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Ohhhhhh-BAMA!

[Name removed] is regretting sleeping with A. last night, given that A. is a petri dish full of germs, many of which appeared to jump ship during the night.

Not what it sounds like.

The July 1994 issue, containing Wallace’s essay on the Illinois State Fair (also represented here by a video of a live reading) was the first issue of Harper’s I ever read and the first DFW piece I ever read too. It made me a lifetime fan of both.

At 2:05 p.m. yesterday, Pacific Daylight Time, a terrible mob of zombies struck downtown San Francisco. Starting in the vicinity of Yerba Buena Gardens, the throngs of undead maimed and killed their way through SOMA, the Financial District, and Chinatown, turning unlucky victims into more zombies as they went, as zombies will. I was fortunate enough to survive (translation: I’d only heard about it the day before and hadn’t had time to plan, dammit) and got away with some great photographic evidence. Just a few of my pictures are posted below; lots more at my photo site or on Flickr.

Best chant: “What do we want?” “BRAAAAINS!” “When do we want ‘em?” “BRAAAAAINS!”

Best overheard question from a passerby: “Is this, like, National Zombie Day?”

Second worst overheard question: “Excuse me? What’s this for? Excuse me?”

Worst overheard question: “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?” (arguably a good question actually)

Here’s a zombie dog getting a nice treat near the start of the rampage and really going to town on it. This might have been the funniest thing I saw all day.

At one point, a guy stopped at a light asked me what was going on. I told him, “Well, I mean, they’re zombies, right? They’re doing what zombies do, you know, looking for brains and stuff. I wouldn’t get out of your car if I were you.” This is what happened to one unfortunate driver.

At the Transamerica building, in an great case of serendipity, the zombie mob ran into a rocking anti-Scientology protest with a great bass beat. The result, of course: instant zombie jamboree!

And of course, what zombie rampage would be complete without the requisite bad pun?

Again, lots more where these came from, at my photo site or on Flickr. And a lot of them are good. (As I’m sure will be the other 850 million photos other people have no doubt already put up on Flickr. In the early stages, there had to have been at least two photographers for every zombie.)

The sale of Longs Drugs Stores Corp., the 70-year-old chain based in Walnut Creek, to the East Coast’s giant CVS Caremark Corp., spells the end for the last major regional chain drugstore in the country. After the transaction closes at the end of the year, CVS will slowly start converting the stores, and the Longs name will fade into retail history.

(via Medialoper)

The good folks at the science-fiction blog io9 have posted a story about artist Mona Caron’s murals in San Francisco, focusing on a pair of nearly-completed paintings adorning the parking lot where the Noe Valley Farmer’s Market goes up every Saturday. I was a little startled to see the post, because that happens to be only a couple blocks down 24th St. from me. (The Google Maps folks were good enough to get their aerial pics while the market was in session.) I’ve seen the not-quite-finished murals and they’re amazing.

Caron’s best known local work is probably the magnificent Market Street Railway Mural (on Church St. at 15th, shown below), which covers the length of Market St. as a series of interlocked panels that move forwards through time as they connect left-to-right, from a sepia-toned 1920s down by the Ferry Building up through the Iraq War protest of 2003. The last panel brings San Francisco into a light future full of trolleys, bicycles, pachyderms, and gondola-filled canals. It’s dazzling, and you can browse the whole thing here. (It turns out Caron also did the Duboce Bikeway Mural near Duboce Park, the right half of which is right in your face from the J train as it emerges from its tunnel behind the Safeway, as well as a couple other familiar works.)

I was at the Farmer’s Market a couple of weeks ago and got my first good look at the near-completed murals, one on each side of the lot. At the time I didn’t know anything about them or the artist, and they were totally captivating. They echo some of the same themes: the mural on the west side intertwines sepia scenes of an older Noe Valley with giant colorful plant life, while the one on the east side carries 24th St. further into an even more whimsical eco-future, in which (as the detail above shows) the R in BART now stands for “Relaxed,” awnings advertise “Seed Barns,” and rooftop gardens are everywhere. It’s playful and clever, full of hidden gems, and great fun to look at while you’re buying your organic bing cherries and artisinal samosas. Apparently the official unveiling is on September 27th. That ought to be something. Come on by if you’re in the area.

[Mona Caron]
[The full western Noe Valley mural in hi-res (Flickr)]
[Details about the Noe Valley mural]