This is mildly frightening: someone’s visited 83% of the Starbucks in North America, and photographed all of them. On the one hand, it’s somewhat neat to see all the diverse urban environments of North America, but it’s equally disconcerting to see them all stamped with that tidy green logo. Eeeech. At least $bux hasn’t turned to “shrieking dance squads” to sell coffee. Yet.
8 March 2002
Something I missed on yesterday’s ride into work: a chicken crossing the road, namely LaSalle Blvd. in River North. Strange.
7 March 2002
Well, golly gee, that‘s what my life has been missing all this time. Thank you, Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers, for pointing out that People Need SUVs.
Also: new Bookmarks.
So that’s why
1. “Well, I’m a ditzy liberal who believes in social freedoms and religious relativism!” And that’s why Johnny joined the Taliban. 2. chaos in Congo, mass murder in Indonesia, the rape of Amazonia — all troubles rooted in the rubber trade, which began with the pneumatic tires made for… bicycles! 3. Good news? Secondhand smoke is no worse for you than everyday air pollution. How reassuring.
Merritt; anarchists
Oh my! Today’s Times Magazine has a profile of everyone’s favorite hyper-literate pop engima, Stephin Merritt. Salon has a story on anti-corporate anarchist riots reimagined as video game — but is that really any more political than a shoot-em-up about, say, the military or the police? Or are we so used to reinforcing the right-wing status quo that any glorification of leftist “soldiers” seems strange?
Huzzahs
a proposal to move the dreary Eckhart Park library to the old St. Boniface church; Kingsbury Park for slick marketing which doesn’t mention driving, and the Lakeview Chamber of Commerce for similarly and subtly discouraging driving.
Figs, BBQ, croque
News flash! God hates figs and, like everyone else, sporks. Oh, and spring’s off for now — light snow today.
Another web find: Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, offers some tasty low sodium barbeque recipes online.
Lunchtime update: Earl’s at Gallery 37 has a ham & cheese panini which sates my taste for croque monsieurs. Still looking for a creperie and a soba shop downtown…
Fast food nation
This seals it: as evil as Starbucks might be in terms of homogenizing neighborhoods, and that’s pretty darn evil, McDonald’s and the fast/processed food scions for promoting overeating and obesity with an ad budget ($10 billion a year) as big as Detroit’s. (A Coca-Cola Barbie? Wouldn’t that more properly be a Diet Coke Barbie?) However, someone pointed out that my more personal anger at Starbucks probably says more about my social status than my politics.
In other news: “The New Yorker disdains to be a booster, of his own city or of his own culture. That is for the provinces.” Yeah, right.
16 February 2002
Several new photos under Chicagoland and Random today. Hail spring! Bulbs have begun sprouting along State Street.
11 February 2002
It is, indeed, possible to have a splendid time visiting L.A. without a car.
Yay! Got my CDs today. More mindless Francopop to keep me distracted for the next few weeks.
changing spaces
In honor of the new coffee shop opening up across the street tomorrow, I’ve (partially) revised Wicker Park Cafes. Oh, and hello to the new neighbor across the gangway — for a few months there, I didn’t have anything to stare at from the kitchen window. Now I’ve got you guys! In other news, went to the suburbs today and was once again reminded why I never go. Disappearing sidewalks, long waits for the bus, long dashes across vast stretches of forbidding parking lots, those annoying traffic signals which require pushing a button to cross, and all to get to a half-empty shopping center. Harumph.
6 February 2002
Practice saying (well, enunciating) this a few times: “this delicious, cleansing sentence tastes quite like cantaloupe sorbet.” from today’s PowellsBooks.news, quite possibly the only email newsletter that features the serialized tale of a bookstore cat whose most human attribute is a very Portland trait: riding mass transit.
