Just came across this very cool postcard of San Francisco's Masonic Cemetery. That's Turk St. crossing the image in the foreground, and Masonic Ave. along the distant border with the arched entryway. californiafreemason.org/wp-content/u...

"Although Hecate later became widely known as a goddess associated with crossroads, magic, and the underworld, archaeological and literary evidence suggests her earliest cult emphasized protection, liminality, and lunar associations." wildhunt.org/2026/08/afte...

After 113 Years, Hecate Regains Temple Long Attributed to Demeter - Europe, News, Paganism, TWH Features, Uncovering the Past, Witchcraft, World

Witchcraft & Pagan News - After more than a century of uncertainty, archaeologists have identified a temple in Türkiye once attributed to Demeter as a rare sanctuary of Hecate, reshaping understanding...

wildhunt.org

chat can anyone verify that every single Flock camera has about 2-3 Ibs of copper and about 1-2 grams of gold

Come see us!

s. e. smith@sesmith.lol · 2d ago

Yooo Alameda, I'm going to be on your fair shores with @bethwinegarner.bsky.social on WEDNESDAY to chat about the book, grief, death, and so much more. There might be plum jam. I hope to see you there. (But seriously, RSVP so they know you're coming.)

Friends! I am so excited to share that I have a new chapbook out, "Swim Poems." These lines were written over the course of a year swimming in the San Francisco Bay (April 2025 to April 2026). Get yourself a copy here (or buy one for a friend who swims!): bottlecap.press/products/swi...

Swim Poems, by Beth Winegarner

Poetry, chapbook, 36 pages, from Bottlecap Features. Beth Winegarner’s Swim Poems is a collection of brief poems written in the afterglow of swimming in the chilly waters of San Francisco Bay. Each on...

bottlecap.press

I’m fascinated by the idea of “land ancestors” — people who had a relationship with a place before we did. These folks are some of my land ancestors, and I love that they had a close and agricultural connection to the place where I grew up. www.bethwinegarner.com/bite-sized-b...

More Forestville stories: Malcolm, Mary, and "Mama" Carr — Beth Winegarner

After my last post about Hichijiro Ito, Tomiye Mizutani and their family apple farm in Forestville, California, my dad and one of our former neighbors reminded me that our properties used to be pa...

bethwinegarner.com

I’ll be chatting about ALL MY DEAD CATS at Books Inc’s Alameda store next Wednesday with @bethwinegarner.bsky.social! I hope to see you there (please reserve a spot so they’ll have a book for you).

s.e. smith at books inc. alameda

Meet s.e. smith joining us to share their new book All My Dead Cats and Other Losses: Practicing Good Grief in a Culture That Fears Mourning

eventbrite.com

The marginalized dead have rung my bell at least three times in the past 24 hours, so I thought I'd share this 2-part series I wrote (and won an award for) on how San Francisco handles the people who die on the margins of society: missionlocal.org/2024/04/350-...

350+ dead go unclaimed in SF each year. Here’s what happens to them.

Hundreds of SF's dead go unclaimed each year. The city pays to have them cremated and scattered at sea. But who were they?

missionlocal.org

Happy book birthday!

s. e. smith@sesmith.lol · last wk.

ALL MY DEAD CATS AND OTHER LOSSES, my book about grief; who is allowed to mourn and how; and why people want to pathologize the experiences that make us human, is available now in print, ebook, and audiobook formats, wherever fine books are sold (or loaned, shoutout to libraries).

Not to be the "there's a study that says you're a sadist" guy but; there is a study that says people who drive stupid loud vehicles do it NOT because they're inconsiderate, but because they actively enjoy making others suffer pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Big Joel@bigjoel.bsky.social · 2w ago

I just don’t understand how loud motorcycles are legal I just DONT UNDERSTAND HOW YOU CAN LEGALLY SELL SUCH A THING

"In early 2025, Walgreens CEO Timothy Wentworth bluntly acknowledged the industry’s own-goal: “When you lock things up… you don’t sell as many of them. We’ve kind of proven that pretty conclusively.”" dannykatch.substack.com/p/we-used-to...

We used to be able to buy things in this country

Locking up toothpaste was a warning sign that our executive class was crazy

dannykatch.substack.com

Also, if all your friends are neurospicy and you're the token neurotypical, no you're not

I can no longer see films in movie theaters without getting a whopping migraine, so it doesn't matter what anyone insists, I'm going to be seeing The Odyssey at home with the lights on. You know where you can stick your "there's only one legit way to see a movie" elitism.

Good one tonight! (No whales.)

I’m sorry, Darcy’s name is Fitzwilliam???

LMAO Wickham is like, “This man, who is dead, liked me so very much and wanted me to have a good living, rest his soul, this dead man, who definitely liked me so so much.” I almost admire him.

Huh. Elizabeth really is the mold in which every Not Like Other Girls sort of heroine is cast. She’s definitely pretty, but only a normal amount of pretty—surely not as pretty as her very pretty big sister—but who cares because she’s so smart, so so smart, which is why she’s dad’s favorite.

Chelsea Wolfe ballad with a video about ghosts and seances? Sign me ALL the way up. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrqT...

Chelsea Wolfe - Cold (Official Music Video)

YouTube video by CHELSEA WOLFE

youtube.com

Can someone please remind me how police chases make us safer? missionlocal.org/2026/07/sfpd...

8 injured in Mission District crash, SFPD arrests driver

The Mission District pursuit ended in a crash at 300 South Van Ness Ave., at 14th Street, injuring eight.

missionlocal.org

"[Carp] do not eat flesh of any kind. Their favorite food is boiled cabbage, though they will eat letuce, potatoes, beans and peas. I prefer bran and shorts. Curds will fatten them quicker than anything else." Carp-raising tips from 1880. cdnc.ucr.edu?a=d&d=MU1880...

"I also found myself thinking long after we stopped recording about her question of why encounters with mystery are so often filtered through horror. Is fear our only available language for the unknown? Or have we simply forgotten other ways of speaking about it?"

Rejecting ‘stupid zombies’— Yvonne Chireau

This week, host Joanna Ebenstein speaks with historian, scholar of religion, and Sinners consultant Yvonne Chireau about ancestors, African American conjure, hoodoo, and why our relationship with the

mementomorbid.substack.com

"They’ve been part of California mountain lore for centuries: featureless black figures, more than 7 feet tall, often wearing brimmed hats and long cloaks, who appear during dusk and dawn to silently observe the unfortunates who wander into their midst." by @raealexandra.bsky.social

How John Steinbeck Fueled the Lore of Big Sur’s ‘Dark Watchers’

Mysterious black figures lurking in the mountains? Steinbeck's whole family were believers.

kqed.org

What a loss. www.brooklynvegan.com/dave-kendall...

Dave Kendall, '120 Minutes' creator and host, has died

”He gave a home to music that deserved to be heard,” wrote fellow 120 Minutes host Matt Pinfield.

brooklynvegan.com

"Studies have found that white men are most likely to be accurately identified by facial recognition systems, while Black women have a disproportionately high rate of being misidentified." missionlocal.org/2026/07/sf-g...

There's more than bargains at Grocery Outlet: There's also AI facial recognition.

At the Mission District and Bayview Grocery Outlet locations, bargain groceries now come with a side of surveillance.

missionlocal.org

Find me on August 5th on the beautiful isle of Alameda in conversation w/ @bethwinegarner.bsky.social‬ www.eventbrite.com/e/se-smith-a... North Bay comrades can head to the stunning Mill Valley Public Library on August 6th for a talk w/ Angela Hennessey. millvalleylibrary.libcal.com/event/16433572

"That also included other safeguards such as additional funding for de-escalation training, and also a 17 percent increase in the budget for the Office of Inspector General to investigate shootings such as this."

"So, I am also very eager to get the body-worn cameras out to all ICE officials, it should be mandatory, and that is 20 million dollars that I negotiated back in January that became law in April."

I asked Susan Collins about ICE saying it would halt vehicle stops for the time being: "I discussed that possibility with the Secretary of Homeland Security and urged him to proceed with a halt in non-emergency vehicle stops." 1/

"Illness brings us up against the limitation of words, reminds us that what we experience will always be greater than the words we have to describe it. Dreams, silent meditations, experiences of God, moments of transcendence ... all of these evaporate into thin air, unless we scribble them down."

Susanna Clarke: ‘I had been ill for 11 years. I felt like I was about to fall off the world’

One hundred years after Virginia Woolf explored the limitations of language in On Being Ill, the Piranesi author reflects on the power of storytelling to shape our experience of sickness

theguardian.com

I have been expressing desire for an app that alerts me to the presence of pervert glasses in my vicinity. It exists and it's called Nearby Glasses! Immediate download.

A new app alerts you if someone nearby is wearing smart glasses | TechCrunch

A hobbyist developer's new app, which can detect nearby smart glasses, comes amid resistance to always-on recording and listening devices that invade people's privacy.

techcrunch.com