Here there be condiments

Collected layla_lilah  last night for a night of what passes for sin.  I had a real "I'm home!" moment at The Alley on Grand Avenue in Oakland because it reminded me so much of the Wigwam, where we used to go for cheap hot roast beef sandwiches and burgers back home. Dim, cramped, furnished with penitentially hard wooden booths and festooned with generations of faded and dusty business cards, the sound system was playing some nice, old school arrangements of Bacharach hits before the woman behind the piano began regaling us with chick-behind-the-piano selections on the order of Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell and Carole King. Cheap, basic menu, the steak* special involved iceberg lettuce doused in bleu cheese dressing, an adequate piece of meat that was cooked how I ordered it and a perfectly cooked baked potato that had not been swathed in a soggy-making tinfoil hat. (That's right, kiddies, steak.* I don't do Lent these days - which does not mean I don't know what Lent is or is supposed to be or respect that it is those things.) The waitress brought half a dozen bottles of stuff with which to anoint our meal and checked back with us at reasonable intervals to see if we needed anything, even if it was just a drink refill. And our Cokes came with maraschino cherries atop the straws. It doesn't get much more old school than that.

Since our movie wasn't until 9:45, we passed some time in Walden Pond Books, which I always forget exists and am always pleased by remembering when I'm in that part of town. Scores included a Bellerophon coloring book of Japanese art and a 1927 edition of Lafcadio Hearn's Glimpses of an Unfamilar Japan.  Yes, I love old books, I do I do I do.

Then it was over to the Parkway Speakeasy Theater for Let The Right One In, a Swedish vampire flick. Beautiful and unsettling, I refuse to spoil it for anyone who has the opportunity to investigate it further.

Do you like the sound of "Nobel Peace Prizewinner Pete Seeger?"

Special thanks to layla_lilah  for reminding me about the bumpersticker we saw last night.

"THE PETITION

Pete Seeger has been an ambassador for Peace and Social Justice over the course of his 87 year lifetime. As a prominent musician his songs, messages and performance style have worked to engage other people, particularly the youth, in causes to end the Vietnam war, ban nuclear weapons, work for international solidarity, and ecological responsibility. It is time that a cultural worker receives the recognition that this work has great influence and global reach, that it is not only a medium of entertainment but of education, compassion and action. " To learn more and to add your signature, go to: 
http://www.petitionthem.com/default.asp?sect=detail&pet=3774