Fallopia » San Francisco

Somewhere Summer’s End

Vy — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:46:31 +0000

Once the first of September rolls around, it’s going to be hard to pretend like summer is not over. If you are like me, you’ve had enough summer for one year and the crimson autumn tide has been a long time coming. Maybe you love summer, and you tear up every fall to watch summer fade through blurry red eyes. Either way, you are SICK of your summer music. I know I am. 5000 long miles in, I had listened to every CD I had and was miserable and furious about the inadequacy of what was, just months ago, the best music collection ever. Luckily. when this happened, I was approaching the central coast of California. I quickly ditched Interstate 5 for the coastal, country Hwy 1, which delivered me to the vivid crooked streets of San Francisco. All music lovers should know that there, if the hipsters don’t send you into crisis mode, you can find the Haight-Ashbury district Amoeba Record Store, home to my personal favorite: the Do-It-Yourself clearance bin.

With CD’s priced at $1.99 on average, and a “buy 3, get one free” rule to send you over the top, I don’t mind buying new music here based purely on the name of the last track, or the pretty picture on the cover. It’s always a gamble, what you get is deliciously unpredicatable, and every so often you find a treasure.

Hands & Knees is my clearance box gift to you. A 4-piece pop rock band from Massachusetss, their album “Et Tu, Fluffy?” sounds just like the end of my summer. Ragged nostalgia, ragged and raucous… let’ go out in style friends. Dance!

LISTEN to my two favorite tracks:

Track 1: Midnight In The Applefield

Track 2: Hot Little Item

For a complete review of the album, you can check out Music & Entertainment blog Ryan’s Smashing Life, but I recommend you just buy it and find out for yourself.

Patriotic Celebration: How We Do

Em — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:02:48 +0000

There will be bar-b-que with or without citizenship. This is how the Green Cards do their America.

Someone walked back down the hill last night without their shoes.

Lonely Patriot feet.

Can You America?

Em — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:12:52 +0000

In celebration of our great day of Independence, the folks over at the San Francisco studios decided to create a specialized citizenship quiz. Certain selections of the quiz were pulled from the actual citizenship exam, others were crafted by a collection of both natural born citizens and green card holders. So as you drink your independently crafted brewskies, eat your black bean and lamb burgers, and devour classically colored red, white, and blue desserts, see if you can pass the test. If you do, EmVy will mail you an official certificate of America signed by authentic citizens and aliens. If not, we’ll still send you a certificate for a green card.

We’ll put answers up later on.

Happy Indie Day!

1. Who elects the President of the United States?

2. How many changes or amendments are there to the Constitution?

3. How many representatives are there in Congress?

4. Who becomes President of the United States if the President and the Vice President should die?

5. Who said, “Give me liberty or give me death.”?

6. Can you name thirteen original colonies?

7. What is the most important right granted to U.S. citizens?

8. Name four commonwealths?

9. Who said, “Go west young man, go west.”?

10. What kind of people should never ever be let into the United States?

Summer Reads: Righteous Dopefiend

Em — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:22:39 +0000

Righteous Dopefiend is a bold title. And having “there is nothing righteous about dopefiends” as the opening line seems outright hypocritical. But these statements capture Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg’s powerfully candid and unsympathetic examination of the lives of heroin addicts living in modern-day San Francisco.

The result of over a decade-long field study, Righteous Dopefiend follows the lives of several heroin addicts living under Edgewater Boulevard, a freeway overpass in the picturesque city by the bay. The authors’ approach to the project is one that self-consciously “suspends moral judgment.” The challenge to both the writers and the audience is to set aside opinions on urban vice associated with homelessness and addiction, enabling the narrative to emerge from the people who live these lives.

The self-conscious decision to make a critical yet sensitive study is conveyed through the distinct style of the book. The risk of confirming negative stereotypes through “jarring photography” is of the upmost concern to the authors. Bourgois and Schonberg thus create a dialogue between rich black-and-white photographs, vivid excerpts from their field notes, and critical social theory. Excerpts from the fieldnotes give context for images which the audience may not readily comprehend.

By accompanying the photographs with fieldnotes and scholarly analysis, the impression of addiction becomes multi-faceted, ensuring that the addict experience is not pigeonholed. They remark, “as anthropologists studying people who live under conditions of extreme duress and distress, we feel it is imperative to link theory to practice. Otherwise, we would be merely intellectual voyeurs.” Bourgois and Schonberg’s balance between image, word, and theory reflects their research methods, inviting the audience to witness and experience, rather than analyze , this community.

The community created through drug use is the centerpiece of their study. The authors depict aspects of street life through the voices and meditations of various people living under Edgewater Boulevard. The personal relationships between addicts create a distinct community with its own particular moral and ethical rules. Dopesickness, for example, an ailment encompassing the severe physical symptoms of heroin withdrawal, is an experience that fuels the “moral economy of sharing.” Being sick elicits empathy among members who are both friends and enemies. “It is considered unethical,” the authors observe, “to leave a person stranded when he or she is dopesick unless one is openly feuding with that person.”

Assuaging dopesickness is one of the few instances where ethnic and racial boundaries may be crossed. Although the power of addiction may appear to overwhelm racism, division along racial and ethnic lines is part of everyday life on Edgewater Boulevard. When Bourgois asks Hank, one of the white dopefiends, why the scene is predominately white, Hank replies, “You’ll see very few black people homeless…because they’re knocking out kids on welfare.” Several members harbor mistrust and stereotypes of dopefiends from differing ethnic backgrounds despite being intertwined in a network of dealing and dependency.

Besides delving into the shadows of street life, the authors also explore the evolution of love between residents of the camp. One couple, Tina and Carter, develop a surprisingly domestic and committed relationship despite personal histories of abuse, homelessness, and addiction. Bourgois and Schonberg also follow Hank and Petey, best friends and lovers who struggle to live in a homophobic, yet fraternal, environment. Their turbulent relationship is tempered by the impediments that surround them: possible eviction, pan-handling, hospitalization, methadone treatment, and death.

Bourgois and Schonberg preserve the dopefiends’ humanity while simultaneously excavating the grittiest aspects of life on the street, managing to keep their commitment to put aside moral judgment. Reminiscent of an evocative documentary film, their book is beautifully shot, intelligent, and engaging.

Photography by Jeff Schonberg