On my night time flight back to SF from Amsterdam, I noticed that the lights from cities were making the clouds glow. Really spectacular and ethereal – it was really seeing the impact of urban environments from a different perspective. Each glow or squiggle represents one town or city!

Luckily the flight was half empty, so I was able to set up an improvised stabilizer mound made up of my bags, pillows, and blankets for my camera to sit on.

We were around the midwest at the beginning of the clip, and there were fewer cities once we hit the rockies. the bridge at the end is the san mateo bridge.

Endlessly fascinating and well worth a couple views, especially in full-screen.

From 1941, this one has an extended view of the people and vehicles on Market Street and finishes on Nob Hill looking down California Street:

Also from 1941, this one appears to have been taken from Nob Hill as it shows the Financial District before it was modernized, some say Manhattanized, in the 60s and 70s:

Going further back in time to the early 1930s, this is a view of life on the streets, featuring a glimpse of the Ferry Building, Chinatown, and docks (back when they were a vital part of the city):

Lastly, here’s an utterly amazing view of life at the turn of the 20th Century, before and after the quake of 1906. Market Street looks positively docile compared to back then:

Admittedly, I have virtually no concept or awareness of history in the formal sense. I do however, have a fondness for cities, and a longing to understand their pasts and a desire to participate in their present. These movies are endlessly fascinating to that end, as they show a life every bit as chaotic then as it is now.

It’s that energy that draws to me to cities, the feeling of being in an urban wilderness where anything can and will happen, and I am fortunate to be able to experience it each and every day in San Francisco. That said, those images of Market Street after the 1906 earthquake are a vivid reminder of how fragile everything is, and how quickly it can all change in a heartbeat.

I don’t know that I will live here forever, but I do love living here now, and I am eternally grateful for the chance to be a part of its past, present, and future.

• I wanna see who. (Not really sure how.)
• Building and simultaneously demolishing grids.
• User vs. Designer vs. Developer. And the astonishing difference in my expectations depending on my current position.
• Apathy, decency, and subtlety. Fuck ‘em.
• The future. It’s about time.
• Too many tees. (They’re a walking banner ad.)
• You say you want a revolution. Get up. Stand up. Save your own damn self. Take the time to think.
• Is it feathers on a bird or lotsa different chickens?
• Machines for living.
• Embrace the glitch.
• Fragments. Bridges. Limited editions. 10″ wax presses. Social mixes. Unconventional remixes. Oh, and a Truitt / Brown collaboration known as TruBro. Is that offensive?
• Outside.in in Brooklyn. Warp Records in London. Family in Ohio. Three in San Francisco.

And,

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

- Steve Jobs

What was once and always ‘all in my head’ is now ready to see the light of day. Like branches on a tree, some will thrive, while others whither and die. It matters not which is which, merely that they exist.

The rich tapestry of life seems especially so these days. After several years of deep and difficult introspection, I feel whole again, and stronger than ever. I am loved and loving more than I ever thought possible. I (really, we) feed and sustain me.

I am grateful for my lot in life, truly blessed, and finally prepared to share it with the world, not for gain or glory, but for the chance to make new connections, gain new experiences, and maybe just get a little closer to a deeper understanding of the world.

As always, more soon.

High above Mt. Tam, nearing the Pacific Ocean. San Francisco, as usual, is covered in fog. Everything else is untouched.

The Golden Gate Bridge takes my breath away every time I see it, no matter the angle.

The entrance to San Francisco Bay at the Golden Gate is a magnet for fog.

Truly iconic. An amazing feat of creativity and engineering.

That’s our neighborhood, SOMA, seldom covered in fog, and often the warmest part of town. And how cool is the curvature on the shadow of the Bay Bridge?!!

There’s 23 more pictures on flickr, including Lake Tahoe, Napa, Oakland, and San Francisco. I had so much fun on the last part of this flight, it was almost enough to wipe away the memory of a six hour delay at O’Hare and the realization that our two week vacation had finally come to an end…

More soon.

I do not pretend to understand the myriad reasons why it is so difficult to build in San Francisco. Suffice to say it involves a fair amount of the classic NIMBY syndrome cleverly disguised as high-minded civic activism. By intention or pure accident, it creates the impression that “no one” wants San Francisco to change so that in the end very little can, and what does get built is often watered-down in the process.

SOMA, on the other hand, is very much a blank slate. Soon there will be thousands of new residents, but since there is no incumbent community upon which to intrude today, there is no one to advocate for it when it matters most (Jamie’s voice is one very strong exception). Thus, the SOMA of tomorrow is being shaped almost exclusively by the developers building luxury high-rise towers for their ultra-rich clientele…

Please know I have no qualms with the height of these new buildings, no issue with the added density in the neighborhood, and no care or concern with respect to their inhabitant’s wealth. I simply disagree with the way it’s being done, specifically the over-reliance on pairs of isolated towers set on opposite corners of an entire city block, with its perimeter ringed by townhomes.

There is no excitement in this approach, no variety in its rhythm, and absolutely no visual interest at the ground level. Even more to the point, there is no community space, no common oasis, no shared experience for all San Franciscans — all of the “public spaces” in these new buildings are in fact private by virtue of being placed above the townhouses, often five or six floors above street level. These new developments are fortresses, nothing more and nothing less. The entire design scheme exists to preserve the space around (and the admittedly great views from) the towers.

I am in New York City this week, and have been writing this brief manifesto while sitting in beautiful Bryant Park, at the very center of midtown Manhattan. You would never know it from sitting here, but I am just a five minute walk from Times Square, six blocks from the Empire State Building, and a hop away from the busy 5th Avenue thoroughfare. Sure, it’s loud as traffic whizzes by on three sides while sirens wail in the background, but it is truly an oasis. All day long, people wander in and out. Some stop for a brief minute to enjoy lunch, some linger for an hour with a book, and some like me stay all day for the free wifi. Interactions are incidental and ephemeral, but there is a feeling of being connected to something much greater than my own existence…

To be fair, it’s somewhat absurd to compare New York to San Francisco. New York’s fate was sealed many, many years ago with the street grid and the unique constraints it imposed on the city. But, with some notable exceptions, very few blocks are filled with a single monolithic development, most in fact are quite varied with new and old, small and tall, squat and sharp buildings all condensed together. The result is a richly-textured urban fabric.

There are obviously other differences in the two cities, not the least of which is the fact that most people in New York do not own automobiles and therefore rely on walking and/or public transportation. In this regard, the sidewalk is the city’s great unifier: age, gender, race, and wealth are all wiped away by the shared experience. Bryant Park feels much the same way. No, it’s not perfect, but it feels so much more real here than anything back home in San Francisco, and it is precisely the kind of public space that we desperately need in SOMA.

As an architecture and urban planning buff, I was very excited to see the new design proposals for the Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco, and I was instantly drawn to the Pelli Clark proposal for the elegant tower and the lush-green carpet of its rooftop garden (shown below). Then it hit me: all of the health and vitality of the street is once again removed and placed in the sky. Sure, it’s public, unlike the other developments being built, but it’s completely divorced from the city itself…

San Francisco, SOMA in particular, has its problems, not the least of which is the incredible number of homeless men and women living on the street. It seems we have decided that it’s more expedient to pretend this issue doesn’t exist, and to retreat within these fortress developments for comfort and protection. I submit to you that this is a strategic error with huge implications. We are quickly creating a community in SOMA that has no connection to the city in which it resides, one which is increasingly off-limits to the vast majority of its residents.

I strongly believe that inclusion is the way to solve these kinds of problems and create a deeper understanding for all involved. Our culture’s tendency to segment and segregate entire populations is archaic and entirely unacceptable in this day and age. We know better, now we must do better. It’s time that we take a hard look at the world we are creating, even if we have no power to change it today, we can at least begin to recognize our future opportunities and position ourselves to demand better results.

In the end, our built environment has a tremendous effect on our collective psyche. We owe it to ourselves today, and future generations tomorrow, to create a world in which everyone has a right to participate, and everyone has a chance to belong.

So I’m thinking that now, in the middle of a summer night on a Baltimore porch, soaked in sweat, that I’m getting my edge back. If you’re not actually burning or freezing, heat and cold are just sensations. You can call them discomfort if you like, but they’re a small price to pay for experiencing nature’s cyclic perfections.

I wholeheartedly agree. I am back in Bryant Park again, where I have been for the past few days, sitting beneath a canopy of London plane trees and watching for my caterpillar friend. The sun is shining brightly, puddles from this morning’s thunderstorm are slowly burning off, birds are chirping above the din of sirens and traffic, and people are moving at a much more leisurely pace…

It’s 10:45 am in New York City, and already the temperature is above 80°, which feels like 100° due to the humidity. Gone are the three layers of clothing I normally wear just to get through a typical day in San Francisco. I am in shorts and a shirt, and already drenched with sweat. I am in heaven.

As I finished that last sentence, Jason Kottke twittered:

The city is in chaos today. Hot + flooded subway + fistfights to get on buses. Can the humidity be over 100%?

I <3 NY.

I have always wanted to find a way to calm my initial reaction when I find a bug on me, but as with every other time before I freaked when I felt him crawling up my leg. I politely brushed him off, then moved him farther away from me, only to find him crawling up my table a few minutes later. He made it all the way to the top, and promptly went right for me again, coming up to the edge as though he wanted to jump into my lap. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before…

At this point, I grabbed a leaf and moved him to the ground cover behind me where I could watch him without fear of attack. I was mesmerized by the way his body moved, his five sets of antennae, and his tiny suction-cup feet. Whenever I got too close to him, he immediately stopped moving and pulled his brilliant red head into his yellow body. See Harry in action here:

I loved watching the way he surveyed the scene as he came to the edge of each leaf. He methodically but quickly examined his options, picked his path and moved forward, making the most of his caterpillar time on earth. I was especially surprised to see the strain he put on those leaves and the way they bounced back as such tiny creature shifted his weight to the next one. Truly, all of us, even the smallest living thing, leave a mark on earth with each and every step…

When I mentioned this story to my friend Sharon, she suggested that this experience was not a random accident but a gift from the universe. I could easily spend a lifetime reflecting on this very moment, dissecting each and every second in a million different ways, proposing any number of well-known and richly-detailed symbols to help make sense of it. But for tonight, I simply want to delight in the experience itself, and the account of it here.

I can’t believe how well that last shot turned out. It even feels cold, with the icy whites and turquoise blues. I took about ten of them too, each of which was poorly lit in every way and far too fuzzy to use. This one somehow came out just about right.

That’s it for me tonight. Much more soon.

They were out there three (!!!) hours before the Home Run Derby:

That’s Barry taking batting practice on the big screen, as seen from the Third St bridge over McCovey Cove:

The scene outside AT&T Park on King Street:

It was such a beautiful day today. When the sun is shining bright there is no place I’d rather be than San Francisco. The park was hopping too, more than three hours before the Derby started. And of course tickets were going for $200 bucks a pop, just to watch batting practice…

It isn’t often that I see the sun set in San Francisco. For one, the fog is almost always thick well before the day is done, leaving most evenings to end in a dull wash of progressively darker grays. It bothered me in the beginning, much like winter in the midwest always wore me down, especially at the end of March, with spring so near and yet still so far away…

But it’s nights like these—summer in San Francisco—when the inland air is warm enough to keep the fog at bay, that erase those thoughts and emotions from my body and soul. When the sun shines in San Francisco, the city takes on a completely different air. It’s lighter, more buoyant, less restrictive (or maybe that’s just me). But coupled with the cool ocean breeze, there’s no place I’d rather be.

When I finally started working in at Integrate in 1999 (after years of working almost every night in one restaurant or another), I remember well how startled I was at the beauty of the setting sun. I also remember thinking it strange that I forget something so fundamentally magical, and also completely banal (I mean, the sun sets every night, whether I’m there to see it or not). But it really does take my breath away to catch that instance when the day slips into night…

I feel like I too am at a similar point of inflection. Where once my life was a struggle to keep pace, things seem to be slowing down again. Perhaps I’m mastering my new world. Or perhaps I’m learning to relax and enjoy the ride again. Either way, it feels good to be warm again. I’ve missed this feeling.