Read.Eat.Listen: Water & Weather

Some mornings are worth everything. Such was the case today, when after dropping Kwame at the airport, I stopped for a walk by "the birds" on the way home. That's what we've come to call the Elsie B Roemer Sanctuary on the west side of the east side of the island. The sun wasn't quite up, and everything was blue and pink, the only other folks on the trail were far and few between. The Sanctuary, however, was going off, a riot of Pelicans souring, Canada Geese honking, terns twittering and oyster catchers hueeping past. Alameda is a good place to be if you're not-so-secretly a bird geek.

I make a determination every week or so to get out to "the birds"  daily, but as I don't live in easy walking distance anymore, I often forget. The world is a wonder if you pause a moment to take it in. I'm reminding myself this as much as anyone else, who often forgets that all that I love is close by. Times like this morning are usually when I make the determination anew.

In the wake of the latest spate of climate change news  — thank you Obama for the Clean Power Plan — I've been reading up on sea level rise in California again. Many people have been trying to alert the masses to this eventuality for a few years now, and now word is really out. It's hard to imagine what this will mean for the place I call home. On a flood map, our little patch of island, is still that, an island, but the shore will be much closer. Then it will be easier to get out to "the birds"... if the birds are still having any of it...

Read: "Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life" by William Finnegan. I've only surfed (or tried to) a couple of times— alas, even growing up in Santa Cruz County I never lost my fear of the cold, changeable ocean. That said, I love the ocean, its coast and have always loved surf culture...and I LOVE this book, and have barely been able to put it down this week. I get the feeling Finnegan, a longtime writer for The New Yorker who has had a life-long push-pull affair with surfing, could rewrite a phone book so it was engaging, but this really is a notable memoir. Anyone whose spent time on the California coast or in Hawaii will appreciate the insider's view Finnegan depicts so well, from the people, to the waters to the tortures and rewards of loving something deeply. 

Eat: Japanese Sweet Potato. A humble vegetable that gives. I can and do eat them straight up. This is a recipe that splits the difference: Roasted Japanese Sweet Potatoes

Listen: We saw Ray Wylie Hubbard at The Freight last week, my first time seeing this Texas musician. Been there, seen it all, looked-under-every-rock, not-afraid-to-say-anything gritty goodness.

Read.Eat.Listen: Big Pictures

Another benefit to road-trips/tours is the capsule that the car becomes, be it for listening to music closely, having long conversations or reading. Last week's run up and down the 5, to Washington State and back for shows and family visits contained all of that. The passenger gets to be reader, sometimes to oneself, sometimes aloud, and much of my time on this trip was consumed with news and long-form essays on big picture issues. On the way North, it was climate change, on the way down I scared the bejesus out of us, reading aloud from the New Yorker article about the Cascadia Fault, while driving through the very landscape which would be irrevocably altered by a mega-earthquake. By the last day, we were in outer space, marvelling over the NASA reports about Pluto. I'm not sure why I'm seeking solace in geologic and space time, time where I'm small, a speck of animated dust just holding on like a bee in a hive, working for the honey. Part of it might be the sheer wow-factor: all this big science reminds me of how wondrous the facts, including our little lives, are. And part of it, I think, is that as much as I find the thought of huge earthquakes and tsunamis terrifying, I'm always glad to know the earth knows how to take care of itself even as we humans so often fail it.

Read: "The Earthquake That Will Devastate Seattle" by Kathryn Schulz, in The New Yorker. 
"When the End of Human Civilization Is Your Day Job"by John H Richardson, Esquire
A view of the worlds around us With the fly-by of Pluto, we now can visualize all of the planets in our solar system. Here's a two-minute tour of the sun and the nine planets. Posted by Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Eat: Healthy eats at Harlow PDX

Portland was the food winner on this trip, and how nice we were staying walking distance from gluten-free veggie Harlow. Just read their menu and get the idea.

Listen: Kwame's brother Kwab Copeland is another fine musician writing and playing "raw, rustic verse set to rollicking badland bomp" (Chris Estey) out of Seattle. He, aka The Demon Rind, just released a winner in "Love Is Perfect":

Read.Eat.Listen: Tides & Vistas

In addition to mornings, views are one of my favorite things about life. Sometimes, I think I live for the long view: the broad expanse of sea and sky from a high mountaintop, the sweeping view of the East Bay from the 980 when you come off the Bay Bridge, the seemingly endless terrain of desert in the Mojave. There's no question, no answer, just that. A couple of weeks ago, we were up on Mt. Tam to play the Father's Day brunch and everything suddenly made sense again.
Of course a high wouldn't be a high without a low. The tides of peaks and valleys, dark and light go in and out, and I followed up that weekend with a few days holed away, looking back, while scanning a genealogy book my great-aunt put together. My aunt had chronicled six generations on my father's side, before passing away in 1998, and the book has languished on various relatives shelves til getting to my hands a couple of years ago. I don't know what finally clicked, but I finally turned toward it, and began the process of archiving her materials. I was struck, as I went through each page, by how much detail she had amassed pre-Internet,  and how much of the story of my family is a tide running back and forth between fighting wars and going back to the land to farm/ranch/homestead, inching East to Wests, with stops in the South and in the Rockies, and finally to California, over a couple of centuries. There are also many gaps and question marks about particular characters in this narrative – where did the great-grandfather get to between St. Louis and Oakland? Who was my aunt's first husband? Questions, questions. Suddenly I'm back in the fog.
Read:  And so All The Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West by David Gessner feels like a friend this week, detailing the lives of two authors/activist I read avidly while in college, while traveling much of the terrain I knew well when I lived in Boulder, asking questions about motive and character, our relationship to land and our seemingly inevitable exploitation of its resources.  
Eat: Mint and summer just go together and throwing a bunch of fresh mint into a salad can be especially satisfying: "Kale/Tomato/Feta/Mint Salad"
Listen:Veruca Salt is back at it after a long break from recording.

Read.Eat.Listen: Pools

My sister was pushing me faster and faster around the pool, as I lay on one of those inflatable floating mats. This was thrilling. There was much shrieking and splashing. And then the mat flipped. All was quiet as I swam underwater for what was likely no longer than 15 seconds, but felt like a vast sea of calm.
My family was up at the river, visiting my aunt and uncle who had the place in Guerneville with the pool. On a hill full of redwood trees, the cabin's northern California landscape setting wasn't so different than the one that surrounded our house, a few hours south. But "The River" was a different place. People came here to get away from the city, to retreat and frolic and vacation, not raise kids (though of course, there are plenty of families here, too).  Along the clean air and views of the country, the little unincorporated town had a bakery and  restaurants within walking distance of my aunt and uncle's place.
The fact that they had a swimming pool, a round fiberglass number,  was a big deal at the time.  I must have had a swimming lesson or two by the time I visited, but as a rule, we didn't swim much.  When it was hot in the summers, we ran through the sprinklers to cool off if we didn't head to the beach. Our favored, and closest, beach, 10 miles west of where we lived, had huge signs in the sand warning of rip currents. We didn't dare go in past our knees. So the sudden immersion into the round, not-too-deep-but-deeper-than-a-seven-year-old pool waters turned into my first 'swim.' I was pleased with myself when I surfaced, but my mom was as angry, and scared, as if I'd been swept away by one of those Pacific riptides. It was a confusing re-entry, kind of like taking a nap and then walking outside onto a construction site. Perhaps its why swimming pools never really became my place of solace. Still, in lieu of a beach....
Read: I'm already annoyed* with Michelle Goldberg's book "The Goddess Pose: The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, the Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West," or rather with Goldberg, but I'm eating up this book all the same. Indra Devi, one of the more famous and few women students of  Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, had a long and colorful life so she makes for a great subject. 
*Goldberg breezily (which is damningly and inaccurate) describes traditional Ashtanga yoga as being originally intended for young boys.
Eat: Chances are, we were eating Popsicles while poolside. Those multi-color rocket ones or maybe a fudgesicile. Circa 2015, I'd make it more like this vegan Fresh Summer Apricot Pop.
Listen:  More recently, we've found ourselves driving on a lot of dirt roads, in the desert a couple weeks ago and this past weekend in Marin. Some of the best listening while driving those dirt roads, we found, was the wonderful and wise Greg Brown. I love his daughter Pieta Brown's music, too, so I started digging up more of her tunes. Goodness.
Then I found this video of Pieta Brown playing a Lucinda Williams song with Greg Brown and Bo Ramsey. So here you go:

Read.Eat.Listen: Shed

I'm thinking of the word 'shed' as in shedding skins. Like a snake, or a cat or dog in summer. We drove down to Joshua Tree again, to spend a week in a homesteader cabin seeing what arose. Or at least that's my main goal, to get quiet, shed my usual business of late, as much chatter as possible, and see what remains, or comes up. Two nights in, I'm feeling a bit lighter, aided and abetted by the impossibility of sleeping in around here. The sun rises at 5:33 and comes streaming through all parts of this updated cabin surrounded by BLM land and other historic homesteader tracts. Somewhere, beyond that flue sky, there's a full moon, June's Strawberry moon (in Saggitarious I'm told), but for the moment it's all about desert birdsong: a symphony of doves, quail, finches and the occasional whir of a passing hummingbird and 'churr' of a cactus wren. 

READ: A fun little book to read here, regarding local history, is "Jackrabbit Homestead: Tracing the Small Tract Act in the Southern California Landscape, 1938-2008" by Kim Stringfellow. The Small Tract Act was designed to "dispose of 'useless' federal lands from the public lands," allowing citizens "to lease up to 5 acres of desert for recreational purposes or for home or business." Fast-forward to now and you have a variety of interests - from artists to climbers, military families to outlaws, year-round residents to tourists - utilizing these tracts.

EAT: The UN recommends a vegan diet to combat climate change. Can you do it? I have at times, been vegan, but have wavered in the past few years. A turn toward a deeper shade of green maybe in order. www.epicuriousvegan.com

LISTEN: We loaded up the CD player with the work of several fine Bay Area musicians we know and appreciate, and whiled away the hours listening. None of these Cds are brand new, but all stand to give for some years. 

Gayle Lynn and the Hired Hands: Just Came Around 

Michael McNevin: 2010 Song Sampler

Jim Bruno: The Patron Saint of Lost Causes. 

Read.Eat.Listen: All

Anyone who has practiced traditional Ashtanga yoga has heard "practice and all is coming." It was one of Ashtanga-originator Pattabhi Jois's favorite instructions: a succint way of saying: do your practice first, everything else, the 'all' of life, positive and negative, as well as the fruits of practice, will work themselves out. It's at once an inspiring, maddening and accurate instruction. Inspiring, because when things are hard, who doesn't want to hear that it will change or become clear? Maddening, as this direction is nowhere near a quick fix. And accurate, because, as someone who began Ashtanga during a low, low point in ones life, I've experienced the steady expansion that goes hand-in-hand with regular practice. Even when I've felt pissed, injured, bored, old, lazy, or disappointed with my practice, I know now, over years of coming back to the mat, all (all kinds of all) does come.

This week, quite serendipitously, we had opportunity to stay a few days at Rancho Valencia, a spa resort in San Diego County replete with tennis courts, swimming pools, fine restaurants, olive and citrus orchards, beehives, and multiple swimming pools. Tastefully decorated with original art, our suite was larger than our house and just as comfortable (if not more so!). The only thing missing was our cat...who will likely never forgive us. Hummingbirds buzzed the patio morning and evening, and freshly squeezed orange juice was delivered to our door each morning. A lot of allness! 

Though our every need was taken care of, and there was even a yoga pavilion, I ventured outside the grounds a couple of mornings, to practice at the Ashtanga Yoga Center on the border of Encinitas and Carlsbad. I've made many trips to Encinitas over the years, as it's the first place in the United States that Pattabhi Jois taught when he first came to the States in the 70s, and several teachers have since maintained Ashtanga's strong roots here. I practiced with Jois here in 2002, on one of his many teaching trips, and several times with Sharath Rangaswamy after he took over the reigns from Jois upon his passing.  Likewise, one of Jois's first American students, Tim Miller, has run hid influential Ashtanga Yoga Center here for many years. I was fortunate to practice at his studio this week, my first visit to the Carlsbad location. While the studio is now inland a bit, in one of San Diego County's seemingly omnipresent malls, Miller's big heart and dedication permeates the Center, a practice environment that strikes an admirable balance between friendly, relaxed and focused. 

Read: Oliver Sacks' "On the Move." If you've read any of his other books or articles — "Awakenings" or "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat"—you know Sacks is brilliant and human, warm and wise, light-hearted and endlessly curious. I'm so glad he sought to pen and complete his memoir "On the Move" which is a beautiful look inside the life and mind of one of our greats.

Eat: "Food is the final frontier [of practice]," wrote another senior Ashtanga teacher, David Garrigues, and this entry, alas, doesn't speak to a fully-tamed frontier (albeit all the food in question is organic). I first tasted hushpuppies as a 10-year-old on my first trip through the deep, southern US. Fried and with a name I thought was funny, the Louisiana-made cornmeal hushpuppies weren't anything like I'd tasted before. I can still remember the wonder I felt at their flavor. But I was only visiting the south and its cuisine. I've seldom come across hushpuppies since (and they're definitely not a dish that fits with my attempts at healthy yoga-practice encouraging eating). Regardless, when I saw "wild ramp and garlic hushpuppies" on the menu at Full of Life Flatbread, the foodie and wine-wise restaurant in Los Alamos where we pit-stopped on our way to San Diego, I had to place an order. They were presented beautifully in a white bowl with yummy green goddess dressing. I was a little underwhelmed by their flavors, but my childhood memory is a hard one to live up to. I'm not complaining. These circa 2015, California versions evoked a strong and happy memory...and went great with the house red, a salad and some of Full of Life's truffle-oil infused cauliflower soup. Yum. 

Listen: Truth be told, we've mainly been listening to ourselves this week, rehearsing our Desert Songs between the yoga and work that brought us here. Nonetheless, we perked up when The Carolina Chocolate Drops came on the radio amid our drive. Modern roots music with a side of gospel, this group is talented, spirited and aware...and no secret. They're at SF Jazz Center in May. 

Read.Eat.Listen: Art & Magic

The pursuit of truth and beauty through plumbing one's own line of particular inquiry is a road I trust, even if it's fairly unmarked. I've been neck deep in a bunch of projects this month, while planning a whole course on getting projects done, so I was pleased to be tagged on Facebook as part of an artist challenge earlier this week. The challenge is to post your work 5 days in a row and tag two other artists while you were at it. Already on day 5, I realized I've a lot more folks I want to tag! Oh my! 

In the meantime, I flew up to Portland for a few days, mainly to spend more time for my sweetie whose been traveling a lot, and also to enjoy that hyper-creative city. It was raining, and cold for most of my visit, but the trip started beautifully, with a view of a rainbow over the Willamette River, and ended sweetly with a big slice of gluten-free berry pie, with a good helping of quality time with my husband, yoga practice, good coffee, writing sessions and catching up with friends who live there. I got back in touch with a dear and brilliant artist, Kitty Wallis, who I knew years ago in Santa Cruz, while in town. She was already a master colorist when I first met her and I'm lucky to own a couple of her pieces. What a delight it was to see her current, just that much more realized work! If you're in Portland, look her up and seek her out. She's also continuing to teach her vivid and inspired approach to painting. 

Read: I've pretty much designed my life to be surrounded by creatives.  So I love coming upon this book:  Forty-One False Starts: Essays on Artists and Writers, by Janet Malcom. 
Eat: I ate out a lot this week, in Portland, at home, for Easter. I'm grateful for all the good food, and happy to see spring is busting out on menus in the form of an abundance of artichoke and asparagus based and laced dishes. Artichoke and asparagus on pizza, artichoke ragout under poached fish, artichoke grilled with x on top, asparagus on goat-cheese ravioli, asparagus lightly with brown butter...you get the idea. Go green I say!
Listen: With a name like,  Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds, how can I not want to listen? Love the sass and soul of this group. Check out Mama Knows: 

Read.Eat.Listen: Between Seasons

Read: In the bird world, it's spring, and if you're paying attention to Bay Area falcon populations, you know peregrines have commenced nesting. I was a slight bit saddened to learn that our local Alameda pair of nesting peregrines set up house across the estuary, in Oakland, this year. Nonetheless, I'm getting another sort of falcon fix reading  "H is for Hawk", a memoir by falconer Helen Macdonald about training a Goshawk in the wake of her father's death. While the Goshawk is the star of this book, falons and falconry get my play.
Eat: As we've had very little in the way of typical winter weather here on the West Coast, eating with the seasons hasn't been much a helfpul concept for meal planning. Fortunately, this Ginger, Turmeric Spice Carrot Soup splits the winter/spring difference pretty well.

Listen:  Leading up the Lucinda Williams Tribute show in Berkeley last week, I was pretty much listening to Lucinda 24/7. Now that I've got a batch of her songs learned, I can turn to other sounds! Turns out that the big voiced, old soul Brandi Carlile released another batch of  clear-eyed songs earlier this month in the form of 'The Firewatcher's Daughter.' Take a listen to "The Eye"

 

Read.Eat.Listen: On the Trail

I don't see that many movies in the theater anymore. Nor do I watch TV much. So the effect on my brain of seeing a movie in a theater and watching the Super Bowl during the same week remains to be seen. I do know I came home from the Super Bowl in a bad mood (and not because I was leaning more toward Seattle). All those wacky commercials, and Katy Perry's fun, if dizzying, half-time show were fine (I think?), but the fact of watching a brawl break out...well,  I'm not desensitized enough anymore.

This wasn't the case with Wild, the movie starring Reese Witherspoon, based on Cheryl Strayed's excellent book of the same name. Albeit, I was a little emotionally worked by the end, too.

It's been in theaters a couple months now, but I finally saw Wild last week. I loved Wild, the book, about a woman finding her way up from the bottom by hiking the Pacific Crest Trail solo. As a writer whose found a lot of solace in nature, including some of the wilderness Strayed's route travels, I ate the book up in a few sittings. It's a great story, and Strayed is a great writer and its no wonder the book was a bestseller. So I shied away from seeing the movie when it first was released. But there was nothing for me to worry about in the 'oh, I wished I stayed with the good memory of the book.' Reese and crew captured the story very well as well as its tear jerking affect. 

Read: I was talking to some writer friends about how working on projects — be they stories, short or long, or anything creative, really — involves letting them work on you. So I loved-loved-loved reading this profile of Yitang Zhang, "The Pursuit of Beauty," a genius problem--solving mathematician in the New Yorker. 
A snippet on how Zhang stays on the trail of problems: "A few years ago, Zhang sold his car, because he didn’t really use it. He rents an apartment about four miles from campus and rides to and from his office with students on a school shuttle. He says that he sits on the bus and thinks. Seven days a week, he arrives at his office around eight or nine and stays until six or seven. The longest he has taken off from thinking is two weeks. Sometimes he wakes in the morning thinking of a math problem he had been considering when he fell asleep. Outside his office is a long corridor that he likes to walk up and down. Otherwise, he walks outside."

Eat: Some weeks, I derived most of my protein from Almond Butter. I can't say this is the best thing (I know it could be worse) but almond butter prices have been a bit of a drag. So I've been looking into making my own. Here's the (not-so) skinny on that: HomeMade Raw Almond Butter.

Listen: Bjork has been getting plenty of press for her newest, Vulnicura, CD. And well, heck, its Bjork!!!

Read.Eat.Listen: Mom

Today would have been my mom 80th birthday, which is as hard to believe as it is to think that she passed away more than a decade ago. I don't know there is a bigger 'life learning event' than a parent's death. Any notion of permanence goes out the window; an awareness of the hows and why's of one's attachments becomes abundantly clear and no matter how old you might feel, you realize more than ever that you're responsible for your own reactions. And as the years go by, you realize anew how much you owe to your parents.
Read: Sometimes, all I have time or inclination for is poetry. More from Jane Hirshfield:

For What Binds Us

By Jane Hirshfield
 

There are names for what binds us:

strong forces, weak forces.

Look around, you can see them:

the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,

nails rusting into the places they join,

joints dovetailed on their own weight.

The way things stay so solidly

wherever they've been set down—

and gravity, scientists say, is weak.

And see how the flesh grows back

across a wound, with a great vehemence,

more strong

than the simple, untested surface before.

There's a name for it on horses,

when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,

as all flesh,

is proud of its wounds, wears them

as honors given out after battle,

small triumphs pinned to the chest—

And when two people have loved each other

see how it is like a

scar between their bodies,

stronger, darker, and proud;

how the black cord makes of them a single fabric

that nothing can tear or mend.

 

Eat: Mom, dear Phyllis Jane, wasn't much of a cook or baker, but she occasionally whipped out a killer angel food cake. I loved watching the whole process of her separating eggs and whipping the whites into a great soft mound of goodness to lift and leaven the batter. Plus licking the bowl of its sweet sugary residue after the cake was in the oven was as much a treat as the finished result. As an adult, I don't keep white sugar or white flour in the house, so I searched around for a healthier equivalent and found this raw vegan version from Real Raw Kitchen  (It sounds deliciously coconutty albeit is nothing like what my mom made); and this Gluten Free (but sugar-ful) version from Gluten Free Mommy. Bon appetit!
Listen: While my song"Adding Water to the Ashes" is about faith and lost love more than anything, it owes a ton to my love for my mom.  I've been playing this song for years but finally have some live footage from the show last week at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco.
"Adding Water to the Ashes" from the 2008 Cd of the same name.

Warm hats and mistletoe

I don't know. I'm really liking this winter business. It seems correct, finally, for the season. Even if I did lose yet another hat on Friday. In the airport. I didn't want to look weird, or be asked to remove my black cap by security, so I took it off before going through the scanners on our way home from So Cal.  I am a cold wimp but you know it's winter if you have to wear a hat in Los Angeles. In any event, I wasn't the only one wearing a hat. But I was that person who lost another topper between security and 17A on the Southwest flight headed for Oakland.
Behind me is a long trail of lost hats: the cool wool hat from The Hat Shop with the felt flower; the Stetson; the the knit cap with the pink flower affixed to its side; the other knit cap with the knitted-in flower, as well as the orange striped Patagonia hat, the brown felt hat bought in Austin, and now the little black cap from REI, was missing.
I checked my seat. I checked my bag. I checked the guitar cases. It was gone.
It wasn't worth going back through security again for it. This last cap wasn't very expensive for that reason. My hat buying habits have gone the way of my sunglasses purchases, bought for price point and function more than style or brand (don't even bother trying to read my labels) because chances are I'll lose it. Perhaps this line of thinking is setting me up for lost, but whatever,  I'm beginning to think that hats and sunglasses just fly from my head.
I did notice how much I relied on a hat for warmth as we walked around Jack London Square the next day. It was of course colder here than in LA and as we walked, I felt a great bunch of heat was just leaving me. Fortunately, Encuentro, my favorite vegetarian restaurant in the East Bay, has started serving lunch as well as dinner, at their new location. On the opposite end of 2nd St. in Oakland to where they used to be, the new space is as warm as the first, and their soups and salads and sandwiches just as yummy.
Lunch was so good of course we had to follow it with good coffee. We could of had it at the restaurant, but the lunch necessitated a walk. So we ambled down 2nd across Broadway, to Bicycle Coffee, for one of their honest cups of joe. Bicycle Coffee is pretty minimalist: you can get a drip coffee or a cold brew coffee or a bag of beans to brew your own at home at their Oakland HQ. No fussy espresso drinks here. If you're a wholesale client, they'll deliver your coffee by bike. No nonsense folks, it seems, who also very much understand the need for a good hat. There amid the T-shirts, the beans and brewing gear, was a stack of beanies! Yes! Not pricey. Useful. Plus the purchase came with a free cup of coffee. More importantly,  my head was warm again. We continued our walk down to the waterfront to look at the Christmas Tree, which shimmered against a backdrop of palm trees and water. Though I can't confirm it, let's just say there was mistletoe. For a moment all was right with the world.

Read.Eat.Listen: Rainy days & Wednesdays

'Mad Scientist' is my term for someone who is passionate about something: their art or science or whatever. Something that keeps you turned on even if you haven't talked to anyone all day. Rainy days are made for mad scientists and I've been taking a cue from the mad scientist handbook, enjoying the weather, wood-shedding, holiday prep, recording prep (KCDC goes back to the studio this weekend), working on the house and otherwise wrapping up 2014 and looking ahead to the new year.

(I've also been getting up early and catching some lovely morning light: including this shot from downtown Alameda over the weekend)

READ: I was happy to discover there's a Mad Scientists Book list "Books involving predominant mad scientist characters." Some, I've read or know about (Jekyll & Hyde, Frankenstein, etc) but I may bookmark the Girl Genius series for days when I need some extra oomph

EAT: It's all about soup these days. And I'm having a week of loving Beets. This Vegan Creamy Winter Beet Soup from the Clean folks is pretty grand.

LISTEN: All sorts of good sounds have been released of late. While driving around last week, I heard an interview/performance by Pieta Brown and her dad Greg Brown that made me want to keep finding excuses to stay in the car. The music was great and the banter was, too. I couldn't figure out how to find the archived recording when I got home, but I did dig deeper into Pieta's latest release "Paradise Outlaw" which contains this apt-for-the-week tune, "All My Rain." 

Read.Eat.Listen: Warmth & Wonder

READ: "The Impossible Will Take A Little While: A Citizen's Guide To Hope in a Time of Fear." I'm reading this 10 years after it's initial publication but it seems more timely than ever. Fifty fifty stories and essays from activists across the globe.  "Even in a seemingly futile moment or losing cause, one person may unknowingly inspire another, and that person yet a third, who could go on to change the world, or at least a small corner of it." — Paul Loeb

EAT: A couple of weeks ago, playing at Off the Grid, we got re-clued into the wonderful empanadas made by El Porteño (I'm partial to the mushroom variety). Empanadas are really hand-pies, aka goodness in the form of warmth, comfort, nourishment and convenience.  El Porteño empanadas are available at a variety of locations, including its Bay-roaming food truck, a kiosk at The Embarcadero Ferry Building and at several area cafe/bars. We just noticed they're the snack of choice at the recently opened Woods Bar & Brewery in Oakland.

LISTEN: In truth, there's been a lot of listening to oneself going on around here. In the midst of getting ready for the next KCDC live performance on November 22, we're going back into the studio next month to record a new bunch of songs written earlier this year. But there's also been much wonderment, this week, over the news of a spacecraft landing on a comet, and I loved seeing this headline re: the comet's 'song':

Read.Eat.Listen: Hunkering Down

Summer is over. I know that's a ridiculous statement in late October, but this past week I really felt it. In part, because I was in the mountains, in Truckee, for a gig and a night, at elevation. There, at close to the 6,000 ft, the temperature dips to freezing and below most nights, and the aspen trees have long since changed color, and I remembered, duh,  seasons. "The shoulder season" our host, a long-time resident called this weekend, between the bright summer when mountain bikes and hikers head for the trails and the snow-filled, skier-drawing winter. Still the bars were full, and while the thin air called for slightly different singing strategies (mainly a lot more water),  I felt the history of mountain living in my skin, camping in the Sierra, waking up to icicles dripping from the eaves in Boulder, and felt placed. I don't know I'll ever call a mountain town home long-term again, but there is nothing like the clear signifier of weather on lifestyle that comes with high elevation and its atmospheric changeability.
Fortunately, for my personal need for a sense of seasons and place, and more importantly for the California water-table, it rained twice, at home, at sea level, over the course of five days. We saw fit to relight the pilot light and I've made like a bear for a couple days of long naps, extended sleep, and actual book reading.

Read: Tracks, by Robyn Davidson. When I was a kid, I lived for the arrival of certain periodicals, especially the pink section of the SF Chronicle and the monthly delivery of National Geographic magazine. It's hard to imagine one news source having such an impact in this day of everything-at-your-fingertips, but National Geographic was formative for me: articles on Egypt and bird migration and native peoples of countries whose names I couldn't pronounce. One issue included an article about a woman who crossed the Australian desert, alone save for several camels. I was mesmerized by the pictures of her riding the animals, encrusted with flies, drinking out of streams and finally, reaching and wading into the Indian ocean. I think I read that article again and again, and then...forgot about it. Last week, a fellow-hawk watcher told me the story had been made into a movie. Instead of going to the theater, I bought the book and have been feeling like that National Geo-reading kid again.
Eat: Chances are I was eating a grilled cheese sandwich made with white bread, cheddar and lots of butter while I was reading those National Geographics. This many years later, I rarely east dairy or bread, but that doesn't mean the charms and comfort of grilled cheese have been lost to me. I ordered such a sandwich after a gig recently and nearly swooned from pleasure.  It wasn't vegan or gluten free but this one is: Basil Butternut Grilled Cheese. OMG!

Listen: Really enjoying what I'm hearing from Frazey Ford's latest "Indian Ocean." Recorded in Memphis with Al Green’s band, The Hi Rhythm Section, at her back, its makes for another sumptuous, if aural, feast.

Al Green’s band, The Hi Rhythm Section

Read.Eat.Listen: Full

Read: The dear writing-group friend LJ recommended 'Things I Don't Want to Know: On Writing' by Deborah Levy and I ate all but all of it up on the flights to and fro LA a couple weeks back. A free night looms and I'm about to devour the rest. Any writer/creative sort will appreciate her eye for detail, hard-stories-to-write-when-it's you material. This books isn't so much about how to write rather than the mysterious why we write (her chapters are titled 'Political Purpose' 'Historical Impulse' 'Sheer Egoism' and 'Aesthetic Enthusiasm.'

Eat: Oakland's Eat Real Festival is a foodie's dream (9/19 – 9/21) Oakland Local -  This weekend marks one of the quintessential Bay Area foodie events of the year as the 6th annual Eat Real Festival sets up in Jack London ...

I was one of the musical acts at the first year of the big foodie shindig that is theEat Real Festival. I'm returning to play at Jack London Square during the party this coming Saturday, Sept. 20.  Look/listen for us  2:30-3:30pm on the Lot Stage. There will be plenty to eat. I'll report back on what I actually ingest while there.

Listen: I'm a sucker for the ever-prolific, heart-on-his sleeve,  perhaps 'hard'-songs-to-write/writing-them-anyway truth-telling badassery of Ryan Adams whose got plenty new music with which to fill one's ears.

Read.Eat.Listen: Time & Beauty

Lucky me was afforded a couple of days at a lovely spa hotel where I went somewhat off the grid. It's amazing how much of what I think is necessary isn't when I can unplug a bit. It's amazing how much beauty gives to the mind, body and soul. S p a c e opens. Yes!
Read: The latest Murakami is out, I'm reminded, by none other than Patti Smith in her recent NY Times review "Deep Chords: Hurui Murakami's 'Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.  Buying the book will be due diligence but reading her review is a different kind of fun.
Eat:   Though I think the days may be numbered for doing so, I do eat fish. Cold water fish just nourishes. This is a very simple and yummy recipe for pan-fried salmon: Quick & Easy Balsamic Salmon
Listen: I put on some R&B/Soul by SF fave Quinn Devaux today. It will cure what ails you: 

Read.Eat.Listen: Time and Distance

I've been spending more time in SF proper more the past week than I have in a while so I'm really getting how quickly the place is changing.  New multi-story apartments, new restaurants, harder-than ever-to-find parking, but nonetheless beautiful as ever... When I moved 5+ years ago it was 'just across the bay' but driving across SF today I felt like I really moved a lot further away, like a stranger in a strange town. Plus it was super sunny. No fog in sight. Weird, but kind of cool, too. 
Read:  Waking the Buddha, by Clark Strand. After reading an interview with Strand on how he made his way from Zen to Nichiren's Buddhism, I had to get this book. Strand, a former Zen Monk and contributing editor to Tricycle, applies his scholarship to cover the SGI's remarkable and rapid growth with both rigor and heart. Good stuff ‘What the SGI has discovered isn’t just a new form of Buddhism. It’s a new way of being.' —Clark Strand in Waking the Buddha. Good stuff.
Eat: It's broiling hot. Who can think of food? Well, I usually don't forget for long. I had a simple satisfying smoothie @ Jane the other day composed of "organic kale, spinach, green apple, cucumber and lemon blended together with a drop of agave."  You can make it at home super quick. Yes. 
Listen: Conor Oberst - Time Forgot (Upside Down Mountain) I was taking advantage of NPR's First Listen to give Oberst's latest a listen... and this lyric caught my hear and kind of stopped me:
"They say everyone has a choice to make/To be loved or to be free/I told you once I felt invisible/And I guess by now you see/That what I meant is I’m not all there until I finally leave."

Read.Eat.Listen: Instruction

There is another kind of tablet, one

already completed and preserved inside you.

A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness

in the center of the chest. This other intelligence

does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid,

and it doesn't move from outside to inside

through conduits of plumbing-learning.

This second knowing is a fountainhead

from within you, moving out.

—From Essential Rumi By Coleman Barks

READ: In addition to Rumi, I've been reading Six Word Memoirs. I love reading SMITH magazine's project/feature 'six word memoirs' when I'm at a loss on where to begin with writing something, and/or don't want to get too lost in a rabbit hole of reading too much Internet fodder. There's also an ongoing Twitter Feed of @SixWords.

As part of teaching appreciation week, SMITH is asking reader/writers to submit #sixwords on the topic of#TeachingIs. I submitted "#TeachingIs holding space for awareness and discovery #sixwords" as I've come to believe the best teachers are like sun and water on a plant, letting me be my best self without much other interference. Other favorites include: 

 ‏@TchrAnnie  #TeachingIs trusting your students, igniting their curiosity

and 

@mollysroy  Every day is a second chance @sixwords #sixwords #TeachingIs

Kind of fun, huh?

EAT:  I grew up across the street from an apple orchard and my dad has 5-6 different varieties of his own apple trees growing on our property. I've always liked them in pie but have always gone in and out with them myself, perhaps due to their ubiquity in California. Also when you eat a lot of apples you know how some apples can be not so good. And maybe because even after all those years having apples given to me, buying them still feels odd.  Nonetheless, in part because the CSA box delivers boxes curated by someone else and has included more apples than I'd buy, I've rediscovered the joyful crunch and simple goodness of an apple. Lately Fuji apples have been on order, sliced and served up with cinnamon and almond butter, yeah!

LISTEN: "The Hard Way" by Tom Kimmel/The Waymores. I saw a trio of great songwriters — Tom Kimmel, Sally Barris and Don Henry — performing as the Waymores, in Niles on Sunday.  All seasoned Nashville writers whose songs have been covered by a famous lot of singers including the likes Miranda Lambert, Linda Rondstadt and Johnny Cash (!), the trio leaves no topic out of the mix of subject matter explored. Fom singing about dead people in love to their work ethic, they put on a great show of skill, heart and humble dedication. Kimmel's song "The Hard Way" especially slayed me:

 

Read.Eat.Listen: In process

Read: I'm really glad it's May. April was a challenging month personally, underscored by a nasty cold that stayed too long. One of the bright lights was poetry. I took National Poetry Month to heart and doubled up my reading of verse, a habit I want to keep. Here's one I appreciated from Linda Gregg today, culled, again, from the A Year of Being Here poetry blog:

Being
The woman walks up the mountain
and then down. She wades into the sea
and out. Walks to the well,
pulls up a bucket of water
and goes back into the house.
She hangs wet clothes.
Takes clothes back to fold them.
Every evening she crochets
from six until dark.
Birds, flowers, stars. Her rabbit lives
in an empty donkey pen. The sea is out
there are far as the stars.
Always quiet.
No one there. She may not believe
in anything. Not know
what she is doing. Every morning
she waters the geranium plant.
And the leaves smell like lemons.

— Linda Gregg

Eat: How to live local and feel connected is equal parts art and practice. How to eat healthy amid variable schedules falls into the same camp. I don't have much garden space and haven't made the time for the local community garden so I'm appreciating the CSA deliveries from Dan's Fresh Produce, as well as the new cookbook book, Clean Eats, from Dr. Alejandro Junger, author of Clean. 200 new, can't-fail healthy recipes. Ole!

Listen:  I've been spending a week plus learning some covers for a private event so I'm doubly enjoying the new Norah Jones/Sasha Dobson/Catherine Popper project Puss n Boots. Here's their version of Johnny Cash's Bull Rider.

Read.Eat.Listen: Edgy

After using the word 'edgy' to describe work I liked at last week's house concert (which was great, thank you Self & Soul Center), someone asked me what I was implying. By edgy I didn't mean irritable rather than innovative. I meant someone who knew the less shiny parts of living — the contradictions, the uncomfortable truths, the heartbreak, cravings, nameless itches and all-too-blatant injustices — and didn't turn away, but felt it, and made art of it, maybe, rather than medicating or sugar-coating or otherwise denying the real.

There's a lot of uncomfortable truth going on right now and I appreciate those willing to go to the edges more than ever. Perhaps I should take a break from reading the news, so full of more of the failings of humans (Everest, South Korea, the bigot in Nevada), rather than the triumphs, but I don't want to deny it either. Challenging and painful as forging something new can often be, creativity lives and breathes by the truth, not ignorance.

Read:  I've taken a couple of workshops with wisdom teacher and writer Deena Metzger and always felt empowered at the possibility of effecting change and transformation through story afterward. To fix my current trip-up, I'm turning to her Entering the Ghost River: Meditations on the Theory and Practice of Healing and From Grief Into Vision: A Council  today.

 "There is a silence that is the heart of God. And there is another kind of silence that kills. We were shattered when we came home from Africa, but also we had been restored. We had been broken down, we had been reconstituted. Story can do this; it can take the sharp slivers and the shards and organize them into a light. This is a book or it is letter or it is a long conversation. A memoir, a series of stories, a meditation on despair and beauty and hope. A book of healing...."

Eat: Gluten-free and living in the Bay Area and missing the satisfaction that a good piece of bread can give? A lot of GF bread is not good--gummy, bland, not-all-that-easy-to-digest for its poorly proportioned mix of GF flours. Then a friend turned me onto Bread Srsly, a SF-based company that delivers most of its wares by bike! Very cool people behind this operation and their GF sourdough bread rocks. Plus they now ship. 

Listen: Hurray for the Riff Raff, née Alynda Lee Segarra, a New Orleans based artist, has the edge and the soul going on: