8 May 2020. Toast the Pub.
Toast the Pub, he said--but that was in an email from Minnesota--and the night before he'd painted his vision of a wolf-man. Homo homini lupus, that's what it brought to mind--because of the eyes--but "on the cusp of a smile,"Jeremy wrote. A good place to be, on the cusp of a smile. As with many evenings (and sometimes late afternoons) in the confines here--a veritable treasure. The Pub. I think I went in there the first time even before we moved to the neighborhood--so it's going on half a century. The original "Schmidt's Trading Company" had an interesting selection of old pipes, displayed in the same flat glass stand-up case that is still there--now with jars of self-roll smoking tobacco on top, and a temporary place for one of the their eccentric draft beers. You wait in line until the barkeep is ready--studying the chalk-board list and trying to remember yet again the difference between pints and half-pints
There was rembetika on the stereo player one time, I remember listening with surprise--and it turned out that the girl behind the counter was a fiddle player with The Disciples of Marcos (I asked)--she'd put it on to absorb some tunes while she poured...
We'd meet there--the ambience led to a relaxed conversation. I'd be sitting at one of the thrift-shop tables, watching for Jeremy to come up onto the porch--I always wondered how he got over from the grad student housing, predictably a little late--but then Jeremy's halo of wild hair, and his shoulders, slightly hunched, maybe it was cold, maybe it was his mood--maybe none of the above--and he'd deposit his rucksack alongside a chair, and soon we were in the midst of one of his stories about the Mercer family and their big-money support of right-wing causes--Jeremy always had all the details--but soon enough, a book or two would appear, and then a whole pile on the table--things picked up at Moe's, he told me--Cezanne, Hopper, maybe even Degas. No predicting what would emerge from that bag, except that he loved them all--just as when I visited his apartment a few times (the poetry sessions) and there were stacks and stacks--on the side table, overflowing the shelves, down onto the floor--only the kitchen was spared. And then the readings would start. He told me he'd done these evenings ever since college--gathered people this way, impromptu, nothing in the event planned out, except that Jeremy always seemed to have a nicely clear sense of what he wanted to share, when it came his turn...
It fit with the Pub, too--makes me want to write down all the friends (students, too) that I'd met there over the years--I see their faces, and I think I can remember where we sat each time...
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Note: The Pub is closed up, along with almost everything else, as of March 15. There's a hand-written card on the sign in front, "by order of Gov. Gavin Newsom, until further notice"--something like that. An unexpected libertarian sentiment? Let's toast the re-opening, regardless...
