Tina Martin San Francisco Vistas : January 2020

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Rally and Women's March January 18, 2020

As I was saying on Facebook, I'm always grateful when rallies go beyond platitudes and chants, and I'm happy to say that I learned things at the Women's March rally yesterday (January 18), and of course it was a thrill hearing cast members of HAMILTON perform.

Cast members of Hamilton.

I'm going to post for a few days to cover some of what I learned at the rally, and forgive me for starting with the plight ot men, but one of the first signs I saw was this one:

Are these statistics true? (We won't go into his motives for sharing these statistics at a Women's March.)

I wish I knew the name of the First Nation woman who sang at the beginning and spoke later. More than one person acknowledged that we were on Ohlone land.

The MC was Kimberly Ellis the director of Emerge California, She introduced the speakers, who began with Mayor London Breed, the first African-American mayor of SF, and one of only two female mayors. Others who spoke were CCCarmen Chu,Saru Jayaraman, women representing faith activists, women representing disability and sexualilty, Malia Cohen, Shannon Watts (Fight Like a Mother--against guns), Teresa Mejia of the Women's Building. I thought I heard the name Noemi Odai, but I can't find any reference to her online. More on what I learned later.

Friday, January 17, 2020

Sneak Preview of the Mostly British Film Festival--and a Touching Anecdote

Janet Tom, illustrating one of the many reasons that she was a recent winner of the I Love My Librarian Award, introduced Ruthe Stein and Maxine EInhorn Wednesday night at a sneak preview of the Mostly British Film Festival, which has movies from "all the countries we've colonized," London-born Maxine explained. 

We saw trailers from the films you see projected on the screen--all from the UK except "Extra Ordinary" from Ireland, but Maxine told us about others including ones from New Zealand and Australia.  

Today a friend told me that by chance she'd met a woman who'd just come from this sneak preview and was raving about the two presenters and how interesting the films seemed but couldn't attend because of the death of her mother and her own illness, so she gave the program to Erika, who says she's going to attend a couple of the films "in honor" of this woman who so generously shared her enthusiasm and her program.

Sunday, January 12, 2020

What's Happened to the Empire CineArts Theater at West Portal?

I used to love this theater, but something's gone wrong here! Today I was in line to see "1917," and the line was so slow that even though I arrived several minutes before showtime, which means trailers for 10 minutes, I missed the trailers and the first part of the movie.

Because they're now having people choose their seats, the process takes longer, and there's only one person in the the ticket booth. Arriving late and in the dark, I couldn't find my seat until I remembered the flashlight on my iPhone. If they're getting people in late in the dark, they should at least have an usher.

When I was with friends a couple of weeks ago, one of the theaters was so cold that it was difficult to focus on the film. We complained afterwards and were told that they'd had a heating problem for a couple of months. I suggested that they put up a sign to warn the theater-goers. Today the manager told me they found out they were not allowed to put up a sign.

Two women let the manager know that there was no toilet paper in the restroom, and she said she was sorry but there wasn't any more to put in there. Walgreen's is just a block away. I sympathize with those working at an understaffed, mis-managed theater, but they need to be more pro-active, or else they need to put up warning signs whether they're allowed to or not!