Mission Mission

Probable Edweard Muybridge tribute, powered by wind.

Some found street art in Clarion Alley.

SFGate posted some great then-and-now shots of Mission locations that you may know. Check out a 1962 Clarion Alley, lined with quaint bungalows:

And now, it’s the only street in the Mission that’s apparently immune to city graffiti citation!

Here’s everyone’s favorite intersection: 24th and Hampshire (AKA “Deuce-four Ham”).

Sadly, Bucket O’ Suds didn’t survive the British Invasion:

I personally think the closing of Bucket O’Suds marked the end of the golden age in Mission. After that, it was only high-tech artisanal laundry facilities. No soul. I long for the days where I’d pop a nickel in the laundry machine and get a shave from Chet while I waited. Maybe someone should start a kickstarter campaign to restore the Bucket O’Suds space to it’s full architectural glory.

Check out the rest of this amazing series at SFGate.

[photos SFGate Archives, Peter Hartlaub]

Wow! Top K-Pop band K.R.A.Z.Y recently chose Clarion Alley to film their latest video. Watch these heartthrobs show their synchronized stuff:

Disclaimer: may not be a real K-pop band. Might just be some bored teens that weren’t good at skateboarding or basketball.

If you were walking by Clarion Alley at Valencia Saturday afternoon a very friendly guy with a can of spray paint in one hand and a Flip camera in the other may have excitedly encouraged you to paint your name on the wall. Chor Boogie was getting tourists and locals alike, most skeptical at first, to grab a can of paint and throw-up.

Chor has been collaborating with the San Francisco Arts Commission for the Free Wall Program, giving people a legal space to paint on to discourage them from painting . . . anywhere else. Little kids can get started early by painting with cops. He hosted a free wall at the last Sunday Streets in the Western Addition, and will host another for the October 24th Sunday Streets at Civic Center.

It’s definitely fun to have a bunch of random strangers collaborate on a large piece, but I’m not sure how you make a product that can be enjoyed once the process is finished. The Clarion wall as it ended up (directly above) is cool in a chaotic way, but is ultimately a mess. You could say it reflects the overlapping thoughts and voices that is life in a neighborhood as dense as The Mission. Or something like that. But it’s still too much for me to really want to look at.

That’s not really the point here, I know. People were enjoying being able to paint without rules or structure. (though etiquette was still enforced, Chor reminded a man not to spray upwind of another artist) So the process is engaging and inspiring and freeing, but once it’s done what are we supposed to do with what’s left? I wonder if they’d be able to impose a loose structure that allows people to feel empowered to create what they want, but gives them enough framework to produce something cohesive. Exquisite Corpse? Paint by numbers? Maybe everyone gets assigned a piece of a known painting that gets recreated as you go.

In any case I like the idea and the $150,000 program also pays for commissioned murals and arts in schools, which is rad.

I started following Doctor Popular on a whim from a comment he left a few days ago. Little did I know he also happens to be a goddamned Yo-Yo wizard. Check out this bitchin’ yo executed in Clarion Alley:

I sincerely hope this starts a Mission Yo-Yo craze the likes of which has not been seen since the Duncan Yo-Yo Team toured elementary schools around the US in the ’80s.

The good doctor also happens to be a game designer, illustrator, tailor, and rapper (he produced the song in the vid too). Save some talents for the rest of us, would ya Doc?

From Cranky Old Mission Guy:

CAMP seems to have forgotten the murals (and other street art) in favor of the amplified noise festival. That leaves it up to the locals to improve the view.

WHAT IM SEEING published an informative feature on the Mission’s Clarion Alley today. 

(via Laughing Squid)