Herb CaenCritiques

$75 Abe’s Books, $69 Biblio

This is a cute story of a very weary cable car that climbs the hills of San Francisco, then is propelled around and a downward journey occurs. In this story, the cable car is 60 years old and his name is Charlie.

On a magical night, Charlie climbs Nob hill. And instead of taking his usual route, he heads to Chinese New Year by taking a right turn on Jackson Street.

He befriends the dragon who is the center of attention. Soon Chu and Charlie take a marvelous journey.

Delightful, filled with fun, this is a book most children (and adults) will enjoy.

2nd book after Baghdad by the Bay. Collection of anecdotal humor found on streets of San Francisco.

"Don't call it Frisco." This is more than a cute, Herb Caen phrase. He was dead serious. In the latter half of the 19th century from the Gold Rush (1849) on San Francisco had a place in its NE quadrant called the Barbary Coast (now North Beach). It was populated by the very lowest forms of human life including British prisoners released from its prison in Sydney Australia. Sailors called it "Frisco" usually referring to the Barbary Coast and the many opportunities for gratification (and mugging and murder). SF cleaned the area up beginning in the 20th century and turned itself into one of the most respectable cities in the world. Please don't call it Frisco. Btw Jack Kerouac called it that; he was one of Frisco's denizens.

Rather sentimental... oh wait, that's the whole idea! Reading great-grandmother's copy of the 1953 edition, jacket price $3.50.

SF and the surrounding area is one my favorite areas of the country to visit. The various aerial photos provide some very nice views of the city. Excellent book to browse through. Published in the late 60's it is kind of nostalgic.½

Mark Twain called San Francisco, "heaven on the half-shell". It's a city with a bejeweled skyline framed against the blue ocean and the blue sky. It's also known as Baghdad By The Bay and The Barbary Coast, nicknames which provide an honest glance of a place which could slip beneath the waves at any moment. When the Loma Prieta quake hit at rush hour in 1989, San Francisco could have been a disaster much worse than the 1906 catastrophe, but it took the slip of the earth and kept going, although its character changed.

The staff of the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper were there to witness the losses, the bravery, and the shock, with many photos ending up in this book. It is, in fact, what makes this book so good...photographs galore of the last great quake to rock the Bay Area. The magnificent Marina apartment houses are shown collapsed on themselves, the Bay Bridge's top deck displayed in its broken suddenness, the horrific crushing of life in West Oakland. Because the baseball World Series was being played at the moment of impact between the two local teams, the 1989 earthquake was the first to be broadcast live to a worldwide audience.

We live in Cali with the knowledge that there aren't any tornado sirens or hurricane alerts to forewarn us of The End. There is just the here-it-is rumbling of the earth and the knowledge in the back of our heads that we all live on or near a major fault line. If that explains why we are the way we are, so be it.

Book Season = Autumn (quake weather)

Haven't looked at this in 10 years or so. It's a nice (?) - or concise - photo retrospective of the Loma Prieta earthquake of October 17, 1989 which hit San Francisco and Santa Cruz. I don't have anything else in my library on the topic and it is obviously not in wide circulation here on LT. Worth doing an interlibrary loan if you're doing some simple research and want some nice quotes and great grey-scale photography.

It would help to have lived in San Francisco during this time to appreciate this book, but it is still interesting to a native Californian who grew up hearing about and visiting San Francisco. Well worth the read just to see what Caen can do with our language. The illustrations are also great. Possibly modern readers would be cynical about Caen's exuberance over his city, but I don't find it hard to swallow. It is, after all, San Francisco.

I don’t love this. The illustrations are very good, it is certainly not a competitor with Virginia Burton’s Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel or Katie And The Big Snow. It does show good pictures of San Francisco, cable cars, and some of Chinese New Year.

The cable car urges secret keeping and perhaps has a temperament more like Tootle.

A swing and a miss likely reflecting the personality of the author.

original edition of this classic book, published in 1949