jg and i took advantage of free admission tuesday and hit two art museums this week. we went to the de young in the morning and sfmoma in the afternoon.
de young
those newly acquired monotypes are by richard diebenkorn. they were the reason we went to the de young. i like them, but not as much as i like his paintings.
diebenkorns at de young
diebenkorn at sfmoma
you can tell the difference between the museums by the lighting. the de young uses natural light. even though their collection isn't all that great, their exhibitions generally look better.
jg always looks like he's praying when he's in front of a diebenkorn. anyway, isn't the scale of these paintings impressive? i want to say that they're the size of mattresses.
that's a painting by robert motherwell. i like his stuff almost as much as i like this next guy's:
it's not the best franz kline painting but it's pretty typical. i have only experienced three kline paintings in my entire life. i'll take what i can get.
i forgot to note whose sculpture that was. i didn't like it much although it was great for taking pictures of our reflections.
please touch me
that's my favorite from the photography gallery, which jg and i took a quick tour of before we went to lunch.
the art may not be very good, but the food is always excellent at the de young museum. look at their water bar.
(as opposed to order and run)
i had fun mixing the flavors. i was reluctant to try the cucumber but it turned out to be my most favorite. jg thought it tasted like a salad. fair enough.
after lunch we beat the crowds to turrell's skyspace, a half buried structure at the far corner of de young's grounds. i still don't understand this sculpture, but it's a neat space for echoes and pictures.
the next two were taken at the sfmoma, where it looked like a college football game and a blue light special were in progress. there were dance school dropouts doing cheerleading moves on the second floor. on the third floor, people were free to handle everything on exhibition. interactive art or zoo, hard to tell. anyway, see if you can guess which of these major works of art is jg's favorite.
over all, i like the art at the moma better. the crowds made it the most enjoyable museum experience ever. i shall file it as one of the fondest memories i have of san francisco.
she welcomed me back by taking me to fresco for lunch and to pinkberry for dessert. that's after she gave me a lovely tshirt which features my favorite colors and subject.
it rained all morning today. it poured last night, too. the streets were so flooded that i nearly had to swim to work. it came down in sheets when i was out to a meeting around 11. when i got back, the rain was done and there was a dusting of snow on top of the santa ynez mountains.
i watched at least four different weather systems passed through sb today. around 10, it was so dark and foggy i couldn't see across the street. by 4, the sky was blue again.
and of course, the snow was gone. easy come, easy go, i guess.
in college, i hated valentine's day. i would go out of my way to dress in all black for the day. if it fell on a thursday, i would say "happy black thursday" to anyone who was wearing red or pink.
during the winter quarter of 1994, i sat next to a guy named hans von tresckow in my business economy class. i had seen him around in the dorms before, but i didn't start talking to him until we had this class together.
valentine's fell on a monday in 1994. when i saw hans in class, he was wearing a red tshirt. i couldn't even look at him when i said, "happy black monday." without skipping a beat, he reached under his desk and pulled up a small bouquet of flowers. he held it in front of me with a big grin, "happy valentine's day!"
turned out he had two bouquets. the larger one was still in celophane wraps under his desk. "i'm taking my girlfriend to lunch today," he said.
that's jg's little helper whom he brought along from san francisco. they arrived in sb around midnight saturday. look what they did first thing sunday morning.
preparing for a rain storm
one of these two is annoying the other
i wandered around the yard taking pictures. i have missed my yard.
slow to bloom lavender
feeder for new resident squirrels
(installed by jim our neighbor)
after beeze vacuumed the entire inside of his luxury suv (sport uber vehicle), we took him to xanadu, our favorite joint for breakfast.
will i ever get a proper picture of these two together?
then we went to miramar beach to look at the waves.
what waves?
not a good day for surfing, but a great day for unloading a uhaul.
it took about two hours to unload everything. it took almost as long to return the truck. then we took beeze to your place, a thai restaurant on milpas.
when we got home from lunch, our neighbors held an impromptu welcome back party in the driveway.
jim and chris
nate and will (and chris)
after the meet and greet, jg called his momma to report his safe arrival...
...while i wandered around the yard and wasted more film.
isn't it interesting how the fallen magnolia petals are more vibrant than the ones still on the tree?
that pretty much wraps up our sunday. beeze left for bakersfield around 6 and we have been partying unpacking ever since. i hope you're having a more relaxed weekend than we are.
jg and i had lunch on the beach today. it was warm and clear, a perfect day for a picnic.
how do you like our ceramic bowls? we walked to the beach from my office. we were quite a sight crossing cabrillo with these enormous white bowls in our hands.
chicken salad by jg
please note the islands in the distance. after lunch we went for a stroll along the water. jg wanted to get a closer look of the sail boat. or what's left of it.
south is that away
poor julia bell
the tide was pretty low so i had fun beach combing. look what i found!
barnacle shell
every time i find something neat at the beach, i think of my friend minh. i met him when we were freshmen in the dorms. anyway, we were at the beach once collecting shells and sea glass. he wanted to play this game where, after we're done collecting, each of us would select the best shells he/she found to give to the other person. true to his word, minh gave me the nicest shells he found.
of course i did not give him any of my shells, nice or otherwise. who came up with these ridiculous games anyway?
i spent the entire day around main street in riverside yesterday. i took over 400 pictures, 300 of which were taken inside or of the library. the other 100 was taken on the freeway. these are the "high lights."
central library
library stairs
stair detail
land of funny smells
right it was
more like ugly tower
for julia
for everyone but schmee
nice canopy
taken while speeding away from riverside
for g
i can't say that i enjoyed visiting riverside. it's unfortunate that my trip was about some very unpleasant business. i loved the central library, but i don't care to go back to see it or anything else. i would be too happy if i never saw that part of california ever again.
it's been nice being able to meet jg every day for lunch. we hit the beach whenever we can. the day before yesterday, we went up to shoreline park. today, we were back on east beach.
these are my favorite shots taken on the bluffs yesterday.
the lunch guy
schmee on dolphin
jg on whale
shoreline park
bug on east beach vs bug on shoreline
and these are my favorite shots taken on east beach today.
sand art
trash treasure i collected
isn't that one mussel shell the biggest you've ever seen? the tide was high but it didn't stop me from beachcombing. jg helped me find beach glass while we strolled toward the pier. i'm happy to report that julia bell, the stranded sail boat, is gone.
nose hair
scallop shell
that's possibly the best thing about having lunch on east beach; we get the entire beach to ourselves.
