San Francisco was named after the most beloved of all Catholic saints - St. Francis of Assissi. Now, whenever I think of St. Francis, I think of Bambi and Thumper and all the cartoon birds and butterflies of the forest, because he’s known for his love of nature and all the living creatures of the […]
In Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Forest House, mushrooms are the drug of choice. In her poisoned haze, the high priestess can see the past, the future and the present. Like the Druids, San Francisco’s youth are also famed for their appreciation of hallucinogens, even if they do lack the sensibility and spirituality of Avalon’s priestesses.
In […]
San Francisco started out as one of many Catholic missions established in California by Spanish priests. The priests and the natives of the land flourished together with the father, the son and the holy ghost for many generations. Then in 1834, the Mexican government smashed the mission system in an attempt to secularize the country. […]
Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Avalon books brought me to world of pagan appreciation for the beauty and power of nature. Churches with walls and roofs are an aberration, for the beauty of god is not inside a man-made structure, but outside with the earth and the sky.
In Lady of Avalon, priestess initiation happens on an ocean […]
In Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Tom Robbins poses the question about San Francisco, why, when mother nature keeps destroying your city do you insist on rebuilding it? I’ll tell you why. It’s because despite the earthquakes, San Francisco is prime real estate. It’s gorgeous, and prosperous.
But what about New Orleans? Mother nature sends the […]
San Francisco is a prime destination spot. In the 1800s, people came for the promise of gold, adventure, prosperity. In Isabel Allende’s Daughter of Fortune, Eliza travels to California in search of love and finds herself among people from all over the world, all in search of fortune. And in this bustling, changing place, she […]
I was talking to my teen-aged nephew Alex about how we both remember the answers to tests by visualizing the place where we read them in the book. I know a lot of people are like that, but I think there’s something genetic about the way we both do it. Alex’s father doesn’t really think […]
About fifteen years ago I was helping my mother chop down a magnolia tree in her back yard. The poor tree was crammed into this tiny space between the house and the concrete deck surrounding a swimming pool. It was a mercy killing as much as it was a defense of the pool and the […]
Poor Bigger Thomas in Native Son was so disconnected, no control over his own life, a poor black man living in a rich white man’s world. Since ancient times, people have been committing atrocities when it’s the only thing they can do to grasp some semblence of control over their own lives.
My favorite such story […]
When I think of the south side of Chicago, two songs come to mind - Jim Croce’s “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” and the theme song to the ’70s TV show Good Times. Recently, Chappelle’s Show taught me that the lyrics to the theme song were not, “Blah, blah blah blah, blah, blah,” but, rather, the […]