Tarnished Lady

I Left My Heart in...

San Francisco!
This past weekend was a great little getaway to one of my favorite cities.
We left bright and beamy before the sun rose in fact on Thursday and our flight was there before breakfast.
We took in some live comedy at the Punchline, met up with friends for drinks plus supper at the popular Hayes Valley German eatery Suppenkuche.

It took 2 hours to get a table- they don't accept rsvps- but we had a good time huddled around the bar sampling various German beers

and eating tasty appetiser specials. Then the food once we were seated just kept coming.
This place is so great if you have never been...

me with Brynn wearing one of her husband Quique Diaz's gold creations around her neck. His line is currently at Barney's- yay- and his jewelry can also be seen online at his site. quiequediaz.com

Then we headed up to North Beach to explore the old Italian district and the Beat era hangouts.

Thus was the scene as we walked up to Vesuvio on Columbus.

This world-renowned San Francisco saloon located in North Beach just across from the infamous City Lights Bookstore, was first established in 1948 and remains an historical       monument to jazz, poetry, art and the good life of the Beat Generation.       Vesuvio attracts a diverse clientele: artists, chess players, cab drivers, seamen and business people, European visitors, off-duty exotic dancers and bon vivants from all walks of life.
 
      On October 17, 1955, Neal Cassady, the real life Dean Moriarty of the quintessential Beat classic On the Road, stopped at Vesuvio on the way to the now       legendary Six Gallery for a poetry reading, and the place has never been the same. It became a regular hangout of Jack Kerouac and other famous Beat poets and has become ground zero for pilgrims on the Beat trail ever since.       
 
      It was here that Jack Kerouac once spent a long night in 1960 when he should       have been on his way to Big Sur to meet with Henry Miller. Miller had written       Kerouac that he enjoyed reading The Dharma Bums and would enjoy a visit from the emerging writer. Kerouac, however, had other plans. He continued to hoist drinks and called Miller every hour telling him that he was just a bit delayed in leaving the city. The two would never meet that night..       

We got seats up in the teeny wooden upper gallery and had a round of Fernet-Branca shooters chased with ginger ale.
Then were were off to do some late night book shop next door at City Lights- ahhh- a bookstore you could live in. Elena on the last few days before her US naturalization ceremony picked up a Chekov collection from her native country.
Then we ran across the street to my favorite old world SF cafe, The Tosca Cafe

home of the "World Famous Cappucino"- supposedly invented & patented by then owner Fred Landi.

The oldest espresso machines in San Francisco, two tall chrome beauties manufactured by Victoria Arduino of Torino and dating to 1920, can be found at Tosca, a smoky cafe with dark and dusky murals of operas, Puccini and Venezia.  Nighttime is the time at Tosca, since the doors open at 5 PM.  Eyestrain is a definite possibility in this dimly lit space, but the smart, baby-boomer crowd doesn't seem to mind.  They are more focused on ordering cappuccinos from barmen in short white waistcoats who prowl the long, backlit bar at the front of this sexy cafe.  A cappuccino at Tosca means a concoction of steamed milk, brandy and chocolate, a tradition dating to Prohibition, when patrons used the code word "cappuccino" to get a spiked drink.

The lighting in here is dark and noir-ish, reminds me of New Orleans.

Then a quick nightcap next door in the alleyway at Beat favorite Spec's.
The following morning, we headed out to the Mission district to the glorious 1922 Castro Theatre for a few hours of rare Vitaphone sound shorts from the 20's at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.
I had never been to this theatre before and was dying to see it in person.

The Vitaphone shorts were terrific- only two I had seen before at Cinecon in 2006- the rest were all new to me. My favorites were Harlem Mania with the Norman Thomas Quintet, Lamb Chops with Gracie Allen & George Burns and Going Places with Shaw & Lee.

Got some great rare books up in the mezzanine on silent star Alma Rubens- who died sadly much to young due to her drug use- and one with interviews of the silent greats plus a gorgeous SF Silent Film Festival black Louise Brooks tee shirt.

We walked down the block afterwards...


and had a great lunch at Anchor Oyster Bar which has been picked as the best SF oyster bar. Its a cute little nautical cafe straight out of the 40's with jazz music and the best seafood ever.
I even managed to chip my tooth on the garlic bread but kept on eating...

I mean, look at this lump crab meat...!

Next we took the train up to the Marina to visit Brynn at the Lush shoppe on Union Street where her office is and to meet her gorgeous little baby girl Anais.
This part of town is stunning and this Lush is HUGE...

Little Anais was the very eager model for a baby skincare demo...

Here she is looking gorgeous in the sweater we got her held by her Auntie...

As we waited for the bus to take us back to Mike & Elena's SOMA loft, I spied a familiar face on the left of a Palm device bus ad...Jeanne!

We rested up as that night we were headed to Noe Valley for a meal at Chef Chris Cosentino's Incanto.
This was the best dining experience of my life. The food was incredible and the service, the menu, the environment divine.
Just a few short snaps on that here as I will expound over on Bonne Bouche in more detail.

my gorgeous sister-in-law Elena!

Then Mike & Elena called it a night since they had a doubles tennis match in the morning.
Matt & I went out in the Mission, walking and taking in the scene, some dancing, some imbibing of great ginger margaritas at a fun African bar and then a comedy of errors of us trying to get home on foot in the rain. No cabs were available, the buses were all nearly an hour's wait and did I mention it was cold too? haha... Matt took his shoes off for me to walk in as my heels were killing me. I didn't want him to but that was how it went down...me wearing his huge shoes and he in soaking wet socks- in the wet cold walking for blocks and blocks...wheeeee!

mmm ginger margies...

The following day, we headed up to Chinatown for some exploring and good eats at the yummy House of Nanking.

this place is groovy, stylish, teeny and delicious. More on it over at Bonne Bouche but here is just one snappie to get you salivating...

We later went shopping in the Market district, got some nice duds and headed back to the loft to pack up for our flight.
We will be back soon I hope.
I will leave you on a mini SF photo montage note...

Vermin found in Chinatown.

The VERMIN reading series that is:)

Taking place this Sunday night at the lovely Mountain Bar on Gin Ling Way.

My pal Mary Otis is featured and will be reading from her short story collection "Yes Yes Cherries!" a Tin House published collection that I am highly recommending to everyone.

I intended to make a review of this collection as I love love love Mary's writing but I wanted it to do justice and have lagged so just trust me on this for now.

And hey, for you knob-headed non-readers, this will be like books on tape- no reading on your part required- and a chance for you to look literate and pick up on smart tail for a change.
I will be there for sure so join me...check out more on Mary's book via my top friends (she is Yes Yes Cherries!) or by her links below.

the deets:

Hi everyone,

I'm doing two readings in Los Angeles this month.  Both literary series were featured today in the LA Times Calendar Guide cover story, "The New Literati."  If you're in the market for a reading and entertainment, I hope you'll come out.

Nov. 4th
8:00 pm
Vermin on the Mount Reading Series
Also featuring Gustavo Arrellano, Duncan Murrell, and Kevin Moffet
Mountain Bar
473 Gin Ling Way, LA
Free

Nov. 14th
7:30 pm
Benefit for 826 LA - Literacy Foundation created by Dave Eggers
Largo
Featured musical guest, Aimee Mann
432 N. Fairfax Ave., L.A.
$25

Thanks, Mary
www.maryotis.com
myspace.com/yesyescherries

Batty for Bats and some Wise Blood

My favorite current band aside from Blonde Redhead would have to be the wildly magical all female Brighton-based Bats for Lashes.

One of my very favorite writers is Flannery O'Connor and as every good reader knows, everything that rises must converge.

Now having seen Bats twice live back in August (once at Spaceland in Silverlake & the following day for a private music industry show luncheon at Hotel Cafe in Hollywood- thanks Nina!), having had a few sweet chats with the uber down-to-earth Natasha (singer/song writer/ creator of Bats for Lashes)

click on photos to open fully
whereupon she picked up on my southern accent and we talked about being fellow Scorpios, chatted on gothic southern authors leading me to bring her the next day a collection of southern classic Flannery O'Connor's I just knew would inspire more of her trippy, dark narrative-laden tunes.

And speaking of Flannery, she does have that effect having made a writing career of turning the mundane into magic.

A few of Flannery's astute observations:

All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal.

I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one.

The Southerner is usually tolerant of those weaknesses that proceed from innocence.

Total nonretention has kept my education from being a burden to me.

She truly was a visionary who was able to see the value in the everyday characters so abundant in the deep south and thankfully for us, she applied them to her works.

I grew up on her writings wanting to write myself, my favorites being Wise Blood and her Everything That Rises Must Converge (released posthumously) collection.

It is overwhelming to believe she only lived 39 years (taken away by lupus triggered by an ovarian tumor) having produced a prolific catalog in such a relatively short time on the planet.
She stayed close to her southern small town and soaked it all in and  for me, is the definition of focusing/harnessing a gift and knowing how best to wield it. 
Her own words on travel or the lack of it:

I have never been anywhere but sick. In a sense sickeness is a place, more instructive than a long trip to Europe, and it's always a place where there's no company, where nobody can follow. . .The surface hereabouts has always been very flat. I come from a family where the only emotion respectable to show is irritation. In some this tendency produces hives, in others literature, in me both.

I know I started out on Bat for Lashes and Natasha and somehow via stream-of-conscienceness drifted onwards to Flannery but to me, great songwriting and creating a rich and visual world which bursts to life from an Ipod speaker is exactly like great story-telling and friends, Natasha Khan (aka Bats for Lashes) is doing exactly that.
She is following closely in the vein of such musical story-tellers as Kate Bush and Bjork yet striking out on her own and quite uniquely with her own young vision.

She is inspired aside from southern gothic tales, ancient myths and blues music by what she cleverly calls "hoodie" movies like E.T. and Donnie Darko- which feature youth in hoods riding bikes in the dark of night- along with David Lynch and credits her British heritage as giving her permission for theatrical license on the stage. "There's definitely an embedded sense of theatricality in our culture" she says.

And if you haven't heard her music, you owe it to yourself to discover it.

drawings by Natasha

"I think Bat For Lashes are beyond a trend or fashion band," said Jefferson Hack, publisher of Dazed & Confused magazine. "[Khan] has an ancient power...she is in part shamanic."

She describes her aesthetic as "powerful women with a cosmic edge" as seen in Jane Birkin, Nico and Cleopatra. And these women are being heard.

"I love the harpsichord and the sexual ghost voices and bowed saws," said Radiohead's Thom York of the track Horse and I. "This song seems to come from the world of Grimm's fairytales."(afriquenlique)

Natasha on her influences:

I do love fairytales, but actually not so much the Grimms ones as the older more barbaric and ancient pagan ones! I love a book called "women who run with the wolves" as it contains Jungian philosophies and interpretations of all the old fairytales before they became too standardized and clean. I was brought up in a strict religion and so the act of storytelling is deeply embedded in me - I think thats why I was instantly attracted to deep southern/gothic American lyrics and music - and then fell in love with the biblical imagery of blues, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, etc. (gothamist)

Lucky for us all, Bats for Lashes is coming back to the US and LA next week to play a live show at the Troubadour, October 9th which is a Tuesday!

a link to their site Bat for Lashes

and to their Myspace music page here

Get your tickets soon because this show I predict will be sold-out. We have ours!

Got a mere 12 minutes? watch this gem of a videocast with live footage of Bats for Lashes...

If you liked The Princess Bride...

you MUST see Stardust!
I knew it was from a Neil Gaiman graphic novel with the same title and had received major buzz.
The film stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Claire Danes & Robert De Niro with Ricky Gervais (The Office UK) in a smaller role as well as Sienna Miller and Rupert Everett and more so for those reasons alone, I knew it would have to be okay.
The NPR Fresh Air reviewer said it reminded him of The Princess Bride with a healthy dollop of Blackadder.
This sums it right up.

Its a fairy-tale filled with magic, lots of love and heart with characters who are wonderfully flawed and engagingly fun to watch. I found myself bursting out with laughter more than once. Its also reminded me in bits of both Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter due to the landscapes with ghosts who serve as commentators, the magic factor and sense of fun but it definitely doesn't take itself seriously hence The Princess Bride/ Blackadder comparisons.

De Niro's role is a hilarious twist well-done especially if you haven't read the book.

Michelle Pfeiffer is deliciously evil as the witch queen Lamia who is eager to find and eat out Yvaine's heart.

Yvaine played by Claire Danes is literally a fallen star. She is perfectly cast because she brings her luminosity to the table and her English accent is pretty good.

I think this will be a film that will have legs once the word starts spreading. Its fun, kooky & romantic.
We loved it and so did the rest of the audience.

The ads and previews DO NOT do it justice, believe me on this. Just go and see it.

We also ate at the Arclight in their restaurant which I recommend if you need a bite before or after a movie.
We shared a goat cheese with walnuts/cranberry mixed green salad, then a steak sandwich and cheeseburger along with nice glasses of wine which is a step above popcorn and greasy nachos to say the least!

Viswanathan yet another faker.

Wow...can't anyone just *really* write a book the old-fashioned way? Without making up memoirs (James Frey), faking a persona and a history (JT Leroy) and now, just straight up stealing??? I can copy things too...gimme a book deal please...? Here is the latest duping scandale to hit the lit world:
Kaavya on campus at Harvard

A Harvard University student's "chick lit" novel has been permanently withdrawn and her two-book deal canceled, publisher Little, Brown and Co. announced Tuesday, as allegations of literary borrowing proliferated against Kaavya Viswanathan's "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life."

"Little, Brown and Company will not be publishing a revised edition of 'How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life' by Kaavya Viswanathan, nor will we publish the second book under contract," Michael Pietsch, Little Brown's senior vice president and publisher, said in a statement. Little, Brown, which had initially said the book would be revised, declined to comment on whether Viswanathan would have to return her reported six-figure advance.
Tuesday's decision caps a stunning downfall for the 19-year-old Viswanathan, a Harvard sophomore whose novel came out in March to widespread attention. Viswanathan, who was 17 when she signed the deal, did not immediately return calls seeking comment Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for Alloy Entertainment, a book packager that helped Viswanathan shape her narrative and shared the book's copyright, said the company would have no comment.
Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, a literary agent who represented both Viswanathan and Alloy, also said she would not comment.

Meanwhile, The Record of Bergen County said Tuesday that it will review the news articles Visvanathan wrote for the 180,000-circulation daily paper in northern New Jersey while an intern in 2003 and 2004. Editor Frank Scandale said The Record, which has written several of its own articles about the plagiarism allegations, will hire a service to vet the dozen or so light features she wrote while one of about 18 interns at the paper.
Scandale recalled Viswanathan as having strong writing skills for a high schooler, and as an upbeat, affable young woman. "To us she was a bright young kid that seemed to have the makings of a good writer. There were no alarms; nobody had ever questioned any of her stories," he said. "We have no reason to believe there's anything wrong with her copy. But in light of what's going on, we thought we should check her stuff out."

Little, Brown pulled "Opal Mehta" after extensive similarities were discovered to two works by Megan McCafferty, "Sloppy Firsts" and "Second Helpings."

But until Tuesday, the publisher had not said whether the book would be canceled altogether or simply revised, as originally planned.

The Harvard Crimson student newspaper, alerted by reader e-mails, reported Tuesday on its Web site that "Opal Mehta" contained passages similar to Meg Cabot's 2000 novel, "The Princess Diaries."

The New York Times also reported comparable material in Viswanathan's novel and Sophie Kinsella's "Can You Keep a Secret?"

In Cabot's "The Princess Diaries," published by HarperCollins, the following passage appears: "There isn't a single inch of me that hasn't been pinched, cut, filed, painted, sloughed, blown dry, or moisturized. ... Because I don't look a thing like Mia Thermopolis. Mia Thermopolis never had fingernails. Mia Thermopolis never had blond highlights."

In Viswanathan's book, page 59 reads: "Every inch of me had been cut, filed, steamed, exfoliated, polished, painted, or moisturized. I didn't look a thing like Opal Mehta. Opal Mehta didn't own five pairs of shoes so expensive they could have been traded in for a small sailboat."
When allegations emerged last week, Michael Pietsch of Little, Brown praised Viswanathan as "a decent, serious and incredibly hard-working writer and student, and I am confident that we will learn that any similarities in phrasings were unintentional."

Works believed to contain lifted material have been withdrawn in the past, notably Doris Kearns Goodwin's "The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys," which was pulled in 2002.
A planned revision of that book has still not been issued.

yahoonews

So more than likely Harvard in the face of this all will not want to have Kaavya back to school-

Kaavya Viswanathan takes a break from Harvard

Harvard University does not know how to deal with its student Kaavya Viswanathan just yet.

Viswanathan, who was born in Chennai and raised in Scotland before her parents migrated to America, is the most scrutinised author and student in the US following her admission that she had 'internalized' some passages for her novel from two-bestselling novels she read when she was in high school.

The teenager has taken a few days off from Harvard after making a brief appearance on the NBC television channel's popular Today show, telling its hosts: 'When I was writing, I genuinely believed each word was my own.'

But at Harvard there is confusion about the case, amidst speculation that Viswanathan will not return to the elite university.

In Harvard's first statement regarding Viswanathan, who is majoring in English, Robert Mitchell, director of communications for Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, told The New York Times on Tuesday: 'Our policies apply to work submitted to courses. Nevertheless, we expect Harvard students to conduct themselves with integrity and honesty at all times.'

The next day, in an e-mail note he told rediff.com: "Harvard College takes any accusation of plagiarism very seriously. And we certainly investigate accusations of plagiarism when brought to our attention. However, our policy does not permit us to discuss individual situations. We expect Harvard students to conduct themselves with integrity and honesty at all times."

While speculation mounted that Viswanathan could be encouraged to leave Harvard, Mitchell told The Harvard Crimson newspaper and other publications that he has not used the word 'investigation' in his statements.

Crown, a division of the publishing giant Random House, that publishes Megan McCafferty's novels, has slammed her apologies,

'Based on the scope and character of the similarities, it is inconceivable that this was a display of youthful innocence or an unconscious or unintentional act,' a statement from Random House said.

What strikes me the most as the saddest is how this revelation of her having stolen/lifted material has *helped* her book sales. WOW.

The news is apparently helping sales of the book, the Globe discovered. On Monday it was ranked 178 on Amazon.com; on Wednesday it was 68. It has reportedly sold about 5,000 copies across the country.
Ross said the plagiarism has devastated McCafferty, adding she is 'not sleeping, not eating.'
'She feels like something fundamental was taken,' he told the Globe. 'We all felt it was important that we come to her defense and make clear that we support our author. The notion that this was accidental stretches credibility to the breaking point.'
rediff.com

Megan McCafferty who got her words lifted:

I find this all sadly fascinating...and this happens in the journalism field as well...a few years before Jayson Blair duped the New York Times, there was Stephen Glass who's lies and deceit begat  "Shattered Glass" the film starring Hayden Christensen as the young journalist. Stephen Glass made up his news stories and falsified sources and contacts while on staff for the prestigious mag The New Republic.

Here is the real Glass:

Glass, a 25-year-old rising star at The New Republic, wrote dozens of high-profile articles for a number of national publications in which he made things up.
As 60 Minutes first reported in May, he made up people, places and events. He made up organizations and quotations. Sometimes, he made up entire articles.

And to back it all up, he created fake notes, fake voicemails, fake faxes, even a fake Web site - whatever it took to deceive his editors, not to mention hundreds of thousands of readers.

cbsnews

Just can't believe how people think they can fake something that is documented...eventually it will be found out. I guess all they care about is the here and now & the moment. Cheap, hard and fast.

But in Kaavya's favor, albeit with no book deal and possibly no more Harvard, she still has a glossy mane of raven hair and sparkly pearly whites going for her. Girl is going down but girl is looking good...haha...and yo, Stephen Glass in real life is certainly no Hayden Christensen. Yowza.