August 23, 2022

"Her New Home"
commentary for scene 4 of #book1

JUMP TO: Plot Summary - Cultural References - Locations - My Thoughts

TAGS: #book1 #MaryAnnSingleton #AnnaMadrigal #ConnieBradshaw #28BarbaryLane #cannabis

Link to the text: Her New Home (starting on page 22) (Scribd membership required)

Plot summary: Mary Ann left Connie's apartment early to go out apartment hunting. She first scanned the area for "for rent signs," then hit a rental agency after breakfast at IHOP. She checked out two apartments that were a no-go, before the final one at 28 Barbary Lane.

It is here we meet Anna Madrigal, who quotes Tennyson and doesn't have "a problem with anything." Mary Ann loves the place and is welcomed into "the family."

Back at Connie's apartment that evening, Mary Ann agrees to go out with Connie that night to the hottest singles hunting scene in town, the famous "social Safeway."

Cultural Refences:

• "took marijuana" - Mary Ann may be out of her element in SF, but she is more hip than this prospective landlord.
  
  Also I think this is the first reference to cannabis in the books, but it will not be the last.
   
• "eating the lotus" by Tennyson - Anna is reciting from "The Lotos Eaters" a poem first published by Alfred Lord Tennyson in 1832. The poem was later included in Tennyson's two-volume 1842 collection (which also included the famous "Lady of Shallot").
  
   
• "kimono flutter like brilliant foilage" - I've read this line many times, but in this reading it hit me that it sounds oddly like the surreal (but true) moment when President Nixon was talking to Armistead Maupin and a group of other pro-Vietnam war GI's (A.M. changed is politics a lot after that) --- a moment in time that was captured in tape, thanks to Nixon himself.
  
  From: "Tale of two soldiers: The strange story of young John Kerry's prowar doppelganger" by Douglas Brinkley Boston Globe (Dec. 14, 2003)
  
  

  Then Nixon edged into the bizarre. After one of the vets remarked how the South Vietnamese women who cooked and cleaned at the US bases would warn the Americans when VC activity "was going to get hot and we might get in trouble," the president of the United States replied: "Don't you like those little Vietnamese dresses they wear?"

  After the young veterans nervously laughed their assent, Nixon continued: "It's quite a sight. They told me when I was there in `56 that a Vietnamese mother tells her daughter that she is to carry herself like a swan. And I don't mind saying, just among our . . . and I'm not an expert on this thing, but the Vietnamese women are actually not all that attractive. But I have never seen clothing that does more in, shall we say, a spectacular way than it does for the Vietnamese. But you all know that!"

  Also, here's a picture of Armistead Maupin and Richard Nixon from this awkward encounter, when President Nixon tried to talk about straight sex with a closeted gay man.
  
   
• Social Safeway - - Discussed in detail on the blog post for the next scene that actually happens at the Marina Safeway.
   

Locations:

• Connie's Apartment - According to Tours of the Tales "Connie’s apartment was located somewhere on Greenwich – very close to the Bermuda Triangle. Her place was only a 5 minute walked from the Come Clean Center which was located on block north of there (next stop on this tour)." --- But I haven't yet found in the books, where this location is given.
   
• Marina District - This neighborhood was built in the 1920's on the site of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition, between Fort Mason and the Presidio.
   
• International House of pancakes - According to Tours of the Tales, this IHOP was located at 2299 Lombard Street. Checking the streetview photos on Google maps (which shows the familiar IHOP A-frame architecture) the building is home today to the showroom of Witter Coin,
   
• Rental agency on Lombard Street - While Lombard Street is best known for a short stretch that is known as the "crookedest street of the world" it, much of the western stretch of the street is a major thoroughfare that is labeled as US-101.
   
• Russian Hill - According to Wikipedia:

  Russian Hill is directly to the north (and slightly downhill) from Nob Hill, to the south (uphill) from Fisherman's Wharf, and to the west of the North Beach neighborhood. The Hill is bordered on its west side by parts of the neighborhoods of Cow Hollow and the Marina District.

  At the northern foot of the hill is Ghirardelli Square, which sits on the waterfront of the San Francisco Bay, Aquatic Park, and Fisherman's Wharf, a popular tourist area. A trip down the winding turns of Lombard Street and across Columbus Avenue to the east leads to the neighborhood of North Beach. Down the hill to the west, past Van Ness Avenue, are Cow Hollow and the Marina districts.

  
   
• Barbary Lane - a fictional "lane" based on Macondray Lane in Russian Hill.
   
• Payphone at Searchlight Market - Tours of the Tales has a great article on this small shop which is very close to the fictional Barbary Lane.
   
• Marina Safeway - Discussed in detail on the blog post for the next scene that actually happens at the Marina Safeway.

My thoughts: This scene is extremely important because it is here that we are introduced to two of the most important characters of this book: Anna Madrigal and 28 Barbary Lane.

Anna of course is the "mother of us all," the pot-loving delightfully-eccentric landlady who is much, much more than a landlady, but 28 Barbary Lane (the house) is in many ways a character in its own right.

I'm tempted to say more about this scene, but I'll leave it as it is.