If You're Going to San Francisco...

... forget all that flowers in your hair stuff. Instead, slap on a fedora, pull on a trenchcoat and fire up a jasper as local artist Owen Smith pays tribute to Dashiell Hammet's private eye classic The Maltese Falcon (arguably ground zero for the genre), with a series of posters commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Art as part of its Market Street 2008 Program. The posters will be installed from Monday, June 16th, to Thursday, September 18th on (where else?) Market Street.

And to kick off the project, Don Herron and Smith will lead one of Herron's popular Dashiell Hammett Tours beginning at the southeast corner of Market and Third Streets on Saturday, June 28th, at 1 PM, absolutely free of charge. You'll get to scope out Spade and Archer’s office and other Falcon landmarks, as well as check out Smith’s posters and hear how he came up with each one.

Artist Owen Smith, of course, was the artist I blabbed on about recently for his amazing Mother Jones "Torture Hits Home" cover.

For more of his Falcon posters, click on the pic below....



I dunno. Maybe it's time for me to finally check out this burg...

If you're going to San Francisco gimme a call.