Personally, I’m raising the fear-and-danger level to chartreuse as I prepare to walk with my dogs this morning. I mean, news like this is enough to strike terror in the heart of any decent dog-walking citizen of so. California!
Carol Lay’s comics often soar right over my head (”Er, huh?”) But every so often, meandering through the Salon, I’ll be WayLaid by a juicy little tale that has me celebrating (”Yes! Yes! I get it!”) and prostrating myself in worship of her storytelling prowess.
Terri Schiavo, whose private family feud has gone extremely public of late, has a surname that means “slave” in Italian.
This morning I trunked my bike down the I-5 from the LA River to its tributary, the Río Hondo, to ride the 20th Annual Tour de Sewer. As both a leisure cycling enthusiast and a connoissewer,* I felt downright obligated to throw myself heart and soul at this opportunity. I mean, there’s a reputation to build here! There’s a sexy bike jersey to collect! There’s another stinky concrete megalopolitan river to conquer! (more…)
[I'm collecting all things sewer on this page-- history, fiction, my own adventures. Hard hat area-- it's under construction! Always taking suggestions...]
John Steinbeck wrote about preparing to sail the Sea of Cortez:
There were some romantic accounts by young people who had gone into the Gulf looking for adventure and, of course, had found it. The same romantic drive aimed at the stockyards would not be disappointed.
And so it is with the sewers! I’m not sure exactly when I aimed my romantic drive their way– Vague recollection of staring down a lot of drains in Berkeley between 1998 and 2000, but that may have constituted depression more than romantic curiosity. However it’s come about, those dark and dank byways tunneled below our cities or flowing at their fringes are alluringly repulsive to me in much the same way that Harry Lime, emerging from the shadowy Wienkanal, is hauntingly attractive to the lasses of Heavenly Creatures.
Sewer History
SewerHistory.org: From detailed engineering documents to poetry by S.T. Coleridge and Robert Frost to the history of “Ring around the Rosie,” this site’s got something for everyone.
The sewers of London and Paris and Chicago
P.Saga Gets Down and Dirty
Los Angeles Sewer Tour (Summer 2004)
20th Annual Tour de Sewer (March 2005)
Shit Lit
Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere
Miscellaneous Fecal Fun
PoopReport.com: As Eric Cartman would say, “Holy crap!” Why, oh, why didn’t I think of this? Features The Movie Poop-Scene Database, Travel Logs, a load of Intellectual Crap, and much, much more.
Here is a girl who really knows her shit from Shinola!
Horoscope by Lloyd, my favorite astrologist, week of March 29, 2005: “Leo (July 23—Aug. 22). You’re developing a reputation as something of a ‘party pooper,’ because your friends are too proper to call you ‘that chick who shits in the punch bowl.’”
“On a Sunday morning sidewalk,
I’m wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
‘Cause there’s something in a Sunday
That makes a body feel alone.
And there’s nothing short o’ dying
That’s half as lonesome as the sound
Of the sleeping city sidewalk
And Sunday morning coming down.”