a conversation about great museums a few nights ago reminded me of the brandhorst, which i visited in 2009. image by art-magazin afte...

pinakothek der moderne was designed by stefan braunfels and has some truly amazing cast concrete facework. unfortunately, the modern secti...

having spent many (but perhaps not quite enough) of the last few days dozing by the riverbank, we decided that today, being hot and muggy, ...

to munich in 20 minutes on an easyjet ticket that cost $44. incidentally, the streetnet on upper street is a beautiful thing.

having procrastinated for days on 3 sizeable papers, i was in the uncomfortable position of writing the bulk of all of them over the last 5 ...

is always the worst time of the year.

whenever deadlines loom, i become spectacularly creative in developing ways to do anything but the work that's due right now . this week...

here in the sociology department, we've been discussing ebook readers since december. every graduate student and faculty member in the n...

i was walking back from the subway the other evening when i saw a cup of coffee on a sidewalk table with a perfect latte fern on top of it. ...

this is the only http 404 page i've ever enjoyed.

i got home later than my usual bedtime last night, after stopping in on detroit 's third anniversary party (cake, beer, and nostalgic ph...

so here we are, on a long layover in keflavik, on our way to stockholm. the indignities of flight delays are mitigated by business class lou...

the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley .* or so says robert burns. wednesday last week, the rumour mill is set afire with talk o...

public service announcement: i have discovered the best thing on the planet. it is brown lentils with carrots and onions, charred kale, and ...

Whereas nation states have always distinguished themselves from others by means of a thick exterior boundary on the perimeter of a territori...

apparently, some people who cultivate the zucchini plant are overwhelmed by its plenitude, to the point where they creep up to porches in th...

if only every long, draining week ended like this one did. back in the semi-palmy days, mission exploration society used to meet mondays for...

Commensuration transforms qualities into quantities, difference into magnitude ... Most quantification can be understood as commensuration b...

almost three years ago now, i was able to get ed wilson , harold varmus , and jeff sachs to google to make a pitch for what we then called ...

APRIL FOOLS ALERT cambridge has been awesome but only fools and the hard-of-hearing continue reading, oblivious, when opportunity comes knoc...

not everyone is cool enough to build large metal objects that do neat things . for example, how about this foot soldier , a "Weapon for...

a year and many missed opportunities and assorted cancellations later, i finally met irene winter for lunch. she is an art historian, schol...

compare this and this , two versions of the same article about matthew carter , designer of verdana , who apparently lives just down the st...

last sunday, i got up early to get breakfast with peter in cole valley, then marcela and patrick drove through and picked me up for the arti...

the day before i left san francisco, i saw a sign in the noe valley stained glass store asking for packing peanuts, two giant boxes of which...

in pursuit of a cheap air ticket, i took a two-hour layover in LAX. the wing operated by american airlines--which continues to be, purely by...

i'm on caffeinated beverage #4 in blue bottle cafe (17-foot ceilings, ash counters) and have just purchased a flat-panel monitor online...

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature , since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do....

ami thought i'd left early this morning but i was actually still snoring gently under a pile of sheets. so, around 11.30, we went to bru...

i got into sfo early in the afternoon and emerged into bright sunlight at the 24th st mission bart. i write from ritual roasters, accompanie...