Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

Stuff gets done here

recent posts

  • Real people speaking

    a member of the public addresses the Eugene City Council

    I recommend attending your local city council meetings. For me there are two benefits. I learn more about the policies that are going to directly impact my life, and I get to see how my elected leaders engage each other as they make tough decisions. (I’m impressed with the civility of Eugene Oregon’s city council.)

    But I also like it as a writer because of the people who sign up to give public testimony in these meetings. At the Feb. 10, 2025 city council meeting 14 people offered opinions on a variety of topics. Some came to support an extra fee the city is considering that will make coming budget cuts less awful. Some were vehemently against that fee: “I’m extremely sad, disgusted and embarrassed for your behavior,” one person said. I found that interesting because I thought the council’s behavior was kind of stellar despite the disagreements among them. Hearing real people on real issues helps me diversify viewpoints in my fictional work, the same way artists like drawing figures from real life.

    But there is also the pleasure of the just flat unexpected that sometimes shows up. One gentlemen spoke for two minutes and he spoke quickly so I may have missed some context. But, best as I can determine, he was there to restore the reputations of a couple of people (presumably long dead) who had joined a local Ku Klux Klan group in the 1920s under a misunderstanding about the purpose of the group. The speaker wanted it known that these people were not racist just, I don’t know, uninformed?

    The writer in me, the citizen in me, the secret voyeur in me, we all benefit when I show up.

  • So long, Tom

    It was author Tom Robbins — Another Roadside Attraction, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues — who first hinted to me that a novel can do anything. Really. Any thing. His books are funny, insightful and light on their toes. After finishing reading any of them, I understood I was reading for the journey, not the destination.

    I’m sad he’s gone. I recommend him highly. It’s his fault that a bundle of letters in my first novel, “The Tabernacle Bar”, has its own consciousness.

    Here’s a thing he wrote back in 1983 for Esquire magazine when asked to respond to one of his fiercest critics:

    “When Still Life with Woodpecker was published, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a newspaper in whose turkey pen I used to toil, assigned it (not wishing to show me favoritism) to one Irene Wanner, a sensible middle-cass quicke nibbler and academic dullard. Like all those “serious critics” who’ve had their sense of wonder deadened by hours of analyzing Andrew Marvell in stuffy rooms, Wanner believes that delicately understated anguish is where it’s at in literature. Naturally, I could not expect such a mind to distinguish between what is truly serious and what is merely dour, yet I was stung when she declared, “Robbins clearly has great ability as a writer, but he is so infatuated with frivolousness…” Stop right there! Do Stop. How uncharacteristically insensitive, my dear madam, how egregiously presumptuous. I’m not infatuated with frivolousness. We’re just good friends.”

  • A note about the “nice” neighbors

    Hey, United States.

    Remember how during the War of 1812 you burned Toronto to the ground? No? Don’t remember that? Canadians know this history, how after Toronto (known at time as York) lay in smoking ruin, they headed south and fully torched Washington DC. Yeah. They did.

    Remember how at the start of World War II you were all isolationist? Canada recognized the global dangers Germany posed and showed up to fight alongside Britain and France in 1939 a full two years before you. Yeah. They did.

    Remember the Korean war in the 1950s? You didn’t want the communism in North Korea spreading south? Canada (and a bunch of other countries) showed up for that fight too. They didn’t leave you to it alone. Yeah. They did.

    Oh, and remember Vietnam? That was another U.S. effort to slow the spread of communism. Canada didn’t officially enter that war but you know what? Thirty thousand Canadians — yes, 30,000! — joined the U.S. armed services to help you out. Yeah. They did

    Remember Sept. 11, 2001? On that horrific day when terrorists attacked, the U.S. government immediately shut down all airports, and no planes could land. Canada grounded all Canadian flights, but allowed close to 240 US commercial plans to land at Canadian airports from British Columbia to Nova Scotia. This despite the fact that no one really knew that morning whether more planes had been hijacked by terrorists to be used as bombs. Thousands of Americans landed safely and Canada put them up until the U.S. opened its air space many days later. Yeah. They did.

    And when you invaded Afghanistan later that year? Canadian forces showed up at your side. Estimates of the financial costs to Canada to help fight terror in that country? Canada spent about $18.5 billion. Yeah. They did.

    Your current administration talks about somehow making Canada a 51st state. Yeah. No.

    Sure Canadians are nice and they’ve helped you (and the rest of the world) out a lot over the decades. But do not f*** with them.