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a collective memoir
“They lived our dream!” - sayeth the White Rabbitt.
non-fiction
320 pgs
hardcover
minimum bid: 50k
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The Book -
A cultural cross-section of a time and place still evolving: the legacy
of the love generation. Inside the handmade houses, of Canyon
California, the flower
children fully flowered and grew their own rebellious and poetic
children, who turned away from the unrestrained experiments of their
parents, yet took their understanding from them.
HANDMADE LIVES is a collection of 65 intimate narratives, which detail
the life of a small California hill town, that burned and rebuilt, that
fought the water company and won, and in the process made worldwide
news in the late 1960s. The community is still alive and thriving
today, and receiving special treatment from the state.
Background - A private
printing of the book in 216 pages, 49 illustrations, 7x9
hardcover was experimentally produced in 2002, to test the waters, and
work out
the parameters for a successful commercial version.
Editors - Annabelle
Williams, Elihu Blotnick, and Sandra Harris
Packaging - Firefallmedia can edit and design the book, in consultation with the publisher.
Publication Date - Any summer of love anniversary.
Delivery Date - On auction, or one year after contract.
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THREE SAMPLE EXCERPTS
CRAIG
b. 1967
I quit smoking dope in the 5th grade so I could focus on baseball. It wasn't that I was absolutely sure I wanted to play pro ball (and I was pretty sure that my childhood heroes, Vida Blue and Rollie Fingers, smoked the odd joint now and then), but I almost missed a game because I had been out partying the night before and I knew that wasn't right. I have no idea how I knew that — it just made intuitive sense that I should be more responsible.....
MIKLOS
b. 1966
I left Canyon right before my sixth birthday. When it came time for me to leave I hid in the bushes with my best friend Craig, and promised him that I wouldn't reveal myself to my father. I always remember the look on Craig's face of disappointment, and his sadness, when I dutifully left the bushes to the call of my father. Considering the free "outlaw" way we lived our lives I am always amazed at this memory.
As children we were constantly finding scandalous, break the rules, never listen, kinds of things to do. Jessie James was our hero. Such power to put in the hands of young children!
My parents were relentless with love; they raised me inside a conversation of love and trust. They were never disappointed in me — whatever I wanted to do.The only judgment was....
CANYON
b. 1969
I lay on the hand-sewn quilt of yellow and brown, my thin ten year old face covered with freckles and straight pale yellow hair covering my eyes. One hand is under my chin, propping it up. Light filters into my parents' bedroom, through bay laurel and California live oak. The air is dry and hot, and it seems as if it has not rained since I was two. Even at this young age I know my parents are worried about our spring, worried that its orange trickle will one day disappear into the thirsty ground. Worried that the sweet water is running slow, with traces of orange algae staining our sink. I listen to my mom as she gossips on the phone with her friend who lives up the hill and through the trees. I am not worried about the trouble, there is always trouble in Canyon, my namesake, the two-mile town of steep slopes and tall redwoods. The town that was bigger than Oakland in 1880, then cut to the ground, and now has just lived through a revolution....
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