It is something in the air. It is something good, albeit cold, that is hitting my face as I roll back up the hill from my Sunday morning shopping at Canyon Market. For one thing, the air is dry. And the cold, that is to say, cold by San Francisco standards, does not feel penetrating and oppressive so much as brisk and invigorating. Various thoughts have been flashing through my mind. As I was leaving the market, trying to remember if there was anything other than tomatoes, anchovies, milk, cranberry Read more [...]

Is this happening to me, or was it always like this? That is the question I am asking about my 75 years of consciousness. We are talking ¾ of a century. We are talking me. I am particularly aware of this because Jane just turned 65 today, the spring of her chickenhood barely under way. Mine being well into the advanced stage.  Anyway, what I notice is a tendency to a deep and spontaneous interiority. I mean, we will sit down to dinner, Jane and I, and if I have come from, say, a bout of writing, Read more [...]

I­ know this is my chance, everyone’s chance, to sum up an entire year of life. Except, who’s counting? Or to be more precise, who’s following this particular calendar? Yes, 2021 may be a convenient parcel. But I’m not sure I really see it that way. In fact, when I think about it, and I rarely do, these years have been marked by the falling or rising of a curtain vis-à-vis COVID-19. So, my years in virology started long about March 2020. And then there was the same thing last year, that Read more [...]

In the olden days, and who knows why I recall the olden days, there was something called SuperShuttle. The outfit serviced several airports around the country. Vans from home to airport, that was their thing. It was some moment when I had arrived in San Francisco, perhaps flying home from an annual Robert Bly gathering in Minnesota, when I waited, as always, some extraordinary length of time for my ride on, you guessed it, SuperShuttle. The company operated roughly 100 vans around the greater San Read more [...]

I just got off the phone with Cary, who organizes the book group at our local library branch, and felt encouraged by our discussion of politics. I like encouragement. There is so much I read in places like Salon about the political disaster awaiting the American left that I particularly enjoyed Cary’s sober assessment. Lots of work ahead, but not as hopeless as many imagine. Just this morning I read Chauncey Devega’s reminder about the simultaneously mesmerizing and disorienting nature of Read more [...]

Winter technically arrives in a couple of days, but it has been at the Berkeley Repertory Theater for a couple of months in the form of Wintertime. I don’t understand what anyone sees in Charles Mee’s 1988 play. I’m not sure why the Rep produced it, except that the thing is popular in some circles. Wanted to bring the audiences back. I get it. I just didn’t like the play, but never mind. I liked being in the theater. I liked being part of a live audience. Jane and I hit the road at Read more [...]