it usually drives me crazy when writers (borrowing another afterword word) peacock how well-read or at least broadly-read they are, or explode every scene into a McMaster-Carr order, but the half-a-dozen fields expanded in Novel Explosives and the etymology there-in kept my attention.

ninth book, a real (borrowing from the afterword) wrist-punishing, discursive, door-stopper: “Novel Explosives" by Jim Gauer ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29363276-novel-explosives)

Novel ExplosivesAmbitious, groundbreaking, and fiendishly funny, Novel …Goodreads

I looked for a review that resonated: https://books.substack.com/p/review-joy-williams-on-jim-gauer

Review: Joy Williams on Jim Gauer"Novel Explosives" is a big burning turning ferris wheel of a book with many colorful capsules of expertise and pods of excess. It is violent and profound, taunting, outraged. It is arrogantly discursive yet can possess the focused intensity of a knife’s tip.books.substack.com

tenth book, Matt Ruff’s “Lovecraft Country” sequel, “The Destroyer of Worlds” ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61190257-the-destroyer-of-worlds)

The Destroyer of Worlds (Lovecraft Country, #2)“Another virtuoso blend of horror, action, and humor. .…Goodreads

I’ve been a huge fan of Ruff since “Sewer, Gas, and Electric" ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/71846.Sewer_Gas_and_Electric) and of course the Lovecraft Country show was also p good (although a bit scary for my tastes), so, picking this up after Novel Explosions was a great call.

Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works TrilogyFrom the New York Times Bestselling author of Lovecraft…Goodreads

eponymous peaks

here’s a tag you can mute, no hard feelings, ok cya later: #BicyclingInSanFrancisco

the new valencia bicycle lane design is effectively an upside down muni track painted green down the center. I expect cyclists to eat shit when they try to enter or exit it mid-block just like we already eat shit when we have to ride parallel to them.

I immediately take the car lane for the full block as soon as I see a car in the current bike lanes. “I got us a lane, come on in fellow riders, I think to myself”, and maybe I’m imaging it but I usually get a vibe of relief when the see another cyclist stuck in the bike lane realize that they can join me safely

(while on bad days I’ll also mentally add, to myself, ”the people in cars will never respect you for following their rules, look out for yourself first”)

#BicyclingInSanFrancisco

so anyway, with an upside down muni track painted green, I’ll have to pretty much stop my bike to enter an unobstructed travel lane mid-block when the curbed bike lane is obstructed, so I will probably try to look farther up ahead and do it at intersections. it’s gonna be dumb but I’ll cope #BicyclingInSanFrancisco

what really grinds my gears about the design is the repeated references to paint, signs, and enforcement: no left turn, no turn on red, and so on: imaginary safe places to be next to actually unsafe places to be

maybe it’s my stupid vulgar marxism, or engineer-brain but that smacks of liberal metaphysics to me: deeply unserious magical thinking that inherently tolerates failure for the insanely shitty reason that its credulous to other unserious critics

#BicyclingInSanFrancisco

if your goal is zero deaths, this ain’t it. if your goal is zero injuries, this definitely ain’t it.

We already have this pattern northbound on Valencia at 14th (at Zeitgeist). I always assume I’m going to be killed here and take the car lane before the intersection if I can, I’ve seen too many rights on red bearing down on other cyclists here

it isn’t the driver’s fault, it’s simply a design failure with band-aides. it relies on signs, paint, and enforcement.

#BicyclingInSanFrancisco

so clearly the goal isn’t zero deaths, and the city should drop the vision zero pretense, it is absolutely stollen valor at this point

I’m also pretty unsatisfied w/ the SF Bike Coalition line on this. They’ve never, in the history of the organization, been radical, but c’mon y’all “centering merchants voices?” sounds like something london breed would say.

I probably won’t renew my membership #BicyclingInSanFrancisco

another one! “Death and the Gardener” by Jean Cocteau, fits in two posts:

A young gardener said to his prince, “Save me! I met Death in the garden this morning and he made a menacing gesture. Tonight I wish by some miracle I could be far away, in Ispahan”. The prince lent him his swiftest horse.

That afternoon, walking in the garden, the prince came face to face with Death. “Why,” he asked, “did you make a threatening gesture at my gardener this morning?” “It wasn’t a threatening gesture,” answered Death. “It was a gesture of surprise. I saw him far from Ispahan this morning and I knew I must take him in Ispahan tonight.”