You could probably live in San Francisco for a decade or more and not exhaust all of the cultural options. The sheer variety on offer is mind-boggling, and many cultural organizations have distinct ethnic roots.

Just walking through the neighborhood(s) I saw so many different things that I would have explored in detail if not for the horrid virus.

Starting in Potrero Hill, for example, you walk by a 1916 art deco building that has stood the test of time.

Originally a meeting place for working class Italian families to dine, celebrate benchmarks or simply watch sports,

it is now an institution where people gather for Friday night dinners, or take-out as needed.

A bit further southwest you come by a book binder museum, open by appointment.

There are gathering halls everywhere,

some with religious affiliations.

ST. Peter’s church on 24th St. relates to the history of colonialization.

In the Mission district there are places to learn about San Francisco’s mural culture,

theatres and art centers,

and the headquarter of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, which has spoken truth to power for over 60 years.

You can listen to their epic podcast Tales of the Resistance” here.

I photographed all these images just ambling outside, with no tourist guidance or website for “quirkiest museums of SF,” which do exist….. although yesterday’s goal was Balmy Alley, a magnet for people interested in murals and a separate subject for a future YDP.

Music today a classic Santana Album – his music is closely connected to the Mission district.

Done with doom.

To end the week on something uplifting, let’s turn to the current wave of people all over the world dancing to the song “Jerusalema.” The gospel-inspired song by Kgaogelo Moagi, better known as DJ Master KG, featuring female vocalist Nocembo Zikode, has inspired a huge international following trying to combat the Covid-19 infused malaise. The song, in IsiZulu, one of South Africa’s 11 national languages, is a prayer to God to take the singer to the holy city of Jerusalem.

Originally published in 2019, it became a dance challenge in February 2020, with the lockdowns all over the place (and before the mask requirements!) starting with a ground of friends from Angola, soon followed by people in Portugal, and now all over the world, with home-made videos surfacing from almost all continents.

Angolan friends dancing.

It took the world by storm, so many of us hungry for something, anything that shows humanity, solidarity, communal spirit and joy.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa encouraged all South Africans to perform the dance challenge on Heritage Day, a celebration of South Africa’s multiple cultures.

Priests in Italy dancing. Catholics in Canada dancing. Dads with babies dancing.

Creative expression, historical inheritance, language, the food, and land, aspects of South African culture which are both tangible and difficult to pin down, are recognized on this occasion according to the South African government. “There can be no better celebration of our South African-ness than joining the global phenomenon that is spreading across the world and that is the Jerusalema dance challenge.

Here a wild life workers from Zimbabwe dancing. Kids in Transylvania dancing.

Former President Nelson Mandela proclaimed in a speech on Heritage Day in 1996: “When our first democratically-elected government decided to make Heritage Day one of our national days, we did so because we knew that our rich and varied cultural heritage has a profound power to help build our new nation.

That culture now proves powerful to lift our spirits from a struggle not just to overcome racial division and conflict, but the losses inflicted by a mismanaged virus. We will mourn them in due course. For today let’s take up some joy.

Here is the original version of the song.

Yesterday I had to drop something off at the post office, one of the few times since March of being outside the house not simply in nature. The errand brought me, iPhone in hand, to our neighborhood “village,” Multnomah Village, a one-street strip of stores, restaurants, dry-cleaners and the inimitable Annie Blooms bookstore.

My first thought, “does a falling branch make a noise when no-one is around to hear it?” pretty much covered the rest of the experience.

The street was deserted

Stores permanently closed or in the process of being refurbished for new tenants.

and the rest of them perhaps not avers to this sentiment:

Some posters encouraged patience,

some counseled political action.

The only accumulation of bodies could be found in the window of Annie Bloom’s with a diorama made by the author of a new children’s book: Maggie Rudy.

I was enchanted by the mouse folk (and the creativity gone into the display)

but they had to share my attention with the scrabble-playing dinosaurs in the wine store window across the street….

The eerie quality of the neighborhood silence was enhanced by references to dreams and strange words (I looked it up when back home and some very sketchy references came up…)

Along the way were reminders of being alone,

and speaking of which, shout-out to all children:

Calling her wouldn’t hurt either…..

Were it not for the ‘Rona, I would be in Montreal right now. Just as I did last year, I would be photographing for TOHU, a circus organization and a “place for dissemination, creation, experimentation and convergence of culture, environment and community involvement.”

I would be learning about new approaches to community circus, new ways of international cooperation between different companies and see new tricks, marveling at the creativity of the performers, as much as at the insane strength and flexibility of their bodies. I would roam the streets together with the various street performers, who appear at various alleys and corners during the summer circus arts festival. I would attend performances in halls that, last year, had me dumbfounded. Here is what I wrote about it then with lots of photographs.

Instead, the festival is canceled, the search for new talent is moved on-line, and one of Montreal’s biggest companies, Cirque de Soleil, has let 3.500 artists permanently go and is filing for bankruptcy. My moping over lost travel and amusement is a trifle, in comparison.

I was not just reminded of circus because of the calendar date, or the news about Cirque, but because I had been thinking about how silence, the main focus of the blog this week, is related to art. Really the only performance art that is silent is circus, and perhaps its offspring, the early silent movies, Charlie Chaplin and his ilk with their physical performances in particular.

When you think about “high” art, literature, theatre, opera, it is tied to language, concepts, historical antecedents. In some, comparable ways, so is classical music and the ballet associated with it, with its rigid prescriptions and overall lack of improvisation. When you think about popular art, you will soon find that its products are designed for profit as well as for entertainment as escapism and distraction.

Or so we learn when we go back to texts written almost 80 years ago by Adorno and Horkheimer in their book The Dialectic of Enlightenment. I’m not going into their politics today, or their explanations how the culture industry eradicates independent thinking and criticism, so we don’t question the reigning order, and how popular entertainment distracts us from our powerlessness, shaping the way how we experience life. I will simply report on what the philosophers said about circus, since it rings particularly true.

They see circus as valuable because its artistry represents what is human, and refuses to be constantly compelled to deliver something of significance, or prove some effect. It refuses to be rational, functional, pragmatic, thus opening a space for individual reaction that is spontaneous and not tied to imposed ideas, providing room for original playfulness.

Circus artists frequently defy conventions and by doing so transcend the limits set by society. They seem to defy the laws of gravity as well, questioning the empirical basis of science. This, in general, is not based on political or intellectual engagement, but on the sheer thrill of overcoming boundaries. Circus gives itself over to sensuality and pleasure, independent of the existence of an external world. Both elements, the attempt to bend reality and the embrace of illusion are the value of circus, helping us to escape the alienation experienced in our daily lives, according to Adorno. (Ref.)

Absence of language, of course, also means international exchange is possible, there are no borders to understanding because there’s no need for translation. This becomes particularly clear when you look at all the countries that partake in this year’s online evaluation of new acts – they come from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Palestine and NorthAmerica.

Here is a podcast with Ruth Wikler, programming director for TOHU (known to many in town previously as the founder of Boom Theatre,) that brings you up to date on the role circus plays these days in the arts.

And before I start to scream out my frustration of being stuck at home, I’ll better retreat into silence, maybe juggle my breakfast egg, or have Liszt on so loud that the music covers my screams, music chosen because it also tries to defy the laws of gravity, or speed, or something…..

Photographs from last year in Montreal.