I wound up spending two days at Jaime’s in San Francisco. On the second day, after I finished my blogging at the local Peet’s on California Ave, and she finished her work, we headed to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to see a couple of exhibits. One was a comparative look at the photography of Ansel Adams and the paintings of Georgia O’Keefe – two different mediums and artists, but a lot of overlap in terms of subject matter and attitudes towards New Mexico landscapes. Many of the works were stunningly beautiful, and the comparison was interesting, if not always compelling. The biggest difference, of course, is that O’Keefe’s works are in color – brilliant, sharp-edged tones that are a distillation of what we might see in nature. Adams’ work has a similar clarity to it – he pioneered techniques that created sharpness, detail, and tonality in black and white photography that is almost unmatched. Some of his iconic pictures – like Moonrise over Hermosillo or Moro Rock literally change the way the viewer interacts with nature. Both artists seem heavily influenced by the Transcendentalists.
The second exhibit was a retrospective of the work of Swiss photographer and photo-documentarist Robert Frank, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of his The Americans – a path-breaking photo essay that captured the country trying to deal with its issues of racism, classism, and increasing corporatization in the mid-to-late 1950s. I had never been a big fan of the book – it had always seemed to me that Frank had been extremely negative and critical, and had elicited similar reactions from the people he photographed. This time, though, with an excellent commentary by the curators and a better understanding of the scope of the project (the project took more than two years to complete, with support from the Guggenheim Foundation), I began to understand what a seminal work The Americans was. Both Jaime and I found the two exhibits extremely thought-provoking, and I recommend them highly. (By the way, these two exhibits will be supplemented by a third after July 10th – a major retrospective of Richard Avedon's work, organized by Louisiana Museum of Denmark, with SFMOMA the only American venue showing it. It’s very rare to have a chance to see three photography exhibits of this caliber at one go!)
After morning coffee on Saturday, and a tour of the Presidio, Sea Cliff (a tony residential area of SF), and part of North Beach, Jaime and I had espresso at Café Trieste, one of the best (and most traditional) cafes in the city. We even got to hear a mandolin orchestra playing traditional music – I felt like I was in the restaurant scene in De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves! Then I hopped on the bike for the trip over to San Anselmo. Trying to negotiate the hairpin turn up to Paul and Marybeth’s house, I dropped the bike at the bottom of their driveway. I managed to get the bike back up, and make it up the steep slope, but I found that I had broken the front left footrest. Given that it was Saturday afternoon, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to replace it. Fortunately, Marin Motorworks was still open, and they had the part in stock. It wasn’t even all that expensive – around $42 with tax (the woman in parts wondered aloud whether it was possible for a BMW replacement part to cost so little!). It didn’t take much time to get the bike back together, and then Paul and Marybeth took me to a party on Portrero Hill in SF, where I got to meet several very interesting artists. Then we zoomed back over the Golden Gate Bridge (my third trip across it of the day), and stopped in Corte Madera to see the movie, Up – playing in 3D. Although I liked the movie (it was good, not great), I didn’t think 3D added a whole lot. It seems to be the “gimmick du jour.”
My last blog seems to have stirred up deep feelings. It’s not a good idea to allude to (or mention explicitly) the aging process, even when the point you’re trying to make is that people don’t seem to have aged, and that there is a complete disconnect between how they seem, and chronological reality. I think that part of the problem is that we rarely have a self image that corresponds to how others see us – I know that my own picture of myself is probably frozen in the late 1960s. (Sadly, the corporeal reality, like Dorian Grey’s picture, has continued to, uh, mature . . .) Anyway, such musings aren’t going to get me out of the deep hole I’ve dug for myself, so let’s leave it and move on.
On Sunday, Paul and Marybeth and I headed out to Point Reyes. We bought three dozen oysters at the Drakes Bay Oyster Company (formerly Johnson’s Oysters), and then took the portable Weber grill and our blanket and drinks to the beach. We spent nearly two hours barbecuing oysters and eating them, washing them down with excellent beer and wine. (Lagunitas Imperial Stout is worth searching out!) I commented several times that this seemed like the typical Flyover Land stereotype of how Californians spent their time. As Paul and Marybeth said, “We should be so lucky!”
On Monday, I managed to roust myself early, say goodbye and thank-you to Paul and Marybeth, and get on the road by 8:00 a.m. I was headed for Portland, OR, and couldn’t face taking I-5 the entire way. Instead, I drove up to Eureka and Crescent City on US 101, but with no photo stops or side trips through the Avenue of the Giants. I got to Eureka by 1:00, Crescent City around 2:30, and then followed US 199 to Grant’s Pass. The temperatures away from the coast rose to nearly 90 degrees, but then the sun settled lower in the sky, and the comfort level went up. I finally made it to Portland around 9:40 p.m., after 660 miles and 14 hours of riding, with only a few stops, perhaps totaling an hour. The Corbin people did a good job – I wasn’t the least bit saddle-sore!
I’m staying with my sister, Nancy, and her son, Dakota. More on them tomorrow or the next day, after I’ve had time to interact with them! For now, some well-deserved sleep seems in order.
The second exhibit was a retrospective of the work of Swiss photographer and photo-documentarist Robert Frank, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of his The Americans – a path-breaking photo essay that captured the country trying to deal with its issues of racism, classism, and increasing corporatization in the mid-to-late 1950s. I had never been a big fan of the book – it had always seemed to me that Frank had been extremely negative and critical, and had elicited similar reactions from the people he photographed. This time, though, with an excellent commentary by the curators and a better understanding of the scope of the project (the project took more than two years to complete, with support from the Guggenheim Foundation), I began to understand what a seminal work The Americans was. Both Jaime and I found the two exhibits extremely thought-provoking, and I recommend them highly. (By the way, these two exhibits will be supplemented by a third after July 10th – a major retrospective of Richard Avedon's work, organized by Louisiana Museum of Denmark, with SFMOMA the only American venue showing it. It’s very rare to have a chance to see three photography exhibits of this caliber at one go!)
After morning coffee on Saturday, and a tour of the Presidio, Sea Cliff (a tony residential area of SF), and part of North Beach, Jaime and I had espresso at Café Trieste, one of the best (and most traditional) cafes in the city. We even got to hear a mandolin orchestra playing traditional music – I felt like I was in the restaurant scene in De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves! Then I hopped on the bike for the trip over to San Anselmo. Trying to negotiate the hairpin turn up to Paul and Marybeth’s house, I dropped the bike at the bottom of their driveway. I managed to get the bike back up, and make it up the steep slope, but I found that I had broken the front left footrest. Given that it was Saturday afternoon, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to replace it. Fortunately, Marin Motorworks was still open, and they had the part in stock. It wasn’t even all that expensive – around $42 with tax (the woman in parts wondered aloud whether it was possible for a BMW replacement part to cost so little!). It didn’t take much time to get the bike back together, and then Paul and Marybeth took me to a party on Portrero Hill in SF, where I got to meet several very interesting artists. Then we zoomed back over the Golden Gate Bridge (my third trip across it of the day), and stopped in Corte Madera to see the movie, Up – playing in 3D. Although I liked the movie (it was good, not great), I didn’t think 3D added a whole lot. It seems to be the “gimmick du jour.”
My last blog seems to have stirred up deep feelings. It’s not a good idea to allude to (or mention explicitly) the aging process, even when the point you’re trying to make is that people don’t seem to have aged, and that there is a complete disconnect between how they seem, and chronological reality. I think that part of the problem is that we rarely have a self image that corresponds to how others see us – I know that my own picture of myself is probably frozen in the late 1960s. (Sadly, the corporeal reality, like Dorian Grey’s picture, has continued to, uh, mature . . .) Anyway, such musings aren’t going to get me out of the deep hole I’ve dug for myself, so let’s leave it and move on.
On Sunday, Paul and Marybeth and I headed out to Point Reyes. We bought three dozen oysters at the Drakes Bay Oyster Company (formerly Johnson’s Oysters), and then took the portable Weber grill and our blanket and drinks to the beach. We spent nearly two hours barbecuing oysters and eating them, washing them down with excellent beer and wine. (Lagunitas Imperial Stout is worth searching out!) I commented several times that this seemed like the typical Flyover Land stereotype of how Californians spent their time. As Paul and Marybeth said, “We should be so lucky!”
On Monday, I managed to roust myself early, say goodbye and thank-you to Paul and Marybeth, and get on the road by 8:00 a.m. I was headed for Portland, OR, and couldn’t face taking I-5 the entire way. Instead, I drove up to Eureka and Crescent City on US 101, but with no photo stops or side trips through the Avenue of the Giants. I got to Eureka by 1:00, Crescent City around 2:30, and then followed US 199 to Grant’s Pass. The temperatures away from the coast rose to nearly 90 degrees, but then the sun settled lower in the sky, and the comfort level went up. I finally made it to Portland around 9:40 p.m., after 660 miles and 14 hours of riding, with only a few stops, perhaps totaling an hour. The Corbin people did a good job – I wasn’t the least bit saddle-sore!
I’m staying with my sister, Nancy, and her son, Dakota. More on them tomorrow or the next day, after I’ve had time to interact with them! For now, some well-deserved sleep seems in order.
Linda and I recently returned from an anniversary weekend in NYC where we saw the Avedon retrospective. He invented that post-war French street fashion look, kind of like the way Aaron Copeland invented the Western sound scape. Stunning stuff, in the event. Nice pics of yours, by the way. Safe journey.
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