I have, in fact, walked past this crazy succulent/miscreant garden in Elysian Heights many times without noticing the sculptures that hang from the branches of an evergreen, the Punchinello on a metal pole near the driveway. Walked blithely right past them while they were making fun of me and my big, clumsy, orange dog. You could hear whispery traces of the snickering a week later! But then one day, I turned my head. In a neighborhood whose gardens are getting national attention (i.e., recently in a beautiful hardcover book by Stephen Orr, titled Tomorrow's Garden), this one has become one of my absolute favorites, for all of the playful surprises it shares with a passerby who's willing to look over her shoulder. My iPhone camera cannot do it justice. But the brilliant Plumbean can.

Don't even try to change the subject.