Posts Tagged ‘24thmission’

Review: Nocturne X

November 2nd, 2021
Nocturne X Nocturne X Nocturne X

 

Okay so before I review this one, let me just say this isn’t worth checking out. This is bad, I’d even go so far to say it’s an embarrassment.

The story, such as there is one, starts out when you check in and they hand you a pamphlet. Strike one. A second barrage of text strikes as you enter the main stage. Strike two.

Strike three is uncovering the main story in the “hidden” backstage area where a series of letters are inexplicably glued to poorly lit walls. 

For better or worse San Francisco is forever linked to immersive storytelling but that doesn’t mean everything that comes along is interesting. This is nothing more than a homework assignment with tacky decor.

My recommendation: Hard pass.

Rest in ravioli

August 5th, 2019

Mission mural in The Mission
 

Over the weekend I wandered by a brand new mural by local artist Sirron Norris, whose cartoonish illustrative style and bright colors are instantly recognizable.

This one’s located on a garage door in the Mission District. The imagery and the text “Soy de aqui” (Spanish for “I’m from here”) make the theme pretty clear: it’s about the neighborhood and respecting the past.

Front and center is Mission San Francisco de Asis itself, the oldest structure in the neighborhood still standing. Going upward we see the 14 Mission Muni bus line, BART, and a blue cartoon bear literally holding on to a piece of the past, the tower at Mission High School — the building on 18th Street across from the tennis courts at Dolores Park. The giant bell in Dolores Park also makes an appearance. The top features Bernal Heights Park and its weird looking antenna, an easily visible landmark in many parts of the Mission.

I’m not totally sure what’s going on with the left side, where a… dragon(?) has its head cleverly obscured by a firefighter’s pipe.

 
Mission mural in The Mission
 

On the left wall we see the New Mission Theater, over a century old at this point (and finally operating again after decades of neglect) with its iconic marquee repurposed to deliver a message: “Our mission is to preserve and honor the culture of the Mission District.”

If you didn’t get the message at first glance, it’s written here in plain text.

 
Mission mural in The Mission
 

The right wall features Lucca’s, an old school Italian grocery and deli that recently closed after generations in business on the corner of 22nd and Valencia. A sign out front reads “Rest in Ravioli,” a nod to Lucca’s full name of “Lucca Ravioli Co.”

It was the only store to pick up authentic Italian ingredients outside of North Beach in San Francisco, and had significantly more affordable prices to boot. Big handwritten signs written on butcher paper taped to the windows advertised the store’s current sales. To be clear this Lucca’s is unrelated to the similarly named deli in The Marina.

This is the saddest part of the mural in a way, yet in my opinion the loss of a neighborhood institution is perfectly understandable when the owner retires. We don’t last forever — nothing lasts forever.

And that goes for this mural too, so if you want to see it while it’s still fresh and new, you can find it between Mission and Valencia on 21st Street on the south side of the street.

What is it a nice day for?

September 4th, 2016

It's a nice day...
 

Near 24th and Folsom I encountered the above pull-tag flyer, which sports an old photo of Billy Idol along with the heading “It’s a nice day.” The pull-tags include the following phrases:

  • To start again
  • For a white wedding

If you’ve somehow never encountered the 1982 hit song this is referencing, here’s the music video for your enjoyment. Have a nice day!

 

Murals of Lilac Alley

September 4th, 2016

These days it seems pretty much every alley around 24th and Mission is a de-facto canvas for street artists. Overall this is a good thing; it keeps the Mission’s colorful, artistic elements in plain view, acting as a counterbalance to the obscene housing prices that have made the area affordable to many artists. Go out there almost any weekend and you’re bound to find at least one such mural in progress.

Here’s a few I snapped photos of today on a stroll through Lilac Alley. Click any of them for a larger view on Flickr.
 

Lilac Alley murals

Lilac Alley murals

Lilac Alley murals

Lilac Alley murals< Lilac Alley murals

Lilac Alley murals

Lilac Alley murals

Sam and Max mural spotted in the Mission

August 21st, 2016

Mural of Max (of Sam and Max, Freelance Police)
 

While wandering through the Sunday Streets crowd today I got a little off the beaten path and spotted the mural above. It’s unmistakably a depiction of Max, the short, sarcastic, violent bunny character from Sam & Max. I looked around but couldn’t find a corresponding mural of Sam, the 6-foot tall dog who dresses like he just walked out of a hard-boiled detective novel.

For those unfamiliar with the characters, Sam & Max started out as a series of relatively obscure comic books by artist Steve Purcell. The two characters work together as “freelance police” to solve crimes, though they don’t have any particular respect for the law themselves.

In 1993 Purcell produced an adventure video game based on the characters at LucasArts called Sam & Max Hit the Road. In the game the two go on a road trip to solve a missing persons case, visiting tacky tourist destinations (a carnival freak show, the world’s largest ball of twine, etc.) It’s widely regarded as one of the best — and funniest — adventure games of the era.

In the years since the characters were adapted to a short-lived animated TV show and several smaller adventure games from Telltale.

So why is this find interesting enough to be worthy of a blog post? It’s not uncommon for street murals to feature well known commercial characters like Ronald McDonald, Bugs Bunny, or even the Mario Bros. But these characters are not well known outside of a relatively small circle of fans. I bet most people who’ve seen this mural don’t know what it’s referencing.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go rummage through my closet and see if I still have my old Sam & Max comics somewhere.

BREAKING: Second Super Mario Bros. street art mural located in San Francisco

May 31st, 2016

Mario Mural

“It’s-a me!”
 

Located in Cypress Alley between 24th and 25th Street, this Super Mario Bros. mural definitively answers one of the most pressing questions of our time. I only happened upon this mural by chance; aimlessly meandering the streets of San Francisco in an attempt to make my fitness tracker happy, I looked up and there it was: the iconic characters Mario Mario and Luigi Mario standing near a gold star, a magic mushroom, and one of those evil plants sticking out of a pipe.

This clearly raises some questions, but most important among them is this: Could there be a third piece of Super Mario Bros. themed street art in San Francisco? With any luck, time will tell.

Murals of Osage Alley

February 15th, 2016

One of the few places to find actual underground murals in the Mission these days — in other words the kind explicitly not approved by some shady collective — is Osage Alley. Instead of stale and increasingly contrived attempts at political statements, at Osage Alley you’ll mostly find the funky old school and copyright-agnostic murals that the Mission was once known for.

The murals on this two and a half block long alley change frequently. For some of the previous art, check out the images on Google Street View.

Osage Alley murals Osage Alley murals Osage Alley murals Osage Alley murals

Exploring Juri Commons

December 26th, 2015


 

Not far from Papalote is a funny little park you could be forgiven for not noticing even if you stroll by it regularly. The park is called Juri Commons and was once a section of railroad before the 1906 earthquake. In the 70’s the skinny quadrilateral lot was converted into a park with a small playground.

Juri Commons Juri Commons Juri Commons Juri Commons

Unfortunately little maintenance has been done since then, although a group of volunteers does their best to tidy up the place. That said, the playground is in particularly rough shape and I decided not to photograph the mural behind the swings because I didn’t want to step on the broken glass of a beer bottle some asshole had smashed there.

Aside from its shape and size the most unique feature of the park is the Sol Flor sculptures embedded in the ground. They were built by artist Jen Alexander in a medium similar to LA’s Watt’s Towers — re-purposed garbage — though these are obviously much smaller in scale.

More details about Juri Commons can be found at SF Parks Alliance.