To the barricades — activists are honored
Monday’s Goldman Prize ceremonies at the San Francisco Opera House were, as always, moving, well organized and meticulously produced, reflecting one family’s passionate concern for the state of the Earth. The late Richard Goldman, who was in the insurance business, co- founded the prize with his wife, Rhoda, a descendant of the family that founded Levi’s. Their children, John and Doug Goldman and Susan
Gelman, are civic leaders and pillars of our Bay Area community, and they are carrying on their parents’ commitment.
The Goldmans are idealists, but they are hardly radicals, and in San Francisco, you might even call them the establishment. And every year at these ceremonies, I am struck by the thrust of the remarks made by the winners, whose achievements are usually the result of fighting the establishment. A few “Occupy-worthy” statements from this year’s acceptance speeches:
“Protecting the environment must come before both power and profit. … Powerful interests are saying that we must bring down our house, but we refuse to give in to those lies”; “Action is required on everyone’s part. … If you do nothing, you are just as responsible. Don’t give up on anything”; “Government and mining industries are not listening. We all have to stand up, make our voices heard and hold each and every government accountable”; “Let us wake up. … We must shake our consciences free of rapacious capitalism, racism and patriarchy”; “A public resource … should be run in the public interest, not in the interests of a few.”
The words are spoken on an elegantly set stage at a sleek lectern inside the stately Opera House. The sentiments — challenge the system, don’t accept the status quo — are worthy of the streets.
P. S.: Marilyn Baptiste, former chief of the Xeni Gwet’in First Nation band, started her remarks by expressing thanks to “the Ohlone people … on whose land we are gathered today, for allowing us to be on their territory.”
P. P. S.: Most of the achievements of this year’s winners had to do with water: its purity, habitats for fish, protecting rivers. I wondered if that’s the subject preoccupying everyone in California — including the judges — this year.
The Carnelian Room, which was atop the Bank of America, was, in its time,
the place for romance and filet mignon. That era may be over: On Saturday and Sunday, April 25 and 26, Clars Auction Gallery is selling its Carnelian antiques and art.
Chris Kanelopoulos took his family to see “@ Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz” on Sunday. Also there: New Orleans Pelicans basketball players Anthony Davis and Norris Cole. “Not surprisingly,” e- mailed Kanelopoulos, “my sons’ enthusiasm for touring the exhibit picked up as they followed from a distance.”
On the cover of the program for Tuesday’s de Young Museum gathering in memory of Nan Tucker McEvoy, who died March 26, was an olive- wreath- type ornament, referring, of course, to the ranch and business she founded in West Marin. Also, as Alice Waters noted in remarks, it was symbolic of the olive branch as a gesture of peace. McEvoy’s interests were global: Her family owned The Chronicle, and she worked here as well as for the Peace Corps. As a family- planning advocate, she founded the first abortion clinic in Washington, D. C.
The program, elegant in typeface and printed on soft, rich paper, was produced by Arion Press, hand- set with the kind of meticulous attention to detail characteristic of that operation. But that ornament, about an inch across, was not ready made; an olive wreath doesn’t come with any standard type. So Arion founder
Andrew Hoyem created it by hand, combining and placing individual leaves and stems to create the circle. People wanted to do their best for McEvoy.
Ten years ago, recalled Joe Tobin, he’d run into “Aunt Nan” at the airport. “She was meeting her olive oil man, coming in from Italy. She was all alone, meeting a valued employee to take him back to the ranch.” And that’s why people did their best for her: because she did her best for them.
The “stage” at the de Young was set with things she loved: a toy hippopotamus from her Peace Corps days, a set of Vuitton trunks that had belonged to her father, a stack of San Francisco Chronicles. I know I’m not alone in cherishing that gesture.
PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING
“This chain is too chain- y.” Woman at jewelry store on Solano Avenue in Berkeley, overheard by Carol Carlisle