Fleeting House

Landmark #132

2012-02-10T08:28:00.001-08:00

Landmark #132, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

The remarkable building at the center of this photo currently houses Emporio Armani. It is officially known to the City as Landmark #132 built in 1910 by the firm of Bliss & Fraville. It anchors Grant Avenue, the seriously elegant shopping street that marks the eastern boundary of Union Square. I took this shot from the Four Seasons Hotel, an imposing highrise completed in January 2001 -- making it SF's first 21st Century skyscraper -- while attending a real estate roundtable. Given the morning's topic, I couldn't resist snapping a shot of one of the city's most perfectly scaled historic landmarks.

Journey to Forbidden Island

2012-02-09T20:14:00.000-08:00

A friend & I went to Alameda by ferry yesterday to find a fabled Tiki bar called Forbidden Island. Neither of us are very familiar with Alameda, so we went blindly over the Bay to the Island armed only with an address and a return ferry ticket.

Alameda is an island city just off the Oakland coast known for military installations in transition to civilian use (eventually), and quiet suburban streets with neighborhoods of modest Victorians. The Oakland Harbor adds a working man's vibe to the Island. We found Forbidden Island, after a 45 minute walk from the ferry terminal through suburban tract jungle, abandoned military sites, streets of modest homes and subdued town centers. I'm sure there's more to know about Alameda, but on this day we were only after true Tiki cocktails.

I'm sure real aficionados of Tiki Culture have ways to gauge the experience from the quality & design of the drinks to the authenticity of the interior, vintage Tiki wares, the vibe, the native dress, and what have you. My impression is that Forbidden Island is a gem, worth the trip, certainly well stocked with an impressive menu. It isn't over-the-top or overly fashionable. The crowd appeared local and relaxed. The waitress couldn't have been nicer. The trek requires some planning & if you want to really explore the cocktails it's best to avoid driving, of course. You'll also want to eat elsewhere as the bar snacks are simple.

The Bells of Tsar Alexander III

2012-02-07T13:17:00.001-08:00

The Bells of Tsar Alexander III, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

The Russian Orthodox Church in America is centered in San Francisco. Its influence reaches north and west toward Alaska, the historic territory of Russian America where onion-domed churches still dot the townscapes. Russians have a deep and long history in America.

In California, Sonoma County was the southernmost establishment of the Imperial Muscovites. The hub from 1812 to 1841, Fort Ross, on the coast just north of the Russian River outlet, took its name from 'Rus,' as in Russia. Cattle raised in California fed the settlements of New Archangel (Sitka) and Pavlovskaia (Kodiak). Under the governorship of Alexandr Baranov, The Russian-American Company founded settlements in California, Hawaii, and Alaska before decades of decline culminated in The Alaskan Purchase of 1867 under President Lincoln. The Russian Experiment in America was officially over but its influence remains and flows like a subterranean river beneath us, pooling in springs for thirsty arrivals who tap the old vein.

In San Francisco today, the contemporary heart of Russian Culture is in The Avenues of the Richmond District, but its historic home is around Cow Hollow, at Holy Trinity Cathedral, Green Street and Van Ness Avenue. This humble parish on the western skirt of Russian Hill is one of the oldest in the contiguous United States. It is modest from the outside and sublime inside.

A most remarkable feature are its seven glorious bells, five of them cast by the Findlansky Foundry in Moscow around 1888 and given to the parish by Tsar Alexander III as a blessing for having survived an assassination attempt. Silver in the alloy as well as unusually fine tuning give the bells a special character and tone. Few such bells survived the Russian Revolution, and may not have survived their theft in 1999 had they not been returned a few weeks later. Their presence in San Francisco is a musical treasure and a real echo of Imperial Russia. Go listen.

Understanding settlement of the American Continent from many sources and directions helps get beyond the limiting idea of Manifest Destiny; that lock step march from East to West guided by the invisible hand of someone's own god. No.

God is far and near, welling up from within, coming at us from all directions, a silver bell, a revolution, an owl's call, an assassination and a resurrection.

Harbor Home

2012-02-06T15:21:00.001-08:00

So much is wrong and unwelcoming about Fisherman's Wharf -- shabby looking cookie-cutter shops full of disposable crap, nothing restaurants serving food in styles no one who lives here thinks of eating anymore -- and yet everything west of Hyde Street gets most everything right.

Hyde Street Pier and its exhibition of ships is a nautical play land. The beach at The Aquatic Park is my second favorite in the city and certainly the most accessible. It's never overcrowded. Tourists seem to stop at the cable car turnaround and go no further west than the confines of Ghiradelli Square. The Maritime Museum's restoration is finally complete so that the 1930's graphic & surreal sea forms of Sargent "Claude" Johnson vibrate alongside the shimmering mosaic work of Hilaire Hiler. The public deck offers not only stunning bay views but two sculptures by Benny Bufano enliven and anchor it as a bonafide art destination. The encircling breakwater & pier need maintaining. Perhaps the America's Cup in 2013 can attend to that as they refurbish the waterfront.

Admiral quarters overlook this cove from the western bluff of Fort Mason. Seals stare back at me with glistening ebony eyes, dark pools forecasting the weather. Cormorants dive again. Swimmers pace themselves in laps before emerging invigorated & reborn.

To pass through the Golden Gate and come upon this idyll is a sight worthy of any pilgrim's port; a siren call to abandon ship and stay forever.

Bufano at The Maritime Museum

2012-02-06T00:17:00.000-08:00

There are two wonderful Bufano sculptures at The Maritime Museum in The Aquatic Park on the deck overlooking the bay. His work is made of such incredibly hard stone. I wonder how he could possibly chip it much less craft such refined talismans.

Suport California Infrastructure

2012-02-05T23:14:00.000-08:00

You Got a Fast Car

2012-02-05T10:02:00.000-08:00

"I want a ticket to anywhere.

Maybe we make a deal.

Maybe together we can get somewhere."

-- Tracy Chapman, 1988.

Entrée des Artistes

2012-02-02T21:56:00.001-08:00

Entrée des Artistes, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

Macang Monastery at Night

2012-02-01T21:29:00.001-08:00

Macang Monastery at Night, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

"Everything changes, nothing remains without change.”

-- Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.

Buddhism evolves in interesting ways as it comes through cultures, adapting aesthetically, being changed by it, while bringing a core of powerful values to each society, thereby changing it. Its influence on America's West Coast is profound. San Francisco's culture and cityscape, in particular, have been transformed by Buddhism over the past half century. Many historic churches and cathedrals have become monasteries.

This photograph taken at night shows one of the city's oldest parishes, once known as Old Saint Patrick's. It was located on Market Street and Third Street where The Palace Hotel now stands. Prior to the Catastrophe of 1906, it was physically moved to The Western Addition on Eddy by Divisadero, and so is the city's oldest surviving church structure dating from 1854. The Greek Revival building was superseded around 1915 by the twin towered cathedral seen here. The original church lies on the lot just beyond it.

In 2006, after years of abandonment it was resurrected as Macang Monastery, led by Dharma King, Palden Lodoe. The original parish building is now the Monastery's art gallery.

Fujiya & Miyagi at The Independent

2012-02-01T18:10:00.000-08:00

Fujiya & Miyagi played The Independent by Alamo Square on Monday night. I had seen them at the same venue maybe two years ago. They are an English dance rock band with roots in German 'motorik,' Neu!, the hypnotic side of Can, Kraftwerk, and the deep, danceable grooves of "Remain in Light"-era Talking Heads.

Their visual style is arresting, as here on "Ankle Injuries," from 2006:

Fujiya, or rather David Best of Brighton, England, hardly ever raises his voice, preferring breathing effects like "-ah, -ah," or "rap-bap-bappity-bap -Ts," and leaning hard on strange words like "Minestrone!" that make them a bigger deal than you can imagine, like the revelation of the culprit in a crime. His lead guitar antics seem haphazard, as though he's just woken up and is diddling a riff for the first time, but are expert & intricate.

Miyagi, aka Steve Lewis on synthesizer, spreads his keyboards across the song effortlessly, adding enough surprises to keep each song unique when the rhythm is relentless. The bass & drum team of Matt Hainsby & Lee Adams tie everything down, lending a pulsing drive that makes crowds dance.

Their latest album, Ventriloquizzing, veers toward the darker end of the kosmische spectrum. I still listen to the previous two albums, Lightbulbs (2008), and Transparent Things (2006), all the time.

In concert, they seem like unlikely heroes. On record, there's no doubt that they are..."like pixelated scraps of jazz max in your head...lights."

The Ghosts of Spec's Adler Museum

2012-02-01T10:03:00.000-08:00

North Beach has two historic bars opposite one another at Columbus & Broadway that celebrate The Beat Era -- Vesuvio & Spec's. This is a ghostly shot inside Spec's, also known as the Adler Museum, a repository of Alaskana and curiosities like shrunken heads. It's an important stop on any bar crawl and is an authentic piece of the City's rich history.

Abstract Finance

2012-01-30T02:40:00.001-08:00

Abstract Finance, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

Shot on a Sunday afternoon in The Financial District around Pine Street where i work.

Threatening Head

2012-01-28T12:24:00.001-08:00

Threatening Head, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

I struggle with the work of Paul Klee, the Swiss modern artist whose work in the first half of the 20th Century has been cited as so extremely influential. His oeuvre is so wide-ranging and unsettled that categorizing it collectively is futile. I don't regard "categorization" as anything but a tool to sort through disparate, copious information, which is a defining feature of contemporary life. I also believe an artist can have multiple facets, more than one category of work, which is how I approach Klee. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art maintains a Klee gallery and are regarded as a major repository of his work. So, slowly, slowly, I've approached him in an attempt to get a handle on why he made such an impression. I connected with this particular piece called Threatening Head when I visited SFMoMA the other day. The facial features seem Asiatic or maybe Maori, but certainly exotic. The rat with a twig in its teeth is clearly strange but likely symbolic as much as literal. If "threat" is a part of Klee's message, this piece conveys it. It also poses as many questions as its title answers.

Nesting

2012-01-27T00:58:00.001-08:00

Nesting, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

The Last Sky

2012-01-26T10:43:00.001-08:00

The Last Sky, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

Because so much of this site is "meaningful" I've decided to rest my eye with this abstract shot of nothing in particular...

The Palace of My Fine Arts

2012-01-24T19:04:00.000-08:00

I took a drive today along the North Shore to The Palace of Fine Arts to draw. I love this grand folly dearly. I can't imagine San Francisco without it.

Dogpatch Green

2012-01-24T17:56:00.001-08:00

Dogpatch Green, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

What is Left of Irish Hill

2012-01-24T09:37:00.000-08:00

From the 1850s through the early decades of the 20th Century, the waterfront east of Potrero Hill thrived as a West Coast center of immigrant life and industry. The point of land here is made of serpentine rock that was blasted away to fill Mission Bay and the shoreline to the south. Workers at the mills and shipyards preferred to live within walking distance to the piers, even if that meant living in the midst of smoke stacks and heavy industry. The area bound by 23rd Street, Mariposa, Indiana, and 3rd Street called Dogpatch was once known as Dutchman's Flats. It occupies the flatland between Potrero Hill and Irish Hill, which now exists only as a rump of serpentine rock behind a storage yard.

The Scottish immigrants claimed Potrero, while the Dutch cottages separated them from the Irish inhabitants of the eastern edge of Mission Bay. Hotels dominated the streets closest to the ironworks serving the flow of new arrivals before they moved to a more settled, and less polluted, neighborhood. Butchertown lay between Dogpatch and Mission Creek, the northern dividing line between the abattoirs and heavy industry of the Eastern Waterfront and the lighter industry and warehouses of the South of Market District and the city's Central Waterfront. The geography of the waterfront district around Pier 70 has changed radically in the 150 years of industrial development. As the bay filled in and industry developed, residential housing was pushed back from the mill works. Third Street became the line of demarcation between work and home and Irish Hill declined quickly. Pier 70's industry was abandoned by the early 1970s as the Port of Oakland overtook San Francisco and heavy industry was pushed out of the city.

Irish Hill has been almost completely leveled, overworked, and neglected. Today, it's stirring to life again. A lot is at stake on San Francisco's Waterfront. What shape will the district take over this next decade?

The New Mission Bay

2012-01-23T21:26:00.001-08:00

The New Mission Bay, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

As noted in the post below, the feeling around the Mission Bay development on San Francisco's eastern bayside is fairly harsh, overly monumental and corporate. It really needs townhouses, residential street life in the mix to soften the Corporate Campus Effect. It isn't finished by any means, so I'll reserve my final judgement. I suspect it'll take a decade to fill in and for the City to adjust around it. There are a few elements I do like. This row of trees beside the Tower of the Rutter Center is a hopeful sign.

A Day in Dogpatch

2012-01-23T21:20:00.001-08:00

A Day in Dogpatch, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

For a fresh perspective on things, I headed down 3rd Street to Dogpatch, the semi-derelict district on the Eastern Waterfront that is slowly resurrecting itself. Just to its north is Mission Bay, the massive biotech campus of UCSF. The contrast with it and Dogpatch couldn't be more striking. Behind me in this shot is Pier 70, once the West Coast's mightiest shipyard, but long since gone to seed. Irish Hill once rose above the bay here, but now fills the bay itself with a mere serpentine outcrop to remind anyone that homes, hotels, shops and saloons once hugged this point along with the mills, steel works, and shipyards. Over the next decade, it is all slated for rehabilitation, or rather redevelopment into something less industrious than its past. There are some wonderful historic structures here that may be hard to retrofit. Given the soullessness of the Mission Bay development, it would behoove the City to insist on retaining the integrity of the historic waterfont district while keeping an eye on the future.

Market Street Bird House

2012-01-23T19:59:00.001-08:00

Market Street Bird House, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

I really love this charming yellow bird house I spotted on Market Street.

Behind Wells Fargo

2012-01-23T11:15:00.001-08:00

I took this shot looking down Leidesdorff Street last Friday when people were staging an Occupy the Banks demonstration. The demo was shut down pretty quickly, although it carried on through the rest of the day at other locations. On the upside, we're on the edge of a severe drought, so the rain was very welcome.

Morning Breaks

2012-01-23T11:12:00.000-08:00

On the Embarcadero last Saturday on the way to work the Farmers' Market...

The Lotus Reflection

2012-01-20T22:00:00.001-08:00

The Lotus Reflection, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

Bartol Street

2012-01-20T10:54:00.001-08:00

Bartol Street, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

I've always had a soft spot for this tiny lane behind a strip club off Broadway. I have a feeling it has its share of troubles after dark, but there's something so inviting about Bartol Street, and you can hardly knock the view.

Peep Hole

2012-01-18T18:48:00.001-08:00

Peep Hole, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

I've experienced a kind of image saturation lately that leads me to keep my camera in my pocket more often than not. It isn't that I don't want to record something, it's just an overwhelming feeling especially in such a tourist town that every view is over-documented. I need a reason, a tension, a narrative, or an abstraction to compel me. This is particularly true in Chinatown, a location that is so well photographed that I can hardly bear to aim & shoot. In that light, I've been trying to see telling details, rather than explanatory vistas, to tell a tale of a day in the neighborhood. As the Flower Festival flowed around me, I focused on this peep hole in a door on Jackson Street. It seemed to sum up something not just about the neighborhood but about my reticence to be so aimlessly snap happy. There is a protective guard around tourist towns, understandable as everyone descends on it with intentions. I try not to have 'rules' about my dealing with outsiders versus locals, but I do find that I have a natural peep hole that I look through to help narrow my gauge and read the portent of quizzical visitors.

Casting Shadows

2012-01-17T23:13:00.001-08:00

Casting Shadows, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

The long light of Winter does beautiful things to the fire escape on Balance Street in Jackson Square.

Schein & Schein presents: The Republic of California

2012-01-15T14:57:00.001-08:00

Schein & Schein presents: The Republic of California, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

Schein & Schein, the vintage maps shop in North Beach, always keeps window displays that attract passers-by while educating them.

Cartophilia is the love of maps. Yet maps can lie, maps can reveal, they can change the way you see the places you've been and re-arrange your idea of home. A map can bring an idea to life or drive people to die for its cause. Maps can show you the way but you might also be lost in them.

If I had more wall space, I'd probably have a vintage map like this one. For now, I'm happy to walk by it and spend a while poring over the contours of California, then light out for the territory.

Tiny Ferris Wheel

2012-01-15T14:48:00.001-08:00

Tiny Ferris Wheel on Pacific Street, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

Chinatown's Lunar New Year festivities are in full swing. This morning, I stopped to watch kids ride this adorable tiny ferris wheel on Pacific Street. I could see it turn while I had breakfast at Cafe Brioche on Columbus.

Getting Ready for Chinese New Year

2012-01-14T15:10:00.001-08:00

It's that time of year again -- the colorful run-up to Chinese New Year -- The Year of the Dragon. My neighborhood starts to really buzz in these weeks. It's a great time to visit Chinatown. Festivities are taking place all along Grant Avenue this weekend. Come on down.

Time: Clock of the Heart

2012-01-10T21:21:00.000-08:00

The theme is Time. Winter is the time of year to reset clocks, to adjust the time to the light outside. January brings its resolutions, its resolve to find the time or to make time. My sense of time is good, but still I'm surprised by its changing rate as I grow older.

I wasn't pressed for time today, but I just felt, and was made, more aware of it than usual.

I woke up to the bad alarm clock I bought a few weeks ago that won't keep proper time. I'm not exactly sure when, sometime around 9:30am.

At the Museum of Modern Art, I captured this image of myself at 2:42pm on a video installation screen. The artist built a kind of split camera effect but on a single screen. One camera is on a few second's time delay, so as you approach it, it register's what went on a bit earlier. As you move out of the center, though, a second camera reverts to real time and you are suddenly jolted ahead to the present. As you walk into the time piece, you become a part of its transmission. It disrupts time wonderfully.

I call this shot Time: Clock of the Heart.

As I exited through the gift shop, my eye settled on a number of nicely designed, and fairly priced, watches. So, I bought this watch by a local company called Tokyo Bay after a nice exchange, a good time as it were, talking to shop clerk who seemed happy to pass the time showing them to me. Watches: those particular wristbands that mark modern man's busy life. Here's mine at 3:06pm.

Pacific Heights Bird Tiles

2012-01-10T03:08:00.001-08:00

Pacific Heights Tiles, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

On my walk this afternoon, I marveled at this opulent pair of birds in tile work the foyer of an apartment building in Pacific Heights. Isn't it terrific?

Spare the Air

2012-01-10T02:42:00.000-08:00

The weather seems bizarre. January in the 60s with no sign of rain might be nice in a fairy tale way, but the air quality has really suffered. More alerts have been issued, "Spare the Air" days. In our man-made times, the Anthropocene, warmer winters are expected.

We may have slipped past the tipping point, into the frying pan, over a fire.

Stone Boy

2012-01-10T02:38:00.001-08:00

Stone Boy, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

MUNI failure can be a walker's reward. I took an alternate route up Fillmore Street from Market when the subway messed up. Much later in the afternoon, I ended up walked through Pacific Heights on my way home. The weather has been unseasonably warm so the walk was fine. I spotted this fantastic stone boy adorning a mansion. Serendipity, a walkable city, a day off, and an often faulty transportation system can uncover treasures. Look up.

Game Day

2012-01-08T20:48:00.001-08:00

Game Day: Pittsburgh Steelers by Digiorno's on Columbus, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

When a big game happens it's a chance to watch a crowd riveting on one thing. It happened, too, that some meme got out about wearing underwear around town for who knows why. I decided to sit on the sidewalk in front of The Stinking Rose and paint the Steelers fans at Digiorno's Pittsburgh Sandwiches on Columbus Avenue.

Here's to more Sunday afternoons like this one.

Year One, Jackson Street

2012-01-05T22:17:00.000-08:00

The street outside my apartment cycles through the day and night, rising and ebbing but rarely pausing.
If I put a microphone by the window you'd hear...

...an ambulance; the hum of traffic; honking horns; firecrackers; people talking loudly after midnight walking home from bars; the long squeal of a trucker's brakes outside the Chinese Hospital making deliveries in the middle of the night; the clang of trollies turning west off Powell Street, climbing up Nob Hill; cable car riders at night hollering in unison as if on a roller coaster as the trolley turns up the hill -- WwwHhhOoo; a flock of screaming wild parrots passing overhead; the Cantonese chatter of parishioners leaving Cumberland Presbyterian Church across way; tourists taking pictures or looking at maps, talking about where they are, or where to eat; handsome paramedics guiding gurneys into the hospital, the patient's relatives going in or making worried phone calls outside; medics on smoke breaks talking to the security guard; garbage & recycling trucks; car alarms; drunk pairs of women teetering on spiked heels, spinning each other around, vomiting in the gutter; kids playing kick ball in the alley.

It might, for brief moments, seem still but always the rustle of the city, the electric light, the waves.

Coit Reflection

2012-01-04T00:09:00.001-08:00

Coit Reflection, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

Tomorrow it's back to work after a good restive holiday season.The view from my office of Coit Tower certainly helps keep stress in check.

Star Anise Seattle Bodhisattva

2012-01-03T15:36:00.001-08:00

"Homage to the Blessed One, The Master of Healing, The King of Lapis Lazuli Radiance, The One Thus-Come, The Worthy One, The Fully and Perfectly Awakened One, thus: ‘Hail! Appear, O Healer, O Healer, O Great Healer, O King of Healing!’ ”

-- Bhaisajyaguru's Mantra.

Star Anise Buddha, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

I bought this Medicine Buddha -- Bhaiṣajyaguru, भैषज्यगुरु, Medicine Master and King of Lapis Lazuli Light, Supreme Healer, My Bodhisattva -- late one afternoon in the autumn of 2004 at HempFest in Myrtle Edwards Park on the shore of Elliott Bay by Seattle Center. It's a very important icon in my home. The bottom of the lotus flower, its base, opens and prayers can be stored inside. I got it at a very fraught time in my life. Now it's a kind of beacon in the room that concentrates on healing and being in the right place. When I bought it, though, I did so somewhat carelessly, as you might expect at HempFest. In the seven years since, I've begun to see what it is, why it is here, what it might mean on my path.

Seattle is not as much a hub in my life as a screw in the next ring from the center where the spokes attach. I've lived there time and again because it is between all places, not because I am driven to live there. It is a good city, not a great one, but its vistas are of Valhalla, Olympics to Cascades, it is set amidst a Sound strung by ferries, islands by bridges, deep dark woods, colors of gray, moss, granite, mercury light, white water.
I first visited family in Seattle around 1974. My recollection of is of Pike Place Market, a labyrinth full of strange shops, great windows onto Elliott Bay, a wild, and for a child from Germany via Alaska, frightfully diverse lot of people including a fair share of Native Americans and Black Folks.
In 1990, I left Missoula for the first time, after graduating from University, to live in Seattle. This episode lasted a few seasons before I returned to Missoula for another, final year. 1990 Seattle was as you might imagine, a burgeoning city set to shoot up the pop charts in a grungy, angst-ridden, cathartic rocket. I saw so many bands, drank a lot of coffee, volunteered at an anarchist bookshop in Pike Place Market, and did a poor job at copy shop at the base of Smith Tower called Sudden Printing. before the anxiety of the First Gulf War drove me back to Montana. Not long after I left the rest of the World found out all about Seattle.
I found myself in there again in 1999 after a long period in San Francisco and a brief spell in Portland. I was trying to avoid The Bay Area's dot.com Boom by 'getting back to the garden,' as it were, but in retrospect I was only being contrary and restless. I certainly didn't escape the Irrational Exuberance of the era. I was lucky enough to be on the launch crew for Experience Music Project, Paul Allen's irrationally exuberant display of Hendrix memorabilia, a vast showcase of Pacific Northwest music history, concert hall, and Frank Gehry smashed-guitar-of-a-building at the base of the Space Needle. For one year, 1999 through 2000, I had a rock and roll job with rock and roll people. EMP opened. We had a massive party involving Beck, Eurythmics, Neko Case, Patti Smith, Bob Mould, Mudhoney. Then the contract was over. I left for Japan in October 2000 for nine months.

September 2001 I was back in Seattle again. The century began disastrously on a bright blue morning in New York City. I had gotten incredibly ill the week before and ended up in a hospital, briefly, before spending the horrible aftermath recovering in an RV I had bought and lived in as if always on The Road. It was a classically fucked up time. The period between 2001 and 2005 couldn't have been more different than my time before Japan. I had no work for a long stretch, was very ill for a long time, living with friends, sleeping on couches, visiting the food bank. I finally found a job, almost a calling, in Pike Place Market when I scored a position helping to open a cheese shop where they made wonderful cheddar as well as sold regional hand made cheeses. For two years, 2003 until I left Seattle for the final time in October 2005, I dedicated myself to Market Life, the miracle of fermentation, and getting my proverbial shit together. After a life-changing trip to France in the Summer of 2005, I came back to the States determined to go back to San Francisco for good. I went to the HempFest just before I left Seattle.

A Bodhisattva is a wise being whose path is to help others escape samsara, the cycles of birth, life, death, rebirth, and reincarnation so that they may attain Nirvana.

Namo bhagavate bhaiṣajyaguru vaidūryaprabharājāya tathāgatāya arhate samyaksambuddhāya tadyathā: oṃ bhaiṣajye bhaiṣajye bhaiṣajya-samudgate svāhā.

The Cinema That Saw Me

2012-01-02T10:40:00.001-08:00

I look back at my time at University as much through films as books. As a student in the 1980s at the University of Montana in Missoula, I took full advantage of the film history classes dissecting indelible films like The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, Der Blaue Engel, and Battleship Potemkin. The wide-eyed programming on campus brought us edgy classics from John Waters (a naughty guest) and a full-blown controversy when Fassbender's Querelle shocked half the audience and deeply pleased the other half. The town was also blessed with a fantastic, well-attended film house called The Crystal Theatre, site of many a dark night lit by the flicker of the screen and spirits lifted by the crowd's delight in the decade's cinematic highlights -- Peter Greenaway's A Zed & Two Noughts, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover, and Drowning by Numbers; Jane Campion's Sweetie and An Angel at My Table; Gus Van Sant's Mala Noche, Drugstore Cowboy, and My Own Private Idaho; Pedro Almodóvar's Spanish blooms; Talking Head's collaboration with Jonathan Demme in Stop Making Sense; Terry Gilliam's visionary Brazil.

The photograph seen here of The theatre was taken in 1988, most likely by its owner, Jace. He is the bearded man with arms crossed -- Jace Jorma Laakso -- and with him are the staff including Marcy Boltz, Ty Richardson, Susan Armstrong, and Joel Baird.

Around 1986, a pioneering Montana Gay & Lesbian Film Festival was established by two dear friends, Joel Baird and his partner at the time, Sean Dwyer. In the state of Montana, such cultural dabblings could bring serious consequences. An air of frisson seemed to hang above the proceedings making the act of attending such films at a public place feel like a revolutionary act. It helped that the films were chosen with such care and in retrospect tapped into an well of inspiration during a time when gay people were in dire need of it. I can reel off in my mind's eye still -- to name only a few -- Wesler East of the Wall, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Matador, Parting Glances, Edward II.

That last title is one by Derek Jarman. His films took a long time for me to digest. They were more like paintings and treatises than stories and pictures. I knew another world of ideas rumbled under the celluloid's surface but it has taken years for the sound to rise to a fury of sublimely crafted rage, which is just what the plague years called for.

I recently watched Caravaggio released in 1986. I can see now in my mid-40s why my 20 something self would have been impatient with it. It is studied, mannered, stylized, but also wicked and pagan. It is also one of the most closely observed showings of the sorrow and sublimity that drives great art and artists. It is a life as art, not becoming art. The film does what a great piece of art can do: forever change the thing always before our eyes that disappears unless it is stripped naked again. It was also the film debut, in fact only the second time before a camera, of Tilda Swinton whose penetrating stare would burn holes in the silver screen over the next decades.

Like a coincidence that drives so much plot in cinema and just as I turned my full attention to Jarman lately, I happened on the day after I watched Caravaggio to come across this photograph in a magazine showing Derek Jarman at his seaside Kent home in England, 1989. Also, as I looked for a vintage 80s picture of The Crystal itself, I found one on its facebook fan page that so happens on its marquee to feature a 1988 Jarman adaptation of Benjamin Britten's, War Requiem. He continues long after his death to reach out to me, to teach me a way to see differently, to revisit, to re-invent, to re-invest fleeting or familiar images with the weight of centuries.

It's Going to Be...

2012-01-01T13:10:00.000-08:00

A Good Year for the Birds and Me.

The Color Of San Francisco

2012-01-01T09:38:00.000-08:00

I stumbled onto a website called The Color Of that takes a batch of the most recent uploads to flickr of any word or phrase you choose and makes a kind of swatch of those photos to illustrate the overall color scheme of that word or phrase.

I'm always struck by how distinct color palates are from one city to another -- the brick red of some neighborhoods of New York, the granite stone and bright roofs of Montreal, the white-wash and pastels of Puerto Vallarta.

It's an interesting color experiment.

From One Year to the Next

2011-12-31T17:03:00.001-08:00

Tic, Toc...

Farewell 2011.

Tic, Toc...

Hello 2012.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

My Better Self

2011-12-29T20:25:00.000-08:00

Temporary Autonomous Zones

2011-12-29T10:37:00.000-08:00

New Year's Resolutions don't tend to stick, but I'm going to set this one in writing so it might have a better chance. 2012 is the year I'll be stepping WAY back from facebook, which has become a combination Total Information Surveillance Network and an annoying burr under my saddle. So expect to see a more robust Fleeting House in the coming months as I adjust my online life away from fb and toward the Temporary Autonomous Zone [TAZ] of blogger. The Social Network Effect is a strange force of habit that seems to have little reward. I don't really want to commodify my friendships and I'm increasingly uncomfortable mingling all my family, friends, and acquaintances in one pot. Comes a time when the high school reunion must end and the real work of inquiry, serendipity, and looking forward must begin.

The Irish Bank on Boxing Day

2011-12-27T20:21:00.000-08:00

Time seems to stand still during the week between Christmas and New Year. I really enjoy it. The city is both busy with visitors and shoppers and quiet with the absence of locals who are away for the Holidays. After a long walk around downtown, I spent the afternoon of Boxing Day at The Irish Bank -- a wonderful, cozy pub with good Hibernian food for a good price. I watched soccer with the pub locals, listened to the terrific jukebox and ate homey shepherd's pie and ale. This place makes me feel like a hobbit in The Shire. Find it tucked away on Mark Lane off Bush Street just east of the Chinatown Gate.

Laocoön & his Two Sons

2011-12-26T13:59:00.001-08:00

"Equo ne credite, Teucri! Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentis."

"Do not trust the horse, Trojans! Whatever it is, I fear the Danaans, even when bringing gifts."
Laocoön & his Two Sons, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

The Trojan priest, Laocoön, warned the people of Troy against accepting the gift, a great horse, a bettering ram, that held in its belly scores of soldiers from the mainland. Among the soldiers inside it who lay siege and destroyed Troy were Odysseus [Ulysses] a cunning king whose epic voyage home from the war is told by Homer in The Odyssey. That tale is among my favorite books, one that changed the way i see the world, hear language, and learn to pay great heed to literature's many siren songs.
I had heard that a copy of the Roman sculpture of Laocoön existed somewhere in Lincoln Park in San Francisco's Northwest corner, so i set out the other day on my own small odyssey to find it. Here it is, in a small grove beside the southern wall of The Palace of the Legion of Honor. The serpent's head is missing and a fig leaf covers Laocoön's manhood, but it is still an impressive sculpture echoing in marble his warning to the besieged people of Troy against Greeks bearing gifts. The price Laocoön and his two sons paid for interfering with Gods and the ways of war is cast here forever in hard writhing stone.
Troy burned.

Because I'm a Wanderer

2011-12-25T21:42:00.001-08:00

Because I'm a Wanderer, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

For all the urban density of San Francisco, there are also tremendous open spaces. Here all possibilities, like the western horizon, seem endless.

And there ain't no one goin' to turn me 'round...

2011-12-23T23:46:00.001-08:00

That's a line from a Big Star song but this picture reminds me of regal San Francisco version of the famous Bob Dylan shot with Suze Rotolo. This is my homage to that vibe, the feeling of being together against any odds, come what may, except instead of the Bohemian ramshackle of mid-century New York City we are in Twenty-First Century San Francisco, on Nob Hill, aspiring to yesterday's idea of classy. It might not be altogether right, but "there ain't no one's going to turn me 'round."
And there ain't no one goin' to turn me 'round..., a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

Christmas Tree 2011

2011-12-23T22:43:00.001-08:00

Christmas Tree 2011, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

It's a start. I've got 12 days to go with this baby...

Mourner No. 54

2011-12-23T21:55:00.001-08:00

Mourner No 54, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

The Mourners of the Courts of Burgundy leave San Francisco at the end of the year. See them at The Palace of the Legion of Honor and be sure to bring a sketch book. Each one is a perfect penitent.
Sublime...

a little cabin in the city

2011-12-23T10:39:00.001-08:00

a little cabin in the city, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

Hotel des Artes, next to Le Central Restaurant on Bush Street downtown, sponsors public art on its exterior wall. This almost always means a mural, but last month this inspired piece popped out of the bricks to delight passersby. I laugh every time I see it.

Funky Bass Man

2011-12-22T10:51:00.000-08:00

While you're out doing any last minute Christmas shopping around Union Square, be sure to go by the intersection of Powell and Geary where musicians ply their trade at night. If you're lucky, you'll catch this most radical funky bass man who seems the spawn of George Clinton and Bootsy Collins straight off the mother ship with neon strings, a head full of regalia, glowing rings and absolutely awesome skills on the bass guitar. His slapping lines are a thrilling accompaniment to the manic crowds who slow down to listen and admire him despite their hard drive for merchandise against the ticking clock.

The Pillars of Christmas

2011-12-20T21:05:00.001-08:00

The Pillars of Christmas, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

The Financial District in the days before Christmas becomes quieter while the shopping districts like Union Square speed up with manic shoppers. This season is a Festival of Lights as the buildings, not only the trees, are trimmed and aglow with illuminated colors.

War is Kinda Over!

2011-12-20T21:00:00.001-08:00

War is Kinda Over!, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

John & Yoko in San Francisco's Financial District, December 20th, 2011.

Swarovski Christmas

2011-12-19T20:46:00.001-08:00

Swarovski Christmas, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

Have yourself as swanky a holiday as you can afford even if that means a really terrific dinner out by yourself with all the trimmings. It's a dark time of year so shine a little light. Or refract it, as may be. There'll be time enough for frugality as times go by.

Medusa's Metamorphosis

2011-12-19T01:19:00.000-08:00

Bernini's Medusa is on special exhibit at The Palace of the Legion of Honor. We're fortunate that the Musei Capitolini in Rome has lent us this precious object. The Baroque master sculputed it in the 1640s. The sympathetic and frightening bust captures the moment of metamorphosis from Beauty to Gorgon, a bewildering turn of events for the vain lady obviously. It's on view and must be seen through February 19th, 2012.

The Spreckels Organ

2011-12-19T01:16:00.001-08:00

The Spreckels Organ, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

The mighty Spreckels Organ is built into The Palace of the Legion of Honor. Designed by the Ernest M. Skinner Company in 1924, it has 4,526 pipes and is considered among the world's finest organs. When it comes to life and roars at four each weekend afternoon, all the old bones around The Palace rise again and the whole place quivers like a living forest of stone on a cliff above the sea.

Banana from Peru

2011-12-15T20:32:00.001-08:00

Banana, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

I've been eating these small Peruvian bananas lately -- delicious and perfectly sized.

Budweiser @ Ellis & Mason

2011-12-13T22:37:00.001-08:00

I went to an Urban Land conference at the Hotel Nikko downtown this morning. The tone of the meeting was pitched somewhere between "high anxiety" and "coping" -- which would be "limbo," I suppose. During one of the coffee breaks, I snapped this view overlooking Ellis and Mason Street into The Tenderloin. For all the drama in real estate, the economy and thoughts of the future, a view like this one reminds me that daily commerce will still go on, some new buildings will get built, and people will always go about their day whether the sky is falling or not.

The Christmas Tree at Union Square

2011-12-13T15:25:00.001-08:00

The Christmas Tree at Union Square, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

It is an ancient northern Winter scene: the great yule tree connecting Sky and Earth pierces the center of the square where all the people come to dance, to skate, to see the gifts and lights, to reach together for a new kind of hope in the darkest time of year.

They Cannot Kill Us. We Are Already Dead.

2011-12-12T20:03:00.001-08:00

I saw this beautiful piece of punk street art today at Haight & Ashbury.

Santarchy 2011

2011-12-11T12:42:00.000-08:00

Scene: Powell Street Cable Car Turnaround.

Day: SantaCon & Santarchy. Saturday, December 10th, 2011.

Dread Man: "What are You lookin' at?"

Other Guy: "Santas!"

December Ember Days

2011-12-10T04:19:00.001-08:00

December Ember Days, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

The religious calendar is always chock-a-block full of events, isn't it. I happened upon The Ordination of Deacons & Priests at Grace Cathedral not long ago. I love taking in the circumstance of it all; the arrangement, the costume, the grace, the cathedral.

Enter A Priest

2011-12-09T12:21:00.001-08:00

Enter A Priest, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

I'm not a particularly religious person but I do appreciate the aspirational architecture of churches and the pomp and circumstance of religous rituals. I find this shot of a cleric going into Grace Cathedral funny. I'm not sure why.

Victorian Night Lines

2011-12-08T02:31:00.001-08:00

Victorian Night Lines, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

An ominous scene outside a friend's house in Japantown

Write a letter, send a postcard...

2011-12-06T22:47:00.001-08:00

write a letter, send a postcard, don't be a stranger, wish you were here, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

...don't be a stranger, give us a ring, wish you were here, send my love, see you soon.

Love -- Dean V.

Bauhaus Wreaths

2011-12-06T10:47:00.001-08:00

Bauhaus Wreaths, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

The Christmas decorations on one of my favorite residential towers in San Francisco, the Bauhaus beauty at Sacramento and Taylor Street atop Nob Hill, are suitably perfect. In another lifetime i'll live here, happily in the sweet ever after.

He is with the Shepherd as the Shepherd is with the Sheep

2011-12-05T23:40:00.001-08:00

He is with the Shepherd, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

A detail of the gorgeous wood-carved Crèche at Grace Cathedral.

Invisible Man

2011-12-05T23:24:00.001-08:00

Invisible Man, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

I was lucky to see a temporary installation at Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill called Invisible Man by Daniel Joshua Goldstein. This spinning ghost image is made of 864 syringes tipped with blood-red crystal beads pointing inward on an empty space in the shape of a man. As it turns, the negative space becomes more apparent and a transformation happens, as if the eye conjures a body out of sharp medical objects, thin air and rays of warm light.

It's an eloquent World AIDS Day art piece. Invisible Man embodies the dual promise & peril of medicine and intravenous drug use; what can save and prolong lives can also destroy body and soul. Goldstein's work commemorates 30 years of an epidemic and reminds us again of the vast artistic toll and response to this terrible plague.

Holiday Season: Cafe Flore

2011-12-03T00:36:00.001-08:00

Cafe Flore decked out for the Holidays, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

The folks at Cafe Flore do know how to decorate for the Holidays. It's one of San Francisco's best spots -- a perfect combination of green house, gay bar, and European cafe with terrific food in a perfect location. Find it at the corner of Noe & Market Street where The Castro District meets Duboce Triangle.

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire

2011-12-02T11:12:00.001-08:00

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

I seem to fixate on specific years and dive deeply into the history, the feel, the music, the vibe of that time. Lately, it's all about the 70s for me.

I can't get enough of Will Hermes' new book about New York City called Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in NYC That Changed Music Forever. It surveys the cultural landscape of the Big Apple from 1973 through 1977, bringing it so vividly to life that I can feel it, hear it, smell it, see it, taste it. The title is inspired by an early Talking Heads song that was itself inspired by the epidemic of insurance-related arson that swept the city's boroughs during the 70s.

[For a hair-raising history of that firey time see Joe Flood's fascinating book called The Fires: How a Computer Formula, Big Ideas, and the Best Intentions Burned Down New York City -- & Determined the Future of Cities.]

Hermes makes a strong case that as the metropolis crumbled and burned something new and electric rose in the night from smoking rubble. All kinds of New Yorkers danced together, turning the tables as it were, further pushing countercultures overground. The past isn't inherently better than the present, but times do have a quality whether shabby, opulent, fair, treacherous, indifferent. New York City in the 1970s was anything but indifferent, certainly, but only now has enough time passed to cast a fair eye back on those distant-enough times.

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire shows that underneath a tough, burnt-out city a hot forge burned and hammers struck out strange shapes for a new society. One that might change lives if only for a dark night; might light your fire; might leave you but a stoned and glowing cinder.

The Princess & The Pea

2011-12-01T09:32:00.001-08:00

The Princess & The Pea, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

Shreve & Co., the lux Union Square jeweler, has terrific Holiday window displays featuring revolving scenes of famous fairy tales and wildly expensive jewelry. I imagine I'll never set foot in the store, but I relish the window treatments. Here's a depiction of that famously petulant princess whose hyper-delicate nature marks her royal lineage. Some may quibble that it sends a negative image of women, but to me it might also speak to the thin-skinned character of allegedly important people.

Market Street Cool

2011-11-28T15:12:00.001-08:00

Market Street Cool, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

The Holidays are pandemonium downtown, naturally. I spend much of my time soaking up the frenetic energy while maintaining a lower buzz factor, not traveling, and certainly not binging on consumer bling. I like playing the Holidays small but intensely, imagining it as much a Season of Light before the real doldrums of the dead of Winter as a time to break the bank on stuff. One of the great free spectacles is watching so many fashionably dressed people around Union Square bundled up against the the chill, making fashion statements on every street corner.

The Great Saint Francis Sugar Castle

2011-11-27T18:15:00.001-08:00

The Great Saint Francis Sugar Castle, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

I like to pass through all the wonderfully decorated hotel lobbies downtown during the Holiday Season. The Westin Saint Francis on Union Square this year features a towering Sugar Castle with a sizable train encircling a village at its base. The lobby itself puts me in the mood for unrestrained luxury, but that, like this heavenly castle, is a sweet and pure fantasy.

Sea Lions

2011-11-26T16:41:00.000-08:00

Most San Franciscans avoid Fisherman's Wharf as it has been overrun with the very worst kind of tourist kitsch and indecent food. That said, I do enjoy watching the sea lions basking on their berths, bellowing and roughhousing. I'd recommend everyone skip all the tack shacks, the wax museum, the limpid restaurants and mimes. Instead, take time to go out to the end of the pier and enjoy the company of these magnificent aquatic mammals.

The Cornucopia

2011-11-25T08:13:00.001-08:00

The cornucopia I picked up on Market Street from a Russian florist looks wonderful on the table at my friend's home. I especially like the peppers poking out of it. I hope your Thanksgiving weekend is long, lazy, and rich with friends, family, food, and fun.

Road to Nirvana

2011-11-23T01:44:00.000-08:00

The streets around Moscone Convention Center are fairly bleak as the facility itself is largely underground and the rooflines are low and corporate. The public art is passable but sticks out like colorful, sore thumbs. So when i looked up at the crosswalk to see this Buddhist monk casting an eye into the oncoming traffic, perhaps hoping to hail a cab, for one brief moment i was arrested by this sublime and telling scene. Sometimes a city street can read like a koan.

Autumn Auto Artaud

2011-11-21T21:52:00.000-08:00

I love this vintage cruiser i saw today by Theatre Artaud in The Mission District. I think, sometimes, that I don't really pay attention to cars, but then I see one that's impressive, or at least recalls an impressive time. It's a Dodge Lancer from 1961.

Bay & Rainbow

2011-11-21T10:10:00.001-08:00

Bay & Rainbow, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

I'll take any signs of hope these days anywhere I can find it.

Madonna Fukushima

2011-11-20T18:37:00.001-08:00

Madonna Fukushima, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

This incredible new piece in the window of SFMoMA's Artists Gallery on Minna Street stopped me in my tracks. It's called Madonna Fukushima by Chris Shaw. His response to the March 11th Catastrophe in Japan riffs on Hokusai's familiar Great Wave and classic Japanese block prints as well as the poster art for which Shaw is best known. He also used black light-active paint that must emit a dreadful glow at night. I'll have to return after dark soon to see. Madonna Fukushima is a vibrant, gorgeous but chilling work about an ongoing and unresolved disaster, one that is almost too overwhelming to really comprehend.

Red Coat

2011-11-19T21:20:00.001-08:00

Red Coat, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

People around Union Square this time of year look especially fashionable as the weather brings out fine coats and accessories. This woman's gaze is so direct. She has a natural kind of authority strong black women around the world seem to radiate.

Bush Street at Day's End

2011-11-19T12:34:00.000-08:00

At the end of the work day the streets downtown buzz with activity: folks headed out of town or arriving; groups on their way to restaurants and bars; shoppers having a last go; buskers and drummers keeping rhythm and beats resounding; an array of people as diverse as the architecture. It's a grand procession as old as the oldest city, as familiar in Athens as it is in the urban centers of California.

Night Lights on Belden

2011-11-17T23:18:00.001-08:00

Night Lights on Belden, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

Nighttime is the right time on one of The City's most picturesque dining streets, Belden Place, downtown in the shadow of the BofA Tower.
Frenchmen in the early years of Gold Rush settle in this district, hence The French Quarter tag. It can reclaim that title, certainly, each July 14th, Bastille Day, as the street is the epicenter of the party, filled with expatriates and Francophiles eating, drinking, and celebrating the culture's rich pleasures at tables set so very far from home -- Paris just a string of dim lights flickering in their homesick minds.

Occupying the Bank

2011-11-17T08:01:00.001-08:00

Here's the scene yesterday around 4pm in downtown San Francisco where students protesting the action of Regents -- raising tuition and cracking down on protests on campuses -- took over the Bank of America on California and Davis Street. They set up a tent inside and wouldn't be budged until riot police came in and began arresting them one by one.

Twelve Thousand Kilometers from Cairo

2011-11-14T14:39:00.001-08:00

My friend, Leslie, remarked that this photograph could have been taken in Egypt, although it is taken in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. The woman in Muslim hijab does throw the mind's compass off somewhat, but it is by no means an unusual sight to see women in head dress here. This is, after all, a World City in a wildly mixed State.

Twelve Thousand Kilometers from Cairo, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

The tower of the New DeYoung Museum never fails to impress, and the building's copper sheathing is taking on a natural patina. Now that the fountains behind the hedge in this shot are repaired and the Academy of Science, behind me, is open and in a good groove, this area -- bisected by 9th Avenue -- has become a tremendous hub of cultural activity and one of the most pleasant places in San Francisco.

Helen of California

2011-11-13T22:53:00.001-08:00

Helen of California, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

The Armenian sculptor and bohemian San Franciscan, Haig Patagian, was commissioned by James Phelan in 1927 to create this bust of Helen Wills Moody (1905 - 1998), also known as Helen of California, the celebrated tennis superstar. She won eight Wimbeldon championships and was a respected artist in her own right, counting Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera among her friends. Rivera even used her as the model for his work in San Francisco's City Club, The Allegory of California. Upon her death at age 92, she left her alma mater, UC Berkeley, $10 million dollars to establish the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. The bust is now in the collection of the New DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park and is a solid reminder of this powerful, accomplished, and philanthropic Californian.

A Child in the Royal Courts of India

2011-11-13T10:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday afternoon, I checked out the Asian Art Museum's exhibition Maharaja: The Splendor of India's Royal Courts.

I've never been to India but am as mystified by it as anyone. I went expecting a lux experience, and got one, but i also learned quite a lot about the symbolic and visceral power of such precious objects.

I felt like a child in the royal courts of India.

Concurrent with the Maharaja Exhibition is a contemporary show promoting the graphic artist Sanjay Patel, whose books appeal to children and vividly tell the ancient stories of dieties, avatars, the Ramayana, in a way that recalls Nina Paley's 2008 animated film, Sita Sings the Blues. Patel was there to sign his books and judging from the endless snaking line of people, adults & children, his popular work is a 21st century third eye on a distant land.

In the final gallery I came across a group of works concerning Maharaja Yeshwant Rao Holkar II of Indore, a ruler and style icon of the 1920s and 30s. Man Ray's series of photographs of Rao and his glamorous wife, Maharani Sanyogita Devi, posing in Paris strike a jazzy note. The tonic chord for me, though, the piece that brought the Peacock Courts' opulent power home in a modern way is a 1929 painting of Rao by Bernard Boutet de Monvel. I can't take my eyes off it. The chic Maharaja's gesture, his style, his dress, his obviously royal bearing, his noble profile are expressed with restraint yet the painter is obviously in awe of the late milieu of Maharaja of India. So am i.

It all ended for the Royal Courts by 1947: The Partition. Still, the jewels remain, hefty carats of diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, pearls and rubies set in platinum and gold, fortunes dispersed across museums and small palaces around India and the World. I'd trade all that, though, for this one cloth canvas dabbed in oils and soaked in luxury.

Elim Street Cat Lady is Watching You

2011-11-11T20:50:00.001-08:00

Elim Street Cat Lady is Watching You, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

The sight above is a fairly unsettling piece of wheat-pasted public art as seen on 1st Street by Elim, South of Market. I actually find the ubiquitous closed-circuit camera on the right more disturbing than the woman's expression. Between her circumstance, the passive cat, and the surveillance the scene comes off as both voyeuristic and oppressive. In other words, a fine reflection of the times.

Sam's Grill After Work

2011-11-10T17:47:00.001-08:00

Sam's Grill After Work, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

Downtown between The Financial District and Union Square is a blended zone along Kearny Street, its side streets and alleys, that is the 'canteen' for workers, visitors, and expense-account executives alike. No other part of town's restaurant scene is really as diverse as this one. New restaurants pop up like mushrooms and disappear like cherry blossoms, but some -- like Sam's Grill -- are venerable dining institutions with loyal clientele; like California oaks, well established and perennial. Belden Place, the restaurant-packed alley to the right of the neon sign here, twinkles with European cafe culture well into the evening. Most corners of San Francisco have their culinary attractions, but few have the concentration and quality of this particular downtown quarter.

Bridge Element

2011-11-09T21:15:00.001-08:00

bridge element, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

There's so much to say about the development of San Francisco around Portsmouth Square, the city's oldest center point, so I'll start small.
This is a bridge element to the Chinatown Hilton. It sits on the overpass above Kearny Street connecting The Square and the former site of The Hall of Justice.
Today, The Hilton Chinatown is a Brutalist Monument of The 1970s, barely concealing its middle finger to the surrounding neighborhoods.
The redevelopment of the blocks once known as Little Manila, by the Transamerica Pyramid, are evolving quickly into a new district after two decades of inertia.

This element is meant to symbolize Chinatown. It may, in the sense that you can't see all sides of it at first glance, even as you think you see through it.

The Golden West

2011-11-08T22:42:00.001-08:00

Winged City, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

Downtown San Francisco glows on a bright Autumn afternoon. This is a view looking west on Market and Montgomery Street with The Native Sons of The Golden West Monument in the center and The Palace Hotel in the background.

Game Day North Beach

2011-11-08T13:44:00.001-08:00

Game Day North Beach, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

I'll admit it: I'm NOT a sports fan. That said, I do like that something, anything, can bring folks together in comraderie to share something and usually enjoy BBQ together. There's never enough of that in this world. Walking around North Beach, I came across this group of neighbors enjoying a rather elaborate sidewalk set-up of two flat screen TVs showing different angles on the football game while loading the dogs on the grill. It was a mundane, but touching neighborhood moment in The Big City.

New Hat New Shirt New Season

2011-11-06T17:09:00.000-08:00

The weather finally turned to Fall, crisp and bright with hours of unexpected drizzle. This season always feels like refreshing, at least it does before the Winter really sets in and then peters out into January February, March...Between November and the New Year, though, it has a manic and nostalgic quality to it. Today, I bought a new vintage 60s shirt and my sister sent me a Pendleton cap, so I'm ready for the cool & darkening days.

Stockton Street Dig

2011-11-06T11:19:00.001-08:00

Stockton Street Dig, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

Peering beneath the streets into the guts of the city feels like a moment from the film Brazil, when a panel is removed from a wall and the nasty, heaving innards of urban infrastructure -- the complicated key to City Life -- are revealed.

Here, crews are making way for The Central Subway Line set to connect CalTrain, the connector to Silicon Valley; Chinatown; North Beach; and eventually Fishermen's Wharf. In its simplest scheme it may seem like a folly, but I like to envision it as a necessary right angle that will one day stretch rapid transit across the northernmost edge of San Francisco, from Pier 39 to The Presidio. Imagine if our system encircled our city rather than forming a single spur that runs from The Financial District to points South and mostly West. If, from The Presidio, a future line ran down 19th Avenue or Sunset Boulevard, to Lake Merced then a truly comprehensive, and more importantly, Rapid, transportation network would carry San Franciscans swiftly into the 22nd Century.
Ah, Infrastructure! Such a Necessary Dream.

Waiting for His Next Home to Blow Up

2011-11-06T00:24:00.000-07:00

I renewed my membership to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art today. I go as often as possible and it's such a short walk from my home. I get a ticket and go straight up to the 5th floor to the Roof Garden, often with a cup of blue bottle coffee from the Cafe, set amidst this perfect Mid-Century Moderist urban environment.
I captured this view today as the drizzle began of a man contemplating the sculptures in the Roof Garden. Beside him, an inflatable home is filling the gallery. The vibe says something about the pressure of housing ourselves, doesn't it?

Anonymous Dead

2011-11-04T19:02:00.000-07:00

Here's I, Anonymous, at The Day of the Dead March along 25th Street in The Mission this week.

Nurses March on California Street

2011-11-03T19:47:00.001-07:00

Nurses March November 3rd 2011 SF, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

I heard a ruckus today at work and knew a demonstration was going on outside. These are, after all, demonstrative times. Looking out my window on the 24th floor i saw The Nurses March on California Street through The Financial District ostensibly for a Tax on Financial Transactions.
As much as the nurses projected, I found myself most struck by the strict lines of the police chaparon.
Here the March reaches Davis Street and 101 California Plaza, the center of the Financial District itself.
All those nurses saving lives at their day jobs and now, on the streets, marching for a better world than the one we live in today.

Dia de los Muertos

2011-11-03T02:18:00.001-07:00

Dia de los Muertos, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

Tonight's celebration in The Mission District of Day of the Dead was intense and beautiful. People came out along 24th and 25th Streets, converging on Garfield Park where shrines were alight, music thrummed and people spent time with each other as well as all those who have passed away.

Anonymous Cult

2011-11-02T19:50:00.001-07:00

Scientology HQ SF, a photo by deanv41 on Flickr.

The confluence of icons, religion, institutions, politics, economics, culture and the city right now, at this moment, is extraordinary. Like an eruption, the urge to Occupy, to "Stand in the Place where You Live," is rising. It isn't a new impulse, but a very old one that goes back further than the documents this country was built upon. So many 'venerable institutions' are in crisis, crumbling or in need of dismantling. In a moral vacuum the rush of mankind is to fill it with people power, to solve our problem collectively. There are no Keys to the Kingdom, and besides, the Kingdom is Oppressive at its Core.

Here, Anonymous takes to Columbus Avenue outside The Church of Scientology HQ -- which NOT incidentally resides in the historic flatiron that was originally The Bank of Italy, founded in San Francisco in 1904 by Amadeo Giannini, that became Bank of America -- to point out the obvious: bankers are in the holy temple of our minds. The Cult of Money, of Speculation, of Monopoly (and, yes, Scientology with its celebrity apologia) is sickening. Let us make change.

a smoke & a time out

2011-11-01T15:19:00.000-07:00

A day off during the week is a blessing. I can go about the day counter to most others who are so very busy with work and the demands of the city clock. Like most of us, some of my days are relentless with work. Others must be carved apart for other people, duties & obligations.

So, savor the days, as soon enough the chance to just be here on any Tuesday with unimportant missions or none at all will vanish, replaced by mad dashes, taxing work, things to get done -- the 'longing for the legal tender.'

Find time, then, to be still if only for brief moments.

Try against odds to stop for a smoke and a time out.