San Francisco is My Home

19
Oct

Loma Prieta rocks the house

Author: kris, Category: News

Two of the Chron’s headlines this morning: “Bay Area Home Sales Crash” and “Spate of Stabbing Deaths.” Related, perhaps? I’ll live in an area where an earthquake could flatten me, and that’s fine, but if there’s like a plague of stabbings then I’m less enthused.

Actually, I should address that earthquake issue for the benefit of any non-SF-based readers, because when I go abroad I notice people are pretty astounded that I choose to live somewhere where the earth will periodically rise up and attack you.

The first earthquake I remember was the last big one, the ‘89, and I remember it well because it happened on October 17, which was my tenth birthday. (This already sounds like a story that a grandmother mutters to herself in the corner, doesn’t it? “Eh, the ‘89, that were a humdinger. Get out of my rosebushes, you whippersnappers!”)

My dad was the first one to know it was happening. He happened to be looking out the window and saw the water in the swimming pool rise like a small tidal wave before he felt the floor start to move. The rest of us were standing in the kitchen — my mom and my grandparents and I — and when it started my grandmother looked at me with this fierce panic in her eyes and opened up her arms. This is the thing I remember most strongly: she was so afraid and still felt like she could shelter me from what was happening. Even at the time I was pretty moved by that. But then my dad hollered at us to get in the doorway, so all four of us packed in there while my dog ran back and forth between us and my dad’s doorway. She seemed pretty delighted by the game.

I think if you were on the Bay Bridge when it happened, with the upper span collapsing onto the lower span (miraculously only one person was killed on the bridge; think about that for a minute, because it’s almost impossible to credit) , then you would feel less cavalier about earthquakes. And if you were at Candlestick Park, where our two local baseball teams, the A’s and the Giants, were battling it out in the third game of the World Series, then maybe you also weren’t too happy.

But for me, the earthquake meant my whole family went outside and barbecued (in case the gas was leaking inside) and it was strange and cool and fun. (Because in California you can barbecue in October if you need to.)

After that it’s all been small quakes, over before you realize they’ve happened. And, yes, one day there will probably be another huge quake and all the buildings will fall down, and the new Bay Bridge that they’ve been planning since ‘89 and have only begun constructing will maybe turn out to have a big design flaw, and all kinds of problems will occur. But on the bright side, it’s totally possible that global warming will be in full effect by then and most of the city will be underwater anyway.

Sorry, was this supposed to be a comforting post?

16
Oct

Lights off for Earth

Author: kris, Category: News

Caltrans and the Transit Authority are planning to turn out the lights on the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge this Saturday in an attempt to demonstrate how much energy can be saved with a flick of the switch. (Streetlights and anti-planes-flying-into-the-bridge lights will remain on, of course.)

I, for one, find the whole business inspiring, and am considering turning the lights on my own megaton commuter bridge off in solidarity.

But seriously. The idea is to remind people to save energy, which includes replacing normal lightbulbs in your home with energy-efficient bulbs. What doesn’t get mentioned a lot is that these bulbs contain mercury. It’s not going to give you weird tumors or anything, but if a bulb breaks you need to open windows, cover your mouth, stay away from fumes, all that fun stuff. And when the bulb eventually burns out, it is absolutely vital that you don’t throw it away. There are special disposal places for bulbs that contain mercury; tossing it in a landfill will undo all the earth-friendly work you did in buying it.

15
Oct

Doing time

Author: kris, Category: News

Sheriff Michael Hennessy has been forced to release a bunch of petty criminals back onto the streets recently. As taxpayers demand more arrests of drug users, petty thieves, etc., the jails fill up way beyond capacity and we wind up drastically curtailing peoples’  sentences to regain bed room. 

In The Wizard of Oz books, L. Frank Baum describes the jail of Oz as a luxurious palace where every want is provided for — except the desire for liberty. “Yes, we have to lock people up, but that’s no reason to treat them like animals,” says the Clockwork Girl of Oz or someone. Even as a kid I remember wondering who exactly was paying for all this luxury.

Anyway, that’s a digression, but one that often comes to mind when I consider our penal system, especially when I consider that inmates were being forced to sleep on the floor before the Sherriff started releasing people.

Maybe the jail overload will turn out to be a blessing, forcing judges to start getting creative with sentencing. Maybe it will lead to more treatment programs and less useless jail time. I will continue to be happy and optimistic about all this, right up until I get mugged by a recently-released felon.

12
Oct

Apres moi, le deluge

Author: kris, Category: News

It’s raining. Every time it rains, I think, oh so this is the beginning of the rainy season. I think it rained maybe six times last winter, and each time I was convinced the deluge was upon us. I’ll start ordering tweed skirts online, stocking up on cocoa and bubble bath…then the sun comes out. Again.

I remember when SF used to have a rainy season. It was the years I was walking to work every day, naturally. I worked on the top floor of the only tall building in the Mission, so we had these amazing views of the city. Every day I’d come in wearing my soaked squelchy socks and sit shivering, looking out at the grey sky. (The office was impossible to heat because of all the floor-to-ceiling windows, and the HR assistant used to commandeer the only space heater. Chilly times.)

Maybe those days are done. Global warming, eh? That is a weird phenomenon around these parts. We’re all green hippie liberals so of course we believe in it — that’s like asking if we believe in chairs — and in fact we take it so much for granted that it’s already made the transition from disaster to joke. I think it took about a year for anyone to make jokes about Katrina, and it’s still kind of iffy to joke about 9/11, but global warming hasn’t even come to its full power yet and already it seems like a thing of the past.

We’re taking a few steps towards environmental soundness around here, of course.We’re the first city to ban plastic bags (an awesome step until you consider the number of dogs we have living here who need to be cleaned up after). We’ve also got some excellent car sharing programs like City Car Share and Zipcar, which allow you to use a car when you need it and not worry about parking or gas or having a major financial asset parked on the street the rest of the time. And of course our stores’ shelves are overflowing with organic stuff and locally-produced stuff and green-friendly stuff.

And it’s raining, at least for today. I hope it stays wet for a while; California girl though I am, I actually missed the rains last year. Besides, how in the heck will I wash my neck if it ain’t gonna rain no more?

11
Oct

We will NOT kill your children

Author: kris, Category: News

The Chronicle online always has one or two headlines dealing with child-related news. If they’re not failing tests then their toys are being recalled, or they’re being abducted, or worse. (There’s a weird implication here that the city is crawling with parents eager to read the very latest about kid stuff, when actually we have more dogs living in San Francisco than children. That sounds like a statistic I would make up, but in this case it’s really true.)

Of course, the Chron is distributed throughout the whole Bay Area, where plenty of paranoid parents are eagerly awaiting their grisly child-trauma news to read with their morning coffee. Between the caffeine and the panic, the Bay Area must have some very headless-chicken mornings.

But I had a point here, which was that the Chron has outdone itself today with the following onslaught of headlines:

Kids’ cold medicines pulled

Richmond man accused of forcing teen into prostitution

Arrest in girl’s abduction

Prof charged in kid porn case

Mother questioned in death of boy, 9

Despite what you might think after reading the Chron today, the Bay Area does not mean certain death to children. We have many child-friendly activities. In fact, I’m going to make it my mission to write up at least three or four family-friendly activities each month. Because if someone doesn’t do something, our paper is going to scare everyone away.

Then again, maybe if it did I could finally afford to buy a house here…

11
Oct

Irony at the Castro Theater

Author: kris, Category: Landmarks

I saw a 9:45 showing of Barton Fink at the Castro Theater last night. It was on a double bill with Mulholland Drive, but never again will I make the mistake of viewing that movie and then having to walk home in the darksome night. Barton Fink is disturbing enough.

The Castro is an elegant old movie palace just a few doors down Castro Street from Market. Most shows begin with the pipe organ rising out of the stage floor for a brief medley of songs, and you stare around at the gilded walls and murals and red velvet seats while the organist performs, or you watch the crazy foot machinations he has to undergo to make the pipes sound that way.

It’s a strange setting for a film like Barton Fink, which is about an intellectual snob who insists that he is on the verge of creating a “theater for the masses.” He gets a job working in the movies, much against his inclination, and goes through the entire film never realizing that the pictures are the new theater for the masses.

So you’re watching all this in a movie house that at one time was a perfectly ordinary setting for films of mass appeal, but now that it’s an independent theater its lineup is comprised of arty films, campy films, cult films — in short, everything except entertainment for the masses. After a while I wasn’t sure if I was surrounded by ten layers of irony or if everything balanced out to perfect sincerity.

Also, my friend thinks I’ve got the film’s message all wrong.

The point, if I have one, is that the Castro is a gorgeous palace of shows, and you should check it out if you have a chance.

10
Oct

Book nerds, get happy!

Author: kris, Category: Events, Literature, News

For this is the week of Litquake, the annual orgiastic celebration of the written word in its many published forms. The week is packed with local and nationally-recognized authors speaking alone and in panels at book havens across the city. But to my mind, the best part of this week-long festival is Litcrawl, the traditional Saturday night end to Litquake wherein a group of readers and the authors who live off their patronage embark on a mammoth bar-and-bookstore crawl across the city.

Are you an aspiring travel writer? Got a novel languishing in your drawer? Is erotic writing your true passion? Or maybe you’re just dying to sling back a beer with Amy Tan? Litcrawl has something for everyone. Check it out.

09
Oct

Fairy tale central

Author: kris, Category: News

Measuring seven miles by seven miles, this city is the perfect size to act out urban fairy tales in, and the local merchants help by obligingly offering fairy-tale-esque props. Where else but Bi-Rite Creamery can you get scoops of honey lavender and salted caramel ice cream? Where else can you find a series of impassioned love notes stenciled in paint on the sidewalks, like a trail of breadcrumbs left for one person to follow?

Your homework today is to play out a fairy tale of your own. You might lurk, troll-like, under the foot bridge at Golden Gate Park and jump out to demand a toll from the kickball team that practices there. Or try dropping your golden ball in a fountain at the Yerba Buena gardens and see what kind of animal retrieves it for you. Or make up your own tale: go on a quest to bike up Buena Vista, rescue a dreadlocked princess from her panhandling in the Upper Haight, or promise Newsom you can slay the pernicious, ongoing media stories about his hair in exchange for half of his city.

08
Oct

Jon Caroll

Author: kris, Category: People

Probably the most famous SF columnist of all time was Herb Caen. He was before my time, but I’ve read some of the archives and I’m not sure I see what the fuss was about. I asked my dad, who lived here in the days of the original anti-war marches and all that jazz.

“I read Herb Caen, everybody read Herb Caen,” Dad said. Pause. “You know, I’m not too sure why.”

A lot of what Caen wrote about was well-known SF residents. He wasn’t exactly a gossip columnist, I gather, but would often wind up chatting with our local luminaries and then would put the conversations in his column. I can see how this would be exciting to read, as a resident, partly because we have (and had then) some truly weird local characters, and partly because it makes you feel a sense of comunity when you know what other people in the community are up to.

Still, for my money Jon Carroll is the best columnist this city has ever seen. He’s got a daily column in the Chronicle which is usually interesting, often thought-provoking, and sometimes downright transcendent.

Today it’s just some thoughts about TV shows. On the transcendent meter, today’s column measures less. But he writes with wit and tremendous style and obvious love for this area. I hope someday he’ll get a city street named after him. Maybe we could re-use the one they named after Herb Caen.

07
Oct

Gas station Kabuki

Author: kris, Category: People, Seen

I stopped at a gas station by the city-side entrance to the Bay Bridge yesterday evening. There was a homeless man with a great shopping cart at the gas station: it had an eerie, Kabuki-esque mask mounted on a pole on top and pinups from a Japanese girlie magazine stuck around the sides. If it were coming towards you on a sidewalk it would look like a strange girl-monster headed your way, the terrifyingly fixed expression of its mask-face portending your certain doom at the hands of a hoard of underdressed teenagers.

The homeless man was apparently buying gas at the station, though whether he needs it to power his pimped-out cart remains a mystery. Another mystery is what I was doing at a gas station, since I have no motorized vehicle of my own. We may never know the answers to these questions.