A Dark Legacy: Cults and Violence in San Francisco's Past

Moira and Adrian tackle the longstanding conservative fixation on the city of San Francisco, its people and its mores. From demographic anxieties, via Joan Didion's hippie-hate, to disaster movies, doom loops, and progressive prosecutors -- the history of SF-hate is a history of US politics.

Books and media cited in this episode:

Joseph Plaster, Kids on the Street: Queer Kinship and Religion in San Francisco's Tenderloin (2023)

Susan Stryker, Victor Silverman (dirs.), Screaming Queens (2005)

Thom Andersen, Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)

David Talbot, Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love (2013)

Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968)

Eve Babitz, Eve's Hollywood (1974)

Mike Davis, City of Quartz (1990)