Unable to travel anywhere without reading material, I, in emergency mode,
visited the Beatnick-revered City Lights book store in San Francisco.
Having a rando cheap novel for slow times during any trip can be a blessing
(Heinlein’s “Between Planets” got me
through Peru once) so I went with staff pick “The Mandarins"
by Simon de Beauvoir,
mainly because it was small and hip looking in a dusty literary way, and could ride
comfortably in my back-pack for the next six years as I slowly finish it (if I finish it at all).
I also got the latest Harper’s gratis because the pleasant counter person couldn’t find the bar code on ye olde thematic anniversary cover (“Harper’s: Making Bad Financial Decisions since 1850!”).
I wandered into Chinatown to celebrate my finds with a plate of Mandarin Beef and leeks. Read that one early editor at Harper’s grumbled that the magazine had the tone of “An aristocrat reminding other aristocrats of the regrettable conditions of the unfortunate if picturesque lower orders.”
Also, learned my Zodiac on Jack Kerouac Street. Snakes Represent!!
