"The carapace of coolness is too much for Claire, also. She breaks the silence by saying that it's not healthy to live life as a succession of isolated cool little moments. 'Either our lives become stories, or there's just no way to get through them.'
I agree. Dag agrees. We know that this is why the three of us left our lives behind and came to the desert - to tell stories and to make our own lives worthwhile tales in the process."
Andy, Dag and Claire, protagonists of Douglas Coupland's 'Generation X' chose a simplistic life in the outskirts of Palm Springs, California, telling each other bedtime stories about shopping malls and astronauts, apocalypse and hummingbirds. Tales for an accelerated culture, as the book's subtitle states.
Now I find myself sitting in Palm Springs as well, ten years after first reading that book containing their stories and declaring it a favorite. And admitting to myself, that it might even have been one of the things leading me here, to California, to the desert, in the first place. That book, and my own personal quest for the stories this place might tell.
Because the desert has something to it. A void asking to be filled. Or a quietude that allows for actual listening.
Now I am traveling by myself, no-one around to sit and exchange good stories with, but would love to hear some as well. So, what about this: Send me yours. Put your favorite little tale, a worthwhile thought or story, your best or most whimsical memory, to paper and mail it to:
Julia KotowskiAnd I'll be back here in a while, collecting my mail, unwrapping your stories and reading them out into the silence of the desert. I will record those readings and publish this little collection digitally, and maybe on CD, but also put them in a little time capsule, a small SD card or memory stick or any kind of data carrier, to be buried someplace in the desert and remain there until someone finds it and bothers to listen.
General Delivery
Palm Springs, CA 92264
USA
Concerning your stories: Please don't quote. Use your own words, write something yourself, even if it is based on something you heard elsewhere, even if you're not entirely sure about your English skills. Keep it short, half a page is totally fine. It can even be less, a momentary snapshot, a fragment, an idea. It can include fictional characters or be written from your own perspective.. anything is possible. It might be helpful to send a little digital note once you've mailed the letter, so I know how much and when to expect it. Take into account that it might take approx. 2 weeks for a letter to arrive here from Europe. Priority Air Mail might be helpful. Please mail them so that they won't arrive later than beginning of May. So the posting deadline would be mid April. You will of course be credited with whatever name you like.
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