James Maguire

I feel something so positive in America. The protests are sparking us back to health. All those voices rising up for justice. The crime was against a black person – as it has been, again and again. But the people gathering are white and black and all …

I love it that the apple tart sold in the Barnes and Noble cafes is called the Rustic Apple Tart. I also love (unfortunately) the tart itself, in a love-hate kind of way. It’s a soulless glop of industrial sugar-goo that delivers a Mike Tyson body …

Stepped outside today and realized…it’s autumn. The summer drifted away with hardly a whisper. Summer, when it’s here, seems almost stationary. For a moment around July 19 or so, time might stop altogether. September will arrive, we’re sure of it. …

Clearly, it's the dizzying Zen mountaintop of transcendent American consumerism: the Apple Store on Black Friday. Even for the privilege of talking to clerk about a MacBook, I was told the wait was 35 minutes. In that moment I stared into the …

Ah, life in the Bay Area: even the coffee shops can be techie in San Francisco and surrounding areas. I was walking down the street in Berkeley and spotted Algorithm Coffee. Perhaps a dude or dudette is dreaming of a start up in there?

The recently reopened SF Museum of Modern Art is full of treasures. And the building itself is architectural art.

At the grocery store. Oh, and I ate before I went -- bought less. Funny how that works.  Summer splendor....

An almost Norman Rockwellesque tableau, if the old master painted urban types. A tattoo parlor in downtown San Francisco. 

George Saunders on Trump supporters, in The New Yorker: An outstanding piece of campaign reporting by Saunders, more commonly known for his fiction. A must read -- balanced and deeply insightful.

Riding on Amtrak northward from the Bay Area to Sacramento.