Around Town Around Town (August 25, 2004)

ANGLING FOR BROWN... Midtown neighborhood leader Annette Ashton is feverishly working to get a new Greg Brown mural in her neighborhood. The muralist is responsible for the whimsical murals -- aliens are common -- found around downtown. A possible location on Middlefield Road has been picked out, but the city has bike lockers in front of it that would need to be moved. A homeless person apparently uses one of them to store his possessions.. Reportedly, one location Brown would not consider was a wall on a Starbucks. In an interview, Brown said he didn't know what he would create until the site was definite, but was considering a solitary figure.

SMILE! ... Speaking of public art, if you see a man photographing your house in the next few weeks, don't get paranoid -- you'll likely be watching Samuel Yates in action. He's a conceptual artist that's creating the Color of Palo Alto by photographing all the parcels in the city and mixing them in a computer program. For the past few months, Yates has been building a solar-powered garage in front of City Hall to store his computer and the scooter he'll ride around town. At the end of the project, the average color will be sold in cans at Palo Alto Hardware. You will also be able to buy the average color of your parcel or your neighborhood. The project was recently named best of the Bay Area by San Francisco Magazine

THE HERMAN COLLECTION . . . Some people collect stamps, antiques or baseball cards. Fred Herman collects bricks. Yup. It might be an unusual hobby for some, but Herman's the city's chief building official, who has served on the state's seismic safety commission and studied earthquakes for years. Whenever an unreinforced masonry building in town is strengthened or completely rebuilt, Herman asks for a brick. He's got more than a dozen now. "Fourteen more and my driveway would be finished," Herman joked last week, upon receiving a brick from the demolition of Congdon & Crome on University Avenue. Actually, he said, he keeps the bricks in his backyard -- and in his office at the development center. What's that chunky weight he's got keeping his office door open? A brick -- from the state Capitol.

HE'S JUICED . . . There's juice and then there's Beyond Juice. What could be beyond juice, you might ask? If you're talking about the new eatery on Bryant Street in Downtown Palo Alto, that answer is its owner, Jerry West, who is more than a little juiced about his month-old enterprise. The former high-tech consultant is throwing caution to the wind and bananas into the blender to serve up smoothies, sandwiches, salads and breakfast. Across the country there are some 80 Beyond Juice licensees. Billed as "A Meal in a Cup," Beyond Juice offers 20-oz. drinks with more nutritional value than you can shake a celery stick at. According to a brochure, each meal has "more fiber than a bowl of 100 percent bran cereal and two-thirds of your daily fruit and vegetable servings." As for West's well-known corporate competition, the entrepreneur isn't cowed. He eschews the sugars and fat he said their products contain and is betting that others will be willing to go "beyond" as well.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]