Eve S. Dropper--otherwise known as the "short attention-span voyeur"--reports on life in Berkeley. I think that her chosen avocation has become much more interesting since the widespread diffusion of the cell phone: people talking on cell phones are often amazingly unaware of just how many people can hear what they are saying.

In Passing...

"It's really hard not to go up to an intern in the middle of surgery and say, 'Don't freak out, but you're doing that all wrong.' I try not to do it if the patient's only under local."

--A man talking to a group of men on the patio at Raleigh's.