I'm a lasagna boy!

Riot-proof, and you know how to swim

The current issue of the University of Chicago Magazine features an article on myths that have arisen about the school: the swimming requirement; the (old) student union's namesake, Mrs Ida "Come on bring the" Noyes; and the legendary steam tunnels between Burton-Judson and the Classics Quad.
Interdisciplinary, my ass.

He will never go hungry again

On the side of the high-rise at Steiner and Haight, southwest corner, Romanowski has started painting a beautiful, bright mural:

While I walked up to it and out of habit began taking snaps, the artist was doing ditto. We talked for a moment, and agreed that the site was perfect for a mural: the wall, next to some ramshackle steps, is only too easy prey for taggers. The strong colours of his mural fit in well with the neighbourhood, and the fish and icons representing local businesses form a subtle tribute.

jimg like

jimg pointed me at these bike photos. sw33t (and some are are pleasantly risque!)

Meta-blogging

Sigh. Meta-filter has the bomb thread on Banksy's latest shenanigans. In my bag I have a sheaf of articles from the New York Times (of all places! so establishment) on Twist and graf in general.

Everything is better with Bacon

While reading online about our friend Eadweard, I found that he had inspired Francis Bacon. I dug out my unread copy of "Anatomy of an Enigma" and got a few pages in to it, but did sneak a look at all of the pictures.

The San Francisco Bay Guardian ran a story on Oaktown doughnuts, which omits the fine counter full o' fried offerings at Ozzie's, properly in Elmwood as well as the phenomenal Kingpin in Berkeley. But without straying from the Oakland theme, the author could have found a few ethnic varieties of fried dough. And didn't. My turn!

Steps to a better

From the City of Seven Hills (and Three Rivers) to the City By the Bay (the Fog City), we love taking steps. More than five hundred sets of stairs, some extending hundreds of steps, grace the hills of Pittsbugh. and more than three hundred stairs in San Francisco.

Eye knows what Eye likes

Unlike Muybridge, who added eccentric touches to the spelling of his name, Burtynsky seems very grounded with his photography. Does this make the work eye candy?

Edward Burtynsky, who self-published a book about the construction of China's Three Gorges Dam, is the winner of the fourth and final Roloff Beny Photography Book Award. The award-winning photographer's Before the Flood takes home the $60,000 prize. The book details the upheaval caused by the building of the dam, the world's largest hydroelectric engineering feat to date. The predominant theme to the photos is how industry transforms nature. Burtynsky's photos have been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide, including Canada's National Gallery, which recently featured a two-decade retrospective of his work. Established in the memory of the late, world-famous, Alberta-born photographer Roloff Beny, the award is being replaced by a new scholarship program for post secondary photography students across Canada.

Trust me. I know what I'm doing.

Your stereotypical doughnut is nothing but dough and sugar, fried in fat. Am I right? Now that fat gums up your arteries, and goes into your brain, and you turn liberal. And the next thing you know, Barry Manilow's on the turntable, and you're not going to work, and you're voting for gun control. You see what I'm saying?

Courtesy the
SledgeHammer Season 1 DVDs, which arrived in today's post. Alas, something that the TiVo won't ever catch, because the show didn't run long enough to become worthy of syndication (the magic 100 episodes).
I never realised that this show is set and filmed in San Francisco! The establishing shots and many of the chase scenes all feature typical San Francisco landscapes: The Golden Gate Bridge, the Presidio, downtown.

Fever in

Sick abed today, I read through some Golden Age mystery novels: two (of the few tolerable) by Agatha Christie: Death in the Air and Cards on the Table (others I like include The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and The A.B.C. Murders); and a perennial favourite, Dame Dorothy Sayers' Murder Must Advertise, a novel which transcends genre fiction.