Tsunami Warning

Tonight was the first time I'd ever heard the Emergency Broadcast System on TV announce a local tsunami warning.

Fortunately, this tsunami warning was only briefly in effect, but initially hearing that the warning had been issued for all the west coast from British Columbia to Mexico after a 7.0 earthquake hit in the ocean off the coast in Northern California was definitely attention-getting.

Learned quickly the earthquake had hit at 7:50 pm (Pacific Time) about 90 miles southwest of the coastal town of Crescent City (which is about 300 miles north of San Francisco).

Crescent City happens to be significant -- historically, tsunami-wise -- because as this breaking news article points out:

"Crescent City was the site of the only known tsunami to kill people in the continental United States. Eleven people died and 29 city blocks were washed away when a tsunami hit Crescent City in 1964."

Well, about five minutes after I'd heard the Emergency Broadcast System announce the tsunami warning, the local news station I'd subsequently turned to was announcing the warning had been cancelled. The seismologist they were interviewing was saying the earthquake wasn't a "subduction" kind of earthquake, which are the types more associated with tsunamis -- see the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program site for what all that actually means.

Haven't heard of any reports of any damage or injuries (as of yet), so hopefully all it will have done is caused the whole west coast just a bit of an adrenaline rush ....

Yup, can certainly attest to the fact it added a little drama to an otherwise quiet Tuesday evening!

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The USGS site is really rather fascinating (as well as sometimes anxiety-producing). They have lists of significant world quakes by year going back over a decade. Even to a non-seismologist layperson like me, it'd be hard to miss seeing patterns in earthquake activity in different spots in the world as they've occurred year by year. And, looking at the site tonight after hearing of tonight's quake, I couldn't help but be struck by seeing a pattern in just the last week here on this USGS page that lists all the significant quakes worldwide for 2005:

January 01 -- Off the West Coast of Northern Sumatra -- 6.6M
January 16 -- State of Yap, Micronesia -- 6.6M

June 12 -- Southern California -- 5.2M
June 13 -- Tarapaca, Chile -- 7.8M
June 14 -- Rat Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska -- 6.6M
June 15 -- Off the Coast of Northern California -- 7.0M

Hmm. Yes. it's a bit curious to see how the plates on the west coast of North and South America seem to have been acting up, daily, for the past few days. I don't know enough about seismology to know if that means anything noteworthy, and although I am pretty sure that all the plates active in these recent quakes are not directly connected with each other ....still....

It does make me want to quote Dorothy Parker and just say "What fresh hell is this?"

As one never knows, does one?

Towering Infernos, Stone Cold Hearts, and A Dozen Wraiths

Here's a piece of San Francisco movie trivia I never knew before. The skyscraper building they used for some of the outside (pre-flambé) shots in "The Towering Inferno" was San Francisco's Bank of America Building.

Just found that out from this article about the filming of the movie.

"The Bank of America plaza on California Street stands in for the entrance to the movie's glass skyscraper -- a landlocked vertical Titanic headed for a spectacular demise. Dignitaries, including a U.S. senator played by Robert Vaughn, walk a red carpet, passing the massive black sculpture known locally as the Banker's Heart on their way to celebrate the building's opening."

I like that the author threw in a mention of the "Banker's Heart" sculpture, as that also happens to be a spiffy little piece of San Francisco trivia, one that's long amused me.

Why did it come to have that nickname? Because this abstract sculpture -- that the bank commissioned to grace the entrance to the new corporation headquarters back when it was built in 1969-- is a heart-shaped chunk of black granite. So, it's a stone cold heart, as hard and black as bankers' hearts are sometimes said to be. I'm not sure who coined the nickname -- as I'm pretty sure that's not what the statue was really named -- but it was given that name back in the day when people had a sense of humor.

Not that I'm implying they don't now .... no, really.

Speaking of humor, across the street from the B of A building happens to be my personal favorite SF highrise of all-time. This building at 580 California is a respectable enough looking building for the Financial District unless one happens to look up at its roof. The mansard-style roof seems certainly some sort of architectual homage to (or parody of) some pretty ornate version of gothic revival. But that's not all! Situated around the roof are these 12 huge statues of wraiths (3 on each side), all posing in wretched and sublime torment.

Subtle, it's not.

But the building is tall enough and surrounded by other highrises that the roof and its wraiths actually can get lost and overlooked in the cacophony of that corner. Unless, of course, you know where to stand to see it best.

One of the places where the wraiths become fairly noticeable is from Portsmouth Square, which is a few blocks away, just on the edge of Chinatown. From that vantage point, a gap between the nearby tall buildings provides an unobstructed view of part of 580 California's roof where the wraiths from that side can be seen taunting and haunting from their not-too-distant perch.

I just love it.

I've heard that the roof was the architect's joke about the tradition of putting statues on buildings, but that's all I've ever heard. There's GOT to be more to THAT story, and I promise if I find it, I'll share it here.

I don't happen to have a good photo of this roof. I've been meaning to go take one for eons. So, one of these days, I'll get a few snapshots of this building because it should be seen to be believed.

For a picture of the "Banker's Heart" sculpture, though, this site has a Virtual Reality Panorama of the Banker's Heart if you want to see what it looks like.

When Big Giant Heads Roll

Hey! The Doggie Diner head has been given a permanent home.

I briefly mentioned the Doggie Dinner head in this blog in one of my older entries entitled "Big Giant Head," although the big giant head from that entry referred to the head of the Goddess of Progress statue that broke off in the 1906 earthquake. I did, though, make a passing reference to the Doggie Diner head, where I noted that there have been a few famous big giant heads in San Francisco history but that the Doggie Diner head was probably the most famous one.

Curiously, the Doggie Diner head, like the Goddess of Progress head, also happened to fall victim to a destructive force of nature. In 2001, a strong windstorm caused the pole the Doggie Diner head had been mounted on to collapse. This sent the big giant head crashing into the street, and its snout was badly damaged in the fall.

Not too surprisingly, the full saga behind the Doggie Diner head and the efforts in more recent years to preserve it as a piece of history is a long, weird story. (The Western Neighborhoods Project, a historical preservation organization devoted to the western areas of San Francisco, has a great batch of articles detailing the Doggie Diner head's saga.)

Hmm. I guess when giant heads roll around here, they are just destined to take some strange trips.

Anyway, I happen to be rather cheered to hear this big giant head apparently has finally found a resting place. Welcome back, DD!

Saints Be Praised

I found this link to a section on Lileks' site on Postwar Church Architecture via a link on Bifurcated Rivets

As there are only a couple examples in this section, I'm hoping it is one that he'll add to, as I enjoyed the ones he displayed with his wry commentary. From his intro page to this section: "Post-war churches faced a dilemma: how to look like a house of worship while looking modern? ....There was no good reason churches had to cast off a thousand years of tradition and start dressing up like bank branches, but that's exactly what they did."

If he expands this section, I hope he might consider including this pinnacle of bemusing modern church archicture: San Francisco's Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption. Built in 1971, this cathedral was designed by the Italian architect Pier Luigi Nervi.

This particular one does not resemble a bank, but you might notice the top of this ultra-modern cathedral rather resembles the agitator piece from the inside of a washing machine. Thus, why the cathedral quickly earned such nicknames as "The Washing Machine Church" and "Our Lady of Maytag."

_________

Incidentally, Fritz Maytag, great-grandson of the founder of Maytag Appliances, happens to be a San Francisco "saint" of sorts. A saint of beer, if you will. In the late 1960s, he bought the historic Anchor Steam Brewery and rescued this steam brewery from going out of business.

No real connection here between the two, except in my heathen mind where I apparently have some mismatched socks in my mental laundry just agitating and brewing here on this particular all saints' day.

Bay to Breakers

I was up early yesterday morning and out of Half and Half for my coffee. As it was around 7:30 am, there was still a half-hour to wait until the corner store opened at 8. So, I took my time in getting dressed and contemplated going for a little walk as my neighborhood can be kinda pleasant for that in the early morning hours.

But then as I heard the sound of a circling news helicopter, I remembered: this was the Sunday when the Bay to Breakers race was going on.

This, I knew, meant one of my customary walking routes for strolling about the neighborhood would be blocked off and crazy -- as I happen to live not far from a part of Hayes Street that they use for the race.

I could have wandered around the neighborhood in the other direction. And, normally, that would have been what I would have done -- I am not overly fond of crowds and I more often than not make an effort to steer clear of most of the various hooplas that go on in this city.

Despite having lived near the race route for many years, I had never actually ever watched the Bay to Breakers in person (nor, really, had any inclination to). But yesterday for some weird reason (perhaps it was the lack of coffee), I decided it might be amusing just stroll up to Hayes and Gough and take a quick look before fetching my Half and Half.

So, I turned on the TV to check on KRON's live coverage of the race as I didn't even know then if the race had begun already or when they'd be likely to start passing by in my section of town. I found out that the race was just about to start -- at 8 am. By that time, it was ten minutes to 8:00.

So, I watched the start of the race on TV -- the Kenyans, being serious marathon runners, were of course leading the race. When they seemed to be getting close to where they'd be turning up onto Ninth Street, I went outside to go see if I could catch sight of them running by. I miscalculated how quickly they run, though, and I was still a couple of blocks down Gough going towards Hayes when I saw their lithe legs flash through the intersection. Kinda one big elegant blur, they were.

Then another little pack of the elite runners went by in a blur. And another.

There weren't too many people watching the race from the corner of Hayes and Gough, and I found a comfortable vantage point to stand in between two curbside trees on the sidewalk near the corner. It was still early in the race, and the runners were passing by in sporadic clumps. Then, these clumps of runners stopped being so sporadic and there was instead just one big mass of humanity filling the street (and some now also on the sidewalk).

I watched for a while longer. There were some interesting costumes here and there -- although from what I understand, the more elaborately costumed runners usually aren't the ones who tend to be in the front part of the race. Still, I saw a few. As well as a few naked runners. Of the costumes I saw, I was most amused by a couple of guys done up as Kiss rock band members (I wonder if their face paint made it intact to the finish line?) and another one in Roman Centurion get-up.

As this mass of humanity kept filling up the street and sidewalk, I started to wonder how I was going to get out of there. I'd had my peek and was satisfied, but now because the runners were on the sidewalk too, I couldn't easily get from the tree I was next to over to the corner, although I was only about eight feet away. I was beginning to think I was going to be stuck there for a couple of hours or so. But fortunately there was soon a small gap in the throng on the sidewalk and I took that opportunity to make my escape.

After taking my leave, I bought some Half and Half and went back home where I watched a bit more of the race coverage. I got back home not long after the first of the runners had just crossed the finish line -- the winner was one of the Kenyans, of course, who had finished the race with a time of 34 minutes and 50 seconds. Yow. That is bloody amazing.

Stripping Assumptions

In this Sun-Sentinel article, the author is perplexed about the little outcry over the opening of Hooters in San Francisco:

When Hooters opened its first San Francisco restaurant last May, there was minimal outcry from women's groups and more concern in the media over what it would do to the city's reputation for good food.

Was it meaningful that Hooters, maybe the most vilified business by feminists since Playboy, could open with little protest in such a politically correct city?

Well, being a San Franciscan, I can tell you my opinion on why there was hardly any outcry.

The Hooters that opened here opened up in Fisherman's Wharf -- the tourist section of the city. This means the Hooters is meant for out-of-towners. San Franciscans don't pay much attention to what happens or what is built in Fisherman's Wharf.

Besides, the far more interesting story in San Francisco strip clubs at the time of the opening of that Hooters was that the Lusty Lady made history yet again by becoming the first strip club ever to become a worker-owned coop.

I found it amusing a few months back when doing my various reading at how amused the rest of the country seemed to be by this opening of Hooters and how they seemed braced to hear about the protests from our "politically correct" city. Well, having long observed the peculiar ways of the politically correct here, I already suspected that if there were to be a protest, it'd more likely be one that objected to the introduction of yet another chain store/restaurant here than for its allegedly prurient theme. But, like I said, as it was in Fisherman's Wharf, it'd be doubtful a new chain restaurant there would stir up much fuss whatsoever.

Love That Emperor Norton

Today in Rotten History (rotten.com) had a nice piece of calendar trivia for today:

Aug 12 1869 -

In San Francisco, Emperor Norton I issues a stern edict outlawing both the Republican and Democratic political parties. Violators face a prison term of five-to-ten years.

Rollins at the Fillmore

Tuesday of last week, some friends of mine invited me to go see The Henry Rollins Band with them at the Fillmore that evening.

I've mentioned before in this blog that I kinda don't pay attention to what's going on out and about town much anymore, so I hadn't even been aware that the band was playing in town. However, somewhat coincidentally, I happened to have been chatting with someone the week before who was here in SF visiting, and she mentioned having just seen Henry Rollins in Florida. She also mentioned the tour the band was on was a benefit tour for the West Memphis Three. I'd heard about that case, as I'd seen the documentary "Paradise Lost" several years ago and have occasionally checked in at the WM3 website to see if there's anything new in the story. (As explaining what the West Memphis Three case is all about would be a bit complicated, I refer you instead to this article on Blogcritics, which describes the background to the West Memphis Three story as well as Henry Rollins' reasons for doing this benefit tour for it -- Blogcritics.org: Rollins Band/WM3 Tribute Tour).

So, when my friends told me The Rollins Band was playing at the Fillmore last Tuesday, I figured they were in town on the same benefit tour I'd just heard mentioned. And, yup, that's what it was.

The band for this tour also included Keith Morris from the Circle Jerks as well. Morris sang some of the songs and Rollins did the others. Already practically felt like it was a wee bit of a punk "Big Chill" thing or something with just those two sharing the stage -- not to mention many of the songs they did were old punk band covers -- I recall at least one Dead Boys' song as well as a couple of Ramones' songs.

Towards the end of the show, Rollins announced they had a special guest to bring out. And out comes the Dead Kennedys' Jello Biafra, who talked a bit and did a song. (Perhaps not so surprising they'd have him come on stage here in San Francisco, considering ....)

Boggled my little mind to see such an array of "ghosts of punk past" this way. Definitely thought it was a great show and I had an absolute blast.

I also found it a little funny, on a personal note, to observe that before this show, I hadn't actually seen a show at the Fillmore since the early 80s -- and the show I'd seen at the Fillmore way back then just happened to have been the Dead Kennedys.

Odd coincidence, especially considering that at one point in my life, I did go see many, many bands play in many, many places here in SF. But then again, maybe not that odd as I know that the reason I saw so few shows at the Fillmore was that somewhere in the mid-to-late 80s, the Fillmore closed for a while and went through some renovations and changes. For a short while in the 80s, they even tried to turn it into a dance club, renaming it the Elite Club. I went a couple times when it was this dance club, I remember -- a short-lived phase for the Fillmore, fortunately. By the time they turned it back into a live music venue -- and I don't remember offhand when that was -- I had stopped going to see live shows much.

Anyway, San Francisco was the band's last stop in the U.S. and they're off to finish the tour out of the country now. And I'm just pleased I ended up seeing it.

Beginning to think that maybe I should glance at the music calendar listings on occasion, eh? I'm sure there are other shows I'd be glad to have seen, too, if I bothered to look up what's going on in a given week ....

But I think I kinda like being accidentally dragged off to things these days. Makes it more random. And I do enjoy the random.

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 .....

Big Giant Head

San Francisco, like any old city, is full of unexplained remnants from its past. It's an odd town, always has been. Since childhood, I often have seen or remember seeing odd things in various places around town. More usually than not, I never knew what the hell they were doing there or where they came from. But since finding some great San Francisco history resources online, I've been looking up the ones that catch my fancy and finding out about them.

Recently, I traipsed over to City Hall with Laszlo and Kali, making them come with me to go take some photos of what I would only refer to as the Big Giant Head. Now, there have been a few big giant heads in San Francisco history -- the Doggie Diner head perhaps being the most famous.

I was referring, however, to the head from the statue of the Goddess of Progress. This statue once adorned the top of the old City Hall, which was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake. (You can see where the statue once perched in these photos from the SF Public Library's Historical Photograph Collection: photos of the old City Hall before the quake and one of the ruins after.)

I first learned about this statue (and its peculiar history) some months back in this amusing article from the Museum of San Francisco's online site (a wonderful and entertaining resource, by the way).

Since the article mentioned the head is currently on display in City Hall, I decided I should meander over there one day myself (as I happen to live quite near it) and look at the thing myself. So, one day a couple of weeks ago, I managed to get Laszlo and Kali to come along with me for the walk. It's there all right. And it's a big giant ugly head. My pix:

Laszlo's arm, the Big Giant Head, and Kali:

Today is the 50th anniversary

Today is the 50th anniversary of Irish Coffee's invention.

Saw this article this morning.

I knew about the drink having been invented at the Buena Vista in San Francisco -- used to work across the street from the Buena Vista years ago. But I had no idea before that there was on record an actual date of inspired mixology.

So, in tribute, I popped out to the corner store, bought a bottle of Irish whiskey, and made this little celebratory beverage "still life" pictured here:

A little Irish coffee and a little trivia is a pleasant way to start the morning (as long as I do not instead dwell on everything else that I noticed in the news this morning, that is).

Hmm. Three or four of these drinkies could probably aid me quite well in not dwelling. But as tempting as that sounds, can't indulge in that as I've got some other things to attend to today. Drat. And more drat.

As for any tendency towards dwelling, I could try to follow the advice of one of Oscar's lines:

"Sympathy with joy intensifies the sum of sympathy in the world, sympathy with pain does not really diminish the amount of pain."

But I'm not sure I could believe that wholeheartedly without really, really dwelling on it. Not to mention a whole lot more whiskey in my coffee ...

But what the hell. I'll take a stab at it this minute.

Joyous Irish Coffee Day. Cheers!

uh-huh.

Earthquake

We had an earthquake last night. 5.2 on the Richter scale and the epicenter was about a hundred miles south of San Francisco.

They say animals act weird right before an earthquake. I forget or haven't actually ever heard the definitive reason why this is, actually, but I know I have anecdotal proof of this in my own past. Including last night. About an hour before the earthquake, Alecto (our cat) was acting weird. For some reason, she was just sitting there with her tail poofed-out and bushy like cats do when they're pissed off. But she didn't seem to be particularly focused on anything while she just sat there in the room, her tail very very bushy.

"What's her problem?" Laszlo and I asked each other and we tried to figure out what was freaking her out. But she calmed down and her tail returned to normal proportions.

We shrugged and figured we had just missed seeing whatever it was that set her off.

Then, an hour later, the house shook.

Occasionally, people who have never been in an earthquake ask me what they're like. Well, they're interesting. They usually don't last very long. Generally, by the time you realize the shaking is an earthquake and you wonder if you should do something (the conventional advice is to stand in a doorway or get under something sturdy), the shaking stops. I've never personally experienced much damage in an earthquake -- luckily -- and I've been here during some of the nastier earthquakes. Such as the infamous 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco, which caused quite a bit of damage in the city and around. That was a scary earthquake and the shaking lasted longer than most I've experienced. I dived under my desk and had more than a few seconds to contemplate the possibility the walls might crumble. I live in the bottom floor apartment of a three-story building. I don't particularly like wondering if the building will collapse. I doubt standing in a doorway or diving under my desk would particularly help me much in such a situation.

One of the other scariest earthquakes I remember wasn't actually a big earthquake. It happened sometime in the mid-80s, but the reason I found it scary is it happened when I was work, and at the time I worked in an office in a tall downtown building on an upper floor. I don't remember, offhand, which floor it was -- 30-something? I think. The taller downtown buildings in San Francisco are built to withstand earthquakes -- which they do by having "give" in their structure. This means that after an earthquake, the building just continues to sway for quite a few minutes afterward. Even if one realizes, logically, that the swaying is supposed to happen and is part of what is supposed to make a tall building able to withstand a quake, well, I will tell you, it is still extremely unnerving to be in a swaying tall building. Because they sway A LOT.

The much larger 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake knocked the power out, and it stayed out in my neighborhood for 3 or 4 days. Still, considering that we personally hadn't experienced much direct damage and there were plenty of people who had, that wasn't so much to put up with.

After that one, they closed the freeway exit near my apartment and tore down part of the offramp as it had been deemed unstable after that earthquake. So, there's a broken freeway to nowhere at the end of my block that the pigeons have taken over.

I wonder if the pigeons act weird before earthquakes, too. And if one would notice a pigeon acting weirder than usual.

My cat was fine right after the earthquake last night, although she did look a bit annoyed with us. I'm sure she thinks we had something to do with it.