Saturday, April 17, 2010

Slanty Roof Line


It's a sweet eccentric roof line, I think, but it looks a little like the Titanic on the way down in this photo. Excuse: I was standing in a bus stop concentrating on the zoom and then suddenly noticed that a bus was bearing down upon me, so snapped in haste. And am now repenting at leisure. But what a warm blue sky San Francisco did enjoy on Friday afternoon! For weeks I have been waiting to be able to walk home from the library where I work and not need a jacket. This was the first April day when my wait was rewarded and spring seemed palpable at last.



The walk took me down Page Street. Spencer Alley visited Page Street in early January here, and this second foray, involving no duplication, revealed what a rich street of sights it is. Fluorescent pink columns! It looked to me like they had probably just been newly painted to greet the season.



Hand-built drain covers, proud of their splendid shadows – with a built-in crookedness echoing the man-made crookedness (made by me) in the top photo.


Carved trim underneath a Victorian window, and I never remember noticing this motif before -- rippling ribbon rosettes rendered in wood. If somebody wanted a detail like this when building a house now, they would have to be a computer tycoon to afford the fees of the craftspeople who could do it. Yet it would have been built a hundred years ago for ordinary working people, and nobody would have given any special thought to the quality of the ornamentation. A good example of cultural regression.




Since the plant in this flower pot is dead, the obvious solution is to conceal it with a brass baby deer. Those large apprehensive ears express the poor creature's reluctance to serve this corpse-covering function, but what can it do with its little hooves solidly buried in the soil?




Gothic Revival detailing on a brown-shingle house. Page Street was truly rich in wonders on Friday afternoon, with the very welcome weekend beckoning up ahead.