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Film by Glen Park director wins award at Bernal Heights Outdoor Cinema

September 14, 2022 by Dan Goldes

(Dan Goldes has lived in Glen Park on Joost St. since 1998. His documentary films include 5 Blocks, Arrested (Again), ub2, and Keeper of the Creek. 5blocksproject.com)

Paul and Anna Belle Panish at their home in Oakland. Photo by Dan Goldes

Oakland resident Paul Panish has been writing poetry for most of his 87 years and a new documentary film about him, directed by Glen Park resident Dan Goldes, won the Good Life Audience Award at San Francisco’s Bernal Heights Outdoor Cinema. The film will screen at the Best of Bernal season finale on Friday, Sept. 16, at 7:00 pm at Bernal Heights Park.

Panish started writing poetry in 1955 as a 20-year-old student at Brooklyn College in New York, but the demands of supporting a family meant that earning a living took priority. In his poetry, Panish calls himself “a man of a hundred trades.” Working, variously, as a technical writer, newspaper editor, actor, voice-over talent, and author, among other things, Panish, his wife, Anna Belle, and their two children moved from New York to Berkeley in 1970. Panish returned to writing poetry in earnest in his mid-60s, and in 2008, moved to Oakland.

The poem featured in the film is titled, “Poem On My Eighty-Seventh Birthday – A Confession”. In it, Panish reflects on his life and takes stock of what it means to age. In the film, he notes that, “When I was young, people didn’t live to be 87, except in unusual circumstances.”

Panish’s poetry has appeared in Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, Signal, Bluestone, The Formalist, War, Literature, the Arts Journal, and The Raven’s Perch. His translation of Euripides’ Medea was performed at Columbia University, while his opera libretto Marry Up, Marry Down was performed in San Francisco’s Opera Theatre Unlimited. He is the author of the non-fiction book Exit Visa: The Emigration of the Soviet Jews.

Film director Dan Goldes

Director Dan Goldes, who is also Panish’s cousin, made the 8-1/2 minute film after interviewing Panish for an oral history. “I’ve known Paul since I was very young but, until our interview, I didn’t know he had been writing poetry nearly all his life.”

Goldes is the director of 5 Blocks, a feature documentary about San Francisco’s Mid-Market Street, which debuted at the San Francisco Green Film Festival before playing at festivals in Rotterdam, Istanbul, and Prague. His short films have screened at more than 100 festivals worldwide.

Paul Panish: Poem On My Eighty-Seventh Birthday screens at Bernal Heights Outdoor Cinema’s Best of Bernal season finale on Friday, Sept. 16, at 7:00 pm. Admission is free. https://bhoutdoorcine.org/best-of-bernal/

A selection of Panish’s poetry can be found at https://panish2.wixsite.com/paul-panish-poet.

 

Filed Under: Arts, Events, Uncategorized

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Glen Park Association is at Glen Park Greenway.
7 hours ago
Glen Park Association

Saturday’s Glen Park Greenway Work Party is Cancelled.

“I’m very sorry to say that
we have cancelled our Work Party for this Saturday July 12, along with all organized volunteer activity on the Greenway until further notice.
As you may have read in the news, our fiscal sponsor, San Francisco Parks Alliance (SFPA), has shut itself down. Just as SFPA has shut itself down, the Greenway, as an organized part of SFPA, has also been “shut down.” We are busy looking for a suitable alternative fiscal sponsor that is willing to replace SFPA. That search is going well but it is a slow process. We had hoped to find temporary ways to enable the Greenway project to function responsibly as a community activity without a fiscal sponsor. Sadly, despite our best efforts and the help of many others in Glen Park, we have failed. That is why we must cancel our Saturday Work Party and discontinue future work parties and other organized volunteer activity on the Greenway (like weeding and watering) until further notice. We recognize that the Greenway is public open space and that the organizers of the Greenway project have no control over the activities of you or of anyone else on the Greenway. However, if you do venture onto the Greenway to satisfy your urge for outdoor recreation, please be aware that your activity is not in any way organized or sanctioned by the organizers of the Glen Park Greenway project. I’m well aware of the efforts that many of the
Greenway’s supporters are making to get the Greenway organized with a new fiscal sponsor and I’m confident that this will be arranged within weeks or perhaps a few months.
However long it takes, I will contact you with news of our progress.
Many thanks for all that you do for the Greenway.”

Nicholas Dewar, volunteer Project Director

#glenparkgreenway #glenparksf #sanfrancisco @rafaelmandelmand8 @danielluriesf @crosstowntrail
#crosstowntrail #sfparksalliance #publicspace #nature
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Glen Park Association is at Laidley Street SFO.
4 days ago
Glen Park Association

It was a beautiful day for the annual #july4th celebration on Laidley street!

📷: Photos courtesy of Michael Waldstein

#glenparksf #sanfrancisco #laidley
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It was a beautiful day for the annual #july4th celebration on Laidley street! 

📷: Photos courtesy of Michael Waldstein 

#glenparksf #sanfrancisco #laidley
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