Below the bluffs of a decomissioned U.S. military base...
...on a set of piers in the Marina fronting San Francisco Bay...
...the Fort Mason Center has been a bustling arts center since the 1970s.
There are museums, an expensive vegetarian restaurant, large pavilions for exhibitions, and a number of small theaters, including the Magic Theatre, a starry 40-year-old institution that has included world premieres by Sam Shepard among many others.
This weekend there are three more performances of "ZEN" by the Boxcar Theatre troupe, which I highly recommend.
Best of all, the performances are free to the public, and at the door you receive a rock with ZEN inscribed on it in lieu of a ticket.
The Boxcar Theatre (click here for their website) is a new company headed by a young, burly Chicago guy, Nick A. Olivero, and its first show last year at the Fringe Festival, "21/One," managed to win "Best of the Fest" awards and generally blow everyone away.
They are reprising a completely new version of the piece this September at the Fringe Festival, except instead of being trapped in a black box theater in the Tenderloin, the audience will be trapped in a Mexican bus with a "bachelorette party from hell."
Personally, I can't wait.
Though "ZEN" wasn't really my cup of dramaturgical tea, the production itself is extraordinarily simple and beautiful...
...with uniformly good acting, imaginative lighting, and lovely costumes by Lisa Lutkenhouse.
The piece starts with a startling use of the theatre, with the back door looking out onto the bay swung wide open, as "The Old Man" starts the dialogue, telling us what he knows and doesn't know.
There is plenty of whimsy, but it never gets cute, precious, or self-referential, which is quite an achievement.
Check it out if you can (Friday or Saturday at 8PM, Sunday at 2PM). This is a very interesting troupe.
At the Ferry Building on "Spare The Air" Monday, we prayed that the overloaded craft to Sausalito didn't sink like one of those Philippine ferryboats you read about on page B-20 of major newspapers.
The rehabilitated and retrofitted Ferry Building, with its many pricey gourmet food offerings, can often look a bit like a ghost town on weekdays, but on Monday the place was hopping.
The place seems to be finally coming into its own as a public square.
At about 2:30 PM, there was a sudden entrance into the complex of media, politicians and bodyguards.
Mayor Gavin Newsom was conducting a photo-op tour with the Mayor of Chicago, Richard E. Daley, Jr., son of the infamous old ward boss himself.
Newsom is a master at photo-ops and interacting with crowds, so he stopped to talk to a little girl...
...and then to an aggrieved woman who needed something, which he referred to one of his staff.
On a day where the temperature was in the 80's, and just about everybody was in shorts and T-shirts, it was amusing to see this phalanx of Men in Black Suits...
...looking like traditional gangsters.
Frank Chu, in the right foreground in the photo above, had managed to make it from the Israeli consulate over to the Ferry Building.
He can smell unexposed video better than any person in San Francisco...
...other than Mayor Gavin Newsom.
After their quick tour of the interior, the Men in Black went outside and speechified a bit in front of the temporary Burning Man sculpture, "Passage."
Note to Leslie at the Black Rock Arts Foundation: You should be asking for more arts grant money from the mayor, since he keeps using your pieces as major photo props.
Monday was the fourth official "Spare The Air Day" where, according to some set of federal indexes, the Bay Area can declare a potentially terrible air pollution problem some days in advance, and all of Bay Area public transportation is free to the public in order to encourage them to get out of their cars.
Unfortunately, transportation bureaucrats seem to be terrible at planning for special occasions, so the well-intentioned "Spare The Air" days are often fraught with unintended consequences.
For example, you would think there would be extra buses set up by Muni for the large crowds on July 4th who go to Crissy Field to watch fireworks, but of course you would be wrong. They run on a reduced "Holiday" schedule instead, and thousands of people are left trudging up Van Ness Avenue helplessly.
Or at the end of June's Gay Pride Parade Day, which hundreds of thousands of people attend, you would imagine Muni might put on a few special trains underground running up and down Market Street to the Castro District, but again you would be wrong. They run on reduced "Sunday" service and there are thousands of people who just give up and either walk or or try to find an elusive cab.
The Golden Gate ferry boat services from Sausalito and Larkspur to San Francisco are used by quite a few Monday through Friday commuters, but on "Spare The Air" days, there are quite a few commuters who are ready to throw in the towel.
According to an amusing letter that was in the "Chronicle" and on the internet from a Sausalito commuter, he was ready to pull out his gas-guzzling car for a drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, because the local daytrippers and tourists drawn to the ferries by the promise of a free boat ride were making it impossible for him to use those same ferries as transportation to work.
Experiencing the mob first hand, I can see his point.
In fact, the Vallejo and Oakland/Alameda ferry services refused to be part of the "free fare" service this time because it had so screwed up their operations the previous three "Spare The Air" days, and they had never been reimbursed by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission for their extra boats and staff which they had actually supplied.
According to Chuck Squatriglia at the "San Francisco Chronicle" (click here for full article):
Matt Naclerio, Alameda's director of public works, said the agency didn't learn of the Spare the Air designation until late Sunday afternoon and did not have time to add ferries and crews to handle extra riders. The agency spent $15,000 on such matters during the last previous Spare the Air days. Those costs are not reimbursed by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Naclerio said.
"We just can't afford that," he said, adding that the ferry service had told the MTC it could not continue participating in the Spare the Air program because of the cost involved. "We apologize for the confusion. MTC is aware of our issue and the fact that we couldn't continue."
$15,000 is not that much money, and in truth, luring people to public transportation with inexpensive fares is good for everyone and their lungs.
Plus, a cheap boat ride is a wonderful way to improve everybody's quality of life.
Frankly, I can't think of a better use of my tax dollars. Please buy more boats and hire more crew.
On Monday the 17th, there was yet another protest in front of the Israeli consulate, which is housed in the heart of the financial district, in a skyscraper on Montgomery Street beetween California and Sacramento next door to Wells Fargo's corporate headquarters.
Usually, the police put up metal barricades along the one-block stretch, and the anti-Zionist protestors set up shop on one side of Montgomery...
...while the pro-Zionist counterprotestors stand on the other side of the street.
Usually, they just stand there and shout epithets at each other for an hour.
Today was blessedly different, however.
Firstly, most of the protestors against Israel's actions were explicitly Jewish organizations, such as "Jewish Voice for Peace" (click here to get to their website).
I heard a couple of "self-hating Jews" epithets from the other side of the street...
...but the anti-semitism cudgel was effectively taken out of the counterprotestors' hands.
Secondly, there was no stupid chanting of slogans.
Instead, there was a band playing beautiful, mostly minor key music...
...that conveyed a jaunty hope and sadness at the same time.
They were also just a plain joy to listen to.
Frank Chu (click here for his Wikipedia bio) was there with his own signage...
...and of course it goes without saying that the entire event was grotesquely overpoliced by the San Francisco Police Department because there is no real crime in this city.
