Q & A: Bruce Berger on "A Desert Harvest"

By C.M. Mayo www.cmmayo.com

This blog posts on Mondays. As of 2019 the fourth Monday of the month is devoted to a Q & A with a fellow writer.

Very late in the game, albeit well more than a decade ago, I learned of Bruce Berger’s work when I happened upon Almost an Island: Travels in Baja California in a California bookshop.. >> READ THIS POST ON THE NEW PLATFORM AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM

Cyberflanerie: Better Books, Books of Note, Decluttering Books, Rare Books

The NYT's Charles M. Blow says, Reading Books is Fundamental.

Making Better Books:

The Book Designer's archive of articles "practical advice to help build better books"

Chronicling America in the Library of Congress (newspaper archives)

Book Aesthete Tumblr

Books of Note:

Sam Quinones' Tell Your True Tale East Los Angeles

The Daily Beast's Ted Gioia says The Smartest Book About the Digital Age Was Published in 1929. (José Ortega y Gasset's The Revolt of the Masses.)

My book! Updated edition in Kindle, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual.

>see also recent Madam Mayo posts on Gregory Gibson's Demon of the Waters and Bruce Berger's The End of the Sherry.

>see also lists of recommended reading on Mexico; creative process; craft of  creative writing; literary travel memoir.

Decluttering Books: 

Early Retirement Extreme on How to Get Rid of Books

>see also Madam Mayo's easy-peasy 10 Question Method

Rare Books:

Mexico Desconocido on Mexico City's antiquarian bookstores (en español)

>see also recent blog post,  Una ventana al mundo invisible (A Window to the Invisible World) or, Master Amajur and the Smoking Signatures

COMMENTS always welcome

The End of the Sherry by Bruce Berger

>> READ THIS POST ON THE NEW PLATFORM AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM

Blue collar and provincial Puerto Real in the police state that was Franco's Spain might seem an unlikely venue for an amusing, eccentric, and very sensitive artist's memoir. A graduate of Yale and a grad school drop out, pianist and writer Bruce Berger's whole life seems unlikely, lived wildly out of sequence, and in The End of the Sherry, the Spanish chapters thereof beset by, in his words, "a curious passivity." From the moment Berger washes up in a bar in Puerto Real, he and his beer-slurping dog drift and bob in the flow of happenstance. There are gigs with a rock band, a flash-in-the-pan career as a fishmonger, a pointless foray into Tangiers-- yet always with sails set toward his true loves, music and writing.

I first came across Bruce Berger's work in his travel memoir of Baja California, Almost an Island, and was enchanted by the beauty of his language, his courage in always pushing past clichés, and, best of all, his scrumptiously puckish sense of humor. Yes, I laughed out loud a lot in reading The End of the Sherry, too, and shook my head in wonder at the strangeness of his adventures and enthusiasms, and prodigious talent for cross-cultural friendships. Masterfully poetic, this belated coming-of-age / travel memoir throws a weird and wonderful lava-lamp light on his other works, even while standing solidly on its own, an exemplar of those genres.

In sum, a five star read.

> Recommended literary travel memoirs (updated)

COMMENTS

Bruce Berger's The End of the Sherry

I like to say that books are thought-capsules that can travel through time and space-- e.g., here I am rereading Cabeza de Vaca's 16th century Naúfragos, his memoir of (who'd a thunkit?) far West Texas, and other yonder beyonds. But the fact is, thanks to our books, we writers often make friendships in the here and now. Bruce Berger is one such. He's the author of Almost an Island, one of my very favorite travel memoirs, as well as a passel of other works about Baja California and the deserts of the southwest United States. When my book about Baja California, Miraculous Air, came out in 2002 and apropos of that he-- out of the blue-- sent me an autographed copy of his latest, Sierra, Sea and Desert: El Vizcaíno, well, though we hadn't yet met in person, we were good friends. 

So what shows up in my mailbox this Christmas but his autographed latest, The End of the Sherry-- and just as with Almost an Island, as I read, I am not only in awe of his poetic prose, but laughing out loud at one thing or another on almost every page. 

The End of the Sherry is his coming of age as an artist story-- set all the way back in the 1960s, when he played piano in Spain for three years. With his love for music, enthusiasm for travel, his poetry, appreciation for beauty, for the quirks and peculiarities of all kinds of people, and always served up with that scrumptiously puckish sense of humor... reading Berger is the best way to start out the new year.

COMMENTS

La Giganta y Guadalupe

An absolutely beautiful and crucial book about the volcanic spine of Mexico's nearly one thousand mile-long peninsula.

Published by Planeta Peninsula / Niaparaja AC
ISBN 978-607-95007-1-9

Fotografía de Miguel Angel de la Cueva y textos de Bruce Berger y Exequiel Ezcurra.

UPDATES:

>>Webpage for Fundación Wild

>>Center for a Better Life article.


Planeta Península A.C.


www.miguelangeldelacueva.com

Guest-blogger Jennifer Silva Redmond's 5 Favorite Baja California Writers's Websites

Baja California is that Mexican peninsula which begins at Tijuana and ends nearly 1,000 miles south at Los Cabos. (The photo was taken by my sister, Alice, and shows the Sea of Cortez on the right, Pacific on the left.) Guest-blogging today is my amiga and fellow Baja aficionada, writer (her work is in Latinos in Lotusland, the new anthology edited by Daniel Olivas) and editor-in-chief of Sunbelt Publications, Jennifer Silva Redmond. As Jennifer is one of the world's experts on this magnificent finger of the world, it is a special honor indeed to have her guest-blogging here today. Over to you, Jennifer!

Here are my top five websites of those who write about Baja California-- its history, natural history, people, places, even cuisine... To limit it to 5, I’ve assumed you all know Madam Mayo’s wonderful Miraculous Air (mandatory for Baja-lovers), and my amigo Graham Mackintosh’s site-- he was a recent guest blogger here. My list is confined to those Baja authors whose sites yield goodies: downloads, excerpts, recipes, links, and more! (Disclosure: Yes, many of these sites do link to Sunbelt, but what can I say? We’re where people go for new and classic writing about Baja!) I’ve listed them A-Z, to avoid any hint of favoritism... Enjoy!

#1. Bruce Berger Wrote one of my all-time favorite Baja California books, Almost An Island, and won the 1990 Western States Book Award for Creative Nonfiction, for The Telling Distance, among other awards. Berger is an author and poet, journalist, activist for environmental conservation—and a concert pianist! His site would be worthwhile just for this poem and excerpt; but it also has some great links, like this one to Planeta Peninsula, co-publisher of Oasis of Stone, with stunning photos by Miguel Angel de La Cueva.

#2. Harry W. Crosby Author of the best-known and most lauded books on Baja (after Steinbeck!). Those who love Baja California may already own The Cave Paintings of Baja California and Antigua California but many don’t know his latest history (of the trek to San Diego in 1769) Gateway to Alta California. Two of the coolest links on his site are easy to miss, the UCSD photo collections gallery and text, and the outtakes and excerpts (like DVDs “extras”) from his novel, Portrait of Paloma. Also check out the Crosby Collection on the UCLA Rock Art site.

#3. Ann Hazard Her two “Baja Magic” cookbooks are synonymous with Baja California cuisine. Everyone should have a copy of the first Cooking with Baja Magic cookbook, but you may not have numero dos yet! You’ll find that and Agave Sunsets on her site, which is a veritable treasure trove of fun stuff-- new stories and articles, a few excerpts from the new cookbook and her novels, unique photo-art by Terry her talented partner, and best of all, lots of wonderful easy-to-make recipes for yummy comida y bebidas!

#4. Michael Mercer Love his books? Think he should be censored? Either way, he’s a helluva writer! I read Mexicoland, his first collection of stories back in 1998, and said his writing was “broadly comic to subtly disturbing, but always fascinating.” Nothing has changed. This story about Osama Bin Laden is from his book Bandidos (which caused quite an uproar, including being banned locally) you can read all about it on the site; also available is a talk he gave in Los Cabos in 2006 and some witty short pieces like this one about Costco.

#5. Daniel Reveles Beloved Mexican Author who made Tecate Famous (see Tecate on Wikipedia!). Señor Reveles’ whimsical tales have been compared to O’Henry, Twain, and other humorists, but his stories can bring a tear, too. His website includes an audio download of him telling the story of “Señor Frog” from his new collection of stories Guacamole Dip, excerpts from the new book and Tequila, Lemon and Salt, a downloadable reading group guide in PDF form, and even a slideshow of Tecate!

There are so many more-- publications like Baja Breeze (6 full pdf issues to download!) and Baja Traveler, authors who update their sites regularly, like Greg Niemann of Baja Legends fame, and David K’s eclectic, far-ranging, and photo-filled Viva Baja which defies description but is so addicting! A site that covers all of Mexico, but has Baja travel stories, book reviews, info, and articles in Mexico Premiere (check out their social network, called Zocalo).

---Jennifer Redmond
www.sunbeltbooks.com

--->For the archive of Madam Mayo guest-blog posts, click here.
Up next Wednesday: novelist Gayle Brandeis.

Jim and Judy Tolbert's Baja Books & Maps in San Jose del Cabo

Just back from Jim and Judy Tolbert's splendid second annual all-day Baja Book Event--- readings (I read my translation of Araceli Ardon's story from Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion), book signings, and cheese-stuffed bacon-wrapped Medjool dates! This all took place on Sunday at the gorgeous, brand-spanking-new--- they had just painted the sign the day before--- Baja Books & Maps showroom, which is just outside San Jose del Cabo's downtown. The line-up included Yours Truly, Bruce Berger, Michael Mercer, Wendy Rudell, Garth Murphy, and Ed Vernon. The readings were in the palapa-shaded upstairs deck, overlooking the sea. Alas, at the end of the afternoon, I had to hit the highway La Paz and so missed Ed Vernon's slide show, but I have his magnificent book, "Las Misiones Antiguas"--- a photographic and written record of every single mission and several "visitas" on the nearly one thousand mile-long peninsula. This is truly a major contribution to the literature on Baja California. New books to read: Bruce Berger's Facing the Music, Garth Murphy's The Indian Lover, and Wendy Rudell's The Raw Transformation. Jim and Judy, you are bringing something very special to Los Cabos.