Due by Sunday at Midnight
1) Take a picture of, or link to a monument in San Francisco or Santa Cruz. Use Brechin or your own research to explain what this monument masks.
[Technical note: You may have to post the picture on your own blog and/or just paste in a link for us to see. Unfortunately I'm not seeing how to post a picture in the comments section. You can also refer us to a picture in any of the books that are assigned for the course]
OR
2) Take a look at "Witness for Trout Fishing in America Peace" (Brautigan 98-99) and explain what would Brechin have to say about this particular piece of Brautigan's work? It may help to start by identifying specific pieces of history that Brautigan is rewriting.
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The M.H. de Young Memorial Museum is one of the largest and most beautiful museums in San Francisco. It houses such a vast amount of art that it is nearly impossible to appreciate it all in one day. Although the original building, made in “naively Egyptian facade” (Brechin 184) was quite beautiful, the recent remodels give the building an even more grandiose air. The museum was originally created as the Midwinter Fair’s Fine Arts Building in 1984, but was kept at the insistence of Michael de Young who owned one of the largest newspapers in San Francisco, the Daily Morning Chronicle.
Michael de Young was not known for being the most kind or principled of San Francisco’s wealthy citizens. His business dealings were wrought with blackmail, scandal, and bribes. His motivation for sponsoring the Midwinter Fair was for social prestige and a senatorial seat, and the fair itself failed to help citizens in a major depression and destroyed much of Golden Gate Park in its building.
When it came to the de Young Museum, however, Michael de Young’s more generous side emerges. Collecting of art, natural objects, and ancient artifacts was a hobby of de Young’s, and he stored it at the museum where “he took genuine delight in sharing them with the citizens of San Francisco, insisting that his museum never charge admission.” (Brechin 184)
The de Young Museum shows the beautiful side of one of San Francisco's largest influences and philanthropists. Despite Michael de Young's questionable practices, the museum was the city's coming of age in "refinement, patronage, and culture." (Brechin 185)
http://home.hiwaay.net/~jalison/sfdeyoung.gif
The well known Coit Tower in San Francisco was constructed in 1933 on Telegraph Hill at the request of the late Lillie Hitchcock Coit as an effort to promote the continuing beautification of the city. In addition, the monument today has become a symbol honoring firefighters (as Lillie had a close affiliation with the fire department).
One particularly interesting aspect of the tower has arisen in a somewhat unexpected fashion. The Coit Tower murals are typically what people flock to the monument to observe. Consisting of around 26 artists, the murals widely range in theme and style, but many promote unique liberal ideology mainly reflecting the Great Depression.
These murals act as a sort of reflection of the cities ideology as a whole. It is interesting that a monument designed and created primarily as a promotion and continuation of the beauty of San Francisco contains such remarkable and important murals.
The monument seems to mask typical and somewhat vague presentiments and succeeds in promoting the noble ideals of this unique city. The fact that the site is so popular reinforces the importance of the murals messages.
Picture of Coit Tower:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4qoT8CKRnjk/SPkgFUrNS6I/AAAAAAAAAA4/LKfQHcjkjm4/s1600-h/030206_coit_tower_moonrise_san_francisco_520c.jpg
Outside the UCSF medical center, perched on the top of Parnassus Avenue, which overlooks Golden Gate Park and the Golden Gate Bridge, is a modest marble sculpture of Hippocrates. It is appropriate that the “father of medicine” would stand outside a research hospital, for modern medicine still relies heavily on the influence of this one man. The oath doctors take today to “do no harm” is called the Hippocratic oath. Following Brechin’s line of thought about cities and progress, however, we can see more than medical history masked by this figure.
The fact that he is Greek is a “throwback” to the Classical, simpler days where humans progressed by leaps and bounds. The Greeks made enormous strides in developing methodologies and discovering useful facts about the universe. It was the center of knowledge and progress in its time and is held as the ideal society in many ways. The American west, San Francisco in particular, wants to be seen in this light. There is something special about San Francisco that European and East Coast cities lack. It has been seen as the progressive new city that embodies the Anglo pursuit of expansion and improvement. Excluding the Pacific islands, as Brechin suggests people at this time did, San Francisco was the end of the frontier. Traveling any farther would lead us back to where we began: the East. This leaves San Francisco with the task of becoming the modern Greece, the forefront of human progress.
San Francisco, or at least its contado, has lived up to this task in many ways. New ways to mine silver and gold were established here, as were competitive, cutthroat newspapers. It was here that the United States discovered how to extract radium and plutonium to create the first atomic bomb. The vehicle to allow for these developments was the university system. The University of California, which is now the Berkeley campus, was the center of all this research. It developed reputable mining, physics, and chemistry departments that led the world in their fields.
The UC system has expanded, and now the San Francisco campus, along with its original rival Stanford, is among the finest medical research facilities in the United States. San Francisco remains, to this day, on the edge of progress. This statue, though dwarfed by the high rises around it, hails the university as the modern way to progress.
Photo:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hippocrates_I.jpg
At the 1500 Block of Pacific Avenue there is a humble bronze statue of a man playing a musical saw. He sits handsomely with his legs crossed to support the saw and a derby hat on his head. Although it appears to be a statue recalling the history of perhaps 19th century Santa Cruz, it is in fact a representation of a Santa Cruz legend of merely 30 years past.
Tom Jefferson Scribner was a man of many talents: editor, humorist, sawyer, logger, teacher, labor organizer, and philosopher. He was an important member of the Wobblies, an underground labor organization group that helped unskilled laborers mostly in the early 20th century.
Although I'm not exactly sure about the correlation, it struck me as very interesting that the city of Santa Cruz would choose to immortalize a labor organizer when for the last few years one of the biggest issues at UCSC has been the lack of wages and benefits for workers.
The statue of Tom Scribner serves as an ideal of laborers' rights and equality in the workplace, yet it is simply a mask. Santa Cruz, as liberal as it appears due to statues like that of Mr. Scribner, hides its darker, truer side of workers' strikes and layoffs.
http://www.adobeongreen.com/284TomScribner.jpg
There is an 18-foot bronze sculpture, called “The Surfer,” at Lighthouse Point that is the sole representation of the surf culture that has so dramatically shaped Santa Cruz. The city was incorporated in 1866 as a town under the laws of the State of California and received its first charter as a city in 1876. It continued to grow and develop and in the early 1900’s surfing hit. At this point surfing was not a new sport to the world, it had been in Hawaii (its origin) for at least 100 years already, and had slowly migrated to the coast of California. The remarkable thing about the surf culture growing in Santa Cruz is the fact that it actually started in local high school wood shops. Kids went to the beach and saw some people visiting that were surfing and thought it would be interesting, so they borrowed some boards as references and soon developed their own surfboards. These were originally hollow and weighed from 60-90 pounds. At this point in time there was no such thing as a surf shop, surf music, or even a surf culture. It would be another 30 years before the historical “Endless Summer” would be made.
1936 was the beginning of a culture and all it took was a simple act of kindness. Eventually a comradely was developed between the visitors to Santa Cruz and the local kids and one day, David Steward offered the visitors the chance to store their boards in his parent’s basement. He also had a barn which he let the surfers stay at, and since it was a few blocks from the beach it quickly became a regular meeting place for all surfers. In 1938 this group of surfers rented out a storage spot on the beach from a local club. Their own surfing group was growing so large ad becoming more serious that officers would wear t-shirts with the club name and logo on them. Since they spent all their time on the beach surfing and playing volleyball, the group became well known for having very attractive athletic physiques (only making them more popular).
Sadly, in 1952 the board house was taken down but according to the Santa Cruz Surfing Club Director of Public Affairs Dan Young, the club never officially disbanded. In 1992, based on an inspiration of some of the original club members, a surfing sculpture monument was erected on West Cliff Drive at Pelton Avenue. Today, surfing has swept the globe and become one of the most famous and entertaining sports to watch, and if you ask anyone in the surf culture where Surf City is located, they will tell you it’s Santa Cruz, California, and the monument represents that. This massive bronze sculpture is dedicated to all surfers, past, present, and future.
http://philip.greenspun.com/images/pcd0094/santa-cruz-surfer-statue-24.tcl
Well, I feel that Brechin would begin his analysis of this piece by talking about the biblical stories it emulates. There are clear references to a pilgrimage in this story. In the story the heart of San Francisco becomes a sort of holy land. The idea of San Francisco as a mecca was very popular in the sixties when "Trout Fishing in America" was written. The forty miles is reminiscent of the forty years the Jews wandered the desert in search of the holy land. Much of California is desert and San Francisco could be seen as an Oasis.
Also when the communists in this piece hand out "peace tracts to innocent children riding the cable cars" they are acting as
proselytizers, (99). They act in much the same way as do modern Jehovah's witnesses who hand out the watchtower. Even the things that are said in the piece sound biblical the use of ye in the quote adds to this feeling.
Furthermore the reference to San Francisco as America's stable cannot help but evoke references to Jesus and his birthplace. Brautigan is creating in this piece the idea of San Francisco as a holy place where one can seek refuge and yet like Joseph and Mary the communists are looked down upon with scorn in this piece. Brechin would most definitely point out the biblical nature of this part of Brautigan's work.
The Golden Gate Bridge is an icon of San Francisco and California; it is one of the most photographed and recognizable bridges in the world. Completed in 1937, it connects the San Francisco peninsula with Marin County, condensing an otherwise daunting drive around the bay (a trip of several hundred miles) into mere seconds.
The Golden Gate Bridge is a symbol of progress and change. It’s construction is a statement of San Francisco’s growth into an ‘imperial’ power. Marin, being within San Francisco’s contado, must be connected in order to supply resource. San Francisco simply reached out and touched it through the Golden Gate Bridge, like a long orange finger.
Of course, humans modifying the earth around them to suit their needs is not a new practice, but the bridges help to reinforce the notion of San Francisco as a regional, imperial power.
The Golden Gate Bridge:
http://www.freefoto.com/images/1215/01/1215_01_1---The-Golden-Gate-Bridge--San-Francisco--California_web.jpg
Hi guys,
The fun part of this assigment is that of "hallucinating" the connection between the a specific historical fact and very specific aspect of the architecture.
The more educated you are about patterns and the more specific the historical research that you are able to carry out the more interesting these theories will be.
What you are trying to do here is not just repeat the general information that one would hear as a tourist, but to get some critical distance from which to judge it.
So please quote some common wisdom and try to refer to a really specific piece of research--the kind that wouldn't usually be found on a website describing the monument--and then take the responsibility on yourself of going out on a limb.
So, what does it mean that there are those workers' paintings inside of a famously phallic and roman-looking structure?
It's great, Pablo, that you've pointed to the uncanniness of the pictures being inside of this tourist's monument on the hill--but now comes the fun part--putting forward the theory about what that architectural structure says that is not so often said aloud...
Statements like these may need to be questioned: "These murals act as a sort of reflection of the cities ideology as a whole."
"It is interesting that a monument designed and created primarily as a promotion and continuation of the beauty of San Francisco contains such remarkable and important murals."
Similarly, Daniel, "San Francisco simply reached out and touched it through the Golden Gate Bridge, like a long orange finger." --this is a good step--but what *is* in Marin, what is the finger pointing at (or away from)?
eireene
A good example of making a connection and digging up some unusal research can be found on Ryan's blog.
http://thefoolinfocus.blogspot.com/
For my chosen San Francisco monument, I have chosen Alcatraz.
First discovered in 1775 by Spaniard Juan Manuel de Ayala, the island of Alcatraz has been put to many uses as a military base and military prison before its became a federal jail. Alcatraz was aquired by the United States Department of Justice on October 12, 1933, and the island became a federal prison in August 1934 until its official closure in 1963.
What is interesting about Alcatraz is the transformation of it's image in the American psyche since this time. Now the island is operated by the National Park Service as part of the Golden Gate National Recreational Area project. The labeling of the rock as a "recreational area" in itself raises questions about this place as a monument to San Francisco. Bein operated by this administration, Alcatraz has now become a major attraction which is appealing to tourists because of the mystique and mythology that it surrounds itself with. However, simultaniously, this image masks the reality of what life was like here when the federal prison was in operation.
The reality of life on the rock for the unlucky prisoners that were sentenced to spend time here was harsh in a number of ways. Not just in having their freedom revoked as in all prisons, Alcatraz was especially cruel in its mental impact on prisoners.
Being the hardest prison to escape, it was almost mocking to the prisoners to provide them with such a great view of San Francisco. Th white buildings that as Ferlinghetti recalled looked like "Tunis" only served to the prisoners as a constant reminder of what had been taken away from them. It is this cruelty and mental torture that is lost in the candid way we now view the island as a tourist attraction.
Because of this, Alcatraz becomes much more than just an island; it becomes a monument to a dark side of San Francisco. Alcatraz is the "so cool city of love"'s Bete Noir, reminding us that liberal and free San Francisco is only that at face value.
San Francisco's Pioneer Monument was created by F.H. Happersberger and dedicated to The City by James Lick in 1894. Previously located at Marshall Square, near the intersection of Hyde and Grove, it marked the site of the Old City Hall, destroyed by fire in the earthquake of 1906. Two years ago, when plans arose to relocate it a block away, preservationists opposed this relocation, wishing to retain the marker as the last tie to the vanished civic building. It now rests prominently in front of the new Public Library.
During the relocation, Native Americans opposed the move, claiming that this Victorian monument commemorating the early settlers of California was demeaning in its portrayal of native peoples. In an elaborate series of cast iron figures, the names of the founders – all white males – are inscribed: Lick, Fremont, Drake, Serra, and Sutter (dating between 1648 and 1850). On four lower pedestals, one can find life-size figures from California history, including a troika of Mexican vaquero, Franciscan padre, and a submissively seated Indian. According to Debra LeHane (director of the S.F. Art Commission's Civic Art Collection), this last grouping has been repeatedly singled out over the years as a target for graffiti and vandalism.
Understandably, Native Americans wanted this statue removed, and still do. This monument masks an entire sordid history of the original Native American population, half of whom perished between 1769 and 1834 due to disease, armed attacks, and mistreatment. Rather than address the sufferings of Natives at the hands of missionaries and settlers, a maelstrom of controversy has erupted over the misguided text to be potentially inscribed beneath the lower pedestals – the most jarring element asserting only 150,000 dead, which largely understates the actual number of deaths that occurred. I thought this bit of history to be especially interesting in relation to Imperial San Francisco as it fully exemplifies a city’s background shrouded in grandeur and ruthless ambition. It is also important to note that the day before the opening of this monument, a prominent SF preacher had told his congregation that Native peoples were "degenerate descendants of unworthy sires" who had been "Sabbath-breakers and hoodlums" during the gold rush (13, Brechin).
Image:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3024/2282856966_848f25803f.jpg
This can also be seen on page 14 of Brechin's work. Ironically, the Pioneer Monument was expected to tell "the romantic story of the early days, and the boundless possibilities of this great empire of peace and prosperity." (14).
Officially the Presidio and the military holdings in Mare Island and Benicia offered the protection to the Gateway to the Pacific. The military establishments were implicated as a necessary military presence to protect the commerce and rights of citizens on the west coast. Those economically tied to the Pyramid of Mining used the fear of foreign attack and racial and immigrant invasion to promote an industrial base in the bay area through weapons, naval, and military investment. “As Irving Scott had predicted, preparation for war proved the key to unlocking the federal treasury for cities around San Francisco Bay.”(135) As the economy moved away from mining the heads of financial business in San Francisco realized that industry and economics would inevitably be linked to national policies within the United States and overseas. The ship yards offered unbounded patriotism and reassurance of prosperity and power in California. At the same time, these industries run from a distance in places like Marine and Hillsborough, by a few wealthy elite replaced mining as a new fuel for their growth and prosperity without the consideration the ecological and economic effects they would have on the region and the working class population.
Today the remnants for these industries can be seen in the “Mothball Fleet” a series of naval vessels currently maintained in the Susan Bay. These ships serve as a reserve fleet for national defense and national emergency purposes. Until recently the ships maintained the same allure as Roosevelt’s great white fleet had as it sailed into the San Francisco Bay in the summer of 1907. Roosevelt’s fleet encouraged patriotism; an “unprecedented and reassuring display military might during the height of the Japanese war scare.”(162) Recently though disturbing information is surfacing about the current conditions of these once marvelous fleets now housed in the Carquinez Strait. It was discovered in the June of 2007 that toxic metals are leaching from the rusting fleets into the waters of the bay. The toxic materials reportedly greatly exceed California standards for hazardous waste and pose a risk to the ecology and marine life in the area. These findings paint an unsettling picture of the once praised industry of the bay area. A story repeated through the history of mining, metallurgy, refining, and most other industrial activities in the San Francisco Bay Area of the manipulation and abuse of economics and the environment.
Images of the Mothball Fleet in Susun Bay can be found on Google Images.
Response to Assignment 2: Brechin and Brautigan- Inciters of Social Commentary and Reflection
In Brautigan’s essay “Witness for Trout Fishing in America Peace,” many contrasting ideas are juxtaposed in order to create an open space for thought and social commentary. Brechin would approve of this created space for opening up a line of questioning, so to speak. As Gary Snyder declared regarding Brechin’s Imperial San Francisco, “[It is] a product of extraordinary research, insight, and hard work that connects a lot of dots and gives me an re-invigorated focus and curiosity of what California culture was and what might become of it.” Similarly, Brautigan also grants his readers a “re-invigorated focus and curiosity” of past and present social events. Through juxtaposing communist imagery with religious imagery, fishing or nonviolent actions and imagery with war imagery, as well as presenting almost unbelievable alternate-realities concerning police action and riots.
In contrasting the time of Easter and an altered version of the Christian golden rule (“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them… There will be no need for your explosives”) with communist ideals through imagery such as, “red stickers,” “college- and high-school-trained Communists,” Sunnyvale being “a Communist nerve center about forty miles away,” and the “Red shadow,” Brautigan illustrates the similarity in Communist and Christian ideals (which are often situated dichotomously) as being against “H-Bombs” and intercontinental ballistic missiles (“ICBMs”). Even further and more extremely juxtaposing these images and ideals, Brautigan introduces “Communist clergyman and their Marxist-taught children.” In this juxtaposition, both Christianity and Communism are redefined in a way. Marx is often quoted for having said that religion is the “opiate of the masses,” but Brautigan turns these views focusing on where the two groups’ beliefs coincide.
Brautigan does not stop here in his creation of a twilight zone with his unique juxtapositions, moving next to the juxtaposition of fishing and other nonviolent actions and war imagery. The two are juxtaposed in protest calls, “DON’T DROP AN H-BOMB ON THE OLD FISHING HOLE!”/ “ISAAC WALTON WOULD’VE HATED THE BOMB!”/ “ROYAL COACHMAN, SI! ICBM, NO!” Isaac Walton is a famous fisherman from England who wrote The Compleat Angler , which was originally published in 1653 but edited and supplemented throughout his lifetime (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izaak_Walton#The_Compleat_Angler). Additionally, the “royal coachman” is also a fishing reference being a “traditional pattern [of a fishing fly]” for catching trout (http://www.westfly.com/fly-pattern-recipe/dry/royalcoachman.shtml). And there is of course the obvious connection to fishing, also specifically trout fishing the title and throughout the chapter, “Witness for Trout Fishing in America Peace.” Once again, fishing is associated with nonviolence and being against war and bombing.
Also, Brautigan calls on historic accounts of San Francisco to further develop his twilight zone setting. In stating, “The Communist City Hall riots in 1960 had presented evidence of it, the police let hundreds of Communists escape, but the trout fishing in America peace parade was the final indictment: police protection,” Brautigan conjures up imagery from the White Night riots which occurred outside of San Francisco City Hall after the Harvey Milk Trials and the creation of Dan White’s infamous “Twinkie defense” (99). Unfortunately the White Night riots were not as peaceful nor as protected as Brautigan presents, although during the riots in front of city hall the police were ordered to not relatiate, “Later that evening, several police cruisers filled with officers wearing riot gear arrived at the Elephant Walk Bar on Castro Street. Harvey Milk's protégé Cleve Jones and a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Warren Hinckle, witnessed as officers stormed into the bar and began to beat patrons at random. After a 15-minute melee, they left the bar and struck out at people walking along the street. The chief of police finally ordered the officers out of the neighborhood. By morning, 61 police officers and 100 rioters and gay residents of the Castro had been hospitalized” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Milk#White_Night_riots). In his alternate presentation, Brautigan is not blaming the protestors or the police, but just presenting a social critique of the violence which occurred, and also granting his readers the space to question the absurdity of police protection and why we’ve almost become accustomed to police brutality during protests.
Thus, in presenting a twilight zone alternate-reality, Brautigan grants his readers a space for social commentary and reflection, because we can only learn and developed our ideas through contemplation. We can only own our ideas if given the space to form them ourselves. I believe Brechin would applaud Brautigan’s efforts in allowing this space for thought, and although Brechin tends to present things in a straightforward manner, the facts he’s presenting are similarly hard to believe and provoke thought and curiosity (as Snyder claimed) as does Brautigan’s work. Both writer’s successfully incite the social commentary vital to society claiming to support democratic beliefs and ideals, such as our own.
Trying to interpret Richard Brautigan’s writing is like trying to ride a horse on fire: there are plenty of ways to go about it, but the whole thing makes very little sense.
Peering through the muddy waters of “Witness for Trout Fishing in America Peace,” I cannot see the bottom. As far as how to relate this to Brechin, I am clueless. However, I do recognize that the last two paragraphs in Brautigan’s piece are reminiscent of Brechin’s writing, or his “moralizing,” generalizing, assertive statements. “The Red shadow of the Gandhian nonviolence Trojan horse has fallen across America, and San Francisco is stable,” Brautigan declares (99). I shall attempt to unpack this statement, through Brechin’s (and my) eyes.
The Gandhian nonviolence Trojan horse may reflect shades of the statement “Gold in Peace, Iron in War” (Brechin 16). Like, you’re straight with America as long as you respect our authoritai. This Trojan horse has a deadly surprise inside, though. Perhaps the surprise is, America will still come into your country and mess it all up, even if you’re playing by our “democratic” rules. We will take your resources, people, and culture, and use and exploit them all, whether we are at war with you or not. (Just ask the Hmong people for an example. Or the Native Americans. Or the Africans.) This horse also casts a red shadow, and my best guess for this symbol is that Communism is always lurking, a grand ambition that simply doesn’t work with the dictator factor. It haunts other forms of struggling government, looking for a country that could be Communist without being in trouble.
And, lastly, most important to its admirers, “San Francisco is stable.” Brechin might assert that San Francisco is about as stable as Venice, and that the stability imagined is more of a lie that the wealthy San Franciscans tell the rest of the world so that the poor and imaginative will travel there and get tricked into working until they die in the mines. San Francisco’s splendor was built upon and currently rests upon the backs of the poor and disillusioned, and those people are dying. As Thomas A. Rickard writes (as quoted by Brechin, 53): “[Mining has done] the great work of opening the dark places of the earth and of introducing civilization among the backward peoples.” Well that’s just about as true a statement as San Francisco being stable. And if that isn’t the most racist, denial-laden, sugar-coated, backwards and ridiculous thing I’ve ever read, I don’t know what is.
The “Victory” or “Dewey” monument which was dedicated to Admiral George Dewey in Union Square of San Francisco stands at a staggering 97 feet tall, with a sculpture of a woman atop it who stands holding a pitchfork and a wreath. triumphantly. The statue was dedicated to the admiral after he led the American fleet to victory over Spanish forces at Manila Bay in 1898, while the United States was fighting the Spanish-American War. One of the most interesting aspects to this monument is in regards to the woman who exists as the main focus of the piece, as this woman is modeled after the socialite Alma de Bretteville Spreckels of the popular Spreckels family in San Francisco. Alma was modeling for the statue when she met Adolph Spreckels, and the two later became married.
The controversial ties to the Spreckel family makes this memorial even more historical, for the untold story behind the valiant woman who stands at the top reveals even more of a back story to the monument. As Brechin states in Imperial San Francisco, Adolph Spreckels was the main culprit in the attempted murder of Michael de Young, but was later acquitted of the charges likely due to the wealth and persuasion of his family (177). Alma therefore represents the wife of the man who tried to kill a fellow american, making the monument substantially less patriotic.
Though the monument (and the city, for that matter) does not try to mask the historical significance of the woman atop the statue, there remains an untold story behind her connections to one of the most influential families during this period in San Francisco. Brechin does an amazing job at retelling the historical moments in San Francisco’s past, which makes revealing the history of common monuments that much easier for today's generations.
http://www.inetours.com/images/Snglimgs/UnSq/Dewey_CU.jpg
I’m choosing the Benjamin Franklin statue which is on the cover of Trout Fishing. The snippet on http://onlyinsanfrancisco.com/neighborhoods/description.asp?nid=35 says that the statue was “donated by Henry Cogswell a dentist who struck personal gold fitting the mouths of pioneers with gold teeth during the Gold Rush era.” Franklin was a renaissance man (a scientist, inventor, politician, author, etc...) and I feel that the statue reflects Franklin’s stance on immigration. I feel like the statue being donated in the Gold Rush era symbolizes the 49ers state-to-state emigration to California, but importantly to the immigration of new comers to America—in Franklin’s lifetime and the during Gold Rush. But I believe that this statue masks both Franklin’s support of immigration to a country that did not belong to him in the first place, and also the Puritanical perversion of nature which was behind Franklin’s scientific discovery of electricity. Separatist Puritans came to America taking over the Native Americans’ land. Unlike the Native Americans who were so closely related to the land (as if the land and they were one), the Puritans were completely out of touch with the land and nature. They literally and figuratively built walls around themselves and the sin of touching played a big role in their lives: “The Indians, in a rapture of admiration and surprise…fell on their knees, and, taking the minister’s hand in theirs, began to kiss it in an extreme show of affection. But he shook them off with marked dislike of their posture. He would not suffer the contrite Indians to lay their hands upon him…but drew back and told them to address themselves to God alone…it is that which has persisted: afraid to touch!” (William Carlos Williams, In the American Grain, 119). By not touching, the Puritans are not living in harmony with nature—they are perverting it by not physically connecting to it. Benjamin Franklin was a Puritan whose scientific studies played with nature but he did not touch nature, thus his discovery of electricity is not in harmony with nature. Franklin “cannot quite leave hands off of it but must TOUCH it, in a “practical” way, that is joking, shy, nasty way, using “science” etc., not with the generosity of the savage…but in a shameful manner” (157). Franklin lived in a cold world of science; working/playing with the earth (nature) but he doesn’t connect with the earth, he is not touching nature with his soul or with love.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/James_Lick_Memorial_%28San_Francisco%29.JPG
All around us are monuments that we hardly give a second look at. We see these monuments more as pieces of art to beautify the city than symbols of history. Very often, these monuments mask a history of oppression that we take for granted.
James Lick, the wealthiest man in California at the time of his death, donated the Pioneer Monument to San Francisco in 1894. During his time in California, he bought a lot of land in San Francisco and in and around San Jose. He tried mining gold for a bit, but decided he was more well suited to just be involved in real estate. He planted orchards and built a flour mill on his land. He also built the Lick House, a hotel.
After a stroke he suffered in 1874, Lick went about figuring out how to spend his massive fortune. His first idea was to built a statue of himself and a pyramid larger than that of Giza in his own honor in downtown SF. Apparently he was very proud of his achievements of simply being a rich guy who could buy land. However, George Davidson, president of the California Academy of Sciences, persuaded him to donate his money to a greater good by creating the Lick Observatory.
The Pioneer Monument itself is a massive monument located in front of the Public Library portrays Euraka standing atop the highest point with the names Lick, Fremont, Drake, Serra, and Sutter, the "founders" of San Francisco, around the base. Notice the emphasis of the founders being white males. Not only do white males claim to have founded the city, they insist on erecting a monument to glorify their accomplishment and remind everyone for centuries to come. There are three lower pedestals surrounding the main larger one. They are: the goddesses of agriculture and commerce, a representation of the '49ers, and a trio of a Mexican vaquero, Franciscan padre, and a Native American. The representations of the last three, non white, symbols of history are lumped together as if they are all the same. Although they all occupy differing spaces in history, through oppressive white perspective of history, they are lumped together. Most importantly, the Native American is seated indicating a position of submission, someone willing to be conquered and displaced, causing much public criticism.
Debra LeHane, head of the SF Art Commission's Civic Art Commission, states that this monument brings up the idea of, "Should one interpret history? What interpretation should one take? Do you put both sides up there?". It seems that no one will ever be completely satisfied with the portrayal of history whether it be Native Americans, immigrants, or women, however we should at least listen to what people have to say and attempt to augment history in the hopes of creating a more accurate account.
The Main Public Library and the Old Main Library rest on the location of what used to be the
Yerba Buena Cemetery. The new Asian Art Museum is also about to open on this site. It is
estimated that anywhere between five and nine thousand bodies were once buried in the
thirteen square acres in between Market, McAllister and Larkin streets. The old City Hall was
specifically built over the cemetery. Perhaps public service and government buildings are the
ideal way of replacing a cemetery in order to make it seem non profitable or corporate when
taking away the deceased and their abilities to be visited in their resting place or to actually rest
in peace.
When I travel San Franciscan streets I often wonder how many cemetaries previously
occupied the land, before even the white man got there. Suddenly at times, the liberated feeling
that walking the city of San Francisco transmits is negated by this flash of history before my
eyes and all of the truly beautiful things that were sacrificed in order to create this pseudo
western-rome-metropolis. At what expense was it? Doesnt the whole "left coast" and beatitude
movement reflect more than anything the lifestyles and ideals of those Native Americans that
originated from SF? Now their stories can be found in the buildings which have replaced their
headstones. Perhaps the modern San Franciscan reflects someone aware of their existence in the
heart of the economic machine and compensates guilt with a striving towards beatitude.
The parallel between the inscription on the Benjamin Franklin staue which reads, "Presented By
H.D. Cogswell To Our Boys And Girls Who Will Soon Take Our Places And Pass On" and with
cemeteries being leveled, headstones being used for storm drains and retainment walls in Buena
Vista Park still bearing random letters and dates symbolizing either the circle of life or the cycle
of capitalism.
Photo at: http://www.sanfranciscocemeteries.com/buena_vista_a.html (Buena Vista Headstones)
also the library: http://www.sanfranciscocemeteries.com/YrbaCem.html
The Golden Gate Bridge is probably the most famous monument in San Francisco. Construction for this bridge began in 1933 under the direction of chief engineer Joseph Strauss and officially opened in May of 1937. The color of the bridge was selected because it stands out well in fog and somewhat complements its surroundings. Despite its name, the Golden Gate Bridge is actually painted a color called “international orange", originally used as a sealant color. The designers of the bridge were persuaded to keep the orange as opposed to painting it a standard grey or silver. The bridge’s infamy is likely due in part to this color, which distinguishes it from other large bridges of the world.
The beauty of this bridge masks the large number of suicides that have been committed by jumping off the side. Suicides began immediately after the bridge was built in 1937. There are about 1,200 known suicides with many unaccounted for. Of these known suicides, 26 people have survived. While it is still in negotiation, a net will most likely be placed 20 feet below the rails to deter or catch jumpers. This will be decided on October 24th (sfgate.com). Any of the proposed suicide deterrents (there are five other proposed methods) will cost between 40 and 50 million dollars to build.
Picture of the Golden Gate Bridge: http://www.visitingdc.com/images/golden-gate-bridge-picture-2.jpg
The USS San Francisco Memorial is located at Lands End, San Francisco, California and has existed there as a monument since 1950, shortly after the end of WWII. The memorial commemorates the American soldiers who fought and died in Guadalcanal on November 12 and 13, 1942 during WWII. The memorial itself is composed from granite as well as the "bridge" segment of the USS San Francisco. The damaged bridge was replaced during the war, and after its' repair, the ship would go on to win seventeen battle stars, receive the Presidential Unit Citation for extreme heroism during wartime, and play a major overall role in WWII.
The USS San Francisco Memorial is located in a very beautiful location, as the Memorial faces the wide expansive sea. The direction that the Memorial faces does play an integral role in its' meaning via what the memories that it is meant to preserve. By having the ship's bridge face the sea, it is to remind people of how the ship once sailed out to defend the United States. I feel that the name of the ship in itself is very telling, as San Francisco is composed of diversity, freedom, and movement. These are important qualities of the United States as well as San Francisco, and thus important to preserve.
Though today, there is a dispute occurring between those who are in support of the Memorial, being the families and descendants of those who are commemorated by the Memorial and those wishing to capitalize on the beautiful landscape that the Memorial rests on. There is a push from the other side to move the site of the USS San Francisco Memorial to a different location. It was difficult to find any information on the potential relocation of the Memorial at all, which perhaps only shows us more that there is more of an effort towards ignoring the preservations of Memorials and the memories and histories attached to them, and inserting offices, buildings, or other cold institutions in their places. I feel that this is the same destruction of nature and rise of a corrupt consumer based society that men like Ferlinghetti spoke so much against. For even if this Memorial is to be moved to a hypothesized location in Aquatic Park, transporting any historical memory to make way for big-business corporations, offices, apartment buildings, or whatever it may be, switches peoples' focus more onto consumer based corporations, commodities, and other artificial meaningless products, instead of focusing on understanding our history, and how we are able to have the freedom we have today to enjoy any commodities. The Aquatic Park does contain the National Maritime Museum, yet I feel by sandwiching the USS San Francisco Memorial here it is transforming it more into a display than an actual memorial; the memory attached to where the memorial is now at Lands End far outweighs just the beautiful view.
Images and more information: http://www.njipms.org/Articles/Quinn_SanFran/quinn_sanfran.htm
The Mechanics Monument, also known as the Donahue Memorial Fountain, stands at the corner of Market, Bush, and Battery streets in San Francisco. It depicts five nearly nude athletic figures operating a giant version of a punch press, which is used for various means of shaping and working metal. The purpose of the statue was to commemorate the works of Peter Donahue, the Irish immigrant who developed his minor blacksmith enterprise into the first foundry on the West coast of the United States, Union Ironworks. Tilden was commissioned by Donahue’s son to construct a fitting monument to his family’s achievements.
The statue was unveiled on May 15, 1901 after some initial controversy over Tilden’s use of nude figures, even though the male figures are all at least partially clothed, either wearing loincloths or leather aprons. Initially meant as a commissioned vanity piece for an industrial family, the statue has since evolved to represent all of the pioneering workers who helped build the city and is referred to as the Mechanic’s Monument. It served as a rally point for disillusioned San Franciscans after the 1906 earthquake devastated the city. The fountain was destroyed, but the statue and the virile working men stood undamaged and undaunted, serving as a visual inspiration to rebuild and move on.
This monument to the hard and industrious workers, and the romantic notion that they built the city from the ground up with nothing but their work ethic and able bodies, also stands as a visual nod to masculine power. It is a fascinating that the monument to the backbreaking labors of the working class was funded by $25,000 that came out of the disposable income of the male heir to the Donahue fortune. One can only imagine if the members of the working class community of today take any solace in the fact that there exists a monument to their efforts. Another interesting point to consider is the use of an idealized and glorified male figure. The figures in the monument are perfect physical specimens with bulging muscles and hard bodies. One can consider the fact that Tilden’s work has been said to carry an underlying homoeroticism and other statues of his have been used as symbols for the presence of the queer community, particularly his piece "Football Players" in Berkley, CA. The city of San Francisco has become strongly associated with the queer community and its various subcultures and it raises interesting questions as to how people perceive the Mechanics Monument within a modern context. Do the working class figures exclusively represent industry and manual labor or is there more to be found underneath their bronze exterior?
Pic:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2358/2339903006_707b27b044.jpg
It can also be seen on page 69 of "Imperial San Francisco"
For the longest while, I had no idea which monument expressed the feelings of Richard Brautigan or Brechin, but when I started thinking of monuments are unique to Santa Cruz and San Francisco, one came to mind: Laughing Sal.
Laughing Sal is an old clown: made in 1902, Laughing Sal has been on display for the world to see. She originated in San Francisco’s Playland amusement park and was sold to a private owner, John Wickett in 1972, when the Playland amusement park closed. When he died and Laughing Sal went up for auction, the clown was sold for over $50,000 in 2004. Who was the highest bidder? The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk wanted a piece of the seaside amusement.
Laughing Sal represents the changing world, just as the beats warned against. Just as many of the beats had urged against, San Francisco is selling the pieces of their pasts to others and is left in shadows. Laughing Sal represents a time when amusement was in automated characters that enjoyed laughter. She is an uproarious freckle-faced being that brought joy and the joy was moved out of San Francisco when Playland closed. What went up after Playland shut its doors for good? A set of condominiums now graces Sal’s former home. If the beats had seen this, they would agree with their former suspicions about the future were true: San Francisco was/is becoming a commodity.
Laughing Sal SC image at:
http://www.debiparola.com/images/boardwalk%20photos/Laughing-Sal-Boardwalk.jpg
or
Laughing Sal SF image at:
http://laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/laughing_sal.jpg
"The red shadow of the Gandhian nonviolence Trojan horse has fallen across America, and San Francisco is his stable."
If I understand this chapter correctly, and it is very possible that I don't, I think that Brechin would agree, at least in part, with Brautigan's vision of politics in America.
Brautigan writes that the Trojan horse is stabled in San Francisco, and if we interpret the analogy in the simplest way possible, than it seems that Brautigan would like San Francisco to stand in relation to Troy. Now Troy is that ancient city that we all recall from "The Illiad," an epic which by no means should be taken as an objective historical account. But today there is a growing body of evidence that supports the actual existence of a Trojan people and a city that would have been the seat of its empire. The ruins that have been unearthed also give support to a war that destroyed much of the city. While Troy's position as an ancient Empire can at least be partially verified, the customs and habits of its people, who Homer portrays as honorable and valiant, cannot be. I think Brechin would agree with the comparsion of these two cities for this very reason: despite the fact that both are the center of an Empire, various mythologies surround each, which in both cases deludes the nature of the place. Brechin no doubt believes that San Francisco has mythological value that seems to supercede its historical reality.
But Brautigan's depiction of American communism as a red shadow that is cast from the Trojan horse, stabled in San Francisco, seems counter to Brechin's vision of San Francisco. Brechin sees San Francisco as the center of an Empire, a citadel for the status quo; not, as what Brautigan seems to be implying, the home of what will be the red uprising and over throw of America from within. This idea that San Francisco is more radical and more liberal than the rest of America is part of the myth that Brechin takes into question.
Perhaps I am looking at this thing too simply. Because Brautigan does portray communists as delusional, mad and sheepish people, which seems to run counter to the interpretation I have given to his Trojan horse. Oh well. I hope that what I have written will at least give rise to other interpretations of this text.
Picture of the Pioneer Monument on page 14 of Brechin’s Imperial San Francisco
“[The monument] would tell ‘the romantic story of the early days, and the boundless possibilities of this great empire of peace and prosperity’” -William B. Farwell (Brechin 14).
The Pioneer Monument is located in San Francisco across from the Public Library. The monument, paid for by a wealthy man named James Lick, was presented to the city of San Francisco in 1894. The statue, made of bronze and granite, includes pioneer men, a vaquero, and a Native American, along with goddesses and other figures. While it caused much tension because of the negative image it portrays of Native Americans, it continues to represent an important part of San Francisco culture and the California Gold Rush.
The statue is important as it shows honor to the many pioneers that traveled west with the intention of striking it rich to help their families. When discussing why it was important to have a statue of the pioneers, Brechin writes, “Mining engineers and historians repeatedly claimed that miners were the true vanguard of progress, and so it was only appropriate that they should lead [the monument]” (15). The California Gold Rush is extremely important to San Francisco history as it caused the city to prosper and become wealthy. Because of the amount of people that traveled all over the country to find gold, life in the city became bustling. Industrialization began and this led to California becoming a state in 1850. The monument is very important to the history of California because the pioneers caused the state to be what it is today. As the quote from Farwell shows, the pioneers and the California Gold Rush gave California the potential to become a state filled with opportunities and success.
The Transamerica building in San Francisco is a mask for the symbolism of greed. This can be seen with the mystery of its construction. According to the Transamerica website the idea of the building came:
“in 1968 when President John R. Beckett noticed that the trees in a city park - unlike the surrounding, box-like buildings - allowed natural light and fresh air to filter down to the streets below. Wishing to achieve the same effect with Transamerica's new headquarters, an unconventional pyramid shape was chosen for the building. The result: a refreshing openness that allowed access to the environment. The Transamerica Pyramid is now both a distinctive structure
revered by San Franciscans and a landmark of international recognition”
(http://www.transamerica.com/company_profile/about_the_pyramid/)
This explanation gives an environmental and aesthetic answer for pyramid shape of the building. Saying that the form was designed to allow natural light hit the street overlooks the religious symbolism of a cathedral piercing into the sky. Wikipedia states that the concept was actually created so “that the top of the building would be looked up at by the excutives of the Bank of America building” another large skyscraper in the financial district. The beauty of the structure masks the greed of the executives of the Transamerica Company. It is a symbol of their insatiable need to be at the top. This can be seen in the way that the building dominates the San Francisco skyline as if it were trying to steal all the energy away from the city as a false idol drawing people to it.
Monuments symbolize a collective desire for physical representation of honor, resilience and patriotism while simultaneously disguising an overwhelming sense of anxiety that no one is willing to acknowledge. This anxiety is a relic of imperialist world-domination. Colonizers had an insatiable thirst for knowledge and a desire to explore the most mysterious parts of the world in order to keep their fear of the unknown at bay. Out of imperialism and colonialism arose yet another "ism," the patriarchal ideology known as nationalism. Flags, statues, bridges and buildings were created as strikingly incessant reminders of our nation's pioneer heritage, practically forcing us to carry a sense of unyielding devotion around with us at all times. San Francisco is riddled with monuments that serve to represent the muscle, the materials and the movements that defined and shaped the city's unique personality. Citizens and visitors of San Francisco need not look very hard to find countless tangible tributes to the city's foundation. Some of these reveal stories while others conceal them.
Take for example the Pioneer Monument, which Gray Brechin mentions in the first chapter of his book, Imperial San Francisco. At the forefront of the monument is a bronze sculpture of three men panning for gold. The statue serves to glorify the miners that essentially industrialized the state of California, and disregards the truth that lies buried in the practice of mining. Brechin states, "The meticulously edited romance of mining... undergirds the history of San Francisco as it does that of all imperial cities (Brechin 29)." What he means by 'meticulously edited' is that in order to continue to encourage a sense of nationalism and faith in our pioneer heritage, the people in charge prefer to highlight the positive aspects of mining rather than the negative.
Mining can be associated with the act of colonialism and the testosterone-fueled, hyper-masculine, unfettered destruction of wilderness in order to unveil the mysteries of the earth and reap the material benefits of it. Brechin states, "The Pioneer Monument ennobled the unpleasantries of that millennial march into all regions of the earth (16)." In other words, the monument glorifies the conquest of the earth and its natural resources, not only within recent centuries, but harkening back to the dawn of imperialism.
The monument misrepresents the reality of mining labor. As Brechin says, "It is hardly surprising that the bronze men at the prow of the Pioneer Monument were gold panners working the Sierra placers. California artists almost always depicted the Western miners as free men working under friendly Western skies -- not underground, not for others, and not in squalor of their own creation (31)." It is not unusual for work such as gold mining in California to be represented in such a glamorous light. The truth is that, in Brechin's words, "The miner's realm is necessarily dead, divisible, and detached, a treasure trove for the taking and leaving. To regard it otherwise would make the wounds inflicted on the earth unendurably painful (17)." For the sake of nationalistic pride and progress, it is essential to ignore our mistakes and press on, despite the tragic consequences.
The Pioneer's Monument also includes a statue of an Anglo pioneer standing victoriously, fist raised, over a defeated Native American Indian. Behind the pioneer stands a Hispanic Padre, who seems to be reprimanding the Native, or perhaps enforcing his conquest for religious conversion. This statue has raised many controversies over years, concerning the subject of its blatant racism, and several Native Americans have petitioned to remove the statue from the monument completely. However, the bronze prototypical pioneer remains standing in the heart of San Francisco as a solid reminder of its proud heritage and inescapable past, eschewing even a scrap of remorse for its devastating pitfalls.
Photos are attached to my blog!
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3000288624950130705
The monument I chose is the Golden Gate Bridge. It is the biggest attraction in all of San Francisco. Built in 1937, billions of people, cars, and buses have traveled over this bridge. This bridge is not only a national symbol for San Francisco, but it is something that people can admire as well as use. This monument represents a society that wants to travel, technology, and a change in the way money is spent. I think Brechin would say that the Golden Gate Bridge not so much as masks aspects of San Fran, but more like reveals the greed and wealth that its citizens are becoming to grow accustomed to. San Francisco is known for its leftish style and acceptance; a place where subcultures can meet and grow in a safe-haven of similar thoughts and expressive people. The bridge is something so monumental that is speaks to everyone in the city. Not only the bright color, but the pure size of it towers over the image of a city that would be expected to reject such blatant expenditures. Such a triumphant economical architectural marvel is not masking a growing society of thinkers, but showing it to the world.
The image of the Golden Gate Bridge is known all over the world, and a bridge itself is known as a mechanism of travel. Now that a bridge is in place, and has been for some time, the idea to just head across the bridge into another cultural place other than San Fran is right in the palm of your hands. San Fran is not where you go to live, but where you can go to “go places”. In a way, this is masking the fact that going on that bridge is going against what San Fran is supposed to stand for. They are typically against massive building, and commercial structures. The bridge masks an identity that continues to ignore a giant orange bridge on the edge of their dear city.
In San Francisco on the corner of Market, Bush and Battery stands Douglas Tilden’s “Mechanics Monument.” A bronze piece from 1901, it depicts five massively muscled, naked iron-workers, struggling to operate a “punch press.” Tilden envisioned his commission as a tribute to the working men that had toiled to amass Peter Donahue’s vast industrial fortune in the late 1800s (Donahue started the company that would late become PG&E).
The sculpture now resides on the corner of Market street, hiding under the shadows of the city’s tallest buildings, surrounded by architectural marvels. The men depicted in the sculpture are larger than life, with physiques almost resembling those of classical Greek heroes. They struggle, naked, to work the industrial machine, laboring with their own sweat and blood to forge a city. They are, though, working-class men: Tilden designed them as a heroic tribute to the men who had helped build up San Francisco into the modern wonder that it was.
When the earthquake hit in 1906, the city burned and broken, the sculpture stood as a reminder: the working class heroes that had built the city up once before would be there to rebuild it in its greatest time of need. Now, though, sitting in the metal jungle of Market Street, surrounded by the financial giants of downtown San Francisco, where are those working class heroes, those larger than life city-saviors? They’re smaller and weaker and wearing suits and ties, sweating only when an economic transfer of millions of dollars stalls on deal day. Tilden’s reminder sits in the one place in San Francisco that seems to have forgotten where the city came from, the one place where the average working class citizen is a blurred face in the crowd, getting a crick in his neck as he stares skyward, trying to imagine life in the penthouse suites at the top of the sky-scrapers.
The Monument: http://www.noehill.com/sf/landmarks/financial/mechanics_monument_hidef.jpg
By underlining “they,” Brautigan begins the poem by giving the reader a very “us versus them” mentality about the Communists. He further explains his dislike of the Communists by calling them brainwashed and hinting that they have no opinions of their own, but instead follow the masses, much like a cult. Brautigan then brings up “the Ghandian non-violence Trojan horse” (98). The reference to the Trojan horse alludes that though these protesters may spout a peaceful message, they are patiently waiting to strike. Brautigan furthers this metaphor when he deems San Francisco the horse’s home and “stable,” a city for Communism to safely grow without intrusion (99). The next sentence, “obsolete is the map rapist’s legendary piece of candy” reinforces this belief. As the Communists hand out flyers to little kids, Brautigan lets the reader believe that the “Red Shadow” is tricking a future generation of children with new ploys (99).
Brechin would love the comparison of San Francisco’s population to that of the ancient world (though he compares San Francisco to Rome more frequently than to Greece).
The San Francisco- Oakland Bay Bridge links the two cities across the bay. It was opened in 1936 before the Golden Gate Bridge. As a native Oakland resident, I'm extremely familiar with the bridge and have driven, riden, and probably even walked across it at some point over the years. It always stuck me how little people associate the bridge with Oakland as the destination. SF was always considered the place you were going TO, even when you had to drive across that same bridge to get BACK to the east bay. Why wasn't Oakland the ultimate destination? When you emerge from the tunnel on Yerba Buena Island, you know that you've left one state of mind and entered into another.
Aside from its' utilitarian purpose of linking SF to the east bay, the Bay Bridge serves as a portal connecting two very different cultural regions. It takes the rider on a trip through their own identity and makes you wonder how it's possible to be the same person in two totally different settings.
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