La Buvette and Barberini in Rome

One of the best things about city living is the neighborhood cafe or bar–a place to drop into at any time for a quick pick-me-up or a chat with friends. Even when traveling finding one close to my hotel is de rigueur. There’s nothing better after hours on your feet to sit, relax, and watch other people go about their business or pleasure. Even in a city, like Rome, that’s full of tourists, it is easy to find a place where locals come and go just as tourists do. Just off the Via del Corso in Via Vittorio, we found just the place. Advertised as a ristorante – tea room – wine and cocktail bar, this little place could satisfy just about anyone’s food or beverage desire.

 

Super Tuesday – Two Months Later

It’s been two months since Super Tuesday. One month after Super Tuesday, McCain had the republican nomination in hand. The democrats, Hillary and Obama, were slugging it out in more primaries. In this second month since Super Tuesday, McCain has continued to sit pretty while Hillary and Obama have doggedly continued onward to compete for the democratic nomination.

 

A National Treasure: Museo de la Moda

In May 2007, the subject in the style pages was the opening of the Museo de la Moda in Santiago, Chile. Eric Wilson writing in The New York Times spoke for the world’s biggest fashion collectors when he asked, “WHO is Jorge Yarur Bascuñán and what does he want with Madonna’s bra? And Margot Fonteyn’s tutu?”  You see, Jorge Yarur, the museum’s founder, had upset the tight knit world of historical couture. Not only had he frustrated intentions, but had also outbid established collectors, people accustomed to getting what they want. In this business it is all about having the inside track and money to compete, so when this unknown showed up on the scene, it caused quite a stir indeed. 

One Life: Annie Leibovitz

“I don’t have two lives,” writes Annie Leibovitz in A Photographer’s Life: 1990 – 2005 (Random House, 2006). And, that’s exactly why she is great. Through her photography, she shows us how she takes hold of life, whatever it is, and lives it honestly. Her pictures capture the person, the moment, the senses, the story and let us extract meaning.

Homeless

At the intersection of El Camino Real and Alma Street in Palo Alto, California an elderly gray-haired man stood on the median strip between the north-south lanes. Dressed in a green Army fatigue jacket and dirty brown pants two or three sizes too big, he carried a cardboard sign. It read among other illegible things, “Out of work.”  Although bent and worn, he radiated an urgency and intensity as his small steely eyes scanned the passing cars. He hobbled unsteadily with the help of a cane. The hand gripping the cane trembled incessantly. The light changed to red at the intersection and as the cars turning onto Alma braked, mine coasted past him stopping in line one car ahead of where he waited.

Splendor in the Forum

Lying in the valley between the Palatine and Capitoline hills, the ancient Foro Romano stirred in me a vital shared experience, passed down through thousands of years in the shape of a line, the color of a stone, or the weight of a form. In the remnants of streets and buildings, an excess of exquisite details leapt out at me wanting to be, not only noticed, but held in the mind’s eye. 

Letting in the Senses

Along the southern end of San Francisco Bay and bordering Palo Alto, lies the Baylands,  an immense area of over 2000 acres of marshland and more than 15 miles of trails.  Just five minutes from our homes, Diana and I often walk there.