We were sitting on the continuous polygonal bench of the big gazebo at Santa Clara Plaza Park that surrounds the Family Reading Library branch.
We were reading our own books - Ginny, her own paperback of BEING HAPPY by Talden Ben-Shar, I, a damaged library discard of THE KING OF MADISON AVENUE - David Ogilvy and the making of Modern Advertizing, by Kenneth Roman, former chairman & CEO of Ogilvy & Mather. Reading about Ogilvy cast me into a false present, actually the past, indistinguishable from our present, because great modern advertizing (cf. Apple's "Big Brother") achieves quasi-eternality if the original product disappears and only the ad remains. Ginny read encouraging quotes to me from her book about 'failure' not being what it's alleged. (It's really more like a necessary rehearsal.)
A friendly grounds-keeper told us the whistling birdcall we could hear above us was a mother hawk teaching her fledgling to fly; down here, below her, a defiant battered skinhead played dominoes with an admiring friend at a cement table, as he had the last time we were there. A light breeze cooled us.
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