Life Style & Travel

UNITED STATES—Lovely event at the library in Echo Park last Friday. The poet Patricio Maya gave the first of three Friday talks devoted to his poetic influences. The endearing Borges, the Whitmanesque Pablo Neruda were featured, and I got to read a couple translations, as well. So we left the event walking on a cloud, taking some pictures with the...

UNITED STATES—What happened with the tomatoes?! In past years, they were inhibited by mild summer weather. This year, they had plenty of warmth, but did not seem to perform much better. Perhaps they wanted more humidity. Now that those that started slowly are starting to produce better, they do not have much time left before warm summer weather gets...

UNITED STATES—The act of giving makes us relevant. It could consist of giving money or food or kindness. Sadly, at this time of year giving is regimented and often done under duress, and it is all the more limited because giving gets pushed almost exclusively into the material realm. So there we are, dupes for technology toys and rushed generosity....

UNITED STATES—When “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” was re-released in 1970, it got slapped with a G-rating. Heck, I was seven years old and already had a sense that a G-rating was bad yawning Disney juju, fun for the whole family. Like Jerry Seinfeld has said, “Fun for the whole family seldom is.” But MMMMW this is...

LOS ANGELES—It used to be that if you didn’t have enough money for a down payment to purchase a home, you were out of luck. Families would have to wait years before they could save enough to make a down payment for a new home. Thankfully, those days are long gone. Today, you don’t need to make a big down...

UNITED STATES—The New Year seems like ions ago, but it only has been 2 months to be exact. Like you, my resolutions that started off the New Year are done and over. I went pretty strong for about a month and then everything started to fall apart. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to stay committed; it’s the fact that...

UNITED STATES—Juniperus, which is the entire genus of juniper, had been languishing in a bad reputation for too long. The problem likely began nearly three quarters of a century ago. More people than ever were enjoying leisurely suburban gardening. Many appreciated the resiliency of juniper cultivars. At that time, a few species of juniper were gaining popularity. Evolving cultivars...

UNITED STATES—April showers bring May flowers. May flowers make a mess. Well, some of them do. Most simply disintegrate and fall from the trees, shrubs and vines that produced them, and decompose into the soil below. Some might have needed to be swept off of pavement and decks. Regardless, most of us do not notice the very minor consequences...

UNITED STATES—Storage lockers can be seen as the ludicrous but logical extension of our love of “stuff.” Silly fools—we think—to be paying good money to keep all that stuff. So much that one has never had the time to look at, much less use, so much that may be of value, and there it stagnates. And yet, despite the obvious...

SAN FRANCISCO—Celebrating the one-year anniversary of ASL Epic and honoring Deaf Awareness Night, ASL Epic will be hosting a special open show on September 27 from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. at Sweet Inspiration Bakery in the Castro area.  The night will begin with an ASL "gather and chat" for the first hour at 7:00p.m. From 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m....