But Napa locals don't appreciate this sort of scrutiny, and they apparently don't appreciate Harry Martin. "Wake up, Napa," read a recent guest commentary in the Napa Valley Register. "Harry Martin is a blight on our town." "Wake up, Napa," wrote another, "Harry Martin diminishes all of us. His distortions and shenanigans bring all of us down." So you can see that Harry Martin is a problem in Napa. As is, apparently, narcolepsy.
"Copia doesn't fit the scene in Napa," says Martin. He talks for a bit about how he doesn't get Copia, and the fact that a seven-year flood control project is going to put access bridges out of commission. "Tourists are going to be so disgusted" at the road reconstruction, he adds.
Brandon Fernandez
The Julia's Kitchen restaurant is named for Copia honorary trustee Julia Child.
Brandon Fernandez
The Julia's Kitchen restaurant is named for Copia honorary trustee Julia Child.
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So is there anybody else you might recommend to talk about this?
"Pro or con?"
Oh, just for fun, let's try pro.
"You could always talk to the mayor," he says. "If Hitler was born here, he'd sell it as a tourist attraction."
Mayor. Hitler. OK, got it. Thanks.
Ed Henderson, the mayor of Napa, makes a noise halfway between a laugh and an exasperated sigh when Martin's name comes up. "You have to keep in mind that Mr. Martin sells newspapers," he says. "He's found a niche where he can take the other side effectively.
"I'm not saying something negative," he adds, quickly.
More to the point, he explains, the city needs something like Copia; over the past 10 years Napa has had severe economic problems. "Our employment base was Mare Island [Naval Station], Kaiser Steel, and Basalt Rock, and they're all gone," he says. "What does that tell you?" And personally, Henderson kind of likes the place -- he takes in the movies and concerts. "Copia is an activity center for wine, food, and the arts. It's got something for everybody."
Sounds like somebody's been talking to Peggy Loar. Speaking of which: William Donohue, director of the Catholic League, says he sent over a pooper scooper. Ms. Loar, did you, uh, get the pooper scooper?
"We turned it right over to the security people," she says sharply. "To send that at a time when we're dealing with anthrax and everything else. Think of it, just think of somebody ..."
She's mad now.
"... taking on something like this, and you give them their authority and their point of view and their respect, and they do something like send that. Then you wonder, what was all of this about? Well, how sad."
The female retiree is wandering outside, near Copia's limestone front, looking. "Is this where people get to smoke?" she asks. "Do they let you?"
She, along with her friends from a Vallejo retirement community, has been bused in to spend the entire day at Copia. Which is probably the best way to do it. Take in a whole day. Settle back for the lectures on the art of the wine label. Pay $15 to spend an hour learning about the color yellow. Peruse the pooping figurines. Try to figure out if this massive employment of exhibits, classes, seminars, and multidisciplinary paradigms will exist in the same form a year from now.
Wander through the lobby, because you're retired and have the time, and take a look at the mustard exhibit, "Hold the Mustard!" There are vintage mustard tins, silver and china pots, old advertisements for mustard. Mustard, a whole wall of it, under glass. You can see it all.
And you can notice, if you look closely, that somebody has slipped a tiny little packet of fast-food mustard between the glass panes guarding the exhibit. It sits there on the bottom shelf, and you can wonder if somebody was trying to say something.
