If you ever find yourself having to ride CalTrain on the Peninsula for work, I can't think of a better book to read than "River of Shadows," Rebecca Solnit's 2003 meditation on the pioneering English/Californian photographer Eadweard Muybridge. The book also contains a concise history of Muybridge's partner in "motion studies," the railroad robber baron Leland Stanford. Riding on the 19th century relic that is CalTrain you can still almost feel the hook of that old monster.
I finished the book today, and its summing up of present-day Silicon Valley rang true:
"Muybridge pursued the transformation of bodies and places into representations, representations that in some ways fed that unslaked desire for landscape, geography, beauty, embodiment, and the life of the senses, but Stanford, who hammered the Golden Spike, pursued the annihilation of time and space without mercy, without misgivings, without deference to what might be lost, and this might be the difference between Hollywood and Silicon Valley."
"Hollywood would become the center of the world of movies, while Silicon Valley is the center of the world of information technology, and in the way these two institutions dominate the world one can say California is the center of the contemporary world, but of a world in which time and space have been annihilated, a world that is in some obscure way so disembodied, dislocated and dematerialized that the very idea of a center is perplexing."
The Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg has also been a constant artistic reference in my month-long sojourn among the Peninsula digerati, "Scanners" in particular, with its scary office parks filled with Faustian characters.
According to a Wikipedia account, "The first Earth Day proclamation was issued by San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto on March 21, 1970. Celebrations were held in various cities, such as San Francisco and in Davis, California with a multi-day street party."
31 years later, a celebration was held a day after Official Earth Day in the Civic Center Plaza named after Joseph Alioto.
At the main stage, there was a dapper MC introducing bands and speakers such as the legendary 81-year-old co-founder of the United Farm Workers Union, Dolores Huerta (below).
Her history in San Francisco includes being brutalized by the San Francisco Police Department: "In September 1988 in front of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, Huerta was severely beaten by San Francisco Police officers during a peaceful and lawful protest of the policies/platform of then-candidate for president George H.W. Bush. The baton-beating caused significant internal injuries to her torso, resulting in several broken ribs and necessitating the removal of her spleen in emergency surgery. The beating was caught on videotape and broadcast widely on local television news, including the clear ramming of the butt end of a baton into Huerta's torso by one of the helmeted officers. Later, Huerta won a large judgment against the SFPD and the City of San Francisco, the proceeds of which were used in benefit of farm workers."
There were plenty of food vendors selling juices...
...organic sweets...
...and vegetarian food truck specials.
Recycling bins were set up everywhere...
...which struck a few citizens as fish in a barrel.
Episode 3 of FotoTales will be broadcast in about 15 minutes at 7:30 PM on San Francisco's Comcast cable TV channel 29. What's cooler is that it's going to be livestreamed over the internet from the Bay Area Video Coalition website. Click here to get there.
This episode involves a bad performance of Haydn's "The Creation" at the San Francisco Symphony, the Cherry Blossom Festival parade, a Giants game at the brand-new Pac Bell Park, and a showing of the Maria Montez camp classic "Cobra Woman" as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival. This was all ten years ago, by the way, but time has a way of recycling.
When the episode is archived, I'll post an updated link.
Update: They're playing the wrong episode, #5 instead of #3. It's not that complicated, but getting the series broadcast correctly seems to be beyond BAVC's abilities at this particular moment.
Across the plaza at Grove and Larkin, another stage had been set up for a Woman's Space with the Gaia stage hosting various female performers.
