SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS Radio) -- San Francisco's iconic fog has signed a book deal.
Yes, a book deal—and Karl the Fog is perhaps the first weather phenomenon in history to create its own coffee table book. Karl has about half a million social media followers, who are drawn to his characteristic mix of Schadenfreude, earnest love of the city, and real-time reaction to daily events on Twitter and Instagram.
Steve Mockus, Chronicle Books’ Executive editor of Entertainment, told KCBS Radio that the book Karl has written captures his sardonic outlook. “I think Karl’s voice captures a really peculiar, funny, witty, urbane sense of what it’s like to live in the city,” said Mockus. “He loves San Francisco, but also loves to make the sun go away.”
While not everyone in San Francisco is grateful for the unusually cold summers and warm autumns, the result of Karl’s vacation schedule, most seem to appreciate that the city wouldn’t be the same without it.
James, who lives in Oakland but works in San Francisco, remembered climbing up Telegraph Hill to admire the misty soup. “I would look at the fog rolling in from the ocean,” he recalled, “and sort of sweeping past the Pyramid and rolling in over the city.”
“It’s seen the city change so much,” he noted, and wondered how Karl feels about the development and gentrification that’s so radically changed the city over the last few decades.