clarahsu – Page 5

Happy 100

Muni’s 100th Birthday. We got free rides today. Hooray!

Dore said they should scroll “Happy Birthday Muni” instead of “Go Giants” or “Go Forty-Niners” on the buses.

There should be birthday cakes and balloons and flowers and champagne.

There should be bands playing at major bus stops.

I guess we’d have to be satisfied with the exhibits on the transit shelters along Market Street.

None of the bus drivers had uttered a word about the special occasion. None of them looked particularly jubilated. Most of the buses had a piece of scrap paper over the fee machine, as if it was broken and we were lucky to get a free ride.

Management!

TREASURES FROM THE MUNI ARCHIVE at THE SAN FRANCISCO RAILWAY MUSEUM, streetcar.org; Adithya Sambamurthy/The Bay Citizen.

The Man

He was huge, (obese), slow in movements and speech. He certainly wouldn’t be considered good looking. Yet as soon as he came out he was a presence that could not be ignored. He got me by his stare. He got me by his drawl and the things he said. He said “actors should be treated like cattle”. He said once he gave a party in which the bread, the chicken, the vegetables…in fact, everything, was blue. He said he was scared by his mother at three months, when she said “boo”! He wondered if his odd sense of humor was one, three, five, seven or eleven? He was enigmatic. He had quiet power and could hold the audience spellbound by the tip of his pinkie. He was Hitchcock.

The 1972 Dick Cavett Show showed a very young Cavett interviewing the master of suspense. Intelligence poured out of Hitchcock. Under the immobile mountain of flesh, the mind was unceasingly active, betrayed only by his eyes. There was no match, but Hitchcock was kind.

Night Rides

Vern hasn’t taken public transportation for over twenty years. He has a car and drives everywhere. But tonight after a good dinner in the inner Sunset his car decided to play dead. We left it to the towing company and walked to catch the N Judah, which miraculously appeared just as we got to the street corner.

Taking public transportation could be quite enjoyable. Cold night, warm seats, and the tram gliding swiftly down the streets. At the transfer stop the next bus wouldn’t come for another 30 minutes. We took a brisk walk to Tart & Tart, a dessert place on Irving and 8th, and had a lemon sweetheart.

Bus and tram rides are a part of being in the city. Vern will remember this when he goes sailing in the Pacific Ocean as a deckhand.

“I will send you fresh salmon collars,” Vern said, “overnight them from a sea port.”

Photo by Bryan Dempler.

Cyberspace Christmas

Dad woke up from a nap in his lazy chair and felt something heavy put on his lap. When he opened his eyes, he saw images of people on a screen happily waving their hands and shouting “Merry Christmas”. Dad asked in confused wonder, “who are these people?”

“They’re your grandchildren.”

Skyping was the closest way to having the children in the house. I pointed the camera to the chard tart, Moroccan chicken and sweet potato pie on the table. It was the closest way for the children to having the feast with me.

We made do, thanks to technology.

Merry Christmas to all.

The Christmas Feel

“It doesn’t feel like Christmas.” Dore said as we drove over the Bay Bridge.

“What feels like Christmas?”

“Well, growing up in the East Coast—snow, I guess.”

And we didn’t hear any “Christmas” music while having dinner at Nong Thon, the Vietnamese restaurant in El Cerrito. Nor have we noticed any Christmas lights–or are we too desensitized to notice what is shining in front of us?

Christmas used to be quite noticeable: when father brought home a tree, when we went to the midnight candlelight service and sang carols, and home to the gifts, which must stay wrapped until the 26th. It’s the tradition that I had come to expect year after year.

Take them away, Christmas feels like just another day.

Winter Thoughts

It’s easy to give up. I did, after a year of blogging, simply stopped. Somehow my lack of sleep and the storm outside make me feel isolated from the world. The house is quiet. The cats are curled up next to the heater, burning their fur and noses. Hello!

This is not just another winter. The end of the world came and went. We wondered, rejoiced, and also wept for the dead children in Newtown. The meaning of Christmas, however, is still shopping.

Christmas dinner: everyone has some kind of diet restrictions.

When I was young I didn’t care to go home for the holidays. Now I miss my children but understand that they have to share their time with others. We play musical chairs.

Tying up loose ends. Binding books. The year is all in the poetry.

Image from fotolia.com

The Consciousness of Words

Mallarme to Degas: “Poems have to do with words, not ideas.”

If words are like music notes, how is a poem written?

Consider a word: its meaning, etymology,size, shape, sound, color, rhythm, effect, strength, and weakness. How does a word look on a page? How does it move and sound in space, appear and disappear; how does it jam and set apart from others?

If words are like music notes, then poems may be written not for their connection of things or feelings. Meanings would have to be derived from the synthesis of sound, with each word contributing to their shades and dynamics. Reading a poem would be an active production of sound instead of someone sitting quietly in a chair leafing through a book—imagine an audience leafing through a music score in the absence of an orchestra.

Words—alive in all possibilities, with poetry their vessel.

Farewell, Bill

lunation5 — After a reading at Santa Clara University, with Bill Mercer and David Wong. Bill’s paintings on the back.

Maybe he is Buddha. But for seven years Bill Mercer was in flesh and blood. It couldn’t have been a dream. We read poetry and accompanied each other with musical instruments for as long as we’ve known each other. Tonight I heard he left his apartment keys to another friend and took off in his van to Louisiana, where he came from.

Without a goodbye Bill disappears into the mist. Seven years ago he appeared at my shop, picked up one of the shakuhachis on display and filled the room with breathy and unharnessed sound. Bill became a regular customer at my world music concert series and we bumped into each other at Sacred Grounds’ poetry reading.

A constant friend and poetry partner, we read all over the Bay Area as Lunation. Bill cared for my cats while I was away. Up to two weeks ago he was helping me to take care of my aging father.

His brush paintings hang on my walls, somehow I know Bill won’t been back for a long time. Steve Mackin called him “Buddha of the Bayou”. There is something mystical about the number 7.

On Radio

One of the most memorable childhood pastime is listening to the radio. Summer days were spent lying on my father’s big bed. After the news at noon the radio played theme songs of the latest movies, followed by story-telling and Chinese opera excerpts.

At seven-thirty at night our maid would set up the ironing board in the kitchen. I sat on the low stool while she ironed, and together we listened to our favorite radio show, Diary of a Stout-hearted Husband, a comic parody on family life.

My connection with the radio remains, with live-in partner Dore Stein (Tangents Music Radio, KALW), friends Avotcja and Stephen Kent, hosting shows on KPOO and KPFA. Tomorrow my voice will come out of the radio during Jack Foley’s Cover to Cover show (KPFA, 3pm). I had often wondered what was on the other side of that box that I spent so much time with. Now I know, and it still amazes me.

Cold Turkey

Hard to imagine dropping a habit, especially something that have been doing for years. I tried but usually failed. Diet change is easier said than done. A simple cup of coffee is not so simple to disregard. It takes more than courage. It takes a will of steel.

My father-in-law stopped smoking cigarettes (in his seventies) when my son was born. He didn’t want to hold the baby against his smokey shirt. It was love that made him stop.

Ultimately it comes down to what one wants and not what is important. How much does the shadow of consequence play in a decision? Is this another battle between good and evil?

People usually say, “You stopped cold turkey? Congratulations!” Maybe whatever it is, it’s a good thing.

Photo: (c) iStockphoto.com/ Debbi Smirnoff