I was in San Francisco again earlier this month, on a visit with my father.  It’s easy to become attached to the city, even if you weren’t born there.  Here is a picture I took from Treasure Island:

And just to the left of that:

Earlier that morning we went to visit the Mission Dolores in the city.  It’s hard to imagine that time, when the mission was the most substantial structure around.  Now of course it’s all urban, and right nearby I came across by a chance a bar immortalized in one of my favorite songs, by Steel  Pole Bath Tub, in which the singer lists a series of misadventures that befell him the night before, but he can’t remember any of them:

I don’t remember being on the floor
I don’t remember how it smelled
I don’t remember how they’ve been there before
I don’t remember when I fell

…

I don’t remember why I woke up alone
With no more memory of you
I don’t remember

that we were in love
That’s only one thing that I recall
I was singing at the 500 Club
I don’t remember her at all

Lo, the 500 Club:

This week we lost an important and lovable member of our family, our Medea.  Happy hunting, Doodle.

South America’s Savage Wars of Freedom, 1810-30 Robert Harvey

About a Boy Nick Hornby

The Road Cormac McCarthy

Why Sinatra Matters Pete Hammil

Augustine: A Very Short Introduction Henry Chadwick

Dead Reign T.A. Pratt

The Civilization of the Middle Ages Norman F. Cantor

The Soul of Latin America: The Cultural and Political Tradition Howard J. Wiarda

Modern European History, 1871-2000 David Welch

The 42nd Parallel, 1919, The Big Money John Dos Passos

Worst Song, Played on Ugliest Guitar Chris Onstad

The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found Mary Beard

Anansi Boys Neil Gaiman

American Colonies: The Settling of North America Alan Taylor

Empires at War: The French and Indian War and the Struggle for North America, 1754-1763 William M. Fowler, Jr.

Africans: The History of a Continent John Iliffe

History of Africa Kevin Shillington

The sign below is posted about a half-block down the street from a couple of these churches.  I guess there are some folks who don’t like the infusion of cars every Sunday (and Wednesday as well, apparently).

Dogs lolling in the shade of the dogwood tree:

Reminds me of one of my favorite poems in the Poetry in Motion series on TriMet.

I was at the bus stop on the northeast corner of the Bank of America building during this, but didn’t see this:

The protest left some damage in its wake, police said, with windows broken at the Bank of America building on Southwest Fifth Avenue.

I was at Fifth and Salmon; maybe the windows were further up Fifth, but I didn’t hear glass breaking.  I will go and check it out.

If I’d had the presence of mind, I would have taken a picture of the moment when the anarchists tried to break away from their police escort, but as they swirled around me and the others at the bus stop, they were stopped in their tracks by the wall of mounted police on Salmon St.  It was quite a tableau, with the black flags on one side, mounted cops on the other, cops on foot blocking off the street to the north.  That’s when I moved into the bus shelter, in case there was a charge by either side.  The situation was fluid, in respect both to how quickly the scene changed and the manner in which the crowd changed direction and flowed east, channeled in that direction by the pressure of the cops.  Then I stood for awhile, waiting for my bus home, but the cops still had Salmon blocked off to the west.  I used my PDXBus app to figure out where they had re-routed it to and set off to meet it.  I saw no more, heard no more, of the protest.

This is amusing:

If you read his book, you find that his solution to the problem of economic co-ordination in the absence of a price mechanism is “the allocation of resources [that] is largely the outcome of discussion between producers, consumers and other affected groups, but within the framework of overall decisions about economic priorities made democratically at the national and international level” (p.140).

That’s one interminable public meeting.

Then I came across this:

The four obtained secrets regarding steelmakers’ output and meetings of the China Iron & Steel Association from companies including Shougang Corp. and Laiwu Group, he said. That led to the failure of iron ore price talks last year, the judge said.

And what are “iron ore price talks”?  Annual meetings between iron producers and steel companies to set prices.  Quite possibly outside of the framework of overall priorities about the advantage of the spot market in reducing the risk of bribery in obtaining pricing information.

I have always enjoyed taking walks, but it is only because of my wish to keep the dogs’ walks somewhat fresh that we have explored practically every street within a thirty to forty-five minute radius from our house.  If it weren’t for the dogs, I certainly would have no need to go walk down the series of streets between 82nd and the freeway, most of which are still unimproved roads and none of which have sidewalks.  And then I would have missed the house below, the residents of which are presumably Raiders fans:

Right down to the mailbox:

I was reading this article and was immediately bugged by the assertion of “the following grammatical rule: there is only ONE space after a period.”  First, it’s nothing to do with grammar; it’s a typographical rule.  Second, I’ve been double-spacing after periods since I learned to type, way back in the wooly mammoth days when we learned on actual typewriters (electric, at least; it wasn’t like they were steam-powered).  Apparently these new-fangled word processors obviate the need for a double space after a period, but there’s very little chance I’m going to change.  My thumbs automatically twitch twice after I type a period, and I’m afraid the neural pathways are not to be rerouted.  At least I don’t feel the urge to reach for the carriage return as I approach the end of each line.  Ding!

I got on my bike this morning and as I rode down our street the sun was bright and warm, such that, as they might have said in France a thousand years ago:

Bels fut li vespres, e li soleilz fut cler

Then I turned into a street upon which the morning sun had not yet shone and up which a cold, biting wind was blowing.  I like to have died.  It is still winter.