May Miscellany

Cranky Old Biddy
This year's San Francisco Bay to Breakers run has come and gone, and for the first year in a long time I missed the whole spectacle (see May 17, 2009 post). That morning I woke up already lacking the most rudimentary Bacchanalian spirit, but all hope was lost for me when I caught a toga-wearing frat boy urinating at our building's front stoop. One was not amused; the San Francisco woman above represents my state of mind at that moment. I threw open my window like a neighborhood crazy lady and shrilly cursed the guy out. Urination-interuptus. I heard him say "oh shit" and then he scampered off with the several young blond girls wearing lingerie and fairy wings, who waited for him. So I didn't end up wandering out to watch the stream of revelers, and can't report on this year's Dionysian leit motifs. However, in the Mission later that afternoon I did spot two men and one woman (or maybe three men?) sitting in a restaurant on 24th Street, excellently done up as Natalie Portman in Black Swan: white tutus, white faces, and evil black swan eye makeup.

Art on Market Street
The San Francisco Arts Commission is doing its part to breathe new life into the frayed Central Market Street Area, and has launched the second year of its "Art in Store Fronts" program. The aim is to have artwork displayed in empty or underused storefronts, as well as murals and street art installations. May 13 was the public celebration, and included a jazz band in front of one of the electronic stores, and a top-hatted pianist playing on a baby grand on the sidewalk. It was a lively evening out there, with young art groupies, the usual gritty 6th Street and Civic Center characters, and crowds of Bay Area teachers from an education cuts demonstration, all mingling along the street. I went specifically to see a new mural by Rafael Landea, titled "20,000 Missing Seats" at Market and Golden Gate. After the 1906 earthquake and up to the 1950s there were numerous movie and performance theaters lining this stretch of Market Street. Landea's mural represents the loss of these theaters, with 20,000 being the combined estimate of seating lost. There are still a few extant old theaters, some boarded up, and one or two that have long functioned as down-market girlie show venues. I would love to see this area become a theater concentration again with the remaining old buildings renovated and revitalized, girlie shows and all (maybe tarted up to be a bit more top shelf!), with the addition of new movie houses and live performance theaters, alongside the blooming art scene here. The City is making strenuous efforts to bring in such companies as Twitter to anchor a new iteration of the neighborhood, which I think could be positive. But the most exciting prospect would be an area continuing to be increasingly alive with new and diverse retail, restaurant, and entertainment commerce in a swath of the city still rich with historic structures.

The Comstock Saloon
The wonderful and welcoming Comstock Saloon in North Beach recently celebrated its one-year anniversary. This bar and restaurant was created by Absinthe Brasserie bartenders and partners, and masterfully offers an atmosphere of Old San Francisco. It's in a space that has been a drinking spot since 1907, and the interior was well designed to evoke a late 19th-early 20th century establishment. The menu is inspired and informed by the era in America when "free lunches" were offered at saloons (soups and stews, cold and hot meats, meat pies, relishes, pickled eggs, etc.) to get and keep patrons in the bar--and to spur on more drinking! I've yet to explore the menu fully, but I tried the smoked salmon on rye with dill cream appetizer, and it was very good with my gin cocktail. They have inaugurated a "free lunch" item with a two-drink minimum, which is a very nice nod to San Francisco dining and drinking history. For me, the cherry on top at this place is the live music they have every night, performed above the main room in a tiny, open mezzanine/nook. When I was last there a quartet of young musicians (piano; stand-up base; drum; trumpet) performed some fantastic classic jazz, which floated over the happy bar-babble below.

On Free Lunches in San Francisco, by Louis Laurent Simonin (From Malcolm E. Barker's More San Francisco Memoirs: 1852-1899, The Ripening Years, Londonborn Publications, SF, 1996):
On the corner where the politicians collect [the Montgomery Block] is located the most famous bar in all of California, and it is there that takes place one of the most popular lunches of the city. Any passerby may partake of this lunch. Oyster soup, pork and beans, roast beef and potatoes, all the sacramental offerings, are spread out on a table, with a few pieces of thinly sliced bread. One grabs a plate and eats while standing. Then one goes up to the bar to receive a glass of claret or sherry. Only the drink is paid for: 25 cents... Those who do not drink do not pay, and many Californians, half-starved and down on their luck, go from lunch to lunch to fill their stomachs and their pockets with enough to last them the rest of the day, at no cost.