Kurt R.A. Giambastiani's Blog, page 42

Bumper Crop

Knife in hand, I begin my work. The plums are warm from their rest in the summer sun. I selectone. Its dark skin, freshly washed, stretchestaut over soft flesh. I slice down its back, then prize itopen like a clam, revealing the yellow-green flesh and the hard, brown stone within. With a twist, I free […]

Old Man Gamer: NMS Day One

On Release Day, I spent a few hours playing No Man’s Sky. It’s not perfect, but damn, it’s close. No Man’s Sky released with a Day Zero patch (doesn’t everything, these days?) so I can’t report on the original, unpatched version (I’m not getting paid for this, so why would I bother?), but I can […]

Old Man Gamer: Waiting Game

Tomorrow’s the day. No Man’s Sky, the game that tipped the scales and convinced me to buy a PS4 console delivers tomorrow. The hype for this game — in my little world, anyway— has been intense, and with good reason. It’s truly unlike any other game, both in construction and in scope. Nothing exists until […]

Baghdad-by-the-Bay

I spent the week in San Francisco. I spent the week in 1949. I spent the week rereading Baghdad by the Bay, a collection of essays written by the man who was for me— as he was for thousands of others— the voice of San Francisco: Herb Caen. Caen was a columnist for the San […]

Lessons From My Father: Epilogue

Thanks to those who’ve taken the time to follow these posts. It’s been a bittersweet journey, but a valuable one for me. This week, I went down to help my close up shop on my father’s life. For a poor kid from the backwoods of western Marin, grandson of an Italian immigrant, a high-school dropout […]

Lessons From My Father: On Love

It was not until my high school years that my father talked to me of love. By that time, of course, I had succumbed to my fair share of crushes, passions, and fascinations (including one young girl who treated me so ill that I carved “LD” into the sole of my boot, that I might […]

Lessons From My Father: On Humility

As a skinny, myopic boy with a bookish nature and a talent with the violin, I was an easy — if not an obligatory — target for the stronger boys. I was punched and teased and bullied and beaten on the school tarmac. Several times I was “called out” to fight in the churchyard: appointments […]

Lessons From My Father: On Opportunity

A child of the ’60s, I grew up in a world struggling to realize the dream of racial equality. At school, my teachers pried at the doors of my Wonder Breadworld to show me the truth of a color-conscious reality. My family, active in the civil rights movement, counted among its friends families both white […]

Lessons From My Father: On Parenting

My father was not a demonstrative man. Raised by cold and distant parents, virtually on his ownfrom the age of thirteen, he learned early on to be self-sufficient and contained.He rarely exhibited anger (though, believe me, we kids got him there on occasion) but also rarely did he exhibit overt love or tenderness. He was […]

Lessons From My Father: On Creativity

In 1966, when I was eight years old, my birthdaypresent was aVac-u-Form. For those unfamiliar with this “toy,” here’s how it worked: Shaped like a rectangular box, the Vac-u-Form had a heating plate on one side and a vacuum platform on the other. Between them, a “window” was hinged so that it could swing to […]