searching in the spice cabinet lucie kept full of whisky i found a key. i planned my invasion for that afternoon. thank you very much. [applause] >> i wrote a new book i'm working on. i'm from mexico city and i write about mexican stuff. i fear i would write a book to deal with that and get it out of the way. this is part of this project. my main character is alexander. [inaudible] don't take it personal. my aim, i guess is to at the end of my novel that [inaudible] good mexican novelists. alexander looked at the mirror

and saw a mexican stairing back at him. the bad mexican had paid alexander a visit much the conversation from last night's party brought him back in full force. why did he always have to open his big mouth. why tell people that don't care that he hated and despised? he actually might like the [inaudible] hated me english and spanish he could not understand how someone could say he was mexican having been born in the usa. he doesn't like going to mexican places. he does not like to discuss beer and shots of tequilla. he never listened to spanish radio stations. no more mexicans. who did not have a problem being

objective with a mexican. [inaudible]. i should try to do something about this he thought this is not good. may be i should try, may be i should make an effort. may be i should drive to the mission and spend quality time with my own people. i'm sure it would be simple. he doesn't have to be so hard. i am sure anyone who looks at me and talks to me will believe i'm another south of the border specimen and never figure out i happen to be a self hating mexican. the self hating something made him think of the self hating jew. he thought of george constanza and woody allen. he thought of philip and

alexander's father yelling and screaming telling his son he was the son of the family shames. you don't be deserved to be called a view. you, alexander are being embarrassed by the surface of the mirror. you don't deserve to be a mexican. nor the fact that mexicans are the hardest working people and came here to work and give their children a better future. there is no mexican who tried to justify with arguments like a fantasy to celebrate cinco de mayo. you, my friend are the self hating [inaudible] of all mexicans. you are nothing but a big master baeter. foolish man who hides from the

rest of the world and sees his shame in order to dream a man can exist without a pas port or green card and labels him as what he is. remember the ones who tried to pass as something else? remember the [inaudible] of life. the [inaudible] of the nation of the [inaudible]. remember the guy from tijuana you met years ago and is proclaimed he was italian because he would and people believed him. as if being italian was a step up. you alexander have changed your entire people. you who dream of an american time will be relevant you can think in order to be an american

writer you have to quit your brownness because the adjective will get in the way of the important noun. english language will impose the adjective before the noun and your face will be imposed before the actual meaning of your life. the other one is not the [inaudible] but the black parent. that one there is the yellow which he willo player. language makes sense [inaudible] language is never innocent. it is a familiar domaine of the ones who came out with it's loss and structure. this, alexander, is not your tongue. your tongue is muteulated, it's gone, rotten in your mouth along with the silence of the days where you became invisible you bad copy cat. despite the rage and the

disappointment of your own kin. thank you. [applause] >> this is a scene from my novel [inaudible]. it seemed like a great opportunity to get to do this here. okay. what time is the first reader anyway? i didn't like bars this crowded. someone elbode me in the back. when i turned around i didn't know who the elbow belong said. relax. i didn't expect there to be this many people i thought they would be at the bar with the travel writers. i thought they the be with the hip sters i guess we are not hip sters we can't guess who they are into. we lessened the hipster intimidation factor and picked out the smart guy. this year we selected postmen

pausal writers on the meaning of life. here i was, the city never fails to surprise me much the crowd was quieting. people were pointing toward the stage. i woman of 60 clamored on to it. she had silver hair and had a long velvet skirt. i'm senora watson. there was applause. she lowered her head slightly to indicate her humility. i must confess i was surprised to be invited tonight. i'm embarrassed to say i didn't know young people were drunkenly stumbling through the streets in the name of literature. there is a mag natizism we were tealing. we were in a bar. here is my flawed worthwhile

attempt to approach the meaning of life. she read a first person account of a 23 year marriage. every word of every paragraph was tuned there was not a wrong note. it was so powerful imented to believe it was her marriage. that last paragraph contained the wedding vow when he swore he would not be afraid to let her chafrnl him much the crowd froze after she finished. then we exploded into applause. she stood in the spotlight with tears in her eyes. she's a retired psychotherapist. >> go to her. this was a scene of a romantic comedy. i had to catch her at the

airport before she left me forever. she was stopped by audience member after audience member. iment to talk to her but what would i say? well, what are you trying to get from her. her question was koejent for someone who had polished off her third drink. i want to come out of retirement and i want her to help me. i don't think it's realistic. you keep thinking i need to find the restroom. i wasn't listening to the reader on stage. she was talking to 3-20 something women. she back and grabbing at my arm. we need to leave now. why? >> dustin is here and he is with someone and she's cute.

>> did he see you? >> no. i can't talk to him i'm a mess. are you sure he's really with her and they are not friends. >> she's hanging all over him and i didn't get to pee. >> let's go, then. we fought our way out the door. i cast the last look with senora it was just as well i hasn't found anything to say. i tried to calm aguilarissa, she schemed in terror. i can't go in there what if kevin is in there with his wife. what if i keep seeing them. >> she leaned on the door of the laundry mat. the asian woman looked at us and

resumed folding. your ex's will not be there they are ill literate. >> i bet justin is engaged to that girl. she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket except for the cancer part. >> i'm never getting married. she sank to the ground her back pressed against the glass. who says that's the meaning of life. it was a beautiful story but if you think about it it's hoeky. there is nothing hoeky about loving someone with your heart and having them love you the same way. that's how everyone doesn't love me. i didn't know what to say. there was nothing hoeky about a great love. yeary 3, 712 and 23 had been

painful. some had been bory put it together and it was a life of great love. that was the only way it could be done. empty sidewalk was jammed with people. i held her as they streamed by. thank you. >> from the last 2 pages i wrote in my novel. after the events in entertainment room number 17. with the man who had been pretending to be her husband. the imposter didn't have his own name. he used ga as he wore ga's clothes and slept as her husband had on the couch. he drove with the high beams on and reunification boulevard.

they were in a mustang and there were no other cars on the road. passing through the park they saw families in the dark steeling chest nuts from the trees. at dinner everyone called him commander ga even though he didn't look like commander ga. see knew that this man was not going to leave that her husband was not coming back be and from now on this man wouldn't be wished away. he would have to be dealt with as her husband had to be dealt with. they crossed the river the bridge lights showing the color of his bruises. they drove through the cemetery and the amusement park. she asked about the vehicle they were driving. he turned side ways in the road. the headlights was a man running

from the zoo with an oan egg in his hand. do you feel the man hungry enough to steel or for the man who must hunt him down. >> is that the bird who suffers? >> thwhere did you get this ca? he didn't answer. you know it's a fake; right . this car, he said is revered in america. they are quite rare much i recognize this car it was a prop in one of my movies. this was the car he was escaping i saw kissed a trader in the back seat. how did you get this thing off the property lot?

one switch in the road above the gardens and they were at her house. inside the children were asleep and he pulled a bottle of [inaudible] from the cool place under the sink he held it with a hand who's combukelled fanned yellow. you have chosen to become a man born to violence. he answered it was the commander who chose me. okay sun moon said i will turn down the sheets for us much the bed faced a balcony over looking the mountain. across the river was a glow much the 2 disrobed and entered where they lay awake waiting until 10 o'clock. it's a common misconception that listening devices turn off in the power. with a can of peaches the kalt

rad had given them. when the house and city below went dark moon spoke, here are the rules she said. children will reveal their names to you when they decide to do so. you will never use ta eshe k wo on them. you will never touch me. she said. from below they heard dogs bang in the zoo. wait, i take that back. you are allowed to touch me only if i touch you first. are there more rules? i'm thinking she said. a quick blue flash filled the room and all was dark again. in prison he said, so many people through themselves at the electric fence they had to build another fence to keep them off of it. thank

>> in conjunction with an an exhi bigz we had ann an exhi bigz we had ann anan tholl have the same title. it's my pleasure to introduce some of the writers from this book. i will give you an introduction of each of them as i introduce them for their speaking turn. first up we have debbie yee. debbie yee is an attorney and poet and supporter and organizer of the nonprofit asian american

arts community. she's received her undergraduate and law degrees from uc berkeley and bolt. born and raised in sacramento, california. she continues to call northern california her home. and now lives in san francisco. so, with that i'd like to introduce debbie yee as our first speaker. >> this is called jasper john's wagon. >> i have an idea of how the fifth star was killed dear empire not by gunfire at close range, not in the study with the pen knife, not by the umbrella, crushed by the revolving door not jostled or hemorrhaged the narrow drain. we caught the tar and the bullet we came to the body encostic casement of skin rig motor us framed the opened mouths scream. wail for your mother wrap our

sons in silken ribbons in a galaxy. the cause has been perp traited. we are adrift on a baron sea. the fleet diminishes me. who shouts for us now, dear empire? this next one is a postcard for a reason that i kept of harold's club in reno, nevada. i don't know if it exists it's a really old postcard. harold's club made we think of harold and the purple crayon. harold's club. who would figure let loose the boy with the purple crayon. let him conkokt the loses slots in women. let loose his imagination. ended as high as sea gulls or

the reverse w's topped with bold topped centers the rudeaments of the buzzum and life itself. >> pen and ink. in the way we demonstrate speech by quotation marks the ill administrator kapt urs speed by 2 lines of the pen much the trotting horse quoted at the knees all 4 and the lady side saddled atop him frozen in place by crossed hatched marks. courseut to indicate the petticoat aroused into activity by the muscular steed. unintended garden. whether o(inaudible) the propery line, i promise not to water the

spring flower and plants that remain as brown stubbel on the chins of my train. take care of dry foilage. i let the japanese maybel swat the afi ds on it's own. purple spotted brush. 2 calla lillies take root. birds return listening to lost meats all day until dusk beckons them to come to the nest and try again in the morning. this next poem is indian an ina ontholingly. on telegraph avenue it's no longer in existence, the sadness of this. berkeley, late fall. um -- this is from forest hamer who is a bay area poet who wrote

berkeley late spring. this is berkeley late fall. i have been browsing the peet ree section had come to lose the unconcern but persistant rain that followed me in as a trail of damp shoe prints and dripping conscientious hacompanied to a solitude. i ran my right index if anything are across each spine flesh going along volume and groove. imagine the book seller anding by to fold and flatten we down to on an oblong shape and reshelf me into an americay sandwich between the t's and v's stacked up along the unexpected and unknown. i notice that the pe ems i imagine crowding around you were the unquieted the unrequited. distant citizens far from the disposition of the safety of s's

the determinant d's and resultant r's where the poems are make believe. unlike the bumpy organic one i find myself wandering into. this one is about the moon. mabel and maureen. the moon regrets it's father's avd vise, take the night shift. [laughter]. each evening he dressed his forehead in linseed oil and drying powerhouse the expansion of reflection. it's difficult to get shut eye the hours before how the sunshines and how dollar is no curtain wide enough to screen it's rays. he takes out his bag lunching mouthfuls of apple juice and pb and j. on his watchdog garts.

diners are darkened, empty much we are not open for you, moon they seem to say. and so said the cart vendors the waitresses like mabel and maureen. how mabel and lauereen stroll indeed full skirted prichled merrily the moon lit evening arms in other men's arms. this next one is, the next 2, which are my last 2 are something about passing. among us. in the sunken spring as in winter and fall and every season that our teak of spring with souro and jubulation are fragile hearts are as children grabbing drink tumblers spilld and milky. teach finger tips reaches for the stars and night clouds

hopeful that we might give respite to our orbegans our earth bound regrets. we ask or wonder in the moments when we catch ourselves breathing where do the beloved go. in the warm cham bers of the living. we imagine how they might wallow away our earthly number of days playing gin rummy with another grand mother. ladies of historical footnotes. telescope the heavens on capurncus's shirt tales. wounds and so spots pounding out quiet inner drum beats while we traverse the gravity boots. warmed bite disassistant c.j. hunt inner spaces is dusted with

enchantments of what love has left us. this is tile. consider the corn's ear a tiling of pale yellow pillows, tiny. or hexagonal pearls addressed on the bathroom floor. i flip through a 12 month calendar each tile numbered, each 30, each sheet of a dozen passing, passing. thank you. [applause] >> our next speaker is nancy hong. nancy is an artist, writer, children's book ill administrator, curator and art's administrator. devoted her artistic career to the nonprofit art's sector creatingim mags for political, social and community events and

causes her writing has been published in severalan tholologies. with that i introduce nancy hong. >> thank you for coming this is called bread and soup. beneath the bear bulb we gather to eat our evening meal of bread and soup. here behind the mission walls the kind speaks to us in euphemisms we avoids staring at our brown roasts faces, our hard boiled hands and violet veins he mouths his words like a fish careful not to mention china to us who are now fartherless and motherless in this new country. he does not know we created our own miracle that transformed the stale, hard crust into wrich

crackling pork skinning. the soup and broth. our lips smack in satisfaction of this, our only taste of home. >> this piece is on angel island. the angel island immigration station where chinese and otherim grants were detained and interrogated from 1910 to 1940 before they were allowed into america. many adopted false identities in order to escape this strict act. our morning strolls to mountain lake park my wife of 50 years stays a step behind. she needs my arm for balance but avoids my touch. she counts the 10 sign