Volume XL, No. 2
March 2016
Our 40th Year
THE NOE VALLEY VOICE Town Square’s Animal Sculptures Get the Eagle Eye
A Piece of Her Heart
Rock Star Janis Joplin Found a Place to Crash in Noe By Corrie M. Anders
Arts Committee Hearing Postponed to March 16
J
ust about everybody remembers the crazy-looking car. It was a 1964 Porsche painted in so many psychedelic colors you could get high just looking at it. The little two-seater was Janis Joplin’s dream car, and she drove it all over the city. The convertible was a familiar sight in Noe Valley, where the singer lived during the late 1960s era of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. The rock star with the belting bluesy voice was at the height of her career when she died in a Hollywood hotel on Oct. 4, 1970, the victim of an accidental heroin overdose. She was 27 years old. Nearly 50 years after her death, RM Sotheby’s sold her Porsche 356 Cabriolet
By Matthew S. Bajko
A
Flower Power. The 1964 Porsche that once belonged to Janis Joplin recently sold at auction for more than $1.7 million. The sale stirred up memories of when the Texas-born singer lived in Noe Valley and tooled around the neighborhood in her flashy convertible. Photo Darin Schnabel © 2015 courtesy RM Sotheby’s
CONTINUED ON PAGE 9
Todd David Has an Idea for That He’s the Spark Plug Behind the Town Square, a Parent PAC, the Dems Club, and Now a Film School By Matthew S. Bajko
S
hould one encounter Todd David out and about, it is quite likely he will be adorned in a wide brim straw hat. For it is his signature look. “It is totally for practical purposes. I don't like sunscreen,” says David, 46, who uses it to protect his bald head from the sun's rays. “As the Ashkenazi Jew that I am, I refer to it as my Ashkenazi sunscreen.” He’s so known for the hat, “people are like, ‘Where's the hat?’ if I don't wear it,” he says.
In fact, David, 46, wears many “hats” when it comes to his professional and community work. Since 2011, he has been president of the residents group Friends of Noe Valley and now is in his second term as president of the Noe Valley Democratic Club. Six years ago, he co-founded, and serves as president of, the Residents for Noe Valley Town Square, which successfully fought to turn a church-owned parking lot on 24th Street into a new public park, set to debut in October. He is also the current treasurer of the San Francisco Parent Political Action
Committee, which he helped start five years ago to lobby political leaders on behalf of the city's public schools, children, and families. While the group makes endorsements of candidates and ballot measures each election year, David sends out his own endorsements to an email list of 900 people. And that is just his volunteer work. David is working for Supervisor Scott Wiener as the political director of his campaign for state Senate, and is the campaign manager for a measure on the June CONTINUED ON PAGE 13
trio of “Garden Guardians,” statues of an owl and two toads, would serve as sentinels in the Noe Valley Town Square, under a proposed public art project for the new park. The bronze figures of an abstract 3foot-high owl flanked by a pair of 2-foothigh toads are the work of Scott Constable and Ene Osteraas-Constable, the married couple and artist team behind Wowhaus, which won the commission to create the public art for the community gathering space being built at 3861 24th St., between Sanchez and Vicksburg streets. “From an environmental standpoint, owls and toads are signs of a healthy ecosystem; both species are also endangered, so they warrant our attention. The owl is a symbol of the sky and night; the toad is a symbol of the earth and the day,” stated a city description of the work. As the Noe Valley Voice reported last CONTINUED ON PAGE 14
Tenth Year for Week of Words
24 Writers and Comedians to Appear at Noe Literary Fest By Richard May
E
ditor’s Note: The Voice doesn’t usually let our writers report on their own projects, but we decided to make an exception in the case of regular Voice scribbler Richard “Rick” May. May is the founder and organizer of Noe Valley Word Week, an event that this year will showcase the works of two dozen writers, comedians, and pundits, from March 20 to 26. With all those words spinning, who better to tell the tale than the mastermind himself? Take it away, Rick! Chapter One
What’s Under the Hat. Todd David’s dome can hardly contain all of his plans. Some of his latest are to create a film school in a old theater on Mission Street and to campaign for a June ballot measure that would lock in funding for city parks. Photo by Beverly Tharp
Once upon a time, back in 2007, Noe Valley was full of writers, had a busy branch library, and boasted four bookstores. The group Friends of Noe Valley decided to celebrate all this with an annual literary festival. At first, it was called Book Week. Later, the name was changed to Word Week, to include any kind of words used creatively. Authors originally were booked by the neighborhood bookstores—Cover to Cover, Phoenix Books, the San Francisco Mystery Bookstore, and Omnivore Books on Food—but as the bookstores dwindled to three, two, and then one, a Friends of Noe Valley ad hoc committee was formed to organize events. (Happily, Folio Books opened soon after Phoenix Books closed, and Charlie’s Corner, a new CONTINUED ON PAGE 11