Culture + Travel Archives

Remember That ‘Floating’ Redwood Near Mount Tamalpais?

7Jul

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Culture + Travel, Editors' Picks, Nature + Climate Crisis

Remember That ‘Floating’ Redwood Near Mount Tamalpais?

Redwoods are among the largest living things on this planet. But that's not to say they can't grow suspended over a creek. As residents of Northern California, we’re fortunate enough to find ourselves in the thick of coastal redwoods groves — groupings of these ancient trees that, like their larger giant sequoia cousins, are among the largest living organisms found anywhere on this planet. These enormous flora home a wide array of fauna; everything from mustard-yellow banana slugs to salamanders the size of a human palm rely on redwoods for shelter, sustenance, and reproduction needs. They also sequester a fuck-ton of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be swirling around the upper atmosphere, trapping solar heat and further warming our planet. However, not all these redwoods —...

San Francisco Firework Shows Are Basically in the Upside Down

6Jul

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Culture + Travel, Hyperlocal News + Stories, Nature + Climate Crisis

San Francisco Firework Shows Are Basically in the Upside Down

Karl The Fog’s seasonal density tends to cool our summers and cloud our views — especially during firework shows. Let’s get this out of the way first: We really — like, really — don’t like the idea of throwing fireworks shows in San Francisco amid the current climate crisis. They’re polluting; they’re dangerous to native fauna; they’re traumatizing; they’re hella expensive and cost the City millions a year to produce. On top of all this, it’s rare we can even see them. Why? Fog. Lots and lots of fog. San Francisco’s personified atmospheric anomalies are present most evenings and early mornings, depending on temperature conditions. Reliably, SF fog is thickest between June and August, hence why “Fogust” is part of the local vernacular. It means we get incredibly temperate summ...

We Need to Stop Throwing Firework Shows in San Francisco

4Jul

By Matt Charnock2 Comments

Culture + Travel, Nature + Climate Crisis

We Need to Stop Throwing Firework Shows in San Francisco

The entire San Francisco Bay Area is currently out of drought conditions — but increased air pollution and orange skies continue to pop up across the country. California is likely to experience additional warming by more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2040, which will likely turn to 4 degrees Fahrenheit by 2070. Across the United States, some 162 million people — nearly one in two individuals — will likely experience a decline in the quality of their environment, namely more heat and less water; the world will see north of 1.2 billion climate refugees by 2050. Yet, we still continue to light the murky nighttime skies around San Francisco with volatile chemicals. It should be foreign to our very humanness to live in disbelief of our negative impact on the environment. To cast a...

Revisiting the Story Behind That Aerial Shot of SF’s Illuminated Pink Triangle

29Jun

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Culture + Travel, Queerness

Revisiting the Story Behind That Aerial Shot of SF’s Illuminated Pink Triangle

This year, San Francisco's pink triangle returned to its familiar form: a textured shape that doesn't light up come nightfall. But in 2022, the symbol of resilience glew like a cotton-candy-colored torch in the night. Amid the pandemic’s darker moments of 2020, San Francisco Pride’s virtual festivities offered a Zoom-able balm during a time marked by colorless days, weeks, and months. There were digital dance parties; the Queen Diva herself, Big Freedia, headlined SF Pride’s 50th-anniversary festivities; the cruising at Corona Heights Parks was, however, a non-existent affair. But Twin Peaks did light up with thousands of LEDs that year, each emitting a purple hue and assembled in a way to resemble the city’s Pink Triangle installation installed during Pride Month. The latte...

A Cult-Favorite Van Was Stolen in San Francisco, Highlighting the Car’s Unique Ownership Risk

29Jun

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Culture + Travel, Hyperlocal News + Stories, News to Know

A Cult-Favorite Van Was Stolen in San Francisco, Highlighting the Car’s Unique Ownership Risk

VW's iconoclastic Vanagon Westfalia vans are synonymous with van life... but they're also targets for car theft, especially in San Francisco. Volkswagen’s Vanagon Westfalia camper vans were built from the early 1950s to 2003 in small production runs. Even though the beloved camper van model — a modality of transportation that’s become interchangeable with wanderlust — was sold for decades, only about 100,000 examples found their way into the American car market. (To put that figure into perspective, over 133,000 Honda Civics were made and sold in the United States just last year alone.) Since going out of production 20 years ago, the popularity of VW’s Westfalia camper vans, also known as “Westies,” has exploded into a zenith of car fandom reserved for a just few automobiles. Prist...

I’m Obsessed With These Queer-Supporting Millipedes in SF

23Jun

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Culture + Travel, Hyperlocal News + Stories, Queerness

I’m Obsessed With These Queer-Supporting Millipedes in SF

The San Francisco invertebrates in question each have over 400 legs — and they’re putting all those little feet down against homophobia. Few things in life bring me as much predictable joy as a stroll (or scroll) through a zoological facility (and its social media accounts). It’s an experience rife with both biophilia and natural wonder; it’s also an excuse to fawn over, say, large African wildlife without the need to bust out one’s passport. An often overlooked gem in any zoo is the reptile and insect houses — bastions for ostensibly creepy-crawly ectotherms society has otherwise cast aside as unfavorable to more warm-blooded beings. But what those indoor exhibits contain are nothing short of alien-like creatures that even James Cameron couldn’t render into worthy CGI animations. ...

President Biden Stayed at This SF Hotel While He Was in Town

21Jun

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Culture + Travel, Hyperlocal News + Stories, News to Know

President Biden Stayed at This SF Hotel While He Was in Town

Residents of San Francisco’s Nob Hill had to contend with sudden street closures and adorable bomb-sniffing dogs this week when President Biden checked in at the Fairmont. “I’m sorry, you can’t walk on this side of the sidewalk,” an ostensibly well-meaning, albeit frustrating SFPD officer told me outside of the Fairmont in San Francisco, her voice amplified by my AirPods in transparency mode being turned on. “You’re going to need to move to the other side.” Meandering to the opposite side of the street — weaving through a collection go aluminum barricades, taking note of the increased SFPD presence and an unusual amount of utility vehicles saddling the 4-star hotel at 900 Mason Street — it dawned on me that President Biden was likely inside as part of his Bay Area fundraising trip. And...

Remember When This San Francisco Statue Was Also a Beehive?

17Jun

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Culture + Travel, Nature + Climate Crisis

Remember When This San Francisco Statue Was Also a Beehive?

In the summer of 2021, a statue at SF's de Young Museum was caused by a thriving colony of bees just vibing and doing what they do best: helping pollinate Mother Nature's chromatic flora. San Francisco is home to a unique combination of outside artwork that coexists with the city’s urban nature. But there’s perhaps no more apparent nexus of the two than at the au naturel display that at one time enveloped around Pierre Huyhges’s Exomind (Deep Water) statue at the de Young Museum. Located in the museum’s Sculpture Garden, the statue’s head was once covered by a beehive — occupied by a live colony of bees. (The concrete sculpture depicts a crouching woman, the posturing based on a small statue by the Japanese sculptor Tobari Kogan [1882–1927], whose work was influenced by European modern...

This Patched Film Shows San Francisco Days Before the ‘Big One’

15Jun

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Culture + Travel, Nature + Climate Crisis

This Patched Film Shows San Francisco Days Before the ‘Big One’

The restored film gives us all a glimpse into the SF's past — all before the vast majority of it was leveled by a truly apocalyptic geological event. Image via u/avitechwriter/Reddit Before a major earthquake that registered 7.9M on the Richter scale occurred on April 18, 1906, near the northern California coast, business was as usual along San Francisco’s Market Street. And this restored footage clip posted on Reddit by user u/avitechwriter in 2021 shows the seven-by-seven... four days before that aforenoted tremor struck and forever changed the trajectory of San Franciso. Watching the film is like a portal to the past, and the restoration in color really brings history to life. Horse-drawn carriages go over cable car tracks. Dapper men (some sporting enviou...

Don’t Forget That SFO Will Get a New Bookstore Next Year

11Jun

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Culture + Travel, Hyperlocal News + Stories

Don’t Forget That SFO Will Get a New Bookstore Next Year

With two locations — the location on 1231 9th Street and the original bookstore on 506 Clement Street — already beloved by tourists and locals alike, Green Apple Books is expected to open a third location inside the San Francisco International Airport in 2024. Y'all, like us, love Green Apple Books. In fact: Our readers voted it the best bookstore in San Francisco last year. Well, it looks like we’ll have the chance to flip through pages and sift through shelves sometime in 2024 at the company’s newest location at SFO. “Congratulations ⁦⁦[Green Apple Books,]” District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston tweeted in 2021 after it was announced that the bookstore had gotten the green light to push forward with plans on opening a new branch inside SFO. “The Board of Supervisors today unanimo...