connecting*the*dots

Found in the Mission, San Francisco, CA.

It’s strange how you’ll pause to investigate something as innocuous as a mention of your own name used elsewhere. I’m glad I did, otherwise I would’ve never come across the story of Sean Farrell (and in many ways, the story of all of us).

[…]

Sean’s casual commentary on everything from smoking pot to living with speed freaks was delivered in simple sincerity throughout the soon-to-be famous 15-minute film. This First Child of the notorious decade may have shaken the audience with his simple sentence — “Sure, I smoke pot” — but it was his barefoot impishness which would encapsulate the hope that lay in front of the nation: a promise of infinite possibility.

Thirty years, three generations, and a lifetime later, Arlyck has returned to San Francisco in search of who the adult Sean might have become. And what he finds, to his surprise, tells him as much about his own east-coast migration as it does about the Californian life he left behind-that the choices we’re handed and the choices we make are, very often, quite odd bedfellows.

Anyone know where I can get a copy of Ralph Arlyck’s 1969 student film, Sean?

If you’re in SF, check it out if you can (trailer).

No matter your position on this war or war in general, it’s an amazingly honest narrative… one that’s hard to capture, even through traditional channels of documentary filmmaking.

San Francisco
Free Screening Tonight! 7:30PM.
Castro Theatre (Directions)
429 Castro Street

To get your free ticket, please RSVP to screening@thewartapes.com with subject “War Tapes Screening/SF” and your full name in the body of the email. The free tickets are being given out on a first-come first-served basis, so RSVP now! If you are bringing a friend, copy them in the email and put their name in the email as well.

After harassing all of my friends for months to join me, I ended up not making it to DC this past weekend. I’m against this war, but I wasn’t ready to go it alone, blending into the crowd of 100,000 strong. Not personally representing my dissent for this unjust war was disappointing, but at least one of my buds on the other side of the country, DeWitt Clinton, made it to the San Francisco rally and took a bunch of great pictures.

Thankfully, I had options for the weekend, so instead of throwing tomatoes at The White House, I spent a relaxing time in the backwoods and mountains of Northern Virginia with Angela and her family. From laid-back, Spades playing nights in the Mellen cabin to the pseudo-Dirty Dancing community vibe of the British Invasion party, the weekend turned out better than I could have hoped for.