I'm a lasagna boy!

Pay to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge?

I need to come up with a good argument to stick in the comments box here, where the Golden Gate Bridge Authority is requesting feedback for its proposed bicycle / pedestrian toll. I love the Golden Gate Bridge, but do not want to pay a toll to amble or pedal it. Why?

But of course!

crème, as in "crème fraîche", has an accent grave, not an acute, nor a circumflex (as I initially, stupidly thought). Which letter might have disappeared from crème? Nary a one.

How many pounds in a gallon?

Big Bubba, a 22-pound lobster, made his sensational appearance at Wholey's. Whoah.

Puzzling and refreshing

a fish, a barrel, and a smoking gun

I miss suck. Aside from being the first web site to link to me (!!), it had great graphics by Terry Colon, witty pre-pomo cut-up commentary, and a snarky attitude that presaged everything. Everything.

Last Chance to Taste

I began reading Gina Mallet's wistful Last Chance to Taste, about the declining importance of food in our culture.
I'm ambivalent: are we so leisurely that we can inspect and fetishize our food (well, obviously, yes); but so coddled that we have already forgotten than many of our parents' generation, immigrant or no, faced food shortages even relative to their parent's generation? The embargoes and rationing of the Wars; the lack of air shipping;

At the same time, I strongly believe that we must pay close attention to our food sources. We must eat locally-grown and -obtained food, in season and organically grown. I'm all for sushi, but don't like the chemicals added to it so that it retains its colour.

I'm a nerd!?

I'm putting this here just to pique Greg:

All of a sudden / it's too late

"a pedestrian appears out of nowhere!" it's like being in a horror movie, isn't it?
Salve for the satanic soul of the urban driver.

Beerstorming

From Cody comes this suggestion: write mountain-bike haiku suitable for a pint glass.

nature and bike, one
egg, nuclear, face are three
plants you must avoid

Win a Case of Dirt Rag Pint Glasses By: Jeff Guerrero

Here at Dirt Rag we've come up with more than a handful of ideas in the basement over a pint or two?we call it "beerstorming." While our latest idea came about without the aid of hoppy performance enhancers, the notion still smacks of malty genius. Our own fermented intellectual editor has been kind enough to summarize:

Here?s the idea: a poem, a verse, a haiku or just a few short lines of beer and bike meditation to be printed on an entire run of Dirt Rag pint glasses.

In an email to editor@dirtragmag.com, with ?Beer Storming? in the subject line, send in your own idea. Make it funny or catchy or just plain brilliant! If we choose yours, we?ll send you a case of pint glasses with your phrase printed on each one!

City beautiful, but it'll cost you

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette surveys the state and expense of trees, and gives props to my old stoop:

It was a relief to get to Beech Avenue in Allegheny West, widely regarded as the city's prettiest street, with its well-kept historic houses and herringbone brick sidewalks. But what really sets Beech Avenue apart is its abundance of trees, which form a tall, lacy canopy over the street. The tree canopy on Beech is so lush because the lindens were planted on both sides of the street and allowed to reach their full height, thanks to federal funding that paid for relocating utility lines and poles to the rear service alleys. But even streets that carry power lines can have one tall tree canopy, with lower-growing trees on the utility side.

Places: Standing up for the trees so they will stand for us

Saturday, February 19, 2005
By Patricia Lowry, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Tony Tye, Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh is about to assess the location, species and condition of its trees. The trees above are on Beech Avenue on the North Side.
Click photo for larger image.

In a city where budget cuts have closed swimming pools and laid off police, planners and other workers, City Council is looking for revenue under every rock, or in the case of Councilman Luke Ravenstahl, behind every tree.

Ravenstahl wants council to repeal the 1998 law that directs proceeds from outdoor advertising on bus shelters into the Shade Tree Trust Fund, which is administered by the Pittsburgh Shade Tree Commission.

What, you didn't know we had one? There's a good reason: Although the commission was established in 1911 under the influence of the City Beautiful movement, it was replaced in 1914 by the Street Tree Division in the Bureau of Parks. Revived in 1998 by then-City Councilman Jim Ferlo, the volunteer commission has since gone about its good work largely unsung, funding the planting of 444 trees in Lawrenceville, Uptown, Friendship, Carrick and South Side and training 120 volunteer stewards to care for them.

In the three years that the bus shelter ads have been generating revenue, the trust fund has accumulated about $40,000 annually from the ads. Which is, as Councilman Bill Peduto pointed out at Wednesday's hearing on the resolution, about 1/100th of 1 percent of the city's annual budget, give or take a penny or two. If the shade tree money were lumped into the general fund, the city's budget wouldn't budge.

But with this little stash and matching state grants, the commission has launched the city's first tree inventory, which is expected to cost about $200,000. On Monday, arborists from Davey Resource Group began to assess the location, species and condition of the city's street trees, estimated to number between 40,000 and 60,000 in a 1995 Carnegie Mellon University study.

The inventory, in the planning for three years and part of the commission's mandate, was the dream of the late city forester Dale Vezzetti, who estimated that Pittsburgh lost 1,500 street trees annually due to lack of maintenance. Nibbled away at over the years, the forestry division he presided over employs 10 people to maintain trees, about a third of the staff it had 40 years ago.

With the lack of manpower, "sometimes it seemed like 600,000 trees" needed tending, former forestry division employee Mark Remcheck told council. Remcheck, a member of the Shade Tree Commission and an extension community forester in Washington County, said Pittsburgh's forestry division always had a difficult time advocating for a budget because it didn't know how many trees it had to care for.

The inventory, which will include a Geographic Information System mapping component showing the exact locations of the trees, is the necessary first step in creating a management plan, said commission chair Diana Ames of Friendship. It will identify problem trees, allowing the forestry division to move from crisis mode to proactive management and stay one step ahead of diseases, pest infestations and lawsuits.

And while the inventory is fully funded and will proceed regardless of council's decision, it will be useless without the funding stream that will allow the city to purchase hardware, software and training for forestry staff to utilize it, Ames said.

She also hopes to use some of the income from the bus shelter ad revenue to hire an arborist who can recruit and train more volunteer stewards to help maintain trees, and to educate the community, including businesses, about the right and wrong way to prune a tree.

"Look at these trees that have been made into hat racks," Ames said as we drove past a car dealership on Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield last weekend. "They're been topped, which is a horrible way to treat a tree. The new growth that sprouts back is very weak."

Not only that, they look stunted and ungainly, an aesthetic loss made all the more inexplicable by the absence of power lines running above them.

On 42nd Street in Lawrenceville, Ames points out a young tree that wears a deep, dark scar from not having its support collar removed sooner. In front of a commercial building at the corner of Penn Avenue and 16th Street in the Strip, sweet gum trees have had their tops chopped, a long row of them, again with nary a power line in sight.

On Smallman Street under the Veterans Memorial Bridge, trees were planted a few years back in a place where they were guaranteed to get neither sunlight nor rain. Now the trees are dead and gone, and their expensive metal grates lie empty and unused.

It was a relief to get to Beech Avenue in Allegheny West, widely regarded as the city's prettiest street, with its well-kept historic houses and herringbone brick sidewalks. But what really sets Beech Avenue apart is its abundance of trees, which form a tall, lacy canopy over the street.

"Even in the wintertime, trees just transform this street," Ames said. Along with their visual appeal, she added, they provide a sense of security and calm traffic. And while they seem to be as old as this 19th-century neighborhood, most of the trees are littleleaf lindens planted around 1980, said Beech Avenue resident John Canning.

"We know that the trees in our neighborhood have significantly added to the value of homes," Canning said. "Not only do they look beautiful, but they shade the asphalt streets from the sun and soften noise."

Some of the proceeds from the Allegheny West house tours pay for tree maintenance, including two late-winter prunings that allowed more sun and air to filter through.

The tree canopy on Beech is so lush because the lindens were planted on both sides of the street and allowed to reach their full height, thanks to federal funding that paid for relocating utility lines and poles to the rear service alleys. But even streets that carry power lines can have one tall tree canopy, with lower-growing trees on the utility side.

"What the inventory can do is give the city a lot of insight on planting the right tree in the right place," said forester and Shade Tree Commission member Jennifer Arkett, who oversees tree pruning operations for Duquesne Light.

At the hearing, Ferlo, now a state senator, reminded council that funding the Shade Tree Commission was the quid pro quo for allowing advertising on bus shelters. Councilman Alan Hertzberg recalled that what swayed council was using the ad revenue to enhance the trees.

Yanking the commission's funding now, Canning told council, is penny-wise and pound-foolish.

He's right. Pittsburgh's biggest draw will continue to be the quality of life in its neighborhoods. Now more than ever, City Council shouldn't lose sight of the big picture. Who wants to live in a city that can't see the urban forest for the trees?

(Architecture critic Patricia Lowry can be reached at plowry@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1590.)

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Copyright ©1997-2004 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights Reserved.

A Bridge Too Fat

This article in the New York Times wonderfully describes the rejuvenation of the Bronx Whitestone Bridge.

February 18, 2005

A Bridge Too Fat
By SEWELL CHAN

The Bronx-Whitestone Bridge has a weight problem.

Over the decades, the 65-year-old suspension bridge has been bulked up to make it more stable. But now engineers have decided that it has grown too beefy.

"We put this bridge on a diet," said Michael C. Ascher, the president of M.T.A. Bridges and Tunnels, an arm of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. "Here's a bridge that's 65 years old. It got a little heavy around the midsection. Just like with the human anatomy, as you get on in years, lean is better. In this case, instead of putting an extra strain on your heart and other organs, it's putting a strain on the supporting structure, the skeleton, of the bridge."

When the work is completed a year from now, the steel and concrete bridge will have shed 6,000 tons, or one-quarter of its total suspended weight. Engineers say the decreased weight will reduce the strain on the bridge's steel cables, make it more durable and lengthen its life by decades, if not centuries.

Last year, workers completed the removal of steel trusses that were installed on each side of the bridge in 1946, after the notorious collapse of a bridge in Washington State. In June, they will begin replacing the bridge's concrete deck with a lightweight steel version that is being built in Brazil.

The project to decrease the bridge's load, which follows years of wind and stress tests on laboratory models, is possible because of advances in aerodynamic design.

The Bronx-Whitestone Bridge has long been known for its slim and graceful profile. It was built in less than two years to serve visitors to the New York World's Fair in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park and it opened to traffic on April 29, 1939 - the day before the start of the fair.

Stretching 2,300 feet between its two towers, the span was the fourth longest in the world. At the ribbon-cutting, Robert Moses, the highways and parks czar who oversaw the bridge's construction, called it "architecturally the finest bridge of them all."

But a year later, a catastrophe on the West Coast shook that image.

On Nov. 7, 1940, the deck of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge twisted itself apart and plunged into the water below during a fierce windstorm. No one was killed, but the collapse, captured on film, instantly became one of the most infamous engineering failures in history.

The prevailing theories in bridge design at the time paid little heed to aerodynamics, according to Henry Petroski, a professor of civil engineering and of history at Duke University who has written extensively on bridge design.

"The idea that a bridge roadway or a deck could undulate, could be moved vertically by the wind - that was just not thought to be something to worry about," he said. "The idea was to make the deck, the roadway of the bridge, as slender as possible. The aesthetic model was driving this, and it was generally thought that these bridges were so big, massive and heavy, built of steel and concrete, that the wind was just not going to move them. And that was wrong."

Even before the Bronx-Whitestone opened, engineers noticed that its deck would occasionally sway in the wind and shift back and forth, lengthwise, between the two steel towers.

The Bronx-Whitestone was neither as long nor as narrow as the Tacoma Narrows, but the same engineer, Leon S. Moisseiff, had worked on both bridges. The chief engineer of the New York bridge, Othmar H. Ammann, was on a commission that investigated the failure of the Washington bridge.

Mr. Ammann insisted that the Bronx-Whitestone was stable, but its pendulum-like movement alarmed drivers and pedestrians and Mr. Moses ordered it stiffened.

"He felt that the risk of losing motorists and therefore revenue far outweighed what the engineers said and that this perception of instability was unacceptable," said Darl Rastorfer, the author of "Six Bridges: The Legacy of Othmar H. Ammann" (Yale University Press, 2000).

In 1940, diagonal stiffening cables were installed on the bridge. In 1946, two steel trusses were erected on the sides of the bridge to stiffen it more. The trusses resulted in the elimination of the pedestrian walkways and the widening of the bridge from four to six lanes of traffic.

Bridge enthusiasts lamented that the installation of the trusses marred the bridge's aesthetic qualities. "It ruined the view of the skyline of Manhattan," Professor Petroski said.

As if those changes were not enough, engineers installed one more device - a counterbalance known as a mass damper - to the underside of the bridge in 1986 as yet another component for stability. Finally, an increase in traffic - from 6.3 million vehicles in 1940 to 45.2 million last year - has added stress, although the weight of the bridge itself is the greatest concern for engineers.

As a result of all this, the bridge has become too heavy and increasingly vulnerable to wear and tear. "Every time we added features, we were adding to the weight of the bridge," Mr. Ascher said.

To increase the bridge's longevity, engineers looked for ways to make the bridge lighter, while maintaining its ability to withstand wind. They also recruited help from engineers at two universities. In December 1998, Canadian scientists attached devices to the bridge to measure wind and vibration. Over two years, the data was transmitted to the University of Western Ontario.

Researchers there also built miniature models of the bridge made of "aluminum and some balsa wood and some plastic and some piano wire," according to J. Peter C. King, a civil engineer who directs the university's wind-tunnel laboratory.

The models were put in a 200-foot-long wind tunnel, which simulated average winds of 140 miles an hour and gusts of 210 miles an hour. The latter figure would represent winds stronger than a devastating hurricane.

Dr. King concluded that replacing the concrete deck with lightweight steel, removing the trusses and re-evaluating the need for the mass damper could yield more sophisticated ways of keeping the bridge stable.

"The thought at the time was more brute force - let's throw more stiffness at it and see what happens - rather than to try something more elegant or subtle," he said.

Meanwhile, at Lehigh University, in Bethlehem, Pa., researchers made a prototype of the proposed steel deck. Over nine months, they simulated the effects of a truck passing over the deck 239 million times. That amounts to about 175 years of traffic - about a century longer than the 75-year minimum life span for the new, post-diet bridge.

Last April, workers completed the replacement of the trusses with wind fairings - lightweight fiberglass structures that slice and deflect the wind as it buffets the bridge. The project, which cost $32 million, restored the bridge to its original appearance.

This spring, the replacement of the deck will start.

One lane will be closed to traffic at any time, but a temporary movable barrier will allow three lanes of traffic to move in the peak direction - toward the Bronx in the morning, toward Queens in the evening - during the commuter rush. The work is expected to last 101/2 months and cost $136.7 million.

Instead of the old asphalt coating, the new deck will have a surface of epoxy and sand to prevent skidding. For drivers, the only noticeable change will be the end of potholes.

At 61, Mr. Ascher is four years younger than the bridge. He described its re-engineering as one of the most intellectually challenging projects in his nearly 15 years at the bridge and tunnel agency.

"I think the bridge is in better shape than I am," Mr. Ascher said. "In many respects, I envy engineers coming into this business now for the first time. Technology has changed so dramatically that there are new, exciting, innovative ways to extend the lives, almost indefinitely, of these structures. I wish I was much younger and just coming in now, rather than being at the twilight of my career."

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Gardening in the Lower Haight

The day I looked at my first apartment in the Lower Haight, I arrived early for the showing and walked around the block to get a feel for the neighbourhood. I walked in to the Sunrise Market to pick up a drink, and when I walked out a man was peeing against a tree.
This morning I was walking down the same block, and another man was watering the garden, nonchalantly, in the middle of the sidewalk. The Lower Haight: it isn't just for the dogs, even when it comes to pooping and peeing on the sidewalk.
Addendum: Yesterday evening, two men were standing on Haight St., outside the weird metal condos in the middle of the block between Steiner and Page, rolling a huge joint. This morning, in more-or-less the same spot, two other men were talking about some drug delivery device (a zepplin? a dirigible? something like that ... ) which involved nitrous and marijuana. Oh yeah, that spot is just outside The Vapor Room ("... emphasizes non-carbonizing vaporizers as a healthier way of introducing THC into the body ... ").

And this morning, around 6.45: I was one of three people sitting in the coffeeshop. A dirty-looking sort stuck his head and said to the man sitting at the nearest table: "Is that your bike? It isn't locked up." The man said yes, it is my bike, and I didn't lock it. (I don't like my bike outside the café, either. I don't know why.) The smelly interloper nodded and mumbled his way back out the door. Just now I saw him again, pushing a bicycle past the construction site across from the DMV.
Reminds me (again!) of the Neistat Bros. short about stealing bicycles in New York City.

Agglutinate this!

Matt Davis has an amusing summary of a meme that circulated several months ago, and its linguistic challenges.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

My retirement plans

Although production of natural cork may be declining, I still want to retire to the south of Portugal and farm cork trees.

Don't ask

I received as change this single, and obediently visited the URL stamped on it.

You gotta watch what the sidewalks chalk

*

What does it mean???

I must say that I was tickled pink to see a copy of Number One Cup's last album, "people people why are we fighting?" in the "Christmas" section at Open Mind Music yesterday. I didn't realise that this band was born at the Gastr del sol / Unrest / Stereolab show at the Metro at which I first heard Gastr. What does it mean???

I shot the law

The SFPD, amongst others, harassed someone taking snaps of MUNI. San Francisco has no law against taking photographs of public transit, of transportation infrastructure, or of people using transit -- unlike some cities. Know your rights.

UPDATE: The SFist blog describes the incident in breathless and semi-literate style. And Boing Boing posted it as well.

A seemingly healthy alternative to butter

"You can flash-fry a beefalo in 40 seconds!" (sic).

A front-page story in this morning's New York Times discusses the importance of avoiding trans-fatty acids in everything (and I thought it was just a hip song by Lamb).

McDonald's, amongst other chains (shudder), do not want to invest in the slightly healthier fats, which would cost it some several millions more annually. What's wrong with charging more for fast food? Perhaps paying more for the commodity will encourage people to think even slightly carefully about what they're stuffing down their gullets.

Avoiding packaged and processed foods should keep you mostly clear of the pernicious fat. I wonder if bakeries such as Arizmendi and Citizen Cake (warning: irritating all-flash web site) use partially-hydrogenated fats or what in their ever-so-delicious pastries. I don't care as much about Tartine because both their pastries and their web-site are second rate.

February 13, 2005
Fat Substitute Is Pushed Out of the Kitchen
By KIM SEVERSON and MELANIE WARNER

Bob Pitts knows doughnuts. He fried his first one in 1961 at the original Dunkin' Donuts shop in Quincy, Mass. Just by looking at the lumps and cracks on a misshapen doughnut, he can tell if the frying oil is too cool or the batter too warm. But Mr. Pitts, the company's doughnut specialist, cannot find a way to make one that tastes good without using partially hydrogenated oil, now considered the worst fat in the American diet.

An artificial fat once embraced as a cheap and seemingly healthy alternative to saturated fats like butter or tropical oils, partially hydrogenated oil has been the food industry's favorite cooking medium for decades. It makes French fries crisp and sweets creamy, and keeps packaged pastries fresh for months.

But scientists contend that trans fat, a component of the oil, is more dangerous than the fat it replaced. Studies show trans fat has the same heart-clogging properties as saturated fat, but unlike saturated fat, it reduces the good cholesterol that can clear arteries. A small but growing body of research has connected it to metabolic problems.

The Food and Drug Administration has declared that there is no healthy level in the diet and has ordered food companies to disclose trans fat amounts on food labels by January 2006.

That has sent Mr. Pitts and his counterparts at dozens of companies on an expensive and frustrating race to change America's oil. In the last year, Mr. Pitts has tried 19 alternatives in the company's test kitchen near Boston, but the doughnuts were either too heavy or so slick the icing slid off. Most simply didn't taste good.

So far, only the most health conscious consumers are shopping to avoid trans fat. But food companies are betting that will change when the labeling law takes effect, and they have already spent tens of millions of dollars trying to get rid of trans fat without changing the taste of America's favorite processed and fast foods.

"Whoever's on that list of products with trans fats is going to be sweating bullets," said Harry Balzer, vice president for the NPD Group, a consumer research company based in Port Washington, N.Y.

At least 30,000 and as many as 100,000 cardiac deaths a year in the United States could be prevented if people replaced trans fat with healthier nonhydrogenated polyunsaturated or monounsaturated oils, according to a 1999 joint report by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

This and other studies led the government's top medical advisers for the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences to declare in 2002 that they could not determine a healthful limit of trans fat, as they had for other dietary fats. The following year the government approved the labeling law.

The $500 billion food processing industry has long defended trans fat, starting in the 1970's when scientists first raised concerns. But with the new labeling requirement looming and lawmakers searching for ways to hold food companies responsible for their customers' health, getting rid of it has become an obsession.

"It's the perfect storm for these companies: concern over litigation and legislation, as well as a market opportunity of baby boomers getting older and being more concerned with their health," said Dean Ornish, the director for the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, Calif., and a consultant to PepsiCo, McDonald's and ConAgra Foods.

PepsiCo has already scrubbed trans fats from its Frito-Lay brand chips. Health-oriented grocery stores like Whole Foods and Wild Oats refuse to sell any processed food that contains it. Last month, Gorton's removed trans fat from its fish sticks, and Tyson Foods introduced frozen fried chicken products without it. Executives at Kraft Foods, ConAgra, Kellogg and Campbell Soup want to get trans fat out of most or all of their products by the beginning of next year.

Unlike diet-driven trends that filled store shelves with low-fat products in the 1990's and, more recently, low-carb foods, the removal of trans fats does not have a strong consumer constituency. Although some market research shows that more than 80 percent of consumers have heard that trans fat is unhealthy, few shop to avoid it. Most seem to be like Joan Nicholson, 57, a New Yorker who retired to Boise, Idaho. "I read about cholesterol and trans fats and fatty acids and I try to keep it all straight," she said, "but I'm afraid I don't do a great job of it."

Unsatisfying Alternatives

Finding a substitute for partially hydrogenated oil is more daunting and considerably more expensive than food companies first imagined. That is because it is the perfect fat for modern food manufacturers. Produced by pumping liquid vegetable oil full of hydrogen with a metal catalyst at high heat, the fat stays solid at room temperature - an essential trait for mass-produced baked goods like crackers or cakes. But that is the very process that creates the dangerous trans fat.

The shortening-like oil is an industry workhorse. Its smoothness and high melting point make it a great medium for the creamy filling in an Oreo. In the deep-fat fryer, partially hydrogenated oil can take repeated heatings without breaking down.

It also helps products stay fresh longer on supermarket shelves. Small amounts keep peanut butter from separating. It is even found in products promoted as healthful, like Nutri-Grain yogurt bars and Quaker granola bars.

According to one survey on trans fat issued by the Food and Drug Administration in 1999, partially hydrogenated oil was in 95 percent of the cookies, 100 percent of crackers and 80 percent of frozen breakfast foods on supermarket shelves.

Margarine, which was very high in trans fat, was one of the first foods to change. ConAgra Foods in Omaha spent about a year creating trans fat-free versions of soft tub margarines like Parkay and Fleichmann's. But the company is having a tougher time cracking the code on stick margarines, frozen dinners and microwave popcorn.

The company tested liquid soybean oil in its Marie Callender's frozen dinners, but the oil puddled under the roasted potatoes and the sauce slipped right off the meat, leaving it barren and dry.

"It wasn't very appealing," recalled Pat Verduin, senior vice president for product quality and development at ConAgra, which owns dozens of household brands, including La Choy, Hunt's and Peter Pan.

At the Pepperidge Farm division of Campbell Soup, in Norwalk, Conn., puff pastry sheets and pot pies are causing the most trouble. Concoctions tested over the last year have made the crusts unpalatably dense and breadlike.

"We can't get the flakiness and layering with these softer fats," said Scott Gantwerker, its quality assurance chief.

The company had more success with its Goldfish snack crackers, which after two years of tinkering are made with a sunflower oil blend and are free of trans fat. The oil, called NuSun, resists oxidation and spoilage. But it will not solve every company's problem. Only 2 million acres of the sunflowers are planted each year, compared with 75 million acres of soybeans. As a result, the sunflower oil can cost 20 percent to 25 percent more, said Larry Kleingartner, executive director of the National Sunflower Association.

Feeding the Fast Food Giants

Finding a way to have businesses change the oil they use is even more problematic for the fast-food industry, which uses partially hydrogenated oil in deep-fat fryers and on griddles. Some chains, like Legal Seafood and Ruby Tuesday, replaced their oil with healthier versions, but they are the exceptions. Restaurants face no government labeling requirement.

"We're not into knee-jerk reactions," said Yum Brands' chief executive, David C. Novak, whose company owns KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. "We've seen things come and go." Yum Brands, Mr. Novak said, "is at the early stages" of trans fat replacement.

McDonald's replaced beef tallow with partially hydrogenated soybean oil in 1990. In September 2002, the company vowed it would use healthier oil in its 13,000 stores in the United States by February 2003. Two years later, it is still serving up six grams of trans fat in a large order of fries and has given no indication of when that will change. Last week, the company agreed to a $8.5 million settlement of a lawsuit accusing it of misleading the public about its efforts to remove trans fat.

During a conference call in December, McDonald's chief executive, James A. Skinner, offered few specifics on the company's progress in eliminating trans fat. He would say only that levels had been reduced in fried chicken products by 15 percent. "We remain committed to reduce trans fats," he said.

McDonald's problem, like that of many other giant food companies, is one of supply and demand. There simply is not enough reasonably priced replacement oil that is capable of retaining the signature flavor of a McDonald's fry, said John Jansen, senior vice president for sales and marketing at Bunge, the world's largest processor of oilseeds like soybean and canola.

Among the options McDonald's considered is a new breed of oil called high-oleic canola, which can withstand repeated heating in a deep-fat fryer without compromising taste. But it is in short supply and expensive. The annual production of the oil this year will be about a billion pounds and McDonald's would require about a third of that, Mr. Jansen said. At roughly 20 cents more a pound, the switch would cost the company an additional $70 million a year, according to figures offered by Mr. Jansen.

And until large users like McDonald's commit themselves to it, oil-seed growers will not produce more. The scale of the problem becomes clear at the J. R. Simplot French fry and hash brown plant in Caldwell, Idaho, where Burbank russet potatoes become McDonald's fries.

Before being frozen and shipped to restaurants and supermarkets, all frozen fries are given an initial light frying, usually in cheap partially hydrogenated soybean oil. Simplot food scientists recently developed the Infinity fry, cooked in a high-oleic canola blend. The fry takes well to baking in the school cafeteria, where it has found a market. It can also be fried in trans-fat-free oil.

The Infinity can cost up to 50 percent more than the average fast-food fry. As a result, it is expected to make up only 1 percent to 2 percent of food sales this year for Simplot, a privately held company with $3 billion in annual sales that was the first to sell frozen fries to McDonald's.

Simplot's real profit center is the huge fry factory just across a muddy parking lot from the test kitchen where the Infinity fry was born. There, 720,000 pounds of frozen fries made with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil tumble off the line every day and are shipped to restaurants like McDonald's.

"Logistically, trying to turn the restaurant industry on its head is essentially impossible on a 'let's do it by May' sort of basis," said Kevin Storms, president of Simplot's food group. And then there is the matter of cost.

"Most restaurant customers," Mr. Storms said, "want a specific taste at a specific price."

Medical Advice Changes

Balancing health with taste has long been a challenge for food manufacturers. In the 1980's, on scientists' advice, the industry replaced saturated fats like coconut oil and butter with oil containing trans fat. Now nutritionists have changed their edict.

"There was a lot of resistance from the scientific community because a lot of people had made their careers telling people to eat margarine instead of butter," said Walter Willett, chairman of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health and one of a handful of medical researchers who have led the fight against trans fat. "When I was a physician in the 1980's, that's what I was telling people to do and unfortunately we were often sending them to their graves prematurely."

He and other researchers say that cells rely on natural fatty acids to function. Trans fat is artificial, and acts in the body like grains of sand do in the workings of a clock.

The strongest argument against trans fat is its role in heart disease. Like lard, beef fat or butter, trans fat increases low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol. But it also decreases HDL, the good cholesterol that helps clean arteries, several studies have shown.

Food companies have, for the most part, accepted the word of scientists and are working to remove trans fat, even though they know finding a new oil is going to cost them. Not only does equipment need to be retooled, budgets must be re-examined.

Taste and Technology
Food companies argue that completely eliminating trans fat might be impossible given the cost and the fact that consumers do not want the taste of favorite foods to change. That is why a coalition of edible oil producers and food manufacturers persuaded both the Agriculture and Health and Human Services Departments to soften the federal government's stance on trans fat consumption in the latest version of the dietary guidelines released in January.

The scientific advisory committee that created the guidelines originally warned that trans fat consumption should be "limited to less than 1 percent of total calories," or about the amount in half a doughnut. But the numeric value was replaced with the phrase "keep trans fatty acid consumption as low as possible."

Food companies are also fighting a campaign by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which frequently criticizes the industry, and a group of cardiologists and researchers to ban trans fat altogether, a proposal similar to one snaking through Canada's legislative system.

Faced with the lack of trans fat free vegetable oil alternatives, some companies are gingerly turning back to palm oil, a saturated fat that was taken out of many products in the late 1980's after an effective campaign waged in part by the American Soybean Association and the Center for Science in the Public Interest helped turn Americans away from all forms of "tropical grease."

Kraft is using a combination of palm fruit oil and high-oleic canola for the filling in its three trans-fat-free Oreo varieties - a reduced-fat version and two with yellow, rather than chocolate, wafers. Without the firmness of palm oil, getting the consistency that Oreo lovers expect would have been nearly impossible, said Jean Spence, Kraft's executive vice president for technical quality.

The trade-off was an extra half-gram of saturated fat per serving. The company still has not figured out how to make the traditional Oreo taste the same without trans fat or significantly higher saturated fat levels. So far the new versions make up 9 percent of Oreo sales, according to data from Information Resources, an industry research firm.

Some companies are experimenting with new blends of liquid oil and fully hydrogenated oil, which does not contain trans fat. Others are using an enzyme method called intersterification to blend the oils.

Critics say that these offerings are still artificial, highly processed ingredients that may not be much safer than oils produced by partial hydrogenation. And nutritionists wonder whether consumers know enough to distinguish good fat from bad, and natural oils from artificial.

"I don't know that they will look at a label that has low trans fat and high saturated fat and be able to figure out if it is healthy or not," Joanne Ikeda, a nutrition professor at the Center of Health and Weight at the University of California, Berkeley.

And consumers might not even care.

"I know there are healthy fats and there are unhealthy fats and that trans fats are the unhealthy ones, but I don't know what they are supposed to do to you," said Thai Bu, 32, who was buying whole-grain bread and eggs recently at a West Seattle grocery store. "If I want a cookie and it has it in it, I'll still eat one or two."

These are the people that you meet Pt VIII

Down at the café this morning, I saw familiar faces: Jacob cycled past, helmet-less as always and en route to shoot hoops; Francine hovered near the door, waiting for something; the smilingest mom in the world walked her fussy three-month-old at the corner; and two cyclists on what couldn't have been the first but was perhaps the second date talked, ostentatiously, about raw food and Blue Bottle coffee. The corner book-seller, absent these past several months, rolled a shopping cart past his former corner. The cart was empty save a ghetto blaster blaring reggae, and he himself wore a skewed Santa cap.

UPDATE: He returned a few hours later, and I picked up a handful of books, including interlinear translations of Livy and Ovid, and an Old-English grammar.

ETA for a new pizzeria?

Greg cast a pall over the gathered co. th' other night when he said that the former Powell's storefront on Hayes St. was not becoming a Zachary's Pizza location. From the latest sign in the window, looks like a Basque pizzeria might occupy the location.

Better neighborhoods

I saw a sign on my way to the bus th' other morning. The URL it listed, www.betterneighorboods.org, pointed to San Francisco's inscrutable civic web site and a trove of planning information for the Market and Octavia area.
The housing density vs. car ownership pictures made me laugh.

I've got a new rose

jimg pointed out this awesome video of choppers, frankenbikes, and mayhem.

The ouija anaconda

I was late to work this morning because I was in line for the Ronald Reagan commemorative stamp. I found out that there really wasn't any need for haste, as the Post Office (which Reagan sought to privatize) has 170 million of these stamps at hand.

A nice counterpart to another relic of that time, "We Jam Econo". While Aram was buying tickets to the film's San Pedro premiere (at the beautiful Warner Grand, which I've only seen from the outside), I was belly-aching about how we'll be paying off the cost of these stamps for generations to come. Or how the fatcats who make money off the stamps will trickle down their profits to the masses. Et cetera.

Filed at 3:56 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A beaming, twinkle-in-the-eye Ronald Reagan is depicted on a new commemorative stamp, perhaps an especially fitting honor for a former president who is said to have sent at least 10,000 letters in his lifetime.

The 37-cent stamp was unveiled Wednesday in ceremonies around the country, including at the Ronald Reagan Building International Trade Center. Several of those in attendance, calling themselves ``Reaganites'' and Reagan administration ``alum,'' recalled Reagan's sense of humor and bright optimism, saying those characteristics were evident in the painting used for the stamp.

James Miller, chairman of the Postal Service board of governors, said the stamp shows Reagan's famous smile, tilt of head and twinkling blue eyes in a way that captures the ``warmth, personality and humanity of Ronald Reagan.''

The ceremony included a video tribute to Reagan, including clips of his youth and his time in office, along with his wife, first lady Nancy Reagan. The video called him ``a man of letters,'' saying Reagan sent more than 10,000 letters during his lifetime.

Frederick J. Ryan, chairman of the Ronald Reagan Foundation, said that due to Reagan's love of letter writing, the title ``great correspondent'' would be fitting for the 40th president who frequently as been called the ``great communicator.''

Performances at the ceremony included Lee Greenwood, who sang the national anthem and his hit ``Proud To Be an American'' and Crystal Gayle, who sang a medley of patriotic songs. Several of the speakers unveiled an 11-foot-high image of the stamp for the crowd to see.

People attending the ceremony received small American flags and a pin featuring the new stamp, which many of the guests immediately pinned on their shirts.

As an ex-president, Reagan became eligible for a commemorative stamp in the year following his death. Postal Service policy restricts stamps honoring people other than presidents to those who have been dead at least 10 years.

The official first-day-of-issue site for the stamp was at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, Calif.

Official ceremonies were also being held at the California state Capitol in Sacramento and in Dixon, Ill., Reagan's childhood home. Stamp dedication events were also taking place in Florida, Missouri, Montana and Texas.

The post office has 170 million of the new stamps on hand and also is offering a series of Reagan collectables.

Joining Miller and Postmaster General John Potter for the dedication were Edwin Meese III, Reagan's senior adviser and later attorney general; Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska; Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill.; White House chief of staff Andrew Card, and Kenneth M. Duberstein, who served as Reagan's last chief of staff.

Rogue photographers

Photo Rogue assigns photographers to snap snaps of scenes that users request ("squirrels ravaging a rabbit shaped cake", "a picture of any of the street performers in the main square. Especially the guy that dresses as a Cossack on a horse."), and publishes the results through Gallery.

The more the merrier!

From Brad comes word that another bicycle shop has opened nearby:

    BOX DOG BIKES GRAND OPENING Box Dog Bikes is a new worker-owned bike shop in the mission. Box Dog Bikes specializes in used bike sales and repairs. Join them Friday, February 11th at 7:00pm for a grand opening celebration. Meet the owners, peruse our huge frame selection, pet the box dog, and party the night away with fellow SF bikers. Music and snacks too!

494 14th St. near Guerrero.

The roars of the masses could be farts

THE SAN PEDRO FILM SOCIETY AND ROCKET FUEL FILMS ANNOUNCE THE PREMIERE OF: WE JAM ECONO - THE STORY OF THE MINUTEMEN

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 4, 2005
For more information, contact
Keith Schieron
press@theminutemen.com

The San Pedro Film Society in association with Rocket Fuel Films is proud to announce the premiere of WE JAM ECONO - THE STORY OF THE MINUTEMEN at 8PM on Friday, February 25, 2005 at San Pedro's historic Warner Grand Theatre. Minutemen Mike Watt and George Hurley along with Director Tim Irwin and Producer Keith Schieron will sit for a question and answer session with the
audience after the screening. Michael Halloran from San Diego's FM94.9 will moderate the question and answer session.

WE JAM ECONO - THE STORY OF THE MINUTEMEN is a feature length documentary chronicling this ground breaking, early 80's punk rock band from their humble beginnings in the harbor town of San Pedro, CA to their untimely demise when lead singer and guitarist D. Boon was killed in a van accident in December of 1985.

Told by those who were there, WE JAM ECONO - THE STORY OF THE MINUTEMEN weaves together footage from over fifty newly shot interviews with archival interviews and live performances to capture the dynamic energy and do-it-yourself spirit of these punk rock pioneers. Newly shot interviews include Minutemen Mike Watt and George Hurley as well as Flea, Greg Ginn, Richard Hell, Ian MacKaye, Thurston Moore, and Henry Rollins among others.

The Warner Grand Theatre box office will open at 7PM. Advance tickets are available at www.theminutemen.com General Admission is $10. Students, San Pedro Film Society Members and Grand Vision Members can buy tickets the evening of the premiere at the box office for $8.

For more information including trailer, press kit, and
ticket information:

www.theminutemen.com
www.thesanpedrofilm.org
www.thewarnergrand.com

Here comes your man

Joseph hooked me up with a home-made DVD of the Pixies' recent incongruous appearance on Austin City Limits. Thanks to DVDBackup, I now have the disk on my local drive, and, since Joseph is a filmmaker by avocation, the DVD is pretty stellar. He exported the footage from TiVo to Final Cut Pro, thence to iDVD.

Sit tight and await the cavalry

Your name alone strikes fear into others; but maybe, just maybe, there's a little vulnerability and weakness beneath that stoic, fierce exterior of yours. Take the What Pulp Fiction Character Are You? quiz.

I like Paris in the the spring

There will be a meeting regarding the installation of children in the Lower Haight's renowned dog-shit pile, offically known as Duboce Park.
Whenever I think, "Oh, I should take a trip to Paris ... in the 17th century," all I need to do is walk down to the corner of Steiner and Duboce, and the air is heavy with humid feces.

Gears are cool! We've got gears in our school!

Today really was an outstanding day for a bicycle ride. Peter and I rode to the Golden Gate Bridge, thence through Crissy Field to Frog Hollow for a cup of Blue Bottle coffee. I also ate a delicious ham-and-cheese savoury: a little more than two bites, and with a pastry ever so buttery. On the way back home I was having some trouble adjusting my seat-post, since my handy Park tool was confiscated at LAX a few months ago. I spun past Carlos' Salon des Biciclettes, but they're never open on Sundays. I turned right at the corner of Fillmore and Haight and voilà, I see Refried Cycles (Bicletas Refritas, keeping with the 'hood's multi-lingual cycle-shop theme). Benjy and dog Linus were behind the counter, and helped me out with the loan of a tool. They're open on a schedule complementary to other shops (closed Tuesday; most other shops close Monday, or in the case of Salon des Biclettes, Sunday and Monday), and he was very happy to direct me to other nearby shops where I could buy the various parts I needed. I ended up ordering them through him, partly because I'm lazy but mostly because I like having more bicycle shops in the area. They even have a nice seat in the window, so you can stare out at the tree-stump carving on the sidewalk.

And I rode the Bianchi today, replete with gears. I needed it, too, up the shamefully short one-block grades around the bridge. How did I ever race up and down that route on a fixed-gear? Heavens.

Harding Theatre

UPDATE: Turns out that the Harding Theater (sic) is a cause célebré. It's a trifle disingenous to claim that it is the last remaining single-screen theatre in the 'hood, because it's hardly a theatre. And if it were revived as ditto, how long would it last before Crunch (or, shudder, Curves) took it over?

I got it, I'm gone.

Raiford Chatman Davis, known to the world as one half of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, died today.

From the AP:

Ossie Davis, Actor, Is Dead at 87
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: February 4, 2005

Filed at 11:11 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- Ossie Davis, whose rich baritone and elegant, unshakable bearing made him a giant of the stage, screen and the civil rights movement -- often in tandem with his wife, Ruby Dee -- has died. He was 87.

Davis was found dead Friday in his hotel room in Miami Beach, Fla., according to officials there. He was making a film, ``Retirement,'' said Arminda Thomas, who works in his New Rochelle office and confirmed the death.

Miami Beach police spokesman Bobby Hernandez said Davis' grandson called shortly before 7 a.m. when Davis would not open the door to his room at the Shore Club Hotel. Davis was found dead, apparently of natural causes, Hernandez said.

Davis wrote, acted, directed and produced for the theater and Hollywood. Even light fare such as the comedy ``Grumpy Old Men'' with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau was somehow enriched by his strong, but gentle presence. Davis and Dee celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1998 with the publication of a dual autobiography, ``With Ossie & Ruby: In This Life Together.''

Their partnership rivaled the achievements of other celebrated performing couples, such as Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy. Davis and Dee first appeared together in the plays ``Jeb,'' in 1946, and ``Anna Lucasta,'' in 1946-47. Davis' first film, ``No Way Out'' in 1950, was Dee's fifth.

Both had key roles in the TV series ``Roots: The Next Generation'' (1978), ``Martin Luther King: The Dream and the Drum'' (1986) and ``The Stand'' (1994). Davis appeared in several Spike Lee films, including ``Do the Right Thing'' and ``Jungle Fever,'' in which Dee also appeared.

Davis had a guest role as the father of two women characters in Showtime's dramatic series, ``The L Word.'' He appeared in one episode in the first season, then returned for three episodes for the season about to begin, where his character takes ill and dies.

``We knew that we were working with a powerful, important actor,'' executive producer Ilene Chaiken said Friday. ``Ruby Dee sat with me and watched as he filmed his death scene. It was extraordinary.''

Among Davis' more notable Broadway appearances was his portrayal of the title character in ``Purlie Victorious'' (1961), a comedy he wrote lampooning racial stereotypes. In it, he played a conniving preacher who sets out to buy a church in rural Georgia. In 1970, Davis co-wrote the book for ``Purlie,'' a musical version of the play. A revival of the musical is planned for Broadway next season.

``He's my hero,'' actor Alan Alda, who appeared in ``Purlie Victorious,'' wrote in e-mail to The Associated Press. ``I am sorry for his family and for all of us who have benefited from ... his art and from his service to his country.''

Actors' Equity Association issued a statement Friday calling Davis ``an icon in the American theater'' and he and Dee ``American treasures.'' House lights for Broadway marquees were to be dimmed Friday at curtain time.

In 2004, Davis and Dee were among the artists selected to receive the Kennedy Center Honors.

``His greatness as a human being went far beyond his excellence as an actor,'' former New York Governor Mario Cuomo said Friday. ``Ossie was a citizen of the country, first, and the world. He and his wife were activists and they took it seriously.''

Dee was in New Zealand making a movie at the time of Davis' death, said his agent, Michael Livingston.

When not on stage or on camera, Davis and Dee were deeply involved in civil rights issues and efforts to promote the cause of blacks in the entertainment industry. In 1963, Davis participated in the landmark March on Washington. Two years later, he delivered a memorable eulogy for his slain friend, Malcolm X, whom Davis praised as ``our own black shining prince'' and ``our living, black manhood!''

``In honoring him, we honor the best in ourselves,'' said Davis, who reprised his eulogy in a voice-over for the 1992 Spike Lee film, ``Malcolm X.''

Davis directed several films, most notably ``Cotton Comes to Harlem'' (1970). Other films include ``The Cardinal'' (1963), ``The Client'' (1994) and ``I'm Not Rappaport'' (1996), a reprise of his stage role 10 years earlier.

On TV, he appeared in ``The Emperor Jones'' (1955), ``Miss Evers' Boys'' (1997) and ``Twelve Angry Men'' (1997). He was a cast member on ``The Defenders'' from 1963-65, and ``Evening Shade'' from 1990-94, among other shows.

``Since the loss of my father, no man has come close to represent the kind of man I hope to be some day,'' said Burt Reynolds, Davis' ``Evening Shade'' co-star. ``I know he's sitting next to God now, and I know God envies that voice.''

Davis had just started his new movie on Monday, Livingston said. ``Retirement,'' a comedy about an elderly group of friends, also starred Jack Warden, Peter Falk and George Segal.

The oldest of five children, Davis was born in tiny Cogdell, Ga., in 1917, and grew up in nearby Waycross and Valdosta. He left home in 1935, hitchhiking to Washington, D.C., to enter Howard University, where he studied drama, intending to be a playwright.

His career as an actor began in 1939 with the Rose McClendon Players in Harlem. After the outbreak of World War II, Davis spent nearly four years in service, mainly as a surgical technician in an Army hospital in Liberia, serving both wounded troops and local inhabitants.

Back in New York in 1946, he debuted on Broadway in ``Jeb,'' a play about a returning soldier. His co-star was Dee. In December 1948, on a day off from rehearsals from another play, they took a bus to New Jersey to get married.

As black performers, they found themselves caught up in the social unrest of the then-new Cold War. In one instance, Davis stood by singer Paul Robeson even as others denounced him for his openly communist sympathies. ``We young ones in the theater, trying to fathom even as we followed, were pulled this way and that by the swirling currents of these new dimensions of the Struggle,'' Davis wrote.

Besides Dee, Davis is survived by three children Nora, Hasna and Guy, a blues artist, and seven grandchildren.

      Always do the right thing.

From the New York Times:

February 5, 2005

Ossie Davis, Actor, Writer and Eloquent Champion of Racial Justice, Dies at 87
By RICHARD SEVERO and DOUGLAS MARTIN

Ossie Davis, the imposing, deep-voiced actor who with his wife and acting partner, Ruby Dee, helped widen horizons for blacks on stage and screen while fighting zealously for civil rights from Washington to Hollywood, died yesterday in Miami. He was 87.

His son, Guy, said Mr. Davis was found dead at a hotel. He said that the cause had not been determined, but that his father had a history of heart problems and had recently recovered from pneumonia.

Mr. Davis initially intended to be a writer, but his fame came from his incisive and wide-ranging acting performances over five decades, even as he wrote plays and screenplays and directed and produced in both media. So many of his performances were with Ms. Dee - 11 stage productions and five movies during long parallel careers - that the two have been compared with the Lunts or Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy.

Together they helped pave the road for two generations of black performers, Sean Combs said when the couple was honored at the Kennedy Center in December. Mr. Davis replied: "We knew that every time we got a job and every time we were onstage, America was looking to make judgments about all black folks on the basis of how you looked, how you sounded, how you carried yourself. So any role you had was a role that was involved in the struggle for black identification. You couldn't escape it."

Lloyd Richards, who directed plays involving both actors from their earliest days in New York, said in an interview yesterday that they were part of a large evolution by blacks from the roles of "maids, butlers or some such" to considerably more varied fare. "You could not be exposed to Ossie and not be affected by him," Mr. Richards said.

Last night, before curtains rose at 8, Broadway theaters dimmed their lights in Mr. Davis's honor.

Mr. Davis and Ms. Dee first performed together in the plays "Jeb" in 1946, and "Anna Lucasta" in 1946-47; Mr. Davis's first film, "No Way Out," in 1950, was Ms. Dee's fifth.

Both had significant roles on television in "Roots: The Next Generation" (1978), "Martin Luther King: The Dream and the Drum" (1986) and "The Stand" (1994).

The two also fought in broader arenas. They helped organize the 1963 March on Washington and were master and mistress of ceremonies.

At a news conference in Manhattan yesterday, Harry Belafonte, with tears in his eyes, compared Mr. Davis to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Paul Robeson, W. E .B. DuBois and Fanny Lou Hamer, all of whom were Mr. Davis's friends. In particular, Mr. Davis remained fiercely loyal to Robeson even as he was denounced by other show-business figures for his openly Communist sympathies.

In 1965, Mr. Davis delivered the eulogy at the funeral of Malcolm X, calling him "our shining black prince," and he spoke it again in a voiceover for the 1992 Spike Lee film, "Malcolm X." In 1968, he eulogized Dr. King.

It was partly through Spike Lee movies that Mr. Davis and Ms. Dee became known to a new generation. Mr. Davis appeared in Mr. Lee's "School Daze," "Do the Right Thing" and "Jungle Fever." Ms. Dee appeared in the latter two.

Early in their careers, Mr. Davis co-starred with Ms. Dee when, on Aug. 31, 1959, he took over from Sidney Poitier the role of Walter Lee in "A Raisin in the Sun, " the hit drama about the aspirations of a black family. (Ms. Dee created the role of his wife, Ruth.) It was written by Lorraine Hansberry and directed by Mr. Richards, and is often seen as a milestone in drama by and about blacks.

Mr. Davis never stopped working, his son recalled, adding that he used his waiting time on the set to write plays on his laptop computer. In 1996, he recreated a 1986-87 stage role in the movie "I'm Not Rappaport," and in 1997 he appeared on television in "Miss Evers' Boys" and "Twelve Angry Men."

Raiford Chatman Davis was born on Dec. 18, 1917, in Cogdell, Ga. He was the oldest of five children of Kince Charles Davis and the former Laura Cooper.

He became Ossie when his mother told the courthouse clerk in Clinch River, Ga., who was filing his birth certificate that his name was "R. C. Davis." The clerk thought she had said, "Ossie Davis," and she was not about to argue with a white person.

He grew up in Waycross, Ga., where one of his earliest memories was bigots' harassing his father because his occupation was considered a bit sophisticated for blacks at that time. His father planned and supervised the building of railroads.

A member of the Ku Klux Klan threatened to shoot his father "like a dog." Ossie said that thinking about this inspired him to become a writer.

Despite this early consciousness of racism, Mr. Davis remarked in his adulthood that his favorite movie actor as a child was Tom Mix, the cowboy star, who was white. A happy memory was growing up in a family of preachers and storytellers, and he said that early on he learned to think of the church as theater.

During the Depression his father lost his job and eked out a living selling homemade herbal medicines. Ossie found solace from poverty in school, where he developed a passion for reading Shakespeare.

In 1935, after his high school graduation, Mr. Davis set off to hitchhike from Waycross to Washington, where he stayed with his mother's two sisters; his mother had sewed a $10 bill into his underwear.

With the aid of a National Youth Administration Scholarship and a library job, he entered Howard University, where he encountered the likes of Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen in a course on black literature. He fell under the wing of Dr. Alain Locke, a philosophy professor whom American Visions magazine in 1992 called "midwife to a generation of younger artists, writers and poets." Dr. Locke urged Mr. Davis to learn more about the theater.

The student acted on his advice, perhaps more hastily than the professor had intended him to. He dropped out of Howard at the end of his junior year and moved to New York. He later said that he believed college was a place to "learn to spell and where the commas go," and that since he had mastered those things, there was no reason to remain.

He joined the Rose McClendon Players, a little theater group in Harlem, in order to learn more about plays, which he hoped to write himself. He swept floors, painted sets and sometimes acted in plays performed in church basements and union halls. He was occasionally reduced to sleeping on a park bench, but he mingled with the intellectual giants of black America, including Richard Wright, DuBois and A. Philip Randolph.

While still in high school, Mr. Davis had dreamed of joining Ethiopia's struggle against Mussolini, although he confessed he was not sure where Ethiopia was. He had a brief flirtation with the Young Communist League, which he said ended when he was drafted into the Army in 1942. He spent much of World War II as a surgical technician in an Army hospital in Liberia, where he served both troops and local inhabitants.

After his discharge in 1945, Mr. Davis returned to Georgia but was soon approached by Richard Campbell, who urged Mr. Davis to audition for the title role in "Jeb," a play about a Purple Heart winner who returned to Louisiana and is thwarted by racism in his efforts to find work. The play ran less than two weeks on Broadway, but critics were impressed with Mr. Davis.

More importantly, the young actress playing the female lead could not get the Southern accent right. So the understudy, who knew all the lines, Ruby Dee, took over. She and Mr. Davis had previously appeared in different productions of the same play, "On Strivers Row," in 1940, but had never met.

Ms. Dee said in an interview with CBS News last year that her first impression was that Mr. Davis was "a country bumpkin." But it was the beginning of a spectacular personal and professional collaboration. In December 1948, they took the day off from rehearsals for another play, "The Smile of the World," and rode a bus to New Jersey to be married.

In addition to his wife and his son, Guy, of the Bronx, Mr. Davis is survived by his daughters, Nora Day of Montclair, N.J., and Hasna Muhammad of Brewster, N.Y.; a brother, William, of San Antonio; and seven grandchildren.

One of Mr. Davis's best-known works was "Purlie Victorious," which used comical stereotypes to make stinging points abut racism. Mr. Davis wrote the play and played the title character, a preacher trying to open an integrated church in an old barn.

In 1999, the reference book Contemporary Southern Writers said it offered "a brilliant exploration of how archetypes and stereotypes can be overstated to the point of absurdity."

Mr. Davis repeated his role in the 1963 film version, titled "Gone Are the Days." It was at first unsuccessful at the box office, but it was re-released with the title of the play under the sponsorship of Paul Newman, Fredric March and other celebrities.

In 1970, "Purlie" was made into a hit musical, propelled in part by Melba Moore's performance and a strong score. From March 31 to April 3, the musical version will be staged in concert as part of the "Encores!" series at City Center in Manhattan.

What may be have been Mr. Davis's last interview will be broadcast on Feb. 21, the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, on "Tavis Smiley," the PBS show. Mr. Smiley asked Mr. Davis how he had prepared himself to deliver eulogies for Malcolm X and for Dr. King.

He answered, "The first thing, I should think, would be to sit quietly for as long as it takes and think long thoughts about the subject."

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Do you have any dry ice?

After some wrassling with the shipping agents, I received a huge package of Graeter's ice cream this morning. I did some significant damage to several of the pints, which probably ruined my dinner. Hurrah!

Newza da weird

Chuck has started a blog.

La gorra del presidente

A colleague accosted me today and said: "You. You like hats. Try this one on." And indeed, the hat looked lovingly handmade, and felt wonderfully soft. I wore it the rest of the day and received many compliments.
"My mom sent it to me, but I've got a melon head" he said by way of explanation.

Apropos of explanation, skullphone goes a little way to clearing up how I've seen these awesome wheatpasted posters in San Francisco and London (don't have a photo of the latter, sorry).

Punk as fuck

Lately I've been listening to the American Analog Set's gorgeous fourth album, Know by Heart. The cover is twee, yes, but the songs are dreamy (like Bedhead, say, or Codeine), and a little uptempo and slightly poppy (like Luna, say, or Broadcast).
... and I'm using Sizzling Keys (check the size of the download) to control it all. Ha! Double ha!

Not endorsed by Tallulah Bankhead.

Simon Singh's new book, "The Big Bang" sounds like another laugh riot. What I mean is, he has written two eminently enjoyable books about math ("maths", he would say), and this little number on cosmology promises to be a good read.