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List: Things I Love About SF (plus Writing & Fountain Pens)

List of things I love about San Francisco, including food, coffee, walkability, transit, hospitals, universities, our national & city parks, activists, museums, bookstores, mild weather, cultural districts, mixed architectural styles, open-mindedness, and people from around the world!
Handwriting! This spontaneous, incomplete, outburst-type list (in no particular order) is written with a Noodler’s Konrad fountain pen in Appalachian Pearl that has been modified with a Goulet Pens stub nib. The gorgeous gray-green ink is Herbin’s Vert de Gris on Clairefontaine paper.

I have periodically called up my parents to thank them for raising me in San Francisco.

Sure, they met and married here, but there was always a chance they could have returned to the midwest or northeast with me. But I’m so glad they stayed!

It was wonderful to grow up in a place where school building dominate the neighborhoods; where there are so many libraries; where I had so many classmates from other places, domestically and internationally; where I could hear different languages while riding the bus or visiting a friend at home; where there are so many cool, kid-friendly parks and museums; where I could go trick or treating with grown men dressed as fairies; where my multi-racial background and my parents’ interracial marriage were within local norms; where I could see adults with a very wide range of professions, and know how many options there are….

It has also been great to be an adult here. There is an economy! While there are boom-bust cycles, there are often plenty of jobs, and many are in new industries. The idea of changing the world with an invention seemed totally possible – nearly inevitable! I didn’t know in childhood that I (and many of my friends and classmates) had futures working in industries that were just being created.

The boom-bust cycles are rough, and both the wild successes (like tech) and the disasters (like COVID) can be disruptive and devastating. For the past few years, the City has felt a bit hollowed out, though I see positive signs of revival when I am out and about.

San Francisco is a great place, and I feel lucky to live here.

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Life: Respiratory illness misadventure

I’ve been profoundly ill these past few days, the sickest I have been since my December 2022 bout of COVID.

I’m on the mend now, but I’m relieved that my habit of writing posts in advance and scheduling them to post days ahead hides these awkward interruptions to my ability to read/see/type!

If you can avoid getting this season’s respiratory ailments, do so. I give this one zero out of five stars. I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT.

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Book: System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells

System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries)
by Martha Wells
published by Tor
2023

This is the 7th or so book in the Murderbot Diaries, so if you haven’t read these, you should go start at the beginning, as this volume rightly jumps into the action immediately without introducing the characters, including Murderbot itself.

Our favorite, broadcast-drama-obsessed, autonomous human+synthetic Security Unit is back in another round of saving humans from bad situations on planets with sketchy alien contamination!

Murderbot has even more on its mind than usual, because of a recent incident that is undermining its confidence. Confident or not, there are murderous agriculture-bots, scary ruins, evil human-enslaving corporations, and the constant threat of alien contamination that can’t wait for Murderbot to even pretend to get comfortable. Which Murderbot would not convincingly pretend anyway, despite its practice routines about imitating full humans.

I continue to appreciate the alien contamination threat that lurks in the background. The idea that ancient civilizations left behind tools to perpetuate their societies, only to have them accidentally infect later civilizations whose individuals AND machines go on to build crazy stuff under their influence… It intrigues me. There is so much potential for trouble there!

I also like Wells’ vision of nearly constant communication channels, so that information/situations/data can be shared so efficiently. I mean, I hate it in my current life, because all of those channels are filled with people who want something at work, but I love it in the wandering through abandoned ruins on unfamiliar planets practicality way. Good communication tools could support actually good communication – it could happen!

The humor, the debates about which kinds of hatches are scariest, the swearing / sarcasm / name-calling – it all gives the relationships between the characters a warmth that shows Murderbot is building meaningful relationships, especially with other machine intelligences.

This is another fun read from Wells, and a satisfying adventure.

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Book: The Neri Oxman Material Ecology Catalogue, edited by Emily Hall and Jennifer Liese

The Neri Oxman Material Ecology Catalogue
edited by Emily Hall and Jennifer Liese
published by The Museum of Modern Art, NY (MoMA)
2020

Art exhibitions are a special sort of book, and I was excited to obtain this one after having missed the exhibit at MoMA (because: COVID).

The curator’s essay notes that architecture has its movements and manifestos, and that Speculative Critical Design, which could include Oxman and her lab’s practice, “has featured earnest but inconsequential exercises and clichéd storytelling,” which could honestly be a summary of nearly every architectural movement/manifesto (I could stop the sentence here) that hasn’t delivered a robust body of work. Oxman’s written philosophical content can provide insights, but appears intended to produce a shell of theory for the practical purposes of funding an experimental practice. You can gloss over it, admire the design of the catalog itself (modeled in tribute to Stuart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog), and then look at the interesting experiments and models that Oxman and her teams have produced.

Oxman produces attractive art objects that show off the potential of experimental, available natural materials. To utilize these materials, different fabrication methods involving both showy robots and insects are attractively documented, so that the processes behind the forming of materials is clear.

There is a tiny caption in an image “the shellfish industry produces more than 1 million tons of chitin-based waste per year,” and suddenly the context of the many forms and pieces involving chitin is clear. We have abundant supplies of materials that are the byproduct of other industries, which could offer opportunities to escape our petroleum and plastic-based problems.

The emphases on responsible material use, experimental manufacturing, and artistically documented processes interest and please me. Displays of models and experiments charm me (in a way similar to Studio Olafur Eliasson’s geometric model shop), though these models often have forms suggesting industrious insects made them, or perhaps volcanic springs formed them over time – and I mean that as a compliment. There are a few pieces that aren’t as tightly conceptualized to appeal to me (the death masks, for example), but the results are attractive, and they aren’t here to please me alone, so I won’t complain.

This is an attractive, well-designed catalog that shows off intelligent and attractive materials engineering experiments. I appreciate Oxman’s innovative work and overall practice, which is very STEAMY (in the putting the Art back into STEM way).

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Unfinished Reading

I have several books in storage that I started reading before the move to my temporary apartment, and will likely need to start over when I get to unpack them. I have a long reading list of newer and older things that are waiting for my attention.

But what else am I reading, aside from daily news at WaPo and the UK Guardian, plus some posts on Mastodon (which I visit weekly-ish, only to fall into various research rabbit holes)?

The book I am most likely to stay up late reading: System Collapse (the Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells. I love Murderbot!

II have finished a few manga I haven’t written about yet. (Next weekend, maybe?)

Reading in progress, in no particular order:

  • Claymore (manga on viz.com) by Norihiro, a very dark dystopian fantasy with swordfighting women super-soldiers fighting monsters. I’m in chapter 51-ish, and can read through the end, as the story is complete a couple hundred chapters from now.
  • Designing Japan: A Future Built on Aesthetics (non-fiction physical book) by Kenya Hara. 1/3 of the way through.
  • I Became a Sitter for the Obsessive Villains (manga at tappytoon.com) by Seongyeong oh, Yeoram, & i singna: a classic Tappytoon woke-up-in-a-book story, ongoing serial publication.
  • I Became the Villainess in a Disastrous Novel (manga at tappytoon.com) by Hagyeoon, Geoguri, & Yoonrim (heroine wakes up in a book with a bad ending and tries to leave town), ongoing serial publication.
  • There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job (fiction physical book) by Kikuko Tsumura. A few chapters in, I’ll need to start over when I’m in the mood for reading about someone watching surveillance video!
  • To My Husband’s Mistress (manga at tappytoon.com) by Lachic, Dancingbrain, Nessa (abused young wife’s revenge plot with a hot, rich, arrogant male accomplice), ongoing serial publication, not many chapters available.

I have started and stopped several manga that are not my cup of tea. While very few aren’t drawn consistently well (rare for published work!), there are some that start well but eventually all the girls are showering for no reason that advances the plot; they are nothing but fight scenes; they are about a video game, and a bit too much like playing one in which you respawn and have to replay the same levels; or they start strongly as a revenge tale, but somehow wind up having entire chapters that are discussions about… royal politics and agriculture??!? I won’t write about those. There are more fun things to write about!

I have abandoned a few audiobooks, but subscribe to support a local bookstore, so I’ll be back on that horse soon. I have several digital books that I will read if ever my eyes aren’t so tired from staring at screens (ahem).

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Books (Manga): Updates to Ongoing Manga I’ve Recommended

I’ve written about several manga still being serialized, and want to provide an update on how far along they are now.

Ghost Reaper Girl by Akissa Saiké (at viz.com) went on a hiatus from May 2022 until returning October 2023. I hope this fun artist is back in full health! I likely wrote when there were twenty-something chapters: now, the latest Chapter is 37. Chloe Love is winning battles and scaring her demonic enemies, which is funny when you realize she is fighting Cthulhu mythos-y sorts of characters.

Kaiju No. 8 by Naoya Matsumoto (at viz.com) had 54 chapters when I last wrote about it, and now has 97! The situation has… escalated into some very organized kaiju wars, and the defense forces may not be ready for monsters who can THINK. Many chapters are a few minutes in a single battle in the greater war – there is a whole lot of fighting going on, and each character is pushing themselves to succeed for their own reasons.

Spy x Family by Tatsuyo Endo (at viz.com) was at volume 58 when I wrote about it. At the moment (in late 2023) there are 91 chapters published at Viz.com, and we’ve seen each member of the family at their most skilled at what they do, plus workplace crushes, actual hostage situations, and inappropriate brotherly love.

I’m still reading each of these, and look forward to additional issues.

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Writing: Fountain Pens and Journals (gray theme)

This is another Pilot Metropolitan fountain pen with a calligraphy medium (CM) nib. The writing sample is made with Private Reserve Gray Flannel ink.

Here’s another modest-but-fun pen in my collection, with matching velvety ink. I’ve been surprised at how many shades of gray ink are available, especially since some are so subtle and pale that I’m unsure how they can be used…

My handwriting with this style of pen is nicer when it is not hurried, but all of this year I’ve felt like I have so much to write and so little time that I can’t slow down…

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Book: The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

The Sentence
by Louise Erdrich
audiobook published by HarperAudio
2021

This audiobook, read by the author, gets off to a rough start: people in bad situations are making bad decisions, and the wrongness of it all started to dissuade me from sticking with it… but the story turns!

After Tookie’s bad decisions lead to a long prison sentence, books help her survive incarceration, and lead her to seek a job at an indigenous bookstore in Minneapolis.

Her passion for books makes her an effective bookseller, and her love for a former tribal policeman gives her a warm home life. However, the survival of the bookshop – and everyone she cares about in and outside of it – is in doubt when the COVID pandemic hits.

An eventful year unfolds. Tookie meets her unexpected grandchild-in-law, a white customer dies and haunts the store (!) creating cultural difficulties in her discussions with her husband about ghosts and fear the customer was killed by something she read (!), she experiences the routine annoyance of white people badgering her and her colleagues with their we-were-the-good-guys family mythologies about indigenous people, and George Floyd is murdered nearby. The protests, and the solidarity from the Indigenous experience with police, made this year-in-the-life tale feel completely current.

Erdrich, who is Chippewa herself, spins a heartfelt story of a difficult year of an indigenous person with a criminal record trying to hold her life together. Tookie has had a gritty upbringing and has developed unusual expertise in saying the wrong thing, but her actions are always infused with caring, good intentions, and books.

Erdrich’s love of books comes through very clearly in the writing, and this is one of those fiction books that comes with its own recommended reading list! (I am pretending that I will someday get to the books on the list!). It also includes friendly-but-serious bickering between characters about wild rice preferences.

This book is an unconventional narrative that portrays one imperfect woman’s experiences of recent global and US events, the ongoing challenges of being a previously incarcerated person, the aggravations of midwestern racism, and getting along with in-laws, plus abundant and heartfelt book-love. The book’s title will shift in meaning as you read it.

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