February 21, Thursday evening -- Reading John Crowley

Alcohol purports to be cheery in this Stella Artois ad near the corner of Sutter and Mason, overlooking Potrero Hill.

But, in the hour-and-a-half between when I took this picture and when I stepped into a pub to get a glass of my own, beer had become not so sunny.

I went to Edinburgh Castle, where people huddled around tables in the dark, drinking and listening. It was a reading hosted by Inside Storytime, their 25th since the series' genesis two years ago.

Behind the backdrop of a dark crimson curtain Michael Sheahan read about potato famine. Daniel Alarcón read about men who dress up in yellow and follow debtors around, holding signs saying "you owe so-and-so $___, pay up"-- how embarrassing -- and about a Swedish wife who pimps out her oblivious Latin husband while he struggles to learn her language in the dead of a Swedish winter.

The reading was entitled PEOPLE WITH REAL PROBLEMS. With all the rain, depression is in. The theme next month--equally as heavy: Eco Apocalypse. That doesn't sound like picnic blanket sunny beer drinking fare, either.


...but, a bit more uplifting, if not picnic blanket, cafe table fare.

Just a couple blocks from where I took the Stella picture,

Reading Little, Big, by John Crowley. It's a multi-generational family saga about a family living in a magical place.

Favorite books include this one and books by William Gaddis, whose writing, she said, she finds similar to Crowley's. She'll think of more later, but this is what comes to mind.

When she was a child she loved Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Ayn Rand and Madeleine L'Engle.