I see one string of colored lights among all the many windows of this San Francisco public housing project. Distinguished by the monstrous ugliness of the Soviet Brutalist architectural models that inspired it, this building is near enough to Spencer Alley to be partially visible from the kitchen windows. But the view offered here is of the front elevation, facing onto 15th Street, and surrounded on all sides by the condos of the Inner Mission gentry. It is amazing to me that even one of the residents of such a soul-crushing structure could summon up enough energy to dangle a string of lights along the top edge of the window. Perhaps it is a cry for help.