Unceded Land ~1~

 

The flight was smooth all the way except during ascent and descent. I arrived in San Francisco before departing Taiwan. This always tickles me. The temperature was a wonderfully comfortable 14°C. San Francisco is roughly on the same latitude as Tokyo and Beijing - only a few degrees out. Here, the average low temperature in the winter is 8°C and the average high is 14°C. In Tokyo, that range is 2°C to 9°C, while in Beijing it drops to -10°C to 2°C. Beijing’s weather is influenced by Siberia, while the other two are regulated by the ocean.

I’d booked a hotel near the airport. As we touched down, cabin crew mentioned where to find hotel shuttles. I’d intended to get an Uber. Waiting for my luggage, I called the hotel, and they did indeed provide a shuttle service. Yay! I was happy to be getting straight to bed. As it happened, I’d just missed the most recent shuttle and waited the entire 40 minutes for the next one. Oh, well. Many shuttles heading to other hotels came by, and I was enthralled by their designs; they confirmed emphatically that I was in the USA.

Entering Embassy Suites, some kind of weekend festivities were going on in the restaurant area. They seemed to involve live music and cavorting guests. I checked in and made my way to the elevator. Exiting on my floor, I now realized that the hotel was designed as an atrium – rooms ran the length of each floor, elevators stretched across the breadth at both ends, and all floors looked down onto the central restaurant and the source of the current ruckus. I was instantly annoyed that my much-needed sleep would be disturbed. That was until I entered what was indeed a suite. The lounge area of my room faced the party, while a door separated the bedroom that looked to the outside of the hotel. Once I closed that door, the festivities on the first floor vanished from my ears.

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The buffet breakfast next morning was hearty and delicious. Having filled up, I took a shuttle back to the airport, from where I’d ride BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) into San Francisco proper. This train passed through suburbs, some of whose structures reminded me of England and Northern Ireland, while others reminded me of Norway and Svalbard. The day was chilly but not frigid, and the sun was shining. I dropped my bags at the Mosser Hotel and then made my way to the Toni Rembe Theater to pick up my ticket for today’s matinee. Then I wandered a little. The sweet smell of cannabis frequently teased my nose.

I got sucked into Martin Lawrence Gallery. This had some exquisite pieces. It was a proper gallery, by which I mean that it included several widely known names and, naturally, each item had a price tag well beyond my reach. I stayed for a while and considered the tiniest possibility at a cost of US$250 but ultimately decided to let it go and step back out.

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I wandered to Union Square. At its southwestern corner, a man touted tickets for San Francisco Hop On Hop Off Sightseeing Tours; would I like a ride around the city? It would be leaving shortly. Since I’d be going into the theater, this couldn’t work, and his company didn’t ride on Mondays (tomorrow), when I would be available. I thanked him and took a few steps towards the square. Another man from Big Bus Tours offered me tickets for the next day. The route of both companies matched, though the second one was more highly priced. I was not inclined to spend US$70-odd. I thanked him, too, and entered a coffee shop, got a latte, and sat on the square.

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I continued my stroll, hugging the tracks of a streetcar. Echoes, or were they sympathetic vibrations, on streetcar and BART tracks meant I frequently heard vehicles arriving from both directions simultaneously. It was decidedly disorienting. I wanted to ride a streetcar but hadn’t the energy or time to figure out which card was required and where I could acquire one. Retracing my footsteps, I stumbled by a subdued protest calling for the end of the Iranian dictatorship. It was barely a month later that an infamous and brazen attempt was made to do just that!

At some point I passed a sign that declared a movement to reclaim trans history. It happens that the Tenderloin neighborhood is the world’s first legally recognized trans cultural district. In August 1966, a group of transgender women and drag queens stood up to systemic police harassment at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria. This event, thus, predates the Stonewall Riots in NYC. A commemorative historical plaque is embedded in the sidewalk. Lamp posts are painted in the colors of the trans flag: light blue, pink, and white.

I had previously seen a British production of “A Streetcar Named Desire”. National Theatre Live was a program in which performances staged in several London theatres were recorded and then distributed to over 2500 venues in 60 to 74 countries around the globe. I saw this title "on stage" in a movie theater in Taichung. Others I watched were “Hamlet” and “King Lear”. I enjoyed “Desire” on that occasion, and I looked forward to this afternoon’s performance.

The Toni Rembe Theater, where I was watching the show, belongs to American Conservatory Theater, from whom I’d bought my tickets. It is one of two venues out of which A.C.T. operates, the other being A.C.T.’s Strand Theater & Café. My venue was previously named the Geary Theater. In 2022, following an anonymous $35 million gift, it was renamed in honor of local attorney, philanthropist and long-standing patron of the arts, Toni Rembe.

The undertaking seemed a bit family-run, a passion project, with a warm, welcoming, community feel. I started with a G&T on the 3^rd floor, overlooking a street that placed me squarely in America. The windows out of which I gazed were dedicated to two women, Helene H. Oppenheimer, who funded their installation, and Nancy Pelosi for “her efforts to rebuild the Geary”. As I entered the auditorium, “In My Solitude” by Duke Ellington played through the speakers. A recorded message welcomed us to the theater and then offered a “Land Acknowledgement”. This formal announcement recognizes that the Toni Rembe Theater occupies the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone people, the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula.

I will admit that I perceived this announcement as disingenuous. Simply admitting that an injustice has occurred does not resolve it. So, while writing this account, I researched efforts by A.C.T. to right the wrong. Color me humbled. Not only is the organization involved, but their level of involvement is impressive. Their diverse efforts are financial, consultative, educational, inclusionary and philanthropic.

The following is quoted from their program notes:

As part of our commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion at A.C.T., we are in the process of building a meaningful relationship with the local Indigenous community. As part of this we begin by honoring the lands upon which we do our work. We are proud to offer deep gratitude to the tribal band of Ramaytush Ohlone (pronounced rah-my-toosh o-lone-ee) peoples and their lands that cover Northern California and down the Pacific coastline. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish in the 1700s, the Ramaytush Ohlone numbered approximately 1500 persons, and made their life on the sacred lands. Only a few families survived and still remain. Those descendants make up the membership of the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone (ARO) today. We honor the Ohlone as a people, their resilience, and all they have done and continue to do in maintaining sacred and ancestral lands, ceremony, and communities to this day. A.C.T. donates to the Shuumi Land Tax to support the rematriation of these Indigenous lands. For more information on how you can support the Ohlone community, please visit act-sf.org/indigenous-community.

Other cultural institutions in San Francisco and across the USA have joined the trend. Perhaps this is the start of a real shift in attitude that might eventually bring about proper reparations. On the other hand, does Capitol Hill consider its population?

After this, a man who was the spitting image of Volodymyr Zelenskyy came on stage to introduce today’s performance, thanking funders, noting contributors, etc. This kind of introduction is unusual in my experience, but how wonderful it must be for the often-nameless people behind the scenes who are honored in such a way!

In the auditorium, surprises awaited. First, a section of the audience was seated on stage. Two rows of seats were set out on the left, two on the right, and two at the back of the stage. The actors, for the most part, performed in the rectangle formed by these seats and the front of the stage, while they sometimes went behind one or other stage-top row or disappeared completely, only projecting their voices into the auditorium. Sometimes, characters moved along the aisles in the stalls, passing through the audience and delivering their lines among us. They also appeared in the boxes, whose seats had not been sold to the public. The set consisted of a single chair and a rolling light stand with a single, unshaded light bulb. This approach was in keeping with the minimalist aesthetic of the production. I didn’t like it. Our wholesale reliance on the script exhausted me. Having said that, their choice worked. The tragic bombshell at the end, the ultimate fracturing of Blanche DuBois’s psyche, which I knew was coming, left me weeping.

The themes of this play are complex and interesting, important in fact. There is backstory, too, that informs Blanche’s demise. The following is from Google AI.-    

By luck of the draw, the Mosser Hotel stood a stone’s throw from a Trader Joe’s. Nighttime supplies were going to be a dream. After the show, I headed first to Barbary Coast to get some gummies. Next, I made my way to Chipotle Mexican Grill for dinner. I passed Mel’s Drive-In, to which I decided to return for tomorrow’s dinner. I didn’t, however, make it into Chipotle because a take-out purveyor of Mediterranean dishes grabbed my attention. I got a wrap / gyro / kebab - choose which country’s name you like - from Nick The Greek. 

My final stop was at Trader Joe’s. As I approached my hotel, a fight was happening somewhere in the street. I wasn’t able to see it, but the adversaries were loud enough to be heard around several blocks. In hindsight, it might have simply been verbal, as there were no clangs of a physical scuffle. I retired to my room to eat, get gummied up, enjoy several hoppy beverages and rest in solitude for the night.

And that was the first day.