Whether you're a pigeon lover or hater (we fall into the former category), you must respect any bird that's effortlessly giving Natalie Portman-in-Black-Swan realness.

This wonderful photo, shot by Jason Rodman from the SFist Flickr pool.

"Pigeon, out" by The Inadvertent Gardener. Taken at Yerba Buena Gardens.

Glorious creature, yes? Yes.

-- Winged Migration (Le peuple migrateur): Birds! We tend to think nothing of them here in the Bay Area - well, as far as the homely and picked upon poor pigeon goes - but birds are exciting creatures. Colors, flying, migrating, the ability to form perfect V-shapes - just see for yourself tonight at 7:15 p.m. and 9:25 at The Red Vic; $6-8.50.

-- Mike Stern: The controversial opening of Yoshi's SF won't hinder you from enjoying any of the aural enjoyment care of noted American jazz guitarist Mike Stern. He performs alongside smooth "master bassist Richard Bona, monster drummer Dennis Chambers, and dynamic saxophonist Bob Franceschini" twice at 8 p.m. and 10 at Yoshi's SF; $20, 24.

-- The Nutcracker: "Smurf-Berry Crunch is fun to eat, a Smurfy fruity breakfast treat/Made by Smurfs so happily, it tastes like crunchy Smurf Berries/It's berry shaped and crispy too, in berry red and Smurfy blue." OK, although the SF Ballet probably won't use these lyrics, sadly, this time-honored and Xmas-y ballet will still have you feeling like a kid again. Starts tonight at 7 p.m. (and continues all of December) at the War Memorial Opera House, $18-198.

Exploring San Francisco through the lens of city blocks, Blocker is a weekly series by Charles Hodgkins. Look for it on SFist each Wednesday, around the lunching hour.

View the map of all published Blocker episodes.

Blocker, No. 23: Ivy St. in Hayes Valley

At one end of Ivy St., the vibrant sounds of Afro-beat float across Octavia from the African Outlet. A single pigeon observes the sidewalks and street from its lofty perch upon a sill of the Ivy Hotel, kitty-corner from the retailer. Nobody knows if the pigeon has taken note of the owl less than ten feet above its head.

At the other end of Ivy St., low income housing strikes a weary pose across Laguna, a relic from the era when Hayes Valley was known as a freeway-slashed slum. Turning 90 degrees to the left, the newly gentrified and boutique-crazy Hayes St. is a 30-second walk to the south. Visible from our vantage point is a corner retailer, Alabaster, that deals in self-styled “treasures for the home.”

Clearly, Hayes Valley remains in a state of transition. Even the pigeons can’t see everything going on here.

-- Sixth Street did not explode. [Chron]

-- Neither did Hayward. [CBS5]

-- Friday's party for Barry, Bonds/Newsom connection. [GNS]

-- Pigeon crap on bridges falling down, falling down, falling down... [Chron]

-- Microsoft going after Yahoo? [EWEEK]

-- On-air chats with Jessica Aguirre, who already knows how much you want to fuck her with your monster cock, gentlemen, so go easy on her. [Chron]

-- Alleged San Mateo blue square to stand trial. [CBS5]

-- Salad bars in SF school. Light and refreshing, mmm. [Chron, via SF Schools]

-- Largest Whole Foods opens. (Yay!) In Cupertino. (Bah. As if they need more Kombucha than we do.) [SJ Merc]

-- "Man, there's DNA all over the streets!" [Overheard Lines]

For those who do drive that particular section, Caltrans is going to reroute you to an entirely new set of lanes and supposedly, you won't notice much in the way of a difference. To help commuters understand how this will work, Caltrains created a neat little video (click on the video link on the ABC 7 web page) hosted by Caltrans mascot, Callie McCaltrans, to illustrate what will happen. We particularly love the bit were he and Pudgey Pigeon almost get run over by a confused semi-truck. The new route will be up for at least a year.

San Jose City Hall took a break from corruption scandals for love -- two peregrine falcons are nesting on the roof of the city's newest architectural landmark, and possibly mating as well. Mayor Ron Gonzales and the then-City Manager Del Borgsdorf discovered the falcons during a meeting on the 18th floor, where one of them (maybe spacing out during a tedious stretch of administrative agency reports) noticed pigeon feathers floating past the window. Turns out the falcons were having a little lunch.

San Francisco has peregrines too, on the roof of the PG&E building. And who could forget Paula Zahn's feathered New York neighbor, Pale Male?

Yeah, San Francisco's nice, we guess. But you know what it REALLY needs? Parking garages. Yeah, get rid of that stupid Yerba Buena garden, and that useless Golden Gate Park, and that , smelly Mission. We're sick of coffee shops, park benches, covenience stores, murals, and jerks like Supervisor Daly (who's sponsoring legislation that would prevent construction of free-standing parking garages in SF, and limit apartment-building parking spots) who are blind to the unadorned beauty of a squat concrete bunker that reeks of gasoline and pigeon droppings.

The argument in favor of garages is something like, "families, businesspeople, and tourists can't get around without a car and asphalt terraces on every corner," and yes, it would suck to haul a family's-worth of groceries home on Muni. But y'know, folks sure do seem to find a way to make it work in cities like NYC and Boston and London, where we can't recall ever seeing many aboveground freestanding garages. (And have you ever tried parking in LA's Beverly Center garage? It's like friggin Labyrinth in there, complete with a Bog of Eternal Stench.)

It's hard to argue that it wouldn't be nice if fewer people drove and more people took mass transit. But Chris' measure doesn't actually improve access to busses and trains, or the dismal quality of SF transit. It just lowers drivers' quality of life to match that of bus riders'. Le sigh. Meanwhile, big-business groups like SFSOS and The Hotel Coalition are crying bloody murder over efforts to keep SF from looking like LA. It's expected to heat up in January; the supes requested that the Planning Department do a study on the whole dealio, so we can expect a lot of clamor as each side makes its case. Stay tuned!