Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Literary City

While I won't be the first person to extol the untainted virtue of the United States as a democratic entity, I will be one of the first to stand up in defense of San Francisco. Like all cities, we've got our fair share of flaws and kinks to work out, but if there's any place to be frustrated about bureacratical flaws and democratic kinks (and not the fun kind of kinks) and general carelessness from time to time I'd rather be in San Francisco than anywhere else. I love no city in the United States like I love San Francisco. In fact, I don't love any cities in the United States other than San Francisco. San Francisco, in a matter of speaking, is my United States, as I think might the case with a lot of San Franciscian émigrés for whom San Francisco has been a kind of refuge city to which they can relocate in order to set up a life free of personal and ethical compromise and free of a kind of close-minded denigration, effrontery, and at times outright oppression. San Francisco is, for the most part, a warm, friendly, open place, hospitable to any kind of person you can imagine. We encourage and welcome all; and that's this city's draw. It's human constitution is about as freakishly eclectic as possible. We are one giant carbon-based portmanteau of living bodies and it's really quite breathtaking. When I first moved to California, after after a few months spent getting comfortable and learning my way around San Diego, I wrote a poem, the contents of which I'll spare you, called "California is a Country." The theme of that poem is patent to the title; I still believe that, too. California feels at times like an autonomous nation cleanly divorced from the rest of the nation, for better or worse. And San Francisco, while not the capitol of the state, has all the trappings and sensations of being the de facto capitol of this imagined nation-state of California. All of this is not to say California isn't, at the state, governmental, and occasional personal level, debilitatingly inept; but so is just about anywhere you go in the country. I'm not romanticizing things here. Part of loving something or someplace or someone involves acknowledging faults, weaknesses, pockmarks; and it's funny how, over time, those become the features you remember most and of which you're fondest.

But my reverence for San Francisco specifically is core-of-the-earth deep. There are myriad reasons for this. The one specific one about which this post is concerned is the literary lustre both past and present. Local artist Ian Huebert has given birth to a truly beautiful map composed up of literary quotes from the past written in and/or about San Francisco. SF locals will be able to pick them up as hard copies on 8th and Minna at Electric Works in SoMa for a modest 15 bones. Until then, just enjoy.



Click the picture for a larger, more detailed view; and also check out Ian's website for more of his
excellent work. At Ritual Roasters his work will be hanging from the walls all through the month of October, so that makes for a doubly excellent experience--Ritual coffee is rather inarguably superb.

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