Now We Are 12 --- Days 11/362-365! AND 12/1

Walks: Hood

Distances: 4 average, some yoga

Oh, my goodness, Ciwt got so busy ignoring the holiday season, she almost forgot CIWT'S 12th birthday!! 

A Sacred Holiday --- Days 11/361 & 362

Walks: Hood

Distances: 3 mile

The Pilgrimage Church of Weis, Steingaden, Germany

Las Lajas Sanctuary, Narino, Columbia

Notre Dame Basilica, Montreal, Canada

Goldilocks Spirit --- Days 11/355-360

Walks:  Out of sick bed and Back on the hood/Presidio trails

Distances: Not far, but back up to 4.5 mi today

Christmas?  Is it really almost Christmas, and are all those other holidays happening too?  Ciwt is having trouble connecting with those facts.  Like Goldilocks, she's not too hot, not too cold about the whole holiday idea right now.  

A friend wrote this morning: 

I am not altogether sure what Christmas is supposed to seem like…but I will say that it does not seem like Christmas this year…

Just the same, hope you catch the spirit and may it inspire you…who knows, it just might !  

That sound 'just right' to Ciwt and she wishes all her readers whatever holidays feel best to them this year.   

Now, Merry Christmas from the U.S. --- Days 11/351-54

Walks: No, felled by flue or something😕 but on the mend😁

Distances 0

Tommy Liberto, a.k.a. Mr. Christmas Tree, visiting from Bel Air, Maryland, walks near Radio City Music Hall on December 14, 2022, in New York City.

Christmas lights and ornaments are seen outside a home in Brooklyn on December 6, 2022

Decorated boats line up on the Potomac River for the annual Boat Parade of Lights on December 3, 2022, in Alexandria, Virginia.

С Рождеством, Feliz Navidad, Maligayang Pasko sa Iyo! --- Days 11/343-348

Walks:  Hood and Presidio

Distance Average: 3.5 day

As is usually the case in Ciwt's hood at Christmas, her neighbors don't tend to decorate their homes with the same exuberance they put into their Halloween and Thanksgiving decorating.  So, Ciwt thought she'd see what people in other countries do.  And WOW.

A pedestrian walks past Christmas decorations near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, in central Moscow, on December 13, 2022

Christmas illuminations light up Málaga's city center, in Andalusia, southern Spain, on November 27, 2022

People visit a Christmas light show in Makati, a city in Metro Manila, Philippines, on December 13, 2022. 

Days 11/338-342

Walks: Neighborhoods and Presidio

Distance (average): 5.5 miles

So the other morning early one of Ciwt's new neighbors called with an SOS.  She had given a memorial tree to the park on the corner, but wasn't told when the Park Department gardeners would plant it.  Turned out it was that day, right now! and she wasn't able to attend.

It was such a meaningful gift to her - and to the park visitors - could I possibly go over and take a picture.  Sure, and not only did Ciwt go over, she stayed for the entire event: crane lifting the tree off the truck bed, driving it down the park path, lifting the tree into the hole. It was a delicate dance, and took nearly an hour. She'd never seen a tree put in the ground.  Have you?  If so, you already know it is a very moving sight.

Also one that reminded Ciwt of Joyce Kilmer's beloved poem about trees.

Joyce Kilmer was born on December 6, 1886, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The author of Main Street and Other Poems (George H. Doran Company, 1917), he was killed while fighting in World War I.

Come On In, Holidays --- Day 11/337

Walk: Presidio

Distance: 6.5 miles

Random Holiday Charm --- Days 11/325-336

Walks:  Hoods

Distances: Average 5.5 miles

Billionaires Row has gold skeletons

                               

Welcome Floss --- Days 322-324

Walks: Hoods and Presidio

Distances: 6 miles average

 Glass Onion is as light, colorful and airy as:

Cotton Candy

A very sweet gift when so many artistic offerings these days are so heavy.  Go, sit back, just enjoy

Movies for Critics or the Terminally Upbeat --- Days 11/317-321

Walks: Hoods

Distances: Average 4.5 miles

If you wouldn't describe yourself as either of the types mentioned in today's title, Ciwt suggests that you stay away from the following technically excellent movies.  Otherwise you may find yourself like Ciwt -  down for a few hours to several days afterward.  

Here they are with no spoilers.

On the 10th Day --- Days 11/306-316

Walks: Hood, Civic Center, Presidio

Distances: 5 miles average

It's a bit early for Christmas, but perhaps Christmas views out the window of Ciwt's old home: 

December, 2021

And her new one:

December, 2022

will give her loyal readers a sense of the transition that has been distracting away from CIWT.

Miller Coast to Coast --- Days 11/304 & 5

Walks: Presidio and Hood

Distances: 4.5 miles

So for several years Ciwt on the West Coast and her friend on the East Coast have been taking online play reading classes from a Yale professor.  And every year one of his selections for us is a play by Arthur Miller.  And every year Ciwt is reminded of how devastatingly deep and accurately Miller dove into the American psyche.  Every one of his plays could have been written yesterday and cuts to the quick with a brilliance both compassionate and damning.  

'Delicate Intimacy' --- Days 11/266-303

Walks: Hood and Presidio

Distances: 5.5 miles average

Frankie Corio and Paul Mescal in Aftersun

So today Ciwt went to a movie without knowing anything about it except that critics are giving it high ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.   And she sat tranfixed from beginning to end somewhere inside her tracking the deep but almost indiscernable emotional threads that hold it together. Aftersun.  Everything seems uttery natural in an unnatural way, and the acting is excruciatingly human and precise.

She likes how the NYT's A.O. Scott puts it:

 It’s hard to find a critical language to account for the delicacy and intimacy of this movie. This is partly because Wells*, with the unaffected precision of a lyric poet, is very nearly reinventing the language of film, unlocking the medium’s often dormant potential to disclose inner worlds of consciousness and feeling. 

* the writer-director

CIWT Halloween Decoration Contest: Grand Winner --- Day 11/265

Walk: Union Square

Distance: 4 miles

Grand Winner: 2022

Fence! House! and Entire Yard!

CIWT Halloween Decoration Contest: Grand Winner Runner UP --- Day 11/264

Walk: Presidio

Distance: 4.5 miles

Entire Yard: 2022 Runner Up

CIWT Halloween Decoration Contest: Category Winners --- Day 11/263

Walk: Hood 

Distance: 3.7 miles

Halloween is almost here.  Time is getting short for contestants to enter Ciwt's annual Best Halloween Neighborhood Decoration contest.

Winner (Tie):  Witches and Trees

Winner: Pumpkins

Little Lillie's Tower --- Days 11/261 & 262

Walk: 1. T. Joe's, Hood, 2. City Hall to pick up ballot that got lost in mail

Distance: 4 miles, 5 miles

View from a Coit Tower window as the San Francisco fog began obscuring the Bay during Fleet Week, 2022

So there once was a little girl named Lillie who was fascinated by the red shirts and war-like helmets of the San Francisco firefighters.  And one day on her way home from school she saw a small group of those red shirts struggling to get Knickerbocker Engine 5 up the hill to a fire.  So she tossed her books onto the ground, raced over to help them pull, all the while yelling to whoever could hear "Come on you men, Everybody pull!"  They all did, and the engine raced up the hill.

From that day on, little Lillie was considered the mascot of the the San Francisco firefighters and rode to fires with them, sat on top of Knickerbocker No. 5 in every parade and attended their annual banquets.  When she was older she was made an official honorary member of the engine company.  And whenever volunteer firefighters were ill she visited their sickbeds and sent flowers and attended funerals of those who died.

When Lillie died she was quite wealthy, and she left one third of her estate to the City of San Francisco "to be expended in an appropriate manner for the purpose of adding to the beauty of the city which I have always loved."  And absolutely appropriately the City used the bequest of wealthy and eccentric and firefighter patron, Lillie Hitchcok Coit, to build Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill. *

Coit Tower, San Francisco

This year when Ciwt's sister was visiting, they decided to be fulll tourists and go to Coit Tower to see it and the Blue Angels annual Fleet Week aerial exhibition of precision flying.  This was after their walk along the Embarcadero so, beginning at sea level, they climbed the 400 steep, red brick Filbert Street stairs, and then the 100 extra stairs it takes to get to the front doors of Coit Tower.  Little did they suspect the Coit Tower elevator would be non-functioning that day, so when they got to the tower, they continued step by even narrower and winding step 120 feet to the top.  From there they each found an opening to view the Blue Angels.  Needless to say there wasn't that much competition for those ultra high, elevatorless windows so grabbing a view wasn't a problem.  

What was a problem was the (in)famous San Francisco fog which was so thick that day that the Blue Angels were forced to cancel their exhibition - an extreme rarity in all the years since 1946 that they have been invited to be a main attraction of Fleet Week. 

The disappointed visitors who had come to see them likely numbered close to a million which, of course, included Ciwt and her sister.  So, down they walked the cold, hard, stone steps through North Beach, up and over Russian Hill, and then over and up to the top of Ciwt's Pacific Heights hill. There they uncorked some Napa Valley wine and flopped down exhausted on Ciwt's couch.  Too bad Lillie couldn't have been there to give us a ride home in a firetruck.

Elizabeth (Lillie) Hitchcock Coit (1843-1929)

*Given Coit Tower's decidedly phallic appearance, Ciwt's readers can probably imagine the abundant local jokes about it.

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Back and at the Opera --- Day 11/239-60 (Yes, 3 weeks!)

Walks:  Too many to list

Distances: anywhere from 0 to 12 miles

San Francisco 100 Year Celebration Open House Schedule of Events

So, lucky Ciwt has been visited by her sister and then her best friend for 58! years (both named Betsy coincidentally) which has kept her too busy and having way too much fun to pay attention to her wonderful and loyal readers.  But now she is back to CIWT and back at the SF Opera.  That latter is due nearly entirely to her afford mentioned Betsy friend who has been an opera buff nearly as long as she's been Ciwt's friend.  

When this Betsy got wind of the fact that the SF Opera would be having an Open House after her visit, she began reading outloud to Ciwt the events at the Open as well as leaving copies of the Open House schedule in very visible places around Ciwt's place and saying she couldn't wait to hear details from Ciwt.  In other words, Ciwt couldn't possibly miss the event.

And thank goodness!  It was so well done, really almost at the level of one of the SF Opera operatic productions. The last Open House they gave was in 2013 after which many things intervened to prevent another- including the obvious for the past 3 years.  But this, 2022, was their Centennial year and they were going to have an Open almost come hell or high water.  Planning began 4 years ago so Ciwt's readers can imagine the level of production all these talents reached.

Ciwt guesses over 2000 people of all ages came to celebrate and be educated.  The energy was attentive, respectful, happy, and grateful after the pandemic - all of which characterized Ciwt. She attended most of the events on the schedule with the exception of the extensive Backstage Tour which was sold out the couple of times it was given.  

SF Opera Assistant Stage Director

Highlights were "How to Direct an Opera Scene" presented by the SF Opera's Assistant Stage Director.  A few of Ciwt's favorite tidbits from that were: 1. In scene rehearsals the singers usually sing softly to save their voices, 2. The stage manager creates and directs all supernumerary silent background action.  Think of those crowd scenes at the opera where there might be 100 people; each of them is acting a pantomime devised and rehearsed by the scene director.  

SF Opera Assistant Conductor, William Long

In another highlight presentation "Conducting Lessons" Ciwt and others were taught how to set the musical pulse of the orchestra with their right arm and how they might make various signals to the musicians with their other arm and gestures.  Ciwt's main takeaway from that was that her arm got exhausted even after a few minutes.  She reported that to the Assistant Conductor and learned that, indeed, keeping arms lifted for long amounts of time requires some sort of fitness training (he swims), and even so, it is very common to see conductors with ice packs on their shoulders during intermissions.  It was also interesting to learn that the conductor must know the way each instrument produces sound so they can time the instruments' various entrances into the piece.  Also that the conductor is the only one with a full score that has every single instrument's score on it while the players have smaller scores for just their instrument.  Conducting turns out to be an extremely complex skill taking many years and much exposure to reach a level of proficiency - so most conductors are in their later years when they rise to that position.   Almost all begin their musical training as piano players.

SF Opera General Director, Matthew Shilvock

The creme de la creme of presentations for Ciwt was the "Ask Me Anything" one given by the SF Opera's General Director, Matthew Shilvock.  SF is an opera loving city, the questions were many and excellent and our General Director personable, a fountain of knowledge and impassioned about his field - as well as his San Francisco audience.  At the end of an hour of questions and answers he had to end the still energetic session so other activities could keep to their schedules.  Of the many wonderful tidbits Ciwt took away, these are a few favorites.

- Opera season planning begins 5 years or more ahead.  The first thing that determines the season is the availability of artists.  They must have those stars under contract first, not an easy matter for busy international talents.  That done, the second item on the planning schedule is production, meaning bascially sets and costumes.  Sometimes those are rented, sometimes the expenses are shared with co-producers, sometimes the opera company builds or uses their own sets and costumes.  The latter is the most expensive up front, but becomes more and more cost effrctive with productions that are done often by the company. The final stage is fitting together all parts of the jigsaw puzzle that will be the actual season - rehearsal schedules, stage times, events for patrons, etc, etc, etc.

- Wagnerian opera stars are standouts in three principal areas: voice, stamina and theatricality.  Shilvock used an example to convey the demands of that last, theatricality.  In Parcifal one of the female stars has exactly two notes in a one hour act, so there's the stamina: keeping her acting at high energy for the entire hour.  The drama comes in presenting those two notes in such a way as to rivet and tear into the audiences' emotions.  A rare few can do this and are held in awe.  

- Ciwt could go on and on.  Every question and answer was so absorbing.  As Shilvock said at one point, over 1000 people work for the SF Opera Company every season and everyone of them - from wig maker, to scheduler, to chorus and more - is at the very top of their game.  So it is pinch yourself thrilling to have his job and actually was that way for the 5 hours of today's superb Community Open House.

Happy 100 San Francisco Opera.