FILE: Valencia Street between 16th and 17th streets in the Mission District of San Francisco on Nov. 13, 2024.

It’s been a tough week in California. Last Sunday, the San Francisco Police Department arrested 154 anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protesters, including six minors and two student journalists. On Thursday, California Sen. Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s news conference and handcuffed after attempting to ask a question. 

And somehow, against this backdrop of anxiety, life goes on. On Thursday, a night market took over three blocks of Valencia Street, and crowds gathered to dance on stretches of road where an estimated 9,000 protesters had marched a few days earlier. On the other side of Twin Peaks in Cole Valley, the final night street market of the season went out with a bang as cover bands performed classic Bay Area ballads.

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Part of the difficulty of living during strange times is making sense of this constant oscillation: between fear and boredom, stress and joy. The National Guard was deployed in Los Angeles, and the weather is nice in Dolores Park. There are no “buts” here, just “ands.” It is surprisingly challenging to hold the urgent and the mundane in mind at once. 

To that end, we present Fogcutter, SFGATE’s weekly column of slices of life and events. Every week, our journalists take a break from covering the hard news to roam the Bay Area, reporting on concerts, block parties and hikes.

We don’t want to distract you from everything that’s going on right now. But we want to invite you to remember that life here is beautiful. After all, that’s what makes it worth fighting for. 

Read on for more highlights.

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