Monthly Archives: June, 2011
An Angry Old Man
There were Angry Young Men when I was young, but they were mostly British. Perhaps I could be an Angry Old Man now, if I promised not to be crabby. Reading Jeffrey Henderson’s introduction to the Loeb Juvenal and Persius made me think satire is the way to go: Juvenal presents a character who seems [...]
The Danielle Steel House
Many American writers, from Poe through Welty, have had their houses preserved as shrines. Now that her kids have grown, the doyenne of San Francisco writers, Danielle Steel, has mostly moved to Paris. She still goes to the dentist, sees her lawyer, and writes in The City, but… as she explains in her blog…. Perhaps [...]
Bring the War Home
I am tired of our Young Adults (SLGBTQAs) fighting in weird time zones in inclement weather against foes who are driving around in pickup trucks, when they’re not schlepping through the boonies. I am no pacifist and I am not soft on terror, but for the theater of our next military incursion, I suggest North [...]
Matthew Stadler
Matthew Stadler launched his twelve-city book tour last night at The Hub, an incubator space in what used to be the offices of the SF Newspaper Agency on Mission at Fifth. This morning, the NY Times frontpaged a story on how indie bookstores are now charging admission for “author events.” Stadler charged $60—for a copy [...]
Camo
It’s hard to be cynical enough when dealing with Big Tobacco, but take a look at the Altria ad in the current Atlantic. There are some gray, that is, brown, areas we should not look too closely at, but, there are also some colorful, humanistic, deeply concerned areas we should focus on. Such as “recognizing [...]
The Long View
I ran into my old friend Dale in the shower at the Koret pool last week. He swims with the Masters (and, a few days before, had made another ride for AIDS to L.A.). (I swim after the Masters finish, to get to the other side.) We’d met in 1978, standing next to each other [...]
