Poem #13

August 1994

For high school
graduation my
compulsively
generous

godparents
gave me and
my best friend
a trip to Hawaii

we had never
flown and
traveled all by
ourselves before

every morning we
would wake up in
the hotel and she’d
tell me her dreams

long narrative tales
the best one about
being a UPS driver who
went to a Hollywood party

with Keanu Reeves and
made fun of Lisa Loeb
only to discover Lisa was
there a guest at the party

In this same dream
Keanu asked my friend
Are you Buddhist?
And she answered
No I’m just passionate


image source is here

Fourteen London Bookstores

Yep, I just counted, and I visited 14 different bookstores while I was in London. It was a fabulous thing to do. Though the British people I talked to tended not to believe me, I nevertheless am firm in the conviction that bookstore culture is alive and well in, if not the UK as a whole, at least in London--or at least a whole lot more massive and vibrant than it is stateside. Here's where I went.

Above, Daunt Books--really just the perfect bookstore, my forever London favorite

Foyles--massive, independent, amazing (a bit like the Strand or Powell's, but more sleek)--great comics section

KK Outlet--great currated selection of art books and zines

Waterstone's the UK's main book chain has come back from the bring of near extinction by making their stores actually appealing. Go figure

Hatchards--apparently the bookstore of the establishment

Tachen--honoring David Bowie, as well they should

Blackwells--nice enough shop, good for readers, but nothing like the massive book mecca that Blackwells is in Oxford

Assouline--high end cafe plus bookshop

Artworks--great art book store

Notting Hill Bookshop--they actually have a blue plaque for being the bookshop in the movie Notting Hill

Persephone Books--another favorite--they publish and sell forgotten books by women, all in the same quietly beautiful gray covers

Libraria--very hip and cool with DIY plywood shelving and reading nooks to sit in, mirrored ceiling, books organized thematically for discovery rather than location, and no cell phones allowed

Potterton Books--used and rare art, design, and fashion books

Tenderbooks--new kid on the block, hip art bookshop in a row of old fashioned antiquarian booksellers (I wonder how they feel about that)


Waterstones, Hatchards, Blackwells, and Persephone photos borrowed from their respective websites because I lacked the presence of mind to take a good one while I was there (too distracted by books!)

London Night Out

I got back, not long ago, from a week in London for work. I did a lot of stuff (much of it involving the twin very enjoyable tasks of looking at art and looking at bookstores) about which i will tell you more soon enough. But for today I just wanted to mention this one evening out I had, where I took myself on a date to the famed Ottolenghi restaurant and then to see In the Heights. Loyal readers will know I'm a Hamilton obsessive, so when I discovered Lin-Manuel Miranda's first play was showing in London (because, let's be clear, basically every play written in the past 30 years is currently playing somewhere in London) it was clear I was going to have to go. And it was fabulous. Dinner was pretty great, too.

Christmas Eve

The four-month old baby Mabel sits on the table with the snow globes in her tiny jeans and festive blouse on Christmas Eve half a dozen years ago. My goodness.

Hans Hofmann at BAMPFA

I quite enjoyed the Hans Hofmann show at the Berkeley Art Museum. And it's easy to see why. Here are the pieces I liked best.

Poem #12

1994-1998

sometimes I think
about the movies we
were all obsessed with
when I was in college

pulp fiction
trainspotting
natural born killers
which I saw with a boy

on what would turn out to be one of the only random dates with a random person
I would ever go on in my young life though of course being me I didn’t quite realize
that it was a date at the time but regardless when he got us to the movie twenty
five minutes late that categorically guaranteed we would never hang out again

guy ritchie robert rodriguez
naturally tarantino even our
cohen brothers were the extra
violent cohen bothers of fargo

what was with us?
what was our deal?
where the heck were
we coming from man?

I don’t presume to know but
even now you can get a smile
out of any forty-year-old if you
just mention Royale with Cheese

Comics

I've gotten very into reading comics lately. I've always read graphic novels, and still do, but recently a few things happened: I've gotten into the Saga and Ms Marvel trade books (bind-ups of multiple comics issues that you can buy in a regular bookstore); a ten-year-old friend lent us a stack of comics he was done with (see directly below); and we had a little book club at work to read the first four issues of Ta-Nehisi Coates Black Panther. As well, two of my favorite graphic novelists / memoirists, Lucy Knisley and Raina Telgemeier, have new books out, and other juicy treats keep presenting themselves as well. All of which has lead me to read a lot of this stuff in recent months and I must say I'm enjoying it wholeheartedly. I make no admissions but it's possible I might have more on order. Next stop, I suppose, is a propper comic book shop, but I still feel a little shy about that.