Let's raise our glasses to the 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. Yep, that would be today according to a main headline above the fold in this morning's Chronicle. So, meet me at the 21st Amendment on 2nd and De Boom St., but get there before the parade ends because we'll never get a seat at the bar otherwise. And if you're not from around here, you won't get it. Not the way San Francisco gets it. Is there anywhere else in the U.S. staging a parade today? My scientific research (the first page of a Google search) indicates not, and it's been my understanding since I first visited this city in April 1981 that the "there" here isn't a big red bridge, or an old-money industrial legacy built out of fire and gold, or legendary baseball. It's the Irish Coffee, the Gimlet, the Mai Tai, of course the Martini straight up with olives, and now wine, wine, wine and wine. It's about the woe-be-gone days of three martini lunches, of after-hours house parties where someone's always playing Gershwin at the piano and someone else is pouring cold viscous fluids through a coil strainer into chilled glasses, of Gin Fizz brunches with the ghosts of discourse and fine manners at the WashBag. And while that may answer frightening questions for some, it intoxicates others with a sense of conviviality and community carried on a spirit of accomplishment and economic optimism (or denial) in this city, this only city by a bay with an olive in it. I wonder if Brown and Forman have a float in the parade.
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Friday, December 5, 2008
The Olive in the Bay
Let's raise our glasses to the 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. Yep, that would be today according to a main headline above the fold in this morning's Chronicle. So, meet me at the 21st Amendment on 2nd and De Boom St., but get there before the parade ends because we'll never get a seat at the bar otherwise. And if you're not from around here, you won't get it. Not the way San Francisco gets it. Is there anywhere else in the U.S. staging a parade today? My scientific research (the first page of a Google search) indicates not, and it's been my understanding since I first visited this city in April 1981 that the "there" here isn't a big red bridge, or an old-money industrial legacy built out of fire and gold, or legendary baseball. It's the Irish Coffee, the Gimlet, the Mai Tai, of course the Martini straight up with olives, and now wine, wine, wine and wine. It's about the woe-be-gone days of three martini lunches, of after-hours house parties where someone's always playing Gershwin at the piano and someone else is pouring cold viscous fluids through a coil strainer into chilled glasses, of Gin Fizz brunches with the ghosts of discourse and fine manners at the WashBag. And while that may answer frightening questions for some, it intoxicates others with a sense of conviviality and community carried on a spirit of accomplishment and economic optimism (or denial) in this city, this only city by a bay with an olive in it. I wonder if Brown and Forman have a float in the parade.
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3 comments:
Somewhere on his heavenly barstool, Herb Caen just raised a toast to you and your prose.
Ever have a martini at Bruno's? I did, but by my time I understand he didn't open all that often. Only in SF can you run a business that only opens when you feel like it.
Is Bruno's still around? Is Bruno still alive? You can be certain I will extend my scientific research to include a field visit to his joint, even if I have to stake out his place til someone comes around, in person or in spirit, to invite me in.
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