Posts Tagged ‘boingboing’

Does BoingBoing coverage confirm San Francisco street art no longer hip?

July 22nd, 2011

Mural at 19th and Mission

There was a time when BoingBoing was an underground zine, and being covered in its pages meant you were an up-and-coming phenomenon. Now that BoingBoing is the 11th most popular blog on the internet, your grandmother is probably reading it. Nothing diminishes the cool factor more quickly than when uncool people know about it.

With this in mind, has street art in San Francisco finally jumped the shark into non-hip status with recent coverage of the superhero mural at 19th and Mission?

Or will local street art survive such deserved (but unnecessary) praise and maintain its local cred?

Eat your fractals

December 31st, 2010

On Monday I was acquiring sustenance at Rainbow Grocery when I came across an edible fractal in the produce section.

IMG_1642

The label described it as romanesco broccoli. I immediately whipped out my iPhone and looked it up on Wikipedia. Sure enough, Wikipedia describes romanesco broccoli as having “…a visually striking example of an approximate fractal in nature.”

Yes, a fractal you can eat!

But then it gets stranger. The following day my family was in town for a visit to Golden Gate Park. For lunch we headed to Park Chow. My order came with a side of — guess what? — romanesco broccoli! I was surprised to say the least.

As for the taste, it’s got a broccoli flavor with a denser texture, a bit like cauliflower.

Fast forward to the following morning, when I was reading BoingBoing. And guess what? They illustrated their post about vegetarian diets with nothing other than a photo of romanesco broccoli.

What would Carl Jung say about all this? I wasn’t alone in my ignorance, a dozen or so friends and family I quizzed had never heard of romanesco broccoli before. Could it be the ghost of the recently deceased Benoit Mandelbrot is contacting us from beyond the grave with edible fractals?