Falling victim to the out-of-control

The week in review was expressed in a pair of Facebook entries posted by one person minutes apart: “My heart breaks for the thousands of evacuees from the wine country firestorm and the hundreds who have lost their homes/assets/ wineries/restaurants/businesses.” “Also,

Harvey sucks.” P.S. “Have a Bad Day!” was the name of a planned Thursday, Oct. 12 event at Modern Appealing Clothing on Grove Street. The clothing store had filed a class action lawsuit against Ivanka

Trump’s company alleging unfair competition, and the pop-up art show that was opening featured responses they received, some threatening and some funny. But what a “bad day” meant when the show was planned was nothing in comparison to the real Thursday, a smoke-filled bad day that choked the Bay Area. That night’s event was canceled, the exhibition opening postponed until Oct. 19.

Country Joe McDonald emailed that he didn’t watch Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s “The Vietnam War” documentary for many reasons. Friends told him, however, that his Woodstock performance of “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag” was part of the documentary, “but of course they did not include ‘The F— Cheer.’ ” (The Chronicle won’t spell it out, either.)

“In the senseless slaughter of millions of Vietnamese and thousands of Americans,” he says, “they don’t want to upset anyone by hearing 500,000 folks yelling out every soldier’s favorite word, and a word that totally sums up how a whole generation felt about the war. Who needs 13 episodes when you could just have one cheer and a song taking up three minutes?”

“If people kneel in front of the flag at the White House,” asks Janice Hough, “will Trump leave?”

On the middle island of Lombard Street the other day, Doug Kroll spotted a panhandler with a sign that said, “Donations needed for DNA test. My partner may be my sister.”

Berkeley Rep and Shotgun Players have raised $45,000 for hurricane relief. And Josh Kornbluth announced that all proceeds of his 7 p.m. Oct. 22 performance of “Ben Franklin: Unplugged” at TheatreFirst in Berkeley ($25 a person) would go to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico; the show sold out so quickly that he’s thinking of adding another show.

Is there a connection between Franklin and Puerto Rico? “For most of his life,” Kornbluth emailed, “Ben Franklin’s great project was to figure out ways that citizens could band together for the public good (or, as Franklin would have written it, the Public Good — they must not have had copy editors then). I am sure that if he were alive today, Ben would be at the forefront of organizing the logistics to bring desperately needed aid to our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico. And he definitely would have thrown himself into restoring their electricity.” Artist Paul Kos, designer of the First Responders Plaza on Third Street, says the huge bell that dominates the design has been “repaired.”

The ringing of the bell, cast by Paccard in France at a cost of $300,000 and unveiled in 2015, is controlled by computer. So as not to disturb nearby residents, it had been “set” to peal softly 20 seconds before noon, noon, and then 20 seconds after noon, to indicate “all is well.” But a year after its installation, that mechanism had broken down, and the bell couldn’t be rung at all.

Last week, says Kos, a bell maker came to town, and “thanks to Piccard Foundry, the San Francisco Arts Commission and Atthowe Fine Arts Services, the ‘All is Well’ bell has her voice back.” The note she rings is a D, two octaves below middle C.

As to whether the bell will ever be rung in full voice, well, the fat lady will never sing. “Given the nature of the neighborhood, with UCSF, clinics and hospitals, Kaiser’s new facility and hundreds of new residential units,” emailed Kos, “she was never intended to ring at full volume.”

P.S. The Arts Commission voted last week to begin the process of removing the Pioneer Monument statue, near the Main Library and the Asian Art Museum, because it depicts Native Americans as subjugated. Rik Myslewski has an alternate suggestion: “Install bright red clown noses on the vaquero and Spanish missionary figures, then rework the face of the supine Native American to indicate that he has simply fallen down laughing at those two self-important bozos. Done.”