Another Car Crash on Our Corner
Today I was sitting at my computer all the way in back of the house, when I heard the unfortunately familiar sound – the screech of brakes, and then the impact. This happens regularly on our corner despite the traffic light (downtown, Calle 58 and Calle 51). I am am [...]
Writing Projects
Three photogenic events, July 25-26
Writing mysteries
Living in Yucatan seems to make it easy for me to put myself into unusual situations and spin stories about them. It is an area rich with possibilities. A few years ago, I wrote a mystery called Madrugada, which has been with an agent for a long time. She says it’s difficult for new writers [...]
Sky Satellite TV Service Collections
We used to subscribe to Sky for satellite TV services. A couple of years ago, we switched to Cablemas. We paid off our Sky bill, but they started hounding us on the phone for payment. We referred them to the invoice numbers, records, etc. for the payments, so then they said we still had their [...]
And More Seattle
Keith and Richard’s
One delightful evening I went for dinner at Keith and Richard’s at their home on Capitol Hill. Here are some pics of them and their garden. Keith is a landscape architect.
Richard cooked dinner.
There were four for dinner. This is Curry and Richard.
Tim the sculptor
We walked around the corner to the home of [...]
Co-Housing
An Idea For Our Time
I’m in Seattle right now, and staying in my friend Susan’s townhouse in Jackson Street Co-Housing. She went back east to visit family and I’m living with her dog Wolf, and her huge orange cat, Pumpkin.
Co-housing is defined as an “intentional community” where buildings are erected according to a communal style design, [...]
Walking Around Seattle
June 2010
Every few months I come to Seattle for a few weeks. It is such a contrast to Merida that for the first week or so I feel like a foreigner. Here are a few sights I saw that aren’t notable if you are here a lot, but for me, they were strange. In another [...]
BP
They’re calling it an oil leak. It is not an oil leak. It is a gushing torrent of raw oil pushing out from the ocean floor, under huge pressure, unabated. There is a clear villain in this. It is BP Oil and their failure to observe basic safety guidelines.
I’ve been watching the congressional hearings (the [...]
Merida, mosquitoes, security and extreme heat
I hate mosquitos. Although I generally avoid killing any living thing, including ants, I love killing mosquitos. Squishing them. Spraying them until they stagger and collapse in agony. Using machines that lure and then fry them. It’s a matter of self defense. They are invasive and injurious and they are parasites. I didn’t give them [...]
Update on Deadly Awakening 1/17/10
I’ve sold a few copies. Some to people I don’t even know!
I’m still not widely marketing this because I have to fix some format issues. I’ve been busy with my blog, www.gorbman.com, which is gathering a readership and I’m hoping that the two entities will feed into each other as time goes by.
Amazon sent me [...]
Andy and the Leaf
By Beryl Gorbman
Inspired by Ileana Acevedo
Andy was sitting under a tree in his yard. He was sad because last week his grandmother Nina had died. He had heard her make some strange noises and then she didn’t breathe any more. And then his mother had started crying, so he knew something very bad had happened.
When [...]
When You Were Born, God Didn’t Stamp “Fair” On Your Ass
Winter weather is dreary in Seattle – day after day of relentless, gray rain, falling listlessly on an already-drenched, soaking wet city, the endless dripping a backdrop for conversations, music, or meditation. This weather drives us natives to odd habits – compulsive reading, drinking vast amounts of gourmet coffee, watching lots of movies and sitting [...]
Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen
An unsympathetic look at ageing and at how the elderly are treated by cooing institutional workers. Our protagonist has lived his life in the circus, which of course no one knows or cares about at this stage of his decrepitude. A wonderful inside experience in the daily life of a travelling circus with all of [...]
2012: Deadly Awakening
New project. This novel begins in Merida in December 2012, close to the end of the Maya Long Count calendar. Miriam Glass, a NYC legal investigator, and Jose Luis Contreras, the local police chief, try to figure out who is killing spiritual seekers and why. This is a work in progress and I would appreciate comments on and off-line. Thanks. bg
Madrugada
This is the beginning of a novel I completed several years ago. It is in the hands of my agent, Alice Volpe.
Anatila Ovando Parks – a profile
Anatila Parks is a resident of our Merida community. She’s a lively person who has lived here since 1991.
Invisible
Hey take look at this intro – let me know if you like it. It’s the beginning of a book about a pair of sociopaths.