Hailing the Mission’s glorious murals

Residents, friends and admirers of the Mission District gathered at the well renovated Grand Theater on Mission Street on Thursday night, April 13, to celebrate the publication of Dick Evans’ new book, “The Mission.” As described by John McMurtrie in a recent books section, Evans, a freelance photographer, self-published “San Francisco and the Bay Area: The Haight-Ashbury Edition,” about four years ago. This book, on which he collaborated with the Precita Eyes Muralists Association, is published by Heyday, which focuses on California subjects.

Talking for a few minutes before the program began, Evans said he’d started on the Mission project six months after the Haight book — which came out of a series of postcards he was shooting for his daughter, Booksmith co-owner

Christin Evans — was published. Being aware of gentrification issues, “I knew the Mission would be more political,” he said, and also that pictures of the copyrighted murals would need permissions. “I felt I needed an inside partner.” With Haight book in hand, he approached Susan Cervantes at Precita Eyes to ask that group to partner with him; then the two approached Heyday.

There are 178 photos in the book. Most of the mural shots include neighborhood residents visible in front of them, juxtaposing traditional neighborhood themes and real-life neighborhood residents. Many of them were at Thursday’s party, enjoying drinks and Mexican food by El Buen Comer, an exhibition of some of the images in the book, and then a presentation that included dance, poetry, talk from muralists and by Evans. The program started with a ceremonial Ohlone blessing by Carla and Desiree Munoz, who explained that the Ohlone way of expressing approval was not applause, but rather the saying aloud of a long-o “ooooo.”

In keeping with what Evans had said to me at the reception before the performance, the tone of the talk was extremely political: “We are struggling, due to gentrification,” said Roberto Hernandez, born and raised in the Mission, and described in a handout as king of the neighborhood. “Ten thousand people have been evicted. But there are a lot of warriors fighting. We are fighting to save the Mission as a Latino barrio.”

“The gentrification of the Mission District has been aggressive and violent,” said poet Alejandro Murguía, moving from that point to the big picture. “I will not accept, obey or follow any order coming from the current illegal occupiers of the White House.”

In addition to vigorous applause, the sound of “ooooo” was heard throughout the old theater.

P.S.: The Grand Theater space, I learned the next day, is administered by the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, which, according to its website, aims “to create social and civic impact through education, incubation and public events.” Renovators didn’t seem to have a knock-your-eyes-out architectural showpiece in mind; rather, what they created is a lowkey, tasteful and flexible large open space, in which folding chairs had been set for an audience to suit this occasion. Every neighborhood in the city would benefit from such a space, I thought. Too late for

the Harding?

In other news from the Mission, the latest movie counter snack: Roxie Road, sold at the Roxie, makes use of the theater’s “rescued popcorn,” which is “up-cycled” into the ice cream. This 16th Street treat is made by Salt & Straw, a Portland, Ore., company with a newish San Francisco presence. The popcorn, coffee flour and caramel-coated pecans are stirred into ice cream offered in singleserving containers.

PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING Woman 1: “I’m so looking forward to the end of Lent.” Woman 2: “What did you give up?” Woman 1: “Pez!” Conversation overheard in downtown Santa Rosa by Marya Glass and Geof Syphers Leah Garchik is open for business in San Francisco, (415) 777-8426. Email: lgarchik@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @leahgarchik

And another addition — this one of particular local relevance — to the collection of mentions of the pre-presidential Donald Trump. Tim Lynch was going through some saved column clippings and discovered that on March 28, 1996, Herb Caen, the sage of San Francisco, had written:

“While the Giants were coming up winners Tues., Donald Trump Himself was hosting a lunch at the Mandarin Hotel, hoping to cadge a few million bucks from 25 local investment counselors for his N.Y. and Atlantic City operations. I hope he struck out. San Francisco First!”

To put this into historical context, here’s Mark Bowden writing last year in Vanity Fair about meeting Trump that year: “He’d had a rough 10 years. He had just turned 50 and wasn’t happy about it. ... As a businessman he had crashed and burned, rescued only by creditors who had to bail him out lest they be dragged down with him. His enterprises were being run by court-appointed managers.”