Antique Collecting San Francisco

Field Trip: Alameda Antiques Faire

Field Trip: Alameda Antiques Fair

Profs & Pints San Francisco: The World Mount Vesuvius Buried

[Profs and Pints San Francisco](https://www.profsandpints.com/sfbayarea) presents: **“The World Mount Vesuvius Buried,”** on what we’re learning by the uncovering of ancient Roman towns buried in volcanic ash, with Michael Anderson, a professor of Classical archaeology at San Francisco State University who has spent nearly 30 years studying and excavating Pompeii. [Tickets must be purchased online, at [https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/presidio-vesuvius](https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/presidio-vesuvius) .] The cataclysmic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE entombed towns, farms, and villas in ash and debris, dooming those around at the time but preserving for future generations a unique and invaluable window onto Roman and Pre-Roman daily life. Learn about the fascinating finds of archeologists at work there with Michael Anderson, director of the Via Consolare Project excavations of ancient Pompeii, author of *Space, Movement and Visibility in Pompeian Houses*, and co-author of *House of the Surgeon, Pompeii: Excavations in the Casa del Chirurgo.* He’ll discuss how what Vesuvius buried was lost and largely forgotten for centuries, and how the discovery and early excavation of these sites in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would transform forever the disciplines of art history and archaeology. It also greatly enriched our understanding of ancient Roman daily life, a process that continues to this day, making Pompeii the longest continuously excavated site in the world. Evidence from these sites has provided some of the clearest answers to questions about what life was really like for both the rich and the poor in ancient Italy in Roman times. Dr. Anderson will discuss what we’ve learned through the unearthing of houses and wall paintings, as well as the remains of graffiti, bakeries, clothes cleaners, and taverns and of evidence of politics, elections, and graffiti. What was it like to experience a cataclysmic volcanic eruption? Did anyone escape? We’ll explore the impact of the eruption on the nearby settlements of Pompeii and Herculaneum using evidence from Pliny the Younger’s eyewitness account combined with scientific study of the bodies of those who perished and the traces left by those who may have escaped. Finally, we’ll look at what is still being excavated and why. We will examine recent—and, in some cases, still unpublished—discoveries from active and on-going excavations. You’ll learn how these sites continue to enrich our understanding of ancient life nearly two thousand years ago, not only during the sites’ final years and hours but throughout the sites’ long histories from foundation to destruction. The event takes place at a great community space and new Profs and Pints venue, The Dairy at the Sports Basement Presidio. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus processing fees. Door price: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.) Image: A cast of a corpse of a Mt. Vesuvius eruption victim at Pompeii’s “Garden of the Fugitives” archaeological site. (Photo by Daniele Florio / Wikimedia Commons.)

Multi-City Live Theater in VR with Ferryman Collective

**Admission $28.52 Purchase on Eventbrite.** [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/multi-city-live-theater-in-vr-with-ferryman-collective-tickets-2003752247913](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/multi-city-live-theater-in-vr-with-ferryman-collective-tickets-2003752247913) **Overview** The Emmy-winning virtual reality experience "Uncanny Alley: A New Day" plays Gray Area San Francisco and Los Angeles at the same time. On November 10, our Los Angeles, San Francisco, Silicon Valley and BayCHI chapters are jointly hosting a live staging of **Uncanny Alley: A New Day**, the Emmy-winning live theatrical experience in virtual reality. It performs simultaneously at **Gray Area** in San Francisco and in Los Angeles: one cast across two stages. **Brendan Bradley** (San Francisco) and **Whitton Frank** (Los Angeles), members of the **[Ferryman Collective](https://www.ferrymancollective.com/ "https://www.ferrymancollective.com/")** who originated these roles, transition seamlessly between improvisation and the scripted hour-long drama, portraying 15 characters. They are joined on each stage by two audience participants, in headset and fully embodied as characters in the virtual world, who can say or do anything to influence the story. Each audience watches its live performers interact with the parallel stage 350 miles away. The production is written and directed by Stephen Butchko, with the world created by Rick Treweek, technical direction by Screaming Color, and artistic direction by Deidre V Lyon. The two-venue architecture was developed by Bradley, who also performs in San Francisco, building on his Edinburgh Fringe 2024 premiere, which ran on-stage, in VR, and livestreamed simultaneously. The question the evening poses: does scene-partner chemistry survive 350 miles? After the performance, the cast will lead us on a “backstage tour” of the company’s groundbreaking techniques in virtual show control. They’ll discuss the technology being developed at Ferryman Collective, and how both locations projected the real-time VR experience at each other’s site. They’ll answer questions about real-time technology that they use for this hour long performance. We would be glad to have you join us. **Brendan Andolsek Bradley** is an award-winning American actor and creator known for his work in 100+ film, television, and digital storytelling projects across major networks and streaming platforms, opposite some of the biggest stars in the world. He established The Innovation Lab at NYU's Tisch School; co-founded The 5th Wall Forum and OnBoardXR, supporting over 50 artists worldwide. His first VR play, *Jettison*, was a Finalist for The Producer Guild of America's Innovation Award and he stars in the VR plays *Welcome To Respite*, *Gumball Dreams,* *Uncanny Alley,* and his original musical *Non-Player Character* which premiered at Edinburgh Fringe and won the Auggie Award for Best Art or Film. **Whitton Frank** is a voice, film, television and theater actor from Los Angeles. Her work in VR includes directing the English premiere of *FindWiiLii*, performing in the award winning immersive VR worlds of *The Under Presents* and *The Tempest*, as well as the Ferryman Collective productions *PARA*, and the award winning shows *Welcome to Respite* and *Gumball Dreams*. A Ferryman team member since 2020, she is now a producer and director as well. She is a graduate of two prestigious acting universities, Carnegie Mellon University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and is a recipient of CMU’s Tartans on the Rise award. She is currently a sought after speaker at tech and immersive events around the world. Admission $28.52 Purchase on Eventbrite [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/multi-city-live-theater-in-vr-with-ferryman-collective-tickets-2003752247913](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/multi-city-live-theater-in-vr-with-ferryman-collective-tickets-2003752247913) Additional photos on Eventbrite

🎬  The Only Living Pickpocket in New York -- Metreon (& Early Dinner)

🎬 **The Only Living Pickpocket in New York -- Metreon (& Early Dinner)** • John Turturro is mesmerizing and delivers a subtle, layered performance filled with sadness, grace and a sly defiance. -The Contending • This delicate, restrained film, written and directed by Noah Segan, feels like both a love letter to Turturro and to New York itself. -LA Times **▪︎ Movie trailer:** https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iXA7BmrBBxs *🔆 The Only Living Pickpocket in New York* follows Harry Lehman, who spends his days as the dedicated sole caregiver for his disabled wife, and his nights picking pockets across the five boroughs. In a digital world dominated by credit cards and trackable smartphones, Harry's analog trade brings in dwindling returns. The stakes skyrocket when he inadvertently steals a valuable USB stick from a mob family scion, setting off a frantic race against the clock to return the device before facing violent retaliation. Hailed as a graceful character study that affords John Turturro one of the best roles of his career, *The Only Living Pickpocket in New York* astutely captures the struggle to scrape by in a world that won't stop changing the rules. ▪︎ **Purchase your ticket here.** (I have seat E6.) https://www.amctheatres.com/showtimes/147723991/seats ▪︎ **Message me when you've got a ticket** and I'll move you off the waitlist. ▪︎ **Meet at 4:00** in the Metreon food court for a quick early dinner. I'll be at a central table. ▪︎ **PLEASE don't be a no-show.** If your plans change, remember to update your RSVP prior to the event. ▪︎ **A late cancellation will count as a no-show.**

Lunchtime Yoga in the Park: Willard Park Yoga Collective

Join the Willard Park Yoga Collective every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday at Willard Park in Berkeley! Friday online! Integrated Hatha Flow classes are based on classical Hatha, mixed with the specializations of each teacher. We flow thoughtfully through poses taking time to notice the nuances, and match movement with breath. Chrissy, Carmen, and Jess integrate somatic modalities and the eight limbs into the yoga practice to increase body and breath awareness, and regulate the nervous system. Finding all of this in the present moment, we aim to foster agency, gratitude, peace, and joy. Teaching outside further deepens the practice by connecting to Nature and the elements. All levels are welcome and will be accommodated, judgement free. *"We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness"* **Thich Nhat Hanh** \*We work on a donation-basis, making yoga more accessible to all. Come as you are, pay what you can. Your teachers: Mondays 12:30pm Jess Tuesdays 12:30pm Carmen Wednesdays 12:30pm Chrissy Thursdays 12:30pm Carmen Fridays 5:30pm Chrissy (Online in the late fall-winter. Got to event for link) Sundays 10:00am Chrissy **Meet Chrissy:** Chrissy is a 500HR-RYT, Yoga Therapist, and Thai Yoga Massage Therapist. She came to teaching yoga with a 25+ year personal practice in vinyasa and kundalini, and training in modern dance, music, and theater. She also holds certification in ECE(12unit) and Social/Emotional Learning Facilitation. Her classes are integrated Hatha flow, influenced deeply by yoga philosophy and functional strength. With an emphasis on breath and accessing the present moment, she delights in walking the line between play and prayer. Chrissy strives to honor the origins of yoga while making it accessible to every body. She acknowledges her position as white, able-bodied, and cisgendered, aiming to be inclusive and trauma informed. Her classes are donation based with no one turned away for lack of funds. Private clients are sliding scale. In lieu of a studio, Chrissy teaches on line and outside in parks on the sovereign land of the Lisjan Ohlone. *Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu* May all beings be happy, healthy, and free. May we contribute to that. [https://chrissyyoga.com/](https://chrissyyoga.com/#home) **Meet Jess:** Jess is an artist and an athlete. At the beginning of her ceramics trajectory, working as a studio tech at a college clay studio, she realized she needed to be strong to load kilns and make large batches of clay. The physicality of her art became a driving reason to care for her body and its functional strength and mobility. Strength, agility, balance, flexibility and injury prevention (and recovery) were all things she found her personal yoga practice improved. In 2015 she became a certified 200 HR-RYT through Core Power and in 2021 she received a second 200 HR-RYT from Purusha Yoga. Jess guides a vinyasa flow based practice, with an emphasis on linking breath to movement and being in the present during practice. Jess teaches yoga in Willard Park and on the SF Bay on stand up paddle boards. She owns her own stand up paddleboard company, 510-Waterline, in Richmond, CA. [https://www.510waterline.com/](https://www.510waterline.com/). And she currently makes pots at her home studio in Berkeley, CA. teaches adult ceramic classes, workshops and has exhibited her work internationally. What she says in her artist statement about her pots also applies to her yoga practice “Strength lies in the fluidity of opposites – of line and mass, contraction and relaxation, tension and softness, push and pull. Ultimately, I want my pots to be graceful, elegant, and straightforward. It’s all about strength and beauty.”[ https://www.jesspots.com/](https://www.jesspots.com/) **Meet Carmen:** Yoga teacher and integrative somatic therapist Carmen Casado has long believed in the body's innate wisdom and capacity for resilience. She brings over two decades of yoga, dance, and mindfulness practices to her teaching, and is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and ongoing student of Peter Levine. She weaves this body of work into her classes, both covertly and overtly, often teaching about our neurobiology as relates to the eight limbs of Raja Yoga. Her mission as a yoga teacher is to create a safe and supportive environment for her students to explore the eight limbs, while cultivating resiliency and a deeper connection to self. Carmen also co-facilitates wellness retreats, and works individually with clients offering integrative somatic therapy sessions. She is a registered E-RYT 500, SEP, and former practicing attorney in NY and CA. [https://carmencasado.com/](https://carmencasado.com/)

FREE Metal Shop Open Hours

YOU MUST RSVP/PURCHASE TICKETS THROUGH THE ACE MAKERSPACE WEBSITE: [www.acemakerspace.org/calendar](https://www.acemakerspace.org/calendar/) Bring your curiosity, questions and metal projects to the Ace metal shop and talk with the metal team. Anyone is welcome! No Membership is required. New Guests must [sign up for a FREE Guest Account and sign their liability waiver](https://www.acemakerspace.org/product/guest-account/) before this event starts. Add the FREE account on check out or sign up here → [FREE Guest Account](https://www.acemakerspace.org/product/guest-account/). Ace Makerspace is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit member-supported organization. All proceeds support Ace Makerspace and help us serve over 1200 people a year with innovative programs, equitable access to makerspace resources, and more creative, self-reliant communities in Oakland.

Sunday Yoga in the Park: Willard Park Yoga Collective

Join the Willard Park Yoga Collective every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday at Willard Park in Berkeley! Friday online! Integrated Hatha Flow classes are based on classical Hatha, mixed with the specializations of each teacher. We flow thoughtfully through poses taking time to notice the nuances, and match movement with breath. Chrissy, Carmen, and Jess integrate somatic modalities and the eight limbs into the yoga practice to increase body and breath awareness, and regulate the nervous system. Finding all of this in the present moment, we aim to foster agency, gratitude, peace, and joy. Teaching outside further deepens the practice by connecting to Nature and the elements. All levels are welcome and will be accommodated, judgement free. *"We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness"* **Thich Nhat Hanh** \*We work on a donation-basis, making yoga more accessible to all. Come as you are, pay what you can. Your teachers: Mondays 12:30pm Jess Tuesdays 12:30pm Carmen Wednesdays 12:30pm Chrissy Thursdays 12:30pm Carmen Fridays 5:30pm Chrissy (Online in the late fall-winter. Got to event for link) Sundays 10:00am Chrissy **Meet Chrissy:** Chrissy is a 500HR-RYT, Yoga Therapist, and Thai Yoga Massage Therapist. She came to teaching yoga with a 25+ year personal practice in vinyasa and kundalini, and training in modern dance, music, and theater. She also holds certification in ECE(12unit) and Social/Emotional Learning Facilitation. Her classes are integrated Hatha flow, influenced deeply by yoga philosophy and functional strength. With an emphasis on breath and accessing the present moment, she delights in walking the line between play and prayer. Chrissy strives to honor the origins of yoga while making it accessible to every body. She acknowledges her position as white, able-bodied, and cisgendered, aiming to be inclusive and trauma informed. Her classes are donation based with no one turned away for lack of funds. Private clients are sliding scale. In lieu of a studio, Chrissy teaches on line and outside in parks on the sovereign land of the Lisjan Ohlone. *Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu* May all beings be happy, healthy, and free. May we contribute to that. [https://chrissyyoga.com/](https://chrissyyoga.com/#home) **Meet Jess:** Jess is an artist and an athlete. At the beginning of her ceramics trajectory, working as a studio tech at a college clay studio, she realized she needed to be strong to load kilns and make large batches of clay. The physicality of her art became a driving reason to care for her body and its functional strength and mobility. Strength, agility, balance, flexibility and injury prevention (and recovery) were all things she found her personal yoga practice improved. In 2015 she became a certified 200 HR-RYT through Core Power and in 2021 she received a second 200 HR-RYT from Purusha Yoga. Jess guides a vinyasa flow based practice, with an emphasis on linking breath to movement and being in the present during practice. Jess teaches yoga in Willard Park and on the SF Bay on stand up paddle boards. She owns her own stand up paddleboard company, 510-Waterline, in Richmond, CA. [https://www.510waterline.com/](https://www.510waterline.com/). And she currently makes pots at her home studio in Berkeley, CA. teaches adult ceramic classes, workshops and has exhibited her work internationally. What she says in her artist statement about her pots also applies to her yoga practice “Strength lies in the fluidity of opposites – of line and mass, contraction and relaxation, tension and softness, push and pull. Ultimately, I want my pots to be graceful, elegant, and straightforward. It’s all about strength and beauty.”[ https://www.jesspots.com/](https://www.jesspots.com/) **Meet Carmen:** Carmen has long believed in the body's innate wisdom and capacity for resilience. In her work as a Yoga Teacher, Yoga Therapist, and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner she helps this wisdom to emerge and transform. She completed her 500 hour (RYT) Yoga Therapy training at Purusha Yoga in San Francisco, a three-year professional Somatic Experiencing® training at Somatic Experiencing International®, is a certified Veterans Yoga Project teacher, as well as a trained wellness coach with the Kresser Institute. Carmen is currently teaching group yoga classes and offering private integrative somatic therapy and somatic wellness coaching sessions. Her mission as a yoga teacher is to create a safe and supportive environment for her students to explore the eight limbs of Raja Yoga, while cultivating resiliency and a deeper connection to self. Carmen also co-facilitates wellness retreats, and works individually with clients offering integrated somatic therapy sessions. [https://carmencasado.com/](https://carmencasado.com/)

Tour Mansions in Pacific Heights then-SF Symphony, Dvořák 8

[Those with Concert tickets will be taken off the Wait-list. ](https://www.axs.com/events/937951/san-francisco-symphony-orozco-estrada-conducts-dvorak-7-tickets?cid=usaffevvnt) Do you have a ticket, (cost is as low as $27.00). This is a special tour today. End time shown is for the walking tour. After the tour, it's over to **Davies Symphony Hall for, Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet.** We can have lunch before the concert at the Max's Opera Cafe. I have seats around **R16**, in the Orchestra level. There is plenty of available free **parking** around the neighborhood and no restriction on weekends/holidays. After the tour go to the Symphony with us and have lunch there. Help out with Meetup expenses: (Recommended, $5./month for regulars, or $5.00 per Event, if irregular.) Venmo, @hermazon PayPal, herrmann48@comcast.net **(Don't be a no-show.)** It's good to give out name tags. I fill out the name tags just before I leave for the tour. This also gives me a way to take attendance. Name tags that are not picked up, are recorded as no-shows. *(See no-show listing for February in photos below.)* If you get too many no-shows recorded in your personal Meet-up profile you'll be cancelled from this Meetup. (To cancel your RSVP look for the, **"Edit Attendance"** tab at the bottom right hand corner of a notebook screen, left bottom for a phone.) If time allows, about midway through the tour we'll stop for a break atop Lafayette Park. The strange 19th century tale of Samuel Holladay and how he got away with building his mansion on the highest point in Pacific Hts., even though his residential real estate "empire", **was atop and within Lafayette Park**. This is a true tale and will be told with some of the old photos. There are restrooms at the Park and views and we'll describe the surrounding heritage Victorian houses, making our way back through some of the best examples of remaining Victorians in SF. Pacific Heights is best known for being one of the most affluent neighborhoods in San Francisco. This tour highlights the architecture, and some of the people who built, occupied and maintained these grand properties. About 30 of which will be on our tour with some information about each property. The walking tour is 3 miles. With the usual SF hills. \-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\- We'll pass by some Victorians. If you want to know more read-on! **Looking at a San Francisco Victorian, what to look for:** *(There are five Styles)* 1. Flat front Italianate- (earliest Victorians). 2. Italianate with slanted bay windows. 3. San Francisco Stick Style (also called East Lake). Simpler square bay windows now used. Overall more elaborate decoration. 4. Queen Anne Tower House&Witches Cap, with angled or rounded bay windows & front gable 5. Queen Anne Row House"Cottage", 1, 1-1/2 or two stories. Large front gable. Possible moon-gate entry. * Features & "Gingerbread" * Floral Decor-Garlands (one of many types of decorations known as \*"Gingerbread") * Fish scale&Diamond shingles- * Towers & Witch's Cap- * Stained Glass or Beveled Glass- * Carvings of grotesque faces- * Sunbursts- often painted gold color, half or full. * Gables (Queen Anne's) in a variety of material- (mainly redwood) * Newel Posts and Finials on Tower tops and roof peaks- We'll see clusters of Victorian homes systematically built for the average working person by a development company, "The Real Estate Assoc." THEA, in business from 1870 to 1880. Not quite magnificent but many still standing. *Periods* **1860 - 1870s *Italianate*:** Buildings were vertical in emphasis with rounded classical detail. Earliest had flat windows, with false roof fronts. **1880s *Stick Style* (also called East Lake):** Squared off bay windows appear. **Late 1880s and 1890s *Queen Anne*** : Gingerbread would be applied to both the Stick and Queen Ann styles in San Francisco. Sloping roofs appear. With gables and towers. *Rooflines in the Queen Anne were irregular, combining the witches hat rooftop on a rounded or octagonal tower*. Following the Victorians the next major architectural style were the Period Revival residences popular in the 1920s and 1930s. [If you would like a scholarly and detailed explanation with photos, click.](https://sfplanning.org/sites/default/files/documents/preserv/bulletins/HistPres_Bulletin_18.PDF)

Crawloween (Halloween Block Party) - Cosplay Photography Workshop

ATA Open Screening - Short Film Festival

Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global by Laura Spinney

Our book for November 8 is Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global by Laura Spinney For those who are interested, here is the [link](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JHzu-K6dwAVkc8G6_FKcESeaHyTfBCZY5kezuff5_7o/edit?tab=t.0) to the detailed results from the voting. The book traces how a single prehistoric language became the ancestor of languages now spoken by nearly half the world, including English, Spanish, Russian, Hindi, and Persian. That language, Proto-Indo-European, was never written down, and linguists have rebuilt parts of it by comparing its descendants, work that began when an eighteenth-century British judge in India noticed that Sanskrit resembled Latin and Greek. Laura Spinney, a science journalist whose previous book, *Pale Rider*, covered the Spanish flu, writes for a general audience and combines the linguistic record with archaeology and ancient DNA. She places the language's speakers among the Yamnaya, herders on the grasslands north of the Black Sea who began migrating outward about five thousand years ago, and she covers the newer view that the Anatolian languages, such as Hittite, split from an older parent language before the Yamnaya expansion, making them a sister branch rather than a descendant. The book opens with a history of the field, including how the idea of an original Aryan people was used to support theories of racial superiority. After chapters on where the language began and what can be reconstructed of it, Spinney gives a chapter to each major branch: Anatolian; Tocharian, once spoken in what is now western China; Celtic, Germanic, and Italic; Indo-Iranian; Baltic and Slavic; and Albanian, Armenian, and Greek. Along the way she covers what shared vocabulary suggests about the speakers' myths, herding, metalwork, and trade, and considers whether disease, along with conflict, drove the large population turnover in prehistoric Europe. The history is interwoven with visits to the linguists, archaeologists, and geneticists doing the research, and the book closes on what this story means for present-day questions of language and migration. This event will be hybrid. I will host the meeting in person at my house in Berkeley which is near the intersection of College Ave and Woolsey St. I will email people the address the Saturday before the meeting. Here are the Zoom details: Zoom link: [https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88589978749?pwd=B3aRifcxwzL3kmUTrSJeaPlbozircV.1](https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88589978749?pwd=B3aRifcxwzL3kmUTrSJeaPlbozircV.1) Or dial: ‪(US) +1-669-444-9171 Meeting ID:88589978749# Participant ID: none Passcode:690326#