82 F. Wander over to the cafe. Have some tea, coffee. The band plays “Caravan.”
Spring in Los Angeles. Life is good.
Shopping and Science Fiction
Sunday is always a good day for grocery shopping. On the list today was some stuff from Trader Joe’s and from Whole Foods. I love Trader Joe’s. The stores are cheerful places, both for shopping and for meeting people. I also like the philosophy of providing the average Joe and Joette with products a bit off the beaten track at very reasonable prices with an increasing emphasis on organic food. The true deciding factor – how can I not love shopping somewhere with palm trees in front of the door?
With Whole Foods I have a bit of a problem. Every time I step inside one of these places I have a flashback to John Brunner’s “The Sheep Look Up”. Those who know the book know what I mean; those who don’t should go out and get a copy. One of the things Mr. Brunner describes in his book is the chasm which (in the near future seen from the viewpoint of 1972) has emerged to separate the rich, healthy, and privileged from the poor, sick, and oppressed. Seen against that background the Whole Foods philosophy of providing everybody who has a lot of money to spend with food mostly uncontaminated is a bit – well, let’s put it like that – the near future is the present already.
So, why do I not stay away from their stores? They carry my favorite toothpaste and cheese. What can one do?
Inbox
I’ve had strange things in my inbox before, but this is rather…
Where to file?
B = Black humor
C = Cat
D = Don’t really know (aka “file 13”)
Most importantly, will the cat stay in the filing cabinet? Somehow I doubt it.
Quite A Spectacle
Last night was the night of the lunar eclipse.
Even though it looked as if a cloud cover would obstruct the view, in the end the sky was clear enough to watch the moon wander through the Earth’s shadow, disappear and appear again.
Watching this I was reminded of the total solar eclipse in August 1999. At that time I was at the University of Cambridge in the UK and lectures stopped for all of us to go outside and watch this rather rare “special performance.”
What struck me most was not so much the drop in light level – that was to be expected and was quite remarkable, even somewhat eerie. It did not get really pitch dark, but noticeably grey (for lack of a better word) and it felt as if temperatures had dropped quite a bit. The totally unexpected thing was that at one point the birds stopped singing. Apparently, for them, the drop in light level and temperature was the usual signal to stop their racket and settle in for the night. Which they did, at least for a short while. Once the eclipse was over, the usual chattering and singing was heard again. Maybe some of the birds even complained: “What’s up? Short night, blimey.”
Much more complaining certainly went on down in Devon and Cornwall. Those who had traveled down there to watch this rare event were disappointed twice: weather conditions were not good and getting back was near to impossible, as all major roads were gridlocked with rather miffed eclipse watchers.
I assume the twittering down there was rather more graphic than that of the birds on the lecture site in Cambridge.
Not A Good Move After All
A coffee in the middle of the afternoon over a game of chess in a café tucked away in a remote corner of Glendale. Real cups, comfortable chairs. Other people at other tables engaged in quiet conversation. No noise. No laptops.
Hold it there. No laptops.
A couple of years ago I was all for hot spots everywhere. Yes, Wi-Fi the city, all cities, make the internet accessible everywhere for everybody all the time. My outlook has changed. I do not want to have people hogging all the seats in all the coffee places with their laptops. I can understand taking the laptop to a library to do some work on some research. Business travelers at an airport – yes, by all means, use those empty hours while waiting for the flight to do some work. But a café is different, at least in my opinion. I go there to have some coffee and relax. Have a quiet chat. Read the papers. Play chess. Fill up on the latest delicious gossip from the latest party. Nowadays however it is hard to find a place which does not look like an office with people tapping away on their computers.
So my excitement from a few years ago has changed to the opinion that Wi-Fi everywhere is not a good move.
Incidentally, this opening wasn’t either. White lost. Ouch.
Heaven In Many Ways
We have always had a soft spot for the Vinoteca. And that has nothing to do with the fact that we were the very first two customers ever to step through the door after the place opened (which is a whole story all on its own anyway).
Vinoteca offers a wide selection of wine plus a few carefully selected beers on tap, an interesting menu of Italian and Brazilian food and most importantly – a wonderful atmosphere. The place is what we had been missing in our little quarter of L.A., a wine bar where one can wander in and feel at home. We celebrated birthdays there, met with friends, saw in the odd New Year or two, we basically went there for months on end every Friday evening after the place opened. We even watched the opening game of the last Soccer World Championship there, by courtesy of the manager, who invited us over to watch the game on the big screen over breakfast.
Then the inevitable happened – word got around, the place was written up by the local papers and Vinoteca took off in quite a big way. We were very happy for the owner that his bar had become a success. We, however, had to let go of our Friday evenings there, it became a bit too crowded and too loud for our taste on weekends.
But on any other day it is still delightful in the way we like it. Good wine, good food, interesting guests, very friendly staff. We just know that it will be a pleasant hour or two – just by wandering in, sitting down at the bar, chatting with our favorite bartenders, having something nice to drink and to eat.
That’s how it was even yesterday, when we had simply forgotten that it was Valentine’s Day. And yes, the place was crowded, and yes, we wanted to leave, and no, they would not let us go. They found a nice spot for us. After a long and gruesome day, filled with lots and lots of work, it was a perfect evening.
That is heaven indeed.
Weather Patterns
Weather patterns here in our region are very simple – the weather is good all year round with a few colder days in winter and some rain between October and March, with most of the precipitation falling from January on.
We also have something called ‘June Gloom.” Nasty minded people not from the region insist that this is just a nicer name for smog. Well, let them wag their tongues, but the June Gloom is a natural phenomenon easily explained:
Around the middle of May, when the inland temperatures are already quite high, the Ocean temperatures are slowly rising, too. Marine clouds form, which are then blown towards the coast, settling there in the morning. By noon all clouds have then burned away and it is sunny as always. This condition prevails until approximately end of June.
This morning, however, we had real fog. The palm trees looked quite pretty in this soft gray and cloudy light. But by 7:25 AM the fun had ended – it was a typical California morning again, with blue skies and sunshine.
In Praise Of Laziness
Sometimes one wakes up on a Sunday morning to decide: today I am going to be lazy. That does not necessarily mean that one stays in bed all day. It is just that one does nothing “productive.” The usual rules of everyday life do not apply. One gives oneself a present of timelessness, so to speak.
A day drifting by is delicious. Time not only slows down, it becomes unimportant, does not exist any longer.
Has a minute ticked by or an hour? It doesn’t matter – it is a lazy day. A favorite book becomes even more of a favorite because one does not have to put it down to attend to other, more pressing, matters. The sun shines even brighter, seems even warmer, because one does not have to move. Thoughts drift off into areas where one can pick up a subject matter and ponder long on it, without having to come to a conclusion. One does nothing that one does not want to do, or does nothing. Period.
Can anything so wonderful be a bad thing?
Certainly not.
It is a holiday for body and soul.
Pipesmoker's Paradise
Super Bowl Sunday. Wile the nation was getting ready for several hours on the sofa with beer/sodas, popcorn/chips and a lot to say about the action on the TV screen, we were getting ready for a foray into the wonderful world of good tobacco. Which in Los Angeles means – Kramer’s on 9531 Santa Monica Blvd, right there in Beverly Hills.
Kramer’s is known among pipe smokers as something akin to paradise. In 2008 the shop can look back proudly at 59 years of dealing in everything a smoker might want, but especially for a small but superb selection of finely blended tobaccos. The story of Kramer’s can be read here. For the full experience one should head here:
The signature pipe tobaccos at Kramer’s are all hand blended and quite unique in their way. From the straight English blend to the fabulous “New Mixture” with its delicious spiciness from a hint of added Perique (considered the truffle of pipe tobaccos) there is something to suit the taste of every pipe smoker worth his pipe.
Similar to the tobaccos the delightful atmosphere at Kramer’s is unique. Considering that the store is usually closed on Sunday it was no problem to drop in, as the owners – when we called them beforehand – said: “We are in today anyway for some stocktaking – yes, by all means, do come by.”
Thank you, Kramer’s, for being there and being what you are – a small shop with a long tradition of making many, many pipe smokers very, very happy.
Little Dom's – Strange Niche Marketing
Sometimes one goes away for a week or so and upon returning moderately exciting things have happened in the neighborhood. In this case it was the opening of “Little Dom’s”. Right, we thought, let’s stroll over and check the place out.
Unfortunately the review stops here.
Upon arrival at the place we got the full and extremely snotty “do you have a reservation” and “maybe, if you beg nicely enough, we will let you have a place at the bar to spend your money there, but only after a long wait”-treatment. Considering that the place was not exactly hopping and after a look at the clientele assembled we decided to take the not so subtle hint and left. To have a wonderful meal elsewhere where we also did not have a reservation.
So, what had happened? We let this sit for a while and then started to inquire about the place. What we heard was not so pleasant – it seems that some very strange niche marketing is at play here.
The preferred customers at “Little Dom’s” seem to be Twentysomethings with no real knowledge of good food, a penchant for being served mediocre fare and wines at overblown prices, all combined with wobbly service in return for the good feeling to be in a place with connections to Beverly Hills.
All this is not what Los Feliz has been waiting for. I foresee a bleak future for this latest addition to eateries in this corner of Los Angeles. People here do not go for this kind of attitude. Not from a place around the corner which aspires to teach the locals “how things are done in Beverly Hills.”
Three thumbs down for “Little Dom’s” without even having tasted the food.
Now that is a first time in my life.