there is magic in concrete

there is magic in concrete
    if you believe

trenching,
    building forms
at some point it’s inevitable:
    you are on your knees in mud
    your eye to the earth, your butt
         to the air
for meticulous muscle-work

chop rebar in a shower of sparks
    weaving steel rod, suspended
    by wires, twist pliers
learn the names:
    doughboy, waler
         pier cage, stirrup

the mix, the pour
    no second chances now
spread and level
    wading in boots
shake the gray depths, vibrate
    voids not welcome

then you work the surface
    flat, in circles,
with the tool called a ‘float’
    (because that’s what it does)
buoyant on a gray puddle
and here’s the enchantment
    or else I’m just weird but
with fingertips on the handle you can
    sense the wet concrete, the mojo
    like a sleeping wet bear
solid in mass yet grudgingly liquid
    sort of bouncy
    as you stroke

hold the leading edge
    at a slight upward angle
         avoid plowing
pebbles disappear, embedded
the tool is sucking cement
    a final thin film, a pretty coat
    over guts of gravel and sand
   
for a finish, swipe smooth
    or brush
    or groove,
edging, an art
now hose the mixer, shovels, tools,
    hose your hands and boots
as the water disappears, so shall you
    unless you scratch a name

honor the skilled arms,
    the corded legs and vertebral backs
    the labor that shaped
this odd stone
    sculpted, engineered
    implanted with bolts
forgotten
half-buried in dirt
bearing our lives



©copyright 2015 by Joe Cottonwood. All rights reserved.

The Joe and Terry Show: Pas de Deux

I'll be giving a poetry reading this Thursday, October 23, with my good friend Terry Adams at the Peninsula Ballet Theatre in San Mateo (California). Being at the ballet theatre, we'll be the "Pas de deux."

Terry and I have become a rather popular duo. They call us the "Joe and Terry Show." We trade poems, each trying to harmonize or counterpoint or somehow riff on what the other has just read. 

We open with a few stretches and calisthenics because one should always loosen up before a poetry workout. It's fun. 

Terry and I both have spent our lives in the construction trades, so we take a non-academic and somewhat irreverent approach to poetry and if nobody stops me I have a tendency to break into song at some point while Terry might break into bombastic psychedelic preaching (briefly, both of us).  

 The theater (they call it "theatre") apparently is plush and large, which will be a new experience for us as we normally read to small audiences in the backrooms of bookstores and our local pub. We'll be preceded by an art show reception and followed by an open mic. 

Actually we have no idea what sort of audience we'll gather, if any. What works in a small room might seem utterly asinine in a larger venue.  So I'm a little nervous, which is probably a good thing. If anybody can make it to San Mateo on a Thursday night, I'd love your support. The Peninsula Ballet Theatre is at 1880 South Grant Street, San Mateo (just off Highways 101 and 92). The art reception is at 6:30 pm, the reading starts at 7:00. Hey, bring a poem and read at the open mic.

 

Free Audiobook of 99 Jobs to the first responder

99 Jobs: Blood, Sweat, and Houses is now available as an audiobook at the iTunes store or at Audible.com. I've got a free coupon I'll give to the first person to send me an email (joecottonwood at gmail). But, hey, it's worth buying. I read it in my own lovable raspy voice, so it's an authentic experience.

If you want it on CDs (and the sound quality is better that way) I can send you a set of ten CDs, which includes the entire audiobook. For that I'll have to charge $40 to cover the expenses.

The link to the iTunes store is here.
The link to the Audible store is here.
For CDs, shoot me an email.

I am utterly embarrassed to be a member of the Authors Guild

I am utterly embarrassed to be a member of the Authors Guild.

I joined the Guild about 30 years ago when I was first published by a mainstream publishing house. The Authors Guild back then seemed to be fighting for my rights as an author against the big bad publishing industry. The Authors Guild fought for me while I published six books with the big guys.

Times change. Now, like so many not-exactly-bestselling writers, I'm indie.

As an indie writer, it's painfully clear that the Authors Guild is fighting FOR the big bad publishing industry. They are puppets of Hachette. And they are clueless about the needs and issues confronting indie writers. What the hell happened?

My Authors Guild membership is up for renewal on September 30. After three decades, I am not renewing. I'm not angry, just sad.

Meanwhile, you can still buy my books from Amazon. The big bad publishing industry won't sell my books, but Amazon will.

For Labor Day: 99 Jobs at a penny a job!

To celebrate Labor Day USA, I'm doing a one-week price reduction of 99 Jobs to 99 cents in the e-book editions. That's a penny a job!

Here are the links for
Kindle,
iBook,
Nook,
Kobo,
Smashwords.
Any edition of the e-book will be priced at 99 cents through Labor Day.

If you're in the United Kingdom, you can celebrate Labor Day, too. You'll get the same price reduction at UK Kindle or Nook UK (it may take a few hours -- or days -- for the price reduction to trickle out to all the worldwide servers).

Happy Labor Day everybody.

Another honor -- Kirkus Starred Review!

I was reluctant to submit 99 Jobs to the Kirkus review service because they are reputed to be the grumpy curmudgeons of the book review biz. On the other hand, a good review from them would be an honest honor. And lo and behold, they not only gave it a great review but also a Star! 

For an indie writer, a starred review from Kirkus is a rare and lovely accolade.

Here's what they said:

A general contractor and author looks back on a 35-year career contending with a variety of houses and people—most in disrepair. 

Beginning when the author was just starting out as a novice handyman in the 1970s, this collection of short essays roughly progresses through to the present day, when, despite numerous tumbles off ladders and at least one impaling, Cottonwood is still plying his trade. The many blue-collar jobs that Cottonwood (Clear Heart, 2009, etc.) wonderfully describes in his latest offering may involve worm-gear saws, ladders, lighting fixtures and the like, but they’re really all about people. Some are wealthy, some poor, but all are frail in some way and in need of some proper shoring—that includes the ace carpenter himself. Each vignette confidently stands on its own, whether several pages long or only a few paragraphs. The robust snapshots of the carpenter’s working life toiling in crawl spaces and basements around Southern California over the last four decades consistently play on important themes of mortality, class and personal fulfillment. Elegant entries like “A Working-Class Hippie” and “The Airplane Room” touch on the often ephemeral nature of close human relationships. A vague sense of melancholy pervades much of Cottonwood’s work, even in the midst of relative triumph, such as when Cottonwood receives a check for a job well-done: “This simple act always fascinates me: the transfer of wealth. So casual. So vital. A rich man of immense power, a tradesman with none. What if he refused?” 

Expertly crafted narrative nonfiction that reveals the framework of people’s lives. 

They got it wrong about "Southern California," but I guess from Manhattan anything west of the Hudson River is southern Cal. For the record, it's mostly about the San Francisco Bay Area with stops in upstate New York and St. Louis and Colorado and a bit of Maryland.

You can see the official review at https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/joe-cottonwood/99-jobs/.

99 Jobs -- Best Non-Fiction Book of 2014!

Just announced at the Book Expo America in New York: My book 99 Jobs: Blood, Sweat, and Houses has won the 2014 IRDA First Place as the "Best Non-Fiction of the Year." (IRDA is IndieReader Discovery Award, sponsored by IndieReader.com.) Not "among the best." Not "one of the top five." They called it "THE BEST." First place. The best non-fiction indie book of 2014.

I'm feeling a little proud.

In addition to the honor, the prize includes a free Kindle Paperwhite 3G. I've never had an e-reader, so this will be a new experience for me.

But -- wow. "The best." If you see me smiling, now you know why.

Peter Korn, Why We Make Things and Why It Matters: The Education of a Craftsman

I'm a craftsman in two worlds, as a writer and as a construction worker. I don't write the kind of novels that win highfalutin awards, and I don't build the kind of houses that win architectural honors, but I'm pretty good at what I do. I craft. I make a living. So I'm always interested in how other people integrate their values, their families, their simple need to earn a living into their passion for craft.

Peter Korn is a writer, an educator, a furniture maker. As a craftsman he discovered that he couldn't make a living -- or sustain a marriage -- chiseling mortise and tenon joints one by one, chair by chair. He could teach, though. And he could write. In this book, he's a philosopher as he tries to come to grips with what it means to be a craft worker.

We view books through our own personal filters, so here's mine: what interested me was not the philosophy but the memoir aspect, the people Korn met and his own growth as a person and as a furniture maker. He started like me as a carpenter on a construction crew. He had some advantages I never had -- a private school education, Ivy League college, a father who continually bailed him out of business failures and personal setbacks. I envy that. He had Hodgkin's disease and chemotherapy -- twice. I don't envy that. He developed his own furniture style and then really found his calling as an educator, founding and running the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine. I applaud that.

Korn traces the history of how society has changed its appreciation of craft -- first as work, then as skill, and finally as art. Eventually Korn realizes that by embracing a life of craft he was seeking self-fulfillment, seeking "a good life." He also realizes that craft alone is not salvation. He witnesses one man who is a great craftsman but fails in most other aspects of life.

Craft itself can be an attempt at redemption. To create something good, one must know something good:

Every man-made thing, be it a chair, a text, or a school, is thought made substance. It is the expression of someone's ... ideas and beliefs.

This book, along with the furniture he made and the school he created, are the expressions of Peter Korn's beliefs. He found his good life.

My father sang a song to me, and then we would sing it together: The bear went over the mountain (repeated three times). And what do you think he saw? He saw another mountain (repeated three times). And what do you think he did? The bear went over the mountain...
And on we'd sing. And so it is. As a maker you put one foot in front of the other and you own the journey. Finding creative passion that governs your life may be a curse as well as a blessing, but I would not trade it for anything else I know.

Self-publishing Before It Was Cool: A Tale from the Old Days

In 1855 an obscure poet named Walt Whitman self-published his first volume, Leaves of Grass. A classic was launched.

A hundred and nineteen years later, in 1974 an obscure writer named Joe Cottonwood self-published his first novel, The Naked Computer. Different outcome.

Well, okay, semi-self-published. At a San Francisco book fair I met a bearded, bespectacled young man (let's call him Manny) who was hoping to become a small publisher. Manny had just bought a used letterpress and was anxious to try it out. He would set the type himself at no cost. I would pay the other expenses: ink, paper, glue. He'd get half the books and try to sell them; I'd do the same.

By the 1970s most books were printed by offset printing, with letterpress reserved for artisanal, high quality, limited editions by small publishers. Here was an offer to produce my novel in a letterpress edition with a small publisher imprint at a very low cost. I was delighted.

So Manny went to work. Badly. With difficulties. The letterpress, in a damp corner of a garage in San Francisco, required hot metal typesetting. A flaw in the Linotype machine allowed hot metal to drip onto the feet of Manny as he was sitting at it, composing type.

Until he could repair the machine, Manny told me the book would be indefinitely delayed. Meanwhile, he showed me a few already-composed pages which contained numerous typos. When I pointed out all the transposed letters, he couldn't see them. He was simply blind to them. In retrospect, I think he was dyslexic. (At the time, I'd never heard of dyslexia.) Reluctantly he agreed to fix the errors.

Months passed. Manny could not repair the Linotype. I gave up on the book and was busy writing another. And then one day Manny called to say that his mother had flown out from Brooklyn, bringing chicken soup, and she had repaired the machine. He printed 400 copies of The Naked Computer. I paid him, as I recall, something like $450.

In classical bookbinding, several pages are printed onto one large sheet of paper, called a signature. When properly folded and combined, these signatures become the leaves of the book. Manny, I learned, was signature-challenged. Due to faulty folding, about half the copies had their pages in the wrong order or else some pages were simply missing. The remaining 200 copies were smudged and off-center. Typos everywhere. It was embarrassing.

A few copies sold at City Lights Bookstore and other shops. I even got a few fan letters. It was my first novel, and it was crappy but had (I believe) flashes of brilliance. The plot, by the way, is about a man who falls in love with his computer, which has been programmed as a female personality. Bear in mind that this was 1974!

My plot preceded Her, the Spike Jonze movie about a man who falls in love with his computer, by forty years. In fact, Spike Jonze was four years old when my book came out. Scarlett Johansson, who is the computer's voice, would not even be born for another ten years. And oh the irony—the script won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay.

I'm not accusing Spike of stealing my idea. I'm sure he's never heard of The Naked Computer. I'm sure many writers have had the same idea of a seductive siren-computer. But I may have been the first.

Some lessons learned. If you write a novel that is forty years ahead of its time, write it better. Avoid dyslexic typesetters. Wear shoes while operating a Linotype. Bless all handy mothers from Brooklyn.

There's one copy of The Naked Computer for sale on the Internet. The price is $131.50. Maybe I should put my two remaining copies out there. Who knows—I might yet break even.

Stamp of Approval from the Industry Giant

The current issue of Publishers Weekly has a review of 99 Jobs. The words they use are:

"a gritty and entertaining memoir"
"colorful characters and situations"
"Cottonwood's prose is lively and his stories often charming. Readers will find it easy to relate to the author and his experiences, which are likely to appeal to anyone who has worked a less-than-perfect job."

I'm delighted. In the main trade magazine of the big publishing industry, a good review by Publishers Weekly is an important stamp of approval for a small indie publisher such as myself.

Mike Rose!

Mike Rose is one of my heroes. He is a guru of blue collar values and the author of The Mind at Work, a book that lives up to its description as he "demolishes the long-held notion that people who work with their hands make up a less intelligent class. He shows us waitresses making lightning-fast calculations, carpenters handling complex spatial mathematics, and hairdressers, plumbers, and electricians with their aesthetic and diagnostic acumen." I totally recommend the book. 

So I sent a copy of 99 Jobs to Mike Rose. He responded, and posted this review on Amazon: "This is a delightful book, full of engaging stories about work and working life. It is humane and warmly funny." He used a pseudonym to post the review, but he enthusiastically encouraged me to identify him and use the quote. Then he bought another copy and sent it to a craftsman-friend, who wrote back: "I've only read five paragraphs coming back from the mailbox and I'm already laughing out loud."

". . . a delightful book, full of engaging stories about work and working life. . . humane and warmly funny."
—Mike Rose, author of The Mind at Work.

Word of mouth, plus a couple of Amazon reviews, are my only publicity. A self-published book isn't going to get any help from the big media. You won't see 99 Jobs reviewed in the New York Times. Oprah won't be plugging it (though she might like it).

If you've read 99 Jobs and happen to like it, please tell a friend. Maybe even post a review on Goodreads or Amazon. Help people find it.

A few days ago, the UPS driver delivered a package to my house and said, "Hey! I'm reading your book!" Somebody on the route had bought a copy for him. Made my day. I hope you all have a good one, too.

I'm giving away 9 copies of 99 Jobs

Goodreads Book Giveaway

99 Jobs

by Joe Cottonwood

Giveaway ends December 26, 2013.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Potato Karma

Back in the 1970s I published a vagabonding novel called Famous Potatoes. I used to get letters and still get email now and then that all say the same thing: somebody handed me this beat-up copy of Famous Potatoes, or I found it on a bookshelf in a commune in Nicaragua, or somebody in the Peace Corps left this in my hut in Africa, and so on…  I think I must've sold about a dozen copies total which somehow have circulated all over the planet to be read by thousands of people. Not a profitable way to make a living, but great karma which will profit me someday.

Last week I got another of those emails. This time, It was from a man named Gene who had borrowed a copy of Famous Potatoes from his college friend in 1979, and then loaned his borrowed copy to, Gene writes, "a sixties holdover character who lived out of his car and in his lingering drugged out fog, at some point this guy vanishing and the friend's copy of Famous Potatoes disappearing with him. This struck me as a karmically fitting fate for Famous Potatoes but it struck my more literal-minded  friend as me just having lost his copy of the book."

Ever since, apparently, Gene's friend has been giving him good-natured hell about losing the book in one of those tropes that run through a long friendship. After all these years, Gene found me on Facebook and wrote to me asking if there were a way to get another copy, so he could finally give it back to his friend. So I mailed an old beat-up copy of mine directly to the friend in New Jersey with the inscription: "Now stop giving Gene a hard time about this."

Last week, 34 years after loaning the book, it arrived in the mailbox of the unsuspecting friend. He immediately called Gene and said, "Holy shit.  You are a man of your word.  I’m sorry I ever doubted you.  This is absolutely awesome.  This is just unreal.  Thank you.”  Followed by: “How did you manage to copy Joe’s handwriting and make it look so real and get it sent out from California?”

On the air

I'm on the radio today, KQED San Francisco, the Perspective show. It will be repeated on Sunday. If you're out of radio range, as most of you are, you can hear me at:
http://www.kqed.org/a/perspectives/R201311270735

It's a two-minute reading of "The Secret Value of Junk," one of the stories in 99 Jobs.

They snapped this photo of me, looking like I just stepped off a construction site.

Oh well. We can't all be glamorous.

Bookmarks, bookmarks, bookmarks...

Maybe all that sawdust from the Kesey lumber went to my brain. I underestimated how much work the bookmarks would require. If you're a carpenter, you're probably familiar with that sinking sensation when you've put in a whole day and accomplished one-fifth of what you expected.

About those Kesey bookmarks: I invited Terry Adams to join me and James Adams (no relation) in the production. Terry is a natural for the job. Terry is the man who rescued Ken Kesey's house from collapse and rebuilt it after a flood. Terry donated the floorboards and water tank lumber. Here's Terry routing "99 Jobs" into some bookmarks:

Terry could only work for a short while because it was his 70th birthday and he was about to spend the day motorcycling, which is more important than anything.

About that routing. It's hard. You're holding a five-pound, vibrating router in one hand while trying to write on a thin piece of wood. Wood grain and worm holes try to redirect the router. And handwriting was always my worst skill in grade school. Here are some that I had to reject:

 
The top bookmark, which seems to say "99 Jabs," is a fir floorboard from the Kesey house. As you can see, worms found those floors to be quite tasty. Maybe it was the chemicals spilled in the kitchen. The bottom bookmark is redwood from the Kesey water tank. My hand simply wandered on that one. I blame the sawdust fumes.

Anyway, we're having fun. I'm sorry about the delay, but hey, that's construction. I should have everything out in the mail by next Monday.

And here's a comment from somebody who saw the wormy bookmarks:

Joe, your wormy floorboards reminded me of an Ogden Nash poem (which I may accidentally misquote):

The Termite
-------------------
Some primal termite knocked on wood,
And tasted it, and found it good.
And that is why your cousin May
Fell through the parlor floor today.

(Quickly) Opinions, please

In less than 24 hours I need to make a final decision on the book cover. Here are two versions:

 

Which do you prefer? Or a combo of the two?

Here's the back cover. I think it's pretty well nailed down, but if you have comments, please let me know. Time's a-wastin'!

Later today I'll join James Adams at his workshop to make more bookmarks. Over the weekend I saw him sharpening knives on a whetstone, and I can testify that he has no fear of cutting edges. To demonstrate how his thumb was healing, he whacked on the bandage with the back of a knife, apparently feeling no pain. At least, no blood spurted out. James is a character. A good one. A pleasure to work with.

Cutting bookmarks

Today we began cutting bookmarks. On a table saw James Adams ripped slivers from a redwood 2x6 that used to be part of Ken Kesey's water tank. The wood is clear heart, vertical grain with mineralization stains (of heaven knows what chemicals). I took some photos as he began.

After cutting the long slivers into 8" pieces, I sanded their edges and then commenced engraving "99 Jobs" into the individual bookmarks. James, meanwhile, began cutting slivers from other pieces of lumber. I was hunched over the trim router, engraving "99 Jobs" freehand over and over, when James suddenly cursed and put his thumb into his mouth. Guiding a piece of wood, he'd run the pad of his thumb over the saw blade. The blade was set to protrude about 1/4" above the top of the piece he was cutting, so he sliced a 1/4" gash into his thumb.

Immediately I helped wrap it in gauze and tape. His wife drove him to the Palo Alto Clinic, where he is right now as I write this (the accident happened about an hour ago).

James is one of the best woodworkers I know. He says this is the worst accident he's ever had in his shop. He's careful, and he has a lifetime of experience. Yet it happened.

There are spatters of blood on the table saw. Red stains in the partially sawed wood. No, I won't be including that lumber among the bookmarks—to which we will return in a few days, I hope.

Be careful out there.

Progress Report

The editing is nearly complete. We're down to the teeny-weeny style issues such as discussing whether "a blond woman" or "a blonde woman" is better usage (both are allowed). (And if you're wondering, we're going with "blonde.")

I'm aiming for an official publication date of November 15 but hope to be sending out Kickstarter reward copies earlier than that.

Meanwhile, I obsess over the book cover. Thank you everybody for all the feedback. What became apparent is that nobody liked the white background. Many people liked the black background because, as they say, it makes the tool belt "pop out," and people seem to have a fondness for old tool belts. It reminds them of their boyfriend or their grandfather or of their own hardscrabble days. The great thing about the black background is that it still works as a thumbnail, which is important when you're selling books on the internet. As a full size 6x9" book, though, the solid black is not so good – it needs texture.

The most votes, however, went for the siding as background. I've been struggling with that. The siding tends to diminish the impact of the tool belt. Then today it occurred to me that instead of lightening the siding, I'd try darkening it. Wow! Now I've got siding, plus the tool belt pops out. Here's how it looks at this stage:

And as a thumbnail:

I'm on the radio again. Mostly it's about one of the biggest and saddest jobs in my life (which will be in the book), taking care of my older brother as his health and his house are collapsing around him – and as I am investigated for elder abuse. For the rest of this week, you can hear it here:
http://www.neighborhoodradio.info/shows/porch-talk

My 28 minutes of fame

The editing is nearly complete. My editor, Susan Walker, combines a sympathetic attitude with a persnickety eye for detail. We have the same goal: we want every word in 99 Jobs to be absolutely right.

I was interviewed by a radio show called Porch Talk about 99 Jobs and other topics including a few of my songs.  It's a 28 minute show: http://www.neighborhoodradio.info/archived-broadcasts?af=porchtalk130915.mp3

Meanwhile I've been working on the cover design. Any opinions?  Let me know.

The Terry and Joe Show

I'll be the featured reader, along with Terry Adams, at the Not Yet Dead Poets this Wednesday, Sept 11 at 7 pm.  It'll be all poetry all the time. 

The Not Yet Dead Poets are an open meeting at an art gallery in Redwood City: The Main Gallery, 1018 Main Street in Redwood City, near the NW corner of Middlefield and Main Streets.  There's parking in the back.

Terry and I are planning to trade poems, each responding to the other, back and forth, like tennis except we'll be lobbing poems.  Should be lively.

Terry Adams

Joe Cottonwood