Category: The Mission

Snow on Mission Street!

Snow on Mission Street, San Francisco!

This stuff fell from the sky just a few minutes ago and I’m calling it snow.

You think I’m wrong, but try walking up the stairs from 16th/Mission BART while water is cascading back down, stepping carefully over a whitened sidewalk, and checking the wonder on kids’ faces – and then pay heed to this “distinction”:

Hail and snow are formed by different processes and thus look quite
different, although both are composed of ice.

Snowflakes are composed of single or conglomerated ice
crystals, whereas hail is a ball of ice.

Snowflakes form when an ice crystal grows in very cold air
at the expense of surrounding water vapor.
By the way, there are many other shapes of ice crystals
(platelets, columns, etc.) that can form in a similar way,
but under different atmospheric conditions.

Hail usually starts as a frozen drop of water on a soil or
pollutant particle. The frozen drop is repeatedly carried aloft
and dropped by strong updrafts and down-drafts in a thunderstorm.
As the hailstone rises and falls, super-cooled water droplets
freeze to its surface, enlarging it.

Both snowflakes and hail drop from the clouds where they formed
when they become too heavy for the upward atmospheric motions
in the clouds to support them.

Did I mentioned it snowed on Mission Street just now?

Curbside Brick-Oven Pizza

Curbside Brick-Oven Pizza, San Francisco

Our group was already a little ashamed as we were walking to Flour + Water, a pizza joint we’d previously decided was over-rated, with its soggy crust and limited menu (only two kinds of beer? please).

But then, not two blocks from my house, outside Homestead, appears a couple of folks cooking wood-fired pizzas on the street!

It smelled so good, and the ingredients looked ultra-fresh, but alas, we had a gift card for F+W. So, pushing through our regret that we’d never seen these guys here before, despite the fact they’ve been doing this every Thursday night for the last 6 weeks, we sulked off to our lesser destiny.

We will definitely see you next week, Pizza Politana!

Here’s their menu:

Curbside Brick-Oven Pizza, San Francisco

Valencia Sidewalks Close to Being Not Incomplete

More Valencia Street Sidewalk Teasing, San Francisco

Even with the cones (mostly) gone, we are reminded of the temporary nature of existence. Those asphalt-filled areas will no doubt have to be properly cemented at some point in the future, requiring more cones, but in the meantime, here’s a rough vision of how your world may be one day, Mission-heads.

(Thanks, Gwen!)

If the Trailer’s a-Rocking

I don’t expect much of a Monday night.

But a friend was having a get together at Gestalt before returning to do the Lord’s work in Africa, so I dragged my butt out. It was a crazy night. The high point was when we followed some bumping music to the above Airstream camper parked in front of DoubleDutch.

When security from DD tried to tell the silver-trailer-dweller to turn his music down, the response was not positive. “You don’t come into my house and tell me how to live!” was part of the tirade.

The bouncer backed down.

Thanks, Ma

Gracias Madre sign is up on Mission Street, San Francisco

“Organic vegan Mexican” is such a redundancy. Seriously, though, it’s blowing my mind, despite this totally eloquent explanation:

Gracias Madre is truly an expression of who we are – it represents our deep love of and reverence for food, our commitment to health and sustainability, our unconditional love for our multicultural family and community, our devotion to the Earth and the divine feminine, and our commitment to raising consciousness on the planet.

Blah blah blah, you love food – bring on the three sisters!

“Missions, my lord, missions – that is what this world needs”

Father Junipero Serra

So wrote Father Junipero Serra, that great self-flagellator, to the Spanish Commandant General upon encountering the welcoming Ohlone Indians on the land that is now San Francisco. Congregations of Indians were struck with awe as Serra struck his body with chains, pounded his chest with stones, and burned it with hot candles.

He dreamed of a utopian 10-year apprentice program whereby, after intense “rehabilitation,” the native residents would have fully adopted the customs of European living and could be given back some of their land as devout Catholics. More after the jump…
Continue reading “Missions, my lord, missions – that is what this world needs”

Valencia Street Lane Saga, 1925-2010

Valencia Street, San Francisco, 1925

With the Mission on the verge of getting its Valencia Street West sidewalk back between 16th and 19th Streets, reader Brian Stokle points us to this nifty Flickr set complete with drawings of how Valencia Street looked over the ages. According to brunoboris, with the latest round of modifications, the sidewalks will return to their original width. More after the jump…
Continue reading Valencia Street Lane Saga, 1925-2010

Mission Street Man Girdles

Squeem Man Girdles on Mission Street, San Francisco

This sandwich board ad is a big, tall drink of WTF. Where to begin?

“Magical lingerie,” perhaps? (For men!) Or, how about “Squeem” as a name for a product line (slight handicapping for being a Brazilian company)?

If those don’t wake you up, we can take a look at the claim, “Get Fit Immediately.” And, finally, take a look at that model. Does he look like a candidate for a man-girdle? Is the Squeem thing-a-ma-bob “magically” re-distributing his spare tire into his pecs and biceps (or his…Johnson)?

You decide.

(spotted@ Mission & 21st)