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A Guide to Bars and Nightlife in the Sacred City
"I was traveling across America, and then Europe, and then Russia, and then the Middle East," author Benjamin Wachs says of these 26 remarkable tales, "waking up each morning not knowing which city I would fall asleep in. Cities became pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, connecting in ways that you could not see on a map, to reveal the secret order of the universe." While these fictional accounts had their visible beginnings in a freelance journalist's world travel, they had their inner beginnings in the fertile workings of a remarkable mind. My own sense of the author, watching him in my writing workshops in San Francisco week after week spin these remarkable, wry, otherworldly tales with the fluid ease of a savant, seemingly unaware of his own genius, is that he is doing something notable and unusual, and it is for that reason that we committed to publishing this book.
Among the tales I am most fond of are "Thanatos Cuisine," in which a chef creates dishes too hot to endure yet too delicious to turn down, and "Feeding Time," about the choices a brilliant homeless outcast forces upon those who try to help him. "Childhoods on Display in Boston" evokes our cultural hunger for a neatly commodified past; finally, perhaps my personal favorite, "Some of the Social Issues Surrounding Jazz," blows a sad eulogy for a great American art form that loses its roots in the street the more it is celebrated in the university.
Almost all these tales originated in the San Francisco workshop, springing astonishing and fully formed in our living room, with that Benjamin Wachs aura of magical, unconscious coming-into-being, a crystalline fragility fused with intellectual rigor and challenge.
"If we tape enough heartfelt wishes on streetlights and leave enough dreams on the curb, anything can happen," Wachs says in his preface. "Millions of souls in crowded neighborhoods praying beneath the surface of their daily lives lead to manifestations of the miraculous and infernal just around the corner. A block of Paris where fire dancers spin outside Notre Dame connects to a sliver of Chicago where angels dance in a speakeasy, that attaches to miraculous Thai food in London, and to a faith healing in San Francisco, to an architectural marvel in Moscow and a tantric revelation in New Orleans, to a lost opera in Vienna and a resurrection in Pittsburgh, and the perfect couch appearing on Craigslist in Toronto. Never stopping. This is the Sacred City."
-- Cary Tennis, publisher
Among the tales I am most fond of are "Thanatos Cuisine," in which a chef creates dishes too hot to endure yet too delicious to turn down, and "Feeding Time," about the choices a brilliant homeless outcast forces upon those who try to help him. "Childhoods on Display in Boston" evokes our cultural hunger for a neatly commodified past; finally, perhaps my personal favorite, "Some of the Social Issues Surrounding Jazz," blows a sad eulogy for a great American art form that loses its roots in the street the more it is celebrated in the university.
Almost all these tales originated in the San Francisco workshop, springing astonishing and fully formed in our living room, with that Benjamin Wachs aura of magical, unconscious coming-into-being, a crystalline fragility fused with intellectual rigor and challenge.
"If we tape enough heartfelt wishes on streetlights and leave enough dreams on the curb, anything can happen," Wachs says in his preface. "Millions of souls in crowded neighborhoods praying beneath the surface of their daily lives lead to manifestations of the miraculous and infernal just around the corner. A block of Paris where fire dancers spin outside Notre Dame connects to a sliver of Chicago where angels dance in a speakeasy, that attaches to miraculous Thai food in London, and to a faith healing in San Francisco, to an architectural marvel in Moscow and a tantric revelation in New Orleans, to a lost opera in Vienna and a resurrection in Pittsburgh, and the perfect couch appearing on Craigslist in Toronto. Never stopping. This is the Sacred City."
-- Cary Tennis, publisher
150 pages, Paperback
First published November 8, 2013
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18 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 9, 2023
From an old friend
September 25, 2014
Who is Benjamin Wachs? To appreciate this work, we need to know this. He is a bar columnist for the San Francisco Weekly, his work has been published in Village Voice Media, and on National Public Radio, hehas lived in a Buddhist monastery in India, been a freelance reporter for Playboy.com, and traveled around the world.
What exactly is the Sacred City? Is it San Francisco? Is it London? Is it New Delhi? Think bigger. Wachs talks about cities as pulsing with rough love. And that if we tape enough heartfelt wishes on streetlights, and leave enough dreams on the curb, anything can happen. The energy that connects miraculous Thai food in London to a faith healing in Sa Francisco, to a lost opera in Vienna forms the web of the Sacred City.
Hard to believe this is his first collection of fiction. Wachs is a story-teller extraordinaire, fashioning mystical, surreal stories that start where they start and stop where they stop. The cover of this book is literally the gateway to the stories within. The lovely clear globe shows a representation of “city” energy, with the eyes above it that are looking out at the reader, challenging them to read the stories, to walk through the gateway and be part of the action.
The action is all about people, and what makes them tick. This is a work of fiction, a work filled with stories from the dark side of soul. It draws us in, it shows us the little pieces of this and that make up the dark side of life.
The drink glass on the cover is there for a reason - the stories largely take place in bars, where alcohol has its place, but is only part of the story. Alcohol is its own gateway into the otherworld of soul.
You can read this book straight through … or you may find yourself reading a story two or three times, and then moving on. Read at the pace that represents you – the time that you spend in the mystical, surreal world of this book is time well spent. An alternate universe, if you will.
Wachs is a storyteller, a well-educated storyteller whose opinions you will want to hear. The work is fiction … but any or all of these places could be real.
“The High Prices In Venice” talks about a prostitute who will not stay the night She keeps coming back because “she met the main character on her birthday”. “The Napkins of Zurich” describes a meeting that may or may not have taken place between theologian Albrecht Berringer and mathematician Marcus Sloan. My favorite story, “To Look Inside”, talks about an employee who is learning from her employer, who really wants to learn, but has no clue what she will be learning.
This is a book that you will read, and reread, simply for the pleasure.
What exactly is the Sacred City? Is it San Francisco? Is it London? Is it New Delhi? Think bigger. Wachs talks about cities as pulsing with rough love. And that if we tape enough heartfelt wishes on streetlights, and leave enough dreams on the curb, anything can happen. The energy that connects miraculous Thai food in London to a faith healing in Sa Francisco, to a lost opera in Vienna forms the web of the Sacred City.
Hard to believe this is his first collection of fiction. Wachs is a story-teller extraordinaire, fashioning mystical, surreal stories that start where they start and stop where they stop. The cover of this book is literally the gateway to the stories within. The lovely clear globe shows a representation of “city” energy, with the eyes above it that are looking out at the reader, challenging them to read the stories, to walk through the gateway and be part of the action.
The action is all about people, and what makes them tick. This is a work of fiction, a work filled with stories from the dark side of soul. It draws us in, it shows us the little pieces of this and that make up the dark side of life.
The drink glass on the cover is there for a reason - the stories largely take place in bars, where alcohol has its place, but is only part of the story. Alcohol is its own gateway into the otherworld of soul.
You can read this book straight through … or you may find yourself reading a story two or three times, and then moving on. Read at the pace that represents you – the time that you spend in the mystical, surreal world of this book is time well spent. An alternate universe, if you will.
Wachs is a storyteller, a well-educated storyteller whose opinions you will want to hear. The work is fiction … but any or all of these places could be real.
“The High Prices In Venice” talks about a prostitute who will not stay the night She keeps coming back because “she met the main character on her birthday”. “The Napkins of Zurich” describes a meeting that may or may not have taken place between theologian Albrecht Berringer and mathematician Marcus Sloan. My favorite story, “To Look Inside”, talks about an employee who is learning from her employer, who really wants to learn, but has no clue what she will be learning.
This is a book that you will read, and reread, simply for the pleasure.
March 20, 2016
A collection of short stories mostly about alcohol and sex, not surprising given the title. If this is what you like to read about, perhaps you'll enjoy it. I didn't pick this book for myself, it was given to me. These are not my favorite topics but I opened the book open-minded. I just didn't like the writing style and stories were just okay for me.
Favorite story: Thanatos Cuisine
First 2 sentences of first story:
Venice is easy to get lost in. Like any Medieval city, it was designed or people who are going to spend their whole lives there, and then eternity after they're finally raised from the dead.
Favorite story: Thanatos Cuisine
First 2 sentences of first story:
Venice is easy to get lost in. Like any Medieval city, it was designed or people who are going to spend their whole lives there, and then eternity after they're finally raised from the dead.
March 20, 2016
Some of the stories made me cringe with their portrayal of women, but overall I'd definitely rec some of these short stories to friends. Some spoke to things most people like to forget or ignore and those hit like a gut-punch.
March 31, 2014
Some of the stories in this collection are bracingly good, many are delightful.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews