Your place to share stories on and off the bus.
Three guesses on how the above picture represents a “day in the life on Muni.”
Ok, go!
A closeup of the sweater on the passenger next to you?
Nope.
A piece of fuzz found hanging from the fare box?
Still no.
Nothing?
Head over to Burrito Justice to find out how the fantastic Eric Fischer created these maps from NextBus data. This makes the frequent long waits for Muni almost … poetic, no?
Riders James, Katie, and their friends started a really cool site called Between the Lines to document who’s reading what on public transit in our literary city. Here’s what they spotted this weekend on the N-Judah. Maybe you’ll see James and Katie soon on your line so you can share your discerning book choices.
After judging a book by its very intriguing cover from a few seats over on the N-Judah, Between the Lines had the pleasure of briefly chatting with Grace Foster about her chosen Muni tome, The Second Happiest Day. When she warned us that it was a rather obscure book, we were hooked.
How’d you find this book?
Grace said that she had first heard of the book through a review in either the San Francisco Chronicle or the New Yorker, and that she borrowed the book from the Oakland Public Library. She also told us that the author, John Phillips, was actually writing under a nom de plume. His real name was John Phillips Marquand, Jr., (a previous reader of this particular book thought it was important to pencil in). He was the son of the famous John Phillips Marquand (whom your author had never heard of).
Should we read this on our commute, too?
Grace said that she generally liked the novel, which was written at some point in the 1950s and involved the lives of upper-class characters. She said it was “typical of a forgotten genre,” and was a rather obscure work.
Turns out Grace was right. According to this Washington Post report, it is out of print and “long ago disappeared into the remotest shelves of the secondhand bookstores.” Good find, Grace, and thanks for chatting!
Does it seem like everyone is reading the same thing on your bus? Have a better idea of what they should be reading? Share it with your fellow riders.
There’s going to be some new art and seating areas along the N-Judah line as a part of the Church and Duboce Streetscape Improvement Project. Wanna know what the new seating area will look like on Church and Duboce, and meet the artist who will create the sculpture there? Primitivo Suarez-Wolfe will be at the Harvey Milk Recreation Center tomorrow evening:
The Arts Commission recently approved artist Primitivo Suarez-Wolfe’s conceptual proposal for a series of new public artworks that will be implemented in conjunction with the Church and Duboce Streetscape Improvement Project. Inspired by the surrounding architecture and the history of the neighborhood, Primitivo proposed to create a series of steel chairs that, in addition to creating a distinct identity for the intersection, will provide much needed seating for the area. The artist will also design a vertical sculpture for the corner of Church and Market that will serve as a gateway feature for the neighborhood. This is your chance to meet with the artist and engage in a dialogue about his artwork concepts before he develops the designs for presentation to the Arts Commission.
WHEN: Thursday, April 15, 2010, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Get there by Muni: N, 71, 6, 24, 22
WHERE: Harvey Milk Recreation Center, 50 Scott Street (at Duboce Avenue), Downstairs Exhibit Room
The artist’s proposal (PDF) mentions salvaging and reusing Muni tracks — melting tracks that were slated to be demolished and recasting chairs out of them. Suarez-Wolfe wrote that “the chairs themselves will be cast replicas of domestic seating from local cultures and contexts. To me, this begins to connote the shared diversity and character of the Church and Duboce community.” I’d be interested to see how this turns out in real life.
Thanks, funcheapsf.
The ever-awesome Julie Michelle of the ever-awesome Caliber SF and i live here:SF posts this photo today. We likes.
(click here for a larger version of the image)
Photo by eviloars
Finally.
SF Weekly’s cover story this week is a bajillion-word feature that finally does the myriad ills affecting Muni some justice. We won’t spill too many words here, so as to save your retinas. But please, if you ride and/or care about the future of public transit in your city, read this article.
The feature comes on the heels of the Board of Supervisors yesterday rejecting a motion to strike next month’s 10 percent service cuts (via Streetsblog SF) based on violations of state environmental regulations. And, for what it’s worth, Matier and Ross blame the operators union (exactly the kind of finger-pointing and blame-gaming the SF Weekly article disparages … the problems with Muni are as complex as navigating SF streets in a 40-foot articulated, you guys).
(We apologize for yet another interruption from our regular, storytelling programming. We feel this to be important enough. Plus, we’ll be back shortly with more wild tales of life aboard the mobile circus that is Muni.)
Video by RobotGirlAttacks
Yesterday, we tweeted SFist’s Afternoon Palette Cleanser, “Opera” on the Muni. There’s so much to say about that, but I think SFist’s Jay summed it up just fine:
“[T]his is a town that loves wackiness and loves to interact on public transportation.”
Damn, that would make a nice Muni Diaries tagline, dontcha think?
Anyhow, to continue that theme, we bring you this (improv) ditty from the back of the bus. My favorite part is the girl near the camera, who seems none too thrilled, but then starts bobbing her head around 0:36. Rhythms can be infectious that way, eh?