Attentive readers of this blog may recall a post in which I compared San Francisco with New York and London and gave a sort of Jungian interpretation of the character of all three. (I was looking at New York from a distance only, as I've spent little time there.) What I said about San Francisco was that it was introverted and hard to know and that it felt claustrophobic. While I don't actually disagree with this assessment after spending a few days there earlier this week, I felt my old fondness for the city returning even before I got there.
My feelings are caught up in a persistent sadness hanging over my last couple of visits and the death of a friend who lived there. Nevertheless (and quite surprisingly to me), I found the old San Francisco magic starting to exert its influence in the soft air and misty dampness that emerged somewhere around Vallejo, unmistakable harbingers of the city. I had too many happy associations with visits past to be able to deny the anticipation this created, and it wasn't even destroyed by the yellow ticket I got for not having enough cash for the toll. (Here's a hint, though, to the bridge authority: credit cards--embrace them. I'm not sure why you remain seemingly alone in taking cash only. I thought even Popsicle stands took credit cards these days.)
I had been in touch with an old friend before arriving but had no place to stay on my first night. I made my way through construction- and pedestrian-clogged downtown streets out to the avenues, where I managed to find a parking spot and a Starbucks where I could plug in and investigate the possibility of hostels and tourist hotels. I found a number of places, some with suspiciously low prices (if they were genuine) and was also considering 24-hour coffeehouses if worse came to worst. I was getting up to leave when someone brushed almost imperceptibly against me; I turned around and gave my signature dirty look to the gal who did it. I felt rage rising up and considered whether a verbal response was called for (I decided it wasn't because that would have required me to actually talk to the person, which may have been her ulterior motive, for all I know). Let it pass.
I began to feel the "I hate San Francisco" part of me taking ascendancy, so I decided to drive out of the city and try to find a low-cost chain hotel. That might or might not have worked even if the Silicon Valley weren't presently experiencing a second-wave dot.com boom (with prices to match) and even if there weren't some sort of classic car show taking place in Pebble Beach that apparently justified tripling hotel prices as far away as Morgan Hill. However, it didn't work, much to the surprise of more than one hotel clerk who seemed surprised that I didn't consider $140 a bargain for a tired and threadbare hotel right off the interstate. Instead, I ended up at a 24-hour Denny's near San Jose, drinking coffee, having breakfast, and thinking about the unlikely but undeniably true chain of events that had led to precisely that moment.
Back in San Francisco as dawn was breaking, I weathered the strangeness of the early morning crowd at Starbucks on Fillmore, played "move the car when the two-hour free parking expires," took a brief catnap while parked on Clay Street in Pacific Heights, and discovered how difficult it is these days to find true rock and roll on the radio in the City. The latter circumstance seemed so unlikely that I was considering asking for help in finding a rock station if only a knowledgeable-looking person would happen along. Maybe Pac Heights wasn't the best place for it, as I saw very few people who looked like they ever listened to rock music, most of them being either elderly or otherwise lacking in anything remotely resembling a rock 'n' roll vibe. Such is San Francisco in the year 2017, where the Summer of Love is almost as if it never happened, depending on how hard you squint.
What San Francisco hasn't lost is a certain psychedelic quality, which requires no mind-altering drugs but is present in the very air (though I don't know: perhaps there is something in the water that alters the behavior of residents over time?). I told my friend that it was very noticeable, in this introverted city, how many pedestrians made eye contact with you over the course of a day; I was wondering if there had been some major catastrophe in the news that I hadn't heard about that was causing people to eye one another closely, but if there was a precipitating event, I never found what it was. I would have enjoyed my walks better if not for this peculiar and unnatural watchfulness, but I wasn't altogether surprised, since San Francisco seemed altered in some indefinable way the last couple of times I was there. I can't account for it, but I do not think it a change for the better.
I found the spirit of the old San Francisco coming on me at odd moments, as if to prove that, yes, the heart of the city is still beating somewhere, hidden away in some obscure corner or shabby coffeehouse. Stopped in traffic, I would look up and see an elegant, many-turreted Victorian with a broad front and crisp paint and think, "Yes, I could live there." Searching for a parking spot, I would top a hill and glimpse a sudden view of the bay, a lovely vista that was free for the asking and almost made the frustrating parking game worthwhile.
Returning from an excursion to Marin, I would see the gigantic towers of the Golden Gate bridge, stately and serene in the golden afternoon light, framed by hills--an enormity almost too much to absorb, as if a race of Titans (instead of mere men) had placed it there as a token of might. I would think, looking out at the ocean as we crossed the bridge, "I don't know what I'll be doing a week from now, but I'm going to hold this image in my mind as a reminder of where I was today." Glancing down a side street on the way in from the Sunset district, I would encounter an enchanting view of a street of cozy houses with a leafy burst of fall color, a quiet street that whispered, at least in my mind, an invitation to come back and walk around some time.
Peering up while stopped at a light, I would see a white curtain blowing in the breeze at an open bay window, a homey and domestic sight in hyper-sophisticated San Francisco that suddenly made me wish it was my window and that I was returning to it after an ordinary work day. I would see how green the grass was in the city parks, catch sight of a laughing child in its parent's arms, get a peek of a morning side street full of cafes in the Financial District, read a sign for a show at the de Young and wish I had the time and money to attend, and pass a corner apartment building with an empty lobby and plate glass windows that was gorgeous as it was but seemed the perfect spot for a tiny cafe.
I was sorry to leave San Francisco, despite the strangeness that hangs over it, because it is a place that manages to maintain its beauty in spite of whatever miasma may be clinging to it. I saw many streets, buildings, quarters, and corners that seemed to call out for further exploration, and I hope to be able to accomplish this some time. I don't know if I could ever live there permanently, and I don't know if I could be happy there, but I could spend some time wandering around, looking here and there, trying to avoid the noise while letting the city itself, the actual city, speak to me. If L.A. is a prehistoric creature disguised as a trendy starlet, a nymph, San Francisco is a cultured dowager hidden behind the face of a computer geek, a graceful lady currently incarnated in a techie, dot.com persona. She may be acquainted with sailors and robber barons, but even earthquakes can't dislodge her.
Showing posts with label San Francisco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label San Francisco. Show all posts
Sunday, August 20, 2017
Friday, October 14, 2016
The Soul and Three Cities
Last night, I picked up a book I've had for a while on psyche and the life of cities. I read two or three chapters some time ago and laid it aside; last night it happened to be sitting in a pile of books near at hand when I was looking for something to read. I started with the chapter on San Francisco, which I apparently hadn't gotten to before, since none of it seemed familiar. I picked the chapter out of curiosity, since I've visited the city a number of times and wanted to see what the author, a long-time resident and psychoanalyst, had to say about it.
A recent incident helped prompt my curiosity. I sometimes look at apartments and places to live in other cities, just for fun; I like to see how much things cost and to consider possibilities. I rarely look at San Francisco, but one night, in an idle moment, I did a search for apartments in an area of the city that I rather like. I did the search, pulled up some results, and looked at a couple of apartments; I was looking at one with a lovely view of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge when I was hit by a feeling of claustrophobia that nearly amounted to revulsion. I had the sudden conviction that I couldn't see myself ever living in San Francisco, and the strange thing was how strong the feeling was.
The author of the San Francisco essay confirmed my feeling rather than dissuading me from it, despite the fact that he obviously loves his city. His essay suggested to me that it might be hard to feel grounded in San Francisco, that the distance between people in that city of people in pursuit of themselves could make meaningful connections difficult. The writer describes an unusually high degree of self-preoccupation there, not that this is necessarily a bad thing. It may be unavoidable for the people who are drawn to live there, since the city's famous openness, as he tells it, almost demands that residents make a project of their individuality. It left me feeling, though, that San Francisco might be quite a lonely place, and a tenuous one, too.
I agree with the author that San Francisco is lovely to visit and has great physical charm; I also agree with his observation that the city probably doesn't reveal its inner life readily to a visitor. You could go to San Francisco for a week or 10 days and enjoy every minute of it as a tourist, but what you're seeing tells you very little about what it would be like to live there. This is true to some degree of most places, I think, but perhaps even more so of San Francisco. The author attributes this to a high degree of introversion among its residents, something a casual visitor wouldn't be likely to notice.
After the San Francisco chapter, I turned to the section on London, another city I have spent time in. It was, oddly, rather a relief to turn to this chapter, though the author's designation of the color red as the city's signature color, a provocative idea to start with, got to the heart of something I noticed when I was there. One of the fascinating things about London, as he points out, is the way its long history is layered so visibly in its buildings, layout, monuments, and place names. He pointed to the double nature of the color red, emblematic of life and vitality but also of death, a reminder of the many centuries of struggle and upheaval the city has endured.
I remember my long-ago first visit to London's Westminster Hall and the almost physical feeling of the weight of years that hit me while I was standing inside. I'd never had a sensation like that before, a feeling of being buried under layers of history, as if all the events that had ever taken place were still present in the room. It wasn't a pleasant feeling and was actually rather frightening, though that was the only time I really experienced it that way. As I got used to finding my way around, I was increasingly fascinated by the way pieces of the past were embedded in the present, sometimes subtly, so that you had to know they were there--a piece of Roman wall visible through the window of a basement, for instance, if you bent your head and looked.
After reading the London chapter last night, I found myself thinking: if I had to choose whether to spend six months in San Francisco or six months in London, which would it be? London appealed to me more. Somehow, London seems more definite and less ghostly to me than San Francisco does, strange though it may seem to say it. Even as an American, I think I could find my way around London more easily than I could around the Bay Area, which says more about me, of course, than it does about the merits of either place. I'm not saying the same thing would or should be true of anyone else.
This afternoon, I read the book's chapter on New York City, a place with which I have very little personal experience. I used to find the idea of New York positively overwhelming, but lately I've begun to feel that I wish I knew the city better. Maybe sometime I'll get the chance. In any event, I learned more about New York, its history, and its layout (which has always been a source of complete mystification to me) in just two hours than I've managed to pick up in decades of hearing about it and seeing it on television and in the movies. The author of the piece made no assumptions, as others sometimes do, about a reader's prior knowledge of the city, providing not only a pictorial overview but also a succinct summation of history and geography that helped give it shape in my mind.
I'm not sure why I've always been content to have such a pleasantly vague notion of New York, to hear about Central Park, Greenwich Village, the Hudson River, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and the Lower East Side without really having any idea of how they relate to one another. Curiosity finally seems to have kicked in, perhaps due in part to the many novels I've read in recent years that have managed to convey some sense of the city's allure, leading me to think that, while it's a tough place, it has its own magic. Why I have derived such a feeling for the city from reading fiction rather from seeing it in movies or on TV is a bit of a mystery. I do think that since 9/11, many Americans have developed a more protective feeling toward New York. The psychic wound created there still affects us all, and that may be another reason I feel drawn to the city.
After reading about New York, I posed myself another choice: "OK, what if you had to choose between San Francisco and New York?" A very interesting psychic exercise, to be sure, because there was a time I never would have said this (or even thought it), but New York appealed to me more. I wouldn't go so far as to say I can picture myself as a New Yorker, but if I had to choose a place for a longish visit, I'd pick New York. How strange that hard-edged, fast-paced New York should end up seeming more human to me than San Francisco, swathed in its fogs and soft hills, but that does seem to be the case. Again, this isn't a statement of absolute value but rather a reflection of a psychic shift on my part.
If you're interested in reading about the ways Jungian analysts describe the psychic life of their cities, the book I've been referring to is Psyche & the City: A Soul's Guide to the Modern Metropolis, edited by Thomas Singer. You may agree or disagree with the way a particular writer sees things, but Jungians are unusually sensitive to the inner life, distinctive rhythms, and peculiarities that give a place character, and this is reflected in their writing. Their intimate knowledge of the cities they live in may provide insight (or rebuttal) for experiences you've had as a visitor (or even as a resident) but couldn't quite explain. I'm still in shock over the way my psyche has rejected San Francisco (the home, after all, of Ghirardelli Chocolate--think about it!), but John Beebe's chapter on the city helped me to see some of the reasons why this may have happened.
A recent incident helped prompt my curiosity. I sometimes look at apartments and places to live in other cities, just for fun; I like to see how much things cost and to consider possibilities. I rarely look at San Francisco, but one night, in an idle moment, I did a search for apartments in an area of the city that I rather like. I did the search, pulled up some results, and looked at a couple of apartments; I was looking at one with a lovely view of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge when I was hit by a feeling of claustrophobia that nearly amounted to revulsion. I had the sudden conviction that I couldn't see myself ever living in San Francisco, and the strange thing was how strong the feeling was.
The author of the San Francisco essay confirmed my feeling rather than dissuading me from it, despite the fact that he obviously loves his city. His essay suggested to me that it might be hard to feel grounded in San Francisco, that the distance between people in that city of people in pursuit of themselves could make meaningful connections difficult. The writer describes an unusually high degree of self-preoccupation there, not that this is necessarily a bad thing. It may be unavoidable for the people who are drawn to live there, since the city's famous openness, as he tells it, almost demands that residents make a project of their individuality. It left me feeling, though, that San Francisco might be quite a lonely place, and a tenuous one, too.
I agree with the author that San Francisco is lovely to visit and has great physical charm; I also agree with his observation that the city probably doesn't reveal its inner life readily to a visitor. You could go to San Francisco for a week or 10 days and enjoy every minute of it as a tourist, but what you're seeing tells you very little about what it would be like to live there. This is true to some degree of most places, I think, but perhaps even more so of San Francisco. The author attributes this to a high degree of introversion among its residents, something a casual visitor wouldn't be likely to notice.
After the San Francisco chapter, I turned to the section on London, another city I have spent time in. It was, oddly, rather a relief to turn to this chapter, though the author's designation of the color red as the city's signature color, a provocative idea to start with, got to the heart of something I noticed when I was there. One of the fascinating things about London, as he points out, is the way its long history is layered so visibly in its buildings, layout, monuments, and place names. He pointed to the double nature of the color red, emblematic of life and vitality but also of death, a reminder of the many centuries of struggle and upheaval the city has endured.
I remember my long-ago first visit to London's Westminster Hall and the almost physical feeling of the weight of years that hit me while I was standing inside. I'd never had a sensation like that before, a feeling of being buried under layers of history, as if all the events that had ever taken place were still present in the room. It wasn't a pleasant feeling and was actually rather frightening, though that was the only time I really experienced it that way. As I got used to finding my way around, I was increasingly fascinated by the way pieces of the past were embedded in the present, sometimes subtly, so that you had to know they were there--a piece of Roman wall visible through the window of a basement, for instance, if you bent your head and looked.
After reading the London chapter last night, I found myself thinking: if I had to choose whether to spend six months in San Francisco or six months in London, which would it be? London appealed to me more. Somehow, London seems more definite and less ghostly to me than San Francisco does, strange though it may seem to say it. Even as an American, I think I could find my way around London more easily than I could around the Bay Area, which says more about me, of course, than it does about the merits of either place. I'm not saying the same thing would or should be true of anyone else.
This afternoon, I read the book's chapter on New York City, a place with which I have very little personal experience. I used to find the idea of New York positively overwhelming, but lately I've begun to feel that I wish I knew the city better. Maybe sometime I'll get the chance. In any event, I learned more about New York, its history, and its layout (which has always been a source of complete mystification to me) in just two hours than I've managed to pick up in decades of hearing about it and seeing it on television and in the movies. The author of the piece made no assumptions, as others sometimes do, about a reader's prior knowledge of the city, providing not only a pictorial overview but also a succinct summation of history and geography that helped give it shape in my mind.
I'm not sure why I've always been content to have such a pleasantly vague notion of New York, to hear about Central Park, Greenwich Village, the Hudson River, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and the Lower East Side without really having any idea of how they relate to one another. Curiosity finally seems to have kicked in, perhaps due in part to the many novels I've read in recent years that have managed to convey some sense of the city's allure, leading me to think that, while it's a tough place, it has its own magic. Why I have derived such a feeling for the city from reading fiction rather from seeing it in movies or on TV is a bit of a mystery. I do think that since 9/11, many Americans have developed a more protective feeling toward New York. The psychic wound created there still affects us all, and that may be another reason I feel drawn to the city.
After reading about New York, I posed myself another choice: "OK, what if you had to choose between San Francisco and New York?" A very interesting psychic exercise, to be sure, because there was a time I never would have said this (or even thought it), but New York appealed to me more. I wouldn't go so far as to say I can picture myself as a New Yorker, but if I had to choose a place for a longish visit, I'd pick New York. How strange that hard-edged, fast-paced New York should end up seeming more human to me than San Francisco, swathed in its fogs and soft hills, but that does seem to be the case. Again, this isn't a statement of absolute value but rather a reflection of a psychic shift on my part.
If you're interested in reading about the ways Jungian analysts describe the psychic life of their cities, the book I've been referring to is Psyche & the City: A Soul's Guide to the Modern Metropolis, edited by Thomas Singer. You may agree or disagree with the way a particular writer sees things, but Jungians are unusually sensitive to the inner life, distinctive rhythms, and peculiarities that give a place character, and this is reflected in their writing. Their intimate knowledge of the cities they live in may provide insight (or rebuttal) for experiences you've had as a visitor (or even as a resident) but couldn't quite explain. I'm still in shock over the way my psyche has rejected San Francisco (the home, after all, of Ghirardelli Chocolate--think about it!), but John Beebe's chapter on the city helped me to see some of the reasons why this may have happened.
Thursday, March 17, 2016
Forgetting to Be Irish
I can never quite get off the ground with St. Patrick's Day. I know a lot of people love it, but for some reason I nearly always forget to wear green, and the holiday ends up as sort of a nonstarter for me. It happened again today: ahead of time I was thinking, "I'll bet I forget to wear green again." By the time I got dressed, I forgot I'd been thinking that, but I also forgot to wear anything green. Maybe it's just that I'm not overly fond of corned beef, cabbage, and green glitter, but for whatever reason, the day usually slips by me.
There have been a few St. Patrick's Days that were more memorable than others. For several years, I was in the habit of taking a vacation in March that often led me to NoCal so that I was in San Francisco for St. Paddy's. The first time it happened I actually went to a restaurant for an Irish meal; my friend Jot and I somehow ended up at this place in the Mission that was celebrating the day with traditional Irish food. I don't remember what I had, but considering my cooked cabbage phobia, I'm thinking it must have been something more like stew or potatoes. I do recall that we were regaled non-stop by a character seated near us who just could not stop talking. I've met some overly chatty strangers in my time, but this man was the very King of Chat, bar none.
You do meet some personalities in San Francisco, and sometimes you just have to roll with it, but I've never before or since met anyone so determined to insert himself into the conversation of complete strangers (and few people more immune to hints). As Jot and I were walking down the street afterward, I said to him, "I guess that's what you call the gift of the gab." And he said, "I think it's more like a curse."
I was in San Francisco for St. Patrick's Day the next year, too, though I had been in Sonoma most of the week and only drove into the City that day. I'd been intending to meet people, but they were called out of town, so I spent the afternoon and evening in North Beach. I had stopped by the Tosca Cafe, which didn't seem to have a lot going on, and then soaked up the street life on my way back to my hotel. My most vivid memory is of passing, on Columbus Avenue, a young, laughing man--definitely of Asian heritage--sporting the loudest Top-to-Toe All-Green leprechaun attire I have ever witnessed. I didn't even know they made outfits like that. He was well pleased with himself, and I don't blame him: the whole street was gaping at him. Well, there was no topping that in the Irish sweepstakes, and I finished the evening with pasta and panna cotta in the Italian restaurant next to my hotel. It was a very San Francisco St. Patrick's Day.
Then there was the time many years ago when I was passing through Chicago on the Saturday before St. Patrick's, and while walking by the river (in between trains), saw that it was dyed green. This is evidently a tradition in Chicago, as is their St. Patrick's Day parade, which had been held earlier in the day. I don't know if it was then that someone told me they'd been filming a movie or if I found out later, but it turns out that a scene in The Fugitive was filmed during Chicago's St. Patrick's Day parade (Harrison Ford, on the run, blending in with the marchers). I was never for sure if it was this film or another, but I always assumed The Fugitive because it came out the following year. So I count that as the time I just missed seeing a movie being made and Harrison Ford in a green hat but got to see what a river looks like with a bunch of green dye dropped in.
Today was nowhere near that exciting, but it was sunny, which makes a pleasant change in this place at this time of year. I didn't do anything in particular to celebrate St. Patrick, but I did have a hobbity sort of dinner that included potatoes and onions. Contrary to the pattern of the last several years, spring seems to be arriving early this year, with things already greening up outdoors and the trees beginning to blossom. That's celebration enough for me. And may the road rise to meet you.
There have been a few St. Patrick's Days that were more memorable than others. For several years, I was in the habit of taking a vacation in March that often led me to NoCal so that I was in San Francisco for St. Paddy's. The first time it happened I actually went to a restaurant for an Irish meal; my friend Jot and I somehow ended up at this place in the Mission that was celebrating the day with traditional Irish food. I don't remember what I had, but considering my cooked cabbage phobia, I'm thinking it must have been something more like stew or potatoes. I do recall that we were regaled non-stop by a character seated near us who just could not stop talking. I've met some overly chatty strangers in my time, but this man was the very King of Chat, bar none.
You do meet some personalities in San Francisco, and sometimes you just have to roll with it, but I've never before or since met anyone so determined to insert himself into the conversation of complete strangers (and few people more immune to hints). As Jot and I were walking down the street afterward, I said to him, "I guess that's what you call the gift of the gab." And he said, "I think it's more like a curse."
I was in San Francisco for St. Patrick's Day the next year, too, though I had been in Sonoma most of the week and only drove into the City that day. I'd been intending to meet people, but they were called out of town, so I spent the afternoon and evening in North Beach. I had stopped by the Tosca Cafe, which didn't seem to have a lot going on, and then soaked up the street life on my way back to my hotel. My most vivid memory is of passing, on Columbus Avenue, a young, laughing man--definitely of Asian heritage--sporting the loudest Top-to-Toe All-Green leprechaun attire I have ever witnessed. I didn't even know they made outfits like that. He was well pleased with himself, and I don't blame him: the whole street was gaping at him. Well, there was no topping that in the Irish sweepstakes, and I finished the evening with pasta and panna cotta in the Italian restaurant next to my hotel. It was a very San Francisco St. Patrick's Day.
Then there was the time many years ago when I was passing through Chicago on the Saturday before St. Patrick's, and while walking by the river (in between trains), saw that it was dyed green. This is evidently a tradition in Chicago, as is their St. Patrick's Day parade, which had been held earlier in the day. I don't know if it was then that someone told me they'd been filming a movie or if I found out later, but it turns out that a scene in The Fugitive was filmed during Chicago's St. Patrick's Day parade (Harrison Ford, on the run, blending in with the marchers). I was never for sure if it was this film or another, but I always assumed The Fugitive because it came out the following year. So I count that as the time I just missed seeing a movie being made and Harrison Ford in a green hat but got to see what a river looks like with a bunch of green dye dropped in.
Today was nowhere near that exciting, but it was sunny, which makes a pleasant change in this place at this time of year. I didn't do anything in particular to celebrate St. Patrick, but I did have a hobbity sort of dinner that included potatoes and onions. Contrary to the pattern of the last several years, spring seems to be arriving early this year, with things already greening up outdoors and the trees beginning to blossom. That's celebration enough for me. And may the road rise to meet you.
Saturday, October 5, 2013
My Day of Hardly, Strictly
It's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass weekend out in San Francisco. I've only been to the festival once, about ten years ago -- my, how time flies! -- but I was reminiscing tonight about my one and only experience of this event. It's a big happening out there, but when you're from Kentucky, it's a little like carrying coals to Newcastle to attend an event like this. That's the reaction I got from someone I worked with, who had a good laugh about the idea of me flying to the Bay Area to hear bluegrass music. I guess it was pretty funny, at that.
True to its name, though, HSB is a very ecumenical event, meaning, as far as I can tell, that almost anyone is likely to show up. Their mainstay may be venerable old-time musicians like Hazel Dickens, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, and Del McCoury, but Hammer has played there, too.
At any event, I found myself heading out for coffee with my SF friends on a cold and foggy Saturday morning, having arrived the night before with insufficient layers. I had to borrow a heavy, slouchy jacket and was told it made me look more like a native -- I'm not sure how, exactly, but it was gratifying to know. When we started heading in the direction of Golden Gate Park, the gray skies were still lowering, and it was quite chilly. Nonetheless, we took the scenic route, since my pocket guide suggested a walking tour of some of the hipper sights of the Haight, which I had never seen.
We walked up and down a couple of streets, finding houses once occupied by Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead. We took pictures of ourselves at the corner of Haight-Ashbury (though the big chain fashion store at that location was a surprise) and climbed to the top of Buena Vista Park before stopping for another coffee break. By the time we got to Golden Gate Park, it was late morning, still chilly, and still gray. We entered a large meadow fringed by trees and settled down on a blanket to hear Gillian Welch.
There were simultaneous acts on other stages and enormous crowds everyplace you looked. It was a real ocean of humanity, but in general, people behaved decorously and seemed really to be there for the music. There were attendees of all ages, and kids and dogs everywhere. When we got up to move to another stage, the fog was lifting, and it was showing signs of becoming a fine afternoon. It was one of those days you often see in San Francisco that seem to roll at least three seasons into one, starting out cold and turning summery before cooling down again. Indeed, I had to peel off two layers and apply sunscreen before the day was over.
The most unequivocal bluegrass act we heard that day was Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder. I have seen Mr. Skaggs at a folk life festival in Kentucky, where I passed him on the sidewalk. At HSB, he was on a big stage some distance away from us but performed a spirited set in fine style. It was great fun to sit in that crowd of people of all ages, races, and persuasions and feel them respond to the down-to-earth energy of bluegrass. The single image that sticks in my mind is of a young man awash in a complicated outfit seemingly made entirely of filmy pink and purple scarves, dancing joyously and uninhibitedly to the rapid-fire rhythms of Ricky Skaggs' band. That was something you'd likely not see in Kentucky and was probably worth the trip.
We left the park around four o'clock and caught a bus somewhere out on Fulton to head back toward the inner city. A group of teenage girls got on sometime after we did (they had not, I take it, spent the afternoon at HSB), talking animatedly amongst themselves. Just before we got off the bus, I heard one of them say disparagingly, of a popular song they were discussing, "It's so old. It's probably two years old."
That tickled me. For awhile, it had seemed that everyone and his brother was in Golden Gate Park, sipping wine, listening to old-time music, cross-referencing articles in No Depression, and nodding when the names Doc Watson and Ralph Stanley were mentioned . . . so this was a wake-up call. It's true, not everyone in San Francisco is a bluegrass aficionado (and the same is true in Kentucky). I came away with a sense of worlds colliding. HSB is a place where many fans with extremely sophisticated and complex tastes will sit on the grass to hear music of very humble origins played with consummate musicianship. Just beyond its borders, teenagers listen unconcernedly to the newest sounds and have never heard of Earl Scruggs. But someday, one of their current favorites will probably take the stage on another foggy morning.
The fun continued on my journey home, when I happened to sit next to Jimmie Dale Gilmore on the plane. I might not have suspected it was him except that I knew he'd performed at the festival. Unfortunately, something had possessed me to seek out an exotic lunch to take with me on the plane, something to extend the multicultural experience. It's not every day you eat a pungent falafel sandwich while sitting next to a legendary Texas country blues performer on a plane, but that happened to be my day for it. That's San Francisco for you. Hopefully, he's forgotten it by now.
True to its name, though, HSB is a very ecumenical event, meaning, as far as I can tell, that almost anyone is likely to show up. Their mainstay may be venerable old-time musicians like Hazel Dickens, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, and Del McCoury, but Hammer has played there, too.
At any event, I found myself heading out for coffee with my SF friends on a cold and foggy Saturday morning, having arrived the night before with insufficient layers. I had to borrow a heavy, slouchy jacket and was told it made me look more like a native -- I'm not sure how, exactly, but it was gratifying to know. When we started heading in the direction of Golden Gate Park, the gray skies were still lowering, and it was quite chilly. Nonetheless, we took the scenic route, since my pocket guide suggested a walking tour of some of the hipper sights of the Haight, which I had never seen.
We walked up and down a couple of streets, finding houses once occupied by Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead. We took pictures of ourselves at the corner of Haight-Ashbury (though the big chain fashion store at that location was a surprise) and climbed to the top of Buena Vista Park before stopping for another coffee break. By the time we got to Golden Gate Park, it was late morning, still chilly, and still gray. We entered a large meadow fringed by trees and settled down on a blanket to hear Gillian Welch.
There were simultaneous acts on other stages and enormous crowds everyplace you looked. It was a real ocean of humanity, but in general, people behaved decorously and seemed really to be there for the music. There were attendees of all ages, and kids and dogs everywhere. When we got up to move to another stage, the fog was lifting, and it was showing signs of becoming a fine afternoon. It was one of those days you often see in San Francisco that seem to roll at least three seasons into one, starting out cold and turning summery before cooling down again. Indeed, I had to peel off two layers and apply sunscreen before the day was over.
The most unequivocal bluegrass act we heard that day was Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder. I have seen Mr. Skaggs at a folk life festival in Kentucky, where I passed him on the sidewalk. At HSB, he was on a big stage some distance away from us but performed a spirited set in fine style. It was great fun to sit in that crowd of people of all ages, races, and persuasions and feel them respond to the down-to-earth energy of bluegrass. The single image that sticks in my mind is of a young man awash in a complicated outfit seemingly made entirely of filmy pink and purple scarves, dancing joyously and uninhibitedly to the rapid-fire rhythms of Ricky Skaggs' band. That was something you'd likely not see in Kentucky and was probably worth the trip.
We left the park around four o'clock and caught a bus somewhere out on Fulton to head back toward the inner city. A group of teenage girls got on sometime after we did (they had not, I take it, spent the afternoon at HSB), talking animatedly amongst themselves. Just before we got off the bus, I heard one of them say disparagingly, of a popular song they were discussing, "It's so old. It's probably two years old."
That tickled me. For awhile, it had seemed that everyone and his brother was in Golden Gate Park, sipping wine, listening to old-time music, cross-referencing articles in No Depression, and nodding when the names Doc Watson and Ralph Stanley were mentioned . . . so this was a wake-up call. It's true, not everyone in San Francisco is a bluegrass aficionado (and the same is true in Kentucky). I came away with a sense of worlds colliding. HSB is a place where many fans with extremely sophisticated and complex tastes will sit on the grass to hear music of very humble origins played with consummate musicianship. Just beyond its borders, teenagers listen unconcernedly to the newest sounds and have never heard of Earl Scruggs. But someday, one of their current favorites will probably take the stage on another foggy morning.
The fun continued on my journey home, when I happened to sit next to Jimmie Dale Gilmore on the plane. I might not have suspected it was him except that I knew he'd performed at the festival. Unfortunately, something had possessed me to seek out an exotic lunch to take with me on the plane, something to extend the multicultural experience. It's not every day you eat a pungent falafel sandwich while sitting next to a legendary Texas country blues performer on a plane, but that happened to be my day for it. That's San Francisco for you. Hopefully, he's forgotten it by now.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
The Mountain Is High, The Valley Is Low
We've been mourning and remembering a friend we lost this week to cancer. I had known him since the '80s; he was the partner of a long-time friend of mine. I can't remember exactly the first time I met him, but I think it was here in Lexington when my friend was visiting and brought him along. Since that long-ago day, I've had many visits with the two of them, both here and in the various places they've lived together.
We all enjoyed walking, talking, and eating, and spent a lot of hours in those pursuits when we were together. It isn't often you come across people that you feel that in tune with, and our conversations were always wide-ranging -- anything from philosophy to the right way to make an omelet to urban planning (sometimes all in the same chat). It's hard to say goodbye to someone you've hashed over the meaning of life with, especially someone as gentle and kind as Jot was.
On the day of his cremation, I came up with an impromptu memorial service to try to honor him in a manner I thought he would approve of. It started with playing the song "Everett Ruess," which I know he loved, and which could almost have been written about him: he had much in common with that other artist, dreamer, and free spirit. I went to my book shelf and found Thich Nhat Hanh's Old Path White Clouds, a life of Buddha. I decided to open it at random and read the first thing I saw, which turned out to be the Buddha's explanation of the Four Noble Truths. I kept going back and pulling other books from various traditions off the shelf, sometimes seeking out remembered passages and other times just skimming the pages for inspiration. Sacred chants, philosophical passages, poetry, music, readings from the Bible . . . by the time I'd finished, two hours had passed. I think Jot would have liked most of it.
In the midst of all the sorrow, I've been thinking about what a remarkable, irreplaceable thing a human soul is. Life and death are a great mystery to us all, but it seems to me a waste for the world to give rise to such a beautiful thing as a human spirit, only to take it back into a void. I want to believe that the spirit lives on somehow, in a way we don't completely understand, and I hope that is the case.
One of my most vivid memories of Jot is of the day he and I went for a long, long walk in San Francisco's Bernal Heights. I was big on printing out walking tours from the Internet and enlisting my friends to go along with me when I was visiting. On this particular March day, several years ago, it was just Jot and me. It was sunny and warm, almost hot; I had to roll up my sleeves as the day progressed. It was an ambitious walk, up some pretty steep hills, and the directions weren't all that easy to follow, which meant a lot of deciphering and backtracking.
Fueled by pastries and coffee, we had set off to conquer the Heights, not quite realizing how long a walk it was. It was off the beaten track, not involving any famous sights or tourist attractions, just a lot of houses, staircases, hidden paths, public gardens, and confusing streets. It was very maze-like but rather pleasant. We'd get hot and out of breath, rest a little, and then move on. There was no rush and nothing in particular we were trying to achieve other than finishing the walk. I remember seeing a small snake in a garden at the top of the hill, crossing paths with a mailman multiple times as he went on his neighborhood rounds (probably shaking his head at us), stopping often to consult the map, sweating, and, at last, admiring the view from a park at the top.
Jot took my picture up there, with the Golden Gate Bridge visible behind me, way off in the distance. It remains one of my favorite photos of myself and somehow captured what I think of as my best, true self -- smiling, adventurous, and quite present in the moment. On the way down the hill, we came across a small playground, and Jot took another picture as I was coming down the slide. I look sort of silly, but it was that kind of a day.
After a three-hour walk, we were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. I said jokingly to Jot that since we had been to the top of the mountain, people were going to ask us what wisdom we had gained while we were up there, and we'd better think of something to say. He seemed doubtful at first, then thought about it for a minute and said, "The mountain is high, the valley is low." Then he chuckled.
Well, there's no arguing with that. And that kind of encapsulates Jot, a person who was willing to climb steep hills just for the fun of it, find joy in simple things like a modest wildflower or a meandering conversation, and then poke fun at himself at the end of the day. I didn't realize at the time what an enduring memory that day would become, but when I think back on it, how free and easy it all was, and how bright the sun was shining, I'm grateful for the impulse that led us to climb that hill just for the heck of it. And for a companion who never questioned the value of so much walking with no particular place to go.
We all enjoyed walking, talking, and eating, and spent a lot of hours in those pursuits when we were together. It isn't often you come across people that you feel that in tune with, and our conversations were always wide-ranging -- anything from philosophy to the right way to make an omelet to urban planning (sometimes all in the same chat). It's hard to say goodbye to someone you've hashed over the meaning of life with, especially someone as gentle and kind as Jot was.
On the day of his cremation, I came up with an impromptu memorial service to try to honor him in a manner I thought he would approve of. It started with playing the song "Everett Ruess," which I know he loved, and which could almost have been written about him: he had much in common with that other artist, dreamer, and free spirit. I went to my book shelf and found Thich Nhat Hanh's Old Path White Clouds, a life of Buddha. I decided to open it at random and read the first thing I saw, which turned out to be the Buddha's explanation of the Four Noble Truths. I kept going back and pulling other books from various traditions off the shelf, sometimes seeking out remembered passages and other times just skimming the pages for inspiration. Sacred chants, philosophical passages, poetry, music, readings from the Bible . . . by the time I'd finished, two hours had passed. I think Jot would have liked most of it.
In the midst of all the sorrow, I've been thinking about what a remarkable, irreplaceable thing a human soul is. Life and death are a great mystery to us all, but it seems to me a waste for the world to give rise to such a beautiful thing as a human spirit, only to take it back into a void. I want to believe that the spirit lives on somehow, in a way we don't completely understand, and I hope that is the case.
One of my most vivid memories of Jot is of the day he and I went for a long, long walk in San Francisco's Bernal Heights. I was big on printing out walking tours from the Internet and enlisting my friends to go along with me when I was visiting. On this particular March day, several years ago, it was just Jot and me. It was sunny and warm, almost hot; I had to roll up my sleeves as the day progressed. It was an ambitious walk, up some pretty steep hills, and the directions weren't all that easy to follow, which meant a lot of deciphering and backtracking.
Fueled by pastries and coffee, we had set off to conquer the Heights, not quite realizing how long a walk it was. It was off the beaten track, not involving any famous sights or tourist attractions, just a lot of houses, staircases, hidden paths, public gardens, and confusing streets. It was very maze-like but rather pleasant. We'd get hot and out of breath, rest a little, and then move on. There was no rush and nothing in particular we were trying to achieve other than finishing the walk. I remember seeing a small snake in a garden at the top of the hill, crossing paths with a mailman multiple times as he went on his neighborhood rounds (probably shaking his head at us), stopping often to consult the map, sweating, and, at last, admiring the view from a park at the top.
Jot took my picture up there, with the Golden Gate Bridge visible behind me, way off in the distance. It remains one of my favorite photos of myself and somehow captured what I think of as my best, true self -- smiling, adventurous, and quite present in the moment. On the way down the hill, we came across a small playground, and Jot took another picture as I was coming down the slide. I look sort of silly, but it was that kind of a day.
After a three-hour walk, we were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. I said jokingly to Jot that since we had been to the top of the mountain, people were going to ask us what wisdom we had gained while we were up there, and we'd better think of something to say. He seemed doubtful at first, then thought about it for a minute and said, "The mountain is high, the valley is low." Then he chuckled.
Well, there's no arguing with that. And that kind of encapsulates Jot, a person who was willing to climb steep hills just for the fun of it, find joy in simple things like a modest wildflower or a meandering conversation, and then poke fun at himself at the end of the day. I didn't realize at the time what an enduring memory that day would become, but when I think back on it, how free and easy it all was, and how bright the sun was shining, I'm grateful for the impulse that led us to climb that hill just for the heck of it. And for a companion who never questioned the value of so much walking with no particular place to go.
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