Beautiful Dead Things
The walls and shelves of Paxton Gate on Valencia are laden with dead things: rows of mounted heads, cases of skulls, hundreds of exotic insects behind glass....
The Bold ItalicAuthor of 1789 Articles
The Unseen City
San Francisco is about as far west as you can go in the continental United States....
Bookmobile
When I was a tweenager, the library was pretty much the greatest place on earth....
Time Warp
I’ve long been convinced that if only I had been a decade older and could have, dosed up on acid and ecstasy and dolled up in club kid attire, danced till dawn to Deee-lite at one of the many parties that dotted this city in the pre-dot com era, I could have died a happy man....
Games People Play
Spoiler alert! Don’t read this backstory unless you want to find out the results of the first leg of the game....
House of Mirrors
If your heart was set on finding a mansion, it might take more than a white rabbit to lead you to the Chenery House....
Drag Races
In The Devil Wears Prada “Runway” magazine art director Nigel describes fashion as “greater than art because you live your life in it.” I couldn’t agree more....
Grizzly Man
I’d always wondered what it would be like to run my fingers down a hairy chest to a big, furry belly, and then back up and around to wide angel wing-shaped bristly traps and down a bushy lower back....
Tunnel Vision
“Or worse.” “Yes,” I agree, trying to sound equally chill. “That would be good.” It’s this exchange, over my second cup of tea at Siveya Ethersmith’s Victorian apartment, that makes me realize this urban exploration stuff is no joke....
Members Only
From the days when my sister would tape a “NO PATRICKS ALLOWED” sign on her door until the day I got my fake ID, there were always places I was dying to get into simply because I was barred from them — doors behind which I could only imagine what was going on....
Raising Caen
On February 1st, 1997, thirteen unlucky years ago today, San Francisco lost its greatest chronicler....
Hard Roll
They say that it’s not worth the trouble. You have to fight rush hour traffic all the way over to the Inner Richmond –and forget about finding a place to park....