Here's another exciting tidbit. Hollywood Hardware (the one with the awesome sign on Freeport) has a coupon in the NandR that's out now for 20% off any kitchenware. I guess they have a new kitchenware section. That could be a sizeable amount if you went for something expensive, like a new knife. I hate my knives. They are so dull and I don't know what to do about it.
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18 comments:
Very cool that you're reading Colette, an underrated writer in my opinion. Are you reading the Claudine novels? Those are my favorite.
I'm reading "cheri". I got it at Beers Books when I spied it because my friend Jane did a really cool painting of Colette.
Most awesome Sac area celeb sighting I've had was Snyder eating at the Taco Bell in Davis. Bonus fun fact - he was driving an AMC Pacer.
for a minute i blanked and that you meant schnyder from one day at a time
o shit! check out this comment from indy rapper Murs on pitchfork:
"I can't really say, "This city has been the best to me." But I think the best performance, the best turnout, and the best vibe of the last tour I did was in Sacramento."
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/145973-guest-list-murs
If you have cheap knives, take them to Raley's and the butcher will sharpen them for free. I don't know how they sharpen them (with a whetstone or with something harsher). If you have a nice, expensive knife and no sharpening tools, find a chef who can do a pro job for you. I once took my Wusthof to a knife shop in the mall to be sharpened but I'm not positive that they did the best job.
Niki
Reading the Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac turned me onto Gary Snyder's stuff. He's called "Japhy Ryder" in the book and a lot of the stuff Kerouac has him saying and doing sent me searching out his books. Good stuff!
-charvey
There's a pro that comes in every Weds at East Bay Kitchen Supply that does a fantastic job sharpening knives. Cheap too. He charged me five bucks for a 7 in. Wüsthof knife.
-skpr
what time? thanks for the tip, i'll try to make it next wednesday.
I just dropped off my knife in the morning and pick it up the following day.
His name's Dominique, and he charges by the length of the knife regardless of whether it needs sharpening or reshaping.
Ah, good ol' Gary Snyder. Super nice guy. Believe it or not, he used to come to the Cattle Club. He'd sit at the bar and sip on a tall cool one.
Meeting him actually made me nervous, being in awe of his writing. Meeting musicians was no big deal but meeting Snyder sure was!
d yudt
Hollywood Hardware is really cool. I just went for the first time this month.
Taylors also sharpens knives. I think it is for free, but not positive.
-Anna
I've heard several times (from UC Davis English dept. grad students, back 16 years ago when I was living with one) that Gary Snyder is a total jerk. But maybe that's only how he treats grads & undergrads - like they are worthless and will never write anything of value. Let's just say that apparently he does not believe in being encouraging to young poets.
I don't know-to defend him, the man seems to be kind of an intellectual giant. I work with Davis undergrads and sometimes it's hard for ME to not snap at them and get impatient with their naive and brainless ways, and I am far from an intellectual giant.
Oh, yeah, I think he's a great poet & all that. That's a totally separate issue from him being a jerk to students. And maybe that's the best way to treat anyone doing creative work in an academic setting; they've got to learn to deal with criticism, after all. Even if it's not, being an "intellectual giant" is a separate issue from how he deals with students, especially pretentious poetry students.
(I remember having this conversation back in 1991 or so, with a big Collette fan. Funny.)
I got to work with Snyder during a West of the West book conference in the late nineties and thought he was quite personable. Gerald Haslam was a charmer as well.
As for grads and undergrads... having just had more than my fill of academia I can attest to the general apathy, laziness, and slackability of college students. After a few years of hanging with art students who didn't know how to spell the Sistine Chapel, did many of their class projects in the hour before class met, and texted/slept/chatted with classmates during lectures, I can attest to how frustating teaching can be.
Now if he was a turd to folks who gave a damn and were trying hard that's another story.
Gary Snyder is a turd in an absolute context. I was a student at Davis during the mentioned time frame, in a couple of disciplines.
Gary Synder is a fraud to the bone to begin with. He is a hump-backed spawn of a doctor who raped his grandmother on the examination table, who grew up poor and got a undeserved chance to be something other than the diminutive geekhood he was born into, and it has been an unending charade and ceaseless self-promotion ever since.
Graduate poetry seminar: common knowledge, GS gave the girls "A"'s and the boys "B"'s. He introduced Carol Koda to the class once as being "some one who doesn't get out much". He has a little man's complex. When it became apparent to him that the Zen poet thing
wasn't going to cut it financially he slipped into the shaman disguise (long hair and beads). Google "Gary Snyder: Plastic Shaman". I could go on. And will. If a grad student actually turned in good work GS would critize it in class, and then publish it in a slightly tweeked manner as his own. Think of him as a MR. Potato head with, variously, a beret, a Neru jacket, long hair; and later a college "prof" with only a BA who put in the bare minimum effort, and who usually talked primarily about himself in class, when he wasn't hustling the women. Or, think of him as Jed Clampett on acid. He got lucky, but instead of moving to BH he went low rent and boned Ellie May in the wigwam.
Gary Snyder and his acid warped "neighbors" out on the San Juan Ridge (think of Rasneesh and his fascist follower invading the small town of Antelope) engage in wife swapping using the Ring of Bone Zendo as a front (and Gary always gets the young blondes). It is ironic that GS publicly
whines that his marriage with Masa
Ohura (he's been married four
times) broke up because she "cheated": she had an affair
with one of the neighbors. He stole his last wife from a guy who was dying of cancer: GS had sex with all his devotees (the good looking blonde ones, anyway) the whole time Carol Koda was married to him- she was the one who didn't get out much, remember?- until she finally died from a long bout with cancer herself. He probably loaned her out the whole time, right up to the end. GS is who he is because people just like you buy his books, loan him your wives and girlfriends, and think that he is something other than the sawed-off, disguised, thieving hunchbacked son of a bastard that he certainly is. Is he a jerk?
That is academic. Is he a turd? Sure. Wake up, children. The Beat Generation didn't work. When GS talks about "The Wild" he means humping your girlfriend. He was a state employee for 20 years and draws a pension from them, just like a janitor. You're paying for it. He stole your poems and sold them back to you. He screwed your old lady. And if you believe a single word he says I have nothing but the deepest concern for you. Count to three and wake up. It is a better world than you know. Go get yourself a life now. Atta boy, atta boy. signed, a friend
I am "replying" five years later to my own entry, directly above.
I was having a drink in Nevada City and ended up buying a drink for one of Gary Snyder's young neighbors, a young guy who wanted to go out and smoke a joint, mostly. He also wanted to talk about Big Gary. That's always good for a chuckle among the homeboys. He told me that Gary likes to sit around at night and guzzle many bottles of expensive French wine and tequila, filling trash cans with the empties. That's what your tax dollars bought for Big Gary's 20 years at the U of Davis--a sot.
Lately the Bought Generation (imperfect present tense of Beat Genetation) has become a bunch of old coyotes. Some of them toothless in Diane Diprama's case; endlessly appealing for money for her false teeth, operations, and basically all her living expenses. Perhaps flossing after 40 years of blow jobs might have helped. She also has Parkinson's and ten other diseases. Very sad. Soon they all will be dead.
Anyhow: chose your heroes carefully. Read "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder. Read anything besides Big Gary and Old Diane and the rest of the 80-something welfare cases. Diane was a whore and a mooch. Big Gary was a thief and a pimp and beggar. None of their stuff stands up.
OK. Check ya all in another five. When we'll zoom in on the Dead Beats.
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