i started in chaco canyon and walked north up to mesa verde, around to comb ridge in utah, down into the hopi mesa, across the mugion rim, to mexico and then into the sierra madre, following people, following routes. because everything in the desert leaves a route that leads you somewhere. everything out there is a story. and that's what i'm following, these stories, looking for ways, looking for grains of sand out of place, looking for stories out in the middle of nowhere. i can open this up for questions if anybody has any questions. . >> i was wondering if they had any sort of metal or did they

use hardened rocks of some sort to shape their stones? . >> most of what they did was stone. metallurgy was just starting to move up into northern chijuajua at that time and they were working with copper. that was just ornamental, so there was no metal going on at all other than imported bells. >> and the shells, they went down to cortez -- not lake -- the cortez sea to get, was that mostly hard or brittle? . >> it was hard but not tool hard. the colorado plateau is covered with chert, a glassy rock that is really really good for making tools, making very sharp edges. you find there are pieces of chert all over the place and you can still cut your skin open very quickly with it and it's been sitting out in the

open. >> where does chert come from? . >> it's a marine rock that's mostly silica. you find it in these layers, sandstone layers. if you are especially in a marine or water environment, you will find this layer of chert. it's in all colors, purple, green, red, blue. it's a beautiful rock. . >> one thing i wanted to ask you, the review in the paper recently on sunday said that your book is different from all the other books about the anastazi because you brought out some of the non-flattering parts of their culture like violence. how did you conclude that they were a violent culture? . >> well, i didn't necessarily conclude they were a violent culture, i just concluded there

was violence in their culture. the evidence is very clear where you find masker sites, where every place you drop a trench there are bodies, unburied bodies missing their heads, in some cases where there will be a head in one room and you can match it up to the body which is in another room 100 yards away and they didn't just end up there; somebody took the head off. and there will be places where it's all femurs, all gathered together. and places where it's obviously some kind of warfare event where people are all huddled into one spot and they have all been burned there. the record is very clear of some intense violence and it comes up at a very certain point in time. it comes up in the 10th century right before large migrations you see this layer of violence. and it doesn't cover everything. sometimes a series of pueblos will all be destroyed over here

and then a series of pueblos over here are in perfect condition as far as the walls aren't broken down, there aren't bodies all over the place. it looks like the place was left very peacefully or ceremoniously where you can see they left artifacts out. different people had different ends but you can see where different people had unfortunate ends. i don't want to get into the details, it's in the book, but fairly grisly evidence. there are pockets of violence. these were human beings. some of the anastazi were

beautiful, wise, balanced with the earth people and it's like, no, they were us, doing their neolithic stone age thing but still us, human beings living in a place, chopping each other into little pieces sometimes and living lives of prosperity at other times. >> we have time for one more question. >> was the global warming when they were (inaudible) greenland and a cathedral there and i believe the maya moved from the lowlands to the highlands and the anastazi came down to the salt river. >> yeah, a lot of the movement was based on climate. the anastazi were always moving. the whole thing about the disappearing anastazi, you go to where they are living and they disappear all of a sudden. but you follow them and find,

oh, 10 years later they are over here and 70 years later they are over here. they are often being driven by these climate changes which on the colorado plateau, very small changes make you go. if you lose one inch of precipitation in one year, you got to get up to the mesas where there's a little more rain and then when the frost comes in too early, you got to get down to the desert. around 1276 or so the water was running out, the seasons were no good, and i think they just looked at their trade routes and said let's follow these and go south. they were always getting pushed around by the environment. . >> okay, thank you, craig, so much. thank you for coming. craig is happy to take some more informal questions in back and of course his book, house of rain, is available for sale in back too. thank you so much and thank

you, craig childs. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * announcer: b dreams and good grades aren't enough to get into college. there are actual steps you need to take. finding someone who can help is the first and most important. for the next steps, go to knowhow2go.org.

. >> thank you and thank you to all of you for being here today in such a fantastic day, beautiful, sunny bay area. also i want to thank you,

hilary flynn, the director of the irish festival for this invitation. let's celebrate the irish in the americas. i put a title to my conversation with you today, take the journey with me, and i wanted to read you an irish proverb that i like it very much because it's the way the history of myself, the history of my family. the longest road out is the shortest road home. and so travel with me and let's go to havana, cuba, and to know a little bit about the irish, the few irish that went to cuba, in particular to havana. i want you to know that on the left side of the entrance to

the havana harbor, there is a well-known fortress, el moro. there is a lighthouse there and the moro has become a image of cuban nationality and in particular havana. in that lighthouse you find, you read an -- when you enter the havana harbor, you find an irish name. that lighthouse was known for many years as the odono lighthouse. who was this person, odono the man that oversaw the project of the lighthouse in 1844 and he was a governor of

cuba from 1843 to 48, but he was a spanish man of irish origin and irish ancestry, a descendant of the -- chieftan of the ticanelles. he is spanish and irish together. if we look at the history of the irish in cuba, most of the irish to went to cuba in the 18th and 19th centuries arrived from spain, some of them with the spanish royal armies; other irish influx arrived from the u.s. for the construction of railroads used to transport sugar cane to the sugar plantations. that was at the end of the 19th century. and then at the beginning of

the 20th century, we're talking 1902, 1910, before odono that i mentioned before, this man who gave his name to -- he was very proud of this lighthouse. the cubans offer hospitality to general alexander alejandro o'reilly. he rose through the ranks of the spanish army. the spanish sent alexander o'reilly to cuba to form a militia. he was appointed governor of

louisiana and head of the army later on. he arrived in august, 1769, and took formal possession of louisiana for spain. think of new orleans and cuba, in particular havana, governors there were also in cuba so there was all this traveling from one city to another because later when i got my ph.d. from tulaine university and i went to the irish channel. it's interesting, the irish history connected with new orleans. so the o'reilly family has been in louisiana for centuries.

in cuba, nobody remembers him but it was the street of calle oreilly, famous until the 50's for its banks and bookstores. it was one of the favorite streets of (inaudible) secretary of the spanish count of fernandino, my grandfather, another irish man feeling at home in havana. there, at the busy corner of calle street and oreilly was a cafe bakery owned by a catelan. it was described by many foreigners, in particular british and irish who lived in havana at the time, as one of the best order and most elegant

cafes in the world. its large door led to a main floor with a fantastic stone floor. i saw it in the 50's, i was very little but i still was there in the 50's, and have a fountain that all that water really produce a refreshing sound that drown the patrons' loud conversations. but what made dominica famous, according to some foreigners and historians, was its ice cream of countless flavors and its famous fruit ices: guava and other flavors were served according to an irish traveler. and he wrote, that all these ice creams were served in an

overgrown wine glass. on the plate under each language a long brown coil, paraquillo looking like a cigar and tasting of brown sugar, well-beaten eggs and flour. this is the sign, according to the traveler, of the spoon used it eat the towering cream. we used to eat these big ice creams in cuba, used lots of cream. most dominica patrons were male but a few foreign women venturing to the famous establishment in the company of men from the court. one of these women was my grandmother, merced moynihan. in la dominica, one of the best

cafes in the world, located on oreilly street, where my grandparents met. ticket to ride, i talk about my family history but after they marry -- i am reading a little from the book -- my grandparents were at the center of many fascinating things. i found myself at el centro, the literary and musical gatherings. their house on calle mercades became a cultural cross roads with the traffic of foreigners created a new inspired geography. they travel everywhere. my grandmother, merced, nina

played the piano and read poems, while edward read the poems besides playing the fiddle and violin, behaved like an avant garde composer, moving around furniture. according to the journalist were a dynamic duo that rescued the famous hotel sevilla from dereliction in 1919. they also constructed the biltmore neighborhood where many irish american families have homes. when i said irish americans, i

go back to the americas, irish-spanish americans and french-irish, et cetera, and my own family live there. other famous irish american personalities at the time were, for example, in the news world the e. f. obrian, the editor of the times of cuba and in the cuban roman catholic church, father moynihan, no relationship to my grandmother, loved for his kindness and great sense of humor. born in the 20's in havana were of irish descent. they were fran emilio. he was entirely blind by the

age of 13 but learned gerschwin's rhapsody in blue by using braille scores. he was also one of the major instrumentalists of the feeling -- many of you recollected remember -- the thrilling sound of the 50's that blended the latin bolero with the latin sound. the second was chico, we like always to put these little names to people. my name is carlotta but my real name was charlotte and they called me carlotica, little charlotte. he moved to new york city in

1948, where benny goodman hire him and he became very famous in new york at the time and he died in new york in 2001. one of the pieces of my ticket to ride is how many cubans of irish ancestry are there. because this connected to my family, that's why i wanted to read it to you. in the 40's, my father moved to new york in search of his destiny. he learned to make brillantine in red, blue and golden colors to give a beautiful sheen to the hair. in his spare time, when he could break free from his alchemist's captive vit, he would go listen to cuban music at the park plaza hotel in manhattan.

those were happy times and years later became a happy tomic with me, convinced early on that my father inhabited a magic world. a few years ago, while listening to a recording of cuban blues by chico, i remembered in new york in those stories of the 40's that chico and my father met at club cuba in manhattan and again in havana in the mid-50's. the sessions of chico's house in our neighborhood became so famous that even my father, not particularly fond of cuban jazz, couldn't resist dropping in once in a while at the much-talked about terrace. i listened to the rumba of

chico's suite, then i would imagine chico back in new york doing arrangements for count bassie and ringo starr and i see myself turning into a big fan during my teenage years in havana. so that gives you a little idea about all these connections. i was born in havana in the mid-50's and my memory have many sounds. my history of my family has given me a variety of experiences and languages. my memory is like an orgy of music. i learned at an early age to get up on my feet and dance. looking at a photograph of myself, i saw a girl dancing an irish dance. i look at me from a seated audience that avoids the music with polite applause. my audience is courteous and embodies all the mystery of

creation. my audience is my irish catalan and spanish family. the eyes of my family activate the dance but i was disoriented and forget the steps, but i wanted the dance to continue. i grew up in havana surplded by murphies, jeovese, all speaking spanish. this was in the late 50's. my grandfather and my father, like many other irish who went to cuba during the past three centuries, became integrated into the cuban society and many used spanish as their mother tongue. as a child, i was never able to pronounce certain words. i spent many solitary hours searching for words and phrases in dictionaries. my spanish was not cuban enough. my english was not irish enough.

my catalan, only a few words. spanish was and is a privileged territory where i feel alive and well. my father grew up in new york and havana and married a cuban woman, my mother. all my family shared a great loving for havana, a city they call home. but contrary to my family, i grew up dreaming of traveling and wanted to leave havana for dublin, where some of the most famous writers i keep admiring were born, and also dreaming of paris where my grandparents, my grandfather, spend many important years of his life. also i want to move to my place, i don't know what was the name of that place. every time people call me la englicita, the little english

woman because in cuba, in the caribbean, they didn't make any difference. all the irish were english. and all the people from asia were chinese. all the jews were called polacos, polish. that is interesting because the irish were part of the spanish community in cuba, but usually they didn't make the difference. so they call me and they call my father el inglis, the english guy. so when they call me that and when my name suffered many different spellings. later on in life, in the 70's, i had many identification cards with names like coffee that i didn't drink at the time, so i began drinking coffee later on, names like caufildo and garfield, my favorite one, that made me wonder if the

bureaucrats at the id office knew that i really love cats. without my garfield id, i left havana in 1981 and went to zurich, switzerland, thanks to james joyce. my dancing there became walking through the silence of the city. instead of people looking at me like my family did when i was a child, people began to ask me, where are you from? i felt disoriented, exiled. the changing perception of nature, religious views, philosophical and political opinions, botanical knowledge and idiomatic sounds, everything new. i asked myself many times for a

specific reason why my irish family went to cuba and began searching for missing pieces of my irish history in irish, cuban, and catalan archives to discover before me that i had a fascinating history of displacement and transformations in various geographic setings. my book, ticket it ride, is a personal journey towards the past and the present. there is no one but many places i belong to: havana, dublin, mahon, barcelona, and since the lay 80's, the bay area. so thank you very much. . >> i'm going to do this in about 5 parts. i hope you will bear with me. first of all, i want to thank

cross roads for inviting me. it's a great pleasure for me to be here and i want to thank, in particular, professor mcfeek and hillary flynn, who made this possible. i'm going to first read from blood feud, sort of give you a small portrait of the protagonist in the novel. kenny had the soft, delicate looks of his mother, a girl who is grandparents came to america from the severity of rural ireland to the harshness of new york city in the 1890's from rough common family lorsed. he w