from the publisher

august 19, 2001     

I don't own a car—never have. I borrow them, bum rides, take my bike, the bus, or walk around town. It's not just the 35-minute search for a parking spot or that I get panicky and angry in traffic, it's that I enjoy the randomness of public transportation. I don't mean that I bond with the person reciting the mundane events of his day into a cell phone or that I like to witness the mother scolding her child. And I'd be the last person to say something nice about the guy with his legs spread so wide he takes up two seats on a crowded train. But I savored my conversation with the reader of God of the Rodeo: The Quest for Redemption in Louisiana's Angola Prison on the transbay Z, the chance encounter with a long-ago crush, and the sight of an immaculate French couple wearing shorts on a wintry San Francisco July day and receiving an impromptu and accurate history of the city from a smelly old hippie.

In your automobile, you determine much of the adventure, you decide the make, the style, the speed, who uses the car and how. No reason to invite the nasty mom for a ride, and you might be able to avoid the cell phone hipster. As you drive by, we'll classify you by this emblem of wealth, poverty, or something in-between. In this town, the SUV has become synonymous with San Francisco Dot Com Days of Heaven and Hell. Myself, I have a soft spot for folks driving old Volvos and cars with political campaign stickers from any election before 1996.

This week, OtP explores cars as mirrors of ourselves and the people in our lives in two new works: Susan Parker's essay, The Car I Have Become, and The Dodge Silver Hawk, a prose poem by Maria Mazziotti Gillan.

Enjoy.

nada

august 12 note