Your place to share stories on and off the bus.
Last week, SFMTA unveiled the winner of its crowdsourced logo contest. We thought it looked an awful lot like the Golden Gate Transit logo, and we posted about that on Muni Diaries.
Today, @HellaSamar brings to our attention another interesting tidbit: The winning logo for SFMTA looks even more like the Akta Web Studio logo than it does the GGT logo.
Yikes!
The Muni Worm. You know it, you love it, you live it. Wait, you live it? How does that work?
SFMTA recently posted a brief history of Muni logos dating back more than 100 years. It all sets the stage for what has become quite the iconic brand: The Muni Worm.
The 1970s brought about some major changes in our transit system and among them was a whole new redesign of Muni’s look. In 1975, the most famous Muni logo of all, the “Worm”, designed by Walter Landor, debuted with a very 70s looking “Sunset” livery, as seen here on freshly painted Flyer trolley coach 5001. […] On a side note, Landor also worked on some other perhaps even more famous designs like the Levi’s, Federal Express, World Wildlife Fund logos and a 1980s Coca-Cola redesign.
In case you doubt just how prevalent the Worm is, here are some examples:
New sweatshirt features Muni worm, your mom
Another Muni worm tattoo surfaces
Find the Muni Worm in the strangest places
Okay, now I can kinda see how you live it …
The Muni Worm is an “Only in San Francisco” thing, just like the system it represents. Join us at Muni Diaries Live this Saturday for a celebration of Muni and San Francisco. It’ll be a night of true, hilarious, weird, and sweet stories that can only happen on Muni! Grab a ticket and we’ll see you there!
Photos courtesy SFMTA
Photo by clogozm
First, our graphic designer and event emcee Suzanne LaGasa created our fresh new logo and set the look-and-feel of the new Muni Diaries — don’t you just love the little colorful people waiting for the bus?
Then, our master web developer Yen Pai brought you several site enhancements. You’ll see that we’ve added a rolling feature box at the top of the page that has the most buzzy stories of the day so that you won’t have to scroll down to see them. Click on the left and right arrows to see all the feature stories.
The “Latest on Muni Diaries” section on the homepage has all the posts, just like you saw on the old Muni Diaries. But if you want to read only stories, click on Diaries. To read posts about Muni news, click News.
Really, other than that, the site is very much the same as it always was. We still ask for you to send us your Muni stories. We still scour the news for stories important to Muni riders.
We know that this new look might take a little getting used to, but we hope you love it as much as we do. As with all things that we do on Muni Diaries, let us know if you have questions or feedback. We know you speak your mind.
And now, back to chronicling life on the bus.
Eugenia and Jeff
Aruna Lee is the founder of San Francisco-based Volcano Kimchi, whose organic kimchi and sauces are made in her “Fermentation Lab” in the Dogpatch. Aruna grew up in a Buddhist monastery in Korea, where every meal included an assortment of kimchi.
When she arrived in San Francisco in 2001, doing anything related to food was the furthest thing from her mind as she settled into her new chapter. In this episode, Aruna shares the story of how she eventually came back to food, building her small business in a tough town with her childhood memories as inspiration.
Listen to her story:
You can find Volcano kimchi and sauces at the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market, Clement Street Farmer’s Market, Good Eggs, Rainbow Grocery, and more.
Read more
In these shelter-in-place times, don’t you almost kind of almost miss the gallows humor of our commute? We’ve got a fix for that.
Follow three Muni Diaries Live alums whose stories and music will temporarily transport you back to the old normal. As many of our storytellers and favorite venues are severely impacted by COVID-19, we’ve also included how you can support them during these tough times.
So first, put on your earbuds for Rachel Lark, the singer/songwriter who says her music is “weird, disruptive to the patriarchy, and sexually explicit.” Sign us up! The music videos are NSFW gems: Warm, Bloody, and Tender (featuring current Muni Haiku champ Wonder Dave!), and my personal favorite, It’s Hard to be a Feminist and Still Want Dick (featuring Muni Diaries alum Kate Willet).
How to support: Rachel has a Patreon! You can find her on Bandcamp or Spotify.
San Francisco-raised Nato Green is a comedian, union organizer, dad, and, per The East Bay Express, a “political spark plug.” On our San Francisco Diaries podcast series, he shared a tale of how high school students figured out how to be an ally before the word became a regular part of our vernacular.
Listen to Nato’s stories: Nato Green on San Francisco Diaries podcast. You can also follow him on @natogreen.
How to support: Buy his comedy albums: The Nato Green Party and The Whiteness Album.
And lastly, let us take you back to 2011 when Muni Diaries Live was at its first home at the Make-Out Room. Storyteller and poet Joyce Lee shared the story of taking Muni with her mom, who gave the kids on the bus an earful.
Listen to Joyce’s stories: Joyce Lee at Muni Diaries Live. Also check out her story called Mad Love from Tourettes Without Regrets (highly recommend!)
How to support: Joyce has a new book of poetry called Dancing in the Presence of Men: a book of Love & Lovers, and you can get the book on Amazon here.
And, we are still collecting your stories daily about our lovely city. Our inbox is always open for you at muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com.
Photo by Right Angle Images.