Author: Todd_Lappin

Stunning Tilt-Shift Video of San Francisco Includes Bernal Hill Cameo

/ Todd_Lappin / 1 Comment

I’m grateful to creator Jeremy Williams for including a brief (and foggy) Bernal Hill cameo in his amazing amazing amazing new tilt-shift video of San Francisco, because that provides the excuse I need to share the video with you here. Here’s what he did:

I captured 30,000 photos over ten months of everything I love about San Francisco. The end result required 750 hours of rendering to generate 62 tilt shift timelapse sequences.

The finished piece is very WOW. Put the headphones on, and enjoy!

Hat Tip: SFCitizen

New York Times Writes About Bernal-Based “Odyssey Works” Performance Collective

/ Todd_Lappin

In case you missed it, there was a big piece in the New York Times last week about Odyssey Works, an interesting art collective co-founded by Bernal Neighbor Abe Burickson. Odyssey Works creates site-specific performance pieces for a single person — “an audience of one.” The result is an immersive experience that might be described as a cross between Bertolt Brecht and Allen Funt.

The NYT explains:

For more than a decade a loose-knit, multidisciplinary collective called Odyssey Works has been quietly inverting art’s longstanding arrangement with its audience. Rather than a single artist creating for a general population, it directs many artists at a deeply researched population of one. The intricate creations that converge in the group members’ weekend-long performances — sound installations, films, performance art and more — exist only for their chosen subject, whom they’ve come to know very well. Then it all vanishes. The idea is a beautiful inefficiency: a tiny but infinitely more affected audience.

“The goal is to find the deepest possible effect of art and the full breadth of emotional experience in the world,” said Abraham Burickson, the kindly and ruminative co-founder and director of Odyssey Works. “We get to know them so well, we don’t have to use guesswork to find how to make that happen. We’re ‘Amazon recommends,’ for art.”

The beneficiary of all this activity that weekend was Laura Espino, 26, a volunteer coordinator originally from Argentina. Having heard about the group from a friend, she’d filled out a monstrously elaborate application to be its next audience. She was chosen from roughly 100 applicants, asked to leave a certain weekend open and to do no further research. Already it had begun to research her.

PHOTO: Performance recipient Laura Espino being “abducted” by Miriam Bird Greenberg and Abraham Burickson. New York Times photo by Peter DaSilva.

They’re Baaaaack! Seasonal Arachnid Invasion Now Under Way

/ Todd_Lappin / 16 Comments

The Bernalwood Intelligence Agency noted the invasion preparations underway back in May, and just as predicted, the Arachnid Forces have now established a beachhead in Bernal Heights.

Neighbor Brent reports from the front lines on Prentiss Street, where a platoon of Cross Orbweavers has taken up positions:

I don’t know if they ever went away, but the spiders are back, and they’ve shown up in my backyard as of a couple of days ago. These two have had their webs up for over two days.  I haven’t disturbed them — let them eat all the flies they want!

PHOTOS: Neighbor Brent

It Is Gone: Old Bernal Heights Library Mural Painted Over

/ Todd_Lappin / 45 Comments



After a long and difficult community-focused mediation process, followed by additional delays triggered by opponents, the old Bernal Library mural was finally painted over today.

Next steps? Artist Ruben Rude will begin painting the Moultrie-side portion of the mural. Precita Eyes will begin the prep work on the Cortland facade, including an outline for the forthcoming tile work, so we’ll soon see the scope of the new design in actual size. (The Precita Eyes portion of the mural will be executed in hand-painted tile.) Ruben is expected complete his work this fall, but Precita Eyes will probably be hampered by winter weather, so the Cortland remuralizing may go into early next year.

Once again, this is the final design of the new murals:

PHOTOS: Repainting of the old mural this morning, by Telstar Logistics

Astronomer Explores Lunar Surface and Jupiter from Bernal Heights Observatory

/ Todd_Lappin / 3 Comments

While you were enjoying the warm weather earlier this week, your neighborhood aeronautics and space agency was hard at work exploring the solar system. Neighbor Clifton, Chief of Astronomical Research for the Bernal Aeronautics and Space Administration (BASA), files this report on his most recent observations from the Bernal Heights Observatory:

The skies above Bernal Heights are ablaze with activity this week. The current heat wave and passing of the Fall Equinox has created a double whammy of astronomical delights. The constellation Orion has reappeared in the early morning, sporting “The Great Orion Nebula” or M42. Look for M42 just under the 3 star belt of Orion, it’s the blurry patch just under the belt which can be seen by naked eye and resolved brilliantly with just about any pair of binoculars.

The Autumn sky also brings the return of the king of planets: Jupiter — which I’ve been busy attempting imaging via the webcam method. This week’s waning Gibbous Moon has been an excellent target for Jupiter practice. I did a quick survey on Monday. The sky was so clear I was able to do a close-up of the lunar surface.

I also took a crack at Jupiter, with somewhat disappointing results:

Jupiter will raise earlier as the year concludes, there will be more opportunity. Look for Jupiter, or Jove as I like to call him, about 30 degrees following the moon towards the Eastern Horizon. Jupiter raises at about 12:00 AM this week.

This is your BASA astronomer, wishing you clear skies.

PHOTOS: Clifton Reed

Bernal Biker Puts Buddhist Voodoo Hex on Motorcycle Vandal

/ Todd_Lappin / 13 Comments

The awesome note shown here was spotted this morning in Bernal, near Coleridge and Virginia.

It seems that one of our neighborhood motorcycle owners had a spark plug stolen yesterday, and in response, said motorcycle owner placed a diabolical hex upon the thief. Which, in fairness, is probably deserved, because, really … stealing a three dollar spark plug is extremely lame.

PHOTO: Thank you, Neighbor Jonathan

We Knew Them When: Ichi Sushi Makes Zagat’s 2013 Top 20

/ Todd_Lappin / 5 Comments

Well, what do you know? Zagat just released its 2013 San Francisco Bay Area restaurant guide, and our very own, very glamorous Ichi Sushi on Mission Street made the Top 20 list — right alongside such boldface names as Gary Danko, Chez Panisse, and French Laundry.

Of course, upon hearing this news, many Bernalese will grin smugly, because we’ve known for some time that Ichi is rather special. And they can also say (with fake modesty), “Oh, well, we’ve been into Ichi since back in the days when they were at 331 Cortland.” Because it’s true.

But neighborhood bragging rights aside, Bernalwood sends our heartiest congratulations to chef (and neighbor) Tim Archuleta, and everyone at Ichi. This is an honor very well-earned.

PHOTO: Photo illustration by Telstar Logistics. Tim Archuleta photo, by John Storey via SFGate. List image via Inside Scoop.

Should We Install a Solar-Powered Floodlight to Deter Illegal Dumping on Bernal Hill?

/ Todd_Lappin / 28 Comments

So… what was the outcome of that recent meeting about strategies to deter illegal dumping on Bernal Hill? District 9 Supervisor David Campos has a proposal, and he’d like your feedback:

Bernal Heights Residents. At the community meeting I held a couple weeks ago with representatives from the Department of Recreation & Parks, we decided that the best and most cost effective strategy to deter further illegal dumping on Bernal Hill is to install a solar power light at the site of the dumpings. I am attaching a picture of the lamp so you can see what it would look like. Please let us know if you have any issues with this solution by contacting Hillary Ronen in my office at hillary.ronen@sfgov.org. Thanks for participating in the decision making process!

Bernalwood used the photo provided by Supervisor Campos to create the absurdist illustration shown above. It shows what the actual floodlight would look like (if it took steroids and grew to about 10x its actual size). Don’t take the photo too literally. The point being, we’d get a light shaped kind of like that, somewhere kind of around there, to help keep the baddie illegal dumping people away, and possibly prevent actual scenes like this:

Do you like the idea? Should The City go ahead and install a solar-powered light? Feel free to email Supervisor Campos’s staff, or discuss here, in the comments.

PHOTOS: Telstar Logistics

Five Year-Old Covers Bernal Hill with Graffiti, Leaves No Trace

/ Todd_Lappin / 7 Comments

Ahhhhhh… Indian Summer, here at last. And with a full moon to boot!

On Sunday night Bernalwood’s Cub Reporter and I headed up Folsom Street to savor the evening — and the view — from high atop Bernal Hill. As we sat on the warm dirt watching the twinkle of the lights, the Cub Reporter declared the shimmering skyline “the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” She’s a San Francisco kid, so that’s high praise.

Then, when we looked east to admire the giant moon, she noticed something strange…

There was bizarre vessel tied up at one of the piers on the waterfront. “It’s a ghost ship!” the Cub Reporter said.

Let’s zoom and enhance for a closer look:

Later research revealed that the ship was not, in fact, an oceangoing emissary from the afterlife, but rather a South Korean warship in town to ferry a delegation of diplomats to Our Faire City. Almost as good, I guess.

The Cub Reporter had insisted upon bringing her spiffy new LED flashlight on our nighttime micro-hike, so we decided to have some fun with it.  With the camera set to take long-exposure photos, I urged her to wave her arm with the light turned on. This was the result:

“THAT’S AWESOME!” she declared after seeing the result in the camera’s view screen. “Let’s do more!!!”

So we did…

It was a free-form spectacle of creativity, but by morning, her proto-Pollock light paintings were gone without a trace. Luckily, we got a photo of the culprit at the scene of the crime:

PHOTOS: Telstar Logistics

Farewell, Locavore Restaurant on Mission Street

/ Todd_Lappin / 16 Comments

I just didn’t have the heart to publish this last week, right on the heels of the news about the closure of Four Star Video, but last week several readers wrote to say that Locavore, the classy restaurant on Mission at Valencia, had also closed its doors.

Inside Scoop had the news a few weeks back:

Locavore owner Mario Duarte sends word that he will close his Mission Street restaurant on October 1. He says he wants to spend more time with his family.

Locavore opened almost exactly two years ago, in November 2010, on the stretch of Mission Street south of Cesar Chavez but north of Cortland, near Blue Plate and El Rio, among others. Locavore and its chef-partner Jonathan Merritt notched an encouraging 2.5 stars from Michael Bauer and later went on to earn notoriety for its signature burger, which Bauer dubbed “so darn good … a top-shelf hamburger.”

Still, Neighbor Robert was sad to discover that Locavore was gone when he walked by yesterday:

I loved it. We went regularly practically from the week they opened. We started going when they used paper napkins and had no art on the walls. I’m not even sure they had their liquor license. But over time it grew into a real live restaurant. The food started out great and never flagged.

PHOTO: Neighbor Lee

Oh No! After Long Hiatus, Succulent Thieves Strike Again!

/ Todd_Lappin / 17 Comments

It’s been some time since we last heard of a case of succulent theft, but Neighbor Brian reports that the horticultural bandits have struck his home… again!

We’ve written to you before and were very appreciative when you posted about the succulent thieves who hit the planter in front of our house.  Unfortunately, the eight months since the original theft, we’ve have a few more cacti and succulents lifted from our planter.  It sucks.  It make us angry and, worst of all, suspicious of everyone who walks down our street.  The previous thefts seemed at least ‘respectable’ in that only a small plant was lifted, but this latest theft is just ridiculous.  Half the f**king planter is gone!  I’m pissed and am very close to knocking out the entire planter and replanting everything that is left in our back yard.  At least in the back yard, I’ve only got to worry about the family of raccoons living nearby — and they’re just so damn cute!

PHOTO: Neighbor Brian

Tomorrow: A Meeting About the State of the Bernal Library

/ Todd_Lappin / 8 Comments

Ms. Valerie, the Children’s Librarian at the Bernal Branch Library, invites one and all to attend an important meeting tomorrow evening to discuss the library’s operating hours:

We Need Your Input on our Public Service Hours!
SFPL Bernal Branch Public Hearing
Tuesday, October 2nd from 6:00-8:00 p.m.
Refreshments will be served

Bernal Heights Library Meeting Room
500 Cortland Avenue
(415) 355-2810

Please join us for a public hearing and give us your input about our library operating hours.* We need to hear your ideas on library services and priorities. City Librarian, Luis Herrera will give an overview of the Library’s Five Strategic Priorities and Deputy City Librarian Jill Bourne will provide the overview of the Open Hours Project. Also attending the hearing will be a SF Supervisor; Neighborhood Council Members; Friends of the SFPL Board Members, Staff, Donors and Members, and other Community Partners.

*The Library Preservation Fund, renewed by Proposition D in November 2007, requires that the Library Commission assess and modify as appropriate the hours of operation of the Main and branch libraries at least once every five years. As part of that process, San Francisco Public Library is conducting public hearings in each of the City’s 11 supervisorial district this September and October to obtain community input about library hours and services. These public hearings will also allow residents to give us their ideas about library services and priorities and allow the Library to present ideas about its future goals and initiatives.

To ensure the participation of people with disabilities, patrons are invited to request sign language interpreter services, real-time captioning, and materials in alternative print formats. Requesting accommodations at least 72 hours in advance will help to ensure availability. For inquiries or requests for accommodations, please call (415) 557-4557.

PHOTO: Telstar Logistics