I know this probably seems blatantly anti-American since we didn’t post anything on July 4th, but hey it’s our blog and these colors don’t run! Besides, there’s never been a scene of such cinematic greatness involving the Star Spangled Banner (except for maybe that Naked Gun clip). The La Marseillaise scene from Casablanca always gets me. Let’s face it, national anthems always sound better when coming from a group of people that are being invaded.
The best anthems are, after all, just elongated rallying cries. If everyone’s standing still, like at the beginning of a baseball game or during one of those overly dramatic Olympic medal ceremonies (those flags move like turtles, don’t they?), the original meaning of the words can get a tad lost. Perhaps if we sang them less often, the words would carry more weight - just an idea.
Regardless, in the spirit of transatlantic harmony - Vive la France! Vive l’Amérique! Vive l’Allies!
I guess it’s Hipster’s Last Stand in the Mission. This map created by the folks over at TownMe my neighborhood is being overtaken on all sides by Yuppies. They are invading from three primary bases of operation: the Marina, Noe Valley, Pacific Heights, and at their newest encampment in Dogpatch.
Now, if we were speaking of a true military invasion, these spots would not be particularly opportunistic since two of them are in low-lying areas of town. Since, however, this is a slower-paced invasion, one can never be sure which proposed trajectory is most optimal. There seems to be a slight opening down Folsom and across the Bay Bridge. Perhaps Oakland and all points east are our best bets.
And, if we don’t succeed, at least we’ll die with our boots on.
Neil Simon’s The Out of Towners was one of my favorite classic movies as a kid. When I watched it for the first time, as a ten year-old, I had never been to New York. The film seemed to over-emphasize all that is wrong with the Big Apple, and vicariously how awful every American city is. Filmed in 1970, it follows George and Gwen Kellerman, played by Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis as they fly from a small Ohio city to Manhattan, get rerouted to Boston, take a midnight train to Grand Central, arrive in the city at four in the morning to find New York in the midst of a transit and sanitation strike, and oh yeah the Waldorf-Astoria forgot to hold their hotel reservations for the night. The Kellermans embark on a late night fruitless search for accommodations and comfort that leads only to increased frustration and bitterness towards the city and New Yorkers.
For years, I dismissed the movies as merely a product of its time. The 1960s and 1970s were horrible times for cities. Suburban flight, race riots, and aging infrastructure had caused many to outwardly question whether cities were even necessary. Cities, and New York City in particular, had come a long way since then. The Out of Towners was quite simply out-of-date.
A couple of weeks ago, I found myself again in front of a television and immediately transported to that seemingly oppressive New York City of nearly forty years ago. Upon this revisit, The Out of Towners and its messages have not lost value over time. I was incredibly mistaken to have ever entertained the thought. This film is just as much a critique on suburban insularity as on urban inefficiency. Kellerman is continuously thrown life preservers by countless New Yorkers. He could have stayed the night in Boston and caught the 7 am flight to New York, he could have waited in the Waldorf-Astoria lobby for a couple of hours before a room was made available, and perhaps he could have just walked the couple of blocks to the armory in order to avoid his eventual fate of sleeping beneath a tree in Central Park. Instead at every turn, he blamed individuals for his misfortune. In his mind, there was nothing that he could have done to prevent himself from his downward spiral, but this it is made clear.
Sandy Denis’s concluding monologue on her desire to never live in any big city sums this up nicely. Let’s call this rant, the AUS, or the anti-urbanist schtick. Denis’s character is exhausted, and after an evening of allowing her husband’s impatience dig her ditch deeper and deeper, Denis pleads to him to not take the job in New York, and to get back to Ohio ASAP. The AUS is delivered in a way that it can easily be construed more as a plea against her husband’s rigidity than anything else. They are not city people. She knew that getting into it, he did not. She is relieved to learn that his sentiment matches hers, and he refused the New York job and they both fly back to Ohio.
Watching Kellerman’s interactions with several of the service worker characters makes them seem very accommodating. Yes, they get mugged by a New Yorker and they both get kidnapped in the midst of a liquor store robbery. There are, however, countless New Yorkers that offer them a better way. At each instance, Kellerman refuses it, stubbornly thinking that he can slay the dragon Manhattan at every turn. Kellerman simply cannot get used to the fact that he is one of 8 million in this city and that it is to his detriment to act as if he knows everything about this city. The city does come across as ill and in need of some much needed love and care, but Kellerman seems incapable of humility, a trait required of all urbanites and also of all those who cohabitate. Kellerman does not learn this and in the end he is forced to retreat back to his midwestern oasis.
The Out of Towners is not a brutal critique on New York City and city life. It is instead a harsh assessment of an American society that by 1970, had grown increasingly individualistic and less patient with each other. This New York City, like every community large and small, acts as an expression of the widespread individual cynicism of the era more than as a verdict on the city itself.
Yes, there was a noted lack of palm trees and a marked increase in the under 14 crowd, but Philadelphia’s Clark Park proved to be a sweet replacement for me during a weekend sojourn to the City of Brotherly Love. We sprawled ourselves onto three blankets, tossed frisbees, drank beer and ate cheese. The sun penetrated through the muggy Philadelphia biosphere, steadily siphoning any energy we had in us and rendering each of us relatively useless. This slumbering experience led my mind ajar (hardly a rare occurrence) and I started wondering why these two parks, Dolores and Clark, seem to have such similar effects on people.
Not all parks do this to normally productive members of society. The City Beautiful genre of parks, Golden Gate, Central Park, and even Philly’s own Fairmount, are usually chock full of museums, botanical gardens, rowing facilities, horse tracks, etc. All of these distractions were designed to cultivate people, to give turn of the century populations a break from the industrial muck that had come to surround them during the work week.
All the young city parks (those developed in the last 20 years) really seem more jocular to me. Let’s call them People Beautiful parks for comparative purposes. Trails, soccer fields, climbing walls are everywhere. New York’s Hudson River Park always exudes this to me like no other park I’ve been to. These parks put a premium on packing in venues meant to facilitate physical activity. They are not usually as large in acreage as their City Beautiful grandparents, but they definitely seem to make up for it the calorie burning department. In most instances they have actually replaced the aforementioned industrial muck that is no longer as highly utilized in most cities.
Unlike their People Beautiful and City Beautiful counterparts, lazy parks are not part of any movement, usually not part of any master plan, and in most instances became city property without much effort from city government. Perhaps this is what makes them more attractive to groups that usually like to exist outside of plans and any degree of conformity - hipsters, musicians, wild roves of children.
Both Clark Park and Dolores Park came about by accident. Dolores Park was a Jewish cemetery before cemeteries were banned within San Francisco city limits. It’s balkanized sections - Hipster Haven, the Manshelf, etc. were actually once separate sections of the cemetery. The bodies were removed just in time for the rectangular oasis to host thousands of refugees in need of some bedrock following the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake that left most of the city homeless.
Clark Park was once part of a sprawling Union Army hospital during the Civil War. The area where I allowed that pesky Philadelphia sun to get the best of me is called “the bowl”. It’s actually a pond covered by a cistern before the park even opened. It was used to power factories along the nearby Schuylkill River.
Both parks’ plans, if you can even call them that, are so based on circumstance as opposed to anything even borderline comprehensive. In so many ways, these two parks seem to have been more formed by the people who come there than the governments that own them.
Perhaps my sundrenched body was merely reacting to the profound sense of place that Clark Park seems to let off to the world. A sense of place that is truly haphazard and that no comprehensive plan, newly asphalted bike trail, or century-old rowhouse could ever hope to emulate.
FYI - I’m taking a bit of a break from Dolores Park, the Mission, San Francisco, etc. For the next month, I’ll be up and down the Megalopolis - Brooklyn, Philadelphia, DC, the Finger Lakes, perhaps some other fair-minded locales. I’m taking the time to catch-up with some old friends, attend a quasi family reunion, write more, and fully embrace a reliable summer (not possible in SF). I’ll still be posting regularly because, after all, Dolores Park isn’t just a place, it’s a state of mind.
Right now, I’m sitting at the Tea Lounge in Park Slope, Brooklyn. This is definitely my NYC Cafe International, and it stays open much later. Why are there no coffee shops in SF that are open past midnight? That could be an entire bitchy blog post!
One of the more intriguing aspects of shifting cities, and especially shifting coasts, is how the typical slate of available draught beers changes. Right now I’m sipping a pint of Sixpoint Sweet Action, an amber beer brewed by the Sixpoint Craft Ales. It’s locally produced in Brooklyn’s industrial port-oriented Red Hook neighborhood. It’s nice and subtle and very cheap by New York standards. Give it a try if you find yourself wistful for a lager in the City of Churches.
Here’s a nice little clip to compliment my current New York state of mind. Woody Allen’s Manhattan encapsulates this city like no other film that I am aware of.
Though not technically in the Mission and a bit of a jaunt from DP, the Divisadero Art Walk is going on tonight. The map promo seems to show more in the way of late night drink and food specials than artist’s receptions. Regardless, it seems worth checking out, especially the $2 sangrias at the Blue Jay Cafe!
The city’s new Sunday Street 2009 SF program is coming to our neighborhood this weekend. The idea is to close off some of the neighborhood’s busiest streets and intersections to car traffic with events that promote bicycling and other forms of physical exercise. The first ciclovías were actually started in Bogotá, Colombia in 1976. Thanks to our friends over at Dolores Park View for pointing us in the direction of this awesome video of the Colombian experience.
Ciclovías have been successful in other US cities (including NYC and Chicago) for the last couple of years. The events are planned from 10 to 2 on Sunday and include some of the following intriguing options:
Sports Basement ‘Lube Fairies’- free basic bike maintenance and information (26th and Harrison)
Later on I’m planning to write a post in reaction to today’s ruling and rendering my own opinion on why propositions are inherently un-American. Until then, here’s a video reaction from Stop8.org’s Matt Baume on what today’s CA Supreme Court’s ruling means and what the next steps should be.
That’s right, the CA Supreme Court will be rendering its much anticipated Prop 8 decision on Tuesday, May 26. Many groups seem to be anticipating that the court will uphold it, and various meetups, marches, and other forms of civil disobedience are being planned throughout the state. Matt Baume at SF Appeal provides some great suggestions with how to keep up with the post-decision buzz. As an eternal optimist, I’m hoping the men and women in black do the right thing and cleanse the state of the divisive statute. The tyranny of the majority should never be used to take away any individual’s rights, so please don’t pull a Plessy v. Ferguson. History will not treat you kindly.
There has been a great deal of speculation over the last two days that the California Supreme Court will render its much anticipated Prop 8 ruling tomorrow, May 21. Apparently, this is not happening as the justices always provide 24 hours notice of their forthcoming decisions. Nice to know!
All the buzz was largely due to the SFPD delivering barricades throughout the Castro last night and the realization by many that Thursday coincides with the 30th anniversary of the White Night Riots (see video below). Also, Friday would have been Harvey Milk’s 79th birthday. I guess the justices aren’t that into irony. There are now only three more dates when the justices can rule on Prop 8’s validity: Tuesday, May 26th; Thursday, May 28th; or Monday, June 1st. Whenever it happens, I doubt the barricades will make much difference as the areas around Dolores Park and the Castro will certainly erupt in either joyous or enraged pandemonium. I’m just hoping we can avoid a 1979 repeat.
PS - No major LGBT birthdays or events happened on the aforementioned days, except perhaps some honorary mention to Stevie Nicks (May 26, 1948) and Marilyn Monroe (June 1, 1926).
UPDATE: So there’s now on ongoing debate as to whether or not the ruling was put off with an assist from Mayor Gavin Newsom. I don’t know who to believe here. In the grand scheme of things, does it matter? Not really, let’s keep our eye on the prize.
