June 03, 2003

New Category

The last entry (on the Goddess of Progress's head) is actually the debut entry in a new category I just created for this blog -- the category called "San Francisco," which is meant to include various stuff about the city and random trivia bits, like the one I just did on the "Big Giant Head."

I am by nature a pack rat (literally and mentally) -- an archivist, if you will. It is my passion and hobby rather than my profession, so I am, I guess, more accurately a trivia collector. But I've got some damn good trivia stored in my head (and other tangible places) and a plethora of subjects that I particularly enjoy gathering info on. As this is my hobby, more or less, I am lackadaiscal about how I hunt and gather the information usually. I am capable of being more focused about it and I am sometimes, especially when I am working on a writing project where I have a reason to actively do research (I think perhaps part of the reason I am a writer is merely that it provides my packrat archivist/research personality a viable outlet). But usually I just collect trivia and research things chaotically. Reflexively even. For no good reason other than that is what I do.

So, since gathering random information is such a reflex with me, I happen to have a large storehouse of trivia about San Francisco stored in my head, as I live here, as I was born here, and have lived here for the majority of my life. I did, alas, end up spending my adolescence in the suburbs down the peninsula and there was that unfortunate time in 1984 (where I minorly went insane apparently) and got talked into moving into an apartment in Berkeley -- fortunately, this aberration was temporary and I regained my senses and fled back to SF about eight months later. But other than those absences, I have lived in San Francisco. It is my home. I am, I know, irrevocably rooted here.

I love this city. I don't always love what people in it are doing in it or to it nor the palm trees on Market Street nor much of the politics nor how people represent it sometimes. I think the city is often misunderstood. Not only by outsiders, but sometimes by those who live here, too. I know why the city tends to be misunderstood, though. Because I am aware of its surface persona, too -- how it is spoken of and viewed in the media, how it is represented and portrayed by the San Francisco Chronicle (and many of its other little newspapers), and how its image is slanted and its reality sometimes steered by its own plethora of activists and media whores with their varied agendas. Oh, yeah, and in more recent years, by the tyranny of the very very politically correct contigent -- who interestingly enough, seem to usually never actually be San Francisco natives themselves, but disgruntled transplants from elsewhere. And they're loud and vocal, frequently missing the real point or the big picture, and usually intractable. And although they're fond of usually telling (or petitioning for legislation to tell) everyone else how to behave here and have perhaps imprinted a bit of their legacy on this city for the moment, I contend they are completely and intrinsically un-San Franciscan.

I trust the city to shrug off their influence eventually. The city tolerates everything, even the intolerant and well-meaning*, for a while and then it shudders in little tremors and big quakes and rearranges the landscape. Metaphorically and literally. I am not sure it does it simply when it has had enough or more because it thrives best when being chaotic, arbitrary, or reckless. (Or whether I am guilty of "metropolis-morphizing" here or something ... heh.) But I know it's done this for as long as it's been here.

And I love it for that.

So, it is because I love this city that I'm going to use all that packed-away trivia (and continue to hunt down and gather more), my own experiences and memories, observations and anecdotal tales, and I'm going to tell you a bit about San Francisco. The one I know. With a good helping of any odd trivia I dig up and fancy mentioning.

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*My mother (who was incidentally not a religious woman in the least) used to drive me insane by often quoting that old homily at me: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Usually to counter me saying "But I meant to ...." when I'd screwed something up inadvertently. No doubt why I despised the phrase when growing up. But, ya know, I think I've come to appreciate that it has a certain point .....