Muni and the literature it spawns

Photo by Heather Champ

The layers of life on and around Muni can be a damn good petri dish of creativity. As such, many of us turn on the creative juices and pay homage to our favorite transit agency with the written word. San Francisco’s a literary town, after all, isn’t it? The ever-prolific @cripsahoy posted a series of Muni limericks she’s written about our beloved transit system the other day, as one example. My fave:

Riding the Geary express
A lady cried out in distress
“A man in this seat
Was stroking his meat!
T’was impressive, but I digress”

And who can forget the lovable Muni Haiku Project?

Ahead of yesterday’s SFMTA board meeting that, among other things, concerned itself with outgoing chief Nat Ford’s severance package, former Rescue Muni member Herbert J. Weiner sent us this tome:

Nat Ford
Your Run is Over

Success and Failure
Failure:
You have left
MTA worse than

you found it Transit
First: Riders motorists
bus and taxi drivers
frail and elderly last

Success: You threw so
many under the wheels
Perhaps the most
skillful driver you

weaved in and out of
critics City Hall and
improvements that
could have been made

bringing quiet peaceful
streets to an end
cutting and eliminating
runs so crucial to

the frail and sick
So many thrown under
the wheels Now the
wheels welcome you

but not the victims
Your bus has finally
crashed Your run is
over You must leave

by the rear doors
With luck they won’t
slam on you

There’s even a site dedicated to what people are reading while riding Muni. Check out Between the Lines. And earlier this month, we told you about Raymond, the Muni poet laureate.

Are you aware of other intersections of Muni and literature? Let us know!