Visual Diary

There is no unity to the images that swam into my sight today, so I will simply present them in chronological order.


This photo appeared on page 30 of the Times Literary Supplement for March 6. It was still dark outside this morning and I was drinking coffee in my office at the library when this picture woke me up with a start. We surely must order the book by Richard Ellis: Big Fish.

By the time the other library workers started arriving I had moved on to a collection of books recently received as the gift of a deceased benefactor. Included are titles by many obscure San Francisco Beats – who are great favorites with our students. Also many books we did not already have on Latin American arts and literature. Here is the title page of one that I cataloged this morning:


Luis Leal retells the classic Mexican folk stories which are printed in parallel columns of Spanish and English.

Then walking home after work I found this footprint-compass newly stenciled onto the pavement of Chula Lane, one of my favorite Mission shortcuts, because it is leafy and narrow, and also because it passes alongside the Mission Dolores graveyard.


This spray-painted insignia was in Chula Lane also. Lately I had been losing interest in tagging and graffiti. Everything seemed familiar.

But then today I see this and it is new. Then I am interested again.


And finally, in this random tour of what I saw today, is some pseudo-Russian lettering that I spontaneously admired.