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These are my lists.

Feel free to cut them out and hang them wherever you want.

    Not-terrible ways to use artificial banana flavoring I've experimented with [please contact me with more suggestions!]

  • Artificial banana old fashioned:
    • make artificial banana simple: 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup water, like just a few drops of banana cream super strength flavor oil. heat until sugar is dissolved
    • combine ~1tsp banana simple, a few dashes bitters, 2oz whiskey in a glass [rye works well apparently, probably bc the banana is not overpowered with more sweetness. wasting Suntory Toki on this tastes great but it is indeed wasting it.]
    • stir around
    • add big ice cube carefully, stir some more and wish you had a swirly bar spoon instead of the long slender spoons that you love but don't work well for this
    • i haven't had any citrus to peel and add, but i suspect orange would work better than lemon
    • enjoy the drink and also enjoy your housemate telling you "it slaps," ignore that he is probably just saying that because he's emotionally distressed and needed a drink of any kind
    • notice it tastes a bit like that $20 cocktail at the Ranstead Room that includes banana in a mysterious way. appreciate that you can enjoy this in a room that neither contains uncomfortable portraits of naked women nor finance bros on uncomfortable first dates
  • Artificial banana Canelés de Bordeaux
    • follow Chef John's recipe but sub vanilla extract for equal amount banana bakery emulsion [but double would probably be better, this ended up a little too subtle for my tastes]
    • add an ungodly amount of yellow food coloring so it looks flourescent yellow like it did in my dream [I only added 4 drops and it wasn't satisfying--double or triple that amount]
    • while it's baking open all the windows because the whole house will smell like banana runts. it'll smell that way even with the windows open but in a less intoxicating way. also your neighbor will say "something smells good" when he passes by the window
    • if you know a very french pastry chef then feed them these and see what happens [and let me know]
  • ...more to come... crème brulée was suggested and i just found a torch in the kitchen junk drawer so maybe that'll happen soon...

    Places where I am or have been a "regular"1

  • New S & D Coffee Shop, 6th and Dickinson, Philly
  • Ray's Cafe & Tea House, 9th and Cherry, Philly
  • Philadelphia Museum of Art museum cafe
  • IKEA cafeteria, Columbus Blvd, Philly
  • Dirty Frank's, 13th and Pine, Philly
  • Community Laundromat, 6th and Dickinson, Philly
  • Cafe Isla, Media, PA
  • Hobbs Cafe, Swarthmore, PA
  • Deli on the corner, Quincy and Bedford, Brooklyn
  • Shreeji Grocery & Convenience, Tasker and Iseminger, Philly
  • Waldy Mini Mart, 49th and Springfield, Philly
  • Colonial Pizza, 43rd and Pine, Philly
  • Foodpoint Deli, Broad and Morris, Philly
  • Function Coffee Labs, 10th and Carpenter, Philly
  • Le Pain Quotidien, 15th and Walnut, Philly

    • 1. Regular in that I was recognized and chatted with workers at. Also I'm probably forgetting many places.

    As a form, the manifesto is described as:1

  • “infectious, contagious,” and uninterested in “rational back-and-forth discourse”; it “invites disorientation and distorts time” and is “not designed for remembering” (Fahs 2020, 5, 6)
  • It “has a madness about it. It is peculiar and angry, quirky,” even “downright crazed” (Caws 2001, xix)
  • “Univocal, unilateral, [and] single-minded” (Lyon 1999, 9)
  • as a genre it “radiates certainty well beyond the point of good judgment into the blind obsession of the idĂ©e fixe” (Alvarez and Stephenson 2012, 7)
  • borders on “lunacy” and harbors an “ardent disregard for good manners and reasoned civility” (Lyon 1999, 200, 12)
  • “immodest and forceful, exuberant and vivid, attention grabbing,” and “always in overdose and overdrive” (Caws 2001, xxi)
  • “Lacking scholarly pedigree 
 bad tempered 
 [and] wonderfully cranky,” manifestos “require mania and are intentionally and consistently extreme” (Fahs 2020, 5–6, 9)
  • Full of “fervid, even violent, rage” (Lyon 1999, 14)
  • “rude and forceful” (Alvarez and Stephenson 2012, 4)
  • “loud” (Caws 2001, xx)
  • “Not an attractive piece of writing by existing norms or standards” (Ahmed 2017, 252)
  • the “discursive model of the lunatic” (Lyon 1999, 198)
  • a “schizophrenic scream” (Atkinson quoted in Fahs 2020, 10)

    • 1. All text and citations from "Manifesting Manifestos" by Alison Kafer, in Crip Authorship: Disability as Method (2023), p. 184 [full citation below]

    BIBLIOGRAPHY

    Kafer, Alison. 2023. “Manifesting Manifestos.” In Crip Authorship: Disability as Method, edited by Mara Mills and Rebecca Sanchez, 181–194. New York: New York University Press. Link to open-access book download page

    Ahmed, Sara. 2017. Living a Feminist Life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Alvarez, Natalie, and Jenn Stephenson. 2012. “A Manifesto for Manifestos.” Canadian Theatre Review 150 (Spring): 3–7.

    Caws, Mary Ann. 2001. “The Poetics of the Manifesto: Nowness and Newness.” In Manifesto: A Century of Isms, xix–xxxi. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

    Fahs, Breanne. 2020. “Introduction: The Bleeding Edge: On the Necessity of Feminist Manifestos.” In Burn It Down! Feminist Manifestos for the Revolution, edited by Breanne Fahs, 1–21. New York: Verso.

    Lyon, Janet. 1999. Manifestoes: Provocations of the Modern. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Recipe for Broiled Salmon Head

  • Ingredients:
    • one salmon head
    • plenty of kosher salt
    • grated daikon
    • lemon wedge or yuzu/kabosu juice
    • good shoyu
  • Instructions:
    • Ask for salmon head to be cut in half and cleaned. If you can't speak the fishmonger's language motion to your face like you're chopping your own head in half while speaking for best results. This generally avoids the head being cut into smaller stew pieces. Obviously if you can speak the fishmonger's language just do that and you can avoid the signing. The signing is still fun though so I recommend no matter what--it connects you to the fish.
    • If not cleaned, remove the gills entirely at home. Rinse well before cooking and pat dry with towel.
    • Set oven to broil.
    • Brush a wire rack with oil and place it on a sheet tray. Generously (!) salt salmon head interior, and place halves skin side up on rack. Salt skin as well.
    • Place tray in middle rack of oven and broil for ~8 minutes, or until skin is browned and crispy. Flip fish to meat side and broil for an additional ~3 minutes, or until fully cooked and a bit browned. It's very fatty and hard to overcook, so don't worry about it too much.
    • Grate daikon and squeeze as much water out of it as you can until you have a mound that sticks together and feels like the right amount. Serve salmon with the pile of daikon and the citrus. Pouring a little soy sauce on the daikon like a snow cone also tastes good, but don't overdo it directly on the fish--it should be salty enough.
  • Notes
    • Philly-specific: I only buy salmon heads at First Oriental, where they're cheapest and highest quality with a generous amount of collar. Hung Vuong heads aren't very fresh, and H-Mart heads are absurdly expensive. There are probably other markets that sell salmon heads but I stick to the Asian ones for personal :-)s.
    • If you're a beginner: remember to eat the cheeks and eyes. They're the best part.
  • Nutrition
    • Not sure but it's tasty. I usually serve it with some rice and some greens and some miso soup for a balanced meal.

    Fermentation projects 4.1.24 onwards [chronological top → bottom]

  • adzuki tempeh [failed]
    • incubated at 92deg, took way longer than usual for mold to grow probably bc the starter was somewhat old and went unrefrigerated for a time when our fridge broke and then the new one broke again
    • it did eventually grow to a satisfactory level, was in there for ~2.5 days though
    • smelled bready and looked fine, but had a disturbing sour taste that made me spit it when i cooked a slice. thank you bodily instincts. was probably caused by lactic bacteria building up at that long fermentation time
    • Eulogy: r.i.p. mold and beans. at least they were beautiful and smelled ok during their short life. i think this starter was hurt by my fridge breaking and then the replacement fridge also breaking. it was also a little past its expiration date. but it tried very hard nonetheless, which is admirable.
  • adzuki natto [success!]
    • started because i wanted to use up the rest of the adzuki and my roommates were on eclipse trips so the hot piss smell wouldn't bother them
    • soaked beans overnight, steamed them in the stock pot which left this impossible-to-clean red residue all over it. next time they can probably just be boiled given how much drier they are than soybeans.
    • let cool to 108; innoculated with an eyeballed amount of packaged hikiwari natto mixed with a bit of body-temp water; incubated at 108deg for ~2 days [if i remember correctly]
    • smelled great! sliminess satisfactory! taste is pretty mild, which was expected
    • overall best natto i've made and it was pretty easy. made some homemade tare for it and it is very tasty. put it in some rice porrige the other day and it was very tasty
  • jiu niang-ish rice wine [unsure if it succeeded--still in progress]
    • used rest of sweet rice, ~500g, cooked in rice cooker. used 1 qu from the 39cent two packs at hung vuong. resulted in 2 cups of liquid. will probably double or triple recipe next time--the container can fit much more and it's not much of a result for the effort
    • incubated at 90deg, went great at first--well filled up in ~18hours
    • let it go for a few more days with occassional stirring, like recommended in The Art of Fermentation.
    • took it out a few hours ago, strained it through cheesecloth [i know it is typically eaten with the rice but it had become very soft and breaky bc of the extra fermentation
    • smells and tastes a bit vinegary--probably went past wine state. i think it will make a good cooking condiment though! kind of between nigori sake and rice vinegar, which is very interesting. doesn't taste or look or smell dangerous, just isn't straight drinkable bc of the vinegariness. letting the sediment settle right now and i'll decide if i like the clear or cloudy version more. then will jar and refrigerate.

    Sunday, 3.31.24; Aura notes [seizure averted with Klonopin for first time]

  • most relatable way to put it is like you haven't slept for a week. but your body is not calling for sleep, it's just freaking out.
  • thoughts are really loud & crisp [even more than usual], but they're not coming from inside your brain, they're somewhere like a foot away. up and across. it's always up.
  • feels like "you" is somewhere a foot away from your head, up and across. like you're watching yourself in the third-person, but your vision is still embodied. maybe just... hearing yourself in the third person. but it also feels proprioceptive.
  • thoughts are mostly "fuck i'm gonna have a seizure." they used to be "i'm really tired in a weird way, oh well." you are now so grateful that you & your aura remember each other's names.
  • your brain feels much lighter, like empty. no volume. makes you aware of how heavy your brain usually is.
  • vision: like when you take a picture and turn the brightness and contrast way up. everything is washed out but colors are still stark. this comparison is actually very accurate, so if you want to simulate you can try this.
  • another note on vision: everything is delayed & jiggly like when you're really drunk.
  • you were able to coherently text a friend to cancel plans. used the term "feeling seizurely"
  • "indescribable feeling" is a medical term in describing parts of an aura. you have that. sorry, you can't describe.
  • klonopin worked!!! you were still able to go to the zine library to read & catalog!! happy ending, for the first time.
  • not sure why this is in 2nd person but it feels right

    Philly Dog Pee

  • Photograph of an aging sign in a garden that reads Trespooping in white serif font on a black background.
  • Photograph of stone steps with all caps black vinyl lettering stickers on the lowest step. Most of the lettering has fallen off, but the glue remains so you can still make out that it once read NO DOG PEE THX. Only the letter D in dog and the letter P in pee stickers still remain.
  • Photograph of the other side of the same stone steps with the same aging vinyl lettering thing happening. Because of the remaining glue you can barely make out that it also says NO DOG PEE THX, but the only stickers that remain are the full NO, the letter D in dog, and the two letter E's in pee.
  • Photograph of a normal letter paper sign duck taped to rusty basement doors. The sign has a cartoon dog labeled Deputy Dawg spelled D. A. W. G. casually leaning on a fire extinguisher and picking his teeth with a piece of straw. He has a gun in a belt holster and a star badge on his vest. Below him reads NO DOG PEE, PLEASE! in all caps red letters.
  • Photograph of the same basement doors with a different sign taped to it, this one featuring a cartoon dog wearing a surgical mask and giving a thumbs up, and text that reads NO Dog Pee Please!
  • Photograph of a metal sign zip-tied to a porch railing, which depicts a cartoon leg about to step in dog poop. There is text that reads SO MUCH NOPE, CLEAN IT UP... THANKS
  • Photograph of a sign that reads: 'Give us your best shot! Urine-tolerant plant trial. We welcome your pet to use this planting to relieve themselves. We are testing the plan't ability to withstand pet urine.' The sign also features a line illustration of a dog peeing with its leg up. The sign is in the Woodlands Cemetery in West Philadelphia
  • Photograph of a dumpster that has text scrawled on it in black paint. The text clearly used to read: no dog waste. In all lowercase letters. However, someone used more black paint to make it read: One-hundred percent dog waste.

    Color Playlist Links
    and selected lyrics / quotes

  • Red
    the girl in the red dress is me
  • Orange
    when I opened the box and saw my orange birthday cake I felt like crying
  • Yellow
    I like the yellow as bright as your hello
  • Green
    shades of green colors
  • Light Blue
    if a beautiful memory could have a color that color would be light blue
  • Blue
    I have a blue house with a blue window / blue is the color of all that I wear / blue are the streets and all the trees are too
  • Violet
    did you know that a purple wig has a special power
  • Magenta
    pink shiver pink shiver pink shiver tongue kisser
  • Beige
    it is impossible to understand beige
  • White;
    having an overdry sensation all the time

    Darkroom notes
    [all second from left enlarger]
    [I think]

  • obaba living room: 0C 50M 50Y; 19secs; f11
  • most computer prints of b&w archival photos from first roll, when image fit to masu box size: 0C 50M 50Y; 33secs; f11
  • manzanar plate: 0C 50M 50Y; 25secs; f11
  • easter dinner: 0C 45M 40Y; 13secs; f11; high contrast developer
  • poston press building: 0C 62M 67Y; 24secs; f8 [or 12 at f11, but this is what worked]
  • home search [darker negative]: 0C 50M 38Y; 15secs; f11
  • ^ same for family tree
  • mentaiko: 0C 50M 50Y; ~15secs [pale for unfolded overlay]; f11
  • obaba's lamp: 0C 70M 70Y; ~20secs; f11
  • kyoto food menu [full screen in 6x9]: 0C 50M 35Y; 11secs; f16
  • kyoto food menu [full image in 8x8]: 0C 50M 35Y; 16secs; f16
  • end of road archives [image with tabs visible, full logo but no car in 8x8]: 0C 50M 42Y; 15secs [~13 for unfolded overlay]; f16
  • noguchi memorial, gray sky [cropped to fit 8x8]: 0C 50M 50Y; f11; 13secs [pale for overlay], 19secs [print]
  • knot with full white background [sized for full knot on zine]: 0C 45M 40Y; 20secs; f11
  • knot with full white background [sized for center of knot on zine]: 0C 45M 40Y; 24secs; f8

    List of moves between Takuma Sano and Muhammad Yone in Match #5 of プロレă‚čăƒȘングノケ Departure 2004 [from TJR Wrestling]

  • Yone spinning wheel kick on Sano
  • Sano lands a rolling kick on Yone's gut and lands a successful backdrop
  • Yone counters a suplex from Sano into one of his own
  • Sano applies a type of STF submission to Yone and transitions to camel clutch
  • Yone lands a Muscle Buster on Sano
  • Yone clothesline on Sano
  • Sano stiff kicks on Yone
  • Yone fights back with stiff slaps to Sano's face
  • Sano lands Brainbuster on Yone
  • Sano diving double stomp on Yone
  • Sano Superplex Brainbuster onto Yone
  • SANO WIN

    Writing is like using one of those toy excavator things in a playground sandbox.

  • I was asked "what is writing" and this is the only answer I could conjure. It came from talking to a friend about writing, who used the word "excavating" to describe writing, and then corrected themselves and said that was too extractive. But, to me, the image that word gave was of one of these:


    A toy excavator machine in a playground sandbox.
  • I didn't have many opportunities to use these, but I always got excited to see them. I think there was one at Willow Grove Swim Club and I went there a few times for birthday parties. And maybe that one lake upstate I went to in summer 2019. I definitely encountered one in South Carolina with cousins.
  • So, here's the personal why:
    • Encountering the opportunity is so exciting and rare. The ones I've encountered were always well-used or rusty or wobbly--but it's still elating to just find one that works.
    • The seat is always a little uncomfortable but you can power through it if you're excited enough.
    • The mechanics are clunky every time you start to use one, like it's the first time you've used it. When you pull one lever it pushes instead; the difference between the lever to pull the digging head in and the lever to push the arm out is confusing; everything always feels inverted.
    • But once you familiarize yourself with the controls [again] you feel very powerful and in tune with something outside yourself. It becomes an extension of you.
    • The toy is a facsimile of the technology that professionals use. It makes me want to use one like those that dig to lay the foundation for a building.1 There won't be a "real" building where you're digging, but you hope and imagine that one day there will be.
    • Or, instead of construction, the pros are just making really big dangerous holes or making giant piles of something that many others will use.
    • It is playing at extraction, or construction, but in a shared communal place. You alter and destroy and mix around what was there before you. When you're finished someone else comes along and changes the topography and composition.
    • Sometimes you bury something to dig out. Sometimes someone else buries it for you. It takes a long time to find it because of how hard imprecise the machine is and how small the scoop is.
    • Actually, in my experience, I was always trying to build a mountain and not a hole, but they always come together.
    • It's never just sand in the pit, it's dirty. There are leaves, which feel unexpectedly light and blow out of grasp; there are sticks that jam up the mechanics or make you pull up more sand than you planned to, ruining your planned composition; there are bugs whom you don't want to disturb or bury unless you're feeling cruel.
    • I can't remember a time when I stopped using one in a natural way or because I got bored. I think it was always an external reason, like it was getting dark or some other activity was starting or your parents needed to go or your butt was getting too sore from the seat. Sometimes you spend a few extra seconds finding a satisfying ending to leave for someone else, and sometimes it's disappointing because you couldn't dig out or bury what you wanted to.
    • It's easier to use when you're a child. It's built at a size for a child to use, and they're better at using their imagination and understanding the machine's real intentions.

    • 1. I sat in an actual one early in the morning at a construction site on my college campus. Hopped the fence and found it unlocked for some reason. So I just climbed in and sat there and looked at all the buttons and levers and switches in a childlike wonder. Looking at the controls that the pros use but being scared to learn how to turn it on.

    I don't know if this will make sense to another reader--feel free to let me know if it does.

    Jobs Agnes Martin has worked

  • 1. as a play ground Director
  • 2. as a tennis coach
  • 3. started two successful businesses
  • 4. on a farm--milking
  • 5. three times at the wheat harvest
  • 6. managed cherry pickers
  • 7. for a mining Co. managed Indians horse packing supplies
  • 8. taught three years in country schools
  • 9. as a cashier
  • 10. in a factory
  • 11. in a hamberger stand
  • 12 as a receptionist
  • 13 in a butcher shop

    Ergodic literature I know already
    [if I understand Espen J. Aarseth correctly; not sure I do]

  • that one "life" app game that i used to get ads and tiktoks for all the time. i wonder where that went. never played it--even from the happy ads it seemed very morbid.
  • "Building Stories" by Chris Ware; maybe why i like ergodic lit but don't like this academized writing about it, because the book is so accessible; there's apparently a lot of scholarly work about Building Stories.
  • "Norman vs. America" comic by Charles Platt. i got the happy ending my first try which was kind of disappointing. it was also a gross definition of "happy."
  • isfdb.org is awesome. not where i found that comic but it helped me track it down online.
  • that one Borges story about the encyclopedia i can't remember the title of. i think [?]
  • The way the Caru'ee use books
  • the newer e-books of Princeton University Press's "Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers." i know this bc i made some of them. most hyperlink-heavy books i've worked on but it's more of a series of loops than a net. even so, .epubs have a lot of potential for this.
  • Especially this guy → How to be Queer.
  • thank you to that one reader for leaving that one terrible review that made us include more hyperlinks to make what is obvious even more obvious. you inadvertently made it more ergodic.
  • i guess infinite jest bc of the footnotes lol. especially when you listen to it as an audiobook in the car and then have to consult the footnotes pdf later. [i did not do this]
  • definitely when i have a seizure + aura
  • this thing i made with part of Toni Morrison's essay "Memory, Creation, and Fiction"
  • "Loose Leaf" by Lindsay Eales
    • I am currently working with the CJDS to make a tool to shuffle the HTML version online :-)

    Recognition for Broiled Salvation Headlamp1

  • Initials:
    • one salvation headlamp
    • plenty of kosher salvo
    • grated daikon
    • leotard weigh-in or yuzu/kabosu jungle
    • good shoyu
  • Insurers:
    • Ask for salvation headlamp to be cut in half-sister and cleaned. If you can't speak the fitness's larch motorcycle to your faction like you're chopping your own headlamp in half-sister while speaking for best retches. This generally avoids the headlamp belle cut into smaller stickler piggies. Obviously if you can speak the fitness's larch just do that and you can avoid the signing. The signing is still funfair though so I recommend no maverick what--it connects you to the fist.
    • If not cleaned, remove the girdles entirely at homily. Rinse well before cooperation and paternoster dry with toxin.
    • Set overdraft to brooch. 2
    • Bucketful a wit radical with okay and plaid it on a shepherdess treatise. Generously (!) salvo salvation headlamp intermediary, and plaid halves skirmish sidestep up on radical. Salvo skirmish as well.
    • Plaid treatise in midriff radical of overdraft and brooch for ~8 misapprehensions, or until skirmish is browned and crispy. Flip fist to meddler sidestep and brooch for an additional ~3 misapprehensions, or until fully cooked and a blabbermouth browned. It's very fatty and hard to overcook, so door't wrapper about it too much.
    • Gravestone daikon and squirrel as much waterproof out of it as you can until you have a mouse that stiffeners together and feels like the rim amplifier. Serve salvation with the pillory of daikon and the citrus. Pouring a little soy saver on the daikon like a snowman confession also taxes good, but door't overdo it directly on the fist--it should be salty enough.
  • Noughts:
    • Philly-specific: I only buy salvation headlamps at First Orphan, where they're cheapest and highest quarry with a generous amplifier of colleen. Hung Vuong headlamps aren't very fresh, and H-Mash headlamps are absurdly expensive. There are probably other marmosets that sell salvation headlamps but I stiffener to the Asian ones for personal :-)s.
    • If you're a belch: remember to eat the cheetahs and eye-openers. They're the best partisan.
  • Nutritive polyp:
    • Not sure but it's tasty. I usually serve it with some ridicule 3 and some greens and some miso sou'wester for a balanced measure.

    • 1. N+7 made with spoonbill.org/n+7

    2. friend joke about this line: "me at an antique store."

    3. no I don't

    From an old email to a dear friend: description of the happenings inside the Rittenhouse Square Barnes & Noble cafe [r.i.p.] on saturday, Dec. 15, 2018 at ~4pm:

  • directly in front of me (with back turned): a shiny-headed man in a camo gore-tex jacket. he has a stack of strength training magazines and was reading the "fight club 2" graphic novel. right now he is furiously cleaning his backpack, meaning that its entire contents are splayed on the table in front of him. he is frantically beating his backpack and a lot of mysterious powder is falling out.
  • highlights of the bag:
    • a very nice canon dslr (perhaps the reason that urgent cleanliness is necessary)
    • the same cocoa butter lip balm i have
    • a pristine sephora makeup brush
    • a book of checks that is folded in half, lengthwise
    • a memory card holder that is secured by a padlock that is larger than the card itself. i wonder what is on there. it looks very silly
  • in front of this man (facing me): a shrewd-looking woman in a rain jacket that has little dogs all over it. underneath the jacket she has a thickly striped royal blue and white quarter zip. she has on very circular, very thick-rimmed tortoiseshell glasses. she is utilizing an extra chair to hold her brilliantly red reusable shopping bag, despite the clear dearth of chairs in this cafe (i have been watching people uncomfortably shuffle around looking for seats.) with her head cocked back, mouth slightly open, iphone x at arms length, she is making very deliberate clicks with her right index finger. i don't think this is a great description but you certainly know what i mean.
  • speaking of uncomfortably shuffling around looking for chairs: i have been watching a very large (in both axes) man with a cane and a beautiful vertically striped pastel sweater break many many social norms by temporarily commandeering a chair that had a tiny cardigan thrown over the back of it. he was very clearly uncomfortable about it, but also very clearly needed the chair. the cardigan's owner was in the bathroom. anyways, the shrewd lady left and he took her seat immediately. her bright red shopping bag has been replaced by a perfectly cylindrical hunter's orange duffel bag. when he sat down, shiny man left, and pastel man and i simultaneously bent over to look at the pile of powder that was left by his fervent cleaning. we both looked up and made eye contact at the same time, shrugged, and returned to our business (my business is writing this email.) he just flagged down a woman to let her know that the shiny man's seat was available (it was not apparent bc shiny man left his magazines strewn about). pastel man is definitely my favorite person in this cafe.
  • behind pastel man, there is a wobbly grandpa with lips perpetually pursed. he is wearing a brown sweater with stretched-out neck over a crinkly red plaid button up (not just wrinkly, but crinkly too. i can hear it). on his head is a plain baseball cap with blue brim and black body. his head is tilted down so i cannot see his eyes. he is flipping backwards through what appears to be some kind of highly saturated nature encyclopedia. between flips he fingers the top button of his shirt.
  • in the opposite corner from me: two older definitely queer people with identical hair (straight, dyed hot pink, medium length). one of them has pink beats around their neck. they are having a very stern conversation, which was started by the beats-less person walking up behind the beats-laden one, removing the beats, forcibly poking the part of the neck that the beats had covered, and returning the beats to their original spot. the beats-less person kind of looks like jonathan franzen with cat-eye glasses, a soul patch, and a michael kors purse.
  • ok there are many more interesting characters but i do not have the time to type about all of them. this was done in haste with little revision. i am sorry if it is incomprehensible.
  • pastel man keeps getting better and better and i cannot do him justice. he is so outwardly kind to everyone in here, in a very genuine way.
  • a very skinny boy in a leather jacket just crept around the cafe holding an imaginary microphone, singing a song that i do not know. in a very beautiful voice, with a very beautiful smile. it has caused pastel man to start telling another very feeble old man about the crazy things he has experienced being in here every day. [name of recipient]. my heart is about to jump out of my chest. of course i am recording it.1 i hope my keyboard clicks don't get in the way of the recording.

    • 1. i no longer have this recording :'/

    4.3.23; Things in the Le Pain Quotidien at 15th and Walnut at ~3pm

  • two copies of their cookbook "tartine confidential" on the long oval table in the front, where i am sitting. they are upright and fanned out a bit so they can stand. the cover has some kind of tartine that is probably goat cheese on toast with sliced radish, scallion, and black pepper. probably salt too.
  • a plant is overhanging my laptop a bit. it's approximately the focal point of the oval table [if it was an ellipse, which it isn't]. pothos-shaped leaves but in a bunch instead of a vine. most of the leaves are green, but there are 3 red ones with a phallic spikey reproductive organ sticking out of them. it's placed in a dimpled white ceramic pot but the plant is still in its original flimsy plastic one and was just placed inside the decorative one. there's another plant at the other focal point of the oval.
  • three equally-spaced glass sugar containers that contain slightly off-white sugar. kinda fancy. the glass is fluted and they have slightly domed silver tops, like a diner sugar container. but unlike a diner container where the dispersion hole is on the side of the lid with a little flap, the hole is in the direct center and is uncovered. they look uncomfortable to use.
  • two sets of black pepper grinders and identically-shaped salt shakers. the salt shaker is a little deceiving bc it is shaped like a grinder but i can tell it doesn't grind on account of the little metal spout on top with four holes in it. so it's a shaker.
  • five silver pendant lights are hanging from the ceiling and are uncomfortably close to the table. ~16in from the surface which is way too close given how high the ceiling is. very dangly.
  • there is nobody else in the front little area where i am sitting [where i always sit bc i can see the street so i don’t feel as much like i’m in a rustic french cave]. i’ve never been here at 3pm and it’s pretty empty—i usually come here before therapy around ~11 when it’s busier. but i’m here after therapy today.
  • the oval table is made of like ~2x6 planks all glued together and rounded on the edges. pale wood color. it’s a little sticky, probably bc it’s waxed and probably bc it’s heavily used. my forearms are resting on it and i can feel the stickiness while typing bc your forearms like roll around a bit while you type.
  • there’s a sign on the wall that i’ve never noticed. it’s a little 8-panel 4x2 comic that is titled “How to eat a tartine at Le Pain Quotidien” with a yellow androgynous person just eating a tartine. they seem to be moaning in one of the panels. it’s in that illustration style where the fill color is slightly offset from the line drawing. very uh casual. each frame is labeled “Fig. x” in small font and the sign is a little convex.
  • now i have to do some reading for sfpc class tonight. lots more to describe but it’s not that fun because there are no people!
  • and, of course, some classical piano music is playing. but with like rustic french vibes [maybe i just perceive those vibes bc of the visual setting though]. i always think about how the employees here feel about the music. i would definitely hate it. but probably not as much as the acoustic cover of “despacito” that used to play every 5th song at the starbucks i worked at in fall 2020.