Favorite City | Favorite City
Oct.25.2009
The skyline at Hong Kong is next to none especially in the afternoon sun and when the evening approaches night the harbor glitters with a million lights...
Sampans and Chinese junks bobble along side ferries, tankers, and venerable tugboats. Occasional naval vessels from different countries cut...
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Oct.25.2009
The Los Angeles of Raymond Chandler. The Paris of Ernest Hemingway. The Berlin of Christopher Isherwood. The San Francisco of Dashiell Hammett or Armistead Maupin. The New York of Edith Wharton or Isaac Bashevis Singer. The London of Charles Dickens or Zadie Smith. Anyone who loves writing can't...
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Oct.25.2009
At least it wasn’t the Manhattan of my parents and grandparents’ world, a baron wasteland full of borsch belt comics turned ad men on Madison Ave. or literary dilatants turned journalists at the Times and the New Yorker. New York was a place of debutants and professors. A place where everyone was...
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Oct.24.2009
The dream now: a small cottage in a Tuscan village with the freedom to write all day with the inspiring backdrop of Italy behind me, my husband returning from his teaching duties with his arms full of wine and fresh Italian bread.
The reality where the dream was born: Tuscany, Italy.
The date:...
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Oct.24.2009
My favorite city is on the planet Chiron in the Alpha-Centauri system. Before you think me mad - read about "Voyage From Yesteryear" by James P. Hogan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear).
I like this city because it is an ideal to strive for. It is not a society of...
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Oct.24.2009
My favorite city is not a city, it's a tiny village with 900 inhabitants--more a large family than a metropolis. It's Auvillar, where I go to commune with the poplars and the Garonne River, to interact with my dear friends the villagers, who are so welcoming. I go to eat well (the crepes, the...
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Oct.23.2009
Whenever it is Mid Winter (or at least not Summer) in my soul, I long to leave the now crowded, expensive, deteriorating Bay Area to head south into Mexico. I have been to a number of haunts there, including Guadalajara, Puerta Vallarte, Durango, Chihuahua, and Los Mochis. Each has its charms, but...
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Oct.23.2009
(for Vic Mizzy)
She’d rather have stayed in Manhattan.
Here, in the land of acres and acres
of nothing but green, in the land
where there’s nothing lacy, no Times Square,
no Park Avenue anywhere to be seen,
only fresh air and endless chores,
she still longs for a little Fifth Avenue Saks...
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Oct.23.2009
My New York. There are flashes of memory as pulsing as the disconnected views from a subway window. Riding the A train to the Cloisters with Duke Ellington in my head and The Brothers Karamazov in my hands. Hanging out in Sheridan Square in the wee hours to snatch the Village Voice hot off...
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Oct.23.2009
There is no city like Gotham City. Okay, yes, that's a bit on the nose, with Gotham being fictional and all. And it's hard to say that any other city, both real or imaginary, could be anything like the one which claims the Batman as a citizen. But Caped Crusader (and assorted allies and enemies...
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