Fame

So I walked into a bar last week. The bartender squinted her eyes and said, "Hey! Are you Joe Cottonwood?"

"Yes."

"I knew you from your book cover. I just bought Clear Heart to give my boyfriend for Christmas."

Now that's fame. Earlier this year, I got an email from a bartender in Liverpool, England who'd read Famous Potatoes.

And speaking of honors, I woke up this morning to read:

2008 Founders Choice Awards

This year’s five Founders Choice Awards for excellence in serialized audiobook production for titles here on Podiobooks.com go to:

• Joe Cottonwood for Clear Heart
• Nathan Lowell for Double Share
• Basil Sands for Faithful Warrior
• Scott Sigler for Infected
• Peter James Froning for Letter from China

About the Founders Choice Awards

The Founders Choice Awards are given annually — well, they will be given annually — to serialized audiobooks of impeccable quality.

Hey. My podcast wins awards. And bartenders all over the world are buying my novels.

Impeccable quality and a happy new year, everybody!

Joe the Other Plumber, Part 4 ... and Denis Shaw

I just stumbled upon this old picture that Denis Shaw drew of me.

It's in a book called Here We Come Again: La Honda Poets which is so thoroughly out of print that I couldn't even find a used copy on the internet.

The book, published in 1982, contains five of my poems, three of which are actually songs.

The book cover is another Denis Shaw drawing, this one depicting Apple Jack's, our local tavern which was originally built as a blacksmith shop during the Gold Rush. Limey Kay added a lot of brick and stonework there over the years, which is fitting since it was his second home.

Denis, by the way, makes teddy bears. Hundreds of them. Never the same bear twice. Works of art. Some are "real" bears and some are fantasy bears-from-another-planet. He designs them, then builds, leaving the head for last. When he applies the nose, he says, the bears can breathe - they come alive.

La Honda is the kind of town with the kind of economy where the stonemason trades work for beer and the plumber can be stretched out on the floor thinking about poetry with his head under a sink while the homeowner sits at his kitchen table sewing, giving life to a teddy bear.

Good Night, Gorilla Glue

Ask a carpenter to repair a book, and what does he reach for? In this case, Gorilla Glue and a Pony clamp.

The book is Tails by Matthew Van Fleet. It's my grandson's book, and fortunately he has two copies, so one can be in the shop while the other is in use.

His favorite book, by the way, is Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann. It's a wonderful story. We've read it over and over and over again, and it's still wonderful. And if it ever needs repair, I'll reach for - what else? - some Gorilla Glue.

I met Peggy at an Author's Day once when we both were visiting the same school. She's a talented and hardworking artist. Good Night, Gorilla is a marvel of color, story-telling, and psychology. The simplest books are the hardest to make - and of course, they aren't really simple at all. She's made some beauts.

Gloves

Because it's cold out there. Just like saw blades and screwdrivers, they're tools, and we need more than one kind. For myself, I usually wear gloves with the fingertips cut off - but then I don't live in the Adirondacks like Ken, the owner of these gloves. (Ken, by the way, just had a pacemaker installed in his chest and is feeling much better - probably out splitting firewood at this moment, at age 94).

When my fingers get cold, I lose all sensation (except constant pain). I dream of a glove that keeps fingers toasty warm, allows me to feel what I'm touching, allows a good grip on a chainsaw or a wire nut, and allows me to pick up a 6d finish nail. And while I'm dreaming, how about one that allows me to touch a live 240 volt wire - or hold a demolition hammer without sending vibrations up my arm? I keep thinking there must be a better design for gloves, and maybe there is. What do you use?

(Continuing my homage to hardware and hard work. You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

Joe the Other Plumber, Part 3

Lawrence Wright was an English architect and artist, according to the book jacket, who believed "More can be learned about past peoples from their bathrooms than from their battlefields.” From my experience as a plumber, I'd have to agree. Rummaging through somebody's medicine cabinet is for amateurs. You could learn more by ripping out an ancient vanity or lifting a toilet (someday, perhaps, I'll tell the tale of the toilet, the toothbrush, and the giant creeping fungus - but not today). My friends, it's the dark side of suburbia.

An article in Paper Cuts, a blog of the New York Times, inspired me to return to Clean and Decent: The Fascinating History of the Bathroom and the Water-Closet, a treasured (and stained) book I inherited from my father, who was a scientist with many, uh, passions.

I'll be rereading it - and undoubtedly posting more as I go - but for today my eyes came upon this passage:

"That prolific inventor Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) in his proposal for Ten New Towns ... All the stairways in the tenement buildings were to be spiral, to prevent the insanitary misuse of stair landings. Leonardo invented a folding closet seat that 'must turn round like the little window in monasteries, being brought back to its original position by a counterweight'. For Francis I at Amboise Castle he proposed to install a number of water-closets with flushing channels inside the walls, and ventilating shafts reaching up to the roof; and as people are apt to leave doors open, counterweights were to be fitted to close them automatically.”

Just in case you think the closing of toilet seats is a new item in the gender wars.

Here's a link to a more recent edition of Clean and Decent, which can be accessed through Amazon and probably can be purchased without the stains.

Attention, shoppers...

For those of you who hate Amazon, I'm pleased that my novel Clear Heart can now be purchased at several fine establishments, including the San Gregorio Store in San Gregorio, CA (pop 287), serving the bicycle and surf trade. The store itself is well worth the trip. Good live music on weekends. You might even spot me somewhere near the bar, and you might spot my son playing guitar with John Fuller.
Mountain Made, seen in the above photo to the left of Alice's Restaurant in Woodside, CA, also has copies of Clear Heart. If you're out on your motorcycle and suddenly must have some good reading, stop by and check it out.
If your taste runs to the more conventional book store, Moon News in Half Moon Bay is a friendly, well-lit place which happens to sell Clear Heart. I go to the open mic there every couple of months and join other local writers for 10 minutes of whatever we feel like reading aloud.

I'd like to make my book available in at least one store in San Francisco, and the East Bay, and San Jose, and maybe in Marin - stores with friendly management who welcome local authors. Any suggestions on where I should go?

Tom Dodd: Carpenter, Poet

Tom Dodd is one of the most generous and open-hearted people I've ever met. He's also a darn good carpenter. He lives in a tipi near Pescadero, California, which is near my town of La Honda. Right now he's foreman on the construction of a 4 story condo/retail building in Hunters Point, which means a long drive up the coast every morning and back every evening.

Tom's a poet, which seems to be an occupational hazard among some of the carpenters in this area.

Recently, an emu was wandering uninvited near Tom's tipi, lost but dignified, owner unknown, which has nothing to do with this topic but gives a sense of the daily strangeness in our neighborhood, perhaps the ghost of a Merry Prankster:
Anyway, here's one of my favorite poems written by Tom when he was living in a house, not a tipi, at Struggle Mountain:

Fireplace

Rough stone, smoke blackened,
time darkened mantel
and pale fire brick, chewed by near a century
of tree fall, building scraps,
old tool handles, broken furniture,
its looming dark mass anchors the house,
fixes the resident orbit,
draws us into its welcome grasp.

Katie could stretch out in its wide hearth opening,
stone cooled on a hot summer night,
but now we sit before the fire
bathing in warm woodglow
listening to embers talk:
the fir pitch cracking and spitting,
a fresh branch hissing,
the sound of logs suddenly settling to ash.

Cities of coals gilt vague memories
and dragon-tongued flames dance near
the curled hound’s sleep.
Here Jesse plots games and devices
and Katie dries and dreams after warm baths.
And I meet myself sitting quiet,
spellbound,beyond the limits of time,
at this same fire
in other places, in distant years,
amazed at this wealth.

Cigar Boxes - the Other Tool Chest

Just to keep things in perspective, we don't all need something like Henry Studley's tool chest. Here's how my hero, Ken Laundry, keeps small parts and tools. Ken was 11 years old, already helping to harvest lumber and saw blocks of ice, when Studley died in 1925.

(Continuing my homage to hardware and hard work. You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

Henry O. Studley's Tool Chest

We need more nuts in this world. I say that because anybody who would put this much time, love, and work into building such an amazing tool box is, frankly, nuts.

Henry Studley was a Civil War veteran and a piano maker in Massachusetts. He built this tool chest using ebony, mother-of-pearl, ivory, rosewood, and mahogany, probably leftover scraps from building pianos. Wikipedia has an article about him.

I wonder what in his heart drove him to create such a wondrous work of art. It's owned by a private collector, but oh man would I love to see it in person, to touch it, to open one of those little drawers.

As a soldier, Studley was captured near Galveston, Texas in 1863. I know a lot of war vets, and they all find different ways to cope with the demons that war embeds in a man's soul. I suspect that this tool chest may have been Henry's way of coping: A world he could construct and control and make perfect, and perfectly wonderful.

Many of us, in our wood shops or on our jobs, do something similar in smaller ways.

Thanks to Eric Larsen of Key Knife, who turned me on to this marvel.

It's Out!

It occurs to me that I never formally announced that Clear Heart is now published and ready for sale. Well, ta-da! it is. Okay. End of publication party. At this exact moment as I write this post, Clear Heart is ranked #224,628 in Amazon book sales. (Hey, yesterday it was up at 95,000).

Here's the link if you want to order Clear Heart from Amazon. And of course, they take credit cards.

Some people have asked for signed copies. Happy to oblige. Send a check for $23 ($15 for the book, $8 for packing and postage) to

Joe Cottonwood
PO Box 249
La Honda, CA 94020

Yes, it's low-tech, but it works. Make the check out to Joe Cottonwood. Sorry, I can't figure out how to process PayPal or credit cards. I mean, look, I'm just a writer, you know, living up in the mountains where I'm lucky to have electricity half the time (but we have a wonderful little post office). So, please: Checks. Or cash.

And pardon me while I shout a quick HOORAY!!! It's been a long time coming.

(As a side note, I originally scheduled my release date of Clear Heart to coincide with the announced release of Joe the Plumber's book. Alas, he seems to have missed the deadline. I guess we've all had the experience of a plumber not showing up when he's supposed to.)

Log Hook

As you can see from the comment to the previous post, what I (and my mentor, Ken) called a wood hook is commonly called a log hook. Thanks, Joe, for the pointer to Northern Tools where you can buy this baby for $23. Same price as my book, come to think of it, if you order by mail - and you can't use my book to grab and carry logs, so this tool is a much better deal. And unlike my book, a hundred years from now the log hook will still be useful to somebody just as Ken's "wood hook" is still ready for action.

It's interesting to read the comment page provided by Northern. Everybody says it's a great tool except they had to sharpen the point - so why don't they just sell it with a sharper point? It's bigger than it appears in the picture, about 16 inches, and seems rugged - if you accidentally ran over it with your tractor, the tractor would be the loser.

I want one. I shouldn't have one. My log-moving days are pretty much over, and just looking at that thing makes my lower back hurt. When I was younger I owned 40 acres in Mendocino County near the little town of Yorkville. Using downed redwood trees, I chainsaw-milled the lumber for a cabin - which is when I needed that tool. And this one, a log tong:

I had to sell that lovely piece of land when I was hard up for cash. It had meadows, an oak forest, and a lively little creek with a redwood grove. My kids and I had many an adventure there. Wild turkeys ran all over the place. Now it's an estate and a vineyard. (Sigh). I'm a beer guy, myself.


(Continuing my homage to hardware and hard work. You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

Wood Hook

Reminds me of a bird. It's a wood hook and it's probably a hundred years old. As Ken, the owner, explained, it's like an ice hook, only you use it to grab a log and carry it. Does anybody still use them? I can't even find a listing of one for sale anywhere.

This one's seen a lot of use. To me, it's a piece of history and a work of art. But I'm strange that way.

Here's a view of the whole thing:

(Continuing my homage to hardware and hard work. You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

Whiffletrees

Also known as whippletrees. You use them with a team of horses. Ken Laundry, the owner, hasn't needed them since he bought his tractor in 1951. During the Great Depression, Ken used to cut blocks of ice from the lake and haul them to local ice houses. He used to plow his fields behind a horse. Now Ken keeps the whiffletrees hanging in his barn, just in case. Which, these days, seems like a good idea.

(Continuing my homage to hardware and hard work. You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

News Alert: Joe the Plumber and Joe the Other Plumber to release books on the same day!

My Joe the Other Plumber post, and the follow-up Joe le Plombier, got picked up by several news reports including the United Kingdom and Croatia, for heaven's sake. So I hope you'll forgive me for announcing that the official publication date of Clear Heart, the worldwide launch, will be December 1, 2008.

Why December 1? Because that's the announced publication date of Joe the Plumber's (Samuel Wurzelbacher's) book. I have no idea what his book will be about, but I expect a lot of flag-waving. Maybe he and his ghostwriter will surprise everybody and come up with something good. I actually wish him well. We writer/plumbers (or ex-plumbers ) need all the help and good luck we can get. It's a tough and smelly world out there.

Mr. Wurzelbacher will have quite an advantage over me. Tons of free publicity and probably a trainload of review copies sent out. I've only sent one review copy of Clear Heart. I don't even have a book for myself. My copies are in a truck right now somewhere on a highway between South Carolina and La Honda. But it's available on Amazon and already has a nice write-up there. From such modest beginnings, we proceed...

(If you want to read the book jacket text, click on the image to see a larger view.)

Wrenches

Even the most orderly tradesmen seem to end up with a pile of wrenches. So many tools, so little time...

(Continuing my homage to hardware and hard work. You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

Donald Finkel

The poet Donald Finkel died last week. You can read an obituary here, or the New York Times' version here.

When I was a student at Washington University, St. Louis in the 1960's, he was teaching Creative Writing. The university was swirling with writers at the time: Stanley Elkin, William Gass, Howard Nemerov, John N. Morris, with visits by Robert Creeley, John Hartford (singer-songwriter), many more - I even met Cyprian Ekwensi, the Nigerian writer. I had classes with Elkin, heard a stunning reading by Gass, had lunch with Creeley, sang along with Hartford and soaked up the roots of my writing knowledge from all of them.

Donald Finkel was kicked out of high school for playing hooky, and he was expelled from the University from Chicago for smoking marijuana. He taught the best Creative Writing class I ever took. He forgave me for skipping classes, and I may have shared a joint with him at some point - I can't recall. As they say, if you can remember the 60's, you weren't really there.

In Don Finkel's class, I wrote my first novel. It's never been published. Finkel loved it. My own take on it, looking back, is that it was extremely well-written (a credit to Finkel), an exuberant ode to freedom and adventure, but that I was too inexperienced in life, too young, lacking the wisdom that is the other half of writing - the understanding of the world, of how life really plays out.

Life played out pretty well for Don Finkel. I'm sorry it's over.

“The Ape Who Painted”

Toward the end of his painting career, Congo was
producing excellent circles, but nearly always filled them
in immediately.
–Alexander Alland, Jr., The Artistic Animal

from time to time he would pause
to examine an apple, turning it
in his long, sensitive fingers, or fish
a dust-mouse gently from under his bed
not a hair displaced
or moon for hours, sprawled on his favorite tire
praying to his thumb
how fortunate we are to have captured on film
this miraculous thumb, in full career
sweeping in a great assured arc from left to right
trailing a gleaming Indian Red parabola
counterclockwise, following its own law
tailing up again, toward its beginning
deftly dividing out from in
then filling carefully the bowl of zero
with precious red, horizon to horizon
toward the end, the painter’s cage was strewn
with fallen suns, great bloody periods
pages from some cosmic calendar
while he grew more taciturn than ever.

–Donald Finkel
From: What Manner of Beast

Almost Out

Here's my "proof copy" from BookSurge. Clear Heart is now listed on Amazon, but it says "out of print" and lacks the cover image and the "search inside the book" feature. In a day or two, the cover image and search-inside feature should appear, and you should be able to order it. The list price is $15 (Good news - less than I expected). The workings of Amazon are mysterious indeed, and even though Amazon owns BookSurge, BookSurge says they have no idea if Amazon will discount the price.

BookSurge is a print-on-demand publisher. When you place an order with Amazon, they print one copy and ship it out within one day. I've never done this before. I hope the quality is consistent. Please - if you order it - drop me an email and tell me how the printing came out.

For those of you who are Amazon-phobic (quite a few, I gather), you may buy the book directly from me, and I will happily inscribe it. My copies will arrive in 3 or 4 weeks (for bulk orders, they print it through a regular printing press, and it takes longer), so I can't guarantee that I could fulfill an order before Christmas. An order from Amazon will ship the same day that it is placed, so that's the Christmas solution. Once I receive my bulk order, I - like Amazon - will be able to fill orders in one day.

Clear Heart won't be in bookstores except in the Greater La Honda metropolitan area. When I receive my bulk order in 3 or 4 weeks, I'll place copies in the San Gregorio Store (the store itself is well worth the trip) or at Moon News Bookstore in Half Moon Bay. Maybe I'll get to some stores in San Francisco or East Bay eventually. I'm a shy salesman, though, so I can't promise to go around peddling myself very much. Also - just to warn you - bookstores have to make a profit, too, so in order to break even myself I may have to set a bookstore price of $18.95. We'll see.

Here's the deal: Send a check made out to Joe Cottonwood for $23 ($15 book price plus $8 for packaging and postage) and tell me how to inscribe your copy. My address:

Joe Cottonwood
P.O. Box 249
La Honda, CA 94020

Yeah, I know, it's an archaic way to order books. Maybe someday I'll figure out how to enable orders over the web (would anybody like to help?). Meanwhile, there's always Amazon.

Stuff

Tucked between rafters is that all-important tool called Stuff. Stuff is too good to throw away. Stuff has many uses though we can't think of one just now. So we keep a bamboo pole, a dowel, threaded rod, flat steel, and the yellow curling pages of a 1956 catalog from Montgomery Ward.

Stuff is what we all know is valuable though it wouldn't fetch a penny at a garage sale.

Stuff is my favorite tool.

(Continuing my homage to hardware and hard work. You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

Two Man Saw

(Continuing my homage to hardware and hard work. You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

Joe le Plombier

In a file cabinet in my attic I've found a stack of French reviews of Famous Potatoes, which over there was called Les Tribulations de Willy Crusoe. (Willy Crusoe was the name taken by the main character when he was on the lam from the law.)

All the French reviews make note of my college degree and my occupation of plumber. None of the USA reviews seemed to find it worthy of note.

Here's the one I was thinking of (sorry, I can't type the accents). The reviewer was comparing Famous Potatoes to a recent work of French literature written by somebody who evidently had never dirtied his hands:

En definitive, c'est peut-etre ce qui manque a notre literature: des etres ronds et sales, dont les reves seraient aussi les reves des ecrivains. Des etres capables de s'attendrir, non sur eux-memes (cela, nous n'en manquons pas), mais sur plus pauvre, plus desespere qu'eux.

Rich Amerique qui a encore de pareils vivants. Et des informaticiens-plombiers capables de les observer.

Pauvre Europe, ou les detenteurs de diplomes universitaires ne deviennent jamais errants, ou il n'y a plus ni plombiers, ni reveurs, ni racines. Et ou les livres ne retentissent que de mea culpa...

-Jean Vigneaux in Pourquoi Pas? March 25, 1982

My French is rusty, and I can't be sure there isn't an element of sarcasm in the text. But I think M. Vigneaux was praising my novel and, oddly, the earthy roots of American literature. Would anybody care to translate? What's your take?

Rope, Chain, Tractor

(Continuing my homage to hardware and hard work. You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

Joe the Other Plumber

"Joe the Plumber," also known as Samuel Wurzelbacher the unlicensed plumber who doesn't pay his taxes, is coming out with a book. I've been watching his 15 minutes of fame with detached amusement, but now he's threatening my status as the only published plumber named Joe.

Yes, me, Joe Cottonwood. I was a plumber. And an electrician. And a carpenter. If you read the bookjacket of my novel Famous Potatoes, the 1979 edition published by Delacorte, it says: "Joe Cottonwood is a young novelist living in La Honda, California. A 1970 graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, Joe Cottonwood has been a computer operator and now earns his living as a professional plumber..."

For the record, I am now a licensed general contractor. Back then, I was a handyman who did a lot of plumbing. The bookjacket could just as easily have called me a handyman, or a carpenter, or an electrician. I was all of those things. A French journal printed a long article in which some French critic made a big fuss about the fact that in America plumbers were publishing novels and how that could never happen in France. I'm not sure whether the critic was for or against the phenomenon of publishing plumbers. Him being French, and me being American, I suspect he was against.

I wonder what that critic will say now.

Continuing a Theme

(Continuing my homage to hardware and hard work. You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

Leopards, Lions, and ... Rope

Rope, sensual and strong. Rope works hard and yet appeals to the eye. Okay, I admit, I'm sort of obsessed with rope and chain and cable. They're tools, just like hammers and screwdrivers. We use them all the time. And when we put them away, they remind me of sleeping felines. Coiled muscle. Power and grace.

I've previously featured rope, chain, and cable here and here and here. There will be more.

(Continuing my homage to hardware and hard work. You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

Toolbox

Cracked by age, battered by work, recently repaired, creaky but useful - this toolbox is a lot like its owner. Speckled with sawdust, spattered with paint, stained by water - there is a ragged beauty.

The plywood partitions are a recent addition. One fresh nail was added to the end, probably at the same time that the plywood was nailed in the middle. The handle has an elegant curve, though I'm sure its shape was for function, not aesthetics. The saw notches on the handle speak of its use as a sawhorse. The notch where the handle joins the end was nicely cut, then sanded and rounded, as was the handle itself. In contrast, the angled cut on the end piece is rough, slightly wobbly, and never finished.

It's the work of a practical man. A busy man. A man who probably spent a couple of hours, seventy-five years ago, choosing a few strong scraps of wood and creating this portrait of his career building simple, practical things that we use - and use up - without giving a thought.

(Continuing my homage to hardware and hard work. You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

About a Man

I don't arrange these tools. I shoot 'em like I find 'em. And I love this grouping, this simple quiet statement about a man's life.

(Continuing my homage to hardware and hard work. You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

Mystery Job

Tools gather for a reason. But I'm scratching my head over what project could have caused this particular gathering of tools on a carpenter's workbench.

Maybe he needed to field dress a moose, solder a cavity in its teeth, measure the size of its antlers, and open a bottle of beer. But the screwdriver? I dunno. Any ideas?


(Continuing my homage to hardware and hard work. You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

'32 Ford, '80 Calendar, '64 Story

I took this photo of Ken's workshop in September, 2008. The calendar hasn't been turned since September, 1980. The hubcap is from Ken's 1932 Ford pickup. I guess the good things in life don't need to change.

Speaking of pickups, I remember Ken driving that truck - or maybe it was a later model - with the bed full of garbage. He'd haul the trash from one of the summer camps and dump it way back in the woods on his land. He told me bears started hanging out at his dump, waiting for the camp food, and after a while they learned his schedule. Further, Ken told me, the bears got so comfortable there that they wouldn't run away as he approached in his truck. In fact, as he turned the truck around and put it in reverse, those bears would stand there giving hand signals, helping him back up. . .

(Continuing my homage to hardware and hard work. You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

Almost Out

Yee haw! After two months of proofreading, corrections, resubmission, more proofreading, more corrections, resubmission, more proofreading... It's done. In a few days, I should hold the actual physical book in my hands. Here's the bookjacket:If you click on the image, you should get a larger view.

And something I just realized - there's no price on it. I think they were planning to charge $19.95, and yeah, I know the expense sounds high for a paperback. Even though it's self-published, the price is out of my control. The printer uses a formula based on what the fixed cost is to print it. Since it's print-on-demand, the cost of printing a single copy is higher (though surprisingly not much higher) than the cost of running off thousands of copies in a batch.

Still to come, they have to mail me an actual printed proof copy, and I have to approve it. (So far, I've been proofing PDFs.) Let's hope it's OK on the first pass this time (though given the record so far, it would take a miracle.) Nevertheless, I'm hoping that in a couple of weeks, you should be able to order it on Amazon. Or if you prefer, you could order it directly from me, and I'll be delighted to sign a copy and mail it. I'll set something up on my web site, though it will probably be extremely low tech - like, mail me a check for the price of the book plus $10 for postage and handling, tell me how you want it inscribed, and I'll send back a book.

For this moment, though, let me just glory in the pleasure of a job nearly done.

Tongs

(Continuing my homage to hardware and hard work. You can click on the photo to make it larger.)