— By Zach Perkins |
As previously reported on UA, Air is being touted by the YouTube/Vimeo communities as the soundtrack of San Francisco. Newly uncovered evidence suggests that it may also be the soundtrack of impending doom (via big fucking natural disasters).
Historians and silent film archivists have deduced from trade papers of the period, visible weather conditions in film and the wetness of the streets (ie: MAGIC) that this footage of Market Street was shot on April 14th, 1906; just four days before the great quake of 1906 struck and ruined everybody’s Spring Break.
This shit is like Shanghai at rush hour but with less car accidents, opression and MSG. The bystanders in this film obviously had Spring Break fever; CAN’T YOU SEE HOW WILD THEY’RE GOING? This was further enraged by the presence of the camera crew and their promises of “Ladies Gone Lusty” tweed jackets if beezies flashed them their knickers. Note the early 20th Century attention-whore Marina Bro at 4:35 who drunkenly zig-zags in front of the moving cable car.
A side by side comparison of this film and what Market St. looked like after the quake can be seen here. BUMMER.
Comments (5)
Can’t forget about this one! - http://vimeo.com/6337228
San Francisco in 1958, the song is “Alone In Kyoto.”
Biter
http://streetcar.org/blog/2010/04/truth-about-the-trip-down-market-stree…
Nice find! I like 2nd video in this streetcar.org link. The narrator suggests that the filmmakers actually hired the cars to loop around and continuously dart into the frame to make SF seem like it had more auto traffic. And no, I didn’t “bite” this; I’m not exactly plugged into the Market Street Railway blogging scene.
Yeah, you’re right, it’s probably just coincidence that you researched, wrote, and posted this on the same day as Mission Local and Spots Unknown, but much later in the day than they did.
http://missionlocal.org/2010/04/good-morning-mission-28/
http://spotsunknown.com/brand-new-commentary-on-famous-1906-film-of-trip…
And I’m sure the historians and silent film archivists who put research and effort into the origins of this film, and then chose to share it with the world, don’t really want you to link back to them anyway. My bad.
As his editor, he submitted this to me 3 days prior to its posting. Also, this video has been circulating for quite some time (I saw it myself when I posted the “Backwards” video), so, yea, your accusation is bullshit.
Moreover, it’s a youtube embed. Youtube embeds generally don’t get linkbacks/don’t expect them. Welcome to the internet.
(additionally, Spots Unknown takes content from our site on the regular without attribution and, hey guess what, we didn’t write the rap video so who gives a fuck?)