While crouched and composing this photo for yesterday's "Land Lines" series,

based on Roy Lichtenstein's arcetypal drawings of American architecture,

Some guy most deliberately yells out "FAGGOT!" on University in NE while my back is to the street. This does not surprise me much, but I do get a jolt.

Later in the evening, I'm retelling the story, still a little amazed by how small and threatened it is, and Justin, the Minnesota cultural survivalist hits me with:

"Quit shitting a brick over someone calling you a faggot earlier."

Which got me thinking about this book I saw six years ago in Czech Republic

Americky Slang provides not only, I believe, the literal Czech translation of American idiom, but very memorably, illustrations of literal interpretations of what the idiom meant. And I will never, but never, forget the illustration for:

Shit a Brick