Avedon

Yesterday at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SF MoMA) a new show opened with a crowd. I don't know why I was surprised by a crowd according to logic--the show was an exhibition of the work of photographer Richard Avedon, who is a phenomenal artist--but I WAS surprised because Avedon isn't so much a "household" name like Ansel Adams or Annie Lebowitz. Still, there I was, fighting to see a photo in full frame uninterrupted, like the fight I had to see Frida Kahlo's work without two or three heads in front of it.

My introduction to Avedon was, of course, the New Yorker magazine pages, although I would be pressed to tell you what photograph hooked me. Regarding Avedon, I think it was more of a growing interest, although his work is striking enough to grab one in a single glance. I got to the point where I would look for Avedon's work and feel relief when I would find it in an issue. He had a way of making ugly notariety attractive and making beautiful notariety realistic, like HD tv meets black and white photography. Facial or body hair suddenly became remarkable distinctions. Photographs of filthy settings or subjects suddenly roared through in a clean focus at the center, like the developing in the darkroom had washed out the dirt. (I give you the elephant picture, above...the elephants are chained and dusty and dancing and the model is pristine and soothing...)

I don't have a favorite Avedon portrait--they all are mesmorizing to me with their preference for a white background and dark brooding. My least favorites are when he experiments with action (he has a very blurry and creepy one of a choreographer that I walked past in a hurry at the exhibit)--Avedon represents clarity, and any blur in his photography puts him in a category of no longer Avedon for my taste. He is most effective stock still, unshaven, insisting on the camera's attention, lined and worn. And so are his subjects.

(The Avedon exhibit is open until November of this year. Contact the SF MoMA for details, as this is a timed entry show--unless you're a member I wouldn't recommend just "dropping by".)

Geek Love

Continuing to plow my way through the Netflix que, and thought I would anoint myself with a documentary.

I suck at games. I repeatedly lose at chess, and still love it, I enjoy Scrabble (and possess a travel version) and usually lose, I lost at Othello once and a friend of mine chalked it up to losing so the good-looking guy across the table wouldn't feel emasculated (no, I'm just that stupid and honestly lost), but I have never finished a NY Times crossword. And me lovin' the words like I do.

But I LOVED "Wordplay," a 2006 documentary about Will Shortz and the NY Times crossword and the folks who compete at the National Crossword Championship in Stamford, Connecticut every year. It's a room full of nerds of every shape and size and ethnicity and they solve seven puzzles in record time. Then the three top scorers go up on stage, don a set of headsets that knock out noise, and they solve giant whiteboard crosswords for the amusement of 500 of their peers.

Intermingled in their stories are the stories of the crossword in the lives of famous people like Jon Stewart, Bill Clinton, the Indigo Girls, and New York Yankee pitcher Mike Mussina. There are some dry moments when you watch someone solve a puzzle in real time--I know why they do this, but it's like watching paint dry--but the majority of the movie is like reading a rich and delightful short story. It won't keep you, but it's a great way to spend two hours.

The Park

Ladies and gentlemen, my backyard.

Less than six blocks from me lie two fantastical museums, facing each other like a pair of Birkenstocked queens, arms crossed and tricks on the table. The Music Concourse sinks between them like a reflecting pool, empty and drifted with dry autumn leaves.

So they filled the pool with music and guidance and set us loose in it.

On Saturday morning I dropped off my laundry and thought I would saunter down to the opening of the Academy, aka The California Academy of Sciences, thinking that there was no way in hell that there could be as many nerds in the City as to fill it first thing in the a.m. But as I rounded the corner at Kirkham and 9th and looked down the hill and saw the mass exodus from the concrete to the green (with the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge in the background looking very much the part of the Gray Horse from the Velveteen Rabbit), I started the process of resetting my sights. So maybe a wait to get in.

A wait was an understatement. By the time I rounded the corner to the Concourse with the rest of the herd, I knew I wasn't going in. I was pleasantly surprised, though, that there was a Music Concourse full of tents and food vendors and musicians, with plenty of room there. The Academy would be there from now on (or, at least until we get an 8.5 shaker), but the tents would be gone on Monday, so I turned my focus from the new cute boy in the class to the foreign exchange student in front of me. The cute boy'll keep.

A quick tour of the tents yielded a wealth of information--from a bicycle that charges up its own motor (no more calf-breaking trips up the San Francisco hills!) to solar exhibits to tales of the Farallon Islands (going someday now, DEFINITELY) to my very favorite tent, the Rana Creek exhibit.

For those of you who haven't seen a picture of the Academy, here's the biggest signature of it: it has a plant roof. Rana Creek is an architectual firm that specializes in making buildings and parts of buildings out of plants. Think of Laura Ingalls Wilder and "On the Banks of Plum Creek" if you will, but it speaks to me when there is A FREAKIN' MEADOW ON THE ROOF OF A MUSEUM OR OFFICE BUILDING. The Bay Area is full of The Box--a mindset of architecture that looks like Port of Oakland container stacking (I've heard of that done as well...no thanks), and when the lawn is on the top of the building it seems to soften all of the square, sharp points.

After picking up packs of information and free goodies, I wondered to the circular spaces in the middle of the concourse and picked a free bench in the shade. In the center circle was a four-man jazz band, kickin' it. These guys could play so many instruments I started to wonder if there was an extra hand in it from God, like the memorial in Washington, D.C. The kids absolutely loved it, and the grown-ups applauded enthusiastically after the two numbers we got to hear before they packed it up to make room for sound from SF Jazz at nearly 10 am. We all begged for one more, but the program was running a tight ship.

I checked out the deYoung after tear-down for the band, just to see if I could get in and chill away from the swarm for a moment. No dice--this was closing weekend for Chilhuly, glass master, and everyone was getting in there too. So I moved to the arch at the west end of the concourse to hear SF Jazz and relax a little longer. On my way I passed the western circle in the concourse with Junkestra set up in the middle. If you want to hear what Junkestra does, go to YouTube and type in "Junkestra." It's serious music, but it was so fantastical that I couldn't help bursting out laughing when I did the YouTube search. I didn't get to hear them Saturday because I left before they fired up.

SF Jazz looks like a typical Glen Miller set-up, until you realize all of the musicians are pretty young--like, high school young. AND they can bring it. I listened to three numbers before moving on, and their execution was college level, or, more by the fun they seemed to be having, a band in somebody's parents' garage, with suits. The riffs were so relaxed and enjoyed by the musicians, it was like the audience walked in on a big secret.

I left the dusty benches of the arch and walked back to the east to see what was for brunch. (It was 10:30. Cut me some slack.) I decided on a Hibiscus Flower Limeade in a biodegradable cup (which looked an awful lot like promogranate juice but tasted just sweet enough not to be tart and just tart enough not to be sugary) and a grass-fed (not that kind of grass, dear reader) all beef hot dog. I crawled up the side of the bowl that is the concourse wall and sat in cool, damp grass in the shade of the palm tree, eating my treasure (no ketchup on the treasure though...Chicago style). In front of me at the sidewalk was a short woman resting in a folding chair about four feet to the right of the recycling receptacles. I don't think she was there to monitor them, but I think in the course of her resting there I think she found her calling in telling people which container to put their waste paper and containers into. For those not familiar with the selection, there was a black box marked "Landfill," a blue box marked "Recycle," and a green box marked "Compost." I was raised on a farm with a compost pile and still this selection confuses me. What's even more confusing is that the container I was drinking from looked like a plastic cup but on one side stated that it was made from plant material. This development drove the recreational recycling monitor into a frenzy. "Not there!" I heard her say more than once, and I started thinking she was right, until a worker from the food vendor in front of the receptacles stepped up to assist and read the cup to her and said, in a voice loud and plain, "It's made of CORN!" He wasn't intending harm to her, just getting it through her head. The statement was so short and delivered so succinctly that I burst in silent, shaking giggles and had to think of something depressing to behave myself. I could hear my father telling me to straighten up and fly right and not make fun.

I wasn't, Dad.

The phrase was funny, is all, Dad. Perfect line perfectly performed.

*****

I moved to San Francisco from the South Bay two years ago, and still my knowledge of The Park is limited. To me this crime is roughly on par with living in Manhattan and hanging out in Washington Square Park, or living in the Richmond Heights district of Saint Louis and journeying to Fort Leonard Wood for fresh air. I've committed this crime for two years, all the time only seeing The Park when there's an event. I can tell you where Stow Lake is and the Music Concourse and the Conservatory and where they keep the buffalo and the police horses, but living here and not living them seems a bit of "standing knee deep in a river and dying of thirst." So I'm on a new quest to explore the park and follow Gawande's mantra in all of it so that I know my own backyard.

Henry would be proud.

From the "Say It Ain't So" Department

Lost another favorite actor this morning--the wonderful and incomparable Paul Newman.

The article in the Times was a little off in trying to determine his age, too...look closely at the title and the second paragraph.

Usually the Times has it nailed better than the Chron, but the Chron had the same article on-line, minus the faux pas.

Regardless, my favorite Newman movie was "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"--but I loved his other stuff as well. There was a little known film he was in with Bruce Willis a few years back, "Nobody's Fool," that I liked an awful lot, too.

And, who could ever forget..."Cool Hand Luke."

You just keep thinking, Butch.

Selah.

Something From NY About SF

Ah, yes, gas-guzzlers...just in case...

I'm thinking of signing up for when people ask me "Where is there to park?" when they visit me...

NFSL - How to Talk To A Hunter, and The Canoeists

About eight or nine years ago, when I was thick in the throes of college, the only thing that you could find me reading was short stories. At library book sales and Barnes and Noble (THE bookstore in Springfield) I would pick up anthologies and read them. I would sign up for courses in the short story. I met my advisor in a short story class.

And then in my junior year of college I took a class on comparing two sets of novels (a set by Camus, and a set by Dostoyevsky), and I walked away from reading short stories. In my final semester I took a class on writing them, but as far as enjoying them was concerned, I seemed to be finished. I preferred the investment of a novel better. Oh, sure, there was the occasional anthology of Non-Required Reading edited by Eggers or New Yorker fiction, but for the most part I had given it up.

Yesterday on my day of recouperation I curled up in bed for a good measure of the morning listening to my podcasts on iTunes. I subscribe to four of them--The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor, Fresh Air, and two short story 'casts: The New Yorker Short Stories and Selected Shorts. The New Yorker podcast comes out once a month, but the Selected Shorts comes up once a week. (Both the Almanac and Fresh Air come out daily.) In case you are not familiar with the program, Selected Shorts is a series of contemporary short stories (usually three to four in number) read on a stage to an audience somewhere by actors. Mostly they perform in New York, but sometimes they travel--a couple of weeks ago one of the readers read from Edith Wharton's home in Massachusettes.

Yesterday was a collection of four stories, two of which were authors that I recognized. Emily used to be addicted to short stories by Pam Houston, and she would share with me--the first reader read Houston's "How to Talk to a Hunter." It was heartbreaking and delicious to hear...and then later in the broadcast was Rick Bass's "The Canoeists." I love Bass--he reminds me of Dillard in a way, or she reminds me of him (I don't know enough of the timeline to know which one came first). He is rich and decadent in detail and picks thin plots that almost seem not to exist so that he can be rich and decadent in detail. He is very sensual in what he rests on, and he writes his works as set in the outdoors. As I listened to Neil Patrick Harris read of Sissy and Bone, I closed my eyes and felt the cold river water, saw the shining firefly carcasses on the car-transported canoe. The short story finds place again, albeit in small capacity, in my life.

http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/rick_basss_the_lives_of_rocks/C132/L39/

******

It occurs to me in this adventure that I may be conveying some things about what theme this endeavor of Blog 365 will take. A few things that you the reader should probably know:

I won't always be writing this in the morning. I just happened to get lucky the past couple of days.

I won't always write for this length. I had yesterday off and today they told me to take my time coming in to work, and I'm taking them up on it.

I won't always write just about my iPod or the arts. Right now there are no human interactions that are setting my mind on fire, FG and Mary have disappeared again, and MS and SKS are making plans to move to San Diego, all others were busy for the holidays, so I am getting my riches from the internet and from the books and articles I stumble upon. Pardon me whilst I live in my head and hibernate. I will write of what lights my fire on that particular day, and strive for the positive. Right now that lies in the arts.

Cupid, chained to Minerva's pet. :)

Big Apple Dreams

Back when I was freshly moved to Missouri and writing furiously in the periodicals section of the College of the Ozarks Library, I had dreams of New York. (Prior to moving here the last dreams I had of California were when I was 13 and watching Clark Gable movies...sort of outgrew that by 17...) I imagined a writing life where I would leave the Midwest every year to go live in NYC from the week of Thanksgiving through Valentine's Day, in a little apartment right along the parade route like "Miracle On 34th Street" and toast the crowds below in a thick sweater and comfortable slacks. I would see snow every year, but because I was in a city I would never have to drive in it--I would get all of my staples from a market 50 feet from me on the street level and write all day long.

Strange how lately a couple of things return to me image-wise...I find myself dreaming of obscure intersections and hang-outs that I used to go to in Springfield, and I find myself wishing on NYC again. I read here and there in the Times once a week and here and there in the New Yorker once a week, and follow all of their issues with their new different levels of drivers' licenses.

(Not to mention the fact that their homeless and crime rates are better than ours, which we know is a weakness of mine.)

After my mother's death and after Gary's endeavor I didn't really look to a future at all--nowhere was home. Now I recognize the homes that I have:

• Against my nature - Ohio


• Missouri for the rural


• San Francisco for my own strength


• New York because it is mine

No one suspects New York unless they bring it up...last week one of my guys talked about New York in terms of visiting and all of my passion burst through. It was a little scary to behold. I quickly reined it in, but it was a bit late--he asks me occasionally why don't I live there. Not the right time, I say. The timing has to be right.

And here I am, nearly four years into California, still trying to give it a chance. It has it's moments that I love. I love 826, but they have one of those in NYC. I love Philz, wholly and without condition. I love the weather here, even though there is no snow. (In New York at some point it will become unreasonably hot. I can take cold, but not hot.) And I love the Golden Gate Bridge.

The time just isn't right.

But I get the feeling it will be, someday, and the Smoke will drift east and leave the sunset behind.

"Get out of California, some snow would be nice..."

Happy Thanksgiving, San Francisco, Missouri, Ohio and New York (blushes at the crush). Enjoy the parade.