So much welcoming. Thank you. But wait, Heather, do you want to talk first about these kids? I think that I should introduce you first. OK, you guys are really lucky to be here right now, because I got to work with these kids in the past, and I'm going to teach a three-week course in creative nonfiction with them coming up in a couple weeks. And I get so inspired as a writer being able to hear and read their stuff, because they're so good.  So not only do they get her wisdom and enthusiasm, but just all this constant influx of all these voices coming in to work with these guys. So everybody I've ever met is so impressed by her program. Please welcome to the stage Heather Woodward. Hi, I'm Heather Woodward, and I'm the director of the creative writing program at school of the arts. And I'm sorry I didn't expect to say anything, but I never turned down an opportunity to say anything. So the creative writing program at school of the arts has been in existence for now six years, and we're the seventh discipline. The other six at SOTA have been around for quite some time. Theater, dance, and vocal, instrumental music, and others. And there was never a creative writing program until about six years ago. And I was very happy to start it. And the students here are absolutely brilliant. This particular class, I shouldn't say this, probably just one of my favorite classes ever, they came in as really strong readers as an entire class. And it saddens me very much to see that the amount and the intensity of reading that students come with today has decreased since this class. And I'm just so proud of them, and they're all brilliant. And they're going to go out and have wonderful college experiences. Some of them will perhaps pursue creative writing, but actually I don't advise them to go to an undergraduate program because, frankly, they've completed more than one. I modeled this on the MFA program that I went through at San Francisco State. So they're primed to, I think, now take that writing and learn about something else and then go to grad school if they want to. Anyway, SOTA's great. Send your kid there. I wouldn't work at any other school, and I wouldn't want to work with any other kids. I love these guys. Thanks. OK, so these guys, we don't need, do we need that? You guys, if you're talking to Mike, I think everybody can hear if you're just standing like this, right? And this is just a little protector. Here we're being videotaped. All right, so we're going to make this fast because these guys only have four minutes. The first writer, these guys all wrote their own bios, too, and they're really funny and cool. So our first writer was just doing some last minute editing. As I sat next to her, she barred a pen for me. Please welcome Fiona Armour. Can everybody hear me? OK, OK. Percy brought home two new pairs of shoes on Friday, and that made us officially broke. What are you doing? I asked. He shook his head. I need shoes. I need shoes. He looked close to tears. I imagined my life in a trailer park and went to go sulk in the shower. I pulled my knees up to my chin and realized that if I hadn't met Percy, none of my money issues would have happened. Percy liked to spend. I like to spend. Because we spent over $100 a day, we weren't perfect for each other, and we knew it. What are you doing? Percy was rattling the doorknob, taking a shower, I said. Doesn't sound like you're taking a shower. Percy proposed to me a year ago. He didn't get down on one knee, but he had the velvet case in a pretty big rock. You know I can't accept this, I said. I'm not sure if I'm ready yet. Oh, I'm sorry. No, it's fine. We can do this for a couple more years, I guess. It's not that I don't want to marry you. No, it's fine, really. He closed the case and put it in his pocket and then pretended to shuffle around the newspaper on the table. His hands were shaking. What are you gonna do with that, huh? The ring, are you going to return it?  What? You just turned down my proposal, but you're worried about what I'm gonna do with the ring?  He stood up and stormed out of the kitchen. I heard multiple door slam and the car in the driveway cruise away. The car we had bought together, his first and my second. Are you sure you want red, he asked. Yeah, then we'll always be able to find it. All cars are red, he said. Why not green?  We got a small white Volvo and named it the wheels. This nickname stuck. Babe, I'm taking the wheels to work tomorrow. No, you can't because I'm taking the wheels to the shop tomorrow. I called my grandmother when he wasn't home at midnight. For Christ's sake, she hauled into the receiver. Do you know that I sleep? Grandma, what? What do you want from me? I bit a fingernail too short. Percy's gone, I said. My grandmother did not respond. I could hear my grandfather in the background. Grandma, I asked. Where are you? Home. Grandma came over eventually in her old person pajamas. She made tea and I try not to cry into my pillow. And we have no money, I said. Grandma nodded and run my feet. You have money. No, we don't, we never do. We're too different to agree on anything. He'll be home by tomorrow, you big baby. She left around four in the morning and I poured out the cold tea into the sink and tried to fall asleep. When Percy and I were angry at each other, I was always the one to sleep on the couch.  I know, but space is so important. Whoa, he said, we don't agree on anything. I remember this frightened me, so I turned up the radio. Steve Miller's The Joker was playing. You like this song, he asked. I love this song. Percy smiled, me too. I was still awake when Percy came home, but I decided to pretend. Jesus, come to bed, okay? I opened an eye. Where have you been, I asked. I couldn't help it. Blowing off steam, come to bed.  Sorry, he said, he fumbled for me in the darkness. Don't be, I said, okay. He threw an arm around me. Percy and I had been looking for new places to live all week. We finally agreed to check out a one bedroom, one bathroom, and a lousy neighborhood. It was too much for us, but we pretended it wasn't.   For Christ's sake, grow up, he snapped. The realtor popped his head into the room nervously. Nice living room, eh? The veins in Percy's neck were transparent, obvious. I can't take this, he said, and stormed out of the room. The realtor and I listened as the car in the driveway pulled out. I had forgotten myself and at our apartment, but he probably knew that. The realtor coughed and rubbed his hands on his thighs. What, I snapped. Well, I was just thinking, it's always stressful finding a new place. Trust me, my wife and I have been there. He paused. Are you still interested in seeing the backyard? I looked at him and felt the tears in my eyes, the growth in my throat. Things that the Steve Miller band could never erase and nodded. Hey, Fiona Armour. Okay, our next reader is somebody who I get to be her thesis advisor, which is such a privilege. And another thing I love about her is her parents moved from Los Gatos to San Francisco so that she could go to the School of the Arts. Yeah, please welcome Yael Green. Okay, four minutes. When my parents took me and my brother on a train up north to San Francisco for a weekend, my brother and I roamed around downtown at five in the evening hoping to see someone get shot. No one pops a gun out at five in the afternoon, he said, but this is San Francisco, I argued. Just give it a half hour. Five bucks says we at least someone's purse gets snatched. Back in the Santa Cruz Mountains, my brother and I would grow tired of trying to chase down deer and resort to injecting excitement where we normally wouldn't find it. So he'd say, we've got good reception today. You wanna listen to NPR? Do I, I'd ask, and move to cradle the radio in my arms like an infant stroking its speakers. Have I ever said no? On better days, we might get good enough reception for a music station, but we never got our hopes up. Sundays were spent shining civilization by becoming one with nature, trying to build a miniature dam by the garage. If civilization didn't want anything to do with us, we didn't want anything to do with it. Sometimes we caved in and tried to see what was out there, throwing notes taped to tennis balls over a forest of trees to what was rumored to be a backyard, but no one ever replied and it seemed that the friendlier the notes became like, how are you doing? We're here to talk. The more isolated we really were. My brother came home one day with a Nintendo 64 and a Smash Brothers cartridge. It quickly became our new addiction. Every night as I was closing my eyes to fall asleep, I'd see Donkey Kong throwing a hammer over Mario's head and blasting him off the spaceship. My brother's friend had handed the thing to him free because his mother feared carpal tunnel syndrome. I feared the loss of feeling in my thumb from pressing too many buttons too quickly, but my brother told me to hush and said that at best I'd smudge out my fingerprints and become unidentifiable. This way I could be a successful drug lord. There was nothing to worry about. We wanted to enact whatever we did at friend's houses down in the suburbs in our own neighborhood. When we grew tired of Nintendo, we bought a basketball hoop and ball, but a thunderstorm knocked over the hoop and the ball bounced down the hill into some bush. We tried selling lemonade on our street which resembled more of a hiking trail than a paved road and set up shop on the side, pounding the legs of our table into the dirt to stabilize it. When the first and only car passed us by, our glass pitcher fell off the table and smashed in clear tiny fragments.   It wouldn't be big because there'd be trouble getting a caravan up the mountain since people couldn't be trusted to find our house on their own and because we couldn't have more than a few people barfing along the way. My dad, who'd seen the upholstery of his brand new car puked on by my first friend on our first sleepover years before, voted for no more than five people.  I invited my friend Shelly from school. My brother invited his friend Phil to make up for the free Nintendo. Uh-oh, my dad said, the minute we pulled up to Phil's driveway and saw his mom give him a kiss on the cheek, goodbye. That boy's a puker. Later on the drive home, Phil did puke. And my father, being familiar with the early signs of queasiness, pulled over and ushered him out to the side of the road. Out of boy, he said, patting his back, as streams of a burrito in an early stage of digestion started to slowly slide down the hill. The evening had started out well. My brother and I entertained our friends the way we knew best. I hopped in my miniature red car made out of plastic and pedaled to the tip of our driveway, which slanted down into a long, spiraling twist. My brother placed his hands on my shoulders to give me a push, a weekend routine, and Shelly jumped forward to protect me. What are you doing, she squealed. He's giving me a push, I assured her. I'm going down the hill. I heard the three of them run after me as my red car sped down the driveway, but I was going too fast. When they reached the bottom of the driveway panting, Phil and Shelly gasped as my brother pulled me and the car out of a bush. I was itching all over. Looks like that one has poison oak, I told him, scratching my arms and legs. Phil and Shelly jumped back a step. No biggie, I said, I'll shower quickly and it'll all go away. I found myself speaking slower to them, enunciating every syllable understandably. My brother nodded, no biggie, he said, brushing leaves and twigs off the red car. Anyone else wanna give it a go? Later that night as we were huddled in a circle on the living room carpet playing pickup sticks, we heard a wind start up. The windows began to pulse and we could hear rain hitting the side of the house. Soon the lights began to flicker slowly and sped up until they reached a crescendo blanking out completely. When the lights came back on, though the wind was still howling, I saw Phil and Shelly curled up together, closing their eyes. Shelly and I had learned this tactic at school. The teacher had taught us to assemble this way whenever an earthquake struck. When the storm calmed down, we decided to traipse downstairs to reward ourselves with some ice cream for surviving the storm. We got up to the top of the staircase with Phil in the lead when he paused before the first step. Where's the railing, he asked. We don't have one, remember? Phil looked down the steps. No, he said, I don't. Not from when you climbed up the stairs, my brother asked. But we're going down this time, Shelly said. It's different. Downstairs was pitch black and the hallway light from the second floor illuminated only the first half of the stairway. We couldn't see the rest. But ice cream, I said. Don't you guys want ice cream? Come on, we'll go first. No, they uttered, entranced. Their faces expressionless. They turned around and returned to the living room carpet where they sat down in silence, arms wrapped around their knees. I brought out my brother's mini radio hoping to get a signal and sooth everyone with the sound of Michael Krasny's voice. But even MPR was just static. Yeah, I'll agree. I'm sure Michael Krasny would be very excited to know he's in your story. Our next reader was such a great writer when I read his stuff two years ago. So I'm excited to see what he's been up to. Please welcome Alex Henderson. If Rosemary was a princess, she would not kiss a frog. She just wasn't that kind of person. Not because she was particularly cruel or enjoyed the trap prince's predicament or even that she had some type of aversion to amphibians. She just wouldn't do it. I know this because she told me. She also told me she would never have children for spiritual reasons. But in a fit of absent-mindedness, Rosemary had become pregnant the night of her junior prom. Because her foster parents did not believe in abortion, she unwillingly proceeded to birth the child who she stubbornly named Rosemary's baby. In the hopes that it would one day cause the world as much pain as it had caused her. It all had to do, she explained to me, with waiting. If you go looking for things, people get used to even comfortable rejecting you. The more actively you pursue the things you need, the easier you make it for people to say no. But if you let things come to you, you're spared not only the effort, but also the rejection embarrassment. This all seemed very nice to her. A little package of personal philosophy in which the universe, against whom she was bluffing, revolved around her. Rosemary smoked, which is one of the few things she did that made me crazy. Kissing a smoker is not quite the same as an ashtray. It's closer to smoking yourself, which in reality isn't that bad. That said, there were definite parallels that existed between her mouth and the tray. There are things we are willing to do for the people we love, and her cigarettes were one of them. She told me they were hip and secretly, I thought they were almost romantic. That said, I couldn't see any way to make her quit without the planets aligning or some type of divine intervention. She just wasn't that kind of girl, or so she said. The day we fought was a bad day. We'd never actually argued over anything important. Not to say we didn't have our scraps now and then, but they generally ended happy. This day, however, was something different. Rosemary had been fired from her job and in a fit had given our galaxy the middle finger, deciding not to go out job hunting. It was the second week of what seemed to me to be a clever disguise for depression, and as much as it hurt me to see her upset, it was hard to know that I was working while she got high and watched cartoons all day. At the time, it seemed like a nice life, and when I got home, it seemed even nicer. The air was pleasantly spiced with the smell of the ashtray, and ooh, smell of the ashtray, the television blaring while Rosemary lying on the couch channel surfed blankly. I started it, I suppose, saying something about a job, then she started yelling, and I yelled back, and it's too soon escalated. She threw the ashtray at me, and then I apologized and locked her in our room when she unwittingly accepted.   There was a policeman there. He had a deep voice and an authoritative looking gut. He asked me if there was any problem and if he could come in. Apparently, there was some sort of domestic dispute going on in the apartment. I told him he was welcome to come in if he wanted to deal with the crazy woman that had broken into my apartment. Ultimately, it was me that was arrested when the crazy woman accused me of abuse. And then it was a laughing, teary-eyed rosemary that would bail me out and refuse to press charges. She told me she never wanted to fight again, which I told her just wasn't realistic. She said, that's the difference between us and drove me home crying. Alex Henderson, and that's the lovely Mark Cappell over there in the piano, adding some atmosphere. Our next reader is an award-winning playwright and she's working on her senior thesis about the six weeks that she spent in Honduras. Please welcome to the stage Tania Lunsford. Last summer, when Frederick Douglass and I found the bones and dirty flesh and skull of a man under the ruins of my neighbor's garage, we made a silent pact. My neighbor, who my mother was always skeptical of, had moved away five days earlier, never even shaking hands with her, which meant a lot because my mother was a very touchy-feely person. Frederick Douglass never liked my neighbor either. And although Frederick Douglass was the friendliest seven-year-old pit bull you've ever seen, we trusted his judgment. Frederick Douglass was almost always right about people, except that time he attacked the mailman. After that incident, we had to hide him for five months from the city because they threatened to put him to sleep. Soon after Frederick Douglass was admitted back to society, that is, after I could walk him without being called the owner of a devil dog, his favorite place to walk was in the woods behind our house. I didn't mind the woods, either. I think neither of us minded for the same reason because he didn't have to wear a leash and me because I didn't have to hold the leash and be pulled along by his strength as if I were the one being walked. One day as we returned from the brush behind my house, I heard Frederick Douglass panting behind me. I could imagine without turning around the look on his face, his tongue wagging, his jaws flapping and his back legs higher than his front. He didn't slow down when he saw me. I'm guessing because he tackled me down right onto our back lawn and kept running. He leapt over the short fence that separated our yard from my neighbors. In a panic, I jumped up to retrieve him because I didn't know how my neighbor would react to an oversized pit bull barking and scratching at his garage.  When we got back to our yard, he refused to stop barking, even going on for so long as to only be stopped by a smoked jerky stick, bacon flavor, of course. Frederick Douglass loved those sticks, but I can definitely see why. I had to wrestle the pack away from him just as often as I had to wrestle it away for my five-year-old little brother, whom I would catch periodically whispering, one for you, one for me. While sneaking a snack with Frederick Douglass. I didn't stress over Fred's fit. Besides, I had all, I had just stopped having temper tantrums a year earlier. I totally understand that folks just have to act out sometimes. Even if it is kicking your little brother's television set in or in Frederick Douglass's case, I'm leaping wildly over a fence and only being contained by jerky sticks. When I was nine years old, we adopted Frederick Douglass. My father was driving old people from one doctor's appointment to the next in one of those vans for a living. And one of the elderly women grabbed him one day and looked him in the eye a couple of minutes too long and handed him a little pit bull for a huge purse, which I am sure was used to store other things in her younger days. My father, newly divorced from my mother and a self-proclaimed bachelor, found no room for a dog in his new life and gave the dog to us. To my mother's disagreement in my relentless pouting, we took the dog. It was Black History Month when we got Frederick Douglass. I was in Mrs. Horn's class and we were learning about famous black figures in history. I, having grown up in a family where my grandfather marched for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and everyone talked about it as if it was present day is in the 60s. I was well equipped with information on black history. On a Tuesday, Miss Hornsby brought pictures of some of the famous figures. Madam C.J. Walker, George Washington Carver, Martin Luther King in Rosa Parks, Nat King Cole, Jackie Lou Robinson, and among those was Frederick Douglass, a beautiful man with a parted afro and a strong and tense stare. So when my mother asked what I would like to name my dog, I named him after the strongest most beautiful man I'd seen yet, Frederick Douglass. And after much calling, he came to me and it was too late for my mother to change his name. A couple days after the incident with Frederick Douglass' barking fit, our neighbor moved. It was on a Wednesday. He had only been there for about three months and hadn't spoke to us except for once to give us the mail that accidentally had been put in his mailbox. It was as if my neighbor had predicted the storm that came soon after he moved because what used to be his garage had collapsed along with the tree that sat in what used to be his front yard soon after he left. The storm lasted for two days after which the sun decided to come out full force and apologize. Frederick Douglass and I forgave it and took advantage by going for an extra long walk through the woods. When we returned, we admired the strength of the storm, both of us silently marveling over the damage in our neighbor's yard. So Frederick Douglass jumped over the fence again to inspect the damage, forcing his nose into the ruins embarking when he hit rock bottom, I imagine. When I saw what Frederick Douglass had found, a skeleton, the skin on the forehead still intact, I could not scream. I didn't run home like I should have. I looked at Frederick Douglass who had been looking at me for God knows how long. Any of the one of us said anything. For the first time, Frederick Douglass didn't know what we should do next. So Nia Lunsford, God, Frederick Douglass, Michael Krasny and Rosemary's Baby. There are some good references in these stories. Our next story, our next storyteller, our next reader is the editor in chief of Umlot which is the super awesome literary journal at School of the Arts. Please welcome Naomi Nio. Hi, so this is an excerpt from my senior thesis which is a rotating narrator novel about Centralia, Pennsylvania, or it's actually about a family, but it's said in Centralia, Pennsylvania where they've had a minefire burning for 40 years and they recently evacuated the town during the 1980s. So. I hadn't been home in 22 years and in all that time I had seen my mother only twice at my father's funeral and at my wedding. Later she wouldn't come to California to see her only grandchildren. The town needed her, she said, and besides, what if they tried to tear down her house while she was gone? Now I brought my family of strangers and come to live with her again. You grew up here, mom? Hannah ran over to investigate a wide-mouth pipe rising out of the earth beside the road, rested and overflowing with last year's leaves. We were walking down what used to be Park Street, I guess still was. But the tidy white parallel lines of row houses had been replaced by thick overgrown foliage, jungle-like, converging over the still paved road. I looked around coolly at it and proud of myself of staying calm. Don't touch that, honey. I grabbed her small hand and steered her back into the asphalt of the road, but I felt guilty, as I often do with Hannah, who is much more delicate physically and in her personality than her sister, who often looks at me in such a knowing ways if she understood me completely and uncharitably. I felt guilty for interfering in her discovery and began to explain apologetically. That is a borehole. They drilled a lot of holes in the ground when I was a little girl because there used to be mines under the town, coal mines, back with my mother, that's Grandma Helen, was young. But then the old mines caught on fire. You know what a mine is, right? Hannah was four years old, almost five, but she had been diagnosed with mild attention deficit disorder and drawn out conversations made me nervous. I could only talk as fast as possible and wait for her to lose interest. A mine, she asked. A mine is where people find out there's something underground they want, like coal, which we burn to make electricity. So they dig coals and tunnels under the ground and they take it out. Anyway, there are lots of old tunnels under there. I stopped my foot to add emphasis. And one day they caught on fire by accident. And because coal is flammable, that means it burns, the fire just kept burning. So anyway, the people who wanted to stop the fire drilled all these holes and stuck pipes in them to let all the bad poisonous air out that a fire makes from underground and also so they could see where it was hot and then they would know where the fire was. I could see her getting bored. She stopped to look at a blue butterfly on the ground, but I kept nodding along to my words politely. Anyway, Hannah, I said loudly, trying to wrangle her attention for one last sprint. The important thing is that you shouldn't go too near the pipes because the air that comes out of them is really bad for you, okay?  I held my breath, please let her understand. She surprised me, she asked a question. How did they put the fire out if they couldn't see it? Well, they argued about that for a long time. Some of the government men wanted to pour water down the holes, just like they were putting out a regular fire. Some wanted to dig the fire up and take it away. Some wanted to fill the mine tunnels with like non-flammable, you mean material that doesn't burn? But in the end, they tried all three ways in other ones, but because they could never agree and didn't try very hard at any time, since not everybody was working together and cooperating, I looked at her until she met my eyes. I wanted her to pay attention. And they never put the fire out at all. It's still burning right now. She looked at her feet and her mouth opened slightly. And that's why they tore all the houses down because nobody could live there anymore on top of a fire. This used to be a regular little town with houses up and down the street, just like in Sunnyvale. But now hardly anybody lives here, just Grandma Helen and a few other people, stubborn people who refused to give up. Look, Hannah pointed to a gray roof rising above the trees, close now. We came upon the building, a neat white clapboard row house set close to the street with three false chimneys rising in brick on either side, merry golds in the evenly mown front yard. There was a freshly painted lawn jockey in red and yellow costume standing on the strip of clean sidewalk remaining only before this house. The lawn jockey's face had been painted with orange lips and wide white and blue eyes. His outstretched hand held a lump of gleaming black anthracite coal. On the porch of the house, a heavily bodied woman in navy blue house dress strained against her strong shoulders and wide hung belly stood up on the front porch, a tall glass of iced tea in hand and brushed imaginary crumbs from her thighs. I knelt next to Hannah and whispered in her ear, go hug your Grandma Helen. Naomi Neale, that was great, thank you. Our next writer comes from my side of the bay, Oakland, and she likes to write poetry and fiction and also apparently has an active interior life in the subject of polemics, which is very interesting. Please welcome to the stage Yamina Abdurrahim. There are seven blocks between my house and where I live, and every day I walk between these two points laced with street merchants and the smell of cinnamon and piss. There are times though few that I sink myself into the boulevards and avenues and appreciate the beauty of street junctions in the present. The house is saddened. The house is saddened through progress, appear romantic. They hold with their arms saddened people whose faces and feet are worthy and unrealized. Few of these saddened people claim the streets with aerosol and paint pens as it's the only way they know how. Neither the taggers nor the gangsters anger me because they're only trying to belong to something that can never belong to them. To make home out of this wasteland and cultivate families from strangers to form gods from loudspeakers and rosaries. My neighbor holds God in car windows and presses symbols of such into her chest. For moments of few she and I walk together, the barbed wire fence casting diamonds on our bodies. The children run and scream and kick neon soccer balls on the sidewalk and in the street. They're happy even in golf by looming naked buildings with histories too heavy for their young arms. They maneuver through the cars and play. They play as if they own the city as only God could. And as they age they give up this innate right and use the latter part of their lives to reclaim what they knew as truth. That was beautiful, thank you. Our next writer is the managing editor of Umlat and also maybe for the first time in your life you're gonna lay eyes on a world-class fencer. I don't know if I've ever done that before. This is exciting. Please welcome Sasha Schmidt. When we hiked we always yearned for the top of the mountain to finally be at the destination.  When we hiked we rarely did it for the journey. We did it for what comes at the end. The satisfaction of looking at down the mountain at the beaten path, shrubbery that stuck to our ankles and gravel that almost made us flip down the hundreds of feet we had just climbed. When we hiked in the summer of 06 it was hot and cloudless and every time we thought we were at the top of the mountain there was always another slope, another ridge just above teasing us. Julia and I had wanted to take a greyhound down to Monterey to stay in a youth hostel and enjoy the beaches. But instead we went hiking. We decided to hike to a campsite at the top of Pinnacles, a state park not far from Monterey. It was just the two of us off in the wilderness. When we got to the top we were exhausted, not so much from hiking but from hoping. We had hoped for the summit so many times yet it hadn't come not until we had given up. We fell asleep, our sleeping bag zipped up tight because of the chill at the top. I wake up at 5.30. I think I hear a coyote howling. It is brisk but I decide to unzip the sleeping bag and crawl out onto the cold hard earth, still half asleep. The dew from the night had swelled all the cracks and crevices shut. I sit on my hands trying to feel the pulse of the earth. I lie back against a rock. From our campsite I can see valleys stretching east and west. In the distance I can make out the silver line of the ocean. To the east I see the fields of artichokes and strawberries that will soon be speckled by bowed heads, dark necks of the pickers exposed to the sun. The air nips my eyelids and I am awake as I could ever be. The world is asleep around me. I can just make out a pink horizon in the east. I hear the coyote again. Yesterday I had missed the mountain, the sky, the earth as we walked up the mountain. I remembered last night we had seen a turkey vulture at dusk circling the sky, its beak open. The sky is full of stars and little points of pink light where the sun's rays are creeping in. If that vulture had flown around now it would have gulped a mouth full of light and stars in cool air. I consider waking Julia but the sky is changing quickly and if I left even for a moment I would miss something, something that happens every morning but that no one seems to know about. At 6.15 the sun is sneaking up over the horizon. I shield my eyes as the red sun millions of miles away bathes me in the morning. The earth under me starts to harden. I hear crickets somewhere off in a bush with shrubbery and a bird opens its lungs. The coyote is gone. Julia stirs. I decide to go back into the tent. I appreciate the beauty of cities and of that giant metropolis and metropolitan muscle but I can appreciate it while walking and talking and doing things. Nature is different. It requires solitude and chances to catch your breath and just stare. Time to sit on a rock and see the curve of that gnarled tree alone on the hillside. Nature is alive. It says, come on, take a seat and think well and we do. Thanks Sasha. Our next writer is an award-winning poet and classical guitarist as well as a hoop dancer and I don't know what that is but maybe where are you Natasha? Can you, Natasha Weidner? I wanna find out what hoop dancing is. Just briefly, what hoop dancing? It's when you dance with hula hoops. Do they have ribbons on them? Sometimes or sometimes they have fire. Ooh, do you do it with fire? No, I don't. Okay, not yet. Please welcome Natasha Weidner. Thank you.  Just impulsively because there was mist outside and I wanted to feel it on my face and because I was home alone listening to my classical music and overflowing with this hunger to plant something. Of course, once I had planted the potato and smoothed the dirt with my hands, I felt unsatisfied and I sat on the front lawn for a minute staring at the patch soil wondering if the potato was changing yet. And if it was, what would happen if I dug it back up right this instant? Would it be ruined like film stolen from the dark room? I went back inside and probably made pancakes or something and after that I completely forgot about my four quarters of potato and was sucked back into the circles of my life, the cups of tea, the checking of the email and such. Now my neighbor says to me, what's that growing out of your front lawn? And I say, I don't know because I can't believe that those little wedges could have grown into all this green wildness in such a short time. Weeds, I decide. I go into the yard in my overalls and start ripping out the muscular stalks. Underneath them though, are hundreds of potatoes perfectly smooth, comfortably enveloped in the soil. I uncover them with amazement. They do not seem to be linked together under the ground. I fill an entire bucket with them, wondering when did this happen and where have I been this whole time, oblivious to the magic unfolding in the dirt? I can't even remember. It's as if the repetition of all the things I do day after day has made them unremarkable and this dance with civilization, with computers, microwaves, schedules has dragged me inside far away from the soft clickings of the earth to which I have become oblivious. And what did I ever do to deserve all these potatoes? What have I done for this world that it is so generously, so quietly, nourished me all my life? The least I can do, I decide, is marvel, be thankful, lie down on the grass with my eyes closed, feel myself sinking into that softness, recognizing that I'm a part of this land, a creature, changing and growing all the time, like everything else that's alive. The least I can do is take my bounty inside, turn on my classical music and preheat the oven. My mom and I can stand together in our yellow kitchen, chopping potatoes slowly, slowly, tossing them with olive oil, sliding them into the oven and enjoying the warm smell filling our house, remembering where everything started and will eventually return. Natasha Weidner, that was beautiful. Our final reader is, this is great, McSweeney's publishing puts out a great anthology called the best American non-required reading and there's always great essays and stories in it and our next writer is an editor for that anthology. Please welcome Eli Wolf. Nobody thought I'd really grow up to be a loaf of bread. When I told my teachers, they'd asked me to think of a real job, but I had a real job in mind. What's more real than being a loaf of bread? Nothing, that's a trick question. One day I crawled inside my cardboard box. I had at least a dozen of them, all refrigerator crates, having decided that today was as good a day as any to grow up.  At first the prickles along my skin hurt and I fidgeted and scratched and nearly cried, but eventually I gave in and let the heat soak into me until my viscous sourdough inside sponged into soft springy dough and my skin crusted tan and brittle. The bell of the oven dinged and the flaps flopped open, ejecting cloud of delicious steam. Mom called me to dinner, I obviously didn't move.  As a loaf of bread I was not obligated to respond. Eli, your asparagus is getting cold, get out of the box. Now what does a loaf of bread eat? I hadn't considered this, I already felt hungry, especially for asparagus dipped in lemon butter, but maybe that was just the old me trying to drag me back into the habits of my old breadless self. So I curled up a little tighter, savoring a whiff of my own fresh, yeasty body. I wondered what sort of bread I was.  I wouldn't know, I didn't have eyes. I was happy with myself whatever I was. I don't think bread discriminates against itself. While my mom went to get my dad, which she always did when I became unmanageable, I scooted into the kitchen. The marble tiles were smooth and cool under my crust and I had a sudden pang of nostalgia for the countertop where I was conceived in an ecstatic splash of water and flour, salt sprinkling like a drizzle over the exhausted union on the green Formica tabletop. I nudged the pantry door open and rolled inside, coming to a rest under the shelves. So this was home. The yellowish kitchen light filtered in through the slats on the pantry door, spilling over the avenues that ran between the cans of pinto beans and tomato sauce, blinking off a slumbering jar of pickles. I wanted to crawl up on the bread shelf and meet my friends, but the shelf was cramped, so I dragged them down to the floor and arrayed them in a semi-circle around me. I was kind of nervous, seeing them all at once. I asked the whole wheat, who looked really friendly, if he'd introduced me to the group. Sure, if you like, but they won't like you. Why won't they like me, I asked. You're unsliced. Unsliced, the whole group hissed. In unison through the pores in their dough, as they edged in around me. Embarrassed, I realized that I hadn't even considered this before. The whole wheat added sympathetically and you're not even packaged. Where's your plastic bag? Were you homemade? I was made from scratch, I said proudly. The plastic bags muffled the group's laughter, but it resounded in the pantry, waking a jar of sleepy olives that glared down at us before sinking back into their oily dream. I was heartbroken. Now it was the whole wheat's turn to look embarrassed for me. He scooted closer to me and whispered, we've had homemade here before, something's just wrong with them.  It's like they weren't baked long enough if you know what I mean. And nobody eats them. Nobody, I asked, nobody, he said. They just sit there on the shelf as the days go by, getting staler and staler, pecked that by mice and crumbling over the place. They get to be a real mess by the time anyone notices them. Then it's straight into the trash can where you get chopped up for croutons. No, I shouted, I refused to believe it. My skin still felt warm from the oven and even though my heart was buried in dough, I could feel the strength of each throb cracking my crust. I was soft and perfect. Who wouldn't want to eat me? The bread loaf circled around me jeering and threw their twisties at me as they chanted, unsliced, unsliced, unsliced. The whole wheat loaf was thrust aside by his companions and he shrugged helplessly as he was absorbed into the mob. They lifted me on their shoulders if bread has shoulders and carried me to the other end of the pantry. We passed from the sun-dappled suburbs into the dark inner city of preserved herring and marachino cherries floating inertly in their sticky sap like dead cores of red dwarfs. They threw me into a dusty dark corner and then they fell upon me, all those loaves, digging into my body with their sharpened scissors. They flayed the crust off my back and gouged deep holes in my tender body. Bits and pieces of me were flung in the air like confetti and I weakly struggled to stuff myself back together even as the loaves cut me into pieces and stuffed themselves in a cannibalistic frenzy. Mom wrapped on the side of the cardboard box. Asparagus Eli. I heard her set the plate down outside the oven door then she walked away. I opened the flap of the oven at just a crack to look at the neatly decapitated asparagus heads. When I clambered out of the box I was hardly baked at all, just sweaty and itchy from rolling around in my sleep. I put the first asparagus head in my mouth and crunched down on it. Lemon burst in my mouth like a tiny sun with each bite of the dead organic flesh and I felt no remorse for the corpse when I swallowed. Thank you. Eli Wolf, let's hear it for all the readers from Soda. That was great. God, you guys are so good. We're gonna take about five minutes for the change over the changing time when it turns into poetry hour and there are some great poets that are coming up including Maxine Chernoff, Michael McClure, Joel Gomez. So we'll take a little break and we'll be right back. Thanks to Mark Cappell too for playing the piano.


Good morning squad and welcome back to our channel. I hope you guys are having a great day. Our day is kind of like starting off shaky already and that's not because my foot is still black and blue. It's the swelling's going down though. Yeah, it's actually feeling way better. You feeling better? Yeah, it's feeling better. The soreness is coming in a little bit because the swelling's going down but this morning we're actually waiting for the next four minutes. Four minutes. In four minutes, apparently all of our devices are supposed to get an emergency alert test and y'all already experienced this. If you're watching this video, we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know if our phones are going to like blare. Apparently it's supposed to be like, it's no matter if your phone is low or not, it's supposed to go top volume, right? And it's supposed to go crazy and all of our speakers are connected to the internet. Our TV, our... What do we do?  I don't know. I don't know. It's literally like what, three minutes? In three minutes, this alert's supposed to go off right now. I'm just saying to turn off your phones and stuff, I kind of want to keep it on and see what happens. I'm kind of scared though. Dude, watch Nothing Happened. This whole thing's hyped up. Tell me y'all seen it, okay? Everyone in the comments right now. I'm pretty sure y'all've seen all the TikToks and all the videos that have been going on about this. I'm just anxious. I'm anxious as if you just don't know what to expect. Like I'm nervous. It's gonna be like... Bye! We don't know, we don't know. So we're just going to keep the camera rolling and we're going to see what happens. It's supposed to be everybody everywhere out of the whole U.S. What if like we should turn off our stuff? But if the frequency just... I don't know. Some people are turning off their phones, some people aren't.  So I might just leave the camera rolling for the next couple of minutes and we'll see what we can cap on camera to see if something, you know. Yeah, I don't know. It's honestly not that big of a deal but at the same time we never... That's it. Talking about it. Wait. Oh my God, people are crazy. That's it?  That's all it was? I thought the team was gonna be going off. I thought our speakers were gonna be playing loud. We literally just got, this is a test of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. The purpose is to maintain and improve alert and warning capabilities as the federal, state, local and tribal territory levels and evaluate the National Public Alert Warning Capabilities. That was... I feel dumbed out. People have been freaking out about this for like a week. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait for 220 though because what if it goes off actually at 220? It was supposed to go off at 220 here. No, I bet you that's it. That's it? I bet you that's it. It went off at 218 EST, our time. Try calling. See if our phones work, so. Wait, can we not call anyone anymore? Try calling again. She's trying to call her twin sister right now. Can you, does the internet work? The internet looks like it's working, right? Yeah, it's working. Dude, what the, I'm so confused right now. Do I know what's happening? I bet you there's so many people on their phones right now, trying to call and do stuff.  Hopefully they didn't screw it up. That was it. I'm sorry. I think so. That's kind of embarrassing. Oh, Jordan just tried FaceTiming. It's working now. Let's see if it works. That's what, our phones just don't work now? Did they just like kill it all? Are you guys, so I'm actually about to start cooking dinner. I'm actually making a cod tonight. And I think maybe rice, I don't know yet. But, Bill is in the other room right now. That's why I'm talking quiet. As you guys read by today's video, I'm going to be telling my fiance, Bill, that it's his last meal and that he should enjoy it. Which, to be honest, I don't even know what that means to him. It's just like, would you be my last meal? Like, I feel like maybe, like this is your mad last meal. Like, in 10 minutes, that's it. Like, you have 10 more minutes to enjoy your last meal. And I'm just gonna get him in his feels. Like, hopefully he's like, what did you put in my food? Like, blah, blah, blah, blah. Shout out to Kristen and Reeve. But shout out to them.  This one is a good one, especially for spooky season because it is Halloween time. It is time to get my spooky pranks on. Halloween is my favorite time of the year. So, I have to do some type of spooky prank on him. And this one's gonna be crazy. So, I'm gonna prep dinner and get it ready. And I'll show you guys the end result when it's done. Wish me luck. And I'm just gonna pretty much tell him that this is his last meal, baby. Like, enjoy. You've got 10 minutes. You guys, I'm so excited. It's team Orion, the comments, hashtag spooky season. Let's freaking get it. Let's cook this dinner and let's prank his butt. Okay, guys, dinner is done. The bill is currently on the video games right now. I'm about to call him in here, but let's prepare the dinner. It's a served, but it has some tartar sauce in it. I'm gonna call him in here, but I gotta... Also, you guys, I'm sorry for the messy house. It has been a busy week. Slowly cleaning. Did I see Scar right there? Did you see him? You didn't know him. He tried to drink my coffee, as we were trying to do. Babe, dinner's done. All right, I'm gonna be there in a minute. Also, I'll tell you what. Actually, I'll just tell you what you get in here. What? I'll tell you what you get in here. Sorry, but you can't be on the counter. You can't be on the counter, honey. We eat it. Got to learn respect. And respect is not being on the counter. You can't be on the counter, stinky minky. How was that drink that I made you? That was good. Was it? You need some more? Different, though, since it has the cherry in it. I'm not used to cherry. I'm just used to the regular spray. Ooh, this is good. This is your place. Thank you.  This is part of it. Okay, yeah, you can, if you have that. Did you use the whole thing? No. Okay. Yeah, it tastes a little different because of the cherry. Huh? I love it. It tastes a little different, but it's okay. Make your money. Make your dinner, Cod. This looks good. I feel like I haven't eaten in like a day. Sugar. Babe, it's sugar. Just don't look for seconds. Okay. Treat me way too good, baby. Mm. Oh, my God, you've outdone yourself. This tastes so good. How's it? Mm-hmm. Mm. I just want to watch you eat. This is so exciting. I feel like I never used to cook you dinner. I'm probably telling you, this Cod is probably one of the best I've ever cooked. I made it, though, that's why. I know that's why. I usually make it. You can eat this guy making it in one. I know. You make it better than me. You like it? Yeah. Really good. Is this the first time you cooked this?  I don't think so. No, because I did. Remember? Yeah. It's the first time. But I watched you do it. I'm pretty good at cooking it by actually doing instructions. Bro, this is botanical. Is it? Yeah. Mm. Sorry, I'm, like, hungry. Okay.  I feel like I'm probably eating slow. Show me, like, I always eat fast.  No. Unless you want to. Mm. Mm, mm. It's really good? Mm-hmm.  Yeah. Why are you eating soft? I don't know, just keep eating it. I just like watching you eat. And drink some. Here, try it and let me know how it tastes. How does it taste? It's fine. That's good. All right. It's a little stronger than the last one, though. I like don't eat when I eat. I just want to watch you eat. Because this is, like, an exciting meal and I don't get to cook you dinner. Why are you acting weird? I don't know. I just never get to cook you dinner, so it's like, I don't even like it. I'm not even hungry anymore. I said thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. How are you? How are you doing?  I'm not. You are. You're being weird. It's like a lot of tastefully good. What did you do to it? Why are you asking all these questions? I'm just asking.  I love it. Literally, I think we should eat this once a week. Once a week? Uh-huh. It's that good. I don't know if we're gonna have, like, next week, though. What? We're gonna be home. Well, we're going to, oh, Orlando. Yeah, I know. Man, you're almost done.  We're going to Orlando. Well, enjoy it. Just make this one good batch. Enjoy it, baby, because this might be your last meal. So you're telling me you're going to cook once, and then you're not going to cook again? I love your cooking, though. You cook so good. No, baby, like, enjoy it. I'm serious, because this is your last meal. Before what? Before what? What do you mean? Why are you laughing like that, bro? Last meal before what? Give it 10 minutes. What'd you do? Why? I'm so glad we're going to eat together. But, well, I'll eat the dinner again, What did you do? What'd you put in here? Enjoy it. What are you talking about? This is my last meal. You're not making sense. Stop laughing. Bro, what did you put in here? What did you do? I didn't do anything. This is just your last meal, babe.  I spiced it up a little bit tonight. Well, you put hot sauce in here or something? This is your last meal. You put hot peppers in here? Did you try to be funny? This is your last meal ever. Bro, I don't know. I just did that. What are you talking about? You might actually just pull that through. I got action to that.  What did you do? What did you put in here? Did you put something funny in here? Did you put something funny or did you put something bad?   What are you talking about? What did you put in here? What did you put in here? Is that why you're not eating? Okay, tell me why. It's not in mine. I made sure I separate it. Talk to me. What did you do? Why? What did you do? What is going on? Why? You're freaking me out. I have goosebumps right now. I literally have goosebumps right now. Well, you've never seen it, but you've got seven minutes left.  You didn't do anything bad. Mine will save. You didn't do anything bad. You're f**king with me, right? This is a joke. You wouldn't do anything like that. Am I going to shunect me and keep eating it? No, you don't eat it then. Why the f**k are you eating that? Because mine is fine.  What did you put in mine? Please, tell me right now. It doesn't matter. The D is already done, so you need to finish it. What D, bro? What D? What did you do?  Matter of fact, what did you put in here? Because you said you were putting some extra f**king in here, too. Babe, talk to me. You... Oh my God. Bro, you're freaking me out. You're not being serious. I know you're lying, right? You're lying. You're lying. You didn't put anything in here. Was it like ghost pepper sauce? I actually put the way that it's 10 minutes long. Oh my... Babe, if you put a f**king laxative in here, I'm going to freak out. I think the last... You did not do a laxative. I think the laxative is the least of your worries right now. So you did put a laxative in here? No. Why would you... It's a laxative, babe. This is your last meal ever.  Even after I was in class. What are you talking about? I want to savor this bowl. What are you talking about, though? I want to savor this bowl. I am so confused. I don't know what's the f**king going on. No. No, talk to me first. Don't even come near me. Mom, sit down. I feel fine. So whatever you did, it doesn't work. It is going to work. No. Sit down. Bro, what are you... It's an easygoing matter of fact. I don't want to... I'm going to pass away. Baby, just sit down. No, I'm not. I feel fine. You're f**king me. I know you are. Sit down. No, there's no... There's no damn way.  Enjoy your last meal for me. I need you too. I want to start crying because I want you to be able to save this moment with me. No. I didn't mean to do what I did, but I did it. What did you do? What did you do? What did you put in? I'm going to find you and I'm going to do it out. I already school-stated. So what did you throw out? What did you throw out? It's not in the garbage bin. Okay, but tell me. What is it? I'm confused. You think you're tied with me? It's a joke. Why are you doing that? You're joking. It's a joke. It's a joke. This is a f**king prank, right? It's a joke. No, it's not. It's a joke. Yes, it is. You're going crazy if it's not. I'm not going crazy. Please just sit down. Mariah, you need to understand- You need to start laughing together. No, it's not. I feel fine. Nothing's wrong with you. You're not going to start feeling that fine. I feel fine. I feel fine. I don't feel- I feel- All I had is goosebumps because you're freaking me the f**k out. All right. I'll burst you out. You don't know what you should have just watched- Dude, I don't know what you're on right now, but I want to leave you. You're freaking me out. Why are you laughing like that? You creep. Bro! Yes, what did you- Can you just tell me? I will drive myself to the hospital. I promise you, I will. If you're being that serious, I'm out. I'm literally.  You're that serious. You're not going to make it in time.  You're not.  I'm leaving. I'm leaving right now. I don't know if the f**k you did. It took my- I gave it slow. Happy Spooky season. Happy Spooky season. I didn't really think, baby, it's a scare prank. I was joking you. I was trying to make you think I was possessed. Bro, I was about to drive to the hospital with a f**k. I made it. Look at this. If I told you you had 10 minutes, you wouldn't have made it, baby. You don't even have your shoes? No, look it. I was about to- Get back in the house right now. I was about to drive to the hospital with this. Come on. Get back in the house right now. Let's go. It's a prank, honey. Right, it was a joke. It was a joke. That was- Why do you have to freak me out like that? Because it's Spooky season. Join my meal like it was nothing like- It's Spooky season. I had to do some time- That cock, I'm telling you, was the best fish you've ever made. I know, I didn't really get to even enjoy it yet. It's cold now. Oh my God, baby. You know what? Team Bill is going to come back because you crossed the line. You got to admit. You crossed the line. That was a good video at the beginning of Spooky season. It's Spooky season? Get ready, Mama's prank. Mama's prank, it's Spooky season. That was a pretty good prank. Oh, so he just admitted it was a good prank. It was. I got you in your feelings. You thought I would do that to you? Frick, no. No, any better than that for otherwise, you know?  I won't even be able to breathe.  I'm so sorry, you guys. Mama's squad, I promise y'all, I will be coming back. She crossed the line. He thinks he's coming back. If this was the line right here- She crossed it. That's what she did. You know what I have to do? I have to put you back in your place. And the first thing I know, actually I'm not even gonna say anything. Stay tuned, get ready. T-Bills coming back. We're coming back strong. If you really say it's Spooky season, Spooky season, it started. It's Spooky season, my favorite time of the year. Come on, baby. Good luck, baby. Good luck. A lot of Spooky is about to start happening. No, it's not. So you better watch here about this baby, because I promise you, if y'all are not subscribed yet, make sure to subscribe, drop a thumbs up, and get ready, stay tuned, because you've only unleashed the beast. Oh no, you unleashed my beast. I got you in your feels tonight. Be quiet and sit down. You think you're gonna come back and get me? No. I'm just saying, get ready, that's all I have to say. I don't have anything else to say other than that. Mariah, you are gonna be wishing you did not play with the king. Okay, guys, he's all talk. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed today's video. We got this man, his feels whether he admits it or not.  We will see you guys in the next video, but until then, peace. Love you guys.


What do you think about the carnivore diet that is becoming the next big thing on the internet? Well, here's the deal. Carnivores lead very short lives. So if you want to shrink your good lifespan, please follow the carnivore diet. I talked about this in all of my books. So I'm talking a lot about it in the next book, The Longevity Paradox. The thing that's unifying in all the blue zones is the very limited amount of animal protein that all the blue zones eat. And animal protein ages you. It ages you for two reasons. It stimulates a growth factor called insulin-like growth factor that actually promotes cancer. For animal protein to digest it, it's incredibly inefficient. That's why people lose weight on a high protein diet. Takes about 30% of all the calories in protein to digest it. But the cost is a high temperature. And carnivores in general run much higher temperatures than the rest of us. Take the temperature of your dog or cat, for example. They don't run about two degrees higher than you do. And they have very short lives compared to non-carnivores. So carnivore diet will make you lose weight. But it'll also make you lose your life long-term. Not a good idea. Are water lily seeds compliant on the plant paradox? Yes, they are. I actually have some in my pantry and I munch on them. They're okay. I've even tried them salted with sea salt, but they're perfectly safe. They do have some interesting health benefits. So if you like them, go ahead and eat them. By the way, you can get popped water lily seeds. Be careful. The popping makes the carbohydrate in them more usable. You can digest it into sugar quicker. There seems to be buzz about the new sweetener, allulose. What's your take? I have it in my pantry. It is perfectly acceptable, but here's the deal. Retreat from sweet. Your tongue has sweet receptors. It does not have sugar receptors. And two-thirds of the taste buds on your tongue are sweet receptors. That's because long ago it would have been a really good idea when you found that fruit tree that you should eat every last bit of fruit so that you could store fat for the winter.  And your brain gets fooled when you use any of these sweeteners, whether they're approved or not.  So one of the keys is retreat from sweet.  So if you're going to use this, start with a serving and then cut it in half. And it'll taste not as sweet as you want for a couple of weeks. And then you'll notice, oh my gosh. This is as sweet as it ever was. Cut it in half again. Wean yourself from sweeteners. They're not good for you. They're not good for your weight no matter how healthy they are.