I'm a lasagna boy!

In which I take a mundane journey

Kate Pocrass has been collecting stories and minor adventures in San Francisco for three years, and has published the first volume resulting from her Mundane Journeys project. One can call 415 364 1465 for a selection, updated weekly, or thumb through the pocket-poet-sized book, which is quaint and quirky and smacks of utter uselessness. But she did it, not I, so props to her.
Adah Balinsky's marvellous Stairway Walks in San Francisco is another favourite San Francisco book.

In which we are short of sight

A few months ago, I walked the length of Divisadero between Haight and McAllister, photographing the vacant store-fronts. I did ditto along Haight between Scott and Buchanan, and ultimately found the endevaour too unsettling to continue. Meanwhile, our hard-working supervisors have introduced legislation to ensure that this ""vibrant small business sector" continues without improvement. Unlike many residents in this area, I do not want to prevent chain stores from moving in -- our neighbourhood needs more incentives for small and individual business owners to hang out their shingles, but we should not prevent a hated or feared chain store from opening. The corner lot at Hayes and Divisadero, across from a chain fast-food restaurant!, has been vacant these three years because we fought tooth and nail to prevent a chain video-rental emporium from opening there, midway between two locally-owned video-rental places. The old fire house on Oak near Divisadero might have become an outlet for a locally-based chain clothing retailer, but the neighbourhood lobbied against that, as well. The building is now the temporary headquarters for the construction on the site at Baker and Oak. Meanwhile, we have liquor stores, check-cashing stores, and chalkboard cafés. But we have no book-shop, no bakery, no theatre, no delicatessen, no doctors (few professional offices at all) ....

In which an interface cheers me

The two-step login for a Bank of America ATM has long irked me: the first screen asked which language I wanted, and the second asked me to enter the PIN. I suggested that the two screens be combined. Several years later, voilà:

In which the promise of pizza overwhelms me

Although I have become old and crotchety about donuts, I still succumb to the promise of pizza. Something sublime in that scent of melting cheese and toasted bread. Still, in the six months so far this year I have eaten pizza (whole or a slice) on two dozen occasions. Notably, however, on my most recent trip to New York City I had not a single slice. Ditto Chicago.

In which we get the scoop on the poop

The San Francisco Chronicle has the latest on the fragrant dung-heap that is Duboce Park.

In which I am exposed to the elements of murder

After another enthusiastic reading of Dorothy Sayer's romantic piffle, Strong Poison, and watching the filmed dramatisation of the inept adolescence of Graham Young in The Young Poisoner's Handbook, it came as little surprise that I jumped on a recent Oxford title, "The Elements of Murder".
Much of the narrative, half popular science and half murder-mystery, unfolds through inane run-on sentences reminiscent of an enthusiastic high-school scholar who has done a vast amount of research and simply cannot wait to express everything on paper. At times, I suspected that the author and his editor were founding members of the Royal Society for the Conservation of Commas, so infrequent was the use a comma when changing subjects in a complex-compound sentence.
To his credit, he works in many useful, and sometimes significant, historical nuggets: "Seaweed is also rich in arsenic and on the remote Scottish island of North Ronaldsey there is a breed of sheep which feeds exclusively on seaweed and they appear to thrive on it."
He tells the story of the Styrian peasants who reportedly took arsenic regularly, to improve their complexion and to aid their respiratory systems. He credits the defence of Mary Ann Cotton, a noted poisoner, with using the story of the Styrians at her trial. (Anachronistic? I wonder how widely known the Styrian legend was in mid-19th-century England.)

Other of his questionable writing: the excitable etymology. "The name merury, by which we known this element, comes from the name of the planet and its first recorded use was by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus around 300 BC." In fact, the association of the planets and metallic elements did not occur until 1500 years later, during the alchemical writings of the Middle Ages.
Aside: I have a vivid memory of a National Geographic issue on mercury, which featured a striking photograph of a man floating on his back in a pool of quicksilver.

Nicholas

I picked up a copy of Anthea Bell's new translation of Nicholas, the classic illustrated story of a puckish French school-boy. The elegant, cloth-bound Phaidon edition features the charming illustrations by Jean-Jacques Sempe.

Goscinny died in 1977, but both the Nicholas series of books and the phenomenal Asterix comics, produced in collaboration with the devilish Albert Uderzo (whom I met unexpectedly at Hamley's in London), have become classics, in no small part due to Bell's lyrical and humourous translation.

In which a vague ethnic slur is made

Living in a city which does not feature an abundance of taxi-cabs, I often call a dispatch when I require a hackie to take me from point to point. The conversation goes something like this:

Me: Yes, good morning, I need a cab at such-and-such number on Scott St.
Dispatcher: What is your phone number?
Me: (provides ditto)
(At this point the Dispatcher usually says, "Fifteen to twenty minutes" and rings off.)
Dispatcher: Ah, that's near Haight St.!
Me: Yes.
Dispatcher: You're around the corner from that crazy Indian guy?
Me: I do'n't know, I just want the cab.
Dispatcher: Oh, you just want the cab? You do'n't know the guy?
Me: (click)

Has a descendant of Crazy Horse settled in the Lower Haight? Are a lot of silly Sikhs in residence on Haight Street? Or worse: am I the crazy Indian guy?

and what does any of this have to do with my getting a cab? Barely had I rung off when the door-bell rang and a stereotype with ruddy cheeks and a soft hat appeared at the door.