The Diogenes of San Francisco
For Emperor Norton Day 2017, a look at how — in both art and prose — the San Francisco Illustrated Wasp paid tribute to the Emperor on 17 January 1880, nine days after his death.
Read MoreFiltering by Category: Tributes,Events
The Fourth Annual Tannenbaum Toast
View from the mezzanine as guests arrive for the First Annual Tannenbaum Toast at The House of Shields, San Francisco, in December 2013.
The annual holiday party of The Emperor's Bridge Campaign celebrates the legend that it was Emperor Norton who originally called for the raising of a great tree in Union Square every Yuletide season. By tradition, the celebration takes place on the second Sunday of December in the mezzanine of the historic House of Shields bar in San Francisco, where we'll gather for the fourth time on Sunday 11 December from 4 to 6 p.m.
Read MoreRosebuds for the Emperor, 1913
In 1918, author and literary anthologist Ella Sterling Cummins Mighels (1853-1934) recalled her childhood memory of Emperor Norton and recounted the special Decoration Day tribute that was repaid him five years earlier.
Read MoreAn 80th Birthday Party & Naming Rally for the Emperor Norton Bridge
The Emperor Norton Bridge a.k.a. the Bay Bridge, in San Francisco, as seen from Rincon Park. In the foreground: Cupid's Span (2002), by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Photograph © 2007 Σταύρος.
On Saturday 12 November 2016, the Emperor Norton Bridge a.k.a. the Bay Bridge turns 80.
Please join The Emperor's Bridge Campaign for a celebration to wish the Emperor's bridge a happy birthday and to show your support for naming the bridge for Emperor Norton in 2022 — the 150th anniversary of the Emperor's proclamations in 1872 setting out the original vision for the bridge.
Read MoreNaming of Meadow in Golden Gate Park Would Set a Helpful Precedent for Emperor Norton Bridge Effort
There is a proposal afoot to name the Sharon Meadow, in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, for the late comedian and actor Robin Williams. The rationale being used strengthens the case for naming the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for Emperor Norton.
Read MoreWhat Ever Happened to the Plaque of '59?
In 1959, "the Society of California Pioneers in cooperation with the San Francisco Chronicle" proposed an Emperor Norton memorial plaque at the intersection of California Street and Grant Avenue — where the Emperor collapsed and died on 8 January 1880. A design for the plaque was created by Hubert Buel, the Chronicle's art director. Indeed, the design and text for the plaque were approved by resolution of the San Francisco Arts Commission on 1 June 1959.
And yet, today, there is no Emperor Norton plaque at California and Grant. In fact, it appears that the project never made it before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors — which typically would have to have given final approval for a project like this in order for it to move forward.
How did an Emperor Norton plaque with the collaborative backing of two storied institutions like the Society of California Pioneers and the San Francisco Chronicle get pushed off the tracks — and who did the job?
Read MoreA True San Franciscan, or, What Tony Bennett and Emperor Norton Have in Common
Today, in celebration of his 90th birthday, Tony Bennett was on hand in San Francisco to receive a well-deserved tribute: the unveiling of a larger-than-life statue of him in front of the Fairmont Hotel, where he made his San Francisco debut in 1954 — and where he introduced his immortal signature song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," in 1961.
Bennett was given the tribute because — although he wasn't born in San Francisco, and although he never lived here — he was a true San Franciscan.
Emperor Norton is another gentleman who — like Tony Bennett — became a true San Franciscan by loving the city and being loved in return.
It is long past time for Emperor Norton to be honored with a tribute that rises to the level. A tribute that recognizes the Emperor for setting out the original vision for the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and for being one of the earliest champions of the values of openness, tolerance, fair play and the common good that came to be identified with San Francisco, Oakland and the Bay Area — and that celebrates him for doing all of this with the whimsical and irrepressible style that is the hallmark of his adopted city.
Read MoreAn Evening of Artists in Conversation About Emperor Norton
At a special event on Thursday 13 October, titled My Emperor, My Muse, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign will bring together an eclectic and interesting mix of people — artists who've created specific Emperor-themed works and others who have thought deeply about Emperor Norton — for a conversation about the Emperor's abiding cultural import as an avatar of whimsy, openness, tolerance and fair play.
We'll learn why Emperor Norton moves these people; how he has shaped their projects; why they think the Emperor remains a cultural touchstone; and the role that they think art can play in shaping and polishing the stone.
Read MoreAN EMPIRE DAY "DOUBLE BILL": Field Talk + Celebration
This year, we're marking Empire Day with a "double bill" of events on Saturday 17 September: an onsite Field Talk at 3 p.m. followed by a nearby brief Empire Day celebration at 4:30.
Read MoreIntroducing ARENA: Archive of Emperor Norton in Art, Music & Film
Comic, 1871, by John Steinberg. The comic appeared in a late 1871 issue of Frederick Marriott's California Mail Bag magazine, as part of a group of Steinberg's "Humorous Sketches of the War in Amador." Source: Internet Archive.
Today, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign launches ARENA: Archive of Emperor Norton in Art, Music & Film. ARENA seeks to be a comprehensive, authoritative, searchable digital archive of representations and interpretations of Emperor Norton in the visual arts, in music and in film — the mediums that are most readily presented online. The Archive includes "renderings" of Emperor Norton from the early 1860s to the present.
Read MoreThe Emperor Norton Sundae: Vintage Ghirardelli Menus Edition
For at least 40 years, it appears, the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company featured on the menu of its shops an Emperor Norton Sundae. Ghirardelli discontinued the Emperor Norton in 2004, possibly earlier — but, evidence of the Emperor remains in this little collection of Ghirardelli menus from the 1960s, '70s and '80s.
Read MoreEmperor Norton's Neighborhood: Walking Tour to Benefit The Emperor's Bridge Campaign
On Sunday 12 June 2016, Emperor Norton — played by Joseph Amster of Time Machine Tours — will lead a special "off the menu" historical walking tour focusing exclusively on Emperor Norton sites and stories.
The tour is a fundraising benefit for the Campaign. Please join us!
Read MoreTHE EMPEROR'S RIDE: Sunday 1 May
To celebrate the advent of the bike craze in San Francisco, as memorialized by Eadweard Muybridge's iconic 1869 photograph of Emperor Norton on a bone-shaker, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign is delighted to be partnering with SF Tweed and San Francisco Steampunks to present a May Day bike ride ending with a picnic at Marina Green. Our friends from the Mechanics' Institute also will be joining us. Details on the flip!
Read MoreThe Emperor's Ride: A (Bike!) Ride, Picnic & Lecture
Emperor Norton and his "ride," 1869. Photograph by Eadweard Muybridge. Collection of the Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley.
One of the most iconic images of Emperor Norton is an 1869 photo, taken by the pioneering photographer and inventor Eadweard Muybridge, of the Emperor astride a "velocipede," the contraption — newfangled at the time — that we know as the bicycle.
To celebrate this famous photograph, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign is partnering with the Mechanics' Institute, SF Tweed and San Francisco Steampunks to present a "couplet" of events: a free lecture at the Mechanics' Institute on Wednesday 20 April and The Emperor's Ride — a bike ride and picnic on May Day.
Read MoreCHAMBER TALK #3 | The Good Emperor: The Best Proclamations You've Never Heard Of
In August 2015, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign received a generous seed grant from the San Francisco History Association to research, write and publish a book of selected Proclamations of Emperor Norton — a resource that doesn't exist today. Our goal is to produce a collection of Proclamations that illustrates the full range of the Emperor's concerns.
Next up in the Campaign's series of Chamber Talks, we'll preview some of what we've discovered so far. Please join us!
Read MoreThe Emperor's 198th: A Birthday Party in Salute of Emperor Norton
This 9-layer cake was created in 1916 to celebrate the 35th birthday of a large women's-goods store in Columbus, Ohio. The cake weighed nearly one ton. Source: Popular Science Monthly
Please join The Emperor's Bridge Campaign as we celebrate Emperor Norton's 198th birthday on 4 February 2016.
Read MoreThe Third Annual Tannenbaum Toast
The Christmas tree in Union Square, San Francisco, 1910. Original black-and-white source photograph: Collection of the Oakland Public Library history room. Hand-tinted version © Bennett Hall 2015.
The Emperor's Bridge Campaign invites one and all to join us in this third enactment of a new holiday tradition. From the Christmas tree in Union Square, San Francisco, we process to The House of Shields saloon, where we raise a glass to Emperor Norton in celebration of the legend that the tree was the Emperor's idea. Please join us!
Read MoreAn Empire of the Heart
A portion of remarks offered by Emperor's Bridge Campaign founder and president John Lumea at the Campaign's inaugural celebration of Empire Day in San Francisco's Redwood Park on 17 September 2015. The event was held to mark the 156th anniversary of Joshua Norton's declaration of himself as "Emperor of these United States" on 17 September 1859 and to welcome the 157th year of the Nortonian realm and reign.
Read MorePeremptory
An Empire Day meditation on one of least understood words of Emperor Norton's original Proclamation of 17 September 1859.
Read MoreThe Original Public Advocate
In the current San Francisco mayoral election, one of the challengers to sitting mayor Ed Lee has offered an anti-corruption plan that includes a proposal that San Francisco create a new elected office for a Public Advocate.
Other major cities already have Public Advocates; the level of authority depends on the city.
But the general idea is that the Public Advocate is a kind of official watchdog — someone who helps to ensure that the citizens are being treated fairly; that government agencies and private companies are properly maintaining basic utilities and services like streets, public transit, water, electricity and gas (and not gouging the people in the process); and that corruption that affects the general populace is called out wherever it is found.
Sound familiar? It should.
The original Public Advocate is Emperor Norton.