Some days are more dada than others

“A 2010 study by Wayne State University measured the span of smiles on major-league baseball players from their 1952 trading cards,” says the PR team for “The Consumer Guide to Dentistry.” “The study found that those who didn’t smile in their pictures lived an average of 72.9 years, versus 79.9 years for the players who did smile.”

In keeping with that, the “California Association of Orthodontists team” has offered stories to The Chronicle on “The dangers of DIY teeth straightening” and “Weird things people with braces are told/asked . ... Humorous angle.”

And thank you to B.S. (initials to stand in for his real name, not the noun of the same initials), for the phone message in which you noted that you had been watching The Chronicle’s death notices for the past few months and observed that nobody with a last name beginning with N had died. We checked on this. But on April 6, we mourned the passing of an N person. To B.S.: Good luck with your future endeavors.

At the Sunburst Motor Lodge in Calistoga, Catherine Prevost overheard one woman telling another, “I’m filing my taxes with a notation that alternative facts were used.”

On the L-Taraval last Friday, April 7, Steve Heilig wrote down the Muni operator’s announcement: “Let’s have a big shout-out to all of you who prefer live theater to cinema, are leaving work early to get a jump on that happy hour thing, and even having matching socks on this morning!”

During the first three months of the year, Waterbar raised money for the nonprofit Beyond Differences, which combats social isolation among young people by donating a nickel for every oyster consumed. In three months, 166,526 oysters were eaten and $8,326.30 was raised.

Don Lattin, who used to write about religion as a Chronicle reporter, writes books nowadays. His latest, to be released on Monday, April 17, is “Changing Our Minds — Psychedelic Sacraments and the New Psychotherapy.” Contacting The Chronicle to inquire about possible use of an excerpt, he discovered that “The Chronicle no longer has a religion writer, but it does have a cannabis editor. Yes, there are many paths to God.” The book excerpt will be online in the forthcoming Green State section, and Lattin will be at Book Passage in Corte Madera on May 6.

Bumper sticker spotted by Anthony Barcellos in Davis: “Birth is an emergence, not an emergency.”

Among the materials employed in “New Work: Park McArthur,” a oneroom solo exhibition by the artist Park McArthur at the San Francisco Museum of Art, are black onyx bricks in “Bohetta (for Beverly),” made of the same elements on the side of the central staircase of the Mario Botta-designed SFMOMA building. The name of work refers to that architect, and to Snøhetta, the architectural team for the museum’s expansion. McArthur’s “Designation” makes use of surplus maple floorboards used throughout the building.

In an onstage discussion last week with curator Jenny Gheith, the artist described the works as dealing with “access and memory.” Gheith had written that it focuses on “forms of commemoration and the ways in which they articulate memory and signify meaning.”

The opening reception and conversation were well attended by enthusiastic viewers/listeners. The exhibition, one in the “New Work” series, will be up until Aug. 27.

San Francisco Heritage, which protects and defends the city’s architectural treasures — including the Haas-Lilienthal House — is putting on its tie-dye, too. Summer of Love is the theme of its May 13 gala at the Ritz-Carlton. Meanwhile, its latest bulletin focuses on the Doolan-Larson Residence and storefronts, San Francisco Landmark No. 253.

That’s 557 Ashbury, the building at the northwest corner of Haight and Ashbury, owned since 1985 by Norman Larson, a familiar presence at cultural events around town. In designating the building a landmark in 2006, the city noted that the building, an example of Colonial Revival architecture, had been “constructed in 1903 and lifted in 1907 to insert storefronts.” In keeping with what would become normal in the neighborhood, it got high.

Larson, who can look out any window and cast eyes on ice-cream-cone-toting tourists from all over the world, plans to donate the house to Heritage when he’s gone.

“You know when I say ‘couscous’ I mean ‘quinoa.’ ” Woman to man, overheard at Trader Joe’s in Pinole by Maureen Barnato