Mission Mission

Dear Mission Street Food community — I hereby demand JAPADOGS:

I was up in Vancouver for a couple of days for the Olympics, and this line was one of the longer in town. (Longest were the lines for public transit –  they were Toyko-crowded, but they moved fast.  OMG I simply cannot imagine Muni trying to deal with the Olympics.)

Anyway, more on the magic that are JAPADOGS here.

Shitty Kitty is back from Morocco!

“As always, Telephone and Soup will bring the comic-making supplies, you bring your friends and shittiest ideas.”

Shotwells (@20th), Tonight (Thursday the 18th), 6pm til late night burrito time

Hmm, what’s this?  The flag of some breakaway Soviet republic?  Fabricstan?

Nope — just a Levi’s ad…

…tacked up to the windows of Groger’s Western Store on Valencia & 26th.

Guess that explains the burnt orange bicycles and lavender sawhorse (which is now gone). For a minute I though Levi’s was opening up a store on Valencia. La Lengua would welcome you with open arms.

But you have to admit it’s rather appropriate for Groger’s.  Though I really don’t know which of those colors would go best with a brushpopper shirt.

I can’t quite tell if this epic Sirron Norris painting is a paean to Muni past or a biting critique into present Muni woes.

(Is that a 26 Valencia floating off into the sunset? All I know is I’m loving that pickup truck.)

More Sirronographs on Telstar Logistics’ Flickr feed. Or visit the new Sirron Norris gallery on 26th and Valencia.

Tonight is your opportunity to a) support the arts and b) get yourself out of that Valentine’s day hole you’ve dug.

The Poetry Store is featured at Secession gallery’s show opening tonight, enhancing already awesome photos by Armand of Mission Loc@l and Julie of i live here: SF.

Armand + Silvi

Julie + Silvi

Freshly crafted poems in bottles go a long way, guys:

Secession, on Mission between 29th and 30th (across from Safeway). The opening runs from 6:30-9:30.

The Mission’s unofficial entertainment critic, 40 Going on 28′s TK, brings us this most excellent review of Wicked, now playing at the Orpheum:

More interesting to me is the fact that “Wicked” is clearly a Mission vs. Marina allegory. Now, if you’re not familiar, the plot essentially concerns the backstory of the witches in “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” On the one hand, we have Elphaba, our Mission girl, who will grow up (to be labeled by the patriarchy) as the Wicked Witch of the West. She has body art (i.e., she’s green) and doesn’t get along with her parents. At school, she develops an interest in animal rights and doesn’t hang out much with the cool crowd. This should remind you of someone you know by this point.

I will now magically turn Tecate tallboys into Midori sours!!

Glinda is pretty much the prototypical Marina girl. She’s blonde and rich and not that smart. She makes fun of Elphaba and doesn’t think anything of her right up until the time she suddenly discovers that the stuff Elphaba likes (in the musical, magic; in the real world, LCD Soundsystem and ecstasy) is actually really cool.

Read more mindblowing interpretation at 40 Going on 28.

Following up on Seals baseball history, the awesome LookBackMaps points us to this Bancroft Library image of Rec Park in 1923.  Here we enter the time machine to look north on Valencia from 15th.

Click image for a higher resolution shot over at Burrito Justice.

Reader NoCalAl says “As for Rec Park, I used to go to the gym across the street, and was met with skepticism whenever I mentioned Valencia Gardens used to be a ball park. The Hotel Royan at 15th and Valencia used to house ballplayers, unlike the current denizens.”

24th and Harrison, WHY?

(via Eric Fischer)

24th and Florida, WHY?

(via SF Weekly)

Telstar Logistics. Laughing Squid. Burrito Justice. Mission Mission. What happens when they join forces? Mission Blog Force 2010! A veritable historical mapgasm ensues.

Laughing Squid and Telstar Logistics recently exposed us to the historical imagery feature in Google Earth.  San Francisco’s 1946 layer proved irresistible, especially concerning the old SF Seals baseball stadium, now home to the Potrero Safeway and Office Depot.

As is inevitable amongst map wonks, the Telstar Logistics and Burrito Justice mapping teams started to wonder exactly where in the stores the bases were located. The alignment of the 1947 photomap is a little wobbly in Google Earth (it’s off by 30-100 feet) so we turned to another favored source for greater precision, Sanborn maps overlaid in GE. Behold the diamond of history.

In the world’s first blogging simulcast, you can see the raw base photos of the Telstar Logistics Surveying Unit along with painfully detailed overlay maps by the Burrito Justice Research Department. Telstar Logistics historical analysis will be available on Laughing Squid posthaste.

For some perspective (because that’s how we roll) here’s opening day for the Giants in 1959, their first game against LA. That’s 16th on the top and Bryant on the right.

Note that history was made recording history: a blogger ACTUALLY LEFT HIS HOME and went on-site to determine that home plate and 1st are located in Office Depot, while 2nd and 3rd base in Safeway.

Below, blue tape marks third base, looking towards home plate.  (Torillas in front of you, and frozen pizzas behind you, as is so often the case when you’re trying to steal home.)

To make this post even more relevant to the Mission — Seals Stadium was also home to the Mission Reds (aka the Missions) before they moved down to Hollywood in 1938.

And prior to Seal Stadium’s construction in 1930, both teams played at 14th and Valencia at Recreation Park. Think of that next time you’re at Four Barrel.

More photos and maps at TL, LS, and BJ.