Eccentric Flower:199904/field report part two
From Eccentric Flower
 |
april twenty-fifth field report (part two) (cont.) On Friday, Nonelvis and I and our charming hostess Mary Anne went into SF. We had a nice lunch at the Squat and Gobble, a restaurant which really needs a name that will give the food the respect it deserves. Not that Squat and Gobble isn't a good name, but to me it conjures up a Dew Drop Inn ambience and greasy short-order food, which is not the case. Anyhow. We walked down Haight St. and went into some of these vintage clothing stores - the ones where I continually think that I'm not hip enough to be allowed in the door. Several times I had an exchange which sorta lowered my mental state: Me (holding up skirt): Oooh, I like this. Mary Anne feels that the main reason I don't wear skirts in public is that I don't have the nerve to. (She said it more gracefully than that.) I half agree with her. Yes, I'm a coward, but one of the reasons I'm a coward is that I think there would be very real social repercussions. But let us bury that for now. I whine too much as is. We walked into Golden Gate Park and had tea in the tea garden, where two ducks were swimming around below our seats, doing their best to indicate that they were clearly not being dropped enough rice crackers. Mary Anne separated to go home and do some work, and Nonelvis and I ended up at Powell and Market, preparing to ride the cable car. When I saw the line for the cable car, I wanted to find some other way up the hill - a bus or something more efficient. But it turned out to be fun. The ride itself wasn't as entertaining as the continual stream of warnings and patter from the driver. It must take nerves of steel to take that thing through heavy auto and pedestrian traffic. It certainly takes strong arms: The controls are two huge levers, one to clamp on to the cable and one to brake, and as in all cases where you're doing something by friction, sometimes you have to pull hard. Fisherman's Wharf - sigh - one huge tourist attraction. Is anyone besides me concerned that we are rapidly turning all of America's genuine sights into amusement-park parodies of themselves? That America is becoming a mall? At least at Ghirardelli Square we were able to get some nice chocolate, but looking around the factory buildings which now housed bland stores, both Nonelvis and I agreed that the place was probably a lot more interesting when it was actually producing chocolate. We eventually took another bus and ended up going back into Oakland to have dinner with Kay and Renee. I hadn't seen Kay in some years - I mentioned this in a postcard a week or two back - and as we both have a tendency to sometimes become a little withdrawn around other people, I wasn't sure how well this was going to go. But we had a lovely time and afterwards went to a bar/restaurant to have drinks. I had (hard) pear cider, which is a new idea to me and one I now wish I could find in Boston. Nonelvis was wearing her Mary Chung's T-shirt. Mary's is a very small restaurant in Cambridge with a cult following, especially among MIT. Twice in the course of the day's wanderings, people saw the back of her T-shirt and recognized the restaurant, and stopped her to reminisce about it fondly. I knew there was lots of overlap between certain communities in SF and Boston, but this was rather startling proof. (more) © columbine |
