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After having counted thousands (more like thousandths) of votes, I can share this:

I say, "I have a pebble in my shoe" to describe an objet d'art, or object de natura, bothering my step.

Others report saying "stone" or "rock," both of which strike me as akin to saying "boulder."

Sui generis.

Age quod agis.

(What would Kierkegaard say?) (WWKS)

This Is A Test

...well, more like a quiz.

Actually, a para-quasi-survey of language use.

To wit: complete this simple phrase by filling in the blank:

"I have a __________in my shoe."

Thanks.

As you were.

Carry on.

The Underachiever's Manifesto

Good enough.

The perfectionist in me balks at that. Balks radically at the notion of "good enough."

And yet.

And yet.

What a treat to come upon "The Underachiever's Manifesto: The Guide to Accomplishing Little and Feeling Great" by Ray Bennett, M.D. (Chronicle Books, 2006). $9.95. Found this find at Twig Gallery, a pleasant shop at 2162 Union Street, San Francisco.

Devoured the book in tasty morsels while at the Coffee Roastery, La Boulange, the Hilton, and at SFO International Terminal.

Good-enough sagely stuff.

Check it out.

San Francisco Pastiche Fluvial Farewell

Mt. Tamalpais Muir Woods Hagiwara Tea Garden Golden Gate Park tai chi de Young Museum Golden Gate Bridge Mason Powell Taylor Hertz Westin Saint Francis Union Square Grace Cathedral Hilton Financial District Commercial Merchant Clay Chinatown tai chi Specialty's lunch special Sansome sourdough Peet's Montgomery New Montgomery Vallejo Levy tunnel Union Fillmore Twig Gallery Ray Bennett Underachiever's Manifesto Chronicle Books Coffee Roastery grant sacrament Sacramento Grant Old Saint Mary's Cathedral Gold Mountain Sagely Monastery obscenely mumbling panhandler adult media positive always defeats negative Lombard Laguna Webster Muni hearing Buchanan Kearny Yellow Cab Cooperative word collage La Boulange dazzling eyes Marina USPS purple mosque house Russian Hill arabic Emporio Rulli California NPR lounge Washington 101 South San Francisco SFO Reflection Room asleep security jetBlue fog night red eye memory twig gallery Lorca Suites postcards sweet

City Lights Illuminati

The pure pleasure of City Lights Books, at Columbus (near Cafe Vesuvio and across from the patina of Zoetrope, reminiscent of the Flatiron Building), Lawrence Ferlinghetti's literary mecca in San Francisco, is encapsulated in this incident from last evening.

Browsing upstairs, in the poetry rack, I spy a vineyard of tasty selections of poetic treats. I page through them. One of them entrances me. Its spare, few words magnetize me. "Christ,/a mirror/in each hand./He multiplies/his shadow./He projects his heart/through his black/visions./I believe!" This from Symbol of the "Mirror Suite" from "Suites," by Federico Garcia Lorca, translated from the Spanish by Jerome Rothenberg. It is Green Integer 31 from Green Integer, Kobenhavn & Los Angeles. 2001.

So, Lorca is born to me, in San Francisco. Lorca is baptized to me here and now, introduced not by water and fire but by sidewalk and stairs on an August Saturday evening in the city of Saint Francis.

The priest of this sacrament is Lawrence Ferlinghetti and his City Lights Books, whose iconic gray on black bags beckon beauty, whose store is a conclave of revelation, one not found on the Internet or World Wide Web electronically but in the tactile tent of this nomad's journey, in the silence of the Kierkegaard leaping heart.

San Francisco Pastiche Panorama Puzzle Gestalt Reprise

Coast Highway Cabrillo Highway McNee Ranch Montara Beach Montara State Park Highway 1 cliffs beach pristine sand surf sun azure cobalt tsunami warning sign 280S nameless blazing flowers verdant sand pine crag Ireland-like meandering road Davenport Home Cooking Santa Cruz Monterey aquarium jellies gel jellyfish zen dance slent pulsating room zazen pales diaphonous Monte Rey king mountain crown falls out of mouth uncrowned Los Gatos Whole Foods Market 68 to 101 to 83 to 280N Third Street game emptying out Lincecum nightlights home of sorts City Lights illuminations Sunday Pablo Sandoval Pablo T-shirts Barry Zito Giants win AT&T Park Steps of Rome City Lights sunburned nose Portsmouth Square garage Montgomery Clay Commercial street parking Federico Garcia Lorca Suites nameless building across from Hilton Financial District Chinatown with scupltures facing our room atop the facade dancing muses fog wind walking up Kearney St. Francis National Historic Site Washington Square park public toilet cigar fragrance of al fresco diners Grant Columbus weeping Buddha carvings

San Francisco Pastiche Panorama Puzzle Gestalt

Old Ship Saloon Highway 101 Kearny Post Sutter HSBC House of Nanking flowering blossom tea Muni 30 Stockton 9x AT&T Park blazing sun shadow green Tony Bennett hearts cascade of tears Angelina's 22 Avenue and California fog son mist fog Stanford ELMI McCovey Marichal Mays Cepeda Portsmouth Square Ghirardelli Square Mechanics Institute Library Post Giants Winn Eugenio Velez Bay Bridge Adobe Saint Gregory's of Nyssa Sara Miles Federal Reserve Bank Powell & Hyde Powell & Mason Van Ness Third & King Chronicle beach siren artichoke hearts salmon Golden Gate 1 Marin Vista Point yes yes yes Saint Francis!