Home Town Favorites --- Day 7/92

Walk: Marin Driving Day (Cibo, San Rafael)
Distance:  A few blocks, Yoga

MacBook Air with Allbird Loungers

With all her walking Ciwt craves really comfortable shoes.  Meaning shoes with support along the lines of ski boots.  When the raves about Allbird shoes reached her, she dismissed them out of hand.  Allbirds might be as comfortable as people said, but how in the world could wool shoes possibly support your feet for a moment?!  This is the Ciwt who dismissed raves about the iPhone out of hand, so you know where this is going.  Allbirds are tough, strong birds that cushion your feet. And, boy, will they be the perfect thing to wear while she works on her array of Apple devices (and elsewhere).

'Fore' Art --- Day 7/91

Walk: PGCC
Distance: 1 mile, heavy pushing and lifting

Where's the fireplace?  

 Today was the opening of the Members' Photography Show at Ciwt's traditional golf club.  So she was busy hiding pub chairs, trophies and other sports paraphenalia and converting the remaining surfaces into a makeshift photography gallery. This is her idea of fun, and she thinks it worked out pretty well.

Intimate Viewing Spaces --- Day 7/90

Walk: SFMOMA, SF Playhouse (An Entomologist's Love Story)
Distance: 1.5 miles, small yoga

Cast of An Entomologist's Love Story (World Premiere at SF Playhouse)

Ciwt enjoyed tonight's play at the small, up close SF Playhouse. But the real treat of her day was being the last person into the Magritte show before closing. Usually they don't let people in so late but made an exception so she had the exhibition virtually to herself. What a difference 

from viewing Magritte in a crowd. Magritte is meant to be seen quietly and intimately she had

the good fortune to realize.

Memorial Day 2018, Presidio of San Francisco --- Day 7/89

Walk: Presidio 150th Memorial Day Service
Distance: 4 miles

Memorial Day 2018, San Francisco Presidio, Program

Color Guard

Speakers (Dianne Feinstein here)

             Marching Band 

                                                               Fly By
                                                                                                             

Vets and other attendees leave the ceremony

26,425 Stay

Volunteer Boy and Girl Scouts place a flag and red rose on every grave

Ciwt's father, who served in WW II and lost his brother in that war, wasn't a demonstrative man, but get him near a parade, and the tears flowed. Mention patriotism, parades, that Jimmy Cagney music to Ciwt, and you get pretty much the same reaction.

You Are There, 1865 --- Day 7/88

Walk: Presidio
Distance: 3 miles

Winslow Homer, The Bright Side, 1965, oil on canvas,  13.27" x 17.52"*

Winslow Homer wasn't all Prout's Neck, Maine dramatic sea paintings and scenes of children at play.  Those came later.

At the beginning of his career, age 25, the self taught artist marched off to the Civil War armed with drawing utensils and paper.  He was one of a select group of artist-reporters embedded with Union troops documenting battles and camp life for Harper's Weekly Illustrated, then the premiere illustrated newspaper in the country.  

Artist-reporters were on the front in every sense - facing battles, injuries, starvation and disease along with the fighting men and women.  Their job was to be astute observers with an instinct for story and drama and the ability to sketch quickly and accurately in highly dangerous and exhausting circumstances.

Homer brought his bedrock insistence on truth telling to that job.  Probably no contemporary artist looked with clearer eyes, and he did as much as anyone to give Harpers's and posterity a visual representation of the Civil War.

After the war, Homer went on to have a distinguished career as an oil and watercolor painter and also continued to produce commercial illustrations for Harper's and other publications.  But he was always an artist-illustrator at heart.  He considered his war work to be a public service, intentionally endured some of the same experiences as soldiers did and - according to his mother - was fundamentally and forever changed by what he lived, witnessed and recorded.

*One of the exceptional paintings from the Rockefeller Collection Bequest of American Art to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.  Hangs at the de Young Museum.

Down 17 to Up 19 --- Day 7/87

Walk: No
Distance: few blocks, small yoga

Busy watching the Warriors stunning turnaround win this evening.  One more game to go.

The Stationary Armchair, Pt 2 --- Day 7/86

Walk: Polk Street, Kabuki Theater (First Reformed - Ciwt says Do Not Bother/D+)
Distance: 4.4 miles, small yoga 

Henri Matisse, The Rocaille Armchair, 1946

What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter, an art which could be for every mental worker, for the businessman as well as the man of letters, for example, a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.  

The Stationary Armchair --- Day 7/85

Walk: A Little (still cold and windy)
Distance: 1 mile, small yoga, small pt

Rocaille Chair
Henri Matisse felt a strong attachment to the objects that inspired him, even expressing love for one special Rococo style chair. In 1942, when the artist was in his seventies, he was walking by an antique shop in Nice, France when he fell in love… with a chair. He wrote to a friend about it saying, “I was bowled over. It’s splendid. I’m obsessed with it.”

Flying Armchair p. 3 --- Day 7/84

Walk: No, Still Toooooo Cold and Windy
Distance: Closet Caper, Small Yoga

Round Trip SFO Johannesburg Business Class: $@4600-7600 (surprisingly affordable but then you have to get around the whole, huge continent)
Travel Time: @ 26 hrs.

 AFRICA, OF COURSE

Flying Armchair, pt. 2 --- Day 7/83

Walk: No, Too cold and windy (again)
Distance: Big Pedal, Big Yoga


    Great Wall of China Section    Photo by Robert Nyman

Ciwt's trip to the Great Wall of China today was surprisingly doable: business class airfare $4,500, travel time to Beijing 12 hr. 5 m.  But still she elected to let her fingers do the walking to another site that has fascinated her for a long time. 

And, she's confident the Wall Street Journal would support her travel decision. One of their articles today was titled Anger Over Tourists Swarming Vacation Hotspots Sparks Global Backlash.

The picture above is beautiful, but here's a video of how the wall might look on other weather days.
Or, if you don't want to click:

 

Ciwt has to admit this is a hotspot she'd still like to be a tourist at, backlash and all.  It is awesome.

Flying Armchair --- Day 7/82

Walk: Monday Errands
Distance: 8 blocks, long pedal, long yoga



Ciwt has wanted to see the Pyramids since childhood. So today she did.  First she checked the weather in Egypt at this time of year, the plane fares ($12,000+), the length of the flight to Cairo (22 hrs+) and other particulars.  Satisfied with what she discovered, she let her fingers walk immediately to another  computer tab where she found numerous lengthy, beautifully filmed and informative videos of those haunting ancient wonders.  Wow!

And wow in another way because every picture she'd seen of the Pyramids had been shot from the side you see above which makes them look like it even Laurence of Arabia would have been lucky to find them.  But, there in front of Ciwt's screen was the present day reality:

 much more impressive than TransameribaBuilding in San Francisco,                                                                                                                              
but still, there they are, right out your Cairo apartment or car window.

Which, by the way, turned  out to be a truly awesome city.  So off  her fingers went to extended videos of Cairo.  Whew, travel is tiring; time to let her amazing trip sink in.

Lost in Space --- Day 7/81

Walk: No, Home with Tech Devices
Distance: 0, small yoga, small pt, small pedal

After spending the day trying to rig up her tech devices to research Magritte, Ciwt doesn't know what's in and what's out.

Heartwarming --- Day 7/80

Walk: Sloat Garden
Distance: 3.4 miles, PT

Ciwt finds this couple totally heartwarming...

This is a Frame --- Day 7/79

Walk: SFMOMA (Magritte - preparing for upcoming tour)
Distance: 1.5 miles

Rene Magritte (1898-1967, Belgium), Golconda, 1953, oil on canvas

Rene Magritte, La Boite de Pandore, 1951, oil on canvas

So far in her preparations for a Magritte tour Ciwt often finds herself liking the way his paintings are framed as much as much as the paintings themselves.  A whole other art form, proper framing.

Les Hommes --- Day 7/78

Walk: SFMOMA (Magritte)
Distance: 1.5 miles, pedal, small yoga

It was Red at the Nursery --- Day 7/77

Walk: Hardware Store, Sloat Garden Center
Distance: 3 miles, yoga on the fly, 8 times up/down

Which ones?!  For Ciwt choosing flowers goes the same route as selecting a paint color. 
They look just right at the nursery, but then something drastic happens on the way home
where they are the wrong color or shape or they grow up when Ciwt needs them to grow
down, etc.   (Thank goodness for days when Ciwt thinks she has nothing to do...)

Fairy Garden Please --- Day 7/76

Walk: Up and Down, Up and Down Ciwt's 70 steps
Distance: Quite enough, Yoga

Ciwt woke up today thinking she had nothing to do.  Then she remembered her deck - her overgrown deck.  After hours hauling once beautiful plants down her stairs to the compost bin, she couldn't believe she had once felt sorry for herself because she didn't have a Garden As Big As The Ritz.  Now a teeny, tiny, fairy size one seems just right - filled with no-maintenance succulents.*


*See CIWT 4/148 and 4/180

812 Skidoo --- Day 7/75

Walk: Monday Errands
Distance: 2.5 miles, small yoga

Cord 812 Phaeton, 1937, Gordon Buehrig (designer), Auburn Automobile

Company, Auburn, Indiana (manufacturer)  Original Base Price: $2,745

Ciwt can't quite put her finger on why the 'Modernist' American art from the 1910's through the 1940's gets her down.  Its streamlined, futuristic look was everywhere: deco buildings, clocks, radios,

movies (think Charlie Chaplin). 

This car presently starring in the de Young "Cult of the Machine' exhibit offers her some clues. Normally Ciwt is quite dazzled by fine automobiles.  But this one's distinctive, boxy hood was proudly advertised as 'coffin-shaped.' And its doors were known as 'suicide doors' because it was easy to fall out of them. So easy they were especially popular in the gangster era supposedly owing to the ease of pushing passengers out of moving vehicles.

Sleek Meets Cold --- Day 7/74

Walk: de Young Museum (Cult of the Machine)
Distance: 4.6 miles, small yoga

Bookcase and Skyscrapers

Real Frowns with the Beauty --- Day 7/73

Walk: AMC Kabuki Theater (Disobedience)
Distance: 2 miles

The good news is Rachel Weisz is still completely gorgeous - from every angle, in every lighting.  And don't get Ciwt started on her hair. Apparently, at age 49, what you see is what you get as well because she is famously quoted about Botox:  "It should be banned for actors, as steroids are for sportsmen. Acting is all about expression; why would you want to iron out a frown?"

The medium/ B- news is her latest movie, Disobedience.  Oh well, The acting is excellent and the low key plot is nevertheless intriguing as it twists and turns until the very end.   

Art in the Presidio? !*# --- Days 7/71 & 72

Walk: 1. Marin Driving and Ciwt Do Nothing Day  2. Presidio and Hood
Distance:  1. 8 Blocks, small yoga      2. 4 miles, Yoga

So, after seven years Ciwt can't remember if she's told you the one about the introduction of Andy Goldsworthy's Spire to the Presidio Powers That Be.  They laughed their heads off.  Spire was still in the idea stage and, as far as the Presidio was concerned, it could stay right there.

The Presidio had recently been demilitarized after over 200 years as an active base and the brand new Presidio Trust was tasked with making the spanking new Presidio National Park economically viable.  Spending money on an artwork was considered ludicrous.  "What does art have to do with a park?!" they hooted.  "No way!" "Hahahaha, Etc." 

Somehow some persuasive soul or souls prevailed and convinced them to go ahead with the art project.  Spire went up in early 2008 and from the very day it was erected, it became THE most visited site in the Presidio*. Since Spire, Goldsworthy has been commissioned to add three more site specific sculptures to the Presidio And there have been several recent Goldsworthy sightings.  Considering that he lives in Scotland, it is very probable that there may be a new Presidio Goldsworthy in the offing.

*When Ciwt was there today, there were several large groups of very respectful young people lunching together at the base of Spire.  She's sure Goldworthy would be pleased and even might enjoy having a last laugh. 

Au Revoir --- Day 7/70

Walk: Legion (Casanova, The Seduction of Europe)
Distance: 1 mile, small yoga

Maybe Ciwt is getting a bit like her friend who 'doesn't do' museums.  She tried a couple of times to get interested in the Casanova show just about finis (yay!) at the Legion.  There is just no way Ciwt is ever going to care about this type of art  or this 

 and certainly not this   -   or Casanova.