I woke up full of hate and fear the day before the most recent peace march in San Francisco. This was disappointing: I'd hoped to wake up feeling somewhere between Virginia Woolf and Wavy Gravy.

Men of Virginia countrymen of Washington of Patrick Henry of Jefferson and of Madison will ye be true to your constitutional faith?

So the premise of 'The Submission' is that there's an anonymous competition to design a 9/11 memorial and it's won by an American Muslim an architect born and raised in Virginia and his name is Mohammad Khan.

In Seattle I soon found that my radical ideas and aesthetic explorations - ideas and explorations that in Richmond Virginia might have gotten me stoned to death with hush puppies - were not only accepted but occasionally applauded.

The first trip I remember taking was on the train from Virginia up to New York City watching the summertime countryside rolling past the window. They used white linen tablecloths in the dining car in those days and real silver. I love trains to this day. Maybe that was the beginning of my fixation with leisurely modes of travel.

Come to West Virginia and we'll show you how to live... how to treat people. We're open for business. West Virginia is truly on the move.