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

Polaroid recently announced that it would discontinue instant-film production. Even with local film processing shops closing closing left and right, I was still surprised and not a little nostalgic by this, ahem, development.

Like the Gocco, which was discontinued then revived through grassroots effort, I think the polaroid still has broad appeal to the DIY set. It’s a medium, like photography itself, that caters equally to the mundane as to fine art, and even in between. Call me naive but I believe somewhere in the mechanical-chemical processes involved in exposing and developing film there are mystical forces at work. Particles of life are captured, float mysteriously onto the film and are reorganized in some verisimilitude of the subject. The photograph for me is never as my eyes saw it, but how the film rendered it. As Garry Winogrand said, “what is photographed is changed by being photographed.”

Digital formats just don’t seem to have the same life. I wonder if we’re not losing something to the instantaneous high-bit capture and cataloging of the visual world - like the patrons stepping from Van Gogh to Matisse at the Musee d’Orsay and staring into the LCD’s of their cameras without actually appreciating the art in front of them. There’s transcendence and mystery in emulsion. I look at the work of master photographers and I can sense it.

Many moons ago a friend loaned me a hardcover copy of Phillippe Halsman’s Jump Book. The pictures sparkled with life, demonstrating an ingenious portrait technique that illuminated the character of each individual in ways that traditional portraiture could not. In the accompanying text, Halsman playfully introduces his science of “jumpology”, which analyzes airborne physical expression like a psychologist analyzes behavior. The series of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor is one of my favorite pieces ever.

Halsmann’s brand of whimsy is also a principal force in the work of Lee Friedlander, whose retrospective is showing now at the SFMoMA. Though I’m pretty familiar with his work, I was still struck by the stunning composition of even his most improvised street shots. There’s a lot of life inside the frame.

As a weird aside to all this, the life of Philippe Halsmann recently found its way onto the big screen. Jump! explores a sensational murder trial during Halsmann’s youth and features the theatrical stylings of Patrick Swayze!

Related
An amusing modern take on Jumpology

Found Magazine Polaroid Caption Contest

I don’t know if Jim White has seen the devil (if you read the story included in his Wrong-Eyed Jesus liner notes he’s at least met someone pretty close) but he seems to write from the vantage of an existential crossroads. A place, in his world, where the path to righteousness and the folly of man converge. Jim’s gothic americana weaves rustic country, swampy blues and revved-up gospel into a plaintive and strange, honest and entrancing songwriting that gets better with each album.

Preview his new record (co-produced with Joe Pernice) at Luaka Bop, buy it, and then most certainly if you have the chance, go see him live. If nothing else, you’ll go home with an earful full of stories.

Public transit is an integral and multifarious part of any urban landscape. It moves great masses of people; it weaves stratified areas of the city together and links to areas beyond; it pushes us together in ephemeral communities that connect us in exactly the opposite way the automobile isolates us.

It can also be an ersatz homeless shelter. A fun-park ride for young children (for hours, I’m told). For me, it’s a continual fount of insight into the range and qualities of human behavior. Like a living portrayal of Walker Evans’ subway photos.

Undoubtedly, it is also one of the great venues for an improvised and surreal brand of entertainment, provided you are in the right frame of mind to appreciate it. iPods can be valuable tools when you don’t want to engage certain “entertainers”, but when the reincarnation of Ray Charles walks onto your train,
unplugged microphone in hand (no need for amplification when you’ve got spirit!), you know the night time, whoah is the right time, to take off your headphones and take in the gospel of city life and the community around you.

The big trucks are gone. The signage and business fronts restored. The last vestiges of 70’s era corduroy, denim and leather hang conspicuously not on film extras but the unselfconscious locals who never gave them up. But I find myself still daydreaming about the filming that took place just down the street from my apartment.

In the space of just a few weeks, most of them glum and rainy, one of my favorite filmmakers and his crew descended upon the Castro to film Milk - a biopic about Harvey Milk, the “Mayor of Castro Street” and the first openly gay man to win office just about anywhere. The film stars Sean Penn as Milk and while I’m not sure I ever caught Mr. Penn in action I couldn’t help but walk wide-eyed every day through the set, as it were, of Castro Street circa 1978.

The most enchanting part of the whole experience was participating as an extra in crowd scenes. I’m certain my likeness won’t amount to anything more on the big screen than one of hundreds of other figures, but walking down Market St in a hushed recreation of a candlelight vigil is a wonderful, if somber, memory to savor until Milk hits the theaters.

While the location shooting is over for the most part (there’s still a call for extras on March 9th) and the neighborhood reverts back to its same boring facades, there remains one spectacular part of the set left intact: the restored Castro Theater marquee. The neon is ablaze and even the letters blink their way down the sign. I don’t remember it looking this good…ever.

Only a couple years ago, Jessie St was a derelict side street with worn buildings literally disintegrating into the landscape. Over the past year that same street has transformed into Mint Plaza, a simple but urbane stent of sorts that aims to heal the disharmony between the druggy sclerosis of 6th and Mission and the glitzy consumerism of nearby Bloomingdale’s and Metreon. Sure, there will be trendy restaurants and luxury lofts (including the former drug dens above - hip!) but anchoring the whole project, at least in my mind, is Blue Bottle Coffee’s new cafe.

If you’ve ever had the superb coffee from those funny carts tucked into garages and farmer’s markets on both sides of the bay, there is now a fully-fledged structure beckoning converts and philistines alike. The austere interior is befitting a modern chapel for the coffee faithful. Its future-primitive array of chemistry lab-like curios stands ready to proselytize with the particular method of extraction/intoxication you desire. Espresso drinks, single-origin espresso, siphon coffee and what I assume is a contraption for decanting coffee concentrate.

I’m glad that Blue Bottle decided to go with a coffee brewer other than a Clover. They’re cool machines, to be sure, but I’ve never been too impressed with the coffee they produce. I’ll have to try more of this siphon coffee before I’m totally taken with it; at the very least it’s a more interesting process to watch. Still, as a part of both our urban and coffee landscapes, Blue Bottle’s cafe is a welcome beacon of renewal.

Update:
m’ladyfriend and I have made a weekly habit of breakfast and coffee at Blue Bottle. We also seem to have a knack for choosing venues that are the subjects of media coverage. Dig the video featuring P as she sits in the window in this gripping ABC7News story

keep your eye out for a possible cameo in an upcoming story on Pizzeria Delfina…
Update 2:
Oh, brother.  She might as well get her SAG card.  Now appearing on SFGate’s Pizza Friday

The dawn of a new year has never been a time where I felt inclined towards nostalgia or reflection - outside of my record collection, anyway (see earlier post below) - but I feel like the last year blew by in a fog. I’ve been going over pictures from the year to remind myself where the hell I was. I don’t avidly document everything in pictures as some people do, and out of some misguided asceticism I resisted any long-distance travel other than a fun but short excursion to Portland. So this smattering of my life feels incomplete.

I normally detest the idea of a new year’s resolution but this year I aim to do more. Travel, take classes, cook, bike, hike, actually follow through on those art projects. The pictures from 2008 may not prove any more interesting but I hope the year ahead is full of more of the following.

Walking all over this town, with my lady

Picking tomatoes at Mariquita farm, canning them and making a simple pasta with some of the fresh tomatoes

Going home and swimming in the river, a summer rite. I’m loath to use any words here like peace, meditation, etc but if pushed to define it, this would be my ‘happy place’

The Saturday farmer’s market as sustenance, inspiration, and friendly meet-and-greet. Top, a summer’s bounty; Bottom, handmade foods we started making this year

clockwise from left: tortillas and masa cakes (here with chorizo and potatoes); whole chicken carving (head edited for your viewing pleasure); hand-cranked pasta; pizzas with any imaginable topping, including an egg; roasted beet salad with olive oil-marinated goat cheese

Farm tours (here at Marin Sun Farms)

Journeying in the oft-frustrating, occasionally euphoric art of espresso. I started to roast my own coffee this year too.

Camping and hiking on the California coast

Saturday was a lovely clear day, the first in what felt like weeks. After the farmer’s market we high-tailed it out of the city to Mt. Tam. It didn’t matter that it was mid-day and we might be two out of hundreds of people with the same idea. The goal was a hike, the incentives were sunshine, fresh air and a different view than the glum, obscured mess from our apartment’s moist windows in the winter.

We ended up choosing a loop from segments of Matt Davis, Coastal, Cataract and Old Mine trails. It was one of the best hikes we’ve ever been on, certainly one within 20 minutes of our apartment, but that’s an unnecessary qualifier. The ground was soft and fragrant with downed douglas fir and bay leaf branches; the waterfalls were many and active; the vistas were extraordinary and clear; and strangest of all, only a handful of people appeared to share the mountain with us that day. I think we saw more hawks and falcons than other hikers.

Each time I go to Mt Tam I find it more remarkable. There are seemingly endless ways to traverse its slopes whether on foot or bike, as a backpacker, beachgoer or run of the mill nature-jerk. And though the concept of ‘the Bay Area’s backyard’ doesn’t inspire faith in its preservation or pristine-ness, I think the more people that get out of their cars and onto trails, the more politically viable reclaiming open spaces becomes.

Melting ice caps, violent international conflicts, Hummers outside my window, oil slicks in the bay - the picture of 2007 as I look back was of a dissonant world. The records that fought their way to the fore sounded like allegories for this dystopian vision. Noisy, messy, strange but headspinningly beautiful. Interestingly, each of these highlighted albums feature Track 1’s that immediately enchant, bombard, envelop, and slay. Despite civilization’s blind march towards annihilation there was, for me, plenty of great music to celebrate. Here’s the best of it.

Radiohead In Rainbows
A wistful and spare (by their standards) record with a scrupulous, dynamic songcraft that soars above the one-trick pony newer, fitter, happier bands so overhyped today. Obliterates the stale taste left by Hail To The Thief while rubbing shoulders with the best of their catalog.

Panda Bear Person Pitch
Sonorous solo effort from Animal Collective member. Imagine Brian Wilson, post-”Surf’s Up”, battling depression and calming his nerves in a sensory deprivation tank, while chanting hymns over ethereal lo-fi Pet Sounds outtakes.

New Pornographers Challengers
A more reflective turn for one of our brightest pop confectioners. Carl’s melodies shine, as always, but instead of manic guitar and drums, many songs are constructed from evocative colors of banjo, mandolin, flute and strings, and sweetly weaving vocal harmonies.

Spoon Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Britt Daniel’s songwriting swaggers, while Jim Eno’s lean production and a flawless sequence of songs show why Spoon are auteurs in the art of the 30 minute pop record. Studio banter, guitar clicks, and palpable shifts of console faders are mixed in like clues to the craft of record-making. “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb” with its literal echoes of Smokey Robinson and the Supremes, is nonetheless painted as only Spoon can and, like the rest of the album, is so good it’ll have you ga-ga-ga-ing like a blissed-out little babe.

Antibalas Security
Security blazes out of the speakers from the start with taut politically-charged afrobeat inspired by Fela Kuti. Killer stuff, but the latter half of the set still smolders with nuances of dub, electronica and Ethiopiques-jazz in a wide-spectrum sound (with John McEntire at the controls).

Caribou andorra
While I’m taken aback by the audacity of this one man chameleon, andorra hooked me from the first listen. Sounds as if the Nuggets box set exploded and Dan Snaith picked up the pieces along with other scraps of psychedelia, krautrock, and electropop.

Animal Collective Strawberry Jam
Animal Collective’s experimental tendencies may simply be born out of fearlessness. Strawberry Jam charts a new course from the skewed dream-pop of Feels into a range of compositions careening from psychedelic cartoon rave-ups to underwater carousel music to trance. Listen with intrepid ears and you’ll be richly rewarded.

Feist The Reminder
Loved her last record, but I wasn’t prepared for the kind of leap in songwriting or sheer imagination on this one (let alone the response to it). Leslie Feist’s singularly aching, mellifluous vocals still beguile, but this set of songs bear the elegance of Joni Mitchell with a smokey, earthy soul. Destined to be a classic.

Arcade Fire Neon Bible
The shift from 2005’s Funeral to Neon Bible is like the shift to color in the Wizard of Oz. Recorded in a church and featuring a gothic orchestration, this a cinematic album of technicolor sounds and dark imagery that is altogether fantastical, dreamy, and frightening. Win’s dour lyrics touch on crime, war, terrorism, christianity, and celebrity, including this refrain which could be my mantra for the last few years: “I don’t want to live in America no more…I don’t want to see it at my windowsill.”

Dirty Projectors Rise Above
Apparently re-imagined from memory, Rise Above completely re-contextualizes Black Flag’s Damaged as an art pop monster. David Longstreth sings soulful, throaty melismas over slippery west african guitar figures while the backup singer-sirens voices twine and enchant. With a nod to their forebear, the songs may suddenly devolve into crashing drums, delicious cacophony or Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. So punk rock.

And one more caught in between last year and this year

Peter Bjorn & John Writer’s Block
I didn’t have the actual release last year, but the domestic release seems old by now. No matter, it still charms my pants off (that’s a good thing). Perfectly demonstrating the Swedish penchant for pastiche, this is Everly Brothers Spector-ian folk shoegaze pop at its best and will have you whistling for days.

More Great Records From The Year

• The National Boxer
• Of Montreal Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
• Deerhunter Cryptograms
• Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings 100 Days, 100 Nights
  Sharon Jones can bust a groove in funk, soul, R&B, you name it
• Thurston Moore Trees Outside The Academy
• Deerhoof Friend Opportunity
• White Stripes Icky Thump
• Sea and Cake Everything
• Explosions in the Sky All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
• Elliott Smith New Moon
• Joan As Police Woman Real Life
  
• Clientele God Save the Clientele
  
• Gruff Rhys Candylion
• Betty Davis s/t
  stanky!
• Nick Lowe At My Age

Half-hearted

• Wilco
• Beirut
• Band of Horses
• Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Where You Been All My Life (older stuff i got into this year)

• The Fugs
• Loudon Wainwright
• Harry Nilsson
• Fela Kuti
• Lee Hazlewood
• Luiz Bonfa
• Richard Hell & The Voidoids
• The Small Faces
• Traffic

By now the haunting and touching Annie Leibowitz photographs that formed John’s last photo shoot are very familiar to most. Less familiar to me was this set by Allen Tannenbaum.

I can’t really describe what it is about Tannenbaum’s photos but they have this color austerity that I find so perfectly redolent of films and photography of the early 1980’s. Films like After Hours and One From The Heart. In contrast to the striking Leibowitz image there’s a levity at work in these, yet there’s the same naked honesty, the same intimacy.

The parallel statements between the visual language in these photographs and the music John and Yoko had just finished on Double Fantasy is unmistakable. I look at them and find myself daydreaming about the person John might be if he were alive today; how he and Yoko would be ambassadors of a provocative and honest marriage of love and art. It’s inspiring.

If you were casually reading the news in the last couple days, you might think that there were some playful hijinks afoot in that magnificent, if a bit tricky, shipping channel some of us call the Bay. It was initially reported that a pilot ran a 65,000 ton ship into the Bay Bridge, carving a gash in its side and spilling 140 gallons of oil. The number was eventually revised to upwards of 58,000 gallons and the oil is now spreading far beyond the impact site.

Yet the following day the Chronicle’s headline was not “Environmental Catastrophe!” or even “Damn, That’s a Shit-ton of Crude!” but “Crunch!”, as if to highlight the mechanical spectacle of it all. Still, with all the pictures coming in and the news reports sitting at the top of the Most Emailed lists, it’s clear that the public, at least, is concerned. I can’t help but think of the environmental aftershocks of this event and feel like one of the surfers interviewed: superdepressed.

Maybe this isn’t the Exxon Valdez, but it’s not the first time an oil spill has spoiled the waters here. 40, 000 gallons in 1996; 420,000 gallons (!) in 1988; 26,000 gallons in 1986; and 20,000 gallons in 1971 when two oil tankers collided under the Golden Gate Bridge. Scientists and Exxon are still arguing about the health of Prince William Sound almost 20 years later. But it’s all too clear that in the 21st century, with our atmosphere warming, our natural resources dwindling, and our waters polluted, we are swimming in oil.