archive for July, 2008
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
SFWeekly: “Nonconformity Still Reigns”
Apparently yours truly is the go-to source on non-conformity in historical San Francisco. That’s the way the SFWeekly is leaning, in any case. An hour of phone-schmoozing with intrepid reporter Lauren Smiley resulted in the following introduction to story about modern-day San Francisco kooks and characters:
In the beginning of our city’s love affair with odd ducks, there was Emperor Norton. A businessman in Gold Rush San Francisco who lost his pants on an investment in Peruvian rice, he re-emerged as a grand character of his own invention: “Emperor of These United States” and “Protector of Mexico.” He waltzed about town in a secondhand military uniform while newspapers printed his official edicts without caveat and establishments honored his fake currency.
If Los Angeles lionizes its celebrities, San Francisco has always embraced, or at least tolerated, its homegrown eccentrics. “I can’t imagine any other city in the world where [Emperor Norton] could have become what he became with the acceptance of the city,” says Richard Miller, an armchair historian who creates podcasts on San Francisco legends for his Web site, Sparkletack. “Some say all the loose nuts rolled west … people who hadn’t made it elsewhere, or just different from the average bears.”
Take a look at the rest of the SFWeekly’s article, and not just because of that little quote — Lauren hits the high spots from the Brown Twins (who refused to be interviews by the Weekly without cash on the barrelhead) to Frank Chu (who could not be contained). The premise of the story is that there’s still hope for San Francisco … and I hope she’s right.
No Comments » - Posted in Media,San Francisco history blog by richard - sparkletack
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
Bullitt: the greatest car chase ever (from space!)
This video takes Bullitt about ten steps further. It’s a side-by-side display that — through the techno-wizardry of geocoding — shows the chase scene’s logic-defying route from space. Now you can track Steve’s ’68 Mustang GT turn by screeching turn through every neighborhood in the city — just like a James Bond super-villain:
9 Comments » - Posted in Just plain cool,San Francisco history blog by richard - sparkletack
Sparkletack was the blog and podcast of a guy obsessed with diggin' up San Francisco history. The site is on permanent hiatus.
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