Meander Where You May

[carol polk]

The books come mostly from private collections; we also get donations from book clubs, publishers and book stores.   The sale is held in an old warehouse that extends out into the Bay at old Fort Mason, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.  It is about two football fields in size, an impressive site, and the night before the sale begins, when the tables have all been set up and loaded, it's an  impressive sight.  So is the line outside before the sale opens next morning.  Friends of the Library gives well over a million dollars to the library every year, supporting bookmobiles, exhibits, children's and senior and immigrant activities.  The organization has a small paid staff but it runs on volunteers, who sort and price books at the storage facility all year, prepare all the many mailings about neighborhood library activities, fund raising, etc., sell books in the store in the main library and a bigger store in Fort Mason and at the weekly sales on the main library steps (each book $1), set up and run other book sales in different venues over the course of the year.  San Francisco is a book reading city, as nytemps would attest were she here.  If you ever want to visit San Francisco, a good time to do it would be when the Friends big sale is happening.  Usually there are several music festivals, some free, all outdoors, our most beautiful weather, many fewer tourists, etc. 

[Lhoffman]

I'd like to see San Francisco.   May get there someday.   We are going West this weekend, but only as far as Denver.   My daughter and her husband are moving there today, so we're going out to help them get settled.   

Although "settled" may be a stretch:  She'll be doing post-grad work in piano; he'll be working on Artist Diploma and commuting between Denver and Kansas City to conduct a symphony in that area.

[carol polk]

What interesting occupations they've chosen.  It's not so far from KC to Denver, really, except in bad weather.  I bet you'll find yourselves long weekending in the Rockies.  And providing a haven at home for the conductor between gigs.

[bosox18d]

Plus you'll get to go that restaurant in Denver called The Fort? and try Rocky Mountain Oysters.For some gritty descriptions of Denver back some time ago find Neil Cassady's(sp) The First Third.I seem to recall that Stegners"Recapitulation" had parts from Denver also in the flashbacks.

[bosox18d]

Another great Dever fictional world  of old is John Fante's"Wait Until Spring Bandini".

[Lhoffman]

Plus you'll get to go that restaurant in Denver called The Fort? and try Rocky Mountain Oysters.For some gritty descriptions of Denver back some time ago find Neil Cassady's(sp) The First Third.I seem to recall that Stegners"Recapitulation" had parts from Denver also in the flashbacks.

The Fort....at first glance looks kitschy, I mean, it's a FORT...but then you look at the menu and it looks fantastic.   The Aztec Duck and Tequila Glazed Salmon look good, then there's the rosemary infused panna cotta with huckleberries, the chili chocolate bourbon cake.   Wine Spectator Magazine award of excellence....

http://www.thefort.com/

Cassady....I have an outtake of that in my book on my Portable Beats, I'll have to revisit it.

[Lhoffman]

....I bet you'll find yourselves long weekending in the Rockies. 

The Rockies...daughter has climbed Mt. Fuji and Mt. Aspen and has long wanted to take her old mother on a climb....I can't wait!

[rantbo]

At high altitude, beware of solar flares...less atmo to protect you.  Here's an article to furrow your brow....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-e-joseph/the-solar-katrina-storm-t_b_641354.html

[appaloosabeach]

a few of the last of the good ole boys are still burning crosses on selected lawns across the south, why not let them burn a Koran or two, unless maybe the smoke would contribute to global warming. fifty years ago our christian brothers were blowing up black churches, murdering civil rights workers, running school buses off the road. seems the "radical muslims" have copied our business plan. a few years back I was caught in a freak snow storm in the north cascades, I started a fire with the pages of a Roger Tory Peterson's Northwest Birds book, saved my life. The Audobon Society did not complain. I may or may not agree with his heart, however, the little florida preacher has balls. We need a few more leaders with balls, not afraid of losing their pensions.

[bosox18d]

Meander really is dead.I guess Hitler had balls also burning books then jews.

[appaloosabeach]

Hitler did not have balls, he had the silent majority of forty million white people too hungry and frightened to stand up and shout no. if the good reverend jeremiah wright can say "America's chickens are coming home to roost.", and still get his man elected, then the good reverend terry jones, money hungry and stupid, can burn a book, and get a few hundred people in Iraq blown to pieces. You miss my drift.

[carol polk]

Books have been burned as long as there have been books.  Regardless of apparent motive, it's never happened except in the pursuit of temporal power by  the burner,  more than one of whom subsequently felt the touch of the flame themselves.  By doing the Chicken Little, we increase the burner's sense of omnipotent righteousness.  But, pace Bradbury, a book is only so much paper and ink (is the Quran or any version of the Christian Bible available as an e-book?).  That preacher in Florida can no more burn the Quran than he can levitate.

[appaloosabeach]

thank you

[Lhoffman]

The problem is that Islam doesn't see the Koran this way.   In the eyes of Islam, burning it is a serious offense.   In Islam, burning the Koran is burning the sacred word of the Prophet. 

The preacher does have a right to burn it, but before he lights the fire, he ought to spend a little time contemplating his WWJD bracelet.   I think he's missed the point somewhere along the line.   

[rantbo]

Yep.  Many religions have texts that are considered to render sacred anything they are printed on.  The Nichiren sect of Buddhism, for example, has a scroll with the old Sanskrit "nam myoho renge kyo" on it, which is given to new members and then carefully preserved.  If you leave the sect, you have to turn your scroll in, not toss it out.  Too bad news of this retard and his tiny congregation reaches Muslims in Afghanistan, but the overall respect and tolerance of millions of the rest of us Americans they don't hear much about.