One City One Book 2012 author Rebecca Solnit will discuss her book A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster with SF’s Fire Chief. A Paradise Built in Hell explores our need for community and common purpose, which Solnit argues are fundamental to democratic forms of social and political life. This year, as part of the 8th annual One City One Book, SFPL is participating in California Reads, a statewide reading and discussion program created by Cal Humanities in partnership with the California Center for the Book and supported by the California State Library. For more information, visit sfpl.org/onecityonebook
San Francisco writer Rebecca Solnit is the author of thirteen books about art, landscape, public and collective life, ecology, politics, hope, meandering, reverie, and memory. They include Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, a book of 22 maps and nearly 30 collaborators, Storming the Gates of Paradise; A Field Guide to Getting Lost; Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities; Wanderlust: A History of Walking and many others.
Joanne Hayes-White was sworn in as the 25th Chief of the San Francisco Fire Department on January 16, 2004. San Francisco is the largest urban fire department in the world with a female chief. Prior to her appointment as Chief, Hayes-White served as the Director of Training for the San Francisco Fire Department, where she oversaw recruit training, in-service training, continuing education, and Firefighter-Paramedic cross training. Chief Hayes-White has been recognized by the San Francisco Business Times as one of the City’s Most Influential Women of the Year every year since 2004.
Rebecca will be signing books after the program.
Seating is limited. Doors open at 5:45 p.m.
Presented in partnership with Litquake. Book sales by Readers’ Bookstore
Join City Guides volunteer Marian Halley as she tells the story of San Francisco's Japantown, highlighting its establishment after the earthquake and fire of 1906, the growth of a vibrant community, the internment of its Japanese-American population during World War II, and the impact of urban renewal on Japantown in the 1960s; down to the present times and victories won to keep the neighborhood united during the redistricting process.
What can poetry tell us about democracy? By engaging the personal with the public, these four poets invite the reader to join a conversation about the responsibility of the individual to confront and question the current state of our politics.
Peter Dale Scott’s poetry books include Coming to Jakarta: A Poem about Terror, Listening to the Candle: A Poem on Impulse, Crossing Borders, Minding the Darkness: A Poem for the Year 2000, and Mosaic Orpheus. His most recent prose book is American War Machine. http://www.comingtojakarta.net/
Xochiqueztal Candelaria holds degrees from UC Berkeley and New York University. Her work has appeared in The Nation, New England Review, Gulf Coast, Seneca Review and other magazines. In 2009, Ms. Candelaria received an NEA Fellowship, and her book, Empire, was published by The University of Arizona Press in 2011.
Chiyuma Elliott is a Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University, and a Cave Canem Fellow. In fall of 2013, she will be Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Mississippi. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband and two noisy dogs.
Jeff Hoffman has been a Stegner Fellow at Stanford, a Chesterfield screenwriting fellow at Paramount Pictures, and a Michener fellow at the University of Texas, where he received his MFA. His first book of poems, Journal of American Foreign Policy was published by New Issues in 2011 and was a finalist for a California Book Award. He lives in Los Angeles and is currently a creative executive at Phoenix Pictures.
ShakeOut is California’s state-wide drop, cover and hold on earthquake drill and will take place Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 10:18am. The purpose of the ShakeOut drill is practice and preparation: refining our response during an earthquake and preparing our homes, workplaces and schools for the possibility of an earthquake. Register at www.shakeout.org and join the rest of California in the largest earthquake drill in history.
Do you know what to do in an earthquake? How will you reconnect with your family following a major disaster? Do you have the right items in your disaster kit? Every single person in the Bay Area needs to ensure they are personally prepared for disaster. Only in this way will all of us in the community be able to ensure the safety of our families and assist our neighbors
This fall, the San Francisco Public Library is exploring local author Rebecca Solnit’s A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster for our One City One Book 2012/California Reads program.
After the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, San Francisco citizens banded together to feed their neighbors. Improvised kitchens with free food and warm social spaces developed as people gathered to cook and eat. As Rebecca Solnit says about one such improvised kitchen organizers, “Just as her kitchen was one of many spontaneously launched community centers and relief projects, so her resilient resourcefulness represents the ordinary response in many disasters. In them, strangers become friends and collaborators, goods are shared freely, people improvise new roles for themselves.”
The photos in this display, found in the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection, located in the San Francisco History Center on the 6th floor, show a city torn but banding together for survival and, as will be found with good food, even some pleasure in the face of disaster.
Large Screen Videos | Thursdays at Noon | Koret Auditorium, Main Library, Lower Level
All films are shown with captions when possible to assist our deaf and hard of hearing.
Get out the vote at SFPL! The San Francisco Public Library presents an evening screening of the film Swing Vote, starring Kevin Costner, Paula Patton, Dennis Hopper, George Lopez, and more. The Department of Elections will be here at 5 PM to register voters for the upcoming presidential election. The film starts at 5:30 - bring a friend and come on down for some election-season laughs! Rated PG-13, 120 minutes.
Freedom on My Mind (1994) Showtime - 11:30a-1:15p
Nominated for an Academy Award, winner of both the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians awards for best documentary, this landmark film tells the story of the Mississippi freedom movement in the early 1960s when a handful of young activists changed history. Running time: 105 mins.
Chisholm ‘72 : Unbought and Unbossed (2004) Showtime - 1:30p-2:45p
In 1968, Shirley Chisholm becomes the first black woman elected to Congress. In 1972, she becomes the first black woman to run for president. Shunned by the political establishment, she's supported by a motley crew of blacks, feminists, and young voters. Their campaign-trail adventures are frenzied, fierce and fundamentally right on! Running time: 76 mins.
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