13 May 06
Losing The Heart Of Berkeley
We heard the bad news from Ron. Cody’s Books on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley is closing as of July 10. This store has been in its present location for as long as I have been alive and has always been the flagship bookstore in Berkeley and the East Bay.
The press release blames a 15-year decline in sales in the Telegraph Avenue location, together with a loss of sales from the Internet. The store has two other locations—one on the highly yuppified 4th Street in Berkeley, and another that just opened in the past year or so on Stockton in San Francisco. I have always found the 4th Street Cody’s to have a fairly paltry selection, and have never been to the San Francisco store.
Probably this decision has been in the works for some time. In my last several visits to the Telegraph store I’ve noticed that the selection of books has been getting poorer. And the recent opening of the San Francisco store worried me.
I grew up near Berkeley, and I have a routine I often follow when I return for a visit. I’ll start off at the Berkeley BART station, walk through campus visiting a few shops along the way, and then head south several blocks for a good browse in Cody’s. It’s very sad that this is no longer to be.
14 March 06
A Blog From Troy
Eurylochus, who is the lead officer under Odysseus, is keeping a blog of his experiences in the Trojan War.
28 February 06
Visit To The Mother Ship
Fifty minutes is hardly any time at all for a visit to Powell’s, but it had to suffice. After my meeting yesterday, my coworker and I hopped on the streetcar for a quick visit to the legendary bookstore prior to taking the light rail out to the airport. I left with a haul of four books.
22 November 05
Language Learning
I’m back in Hebrew. I almost didn’t, because my three classmates were not going to come back, and the opportunity arose to take the same class over again.
Part of me was very weary of the idea but also welcomed the chance to consolidate what I’d learned. It was a huge learning curve at the beginning, there.
I finally feel as though I’m making some real progress: I was able to follow along with a lot of the prayers and readings at a Bar Mitzvah on Saturday. It’s the very best kind of motivation. I know you need to push hard to get anywhere but sometimes it’s nice to get this sense of accomplishment…
2 November 05
Be Obscure Clearly
Those who are fans of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style will be pleased to learn that this classic work has been turned into an operatic song cycle. It received its first performance last month in the reading room of the New York Public Library, the accompaniment performed by the Omit Needless Words Orchestra.
31 October 05
On Spokesweasels and Bark Mitzvahs
In the spirit of Word Spy comes the Double-Tongued Word Wrester dictionary, which describes itself as a “growing dictionary of old and new words from the fringes of English.”
Fitzmas, anyone?
25 October 05
Using Language
Today I co-taught a class on Culturally Inclusive and Non-Violent Language. Here’s why this is important:
“Keep your thoughts positive
Because your thoughts become your words
Keep your words positive
Because your words become your behavior
Keep your behaviorf positive
Because your behavior becomes your habit
Keep your habits positive
Because your habits become your values
Keep your values positive
Because your values become your destiny.”
—Mahatma Gandhi
19 October 05
Yolo Crow
A poem of mine got published in the Yolo Crow, a new literary magazine. A copy came in today’s mail.
I seem to find myself around people whose ambition it is to start a literary magazine; often they don’t make it beyond the third issue. I hope that’s not true for this one…
23 September 05
Collaboration
Qarrtsiluni just started. Head on over and have a look, and if you’d like to contribute a piece (this month’s topic is “Something About to Burst”), please do! Instructions are on the site.
21 September 05
An Evening With Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett was speaking tonight at Cody’s in Berkeley, part of his Thud! book tour (he found out just before his appearance that it was #4 on the NYT bestseller list; this was someone who could hardly get his books published in the US in the 90s).
It’s bad when there’s no standing room.
He was funny, even hilarious, throughout. He’s much shorter than you’d think from his author photo. The line to get books signed snaked through Cody’s, but if you didn’t want a signature (I didn’t), there was a nice space off to the side for furtive sketching.