Essays Archives

On the Soft, Supple Joy of San Francisco’s Flower Piano Festival

15Sep

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Culture + Travel, Essays

On the Soft, Supple Joy of San Francisco’s Flower Piano Festival

Now in its eighth iteration — the COVID-19 pandemic having stolen a season from our 2020 calendars — San Franciscos' Flower Piano concert series returned this past weekend, filling Golden Gate Park with consoling, cushiony recitals. I'm someone who struggles with the concept of satisfaction. Or rather: I’m an almost thirtysomething manic depressive that continues to oscillate between varying degrees of mental soundness. Happiness has always seemed fleeting and ephemeral — a yet-dry watercolor painting thrown into a rainstorm that’s left to bleed toward randomness. On this basis alone, I view happiness with a sideways glance. An emotion to acknowledge in a moment, but one to not chase after it inevitably evaporates. Joy, on the other hand, I’ve come to imply with more permanence;...

In the SF Bay Area, Beyoncé Brings Out Blue Ivy Carter — Under a Blue Moon

2Sep

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Editors' Picks, Essays, Feature Pieces, Hyperlocal News + Stories

In the SF Bay Area, Beyoncé Brings Out Blue Ivy Carter — Under a Blue Moon

Days removed from attending Beyoncé's SF Bay Area stop on her Renaissance World Tour, the profoundness, pyrotechnics, and sheer talent displayed remains in our mind — "deadass." Beyoncé, as a concept, is hard to wrap one’s brain around... let alone Beyoncé as a human being. (The mere fact that the 29-time Grammy-winner belongs to the same species as the world’s other 7.9 billion bipedal apes is an enigma enveloped within a riddle.) But Mrs. Carter — or “Mayor Carter,” as she would later say in the first act of her nearly three-hour spectacle at Santa Clara's Levi's Stadium on August 30th, nodding to her honorary mayor distinction of the SF Bay Area county that was bestowed upon her that same day — walks and breathes among us. Nevertheless, sharing the same space as her, no matter h...

Remembering SF’s COVID ‘Reopening’ at the Last Gay Bar on Polk Street

25Aug

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Essays, Queerness

Remembering SF’s COVID ‘Reopening’ at the Last Gay Bar on Polk Street

What was intended as an outing to celebrate SF's "reopening" in June of 2021 morphed into something perhaps more special: an ode to the importance of queer safe spaces in a heteronormative world. "I'll just take a gin and soda, extra lime,” I told the bartender June two years ago on June 15th — the same day San Francisco "reopened" after lifting a long list of then-relevant COVID-19 health protocols. It was a request heard not muffled by wearing a mask. The thirtysomething libation slinger — who was by himself amid the frenetic energy that pulsed across San Francisco Tuesday evening, scurrying behind the bar to contend dozens of drinkers — hurried to mound ice and generously pour house gin, leaving what looked like enough room for two tablespoons of carbonated water to float on top. “Th...

I Got *V* Stoned at SF’s First-Ever Pizza, Bagel, and Beer Festival

23Aug

By Matt Charnock2 Comments

Editors' Picks, Essays, Food + Drink, Hyperlocal News + Stories

I Got V Stoned at SF’s First-Ever Pizza, Bagel, and Beer Festival

‘At one point, I earnestly believed I saw Julianne Moore and Laura Dern cackling over two cold hard ciders.’ As my ostensible youth flickers into irrelevance, few activities coax me out of my innate introversion and into the greater, unknown collective. But the promise of complimentary meals and attractive novelties exist as evergreen proddings. (I could also argue that the opportunity to engage in fulfilling sex lives in that same canon, though time dedicated to after-work napping now usually takes prominence over any fleeting horniness.) This past weekend on Saturday, August 19th, the intersectionality of those two nouns met in San Francisco’s first-ever food festival dedicated to all things carbohydrates, specifically pizza, bagels, and beer. Making things neurochemically more...

22Jun

By Matt Charnock1 Comment

Essays, Nature + Climate Crisis

Welcome to Summer in San Francisco

You’ll be wearing layers in the Outer Sunset come daybreak, shirt-free in Dolores Park by the afternoon — and, at some point, find yourself wiping ash off your window San Francisco is a mercurial figure this time of year. Wardrobes seem as indecisive as someone choosing between an El Rio day party or getting naked at Marshall’s Beach; the summer-themed pastries at Tartine Bakery or the mesmeric Kaya toast at Breadbelly; Lyft’s substantial e-bike rental fees or Lime’s equally unsettling e-scooter fares to get to and from downtown. When there’s a pop-up restaurant concept opening every Tuesday or Thursday or Saturday — each one promising a new spin on $14 cocktails and $17 pasta dishes. Something will be infused with CBD. Guaranteed they’ll be long introductions to hyped supe...

Revisiting the DA Recall That Felt Like a San Francisco Heartbreak

10Jun

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Essays, Hyperlocal News + Stories

Revisiting the DA Recall That Felt Like a San Francisco Heartbreak

It was a mash-up of apathy, exhaustion, and delusion that feels somehow personal — a San Francisco that turned its back on itself, with an uncertain future ahead. This article was originally published on June 8, 2022, after the results from San Francisco's special recall election were finalized, showing that the city chose to remove now-former SF DA Chesa Boudin from office. Brooke Jenkins was appointed by Mayor Breed to serve in the interim until the November 8th election of that same year; Jenkins manage to secure the majority vote to keep her appointment; Jenkins's 11-month tenure has seen a rise in violent crime across San Francisco, department controversy around her swift firings of fifteen former Boudin staffers, objective favoritism by Breed, and sup...

My Tweet About a Literal Walk Around San Francisco Was Co-opted Into the City’s ‘Doom Loop’ Narrative

24May

By Matt Charnock2 Comments

Editors' Picks, Essays, Hyperlocal News + Stories

My Tweet About a Literal Walk Around San Francisco Was Co-opted Into the City’s ‘Doom Loop’ Narrative

What began as digital documentation of my stroll around San Francisco turned into irrational pellets used to slingshot SF's apparent decline. The simple act of moving my upright body in a forward motion is a kinetic methodology I’ve grown fond of since setting up roots in San Francisco. It offers a specific well of joy — a celebration of an ability to drag around this tattooed bag of proteins and enzymes up and down different elevations. By nature, it’s an inherently neutral action; one would need to craft lofty fabrications and wax confabulatory to politicize going at a leisurely pace around San Francisco. I’m not immune to such twists and bendings of reality, as it would seem. Why, you ask? Because what was initially posted as a heartfelt, albeit tongue-in-cheek, ode to SF's ...

8May

By Matt Charnock1 Comment

Editors' Picks, Essays

A Letter of Gratitude to San Francisco

San Francisco is a NorCal city brimming with reasons to go on walks and sponge up the city — all while reflecting on moments of gratitude. Oh, San Francisco: You’re such a wondrous and wild, magical and maddening, delicate and duplicitous creation. I celebrate your individuality daily; I also bemoan your dystopian quirks quite often. But you’re home for me: My touchstone that I’m forever grateful to have stumbled upon. As you know, I began our relationship while residing in my car. On an emotionally charged whim, I packed up my 2008 Prius and came your way by going west from Austin, Texas, still plastered on the promise poured by a hefty, albeit temporary, content contract. That nearly 2,000-mile drive — the longest one-way road trip I’ve ever taken and will probably ever take — would pr...

Remembering an Afternoon in San Francisco Without Instagram

3May

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Culture + Travel, Essays, Hyperlocal News + Stories

Remembering an Afternoon in San Francisco Without Instagram

San Francisco is a city filled with IRL treasures that exist with or without an IG update; two years ago, that sentiment came fully into frame. Far too many of my days are spent inside my otherwise charming domicile. Time tends to collapse in there, typing away at my keyboard, the available space in my Google Drive inching closer to capacity. There’s one specific parrot that will routinely perch on a ledge outside my window — the only one in the apartment; a glass pane that opens up to a concrete pillar where rain refracts onto the potted plants below — alerting me to life outside. Comically, this shrill animal we humans commonly cage for our amusement is conceivably freer, less caged than I am. That same bird visited my window that day in October of 2021 when day Facebook (whi...

I Walked 8 Miles South From San Francisco’s Ocean Beach

28Apr

By danieltbromfieldNo Comments

Culture + Travel, Essays, Nature + Climate Crisis

I Walked 8 Miles South From San Francisco’s Ocean Beach

What started out as an excuse to get some fresh air turned into a geological scavenger along San Francisco's largest beach. It’s not hard to get to Ocean Beach in San Francisco — just go west in the city — but it still seems a little remote. Miles-long, cold, foggy, and forbidding, Ocean Beach is often greeted with a disinterested shrug compared to its more glamorous cousins Baker Beach and Crissy Field. But when you’re there, you really feel like you’re at the end of a continent, especially at night, when the sea is speckled with the lonely lights of little boats. And it’s even more frightening to know that it’s only the northern tip of a nearly 12-mile stretch of beach that extends all the way to the Daly City–Pacifica border. Starting place: The southern parking lot at Ocean ...