Japantown

Since the film festival began, Japantown has been our home away from home. We spent a couple of hours wandering around before our movie and I did some shopping. First I bought a small plastic lemon squeezer at Soko Hardware. Soko is a wonderful place. Besides hardware items, the store sells Japanese pottery, clay pots, bamboo steamers, mandolines, chef's knives, rice cookers, sheets of handmade paper, paper lanterns, seed packets and all manner of other wonderful things.

Next I bought two sheets of decorated paper at a stationery store. They're encrusted with marbled swirls of paint, one in gold and white with hints of blue and the other in pale red, bronze and green. "Aren't they beautiful?" exclaimed the shop owner. "They're new, specially made in Thailand. And see, they're thick, too. Which sheet do you want? Why don't you go through them and examine them closely before you choose? Even though they look alike, each one is subtly different." She even told me how to iron out the creases if I folded them to mail as a gift. Bob and I also enjoyed the store's display of origami creatures, especially the dinosaurs, rhinos and wild boars made out of dollar bills, prudently displayed in a glass case.

We ate at a Chinese restaurant. When kimchee arrived at the table as our appetizer, we suspected it was actually a Korean-run Chinese restaurant, located in the heart of Japantown. We strolled through the Mall again. Through one store window, we saw an old woman sitting at a table folding origami. We passed someone else arranging flowers in a vase at a table in front of the Ikebana Society. We walked by the specialty cupcake store. It's the custom in many Japanese restaurants to display plastic replicas in the windows of the food you would be eating inside, bowls of ramen or plates of sushi. The cupcake store had done this, too. There were plastic replicas of cupcakes sitting pristinely in a transparent wall of cubicles. Each cupcake had its own little cubicle. It was cute, almost as cute as the bento boxes on sale throughout the Mall.  I badly want a bento box, but I haven't found the right one. I don't want it to be too cute, such as the ones with smiling pandas on top, but I don't want one that's too ornately formal either, such as the black lacquered boxes with their traditional cherry blossom designs.

Copies

I visited my friend Christina. She makes art journals. She loves using copies in her work, but hates the process of scanning them into the computer -- whereas I like to scan in my collages after I've finished them, but never use scanned or Xeroxed copies in my originals. There's no good reason for this since my found images are copies themselves, but that's the way I like to do it. Christina and I have different ways of working, but neither of us like doing digital collage. We prefer cut and paste. I know some people prefer to work digitally and I'm not against it; I just like messing about with glue and paint and so does she. In my opinion, the satisfaction of working with your hands is superior to fiddling around with Photoshop.

The idea of copies is fascinating. I've been watching musicals lately. Bob commented on their self-referential qualities: musicals about putting on musicals. "Let's fix up the barn and put on a show!" As a change of pace, I watched a documentary about Andy Warhol. As it turns out, there wasn't much change of pace since he was all about reproduction. While looking at multiple copies of mass-produced objects or famous celebrities you end up thinking about the act of looking itself, about the infinite variations in copies. Like the royal wedding: a copy of the royal weddings that have gone before with slight, almost imperceptible variations.

Walking the Labyrinth

I took a walk by Lake Merritt. I went to the labyrinth. It's a small earth mound copied after the labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral. In Oakland, it's a less grand affair, at present overgrown with clover and weeds from the rain. I walked it, anyhow.

It was a beautiful day. Seagulls spiraled over the lake. I even saw two geese in flight. You don't see that much around here. Mostly they're waddling all over the ground, defecating on the grass and paths. It's the season when baby goslings appear, but I haven't seen any so far. There were a lot of human babies, though, toddlers stumbling over the grass (or walking the maze) or infants in strollers manned by parents or nannies.

Looking up the labyrinth online, I discovered that it was designed by Alex Champion who apparently has constructed many of them. Several are scattered around California as public works projects. There's one in San Francisco's Chinatown and one in Petaluma. And then there are his privates ones, viewed by appointment only. It would be fun to embark on a labyrinth quest and hunt them all up.

One Potato, Two Potato

I hate Safeway, but occasionally I shop there because it's near. I made that mistake today. When will I ever learn? I just wanted some steak and two baking potatoes. What they had loose in the bin were obese misshapen caricatures of potatoes, ghastly castoffs. What they sold in a package sealed tightly in plastic were regular-sized baking potatoes, which they called "Little Bakers." Four to a goddamn package!!  With a picture on the front of a potato stuffed with vegetables - in case you didn't know what a potato was.

Well, I wasn't going to put up with that so I ripped open the package and took out the two I wanted. I put them in my cart and went up to the front. The cashier smiled at me. I smiled back and said nothing. She rang up the two potatoes and the steak. "You've saved two dollars shopping at Safeway!" she informed me. You bet I have, I thought, as I sailed triumphantly out of the store. I hope they find that desecrated package and weep, the chiseling motherfuckers.

To soften the savage tone of this blog entry, I will give you Bob's poem:

Potatoes

Modest, unassuming, easily mashed, but not wimpy,

Potatoes are loyal and honest, especially with butter.

Sour cream brings out their sardonic side while

A dip in hot oil makes them garrulous.

            Though inhospitable at first, potatoes soften

            With affection, familiarity and boiling water.

Potatoes are our friends, but shy.  They hide

In the ground with earthworms and moles.

If Buddha were a vegetable, he’d be a potato.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

San Francisco: I grab a chocolate eclair from a bakery in the Japantown Mall.  Bob has a double chocolate cookie. We walk through the halls of the Mall down to the Kabuki Theater where the film festival is being held. The smell of smoked eel floats out of sushi restaurants into the halls. People bend over their bowls of steaming noodles. Japanese-American girls in lace tights and mini-dresses stroll by. We pass the Japanese bookstore with an entire floor devoted to manga. We pass my favorite stationary store, full of elaborately patterned papers sold in rolls. We pass the kimono shop and the place that advertises Taiko lessons. We pass more restaurants and shops, most with Hello Kitties nodding in their windows. We go downstairs past the store that sells paper lanterns, futons and Japanese quilts.

We exit to the sidewalk and walk down to the Kabuki where a line is stretched around the block for Werner Herzog's new film, "Cave of Forgotten Dreams." We all file into the theater and pick up our 3D glasses to watch a documentary about the Chauvet Cave in France that was discovered in the mid-nineties. Through our 3D glasses, we see prehistoric paintings on the cave's walls of bison, horses, ibex and rhinos. We are entranced by these magical animals. We applaud after the film. We even applaud before the film. We applaud at the very mention of Herzog's name because Werner Herzog is beloved in San Francisco.

We leave the theater and get in the car to drive home. A couple of blocks from the Mall, we see a line of lights flickering in the dark. It's a row of people lined up on the sidewalk with candles burning in front of them. They are all sitting down, their eyes closed in meditation. It's a vigil, but the only sign we see is in Chinese and we can't read it. Bob figures it out: a protest in front of the Chinese embassy of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. We drive across the Bay Bridge and I exclaim at the beauty of the lights scattered through the darkness -- like  the torches that lit up the cave's darkness when people drew their animal pictures on the walls.

Silent Souls

We saw our first film at the San Francisco Film Festival, "Silent Souls." It was Russian. It featured two tormented men traveling through a desolate but beautiful landscape. One man's wife had recently died and he and his friend were taking her body to the Volga River to burn. Little birds, poetry, and arcane rituals involving vast quantities of vodka were involved. It was an erotic film with luminous camera work. One of the most erotic scenes was when the husband tenderly washed his wife's corpse. My reaction to this scene disturbed me because it didn't fit into my idea of how I should react.

Bride, corpse, and prostitute, those were the only female roles: woman as mere bodies and one of them a corpse, at that. Yet she was the most living presence in the film. Compared to her oh-too-solid flesh, the men seemed like ghosts. Yes, the bride/corpse was fat by our standards. She had a Russian peasant's sturdy yet voluptuous form. The two prostitutes didn't fit into our American stereotypes of beauty, either. One had no breasts to speak of; the other was plump and childlike. But they were beautiful and the film was lyrical -- like a poem.

Under Cover

I was a bit under the weather so I stayed at home. In the morning I baked pumpkin bread. In the afternoon I watched "Cover Girl," the 1944 musical starring Rita Hayworth, Gene Kelly, and Phil Silvers. It felt decadent to be watching TV in the daytime.

Bob watched with me, even though he claims to dislike musicals because of their artificiality. That's exactly what I like about them. This one was full of chorus girls in forties hairdo's (with silly little hats pinned atop their pompadours), plucked eyebrows, tons of pancake make-up, and shimmering gowns. Not as shimmering as in the platinum thirties, however. In the forties, fashion was going soft and frilly for evening wear. The"Gone with the Wind" look was big. Oh, and there were a lot of exposed legs, this being the era of the pin-up girl. Rita Hayworth was a favorite of the GIs.

The glaring subtext of this musical is that "just folks" are morally superior to rich uptight snobs: Brooklyn versus Broadway.The rich folks were WASPS, the poor folks were Italian, Irish, and Jewish. There were hints as to their ethnicity, but nothing was openly stated -- like in the older movies where "gay" is coded in the script, obvious but hidden. Of course, African-Americans were entirely absent since there were no train scenes (porters and shoe shine boys) and the heroine wasn't rich enough to have a maid.

Pea Soup

The weather has turned cool again and there's been some rain so I fancied soup for lunch. Fortunately, I had a container of split pea soup tucked away in the freezer so I hauled it out and warmed it up. I ate it with a piece of bread topped with a slice of Provolone cheese and cut red grapes. I broiled the bread until the cheese was bubbly and the bread was burnt around the edges. It didn't look like the soup in this photo with its fancy spider web of creme fraiche, but it was good all the same.

Traveling Circus

Deb wanted to have a collage party at her house so our group moved over there. It was nice to be somewhere different, and besides, she provided snacks. (I never provide food at my parties so people have to bring their own.) We all munched on potato chips, crackers and various healthy spreads from Trader Joe's along with grapes, blue cheese, carrots, celery, and tangerines.

As usual, once we got going, the creativity started flowing. Chris painted moody purples and grays on his stack of curved wooden palettes and drew dream cartoons on slips of paper that he didn't show anyone. Christina worked on her book of cutout words, but she didn't have a word to say about them. Bob made a series of small cards featuring Death as their theme. In fact, Death was a recurring topic in our conversation. Katherine contributed to the mortality motif by making a collage full of watches and I finished the small book I've been working at -- on and off -- for eight years. I had originally intended it as a gift for Jamie. Fortunately, she was sitting beside me on Deb's couch. She was busy making a collage out of an old calendar.

At the last minute I offered my book to the group for some collective help. I had decorated the last two pages with black-and-white images. I knew they needed some color as well, but wasn't sure how to go about it. Chris intervened with a quick paint job so at last the book was finished and I could hand it over to Jamie, which I did.

Deb made three collages (see one of them above). I liked the slippery, sliding quality in all of them and the element of surprise. She said she works best in threes. I said I work best in a series. Bob said he was making pages for a book he intended to construct in future. Christina said collage parties are relaxing and therapeutic. Deb said she enjoyed giving one. Katherine said how about two a month? Chris said the group proved they could get along without having the party at my house every time. "We did fine in a new environment," he pronounced with satisfaction. "The circus travels."

Color Saves the Day

I had a difficult day, but colors cheered me up: the vivid purple flowers blooming on our ice plants, the girl with bright green hair who walked into the Lakeshore Cafe where I was eating lunch, and the middle-aged woman on Lakeshore Avenue who wore a pair of pink bunny ears over her gray curls...

Time Lapse

I'm thinking about my grandmother. That's because I bought a swimming cap as well as a pair of rubber slippers to wear poolside. When I tried on the slippers, I asked the man at the sports store if I had to keep on my socks  "Naw," he said. "If you were a man I'd say keep them on for sure. But since you're a lady and have delicate feet, go ahead. Ladies keep their feet clean. Men, no way."

Suddenly I felt like my grandmother, even though the swimming cap I bought was just a utilitarian blue Speedo, unlike the elaborate flowered caps she used to wear. But when he treated me with the courtesy and respect so fitting for a woman of my age, vivid memories of my grandmother came to mind. "Young man, I seem to be having difficulty getting my car to fit in properly between those two white lines. Would you mind parking it?" And the said young man would leap gallantly to do her bidding. The car was an antiquated over-sized Cadillac. My grandparents were also the proud possessors of a swimming pool, though they hardly ever used it. But when they did, it was quite a sight.

My grandmother and her friends all wore those fussy little-old-lady caps in the pool, crowned with absurd plastic flowers that wobbled as they swam. They also wore flowered one piece suits with frilly skirts to disguise their broad hips and protruding stomachs. My grandmother floated serenely down the middle of the lane like royalty, doing a combo breast stroke/ dog paddle, comfortable in her matronly attire. When she emerged from the water, my grandfather would make some flattering, flirtatious remark, edged with a tinge of sarcasm: "Aha! Venus emerging from the sea." She'd smile, nod regally in his direction, don a straw hat and settle herself in a chair in the shade to keep her skin unblemished.

My mother and her friends were more glamorous. They all had deep tans that they worked on assiduously until their skin looked liked dried up old leather. They wore one piece swim suits with bold abstract patterns, or pastel florals reminiscent of Monet's lily ponds. They rarely wore bathing caps. Their hairstyles were their bathing caps, lacquered constructs stiff with dye and hair spray. They stood in the shallow end chatting with each other as they smoked their cigarettes and sipped their drinks (alcohol, iced tea or diet soda) which were lined up at the side of the pool along with their packs of cigarettes and tubes of sun tan lotion. They emerged lazily from the water, pulled on their paisley or terrycloth shifts, stretched their long legs out in chaise lounges and shook their gold-bangled wrists as they fumbled around in their huge tote bags for sunglasses and lipstick.

My generation was all about French bikinis. A row of giggly sunburned girls on beach towels pretended to be Brigitte Bardot, fantasizing about strolling down a beach on the French Riviera, the Caribbean, Hawaii or even Florida, for God's sake -- anywhere but the drab Midwest.

I don't know what the current styles are. I'm sure there are frilly floral ladylike suits or sexy suits with slashes here and there to reveal body parts and tattoos, but mostly what I see at the gym is the pared-down look -- like we're all supposed to be Olympic swimmers in our tank suits, goggles, and Speedo caps.

The Girls

I took Christina and her dogs Nina and Gigi to Redwood Park. The "girls" were excited to be going anywhere, but were beside themselves with joy when they arrived at the park. The four of us had a nice walk, though two of us had to stay on leashes. Christina and I love cool misty days. So do the dogs. Not only was it a cool day, but there was a light rain that dissolved into a fine mist. The dogs stopped to smell things, as dogs do. Christina stopped to admire a flowering pear tree. It was quite beautiful: white blossoms blowing off the branches like snowflakes. On the drive back we saw fog over the hills. Both of us smiled. Fog, cool skies and happy dogs in the back seat.

Water Talk

Water-walking in the gym's pool -- so relaxing. I met Illyana or "You can call me Elena" or "American version, Helen" in the slow lane, a round young woman with rosy cheeks and a swimmer's muscular shoulders. She had an accent that sounded like my niece-in-law's mother, who is from Bosnia. "No, the Ukraine," replied Elena. "Russia. Same thing."

She was so friendly, so cheerful, so helpful, that I immediately warmed to her. She became my gym guru/guide. She told me which classes she prefers and why, recommended her favorite teachers, advised me on how to deal with injuries, gave me tips for wearing the bathing cap so that my hair wouldn't pull, told me which pool lanes were the best and what were the best days to come. But since she never stopped talking, I didn't get to do much walking. Oh, well. Next time.

Yes, We Can

It was a privilege to be invited to our neighbor Ruth's birthday party. She's just turned 96. The party was attended by a mixture of young and old, mostly old. The old spanned several generations of oldness, or "the new middle-age" or "young in spirit," depending on how you want to look at it.

Joyce, Ruth's daughter, was our hostess. She had us play a breaking-the-ice game that involved the wearing of leis. The game was called "Yes, we can." If you caught someone using the word "no" in conversation (or "know"), he had to give over his lei to you. The person with the most leis wins. That was a gentleman from San Leandro who ended up with an array of red, green, blue and yellow leis piled around his neck. He was delighted with his gift, a wooden nutcracker that looked like a piece of modern sculpture. Leave it to Joyce to think up these crafty games and cunning gadgets. She is the mistress of fun.

Ruth sat in her chair in the doorway, bedecked with her own special lei of many colors to commemorate her 96 years -- like Joseph bedecked in his coat of many colors. Next to her sat an old lady behind her walker, kneading her hands in discomfort because they were cold. "Knitting helps," she said. "But I forgot to bring my yarn and needles." Ruth disappeared, returning with a bag of yarn and a pair of unopened needles. "Is it OK to use these brand new needles?" asked the lady in delight. Ruth insisted yes, of course, and the lady spent the rest of the time happily engaged in knitting.

Meanwhile, we talked of cell phones, texting, and schoolchildren. Many of our gathering had been schoolteachers at one time or still were. Joyce tutors two third grade children at a nearby school. "The little boy thinks only of basketball," she says. "There's no future in his thoughts - or really no present -- except for basketball. I'm trying to expand his mind. How many years does the average player have? I ask him. What do they do after their basketball career is finished? And so on."

Our other next door neighbors appeared late at the party with their two little boys, ages 8 and 11, who also think of nothing but basketball, except for skateboarding, their other passion. They shoot hoops at 8 in the morning (their mom told them they couldn't play before then) and at 10 at night, in the dark. In between times, they're on their skateboards, up and down the space in front of their garage.

"You're always out here skateboarding," I said to them one morning on my way to the car. "When you're not playing basketball, that is." They nodded  'of course.'

"Maybe you try both at once," suggested Bob. "Then you could get more time in."

"Oh, we tried that once," said Hank, "But it didn't work."

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Bob and I took a walk through the Lakeside Garden Center. It was pure delight. First we strolled past the bowling green, which was empty as usual. Lawn bowling is a dying sport, I guess, but it's pleasurable to watch whenever the bowlers do come out, dressed in their formal whites on the manicured lawn. It reminds me of a more leisurely era.

From there we strolled briefly by the lake and then up the hill to the gardens. There's a community garden area planted with vegetables. Mostly we saw Swiss chard and young lettuces there. We also saw a robin, sitting very quietly on top of a plant in one of the fenced-in areas. He was so close that we could inspect his little black eyes and suede-colored breast in detail. He didn't move from his spot even as we circled around him in admiration.

We visited the Bonsai Garden. I'm not that fond of Bonzai plants. They are too rigorously sculpted for my taste, but I have to admit that they were beautiful. The wisteria was in full bloom, and one large plant spilling over with its white-purple blossoms was amazing. Another miniature plant had a single orange on top. It looked like someone had placed it there just to see if it would balance, but it was actually growing from the branches of the tiny bush. We didn't dare touch it, but we bent to smell it.

More wonderful things to smell -- and touch -- from the Sensory Garden, a curving walkway lined with waist-level walls of fragrant herbs. There was sage, thyme and lemon thyme, oregano, mint and all the rest, but the best was the lavender, which grew in glorious abundance. I bathed my hands in it whenever I could, but I had to be careful because of the bumblebees hovering over the flowers.

Since we've had a heavy rainy season, the fountains were turned on. We passed a modern one in the garden area: a series of small waterfalls over flat stone slabs. On our way back to the car, we rested on a bench at the McElroy Memorial Fountain, a grander construction of Italian marble inset with bronze plaques. It was built in 1911 to honor John McElroy, a city big shot now obscure. The fountain itself has seemed obscure to me for years. Even though I pass it almost daily as I drive down Grand Avenue, I hardly notice it. Maybe that's because it's usually turned off (water shortages) and covered with dead leaves and graffitti (budget problems.)

It had been cleaned up. The water was turned on, spouting in a tall graceful arc from the fountain to spill over its sides so at last we were able to appreciate its full glory: shimmering water against the Italian marble, a pleasing green patina covering bronze inlays of the reclining classical figures below. Under a shade tree nearby, two young men played soothing music with bass and sax. "Idyllic" is the word to describe our day.

Grasshopper Pie

Bob and I went to the Laney Bistro for lunch. That's the restaurant run by Laney College's culinary school. We've eaten there twice before. Both times we were practically the only customers in the place so we received a lot of attention and service, which I liked. I also liked the fresh-faced young wait persons/students, so friendly and eager to please. But this time, the cafe was packed and the wait staff was too busy running around to lavish much attention on us.

I must admit, I had enjoyed being coddled. I felt like a first class passenger on a cruise ship. Now I was just one of the huddled masses below deck. "I guess the word got out," Bob remarked to our waiter.

"We were featured in Oakland Magazine," he replied, beaming, plus something about how they were adding a new room so they could expand seating capacity. Oh, well. Bad for us, good for Laney.

We split Grasshopper Pie for dessert. "Isn't that a Southern thing?" Bob asked me.

"I don't remember eating it when I was growing up. "

But when it arrived, I did remember the creme de menthe mousse cradled in an Oreo crust. It was the same pale green color as Benedictine, a cream cheese spread invented in Louisville, my hometown.  Disloyal to Louisvillian tradition, I confess that I have never liked Benedictine. Its pale green hue is only cucumbers enhanced with food coloring, after all. But I did like the Grasshopper Pie with it smooth mint filling and crumbly chocolate crust.

Volunteers

Our yard was a jungle from all the rain. Bob is the mower in the family and he did try to keep it under control, but every time he went out to cut it, it rained and everything grew back again -- overnight, it seemed. That was a downer. On the up side, along with the crabgrass and other weeds, some beautiful plants appeared. Bob calls them "volunteers."

In the area next to our vegetable garden -- also overgrown, of course -- a bunch of clover sprang up. (I don't know if it's really clover. I don't know how to identify plants, except for a few basic ones.) Whatever it is, it's soft pretty stuff and we like it so we've kept it. I also like our spearmint. We've tried to grow it in the garden, but it's stubborn. It prefers the back yard. Bob was brave yesterday. He took the trusty mower out and did the deed -- or most of it. The clover or whatever-it-is has grown to such a height that I'm not sure how he'll manage that. It's a Herculean task. But the rest of the yard looks nice.

There's a patch of something new. Looks like the lily-of-the-valley that used to grow in my grandmother's garden: delicate white flowers drooping on their stems. "Hiding their faces under their bonnets," she'd tell me when I was a little girl. "Because they're shy." He cut around that little fairy family, leaving it untouched in the middle of the newly mowed lawn. Now we can actually see the roses coming into bloom, previously hidden by the overgrowth.

Lost in Translation

We went to Los Comales, our favorite Oakland taqueria, for lunch. As usual, the place was packed with a line out the door. We were lucky to find a seat. Bob ordered the special, a ground beef burrito, and I ordered my usual, a junior burrito with all the trimmings.

It's a small place with the requisite photos of Frida Kahlo and Mexican revolutionaries up on the walls and the usual line of hard-working Mexican women behind the counter, serving up burritos non-stop with a steady practiced hand. Like many family-run ethnic restaurants, the only expensive item in the joint is the flat-screen TV that hangs from the ceiling by the window.

I usually try to ignore its presence, but this time I watched, since I was facing it. A Mexican sitcom was on. The sound was turned off and there were no subtitles, but I could tell it was a comedy because the characters were doing clownish things. The main character was a young woman dressed up to look homely with heavy-framed glasses and prominent braces on her teeth. She was obviously meant to be a figure of fun.

"That's odd," I said to Bob. "She looks exactly like Ugly Betty."

"Who's that?"

"A Mexican character on a popular American sitcom. She works with a bunch of glamorous cut-throat assholes who underestimate her intelligence, but she always ends up solving the problem, whatever it is. At first, I thought the woman up on the screen was Ugly Betty, but she's not. Now I'm wondering, did Mexican TV copy that character because she's so popular -- which is really weird when you think about it --or was the American Ugly Betty ripped off from a Mexican show?"

"Maybe it is Ugly Betty," Bob suggested.

"No, it's a different woman. This show is Mexican."

"How can you tell? There's no sound. Maybe it's in English."

"I can tell by reading the actors' lips. They're obviously speaking Spanish."

"Could be an American show made in Spanish for Mexican-American audiences."

"Or a Spanish program broadcast for a Mexican audience," I mused.

Meanwhile, the surreal pantomine went on.

Familiar Territory

I just read two mysteries that were only average in quality, but they took place in northern California so I read them anyway. One was Lethal Vintage by Nadia Gordon, the latest in a Napa Valley/wine country series. The other was Arsenic and Old Paint by Hailey Lind, also the latest in a series, this one about art and forgery. It takes place in Oakland and San Francisco.

Both series are fun, if rather mindless, but I'm a loyal follower, especially of the second author (who is actually two authors, a team of sisters). The books are entertaining though admittedly shallow, but I enjoy their contemporary references to the Bay Area and their satirical take on the characters that one encounters here.

I love mysteries that give you a sense of place. A third series that I would recommend (I'm not sure I would recommend the previous two unless you live in the Bay Area or have time on your hands) is by Diana O'Hehir. Her books take place on the northern coast of California, in areas that closely resemble Bolinas or Point Reyes. The heroine and hero of the stories are Carla Day and her Egyptologist father who is suffering from Alzheimer's. At times these books seem more like science fiction or occult fantasies than they do mysteries, but I can assure you that O'Hehir is accurately describing the weird communities that you might find on the coast. And the Egyptologist father who has Alzheimer's is a wonderful character.

Diana O'Hehir is 82 years old so she has a different perspective on the disease than a younger person might. She writes about it with humor, love, and compassion. She is actually a poet who took up writing mysteries in her later years -- an inspiration to all of us oldsters.

Another One Bites the Dust

I was depressed when I found out that the Alameda Borders was closing, but they assured me that the larger store in Emeryville would remain open. However, when Bob and I drove over there yesterday, we saw big "STORE CLOSING" banners draped over the windows. We went inside to discover books scattered in disarray as people pawed over the sales. "What happened?" I asked one of the clerks. "The people at the Alameda store told me you were staying open."

"We thought so, but the landlord decided to lease the space to another tenant so we're closing."

I was desolate. To tell the truth, I don't actually buy many books at Borders except for cookbooks, but I hang out there a lot, especially in the summer when I'm looking for an air-conditioned place to escape from the heat. And besides, Borders is what keeps the adjacent Emeryville Public Market alive. Bookstores are community gathering places and it's a blow when they disappear, which they have been, slowly but surely, over the years.

OK, you can order via Amazon. But you can't browse, not properly, that is. You can't thumb through the books. That restricted virtual thumbing doesn't do it for me. So I picked out one last cookbook for old time's sake and stood in line. When I got to the counter, I told the clerk that I was feeling sad. "This will probably be the last time I come here."

"You should come again," he said. ""They've sent us a ton of books to get rid of. As the time nears to closing, the bargains will get even better."

"But it will too much like Dickens."

He looked blank, as clerks in Borders tend to at any literary reference. "You know. Charles Dickens? A Christmas Carol? The chapter where Scrooge dies and the beggars come and haggle over his possessions, even stripping his deathbed while his corpse is lying there?"

"Oh, yeah," he said, not comprehending. "I guess."

Cafe Leila

I went with Christina to her art group meeting. The group meets monthly at Cafe Leila. That's a Berkeley coffee house with a mellow atmosphere: good food, spacious premises, and a garden/patio area out back. We usually sit inside, but it's relaxing to look out the windows at the greenery.

When we arrived, there were a group of girls dressed in pink arguing with the owners of the cafe, who are Muslims. The girls were Christians trying to convert the Unbelievers. The Unbelievers tolerated their missionary zeal with good grace until the obnoxious little group finally gave up and trudged away to harass someone else. It's so rude to attempt to browbeat someone into your way of thinking, especially a perfect stranger, but these girls have been bathed in the blood of the Lamb so what else can they do? So young, so misguided. One just hopes they'll see the light in good time and drop the whole Jesus thing. One also hopes they'll drop the pink wardrobe.

Besides Christina and myself, only one other person showed up, Cheryl. The smallness of the gathering was nice for me because it gave me an opportunity to get to know her better. The three of us talked about everything under the sun and I loved it. It felt so luxurious, just sitting there wiling away the time with good food and conversation. Christina and Cheryl spent a long time discussing Japanese pens and sable paint brushes. It was fun to listen to them ooh and ah over the soft silken feel of sable and how excellent the brushes are, even though expensive.

From there, we went on to the American Civil War, Walt Whitman and Mary Chesnut. I didn't know who she was. Cheryl explained that she was a Confederate woman who kept a comprehensive diary throughout the war. Then we talked about art on the Web and copyright issues. I can't remember what other subjects came up. All I know is that the conversation flowed easily from one thing to another in the way it does when everyone is enjoying herself. When we finally left the cafe, I felt more refreshed than when I arrived.

The Many Charms of Chickens

Bob and I were both tired today from spring allergies or perhaps the beginnings of a cold. We're not sure which. I went to the Alameda Library intending to write, but after I arrived, I just sat at my desk in a daze. I finally gave up, but on the way out, I picked up a strange book in the cookbook section. It was about an American family's French cook, Clementine, and the marvelous dishes she made. It had lovely little pen and ink drawings, which you used to see more often in books before the computer revolution came along. The book was written in the early forties during the Nazi occupation of France. The Beck family had been living in France before the war. When the war arrived, they went back to America, taking Clementine with them. It was a strange little book. The writer, who was the father of the family, displayed a curious mixture of admiration, affection, and condescension towards his "little Burgundian cook."

I like strange little books. It turns out that Bob had been to a library, too -- the Oakland Library, that is. While I was on the phone to my chicken-owning friend in New England, he suddenly presented me with a book about birds. The first chapter discusses the many charms of chickens. I enjoyed it, but as much as I like weird little books, I don't think I'm up to reading the rest, which covers pigeons, falcons and hummingbirds -- just like I won't actually try out any of Clementine's recipes, such as Boeuf Bourgignon or Cervelles au Beurre Noir.

The World of Dreams

Our monthly collage party was fun as usual though I disliked my own collage. After having finished my last series, I find myself drifting without a purpose. In the meantime, I've surrendered to open-ended experimentation, but so far my new collages haven't turned out well. So I worry. Have I run out of inspiration, after a decade or more of obsession? I hope not. After all, I felt this way after I completed my Tarot deck. It took an entire year before I settled into my next series. That kept me happily employed for the next three years, but now I'm back in that in-between place and it's frustrating.

The collage party was fun, despite my angst. Though I disliked my own creation, I enjoyed what other people made. Christina worked on her word book, "Les Mots," pages full of black and white print, letters large and small in intricate designs. Katherine complained that she didn't have time to make more than one collage and then whipped out two. Deb made three. They seemed to flow effortlessly from her fingertips onto the page. Bob made three, sort of. Our theme was "words" and everyone except him gave it a try. He made two pieces (the surreal one you see above, which is beyond words) and a sculptural piece using flecked green and gold paper decorated with bits of bark and shell. I scolded him for no words so he did a third piece: "NO" made with scraps of wood from a palm tree.

My trouble is too many words. I want to float in the world of dreams like the little boy in Bob's picture, resting in mid-air above the water.

In the Mix

On a walk by Lake Merritt, I encounter an African-American man doing Tai Chi.  He's a gray beard with Reggae braids protruding from his knitted rainbow cap. Oblivious to passing pedestrians, he performs his moves. Next to him, an egret totters as he balances in the water, his white feathers blowing in the breeze. Bird Tai Chi.

Girls stroll by, listening to their iPods. Fathers sit on benches with their children. Mothers jog, pushing baby carriages in front of them while talking on their cell phones. Isn't that taking the multi-tasking concept too far?

Lots of people with dogs on leashes. I notice that they're little dogs. When I first moved to Oakland, the lake area wasn't so crowded. Occasionally you saw a man with a dog. The man tended to be large, muscular and covered with tattoos. His dog was also large, muscular and mean looking. He was usually muzzled -- the dog, not the man. Now it's all these little frou-frou dogs with their yuppie owners. And Filipino nannies with double or even triple strollers, white infants asleep under their awnings. I guess Oakland has come up in the world.

More people pass. Joggers, of course. Elderly Chinese women in baseball caps. A short, stocky Mexican man. I love the ethnic mix. That's one of the great things about Oakland. Not only the ethnic mix, but also the blending of the cultures. Like eating Asian burritos or non-Chinese people doing Tai Chi.

It's fun to guess. When I lived in San Francisco, I could usually tell who was gay or straight. After many years I got a feel for it. I fancy I can distinguish Chinese from Japanese, too, though I'm not always right. As the years go on, there's more often a mixture of races in people so it's harder to classify them. My latest favorite thing is to guess whether the black guy coming down the path is African-American or African. There are a large number of people from Africa who live in Oakland. Of course, he could be Jamaican, Cuban or Indian. 

Living Sculptures

Phone conversations:

Jamie and I talk about making art and about aging. She's not that old yet, but her glorious red hair has been a big part of her identity and now it's going. She hasn't turned completely gray, but her shining copper tresses have rusted into a duller shade so she's decided to make the most of it before it goes away. "My hair has become a museum," she tells me. "I try to wear it in different styles every day to celebrate that part of me before it's gone forever. Living sculpture. That's my art right now."

Robert and I talk about his train film. "I'm editing it again," he says. "But you've already edited it several times. I thought you were finished."  "I was, but the film festival committee rejected it. So I'm working on it again."

Ted and I talk about love. "Were you happy when you were dating me?" he asks. "Yes. Very happy, but being a tragic romantic, I needed to find other men to make me miserable."  "Of course," he says, not missing a beat, "It's not serious unless he makes you cry."

We talk about politics. "You know what the Golden Rule means, don't you?" "No," I say, waiting for the punch line. "It means that the people with the gold are the ones who make the rules."

Strategic Planning

Bob and I attend the San Francisco International Film Festival every year with our friends Chris and Ingrid. The festival takes place at the end of April and the beginning of May so it's time to order our tickets, but ordering the tickets is a complicated process. First Bob and I have to go through every film in the catalog to choose which ones we want to see. I circle the ones I'm definitely interested in and so does he; then we compare notes to see if we can agree on any of them. That's fairly easy. Next step: We put checks by the ones we might consider. Which films on our "maybe" lists can we agree on? That's a longer conversation.

Next we call Ingrid and Chris to find out which films they've chosen -- and if they sync up with ours. They usually do since the two of them attend most of the films whereas we only go to five or six. (We're astounded at their stamina!) Most movies play more than once at different times and on different days -- and some at different locations -- so we need to find out which time slots and locations work for all of us.

Then there are the complicated arrangements for the meet-ups. For instance, Ingrid and I are attending a late afternoon film, but we're meeting Chris and Bob for a second film on the same day. We have to decide whether we have time to eat dinner in between. If so, do they want to meet us for the meal -- or just meet up at the movie?  And who's standing in line and who's saving seats, hopefully all together in one row? And if we arrive late, where shall we look for them? Which row will they try to sit in? All of this must be determined beforehand.

There's usually one film that I want to see that no one else is interested in. This year it's La Dolce Vita. Since it's a classic Fellini flick, of course, I must go. Next decision: should I go alone or find someone outside the group to go with me?

Now to buy the tickets: go online, hunt up the festival website, find a list of the movies, check the appropriate boxes -- and whoops, some tickets are no longer available. More negotiation amongst all parties to determine the alternate choice. OK, back online and start again; now pay with credit card and we're done.

We've won the battle. We deserve a medal for our hard work and brilliant strategizing. Or some sort of reward. That would be the films, of course.

There, There

Oakland is short on urban parks. We don't have anything that can compare to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco for size or grandeur, just our overcrowded Lake Merritt area and a few other small parks that I find questionable in terms of safety, though our houses do have large yards compared to the tiny or non-existent yards of most San Francisco homes. And we do have many acres of beautiful woodland parks with hiking and horseback trails, towering redwoods and rolling hills with spectacular views. But of course, they're not located in the heart of the city. It's not that long a drive to any of them, but Bob and I do have to drive to get there, usually via expressway, which discourages us.

We did manage to get to Redwood Park yesterday. It's a short drive from our house once you're in the car. It's not the drive that daunts us, you understand, it's the thought of the drive. Once in the car, I enjoy zooming down the expressway to my destination and Bob perks up, commenting enthusiastically on everything interesting that he can spy. If he were a dog, he'd be up on his hind legs, his face hanging happily out of the window, ears pointed and tail wagging.

Redwood is my favorite Oakland park. I haven't been there in over a year so I was very glad to see it. It was a perfect day: cloudless blue skies, warm sun and lots of greenery from the recent rains. We did our usual walk down the broad path that takes you from sunny meadows into shady redwood groves. The temperature drops as you enter the forest, natural refrigeration.  "There's no there there," people like to say about Oakland, citing the misunderstood quote from Gertrude Stein about her childhood home. But when you stand in the heart of the redwood grove, you know you've arrived. You're there.

Farmers Market

I went to the Grand Lake Farmers Market bright and early this morning - about nine o'clock, which is early for me. It's a large farmer's market just down the hill from us. I often avoid it because it's so crowded, but I was in the mood this time so I went and didn't mind the crowds, even enjoyed them. The food was too expensive and as usual I bought too much, but how I could resist? I bought freshly made spinach fettuccine and butternut squash ravioli, a head of white garlic, two cartons of strawberries, a bunch of asparagus and a bunch of Swiss chard, a bag of baby spinach, a bag of mixed lettuces and a bag of small white potatoes. I spent a fortune, but I was moderate considering what was on offer. After all, I could have purchased pink radishes, golden beets, unblemished heads of white cauliflower and new spring onions, but I resisted. I also resisted the allure of wild mushrooms, smoked salmon and newly laid eggs, and nobly held back from the Red Hawk Triple-Cream cow's milk cheese.

The challenge is to actually eat this stuff. We've made a dent in the strawberries. Mmm, they are so good, the first ones of the season. We ate delicious squash and Ricotta ravioli for lunch, which melted in our mouths, alongside crisp steamed asparagus dressed in lemon olive oil. And for dinner we had spinach fettuccine with pesto. Are you hungry yet?

RSVP

I always enjoy sending out invitations to my monthly collage party. I usually use a collage from the previous session, but that's been hard to do in the last few months since some of us are painting and others are making three-dimensional objects; in other words, creating art that is difficult to reproduce. So Christina came to the rescue and brought me one of her collages. I like it a lot because it's so blue and because it has words all over it. Besides, the words are in four languages: English, French, German and Arabic. (Sorry they're not legible here on the blog.)

On the back of the invitation, I put: "Let's do a theme. How about words?" (inspired by hers, of course.) I don't know if the group will go for it. They're a willful, disobedient bunch. It's hard to reign them in, much less steer them in a certain direction. They like to run wild. Sometimes I have to work to avoid a stampede.

I don't know how the metaphor about cattle came about. Artists as cows? Certainly nothing so domestic and placid as that. Maybe it's buffalo I'm talking about: wild woolly beasts thundering down the plains. That's them.

Reilly, Ace of Spies

Bob and I have started watching Reilly, Ace of Spies via Netflix. It's based on a turn-of-the-century master spy, Sidney Reilly, who was the real life model for Ian Fleming's fictional James Bond. I suspect everyone I know has already seen this 1983 British mini-series, but somehow I missed it.

We're on the second episode which takes place at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. I learned about that war in Mrs. Prentiss's high school history class, but I'd forgotten all about it. In fact, all I remembered was its name so it was fun to look up the details. Turns out it was about coal and lumber resources, among other things. The Western powers were up to skulduggery as they plotted to get hold of these precious natural resources. The Brits armed, aided and abetted Japan -- and "trained"  the Japanese navy -- so that they could get their hands on the filthy lucre, besides ousting Russia from Manchuria.

The first episode was about British vs. Russian interests in Persia. The oil, don't you know.

Anyhow, we're really enjoying the series. In a previous post, I complained about how the BBC's latest thing is to shoot the foreground of the scene out-of-focus. I was amused to see that in 1983 they went more for back lighting. Example: Reilly stands in an open doorway with the sunlight whiting him out around the edges. This happened several times with several characters. But it was relaxing to watch a program where they hadn't yet got into the frenetic quick-cutting of today. I'm convinced that's just a way to distract us from weak scripts. This show is nicely paced with a strong storyline. What a refreshing change.

PS: It's Spring so I changed the look of the blog.  I figured it was time to lighten up.