First introduced in the late 1800s to save the strain on horses hauling carts up the city's steep inclines, the 15, 500-pound cable-powered cars grip a continuously moving underground cable with pliers-like gear to travel the streets of San Francisco.
Today, as cable shopping networks bloom like kudzu, we stuff our closets with Grip-N-Flip kitchen utensils, mixers with dough hooks, tanzanite bracelets and vanilla candles so rank they knock out power lines.