Today I drove to a produce market and bought fruit. Not amazing, except it is the first time in two months that I have driven my car. (My husband has used it on alternate weeks to keep the battery charged.)
At the market, I wore my face mask. The market allowed only 10 customers at a time. Within the market, duct-taped arrows on the floor directed me around the fruit and vegetable stands – if I missed something, no turning back. I avoided putting my choices in bags as much as possible – everything went into one bag at the check-out station, which was shielded by plastic curtains except where I could insert my credit card for the check-out.
For a decade we have been asked to bring our own reusable bags to shop. Now reusable bags are possible vectors of infection, and the plastic bag makers are staging a comeback. All I can do is to pile my fruit and vegetables all together in one cart, let the checkout clerk sort, and put my purchases into one paper bag.
Public transportation, re-usable bags, cluster housing – all those ecologically correct ideas are now hazardous – how can we save the planet now?
Arturo Perez-Reverte has constructed a marvelous mystery which spans centuries. One mystery involves the restoration of a 15th century Flemish painting which depicts a chess game in progress. In the course of the restoration the cryptic inscription “Who killed/took the knight?” is revealed. Does the painting hold the clue to solving a 15th-century murder?
The second mystery develops as Julia, the young art restorer, tries to decipher the painting’s mystery and becomes involved in a series of murders which seem to be related to the painted chess game.
If you are interested in art history, or the miracle of modern art restoration, and have even a passing interest in the game of chess, you will be charmed by this novel. The setting, in Madrid, with some of the key incidents occurring in El Prado, enhances the action perfectly. The solution – without giving the story away, I will say that it is both outrageous and satisfying.
Susie Boyt’s 200-page novelette takes on the story of a mother hoping against hope to bring her daughter back from drug addiction, while at the same time raising the granddaughter abandoned by the addicted mother and her lover. Sounds like a downer. But somehow it is not. Ruth, the narrator for most of the story, explores all the ups and downs of a love which is patient, is kind, that alters not when alteration finds. She doesn’t give up, despite the well-meant urgings of her friends to “move on.” And she works hard also to prevent her love for Lily, her granddaughter, from being possessive, or from seeing Lily as some kind of earned compensation for the sorrows Eleanor, the daughter, brought down.
Bernard Cornwell is a master at recreating a past society, whether it’s life on the battlefield of the Napoleonic Wars, an immersion in the Saxon society of Arthurian England, or in this case, the pinnacles and pitfalls of the evolving theatre in the time of Elizabeth I. The protagonist is Richard Shakespeare, the younger brother of William, who escapes from a brutal apprenticeship and runs to London in hopes of joining his brother’s theatre group, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. But William’s welcome is chilly, and Richard must pay a steep price to learn the skills he needs to be a player on his brother’s stage. Did Richard Shakespeare actually exist? Yes, there was such a sibling, ten years younger than William, but the historical record is mute as far as his life is concerned, leaving Cornwell an open field to imagine. The plot is a little thin, involving the rivalry between the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and the struggle to find new plays to please the populace. The world is so real, though, that I could feel the drip of rain down the back of Richard’s neck, hear the pounding of the carpenters working on stage sets as Richard is trying to rehearse, and see the flickering lights of dozens of candles used to light the stage. Cornwell assumes that the reader is pretty familiar with at least two of William’s plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet. If you’ve gotten that far in studying Elizabethan drama, you’re ready to plunge in to Richard Shakespeare’s world.
Margaret Atwood is having fun in this collection of short stories. A half dozen involve a long-married couple, Tig and Nell, and the rest include a Grimm’s fairy tale retold by an extraterrestrial, a story of reincarnation from the point of view of a snail, a gin-soaked reunion of old (female) friends, and others. Atwood is a fine writer, which is gratifyingly evident in the first few sentences of the first story. (I’ve been reading too many not-so-fine writers lately; Atwood was like settling into a first-class seat on the 20th Century limited after traveling miles on potholed roads).
The last of the Nell and Tig stories follow Nell’s grieving after Tig’s death. She is one of the few writers who can write about feelings without becoming sentimental. Highly recommend.
I wish I could have liked this better. I really enjoyed Kate Atkinson’s “life after life” and the early Jackson Brodie novels, and thought I had found a writer whose works were beautifully written, satisfying, and prolific.
Well, two out of three.
Judith Anderson, the protagonist of “Transcription, is a young woman drafted into a clerical position in Britain’s M15 spy corps during WWII, and then is “promoted” to being a transcriber of secretly recorded meetings between an M15 agent posing as a German spy and fascist sympathizers. These recordings short-circuit the passing of useful information about military installations and preparations to the Nazis, so they are theoretically a useful contribution to the war effort. But for the most part, the meetings are composed of long stretches of puerile conversation half-heard over the noise of traffic, paper rustling, a barking dog.
But “things are seldom what they seem”, as Gilbert and Sullivan are quoted by Judith’s boss. The book descends into a tangle of “coincidental” encounters, possible betrayals, shifting identities, pseudonyms, and a couple of quite unpleasant deaths.
Atkinson artsifies the plot by shifting the time back and forth. We see Judith in 1981, the victim of an apparent hit-and-run accident. Then we are in 1950, where Judith spies a former colleague from M15, who denies knowing her. And then we are in 1940, at the beginning of the war, and Judith is being reassigned to her transcription duties. We jump back between the war years and the post-war years several times. It’s a way to build suspense – we know that something horrible happened and want to find out what- but it’s not a way to build sympathy for Judith.
So I ended up admiring the technique, but not caring very much whether that hit-and-run was really an accident. Reading the reviews, I see the book is “laced with wit”. I wonder if I have an insufficient sense of humor? or maybe I sympathized a bit too much after all with Judith, preventing me from laughing at her predicaments.
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank If a book cover has the words “Bookshop” or “Paris” or anything evoking those memes, I’m liable to pick it up. If it has “Piano”, that’s almost as magnetic. This memoir of living in Paris and finding access to the neighborhood hidden behind the courtyard doors is charming, full of information about French life and culture, and about the history, development, mechanisms, and lore surrounding the pianoforte.
A perfect bedside book, as it alternates between personal experience and historical reflection in alternating chapters.
I loved the freedom of riding a bicycle ever since I first learned to balance my balloon-tired Schwinn on the tar roads I grew up with. As a child I could ride as far as the neighborhoods that had pavement and sidewalks and could admire the columned porches and vast green lawns behind the fences. When I was 12, I won a three-speed lightweight bike in a contest. I was over the moon. That bike took me through college, getting me to class on time as I swooped past plodding pedestrians, until in my senior year I left it unlocked for just a few minutes and it was gone.
After I was married my husband and I treated each other to Raleigh three-speeds, as we had only one car. I would pedal across town to the home of a co-worker and we would carpool together; I drove the carpool on alternate weeks, while my husband would either bike or bus to his job.
Our children started them out with bike seats on the back of our bikes, then encouraged them to learn to ride themselves. Once they had mastered their bikes, we took them and the bikes to Yosemite, to San Francisco, to Monterey, and on every bike trail within thirty miles.
Years later. My husband had a fall a few years ago and his knees are going out, but I continued to ride my bicycle, against his advice, on local errands: to the library, to my hairdresser, to the blood bank. “What if you have a crash?” he would ask me. “People are going to read about it in the paper and say “What the heck is a woman that age doing on a bicycle anyway?”
“I’m careful, “ I said. “I’m not going to crash.” And I didn’t, exactly.
I hopped on my bike on a Saturday morning to pick up some bagels from the House of Bagels, about a fifteen-minute ride from my house. A lovely morning – just enough high clouds to keep cool, no traffic. I sailed along the main street on the way to the bagel shop, taking a few detours on loop streets to admire the jacaranda trees in bloom, check out the progress of the construction projects, see if there were any windfall fruits to be picked up. I zoomed into the parking lot by the bagel shop… and my brain froze.
I couldn’t remember how to dismount from the bike.
I had had a little trouble dismounting the last couple of times I had ridden; the most recent time I managed somehow to give my shin a good whack and had raised a faint blue bruise. But I had gotten off this bicycle hundreds of times. The act should have been deep in my muscle memory, something I did without thinking. Now I had to think. To dismount, I only had to do in reverse what I had so easily done getting on: lean on the left pedal, swing my leg up and over the seat and rear wheel, apply the brakes. I circled around the parking lot and tried again. No way. Nothing but icy fear of losing my balance, of falling.
There was a high curb with a railing not far from the bagel shop. I pulled up to that, stopped, and then managed to step up onto the curb, hold onto the railing and haul my leg over the cross bar. Shaken, I walked the bike across the lot to my usual lockup spot next to the bagel shop. “That was weird,” I thought. “That was really weird.”
I bought two bagels, swung onto my bike with no problem, rode home, rode up my driveway… and my brain froze again. I couldn’t do it. I could not swing myself off. My muscle memory had gone dead.
I braked and with some difficulty managed to get my leg over the crossbar without falling over. I trundled my bike into the garage and parked it next to my husband’s bike. which was covered in cobwebs. His tires were so flat the wheel rims touched the ground. I stood looking at it for a few moments.
Then I locked my bike up as usual, went into the house, and emailed the local Bicycle Exchange. I have two bikes to donate. Within two days the bicycles and all associated accessories were gone.
I know this was a good decision. I have several friends who have been injured severely when their bikes slipped out from under them. But I miss the freedom of riding my bike. I miss being able to stop and inspect changes in my neighbor’s gardens, to take short cuts through suburban bikeways, to not worry about parking. I’m envious of the people who are trying out the newly painted bike lanes on El Camino and El Monte. It’s no fun driving to my hairdresser. On Saturday morning my husband goes for the bagels now.
There’s an empty space in our garage. I expect it will gradually fill up with the things that go into garages. I hope the empty spaces in my mind will fill up too.
Our local branch of the county library system is the second oldest and second smallest of seven branches, but second busiest in the number of visitors. The Library Commission has announced intentions to “modernize the library, enhance accessibility, and improve functionality”. But what is meant by “Modernize”, “Accessibility”, and “Functionality”? Forty users responded to a survey about needs, but our library has more than 600 visitors daily.
Modernize – Does this mean new carpets? New furniture to replace the institutionally uncomfortable naugahyde and vinyl chairs? Does it mean replacing the heating/air conditioning system with efficient heat pump technologies? Does it mean providing modern DVD and video-streaming equipment so that researchers can take advantage of the library’s collections without having to take the materials from the library?
Accessibility – does this mean widening doors and the space between book shelves? Does it mean adding multi-lingual signage? Does it mean adding services and features to attract a more diverse cross-section of the community? Or do these get in the way of the library’s research and study purposes? Does the Passport Office really belong in the library?
Functionality – On a recent visit to the library, a friend and I passed through the lobby where a group of young women and children in strollers were sharing lunch and gossiping. “What do they think this is, a free day care center?” he fumed. “It’s a library. It’s supposed to be quiet.” Is the success of the library’s story hours and the availability of snacks in the lobby a detriment to other functions? Or is this addressing the needs of an underserved section of our community?
And how about the users of the library who bring their laptops, sit around a table, and conduct a business meeting at normal volumes? Is providing meeting space a library function? Do we need sound-proof study carrels where a small group can work on a project or hold a meeting together?
What space do we reserve for our chief fund-raisers, the Friends of the Library (FOL)? I’m personally addicted to checking out their 25-cent book cart, but I was surprised when a second book cart appeared recently, impeding access to the community bulletin board, the battery recycling container, and the free magazines. The FoL Sale bookshelves are expanding also, with a third book cart dedicated to teen lit, a table laden with puzzles, and additional tables for seasonal offerings or out-dated magazines. Is this a library benefit, or is it FOL mission creep?
The Orchard Room is the only large meeting space in the library, and it is booked months in advance. Do we need more large meeting spaces? Will the proposed patio enhancement funded by the Los Altos Library Endowment help satisfy the need for more meeting space? Or should we consign large meetings to the adjacent Los Altos Community Center and reserve our precious square footage for study and research?
The old-fashioned library lampooned in “The Music Man” where “the civilized world accepts as unforgivable sin/ any talking out LOUD to any librarian” is gone with the traveling salesman. But we need more than a survey of less than 1% of the library’s users to determine what the library should be today.
Outdoors in South Carolina is a lot different from outdoors in Northern California, where I spend most of my time. SC is green, the air is moist, there is water, and there is history. Columbia’s Riverbank Walkway is a wonderful illustration of the difference, with its effortlessly un-irrigated green spaces, its leisurely meanderings along the Columbia Canal, and its unexpected evocation of the workers who built the canal.
We parked at the Laurel Street entrance, just late enough to avoid a major fun run which had been organized for the morning – volunteers were folding tables and taking down canopies, but they cheerfully directed us down the pathway to the canal.
On the way we pass a steep stairway leading upward. Signs let us know that there is a restaurant above, probably with a fine view of the canal and the river beyond. We resist the temptation.
Further down we spot a building off to the side, which turns out to be the former operating station for the canal. Facing the building is a monument to the Irish worker who helped build the canal. I remember that at the time of the canal’s building there were probably signs in downtown Columbia reading “Help Wanted: No Irish Need Apply”, and felt pleased that this maligned immigrant group was receiving recognition.
At the bottom of the trail is a playground for children who have not worked off enough steam on the walk down. No, wait; it’s not for children, it’s a workout center for adults who have not worked off enough steam after jogging the four-mile river trail. Whichever – it’s a beautiful location.
As we turned to go back up the slope to the parking lot (not feeling up to a four-mile jog on this particular day) we spotted this whimsical artwork just up from the workout center/playground. It’s a testament to a light-hearted spirit that we felt throughout our visit to Columbia.
There’s a lot more to Columbia than the stretch from the Capitol down Main Street to the museum and library. For one thing, it is the home of the University of South Carolina, whose lovely campus is located on the other side of the Capitol from those attractions. The presence of a university almost guarantees a range of good cheap restaurants for feeding starving students escaping dorm food. We tried a couple:
Camon Japanese Restaurant and Sushi Bar on Assembly Street near the campus has Japanese sliding screens, woodcut prints, and unexpectedly excellent sushi. It was empty when we entered at 6PM, and when we ordered an Asahi beer and were told there was no liquor license, we thought we knew why. But by the time we left, well satisfied with our edamame, unagi roll and pork tonkatsu, the place was nearly full of local adults as well as students who were probably underage anyway.
Another night we went further down Main to the Green Olive, its inauspiciously plain exterior surrounded by cracked parking lots and state office buildings. But the interior was much more promising, with a number of comfortable booths and tables testifying to a significant number of expected customers. The server looked exotic enough to be Turkish, but when I asked she giggled and said “No, I’m half Chinese and half Peruvian.”
The presentation of the food made no attempt at artistic plating or frou-frou snips of parsely or fennel. The flavor though was delicious and the amount generous. Again, as we ate the booths began to fill with a diverse population of older adults as well as flannel-shirted twenty-somethings.
Our most successful lunch was at a deli near our hotel downtown. I didn’t expect much from the East Bay Deli, one of five locations in Columbia for a chain that originated up in Charlotte. We went there because it was close to our hotel, we were hungry, and we were with my in-laws and needed a place with a diverse enough menu to satisfy each of our tastes. And it was good. Just plain good. Good bread. Good meat. Real lettuce, not ribby romaine. Crispy fries. Enough food that my in-laws split a sandwich between them.
You won’t starve for lack of good food in Columbia
Allyson Johnson 