TransAmerica Pyramid as it looks from Google Earth

Solstice June 21, 2003

Recently in Jackson Square...

Honoring a gay pioneer's contribution to San Francisco: "He would nightly close the bar via a signature sing-along; a rowdy rendition of 'God Save Us Nelly Queens.' Sometimes Sarria would lead out the bar's patrons and drag entertainers to serenade gay people being held in jail."

The Black Cat lives...

SAN FRANCISCO / Castro block renamed to honor gay pioneer: and this...

Muisti|kirja: My Back Pages: San Francisco, 1988, the poetic haunts of the Black Cat in the mist

Influences/Resonances: this is under the category of never name a restaurant a French swear word, but then you need a list if French does not come easily to you. Bug...

Amorphic Robot Works: Machines: Urge

Chico MacMurtrie's contribution to Yerba Buena Gardens is worth a visit with friends.

Inflate - Purchase Our Inflatable Structures [boing boing]: e.g. Office in a Bucket. The Black Cat once had an inflatable office created by the Ant Farm. In the morning, he'd turn on the fan and the office would appear. Inside, it was its own little world with an obscure view out the window of the back porch of the building where it was situated on Union Street.

Restaurant turnaround, big deal.

The best approach is under the radar. Unfortunately The Black Cat is not a foodie or even business savvy.

He wants to go in. He wants to be welcomed or at least not scowled at (in North America, anyway). He wants to see a clean, bright, airy, honest space and furnishings, and if any style, he'd pick modern. The Black Cat likes special seats, such as a window seat with a view. He likes pricing moderate to low, food great and staff prompt, especially when it comes time to present the check.

Distant memory of a start-up: Intersection coffee house run by AH of Coffee Cantata

A favorite: Rocky Point Lodge, Klamath Falls

Nicholas Coley returns to Canessa with a new show...

Installation views of Donn Curry at Canessa, which closed this weekend.

More pictures of the earthquake shack...

This is the very last day the Black Cat could possibly visit the earthquake shack, and guess what, he was there and the so were the shack volunteers, mostly busy with packing. But they were very nice and told the small assembled crowd all about the "wood tents," who stayed there (the working class) and how they were built. Start with the floor (Douglas Fire 1x4); build the top plate around the four edges of the floor; raise the plate up and start nailing the redwood boards, usually 1x6, but in the case of the particular type "A" shack on view, 1x4. No studs are used (even at corners) except at openings.

If you have sharp eyes, you can figure out as well as anyone else how to build an earthquake shack.

Mississippi Renewal Katrina cottage, similar to earthquake shack...

Earthquake cottage is in there.

Depleted Uranium For Dummies By Irving Wesley Hall

15 Best Skylines in the World

America's overvalued real estate

Prospect Park cc courtesy Joe's NYC

A Trans-California Ramble: Re-walking John Muir's 1868 trip from San Francisco to Yosemite--a young couple from Santa Cruz walks and describes the experience on the web and later, in a book.

Update 4/8/2006: See the article in the paper.

canessagallery.reddogpieface.com › Exhibition Installations, San Francisco › Coley
Nicholas Coley shows Bay Area Landscapes through March.

::Fat::Architecture::: "‘In a Lonely Place’ takes the form of a huge 7 meter inflated black sphere punctured by a half-timbered structure. Inside, a stair leads up to a viewing platform, from where the surrounding void is broken by small pinpricks of light, made by transparent panels cut into the sphere."

Architect at home with Santa Barbara tradition / Whimsical complex still plays by rules

Water Street is in danger of going the way of Vandewater.

[daily dose of imagery] trailer in snow

KevinFreitas.net ~ Tacoma's Deriugin house to be demolished ~ kevin freitas journal photos pics cheats projects seattle web developer: photo essay of handmade four-story house including exterior closeups and neighborhood views

PARK(ing) is a parking space south of Market turned into a park for a couple of sunny hours last month.

Shameless promotion...

functionalfate.org - Researching the White Plastic Chair

3eyes - Streetclock gnomon [milov]

Jeff Berner Photography: Paris, France & Marin County, California. Visit ABTEERLNIEERR, 01 42 52 25 95, 102-bis rue Lepic 75018 Paris, metro Abbesses

From Gertrude Stein on Picasso, 1970, Liveright, 1946, Random House:

Then again in 1904 he was once again in Paris.

He lived in Montmartre, in the rue Ravignan, its name has been changed now, but the last time I was there it still had its old charm, the little square was just as it was the first time I saw it, a carpenter was working in a corner, the children were there, the houses were all about the same as they had been, the old atelier where all of them had lived was still standing, perhaps since then, for it is two or three years that I was there last, perhaps now they have commenced to tear it down and build another building. It is normal to build new buildings but all the same one does not like anything to change, and the rue Ravignan of that time was really something, it was the rue Ravignan and it was there that many things that were important in the history of twentieth century art happened.

Found in the history room at Canessa...

CANESSA

The Canessa Building, built in the late 1800s and located at 708 Montgomery, is an official San Francisco landmark. Canessa once housed printing presses and gas lights, and nearby, on Sansome Street, a bustling produce market district shook the neighborhood into pre-dawn life.

For 30 years, from 1933 to 1963, the Black Cat Cafe, located at 710 Montgomery, was the Canessa Building's next-door neighbor. The Cat attracted a bohemian clientele of both straight and gay writers, artists and musicians from the neighborhood. Many lived and worked across the street in the historic Montgomery Block building (where the TransAmerica Pyramid now stands). Just north of the Cat, at 716-718-720 Montgomery, were the studios of Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Emmy Lou Packard and Ralph and Peter Stackpole.

Regular visitors to the Cat included artists Hassel Smith, Maynard Dixon and Ed Corbett. John Steinbeck and William Saroyan dropped in from time to time -- as did two veteran police reporters, Neil Hitt of the Chronicle and Harry Debolt of the Examiner. According to Jerry Flamm, author of Hometown San Francisco, Hitt and Debolt, “an inseparable pair in the Hall of Justice press room after 5 p.m., would occasionally stroll down one block to the Black Cat for a thirst quencher after advising the police radio dispatcher where they would be in case all hell broke loose somewhere in the city.”

Though many of the buildings in this area did not survive the era of high-and-higher architecture, the diminutive gem known as Canessa has. Today, the old brick building still glows with light and life and is home to an art gallery and several creative professionals with small businesses.

Fran Herndon shows at Canessa through May 28, beloved by poets.

Artweek classifieds, space for rent

NoHoArtsDistrict.com� Visual Arts "How to Article" #2: This is about vanity galleries. One is described as an art gallery for exhibitions sponsored by arts organizations, eductional institutions, independent curators and individual artists, 1300 sq ft, ground floor.

Google Maps (Unofficial Standalone Viewer) - Lower Columbus Passage is a map showing rough locations of Canessa neighborhood views seen in the Passage album on shootColumbus.com.

Google Maps - 94111: TransAmerica Pyramid is lower left and Canessa is lost in the shadows in this satellite image.

NYPL Digital Gallery in the Changing New York collection, there is a picture of two old houses in front of a giant brick warehouse by Berenice Abbott from 1935. What a difference in scale.

Helene Sobol shows studies of of Bark in this month's installation at Canessa Gallery. Beauty comes from something useful, in this case the bark of numerous trees.

Jimo Perini shows 63 years of photography at Canessa Gallery through January. Published more than once. A part of North Beach. A photographer's photographer. Canessa in the past.

ROOKE TIME 26: A Brief History of Graffiti Research/Staffan Jacobson via elastic space

The Cockettes -- uh, the Palace, the theater up the street that seems to be seriously boarded up. Also The Artist General via an official purveyor of information.

Elastico.net: USA, 1872-1991, USGS earthquake and dramatic landscape.

The Examiner has a perceptive article about why North Beach is such a great place, and trashes Civic Center, Union Square (a little) and the Embarcadero and its fancy farmer's market.