So, my mom died, and this is the first thing I've written since

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In September 2013, my mom was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer, a recoccurence of the cancer that was removed from her lung in April 2009. On January 24, 2014, my mom died at the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco. I wrote this in September 2014, and it is the first thing I've written since her illness.

They say the dead never truly die as long as we remember them. These days, though, the dead live on in cyberspace and databases as well as in our unreliable, organic memories. Even as they rest in peace under the earth or scattered to the winds, they linger on in the Cloud, a 21^st century version of eternal life that features demographic nuggets encoded in strings of 1s and 0s, instead of chubby angels, pearly gates or golden harps,

I think of my mom every time I go to Safeway because I continue to use her Club Card, which will be forevermore linked to her former landline, disconnected these many months. I never got around to getting a Club Card of my own back when they were a thing in the early 90s, and now never will. (Who even has a landline anymore?) Though I’ve turned off her Facebook and shut down her email, I will continue to collect gas points and free sandwiches in her name. And why not? At least the Safeway Club Card gives something back, unlike the piles of newsletters and appeals from her favorite causes that still clutter my mailbox every day. Ridding myself of them is an ongoing process: Please remove Whitney Roberson from your mailing list. She has died, and the last thing she’d want is for Your Organization to be using resources that could be better spent elsewhere.  Sincerely…

Since it takes exactly three weeks for every single catalog purveyor to discover a person has moved, it’s too bad the same thing doesn’t happen when you die, only in reverse.  One organization gets the word of your passing (just as some computer, somewhere clues in that a person has moved), and then your name is rapidly removed from all the lists, a virtual unraveling of a lifetime of one-time donations, ill-advised form-filling-out and change-of-address slips.

         
Following her death, my sisters and I dealt with our mom’s stuff—her 'personal effects,' as they suddenly became-- with efficiency I would have loved to have seen from the mailing list folks. We rented a dumpster, cleaned out the garage and gave away almost all of her clothes. This wasn’t out of a sense of hostility, but there was some desperation involved. There was so much to do, sort, process, deal with, that Goodwill was a godsend, along with brothers-in-law who could haggle with estate dealers, and the San Francisco real estate market that swallowed her house in a matter of weeks.  We even had a table at her funeral with her religious items--crosses, prayer books, Bibles and the like--valued tools of her trade we couldn’t imagine donating. We invited people to take what they wanted. Her friends did the rest and thanked us for our thoughtfulness, holding their keepsakes close. We took none for ourselves. We had the stark memory of her last days etched in our brains, which felt so much more real than any icon or statue.

It’s possible that we will regret this. I don’t yet, but there has finally been enough distance to wonder if there will be a time when moldy legal pads filled with her handwriting would have helped me remember the sound of her voice. I can still hear it now, just as it was when I last heard it: full of pain and bewildered frustration that she was still alive when she had been praying so hard to die. Though I have a good collection of photos, my strongest emotion when I look at them is still disbelief, not sadness, that the healthy, smiling woman pictured is actually her. The pictures of us on Christmas mornings, in Muir Woods, around the City, mock the pictures I have in my head: my mother throwing up everything she tried to get down; my mother dictating emails because it was too hard to type; my mother stage managing her Last Rites, which is a surprisingly good memory, but miles away from the picture from Easter of 2013 of hunting for Easter eggs with her grandsons.

My final memory of my mother alive was of her demanding that the hospice people help her die, and my having to explain why they couldn’t, but that I knew what she needed to do. She taught me how to read, and then 37 years later, I read a hospice pamphlet—could it have been strategically placed?--which said, in so many words, that if the patient stops drinking liquid, they will die in about two days. She scrimped and saved to help send me to journalism school, and then 21 years later, I reported this information to her with Pulitzer-worthy dispassion while sitting on the edge of her bed and looking into her sunken eyes. It was only after she asked the hospice aide to help her go to sleep and not wake up that I’d realized what I’d done. My sisters, clustered around her bed, thought I was brave. The visiting nurse from Iceland praised me.  An hour after she fell into the sleep she would never wake from, I met my best friend at a nearby restaurant, and he told me I actually hadn’t killed my mother. I ate the first full meal I’d had in weeks, but my hands were shaking.  It was months later that I realized I hadn’t said good bye before the heavy drugs kicked. None of us had. At that point, her death had become just the next step in the brutal forward momentum of her cancer. That it was also the final step didn’t seem as important as that inextricable movement toward the end.    

We all die in different ways. There’s a hospice pamphlet about that, too. The time leading up to my mother’s death was an asteroid on a collision course, an avalanche that brings down the whole mountain, a tsunami with the power of the Pacific. It overtook her and all of us. We knew that we would emerge, and she would be lost.  We also knew that there was no steering and no rescue. But when her death actually came, almost exactly two days after she had fallen asleep, it was quick and gentle: a comet shooting across the sky, the sound of snow falling, the tide ebbing until it was all the way out.

We all mourn in different ways. We mourn in a way that’s unique to our personality, but much of our individualized grief stems also from our relationship with the deceased. In the months of chaotic and painful momentum, I took comfort in the things I could do for my mom that only I could do—things like writing regular updates to our family and friends, talking details with lawyers, educating myself on cancer and her health options. It felt sometimes as if I’d been practicing my whole life to fulfill these final tasks because so much of what I did had its deepest roots in things she had taught me.  

It could be that I’m trying to make meaning where none exists. That once the junk mail stops coming and the estate is fully settled and Safeway comes up with another way to provide money-saving illusions to loyal customers, I will have replace my comforting memories with the finality of her death. But I like to think the dead live on much more than virtually, in what we remember and in what they have taught us.

Book sip #2: Up in the air

Book: Cockpit Confidential by Patrick Smith
Drink: chocolate milk

When Asiana 214 crashed short of the runway at San Francisco International last month, I did what you may have done in this age of Twitter feeds and instant uploads.  I clicked with sick fascination through pictures of the ruined plane, checked on the status of the wounded several times in the days that followed and had a feisty internal debate about whether to watch the video (I didn't).  What I didn't do was wonder what the media would say the minute 'pilot error' became a possible cause of the crash.  As expected, automated flight systems were the first to come under attack.  What I also didn't do, which you may have done, was nod my head in agreement as pundits squawked about pilots not even having to fly the plane anymore.  I knew better, thanks to Patrick Smith, a United airlines pilot, Salon.com columnist and author of Cockpit Confidential, a peek into the what it's like to become and remain a commercial pilot in the airline biz these days. 

I  thought about this book when I flew this summer, and I probably will every time I fly from now on.  There's nothing like five or six long hours at 35,000 feet to contemplate life in all its mysteries, not the least of which is how the tin can you are buckled into remains aloft, at high speeds for thousands of miles at a stretch.  That we don't have at least three airline disasters a week can be credited to the much-squawked-about computerized systems, which ferry millions of passengers across the globe, month after month, year after year, with nary a mishap.  Yet even the smartest computer can't get a 747 off the ground in Los Angeles, guide it around storms and hundreds of other airplanes, and land it safely in Tokyo, a point Smith makes repeatedly and emphatically throughout the book.  Learning to pilot a plane--from taking classes, to accumulating hours, to inching your way up an airline hierarchy (a process that can take an entire career)--is a labor of love to rival any artistic or athletic pursuit.  The odds of a pilot making it onto the flight deck of a major carrier are about the same as making it to the major leagues, with just as many potential pitfalls along the way.  

That was one of the biggest surprises from Smith, who also explains esoteric details like plane design, airline branding and Bernoulli's principle with chatty aplomb.  There is a fascinating section that reveals the truth about turbulence, as well as the naming conventions of runways and airports. People behaving badly while flying also make an appearance, but Smith doesn't snipe.  His goal is educating the public about an activity they do all the time and think they know a little about.  In truth, we know almost nothing, as Smith generously informs us with fun facts, interesting anecdotes and pithy commentary.  One of his constant reminders is that both plane crashes and hijacking used to be much more common than they are today, something that unfortunately serves to magnify the scrutiny on the blessedly few tragedies, like Asiana 214, that do occur. 

Speaking of tragedies, Smith keeps it light most of the time, though there is a long, sickly fascinating chapter on the worst and most famous plane crashes.  For this reason, I paired this book with chocolate milk, a sweet, comforting drink that you will never find on an airplane beverage cart--
and one, like this book, that is best enjoyed on the ground.   

The Supreme Court shows its bangs

What do the sassy bang-style choices of Emerati women and DOMA have in common?  Quite a bit, as it turns out. As most of you know, I lived for two years in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.  While there, I gained insight into a Gulf-load of fascinating cultural phenomena, including the way many Emerati women choose to wear their abayas (full-length black gowns) and hijabs (the matching head covering).  Needless to say, bling on the abayas and bangs peeking out the hijabs did not go unnoticed by this sharp-eyed blogger.  At the time, I was a little envious of the many bedazzled options available to the savvy abaya wearer (pink and purple sparkles, sweeping rose-flower patterns, rococo gold squares on the cuffs and hem--the list goes on and on).

But of the ladies who chose to wear their bangs, often tinted and teased, peeking out of their head coverings...well, that seemed to defeat the whole point.  Sure, spiff up your abaya all your want, it's still a relatively shapeless garment that hides your curves, if not the size of your wallet (those blinged up versions aren't cheap.)  But either you think strangers should see your hair, or you don't.  To me, there didn't seem much point in half-in/half-out, especially when inside sources assured me that Emerati women would go to the salon solely to get their bangs prettified.

How can something like that be just a little OK?  Modesty dictates that women cover their hair.  Except a large section near the front that frames the face and can be tinted a striking henna hue?  It seems to go a bit beyond the letter and the spirit of the law, especially because a woman's bangs are quite a bit of the overall effect. At least a quarter of the total hairdo!  UAE advertisements even featured women thus coiffed, exposing the masses to bangs on some, but not others.  To the outside observer, it was bewildering.  Just what was the point of the whole hair-veiling exercise?  (The Quran, by the way, does not require Muslim women to cover up.  It's a cultural addition, post Prophet M., peace be upon him.)

Which brings us to the partial repeal of DOMA.  The Supreme Court ruling which has so many of us rightfully jubilant forbids the federal government to deny same-sex couples the benefits (and responsibilities) of lawful marriage in states where such marriage is legal. As of today, that's 13.  Thirteen states and the District of Columbia.  A little more than 25% of the union. 

The "bangs" of the United States, if you will.

Justice Anthony Kennedy read out his ruling, filled mostly with legalese, but also with these resounding sentences:

"By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others, the federal statute is in violation of the Fifth Amendment."  (The Fifth Amendment, most famous for bringing congressional hearings to a screeching halt, also grants equal protection under the law to all citizens.)

The bang problem, though, is that this equal protection only applies to gay and lesbians citizens of certain states.  How can something be just a little unconstitutional?  Either marriages should be viewed equally, or they shouldn't.  The whole institution shouldn't be shrouded in a black abaya of states rights with just a teased-up pile federal perks peeking out on top for the lucky quarter.  It makes absolutely no sense, legally and humanly.  Edith Windsor lived with Thea Spryer for decades, and Edith now is eligible for a $360,000 federal tax refund, not because she was married for 40 years, but because she happens to live in New York?

As someone who has lived in this country with a pulse for almost 40 years, I understand why the Supreme Court punted.  Shadows of Roe vs. Wade hung heavy in this decision, at least according to the punditry.  But it is possible to acknowledge the vast chasm of social values and cultural contexts that exist in the United States today without throwing the Constitution under the bus.  I bet you thought I was going to say "throw gays and lesbians under the bus."  Well, I wasn't.  This isn't just about gay rights; it's about what civil rights truly mean.

Abortion and civil rights are completely different issues.  Civil rights don't cause harm of any kind, in any way a sane person would argue. Civil rights don't cost money or charge a fee.  Civil rights don't put life-changing outcomes of multiple stakeholders in direct conflict.  All these can and have been legitimately argued in the course of the abortion debate.  The fact is granting civil rights to oppressed groups often improves life outcomes in countless ways.  In his decision, Justice Kennedy evoked the "tens of thousands" of children of gay and lesbian families, claiming that DOMA subjected them to humiliation, and that overturning DOMA would allow them "dignity," "recognition," and "protection."  Though only if they live in certain states.  

The most relevant court case isn't Roe vs. Wade; it's Brown vs. the Board of Education.  That ruling was messy and ugly and still hasn't really worked, but can you imagine what would have happened if states were allowed to decide how they wanted to deal with desegregating public schools?  Can you imagine what would have happened if the Warren court had taken the "values" of each state into account when making that decision?  Put like this, gay marriage is a walk in the park!  I can't imagine even the most fire-breathing homophobes blocking courthouses to prevent gays and lesbians from obtaining marriage licenses, as separatist whites attempted to block public schools in the 1950s and 60s.  I can't imagine Obama sending the National Guard down to Mississippi, or state troopers turning fire hoses on lesbians in wedding dresses.  This fight is different.  As the above examples show,  it's much less violent and culturally charged than the fights of the past.  The battles that raged in the South should never be forgotten or belittled, and I don't mean to do so here.  My point is this: given the current context, the Supreme Court should have been inspired to more bravery, not less.  They should not have seen themselves as wading into yet another cultural conflict but providing the first steps of cultural healing.  Would Birmingham have an African-American mayor today if Brown vs. Board of Education had been thrown back to the states to decide?  

This post started out tongue-in-cheek to get your attention, but it's ending in utter seriousness.  Civil rights matter.  They are not cute and hippie.  They are important.  Discrimination subjects real people to degradation and humiliation, and, when reversed, allows them dignity and hope.  The Supreme Court has said as much, and every single person who was sobbing with relief or cheering or partying in the Castro on Wednesday proves my point.  Rules unequally or arbitrarily applied are unsettling and strange, whether it's bangs peeking out from a head covering or the partial repeal of DOMA.  As citizens of a nation celebrating 237 years of independence and freedom, we have to be better than 25% right.

Down the telephonic rabbit hole

When I was younger, I longed to book passage to Oz or Narnia or any of the other magical worlds that seemed all-too accessible to my favorite literary characters.  My California beach town was sorely lacking in, say, mystical wardrobes or handy tornadoes.  Flying boys and large white rabbits were also in short supply, along with elfin spells, wizard staffs and fairy dust.  Why did all the enchanting stuff happen in books and not on my street?  It just wasn't fair!

Of course, like many kids, I wanted an escape from my daily life of school and chores and siblings. Not that I had much to complain about, but let's face it, battling evil and making friends with talking lions is a lot more fun than homework or even sleepovers.  I devoured stories about worlds my favorite authors created for me, and even learned to recognize and appreciate the most magical aspects of our physical reality: the solar system! Secret codes!  Venice!

Whose childhood phone looked like this?

Little did I know that throughout my childhood there was a gateway to a magical world sitting right on the desk in the kitchen.  Or, later, on my bedside table.  I didn't need a wardrobe or a wizard.  I just needed to pick up the phone.

If I had--and if I had been a little more techy or possessed of that tinkering spirit that has made so many young men rich in the past 30 years--I would have heard more than a dial tone on the end of the line.  I would have heard a siren song, beckoning me into a playground of musical tones, hidden operators and fantastical hardware.

Alas, I wasn't beckoned.  I, like you, just drummed my fingers on the desk waiting for the rotary dial to swing round or the long-distance call to go through.  But some people heard more than beeps, clicks and thunks. Like the lucky children who stepped into Narnia rather than touching the back of the wardrobe, some people found a way to enter that secret world and make themselves at home.  

They called themselves phone phreaks, and they are the subject of a wonderful new book by Phil Lapsley called Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell.  In addition to delighting the reader with an endless cast of brilliant eccentrics and oddball geniuses, Lapsley gives us a close look at the Telephone System That Was, a truly fascinating alternate universe that existed under our very noses.

Until the mid-1980s, the telephone system was a giant analog web of wires that were physically connected to each other.  It was developed by AT&T, that government-sanctioned monopoly, and its research arm Bell Labs.  It costs billions of dollars to build, spanned the nation and connected us to the world.  Before transistors and microchips, before wireless networks and fiber optics, the geeks of that time still managed to connect millions of calls across thousands of miles every single day for more than 60 years.

A map of the long-distance phone system, 1961

When the phone phreaks figured out how they did it, the telephone network became their playground.  The key was learning how a call to your grandma got from your house to hers.  Remember, the connection was physical, in the sense that your wires talked to other wires who were connected to larger wires called trunk lines that connected cities to each other then tapered back down into smaller, local systems.  The phone phreaks figured out the secret language of the phones, the frequencies of the tones that allowed the telephone wires talk to each other.  They then figured out ways to mimic those tones to disconnect a call and then re-connect all over the system for free.  Some used high-tech frequency generators called blue boxes.  Others used musical instruments like recorders.  A few talented phreaks, many of them blind, just whistled to copy the tones.

The book is full of stories about how the phone phreaks discovered the mysteries of the system (a lot of trial and errors and sore dialing fingers) and what AT &T did to fight back.  But what fascinated me most was the sheer scale and wonder of the secret telephone world.  Bell Labs, in a rare fit of poetic extravagance, wrote that their switching stations "sang" to each other.  It wasn't too far from the truth.  Anyone who made a call from a landline in the 1980s knows what I'm talking about.  You dialed a number and then could hear similar (but not exact) tones playing down the wire.  Sometimes, you could hear what sounded like clicks or ker-chunks.  (If you made calls in the 1960s and 70s, you definitely heard these ker-chunks).  What was happening, as I learned from Lapsley, was that your number (in the form of tones) was being routed to a huge switching station the size of a city block called a crossbar switch.  There, the dialed digits actually changed the position on the switch and connected it other parts of the switching matrix (ker-chunk!)  This would serve to transfer your number to another trunk line. Your call might be routed through several of these huge switches before it got to its destination, necessarily making the connection fainter with each step.  Later, metal punch cards and light-detecting photo cells were used instead of moving switches.  Who remembers shouting into a long-distance line?  Well, now you know why. 

Just one small part of a crossbar switch

Imagine a telephone switching station the size of a city block!  Imagine bending this switching station to your will, speaking its language to tell it to connect you to Seattle or Duluth or Nova Scotia.  Imagine figuring out which tone disconnected the line but left it open (2,600 hertz, actually) and which numbers would get you to an internal operator who would know how to route the calls that big switches weren't smart enough to do.  Many phone phreaks were simply interested in exploring the system, using their knowledge to call unlisted phone company numbers like test lines.  Some tried to see how far they could get (Spain? India? Timbuktu?) or how complicated a routing they could generate based on what they knew.  Some discovered early "conference" lines on open circuits that those in the know could dial into.  Plenty of others (including Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak) profited by charging their friends a flat fee for a free long-distance call or by selling the blue boxes.

Regardless of their motives, the phone phreaks were explorers of a magical world that existed right alongside our daily life.  You may find little appeal in this wiry, auditory landscape, but reading about it in Lapsley's book makes it seem as vast and mysterious as Middle Earth--and populated with almost as many mysterious artifacts, astounding journeys and otherworldy characters.  

Dog is (now) my co-pilot

As a person approaches 40, it's not unusual to observe some shifts in behavior or attitudes that previously seemed fixed but are suddenly fluid.  This can take the form of the stereotypical yearning for a Harley Davidson, or can include subtler changes, like embracing meditation, weight-lifting or Twitter. 

Much to my surprise, I have become a dog person. After years of sporadic and dubious (on my part) interaction with animals (several cats excepted), I find myself admiring every dog on the street, relishing trips to dog-related stores and enthusiastically dedicating whole weekends to dog-centered activities. 

The change happened gradually and involved many people with many kinds of dogs, but culminated in falling in love, not only with my girlfriend Allison, but also her standard poodle Dixie. It wasn't that I hated dogs before; I just didn't see what all the fuss was about.  Why did so many people find slobber, constant shedding and begging at the table appealing? Sure, dogs love their owners unconditionally, but they also love almost everyone else unconditionally.  They are evolutionarily programmed to love people.  Which meant the only difference between dogs and robots, in my mind, was that you don't have to clean up after a robot or worry about it keeping the neighbors awake at night.

I didn't know it at the time, but what I needed were ambassador dogs to show me the way toward canine acceptance that involved more than putting their cold nose on my leg (ewwww!) or breathing heavily at face level during a nap on the couch (uuugh!) or, in a story that is now legendary in my family, plucking my latte from where it sat in the middle of the large, square coffee table, drinking it all, then replacing the cup on the table precisely in its previous location.  In case you don't think Labs can execute a plot worthy of 007, yes they can.  And aaaaargh! 

Interestingly, though, it was that latte-drinking devil dog, Cali, who taught me one of the key lessons of  acceptance: dogs can change.  In a way I've never witnessed in other animals, dogs do grow; they mature.  They even get, dare I say, more refined. This makes them not only more interesting than I'd imagined, but also more satisfying to relate to. Cali went from a huge, clumsy mess to a good-natured, limits-respecting dog (for the most part).  Even I could see that, despite my ongoing latte grudge. I hope she is romping in dog heaven with an endless supply of food to steal, doors to open, and bare legs to nose.

If Cali taught me about doggie growth, Bedford (another (mostly) Lab) taught me the joy of dog walking.  Ella, the first poodle I met, taught me about how smart dogs play.  Last year at the school where I worked, four teachers got puppies in the same month.  Since faculty dogs were allowed on campus, the halls were transformed into romping grounds for a rainbow array of chubby, big-pawed cuteness.  There's a reason those adorable animal pics are all over Facebook, no matter how cynically one tries to avoid hitting "like." Having a constant parade of Youtube-worthy puppies scampering by my room every day was almost more than I could take.  But I had never lived with a dog for any length of time.  I needed an introduction to the doggie lifestyle.

Enter Allison, the girlfriend, and Dixie, the poodle.  Since meeting them, I have experienced almost  every aspect of dog ownership except a visit to the vet--and I'm sure that'll come soon.  I've seen a lot of sunrises I wouldn't have ever seen during early morning visits to the patch of grass outside; I've joined the daily routine of fetch with an inside toy.  I have a dog blanket in the back seat of my car, and a Chuck-It, spare tennis balls and even a dog seat belt in my trunk.  I know how to feed Dixie and what to do to avoid getting soaked while bathing her. I'm learning about gentle leaders, biodegradable poop bags, favorite treats and the combo heart worm/flea pill.  But most of all, I have experienced dog parks.

Dixie at Pt. Isabel dog park

Dog parks are like taking a flight to Hawaii every day.  Unfortunately, dog parks are not tropical paradises full of palm trees and beautiful beaches. What I mean is dog parks are imbued with an air of celebration, of joyous holiday-esque spirit that reminds me of the feeling of going on vacation.  It's not a shock to discover that doctors have uncovered healthy benefits of being around dogs.  The sense of relaxation I feel walking around an area full of off-leash dogs and owners is palpable.  Happy dogs are contagious: that unconditional love they offer also comes with an uncomplicated sense of fun. Dixie can jump so high in anticipation of a game of fetch that all four legs spring off the ground. Other dogs waddle around the park, or amble, or dash.  Owners are congenial; generous with compliments, magnanimous if an apology has to be offered .  Almost everyone is smiling, dogs included. What's not to love?

As a new dog person, I now can't pass a dog on the street without my heart melting a little, much like my friend Kris, whose example was instrumental is adapting to the doggie lifestyle.  Kris and her husband rescued a Turkish street dog named Ruby, fostered her seven puppies in their tiny faculty apartment near Istanbul, found them all homes (not easy in a dog-hostile culture), then transported Ruby (now fixed) back to Denver.  With such a paragon of dog devotion for a friend, there is nothing Allison does with Dixie that seems the least bit excessive. Because nothing is.  I'm fully converted to fetch and treats--not to mention counting each minute until we can go to Pt. Isabel again. 

Can a Youtube-worthy puppy be far behind? 

Dixie and me, February 2013

Book sip #1: A hard look at origin stories

(This is the first in an occasional series that will pair books with beverages: a literary-libation pairing, if you will, much like a food-wine pairing.  This doesn't mean I drank the particular selection while reading the book.  It simply means, as you will see, that the refreshment in question pairs well with the themes of the text.  I'm experimenting with this form because I think it has potential to make book reviews even more enticing than they already are. We'll see how it goes...)

Book: A History of Future Cities by Daniel Brook,  W.W. Norton, March 2013
Drink: Hangar One vodka, straight up with a twist of lemon

Origin stories are to cultures as advertising is to products. Origin stories provide a foundational identity that shapes a place and its people, reaching back into the mists of time to offer reasons why our world looks like it does today.  Like advertising, origin stories rarely do more than tip their hats to the truth, yet their sticking power is awesome to behold.  As the years pass, it becomes impossible to separate fact from fiction.  Or maybe not impossible but irrelevant.  The fiction has become fact simply because so many people believe it to be true.

Daniel Brook's highly readable and fascinating new book A History of Future Cities delves into the factual origins of four cities: St. Petersberg, Mumbai/Bombay, Shanghai and Dubai and incisively teases apart myth from reality, self-perception from statistics and data.  What unites these cities in history is their intentional creation as showpieces of modernity and freedom by autocractic regimes or colonial overlords with something to prove.  What points the way to their roles in the "future" mentioned in the title is the way these cities have grown and stretched (as well as retracted) in ways their creators could never have imagined or desired.  As such, they point the way to one possible future for urbanity, one mired in deep economic and political disparities and supported by a vast, unstable workforce of rural transplants. It's a recipe for revolution, and it's happened before.  One only need to look back 300 years at the creation of St. Petersberg, Tsar Peter the Great's "instant" city on the banks of the Neva, backward Russia's "window to the West."  Peter wanted a city like Amsterdam: beautiful, sophisticated and worldly.  He just didn't want any of the pesky democratic ideas and freedoms that came with it.  His successor Catherine continued the tradition, even to the point of requiring her nobility to hold French-style salons  where any topic of discussion was officially allowed (*though only for that evening).  It worked for awhile but, as Brook points out again and again, people can be exposed to openness and liberal thought only so long before they want to try it out themselves.  Catherine's successors, the Romanovs, know best how the story could end, in a pillaged dacha just outside of Peter's "window" to modernity.  As someone who spent two years living in the shadow of Dubai, just the latest "instant" global city built by autocrats by impoverished workers, I have seen this future in action and didn't pass a bus (non-air conditioned even in the heat of summer) full of workers, or a building site bristling with construction cranes without wondering how long any of it could last. 

Russia is where it started, which is where the vodka comes in, but only a little.  Hangar One vodka made by St. George's Spirits, is a Bay Area success story.  It was founded (and still operates partially) in an old airplane hangar on the decommisioned Alameda Naval Air Station.  The company makes vodka and a variety of other spirits, including whiskey and absinthe.  The Hangar One website includes multiple testimonies to the company's small-batch, handcrafted philosophy.  What it doesn't mention remotely as prominently is that the brand has been acquired by Proximo Spirits, a multinational importer based in New Jersey.

I cast no aspersions on Hangar One vodka as a beverage (it's delicious) or St. George's as a distillery, which still makes an array of truly local spirits. But there is a striking contrast between Hangar One's marketing slant (grounded in its origin story) and the reality of its place as a small piece of a larger corporate pie.  This seems to pair quite well with Brook's in-depth examination of the issues
that lurk behind appealingly marketed facades, whether they be brand names or global showpieces.

Which is why, paired with this book, I recommend Hangar One vodka straight up with a twist of lemon, but with nothing to truly disguise what you are getting.  For some, a refined beverage with a quick payoff.  For others, a bitter--and potent- drink to swallow.

If you build it...

I would challenge even the most curmudgeonly conservative to find anything wrong with a farmers' market. Although they attract latte-drinking, well-heeled urbanites like flies to raw organic honey, they are manned by those close to the land and positively reek of self-sufficiency and honest labor.  The fact that mini versions of these markets are setting up in front of public schools all over Oakland should set hearts racing across the political spectrum.
Healthy food for all kids! Healthy food taxes don't have to pay for!  Healthy food where moms and dads can't miss it! Healthy food miles from the nearest latte-drinking urbanite!

But, if you build it, will kids really come?  Will they really ignore the jingle of the ice cream man's handcart?  Will they walk by the mama-preneurs hawking deep fried dough, self-bagged chips and bright lime suckers dusted in chili powder?  Will they really choose baby carrots over hot chips at the corner store?  Really? 

I was dubious, having confiscated a 7-11's worth of chips and candy in class through the years.  With a corner store down the street, would Doritos-loving kids really gravitate toward health food? I watched carefully as farmers' markets set up shop outside four of the schools where I work. At one school, they put the little white tents right on the yard. Unlike the Saturday version in a middle-class neighborhood near you, these are modest markets with a few tables.  One day each week, they offer nuts, fresh veggies, a limited selection of seasonal fruit, jars of honey, fresh eggs (in one location) and a few bars of local soap.  Nothing fancy.  But the stalls are usually packed three parents deep at dismissal time, doing a brisk business.  

But what about the kids?

The answer came, as many answers do, in the form of an 8-year-old struggling reader I'll call Z.  Z is whip thin and vibrates with energy.  Often that energy is excitement and enthusiasm.  Just as often, it's pouting and eye rolling.  Sometimes it's fear, as when he didn't want to come with me to read because his older brother was outside playing basketball and might see him needing "special help." This mood turned to jubilance when we then took the little known "secret agent" route to the reading center.  (We cut through the cafeteria kitchen, went out the side door, cut through the school garden and hugged the classroom's side wall all the way to the open door. Safe and sound.)  Z has had lots of volunteer tutors, most of whom can hang with his energy, but some of whom cannot.  As the reading specialist at his center, I'm often asked to step in during tougher weeks.  Thanks to the "secret agent" trick and others, I'm just as often able to give his mom a glowing report at the end of the session.  The surprised look on her face speaks volumes of her typical check-ins with teacherly figures.

Recently the exchange went something like this:

Me: Z had an excellent session today!  I wanted to let you know how focused he was.

Z's mom: You should know he's--wait--really? For real?  Really?

Z (vibrating with excitement): Really!  Really!

Me: Really!

Z's mom:  Well. Well!  You know what this means...(if possible, Z vibrates every more)...you get some (Z is practically levitating)...farmers' market!

Z's mom takes $2 out of her bag and hands it to Z, who bolts for the white tents.  Yes, the white tents.  Not the ice cream man, not the corner store--the white tents.  For the record, I have no problem with parents surprising their kids with treats following awesome behavior (though I'm not a fan of bribing kids, before the fact, to encourage expected behavior).  I'm definitely a fan of rewarding kids with a trip to the farmers' market that happens to be set up right in front of their school.  It could be that Z's mom would have driven him to the nearest supermarket for a healthy snack.  But we can all agree how unlikely that is.  What's much more likely is that healthy snacks are now more a part of the family routine since it is a convenient option.  And a kid handed $2 to spend is excited to spend it. Period.  The white tents don't represent organic goodness as much as tables laden with stuff they can now buy.

The next week, I worked with Z again, and I couldn't wait to ask him what he bought. The market does, after all, sells kettle corn and honey sticks. "It starts with P and ends with achios," he crowed, skipping down the stairs (no older brother today, so we could walk openly to the center).  Pistachios for good behavior.  Farmers' markets in front of our schools.  It's hard to argue with that.