excellent book and highly recommended. the young Winston in the Boer war. describes all his youthful foolishness, courage, overweening self-esteem, class arrogance, his strength and undaunted bravery. He endured prison camp (not terribly onerous) firefights, escape from prison camp, hid out in the depths of a mine, walked endless miles on his escape route — escape from the Boers — and ate dreadful stuff. He was carried forward by an amazing self-confidence, even narcissism of a sort.

and that’s often what it takes to be the leader he later became. it is silly to demand that leaders of this caliber also be humble and sympathetic etc. it is not possible. Candice Millard did terrific research and her writing is first rate. Very objective.

This led me to reading more about the Boer War, especially the book Commando, by Denys Reitz.

I met her at the Express-News charity event November 11th, which was to raise money for cancer research. I was never so close to being non-functional as at that event. I just had not recovered from my fall and broken arm, was there in a cast, and really did not know if I could stand up before 500 people and speak but I made it. I should not have gone. It was very hard to sign books and be polite to people. That cast prevented me from sleeping well at night, prevented rest.

At any rate I met Candice and we exchanged books.

We have good color this fall, the Spanish oaks are turning very red. Beautiful!

We lost a wonderful neighbor, a most remarkable person. Evelyn Frankovich, the mom of that person riding with me in the harper-Collins video, also named evelyn.

lively, giving, sparkling. a few days before we lost her she drove up to my house and presented me with some beautiful hand-embroidered towels, and said, ‘that’s to say thank you for being a friend to my daughter’. I was astonished and gratified, amazed. we talked for a while and she told me about her life, growing up in Galveston. Difficult circumstances, and yet always so cheerful and laughing. I asked her what she did when she did embroidery work and mentioned that when I did my repair sewing, I listened to radio — classical station at 88.3. She said, ‘I pray for people’.

three days later the lifelift helicopter came over my ridge and down the other side and it was with great trepidation I saw it land on Evelyn and Pat’s property. Half the population of seco ridge road was on the way down there including me in my golf cart and I was praying it wasn’t for any of their people. Isn’t that selfish? because it sure as hell had to be somebody. we are but human.

It was a heart attack, she was airlifted to San Antonio and in three days she was lost to us. But not really. Evelyn Junior gave me a CD with photos of her but I can’t get it to load or work and so I am thinking she’s saying. ‘Not now. Maybe later’.

Ok Ev, whatever you think. Keep praying for us.

Venus is the evening star now, I have never seen it so bright.

An unknown casualty of the attack, probably only remembered by family. The photos of the big ships exploding and going down are iconic, but we forget the Japanese planes strafed everything they came upon. The ‘little’ people, unnoted, unrecorded.

got an interesting letter, at least the address was, on the front, it said something like AUTHOR EXTRAORDINAIRE and of course having a merely human ego I couldn’t wait ’til I got home to open it but somewhere between the post office and the general store I lost it, the frustrating exercise of ‘searching everywhere’. the horror of going through the garbage, the coffee grounds, the ranch dressing. whoever wrote it my apologies. I will probably never know what was in it.

advent, December in the hill country, rainy and cold. one-handed typing. sucks.

but I love the cold

news from jolly old.  a surveillance bill has passed parliament which would allow police surveillance of everybody’s internet browsing history. this from The Independent Oct. 30. all web browsing histories of everybody for the past year.

and so writers writing spy novels or westerns or dystopian works etc etc who go about u tube or elsewhere researching guns, archery exploding things poisons siege ramps mortars and other artillery, traps hanbo sticks quarterstaff moves, krav maga attack cats knife defenses limpet mines grenades claymores fertilizer explosives and so on would probably get a visit from inspector dalgliesh’s far more serious twin.

yes you see we have here a record of your internet browsing perhaps you can explain this.

oh oh, i’m a writer! this is for my spy novel, ‘the exothermic villain’!

is it really, interesting, we see you have recently visited spain.

yes, yes, part of it happens in spain where he falls afoul of several  assassins, you see, who try to kill him with a bow and arrow and he knocks them off with an umbrella gun, I can show you the manuscript! i’m a writer! I make stuff up! honest!

it’s not too far from that to:

then perhaps you shouldn’t be writing this sort of thing, should you. here is a list of approved subjects for fiction from the agency of narrative control.

pardon bad typing, I have to type with one hand. this elbow cast comes off Thursday!! then wrist cast. much better, and the title above comes from my very nice and wise orthopedist, he was putting on the elbow cast and said ‘this fixative is what we call exothermic. maybe you could find a title in that’. and I said, yes! the exothermic villain! dr. William Anderson, great guy.

typing with one hand. I was a finalist. I didn’t win.

okay I fell on a rainy pavement coming out of bookpeople in Austin where I had just been signing books and had an interview with the dallas morning news and had met june and her daughter nikki, we agreed to meet later for dinner, I walked out and came down off a curb on my left foot, slipped, broke left wrist in 2 places, bashed face on left side. off to trauma center in ambulance. june and nikki came and did all sorts of heroic driving in rainy Austin traffic to get my prescriptions get me to hotel and left me w/ hot tea and painkillers.

I ordered chili poblano soup from room service, it was the crappiest soup I ever ate. insult to injury. acid green lichen-like slime. and I had to eat that shit with one hand.

so I drove home next day after I gave reading and signed boox with black eye and emergency cast (yes I actually did, there are witnesses) and then drove home in rainstorm w/ june ahead of me, started fishtailing and spun out on hiway 483 ?? landed in arms of a big cedar, people stopped, got truck back on road, I went on home. drving w one hand leads to various disasters but the point of all this is I made it to n.y. for all the hoopla for nba. this with a grim black eye like the eye of sauron and arm in a cast.

my editor jen brehl and agent liz darhansoff deserve endless accolades and heartfelt thanks for all they did for this book, their kindness all around, and ESPECIALLY since liz had to help me put in my earrings and jen had to cut up my food. Fijate! that is true friendship.

got to stay with liz in her apartment on riverside drive and be driven around in limos!! also my bluegrass group sent me a video of them all yelling good luck! do I deserve all this, I ask myself.

statue of Eleanor Roosevelt riverside drive, liz’ ap’t one of the buildings behind.

voila riverside drive plus park body of water adjacent is the Hudson

one of the cool little elderly buildings surviving intact on r’side drive between huge ap’t bldgs., these are all off bing images.

liz a most amiable companion and good walker, we had a wonderful walk down the park alongside the Hudson ab’t two miles. I have pics of the awards dinner on my phone which I lost and then refound will post them when I get Harold t come help me. lunch w/ HarperCollins people was so nice. amazed at champagne toast from all to me! jen brehl you are amazing person and great editor. and so on I went, floundering from event to event w/ grimy cast and makeup plastered over black eye.

for the awards dinner I cut the cuff off a black sock and put it over cast, jen helped stick rhinestones on it.

so many events and harper Collins supplied limo for all, went up and down west side parkway a gazillion times (a gazillion is the total of the u.s. national debt plus five and a bag of chips).

that’s me at the reading for all finalists held at auditorium of new school for social research and I am laying down the law about something or at least the captain is, probably ‘you will fight with each other on your own time and not during my reading’. note they selected a color for the graphics to match my sweater.

some time later will include more stuff. a short time w/ Gordon lish, far too short, which reminded me why I absolutely love the guy, his stream-of -consciousness gossip is revelatory, heartening, I could have listened for hours.

lish. great image. stole it from numerocinq.com.

this was for congratulations for being a finalist NBA. is it cool or what/  one-handed typing here.

will keep this blog up better now that traveling is over. at the reading tues. nite in n.y. November 15th afterwards a big tall guy came up with five copies notw for me to sign — he had a great n.y. accent. he said he was a retired teacher and ‘I read your blog all the time’. I am continually astonished at the people who read this diaristic rambling thing but here’s to you, tall n.y. guy with cool accent. and twigman jim too.

This is the crest of the 141st regiment 36th division of the texas national guard, jim’s home regiment. he was very proud of it. the 141st was unstrumental in the fight for monte casino and was sent on the disastrous foray across the rapido river at the base of the mountain. few survived. one was jim’s friend Charlie meuth, another was audie murphy. jim joined in high school 1952.

Whatever happens, it is a great honor.

Much traveling and dealing with requests for short things to be written, taxes, the hot water heater is out and had David Mazurek come and fix it, they are such a great little firm here in Utopia. Now have hot water again. Meeting Charles Frazier and the gang at Malaprop was truly fun. Fun can be hard to come by in this world. At least I got back in time to to go to choir and cantata practice, it is so calming. Picking up books in bookstores where I am asked to read is a joy.

This is an important book,  Get hold of it any way you can. Hilarity will ensue. Many dire warnings. Heed them.

They have got the Caprock now for the wall at the city park. It is looking good. Chris Chism has his food trailer almost ready, it is painted turquoise and the lights are strung across the food garden area and he and his dad went down to Hubble near Houston and got a second-hand walk-in freezer and with the help of a squadron of large strong guys got it in Wayne’s pickup and hauled back all the way to Utopia. This is going to be good. It is in a large empty lot (I remember when there was a house there, Bill Keller tore it down about four years ago, Bill Keller has a construction/destruction company, local, and is also a great baritone). (I wish he were in the cantata). But there are two or three large beautiful trees there, one of them a Chinquapin oak and with lights strung up all through the trees it is going to be fabulous.

That is all.