Rick is founder of Prelinger Archives in San Francisco, whose moving image holdings may be found online at www.archive.org. Rick co-founded Prelinger Library (www.prelingerlibrary.org), a publicly-available collection of historical periodicals, books, print ephemera, maps and government documents.

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For the eighth time, Rick Prelinger brings together familiar and unseen archival film clips showing San Francisco as it was and is no more. Blanketing the 20th-century city, from the Bay to Ocean Beach, this screening includes newly-discovered images of Playland and Sutro Baths; the waterfront; families living and playing in their neighborhoods; detail-rich streetscapes of the late 1960s; the 1968 San Francisco State strike; Army and family life in the Presidio; buses, planes, trolleys and trains; a selected reprise of greatest hits from years 1-7; and much, much more. As usual, you'll be the star at the glorious Castro -- audience members are asked to identify places and events, ask questions, share their thoughts, and create an unruly interactive symphony of speculation about the city we've lost and the city we'd like to live in.

Rick Prelinger, an archivist, writer, filmmaker and teacher, has made LOST LANDSCAPES OF SAN FRANCISCO for eight years; LOST LANDSCAPES OF DETROIT for three; and recently completed NO MORE ROAD TRIPS?, a feature-length dream ride across the U.S. made completely from home movies. He runs a large archives of amateur film and home movies in San Francisco and teaches at UC Santa Cruz. With Megan Prelinger, he co-founded Prelinger Library, an experimental library and workspace open to the public in downtown San Francisco.

Unlost San Francisco life

"You are the soundtrack," Prelinger reminded the 1,400 assembled at the Castro to revel in his eighth mustering of wondrous archival film of San Francisco.

(Long Now people and San Franciscans do love to party, we notice every December at the Castro with Rick. All the more reason to have high expectations for the Long Now Bar (ahem, Salon) under construction at Fort Mason. It will be a non-stop thoughtful party, perhaps lasting centuries, opening in 02014. You can hasten its opening with a contribution.)

Rick's film this time featured the China Clipper taking off from the water next to the World's Fair on Treasure Island; another float plane hopping along the water from Oakland to San Francisco as a ferry; the now outlawed traditional downtown blizzard of calendar pages drifting down from highrise offices celebrating the last day of work every December; the dirt roads of Telegraph Hill leading to Julius' Castle; one of the 80,000 Victory Gardens in the city during World War 2; the bay filled with war ships (no one was supposed to photograph them); a tourist promotion film lauding San Francisco's "invigorating sea mists"; a drive down historic middle Market Street, with the audience crying out a landmark, "There's the Twitter Building!"