In a lovely little Halloween card, a dear friend suggested I look up an author who now lives in San Antonio, David Liss. Highly regarded for his historical fiction, which despite my devotion to the NY Times Book Review, has somehow eluded me, he is also a champion of blogging, and among many other topics, often writes about film. I follow only one blog and have been tempted to try it, but for some reason his prompted me to start this one.
She also suggested I seek out the little coffee shop that Liss frequents here, and with a single google I identified it as the Olmos Perk. Yes, I do know it. The name's a play on its neighborhood, Olmos Park. It's next door to the nicest laundromat in town, and it is very inviting, with, in addition to the coffee and pastries, magazines lying about that you might actually want to peruse (as opposed to the standard doctor's office fare, e.g., Parenting Today [never been a parent], and the usual business office fare, e.g., Forbes [never had any money]). It could be argued that it's nice simply because of what it's not: it is not a Starbuck's.
Sidebar: I lived in Seattle in the '70s when Starbuck's was a single little shop in the bowels of the Pike Street Market. This before the prententions of grandes and ventis, before baristas handed over the joe, before it took the person in line in front of you 10 minutes to place an order:
"I'll have the...uh...let's see, uh...the, uh...the double chocolate chip frappaccino... with, uh, creme...no, uh...make that blended creme, with, uh...with whipped cream, uh, no...I mean... chocolate whipped cream. [Pause as barista begins to fill order.] Wait, I want the mint chocolate chip...unless, uuuuh...do you have the white chocolate? Yeah?...Well...make it the mint anyway...Oh, and...uh...could I get cocoa, and...uh...maybe some cinnamon? [Another pause.] Did you put vanilla in that? Because I wanted vanilla in that."
My friend ruefully noted that it's almost impossible to fathom that we are edging toward 2010. Yes, we're a decade into the 21st Century, and pretty much just as barbaric as ever. Remember when we were coming up on 2000, and the hysteria that ensued over Y2K? Even then I called it a hoax directed at the Chicken Little complex, but, hey, it worked. How much money do you think was wasted on that scam?
It's even more difficult to fathom that Rachel Carson published The Silent Spring almost 50 years ago, Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb over 40 years ago, and Bill McKibben published The End of Nature over 20 years ago. Indeed, Carson's and McKibben's concerns have been abundantly borne out. Though Ehrlich's dire predictions of widespread famine in the 1970s and '80s proved unfounded and have been derided as Malthusian, certainly the strain an ever-growing population puts on the earth's resources -- widespead use of pesticides and fertilizers in agriculture and hormones and antibiotics flooding the bloodstreams of poultry and livestock, endangered species, global warming -- is real. As a colleague of mine once pointed out in my defense, Malthus might not have been right at the time, but....
My friend rejoiced at the fall leaves "varied and vibrant." Oh, I miss the autumn leaves!! They are my favorite colors and I know what she means about the way they shimmer in the sunlight and breeze. In San Antonio, alas, there is no such array in which to bask, and there will be no snow, and it will likely be hot before the cycle can produce a true flowering of spring.
