Open Thread February

22 comments

  1. rosegarden dad says:

    The frost on the lawn looks like the dusting of snow on the sloping mountains above Gorman, as you drive up Highway 5. But that’s snow. This is frost.

    November 30th, 2010 at 3:50 PM

  2. Drew Clark says:

    neon light ferris wheel
    hands stuffed in coat
    pockets warding the chill
    children in antlers playing
    reindeer games in california
    churros ain’t no substitute
    for roasted chestnuts
    all these robots singing
    carols heads rotating
    back and forth
    poor emulation of life
    hawaiian frogs really
    teenagers with blood
    shot eyes and resined
    fingertips think this is
    tradition but like the faith
    that spawned it
    this robotic holiday event
    is an empty collection
    of ramshackle ideas
    automatons parading
    in the park

    December 5th, 2010 at 1:33 AM

  3. Roger the Baron says:

    I see Drew’s point. But I’ve always viewed vernacular Christmas decorations and pageantry as a wonderful subversion of the heaviness of Abrahamic religions. No wonder the Puritans didn’t like Xmas, either: it’s a pagan co-opt.

    December 8th, 2010 at 5:54 AM

  4. Ellen Rosen says:

    Besides the Genko tree dropping its leaves
    And the people down the street on ladders at dusk on Sunday put ting up their lights
    And the traffic at 280 and 17
    And the mobs downtown on weekend nights
    And the big band Xmas songs on the radio
    And the girls in UGGS
    You’d just think it was another fall day.

    December 16th, 2010 at 4:00 AM

  5. Back Home says:

    Driving back up the wintry coast on 101 from Sandy Eggo you notice something: somewhere around Carpinteria, Southern California starts to look like Northern California. Santa Barbara is an in-between place, SLO is decidedly No Cal. Something about Victorian houses near a central commercial district.

    January 3rd, 2011 at 7:01 PM

  6. sparrow says:

    Shimmering

    I had lunch with a friend in one of the downtown highrises. The panoramas of the mountains stun. Mt. Hamilton Observatory is like a 50’s dream. But the best part is looking down on the palm trees, the way the fronds catch the sun.

    January 20th, 2011 at 12:35 AM

  7. ellen rosen says:

    Every year

    I promise to put a dagger in the chest of the devil.
    Promise to wrap my heart in cotton.
    Promise to let the wave slide over me.
    This, while the flowering pear blooms early.
    Then it gets cold again.
    Wait til April to plant.

    January 27th, 2011 at 8:06 PM

  8. False spring says:

    It’s only a false spring if you think
    That a season has to last four months
    If a season can come and go in a day
    The year is very full

    February 1st, 2011 at 7:20 PM

  9. rosegarden dad says:

    The oranges are turning.
    Still small, but turning.
    The lemons wait.

    February 1st, 2011 at 11:10 PM

  10. jacques says:

    At the zinc bar on Santana Row

    The French singer in the background on the stereo nearly succeeds in distracting us from the basketball game, muted on the tv above the bar.

    February 7th, 2011 at 4:55 PM

  11. slug sophomore says:

    Summit Can Wait

    God, it feels like a summer night the wind is coming from the valley and it’s dry and warm. In the car, I wonder if I should turn on the air. I want an ice cream and think I see TV lights coming out of windows and screen doors. But I just open the windows. It smells like manure, somebody is planting.Trees silhouetted blur past. The tires scratch on the turns. I feel like I’m going through the back of the wardrobe.

    February 8th, 2011 at 10:41 PM

  12. Karen says:

    You wanted to meet at Good Karma but knowing what I had to say, I couldn’t. So I said the Dive and you said OK. I could tell you knew. Thanks for making it easy.

    February 10th, 2011 at 8:22 PM

  13. deborah says:

    Valentine’s Day 1989

    Two day’s previous, he had stood me up at the Phoenix bookstore. This would not rise again. i called him to cancel our date at the Headley Room on Vday. He left a kind of sad message. I didn’t return it. Sigh.

    February 11th, 2011 at 4:02 AM

  14. Lonely Ben says:

    Even then, I could sense something in the back of the room that didn’t seem right. There was something in your insistence on your love that made it seem it might run out somehow and you wanted to get everything you could out of it before it died. I remember standing on the mound in Guadalupe Gardens watching the planes coming in and you dismissed some stray comment of mine with a level of disdain and sharpness that made me know that this flight didn’t have much longer until landing.

    February 11th, 2011 at 7:10 PM

  15. Golly you guys have sad v-days says:

    It was 1999

    The college applications were in. All yours looked east, mine south. Your team nearly won league in basketball. I just finished Eagle Scout. So I remember: after the theater party, after the patty melts at the Cardinal at midnight. you squeezed my hand as we walked toward your mom’s Malibu. It all changed for me after that. Thanks.

    February 13th, 2011 at 2:10 AM

  16. MeghanCrotty says:

    Valentine’s Day 2000

    You said: Let’s drive to Santa Cruz.
    So we did, and walked out on the jetty by the harbor.
    The fruit trees were blooming there, too along the San Lorenzo, like along Los Gatos Creek. White blossoms.
    You said: I know you will leave me.
    I said: Don’t be so sure.
    11 years later, we’re still not sure.
    And while that doesn’t reassure, time counts for something, doesn’t it?

    February 15th, 2011 at 12:58 AM

  17. Susie Murillo says:

    From the top of the Camera 3 Parking Lot

    You can see the footprint of the older city.
    Italianate cupolas on the old BofA building.
    The stone arches on OJ’s and the Ballet
    And the way the top of the Studio Theater sign nods forward into South First Street
    Like an old grandma falling asleep.

    February 18th, 2011 at 7:05 PM

  18. roger the baron says:

    Thanks susie for reminding me

    When I first moved here i thought:
    wouldn’t it be amazing to get into the bofa cupola.
    Still do.

    February 22nd, 2011 at 12:53 AM

  19. Rosegarden dad says:

    The first time i visited san jose

    I went to a matinee of the movie Action Jackson.
    It reminded me of the St. Francis theater in s.f.
    Loud patrons, sticky floors
    Wonderfully direct B-movies.
    Then I got a taco.

    February 22nd, 2011 at 12:58 AM

  20. candace duarte says:

    Thanks Susie for reminding me

    The tops of parking structures give the only place to get a view
    If you’re not on the top of the glass towers
    From Vallco, I remember it being like a treehouse
    You only see the tops of the redwoods
    Like you’re up in the mountains, climbing a pine
    Except the cars on wet Wolfe road are loud

    February 25th, 2011 at 9:51 PM

  21. cupertino kid says:

    And I thought I was alone

    Good to know there are other parking structure aficionados. The other day, when it was raining, I tried to get to the top of the Vallco structure, but it was roped off. So I parked on floor 3, watched the rain come down, marveled at the spring green on the tops of the trees, and pondered a starbucks cup on the wall-edge in front of a beat up Acura.

    February 27th, 2011 at 9:03 PM

  22. Flying in today says:

    the moutaintops were white all the way up the coast, like somebody had sprinkled powdered sugar on the peaks of the purple brownies. The new terminal is so clean. I missed the smell of cigarettes outside. When did that stop?

    February 28th, 2011 at 9:36 PM