New signage has gone up in Civic Center Plaza that at first glance looks like it's announcing some weird collaboration between the San Francisco Giants and the San Francisco Ballet, but on closer inspection turns out to be announcing the arrival of the Civic Center Community Benefits District. According to their elaborate looking website, what looks like the numeral "1" is actually the new entity's shape on a map, with Market Street as the slanted boundary at the top.
Community Benefits Districts are formed by the additional taxation of local businesses and property owners in a San Francisco neighborhood. Even with a $7 billion budget, the City and County of San Francisco somehow can't provide such public amenities as basic beat policing, help for tourists, and graffiti removal. Last week I ran into my first "community ambassador" above, and after it was established that I actually live in the mini-district, he asked if there was anything he could do for me.
"Two things, actually," I told him. "Could you please tell that phony cripple in the wheelchair begging over there in the middle of Van Ness Avenue to stop tearing up all the shrubbery in the neighborhood looking for hidden drug stashes?"
"I'll have a word with him," the young man said.
"Secondly, if you're feeling brave, you could tell all the bicyclists riding on the sidewalks around here to get the hell off them before they mow a pedestrian down." The ambassador laughed, and said, "Nah, those bicyclists are way too tough," and on cue a bicyclist came zooming by us (not pictured) and had to suddenly swerve to avoid smashing into a pair of elderly ladies on their way to a ballet matinee.
My Domestic Partner is a member of the Visual Effects Society, which hosts occasional film screenings at the Pixar corporation in Emeryville.
In a mysterious new sight, the company's small Greek amphitheatre has become the location for a Stonehenge-like sculpture, or possibly the setting for a game or movie.
Films are shown in a small screening room situated in the main campus building above. The room has a large screen, superb sound and shooting stars on the ceiling, which makes everyone ooh and ahh before the feature begins. Plus, there are no previews or ads or any of the other dreck that movie theaters are assaulting their patrons with these days.
We went last Sunday to see the latest girlie teenage blockbuster, The Hunger Games, and it was a perfectly satisfying experience.
I am a huge fan of the "young adult" trilogy written by Suzanne Collins about a brave, intensely hormonal 15-year-old girl in a dystopian future United States, who has to battle her way through a lethal version of the "Survivor" reality TV show. This is while becoming the face of the Revolution for the oppressed provinces against the decadent Capital which starves the outliers while harvesting their natural resources and labor. And since this was written for teenage girls, there's also the soap opera over our heroine's contradictory feelings for swoony, handsome Gale and kind, stolid Peeta.
The reviews of the film that I trusted were uniformly unkind so I went with exceedingly low expectations, but was happily surprised by the superb casting, especially Jennifer Lawrence as our heroine and Josh Hutcherson who conveys Peeta's goodness without any sappiness. Even the scenery chewing Woody Harrelson is perfect for his role as alcoholic mentor.
The main problem with the movie is its depiction of the decadent capital, where masses of extras look like they've just escaped from a Boy George Culture Club video and into a fascist future out of 1984. Instead of being disturbing, it just looks silly. The narrative isn't dumb, though, and its injection of a serious antiwar message in a wildly violent action movie for teenagers is a welcome relief. George Lucas and the boys down at Electronic Arts (just picked the worst company in America) are all about shooting and blowing things up, so this is about the only counterweight right now in popular culture. No wonder it hit a nerve.
A block away from the Falun Gong meditation on Saturday at Civic Center, there was another mostly elderly Chinese American scrum on Ninth Street.
They were assembled for the weekly free food giveaway at the Quaker Meeting House between Market and Mission Streets, where packaged groceries are given away to the needy.
I asked the gentleman above why there were large gaps in the line and he explained that lottery numbers were given out earlier in the morning in an attempt to dissuade people from queueing up at 6AM, which was a previous problem.
Ticket holders are instructed to return at 11:45 AM for the noon giveaway, and asked not to smoke, be violent, be a minor, or save places in the line for others.
What this means in effect is that the scene turns into an outdoor meeting place for friends and relatives, as you can see above. The fact that some of the people in line turn around and sell the free groceries on Market and Seventh Streets two blocks away doesn't seem to be an issue. The bigger problem is the weekly Saturday morning crowding of the sidewalk, which is something of a challenge to wade through, but what the hell, San Francisco is a city.
A monthly public ritual has begun over the last year in Civic Center Plaza, with adherents of the new religion, Falun Gong, performing meditative exercises together.
The Falun Gong cult/religion began in the early 1990s, and was subsequently repressed by the Communist Party in China. Its founder and spiritual leader, Li Hongzhi, is currently headquartered in New York City, and the revolution is on to make it a worldwide movement, which has essentially already happened. There's a mostly complimentary Wikipedia account here, the anticult crusader Rick A. Ross' encyclopedia of information here, and the Falun Gong website here.
Being a born and raised coastal Californian, I have lived among every 20th century religious cult imaginable, from the Theosophists to the Hare Krishnas to Born-Again Jesus Freaks to Moonies, among many others.
What most interests me and distinguishes this movement from every other religious craze to wash up on California's shores is that the majority of people I see in San Francisco involved with this group are elderly Chinese women. That is genuinely new.
