More Found Days in San Francisco

Right. Enough looking for my check book.

So, up the nice flat street and bit of hill to City Lights. Book addicts and 20th Century Poetry majors understand why this is important. Beats, atmosphere, place of history, memorial to Kerouac and Cassidy and Ginsberg and ......... Lawrence Ferlinghetti established and owns the joint. It is one of many Lit Meccas dotting the orb we toddle on. The place is wedge between China Town (around which the Beats wonder in more than one tale) and some classic titty bars. Here I arrive with my List of Books to find that I can only find one of them -- mostly as I am not hot for much contemporary fiction at the moment, nor for a copy of everything any Beat ever wrote. Proto-Beats like Miller, yes (accidentally), and anthol. for Lioness (no dice), and Language for a New Century -- finally! Whilst musing over others' muses, a Savior installs himself with, oh yes, sandwich board and bullhorn, to harangue the titty bar clientèle, "We do not want you to burn in a lake of fire for eternity. Do not enter that den of vice and sin! Consider your soul!" Etc. Like anyone bent on watching strippers can even hear him. Poor Savior. We inside the temple are amused and a little sad for Savior. Meanwhile, I'm flipping through Miller to find this: We'd have to take the whole world into consideration and see that every man, woman and child got a square deal. We'd have to have something positive to offer the world--not just defending ourselves...and pretending that we are defending civilization. If really set out to do something for the world, unselfishly, I believe we would succeed. So here Miller and I and the Savior coalesce, and my inkling that interning with Smart Mag of Soul is a good idea, AND that there are a gazillion yummy quotations in here that go in my Murdoch-Irigarary essay, just to keep people on their toes.

Behind the temple is The Alley with its art and plaques and pigeons which someone kindly left with a whole baguette to peck. And I'm for heading home. The bus I'm to take is not running here, I discover, at this time, and hiking is all that's left. It is UPHILL every way I test, and not just a little. I'm a gal raised on the prairie, so any incline of a grade more than 15* is mountain climbing. These are grades of 30 and 45 and 50*. But there are views to be had on the way up. Way in the back of this one is the bridge, not that you can tell, tho my phone camera takes pretty kickin pics.
It's a good walk. That was the night of staying in and Pizza Orgasmica, which was pretty good, but not as inuendoed.
So, we back up now to Thursday and Friday.

Arrive Thursday. Lioness is in fine fettle and hankering to eat at a place called The Street, likely cuz it's on Polk, the street where SF keeps much of its swank and fun. Now here is food. Apperatives of vodka infused in-house with fig (scrumptious) and cucumber (must drink this every summer), and then a steak salad for me which has become in a Lioness-phrase The Platonic Steak Salad of meat the thickness of a chapbook, seared and rare, with Gorgonzola and box cherry tomatoes on romaine. Lioness had the shrimp risotto, divine. Then a cheesecake of Meyer's Lemons with raspberry drizzle and a glass of real, honest to Joan of Arc calvados for a digestif! The joint itself is hip full of hip SF folk in their zen-like grooviness and music contemporary-electronic-jazz-Ocean's 11-soundtrack-y pleased us all night. Lioness fills me in on the smart and world-saving work at the sexuality seminar that will help her rescue teenagers from dumbassed views and addresses to their sexual being. She rocks. But, those are her stories to tell. Thence away from delightful eatery and off to unpack and sleep. After that meal, one sleeps convinced: Let us stop playing the role of recidivist. Let us stop murdering each other. The earth is not a lair, neither is it a prison. The earth is Paradise, the only one we will ever know. We will realize it the moment we open our eyes.... We have only make ourselves fit to inhabit it.

Friday. Lioness does a half-day at the seminar, and we hook up downtown for lunch and the SFMOMA to see Frida Kahlo exhibit. Which, if that's anywhere near you on its tour, GO. This was my astonishing find, Moses. Whew. Now, a bit of fun here is that we wind up the stairs with the gaggles of other art enthusiasts to the top floor for the exhibit. Across the atrium, a small window, into which is peeking Oh joy and happiness! Tickled to dissolution. So, gazing and exploring there is also the grand red abstraction: Philipe Guston's 1955, For M. And thence to the street again to home, to rest and find our way to the evening meeting with Princess. This sadly, went wry and lead to the bus stop with the Broken Screaming Man, to whom I wish all the peace ever.

And Sunday before the awesome cab ride to travel doom, there was tapas and this drink. This drink was also a vodka drink. Again infused. Grey Goose Pear Vodka with slice of pear and sprig of rosemary, very bruised. I argued it tasted like the sky. Lioness argued it tasted like winter twilight. Fair enough. This inspired a Christmas Cocktail Party plan, which in turn inspired my idea that we bruise the sprigs and slices by concocting the libation in a hamster ball with ice cubes and play catch with it amongst the guests. Lioness on this plan, "I love the way your inner fascist is balanced by your inner anarchist." Because she is hilarious, and right. Moment's before, we were eating a small pile of roasted and garlicked eggplant, under a sliced of quickly sautéed tomato, under a heap of goat cheese, to which I announced, "This will be breakfast every day after the revolution." So, she's right.

Thanks for inviting me out, dear sister. Now, gotta find that check book and write something about Murdoch while the universe will not let me work on anything else because she's telling me to work on Murdoch, now, silly, while you can. Do not be distracted by the shiny new projects just yet!