Here’s a scene from this morning’s walk through Pacific Heights to our girl’s summer camp. Ahh, I love a lovely morning walk in the San Francisco fog at the top of the city. My daughter is a budding cinematographer, and when we encountered this wildlife, I was glad she had insisted on bringing the Flip video camera.
“It’s not a rat,” I say authoritatively, although I really have no idea. My daughter thinks it’s cute and is disappointed that I ignore her when she insists the rat likes her. Sorry honey. But what IS this?
I was trying to figure out what about last Saturday’s Lit Crawl particularly warmed my heart, and it hit me this morning like a stream of light through the sun down 280 (which if you think about it, makes it clear I wasn’t actually reading at the Lit Crawl).
As I look forward to attending the Web 2.0 Summit tomorrow through Friday in San Francisco, my community, work, and the different roads and travails in between are again on my mind (not like they’re never not on my mind). Those of us who already lived here in the mid-to-late ’90s of the last millenium remember names like Kozmo, Webvan, Bigstep, and slogans like “because pets can’t drive.” Those of us who lived in the Mission district in San Francisco remember the schizophrenia of the times and the huge influx of people striking for a new gold rush. These people could bring excitement and ideas, but they often left frighteningly quickly and with waste in their wake.
In just one of many similar scenarios, Bigstep took over a huge building down at 22nd and Mission. Artists and teachers were evicted, presumably to the outskirts of civilization, because artists and teachers didn’t earn the mint for living there now. Till recently this exodus hasn’t been a memory, but rather a reality.
I don’t know when or if it started to feel like a memory for most, but on Saturday night, the “death of the Mission” was far from my mind. Oceans of people washed down Valencia, Mission, and Guerrero from one pub (or laundromat) to the next and crammed in and on top of every nook and cranny (or agitator) to hear people reading. Reading! Literature, poetry, fiction, travel writing, rock writing were all alive and well and thriving with absolutely masses of people. Only this morning, looking back, did it make me feel like we’ve finally come out, and back into some kind of goodness again.
As often as possible and minimally two days a week, I work from home in San Francisco. I believe this quite literally saves my life. In spite of my occasional encounters with Muni on these days.
I know it’s a cheap shot to complain about Muni, but I just have to get it out of my system and then I’ll be done. I met a friend down at the ferry plaza for lunch and stepped into one of the longest Muni fiascos I can remember. I say this with some measure of restraint, since I know Muni is capable of killing and as far as I know there’s been none of that today. But “something happened to some computer somewhere” and the railways underground have been reduced to a crawl – if they are even running at all.
Note that the news article recommends taking buses or streetcars: should YOU, dear reader, be blessed with reading this before commute hour this evening, heed NOT the scant information in that article! I say that, and note that I always take streetcars whenever I can – I love the friendly colors of the F Market and I generally prefer being above ground. Today, however, these colors make me ill. Note that on days when there is “something wrong in the tunnel,” anything that rolls and is run by Muni above ground is so packed that you don’t want to approach it. This is where I was for most of an hour returning from lunch just now.
Somewhere around Van Ness on the way down and at the point where the orange car I was on resembled a giant, stuffed sardine can, another driver hopped on (I think… I couldn’t see) and started yelling at everyone: “Get back! Get all the way back!” he yelled, “This is MY car now; get back!” For a brief instant, I imagined that terrorists had taken over the car and were going to hijack it; then I considered that it was Muni and why would anyone want to take over Muni? My windows had bars on them so I couldn’t even contemplate breaking out of the car. A claustrophobe’s nightmare, pretty much.
In the meantime, ambulances and firetrucks are inexplicably careening up and down the tracks, sometimes stopping directly in the path of the train, for occasionally no apparent reason.
But lunch was great and the ferry plaza was as gorgeous as always. Only then I had to get back home.
And with all that, there’s no question at all in my mind that I’d rather be stuck on Muni (or better, walking home in San Francisco) than stuck on highway 280 or stuck in traffic pretty much anywhere.