Picture the following age-old scene: a writer sitting at a kitchen table, pretending to work. Set it 40 years ago. The Reagan/Thatcher Conservatives are in power and everything is broken, but our subject is the…
Posts published in “Essays”
There is something to be said for the disadvantages of Catholic education, at least as it was in San Francisco of the logy, foggy 50s. For one thing, in grammar school I learned about ransoming…
Have you ever taken Ecstasy? Is that what they call “Molly”? I never have, never wanted to, figured I never would, but now I’m wondering. I have a friend living in the boonies far away…
I was on my way to the Lodge one Saturday morning to pick up a six-pack for later that night when the bar’s door suddenly banged open and a small, wiry young man came flying…
Not a Fat Tuesday, but a Fat Weekend. On Saturday morning the Metropolitan Opera simulcast of Verdi’s last opera, Falstaff. On Sunday night a home viewing of The Whale. Both are all about fatness. The…
The Editor has asked for recommendations. It’s Easter Sunday and I’m re-reading ‘The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ’ — the gospel made plausible by humane Philip Pullman. Here are some more fave raves:…
This is a note to John King, who has the architecture beat for the SF Chronicle. I sent him this note last week after he wrote a piece about 1455 Market Street: In 1996, when…
I’d been to Mexico eight, maybe nine times, not counting border towns; spots like Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo, Zihuatenejo, Oaxaca, and Cancun. I had seen the sprawling Federal District, Ciudad de Mexico, itself, only once, for…
In 1942 Donald finished seventh grade at Navarro’s Laurel School, and began middle school, 7th to 9th grades, at Boonville’s Con Creek School, today the Anderson Valley Historical Society museum. The bus ride from Navarro up to…