Indian summer may still be ahead of us, but the year seems already to have clicked past some invisible notch and settled into its fall groove. The blue of the sky is paler; the noise of trash collection begins earlier and earlier in the morning, as it will until Standard Time resumes; in Pacific Heights, small children wearing adorably coordinated plaid outfits accompany their weary Guatemalan nannies to Alta Plaza park in the last few overexcited days before school starts; late-adapting would-be hipsters have stolen their offices' water cooler refill tanks and ducked out of work to head to the final Burning Man of the millennium.
Details
RELATED STORIES
"Apocalypse Pretty Soon"
Dog Bites, August 25, 1999
"Up the Neighborhood"
Dog Bites, August 11, 1999
"Mail Call"
Dog Bites, June 23, 1999
"Wag the Mission"
Mecklin, June 9, 1999
"Community Infestment"
Cothran, January 27, 1999
Related Content
More About
Meanwhile, Dog Bites is filled with the vague sense that we have not made the most of the season. Winter is coming, and, grasshopperlike, we have neither harvested nor stored any sort of crop whatsoever. But oh well. This week a couple of ants (if we may continue our unflattering fable-derived metaphor) have stepped forward to help: Photographer Anthony Pidgeon, who normally shoots for our food section and recently returned from Israel, sent us this photo. And Mallory Keaton was kind enough to write most of the column for us, so that we can enjoy the long weekend without our usual anxiety over the approaching column deadline. (Hey, Mallory: Call us up. We'll buy you lunch -- at Pintxos.)
We include most of Mallory's letter here, noting only that we intend to apply some of her decorating tips in the Dog Bites office, in hopes that we may become more productive, or at least less obsessed with eBay.
From the IKEA-manufactured desk of Mallory Keaton,
Founder, Chairperson, and Media Relations Coordinator,
Mission Community Task Force Working Group Coalition
It's been an exciting couple of weeks for the MCTFWGC. We have hosted a unique cultural event of community outreach and education: a timely seminar.
At the request of some of our members who have just purchased live-work lofts in the North Mission and Near-Potrero areas of our vital neighborhood-of-concern, our meeting of August 16 was an expert panel discussion of the tricky business of feng shui in a live-work home environment. The unique challenge of creating a harmonious, balanced, and symbolic environment of existential peace in one of our many new neighborhood windowed-boxes was attacked with admirable vigor by all.
Our panelists included an editor fromMetropolitan magazine (that cloyingly smug arbiter of things trendy and upwardly mobile), a New Age tantric chant meditation instructor we found inCommon Ground, and local zany party guy Lord Martine (whose presence was a mystery to all, but oh -- what a brave outfit for a balding queen!). After a two-hour discussion, these are the new rules of feng shui we came up with for live-work lofts:
1) Even if you do not work in the loft, you must have an official-looking large desk, and it must be positioned in such a way that, when seated in it, you are facing the door. This is a position of order and power from which to conduct your business. Sit at the desk even when calling your mother or ordering groceries from webvan.com. It's important for you to be at peace with your tax break.
2) Cover the huge windows with the most expensive, opaque curtains you can afford -- none of those little gauzy Pottery Barn things with the cute pockets in them. This contributes to harmony with the outside world. Nobody driving south on 280 really wants to see you eating cereal straight out of the box while you clean your ears with a dish rag.
3) Large plants and potted trees are a must for softening the edges and open spaces in your loft. Organic décor elements will help ease the rigidity and tension created by concrete floors. Fiberboard in the walls doesn't count.
4) If there is a wall on the outside of your building that is not made of corrugated steel, textured concrete, or glass, consider commissioning a nice mural. This will serve two holistic, spiritually balancing purposes: It will employ the class of people for whom this category of housing was ostensibly conceived, and it may also prove inspiring to neighborhood children whose education you are explicitly not supporting by living in a live-work loft.
5) Use lots of pillows, extra down comforters, and neatly stacked blankets in your bedroom quadrant. It is important to create a safe, nestlike environment even if your home feels more like an airplane hangar. This is especially important for those single loft-owners who want their dates to feel comfortable staying over.
6) Invite Zahid Sardar of theExaminer Magazine over as soon as your furniture is in place. A photo shoot of your home wedged into the 40-page magazine between 20 pages of Macy's ads will be soul-soothing at those uncomfortable times when you overhear someone referring to "the slums of tomorrow today" or making other such needlessly denigrating comments. (Hint: Commiserate with him about his pesky neighbors who are opposing an addition to his house because then it wouldn't look like theirs anymore. Those boring clods.)
And with that, our member loft-owners ran eagerly home to apply these valuable tenets of the ancient art of floor plan economy to their very modern homes. Success!
Tip Dog Bites -- especially if you're disgruntled. Phone 536-8139; fax 777-1839; e-mail dogbites@sfweekly.com.
foam order.com
