I noticed him last weekend as I approached Bernal Hill from the southern entrance; he was silhouetted against Sutro Tower and the setting sun. He was standing on the rim of the old gravel pit the Bernal snowboarders call Rock Quarry, and as I got closer I noticed that he was leaning on… a unicycle!
But it was no ordinary unicycle: It had a beefed-up frame and one knobby tire; it looked a lot like a monster truck (if a monster truck had pedals and only one spoked wheel). I moved in warily for a closer look:
I watched him look down the rock steep face, and pause for a meditative moment on the lip of the couloir…
… and then — TOTALLY XTREME!!!— he dropped in!
Dude rode it all the way down, smooth as glass, and didn’t stop until he hit the flats below.
Impressive. Maybe next time he can try doing it while also juggling bowling pins or playing an accordion.
OMG, did you see the thing in Rolling Stone about the fabulous new video from My Morning Jacket??
My Morning Jacket have unveiled a stimulating new video for the druggy ode “Outta My System,” featuring Zach Galifianakis as a powerful wizard in a cartoon world. “Told me not to smoke drugs, but I wouldn’t listen,” sings frontman Jim James, before he and the band enter an animated landscape worthy of a peyote trip. After landing in the psychedelic alternate reality, the musicians become cyclopses, traversing the trippy universe in a hotwired cosmic car.
Check it out:
As we all know, a freaky video “worthy of a peyote trip” can only have come from one place: The Dominion of Bernalwood. And where in Bernal Heights?
Yesterday’s big, horrible fire at the Chevron refinery in Richmond is an ecological nightmare, but on the visual side, got a clear view of it from our our Bernal Hill observation post.
Neighbor Paul, of Paulie’s Pickle fame, tips Bernalwood that there’s a space opening up soon inside the fabulous 331 Cortland Marketplace. He passed along this email from 331 manager Debra Resnik:
Our retail culinary incubator (located at 331 Cortland, Bernal Heights, SF) is looking for an artisan food vendor to complement and enhance our current line-up. The ideal candidate is looking for a storefront location to grow their business, has never had a bricks and mortar presence, although experience producing and selling their product and a following is a must. They can be from the farmers market world, have done pop-ups, sold out of mobile kitchens and carts or catered events.
Please forward this announcement to any interested parties.
Thank you for any help you can provide,
Debra Resnik @
415.699.9059
Paulie adds, “Pickle vendors need not apply.” Fair enough, but what other flavor of gourmet yumminess should move into 331 to round out the foodie mix in Cortlandia?
Interior Decorator Jessica Laine snapped this photo late last week, while admitting that she is “falling in love with this part of the city.” (No surprise.) Apart from being lovely, however her photo also captures something very seasonal about summertime in Bernal Heights.
As we all know, summer is generally not the most glamorous time of year here in Our Faire City, because the season tends to bring fog, followed by fog, and then more fog, which is rather glum and chilly.
Yet to the extent that there is anyplace in San Francisco where the ill effects of summer weather patterns are not felt, it is here, in tony Bernal Heights. The realtors used to call this part of town the Sun Belt, and the label is generally true — except for when it is not.
Apart from our daily dose of sunshine, an additional benefit of our location is that we usually get a ringside seat whenever a massive wall of fog (it’s named Karl, by the way) creeps over Twin Peaks to engulf the northeast corner of the City.
UPDATE: Just remembered this photo from my own archive.
Here’s an aerial view of what it looks like when the fog rolls in, as seen from a Cessna flying about 1000′ over Bernal Heights on June 24, 2006:
And this photo, taken a few minutes later, explains why Sutro Tower needs an Observation Deck:
Attention Bernal Heights Artists! The glamorous Inclusions Gallery on Cortland is seeking submissions for their annual “Art From Within Bernal Heights” exhibit that’ll happen in September. The submission deadline is August 24.
Inclusions Gallery is now accepting submissions for its 4th annual exhibit, Inclusions: Art from within Bernal Heights. All residents of Bernal Heights, regardless of age or artistic medium, are welcome and highly encouraged to participate.
This is a wonderful opportunity to have your work seen, also to get to know the creative community in your neighborhood. In previous years it has been highly successful, exhibiting roughly 100 works per show. For several artists their participation has resulted in furthering their work, through group and solo exhibits, in the gallery.
Select pieces will be featured in an exclusive exhibit: September 22 – October 21, 2012.
Due to limited gallery space, not all submissions are guaranteed to be chosen for exhibition.
The Specifics:
-Artist must be a resident of Bernal Heights
-All pieces must be available for sale
-1 to 5 pieces may be submitted
– Flat Submission Fee (1-5 pieces): $20.00
Once upon a time not really all that long ago, the Precita Park storefront on the corner of Folsom and Bessie that we now call Harvest Hills was a rather typical corner store known as Cancilla’s Market.
It was called Cancilla’s Market for several generations and many moons, until the space changed hands. Today’s Harvest Hills has a decidedly more gourmet flavor, and little now remains of the former Cancilla’s except the funky midcentury San Francisco wallpaper that still lines the walls. All the other bits and pieces of the old place have been scattered to the wind — including the big Cancilla’s Market sign that used to hang out front. Until now.
The former Cancilla’s Market sign has resurfaced in Sacramento, and Bernalwood has learned that it has been repurposed for use as a home media center.
Wait… what?
Artist Cody Lane contacted Bernalwood to explain:
I am an artist/builder of things in Sacramento CA. I purchased this sign some time ago at a used furniture store in Davis CA, and it transformed it into a media center or book shelf. The piece will accommodate a flat screen up to 50″ and components. The Cancillas sign was a lucky find and it’s a really interesting piece of functional found art. The sign is for sale, and I can deliver and install if needed.
Email Cody if you’d like to watch television inside a genuine slice of Bernal Heights history.
You might have heard about the upcoming Street Food Festival that will happen on Folsom Street and 22nd on Saturday, August 18. However, you may not have heard about the first-ever Alemany Night Market that will happen the evening before, on Friday night, August 17, right here in glamorous Bernalwood.
Brilliant!!! Such a great idea!!! Mark your calendars.
Rachel from the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center tells us there will be a meeting at 6:30 pm BHNC tomorrow to discuss the Alemany Night Market, and all are welcome to attend:
La Cocina, a non-profit incubator kitchen providing affordable commercial kitchen space and hands-on technical assistance to low-income and immigrant women entrepreneurs, is hosting the first ever San Francisco Night Market at Alemany Market on Friday, August 17th. Alemany has been the proud launching point of La Cocina vendors like Azalina’s Malaysian, El Huarache Loco, Sabores del Sur, Estrellita’s Snacks and several more. BHNC is hosting a community meeting for La Cocina on Thursday, 8/2 at 6:30 PM to make sure community members have a chance to get more information about the evening event, expectations and ways to get involved. Food will be provided by La Cocina business and Cortland business Anda Piroshki. For more information about the La Cocina Community Meeting, please contact caleb AT lacocina DOT org.
More details about the event in this spiffy poster:
I’m pleased to report that the swarm of raccoons that recently attempted to invade my home has retreated back into the jungles of Bernal Heights. For the moment. I hope.
Yet wild animals are still active here in our Wild Kingdom, with two critter sightings this week that are worthy of note.
Yesterday Neighbor Christin captured the above photo of the Dissident Parrots of Bernal Heights while the birds were having a meeting in a tree on Prentiss Street, just below the hill. Bernalwood’s sources tell us the birds had gathered to discuss the planned downtown development at 8 Washington Street, and one parrot was overheard saying, “If Aaron Peskin is against it, then we must be in favor of it!”
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Bernal…
Neighbor Catherine sent in this report from Treat Avenue:
Evidently a Bernal native, this opossum has been making daily house calls to us on the north slope.
Bernal Heights is the kind of neighborhood where you’ll find a group of gearhead guys from the Bernal Dads Racing Team banding together to help rebuild the engine of a 1965 Ford Falcon that one of our local bartenders relies upon as her primary mode of transportation.
It’s also the kind of neighborhood where one of those same gearhead guys decided to make a time-lapse video of the engine reinstallation process, set to the madcap theme of the Benny Hill Show:
I’m not really sure what exactly all this says about Bernal Heights, but that’s most definitely the kind of neighborhood this is.
Like a true rockstar, Clarissa gets the details right: A dazzling light show in the background, visible from her stage on Bernal Hill. Perfect aerial technique. Agile hands clutching her invisible instrument. And a face that exudes pure heavy metal intensity. Fabulous.
Citizens of Bernalwood, let the record show that Neighbor Clarissa is the winner of our contest, and she’ll be rocking out at the Noisette festival this weekend. Woooooo! Wooooo! (Hold up your lighters, people.) Congrats!!!
Now let’s check out a few of our other wannabe rockers. Meet Neighbor Toki, our First Runner-Up:
Toki jams the air guitar from Bocana Street, and apart from having great form, this little rockstar has big style — check out those Vans and his dope indie-style sweater! A total natural. Sweeeeeeeeet!
Our Second Runner-Up is Neighbor Carmen:
Carmen blasts her invisible electric guitar through an invisible amp powered by the new solar charging station in front of the New Wheel bicycle shop. Bonus eco-style points for that, as well as those retro New Wave shades.
Many thanks to everyone who rocked out with Bernalwood for this contest, and to our friends from NoisePop for providing us with a pair Noisette tickets to give away. And most of all, big standing ovation to Neighbor Clarissa, for rocking the hardest.
The Olympics aren’t the only thing generating news right now in England.
Neighbor Clifton, Chief of Astronomical Research for the Bernal Aeronautics and Space Administration (BASA), reports that his awesome photo of the Transit of Venus as seen through Sutro Tower was accepted for publication in the prestigious British magazine Astronomy Now:
Clifton writes:
I submitted that photo of the Transit of Venus I took from Bernal Hill to “Astronomy Now” magazine in England. Much to my surprise, I received a copy of August edition of the magazine and a check for 10 British Pounds in the mail yesterday.
Here in Bernal Heights, Kickstarter fundraising efforts have become kind of like Louis Vuitton handbags on Cortland Street: Everybody has one. Let’s sit in on pitch meetings from three Bernal entrepreneurs:
By this fall, we plan to be open six nights a week for dinner, self-service lunch (to include picnics in Precita Park), and brunch on Saturdays and Sundays. In addition, we will hold special dinners/classes with local farmers, artisans, wine makers, and butchers. We will stay involved with Slow Food and other local food communities to share food and nutritional education with others, especially the next generation of children. Once a month we plan to bring back an original 50’s “supper club” where we encourage guests to dress the part, with live bands and singers performing. We want to host “HSC movie in the park” events in Precita Park that will feature classic films along with hot beverages and popcorn.
Barbasket
Neighbor Chris from Alabama Street cooked up a clever idea to build a way-new bicycle handlebar that includes an integrated frame for a handy-dandy fabric cargo basket:
The Barbasket is a one-piece handlebar and basket rim that supports a fabric basket. The fabric basket holds your stuff snugly, and has a clever bungeed flap on the top that keeps your goods secure. But the best part is that it does all that without looking like a janky add-on. It’s a basket that becomes part of your bike.
A few years ago, I got sick of schlepping my reusable coffee cup to Martha’s and Nervous Dog. So I went out and created Zip Cup–I took the collapsing coffee cup you had as a kid, made it safe by adding locking mechanisms used on space shuttles and submarines, made it stylish/attractive, cut out the BPA and voila — an easy-to-carry, safe, awesome, Made in Bernalwood collapsing coffee cup that fits in your pocket, (diaper) bag, and much more.
Clever! Karla is using an alternative service called Indiegogo for her fund drive, and she hopes to raise $70,000 by Sept. 11.
Bernalwood 
