(Mostly) Asian on 24th Street

From the former China Books (where the Black Panthers bought Chairman Mao's Little Red Book and sold in on the Berkeley campus to fund themselves in the 1960s) to the vintage shops "up" on Noe Valley, the Hispanic Main Street of 24th Street is looking a lot more Asian these days.

The Strangest Light

Did I sleep through the news, or is San Francisco having a partial eclipse? The light today has been the oddest I've seen in a long while. I thought I saw sawdust on the floor this morning, only to realize it was sun. The light has continued to change oddly through the day, never really sunny and not quite overcast. It matches the way I feel today, my ever ambivalent head feeling even more so. And I think I have just caught up on deadlines and find more and then realize I did it last week. There is a strange smoky smell in the air, like a village in Honduras. The number of dogs barking is above normal. It is all familiar and disconcertingly odd. That's what I get for watching David Lynch past my bedtime last night.

More Tabloid News: Refurred and Refurrbished

Since the media will likely be all over this once this Paris in jail nonsense settles down, we felt compelled to let this be the first exposure to the JunkThief revolutionary constume of the day -- i.e., announcing that JunkThief has returned to the fuzz-faced set. For long-time friends that's no big news since it used to happen several times a year, back and forth. But JunkThief has been sporting the wholesome, clean cut look since at least late 2005. This marked the longest period of the complete absence of facial hair since...well we don't even know. What does it all mean? Because he's a boy and he can do it? Well, that and a few other things, but it could all be gone by the weekend. As usual it's usually not popular with female friends but is with a certain segment of the male set. And just a few days old, it's definitely as the scrawny, scraggly stage at the moment. Stay tuned, film at 11.