After a recent trip to Chicago, San Jose City Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio warmly posed this question at the end of a blog entry: “What cities have you visited that you feel San Jose could learn from and/or adopt best practices from?”
Well, I’ll begin my answer to that question with, “San Francisco,” and mention an upcoming soirée that author and pal Erik Davis is hosting on Nov. 1 at Artists Television Access (ATA) in the Mission District. Davis will lecture and present an evening of obscure films exploring the influence of philosopher, poet and mountain climber Aleister Crowley on 20th/21st-century subcultures, including the music of Led Zeppelin.
Now, a little background: Davis has written for a number of magazines over the years including Wired, Details, Gnosis, Rolling Stone and more. I first discovered the dude back in the mid-‘90s, when he moderated a listserv on the work of post-structuralist philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. His first definitive book, TechGnosis: Myth, Magic + Mysticism in the Age of Information, erupted a few years later. “A secret history of the mystical impulses that continue to spark and sustain the West’s obsession with technology, and especially with its technologies of communication,” TechGnosis crossbred occulture criticism with new media theory in a part-colloquial, part-scholarly Chymical wedding of sorts.
I eventually hooked up with Davis in 2006 when Metro ran an excerpt of his most recent book, The Visionary State: A Journey Through California’s Spiritual Landscape, a glossy elephantine photo/text romp through the religious fringes of the Golden State—A Bay Area Backroads episode of druid libraries, high-tech pop Wiccans, EST seminars, UFO churches, tantric yogis, LSD mystics and Hare Krishnas. Locally speaking, the book offered Davis’ take on both the Rosicrucian Museum and the role of Stanford Research Institute in the CIA’s remote viewing program.
When it comes to music journalism, Davis’ conjurings have appeared in no less that two of Da Capo Press’ Best Music Writing series. Which brings us to another one of his books, and the basis for the Nov. 1 film event at ATA: His analysis, for Continuum’s 33 1/3 series of pocket-size books on specific classic rock LPs, of the fourth Led Zeppelin album—or “Led Zeppelin IV,” or just plain “Zoso” (named for one of four glyphs found on the record’s label).
Davis revels in his “intentional overanalysis” of the album’s occult atmospherics because he believes connections are more important than critiques. Vamping on Deleuze and Guattari, Davis describes his method of writing as “a connection-machine—a network of intensities, points of resonance or pregnant echoes.” That is, the power of the text emerges out of the dynamism developed from those connections. It’s like rock journalism as Alchemy. Here’s one passage:
Like the YHVH of the Jews and alchemists, Zoso is unpronounceable, a verbal tangle that underscores the most important thing about these four sigils: that they seem to communicate something without saying anything at all. When confronted with inscrutable signs, our natural impulse is to decode them, to “know what they mean.” But when it comes to Zoso, strict meanings are neither their nature nor their function. These sigils, and the musical sounds they announce, don’t mean stuff so much as make stuff happen. And they make stuff happen by frustrating the conventional process of meaning. And this, by the way, is one of the basic procedures of the occult.
Get it? I think you do. Anyway, the Nov. 1 event will also include free wine and a séance, along with Doug Katelus playing an Optigan, one of those cheesy Mattel chord organs from the early ’70s.
To answer the councilmember’s question, allow me to paraphrase Crowley himself: By the application of the proper kind and degree of force in the proper manner, through the proper medium and to the proper object, San Jose can learn from San Francisco and/or adopt that city’s practices by encouraging similar events—all to help make itself a rocking city and continue on its journey toward the realization of its own True Will.
Gary,
Knowing the goings on of both, I don’t think there’s a damn thing SJ can learn from SF. While it may seem trendy or glamorous from a distance, when one actually visits SF, the ugly underbelly becomes readily apparent.
Gary, you should know more than the tourists and hipsters that modern San Francisco is a facade. You’re holding on to a distant memory, just like that city rests on its long-propagated image. Any spirituality or mysticism there is for kitsch purposes now.
We could learn from their urban design and all that, but not from subcultures co-opted by shallow teenage rebels.
San Francisoc is Tourist City USA, so is Chicago. San Jose is just a Wannabe!
Chicago has great museums, Navy Pier, big library, great urban architecture, Sears tower, free Sunday concerts and lots of jazz. Downtown Chicago is spotless, no paper or trash and NO GRAFITTI! Had a great time for three days.
San Francisco has similar attractions and also superb views and bridges, Chinatown, cable cars, etc.
San Jose does have three days worth of attractions: Winchester, Rosicrucian, Great America, Raging Waters, The Tech, Childrens Discovery, Old Town, Computer History, Intel, Santa Clara Mission, Hangar 1??, nearby Slac and Stanford, and five Frys, and a fairly good public transport system.
But there are no urban hostels or other affordable places for younger budget conscious tourists to stay. There are zero urban hostels in Silicon Valley. San Francisco has 19 hostels (some are very good, others lousy). Chicago has five hostels, the HI Hosteling International has a very good rating, costs about $30 per night in a dorm.
So these younger visitors just bypass San Jose, they come and stay with us in Santa Cruz, two blocks from the beach in some nice refurbished Victorian Cottages (at $22/night/member)or at Pigeon Point Lighthouse or in Monterey near Cannery Row and Aquarium.
But it’s not just budget foreign tourists that stay away from Silicon Valley, but families, Girl scout troops, school and other affinity groups, athletes and their teams, conventioneers, bicyclists, etc.
Now if I could just convince Tom McE to visit nearby SC Hostel, the type of guests we serve, he may not be afraid of hostel competition to pricy San Jose hotels his family is involved in.
San Jose and Silicon Valley could be a great tourist area, but without young budget travelers first visiting here before telling their friends and family it’s not going to happen. These young people aren’t staying at the DeAnza or St.Claire. No way, when Santa Cruz is just half hour away.
PGP
Most of my friends there do, too. That doesn’t mean they’re very different, though. It just means they claim to be.
The culture is very homogenized. The city is a halfway house for college students. They get to drink and protest just like they used to, but now they’re adults who are enlightened because they live in S.F. Every aspect of the place becomes a fashion accessory, including the violence which is “so real” and the “gritty” urine and feces of homeless on the streets.
The legit lifestyles of your Davis friend and others are merely a stop between vintage clothing stores on Haight Street these days. San Jose does not need such a shallow appreciation of culture. Do you get my point now?
I had to go up to San Francisco for a doctors visit. I couldn’t wait to get back to San Jose. Funny thing, when I was at the doctors office my blood pressure was 137 over 87. It’s normally only 110 over 62. I’m glad San Jose is nothing like San Francisco.
Very interesting interpretations!
#1—“Trendy and glamorous?” Where did I say that? I mean, the last thing I’m interested in is “trendy and glamorous.”
#2—“subcultures co-opted by shallow teenage rebels.” What does that have to do with what I wrote? “tourists and hipsters.” ??? Most of my friends in SF hate BOTH the tourists and the hipsters.
Gary,
I’m still in favor of San Jose honoring one of its own, whose works were influenced by one whose works were influenced by Aleister Crowley. Matt Pike! But we’ve discussed that before…
Maybe we can have the San Jose film festival invite Bruce Dickinson to discuss his new film “The Chemical Wedding,” based on the life and times of Mr. Crowley….