Musings | Book Barmy

A trip downtown

We don’t go downtown much anymore – since the pandemic and our own little neighborhood sprouting with good cafes, shops, bakeries and the farmer’s market on Sundays – there’s no reason. However, we updated some legal documents and needed to sign them in person at our lawyer’s office – you guessed it – downtown. So we dug out our transit cards and hopped on our public transport.

Husband had a great idea – lunch at Tadich Grill – a very special place, and located right on the cable car line – it’s the real San Francisco treat.

You see, Tadich’s opened in 1849, and is the oldest running restaurant in California.

Now, I know you folks on the East Coast and Europe undoubtedly have much older places, I’m thinking of Durgan Park in Boston and almost any pub in the UK – but for us this is a piece of history.

I used to work right across the street (see brown building to the right above) and many a time I would join co-workers and grab seats at the counter. And, if I remember, martinis were involved – it was the 80’s.

But this day Husband and I got a proper table, right in the window, with fresh starched table linen.

Many of the waiters have been there forever and they wear long starched aprons and range from fun to surly. All part of the experience.

Tadich’s ~~has~~ had never closed since their opening, but had to shut down during Covid for 55 weeks and, like so many other eating establishments, many of us feared it might not re-open.

I am happy to report it is back and bustling.

I never take photos of our food when out eating (we put phones away) but because this was the first time we’d been here since it was closed down, I decided to make an exception — everyone else was. Tadich’s is known for its seafood – so we both had fish – locally caught and very very good. I think it’s all in the butter sauces.

If you’re coming to San Francisco, this is a must – and happy to say — reservations recommended

Posted by BookBarmy on Mar 28, 2024 in Musings

Creative Book Sellers

I’d love to tell you about a book I’ve finished, but regretfully, I have none to share. It’s not that I’m not reading — I am! But I’ve got myself reading several books at the same time, so my book completion rate is nil.

I did wander into my local bookshop the other day, ducking out of the rain before meeting a friend for lunch. I didn’t buy anything (see my quandary above) but I did admire this very clever display for Valentines day.

It got me thinking about how creative booksellers have to be. Not only keeping displays fresh, but also coming up with events. Every week, my local bookshop hosts a children’s reading hour, a knitting night, open poetry readings, and of course, lots of author readings – lots of work to sell a book or two or three.

Kepler’s Bookstore once had a display called Blind Date with a Book which looked something like this:

I wonder how many customers actually buy books blind, I’m not sure I would, but it is a very creative idea.

There’s funny displays based on customer questions ~~

Scary and spooky Halloween reading recommendations:

And a great idea for around the holidays, a perfect gift for a reader on your list — a series of books, a book for each day of Hanukah or a book a day advent calendar.

Perhaps I’ll start planning my bookish gift list now.

But enough distraction, back to the pile of books I’m currently reading…

They’re all so different that I can read in and out of each without confusion…depending on my mood. But then again, I’m barmy.

Posted by BookBarmy on Feb 7, 2024 in Book Reviews, Musings

Westlake Anniversary

While this was a major milestone anniversary — 45 years — we kept it low key as we’re celebrating this summer with a big trip, (more on that when it’s closer).

We went to Westlake, a quirky suburb just south of us, in Daly City.

We like to walk this neighborhood, admiring the unique mid-century homes…

Developed by Henry Doelger, Westlake is notable for its 1950’s architecture, created by a team of designers to encompass nearly every building in the development. While there are many unique homes like the ones above, the majority of homes are known for architectural blandness, exemplified by its endless rows of boxy houses, which were the inspiration for the folk song “Little Boxes” an anti-conformity anthem of the 1960’s.

You can see why ~~ here’s a photo (not mine) from the air.

There’s even a very cool book about the development.

Westlake is also home to one of our favorite restaurants ~~ Westlake Joe’s.

Opened since 1956, it went through an extensive renovation a few years back, which kept and enhanced the original style and mid-century feel.

It still has much of it’s original menu, known for steaks, classic Italian, and retro cocktails.

It seems most of the Bay Area flocks to Westlake Joe’s as reservations are almost impossible. So, we clean up, don our best duds and walk-in ~~ we’re never turned away.

Just take a look at the interior… classic bar, plush seating, even the old menu covers have been re-created.

The food is always great and yes, it’s expensive, what restaurant isn’t these days? For such a special occasion – we threw the budget out the window and enjoyed glasses of red wine, a nice perfectly cooked, small steak (me) and a huge plate of lasagna (Husband). We ended our meal with the best dessert I have ever eaten – really my absolute favorite. Warm butter cake – sigh.

So what does 45 years together feel like?

Well, it certainly doesn’t seem like 45 years ago we were this young and excited.

I’m laughing because Husband hurt his ring finger playing volleyball a few days before, and it was still sore. He winced and was in pain when I put his wedding ring on. Later, as we were formally posing for the photo above he said he hoped it wasn’t a warning.

Happy Anniversary to my cute Husband, partner, friend ~~ still making me laugh every day.

Posted by BookBarmy on Jan 30, 2024 in Musings, Travels

Our Town by Thornton Wilder

Every January I like to re-read the play Our Town.

I know, I know Our Town has a terrible reputation. Every high school has performed this play with often pathetic results. Please try to sweep those memories away and let me convince you to read, really read this play.

I believe it is some of the best writing out there – strong words you say, well stick with me here…

First published in 1938, it delivers a hauntingly real look at life….and death….and love. It takes place in Grover’s Corners a small New England town, actually based on a real town called Peterborough where Wilder often spent his summers and near where I lived in New Hampshire.

The three acts of this play are structured in a manner that encompasses the most basic features of human life: everyday living, love/marriage, and of course death. Much attention is usually paid to the third act of the play because it is here Wilder really closes in to make his point most obviously.

Yes, the third act is brilliant, and still chokes me up every time, but I like to linger in the first two acts – which are about the ordinariness of life — and it’s the ordinary that actually makes life extraordinary — just as it is. Mr. Wilder gently pushes this point, all life, any life, is special –and perhaps most of all, sharing this amazing life with others around you.

These subtle life observations give even greater rewards as one gets older, when time has passed and life has slapped you around – the words suddenly become heart achingly real and relevant.

Reading this little play always snaps me out of my post holiday blues (thus, why I re-read it in January) as I once again realize that what Mr. Wilder is urging – what we should, but seldom (or never) actually do.

I chuckled this time at this quote ~~ “We don’t have time to look at one another” ~~ if that was true in 1937, imagine how much more true it is today.

You may agree with the many critics who have charged Our Town with being overly sentimental and perhaps it is, but I don’t consider this a negative — we should be sentimental about the things we love.

Now, if I have you convinced to give it a try once again –every library has a copy and it’s very short.

Here are my favorite underlined passages:

Wherever you come near the human race there’s layers and layers of nonsense.

We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars… everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.

Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover’s Corners… Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking… and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths…and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.

Yes, now you know. Now you know! That’s what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those…of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. Now you know — that’s the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness.

Only it seems to me that once in your life before you die you ought to see a country where they don’t talk in English and don’t even want to.

Read Our Town and perhaps it will remind what a gift it is to be alive and you must, must pay attention — to everything.

NB: Our Town was recently recommended by Ann Patchett as good background for her new novel Tom Lake, which I haven’t read, but is getting great reviews. Many recommend the audio version narrated by Meryl Streep. I don’t get along very well with audio books, but that sounds like it might be worth a try.

Posted by BookBarmy on Jan 22, 2024 in Book Reviews, Fiction, Musings

New Year Thoughts – sort of

I had a hiccup in my holiday reading, two books I did not finish, two more proved good but just for me right now, but I have just now settled on one that is soothing, warm, and just right….more on that later, in the New Year.

I have mixed feelings about the New Year and so, I will enter it warily.

Always my same goals raise their persistent heads. Get more exercise, eat better, work on the garden, less computer time, clean out my clutter, be more creative, and, of course, read more.

But then I came across this on Facebook and I really liked it. I will still attempt my goals above, but this is worth reading thorough,

~ This year, dear friends, may we all lose weight!

The weight of expectations. The weight of self-criticism. The weight of disconnect that fills us with a deeper hunger. The weight of not always loving. The weight of a worn and weary world. Of not always accepting, seeing and inhabiting this precious and sacred body, that we’re in.

~ This year, dear friends, may we all exercise!

…our holy will! Our sacred sense of purpose. Our vision and hard-earned wisdom. Our discernment and our shining hearts. In ways that enrich connections, with our bodies, our souls and those we love. And even to the world.

~ This year, ah yes… may we all start the work of quitting…

…that collective Kool-Aid. The negative self-talk. The small-a**ed living. That cacophony of cockatoo-voices that drown out our souls. And old habits: Those used to stop us hearing our pain, our disappointments, and all things much better loved, seen and accepted right down to the very bottom ~ and to find true freedom, through a connection with our deepest souls.

~ This fine new year, (here’s the best…) May we all be rich!

Yes, utterly and completely rich. Wildly and unapologetically. Rich in love. Life. Connection with one another and all that really matters. Filled to the brim and bubbling over; more again and spilling over that. Full of laughter, acceptance, joy, and less of worry. Less of sorrow ~

Rich in renewed experience, of a whole new year!

by Rachel Alana (R.A Falconer) art | John Collier