“If America’s so bad, why does everyone want to be here?” His answer: “When you’re here, you’re less likely to be a victim of American foreign policy.” Diane Lefer (pictured above) from “The Prosperity of Cities and Desert Places”
“Good Morning and Happy 4th of July!… I feel the most patriotic action that I can take today is to be here in support of impeachment and especially impeachment of the poster boy for what is wrong with this administration.” Maxine Waters, opening of the Los Angeles Impeachment Center, July 4th, 2007. The most patriotic action I could take on that same day was to sit down with Diane Lefer, independent and provocative thinker, author of the collections of short stories “Very Much Like Desire,” “The Circles I Move In,” her latest one “California Transit” and the novel “Radiant Hunger.”
TACO: Why did you start wearing an orange jumpsuit in public?
Diane Lefer: I was inspired by an anonymous man in Washington DC who on his lunch hour dresses in an orange jumpsuit, puts a black hood over his head and kneels in front of the White House so that anyone passing the White House has to be confronted with what we’re doing. So I got a jumpsuit and I got a hood, I went around LA, rode buses, walked around. Lately when I do readings for “California Transit”, I show up with the jumpsuit at independent bookstores. I tried to do it at Barnes&Noble at The Grove but security wouldn’t let me in. I said I had to buy a copy of the Constitution and he called for backup. (laughs) What we’re doing is inhumane, illegal, horrible, I hate it but during the holidays I’m sitting on a bus in my jumpsuit and Santa Claus gets on the bus and sits across the aisle from me and it’s funny. You can’t censor out the humor even in the most grim situations.
Click here for full interview on www.lataco.com.
The Smiling Spider 
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