The San Francisco Citizen

Check out the flowery language used to make the dahlia San Francisco’s official flower:

“The dahlia partakes essentially of the character of our beloved city, in birth, breeding, and habit, for it was originally Mexican, carried thence to Spain, to France and England in turn, being changed in the process from a simple daisylike wild flower to a cosmopolitan beauty.”

Well, O.K. then. Golden Gate Park has tons of dahlia these days - check out the Yelp-approved Dahlia Dell when you have the chance. And also check out the upcoming flower show:

The Dahlia Society of California Flower Show in 2008 will be held at the Hall of Flowers (San Francisco County Fair Building) at 9^th Avenue and Lincoln Way in San Francisco.  It will be open to the public on Saturday, August 16th at 10:00 a.m. and will remain open until 5:00 p.m.  On Sunday, August 17th the show will open at 10:00 a.m. and will close at 4:00 p.m.

A riot of late-summer colour hidden in the park.

This is Wednesday, so that means they’re already preparing for another Friday Night at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. This week’s effort will include Rolando Morales and AudioBus. Per Rolando:

Friday nights at the De Young are a happening place: the whole museum is open to 8:45 and they feature music, film, dance, poetry, tours, etc. Tonight will feature the Rolando Morales Group with the amazing bassist for Airto, Gary Brown; from Nicaragua, the great Latin percussionist/vocalist Danilo Paíz; the wonderful keyboardist from Spearhead, Bob Crawford; from Brazil, the great drummer from Steve Winwood and Airto, Celso Alberti; and Rolando Morales leading the journey on guitar, guitar synthesizer and vocals.

And AudioBus? Well, they’ve got two “trips” scheduled for the night but they appear to be sold out now. You can always show up early and try to become a  stand-by fare. ”Human Street Textures” is the theme for this bus.

This whole Night at the Museum thing is quite lively, attracting folks who aren’t heavy museum goers. Here’s what it looked like last week:

Refreshments!

Dancing!

Chihuly! An evening docent tour, check the schedule to when they offer this.   

Kid-friendly activities:

And they had packed house to hear a lecture about Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and a few other topics from William Maynez, mural historian at City College of San Francisco:

See you there!

It’s on! Forget about that pricey Outside Lands Festival coming at the end of the month. Today, August, 2, 2008, you’ve got to go see Menudo play the Panhandle in the afternoon. It’s all a part of “Slime Across America,” brought to you by Nickelodeon.

Of course it’s the New Menudo, so things are a little different now. For starters, the boys can stay in the group until they reach the ripe old age of 20 years old. That’s not as good as Logan’s Run, but it’s better than when your career topped out at 16, back in the day.

via Puck90’s photostream

See you there!

The bird on the left in this photo from Golden Gate Park is an adult that has adopted the baby Brown-Headed Cowbird on the right. The baby cowbird’s real mother is a brood parasite, so she doesn’t know how to build a nest of her own. She just lays eggs in existing nests and lets other parents do all the work. When the interloping egg hatches, the newborn cowbird succesfully competes against its nestmates.

The tricked parent bird doesn’t know the difference and works twice as hard to feed the baby cowbird. In this scene, the young cowbird receiving food is already bigger than its adoptive parent. 

Click to enlarge:

These cowbirds were native to the Midwest, but some of them traveled to the bay area about 85 years ago. Cowbirds remain a threat to native species in the bay area and beyond.

It’s just been three days since Amy Keyishian and Randy Hauser got married but they already have happy memories of a bliss-filled trip on a paddleboat around Stow Lake in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

And what accompaniment they had in the back seat - the silken voices and twinkling ukuleles of The Paper Dolls! (Which Morrissey / Smiths songs did they play?)

via artolog’s Photostream 

Congratulations go out to Randy and Amy!

Details are a little sketchy, but the San Francisco Bomb Squad has just picked up a “package” and is taking it on a slow tour through Golden Gate Park. [UPDATE: The whole affair ended "peacefully" per KGO-TV]

Why the scenic route? So if it goes kaboom, it won’t hurt you all.

This was the scene at 6:30 PM, near the de Young Museum. Click to expand:

The starting location on Carl between Frederick and Williard:

Sarge in the front, mortar in the back:

The sticker on the red metal bucket says: “I HEART EXPLOSIVES.” (Don’t we all.) From a couple hundred feet away:

A bald eagle, sticks of dynamite and the Golden Gate Bridge:

Keep up the good work, San Francisco Bomb Squad!

You can see the culprit reflected in this car’s windshield - it’s a sap-filled Eucalyptus globulus (aka Tasmanian Blue Gum, Southern Blue Gum or Blue Gum Eucalyptus) just waiting to rain down on your vehicle.  

Of course a garage around in the area of Golden Gate Park or it’s Panhandle could run you something like $10 per day. Maybe you’d feel a little gumminess is a small price to pay for free parking?

Your choice.  

Well, park it where you want, but don’t be surprised if it looks like this by the next day.

Local artists used this Sprinter 2500 van as their canvas:

Welcome to San Francisco!

The California Department of Food and Agriculture called it quits today on the issue of spraying for the Light Brown Apple Moth. All of a sudden like.

The family that Stops the Spray together, stays together (or something like that).

This should be gratifying to Senator Carole Migden, who thinks, “Bay Area residents ought not to serve as guinea pigs and have their health jeopardized for an ill-conceived program and an unproven approach.” 

The same with San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who says he’s, “glad CDFA appears to have accepted the inevitable.”

So after all these months, that is that.

Radiohead’s recent attempt to give away concert tickets failed in France because people were too lazy to pedal their bikes on over to pick them up. Quelle horreur!

But things will be different if Radiohead tries the same stunt in San Francisco this summer.

A rainbow over Golden Gate Park from the San Francisco Botanical Garden. The park will be In Rainbows once again when the Outside Lands music festival starts up on August 22nd.

In fact, if Radiohead tries to give away tickets to people who cycle to some office building in San Francisco, a riot will probably break out.

There Will Be Blood, or at least a squabble or two. But, rest assured, all available free tickets will get distributed and used.

See you there!