Mark and his bookshop, discernibly disconnected in this wired age

Mark and his bookshop, discernibly disconnected in this wired age

I guess I haven’t been too literate lately, which is why, up until now, I haven’t made it into Mark’s used books store.  I’ve been sitting on Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace for a while.  A pretty thick read at over 1000 pages,  it’s been used more as a yoga prop than as reading material .  I think it is for my Iphone that I haven’t bothered with real books.  Now you can download onto your widget-phone and carry them conveniently around with you, electronically flipping the pages while listening to mp3s in between replying to your sms’s.   But bookstores continue to occupy an important place on our google maps.  It’s the same reason why record shops Read more

Report from Quito—Where the hell can I get a drink?

Report from Quito—Where the hell can I get a drink?

It was last Sunday in the Mariscal, I walked up to Finn McCools, a popular Irish pub in Quito’s Mariscal with the mind to order a Sunday roast and indulge myself.  The waitress tells me there will be no roasts and that they’ll be shutting in 30 minutes.  Normally the beer would be flowing  at 4:30 in the afternoon, with the mixed crowd of locals, tourists,  and expats watching sports, eating, or playing pool, but the new law had kept pretty much everybody at home.  Quitos’ new drinking law had gone into effect and we were feeling it here at ground zero in the Mariscal, Quitos main party zone.

I looked back outside contemplating where to get Read more

Uncle Ho’s: West meets East way down south in Quito’s Mariscal

Uncle Ho’s: West meets East way down south in Quito’s Mariscal

Few places in La Mariscal, the center for Quito’s gringos, draw me in as does Uncle Ho’s.  It goes beyond the food or the cocktails, rather it comes down to the personality behind the bar.  Meet Kevin Sheehy: a five foot ten Irishman with a distinctive braided goatee dangling down below his chin who can be found most nights serving up  martinis, cracking jokes with the local clientele, and checking the baseball play-by-plays on his laptop.  Popular with  Quito’s English teacher crowd and local gringo business owner alike, Ho’s intimate bar provides a great place to catch the game and have a chat.  Kev’s a typical Irishman with a riotous sense of humor; he quickly friendlies up to anyone Read more

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