For God's Sake

When they knocked down the freeway over Octavia Street, the prostitutes and crack addicts that used to hang out there were driven away. Now the Street is a Boulevard and Hayes Valley has at least four new eateries, including Sebo, where I went last night. Outside, the frosted windows proclaimed its exclusivity. Inside, the décor was understated and the sake menu overwritten. Each sake inspired a paragraph of purple prose. The description of “Heavenly Grace” made it sound better than Tantric sex with a mermaid: “Your palate will enjoy a rush of silky flavors that roll on a viscous fluid that has fruit forward goodness and ends in a watery goodbye.”

Then there was “Reformation”: “If it were a house, the first floor would have wood and straw elements; the second floor, young green vegetables, and the third, a dash of minerals and a refreshing bitter flavor.” Huh? What kind of house has young green vegetables on the second floor? I felt annoyed by this blatant abuse of extended simile, the comparison abandoned almost as soon as it was made. It was simile for simile’s sake, an empty conceit, a single rhetorical flourish that seemed to embody everything that is going wrong with Hayes Valley, and everything that happens once you turn a Street into a Boulevard. Soon, I thought miserably, our neighborhood would be the kind of place where every restaurant has a line and every cocktail has three storeys. I ordered the sake nonetheless, and climbed to the top floor, where I felt much more cheerful, reflecting: "If this house was a glass of sake, everyone who lives here would be drunk."