzing about her hive making money, Fanciful busied herself with work, jogging, church, and parenthood. In the midst of this hubbub, when Ending was almost four, Fanciful found a lump in her breast. A mysterious pebble-sized mass. Her whole world crashed. Can there be life happily ever after at the end of such a story?"

Hasak will be signing her book this Saturday from 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. at Lighthouse on the Ridge bookstore, 5913 F Clark Road in Paradise (inside the James Square Shopping Center).

She is also scheduled to be interviewed on Nancy's Bookshelf with Nancy Wiegman on Friday, October 29 at 10:00 a.m. on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM).

Hasak's Fanciful journeys from the first pebble, "the Gnome of Diagnosis," through "Goldilocks and the Three Chemo Bears," "Facing the Radiation Hag," on into "Fairying Beyond Remission."

From "Lone Rangers": "When in heaven I behold / Those who gave me chemo / Tributes many shall unfold / Nurses reign supremo." And from "Chemo Makeover": "Beauty is but fleeting short / Though we laser mole and wart / Witty comebacks healing bring / Humor melting frost to spring."

In "Double Gourd Lamp" the poem reflects Hasak's new body shape: "A most surprising gift / to me? Double gourd lamps back in / vogue, basic dispellers of / shadows, spelling / hope for my own restoration, a lovely / lamp reflecting wonders of what my Lord has done."

Lin Jensen: Deep ecology through Buddhist eyes

2010-09-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

Author Lin Jensen, the founding teacher of the Chico Zen Sangha, and now teacher emeritus there, writes that "as both a Buddhist and a student of deep ecology, I'm struck by how much the two have in common, each exacting of the follower a genuine paradigm shift in perception. For the Buddhist the shift is an awakening to earth as an extension of one's own body wherein the dichotomy of self and other dissolves. For the deep ecologist the shift is a similar awakening wherein earth is realized as one indivisible body comprised of all beings of any sort."

Deep ecology is more than the study of ecosystems. "It's a perception that recognizes the right of all beings to exist simply because they do. Nothing is left out, nothing excluded." Jensen draws on the work of Arne Naess, the founder of deep ecology, and others, in showing the deep ecological concerns of Buddhism, even from ancient days. "Deep Down Things: The Earth In Celebration and Dismay" ($15.95 in paperback from Wisdom Publications) takes its title from words of the Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, who observed that, in the midst of industrialized blight, "nature is never spent; / There lives the dearest freshness deep down things. . . ."

Jensen is scheduled to be interviewed on Nancy's Bookshelf tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM). He will be speaking on Tuesday, October 5 at 7:30 p.m. at the 1078 Gallery, 820 Broadway in Chico. Hosted by Lyon Books of Chico, where "Deep Down Things" is available locally, the event is free and open to the public.

Jensen writes of places where the earth lives, and places where it can hardly breathe. "On the east side of town prime orchard land lies buried under Chico's South Mall, but on the west side of town the fields of a young and thriving organic cooperative are green with new life." Jensen's Buddhism is local and practical; "the proper scale for human endeavor," he writes, "is that of the household." Finally, "my prayer is that to the very last of this planet's brief tenure in the vast cycle of the universe someone will remain to say 'earth' and to say it from the heart's core."

Book event for kids Saturday at the Chico Library

2010-09-23T21:00:00.000-07:00

"Nini was a plain white tom cat," writes Mary Nethery in an author's note, "who lived in a caffè, or coffee shop, in Venice in the 1890s and became a national celebrity. Calling upon Nini and signing his guest book was the thing to do. When Nini died, many important people paid tribute to him."

That set the Eureka picture-book author to thinking. "No one knows why Nini became such a star. So I asked myself the question 'What does a cat have to offer that no other creature possesses?' The answer? A purr, one of the most primal and soothing sounds in the universe, a gift that only a cat can give. That's what led to this story. All of the notable visitors were real people who came to see Nini, but the events in the story didn't unfold in the same way that I have presented them."

The tale is told in "The Famous Nini: A Mostly True Story of How a Plain White Cat Became a Star" ($17 in hardcover from Clarion Books).

A book event featuring Mary Nethery (www.marynethery.com) will be held this Saturday at 1:30 p.m. at the Chico branch of the Butte County Library, 1108 Sherman Avenue. Especially suited for children aged 4-8, the reading is presented through the courtesy of Lyon Books of Chico, where copies of "The Famous Nini" are available.

Beautifully and whimsically illustrated by John Manders (www.johnmanders.com), the book tells the story of Nonna Framboni and her little nineteenth-century coffee shop. It's so small everyone seems to pass it by, until one day "Nini the Stray" shows up at her door and follows an obviously agitated man into the caffè. The man was Giuseppe Verdi, in search of just the right note. "Nini meowed. 'Ah, puss!' Verdi cried. 'You have given me the exact note I need!' He danced around the caffè with Nini in his arms."

More visitors followed after Nonna put up a sign in the window, including the King and Queen of Italy and Pope Leo XIII. The Emperor of Ethiopia visits, and Nethery imagines how Nini's soft purr changes the heart of the the Emperor's daughter.

Nethery takes delight in her story, and readers will find it the purr-fect tale.

An encyclopedia of Durham

2010-09-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

Adriana (Rian) Farley, the untiring chronicler of Durham, has compiled what might be called a Durham encyclopedia: "Durham Locations, Landmarks, Lads & Ladies" ($30, spiral bound, available from the author at 1384 Durham Dayton Hwy, Durham, CA 95938; please include $3.50 for postage and handling). Though Farley first thought to put together just a listing of Durham street names, the book now includes groups and organizations and festivals and even "Prof England's Desk."

Farley is scheduled to be interviewed this Friday at 10:00 a.m. on Nancy's Bookshelf on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM); an archive including this and previous interviews is available at KCHO.org. And the book will be available at this Sunday's Durham Harvest Festival at Durham Community Park.

There are over 200 maps, diagrams, illustrations and black-and-white photographs complementing the entries which range from Ackerman Avenue ("west off Lott Road," name origin unknown) to Zorka McDonald Tree (a memorial planted by the Durham Women's Club). Farley's sources include historical records, books and periodicals as well as personal correspondence, and each source is documented.

Farley's book also resolves several mysteries. "Why is there a cleaver and steel embedded in the sidewalk just north of the Empire Club along the Midway? Just a few steps further along the sidewalk are a cleaver and knife. The location marks the spot where in 1917 the Johnson and Openshaw Meat Market was opened for business." Durham was also home to "Death Curve" when in 1920 Highway 99E forced an almost 90-degree turn "over an elevated rail line."

There's an entry for the Durham fire station and the grange hall but also one for the group of quilters known as the Awesome Blossoms (who have made "patriotic wall hangings that we've presented to local military families").

Now to Ewin G. "Prof" England's desk. England was teaching principal at Durham Grammar school from 1929 until he retired in 1963. The desk then was used by second and third grade teacher Nancy Druley "who loved its nooks and crannies." Later it found a home in the elementary school library and now resides in the Drylie Reading Room (named for James Nesbit Drylie) of the Durham branch of the Butte County Library.

Farley's book is essential reading for residents and a delightful guide for visitors.

Moving to Igo - an affair of the heart, with plenty of laughs

2010-09-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

London-born Peter Edridge got a poor start when he landed in San Francisco in 1971 looking for "sex, drugs and rock-n-roll"; "by my mid-thirties I had reached the end. I was broke and broken." But "sometimes God smiles on the truly stupid" and he became a computer programmer. The small company he worked for provided an "idyllic" life. Yet after a decade and a corporate takeover, he was out. It was 2002 "and the dot-com bomb had just wiped out the entire tech industry." What to do?

Well, you buy 30 acres of land near Igo in Shasta County, and you move. With encouragement from his wife Sheila, you start over. "Sheila's not my first wife," Edridge writes, "(the exact count is unimportant and it's not excessive for California), but, as she likes to remind me, she is my final wife. . . . She also likes to remind me that she's married to a very lucky man."

The story is told in "Burning Bears Fall From the Sky: My Amusing Story About Relocating From a Desk in San Francisco To a Remote Mountain In Northern California" ($15.95 in paperback, self-published; available at Lyon Books in Chico or write burningbears@gmail.com). Edridge's self-deprecating humor at his attempts to fix the dilapidated A-frame on the property (dubbed "the mouse-house") and his acceptance into the community (involving lots of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale) are often laugh-out-loud funny.

Edridge will be signing copies of his memoir on Wednesday, September 15 at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books.

The title comes from the story of a frightened bear cub that climbed a power pole, was electrocuted and caught on fire, and in turn set a field on fire. "It seems in part to be a metaphor for the unpredictable world found outside the well-planned Zone of Civilization." But life also thrives on the unpredictable. Though he and Sheila have learned plenty in their years in Igo, it boils down to character. "The little community of Igo brought me face to face with a different world; one that is unimpressed with importance, or years spent in school, or diplomas or credentials, or careers, or salaries."

"We've changed," he writes. Call it the journey from ego to Igo.

Chico area writer continues his history of Navy minesweepers

2010-09-02T21:00:00.000-07:00

"Wooden Ships and Iron Men" is a multi-volume history of minesweepers, meticulously researched by Cdr. David D. Bruhn, USN (Retired). The first volume told the larger story: "The U.S. Navy's Ocean Minesweepers, 1953-1994"; the recently-published second volume focuses on "The U.S. Navy's Coastal and Motor Minesweepers, 1941-1953" ($32 in paperback from Heritage Books; see www.davidbruhn.com for details). The book is available online and at the Chico State University bookstore.

Bruhn writes me that the book is intended primarily for veterans of World War II and the Korean War, but anyone who appreciates military history can profit from the author's work. There are more than 15 appendices, including a list of "unit awards for the assault and occupation of Okinawa" and "mine force personnel casualties." Also included are maps and historical photographs.

"When magnetic mines were encountered at the onset of World War II," he writes, "the U.S. Navy, having no wooden ships on hand to perform minesweeping, scoured waterfronts and procured fishing vessels that it fitted with sweep gear, manned with reservists, and assigned to Naval Districts to keep ports and harbors clear of mines."

But they weren't enough, so "the Navy designed and built seventy wooden-hulled 97-foot Accentor-class ships based on the proven fishing vessel model" which were then used "very far from home waters in every theater of war." All told, they earned "nearly 700 battle stars." (The Accentor, the first in its class, had a "221-ton maximum displacement" and "could make a speed of ten knots.")

Bruhn notes that "the cover art depicts the sinking of the steel-hulled minesweepers USS Pirate and USS Pledge at Wonsan, which served as the impetus for construction of the post-Korean War wooden-hulled ocean, coastal, and inshore minesweepers."

Encyclopedic in scope, the book places the story of the minesweepers in historical context, noting that the crews have not received due recognition, probably because the many reservists among them returned to civilian life and lost track of the "splinter fleet." After World War II the media concentrated on the fighter pilots, the "glory boys." Bruhn writes that "whatever type sweep they rode, these men deserve the tribute this study intends them. When asked about their naval service, they can say with pride, 'I served aboard a minesweeper!'"

SHORT NOTICES

2010-09-02T20:55:00.000-07:00

A tabby cat turns up in a Paradise neighbor's yard, and such is the stuff of a sweet little story by Kaye D. Owens. "Turn-Up . . . . Turns Up" ($5 in paperback, including postage, self-published) "is mostly factual, with a few lines of 'author's prerogative' to fill in the unknown events." Folks in the neighborhood keep leaving, and Turn-up has to find new lodgings again and again. "She survived the horrendous Northern California fires of the summer of 2008" spending most of her evacuation "under a bed." Today, she "has her family pretty much wrapped around her paws."

Watsonville writer Al Cunha was a recent visitor to Chico's Barnes & Noble. His novel, "Dancing With Daffodil" ($10.95 in paperback from Infinity Publishing), tells the story of a homeless woman living in a cardboard box in a San Francisco alley. Befriended by a young female reporter and a French baker, Maggie May Salokavich keeps singing about "the sweetest little girl in the world--Daffodil." Daffodil "is the song that I hear . . . the dance that I dance." But Officer McGuinness is determined to get her off the street. Brutality ensues, but a surprise birthday guest changes everything.

Chico therapist George McClendon, in "Heaven's Call To Earthy Spirituality" ($14 in paper from Dog Ear Publishing), writes in intensely personal terms about leaving the Benedictine Abbey in Shawnee, Oklahoma, in the 1970s. Seeking to reconcile spiritual discipline required of a monk with the "earthy" experience of sexuality and an inclusive spirituality (his heroes include Thomas Merton and the Dalai Lama), the author finds joy in marriage and his practice of psychotherapy and spiritual guidance. It's the story of a "St. George" who meets the "Dragon Lady," an integration of opposites, of past with present. Now: "Time to move on."

Editors of Sierra Nevada anthology to make Chico appearance

2010-08-26T21:00:00.000-07:00

In 1912 John Muir wrote that "the Sierra should be called, not the Nevada or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light. And after ten years of wandering and wondering in the heart of it, rejoicing in its glorious floods of light . . . it still seems above all others the Range of Light."

Now, the light shed on Muir's beloved mountains by the work of some 75 writers has been collected in "The Illuminated Landscape: A Sierra Nevada Anthology" ($19.95 in paperback from Heyday Books, www.heydaybooks.com), edited by Gary Noy and Rick Heide. Co-published by Sierra College Press and Santa Clara University, the book features voices as different as Mark Twain and Gary Snyder. It is essential reading.

The two editors will talk about and read from their anthology at Lyon Books in Chico on Tuesday, August 31 at 7:00 p.m.

Noy is the director of the Center for Sierra Nevada Studies at Sierra College in Rocklin and is in the midst of team-teaching "The Sierra Nevada," an interdisciplinary course. Heide has a journalism background and won a 2003 American Book Award for an anthology of Latino literature.

The editors structure their book historically, from "the golden misty dawn" (1840 and before) to the "quiet-colored end of evening" (1991 to the present). Genres range from the "Old Gambler's Song" of the Maidu to an excerpt from Tom Knudson's "The Sierra in Peril" series for the Sacramento Bee, which won a Pulitzer Prize.

Jack London is here, carefully introduced, as is Henry David Thoreau (who, though never visiting the Sierra Nevada, was a critic of the California Gold Rush: "a touchstone which has betrayed the rottenness, the baseness, of mankind").

Several pieces were specially commissioned. Nevada City author Jordan Fisher Smith tells what happened when he arrested a woman high on drugs in the American River Canyon. Poet Maria Melendez recounts her first camping trip in the Sierra Nevada. Biologist Joe Medeiros writes of "The Power of Trees," and asks a series of haunting questions that end the book: "Will our grandchildren be able to hike along a high ridge in the Sierra and lean against an old juniper? Feel its energy?"

Readers will appreciate the many perspectives--and the illumination they bring.

Chico counselor on promoting emotional health and good vibrations

2010-08-19T21:00:00.000-07:00

The cover of "The Couples Thrival Guide" ($16.99 in paperback, self-published, available from shannon@thrivaliving.com) by Shannon Sheridan features a striking image from Chico ceramics instructor Janice Hofmann. Depicting an erotic embrace, the illustration is intended to suggest one of many enjoyable relationships. The book offers what Sheridan calls a "non-pathological" approach to couple's therapy based on self-appreciation and the "Law of Attraction."

The author is scheduled to be interviewed tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. on Nancy's Bookshelf (KCHO, Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM). A book release party, featuring music from "Spark-n-Cinder," is set for Saturday, from 7:00 - 10:00 p.m. at All Fired Up, 830 Broadway in Chico. Tickets are $20 and include desserts, dancing, and a copy of the book. For reservations, go to www.thrivaliving.com/events.htm.

Sheridan writes that "the most important thing is that I feel good" (the title of one of her chapters). "When we feel good and are really plugged in," she says, "we are connected with ourselves and with others around us. It does not feel good to hurt, demean, or disempower others when we come from a place of connection."

This "connection" has to do with the "Law of Attraction": "We are all atoms moving around at different frequencies. As we experience emotions, vibrations change frequencies. Meanwhile, vibrations are attracted to other vibrations of the same frequency." She tells of falling down a flight of stairs. "I had attracted this incident as a result of my vibration, by allowing what my friend was thinking about me to be more important than what I thought about myself." Here Sheridan draws on the work of Abraham Hicks (www.abraham-hicks.com).

She is also counts Virginia Satir (www.avanta.net) as a teacher, modifying Satir's "ingredients of an interaction" for the book. The ingredients are "vibration, sensory information, perceptual filter, meanings, feelings, and response/outcome." Faulty meanings--that the person is worthless or unlovable--can undermine relationships. The reality is "we are pure positive love energy connected to source."

In working with the depressed, Sheridan would "invite them to be angry. It introduces power and self-worth, and it works far better than any medication." From there the person may move to "hopefulness and appreciation." It's vital, she writes, to "appreciate yourself." It's the stuff of good vibrations.

Mount Shasta guide writes guide to Mount Shasta

2010-08-12T21:00:00.000-07:00

Chico State University graduate Robin Kohn now lives in the city of Mount Shasta. She's worked for the California State Park System, is a certified wilderness guide, and knows what to do to avoid avalanches. She conducts guided tours on and around the 14,162-foot mountain, "the second tallest volcanic mountain in the Cascade Range." She's an advocate of "Leave No Trace Principles": "Take only pictures, steal only time, leave only footprints."

And she knows how to have fun. Lots of it. Her "Mount Shasta Guide to Fun" ($15.95 spiral bound, self-published, available at Lyon Books in Chico and online at www.mountshastaguide.com) embodies not only wise advice but sheer enjoyment--especially of sheer cliffs.

The guide encompasses "hiking, backpacking, bicycling, cross-country and back country skiing, rock climbing, driving tours and scenic waterfall walks" and includes many black and white photographs and almost two dozens helpful maps. After the introduction and a chapter on Mount Shasta itself, the book moves out to McCloud, the Dunsmuir and Castella areas, Weed, the Lower Klamath Basin, Yreka, and Scott Valley.

For those who want a scenic drive, Kohn recommends a loop around the mountain which is about "80 miles in circumference. You will see the ancient volcanic flows of Mt. Shasta, pass the historic Emigrant Trail now know as Military Pass Road, and observe geological and glacial wonders."

For those on two wheels, Kohn describes a 20-mile round trip bicycle tour of the McCloud area. "Beginning at the McCloud Ranger Station right off highway 89 . . . head south to Squaw Valley Road. . . . Along the way you will see the McCloud Golf Course, a 9-hole course which is the oldest in Northern California. One and a half miles on your right is the former site of the Warmcastle Resort and soda springs, now known as Beaver Ponds." The springs were thought to cure most any ailment (except rotten puns--see next paragraph).

The "Guide to Fun" is less formal than commercial travel books, yet each paragraph packs plenty of information, such as contact numbers. Kohn is writing about what she loves and is careful to offer suitable cautions (especially to those who travel in avalanche areas). There's something here for everyone. And that's no snow job.

Former Chicoan delivers steamy history, returns for book signing

2010-08-05T21:00:00.000-07:00

Spring 1548, Scotland. "Florie Gilder, respected apprentice of the goldsmith to the Princess Mary herself, with one reckless act of passion, had become a common outlaw!" Running into Ettrick Forest, she is mistaken as game and felled by archer Rane MacAllister, huntsman of Lord Gilbert Fraser, sheriff of Selkirk. The shaft penetrates Florie's thigh, and she will bleed to death if help is not found. But Rane cannot call for assistance; he had been poaching in the very woods he was hired to guard. He must care for Florie himself.

Florie is beyond beautiful. "In the candlelight her skin had an ethereal sheen, almost as if she weren't human, but some fey creature." Rane is smitten. His Viking blood powers the instincts of a seducer, yet he must also become protector. Can he be trusted? His "eyes were the complex shade of chrysolite, as lustrous as a polished gem, rich, intense, compelling . . . "

Glynnis Talken Campbell writes me that "I'm a Chicoan--born, raised, and CSUC'd--currently living in L.A." Among her many talents (see the Wikipedia entry under Glynnis_Talken_Campbell) she is a prolific writer. Her latest is "Captured by Desire" ($6.99 in paperback, Kindle and Barnes & Noble NOOK formats, from Grand Central Publishing), written under the pen name of Kira Morgan (www.glynnis.net/kiramorgan).

The author will be signing copies at the Chico Barnes & Noble store this Sunday at 2:00 p.m. Fans of historical romance are most especially invited.

"Captured by Desire" takes it time in building sexual tension. Rane brings Florie to an old abandoned church where she can claim sanctuary from prosecution for forty days. The strong-willed Florie is both repelled by Rane's invasion of her modesty and attracted--intensely attracted--to the muscular man who poaches only in order to "feed the starving crofters," the Scots who eked out a living tilling small farms, plagued by English incursions.

Florie, raised by her besotted foster father, is in search of her real kin. But Lady Mavis, the sheriff's wife, stands in her way. She accuses Florie of stealing a gold pomander that was Florie's in the first place, and will stop at nothing to destroy it--and her.

Readers will not be disappointed. The archer hits his mark.

SHORT NOTICES

2010-08-05T20:59:00.000-07:00

Chico writer-photographer Doug Keister is haunting cemeteries these days, and what he's dug up is on display in "Forever L.A.: A Field Guide to Los Angeles Area Cemeteries & Their Residents" ($19.99 in paperback, $7.99 Kindle edition, from Gibbs Smith). Delightfully, Keister's text and color photographs are instructive both for the armchair traveler and the on-scene trekker--who will "be rewarded with a whole new perspective on art, architecture, symbolism, and stargazing. Indeed, where else can you easily get within six feet of your favorite celebrity?" From Forest Lawn ("the Disneyland of cemeteries") to Pet Memorial Park--each page surprises.

Oroville resident Vernon Carter's book is "primarily for my family" but has a wider appeal as the "rags to riches . . . story of achieving goals, one step at a time." "One Man's Journey" ($20 in paperback from Memoir Books) tells about life growing up in the Depression (Carter was born in 1923) and the effect of his parents' divorce when he was five. Along the way he had a teaching career, married Bev in 1947, traveled the world, formed the Oroville Optimist Club in 1997. An active volunteer, he's been doing "nothing" since his retirement three decades ago.

Portland-based Pam Glenn "grew up in Chico (1953-62) and attended" Chico High School; her father taught at what is now Chico State University. Her new work, "Barter World" ($12.95 in paperback from Class Action Ink, available at Lyon Books in Chico), is a fanciful collection of intersecting tales about the fate of a red bead necklace, a wedding present to Scheherazade from the King. As the beads are traded, Hans Holbein enters the story, and still later one of the beads becomes a marble, traded for tutoring, in "a story so old, or so new, nobody knows where it begins."

Oroville author adds a ghostly touch to a fiery romance

2010-07-29T21:00:00.000-07:00

It begins at Disneyland. Summer Gabriel, on an outing with her widowed brother, Ted, and his two sons, trips on her beach towel at the hotel pool and lands right on top of one Marcus Brennan. Who just happens to be "all muscle and bone put together in a ruggedly handsome package."

Sparks fly from that very moment as Summer, never married, is drawn to Marcus, CEO of an electronics company and also a widower, and his young daughter Sasha. And he is drawn to her. But Summer can't imagine that she--owner of a bookstore in a small northern California town--has anything to offer the high-flying Las Vegas executive.

Yet when the two are together the sex is torrid. It's as if they are destined for each other. But there are plenty of misunderstandings. Add to the mix Marcus' sister-in-law, who wants him for herself, and Marcus' housekeeper, who lets Summer know she can't begin to compare to Marcus' artistic late wife, and it's no wonder Summer repairs to the now ramshackle little house she remembered as a child. A woman named Rose had lived there, and Summer seems to sense her presence.

Therein lies the tale of "Rose Cottage: A Novel of Supernatural Romantic Suspense" ($13.95 in paperback, $9.95 in Kindle e-book, from Fireside Publications) by Olivia Claire High.

The author will launch her new book with a signing at Curves in Oroville, 2190 Myers Street, on Wednesday, August 4, from 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 - 6:00 p.m.

Summer finds herself torn between the world filled with her growing love for Marcus, and another world, by turns sinister and comforting, that is opening up to her during her visits to Rose Cottage. Summer is convinced that she is part of a ghostly drama involving both Rose and her evil twin, Rena, now both gone but present still at Rose Cottage. Who murdered Rose's beloved husband? And how does Summer's love of fairytales fit into that drama?

Fairytales do come true (this is a romance, after all), but not before Marcus and Summer learn to listen with their hearts, not just their heads, and learn the meaning of real freedom and the particular logic of the ghostly realm.

An essential guide to Bidwell Park's birds

2010-07-22T21:00:00.000-07:00

Roger Lederer, retired biologist at Chico State University, has studied birds for four decades. His expertise is on display at "Those Amazing Birds" blog (www.norcalblogs.com/birds) and now in the glorious "The Birds of Bidwell Park" ($17.95 in paperback, self-published). Teamed with artist-wife Carol Burr, retired professor of English at the university, Lederer introduces the lives and loves of 86 species commonly found in the park.

The full-color guide features Burr's pen and colored pencil drawings, symbols indicating the best spotting locations, a narrative describing the bird's life-cycle, and a sidebar containing a note of interest. Though some 200 species have been identified in the park, the book focuses on those birds most easily observed by even a casual visitor. It's simply a must-have for both kids and adults.

The book is available at several locations in Chico, including the Chico Creek Nature Center and Lyon Books. Lyon will be hosting a book signing on Wednesday, July 28 at 7:00 p.m.

"The Western Tanager," in both upper and lower park, "is unquestionably the most strikingly colorful bird one might spot in Bidwell Park. . . . The male is mostly yellow with a dark tail, two yellow wing-bars, and an orange-red head. The female is greenish-yellow above and yellow below. . . . The red head of the male is due to a red pigment that the bird has to ingest from insects which in turn have eaten fruits containing the red pigment."

The American crow "suffers from a 100 percent death rate" from West Nile virus, though now "apparently some virus-resistant individuals are surviving to build the populations back." The crow "is one of the few bird species in the world to use tools to obtain food. It will drop acorns or other nuts on roadways and let cars crack the shells, and use sticks to probe for food items in the soil."

Anna's Hummingbird "is the only North American hummingbird with a totally red head. . . . The male has a thin and buzz-like courtship song. While courting, the male performs a display dive at up to 50 mph. When he pulls out of the dive he spreads his wings and tail, resulting in a loud kind of squeak and boom."

Tweet your friends!

Stories that focus on the sleazy side of Oroville

2010-07-15T21:00:00.000-07:00

Long-time Butte County resident Leslie Hale Roberts is married, the father of two sons, and a careful observer of the estranged and marginalized. He characterizes himself in an author's note as a disabled athlete, "founder of the Institute of Absurdity" and "a friend of those who suffer or fail."

There is much suffering, and much failure, in the thirty-nine "traditional and experimental narratives" that constitute "Voices of a City of Gold: Stories From Oroville, California" ($16.95 in paperback from Von Grafen Productions, available at booklocker.com/books/4393.html). The author writes me that the stories focus "on the lives of the . . . forgotten. . . . I believe it is an authentic depiction, offensive in some cases, and revealing and even tender in others. I have chosen to use often-vulgar language and perhaps irregular formatting and editing in hopes of capturing the essence of their existence."

The stories are not for the faint of heart. Framed by the trash talk of Duane and Mike, who repeatedly wind up in the Butte County jail, they show in expletive-laden agony men, women and children at the outskirts of "acceptable" society. Here there is prostitution, theft and thuggery, substance abuse (crystal meth is the drug of choice), and sexual violence visited on spouses and children. There is hardly a paragraph in the book that can be quoted in a family newspaper.

One narrator finds Oroville, "despite efforts from the city fathers to otherwise arrest the slide, now in the throes of decay and decadence, hope--and innocence--clinging to its tatters. . . . Unfortunately, the heart of Oroville, like many spent gold field villages, has cancered, its core no longer vibrant but in varying stages of rot." Oroville may be a recreational paradise, but some, many perhaps, are confined to a hellish existence.

The theme of "do not judge" runs throughout the book, though another narrator can't help but deliver a "morality sandwich" about the horrible legacy left by "the single mother with unattended kids."

The characters want to change, but can't. Lest the reader take too much "voyeuristic pleasure in . . . how those below so often fare," the stories, even as they assault common decency, provide uncomfortable moments of recognition. Let the reader understand.

Life's journey: Growing up in Romania, living in Paradise

2010-07-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

As World Cup fever grips the world, Gregory Ghica of Paradise, who has taught political science at Butte College, writes that his early skill in soccer "was a great asset in my struggle to survive alone in this world. . . . Through soccer I managed to obtain a Romanian passport and had the opportunity to escape the Communist regime." He came to the United States in 1969, received a Master's Degree in physical education from UC Berkeley, coached soccer and tennis, then obtained a Master's in political science from Cal State Long Beach. It has been an eventful life.

Ghica was born in Romania in 1936. His father was an appeals court judge who died when Ghica was only thirteen, but not before writing his "Will and Testament" in which he admonishes Ghica and his brother to love and care for each other and their mother. "If you follow my advice, you will show the supreme recognition and respect for me even after my death."

Though Ghica only saw the document fifty years after it was written, it provides the frame for his memoir, "A Life To Remember: From the Dungeon of Communism to the American Dream" ($18 in paperback from lulu.com). The book is available at Lyon Books in Chico, where Ghica will be signing copies on Wednesday, July 14 at 7:00 p.m.

The book contains several sections of black-and-white photographs which depict the beauty of Romania and illustrate Ghica's penchant for travel. Acknowledging encouragement from the writer's workshop at Chico State University, Ghica writes clearly. He details the difficulties he faced as the son of a man "not of the working class." More than once good fortune spared him some of the harsher demands of the Communist system. He believes in a Supreme Being, he writes, "but I have never been able to accept any particular church, any formal religion, or, certainly, any man of the cloth."

At the end of the book there are lessons learned. Among them: "No matter what you know, the most important thing is who you know"; "no matter how good and solid a friendship is, that person will sometimes hurt my feelings"; "happiness is like snow--beautiful when it comes and miserable when it melts."

Local author on "America at the crossroads"

2010-07-01T21:00:00.000-07:00

Charles W. Frank is convinced that the United States is headed in the wrong direction. His Web site, lightofthenation.us, which notes that he graduated with a BA in social science from Chico State University, is an impassioned plea for a return to "Christian foundations" that were first established by the Founding Fathers.

He writes me that "our representation with regard to our so called 'republic' has been hijacked by special interests, as we now have evolved to a nation that has the illusion of a democratic process. 'We the people' are now but mere pawns on the chess board of kings (an elitist shadow government)." His analysis is contained in "House of Lords: America In the Balance" ($12.99 in paperback from Tate Publishing), but it is no mere list of wrongs. To his credit, Frank proposes possible solutions that, from his perspective, are consistent with America's unique status.

"Today this divine uniqueness," he writes, "is now clouded with anti-God sentiment, persecution, censorship, demoralization, secularization, confusion, massive monopolistic corporatization, government injustices, and the love of money."

A guest on the Lars Larson radio program, Frank advocates a "decentralization of power" and the establishment of "impartial, independent" agencies that can deal with, for example, "fake news" packages distributed by the Federal government as well as corporate interests which the FCC, and the Congress itself, cannot be trusted to regulate. Such agencies would be composed of "unbiased officials elected by the people in a national election. Let this be the beginning of direct democracy."

In discussing the heart surgery scandal in Redding, he writes that the American Medical Association keeps bad doctors out of jail and, with the complicity of the Food and Drug Administration, stifles those who provide "alternative" treatment. "Let's start by having a law passed that protects doctors from losing their licenses when they treat their patients with unconventional medicine!"

Christians who pay taxes "need to have the freedom of religious expression in the work force and in public institutions." However, "if one's religion does not promote the fruits of genuine love and peace, then obviously it is not useful and should not be allowed to be expressed in the public sector at all."

Consistent or not, perhaps Frank's proposals will spur healthy--and humble--debate.

SHORT NOTICES

2010-07-01T20:55:00.000-07:00

Food writer Kitty Morse, a Vista, California resident who recently visited Chico, has prepared "A Biblical Feast: Ancient Mediterranean Flavors For Today's Table" ($18.95 in paperback from La Caravane, available at Lyon Books in Chico). Beautifully designed and photographed, the book offers dozens of recipes (from "Goat Cheese & Olive Appetizers With Melon" to "Grilled Tilapia") familiar to the ancient Hebrews and early Christians. Each menu item offers an associated Biblical reference and an historical and culinary discussion. Morse includes a glossary of foodstuffs mentioned in the King James Bible and suggests menus for entertaining guests. There's more at www.abiblicalfeast.com.

"Fit At Fifty Something" ($14.95 in paperback from Two Harbors Press) is Sacramento dentist Brian Bolstad's prescription for a more vigorous middle age. After suffering from debilitating back pain, Bolstad resumed martial arts training in his late forties and now, in his mid-fifties, offers what he calls common sense advice on nutrition and weight control, time management, endurance, stress, and sex. The last half of the book features large black-and-white pictures of the author performing a series of flexibility and range of motion exercises. (A DVD set is available at fitatfiftysomething.com.) Witty and blunt ("embrace a little hunger"), Bolstad rocks.

"Willows" ($21.99 in paperback from Arcadia Publishing) is part of the the "Images of America" series. Prepared by the Museum Society of Willows and museum volunteers JoAnn Wright and Evelyn Whisman, the book features over 200 historical photographs with extensive captions. An introduction sets the scene, noting that "the first settlers of what was then the northern part of Colusa County" found land surrounded by willows (fed by a spring near the present town). By the 1870s, farmland was going "for $4-$6 an acre." The "million dollar fire" at Hochheimer's department store in 1920 was devastating, but "can-do" Willows rebuilt.

Chico visitor reopens divisive murder case

2010-06-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

Terry Phillips reported for CBS and other news networks, and, according to his Web site, "Phillips was one of the first American reporters to live and work in Armenia following the 1988 earthquake." Of Greek and Armenian heritage, Phillips recalls hearing in his childhood about the assassination of the Armenian Archbishop, Ghevont Tourian, in a New York church on Sunday morning, December 24, 1933.

Nine men were eventually arrested and charged in the slaying, including Armenian immigrant Mateos Leylegian, a grocery-store owner on West Forty-ninth Street in Depression-era New York. But why would Armenians kill the representative of the Armenian Church? Or, for that matter, did they?

The questions lead to an intriguing story. "Murder at the Altar: A Historical Novel" ($14.95 in paperback, available from Lyon Books in Chico or online at www.HyeBooks.com) interweaves the lives of historical figures with the fictional Tom Peterson, once a reporter for the New York Herald-Tribune. Alternating between Peterson's digging through archival material in the present (1975) with the events unfolding in 1933, the novel proposes a different solution to the crime than that contained in the official record.

In a letter, Phillips writes me that "this horrific killing was prompted by a dispute over Armenia's attempts at achieving independence from the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Their fight led to a deep split among that ethnic group which persists today. Despite its somewhat arcane focus," he adds, the novel "is really a universal story about people facing irreconcilable differences and resorting to violence."

Phillips visited Chico recently and is scheduled to be interviewed by Nancy Wiegman, the host of Nancy's Bookshelf, tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. (note the new day and time) on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio), 91.7 FM.

The centerpiece of the book, the trial proceeding, is based on actual transcripts. Phillips provides a helpful list of the dozens of personages introduced in his story and gives it verisimilitude with the use of historical photographs, including those of the Archbishop and the accused assailants.

Yet the novel is less about solving a long-ago murder than capturing in historical time the complexities of human life and "answers" that are far from clear. In this terrible act of violence, for things done and not done, "we are all responsible."

Chico author wants to demolish religion, make an opening for "spiritual evolution"

2010-06-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

Rahasya Poe, the Chico-based publisher of Lotus Guide (www.LotusGuide.com), has written what he admits is an angry-sounding book about the dangers of religious belief. "To Believe Or Not To Believe: The Social and Neurological Consequences of Belief Systems" ($19.99 in paperback from Xlibris) offers a litany of what Poe characterizes as "absurd" teachings from the Western scriptural traditions.

"You will find within these pages what I believe will be the final blow to organized religions," he writes. "If we want to evolve and move on we must first release ourselves from our primitive past beliefs and superstitions. . . . The purpose is to dislodge the need to believe altogether and to get you to think for yourself."

The first section traces the social consequences of religious beliefs; the second examines how easy it is to believe absurd things (the brain creates an emotional resistance to contrary evidence); the third charts the prospects for what Poe calls "spiritual evolution." The book is replete with interviews of such figures as brain researcher Andrew Newberg and "Lucid Living" author Timothy Freke.

Poe, like Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, whom he praises, wants to be a "demolition man": "If what we've been reading in our Holy Books is nothing more than plagiarized writings of older texts, then put quite simply--God did not talk to Moses on the mountain. . . . This, in essence, means the very foundation of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religions are based on a false premise, which means that everything from that point on is false; the prophets, the stories, everything, because they all base their authority on the fact that Moses talked with God."

Those same ancient documents, however, do provide Poe with what he takes are descriptions of alien invasion. The Mayan calendar is an example, he says, of accuracy that must have come from another world. "Since the beings who gave this information to the Maya said they would return when the calendar runs out in 2012 it only make sense to give it some serious attention."

Poe is right about the ease humans have in believing what they want and ignoring contrary evidence, and how our minds can be most closed just when we think they are most open.

Magalia writer on bullying in the workplace

2010-06-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

"My own experience at the hands of a bully was horrendous at best," writes Magalia resident Judith Munson, but she's not talking about the schoolyard variety. "Alligators In The Water Cooler" ($15.99 in paperback from Xlibris, with illustrations by Larry Foss of Paradise) refers to men and women in the workplace who "choose to bully others, passively or aggressively, often causing emotional pain or physical illness." Baby alligators stuffed into a water cooler might be a joke, but the alligator-like bully--"a menacing predator, opportunist, solitary and territorial"--is no joke at all. (There's more information at www.workplaceintimidation.com.)

Munson is scheduled to be interviewed by Nancy Wiegman on Nancy's Bookshelf this Saturday. The program airs at 4:30 p.m. on Northstate Public Radio, KCHO, 91.7 FM. She will also be signing copies of her book at Lyon Books in Chico on Tuesday, June 15, from 7:00 - 8:00 p.m.

"Contrary to popular belief," Munson notes, "upper management and supervisors are not always the bullies that are making your life miserable. It is often your co-workers who are the culprits. They can draw you in and gain your trust then freeze you out of the inner circle."

The heart of the book helps readers identify some of the many types of workplace bullies and offers remedies (ranging from peacemaking communication to filing documented complaints to leaving the job altogether). Aggressive personalities may use outright intimidation or threats against the worker or "jump on any mistake with negative feedback."

More passive types are especially dangerous because the abuse is often hidden. "The mental and physical damage piles up, and the source is often not known or dealt with for a long time, if ever." The "potshot taker" uses "jabs, humor, sarcasm, and verbal sparring to put others down," "eavesdrops on conference calls" and "talk behind other people's backs." The "destructive storyteller" is a rumor-monger who spreads innuendos about workplace relationships or salaries.

Then there is the "alligator mob," usually coordinated by a single person, in which "co-workers, colleagues, superiors, or subordinates malign" the dignity of the worker, calling his or her integrity or competence into question. Self-confidence shattered, the worker often leaves.

Munson offers a calm voice and sensible guidance for "climbing out of the swamp." She's been there.

For Chico poet, rescued dogs and pain transformed

2010-06-03T21:00:00.000-07:00

A news release notes that Jeanne E. Clark is part of the creative writing faculty at Chico State University. The Midwesterner won the Akron Poetry Prize in 1997 for her first book, "Ohio Blue Tips." Now, in her second collection, "Gorrill's Orchard" ($16 in paperback from Bear Star Press, www.bearstarpress.com), Clark finds solace, and sustenance, in the rescued dogs she cares for in her home near an almond orchard. (She volunteers for Border Collie Rescue of Northern California.)

In "The Story Each Day," the poet writes: "I tell you that I love bleak, fierce landscapes. / I used to grow them in my garden from seed, / named them: yellow-billed magpie, / scrub jay, ladies of leisure. Married then, / one day I told myself this story: / a door in the house opened with purpose. / It held fire behind it. Marriage / made in a furnace / is too easy to start, to put out."

But the orchard, her new home in Northern California, awakens something in the poet. The dogs begin to appear. In "Rain and Roy Orbison," "On this weekend morning I walk the dog. / The dog red and white, rail thin. It's early. . . . // Roy Orbison's 'Only the Lonely' escapes / from my neighbor's open door and windows. . . . // My voice hard like bone, strung tight as muscle. / This morning walks us back into the world."

Then comes "July": "Peggy gets up from her small-dog dream, / waddles in her patchy, blond coat / around my bed. Her tail: / slow and happy propeller." In "Shaking the Almonds," "Flint, Belle, and I walk Gorrill's orchard, / Belle's plume tail a white flag in front of our parade. / Flint's short legs drumming up dust, he stops / to pee on every third tree. . . ."

"December" now. "Belle heels beside me, perfect. No distraction / to my play of fingers counting: making / haiku as I walk, syllables like birds lifting. . . . Can I say / what I feel is joy, ice-blue joy?"

In "Killdeer," the poet writes of "The earth, packed hard, without / forgiveness." "Meanwhile," though, in the dogs, in the orchard's life, there is "Wild forgiveness."

Two local educators bring math fun to the elementary set

2010-05-27T21:00:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the subtitle of "Math Wise!" ($29.95 in paperback from Jossey-Bass), by Jim Overholt and Laurie Kincheloe, sums it up: "Over 100 Hands-On Activities that Promote Real Math Understanding" for Grades K-8. Now in its second edition, the book is aimed at helping students understand concepts that range from counting to data analysis.

Overholt is an education professor at Chico State University; Kincheloe teaches mathematics at Butte College. Both have extensive experience working with K-12 students and their parents, and especially with elementary school teachers.

A grade level is provided for each activity, which include those that are "concrete/manipulative" (such as illustrating division using paper clips); "visual/pictorial" (3 x 5 can be shown by three horizontal lines crossed by five vertical ones); and "abstract procedures" (in Post-It Mental Math a student tries to guess the numerals stuck to his or her back using clues provided by others in the group). "Math Wise!" encourages teachers not only to "instruct students in regard to mathematical mechanics but also enable them to gain a true understanding of the concepts involved."

Each activity explains what the exercise is designed to accomplish (such as practicing computation, getting friendly with fractions, or learning about probability). There's a list of materials needed and detailed steps and examples that give ample guidance for teachers. There are also "extensions" that provide additional ways of using the activity. Many of the activities in the book are for entire classes, others are for small groups, and still others work best as independent projects.

My own mathematical knowledge is, uh, a fraction of what it should be, and I found myself delighted at the creative approaches--and sophistication--that "Math Wise!" embraces. Take "Palindromic Addition." (A palindromic number is reversible.) The activity uses pencil and paper. Pick a non-palindromic number less than 1000, then add its reverse, and continue until a palindrome is produced.

The example given is the number 158. When 851 is added to it, the sum is 1009, but it's not a palindrome. So add 9001 to 1009 and you get 10010--still not a palindrome. Ah, but add 01001 to 10010 and you get 11011. Our palindrome at last! Great fun for kids in school--and for adults in boring meetings.

A rollicking first novel from Doug Keister

2010-05-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

Perhaps best known for his beautifully photographed books on Bungalows and classic travel trailers, Chico's Doug Keister has pulled up his sleeves and written himself a yarn.

Told by one Clarence (Chick) Corbett out of Gerlach, in the northern Nevada desert, "Desiree" ($15.97 in paperback from lulu.com, http://bit.ly/cD3YNd) introduces larger-than-life characters and an international smuggling operation. Chick, in his early twenties, writes an "apology" at the start of the book. "A lot of it's true, that's for sure. Some of it's a bit of stretch. And some of it's an outright lie."

Like Desiree herself. "My feelings are pretty simple," Chick writes. "I mostly feel either good or bad. Lately though, I've added a feeling. I think I'm going to call that feeling, confused. . . . I started feeling that way after I met a woman named Desiree. That's Des-er-ay." She had broken into his cabin. There was also another guy there, a dead man. "I killed him," says Desiree.

She was dressed as a lady of the night, "a five-foot-six-inch angel with flowing red hair the color of sunset, large liquid green eyes and skin as smooth and soft as an old pair of Levis. . . . She was wearing this thing that looked as though she'd been poured into it. I think my hat had more material in it than that dress. . . ."

But Desiree is not what she seems, and there unfolds a tale that involves the FBI, nefarious operations out of Beijing and Hong Kong, a raft of bad guys, and a mysterious powder. It's a fast-paced hoot.

Gerlach has "just one gas station, five bars and 150 citizens occupying pretty much all the available notches on the evolutionary ladder." Uncle Ray sleeps "suspended by gravity boots." There's also Elwood LeFoote, "a grizzled Basque of indeterminate age" who herds sheep with a dog named Phydeaux and Strawberry Finches that live in his capacious beard. And Chick's best friend, Tom Twotrees, "half Navajo and half Paiute," who eschews pants in favor of "a strategically placed badger pelt."

Maybe this quote from Mark Twain, on the back cover of the book, sums it up: "Douglas Keister is a masterful storyteller. If I was alive, I'm sure I'd recommend this book."

Local Taoist author publishes book on the practice of forgiveness

2010-05-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

Zen and Taoist author William Martin of Chico writes that "forgiveness is not something to be figured out." Instead, it's something to be practiced, but from the perspective of what he calls the "Tao Mind," "a direct experience of the spacious unconditional acceptance found in the Tao . . . the Mystery behind all mysteries."

Rather than offer "Ten Tidy Tips to Total Forgiveness" Martin writes that "I am constrained by the nature of the Tao Itself to offer stories, parables, poetry, and meditative exercises." He is a gentle and self-deprecating guide as he ushers the reader into "The Tao of Forgiveness: The Healing Power of Forgiving Others and Yourself" ($15.95 in paperback from Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin).

Martin is scheduled to appear on Nancy's Bookshelf, hosted by Nancy Wiegman, this Saturday at 4:30 p.m. on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio) in Chico at 91.7 FM. In addition, he'll be signing and discussing his book at Lyon Books in Chico on Wednesday, May 19 at 7:00 p.m.

For Martin, what stands in the way is "the conditioned mind, or ego in its many forms, that does the resenting, clinging, shaming, blaming, wanting, needing, judging, and suffering that limit our experience of the intrinsic forgiveness of the Tao Nature and of our Tao Mind." The twenty-three short teaching stories in the book are designed to help the reader move, if for just a moment, from the labels and categories applied by the "conditioned mind" to the nonjudgmental acceptance of all that is.

But such acceptance doesn't mean that everything is "okay." In one of the Tao Mind exercises, Martin writes that "I would never suggest that our anger is wrong. It is merely what it is--an emotion stirred by a reaction within us that someone or something is wrong and that wrongness makes us feel unsafe. Our forgiveness practice involves turning our attention, first to the one within us who is feeling that anger and fear, and then letting the natural energy of our Tao Mind, uncontaminated by this fear, direct our course."

Though Martin's worldview is very far from my own, his book offers interested readers a taste of how an ancient tradition might speak to a modern world full of anger and fear.

Chico author helps to bring the Big Band Era to life

2010-05-06T21:00:00.000-07:00

It was 1938, and Ella Fitzgerald was bugging arranger Al Feldman to do something with the old nursery rhyme "A-Tisket, A-Tasket." So Feldman went home and fiddled. "I put the piece into a 32-bar frame. I added the release (middle section), the bridge, and wrote all the novelty lyrics, including the dialog between Ella and the band where they sang 'Was it red? No, no, no, no. Was it blue? No, no, no, no." Fitzgerald recorded the song on May 2, 1938. "I had no idea," Feldman says, "what to expect. Recording music is much like the game of roulette, using ten-inch 78RPM platters as the chips."

Al Feldman was born Alexander Van Vliet Feldman in Harlem on May 2, 1915. In 1936 he found himself arranging for the Chick Webb Orchestra, the house band at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. Soon he received an offer to become a band leader himself, and he changed his legal name to Van Alexander.

His story is recounted in "From Harlem to Hollywood: My Life In Music" by Van Alexander with Stephen Fratallone ($19.95 in paperback from BearManor Media). Alexander writes me that the book is "a finalist for the 2010 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research."

Fratallone is a Chico writer and jazz aficionado who has ably translated Van's first-person reminiscences to the printed page. The book contains dozens of black-and-white photographs as well as a discography.

About that nursery rhyme. "Lady Luck was on our side. The record broke big. It became the nation's number one hit song that summer, staying at that position on the Lucky Strike Hit Parade radio show for nineteen consecutive weeks."

The book is plain fun to read. After Alexander moved to Hollywood he worked with Les Brown, the musical director of the Dean Martin Show. There are plenty of stories.

"I started off as an arranger," Alexander says, "then composer, and then band leader. If I had made any contribution to the world of music, I hope it was to bring credibility, respect, and importance to the task of helping to make a piece of music sound like it has a life of its own." A fitting goal, admirably realized.

Author of "The Shack" coming to Chico

2010-04-29T21:00:00.000-07:00

A speed reader whipped through Tolstoy's "War and Peace" in just a few minutes. Startled, a friend said, "Wow! That's amazing! So what's the book about?" "It's about Russia," replied the speed reader.

I didn't speed-read "The Shack" ($14.99 in paperback from Windblown Media) by Wm. Paul Young. Yet the visceral impact the novel produced left me tongue-tied as I followed Mackenzie Allen Philips ("Mack") into the old shack where his youngest daughter had been gruesomely murdered. What's the book about? Well, it's about God.

Young takes the reader into every parent's worst nightmare but also beyond. In Mack's experience the shack is transformed into a meeting place with the Trinity: Papa (an African-American woman), Jesus the carpenter, and an Asian woman, Sarayu (the Spirit). How can God love Missy, Mack's six-year-old daughter? How can God love the murderer?

The answers given in the book have spurred theological debate, but the encounter in the shack (dream? vision? reality?) has gained the story millions of readers. An author's note says that Young, a Canadian, was "raised among a Stone Age tribe by his missionary parents in the highlands of former New Guinea. He suffered great loss as a child and young adult and now enjoys the 'wastefulness of grace' with his family in the Pacific Northwest."

Young will be speaking at Chico State University's Bell Memorial Union on Saturday, May 8. Two presentations are scheduled, at 11:00 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. The event is described as nonprofit with general admission tickets priced at $12, premium seating $16, and students $8. Tickets can be purchased through the Chico State box office at (530) 898-6333 or through www.theshackchico.com.

Mack meets Sophia, "the personification of Papa's wisdom," and in an extraordinary sequence he accuses God of mis-judging the world. And so Sophia offers Mack the job. And yet "he didn't feel like a judge at all, but rather the one on trial." Sophia is "unrelenting. 'Isn't this where you are stuck, Mackenzie? Isn't this what fuels The Great Sadness? That God cannot be trusted? Surely, a father like you can judge the Father!'"

Mack confronts the nature of evil, his own soul's chaos, and what God's love cost. What becomes of The Great Sadness is the rest of the story.

Best-selling science writer to speak tonight at Chico State University

2010-04-22T21:00:00.000-07:00

Since the 1950s, a line of cancer cells, dubbed "HeLa," has continued to multiply in cell cultures around the world. Normal cells die after a certain number of divisions, but HeLa cells are immortal; literally tons of them have been grown for research. They've been bombarded with radiation, shot into space, subjected to various drugs. They aided in a cure for polio. Millions of lives have been saved thanks to HeLa research.

But where did the cells come from, and what makes them unique? Science writer Rebecca Skloot determined to find the answers. She pieced together the story over the course of a decade and discovered an extraordinary tale of race, poverty, questionable medical ethics, and heartbreaking family tragedy. Her book, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" ($26 in hardcover from Crown) is the deeply personal legacy of a poor black Baltimore woman, mother of five, who died of cervical cancer in 1951.

Skloot (RebeccaSkloot.com) will be speaking tonight at 7:30 p.m. in PAC 144 (Harlen Adams Theatre) on the Chico State University campus. Sponsored in part by the Humanities Center, the presentation is free and open to the public. A reception will follow at the Humanities Center Gallery, Trinity 100.
Before Lacks died, Skloot was told, "a surgeon took samples of her tumor and put them in a petri dish." Henrietta's cells "were different: they reproduced an entire generation every twenty-four hours, and they never stopped."

Henrietta's daughter Deborah, suspicious of reporters, eventually befriended Skloot, who writes that "Deborah was the soul of this book."

An entry from Deborah's diary imagines her mother's pain before she died: "Her in that cold looking ward at John Hopkin Hospital, the side for Black’s only, oh yes, I know. When that day came, and my mother died, she was Robbed of her cells and John Hopkins Hospital learned of those cells and kept it to themselfs, and gave them to who they wanted and even changed the name to HeLa cell and kept it from us for 20+ years. They say Donated. No No No Robbed Self."

Henrietta Lacks is buried in an unmarked grave, and yet she lives. Skloot's book is a mesmerizing account that restores the "self" that might have slipped away forever.

Pirates don't pay taxes: Historical fiction from a local novelist

2010-04-15T21:00:00.000-07:00

Anne Bonny was born into the new 18th century in Cork, Ireland. Her father, William, was a lawyer; her mother, Peg, was the kitchen maid who had come to offer herself if William would but defend her brother, Sean, a Catholic "cheated of his land and title by a Protestant Parliament and condemned for his poverty by a Protestant judge."

"Will" is the operative word in Anne's life as she grows up in Charles Town, South Carolina with a headstrong father and a mother who is "no one's servant."

Anne would become one of the most famous pirates of the so-called "Golden Age of Piracy (1716-1726)." Based on research conduced in the US and Jamaica, Pamela Johnson has written a compelling historical novel full of lust, love and pirate life, and lots of "begetting." "Heart of a Pirate: A Novel of Anne Bonny" ($15 in paperback from Stone Harbour Press) is a page-turning chronicle of a woman who has "earned my place as an equal."

Johnson is scheduled to be interviewed by Nancy's Bookshelf host Nancy Wiegman this Saturday at 4:30 p.m. on Northstate Public Radio, KCHO (91.7 FM) and will be speaking at Lyon Books in Chico on Wednesday, April 21 at 7:00 p.m.

The author, who lives in Oregon House, between Rackerby and Browns Valley, puts Anne's story in the political context of the times in which "poverty and injustice" were partners.

As the tide turns, eventually Anne finds herself as crew aboard the vessel that pirate captain Jack Rackham has rechristened "Lady Anne." She serves under Rackham (in a number of senses) and carries his child, and can best any man in valor. The ship is a democracy, with an elected captain, and contrasts with "enlightened" European capitalism that was growing rich off the enslavement of others. "Must you demean the poor and low born," Anne later tells Philip O'Conner (who has offered to redeem her from prison), "make slaves of the Africans . . . so that you have coin in your purse?"

Anne and her crew companion, another female pirate named Mary Read, became heroes in Jamaica. Though Anne's fate is unknown, Johnson imagines a fitting conclusion to a complex life, raising anew questions of justice and equality.

Memoir of a pioneer journalist and broadcaster from a Chico author

2010-04-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

Chicoan Gordon Greb, blessed with good health and self-deprecating wit in his late eighties, is emeritus professor of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at San Jose State University.

As a boy he wanted to be a cartoonist. As a young man he helped fight film censorship. As an older man he trained hundreds of students, practiced investigative journalism, quit smoking, toured China with his wife, Darlene, and indulged in a little Walter Mitty fantasy when a comely PBS reporter came to Chico a few years ago to feature him in an episode of "History's Mysteries."

Greb will be speaking Wednesday, April 14 at Lyon Books in Chico beginning at 7:00 p.m. He'll also be signing copies of his memoir, "Google Brain" ($19.95 in paperback from iUniverse).

Subtitled "Making Your Memories a 'Time Machine' on the Internet," the book's 32 chapters include links to songs (like "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"), films, interviews, columns by Greb, audio "actualities," and more. The "more" includes a YouTube video, "The Cold War Revisited - 1961" in which the author interviews a Russian girl about living in a society where the government spies on you. These links provide context for Greb's remembrances and are themselves collected online at dogatemymemoir.blogspot.com.

"Memoir writing," he writes, "is such a widespread and common affliction these days that it could easily be classified as some kind of disease." He adds: "I, too, am a victim of this Memoir Revolution. . . . Day after day I have had a persistent need to come clean, spill the whole works, and tell the world what normal people would only tell their psychiatrists." Greb divides the book into three sections. Growing up is the Id; his career takes him into Ego; and, as he reflects on his life, the Super Ego (conscience) helps readers connect with the man inside.

Greb is no stranger to strong liberal politics, yet his pointed observations are leavened with ample doses of humor, such as his diary of the life of an octogenerian. One entry reads: "7:30 a.m. Maybe one of us gets up. Then we spend a half-hour taking pills."

Want a fun book with some serious ideas? With "Google Brain," your search is over.

Jesus Center banquet speaker to consider faith's response to mental illness

2010-04-01T21:00:00.000-07:00

The Thursday before Easter is traditionally the commemoration of Jesus' "new commandment" to love one another "just as I have loved you." That love is to extend to those with mental disabilities, though more conservative churches have had an uneasy relationship with the approaches of modern psychology and psychiatry. A timely book provides context and practical advice in answering the question, "If God has placed a mentally ill person in your life and you in his or hers, how will you respond?"

"Grace For the Afflicted: A Clinical and Biblical Perspective on Mental Illness" ($19.99 in paperback from Paternoster Publishing) by Matthew S. Stanford notes that "Christians develop mental illness at the same rates seen in the general population, and admonitions such as 'You need to pray more' or 'This is just the result of a lack of faith' are ineffective in dealing with this problem."

Stanford is the featured presenter at the forthcoming Jesus Center banquet on Saturday, April 17 at 5:45 p.m. The fundraiser will be held at City Plaza under a large tent; the author will be speaking on “Viewing Mental Illness and Homelessness through the Eyes of Faith.” Tickets are available at the Jesus Center, 1297 Park Avenue in Chico or by calling (530) 345-2640. Tickets are $30 each or $200 for a table for 8.

Stanford (http://mindfulofgrace.blogspot.com) is a committed believer, Chair of the Psychology Doctoral Program at Baylor University and ministers to the poor who have mental illness in Waco, Texas. Though the Bible is clear that we live in a broken world, "an educated understanding of brain function and psychological dynamics is not contrary to Scripture. From this perspective it would seem obvious that clinical psychology is useful in helping the Christian struggling with mental illness to eliminate negative or destructive patterns of thinking and behaving."

The heart of the book considers mood and anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders, ADHD, substance abuse, and more. Each chapter explains the disorder in simple terms and looks at risk factors, suggests what life is like for those who are suffering, then examines treatment options and what the Bible says. In dealing with those afflicted, Stanford's call is clear: "Will you love this person the way Christ loves you?"

Longtime Butte College math instructor becomes novelist

2010-03-25T21:00:00.000-07:00

Though there are a few math brain teasers scattered throughout, the theme of the first novel by longtime Butte College math instructor Gary Oakes is not how things add up but how, inevitably, they don't. "The World Is At Your Feet" ($14.95 in paperback from Long Shot Books) by G. Donovan Oakes (http://www.gdonovanoakes.com) takes place during the summer of 1959, a time of growing racial tensions.

The New York City Chamber of Commerce has set up a remediation program for black high school kids in Harlem. Four young grad students have volunteered to teach them English and math. Two of the first-time teachers are caucasian, Jim Sage of New York and Sam Maguire from Chicago. Hikoji ("Hi") Okamoto, from Sacramento, has parents who spent time in relocation and internment camps for Japanese-Americans during World War II. Then there's Harlem-based G, suspicious of the newcomers, convinced they know nothing of the rage and despair of their surroundings.

There's prejudice on every hand. Jim realizes that in his class discussion of "Lord of the Flies," "the pig's head represents something evil. The author doesn't explicitly say this. He said how black the teeth are, how black the flies are. . . . He equates black and evil. . . . I'm staring at twenty-five black faces staring back at me. . . . They always told us in school," Jim tells Sam and Hi, "that words have power, but this is the first time that my language has . . . deceived me, misdirected that power."

Jim's blue collar parents don't understand what Jim is doing, and Jim is angered by his father's racist language. "Your mother and I experienced a lot of change," Robert tells his son, "but we had very few choices. Life overpowered us. It just carried us along. We did the best we could."

Jim has "the world at his feet," but his choices do not come in a vacuum. As the author comments at the end, "ideals by themselves don't render a realistic, coherent guide to action in the world. They must be woven through the fabric of our lives, . . . clashing until a viable reconciliation is achieved. Then each day we must live with the consequences." You do the math.