Birthday

The Lynx and I attended a lovely birthday party last weekend.

Birthday girl

Sundays

The light pours into our living room on sunny mornings this time of year.

We brought the plants in off the balcony a few weeks ago. Glad we did now that the temperature is flirting with zero. The bay tree has over-wintered for about twenty years now.

To finish our Sunday afternoon tour: a peak in a corner of a cupboard.

Book Sale

The Lynx and I rode our bikes over to the University College Book Sale at King's College Circle at the University of Toronto.

One splendid room for fiction, one for non-fiction. It's on until Tuesday the 20th. Recommended. Hours of sale and address.

We bought four books, including a first edition of Timothy Holme's At the Lake of Sudden Death, Macmillan, 1987 (for two dollars). Holme is out of print and all but unknown, but I'm a passionate advocate of his mystery novels, set in Italy, and drenched in the atmosphere of being in Italy. If you miss Italy and want to revisit in your imagination, get your hands on anything by Timothy Holme. My Holme collection

North Beach

Across from City Lights Books are some of North Beach's famous strip and comedy clubs. Note The Hungry I Club.

North Beach is San Francisco's Little Italy, so eateries abound.

We ate a divine lunch at L'Osteria del Forno. You can't go wrong with a casserole made from Swiss Chard baked with gruyère cheese and béchamel sauce.

Kinnearing of the locals may not go unobserved.

Italian deli's have some of the best windows.

The centre of the North Beach neighbourhood is Washington Square Park and the Church of Saints Peter and Paul.

City Lights

We were thrilled to be stepping across the threshold of City Lights Books.

Call me sentimental but it felt, somehow, like holy ground.

My older brother gave me Allen Ginsberg's Howl and other poems when I was a teenager and my hitherto suburban world started to open up. Later I read William Burroughs, Richard Brautigan and Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems (in the City Lights Pocket Poets series) and the same thing happened each time.

It was fun to check out the staff pics. I've got to put my name in at the library for The Other Side of Paradise a Memoir by Staceyann Chin. Latest City Lights staff recommendations.

Vesuvio

Vesuvio Bar in North Beach was a hangout for Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and other Beats.

We found it a very comfortable place to have a drink. In fact, we visited several times.

It's a lovely, funky neighbourhood bar with a 2nd floor  balcony. The walls are covered in trivia, posters, broadsheets and photos from the 60's.

Upstairs the windows open onto Columbus Avenue and Jack Kerouac Alley: note literary tourists.

Inside it's very casual and atmospheric.

It's wonderful to sit up there, overlooking the street.

My portrait of William Kimber (aka Uncle Lynx) and his portrait of me.

There's a great picture of Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky on the Ladies Room door with a quote from Kerouac's Scripture of the Golden Eternity, 1960.

Coit

Bill's view from the steps of the Coit Tower in San Francisco.

Note Alcatraz Island on the left.

Here's his view from the top of the Coit Tower: downtown San Francisco with the Bay Bridge.

We loved the WPA murals on the ground floor

of the tower -- hey, that's me in the glasses.

Sea Lions

On Pier 39 on San Francisco bay a magical thing happens every summer

An extended family of sea lions takes over the place

Intensely social, for the most part

I'm told the City Fathers would like to give the Pier back to the boats and are looking for ways to discourage the sea lions from returning. I can understand the financial need, but it sure is amazing and unforgettable to see a colony of wild mammals like this at close range.

Rogues

Just finished reading Rogues' Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money That Made the Metropolitain Museum. If you're in the mood for a fast, gossipy read about the New Yorkers that built and financed the Met, you may find this art-oriented social history, hard to put down.

25 cents

Vintage arcade games from the Musée Mécanique on Fisherman's Wharf, SF.

Entrance is free. Bring your quarters. Recommended!

Who could be alone in finding Jack scary?

Relief when we need it most. No electricity!

The Rock

The sad, haunted, island of Alcatraz looms out of the fog. The clammy face of the penitentiary is concealed above the dark trees on the shore.

Under the watchtower the Park Ranger explains The Rules to us, the new arrivals. I remember her telling her captive audience, "If you pick up a rock and want to take it home as a souvenir, just put it back. It's park property."

She also told us that the real Birdman of Alcatraz, Robert Stroud, was no Burt Lancaster. When he finally came up for parole, the board asked him what he was hoping to do on the outside. He told them he'd been looking forward to getting out because there were still several people he hadn't had a chance to kill. (FAIL!)

The guards' lunchroom

The fog was lifting as we left Alcatraz and headed back to Pier 33 on the mainland.

Find more of Bill's Alcatraz pics here.