Elk road

Hello! I'm back. Sorry for the brief hiatus. I spent it working and taking a little road trip. You don't want to hear any more about zbufs, so let's talk about how it feels to ride along the PCH on the back of a sporty Italian motorcycle.

It feels good. Also cold. And maybe certain parts of me fell asleep in uncomfortable ways around hour five, but not to worry—the spectacular views eased the pain. There are still a few shots left in my camera, but I'll try to post sunset photos later. I swear Hwy. 1 is the prettiest slab of cement you can drive in America.

The Boy, being gadget-minded, got a super cool helmet communication system (add that to your buzzword arsenal) so we could listen to music and talk to each other during the epic ride. In addition to being extremely handy and possibly sanity-saving, it had the special bonus feature of coming with the most hilarious, Britishest instructions ever. If they were here, I'd quote them, but you'll just have to trust me. Priceless.

We left the city after a late brunch, figuring the drive would take about four hours. But that didn't include several stops to adjust the communication system wiring in my helmet, stretch our legs, and drink cocoa in a Laundromat across from a store called Candy & Kites. Candy and kites!! If I were in grade school, I'd have passed out from happiness. It was actually kind of exciting, anyway, even though I'll be 30 soon enough and I'm really very mature.

The courtesy of motorcycle culture was neat to experience. There's the one-handed biker-to-biker salute immortalized in song and on T-shirts; plus the unprecedented willingness of car drivers to pull over and let bikers pass. Almost every car did—instantly. I've never gotten that kind of respect while trying to get Gibson past a crawling Hummer full of coast-peepers.

It wasn't too cold in San Francisco, but the highway wind picked up around 5 p.m. Then we rode into a fog bank and the temperature dropped like an anvil. Our destination was the little town of Elk, highly recommended by the well-traveled Miss Mobtown and National Geographic. After a final half hour marked by lots of shivering and a sharp decrease in witty banter on the Autocom, we finally pulled in at Greenwood Pier.

The inn was exactly what you'd want it to be, complete with flighty and eccentric owners: She of the breathy hippie voice, he of the hobbit-like stature and long pointy fingernails. The jets weren't working in the hot tub, but it was hot enough to soothe, and our room had a real fireplace (The Boy proved his inferno-building mettle with flying colors) and enough space for a dozen or so people.

Their restaurant was dismal, its saving graces only that it was bad enough to be funny and we were too tired to care. But in the morning, they brought us tea and scones in a cute wire basket. Then we wandered down to Queenie's Roadhouse Cafe, now officially my favorite diner in the world next to O'Rourke's, for a spectacular breakfast.

Diner food on the road is like the rice and beans you cook when you're camping. You've put in enough time and sweat to reach the point where eating feels like an earned privilege, so it always tastes like nectar. Even so, Queenie's takes top honors.

Then we sped back along Rte. 128, a beautiful sweeping road through the woods, before deciding we'd had enough moto magic for one weekend and would like to feel our legs again and take a nap.

Hwy. 101 is no coastal wonderland, but sometimes it's just the right direct route home.

Amph'd up

The Greek Theatre in Berkeley is the ideal place to see a summer show, at least on this coast. It's big and friendly, it's an honest-to-god amphitheater with stone seats and great sound, and there aren't really any bad places to sit (unless you get there after curtain and wind up stuck on the grassy hill). It's always light when the first band goes on, then you can kick back and watch the sunset before the headliner.

I'm a fan. I try to see at least one show a year there, and it's usually Ben Harper.

Oh Ben. He doesn't fit easily into the rest of my music collection, which ranges from blues to jazz to hip-hop and back again. But he's a spectacular guitarist, a powerful singer, and the consummate crowd-pleasing performer. His shows run like clockwork, too, with a bevvy of guys backstage who each seem to be in charge of a single Ben Harper guitar. Between songs, they come scurrying out to hand him a new one, perfectly tuned.

He has a solid band, but my favorite part is always when he pulls out a chair with some kind of hippie wall hanging over it, sits down, and plays heartbreaking solo ballads on a lap steel guitar. The other musicians get quiet and back into the shadows, and Ben proceeds to fully tear it up.

By comparison, Damian Marley's opening set was rough around the edges. But that's not a bad thing. His breakout album, Welcome to Jamrock, has been blasting out of my car for the last month—it's awesome—and he has the live chops to back it up. He's a tiny little man with glorious hair, springs in his feet, and two singer/dancer ladies who could kick my ass any day of the week. He actually bounced all over the stage during his entire set, like a cloud of dreadlocks on a pogo ball.

Marley works the I-sound-like-my-dad-did-I-mention-who-he-is? angle a little too much, but you can't really blame him for it. He has tons of energy and hometown pride, plus a dude in his entourage whose sole job is to wave the Jamaican flag around wherever Marley goes. I figured it was a cousin or childhood friend. "Daaaamiaaaaan . . . I wanna be in the baaaaaaand with you-ou-ou-oooooooooou . . . ."

Given that Marley is just getting his feet wet and Harper has been playing to stadiums full of worshipful stoned college kids for a decade, the difference in their styles makes sense.

I was just happy to be there on a warm summer night, watching Damian prance his kid-like way to nightfall and listening to Ben offer up rockers and lullabies with a practiced hand.

get up stand up. stand up for the right to claim marley paternity.

Anaranjado

An ode to orange.

For no particular reason, I've been really into it for the last year or so. It started with a shirt I've had forever but only recently discovered, if you know what I mean. Then it branched out into a new sweater, running shoes, a gargantuan spatula from the kitchen store at COPIA (specifically for flipping quesadillas, FYI), and now a stripey summer bedspread.

Even my business card for the literary magazine I'm helping a friend launch—more on that soon—will be the right shade of orange, and I didn't even have to ask. Our designer randomly assigned it to me. Sometimes things just work out.

One of my necklaces stolen in June was a beautiful oval carnelian that I found on my last trip to the homestead. I'm on a semi-vigilant quest to replace it.

Orange!

When I worked at UC Press, we published an elegant book of Pablo Neruda's odes. He didn't write one for orange, sadly, but he did manage to honor pretty much everything else you can think up. By way of sendoff, here's an excerpt from one of my favorites, Neruda's "Ode to My Socks":

Audacious socks,
my feet became
two woolen
fish,
two long sharks
of lapis blue
shot
with a golden thread,
two mammoth blackbirds,
two cannons,
thus honored
were
my feet
by
these
celestial
socks.

Quick on the uptake

It was a lucky thrift store weekend. The planets were aligned, etc. It's fun when that happens, and blissfully cheap.

My best finds were a pair of comfy brown cords and a gym shirt that says: L.A. Face with an Oakland Booty. I know it'll help me run faster.

Told a clever gent I know about my new getup, and he shot back: "On the back in small print, it should say 'And New England manners.' "

I guess one t-shirt doesn't really have the power to transform a half-British, academic, smalltown upbringing into urban street cred. But you can't blame a girl for trying.

if you know what i'm sayin'. and i think you do.

For shame

Once I read something I like by a particular author, my usual pattern is to go pick up everything else he's written/edited/contributed to/spat on/sat near. Since I almost never buy new books, the process of slowly finding the right edition of each title by each writer is a pleasure in itself.

Acquiring the complete works of contemporary authors is a little easier, since they haven't had as much time to churn out manuscripts (notable exceptions: Philip Roth and John Updike, who apparently run on equal parts Red Bull and blood). The old guard, like Austen and James and Nabokov, take more patience and luck.

For the most part, this turns out fine. Even when I don't love everything by a given writer, I tend to like enough of it to make the effort worthwhile. But every so often, I find myself collecting novels I consistently dislike by a writer who only interested me moderately in the first place.

Annie Ernaux is one of the few in that category. On a friend's recommendation a few years ago, I picked up A Man's Place and A Woman's Story, and they were meaningful enough for me to appreciate what she enjoyed about them. Then I read Simple Passion, and it had a few powerful moments. Ernaux's pieces are very short, so by the time I realized I wasn't especially moved by her style, the book was over.

Even so, I kept her name on my mental short list. It stuck around for one of those inexplicable, aren't-brains-the-darnedest-things? reasons. So, when I came across "I Remain in Darkness," I bought it. The superfluous quote marks should have tipped me off. I don't remember a thing about it except it was depressing as all get-out and I was glad when it ended.

Then, the other day, I came across a copy of Shame, Ernaux's autobiographical tale of a traumatic moment in her childhood. It was five bucks, so I added it to the pile.

It's precious, rambling, and self-indulgent. She employs a heavy-handed italicizing technique when she simply must show you that something right here is extremely important—and despite clocking in at barely 111 pages, the book needs a good edit.

Anyway, I'm writing this down so the next time her name pops up on the shelf, I'll remember that owning an author's complete works is only worth it if the goods are solid platinum. None of that mixed copper shite that turns your eyes green.

House of mirrors

So, I've been spending kind of an unhealthy amount of time playing with the Photo Booth program on my new Mac. Trust me, it's addictive.

There's a little camera built into the top of the screen border. The images are decent quality and come in a handy compact file size, ideal for uploading and emailing. But the best part—by leaps and bounds—is the special effects.

How special? This special:

whoooooooooa

That's the "Light Tunnel" option. Here's "Mirror Image":

i wish i had an evil twin

Here's the blindingly attractive "Swirl" option:

what you lookin' at, punk?

For all you Warholics, here's some "Pop Art":

eat your heart out, liz.

Behold! The lovely and mysterious "Glow" option, with "Colored Pencil" and "Thermal" nipping at its heels:

the ghost of macintosh future

in case you missed my senior-year portrait

this one is kind of creepy, actually

Too prettified for your taste? Okay, try these ("Bulge," "Dent," and "Stretch"):

bwahahahahahaha!

when i'm not editing, i moonlight as jay leno's 400-pound aunt

or yul brenner's aunt. whichever.

But I think my two favorite options are the ever popular "Fisheye":

hello.

And, of course, good ol' black-and-white. You can't trust anything else for that unbeatable up-the-nose look:

i disdain you. and you. and you there.

Wasn't that fun? It sure was for me. Next up: Programs where you can design your own cartoon, write your own song, and star in your own movie. They all come built into this magic little machine. Macs rule!

Today's moral: Advanced photo technology feeds the narcisissm beast. Just like, you know, blogs.