Portal:San Francisco Bay Area

Vertigo is a 1958 American psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The story was based on the 1954 novel D'entre les morts (From Among the Dead) by Boileau-Narcejac. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor.

The film stars James Stewart as former police detective John "Scottie" Ferguson. Scottie is forced into early retirement because an incident in the line of duty has caused him to develop acrophobia (an extreme fear of heights) and vertigo (a false sense of rotational movement). Scottie is hired by an acquaintance, Gavin Elster, as a private investigator to follow Gavin's wife Madeleine (Kim Novak), who is behaving strangely.

The film was shot on location in San Francisco, California, and at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. It is the first film to utilize the dolly zoom, an in-camera effect that distorts perspective to create disorientation, to convey Scottie's acrophobia. As a result of its use in this film, the effect is often referred to as "the Vertigo effect".

Vertigo received mixed reviews upon initial release, but is now often cited as a classic Hitchcock film and one of the defining works of his career. Attracting significant scholarly criticism, it replaced Citizen Kane (1941) as the best film ever made in the 2012 British Film Institute's Sight & Sound critics' poll. In 1996, the film underwent a major restoration to create a new 70mm print and DTS soundtrack. It has appeared repeatedly in polls of the best films by the American Film Institute, including a 2007 ranking as the ninth-greatest American movie of all time. (more...)

Rickey Nelson Henley Henderson (born December 25, 1958) is a retired American baseball outfielder who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for nine teams from 1979 to 2003, including four stints with his original team, the Oakland Athletics. Nicknamed "The Man of Steal", he is widely regarded as the sport's greatest leadoff hitter and baserunner. He holds the major league records for career stolen bases, runs scored, unintentional walks and leadoff home runs. At the time of his last major league game in 2003, the ten-time American League (AL) All-Star ranked among the sport's top 100 all-time home run hitters and was its all-time leader in base on balls. In 2009, he was inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame on his first ballot appearance.

Henderson also holds the single-season record for stolen bases (130 in 1982) and is the only player in AL history to steal 100 bases in a season, having done so three times. His 1,406 career steals is 50% higher than the previous record of 938 by Lou Brock. Henderson is the all-time stolen base leader for the Oakland A's and previously held the New York Yankees' franchise record from 1988 to 2011. He was among the league's top ten base stealers in 21 different seasons. (more...)

Atherton is an incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, United States. Its population was 6,914 at the 2010 census.

In September 2010, Forbes magazine placed Atherton's zip code of 94027 at #2 on its annual list of America's most expensive zip codes. In October 2013, 94027 was placed at #1 on the list.

In 1866, Atherton was known as Fair Oaks, and was a flag stop on the California Coast Line of the Southern Pacific Railroad between San Francisco and San Jose for the convenience of the owners of the large estates who lived north of Menlo Park. The entire area was called Menlo Park. It had been part of the Rancho de las Pulgas that had covered most of the area, which is now southern San Mateo County. There were several attempts to incorporate Fair Oaks, one in 1874 and another in 1911. (more...)

 • The Oakland and Berkeley Hills are hit by a firestorm (damage pictured, left)
 • Frank Jordan is elected mayor of San Francisco
 • Groundbreaking ceremonies take place at the AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco (logo pictured, right)
 • San Francisco pornography and striptease club pioneer Jim Mitchell kills his brother and business partner Artie in Marin County
 • Apple Computer introduces the PowerBook line of subnotebook personal computers

• ... that the vivid colors of the San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds (pictured), ranging from magenta to blue-green, come from the brine shrimp and microorganisms that thrive in the water?
• ... that the Laguna Creek watershed debouches into the San Francisco Bay near the site of the ghost town of Drawbridge?
• ... that the chase scene from the 1968 Steve McQueen film Bullitt starts on Cesar Chavez Street (then Army Street) before continuing through San Francisco?
• ... that the title of There There, a 2018 novel about urban Indians in Oakland, California, mirrors Gertrude Stein's quip about the city that "There is no there there"?

 • ... that the trans woman activist Miss Major (pictured, right, in San Francisco) was meeting with her girlfriend at the Stonewall Inn during the police raid that precipitated the Stonewall riot?
 • ... that the 2000 Yountville earthquake caused an interruption of power to approximately 10,000 Pacific Gas and Electric Company customers?
 • ... that African American artist Claude Clark helped curate the first national African American exhibition at the Oakland Museum in 1967?
 • ... that the TV character Lou Grant was named after Oakland Tribune cartoonist Lou Grant (pictured, right)?
 • ... that the Hall of Records (pictured, right) at the Napa County Courthouse Plaza was an early use, in 1916, of reinforced concrete as a building material?
 • ... that explorer and travelogue writer Albert S. Evans (pictured, left) famously feuded with Mark Twain when both were in San Francisco?
 • ... that The Owl Drug Company (business letter pictured) sponsored a minor-league baseball team and ran a beauty contest in which winners received a Hollywood screen test?

October 2014

CAAMFest, known prior to 2013 as the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival is presented every March in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is the nation’s largest showcase for new Asian American and Asian films. It annually presents approximately 130 works in San Francisco, Berkeley and San Jose. The festival is organized by the Center for Asian American Media.

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