Columnists

On Tuesday afternoon coming back to the East Bay from San Francisco, the BART train stopped on the tracks just before the West Oakland station, and the driver got on the intercom to let us know that we were being delayed because of an earthquake. -more-

When you’re alone and life is making you lonely you can always go—downtown. -more-

What are those curiously attractive houses whose second floor, contained within a steeply pitched main gable roof, is far larger than the first floor? Why do we see them standing in clusters of two or three in Berkeley and Oakland but rarely elsewhere? -more-

I was visiting with a client today and got into one of those if/and/or discussions that soon feels like your brain is stuck in either molasses or honey (depending on whether the job will actually pay anything). One possible course of action involved changing a faucet, which would have eliminated a broken component and almost certainly have solved a problem involving the reluctant flow of hot water. The other solution would make someone happy but seemed for all the world like the wrong thing to do. -more-

We just returned from an excursion to a friend’s new townhouse in Vacaville. I won’t riff on her lament that she can’t find bulk olives or a decent farmers’ market or bookstore there, but I will say that the landscaping scares me a bit. Scared her, too, and then some: The week before closing on the new place, Alamo Creek and its local tributaries flooded her first floor and most of her neighbors’. She got off lightly though and the seller replaced the carpet with the tile she prefers. The block still rings with repair and construction noises, and piles of ruined wallboard and household stuff persist. -more-

In the three years I’ve attended San Francisco State as an MFA student, I’ve developed a consuming interest in the theater. Brian Thorstenson, whose play Shadow Crossing is now at the Berkeley City Club, was the first instructor to inspire me in the craft of playwriting. In his course, “Reading and Viewing Plays,” we read and saw half a dozen live performances, and watched several on tape. We analyzed and critiqued, then copied scenes from each play, put them into our own words and voices, and made them our stories. -more-

Once it’s reached adulthood a Monterey cypress is easy to recognize, though it takes wildly different shapes depending on whether it’s near the ocean shore, its native habitat, or inland even only a few miles. Its native habitat, in fact, is the very small section of coastland between Monterey and Point Lobos. If it were only there, it would be rare—and most likely endangered—just because its range would be so small. But it’s handsome and easy to grow from seed, so it’s in cultivation and part of human-made landscapes all over the world. -more-