dueling reviewers

Well, my cold is not that bad and I am getting sympathy
from fellow-workers and I can breathe germs on mean
customers. In the Chronny today, Robert Hurwitt wrote
his review of ACT's The Rival. Some of you readers know
that The Great Plotnik loved this sappy play and I didn't.
Mr. Hurwitt agreed with me. Smart man. Actually, I liked
what TGP wrote in his e-mail to me ~ something about
this is why there were originally two reviewers on Noah's
Ark. I had completely forgotten that. Viva la difference.
(sic) And honestly, I have disagreed with Hurwitt in the
past, so why am I still talking about this?

today ~ tomorrow!

I am coming down with a cold so right off the bat this
was a difficult day. Then, a special treat that cheered
me up for a few hours. Tom Tomorrow was in to sign
his new book Hell in a Handbasket. We chatted for
a while, he seems to be a gentle man and we know he
has a razor sharp wit and no tolerance for all these
fools in Washington, D.C. One of the best things about
working in a book store is meeting my heroes. Here is
Tom's web site:
This Modern World

malaprops cause malaise

Just when you were thinking, "that woman likes any damn
play", here I am with a review of ACT's The Rivals by
Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It takes place in 18th Century
Bath (Bawth), England and the first act was one long
hour and twenty minutes. I don't know about the 2nd
act because we left at half time.

This is the play where Mrs. Malaprop uses the wrong word
every 20 seconds or so. It always amazes me how one
person can find something funny and another person
will say, "get me out of here". There were folks laughing
out loud, the way I do with Larry David or Jon Stewart.

Husbando doesn't like American actors struggling with
fake British accents and he begged me to include that
thought in here too. I agree.

The actors, costumes and stage settings were magnificent.
We are huge fans of René Augesen and Gregory Wallace,
but this play written in 1775 was simply not funny to me.
There seemed to be more empty seats than usual last
night, so maybe others were forewarned.

when do WE say "enough"?

I have never watched "Boston Legal", but this morning
my friend Mary in St. Louis sent me this, and it's too
impressive and moving not to post:

Alan Shore's closing argument

Alan Shore: When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out to be not true, I expected the American people to rise up. Ha! They didn't.

Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood mute.

Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorists suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for that. We did.

And now, it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough. Evidentially, we haven't.

In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is we're okay with it all. Torture, warrantless search and seizure, illegal wiretappings, prison without a fair trial - or any trial, war on false pretenses. We, as a citizenry, are apparently not offended.

There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact, there's no clear indication that young people seem to notice.

Well, Melissa Hughes noticed. Now, you might think, instead of withholding her taxes, she could have protested the old fashioned way. Made a placard and demonstrated at a Presidential or Vice-Presidential appearance, but we've lost the right to that as well. The Secret Service can now declare free speech zones to contain, control and, in effect, criminalize protest.

Stop for a second and try to fathom that.

At a presidential rally, parade or appearance, if you have on a supportive t-shirt, you can be there. If you are wearing or carrying something in protest, you can be removed.

This, in the United States of America. This in the United States of America. Is Melissa Hughes the only one embarrassed?

*Alan sits down abruptly in the witness chair next to the judge*

Judge Robert Sanders: Mr. Shore. That's a chair for witnesses only.

Really long speeches make me so tired sometimes.

Judge Sanders: Please get out of the chair.

Alan: Actually, I'm sick and tired.

Judge Sanders: Get out of the chair!

Alan: And what I'm most sick and tired of is how every time somebody disagrees with how the government is running things, he or she is labeled unAmerican.

U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Evidentally, it's speech time.

Alan: And speech in this country is free, you hack! Free for me, free for you. Free for Melissa Hughes to stand up to her government and say "Stick it"!

U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Objection!

Alan: I object to government abusing its power to squash the constitutional freedoms of its citizenry. And, God forbid, anybody challenge it. They're smeared as being a heretic.   Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American!

Judge Sanders: Mr. Shore. Unless you have anything new and fresh to say, please sit down. You've breached the decorum of my courtroom with all this hooting.

Alan: Last night, I went to bed with a book. Not as much fun as a 29 year old, but the book contained a speech by Adlai Stevenson. The year was 1952. He said, "The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live and fear breeds repression. Too often, sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-Communism."

Today, it's the cloak of anti-terrorism. Stevenson also remarked, "It's far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them."

I know we are all afraid, but the Bill of Rights - we have to live up to that. We simply must. That's all Melissa Hughes was trying to say. She was speaking for you. I would ask you now to go back to that room and speak for her.
David E. Kelley, James Spader, and The Writers of "Boston Legal", Wings of Justice Honorees

loving big love

It just gets better and better, this new HBO program
that comes on right after The Sopranos. One husband
with three wives and a bunch of children. They live in
three side-by-side houses in the burbs (some place in
Utah of course) and the wives are friends, except when
they aren't. Lots of clever subtleties, very well written
with great actors like Bruce Dern, Harry Dean Stanton,
Chloe Sevigny, Bill Paxton and lots more. It is reported
that the LDS folks aren't too pleased with the show...
HBO: Big Love

more history, less violence, please

We watched A History of Violence last night ~ bad idea
right before sleep. Man, those makeup artists can do so
much to make smashed body parts look realistic. The
actors were fine (Viggo, Ed Harris, William Hurt) and I
guess the story was OK, but I should have waited to
watch it on my Saturday at 7am, and then let life dilute
such intense and gory drama.
My Sunday mood? Tired and a little irritable. Bring me
the head of a scam artist at work today...

you will suffer with me

Here we go with an old daily write. If you don't like sad shaggy cat stories, you might want to move on to the next blog. I could never read this aloud to my writing group and besides, we've banned this kind of piece. It's from 2003...

THREE GOOD YEARS

Yesterday when I came home from work Uncle Junior wasn’t on the stairway where
he always greets me. My husband said that one of the cats had peed in front
of the cat box and he had put paper towels on it. When he said that he hoped
it hadn’t hurt the surface of the newish bamboo floor I snapped that it wouldn’t have
killed him to mop it up this one time. We have two cats and Uncle Junior is my
big old orange cat that we adopted from the Pet Hospital three years ago.

After I changed the cat box (thinking that was the reason for all that pee, a dirty
cat box) I went into the living room and called him many times. “UnK-el Juuuuu”
I called quietly. He always came when I called. I know from owning a few cats
that this is not the norm, but the Uncle always came to me. “Ju Boy” ohhhh,
“Where’s my Uncle?” No response.

I started searching his favorite hiding places. In the back room on a shelf where
he first settled safely when he came to live with us. In amongst the books
in the back room. Then the living room under his table. In my closet and in the
back room closet. Finally I looked behind the sofa. He was stretched out and
I reached down to pet him. His eyes were wide open. My big orange cat
looked normal, but he was dead.

When I went to get my husband, he probably thought I had was being a little
unrealistic since I always fear for my cats. We moved the sofa out, he looked and he
said, “yes, he is dead”. I didn’t cry then. I asked Bill to call our vet (Lee) and
I sort of walked back and forth and wouldn’t look behind the sofa. For $60
they would take Ju, so we wrapped him in a towel and put him in a Calistoga
carton. He was already stiff in some places and one orange paw came out
of the box. I still didn’t cry.

I drove to the vet’s and having Uncle Ju in the back seat seemed so normal
because I was always taking cats to the vet. I asked Erica at the front desk
to please put him on a table so I could say goodbye. Then I cried and told
him what a good boy cat he was and that I was sorry that I hadn’t brushed him
more. He loved to be brushed. I kissed him goodbye and scratched him
behind his sweet furry ear one more time.

We adopted Ju three years ago and I guess he was 13 or 14 by now.
The vet said it was probably a blood clot. Even though cats are never ever
allowed on the kitchen table, the last time I saw him alive was under the
lamp on top of the Chronicle where he always said goodbye to me in
the morning. His sister Tosca was curled up next to him. He was a happy cat.

He didn’t suffer any pain, the vet told me, but I do.

apres le throttle

Netflix® has been good to us lately. Yesterday Capote
and tomorrow History of Violence. Tonight I watched
Pride & Prejudice which one of the women at work
loaned to me. Husbando did not want to see the latter,
needless to say. I don't have time to review any of
these movies tonight (dang) because I want to watch
Jon Stewart who is exceedingly wonderful, as always.

writing and rewriting

When I started this blog I thought I would be posting
more thoughts about writing and books, but that isn't
how things turned out. So today I will write about this
most important part of my life.

Yesterday I submitted a piece (1027 words) for either
publication or rejection. I had lots of help: husbando, my
Tiapos writing group, Karen in NYC and Kristin down in
Pumpkinville. I won't know until August if it is accepted,
but just rewriting it 5 times and actually sending it out felt
so rewarding to me. I guess most writers have stacks and
stacks of stuff we are "working on".

I also signed up for the next Round Robin class. This is the
valuable daily writing that produces some amazing ideas
and forces me to write every single day. The Writing
Salon offers so many excellent classes ~ check it out:
The Writing Salon :: Welcome

tulips, crafts and food

deyoung
Originally uploaded by the omster.

Yesterday we went to the DeYoung, not to see the flower show, but for the "Arts and Crafts" exhibit in the basement. Well, the joint was jumpin'...too many people for me because I get to deal with so many glorious customers and employees at work, but I would certainly recommend a visit this week for folks who love flowers, crafts and crowds. My favorite of all the ingenious flower designs is right here, partly because of the unusual color, but mostly because tulips are my friend Kristin's favorite flower.

In the afternoon I worked on a rewrite (sigh) and then we hopped on BART for dinner at Citron on College Avenue in Rockridge. We met some friends there and had a very fine time indeed.

Today we might have sunshine!

percy speaks this morning

This morning I was poking around in my aged Bartlett's
Quotation book looking for this little gem from Shelley.

O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

...then I happen upon this fine little moon thought:

That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon.

Finally then, for my trip next year:

Thou Paradise of exiles, Italy!

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)

rainy day monday

There is always a line at the museum on rainy days and
then I am extra happy that I'm a member and can just
dash on in. Today I spent my lunch hour down on 3rd
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art because I
wanted to see yet another 1906 Earthquake exhibit.
This one also had lots of photos, but they were smaller,
except for some of those magnificent panorama shots.
One thing I learned was that people traveled to SF from
far off places to see (and take photos of) the incredible
destruction. I remember after the 1989 quake that all
sorts of tourists and natives wandered around through
the Marina to look at the crushed buildings. Odd, no?

There is a huge Calder exhibit too, on the 4th Floor.
I didn't spend enough time there, but I did see some of
the highlights and I would also recommend that.

In 1906 the common person was just starting to use
the camera ~ Kodak was king then. This is why we have
so many pictures of the aftermath of that earthquake.

These past few years I have really taken advantage of
working downtown and walking to the museum for a
quick look-see. I will never understand why these visits
refresh me so much, I just know they do.

bad choice, good choice

I should NOT have watched that documentary on
Wal-Mart last night! It made me quite anti-retail today
and I fear I snapped at one or two people. The only
positive thing about the whole Wal-Mart saga is that
many, many communities have kept them out. All
grass root, everyday citizens just like me. That
kind of corporate greed just makes my blood boil.

This afternoon, on the other hand, we went to an
absolutely delightful new play out at the Magic
Theatre (Fort Mason). Ice-Breaker by David Rambo
features only two actors (both superb) and a fine
story, extremely well written and so moving that I
welled up at one point. It's about the environment
and glaciers in Greenland and two people falling in
love. Magic Theatre - San Francisco's home for New Plays

sold out bee!

Yesterday I tried to buy tickets for the Spelling Bee which
The Great Plotnik reviewed so beautifully last week. The
bad news is that there is nothing this month, but the good
new is that this is a HIT and it will be a nice long run. The
tickets are expensive ($60 to $65 each), but I bought two
for a Sunday night in May for $40 each. This is a deal!
Every seat in the house for the 7pm show every Sunday
night is this rather reasonable bargain price. It's at the
Post Street Theatre, one of my favorites. Free street
parking Sundays, too. Here is the link:
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

one hundred years ago

I have a third day off today, so we went to Bill's out on
Clement and 24th Avenue for death defying burgers,
fries and a vanilla milkshake. There is something exceedingly
comforting about this less-than-attractive restaurant
with the glass chandeliers that simply "don't work". The
waitress didn't quite call us "honey", but almost.

Then out to the Legion of Honor to see the Earthquake
photography show. Exhibitions After the Ruins. This is
fabulous ~ large photos from 1906 along side current
ones. What struck me, aside from the fact that the poor
folks back then had to dress up, was how far and wide
the devastation was. From Fort Ross, through the city
of course, down to a big mess in Palo Alto at Stanford.
Also the Then and Now quality of the photos made me
appreciate all the work that went into rebuilding San
Francisco. This is well worth a trip out to The Avenues,
but stop at Bill's Place first to fortify yourself.

did you miss the dining room table?

a dinner for a saint
Originally uploaded by the omster.

I've had a delightful day cleaning and puttering ~ getting ready for the dinner party. The corned beef smells perfectly wonderful and I've splurged on lots of flowers. It's an easy meal, really, just pop in the yucky cabbage and red potatoes, make a salad, serve Mitchell's mint ice cream with chocolate bits. The coffee must be strong and there must be lots of Irish laughter. (Jewish humor works too.)

reed and patricia

Netflix® was very nice this week, sending us Good Night,
and Good Luck  on it's release date.  It is a fabulous
movie with David Strathairn and George Clooney (NOT
looking gorgeous), but our surprise was Patricia Clarkson,
Robert Downey, Jr. and Reed Diamond. Reed is an old
friend from Homicide: Life on the Street, one of the best
TV series ever. If you haven't seen Good Night, you
are in for an impressive hour and a half.

one of our houseguests

bliss
Originally uploaded by the omster.

Here is Bliss, isn't she something? She is wearing a coat because it is a little chilly in our house, unless one is right next to the fireplace. We had a wonderful evening and talked about Italy, the French Bulldog,writing,books and friendship.

overnight guests

My friend Ginger is arriving with her two dogs to spend
the night on her way from Marin County back down to
Santa Barbara. Husbando is cooking for us and I know
she will understand that I can't stay up too late due to
my fabulous retail career. We will tape both The
Sopranos and that new HBO special about the man
with 3 wives. What a concept. Then tomorrow I have
to shush all the people at work who already watched
tonight's programs.

This Ginger is the oh-my-God is that you? Ginger
that I went to college with 300 years ago. I spotted
her at the French Bulldog in Summerland two years
ago. She hasn't changed one iota. We had lost track
of one another due to name changes and the oddities
of life. My life was enriched even more that day.

a helpful hint or two

Dear Customer ~ this morning when I was summoned to
talk to you and had to come down from the 4th floor
to the 1st, it wasn't wise to ask me what took me so
long. When you started on your little list of why you
hate the company I work for, I wonder if you should have
kept the fact that "they said you are a schizophrenic
but they're wrong" out of this particular conversation.
Also when you start blaming "the Jews" for everything,
you might first ask what my last name is. And you
didn't even notice how I was ushering you out the
front door as you were ranting and raving. All in a
day's work, I thought ~ for both of us, most likely.

everyone talks about the weather

...but tonight I'll recommend (much to my surprise!)
The Weather Man with Nicolas Cage and Michael Caine.
I liked the way they used the nasty weather in Chicago
and New York as a background. The father-son
relationship was realistic, the teen age children too.

the tub doctor's house call

We are having our bath tub re-glazed today and the
entire house smells absolutely horrible. It's not
easy to describe, but trust me, it's ghastly. The
tub is about 84 years old (as is our house) and
has needed this face lift for a decade or so. I'm
glad I had to work today and didn't have to deal
with this mess and odor. I'm tempted to say it's
man's work, but of course I won't.

hear me roar

Today is International Women's Day. Sometimes I worry
and think, "oh, this truly seems like a step or two backwards"
but then I'll see or hear something else and be heartened.
In my soul, I believe the true goal of the so called neo-cons
is to put women In Their Place. Back at home in the kitchen,
never questioning, never accomplishing anything. It was so
much easier then for some men, wasn't it? And if the Little
Woman bored the husband, he could always get something on
the side and who would/could question the Bread Winner?
It really starts and ends with the pocketbook. When women
earn what we're worth, when we all have solid choices in
life...but hey, here I am preaching to the choir again.

two too early deaths

I'm saddened this morning by the news that Kirby Puckett
and Dana Reeves have died. Both only 45 or so. I guess
that people who have strong religious beliefs deal better
with the unfairness of it all than I do. I hope so, anyway.
Both these people contributed so much to our lives.

On a lighter note, there is sunshine here this morning as
I sit by the fire writing emails and drinking coffee. My
weekend will be just in time ~ the work week included a
woman sprawled out in the computer section. I thought
she was dead. When she woke up, I wished she was.
Those are all my thoughts on death for today.

post-oscar buzz

Yes, we enjoyed last night thoroughly. Jon Stewart was
wonderful, especially with the Bjork dress joke and then
when he said, "gees, I didn't know we could wear jeans".
It moved smoothly and the only speech that was ultra
phony was Reese's, even though I do think she was
spectacular in Walk the Line. Just too rehearsed last
night, I believe.  Oh, and I liked all the montages,
especially the old Western movies...fun night!

hairstyle by l.l. bean

We are dressing for the Awards ceremony tonight.
Husbando is wearing the matching beige sweats from
Target with his attractive brown fleece lined slippers.
Yes, the ones with the green pesto sauce spots!

Inasmuch as it is cold here, I am wearing the heavy
black drawstring sweat pants (with two pockets),
from Costco and the long sleeve brown Old Navy
tee shirt. I'm topping all this off with the red 49er
fleece jacket that Kristin gave me about 10 years
ago. We both dislike the 49ers for assorted reasons.
Glamour abounds on our very own red carpet. No
jewelry, no Versace tonight, we don't want to overdo.

pre-oscar buzz

OK, I'll start with something that I find amusing. I heard
it on the radio yesterday, so I'm sure it's true. The Baron
(Christopher Plummer) used to call "that movie"
The Sound of Mucous
Imagine.
Two good movies these past couple of days that I
highly recommend:
Separate Lies and
Nine Lives
The first one is British and features Emily Watson who is
always wonderful. The latter is one of those vaguely
intertwined series of vignettes about nine women. I
love those because we never know which character
will pop up in which story.

san francisco photo show below

Here is a delightful blog site that 1Foot linked in her blog
and I will now do the same. Fantastic photos.
Joe Pennant's 'Itinerant outta NY' blog
My day? OK, am tired from such a fine writing group last
night. Today I talked with a customer that I have known
for years. She is in her 70's and lives on $900 a month
Social Security. That's it. In this city? But she looks
so wonderful and is full of life. Her treat is the occasional
book, mass market of course. Mystery genre.

thank you for reminding us!

In the glow of modern progress, the stories I tell my children about my girlhood sound as ancient as the Parthenon, beginning with my impossible (and improbable) dream of being an altar girl. The classified ads divided by sex, the working women forced out of their jobs by pregnancy, the family businesses passed unthinkingly to sons-in-law while the daughters stood by: the witnesses to those artifacts are going gray and growing old.
One of the most haunting reminders of those bad old days is on my desk, in a book to be published this spring titled "The Girls Who Went Away." I knew instantly who they were: the girls who disappeared, allegedly to visit distant relatives or take summer jobs in faraway beach towns, when they were actually in homes for unwed mothers giving birth and then giving up their children. They came back with dead eyes and bad reputations, even though, like some of those in Ann Fessler's book, they may have gotten pregnant the first time out. And they came back riddled with pain and rage and an unspeakable sense of loss. "I'd have an abortion any day of the week, before I would ever have another adoption—or lose a kid in the woods—which is basically what it is," recalled one woman bitterly.
That's what a pregnant 16-year-old might well do today: have the abortion. Or she might have the baby and raise it with her family's help, or give it up for adoption after handpicking the adoptive parents and drawing up a contract allowing her to visit the child from time to time. It's a whole new world, in which female sexual behavior is no longer a moral felony. But those of us of a certain age remember those other girls, who were expected to serve a life sentence. Their parents called them whores and threw them out of the house, or simply pressed their lips tight and pretended nothing had happened while their daughters died inside. In "The Girls Who Went Away," one recalled, "It was the beginning of it being invisible."
The number of us who remember being invisible is dwindling. Coretta Scott King remembered when a black woman was seen in some quarters only as a hired domestic, Betty Friedan when a white woman was often treated like a major appliance or a decorative home accent. But both of them are now gone. Sandra Day O'Connor, who with little fanfare stepped down from the high court recently, remembers when a lawyer could tell you, without a hint of apology, that his firm never had and likely never would hire a woman associate.

O'Connor, the first female Supreme Court justice, was never known as a feminist firebrand. But she had what I think of as transformative experience, something that can't help but suffuse your life and your mind. She carried within her the memory of what it was like to be reflexively devalued despite being smart and capable. I think it's probably a good thing for a judge to have faced down that sort of organized systemic injustice. One argument is that it's not supposed to matter, that judges are simply there to consider the statute as written, as though the law were algebra and its subject numbers. But jurisprudence is not math, and judges are not automatons but people who have been undoubtedly and sometimes mysteriously marked by what they remember, or choose to forget.
The justice who nominally replaced O'Connor, Samuel Alito, was questioned closely during his confirmation hearings about his membership in a group that opposed the admission of women to Princeton, his alma mater. Justice Alito appeared to recall little of the controversy. But I do. I remember the condescending and insulting way women were discussed when various Ivy League institutions considered granting the honor of their Y-chromosome diplomas, the questions about whether Yale women could be permitted to use the pool at the Yale Club. One Princeton alum told The New York Times in those days, "Girls are being sent to Princeton less to educate them than to pacify, placate and amuse the boys." It was certainly an education, to witness the resentment and outrage that erupts when the invisible insist on being seen, even acknowledged.
That was a long time ago. In the light of progress the shadows fade, yet how vivid they still sometimes seem. There is now only a single woman on the Supreme Court. Imagine the world if homes, businesses, schools, had only one woman for every eight men. It would be an odd sort of world, wouldn't it? Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg surely can remember well when abortion was often a do-it-yourself affair, when an accidental pregnancy sometimes meant an exile into a hidden and unacknowledged hell. I suppose the landscape seems very different to her than it did when she was one of the lawyers arguing before the high court that it was impermissible to force pregnant teachers to give up their jobs because of the ridiculous presumption that expectant mothers are unable to work. Yet today she finds herself where she has so often been in the past: the only woman among a coterie of men. Not quite invisible. Not quite.
Anna Quindlen

las mejores de san francisco

Cubana tortas today from Tortas Los Picudos located
at 2969 24th Street, near Folsom or Bryant or one
of those streets. Imagine living one's life where we
couldn't walk a few blocks and be dropped into another
culture completely. We were the only two gringos in
the restaurant, but that's OK by me. Our sandwiches
dripped with everything including avocado and we
each have 1/2 of a sandwich left for tomorrow. $6.00
per Cubana ~ yum.

Thanks, Loren ~ I will go to Pompeii, I've always been
fascinated by that place and The Smithsonian just
presented me with an article to read, clip, save.