Notes from the Road - Day 6

2/4/04 10:45pm Bozeman, MT

When I finally got up this morning and had my shower, Nicole showed me how to make a cappuccino using her machine. We had a good conversation about writing and photography, and she showed me some of her work. She also let me read a poem portfolio of Mark’s, from which three of his poems were selected for publication at the University of New Mexico. They were all good, and reminded me quite a bit of some of my own poetry from Purdue.

Nicole’s father knew some influential people, some of whom she has photos of, like Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I’m currently borrowing a book by journalist Tom Wolfe from my friend Phil that contains an excerpt from The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, in which Kesey is a subject. Also, when she was two years old, she actually rode on the infamous Magic Bus. She has quite a bit of video of him talking with some of these friends, which she talked about using in a future project.

I met Mark for a great lunch at what he described as the closest thing Montana State University has to a faculty club. Then I went back to the Museum I started going through yesterday and succeeded in seeing everything they had on display. Afterwards, I went to Barnes & Noble to look for a book on hostels in America, but they didn’t have it. Later, I met Mark again at a reading and book signing for An Air That Kills, about a Montana town nearly destroyed by asbestos mining, and the resulting cover-up and aftermath. There were two women at the reading who were from the town and had themselves been diagnosed with asbestosis. It was an eye-opener and very sad, but I think more commonplace than anyone likes to admit or find out.