Skip to main content

Imagine

Imagine all the people living life in peace.  Signature solo from John Lennon released circa 1971 is a haunting and daring and optimistic view of the world we could live in.

But this is not the topic I wanted to write about.  Rather about an imaginary Jew born to an imaginary immortal figure (known to some as God) somewhere in Jerusalem this imaginary calendar day in history.

It is amazing the power of storytelling.  Just imagine that most of the 7 billion inhabitants of this planet actually take a break from work letting their respective capitalist and communist machinery idle to celebrate or at least mark the birth of an imaginary figure.

Imagine.

Well instead of doing the imagining we took advantage of the quiet outside (since many of the denizens in our neighborhood decided to gather with like minded souls and exchange the superfluous gifts that they had purchased with imaginary currency) and went walking and exploring the neighborhoods of San Francisco.

First up was a cable car ride up from the Ferry building shore to Nob Hill. 


We gaped at the decorations and trimmings that are traditionally pulled out by folks that believe in another fairy tale associated with a fat white man in a red suit.


It makes for good visuals and allows one to mingle with cheerful folks that with the help of their beliefs are usually in good spirits.  We loitered around a nice vantage point at top of the Fairmont Hotel where we took in the vistas that were bathed with sunshine after a good scrubbing rain the night before.

Coit Tower in the distance - seen from the west side windows of the Fairmont Bar on 24th


Golden Gate in the distance to the North West


Post this trip upstairs we got back down - walked all the way down - to Union Square and took in the revelry there.  This got us all hungry so we did a custom version of a Tapas crawl - first some bento at Maru Sushi then a stop at a desi Chaat corner to gobble some variety nourishments.


That done we headed to the Conservatory in Golden Gate Park and finished with a walk in the gardens surrounding it.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

But What If We're Wrong?

I attempted to read this book by author Chuck Klosterman backward to forward but it started hurting my brain so I decided to stop and do it like any other publication in the English language.  Start from page 1 and move to the right. Witty, caustic and thought provoking this is a book you want to read if you believe that the status quo might, just might be wrong. At times bordering on being contrarian about most things around us it tries to zero in on the notion of what makes anything believable and certain in our minds.  The fact that there is a fact itself is ironic.  Something analogous to the idea that you can never predict the future because there is no future. Many books and movies have tried to play on this concept - best that I recollect (I think I am) was 'The Truman Show'.  This book by Klosterman attempts to provoke the reader to at least contemplate that what they think they know may be wrong. He uses examples like concept of gravity, and how it ...

Peru, South America - Week well spent

Growing up in India the only Peru I knew of was a tropical fruit (Guava for those whose lingua is English).   Not until high school did I discover that it was also a country in the South American continent. So it was this early April week that we decided to hit up Peru - the land of the once glorious Inca people that lived 500 years ago.  Today Peru is the third largest country on that continent with a diverse geography that stretches from the drier Pacific coast plains to the high mountains of the Andes and the Amazon river valley to its east. Our trip was primarily a pilgrimage of sorts to visit the last remaining, lost (now found and documented), large scale, mostly undamaged, city of the Inca nobility, called Machu Picchu (MP).  The Inca were great architects and builders.  MP is a UNESCO world heritage site affording it high visibility to the tourism trade and therefore crowded year round.  Our timing was not quite high season allowing us...

You are important to us

Followed by piano music.   Followed by 'we are experiencing heavier than usual call volume'.  Sounds macabre like bleeding during menstruation or after a ghastly attack with a weapon on a hemophiliac.  Sorry Mrs. Johnson but it appears little Gertrude here has been bleeding heavier than usual what with her night time activities competing with the woodchucks in your neighborhood. Some services even go as far as to pick a random day to say - 'if you were to call us during the Chinese lunar month when the moon is axiomatically hugging the polar star with Jupiter intravenous when call volume is light'.  Well I will be damned.  I thought  I had checked with my astrologer before I placed this well focused call but  I guess this is what you get for listening to a quack. Umph! I am not sure which marketing genius came up with this personal touch concept of informing the caller that you are really a jackass for actually calling the customer serv...