Surviving San Francisco

I just got back from San Francisco. It had fun meeting some of the folks I’d not seen in a long time or even met yet, and for that I appreciate the chance I got to attend the conference I travelled there for.

Three Wise Mushrooms

I might or might not have also learned a great deal there too, but the jury might remain out on that. (insert nervous laughter here)

Surviving the trip and returning to the south gave me a good feeling, as I have developed an increasing dislike of the American travel by airline experience as I age.

All that out of the way, this article talks about art and photographs. I took far fewer photographs with my trusty smart phone this time around than ever, which feels both liberating from the perspective of just living in the moment, but also kind of a bummer in hindsight now that I look over the moments I actually captured.

I’m sharing a few different shots that I think represent my mindset in taking in the particularly nasty, brutish, and short experience of that area known as Union Square.

While there is filth everywhere in sight, sound, and smell, there is a also a beauty of the struggle and in the simple artistic expression hidden all around the area as typified by the first photograph of the charming musroom caps.

Stay Warm

Amidst the everyday consumption and tunnel visioned quests for greater prosperity going on in the city, one can of course, find too many homeless people. They are unfortunately regarded essentially as lamps, hydrants, or debris to so many area “natives” and need stepping around or over as such.

They’re sort of glossed over like so many advertisements and graffiti pieces. Never mind that they too are human beings.

The streets are cold and unforgiving, so a good drunken stupor and warm blanket are the coping mechanism needed by most at the end of the night.

If you do not share the above cold and inhumane view of these persons, and on the contrary, you have even half a conscience, then you can’t help but know a taste of Siddartha’s painful conflicted state by gazing upon those less fortunate in their most vulnerable condition and absorbing their suffering.

The F Line

Here is a more typical capture one expects to see from San Francisco; the famous F Line trolley that runs from The Embarcadero all the way to The Castro. Everyone who studied or visited San Francisco knows these iconic and charmingly antiquated modes of transportation.

They’re simultaneously bold and comforting in that they stand out from all the surrounding modernity while providing a perpetual shout out to how it used to be.

The early morning light present when I spotted her slowly creaking by on Market Street was nothing short of spectacular and this photograph barely even begins to convey what I saw that day.

Silent Stacks

The city’s collection of weight never fails to impress upon me; be it skyscrapers or smokestacks. One can be doing the most mundane of things, such as fetching a morning coffee and in turning around to face another direction, the city will reveal her various juxtaposed collections of mass.

Sheer size and weight counterpoised against our small selves and little lives is both disturbing and exciting. We built this spectacular city and in turn, the city builds into us an awe at every moment where the unexpected looms over any scene it seems to not belong in.

That’s the name of the game here, a paradox of plenty and of nothing — a balance of extremes that is constantly in motion and always on the horizon.

Van Gogh’s favorite color was yellow.

A homeless man stands out like an anti-ghost of the streets; not panhandling, not scrounging the sidewalk for cigarette butts, and not really interacting with anyone in particular.

He exists there in bold and blazing yellow, like a confused captain whose ship has recently run aground, appraising the situation of a new day and contemplating his survival. Or is he merely pondering on where he can score a new pair of shoes?

Seeing his bare feet, I could not help but remind myself that I had just seen a pair of shoes lying on the sidewalk presumably without an owner just blocks away.