Monday Tidbits

I like the way Lawrence Ferlinghetti thinks:

Q: As a symbol of the 50's counterculture, do you care about winning establishment prizes like the lifetime achievement award you will be receiving from the National Book Foundation this month? Is it gratifying?

Lawrence Ferlinghetti: I hate to use a word like "gratifying," which sounds so fatuous. But it's wonderful to receive honors. And it's high time we honored this endangered species.

Q:Which endangered species is that? Poets?

Ferlinghetti: No, the literarians in the world, and there are millions of them. They are not considered the dominant culture in this country. What's called the dominant culture will fade away as soon as the electricity goes off.

(From an interview in the New York Times magazine)

Kenneth Turan of the LA Times finds lots of good bookstores in the gold country.

Bad news for newspapers: The San Francisco Chronicle's daily circulation has dropped 16.5% to 400,906. It's Sunday circulation also declined. It's down 13.5% to 467,212. The Mercury News declined 3.9% to 249,090 daily and dropped 5.2% on Sunday to 278,420.

The dinner on Saturday night in Bolinas for Prince Charles apparently also included Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation. Somehow I can't imagine George W. Bush inviting Schlosser and Michael Pollan to the White House to hear their views on the state of American eating habits. President Bill Clinton couldn't even agree to plant an organic garden at the White House. Give credit to Alice Waters. She keeps trying. Prince Charles will visit the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley today.