Update: check out the San Francisco Chronicle Style section write up with exclusive video footage on the booklet from Sunday, December 3.
Just in time for holiday shopping and the New Year! Our thumb wrestling booklet for 826 Valencia is here. Joe Shoulak (known to you as reader Joe S.) did the illustrations. About the only food reference is a "nice hams" story from an East Village deli. The booklet is Oscar's advice and wisdom from being a 3-peat thumb wrestling champ. Other qualifications: he also easily pinned and took down Chronicle Publisher Frank Vega, and Editor Phil Bronstein at a rowdy Chronicle holiday party two years ago. When an online buy-this-booklet link is available, I'll of course put it up. It's a fun read, for a great cause, etc., etc., etc.
Perhaps you read about the booklet recently in Leah Garchik's Thanksgiving Day column (okay, there's more food for ya, if you're digging):
"In other educational notes, The Chronicle's book editor, Oscar Villalon, passes along this advice: "Don't be one of those people who looks down at what I like to call 'the arena of flesh,' mesmerized by the speed of his opponent's thumb, trying to keep pace, all slack-jawed and drooling. Don't do that to yourself. Respect yourself.''
This don't-look advice is from "The Way of the Thumb,'' a booklet being sold to benefit the educational programs of 826 Valencia. Villalon is three-time champ of the 826 Valencia Thumb Wrestling Tournament."
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