Campaign Seeks New Board Members
The Emperor's Bridge Campaign seeks three new members — Treasurer; Secretary; and one At-Large Director — for its Board.
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Emperor's Bridge Campaign Marks Bicentennial With "Emperor Norton at 200" Series
The bicentennial of Emperor Norton's birth is 4 February 2018.
To celebrate this momentous occasion, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign, in partnership with Bay Area institutions, is producing Emperor Norton at 200 — a series of exhibits, talks, toasts and other special events in February 2018 and throughout the bicentennial year.
Read MoreThe Fifth 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 fifth time on Sunday 10 December from 4 to 6 p.m.
To join us for a Procession to the Toast — led by Emperor Norton, as played by our friend, Joseph Amster — come to Union Square and gather at the foot of the tree at 3:30 p.m.
Read MoreAn Empire Day Ferry Trip to Oakland — Emperor Norton's "Summer Capital"
Steam ferry The Oakland, c.1875. Emperor Norton may have ridden on this ship, which operated as part of a partnership between Oakland's first — by then, past — mayor, Horace Carpentier (1824–1918), and the Central Pacific Rail Road. Collection of the Oakland History Room / Oakland Public Library. Source: Bennett Hall.
In 2015, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign launched a new holiday to commemorate the date — 17 September 1859 — when Joshua Norton declared himself and his Empire. We called it Empire Day.
Little known and appreciated is that, for many years — as part of his imperial rounds — Emperor Norton hopped the ferry every week and visited Oakland.
So, this coming September 17th — the third Empire Day— we celebrate with a Sunday afternoon ferry ride and family-friendly outing to the city that anchors the eastern end of the Emperor Norton Bridge.
The Emperor rode for free. So...
Round-trip ferry tickets are free to Emissaries of the Empire a.k.a. members of the Campaign.
Is your Emissary card up-to-date?
Read MoreThe Emperor's Bridge Campaign Contributes Four Rare Emperor Norton Films to the Internet Archive
The Emperor's Bridge Campaign has contributed four rare Emperor-themed films to the Internet Archive, the nonprofit library that collects published works and makes them available in digital formats.
These films are rarely seen outside the domains of film screening societies and, occasionally, subscription cable television — and sometimes not even then.
The Campaign is delighted and grateful to have the Internet Archive as a partner in making these films available for viewing by a broader audience — both via the Internet Archive and via the Campaign's own ARchive of Emperor Norton in Art, Music & Film (ARENA).
This collaboration with the Internet Archive includes the Archive's new high-resolution scan of the Campaign's 16mm copy of a 1936 theatrical film short that appears to feature the earliest dramatic portrayal of Emperor Norton extant on film.
LIGHTS! CAMERA! NORTON! A Campaign Fundraiser
On Thursday 23 March, The Emperor’s Bridge Campaign presents Lights! Camera! Norton! — an evening of three films about Emperor Norton at the legendary Roxie Theater in San Francisco.
The event includes a screening of our own 35mm print of a 1936 short that we believe features the earliest dramatic portrayal of the Emperor on film.
This special evening takes place in the 254-seat Big Roxie theater and is a fundraiser for the Campaign: After the first 50 tickets sold, 50 percent of all proceeds from this screening will benefit The Campaign.
Read MoreHappy 199th Birthday, Emperor Norton!
Tonight, the Emperor's Bridge Campaign is throwing the Emperor a party. A link to details and a comic from the annals of imperial confectionery humor, on the flip.
Read MorePARTY LIKE IT'S 199! Emperor Norton's 199th Birthday Party
Join The Emperor's Bridge Campaign in celebration of Emperor Norton's 199th birthday on 4 February 2017.
Read MoreEmperorNortonBridge.org
New cover page for The Emperor's Bridge Campaign's project to name the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for Emperor Norton. Click above to go to the page. Background photograph © 2015 Jeru Banez.
Introducing a new cover page, a new navigational menu and a new URL to get you more quickly to information about The Emperor's Bridge Campaign's project seeking state legislation to name the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for Emperor Norton — or, more accurately, to add a name like "Emperor Norton Bridge" — by 2022, the 150th anniversary of the Emperor's proclamations setting out the original vision for the bridge in 1872.
Read MoreThe 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 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 MoreReckoning With Both the Man and the Myth
On Saturday 9 July 2016, the San Francisco History Association held its 18th Annual Awards Dinner at the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club on Washington Square. At the Dinner, the Association presented The Emperor's Bridge Campaign with its 2016 Ron Ross Founder's Award, which is "given each year to a person, group of people or organization for performing an impressive undertaking that support's San Francisco history."
What follows are the acceptance remarks offered at the Dinner by Campaign founder and president John Lumea.
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's Bridge Campaign to Receive 2016 Founder's Award from San Francisco History Association
The Emperor's Bridge Campaign is delighted and honored to announce that the San Francisco History Association has selected the Campaign to receive the Ron Ross Founder's Award for 2016.
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 Norton Bridge" By 2022
The Emperor's Bridge Campaign proposes that the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge be additionally named for Emperor Norton in 2022 — the 150th anniversary of when Emperor Norton set out the original vision for the Bay Bridge in 1872. On 10 May 2016, Campaign president John Lumea sent to Campaign supporters and followers a letter outlining the bridge-naming proposal and options for pushing it forward.
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!
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