Summer reading

My book club just read Southern Cross the Dog. I am recommending it to you, with a few cautionary notes. Bill Cheng is a gifted writer and it's clear that he's read an awful lot of Faulkner. Critics asked, how can a person from Queens write a convincing novel about the south? Well. One page at a time, I'd imagine. (Authenticity in art, and culture, has been on my mind so if you want to talk about it, give me a call).  It's not a great book, but the writing is solid and you'll find yourself racing through the last few chapters.

To feel the place... that's another thing entirely. This book, it never really gets there. Not enough meat on the bone, but! The novel pays homage to the blues musicians of Mississippi and I reckon that's reason enough to post some videos. 

Labor Day weekend

Labor Day is bittersweet. September is my favorite month, and autumn my favorite season... and yet.

The last weeks of summer are a time for appreciation of the verdant wonder, all around. 

And swimming. Lots of swimming.

Folks like to go out of town for Labor Day, but I prefer to stick around. It's quiet. I spent the weekend swimming, sleeping, reading and cooking. You'll hear no complaints from me. 

 

A peach and blueberry pie, baked for the weekend / I recovered from my post-california exhaustion in time for yoga / sunset patio hour at Cafe Driade / Sunday morning mimosas with Frida Kahlo / changing the calendar forward, it's (finally) September.

Western edges

California was a dream. We were here, there, and gone again in four short days.  On the first morning, when we came round the bend, coffees in hand, and I laid sight on the pacific... my cold, cold heart melted. Who knows why the things that move us, do?

Afternoons found us roving about in unknown state parks, oceanside hikes where we'd lose each other and then find ourselves again, both walking with our cameras, wordless save for an occasional shout across the dunes, Look at this! Did you see? Can you believe?!

We slept in a redwood forest, and watched his younger brother marry beneath the towering trees. The wedding party grilled salmon and halibut on cedar planks, and stayed up late by the fire.

August in Big Sur is like no August I've ever met. We went to Pfieffer beach in sweaters, spent an hour watching a whale and an otter in the sea. Covered in fog, at midnight we crept along the pacific coast highway to soak in 10,000 year old hot springs. Total darkness, total strangers, and big stone hot tubs filled with mineral spring water, perched cliffside, over the ocean.

I won't soon forget you, California.

P.S. The Pacific Coast Highway is beautiful, but my declaration for Highway 12 still stands.