reject the melancholy cabbage

thegetty:

Ye olde San Francisco, 1855 or ‘56.

Six-part Panorama of San Francisco (+ details, including view down Stockton Street and Telegraph Hill and view of harbor with ships) from San Francisco Album: Photographs of the Most Beautiful Views and Public Buildings of San Francisco, 1855–56, attributed to Carleton Watkins, photographer, and G. R. Fardon, printer. The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007.53.a–.f

Answering a question on our Facebook page: What’s the oldest photo of the Western hemisphere in the collection? Cataloguer Miriam Katz:

The oldest Western Hemisphere photograph in the Getty Museum’s collection is a daguerreotype of Washington Square, New York, taken in 1839. We also have a pair of salted paper print portraits taken by O.B. DeMorat of Philadelphia in the 1850s, and several landscape views of San Francisco around 1855–56. Our oldest South American photographs are daguerreotypes from Chile and Peru from roughly 1850–55.

lareviewofbooks:

The Legend of Mergatroid

It’s hard ignore the gnome on wheels we call Mergatroid. Each morning, we roll him out with the sale bins and each evening we roll him back in. He’s a quiet type, our long-suffering sentinel in the fog, the rain, and the (rare) heat. During the Christmas holidays, he dons a Santa hat. On St. Patrick’s Day — it’s more like an entire week around these parts — he’ll inevitably end up sporting a rakishly angled green bowler. If the Giants are in the playoffs, it’s not unusual to find him in a cap left behind by an exuberant fan. He poses gracefully with authors renowned and unknown. He once lost an arm, is cracked in a few places, and has gotten wobbly with age, but we think there’s no better emblem for Green Apple than Mergatroid.

When I went digging for his origin story, I hoped for some magic. Just what was this thing? Where did he come from? What connection did he have with the bookstore? The answer wasn’t exactly magical, but in its own unvarnished and slightly salty way, it much better represented Green Apple.

As it turns out, a few years ago we received an unsolicited email from Mergatroid’s maker, a man named Richard Mansfield, that explains everything, or as close to everything as we’re likely to get:

My name is Richard Mansfield, I carved the Punccinello that stands outside your door. (The one you guys continually abuse with your idiotic paint schemes.)

Let me tell you something about that:

I walked into Richard Savoy’s little hole in the wall bookstore (best guess 1973 or ‘4) and asked him if he needed any signs. He said, “No, we don’t use signs.”

He assured me that his customers enjoyed stumbling around through the place with the hope of eventually discovering some order in the apparent madness. While I was there, maybe eight, maybe 10 people interrupted him to ask where they might find one thing or another.

“Maybe I could just do a chart, you know a floor plan.” “No, thank you. I really don’t want signs in here,” he said just as if he owned the goddamned place — which he did of course.

So, I went down the block a bit to a bookstore — not yet then called The Jabberwock (and I wish I could remember that guy’s name…Bob, I think…had a house on 2nd Avenue, bird watcher.) But that guy, whatever his name, looked at my work and said, “Yeah, give me some large signs for each section and some shelf-size signs.” He made up a long list.

So, I made the signs and sold them to the guy and he put them to use and, after a couple days, called me, declared the signs effective, and asked for more.

With that encouragement I stopped in at The Green Apple on my way home and hit Savoy again. I told him that the guy down the street was using my work and he said, “Really…?” From the way he said it I got the idea that other guy had shattered some kind of sacred trust by using signs in his joint.

Couple days later, I deliver the signs to Robert (I’m beginning to think that was his name) and he tells me that (his) competition down the street wants to see me.

So, I stop in and Richard Savoy tells me that he’s seen what I’d done down the street and he ordered a few small signs. From that moment on Savoy was sign crazed: I didn’t stop making signs for him for almost a year… steady employment, filling up that entire goddamned place with signs.

And I guess that’s all I have to say about that.

This weekend, the Mergatroid’s in charge of the LARB Tumblr.  Stay tuned for more posts from the amazing people at Green Apple Books in San Francisco.

For more on LARB’s Naked Bookseller program, go here.

nprfreshair:

In his interview with Dave Davies, retired MLB catcher Mike Piazza talks about being inaccurately outed as gay, which — fun fact — Belle & Sebastian reference in their song “Piazza, New York Catcher” (above):

San Francisco’s calling us, the Giants and Mets will play
Piazza, New York catcher, are you straight or are you gay?
We hung about the stadium, we’ve got no place to stay
We hung about the tenderloin and tenderly you tell
About the saddest book you ever read, it always makes you cry
The statue’s crying too and well he may

The Willie Mays pun has always been my favorite part of this perfect song.

lomographicsociety:

The Making of a Global Icon: Golden Gate Bridge Construction

Mention the City and County of San Francisco in California and the majestic Golden Gate Bridge will surely be one of the first to come to mind. If you’ve ever wondered about the making of the world-famous icon, we bring you some photographs telling the story behind its history and construction. Take a look and find out more after the jump!

willigula:

Stereoscopic colour photographs of the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake taken by Frederic Ives, 1906