Maybe This Week, Maybe Next Week

Robert Gumpert Robert Gumpert

15 May 2025

An eatery and pub on Brushfield Street, Spitalfieds  London, England.  Photo: Robert Gumpert 22 April 2024

Sleeping rough in a doorway along 9th Street in San Francisco, California.  This month San Francisco’s newish mayor, and the governor of California have ordered an essentially no tolerance enforcement policy on sleeping on the streets.  Photo: Robert Gumpert 12 March 2024

An ad for the robot taxi company, Waymo, in San Francisco touting that there is no driver to see what you are getting up to in the backseat, and that you should have no worries about there being no driver.  Of course you are on the cabin camera, but hey…  Photo: Robert Gumpert 12 February 2025

An art auction ad for art for our times. May 2025

May 1st demonstration in San Francisco Civic Center.  Photo: Robert Gumpert

The Reads

As the $476 million Dodgers face the $69 million Marlins, MLB’s payroll gap has never been wider | Andy McCullough/The Athletic

Why do we love restaurants? One answer may lie in a small house at the outer edge of New Orleans | Words Michael Oates Palmer - Photos Cedric Angeles/The Bitter Southner

When the way ahead isn’t clear, the solution, sometimes, is to eat. | Words: Sarah Golibart Gorman - Illustrations Ellie Skrzat/The Bitter Southerner

Your Brother’s Blood | Words Tom Lee, Photos Megan Ledbetter - The Bitter Southerner

From viral shrimp messiahs to fake news popes, AI is warping how we see the world — and what we believe  Amaris Castillo/Poynter

 

Photography; Art; Culture

Roaring: Art, Fashion, and the Automobile in France, 1918-1939 | St. Louis Art Museum

Chris Hunt’s testament to community, migration and memory | Dalia Al-Dujaili/BJP

Syria Faces Its Past and Future | Jon Lee Anderson; Photos: Moises Saman (Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography)/New Yorker

In 2014, photographer Chris Donovan began documenting his hometown of Saint John, New Brunswick, on Canada’s east coast. The photographs show the vibrant neighborhoods and their inhabitants living in the shadows of polluted industrial sites. Books

How Artist Chakaia Booker Turns Car Tires Into Transcendence | NYT art critic Aruna D’Souza/National Gallery of Art

Ceremony and the conclave: tender images capturing the farewell of Pope Francis | Benjamin Eagle - BJP
Aisha | Jörg M. Colberg/Conscientious

3D printed salmon, pasta and dessert: inside the future of food with software-made meals | Matthew Burgos/Designboom

 
 

Copies of “Division Street are still available!  Order your copy from Dewi Lewis:

“Division Street” – Order from Dewi Lewis: Orders: U.S.A – Britain - Canada

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Robert Gumpert Robert Gumpert

05 May 2025

 

Name: BU; unhoused for about 6 years

Place and date of interview: In the lot along side 101 off-ramp.  Dore and Bryant streets. 28 April 2025

Belongings: The clothes he is wearing, a skate board and backpack.

What he said:

If anything is going to change [regarding the unhoused situation] it’s not going to be by brute force, it’s going to be through compassion and actual care.

Where had you been before coming to this part of the city?

My usual spot that I’d been staying at damn near the last two years was Haight and Octavia cause it’s a friendly neighborhood and all that.  It’s been all good until recently when the Mayor himself, took it upon himself to …  I guess he drives down Octavia on his way to work in the morning, and he woke me up twice now, with his two body guards, to tell me, personally, that he was not OK with the fact that I was sleeping there.  And that if I was to continue sleeping there he would make sure he had me arrested.

You moved down to the Dore area, has that been different?

Umm, I don’t have the Mayor jumping out on me anymore.  The neighborhood people here are a little more, like, disconnected from what’s going on outside their doors.   On Haight and Octavia it was cool ‘cause the people there knew me, and they knew I wasn’t like a piece of shit, that I’d pickup trash and stuff, and so they would sometimes make me meals and stuff.  They told me themselves that they considered me part of the community which really touched my heart a lot.

It’s going to be a long time before I see anything like that in this area.

 

Around Davidson and Quint, a block or two off of Evans. An industrial area where people often park their cars, RVs, and pitch a tent because the city sweeps the industrial areas less frequently.. 13 June 2023

 

SF Chronicle front-page for 16 April 2025. Homeless counts depend on counting tents, but because the city takes all belongings including tents during sweeps, there are fewer tents. Not fewer people, who now sleep rough as it is easer to hide and leave quickly.

 

The Reads

The Luddites lost the fight to save their livelihoods. As the threat of artificial intelligence looms, can we do any better | John Cassidy/The New Yorker

Starved in Jail - Why are incarcerated people dying from lack of food or water, even as private companies are paid millions for their care? | Sarah Stillman/The New Yorker

Hospitals in Ruins - “It’s strange that the world has allowed this to happen.” | Clayton Dalton/The New Yorker

 
 

Podcasts:

The Emergency Is Here | Ezra Klein

255 - Mackenzie Calle | Ben Smith/A Small Voice

 
 

Copies of “Division Street are still available!  Order your copy from Dewi Lewis:

“Division Street” – Order from Dewi Lewis: Orders: U.S.A – Britain - Canada

Read More