Neat video of San Francisco’s Market Street before the 1906 earthquake. The video was shot from the front of a cable car, and is set to some pretty cool music by Air’s “Moon Safari” Alblum.
The video has been slowed down to give a sort of surreal feel. I suspect that the speed may have been doctored a bit to make it match the tempo of the music. But it is really interesting.
The second video is from the same source, but is a little different. It is a bit more realistic in terms of speed, and it is a little longer. 20 seconds into the first video is showing the same scene as at about 2 min 25 sec into the second video.
It is interesting to compare the two. From an artistic point of view, it is amazing how slowing the film slightly gives a surreal, synchronized feeling to the video, especially when set to the music of Air. From a philosophical point of view, it is notable how few rules there seemed to be to restrict people on that busy street, and yet it all seemed to work well… which is a point that several people pointed out in the YouTube comments on this video. In all fairness, the traffic on Market Street in 1906 was moving pretty slowly, and obviously we need more controls with automobiles now moving 60+ mph, and I wonder how often there was an accident on Market Street with that amount of seeming chaos …but nevertheless, this video does demonstrate that maybe we could rethink how many rules we really need restricting every aspect of human activity. Maybe we should just demand that people be rational, be aware of other people around themselves, and take responsibility for themselves a bit more than we do now.