4 ms·

NEVER any normal people, eh? How about in the 40's? 30's? Late 1800's? San Francisco has been around a lot longer than a couple of decades and it's still mostly

NEVER any normal people, eh? How about in the 40's? 30's? Late 1800's? San Francisco has been around a lot longer than a couple of decades and it's still mostly normal people today. Just look around sometime and in other neighborhoods than to which you live...

VonGuard 12y ago
OOoooooK, the 30's and 40's saw what spawned the Film Noir movement: a climate of fear and paranoia, somewhat related to fears of Japanese invasion during WWII, but mostly came from movies like Dark Passage, and the fact that two major, photogenic prisons were located here. The 50's saw the Maltese Falcon and the beat poets coming to light. The 1800's were when San Francisco BECAME weird. Ever hear of Emperor Norton? The Gold Rush? Little Dick? The gold rush brought, specifically, risk-takers and odd hermit folks to the Bay Area, even if only temporarily, and Little Dick was a 15-year old female gang leader who murdered Chinese people as a hobby in the 1850's. SF has always been weird. The only people here, before, who you could consider not-weird were the blue collar sorts. This was not a town of lawyers and doctors and people with children. It was a town of homosexuals and beats and sailors and hackers and burners and hippies. It was a great town. Now, it's just Manhattan west. A millionaire's playground.
- swatow 12y ago
  The fact that you use murdering Chinese as an example of the "weirdness" that you promote is truly disgusting. I'm not saying that you support such an act, but to include it in a list of things that you are generally positive towards, without any qualification or disclaimer, indicates the implicit unimportance of Chinese lives, relative to SF's unique culture.
- BashiBazouk 12y ago
  SF has also been normal. Normal/weird is not mutually exclusive. SF has also been and is still is quite gentrified. For every Emperor Norton or Little Dick you have the Pacific Union club, industrialists and bankers. Those who had/have chic apartments and townhouses then head off to their mansions in Hillsborough. Hippies and beats did not build all those tall buildings around market street. If you watch all those Noir films, just like walking around the city today, look beyond the main characters and see all the normal people going about their business. As Manhattan is still the center of fine art, theater, opera and classical music in this country, I don't know that I mind the comparison...
  - astrocyte 12y ago
    Fine art ? By whose measure? Wealth? Theater/Opera/Classic music : And how does that resonate with society in 2015? What's the average age of attendees? I've had some of my best experiences with art/music venues/performing arts far from what wealth has defined as 'quality'. Constructed buildings? Yes, blue collar people built them as they did most things. Wealth/Money is an amplifier.. Too much of it and it drowns out the actual signal and turns it to noise. SF has gone full retard and the result is a hollowed vessel of noise .. Much like Manhattan. 'Fine art' as it were

VonGuard 12y ago

OOoooooK, the 30's and 40's saw what spawned the Film Noir movement: a climate of fear and paranoia, somewhat related to fears of Japanese invasion during WWII, but mostly came from movies like Dark Passage, and the fact that two major, photogenic prisons were located here. The 50's saw the Maltese Falcon and the beat poets coming to light. The 1800's were when San Francisco BECAME weird. Ever hear of Emperor Norton? The Gold Rush? Little Dick? The gold rush brought, specifically, risk-takers and odd hermit folks to the Bay Area, even if only temporarily, and Little Dick was a 15-year old female gang leader who murdered Chinese people as a hobby in the 1850's. SF has always been weird. The only people here, before, who you could consider not-weird were the blue collar sorts. This was not a town of lawyers and doctors and people with children. It was a town of homosexuals and beats and sailors and hackers and burners and hippies. It was a great town. Now, it's just Manhattan west. A millionaire's playground.

swatow 12y ago
The fact that you use murdering Chinese as an example of the "weirdness" that you promote is truly disgusting. I'm not saying that you support such an act, but to include it in a list of things that you are generally positive towards, without any qualification or disclaimer, indicates the implicit unimportance of Chinese lives, relative to SF's unique culture.
BashiBazouk 12y ago
SF has also been normal. Normal/weird is not mutually exclusive. SF has also been and is still is quite gentrified. For every Emperor Norton or Little Dick you have the Pacific Union club, industrialists and bankers. Those who had/have chic apartments and townhouses then head off to their mansions in Hillsborough. Hippies and beats did not build all those tall buildings around market street. If you watch all those Noir films, just like walking around the city today, look beyond the main characters and see all the normal people going about their business. As Manhattan is still the center of fine art, theater, opera and classical music in this country, I don't know that I mind the comparison...
- astrocyte 12y ago
  Fine art ? By whose measure? Wealth? Theater/Opera/Classic music : And how does that resonate with society in 2015? What's the average age of attendees? I've had some of my best experiences with art/music venues/performing arts far from what wealth has defined as 'quality'. Constructed buildings? Yes, blue collar people built them as they did most things. Wealth/Money is an amplifier.. Too much of it and it drowns out the actual signal and turns it to noise. SF has gone full retard and the result is a hollowed vessel of noise .. Much like Manhattan. 'Fine art' as it were