In the course of a day

On the way out this morning, a woman said to Kate, “Girl, where’s yo gloves?” “And what about her hat?” I said. “ExAAAC’ly”, she parried. Here’s an example of the quick-witted good humouredness here. As I was about to cross a street later on, I stopped. A lorry looked like it was going to turn left in front of me. The driver indicated “I’m going straight ahead”, and I waved thanks. He beamed. The courtesy here is worth remarking on. Cars stop for you before you step off the kerb. People smile when you acknowledge them. I wonder if in some way the courtesy compensates for other harshnesses of the society. Kenneth Clark, who wrote Civilization, put a lot of store on good manners.

It’s very welcoming I have to say. Though I have vivid flashes of Australia. Yesterday, turning into Shattuck Ave after coming out of the movies, with the Berkeley hills rising up above the roadway, I suddenly thought of Bowral when you turn onto the main road. And this afternoon, when I looked at the palms on the waterfront at Oakland I thought for a split second I was in St. Kilda. But I’m not nostalgic. It’s simply vividness of memory, because I’m too happy to be homesick. I have waves of excitement like the first waves of love. Apart from anything else, it’s too rich here to pine for anywhere else.

We went down to Oakland CBD today. I left Kate in a store fossicking amongst racks of jackets and jeans (‘chaquetas’ and ‘pantalones vaqueros’ as they were also signed) and went down to The Blue Bottle to have a coffee. Some cafe owners in Sydney told me that this is the only place in the States which serves coffee as good as you get in Australia (and I can believe it; much of the coffee around here is bitter and weak). I was working on my piece on La bohème. On how it’s so touching, and how so much of that emotionality is due to the shaping of the libretto. The music yes, but the dramaturgical plotting of Mimi’s decline. This feeds into my customary question about the true importance of the script in an opera. Granted, it’s the music that really carries the day, but does music always trump words? Can any composer, say, ever match the majesty of Lincoln’s prose? (“The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every patriot grave…to every living heart and hearthstone across this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of Union when touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature”?)

Anyway, I was sitting there and I thought, FDR’s presidential yacht is moored in Oakland. Why not wander down a couple of blocks to see if I can find it? (which I did eventually). But at first I walked out onto a pier and there in the distance off to the east were snow-capped mountains. I’ve never seen this before - snow-capped mountains rising behind a city. I suppose if I’d spent any time much in Hobart or Canberra this’d be nothing new, but you won’t see this most places in Oz.

On the way to the pier I’d passed this shanty-type building. I hadn’t paid it much attention. But on the way back, I read some plaques: Heinold’s First and Last Chance Saloon, registered as a site of national interest, etc... Built out of the remains of an old whaling ship, it has been in continuous operation since 1883. But here you go - it is immortalised in Jack London’s books and is where he used to meet his seafaring mates for a drink. Robert Louis Stevenson used to drop in as well (though I’m not sure if it was at exactly the same time).

This is the sort of thing I stumble across in the course of a day. There is really so much going on. And such linguistic richness – “Girl, where’s yo’ gloves?” “Pantalones vaqueros”. At the very least I hope I’ll learn a greater eloquence from being here.