Arizona. Now, with Photos!

Everybody else is blogging AWP-Atlanta, and I'm feeling left out. Mind you, I could have gone to Atlanta. I chose not to. God knows why. I had to do my laundry or something.

What'd I do instead of partying in Atlanta? I polished off the story revision I was working on in Tucson. I mailed out another story and met the new crew of Funkytown University grad student recruits. Howdy, suckers! What a rare experience it is to sell my experience here in Funkytown--telling the recruits how much I've learned and how much I admire the faculty, all of which is true--even as I refrain from telling these fresh-faced young folks that my two-and-a-half years here have been the unhappiest of my life. They don't need to know that, do they? Shh. It will be our little secret.

I think the best solution to Funkytown is getting the hell out of it. Two weeks after returning from Tucson, I'm still feeling focused, productive, and upbeat. (Of course, it helps to know that I'm leaving town again in another two weeks).

Let's look at some Tucson pictures, shall we?



I think I kind of fell in love with Tucson.



Something about the light. Arrowing down through the empty blue air, it lends an iconic presence to everything. The most banal objects--tree, house, car--are lit up like God's own, viz:



and:



and even:



Here's what John P. Klum, an early settler of the region, had to say about Arizona:

I loved the west. The open spaces. The desert mountains; the illusions and disillusions.

The museum in Tombstone had a photograph of Klum: mounted on horseback, sporting a duster and shaggy beard, he looks like Warren Beatty in McCabe and Mrs. Miller. He was an easterner who never went back. Buried three wives here. Started a newspaper, more loyal to the Apaches than his government or peers. I see how these people, the people I met on my first night in Tucson and Klum back at the turn of the century, fell in love with this place. It's a place to come clean, to imagine yourself all over again, to believe that you'll never fall for an illusion or settle into disillusionment again.

Photo Stuff
Click to enlarge. They look way better.
1. Gates Pass, Tucson, sunset
2. Nopale fruit (I ate the flesh and got some hair-thin spines embedded in my lips)
3. Mission San Javier del Bac, Tucson
4. Dot's Diner, Bisbee
5. U of Arizona scoreboard viewed from university library, sunset

These photos are my own. More to come!

Lest you imagine I spent my writing residency sightseeing and eating bonbons, photos 2-4 were taken after my residency was over.