bus advice

on the crowded express bus heading west from the financial district people peer over my shoulder.

on at least three separate occasions they say, "now that's a good restaurant." then we get into those nice personal yet not personal conversations about life and it's surprisingly how easily people yield tidbits of their life to you, especially when you expect something different considering this lot is dressed in suits, ties and business patent leather heels. i like the somber san francisco style, how pinstripes and black go so well in this city. and people read--they read big thick weighty books, so that at dinner parties there's something to actually talk about.

two people help me get off at just the right spot. a man says, "that whole street is amazing for asian food. from here to here." another woman says, "you're there just in time, but keep in mind that there's usually an hour's wait to eat there, no matter what day of the week it is." more voices join in, assenting, helping me out. "i just moved here too, and that's one of the best places in town."

then they're gone and out the bus door.

my friend C who had lived in india recommended it to me, and it lived up to its reputation. i cannot review food properly; the famous thirty billion ingredients salad was delightful! extravagant! each bite was an explosion of taste. i guess the difference between good food and excellent food is in the subtleties.

next to me a college student babbled to his parents about his plans, and about his day job at a restaurant, and it was such a reverse of a relationship i expected from a rebellious young art student. his parents were loving, heavy people from the suburbs of d.c. and they discussed his options for his life and the summer. they patiently sat through his slightly condescending explanations of the neighborhoods of the city and what kind of food they were eating. there's this patience that the middle-aged have for the very young.

the man on the bus was correct; it's an impressive street. you're struck by how Asian San Francisco is. At night the air is very cold, very clear and pure, air coming in from the ocean and cleansed by the saltwater.

printmaking in the east bay

emory douglas


emmanuel montoya


miriam stahl


carolyn pennypacker riggs

Bay Area Love

Of all the places I have lived, coming to San Francisco has been the most immediately familiar. I keep running into people from my long-lost past here--not just once in a while but twice in a week, unplanned, but who else would be rummaging through the library on a Saturday early morning?

It's a long story, but I used to write to M and read his books and magazines, and his thoughts were greatly inspiring. After a weird cross-country journey we hung out, and it was so nice to share thoughts and nothing else. We've met several times in various cities and countries over the years--in Europe and New York City over the years, although most of the times we spoke we were stressed out and had no time for a meaningful conversation.

And to just run into someone and ask them questions and randomly talk about stuff levelly, it's such a nice pleasure! Maybe that's one of my favorite things of all, just sitting and talking to people. I was also very young and obsessive at the time, but meeting him helped me to discover and create a great many cool things.

It takes a long time to get past a certain comfort zone, and with some friends I've had years, so that you pass the boundary where you are acquaintances, and then when your hair turns gray you can really get to know each other.

The most favorite pleasure in the Bay Area is eating though, and nobody I've met has considered dieting. They're always talking about food here, but they're paradoxically thinner on average than the people always talking about dieting I encountered in Southern California.

The bread is as good as the bread in Germany, and I've been stuffing myself with cheese, cakes and fruits nonstop at countless dinner parties, because that's what you do when you get old and gray.

There's moderation when drinking the wine, and it shows (the moderation), because you want people to eat, not acquire that neurotic, sinewy health freak body with the veins bulging and the sun-damaged skin weathered and leathery from time.

And when your friendships grow and ripen, and you have so many common experiences in so many places, it's like harvest time. People returning to California after many years in South America, you need to have conversations that are deep and meaty, and you--well maybe it's just me, acquaintances that blossom into friendships that are going to feed you for many years to come.

los angeles farewell

There are so many interesting characters in Los Angeles, you could spend a lifetime sitting down meeting each of them, and it's my bad luck that I met some of the most compelling people right before I left.

My going away ceremonies were huge affairs, and I realize now that I was very lucky to know so many of the right kind of people, the kind who help you hold your center and make you become a better person. I encountered so many lonely transplants in L.A. who had only sketchy acquaintances after many years, and it was only through the good will of many cool friends that I was able to see the nooks and crannies and secrets that I saw in my time there.

I'll miss K's dark humor and wit and encyclopedic knowledge about every nook and cranny of the neighborhoods and history of the city. There was the shiny, brilliant choreographer with her troupe of dancing boys, this center of so much creativity and passion. I was introduced and spoke to her for only moments, but there are certain women who glow so charismatically, the center of so many great things. There was L, who I rarely saw, because it's impossible to run into people randomly in that place, organizing her shows and propelling things forward. The young men working forward with his projects and creating grand parties and girls with sharp minds who know it's better to D.J. than be a model any day.

I wish I had time to sit down alone with each of them, share a few weekends working on something interesting, because I truly do find people fascinating, and there are so many great minds at work in a metropolis like L.A. It's just that in that world, so much is hidden, and the cream doesn't often rise to the top, although once in a while it does.

It really does. I know this because I saw Julie Delphy from a short distance, one in which I could have called out her name and she would have heard me and looked at my face. But I was content to simply watch her laugh and talk with the make-up artists, oozing class even though she was sloppily dressed in jeans and horn-rimmed glasses for a television interview. It makes me happy that someone like that would be famous, yet stay so true and bright.

first rainbow

I picked up my friend from the fancy hotel where she was staying downtown. She had been flown in to speak, and I always feel proud when these things happen. I had known her quite a long time, and when you count through the years, and it's so encouraging to see that she's never lost steam.

It never rains in Los Angeles so it was a complete shock when there were thunderstorm clouds on the horizon. The sound of raindrops was completely foreign to me after six months in this desert.

When we first met we sat in a cafe in New York, and weren't we children? This time meeting we went to a cafe in Los Angeles picking at huge pastries and coffee. Even with everyone so thin, the croissants stay huge, larger than my head. When we had first met, I hadn't travelled around at all, and I wouldn't notice this, but somehow the essence of both of us remained the same.

Later on I found her in a maze of the strange Disneyland streets of Chinatown. It's all about pagodas and Chinese lanterns there , but it has an undeniable prettiness even when surrendering to kitsch. She's so dazzling, my friend is, one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. If you look back in life and at all of the choices and turns, there are so many instances when things could have turned out differently; but in this instance she was shining.

I like speeches and bare white stages. There was a video projection; I had a hard time following what most of the speakers were talking about that night, but she made the most sense. It had been a while since I had been to something to just sit and think for the sake of thinking.

But the whole crowd spilling onto the wet streets was there not only to think but to have fun. And to parade like peacocks--it was the best fashion I'd ever seen in all my time in Southern California, where it's normal to see beautiful young women dressed unironically like Joan Collins. Is that why people age so quickly here? My friend looks so young still, and so do I, and it's such a strange thing because we eschew facial peels and mud masks. Something about the air in L.A. artificially ages people, or is it all that sunlight? Men and women under thirty are supertanned and trim, their faces lined, moving forward more quickly, speeding up to the pace of light.

Everyone on this particular street was absolutely striking on this night, fluttering about with gossamer wings, although we laughed that the slight dip in temperatures had people in too-hot peacoats and black tights. In Germany men would be walking around in t-shirts and shorts, that's how brave they are about the weather. I felt like I was in the middle of a Vogue magazine spread.

One of her friends came with her baby to hear her speak. She was one of those women who had chosen life: she was a bright and happy mommy full of life. Sometimes you can see through the pretenses and know instantly when people are happy, and this was one of them. She had to leave early because the baby was acting up, but that's how a mother should be--upright and happy, someone to lean on, eating up food voraciously just like she'd eat up life.

I felt a swell of pride again as my friend answered the questions, her mind so sharp. There are so many points where things could have turned out differently: maybe she wouldn't have written a book, maybe she wouldn't be a speaker here today and I wouldn't get this delicious slice of time to hang out with her. You can choose life or you can choose something else, but I prefer to keep company with women who choose life. She bought me a dinner and we ate huge mounds of noodles, our cheeks filling out.

I stood on the street at one point and looked up and saw something wonderful. There it was, hanging in the sky, my first L.A. rainbow. Without rain, you don't get rainbows.