The Game Developers Conference for 2009 is in full swing, turning downtown San Francisco into the molten core of the business of video games.

Shortly after 4pm, unsuspecting attendees were subject to the fiction many of them had created.  Most of the industry vets gathered there had in one form or another envisioned this day at some point in their professional catalogues.

Little did they know the apocalypse they imagined would shamble upon their very door.

Much to the dismay of those who in the space of a month have waged small wars with pillows, slung shaving cream pies and mushed through a metropolitan version of the famous dogsled race, the City of San Francisco seems to be fed up with flash mobs.  Objecting to the inordinate fluffy wreckage left behind by the Valentine’s Day Pillow Fight, a number of representatives of the municipal government are plotting some killjoy action to combat such extemporaneous anarchy.

At issue for the city is allegedly obscene cleanup costs for the pillow fight, which by virture of its 5,000 person size and damp weather left huge amounts of sludgy feathers in its wake.  Chronicle writer Seth Rosenfeld contacted some  of the affected parties looking to put together the full bill.

The soggy stuff clogged drains in nearby Four Embarcadero Center, flooding the Osha Thai Restaurant, said Norm Dito, a manager with Boston Properties, which owns the center. He estimated his firm’s cleanup costs at more than $10,000.

Feathers also filled the Vaillancourt Fountain and threatened to jam and burn out its pumps. Workers had to drain the cubist fountain’s 12,000 gallons of water – it had only recently been filled – clean it out and refill it, said Dito.

The city had to dispatch two engineers to check the fountain along with a five-person crew that filled three pick-up trucks with feathers, all at a cost of more than $2,213, said Dennis Kern, director of operations for the Recreation and Park Department.

All in, Rosenfeld reports some $30,000 in damages due to the cuddly leavin’s, with the city government left holding the pillow case.  The ultimatum was sounded by Lisa Seitz Cruwell of the Recreation and Park Department suggesting unless flash mobs get the appropriate permits, police, portable poopers and trash pickup “we are going to have to find a way to shut it down.”

Understandably, San Franciscans don’t favor such municipal saber rattling.

First, the big issue is the Chronicle article’s number.  The building next door says it spent $10,000 to fix the feather mess.  One part of the Parks Department say it spent $2,213 for one part of the cleanup.  Public Works said it spent $19,000 in extra pickup crews.  If the article’s damages are to be believed, the pillow fight racked up over $30,000 total.

The problem here is the naturally sensational nature of all municipal government.  Having had my share of exposure to a number across the nation, the one constant in every city in America is the capacity of its representatives to turn their honest work into hyperbole.

The Valentine’s Day Pillow Fight did not leave the city holding the bag for $30,000 or $20,000 or any another similarly obscene amount of money. Directly calculating soft costs in the manner the article suggests deliberately exaggerates the real effect the pillow fight had on city resources.  Further, neither Public Works nor the property manager were terribly specific about the largest costs in that calculation, implying some squishiness about their damage report.

Putting the jarring total aside and being fair, the pillow fight did make a pretty big fucking mess. Even if city officials are inflating the price tag ten times over, $3k is still a little rich for a flash mob. Cheap laughs are what flash mobs are all about and I don’t think anyone can dispute the pillow fight in particular ended up a little pricey.

But that is not sufficient cause for the blanket flash mob ban the article insinuates is coming.  The pillow fight was one of a couple dozen flash mobs, none of which had the same sort of cleanup expense.  Suggesting all flash mobs should have permits based on the negative impact of one such event is like asking all street food vendors in town to wear hairnets because I found one hair in my tamale.

Like all cultural phenomenon in their infancy, flash mobs are going to have some missteps that future participants will have to correct.  But those missteps should not push this Internet-driven cultural craziness into the same category as street fairs and pride parades.

Flash mobs are different.  Besides, they couldn’t stop them if they tried.

Setting a heart stopping San Francisco tradition, the third annual Valentine’s Day Pillow Fight was held in Justin Herman Plaza.  At the strike of 6pm, the well over 5,000 in attendance descended instantly into a massive cushion-fueled melee that would last past midnight.  An evening of bloody noses, nail scratches, and profound interrelationship discovery, the Pillow Fight now has reached a scope that is pure San Francisco.  Enormous, senseless and shameless, it now counts as another annual ritual capturing acutely the character of this town.

(d)N0t was on hand to capture the fluffy mayhem in film and photo.

Flickr: Valentine’s Day Pillow Fight

On 16 August at 2pm, a mob of zombies attacked downtown San Francisco. For four hours, nearly 300 zombies tore through the city’s Financial District, colliding with locals and tourists alike at many common Frisco destinations. Wreaking carnage beyond the ability of mere words to capture, the following is a photo and video essay concerning the tragedy.

Flickr -- Photos by Jens Jockey

Video by Rob Spectre