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Suggested Song: Live Forever, The Highwaymen
Suggested Drink: Dirt Road Martini: vodka, iced tea, Giardiniera Brine, olive. (Dolly’s recipe)

Dolly Parton died this week. She had a good run and her legacy will outlive us all. It won’t be as much for any single song or movie, her theme park or philanthropy, but for the sum and force of her entire being. Irrepressible, joyful, and generous. Dolly was Dolly.

The current crop of lifemaxxers would be well served to obsess less on how they indulge themselves and more on what they offer others. Take a page from the Dolly Parton playbook. You might just live forever.

Bryan Johnson is the public face of the lifemaxxing movement. He wants to live forever, literally. Johnson believes it’s possible if he can make it to 2039 and still be in pretty good nick. By then, he reasons, AI and advances in biotechnologies will uncover the secrets to biohacking him into immortality. Death will be optional. (He’ll be 62.)

Johnson is doing everything now to keep himself in top shape for then. A taste of his daily routine, in this order, taken from his Blueprint website:

  • Rise by 5 am.
  • Run a series of body tracking tests to measure weight and body composition.
  • Do breathing exercises and meditate for 5 minutes.
  • Sit through 10,000 lux light therapy (to set his circadian rhythm) for 6 minutes.
  • Shower.
  • Drink a morning cocktail of powders, peptides, olive oil, and blueberries at 5:25.
  • Swallow roughly 50 supplements and longevity actives.
  • Do a workout for 60-90 minutes.
  • Spend 20 minutes in a 200°F sauna at 7:30.
  • Do full-body, near-infrared light therapy for 6 minutes at 8:00.
  • Do shockwave therapy for 5 minutes at 8:15.
  • Shower again at 8:30.
  • Then continue the morning routine of more powdered smoothies, work, and walks.

In addition, Johnson:

  • Eats super-veggie meals at 6 and 11 am that include black lentils, broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, garlic, and ginger.
  • Has his final meal of the day at noon, which includes some combination of veggies, nuts, seeds, and berries. (He’s vegan.)

At 7:30 pm Johnson will do a final 10 minute walk and spend time with friends and family. He has a hard stop at 8:00 for an end-of-day wash up and will be in bed by 8:30. Lights out.

Next day: rinse and repeat.

Johnson and his partner limit their sexual activity to a strictly prearranged schedule. After 4 years together they have never slept in the same bed, ever. This, he explains, could lead to spontaneous intimacy (I think we would all agree), which would mess with his many tight constraints around schedule, sleep, and recovery.

He also doesn’t drink or do recreational drugs (a reformed Mormon). He does, however, engage in quite a bit of psychedelic research involving psilocybin (magic mushrooms), ketamine, and 5-MeO-DMT; always under medical supervision while wired to various scanners and imagers. (That would dampen the buzz, I’m thinking.)

Johnson talked with Ross Douthat for the New York Times this summer (click here to listen) and I enjoyed the interview. He presents less as a crackpot with wacko dreams of eternal life than a man pursuing a personal mission with zeal. Everything to which he submits his body and mind is measured, analyzed, and shared publicly. We may learn things from his experiments that prove beneficial in extending our own lives, and he’s signed up to be the lab rat for these self-administered tests. Respect. (He also sells a long list of powders, gels, washes, and energy bars to promote health and fitness on his website, so there’s that.)

Ross Douthat with Bryan Johnson, on Douthat’s final Interesting Times interview.

This is what I hope lifemaxxers understand: A life maximized isn’t simply a quantitative measure along a horizontal x-axis, as in number of years on earth with a pulse. There is a vertical y-axis to be considered as well, reflecting the depth of qualitative experiences. This is not a linear measurement; it is volumetric. As one’s life progresses along the x, what is getting lived along the y?

Each of us have our own plots of achievement and failure, love and heartbreak (the y), through the years (the x). Some are exhilarating accomplishments and tender blessings, others embarrassing face plants and self-inflicted wounds. All contribute to a rich stew of that thing we call life, which has to be assessed along both axes.

Dolly died at 80. Through those years she sold over 100 million records and won 11 Grammy and 3 Emmy awards. She was inducted into both the Country Music and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame. Parton also gifted over 300 million books to children worldwide, donated millions to disaster relief in her home state of Tennessee, and helped fund research into the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine (that with other mRNA vaccines saved over 2.5 million lives globally). There was also the Dollywood theme park she built to provide jobs and promote economic growth near her Smoky Mountains childhood home.

Dolly squeezed a lot from that lemon and leaves quite the legacy. Immortality? Let’s just accept that her star will shine for a long, long time. Dolly is an American icon, and I use the present tense there consciously. That her impact on our world will be felt for generations is indisputable. She dove from the highest board into the deepest end of the pool, and we all got to enjoy that performance.

I take my cues on living well from the Dollys of the world, to squeeze that lemon hard. It can create a mess. It will also add the zest that zings our most glorious days.

I am the last person, Monsieur Johnson, from whom you want to take life counselling. I fall for the wrong types of women, drink more than I admit to my doctor, accept random offers of candy (without the monitoring gear), and eat pretty much anything that walks, swims, flies, or takes root upon this earth. You’ll likely add more years to your own life than mine. Dolly clocked in at 80. Should I be that blessed, I’ll take it.

I hope that the extra time it affords you is truly maxxed, not hermetically sealed, over-prescribed, and martially regimented. In other words, don’t abstain from the gloriously messy. But that’s for you to decide. Each of us must define what is a life well lived. This I will suggest to you: stay up and sleep with your girlfriend tonight. Who knows, spontaneous intimacy might happen. She’ll love it. You’ll love it. It’s a beautiful thing.

Bill Magill
San Francisco

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Suggested Song: The Night Before, The Beatles
Suggested Drink: Espresso Martini: vodka, Kahlua, espresso, simple syrup (good for the morning or night).

I’ve always been an early riser. Sometimes my work required it; mostly I just preferred it. This bias has become more ingrained with age. I’m usually up before dawn now, and winding down shortly after dinner. I used to fight it, now I lean into it. The agency of aging.

I love running before daybreak. The San Francisco air is fresh, the streets are empty, and the quiet calm reveals an urban temperament most locals would not recognize. In my Civic Center neighborhood the morning commute will soon fill the air with a cacophony of beeping horns and lurching buses and a start-stop rhythm of red-light traffic flows. The sidewalks will bustle with coffee-clutching bobbleheads talking loudly to no one while rushing to work. The homeless emerge, dog walkers get fido out for the morning poop, and the F Line street cars start clanging their way up and down Market Street. It’s a radical contrast with the moonlit serenity I enjoyed just an hour earlier.

Photo by Craig Lee, San Francisco Examiner.

Aix-en-Provence is different but the contrast no less distinct. French tourist towns rise early. The streets may feel sleepy but a lot’s happening behind the curtain. Boulangiers are rolling out dough and firing up ovens well before sunrise. The cafes along the grand Cours Mirabeau won’t open for another hour of two, but the pre-shift is already setting up terrace tables and chairs as I jog by in the dark. Aix’s sidewalks and alleys enjoy a pre-dawn hosing down, while loud sweeper trucks bristle past. (Aix hint: never rent along the Cours. Oh, those apartments above street level look elegant with their high windows and long views down the tree-lined promenade, but the early morning noise? Infernal.)

By 8 a.m. Aix will be humming with a different sort of species. The morning shoppers with straw baskets (paniers) will be getting first picks at the farmers markets in the Richelme or Prêcheurs plazas; the bread-crazy French will be queuing at boulangeries for baguettes and croissants and pains au chocolat; and the cafe tables will start filling up with cigarette-smoking, espresso-sipping locals, and a few early-rising vacationers puzzling over coffee options. (A market merchant or 2 will likely be enjoying a fortifying half pastis or rosé before the rush.)

The Passage Agard in Aix-en-Provence, before the crowds get moving.

My friends are mostly night owls, not morning larks. Their productive hours start later in the day and run into the evenings. Stay up until midnight writing or gaming or watching Netflix? No problem. Sleep in until 9 a.m. or later? Even better.

If we plan a night out, even an impromptu same-day plan, I will rally, but those mid-evening calls – hey, we’re all down at the Forum, what are you up to old bean? – go straight to voicemail these days. I am starting to enjoy my clear mornings more than my cloudy nights, and honoring that shift. The agency of aging.

There’s good reason to fix a night/morning schedule, whether you’re a lark or an owl. The health benefits of getting a solid sleep are well documented – heartier immune system, happier emotions, healthier brain – and a hack for said sleep can be found in honoring a set bedtime, be it early or late. This is harder to follow when we’re young, horny, and expanding our social networks (At the Forum now? I’ll be right down.). But those priorities yield to a different set with age. (If curious to read more about the complex world of sleep, Why We Sleep remains the touchstone on the topic.)

A 2024 study by Imperial College indicates that night owls operate at higher cognitive levels than morning larks. But Bryan Johnson, the popular lifemaxxer, insists that the sweet spot, at least for him, is around 8:30 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. Lots of conflicting opinions and data, but you have agency. So what’s your birdcall?

Bill Magill
San Francisco

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Suggested Song: Le Sud, Nino Ferrer
Suggested Drink: Upside Down Martini: Vermouth, gin/vodka, olive.

I’m back in Aix and working from a new squat; a temporary flat rented from my former landlord, Emmanuel. The small unit is in a grand old building in the historic Mazarin quarter, kitted out in flea-market rococo, with creaky porte-fênetre French windows that open to a calm garden courtyard, fountain a’girgle. Provence charm.

Slumming it in Aix-en-Provence.

When typing away on a laptop here I imagine myself as the young Hemingway pecking furiously at his Underwood in Paris. Pretentious in the extreme, but it’s an image that pushes me to respect the process, to sit my ass in the chair and write, damn it. Delusions have their value.

I’m trying to have a creative few weeks during this stay – despite my holiday mindset – and so my thoughts are on process.

Top or bottom. How do you lean?

Some artists tackle the work-to-be-done in a bottom-up process, as if assembling a LEGO kit. A painter might experiment with a series of thumbnails, then commit to a drawing. Blocking in the major shapes and color values could follow, then mid-tones and background, followed by finer details and textures. A few more dabs here and scrapes there will finish the masterpiece, and then a sheen of varnish will lock it in.

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Michelangelo’s David. Photo by Jim Nix.

Others follow a top-down practice. Think Michelangelo and his David sculpture. Aside from a few crude drawings, he spent no effort on mock-ups, no plaster casts (an approach that Rodin favored). In 1501 Michelangelo stared up at single massive slab of Carrara marble almost 4 times his height, and with tools in hand got to work.

A good friend writes true crime novels. After reading everything he can find about the caper itself, he’ll assemble a mountain of background information on all things even remotely related to the incident: backgrounds on the crime-committing characters (and the crime stoppers pursuing them), a historic chronicle of similar incidences, psychological analyses of motivations underpinning said crime (why the heck do people do this?), the geography of the region(s), the time period, and so forth. Hundreds of books and journals and articles and records will be read, locations visited, and people interviewed. This exploratory period will take years and the repository of data will grow by month to Everest proportions. And then, with a tentative story arc in mind, the whittling-down begins. A first draft will be revised and tightened, revised and tightened ad nauseam, until his editor gives the final thumbs up.

Yeah, my pal is a total top. The final word count in his published book will be an order of magnitude less than the unwieldy starting point. Similarly, the floor of Michelangelo’s atelier in Florence was surely littered with more spent marble over 3 years of toil than twice the volume of the emergent David. (Pity his poor nightly cleaner. Oy vey!)

Get creative

There is compelling evidence that regular creative activities can strengthen a brain’s connections, enhance flexible thinking, and even produce biological brains that look years younger. (Click here to read more.) Creativity is as essential to the aging brain as play, as community, as sleep, as exercise, and as eating well.

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From Creative Experiences and Brain Clocks, Nature Communications, 2025.

You may not consider yourself creative. I’m calling bullshit on that. Everyone can be creative, even if not an artist. My brother is no artist (sorry Joe), but he looks at a massive block of dilapidated home and imagines a palace (where the rest of us just see a dilapidated home). Once acquired, he enters with sledge-hammer and drill and saw and takes it down to the foundational studs (great for anger management), then rebuilds it plank by board by crown molding in his own vision. Incredibly creative.

My own process varies. I’m working on a new song at the moment, and during these past weeks in Aix I’ve spewed out dozens of stanzas of mostly lame drivel. But through endless revisions I’m ferreting out a few tasty pearls, combining disparate lines and grabbing words from here to insert there. This top-down process of throwing everything up against the wall and then slowly rearranging is providing greater clarity on the arc of the song, its most powerful narrative, and the driving theme (which will be the futility of ambition; a theme that is so not me, and thus a delightfully wicked challenge).

Other times I work bottom up. I have a new musical script in development and I know exactly how the story will block out, the major and minor characters, the various plot twists and its dramatic ending. Now comes the finer details, the minor shades, the bit of texture that will take it from mildly amusing to the next Hamilton on Broadway. As stated above: delusions have their value.

If you struggle for inspiration or hit a wall, try switching up the process. Go bottom up if you’re a top-down type, or vice versa. (My gay friends in San Francisco will find that suggestion mischievously titillating.) Actually, most of us probably exist somewhere along that spectrum, not at the extreme ends.

A big thanks to Leia Immanuel, who helped guide my thinking on this piece. She’s bouncing around Europe this summer after just completing a BA in Art at Swarthmore, and was in Aix for a bit of Cezanne inspiration. We shared coffees. More on Leia and her art can be enjoyed here.

Bill Magill
Aix-en-Provence

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Suggested Song: Into the Mystic, Van Morrison
Suggested Drink: Sam Adams Summer Ale (in honor of America’s 250th anniversary celebration)

We settle into routines, into activity flows that, through repetition, take on a comfortable muscle memory. In the working world, a well-hewed workflow can supercharge productivity by streamlining activities, eliminating indecisive hesitations, and guiding us efficiently through objectives from project launch to finish. Baked-in life flows, too, pilot us through a day’s daily markers, from slippers on to lights off. Perfect for a repeatable, predictable existence, but resistant to change. That can be a problem when looking to shake things up.

I’m a creature of habit. My days in Aix-en-Provence stepped happily through a repeatable sequence, a Gantt chart of rise-run-shower-texts-cereal-cafe americano-emails-NYT-farmers market-cafe espresso-work-workout-lunch-nap-stroll (languidly around this postcard town)-tea-writing/music/f*cking off-stroll (equally languidly)-drinks-dinner-tv-read-sleep, … more or less in that order. My guess is that your daily routine shares some of these events, possibly in a different sequence. The upside of a set routine is the autopilot; the downside is the autopilot. Why mess with the altitude, speed, and direction when the ride is smooth and turbulence-free?

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My move back to San Francisco last year killed the Aix routine. I didn’t know where to stroll or shop or stop for a drink. There was no daily farmers market. My kitchen kit and guitars and books were in cross-Atlantic transit (through Montreal for some strange reason). There was no television for evening viewing. It felt like a little hand grenade had been tossed into my cozy quotidian. Perturbing, but perfect.

This upheaval created a blue sky on which I could reimagine the routine, cut this and trim that, and rearrange the bits that survived. I bought a French press for the first time in my life, which required a learning curve and minor workflow of its own. For the late morning espresso I ventured out to one of the many cafes along Irving Avenue, as my much-loved DeLonghi had stayed in France with brother Joe. I redesigned my lunch and dinner menus around American offerings at the local grocery store and explored the Inner Sunset for solo meals (and so the hermit worm became a neighborhood butterfly). With my guitars in transit and piano gone (another addition to Joe’s France home) I concentrated on writing; a new project accelerated, as did my Postcards frequency. As to that pre-dinner-stroll-and-drink custom I so enjoyed in Provence? My English friend Ian Taylor might advise, steady as she goes old bean, don’t try anything rash. Good advice.

So why bring this up? Since moving back to San Francisco I’ve met a few people winding down careers (or cashing out early) and eager for something new and exciting. Some find the thought of a reckless dash to Provence or Tuscany seductive; arriving with suitcase in hand, a stranger in a strange land, and pondering unexplored ambitions. But what are those ambitions exactly, and how does one execute such an audacious leap? (I wrote a manual on this, actually. Click the image at right if curious.)

Later-stage life leaps can be fun to imagine but complicated to spring, and a simple, soothing life flow doesn’t provoke the pivot. The weekends with grandkids, Wednesday lunches with the besties (first bottle’s on me, girls!), the Friday book club, your favorite pew at Sunday service, the languid morning strolls. Comforting elements like these can fill the days and hold us in place.

Indeed, some (most?) of us want to hold in place.

But, … for the restless Don Quixotes of the bunch, can inhibiting routines be broken long enough to establish new habits better aligned with new bearings? Can escape velocity from life flow’s inertia be reached over an accelerated period? (Not everyone has 15 years of patience to spend in Provence and naval gaze.) A shorter ride, possibly bumpy, but revelatory? Over weeks, months?

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Escape from Gravity, Alex Kelly

I think yes, possibly. Perhaps it takes just long enough for a pause to transition from holiday to quasi-resident status. We all know the difference. One is a fugue state, timeless and blissfully void of obligations beyond the few must-see, must-do items to tick off and a daily taste of local drinks and cuisines. Once home, back to reality. The second requires a new routine and relationships, even if just self-assembling: shopping at a local grocery/market and cooking at the rental; mastering some survival language skills; mingling with the locals at what has becoming your new hang and weaselling a dinner invite, and daring to host at your place (now that’s a sure sign you’ve crossed the rubicon to resident status); taking a lover (for those so disposed).

Back to reality? No, your reality has changed. Onward.

Looking to reinvent your life flow? Aix-en-Provence is a fantastic candidate if considering locations for that helpful tourist-to-local transition. It’s large enough to keep you occupied, small enough to master quickly. The local french are friendly and the sizeable expat community supportive. And it’s just a stunningly beautiful town.

I’ll be back in Aix for a few weeks in July and August, then again in October. Let me know if you want to visit for some soft turbulence and need a sensei/sherpa to help with the heavy lifting.

As an aside, I’ve accepted that 15 years in France has changed my life flow, my life, and me in ways both profound and irreversible. I’ve been back in San Francisco for 6 months and loving it, but my polyurbanamorous tensions demand respect. So, I’ll be bouncing between SF and Aix regularly going forward, insha’allah.

Bill Magill
San Francisco

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Suggested Song: La Serenissima, Daft Punk
Suggested Drink: Bellini: peach puree, prosecco.

Monet was in a funk. He had cut his teeth on the beach scenes and seascapes of Le Havre in the early years, and then turned his brush on Paris and the conical haystacks dotting its countryside. His hazy impressions of industrial London captured the fog and soot and sun like no artist before. (No top hat dandies in white tie tuxes for our man Claude.) Then Giverny, where for the past 25 years he’d been setting up the easel around his placid little pond. Lots of water lilies. Now Claude was lilied out.

By 1908 Monet was famous, rich, and creatively inert. With fellow rebels like Renoir, Pissarro, Degas, and Cézanne (my man from Aix), he had reimagined what was possible with paint and ushered in a new era of art. Fortune and acclaim followed, but fresh inspiration was proving illusive. No more f*cking water lilies (he may have said to his life-long art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel). I am 68 Paul, fini!

Just another water lilies impression by Claude Monet.

Venice

By the break of the 20th century Venice had become a bucket-list destination for the well-heeled glitterati of Europe and America. Its charming canals and terraced cafes also pulled in the artist hordes, the easel-toting beret crowd looking for the next it spot to sketch and paint and carouse.

Monet and Alice (wife #2) decided on a short sojourn to Venice in our aforementioned year – 1908 – mostly from a romantic bucket-list angle. Preferring to be at the front of a new wave, not the tail, Claude felt little pull to paint much of anything, most of all an overdone city. Still, he decided to pack the brushes. What the hell, at least there won’t be water lilies (he may have been thinking).

The artist tumbled for the town quickly. It wasn’t as much the striking Renaissance architecture or romantic canals or bustling alleys, but more the soft Italian light enveloping these things that seduced and vexed him. That is the word he used – enveloppe – when describing what he sought to master in paint. This shroud of particulate air and the light refracting through it changing with the hour and circulation and atmospheric mood of the day, and each day unique. How could he capture that ephemeral ambience with simple strokes of oil pigments on canvas? Well Claude, this is what you do, so get to it! And he did.

Le Grand Canal, facing the Salute Church in Venice, Claude Monet, 1908.

Monet’s late creative resurgence provoked by Venice has been well documented. He and Alice spent 6 weeks in the city while he painted its landmarks like the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore and Santa Maria della Salute on different days and times of the day. He painted from bobbing gondolas and set up along the canal banks, conquering the challenges of color and mood, or tormented by them. It all drove him a bit manic, at times exhilarated or disheartened, but creatively charged. He returned to Giverny with 37 canvases of genius in various states completion.

Alice died of leukemia in 1911, not 3 years after their blissful Italian getaway. He was crushed and upon her passing returned to the Venice collection, finishing 29 pieces. Perhaps he hoped this project would invoke memories of happier times. It did seem to stir in him an enthusiasm of the younger artist, as he finished a number water lilies canvases as well that had been collecting dust in the atelier.

Paul must have been thrilled (and nicely rewarded), as the Venice collection is considered some the most interesting works of Monet’s venerated career. I’m hoping Claude was happier man for it. The world is certainly a richer, more beautiful place for it. And we all get to enjoy it.

Bill Magill
San Francisco

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Suggested Song: Come Out and Play, Billie Eilish
Suggested Drink: Starbucks Pink Drink: strawberry, açai, coconut milk. (A Barbie favorite.)

Ian Taylor is a good friend, and he likes his games. Maybe it’s a British thing or maybe Ian is just the competitive sort, I’m not sure. He was my first good friend in Aix-en-Provence, some 16 years ago, crossing paths at Collège Mignet as our kids prepared for junior-high. Many a rosé-splashed afternoon followed, time well wasted in his cottage garden playing pétanque, darts, ping-pong, or something pulled from a deep box of board and card games.

Ian, I just want to sit in the Provence sun and get a slow, easy buzz on.
What are talking about old bean, let’s get a game going!
Sigh.

Ian is on to something: playing games offers deep benefits beyond just good fun, especially when enjoyed with friends. Forming teams and facing off builds the bonds and plants the memories that linger long after an evening ends, or a life in Provence fades. Some impromptu pétanque matches chez Ian were legendary, his French neighbors dangerously skilled at this Mediterranean obsession. (The Italians play bocci. Same game, different drinks.) No one takes the affable pick-up game seriously au debut; everyone is boisterously invested with taunts and praise à la fin. The rosé helps.

A summer afternoon pétanque match in Provence. The sporty Ian Taylor 3rd from left.

We allow ourselves to outgrow game playing, and this is our loss. It’s known to spur creativity, strengthen social connections, stimulate cognitive functions, and produce joy; all positive elements of longer, healthier lifespans.

How can I be sure? Mattel Corporation (of Barbie and Hot Wheels fame) has studied the health benefits of play and produced a fascinating report on its merits. They interviewed over 33 thousand people of all ages and confirmed, statistically, what we’ve always suspected: games and play feel good to us because they are good for us.

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Findings from the Mattel study on the merits of play. (Go to the study for a more readable image.)

This is all particularly relevant now, at this moment of phone screen social detachment and analog estrangement. For boomers, playtime provides a grounding rod to our earlier, earthier selves. We slow down and touch real objects, we share physical space, we josh and encourage, we get gloriously excited and giddy; just like our old kid selves. For everyone regardless of age, playtime provides a relaxation ritual in an accelerating world (quoting from the Mattel study). So very true.

It is encouraging to see young people embracing the joy of play as well. Board game cafes are booming across the US and abroad (more about that here) as people chose to turn off their phones and engage with friends across a table. The Game Parlour in San Francisco’s Inner Sunset offers over 100 tabletop options, plus drinks and food. It can pack out on many evenings, with reservations required. You might even spot my son Jess there, who loves board games and lives in the neighborhood.

We don’t all play in the same way or seek the same reward. Mattel submits that there are 6 play personalities, as outlined below. The labels alone may reveal your type. Refer to the report linked above to learn more about each. Regardless of our individual motivations, the benefits are mutual as the dices roll and the cards are flipped.

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Mattel’s 6 play personalities.

“Games create a field of trust, safety, love, and empathy.” Couldn’t we use a bit more of that at this moment in time? Maybe a global summit held in Ian’s Provence garden? Okay boys (and the warmongers are ALWAYS boys), choose your teams and grab your boules, …. pétanque boules that is. Now, where’s that corkscrew?

Bill Magill
San Francisco

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Suggested Song: No More Mr. Nice Guy, Alice Cooper
Suggested Drink: The Sith Imperial Stout, Outsider Brewing

Personae non Gratae (n): Plural for a person who is unacceptable or unwelcome.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary

An international man of mystery. That’s me, minus the mystery. I grew up with a big imagination in small town Pennsylvania, in a stunning sketch of pastoral beauty nestled between the Blue and Tuscarora Mountains of the Appalachian chain. Picture rolling green hills dotted with small dairy farms and commanding grain silos. This is God’s country, mostly Protestant, settled by the Scots-Irish and Germans. Paradise on earth, but limited in horizons for a hick kid full of wanderlust fuelled by Verne and Hemingway. What’s out there? Will it embrace me?

My post-Perry County travelogue included stints in Texas and then California, first southern and then northern. I was living in San Francisco in my late 20s when I met the exotic Alexandra, an exchange student from Paris getting her MBA at SF State. I tumbled, we married, kids happened, and my wanderlust went trans-global.

Alexandra was born in France to a Spanish mother. We made regular visits to Paris and Barcelona in those early years, and these were my first experiences in foreign lands. My language skills were impressively bad, but no matter. I’m a chatty guy, even in broken Spanglish, and Alexandra’s family invited me in with arms wide. He’s trying, isn’t that cute!

Later, we committed that our 3 pooks would have European dirt under their fingernails, and so moved to Provence in 2003. I was back to the pastoral landscapes and rolling hills of my youth; add in the Mediterranean lifestyle.

Through these adventures I’ve always enjoyed persona most grata status, albeit with some good-natured ribbing. In Texas I was that damn Yankee from north of the Mason-Dixon. In California, the Texan in Tony Lamas. In France or Spain I was the indecipherable American at your dinner table.

My old Tony Lama boots still step out on occasion.

A side note here: The French are truly bad at distinguishing English accents.

Oh, tu es anglais? was a common query at aforementioned dinner parties.
Non, I’d reply, je suis américain.
Ohhhhh d’accord, un américain! Oh là là!

To avoid confusion, I just started introducing myself as Bill the American. Bottles popped, merriment ensued.

Stormy admiration

The contentious rapport between French and Americans is a story that plays well on both sides of the pond. The truth is, however, that a lot of love and respect exists between the two cultures. Both are fiercely proud and highly accomplished along those distinct dimensions that matter most to each. Food and fashion and big trucks and fast trains and tech giants and bloomy cheese and good rosé on the cheap: I’ll let you segment out who excels at which.

French support for America stretches from Lafayette and our country’s founding through Desert Storm in Iraq. American GIs fought alongside the French in both world wars, liberating the country after the Normandy landing in 1944. US flyboys still do rotations through the French Air Base at Salon de Provence, not far from Aix, to share expertise and enjoy the southern sun.

Washington and Lafayette tour Valley Forge, 1777.

This all adds to a mutual respect, if sometimes begrudging. My circle of French friends in San Francisco bubble to the top of any dinner party list; always great conversation and excellent taste in wine. How can I help, Bill? Oh, just bring a bottle of something. Similarly, I got invited to a lot of French parties and events in Provence when living there.

I place great value in this French-American relationship. I get deeply upset with anyone or anything that fucks with it.

There are only so many insults, tariffs, threats to security, and unhinged tweets about total annihilation before a people get fed up and the red carpet gets rolled up. Russians became personae non gratae in Europe after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Yes, they could still visit, but the reception was, and remains, notably frosty. One is always curious, does he support Putin and the war? I’m guessing that South Africans experienced this disdain during the Apartheid years and Israelis are feeling a bit of a chill now.

I’ll be spending time in Europe this summer. I’m happy to call San Francisco home again, but look forward to re-immersion in a bit of French joie de vivre with family and old friends. As an American, will I be warmly embraced as I enjoyed in the past? By my good friends, yes of course, but by the odd waiter here or unacquainted dinner guest there? Putain, is this guy one of those Trump bastards?

I deeply disapprove of our president (as do 60% of my fellow Americans as of this writing) and consider his many actions this past year unexplainable, unconstitutional, and possibly criminal. I cringe at my inclusion in the Personae non Gratae Club, but accept that now I am, and will need a strong soap (or little white lie) to wash off that smell.

Oh, tu es anglais?
Uh, … oui, vraiment anglais.

Bill Magill
San Francisco

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Suggested Song: Give A Little Bit, Supertramp
Suggested Drink: Land of Happy cocktail: gin, balsamic shrub, Prosecco, lemon wedge.

I was at an Eid al-Fitr celebration in San Francisco this past weekend. It is a Muslim fete at the end of Ramadan, the festival of breaking the fast. There was a joyous scene bubbling along Golden Gate Avenue in the Tenderloin, an immigrant neighborhood bordering the Civic Center where I live. Bouncing houses and shawarma popups, ethnic music and dancing, olive oils from Jordan and pottery from Palestine, an open air clothing bazar selling all manner of niqabs and hijabs and abayas (I’m learning). There were also numerous community organizations offering free services and looking for volunteers. I’m considering my look in a crossing guard vest.

Eid is to be honored through acts of kindness and generosity, of sharing meals with others and being charitable to one’s family and those less fortunate. Other religions have similar traditions: the Jewish Purim, Buddhist Vesak, and Christmas, of course. These benevolent rituals are effective happiness bombs for their followers. It is widely documented that acts of kindness and generosity are some of the lowest hanging fruit in the blessed tree of positive vibes. We get a much greater emotional boost from giving than getting. (For an insightful read on the proven power of generosity, enjoy this paper from the Greater Good Science Center.)

I caught up with an old friend last week, over an afternoon beer at the SF Ferry Building. His wife has been volunteering in a hospice care unit since both parents passed away recently, one shortly after the other. That was quite the emotional hit, understandably, and this act of giving was helping backstop the slide. My sister Cathy too used to volunteer at a Ronald McDonald House, which helps families in need of accommodations and support near pediatric hospitals. Her time spent with children, some terminally ill, could be trying but deeply rewarding. She had her dark moments, as do we all, and this was the best antidote. Cathy was a giver, as is my friend’s wife Susan.

My first 3 months back in San Francisco were spent at the big blue house on 6th Avenue and Irving Street in the Inner Sunset. I was offered a furnished studio there, at no cost, because I needed a temporary place while looking for my next apartment. How did this happen, to enjoy a charming unit in a beautiful historic home in a trendy neighborhood in one of America’s most expensive cities, … for free? Barbara Oleksiw. She’s a giver.

Aside from the large toy library of dolls, games, puzzles and other things Barbara organises and sets out daily for neighborhood families – take what you want and give back what you no longer play with – Barbara offers a community bulletin board, free monthly knife sharpening, and live musical entertainment during street fairs from her sizeable garden. While I was living there, Barbara invited a farmers market bakery to give away their unsold croissants and other delights from her street corner post market, and personally bought 50 roasted Costco chickens to donate to families in need one weekend. She just set up a table with a few friends and gave them away. Inspiring.

Barbara Oleksiw’s Big Blue House in San Francisco’s Inner Sunset.

My mother was also an inexhaustible source of kindness and compassion, and I was blessed. She looked for the best in everyone, never (and I do mean never) criticised, sought calm and compromise in all situations, and was effusive with her smiles and complements and gifts. On the give versus take meter she bent the needle, like Barbara.

The brilliant and the boors

Some people are brilliant suns and others boorish black holes. Most of us bounce in between; good days and bad. Then there are the deeply deprived and aggrieved, wholly committed to sharing their miseries.

Stephen Miller is a fine sample from that angry set of folks stewing at the sewer end of the give versus take spectrum. Let’s take a look. Everything Miller says, every scowl he casts, every immigrant community he demeans, reveals a man deeply unhappy with his lot in life: white and raised upper middle class in sunny Santa Monica, California, a graduate of prestigious Duke University (in just as sunny North Carolina), and political annoyance suddenly elevated to giddy levels of influence and power. The contempt Miller holds for all who contest his zealous beliefs is expressed in a twisted sneer that chills the soul and sucks the warmth out of all in proximity. Think Death Eaters of Harry Potter fame, or the hunched Max Schreck from the 1922 film Nosferatu. Miller is a taker.

So what’s the point here, … (it’s rosé hour, this needs to wrap up). Our place on the give or take spectrum is something over which we have agency. No one can be Mother Theresa 24/7, but we choose to call our better angels or send forth our demons at will. That Winnie was one of the happiest people on earth and also spent her every waken hour with the haloed doers of good deeds does not prove causation. That Stephen Miller presents as one of the angriest people you’d be unfortunate enough to meet and commits his every drop of sulfurous energy squeezing hope from all those in his orbit does not prove causation, but boy is that correlation compelling. Along what part of that spectrum do you want live? I think I know the answer. You know mine too.

Bill Magill
San Francisco

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Suggested Song: Everybody Eats When They Come To My House, Cab Calloway.
Suggested Drink: Any fermented grape worthy of your own home communion.

Communion (noun): intimate fellowship or rapport.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I had been eating out a lot since moving back to San Francisco. It’s fun to let someone else do the cooking from time to time, especially in a gastro mecca like SF, but I get great joy from tinkering in the kitchen. I also love to host. Sharing a home-cooked meal prepared with love for close friends who matter most turns good into great on all counts: the meal, the evening, and the company. It’s the power of communion.

My old kitchen kit arrived from Aix-en-Provence about a week ago, filling out the inventory of pots, pans, utensils, and gadgets I’d been picking up daily from Macy’s, Target, Cliff’s Variety, and other purveyors of fine homeware within a walk from my downtown flat. I’m back to roasting this and braising that while enjoying a glass or 3 of wine (darn it’s expensive here), while Coltrane or Chopin provides an evening soundtrack. Meals out are great, but give me the homespun zen of an evening encounter with a kitchen counter heaped high with fresh produce. What’s even better? Sharing the creation that’s all a’bubble on the stovetop with others.

The kitchenwares aisle at Cliff’s Variety in San Francisco.

I met a lot of fascinating people in Provence. Like Paris, Aix is a melting pot of Gaullist natives and multi-generational immigrants, plus a heaping dose of expats from all points on the globe. Reflecting on my time there, I realize that the closest friendships made where with people who communed on some evening at 7 rue Manuel (damn, I miss that place), enjoying (or suffering through) an alchemy of ingredients from the daily marché and favored boucherie. I would promise the starters and mains, and everyone else pitched in with breads, cheeses, charcuterie, desserts, and wine. The quintessential French dinner party.

(Also upon reflection [over a cold pilsner on the terrace of Anina in Hayes Valley yesterday afternoon]), it dawned on me that dinner communions chez Bill (the cause) begat the deepest and most durable friendships (the effect), and in that order. I didn’t just invite close friends to dinner parties. No, it’s that the people who came for dinner parties often turned into my closest friends. And this was quite a wide-ranging ensemble of ages, interests, talents, peccadillos, and kinks. Always lively, never boring, and rarely ending early.

What is it about these dinner rituals at home that build connections more deeply than an hour or two dining in a restaurant? I think it’s the shared service. In a restaurant we all sit while orders are taken, dishes delivered, silverware replaced, plates removed, wine glasses topped off, and check presented. Off you go now. This communion is elegant, organized, proficient, and performative. Dinners out can be wildly pleasurable, but not deeply communal.

A few close friends joining for a meal at 7 rue Manuel.

In our homes we serve each other, pass around plates, hand each other bread, fill each other’s glasses, forget something or other still steaming on the stove top, stain the table cloth, and then take turns bussing everything back to the sink where clean-up is shared (a couple of volunteers scrubbing and rinsing while the rest of us stand around drinking wine.) This communion is gloriously messy, unscripted, and authentic. As are the deepest relationships, right?

If you find yourself again changing cities or countries or continents you’ll want to find a local tribe. An increasing mountain of evidence shows that strong social connections are fundamental to longer healthspans, particularly with mental health. As we get older this can be more challenging. Consider laying out a dinner table for fun folks you meet here or there, with whom there seems to be a curious connection at first contact. This offer of generosity, this communion ensemble, may plant the seed for friendships that keep you happy and healthy through the many years ahead, … or until you again pull up roots.

Bill Magill
San Francisco

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Suggested Song: San Francisco, Scott McKenzie
Suggested Drink: Chinese Mai Tai at the Li Po Lounge (Dark and light rum, pineapple juice, and a mysterious “Chinese liquor”).

I’ve been delinquent in getting a new essay out since arriving in San Francisco. A change in amoureux messes with one’s creative rhythms, and while an urban divorce with visitation rights had been my plan, I’m quickly accepting the flaws in my thinking. What’s Plan B?

I am vexed by 2 lovers. When in San Francisco I long for the warm embrace of Aix-en-Provence. When in Aix I miss the urban energy of San Francisco. Both are real seducers but distinct encounters. One is a bustling ball of creative kinks and diversity, the other a charming postcard of Provençal splendor. One, an impatient center of bleeding edge what’s next and its innovators, the other a revered destination for the good life now and its disciples. If San Francisco is a stalking tigress in black leather, Aix is a demure gazelle in white linen.

Their distinctions can be contrasted as much as anything through food. San Francisco is the definition of culinary range. The Inner Sunset (my current squat) offers menus of French, Singaporean, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Eritrean, Italian, Mexican, El Salvadorian, Persian, Moroccan, Greek, and other cuisines packed around the buzzing 9th and Irving core. Banh mi, pho, glass noodles, kitfo, street tacos, sushi, ceviche, pizza, … what’s for dinner tonight? This neighorhood puts my tastebuds in hyperdrive.

Korean BBQ short ribs (Kal Bi) at Manna, the Inner Sunset, SF.
Korean BBQ short ribs (Kal Bi) at Manna, the Inner Sunset, SF.

Aix is a totem of French exceptionalism. The small Mediterranean city has over 40 boulangeries, most packed into the dense centre-ville. Some, such as Farinoman Fou or Hat’s, are considered among the best in France. The daily open air markets overflow with local Provence produce and flowers, honey and lavender. The rich sights and sounds and smells consume the senses. Okay, I surrender, give me a few of those. Yes, you can find flaky croissants and bustling farmers markets in San Francisco. No, as anyone from France will tell you, n’est pas pareil (just not the same.)

I have come to realise that neither affair will ever satisfy completely. A clean Provence break is not possible, nor is resisting San Francisco. The only solution is an open metromarriage, a polyurban arrangement, and that challenge is giving me purpose. Stay tuned.

An aside on big moves: the merits of patience and acceptance

With any audacious endeavor comes challenge, and this move-my-life-back-to-SF adventure has had its hiccups. I’m honing 2 virtues to cope: patience and acceptance. With a bit of effort we eventually get mostly what we need, and when we don’t, … well we can learn to roll with it.

My master plan for reentry went something like this: get reacquainted with the city (it’s been 15 years), optimize on a neighborhood, close on an apartment, fill it with stuff, find your groove.

It turns out I’ve landed into one of the tightest and most expensive housing markets in the country. (That whole doom loop thing? Yeah, that was so post Covid. Try to keep up.) Complicating matters, unlike the nouveau riche swarm of AI techies I don’t have a regular salary 3x the exorbitant rents (medium monthly for a 1 bedroom is now $3,670 as of this writing), and my US credit history is a blank page, having been in France for almost 2 decades.

I am getting to know San Francisco again, visiting old haunts like Mario’s Bohemian and the Tadich Grill, and finding new favorites, like Chez Maman in Hayes Valley (soon to be my permanent quartier). The neighborhoods I had optimized on have become p.r.i.c.e.y (!) and the spacious Victorian flat I imagined, … suffice it to say that expectations have been recalibrated. This took a lot of unit visits to appreciate (patience) and humility to absorb (acceptance). All good.

The Tadich Grill on California Street, SF. California’s oldest restaurant.
The Tadich Grill on California Street, SF. California’s oldest restaurant.

So, I have found my new neighborhood and home, a downtown high-rise apartment along bustling Market Street. Not the charming urban village I had imagined when starting this journey, but we have to be flexible; another virtue that has come in handy. Now the fun part: finding that new groove of favored cafes, restaurants, bars, parks, strolls, and flirtations that will color my days and evenings. The tender touch of Aix has spoiled me damnit. Onward!

Bill Magill
San Francisco