If you spend a lot of time alone like I do, at times you seek contact, friends, a familiar coffee shop for a hamburger or just to talk to somebody. There are other times, however, when you embrace solitude. Even seek it out. Not just being by yourself while among others in a library, but being so far from civilization you hear the silence. Thick, broad-reaching, quiet. The desert is the perfect place. I checked in with the Mojave Preserve Visitors Center in Barstow to see about road conditions, weather, and to ask about the best places for photography. The two ladies were friendly and helpful. “Turn in at the radio tower, and climb up the ridge,” she said. “You’ll have a 360 degree view of the valleys and the moun...
Let’s call him Mario. He’s the bartender at this classic on Hollywood Boulevard, between Highland and Las Palmas. You’ve been there. The Maitre ‘d, Manuel, had ushered me into the empty bar around 11:45 AM, and while outside the sun blazed with mid-spring spring heat, inside seemed frozen in time. Mario was setting up the bar and had bottles of wine, some opened, some uncorked, cork trays full of highball glasses, wine glasses, Pilsner glasses, tumblers, large jars of green olives, stainless steel containers of white onions—the little kind used in gimlets or martinis if you like them that way—slices of lemon peel, lime, candied cherries, all across the bar, so much that the waiter who came by shoved clear a corner so I could sit. Mario brought me a Heineken and a glass dripping with shaved ice. Billie Holliday singing ‘It Had To Be You’, notes hanging around the wallpap...
Comments