Semi-coherent dispatches from the streets of San Francisco streamed to you at the speed of MUNI

I can’t stop thinking about Pop-Up Magazine, which went down last night at the Brava Theater.

Like happily wandering through the city at night, hitting galleries and literary talks, sliding into an old theater showing movie shorts, sharing a beer with your graduate student friend who nerds out over their latest obsession/revelation - it was several nights of culture condensed into a couple hours.  From sidebar ephemera to emotionally resonant material, everything was compelling. The event felt like a celebration of great writing and great radio with just a little bit of theater to entertain the eyes. 

I can’t wait for the next one.  In the meantime, it’s got me jonesing for a lazy day with a pile of magazines and a couple beers.

Some net-able highlights:

• Photography: Todd Hido Foreclosed Homes
• Interview: Megan Prelinger of the amazing Prelinger Library
• TV: Botany of Desire as PBS documentary

Do you ever feel a special kinship with an operation, be it a bakery, farm, shop, restaurant or coffee roaster, where it starts to seem like it’s a close friend you want to visit with often?  Or you daydream that you could just quit your job today and start there tomorrow, immersed in its smells and sounds and all the little things that bring you happiness in your dull little life?  Oh, you.

Blue Bottle is my friend, in that odd sort of way. It’s guided me over the years, cultivating in my palate an appreciation for truly fresh roasted coffee and guiding my own experiments with coffee, espresso and roasting at home.  In turn, I have eagerly watched it grow from farmers market carts to the “convivial” little kiosk in an alley-way garage to its bustling but still tucked-away cafe and now to its corner spot in the Ferry Building, as auspicious a location as Chez Panisse’s must have been on Shattuck thirty years ago.

This morning, on its opening day, we sipped macchiatos from wonderful espresso cups made custom for Blue Bottle by Heath (another operation I feel a special kinship for, as we’ve just started to collect our own set). We celebrated the same way we did in the morning before going to city hall last week, or with Miette cakes at our git-together this past weekend: with good coffee and warm, caffeinated daydreams of a more pleasant life hanging out with our friends.

The Curmudgeon Awakes! Wait, it’s already February?!  The Curmudgeon snarls, turns around three times, and falls back asleep. 

Only time will tell how the last year will fare in my personal pop music canon.  I saw only a fraction of live shows that I did in previous years. And whether it was my own frame of mind or the stale state of new music, I rarely felt inspired by any of the year’s releases. So, in almost 10 years of making these lists, here’s a first:

My Top 5 Records of 2008

Fleet Foxes s/t

These kids went to the mountains, divined their songs and floated out like buddhas on a magic carpet of beard and siren voices. Superlative mesmeric folk-pop of the same sonic cloth (carpet) as the Beach Boys, Shins, Bee Gees, and the Hollies. That is to say, it’s filled with blissed-out harmonies.  What My Morning Jacket wish they could have made instead of trying to fit their country asses into a skinny Prince suit. This record sounds like it came straight out of the early 70’s but to these ears it’s fresher than anything else on here.
 

The Walkmen You & Me

A band I have several times now written off as nothing more than a nice sound and an attitude completely blew the black plastic aging hipster frames off my face with this one. There’s nothing revolutionary here, just a perfect encapsulation of the album as art form: from the jacket cover to the tracking, the whole work plays like an exposition on the state of you and yours. In our era of blogs blogging about blogs blogging about sound clips and tedious name-that-influence bands, a suite of songs like this is the real new wave.

Vampire Weekend s/t

Like the Strokes’ debut, there’s something almost too perfectly glossy about Vampire Weekend’s own debut. The songs are remarkably good, forging a pop fusion from lithesome african guitar figures, insistent rhythms and squeaky collegiate insouciance. It may turn out to be an ephemeral pleasure, but for the time being this is impossible to put down.

Bonnie Prince Billy Lie Down In The Light

An undeniably great set of songs from this bright bearded appalachian misfit. His ability to win over the straight-ahead music crowd at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival made it even clearer that he’s at the top of his form. If you’ve followed Will Oldham off and on over the years like I have, this album should finally make a fan out of you.

Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago

I kept hearing about this record, but I didn’t expect something so quietly affecting. As stripped down and hauntingly lovely as Elliott Smith’s first records, For Emma is the soundtrack to twilit wintry nostalgia. It took repeated listens for Justin Vernon’s whispered croon to get under my skin, but this set burns bright and true with plaintive soul. 

Also Enjoyed

TV On The Radio Dear Science
Deerhunter Microcastle
Atlas Sound Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See

REM Accelerate For the joy alone of hearing a band reassess their direction and come back roaring after so many albums. Almost makes me forget their last one.

Cat Power Jukebox
Jim White Transnormal Skiperoo Beautifully melancholic
Cut Copy In Ghost Colours
Joan As Police Woman To Survive

Blitzen Trapper Furr Really strong collection of songs that nimbly skip on the grooves of old 70’s AOR, melodica dirge, acoustic ballads and country-fried AM radio pop. 

Bob Dylan Bootleg Series Vol. 8 Tell Tale Signs
Elvis Costello Momofuku
Calexico Carried To Dust

Sigur Ros med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaus Loved the way they stretched out with bright and folkier textures on here.  The first track comes off as bulgarian choral folk meets The Feelies. Fitting, given that the title translates to “with a buzz in our ears we play endlessly”.

Jonathan Richman Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild
Department of Eagles In Ear Park
Sea and Cake Car Alarm

You make me sick

Beck Modern Guilt
Honestly, why don’t you just score Tom Cruise’s latest diatribe against psychiatry? It would probably hold as much interest as your last few records.

Mogwai The Hawk is Howling
Absolute shite; unless I just grew out of a music that once sounded really powerful to me.  No, no. This is absolute shite. Sounds like a band trying to imitate Mogwai because they heard that post-rock is the new thing.

Where You Been All My Life

Older stuff I got into or revisited this year 

Serge Gainsbourg
Booker T. & The MG’s 
King Sunny Ade
Erik Satie
Mose Allison
William Bell
Coleman Hawkins

If you’re paying any attention to this web space (And, really, what are you doing here?  There must be some sort of web 2.0 Twittering Face Space that might better deserve/exploit your attention) you’re familiar with my penchant for overwrought soliloquy (See love letter to SF, below).  This is a blog, after all, so what else can one expect?

In line with that, I’d like to inform all two of you that m’ladyfriend and I up and moved to Oakland a few weeks ago. It was an impetuous act, and by impetuous I mean it unfolded so quickly after a solid year of looking for a better place to live that we could hardly process how much moving across the Bay might affect us.

The reality is that it feels like a different state.  Our jobs are the same.  Our commute is seemingly only ten minutes longer (though it feels like much more). And we’re living only a short distance away from the place we’ve called home the last 7-10 years.  We can still see it, in fact.  It looks so strange from over here. But we were unprepared for many things in this move; things that would seem, on face, completely obvious.  

We moved into a house, which was one of the primary motivations in moving over here in the first place. This also meant that we moved into a neighborhood of houses.  Just in terms of density, this is a very different kind of place to live than a neighborhood of apartments.  Likewise, it’s eerily quiet, and suburban-feeling.  We’re a short walk to Telegraph and College avenues.  A short walk to BART.  But in feel, we’re far away from the city. And even those active avenues feel sleepy.  Sleepier somehow than when we walked up and down them before moving here.  There are clearly a lot of great shops and restaurants in the East Bay. But from this nascent perspective, they seem spread across a broader matrix, rather than concentrated in neighborhoods. Thus, the neighborhoods themselves seem defined more by geography than character.

Did I mention that I’ve been a resident of Oakland for all of a three weeks?  Yeah, I’ve got a lot to learn.  But at this point I see our move as simply that: a learning opportunity.  Like studying abroad, I hope to absorb and appreciate the experience and celebrate it even more upon returning home to San Francisco.  We’ll see if we can even last a year.

Dear San Francisco,

We’ve been together almost seven years now.  Though I was long infatuated with you from afar, I never imagined when I moved in that we’d be going as strong as we are today.  Which is not to say our relationship isn’t without its rough patches. 

Let’s face it, your hygiene is a constant issue for me.  And the cigarette smoking is really obnoxious; I can hardly go an hour without smelling smoke all over you.  When I step in feces on the street, or sidestep hostile street urchins, or when that driver got out of his truck and head-butted me, I have to ask myself: Are we really cut out for each other?

Lately, our living situation feels strained.  My landlord is quite possibly mentally ill and knowing he lives above me is not positive for my own mental health.  So I’m looking for a new place for us to share.  But you don’t make it easy.

It’s not just that this is what passes for a kitchen in many apartments.  

It’s that you have to pay $2500 a month for it - that’s if you make the cut over the 20-50 other apartment hunters lined up with credit report and rental history folios. Please note the kind of appliance normally relegated to the basement in the photo, as well as the lack of counter-space.

There was the place in Lower Haight that was essentially a bedroom and an eat-in kitchen for $2400.  And then there are the myriad oddities which seem almost expertly placed to make an apartment less attractive.

Why does one need a corner-mounted TV in their home?

Let alone a corner-mounted oven…

Oh, San Francisco, I really love you, but I must admit, my eyes occasionally drift to other locales.  There are houses with yards and dog-friendly landlords, practically just across the bridge.  And while I feel torn and sad about splitting up, maybe it’s best that we spend some time apart and see what it feels like.  

I promise I’ll bring my dog over to visit. 

An opportunity for real change, real leadership and a populist vision of real America.  I can’t believe it.  In the words of Steven Colbert, somebody pinch me; no, somebody shoot me in the face.

There’s nothing like a balmy day in the city to make you appreciate green open spaces.  The concrete, asphalt and brick radiate such concentrated heat that it sends me running for any kind of shade like a lizard in this urban desert.  The monochromatic matrix of roads and large buildings downtown reserve minimal space for greenery to mitigate the heat that is absorbed and trapped by these surfaces.  Yet I’m actively seeking out our green spaces because they’re most pleasant, especially on these unseasonably warm days.

View Larger Map

I recently started working downtown and I’m still finding my way around its open spaces. While they’re not always obvious, there are a number of great spots to lunch and catch some shade.

Transamerica Redwood Park is a fantastic and strange oasis, set as it as against such a recognizable tower of the urban landscape. Otherworldly redwoods surround the space and it teems with wild strawberries. If it wasn’t for the many people who use the space as a smoking lounge, it would be even better.

The Ferry Building is a splendid lunchtime locale but regrettably lacking in greenery. This would really be a perfect spot for an edible garden; ideally an urban farm, but at least a tree-shaded seating area. Obviously, the plazas in front and back are utilized for the farmers market, but I think there are enough creative people around to find a way to squeeze in some green space.  Park(ing) Day is coming up, maybe we can improvise a Ferry Building outpost.

I’ve strolled through Sue Bierman Park (aka Ferry Park) and Maritime Plaza a number of times, though neither really have the ambience I’m looking for.  If your bag (lunch) is watching renegade homeless bikers fight with each other or pass out on the grass, then I suggest an excursion to Sue Bierman.

Overall, I’m heartened by what feels like a growing movement for saving, greening and improving our urban open spaces.  The upcoming Sunday Streets - the city’s trial version of Bogota’s Ciclovia (or another nominal addition to the mayor’s gubernatorial campaign check-list) - is a fantastic opportunity to experience this city in a different context.  That is, what if our streets became open spaces?  What if you could ride/walk/skate/cartwheel your way around the Embarcadero?  What if the medians were transformed into greenways, connecting parks across the city similar to what was planned over a hundred years ago?  What if Lombard Street was not a ridiculous fun-ride for cars but a unique park blessed with incredible views?  These are the kinds of questions that visiting open spaces inspire for me.  I hope others find inspiration this weekend to Slow down, go for a walk, watch movies outdoors and enjoy life.

Links

• Slow Food Nation
• John King’s partial list of downtown open spaces
• Neighborhood Parks Council

In the literal, if not geographical, center of the city, Beaux Arts facades and dour gray buildings project a great vanity upon the Civic Center Plaza, which is oddly homely. I walked through the plaza back in February and was struck by the lifelessness in the landscape.

Pollarded trees, like tumorous scarecrows, stood guard over the dismal grass and concrete expanse. Even when these ridiculous trees finally grow leaves, as they have by now, there’s still a vast space with little to invite people to stay.

At a time when the City is cutting funding across all departments, not least Parks and Recreation, is there any way to turn this space into a vibrant landscape that engages the community? One potential answer - let the people grow food.

The paradigm is already at work elsewhere in the city through established neighborhood Victory Gardens and other local efforts. Alemany Farm grows organic food for residents of the nearby Alemany Community public housing. Even a median strip in Bayview was transformed into a garden whose offerings are freely available to the residents.

So I was excited to learn that a Civic Center Victory Garden will establish roots in just a matter of days. I can’t wait to take part and watch it grow. Not to get biblical on you, but the garden is where it all begins. As Michael Pollan said in his New York Times Magazine article “Why Bother?,” in the garden

you will have begun to heal the split between what you think and what you do, to commingle your identities as consumer and producer and citizen.

The Civic Center garden will transform a mundane space into an active, engaging, truly alive environment. On a fundamental level, it has the potential to instruct as well as nourish, bringing local, seasonal food to an under-served area. Perhaps most important is the example it sets for ecological sustainability. This is just one garden, but in ripping up a boring section of grass and building it in the City’s most stately plaza, hopefully locals will be inspired to do the same in their own backyards and communal spaces. The bees will be happy. More people will have access to fresh food. We just might reverse the effect of greenhouse gases one urban garden at a time.

Check out:

SF Civic Center Victory Garden Planting - July 11

Like Mike Waters (River Phoenix) in My Own Private Idaho, I am a connoisseur of roads. Whether on foot, by bike or on transit I love to wander through neighborhoods, observing how the character of a city changes from street to street.

I don’t mean to be daft, but the worst part of traveling on or around roads are the cars. One has to be vigilant to share the roads with traffic, but outside of personal safety there are environmental effects like the heat island effect, runoff and noise which shape the experience of a city-goer. More than perhaps we’re willing to acknowledge, cars have a tremendous impact on our enjoyment of city life. Walking across the Golden Gate Bridge these days can feel more like walking across the tarmac at SFO.

When was the last time I took a two-week vacation?  I honestly can’t say with any certainty - high school, college…? A couple years back we spent ten days in Paris. It felt extravagant and my memories of our time there are as airy and sweet as a macaroon.  We recently spent two whole weeks traveling in Italy; to Bologna, the Cinque Terre, Florence and some of the surrounding country villages of Tuscany. There were so many great moments to the trip I’ll eventually reprise, but right now I’m just pondering the indulgence of time off and the revelatory moments in travel which lend clarity to life and purpose.  

Whether it’s a 2-hour lunch (do as the Italians do…) or a 2-week vacation, I recognized in Italy a need to build more space into my life.  I need a break from the anxieties I’ve developed, the ambition I struggle with. Maybe it’s a middle-class myopia but I think many of us in this country are far too occupied with following a virtuous path of career, family, pinch and save, that we shortchange our own value. To indulge and celebrate oneself (I sense a Walt Whitman stanza in here somewhere…) is vital, and I think the Italian culture showed a stronger appreciation of that.  

We had just spent two-plus hours eating, drinking and communing at SoloCiccia and we were sitting on a bench off a quiet road, staring off lazily at the rows of vineyards and rolling verdant hills of Panzano. The clouds in the sky were luminous, architectural. It was so clear, so obvious that this place was paradise. When we were back in crazy, bustling Florence, or crowded back on the plane coming home, even back in SF, I kept daydreaming of Panzano…If we lived there we would have a simple, happy life. And that may be true, but I’m slowly beginning to accept that I don’t need to live in Chianti to experience beauty and calm and fulfillment in a place.  The Bay Area - this land, these people, the community values - has all those elements, I just need to reorient my life to better incorporate them.  To center myself, physically and spiritually, into this place.  I’ve felt it before and I’m grateful for it now, the best part of traveling is coming home.