The Emperor Norton Moment
According to Google Trends, an identifiable surge in Bay Area interest in Emperor Norton began in late 2011. The surge continues today.
Read MoreA Lovely December Afternoon with the Emperor, the Countess & 50 Friends of the Campaign
A recap of The Emperor's Bridge Campaign's 2nd Annual Tannenbaum Toast, held on Sunday 14 December 2014 at Union Square and The House of Shields, San Francisco.
Read MoreTHIS SUNDAY! Join Us for Our Annual Holiday Toast to the Emperor
THE CHRISTMAS TREE IN UNION SQUARE, SAN FRANCISCO, 1910. Collection of the Oakland Public Library history room.
Join The Emperor's Bridge Campaign for The 2nd Annual Tannenbaum Toast!
Read MoreDid Influential Norton Biographer Robert Ernest Cowan Fudge the Emperor's Birth Date?
Building on Campaign board member Joseph Amster's recent "rediscovery" of am 1865 newspaper item pointing to an 1818 birth date for Emperor Norton, Campaign founder John Lumea examines Robert Ernest Cowan's influential 1923 essay about the Emperor and finds that Cowan manipulated the same news item to make it appear to support his own theory that Emperor Norton was born in 1819.
Read MoreRespected Web Site on "1820 Settlers" Updates the Emperor's Birth Date
In 1820, 2-year-old Joshua Norton emigrated with his parents and older brother from England to South Africa. They and the 4,000 others who participated in this colonization scheme came to be known as the 1820 Settlers. This week, in response to Board member Joseph Amster's recent "rediscovery" of an 1865 newspaper item pointing to an 1818 birth date for Joshua Norton, the leading historical and genealogical Web site documenting the story of the 1820 Settlers movement updated its birth date for Emperor Norton.
Read MoreHoming in on the Emperor's Birth Date?
Combing through microfiche of old San Francisco newspapers at the San Francisco Public Library yesterday, Emperor's Bridge Campaign board member Joseph Amster stumbled across an item on the front page of the 4 February 1865 edition of the Daily Alta California. The item invites us to take a much closer look at a possible birth date for Emperor Norton that was dismissed by earlier biographers.
Read MoreThe Founding Board & Officers of The Emperor's Bridge Campaign
Yesterday afternoon, at Comstock Saloon in San Francisco, six supporters of the Campaign — plus another, who found the nearest highway exit and joined us via cellphone from the road — gathered beneath the watchful gaze of the casting of Peter Macchiarini's sculpture of Emperor Norton that presides over Comstock's historic 1907 bar. In a joyful ceremony lubricated by Sazeracs, Manhattans, Bloody Marys, absinthes and beers — and punctuated by a lot of laughs — here's what we did.
Read MoreThe Emperor and 80 of His Subjects Walk Into a Bar
The First Annual Tannenbaum Toast was a smashing success!
Read MoreWhat's a Boothby?
The official drink for The Tannenbaum Toast is The House of Shields's version of the classic Boothby cocktail — created in 1908 by legendary San Francisco bartender William T. "Cocktail" Boothby, during his tenure at the Palace Hotel, just across the street from The House of Shields.
Read MoreBroke-Ass Stuart Recs Our Tannenbaum Toast: A "Rad Event" and a "New Tradition"
Travel writer and urban explorer Stuart Schuffman, a.k.a. Broke-Ass Stuart — a longtime friend of The Emperor's Bridge Campaign — is up with a new post giving props to our holiday drinks party at The House of Shields this Sunday afternoon.
Read More7x7 Shortlists Our Tannenbaum Toast as One of "Five Places to Sip This Week"
The San Francisco-focused magazine 7x7 featured us yesterday with a generous and well-placed dozen lines of original copy on its Web site.
Read MoreThe Bold Italic Features Our Upcoming Tannenbaum Toast
The widely read San Francisco-focused Web site The Bold Italic is spotlighting our upcoming holiday drinks party in its curated events listings for this week. The site lists The First Annual Tannenbaum Toast as one of 40 things to do in San Francisco this week — and one of 24 to do in the city this coming weekend.
Read MoreCampaign a Sign of Civic Health, Says Essayist
Our friend, Julian Lozos, flags a recent at San Francisco-focused online magazine The Bold Italic, in which writer Sara Brody cites our movement, specifically, as one healthy indicator that — despite the doomsday predictions of some who are wringing their hands the hardest over San Francisco's latest gentrification wave — San Francisco is not on the verge of losing its soul.
Read MoreJames Kenneth Piggott, Early Photographer of the Emperor's Bridge
Some of the earliest photographs of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge were taken in 1936 by James Kenneth Piggott, a commercial photographer who made his living, in part, as a printer and publisher of postcards. More on Piggott — including an intriguing biographical overlap with Emperor Norton — plus three of his 1936 bridge photographs, after the jump.
Read MoreThe Emperor Does "Bonanza"
Through the magic of television, Emperor Norton paid a memorable visit to the Ponderosa ranch on 27 February 1966. That's the date that the episode "The Emperor Norton" originally aired on the popular television series, Bonanza. Watch the full episode here.
Read MoreThe First Annual Tannenbaum Toast
The Emperor's Bridge Campaign invites you to join us for a holiday drinks party on Sunday 8 December at The House of Shields. Read on, for details.
Read MoreAn Emperor Norton Manicure
Our friend, Katie Haverkamp, did her nails. Click for the fabulous reveal!
Read MoreThe Importance of Being Emperor Norton
In his new review of Emperor Norton's Boozeland for 7x7, Stuart Schuffman a.k.a. Broke-Ass Stuart explains why Emperor Norton matters now more than ever.
Read MoreA Copper Gets His Comeuppance
Our friend, Joseph Amster, discovered this fabulous little Monty Python-esue video that tells the story of what happened when an overzealous local policeman, Armand Barbier, tried to throw Emperor Norton in jail.
Read MoreEmperor Norton's Hunch
Written in 1944 by Lu Watters, "Emperor Norton's Hunch" became a signature song for Watters and his Yerba Buena Jazz Band. In this video, a recording of the song by the band is the musical setting for a quick look at answers to the two questions raised by the song's title: Who was Emperor Norton? and What was his hunch?
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