Healing Arts Festival
Eagles Nest
1235 Basse Rd
San Antonio, TX 78212
Store phone: 210-354-7343
11:00 AM — 4:00 PM
Kramer Wetzel’s Aura Photo
Watching one of the ballgames, made me think, there’s a particular player, an I tend to refer to the on-field (and off) drama and comedy of the players as (player’s name) School of Acting. With that as an idea? What popped into my head in a meditative moment, but I doubt I’ll ever pursue it. Which then made me think about San Antonio’s own “Baseball at the Ghost Tracks” (Ball Park at the Ghost Tracks).
That logo, a menacing skull atop crossed baseball bats, richly evocative of the skull on the thigh bones for the Templars and then the pirate flag itself?
How about the twin masks of drama, laughing and crying, or happy and sad, over crossed baseball bats?
Baseball’s own School of Acting.
The Trident Bookstore. I didn’t do any kind of research, so I know practically nothing about the place. Looks to be an independent, squeezed into a neighborhood that has outgrown its roots, and yet, the store is still there. Excellent staff, never scoffed at my accent or questions, and there’s a secret room on the second floor, behind a “secret passage” door that looks like books on a shelf.
Restaurant and coffee shop, plus a nicely arrayed collection of eclectic bestsellers. And stuff. But not too much stuff, just the right amount of kitsch, book reader souvenirs.
Fishing buddy, we bonded when I commented on his accent, a strong New England brogue, and when I mentioned Boston, he strongly suggested Fra Diavolo for two, at The Daily Catch.
Walking over in the late morning, turning onto the street, the senses were instantly plunged into a weird sense of other places. The street was lined, for a block or two, with tiny Italian eateries, of various ilk. And Paul Revere’s house. but mostly Italian food, spilling out into the narrow street.
It is a tiny place, maybe 6 or 7 two-top tables, and most of those were shoved together as an 8-top. The open kitchen took up more than half the floor space.
I have no idea what I ordered but it came as a large bowl with mussels, clams, squid, calamari, shrimp, and lobster over perfectly seasoned spaghetti in a light red sauce.
Amazing.
Trust them fellers with the heavy accent; they know certain ethnic foods.
I think I’m going to have to add “Sitting on the Green Monster” as a bucket list item. I mean, when the weather’s nice. There was a recent literary mention of the CITGO sign, hovering over left field.
All ties together, somehow.
See the Boston Braves play the Boston Red Stockings?
Walking towards the last game we had tickers for? Two elderly gentlemen, thick New York accents, look at me, I look down at the map on the phone, and one guys asks if I’m going to Fenway. I say yes, and his comment?
“I’m following him. He has a Boston hat on.”
I allowed as I wasn’t from around here, but if you followed the one set of phone directions? It pointed a sketchy pathway, down in the Fens, one might suggest, spooky.
Turn one corner and the edge of the Green Monster hovering into the line of sight.
“There you go,” I pointed.
The yellow “city connect” Boston jerseys look great, and the patch on the arm? “617,” the MA area code. I admire that.
I’m reppin’ 210 (two-ten).
After one of the night games, listened as the crowd of — ball park holds 37K, not quite a sell-out, but assorted staff, traffic, and handlers? Probably 40K drifting off into the night, down the highways, byways, and sidewalks.
“See,” the guy was explaining to his date, “the Braves are like the best in baseball right now. The Sox are at the bottom, but they almost won. Anything can happen on any night in baseball. That’s why it’s so exciting.”
Valiant effort, but judging from the girlfriend’s response, she didn’t get it.
Not sure which university, there’s what, three in a row? Harvard, Cambridge, MIT? Not sure. BU, too. Boston medical. Boston Legal? At least one was graduating — scattered proud parents and young ones with cap and gowns of varying degrees.
In the novel, Paradox, the main character prefers Cafe Bustelo coffee. The vacation rental in Boston? AirBnB? Ran out of coffee for the diminutive coffee maker, so it was back to leftover instant. Always carry a spare.
The series went to the Braves, with a close first game an awful second game going to Boston, and then a third game that was blowout. I love the Boston Red Sox fans and the fan base.
Bottom of the 9th inning. The best hitter just flyed out. Two outs. Two strikes, no balls. A lone fan shouts out, ‘C’mon Boston, you got this!”
Strike 3. Game.
3 of Cups
Airports. New addition to the SA airport, shot an image, Gate A1A, always a Jimmy Buffett reference, more than 50 years later. Still applies.
“What would Jimmy Buffett do?”
Go to Fenway?
Joe’s on Newbury.
No.
“But it looks good?”
Top menu item, “Chili with beans.” I have to draw that cultural line someplace. “Chili with beans” is called stew. Or soup. Guess I’ll never know.
A fishing buddy, back in San Antonio, but he was originally from Chicago, he recommended the Wrigley Field Tour before one of the games. Excellent idea, well-worth the cost and expense.
History, trivia, behind the scenes, and more, much more. As Hunter S. Thompson said?
“Buy the ticket, take the ride”
Well worth it, first at Wrigley, but even more so at Fenway.
I think he got one fact incorrect, but I’m not splitting details. The Boston Braves, the tour guide suggested, were founded in 1875. Back of a fan’s shirt? “The Boston Braves, 1871.” From my cursory research, a quick web check? 1871. Wasn’t going to challenge the guide. Near the end, the Fenway guide used the exact same joke the guide at Wrigley used, about the biggest fans and the windiest city.
“San Francisco: they are Giant fans.”
I have one Red Sox shirt and a single Red Sox hat, and I think, I kept thinking I wanted another, but price, travel constraints and the merchandise?
Take nothing but pictures, leave only footprints.
Team store is excellent, though. Love the historical context.
Been five years? Stopped for a lobster roll at Lobstah on a Roll. While memory is weak? As near as I could tell, nothing had changed. Nothing at all. Prices have gone up, cost of fuels and transporting fresh lobster, but other than that? Looked exactly the same. Like, a huge portion of lobster claw, then assorted bits, wrapped in warm, buttery goodness.
All on a toasted, fresh-baked roll.
Chicago might be known for their hot dogs, and I like the Chicago Style hotdog, but the Fenway Franks? A soft roll, like the one used for Lobster Rolls? Split across the top, and the dogs fresh out of the steamer? Excellent.
Not what I recall from the last time I was here, but the hot dogs, the Fenway Frank, was after a midday lobster roll, so that made it better by compassion. Not better than a lobster roll, but a better ballpark hot dogs than most.
Figured out why Boston’s Red Sox are at the bottom, at the moment: ketchup on hot dogs. Just, no, just no.
Ask the Pope about that.
Jimmy Buffett’d A1A
It’s been some years since I’ve hiked at elevations over 5,000 feet, but I like the way the two protagonists are more human, less super-hero in descriptions. Adds a layer of humanity and verisimilitude.
Space aliens, and the dark Catholic sects. Da Vinci Code meets Jurassic Park franchise?
A continuation of the story? Adjunct to?
At the end, there’s a teaser for a third. Like the realism, action, adventure, and real-life characters.
From the early material? A librarian answering an obvious question.
“If there was a manual, nobody would read it. Nobody ever reads the manual.” Page 48.
Even fantasy fiction feels true.
Got tool using the Boston Public Library as a launch point.
Academic novel. Or set in an academic setting, a university in Baltimore? Not a lot of research on my part. The title refers to the soubriquet used for non-tenured teachers with professor-type credentials but not income.
In passing the narrator mentions Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece of death-defying, genre-bending novelist rage, and it made me think, I read Slaughter House Five when I was an angry young man, maybe early teens, and it helped define PTSD before there was ever any kind of diagnostic code for “shell shock.” Just a commentary triggered by the text, mentioned in passing.
The life, times, and loves of an adjunct professor?
“You should write a campus novel,” said Sophie. “Except instead of it being about professors with status anxiety living coddled existences in old Victorian houses, it’s about adjuncts with survival anxiety stealing bagels from department meetings and buying office supplies in the toy section of CVS.” Page 67.
From teaching campus novel. Metafiction, but highly entertaining as such.
Thoroughly post-modern, up-to-date, a commentary on the current condition of the academic life, if not passing information on about the current state of our world. Brilliant, personally dystopia, and story within a story, all the proper literary antecedents are cited.
On a more personal note, makes me glad I didn’t chose the path not taken, and I’m stuck with what I know, or what I don’t know that I know.
From the fore matter?
“Finally, and I can’t stress this enough, if you are listening to this book in audio format in the car, with a kid or your grandma, turn on something else. Now.”
Just so you know.
Sounds about right?
“I have lived my whole life among artists, everything I say sounds mocking and sarcastic.” Page 102.
What I’ve seen, sure.
Please support public libraries.
From an e-mail booklist, and an oddity. Looks like it’s an early Robert A. Heinlein novel. Great, critical accolades. In short, after picking up a pulp-price online version, I guess I need to look for the hardback, and make some room on the shelf.
There were, as I recall, and this is my own, porous memory, but there were certain thematic elements, and if this is a 1938/9 original piece? As reported? It shows the earliest inceptions and possible literary birthplace for those ideas.
It’s an early, possibly first, science fiction novel from one of the great authors of the golden age, and supposedly the novel shows the roots for all that comes after.
Weird set-up, and misses on much, but as an alternative history? Then, too, much of what is in later worker, I Will Fear No Evil, and the deliciously military Starship Troopers, roots are evident.
“It is my belief that history is a story of the action of individuals, acting according to their characters in the environments in which they find themselves.” Page 121.
Succinct definition. Opinion.
Incipient feminism, too. One before it was fashionable, applicable, or realistic. Still, one of my own root sources.
Previous mentions?