Alec Scott

The Gabriel Garcia Marquez tour of Cartagena was great, but one of my takeaways had little to do with the author. The tour’s organizer, dynamic Juliana Medina said of her beloved country: “You can’t sign a peace, you have to build it.” She was speaking of the 2016 peace deal between warring factions, one the country ultimately voted against, by the slimmest of margins. She and the other people I met of her age, seemed committed to building that peace, by reaching across old divides.

A pleasure to walk around colorful Cartagena in the footsteps of Gabriel Garcia Marquez – the Colombian Nobel-winner who worked there as a young reporter. I found his house at the edge of the Caribbean, with a second-floor terrace, a parrot in a cage on it — I imagined him writing in the mornings there, the parrot kibbitzing. I visited a hotel restaurant which had within it the dramatically illuminated remains of an abbey that features in the book I read while there. In Of Love and Other Demons, the formidable abbess feuds with the local bishop* over whether and how to exorcise the demons who supposedly possess a pubescent girl. A Marquez tour of this city took us to the columned arcade full of sweet vendors, where the hero of Love in the Time of Cholera, buys candies for his beloved. Marquez writes about the famous fruit vendors, many the descendants of slaves sold into bondage at the big market here. We met one, Angelique, at the edge of a square which featured a museum on the Inquisition. We went to the famous clock tower near the old city — Cartegena is old, for the Americas, founded in 1533. Of walking through the tower’s passageways and into the old city, he wrote: “It was enough for me to take a step inside the wall to see [Cartagena] in all its grandeur in the mauve light of six in the evening. I could not repress the feeling of having been born again.” *Marquez’s description of the hard-headed bishop: “He was not a man given to celestial visions, or miracles, or flagellations. His kingdom was of this world.” Reminded me of that nice line that Oscar Wilde gives Lady Bracknell: “The general was essentially a man of peace, except in his domestic life.”

It was a DH Lawrence book about the ancient Etruscans that got me intrigued. In a poem, he wrote of them, “Dead with a dead race and a dead speech, and yet darkly monumental.” When I visited Rome a few years ago an American friend’s Italian boyfriend took us north into Tuscany to crawl into some of their tombs and visit their graveyards — these grassy tumuli over each family’s resting place. Renée Dreyfus, the Legion of Honor’s curator, pulled together a fairly blockbuster exhibit on them, dressing, appropriately, in a gold-accented outfit for the opening of this exhibit full of finely wrought gold. She dismisses the longtime riff on them as a mysterious people. “Actually, we know quite a lot about them.” The exhibit has all these extraordinary objects in it, this dramatic horsehead that was posted at the corner of a temple roof, golden bowls and cuffs, terracotta busts. A fresco of men and women lying together dining signaled a greater role for women than in Greek society— Plato’s banquet scenes just have men. Dreyfus said Etruscan women not only got a seat at festive tables, but they could own companies. One of the many objects the curator secured from international collections was a model of a sheep’s liver, used in augury. The mayor of Piacenza delivered the piece himself — it is in the municipal museum.It indicates which gods belong to which parts of the liver, so if there were irregularities in the liver they cut out of a sheep in their sector, maybe that god was mad. (They apparently taught the Romans about augury, with an Etruscan warning Caesar about March 15th. Did he listen? Noooo.) Their language, a linguistic isolate – the “dead speech” as Lawrence had it – is mainly known through brief inscriptions on objects, but the exhibit had one bit of sustained writing, on fabric – it lasted because it was used to wrap an Egyptian mummy. Masters of terra cotta, the head featured made staff think of former Vice President Mike Pence. Which I can see.

A niece of David’s visiting, so brought in some roses from the back for her room. One is a rose new to us, from the Vintage Rose Society, Sutter’s Gold, named for the gold dust found in the American River near Sutter’s Mill. This, of course, set off the 1849 rush. The other roses are named for Judy Garland and Julia Child. When I wrote about the roses, most of which came with our place, for the San Francisco Chronicle, I imagined a big dinner party of the people whose names were attached to them: JFK next to Princess Grace, Falstaff next to Penelope, Cardinal Hume (whoever he was) next to Docteur Jamain (even more obscure). We purchased Docteur Jamain at the recommendation of my much missed Aunt Caroline, who edited and polished most of her gardening-writer husband Patrick’s books including one on roses. I also miss him -- what a civilized life they led, they built in the English Cathedral town of Wells. The vase is, of course, a Heath, from the pottery founded by Edith Heath, something I've also written about. ... Nice how, often, writing about things enriches your feelings for them.

My fabulous copresenter Ruth Carlson and I before last night’s history talk at the swank Clift Hotel. (Those boots!) We had nice groups Friday and Saturday nights in the vast room giving onto this storied bar, the Redwood Room, its walls lined in panels made from one giant tree — and with Gustav Klimt paintings. On the Friday night, we were joined by the last living former inmate of Alcatraz, Bill Baker. He was a trip. And on both nights, fellow author Maria Lenhart also spoke. (Our book covers are above us.) My talk focused on two longtime institutions not far from the hotel: Gump’s Department Store (the former “hush, plush cloister of impeccable taste” as one observer long ago called it) and the studio in the Tenderloin where Grace Slick laid down the vocals for (Don’t You Want) Somebody To Love? Thanks to those who came and to Molly Blaisdell who pulled it all together.

For his birthday, I gave David a 2CV tour of Paris, with, as it turned out, a charming guide, Moussa, who snapped this shot. How nice to lie back with the top rolled back and look at the lovely facades and the blue sky above them (sous le ciel de Paris), as David and driver talked Deux Chevaux and DS. How great to sing “Aux Champs-Elysées” as we drove down that avenue. We felt so lucky this week, the loan of some friends’ apartment in Montmartre with a view of Sacré-Coeur; a catch-up with a beloved but long-lost cousin and her family who live there; the David Hockney show at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, lunch with a college friend in an arcade of the Louvre overlooking the Pyramid; a pilgrimage to pay my respects to a great-uncle interred in Père Lachaise, all of it a prelude to the most special wedding at a château near Nantes, David presiding. Congratulations, Sydney and Cameron. On my return to California, I have still that lyric in my head, heard first in my French immersion class in Oakville, “Aux Champs-Elysées, Aux Champs -Elysées, au soleil, sous la pluie, à midi où à minuit il y’a tous que vous voulez aux Champs-Elysées.” What does that city not have to offer?

The extraordinary Jon Landa-Diestro took us around Valencia yesterday showing us the venues for next year’s Gay Games here. An ebullient linguistics professor with a semicolon tattoo, he and a small team are working hard to host thousands of athletes next year in this sporty city, with traditional offerings like volleyball, tennis, swimming, but also some new and less classically Olympian sports, the likes of gaming, dodgeball, quadball (a rebranded version of analog quidditch), cheerleading (which I’m told is just “cheer” now). (Writing a story on the games and Valencia.) I co-organized just one year of the Canadian Gay Open in tennis -- it took a lot -- and so all respect to those putting together this multi-sport extravaganza. What venues: A soccer stadium for the opening ceremony; the tennis club has been around since the 1890s and is classic, just so. How I wanted to get out on that red clay! Question from Jon: What diva or other entertainer to have at the opening? For a book, I’ve interviewed the lesbian cofounder of these games, one time competitive bowler and all-around jock, Sara Lewinstein, who spoke to me movingly about the Olympian Dr. Tom Waddell, with whom she worked to get the games going. And with whom she had a child before he died of AIDS. So beautiful that their legacy, their spiritual child is thriving -- and their daughter also doing well. The diva question made me think of how Waddell’s boyfriend, a famous rock promoter, got Tina Turner for the first games. And Valencia: After Michelin-starred meal at @habitualrestaurante (where I left my bag), strolled back to the hotel late last night, all the local hero Santiago Calatrava buildings illuminated; lovers holding hands, snogging; a family party spilling out of a bar. What a city, also ebullient, lovable. Heading to hear some Vaughan Williams at one of the games’ cultural partners, a warm modern concert hall. @palaumusicavlc . @visitvalencia.es

This was, of course, a bad idea. But, oh, also a good one. At San Francisco’s oldest restaurant, Tadich Grill, last night, since writing about the fish stew, its famous cioppino. We were a few minutes early, so, at the long bar, dry with a twist it was. Shaken, not stirred. Thoughts of Toronto’s now gone but once it bar, Byzantium, and my martini-loving friend Jay ordering this there. Byzantium's menu had that old Dorothy Parker chestnut on it: I like to have a martini, Two at the very most. After three I’m under the table, After four I’m under the host. I had just the one, and it was more than enough. Cheers!

After the passing of our dearly beloved black cat Robbie, I thought I’d never get a cat again. And part of me still feels that way. But I’d always dreamed of a marmalade cat, after childhood exposure to the Orlando books. A few months after Robbie’s gentle exit, the Ministry of Cats sent this little homeless kitten to our back garden. Though feral, he seemed not at all tough, just sweet. David reenacted the first domestication, putting food out and moving one inch closer each day to this skittish, scrawny little creature, as the kitten downed each bowlful. I named him Caspian for C.S. Lewis’s Prince who was small, tidy, ginger-haired, at least in my imagination. Our kind neighbors fed him while we visited Canada, and then, last night, on our return home, we brought him in from the cold. Welcome, Caspian! David so very good with cats — his look showing the quality of attention and care he gives to ones he likes.

This was lovely, getting the chance to spend time with my niece and nephew and their excellent parents, Kate and Malcolm. We ate homemade sushi (fancy!), read books aloud (good, old Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel), splashed in a waterpark, scootered, doctored a vast collection of apparently sick stuffed animals (pandemic-inspired play?), climbed along an extensive ropes-course-style frame start-to-finish. So big they are now — and yet so little still. (On a walk: “This is the way we came to see the doctor the other day …” Nice to see intellects and personalities come into focus some.) Real New Yorkers: When I mentioned that I was going to walk to the Clinton-Washington Street station, to head back to Manhattan, one of the twins, three-and-a-half, said, so you’re taking the C. This is on the leafy, contemporary-sculpture filled campus of the art and architecture school Pratt, near their Brooklyn apartment. Near us, a young boy showed his father how well he could bike, the excitement of having just learned something coming off him. Pathetic: For me, the visit was so nice that afterwards I wound up crying on the aforementioned C train. (Love that old intense book, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept …) I made such a small scene that a New Yorker gently asked if I wanted her to say a prayer with me. It’s been said before but I ❤️ NY.

Quiche Primavera, with the first green vegetables grown near here this year — asparagus, courgette, gruyere, cheddar, tarragon, the usual custard. David and I the only gay guys in history to have fantasies of opening an inn, with homey French-forward cuisine. A specialist in friend and family gatherings where no one would need to worry about food or being in other people’s space. Counsellors on call!

I’ve been trying to fill, aptly, this little patch of earth under the plane tree on our street. The conceit was Grey Gardens. On the far side, flagstones to enable getting into a car, with drought-tolerant dymondia throughout for ground cover. On this side, euphorbia (the peacock plant) transplanted from the back, some fan aloes (one a gift from a neighbor with a great desert garden), nasturtium (love their lily-pad leaves floating in mid-air), blue chalk sticks, lambs’ ear, silvery grey sage, a wee succulent from Flora Grubb … Stay! Just like this! (Will likely be doing some gardening writing going forward, so trying to get our own gardens in order. To learn by experimenting. With the plentiful rain this year (Pineapple Express!), it has been a battle on all fronts against invasive crab grass and oxalys. More in my feed on this, gardening, so if it bores you, your cue to exit.)