what a tale my thoughts could tell
Well, it seems I'm not actually as allergic to cats as I feared before coming here, at least not this particular short-haired cat. Good thing, too, because this cat sleeps in bed with me and is in general quite affectionate; you know, basically a failure as a cat. I sneeze a lot, but vacuuming helps.
Here we have the photo-essay (or something), so far, on le Berkeley. You will see how hippy this place is. I mean, honestly. It is sprinkled with used bookstores, organic food sources and cooperatively owned businesses like whatever absurd simile could possibly express something utterly covered in used bookstores, organic food sources and cooperatively owned businesses. (I've only bought two used books, because I can exercise restraint.) There's also so many Indian food restaurants in this place that I swear I could eat at a new one every single day. (But I'm not, because I have restraint!) (Ex-Housemate Andrei showed me one tonight that's aimed at programmers, even. That's right, a programmer-specific Indian restaurant. Welcome to the Bay Area.)
I now have four library cards for four different systems in four states in my wallet. That tells you everything you need to know about me. (It's amazingly easy to get a Berkeley library card -- some shall recall that it took me like two months to convince them to give me one in Chicago, and I was actually, you know, living there for real; I got mine here in three days. As my mother put it, "In the People's Republic of Berkeley? I'm surprised the library checked on more than whether or not you have a pulse.") (Berkeley library cards are a wonderful metallic golden colour. Perhaps they are made from some rare substance ... probably illegal. Those hippies.)
Yes yes, I know, you want the pictures. Fine then.
Where to start ... oh yes, I know: with the hippy cars. You can't make this stuff up.
.
This is the most incredible one I've seen so far, though:
I wish the light had been better so I could have gotten better pictures of it.
Ex-Housemate Andrei explained to me something I hadn't previously known -- apparently, in order to be fully accepted at Burning Man, cars have to be artistic, and since obviously everyone in the Bay Area is a Burning-Man-attendin' hippy anarchist, I can expect to see even more of them.
And then there's the architecture, of course. I actually haven't gone on any specifically architectural tours yet, but naturally there's the necessary hippy house decoration:
... and the necessary hippy murals, particularly in Andrei's area of San Francisco (the Mission). My favourite:
... not to mention the most obviously psychedelic-inspired club building ever:
I really like this house, but I expect it's nothing special:
And this Oakland cinema:
And this San Francisco hotel:
And this random skate shop on the bay:
Oh man, the bay.
Now that the boring stuff's over, we can really start talking about the hippies. I did not make up this graffiti on the mirror molding of the bathroom of an Indian restaurant:
Nor did I make up this café's name:
Yeah. Berkeley is (shockingly) lousy with coffeeshops, did I mention? And there are no fewer than three within a 20-minute walk (maybe more, I mean, what do I know?) with names that pun on the word "Grounds" (you know: Sufficient Grounds, etc ...)
And the freakin' hippies can't work honest hours:
They've even been at the sidewalk.
You get one picture of Rocky the extremely bratty cat, though I don't know why you'd want one. (Okay, he's affectionate and sweet. He's also bratty.)
The bachelor who owns this flat loves his cat. I mean, I have never seen a man who loves his cat as much as this man does. Many a Father's Day card around the place is signed "love, Rocky". That's probably why this cat thinks (okay, knows, and rightfully so) that he can get away with whining until I do what he wants. Ah well. Good practice in case I ever lose my mind and get married, right?
I have found a hair clip type that can actually securely hold all my hair. It would be understandable if you didn't believe me, but I have evidence.
The clips're variably gorgeous, too, and pretty reasonably priced. Check out www.flexi8.com. (There's an extra-large size too, which is what I use, but apparently he doesn't like to advertise it directly because people think they're worthy of it when they're not, or something. Whatever, I took his word for it.)
At one of the many used bookstores ... I can't remember its name ... I noted, to the elderly hippy owner, how many bookstores are supported hereabouts. He immediately made a comment along the lines of "There ain't nearly as many out there as there used to be, whippersnapper!" and showed me a great map he had of how many bookstores there once were around the same area as the Strand in Manhattan:
Andrei (wow, he's showing up in this post a lot) and I discovered a sad, abandoned, delicate lady's shoe in the middle of the street:
Lastly, his art co-op, MillionFishes, has the best bathroom sign ever.
I thought about exercising restraint while compiling this post, but I guess I used it all up on the bookstores and the Indian food. If you made it this far, send me an email and I'll send you a postcard.
...
Old news: women unconsciously get paternal clues from men's faces
In the study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, researchers looked at a group of 39 men, ages 18 to 33, at the University of Chicago. Each man was shown 10 pairs of photographs and silhouettes, one of an adult and the other of an infant, and asked to rate their preferences. Meanwhile, their saliva was tested to determine testosterone levels.
Photographs of the men's faces were then shown to 29 women, ages 18 to 20, at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The study found women did well at rating men on their interest in babies, and those they rated masculine generally had higher testosterone levels than the others.
For example, the men who indicated they liked children the most were rated as above average in liking children by 20 of the 29 women. The men who showed no interest in children were correctly rated as below average in that category by 19 of the women.
The higher the women rated the men for masculinity, the higher they were rated as potential short-term romantic partners. The higher they rated men for their interest in children, the higher they were rated for long-term romance.
Comics that Time Forgot -- new book
Published alongside the sumptuous art books on Harry N. Abrams's general list, rather than through Abrams Image, the publisher's recently launched graphic specialty imprint, Dan Nadel's Art Out of Time: Unknown Comics Visionaries 1900-1969, is a treasure chest of graphic visionaries. One of the more unusual publishing events of the summer, this beautiful coffee-table book is a survey of idiosyncratic, out-there work by 31 nearly unknown cartoonists.
Torture and the War on Drugs
This guy at worst was a small-time drug dealer. He had no history of violence. Right now, we're having a national debate about torturing terror suspects with designs on killing everyone in this country .... But an incident like this (and you're delusional if you think it was isolated), in which a U.S. citizen who had inflicted no direct harm on anyone was nearly beaten to death, has been barely mentioned outside of Tennessee.
We've inculcated in cops the idea that the government preventing people from putting items from a banned list of substances into their bodies is so necessary and urgent, enforcing those laws with tactics like these is in many cases viewed as entirely appropriate.
Here we have the photo-essay (or something), so far, on le Berkeley. You will see how hippy this place is. I mean, honestly. It is sprinkled with used bookstores, organic food sources and cooperatively owned businesses like whatever absurd simile could possibly express something utterly covered in used bookstores, organic food sources and cooperatively owned businesses. (I've only bought two used books, because I can exercise restraint.) There's also so many Indian food restaurants in this place that I swear I could eat at a new one every single day. (But I'm not, because I have restraint!) (Ex-Housemate Andrei showed me one tonight that's aimed at programmers, even. That's right, a programmer-specific Indian restaurant. Welcome to the Bay Area.)
I now have four library cards for four different systems in four states in my wallet. That tells you everything you need to know about me. (It's amazingly easy to get a Berkeley library card -- some shall recall that it took me like two months to convince them to give me one in Chicago, and I was actually, you know, living there for real; I got mine here in three days. As my mother put it, "In the People's Republic of Berkeley? I'm surprised the library checked on more than whether or not you have a pulse.") (Berkeley library cards are a wonderful metallic golden colour. Perhaps they are made from some rare substance ... probably illegal. Those hippies.)
Yes yes, I know, you want the pictures. Fine then.
Where to start ... oh yes, I know: with the hippy cars. You can't make this stuff up.
.
This is the most incredible one I've seen so far, though:
I wish the light had been better so I could have gotten better pictures of it.
Ex-Housemate Andrei explained to me something I hadn't previously known -- apparently, in order to be fully accepted at Burning Man, cars have to be artistic, and since obviously everyone in the Bay Area is a Burning-Man-attendin' hippy anarchist, I can expect to see even more of them.
And then there's the architecture, of course. I actually haven't gone on any specifically architectural tours yet, but naturally there's the necessary hippy house decoration:
... and the necessary hippy murals, particularly in Andrei's area of San Francisco (the Mission). My favourite:
... not to mention the most obviously psychedelic-inspired club building ever:
I really like this house, but I expect it's nothing special:
And this Oakland cinema:
And this San Francisco hotel:
And this random skate shop on the bay:
Oh man, the bay.
Now that the boring stuff's over, we can really start talking about the hippies. I did not make up this graffiti on the mirror molding of the bathroom of an Indian restaurant:
Nor did I make up this café's name:
Yeah. Berkeley is (shockingly) lousy with coffeeshops, did I mention? And there are no fewer than three within a 20-minute walk (maybe more, I mean, what do I know?) with names that pun on the word "Grounds" (you know: Sufficient Grounds, etc ...)
And the freakin' hippies can't work honest hours:
They've even been at the sidewalk.
You get one picture of Rocky the extremely bratty cat, though I don't know why you'd want one. (Okay, he's affectionate and sweet. He's also bratty.)
The bachelor who owns this flat loves his cat. I mean, I have never seen a man who loves his cat as much as this man does. Many a Father's Day card around the place is signed "love, Rocky". That's probably why this cat thinks (okay, knows, and rightfully so) that he can get away with whining until I do what he wants. Ah well. Good practice in case I ever lose my mind and get married, right?
I have found a hair clip type that can actually securely hold all my hair. It would be understandable if you didn't believe me, but I have evidence.
The clips're variably gorgeous, too, and pretty reasonably priced. Check out www.flexi8.com. (There's an extra-large size too, which is what I use, but apparently he doesn't like to advertise it directly because people think they're worthy of it when they're not, or something. Whatever, I took his word for it.)
At one of the many used bookstores ... I can't remember its name ... I noted, to the elderly hippy owner, how many bookstores are supported hereabouts. He immediately made a comment along the lines of "There ain't nearly as many out there as there used to be, whippersnapper!" and showed me a great map he had of how many bookstores there once were around the same area as the Strand in Manhattan:
Andrei (wow, he's showing up in this post a lot) and I discovered a sad, abandoned, delicate lady's shoe in the middle of the street:
Lastly, his art co-op, MillionFishes, has the best bathroom sign ever.
I thought about exercising restraint while compiling this post, but I guess I used it all up on the bookstores and the Indian food. If you made it this far, send me an email and I'll send you a postcard.
...
Old news: women unconsciously get paternal clues from men's faces
In the study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, researchers looked at a group of 39 men, ages 18 to 33, at the University of Chicago. Each man was shown 10 pairs of photographs and silhouettes, one of an adult and the other of an infant, and asked to rate their preferences. Meanwhile, their saliva was tested to determine testosterone levels.
Photographs of the men's faces were then shown to 29 women, ages 18 to 20, at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The study found women did well at rating men on their interest in babies, and those they rated masculine generally had higher testosterone levels than the others.
For example, the men who indicated they liked children the most were rated as above average in liking children by 20 of the 29 women. The men who showed no interest in children were correctly rated as below average in that category by 19 of the women.
The higher the women rated the men for masculinity, the higher they were rated as potential short-term romantic partners. The higher they rated men for their interest in children, the higher they were rated for long-term romance.
Comics that Time Forgot -- new book
Published alongside the sumptuous art books on Harry N. Abrams's general list, rather than through Abrams Image, the publisher's recently launched graphic specialty imprint, Dan Nadel's Art Out of Time: Unknown Comics Visionaries 1900-1969, is a treasure chest of graphic visionaries. One of the more unusual publishing events of the summer, this beautiful coffee-table book is a survey of idiosyncratic, out-there work by 31 nearly unknown cartoonists.
Torture and the War on Drugs
This guy at worst was a small-time drug dealer. He had no history of violence. Right now, we're having a national debate about torturing terror suspects with designs on killing everyone in this country .... But an incident like this (and you're delusional if you think it was isolated), in which a U.S. citizen who had inflicted no direct harm on anyone was nearly beaten to death, has been barely mentioned outside of Tennessee.
We've inculcated in cops the idea that the government preventing people from putting items from a banned list of substances into their bodies is so necessary and urgent, enforcing those laws with tactics like these is in many cases viewed as entirely appropriate.