November 11, 2019 at 7:57 am (Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Personal Bookshelf, Places, Recommended)
Tags: Golden Gate Park, Mondays, novel, reading lists, San Francisco, San Francisco Chronicle
p. 378: SPOILER-FREE
Three months later, a machine shed in a lumber yard up near the Olympic Peninsula explodes. Mimi reads about it in the Chronicle. She’s sitting on the grass by the Conservatory of Flowers, in the corner of Golden Gate Park, a ten-minute walk from the hilltop, University of San Francisco, where she’s finishing her master’s degree in rehabilitation and mental health counseling.
Newspaper Sidebar: Timeline of Ecological Terror, 1980 – 1999
Ha! Richard Powers gets the flavor of the San Francisco Bay Area down in spades. Wonder where he lives?
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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October 13, 2019 at 11:57 am (Books, Explorers, Memoirs, Personal Bookshelf, Sundays)
Tags: California, California history, history, San Francisco
The commander’s house, the largest in San Francisco, had a dirt floor “without being boarded, paved, or even reduced to an even surface: the roof was covered in with flags and rushes; the furniture consisted of a very sparing assortment of the meanest kind.” The commander’s wife, while “decently dressed,” received him “seated crosslegged on a mat.”
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July 24, 2019 at 2:10 am (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, Conversations, Filipino Writers, Personal Bookshelf, Places, Women Writers)
Tags: Asian American Writers, Calyx Press, flash fiction, prose poetry, San Francisco
Kristine appeared in Going Home to a Landscape: a Filipino Women’s Anthology, co-edited by self and Virginica Cerenio (Calyx Press). From the moment self first came across the piece in the submissions pile, she fell in love. This is an ace piece of writing, one that straddles prose and poetry, and is so achingly poignant.
Where is Shirley Ancheta now? Self doesn’t know. She hopes she is well.
Kristine turns a corner in San Francisco and is struck by an oncoming car. She is floating, she thinks, in the air with the seagulls. Her teeth ache. A man steps up to her and says, “Dear God, I’m sorry. What can I do? What?”
She thinks he has said, “Desire … here … what will you do?” The only man she wants to reach is married or dead or related to her. She smiles. She can’t remember.
She thought she was kissing a boy in the dark, in the back of the house near the pineapple field. His hands could hold down a pig for the killing. They were caught by their grandmother who threw her slippers across the yard. “No do dat wit your cah-sun! Wassamaddah you kids? You no feel shame o’ what? No good fo’ cah-sins fo’ make li’ dat!”
It is cold on the pavement of Stockton and Pine. The wind is enough to pick up Kristine’s skirt. She rolls her head from side to side. As someone puts a blanket on her, she hears a siren rising to meet the ringing in her ears.
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March 18, 2019 at 4:06 am (Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Explorers, Personal Bookshelf, Places, Recommended, Sundays)
Tags: Asian American Writers, discoveries, essays, history, nonfiction, Salon.com, San Francisco
Love Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco. Reading the essays in it painstakingly slowly.
Gary Kamiya was one of the founders of Salon.com (still going strong!). An ex-fellow Fellow from Stanford, Jim Paul, used to write for them. As did Chitra Divakaruni. As did Laura Miller. As did Heather Havrilesky.
Self is on Essay # 5, The Harbor at the End of the World:
A 1508 map by Johannes Ruysch depicts South America as the New World, with Asia in the place where North America actually is.
Private beach access for this homeowner along the Mendocino coast
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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February 25, 2019 at 12:28 am (Books, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Sundays)
Tags: Asian American Writers, discoveries, favorites, nonfiction, San Francisco, science writing
- Hundreds of giant bison, weighing two tons and standing more than eight feet high, headed through the Golden Gate on their seasonal migration, next to the roaring river . . . At the top of the food chain stood the American lion and the short-faced bear.
— from The Alcatraz Triangle, Ch. 3 of Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco
San Francisco, Viewed From Point Richmond: February 2015
View of the Mendocino Headlands from Main Street
Tomorrow, straight to the Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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February 24, 2019 at 6:14 pm (Books, destinations, Personal Bookshelf, Places, Sundays, Surprises)
Tags: Asian American Writers, discoveries, history, nonfiction, San Francisco
The oldest skeleton found in the City is that of a female, unearthed during excavation for the Civic Center BART station in 1969, dating to about 5,000 years ago.
— from Cool Gray City of Love, Chapter 3: The Alcatraz Triangle
Fourth Sunday of February 2019
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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January 1, 2019 at 3:19 pm (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Links, Memoirs, Personal Bookshelf, Places, Recommended, Surprises)
Tags: California history, discoveries, essays, history, San Francisco
- What is remarkable about the Tenderloin is that it has remained physically unchanged for more than 80 years. It is a time capsule. The same progressive forces that have kept out ‘progress’ and inadvertently created a Museum of Depravity, have also created a Museum of the Lost City, a vanished world memorialized in the neighborhood’s extraordinary collection of residential hotels. There are hundreds of these historic SROs in the Tenderloin, the largest number in the world. The SROs are the reason that in 2008, the Uptown Tenderloin was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, the 24th San Francisco neighborhood to be so listed.
— Gary Kamiya, “Adventures in the Skin Trade”
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September 25, 2018 at 10:55 pm (Artists and Writers, Family, Places)
Tags: art, Cee Neuner, exhibits, Gardens, Golden Gate Park, museums, nostalgia, Redwood City, San Francisco, The Philippines
Love Cee Neuner’s Fun Foto Challenge!
This week’s challenge is PASTEL COLORS.
It turned out to be surprisingly hard to find photos with predominantly pastel colors!
These flesh-coloured gourd plants were at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers:
The Magritte exhibit at SFMOMA on self’s birthday in July:
A bit of nostalgia:
Map of the Philippines, Son’s Room in Redwood City, California
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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September 16, 2018 at 4:11 pm (Artists and Writers, Family, Links, Sundays)
Tags: birthday, Cee Neuner, Events, exhibits, Game of Thrones, happiness, museums, Readings, Redwood City, San Francisco
Thank you to Cee Neuner for the Fun Foto Challenge: RED
Red is a particular favorite of self’s.
- Aug. 14, Redwood City’s Fox Theatre: George R. R. Martin read for a Locus Magazine fundraiser.
Fox Theatre, Redwood City: 14 August 2018
- One of self’s handbags: a friend made it for her, using material self brought with her from the Philippines.
- Self’s birthday was July 14. Son and his wife, Jennie, flew up from southern CA and we spent the day in the City. Stopped at the Museum of Modern Art to see the Magritte exhibit, then had a snack in the sculpture garden. GREAT DAY! BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Sculpture Garden: 14 July 2018
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September 5, 2018 at 4:26 pm (Food and Drink, Places)
Tags: Cee Neuner, Garden, Golden Gate Park, Menlo Park, San Francisco, summer
Self really loves the Cee Neuner Fun Foto Challenge this week:
LIME or LIGHT GREEN
So, she had another go at it.
At the Conservatory of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, July 2018
Also from the Conservatory of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, July 2018
Food Truck, Menlo Park Art & Wine Festival, July 2018
Summer 2018 was GREAT.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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