Ten days of hiking in the craggy and arid (almost
snow-free) Sierras left me with a mindless California
contentment. No cell, email, laptop, news, and little
reading instilled in me the happy idiocy of the
countryside, to mangle Marx.

To make it worse, perhaps, I came back in time to join Transportation Alternatives' "Tour de Brooklyn" this past Sunday. It featured some 18,000 riders in bright Spandex, great snacks, red t-shirts, crowded streets, the new Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn who rode with us and, as a high point, Brooklyn Beep Marty Markowtiz in tight biking gear (but not actually cycling so far as I could tell). I met bunches of bicycling brooklynites, scored a Brooklyn Cyclones baseball cap.

From there, still in fog, I joined The Dorothy Parker Society and observed the 40th anniversary of her death with a reading and martini fest at Revolution Books, a West 19th St. leftish bookstore run by the followers of Bob Avakian whose somewhat glaring grumpy photo adorned the walls. (Those of you old enough to remember Berkely in the 60's and 70's may recall Avakian, who at that time, I kid you not, delveloped an affection for the politics and regime of North Korean guru Kim Il Sung.)

Thanks to Plymouth Gin, Martinis flowed like milk & honey in the promised land, the readings were great -- reminded me yet again how sharp her story stories are. I staggered home safely and awoke, the next day, back in NYC.