Mission Mission

Why no Apple love in the Mission? You’d think this is something even Chicken John could get behind.

The only question is where? On Mission? Or Valencia? A few proposals:

The Social Security Building / old Hibernia Bank on Valencia and 22nd and Valencia:

Pros: Apple-eqsue architecture
Cons: even longer Boogaloo lines

Dolores Park Castle:

Pros: empty building finally used; good WiFi coverage for the park; nice park to rest in while awaiting Genius Bar appointments
Cons: dark wood beams may conflict with Steve Jobs beech aethsetic; Pottery Barn may attempt to move into Christian Science Church next door

Dolores Park Bathrooms:

Pros: Even better WiFi coverage in DP; safe refuge for Blue Bottle; clean bathrooms
Cons: white Apple logo easily tagged

Please add your suggestions in the comments.

(top photo by Chris Carlsson; Apple logo via Wikipedia)

Here’s a 270º panorama I made of the fire truck climbing and dancing crowd.

(1500 pixel version for those reading in RSS. Click for the full 10,000 pixel version over at Burrito Justice. Sorry if it breaks your Internet.)

And the white-shirt wearing, fist-shaking, last man standing, with blue lights below:

Jesse from Beer & Nosh has more shots of our fire truck roof dancing friends.

Congratulations, San Francisco!  In August, we set a new national record!  Guess which airport had the worst one-time performance in the nation?

The Cranky Flier reports that with only 70.2% of flights arriving within 15 minutes of schedule this August, SFO beat out stalwarts like La Guardia, Chicago and Atlanta.  (Number 2 was Miami at 75.9% and #3 was La Guardia at 76.4%.)

Fog of course is always a threat — bad weather means only one runway can be used — and our absolutely craptacular summer seems to have pushed us over the edge.  Here’s a chart of on time arrivals by time.  (Note to self, do not fly in at 10 AM in “summer”.)

Departures were not great either — August numbers below. The bottom 5 are no big surprises for anyone who’s been on an airplane in the past 10 years but I found our #6 position kind of surprising.

In September we were 9th worst for departure delay, and July we were 28th worst (aka 13th best).  Someone with more money and time than myself really ought to chart this by time and cross reference to weather, kthxbye.

Of course, what’s an SFO post without a link to Telstar Logistics’ glorious air highway map for Bay Area airports?

Mission stalwart/artist/yoyo-ist/game designer Doctor Popular celebrates the birthday of his girlfriend’s 30th birthday with an EPIC ANIMATED GIF of her playing at the BART entrance. (16th or 24th?)

(Do check out Unwoman’s brand new album The City, released just last week.)

p.s.  Also take a look at Doc Pop’s epic Pac-Man watercolor series, Ghosts in the Machines:

(original photo via Telstar Logistics)

In the comment section of the Cinema Latino / Crown Theater article, reader “like a fox” brings us this interesting tidbit in my response to my plaintive wail, “Could you imagine something like Oakland’s The Fox in the Mission?”

Your wish is granted. The *other* theater across the street – New Mission – is slated to become a music venue – with the Fox being the model. Unfortunately, the New Mission doesn’t have the architectural splendor of the Fox. Don’t know how the funding or permitting is going, sorry.

Gus Murad’s club and height limits are well known, but the idea of a Fox-like entity in the Mission is a new one to me.  Any readers with more information?

(More Mission Street theater history porn here, and more pictures inside of New Mission here.)

Recent J-school graduate, Mission Local alumni, and black & white photographer extraordinaire Armand Emamdjomeh is at the De Young!

…the short video I made as part of my thesis project, New Mission, is going to be showing as part of the Friday Film Night at the De Young Cultural Encounters series! It’s basically a slideshow of my Mission photography, with little bits of video, all to the narration of the poem “In Twenty Years” by Marcella Ortiz.

It’s kind of an ode to the neighborhood and the character that it has now.

It will be part of this very Friday Film Night at the De Young Cultural Encounters. The event is free!  (Facebook event page here if that’s how you roll.)

If you can’t make it, Armand’s work will also be at SF City Hall on the 16th at the Night/Light exhibit.

(Someone get this man a job so he can stay in the Mission, OK?)

Armand Emamdjomeh, with recently minted diploma in hand, is throwing a party! His photos are part of Lightbox SF‘s debut of 200 Yards at Heart (Valencia and 24th) Wednesday (tonight) at 7-11 pm.

A photography project focusing on San Francisco neighborhoods 200 yards at a time.

The premise:

200 yards is a photography experiment conceived of and presented by Lightbox SF.

First we find a venue, maybe a wine bar, office lobby, or traditional gallery. Then we put out a call to photographers to explore a 200 yard radius from the venue’s location and take pictures of whatever catches their eye. Each photographer then selects their best photos, up to 10, and submits them for possible inclusion in a photo exhibit held at the originally selected center point.

The idea behind the project is to expose local photographers, the little details that make each block of San Francisco unique, as well as the merchants that give each neighborhood its character.

Behold the 218 vara circle of interest:

Approach the semi-permeable hipster membrane this evening, if you dare!

While the city giveth us green bike lanes, they also taketh away: behold the bicycle crackdowns on the Wiggle.

The blossoming of bike lanes and Gavin with a paintbrush are great, but is the city now cracking down on cyclists? Junior seems to think so:

I’m kind of worried that they are a precursor to beginning widespread bicycle ticketing around the city.  You know, like back before the Critical Mass days.  I’m all for cyclists obeying the rules of the road, but the interpretation of those rules is at issue, and the price of those tickets has increased to around $300 nowadays, which can be the same as a paycheck!  But I try to stay out of politics . . .

And behold this ominous San Francisco bicycle ordinance!

Oh crap, that’s from 1903, sorry.  Scanologist Eric Fischer brings us this century old news.

But some things haven’t changed — sections 1-4 are regularly ignored in the Mission.  And as Eric notes, “Speed limit 6 mph. A $500 fine then would have been like $10,000 now.” We certainly would not have survived that era. (But we certainly need to bring back the practice of “scorching”. And I am going to work in “Machines of Similar Character” into everyday conversation.)

1895 regs — biggest difference is a concern about transporting children on bikes.

As for irony, the first “good roads” campaigns were pushed by cyclists in the late 19th century.

As bicycle outings surged in popularity, riders everywhere shared a common burden — hazardous roads. Soon [Albert] Pope began speaking across the country about the need for good roads. “The high point to be aimed at,” he said back in 1889, “is the recognition of the importance of the whole situation by the national government.”

Then Henry Ford came along.

Some historical context on the conditions of roads in the late 1800s is available in old San Francisco municipal reports.

The city struggled to keep up with the surge in popularity of bicycles. I found this 1894 report amusing.

BICYCLE ROAD EXTENSION

Your Commissioners have always borne in mind the fact that the public is made up of separate human beings with separate tastes, whose comfort and convenience demand regard.

Keeping this in view, the bicycle road was constructed last year exclusively for the use of patrons of the wheel, and a further extension of this road is proposed during the coming year to run parallel with the main drive.

The rapid development of the present interest in bicycling among all classes is something astonishing, and as the Park is a favorite haunt of the cyclists, it is incumbent upon your Commissioners to attend to their interests and wants.

That first line is pretty much SF in a nutshell.

Some shots from this Sunday.  (As usual, click to zoom.)

Watching the World Cup final in the Valencia Street garage of the Mission tricycle stereo guy — thanks! (Sorry, Orange.)

The Ferocious Few on Valencia:

The lead singer telekinetically tuning his guitar:

Another rockin’ band on 24th…

…so rocking, in fact, that their house was doing that Flight of the Conchords wiggle:

Hey, look, another bike band Fossil Fool!

And my personal favorite: French Tacos! The Croque Monsieur (Croque Señor?) was particularly l’awesome.

All and all, a good day (but we really need it to go until at least 4 or 5 PM).  We can do this once a month, no?

On the downside, there was a curious lack of food vendors.  And while I’m sure it’s a permitting nightmare, I’d like to see the city help our favorite food carts get in on this.