SEPIA SATURDAY: Shattering Bubbles of Time

Every moment is a bursting bubble of time, gone even as it happens.

This concept has fascinated me -- and Landron -- for a very long time. The Shattering of Time.

Nothing embodies this concept more than "A Trip Down Market Street", perhaps the most important film ever made in and about San Francisco.
I was pleased that 60 Minutes chose to feature it and the recent conclusion that it was not made in 1905 -- as was long assumed -- but in April 1906, likely days before the great earthquake and fire if not the day before. In 12 minutes of real time, we see people, buildings, vehicles and animals, many of which likely perished shortly after the film was made. The only familiar sites are the street itself and the ferry building in the distance that at first looks like a painted stage set and then becomes increasingly real as the camera nears.
It's at the ferry building, in the final minute of the film, that things become truly fascinating and the images are closer, more fleeting and transcendent. The man in the Eureka - California wagon appears for less than a doezen frames, but I find myself wanting to know his story.
The car driving erratically with a group of men in bowler hats equally fascinates me.
As we arrive at the end of Market and seem nearly to crash into the Ferry Building, men gawk and women seem to either sneer or demure. Who is the woman in the cape? The woman on the left seems equally dubious about being captured on camera.

Suddenly, this cheeky fellow on the right races in, seemingly aware that this is a chance to be caught for posterity but not aware of the fate facing him mere days or hours ahead.
Finally the cable car and the camera rest for a moment, but not the action. We see this trio of men standing near the ferry building's corner stone.

The camera is motionless, but the old man's long gray beard dances in the Pacific breezes. Just a few years earlier audiences were fascinated when they witnessed trees and grass blowing in the wind in films by the Lumiere brothers. The very concept of capturing the action of wind was completely revolutionary. Seeing this old man, the emotion of his eyes only faintly shadowed by the brim of his hat, I wonder if he could have been part of the gold rush less than 50 years earlier.

Finally the camera pauses, then rapidly pivots to give a reverse, westward view, the final miles of the continental U.S. before the Pacific. A sea of news boys jump and wave -- a joyful, sunny moment in the early 20th century spring sunlight. It's as if they are shouting "We were here!" across more than a century, and for a few seconds we are there with them, and then it's all gone. A bubble of time forever captured. People caught and unaware of tragedy looming. Joy pressed in a book forever, like dried flowers whose petals and colors we may distinguish, yet we'll never experience the exact aroma and freshness.

Each moment, already over just as it has begun. I don't know how many frames are in "A Trip Down Market Street" but I want to explore each one, champagne bubbles forever holding the moment in amber.

The Illustrated Adventures of Louis Sullivan

On the snowy afternoon of January 5, 1890, beloved local architect Louis Sullivan is having his portrait made at the photographic studio of Hesler and Associates of Chicago. Not only is Sullivan America's greatest architect, he has also been described as the windy city's most "bewitchingly bewildering bachelors".

He is noted for his beautifully twinkling dark eyes and a beard that the notorious tabloid Bachelor Boys Bonanza describes as being "pleasantly plush and pliant."

Suddenly the photographic session is interrupted by the entrance of a breathless, half naked bike messenger dressed as Mercury who announces, "Mr. Sullivan, I have been instructed to invite you 120 years into the future to the grand opening of the great-great-great-grandchild of your magnificent contribution to modernism, the Auditorium Building."

Though initially perplexed, Sullivan is too easily seduced by adventure not to respond and is soon on the Trans-Arabian Zephyr racing into the future and the Mideast.Sullivan, who 12 decades earlier created the tallest building in the world, has been asked to share his opinion of the latest holder of this somewhat dubious title casting its long shadow over Dubai. Just as Robert Oppenheimer came to regret his best known invention, Sullivan's eyes swell with tears and he coughs as he chokes back a hearty sob. Finally, as the architectural tabloids press him for an opinion on the Burj Khalifa, formerly known as the Burj Dubai, Sullivan finally offers succinctly but honestly, "Well, it's clearly of very juicy proportions."
The master architect is soon whisked to the building's elegantly appointed penthouse where Lulu Brobstein, the reported Perle Mesta of the Gulf is hosting one of her notorious parties filled with "perennial bachelors" who banter about art, politics and the latest innovations in shoe cream. Lulu's wrap around balcony boasts views of both the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. "On a clear day you can see from Dubai to Mumbai," Lulu cackles. Sullivan also notes that on a windy day, the top floor sways a good five feet in each direction, a clear reminder to him that any structure taller than the Woolworth Building is obscene excess. Though no stranger to such parties in 1890s Chicago and able to carry on an enlightened conversation about art and the grammar of ornamentation, Sullivan feels quite uncomfortable in this bevy of constructed socialites. He pretends not to hear comments about his "Edwardian ball pinching garb" and resists snarking back about how their suits remind him of elephantine drapes floating around the bloated torsos of unenlightened Buddhas.
This stale atmosphere soon tires Sullivan and he retreats to a notorious, abandoned mosque near the darkened waterfront. Here he encounters gentlemen more suiting to his taste and temperament, but he soon realizes their "gentlemanly" hesitation and inability to articulate the obvious is both tedious and fruitless.
Finally before making his way back to the Trans-Arabian Zephyr, Sullivan saunters into a waterfront saloon where the drinks and men are of more than juicy proportions. He admires the seamless towers of glass, thinking of structures devoid of a steel skeleton and able to enjoy their cool refreshment and intoxication yet still unable to embrace that towering monstrosity he was dragged here to pay homage to. Finishing his last drink and bidding adieu to his fellow bachelors, Sullivan realizes his proper place is back in the twilight of the 19th century,where he can peer ahead into the possibilities of modernism without having the endure all of its detours and mis-steps.Midway through the journey backwards, the Zephyr stops to refuel and offer figs and chai to its passengers. Sullivan spies something curious outside the window and then steps out to more closely examine this curious ritual. Why it is our own Junk Thief executive committee, worshiping a golden pig in front of an ornate Indochinese pagan shrine. At first a bit disturbed by such idolatry, Sullivan is soon struck by the elegant beauty of the shrine itself and joins the trio in their worship. But his prayer is soon interrupted as the Zephyr whistle blows and he is transported back to 1890 yet mildly aware of the impending arrival of the shattering of time.

Who is Landron?

Conceptual artist Landron will not be celebrating the New Year.

He also does not engage in the argument that the teens begin in 2011 not 2010. The question is both moot and mute to him. Though he would prefer to say that it is mutte, the Catalan word for beige.

"Time is a social construct," he would say and clocks, calendars and sundials should be used only as objets des artes not as guides for behavior and deadlines.

Landron has no deadline for his seminal installation The Shattering of Time which, as he says, "Will be complete when it is destroyed."

We would wish you a happy New Year, but that would upset Landron who says, "The New Year is old even before it is born."