Video

The Apartment Beyond Dolores Park's Owl Window

Up until today, I cannot say I ever really though anything of windows full of collectibles.  For example, I've always figured that maintaining “The Owl Window” on 18th and Dolores was merely a hobby of a creative individual.  However, SF Secrets takes us inside the apartment of George Heymont, also know as Mr. Owl Man of Dolores Park.  What's inside?  Walls of owls (of course), lots of photos of cocks, a poster from the “First Annual Hooker's Convention,” and some crazy stories surround sex, drugs, the eyes of owls, and people running naked across Dolores Street in fear.  While the tale doesn't end there, I don't want to spoil too much of the fun for you.

So, what's the person behind Valencia & 18th's “Troll Window” like?  Does their story involve prostitution, fetish porn, and maybe an unusual obsession with nocturnal creatures?  Also, is there some supernatural force on 18th that drives people to make art windows?

We all have so much to learn.

(SF Secrets)

San Francisco Motorcycle Cops Trained as Daredevils

Ocean Beach Bulletin, my preferred source for news about sand, hips us to this 1912 newsreel featuring an SFPD motorcycle unit that leaps from their bikes into the windows of speeding vehicles as their bikes crash into the sand dunes.  Why were these badasses doing such a thing?  Well, back in the day, the Great Highway was the local drag racing strip, which SFPD was clearly not thrilled about.  OBB explains:

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Great Highway was a popular place for teens to drag race, even if the winner often met a waiting SFPD squad car just past the finish line at Lincoln Way or Sloat Boulevard. Racing began to fade away after the Golden Gate National Recreation Area took over Ocean Beach in the 1970s. When the Great Highway received a shoreline makeover in the early 1990s with a median strip, walking paths, stoplights and crosswalks, dragging for pink slips was gone for good. At least I hope it’s gone, now that I am a sober man of middle years who regrets the reckless ways of his youth.

Mid-century teenagers didn’t invent speeding on the Great Highway. Joy riders on the scenic road were a recognized nuisance from the early 1900s. In 1912, the city’s Police Commission responded by forming a 30-officer motorcycle squad just to patrol Golden Gate Park and Ocean Beach. The officers invented some daring tactics to deal with speeders, as this old newsreel demonstrates.

Should SFPD revive this mayhem fleet?  Have them start tackling messengers as they bomb through red lights during alleycats?  Perhaps leap from their bike when an unsuspecting hipster cracks open a Tecate in Dolores?  I think the answer is an easy yes.

(link)

Paul Notzold Brings San Francisco Poetry to Life

If you walked past the lovely intersection of Seventh and Market last night, you might have stumbled across opening night of Paul Notzold's video poetry installation, “Storylines.”  The videos feature observational poetry written by students of the San Francisco Writers Corp. overlaid onto short clips magnifying the highlights of various locations in the city, especially in the mid-Market area.

An interview posted on the Arts Commission's blog gives insight as to the origins of the installation's title:

It’s a play on the term songlines—the native Australian practice of mapping paths by creating songs about observing natural landmarks so you can remember them and pass them down to direct others. In this piece, the writer’s content is about observing the paths that a person’s life may take.

The videos are 60ft tall and will be shown for 6 months, so I doubt you'll have a difficult time finding it.  But if you do have trouble, just follow the mumbling man down Market.  In the meantime, here's some video:

  

(photo by the SF Arts Commission)

San Francisco's Arts Centers Unite Against Censorship, But Where's the SFMOMA?

On December 1 (World AIDS day of all days), this 1987 film piece, A Fire in My Belly by the artist David Wojnarowicz (who died of AIDS) was removed from the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery exhibition entitled Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. The publicly funded Smithsonian Institution was politically bullied by Catholic League president William Donahue, who called the film “hate speech” when he misinterpreted a shot of ants crawling on a crucified Christ as anti-Catholic. On December 3rd, on behalf of the estate of David Wojnarowicz, P.P.O.W. Gallery released an official statement addressing this controversy in order to illuminate the artists original intentions. The statement reads:

In a 1989 interview Wojnarowicz spoke about the role of animals as symbolic imagery in his work, stating “Animals allow us to view certain things that we wouldn't allow ourselves to see in regard to human activity. In the Mexican photographs with the coins and the clock and the gun and the Christ figure and all that, I used the ants as a metaphor for society because the social structure of the ant world is parallel to ours.”

Further, adding more hate than Serg's war against burritos are top GOP House members John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Eric Cantor (R-VA), who threatened the Smithsonian Institution's finances by cowardly flexing their political muscles if the Institution did not remove the film from the exhibition. Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said, “Smithsonian officials should either acknowledge the mistake and correct it, or be prepared to face tough scrutiny beginning in January when the new majority in the House moves [in].”. Cantor, the #2 Republican in the House and the #1 little bitch labeled the exhibit “an obvious attempt to offend Christians during the Christmas season.” Unbeknownst to Cantor, he is actually offending every single gay and straight allied person in America by furthering the hatred and misinterpretation of Wojnarowicz's work.

Seems like a lot of bah humbugs going on from the right-wing these days, and the political censorship of the freedom of speech/expression must be stopped. Starting this Friday night, two arts organizations in San Francisco will join the alliance of museums and arts centers around the country for a national protest over the removal of Wojnarowicz's A Fire in My Belly. SF Camerawork and the Queer Cultural Center will present a 7 p.m. screening of the film, followed by a presentation by art historian, writer, and activist Robert Atkins. Atkins will then provide historical background concerning political censorship and lead a panel discussion that will include queer activists, scholars, and artists. The discussion will culminate with Jonathan D. Katz, curator of Hide/Seek, joining the discussion from New York via Skype. The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts will also screen this film Friday night continuously from 11pm until 2am in YBCA's Screening Room.

David Wojnarowicz, Untitled,1988-89, drawing/ gelatin silver print and acrylic on paper

But what is the SFMOMA doing to acknowledge their support of Wojnarowic's work as the only museum in San Francisco to own a work by the artist in their permanent collection? On Tuesday I was at the SFMOMA when I came across an exhibition entitled, The More Things Change, which opened just 10 days before Hide/Seek. The exhibition's mission statement reads, “revealing the museum's collection as a seismograph of shifts in contemporary culture, this continually evolving exhibition considers how the past persists in the present and how art engages with the world at large.” The work seen above is the Wojnarowicz from SFMOMA'S collection. Untitled is a piece that depicts a film still of a Mexican man missing the bottom half of his legs and the image on the right of the piece is a small drawing that Wojnarowicz did of legs to give to the man. Most of the footage in A Fire in My Belly was shot in Mexico on a trip Wojnarowicz took there, and it has been confirmed by the people of P.P.O.W. Gallery who represent the estate of Wojnarowicz that the still in Untitled was most likely from that time in Mexico.  I realize that the goal of The More Things Change is to use works made in the last decade, however, what better way to acknowledge the fact that their collection really does persist in the present and engages with the world at large than by adding Untitled to that continually evovling exhibiton? What about placing that piece in the show accompanied by A Fire in My Belly to contextualize the works importance with a statement by the curators explaining why Wojnarowicz is relevant to the present as his work is once again in the spotlight of a major national debate?

I'm extremely happy to see so much support from the San Francisco community against the censorship of artistic expression in the United States, but SFMOMA can do better. If you cannot make either of the screenings this weekend, you can watch the vimeo of A Fire in My Belly at the top of this post.

  • UPDATE: SFMOMA is set to provide the public with a free screening of A Fire in My Belly on Tuesday, January 4th at 5:30pm with a discussion to be held directly after. 

To learn more about this work, the artist, and the controversy surrounding the film and exhibition please check out the links provided below:

Halloween 2010 Redux

While on the subject of people in costume, be sure to check out Daniel Jarvis's slightly untimely video about this year's Halloween in SF.  It's packed full of fun stuff like a human jellyfish (above), a lightsaber duel on Divis, zombies making out, a Teletubby that wants to poison you, and a shark that looks like she's sexually attracted to a parking meter.  Check it:

Halloween SF 2010 from daniel jarvis on Vimeo.

A Man in a Burrito Costume Wants YOU to Donate to Killing My Lobster

It's December, which means it is the time of the year in which every non-profit not just wants your money, but REALLY wants your money.  Well, San Francisco-based comedy troupe/comedy school Killing My Lobster (makers of the acclaimed Coffee Wars, Man Vs. Wild: Berkeley, and Oakland! shorts) also REALLY wants your money.  Only, instead of showing you pictures of starving children, meth addicts, and puppies, their call for donations is full of costumed individuals.  What do they want the money for?  Office Space.  Equipment rentals.  And more costumes, of course.

Donate, if you're so inclined.

The All-Seeing Eye of Bay Shore

Rimmed with fire, watchful and intent, the neon slit is a window into nothing. From high upon some great warehouse next to Jack in the Box there stabs southeast a rainbow flame, the flicker of which strikes acid flashbacks into all caught within its gaze. 

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JJ9KLk9_SU&fmt=35 for ye of RSS. Music by Four Tet]

The locals no not from whence it came, but said it has hung above the 300 block of Bayshore Blvd between Cortland and Oakdale for months. Venture forth into this otherwise forgotten district, and let the lights irradiate.

KQED's Spark! Explores Mission Murals

Do yourself and watch the short documentary on Mission art embedded below.  I won't spoil too much of the short, but it's a great survey of Mission art, covering the “Urban Rats” of the 1980s, the repeated destruction of the Rachel Corrie segment of the 22nd activist tribute mural, the effects of gentrification (what piece on the Mission would be complete without that?!), Precita Eyes, and various alleys.  For the folks who hate the Marina/white people, one UC Santa Cruz professor even takes a big, steamy dump on both caucasians and the Marina, slamming “wealthy white people,” as they lack “cultural legacies.”  Ohhhh shit.

Update: Apparently this originally aired in May, but it's new to me.

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