My Little Victorian Pony

First, let me dispel the rumor going around through recycling of some of my emails that my departure to Catalonia as a resident alien is imminent. Possible, maybe even likely but not happening in the next few months.

At the moment I am at an odd state of peace with San Francisco, a place I have never and never will love but am at a point of actually liking on several levels. My days of hating it, loathing it, resenting it are over. However, though there is some handsome architecture here, there are some really hideous buildings. Oakland and Pasadena are the architectural gems of California in my book.

But one of the absolute atrocities of Victoriana at its worst is a few blocks down from me at 24th and San Jose. This makes Julian Schnabel's notorious tower in the Village look subtle by comparison. Is the interior filled with Barney and My Little Pony artifacts? While the structure itself is not that offensive, these depressing colors make me long for the soothing grays and browns of dear old Park Slope, Brooklyn. There is Gaudi, there is gaudy, and then there is this godless atrocity.

It reminds me of the best question ever posed to me about San Francisco architecture that came from a visitor from Singapore. "Why do you people call them Victorians? She was never your queen."