Living the artistic life
Live/work spaces always look romantic to me. Just the name conjures up so many old movies where people turned industrial space into very cool living quarters. We’d all (not all? Most? Some? Maybe just me?) like to live in an atelier, creating great works of art while enjoying the superheated intellectual life of the urban artist. Sunday, Gail and I got to see the San Francisco version of that life.
We went to a party at the live/work space of Zannah Noe, in an area near Potrero Hill known colloquially as Dogpatch, at roughly 20th Ave and Tennessee. Zannah is a painter, as well as a professional cook, who splits her time between the City, Santa Fe, NM and the East Coast. She’s also gorgeous, but that’s just a side benefit.
Zannah in the loft area, where she sleeps surrounded by art.
Looking out from the loft across the living space to the 2nd loft she just built.
The entire space isn’t very large, which is why she built the second loft space. It works well for an oil painter, who doesn’t need a particularly large studio.
Looking down on the living area.
Lofts tend to have small efficiency kitchens. Artists tend to decorate them well.
Zannah and Gail leaning over the loft railing. Mike on the stairs.
Steep stairs save space.
The studio, and a commission she is working on.
Everyone needs a computer center.
It was pouring rain, and the dog had to go out. Strangely, this dog doesn’t like rain, so they bundle him up in a rain coat and a sweater for his very long neck.
Diesel the rescue greyhound dressed for the rain. Having a dog seems to be a prerequisite to being an artist.
We were there for a party–Zannah is leaving for 2 months in Santa Fe, and then a protracted road trip on the East Coast, and wanted to say goodbye to all her friends. People kept arriving, carrying food and kids and dogs. A work crew was mounting a box atop Zannah’s van (a 1983 relic named “Foxy Brown”) so that more stuff could be crammed in. Music was playing. There was no football game, because there was no television. The hallway outside was stacked with items to be discarded unless somebody wanted them–Art in America magazines, an old computer, a DVD player.
There is a myth that artists sit around and discuss philosophy and the meaning of art and life. Ain’t so. Artists discuss galleries and contracts and the methods and materials of their art. They talk about the best schools for their kids and where real estate at https://www.williampitt.com/search/real-estate-sales/greenwich-ct/ prices are going. They don’t have to argue politics, since they are almost uniformly of the very liberal persuasion, but then this is in San Francisco so that’s no surprise.
Gail and I agree that it would be lovely to have such a place as a pied à terre, to spend weekends in the City visiting galleries and museums and theater. It just wouldn’t be $600,000 (or more) worth of lovely. But it sure was a great way to spend the afternoon.
Upscale Dennys
Out to breakfast Sunday in the City with our friends Harry and Michael. We were on our way to a party and apparently needed to have a big meal before we got there so we wouldn’t be too hungry when they put out lunch. Or something like that. Or maybe Harry just likes fancy hotels and food.
So we went to the Taj Campton Place Hotel, on Sutter near Union Square across the street from the Hyatt. It was raining and I’m lazy, so I pulled right up in front and gave the car to the valet. More about this later.
The Campton Place is a small, luxury, boutique hotel, catering to the people who don’t like bit chains like Hyatt and Hilton. Personal service, and lots of it, is their hallmark.
The dining room is hushed and understated, except for the large chandelier which is either a genuine Dale Chihuly or something very Chihuly-esque.
Chihuly or Chihuly-lite, it's pretty impressive in either case.
The food is, as one would expect, impressive. I went for the classic breakfast–eggs, potatoes, sausage. It comes with a glass of the best fresh-squeezed OJ ever. The basket of toast is just right. The little plate with softened butter and three dishes of very good jams was a delight.
The four of us shared a malted walnut waffle. I’m not usually a waffle guy, but this was exceptional. Michael had house made hash, Gail and Harry enjoyed the salmon benedict. The food is every bit as good as you would expect.
At the next table, under the chandelier, I saw a kid with the greatest looking pancakes I’ve ever seen:
What can I say but "WOW"
That’s the good stuff–great looking room, great food. The bad stuff–service was absurdly slow. We had to ask twice for coffee, three times for Gail’s champagne. The waffle took forever to come out of the kitchen.
The prices are the usual big-city insane. My eggs and potatoes were $23.75, but that included the OJ and the iced tea. You don’t go to this place if you just want a quick, cheap meal–that’s what Denny’s is for. This is all about gracious dining, excellent food, and perhaps on a better day, fine service.
Now here’s the best part. After we finished, we took a little walk to do some shopping and then returned to ransom the car. They never really parked the car, just moved it 10 feet forward into the red zone on Stockton Street in front of the hotel–the cops are properly greased and the hotel gets to leave the car where it would cost you or me a $100 ticket. I was fully prepared to have to pungle up an absurd amount to cover the parking, and was utterly stunned to be charged SIX measly dollars. You lose some, you win some.
It was an adventure
If it’s different, I’m up for it. Strange? Even better. Last night was both.
We went to Machine, A World Premiere Fire Opera (yes, that all seems to be the name) at The Crucible in Oakland. The Crucible is a “non-profit educational collaboration of arts, industry and community” where you can go to learn to be an artist in glass, metal, ceramics, neon, woodworking, fire performance and many other loud, violent artistic endeavors. It’s a big warehouse kind of building on 7th St. in Oakland, near the West Oakland BART station.
The one hour performance starts at 8:30, a fine and decent hour. The very industrial space is transformed with bleacher seating into a theater, but don’t count on heat. It’s cold in there, although there is fire in many places. Even the bar area is lit with a huge flame:
A massive blast of flame within a glass tube provides both light and heat for the bar.
The stage is spectacular, a multi-story structure bursting with activity. There is glass blowing going on, bronze being melted, things being welded, flames shooting from a variety of fixtures both contained and uncontained. A huge wheel on the right is being turned by a man using a crank and a huge johnson bar. The orchestra, if you can so refer to group comprising an accordion, cello, keyboard, xylophone and percussion man, sits on stage as well, incongrously directed by a man in leather pants, tattoos and arm bands gently weilding his baton.
The "orchestra"
Yes, it’s a real opera. The singers are real life, honest-to-God, trained, profession opera singers. Stars Eugene Brancoveanu and Valentin Osinski, who have performed with opera companies all over the nation, bring their considerable skills to bear, competing madly with the special effects.
Yes, they even had surtitles--although Gail thought they were awfully difficult to read.
As spectacle, it’s great. As opera, not so much. The libretto is not particularly clever–in a dystopian alternate universe, an evil corporation enslaves its workers. One gets free and redeems the world. Pretty much every sci-fi book ever written. The music won’t have Verdi or Mozart feeling jealous, either.
Still, it sure looks good:
Eugene Brancoveanu and Valentina Osinski in Machine
Okay, see for your self, here’s a clip:
See the gas/flame explosions? They help keep the room warm–it’s cold in that concrete and steel environment, but the flames bring the temperature up to bearable.
I doubt that anyone will be producing Machine 100 years from now, so you had best see it now. It isn’t great opera, but it is pretty good spectacle, and opening you mind to new experience is always good.
The more things stay the same……
Went to the movies this afternoon, and saw a silent movie in black and white, just like my grandparents did before 1929.
No, it wasn’t a revival. We saw The Artist, this year’s verrrrrry hot import from France, nominated for Best Picture at the Golden Globes. Here’s the trailer, to get the discussion started:
The stars of the movie, Berenice Bejo and Jean Dujardin, are phenomenal actors and dancers, acting in both the broad style required by silent movies and the naturalism of modern times.
I found that I had to give this marvelous film much more attention than I usually do–lacking dialogue, I had to actively watch everything, read every face. In movies where the dialogue moves the plot exposition, I often find I am sitting there with my eyes closed just listening to what is happening.
The plot is nothing fancy–big silent movie star sees his career fail when talkies come in, which perky ingenue becomes famous. Her love is his redemption. The execution, as always, is the thing, and this execution is perfect.
British actor James Cromwell is magnificent as the long suffering valet/chauffer/man Frida who stands by his employer even when he hasn’t been paid for a year. John Goodman is alternately serious and comic as the forceful, corpulent studio boss–his face is made for silent movies.
A silent, black and white movie is a conceit, of course, and is hardly likely to start a new trend. Nonetheless, it sure was pleasant to see a movie that depends on acting and directing to tell the story, not CGI and special effects. Go see it.
Just WOW
This is a promotional video for Calcutta, but the work is just impressive–it’s all “handshadowography”, with is the fancy way to say that everything you see is hand shadows. The music is particularly cool, too. Just enjoy:
One upped again
Bob Munson sent me this photo; I think it’s a world record for riding on a scooter–there are nine of them. I particularly love the baby in the bucket.
History is written by the victors
This is the unhappy post about Vietnam. If you don’t like reading hard things, or seeing difficult photos, better skip it. I hate to have to include it, but I can hardly write an honest review of the trip and leave out the most important stop. Gail says it is the most painful place she’s ever been.
We went to the War Remnants Museum, devoted to excoriating the US for the events of the last war. There were helicopters and airplanes in front, that we forgot to take with us when we left, but we were in kind of a hurry back in 1975.
This is a museum full of propaganda, no doubt about it. Vietnam won the war, and they have every intention of telling the story from their point of view. The entire South Vietnamese government is glossed over as a “puppet regime” of the west, utterly lacking in validity. The Vietnamese army, what we called the Viet Cong, were apparently all angels, we were all devils. The truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle. See this museum just to be aware of all the things you’ll never see/hear at home.
The museum is crowded, and essentially every face is white. Not just Americans, but visitors from Europe and Latin America, crowd through to see war from another point of view. The point of view of the winners.
This is the basic tone of the museum--not that unfamiliar to someone who lived near Berkeley in the 70's
It isn't pleasant, but it's sure popular.
There is plenty of source material to show that the war was not popular in the US, and the museum makes the most of it.
A quote I'd never seen from Dr. King.
Even McNamara changed his view over time.
Street shooting the motor-scooters
There are 9 million people in Saigon,and there are 5 million motor-scooters. Not a lot of genuine, high-powered motorcycles coming from the Happy Days Shop in Chiang Mai, even fewer cars–there is no parking to speak of, and there is a 200% import duty on them. You can get a license to drive a 50cc scooter at 16, and drive a 100cc or bigger bike at 18.
We tend to think of scooters as barely better than toys, but they are the big means of transport in all of Asia–cheap, economical, practical. You can park anywhere, zip through the hideous traffic, carry the whole family. Tiny babies are carried in mommas arms which dad drives. A little bigger, and they sit or stand between the folks. 3 years and up they stand on the bike in front of the driver, tiny fingers reaching over the handlebars.
I stood on the street for 30 minutes, taking pictures of the stream of sccoters, here is a gallery of them, click on an image to get a better look and scroll through them all,
And we’re home
The happy story of my life
I burn my candle at both ends
It will not last the night.
But Ah! my foes, and Oh! my friends
It gives a lovely light
–Edna St. Vincent Millay
So the car came for us in our hotel in Saigon at 9 pm Thursday. Midnight flight from Tan Son Hut Airport, a name forever engraved in memory from the news coverage of the war. Arrive in Tokyo 7:30 Friday morning, spend the next 8 hours in the Admirals Club, playing bridge base with Gail in between naps.
Finally, the 4pm flight to LAX, arriving at 8 am the same day. Always weird to land 8 hours before you take off. Three more hours in the Admirals club (winning 1.20 masterpoints), then the short hour to SFO–I was asleep before the wheels were up, woke up when they put the wheels back down for landing. A car service took us home, then I went right back out to pick up 3 weeks worth of mail and re-stock the refrigerator.
And now, it’s time for a shower and clean clothes. Mike Rippey is having a party/lamb roast, and we can’t be expected to miss a party, can we? I once read that Dick Clark said “Jet lag is for amateurs”, and that’s been my motto ever since.
It will be good to sleep in my own bed tonight. And most of tomorrow, I should think.
Vegas on the Mekong
Christmas is a sort of a big thing here, but the bigger news is the new year–not ours, their. Tet. The lunar new year. Which this year falls on Jan 23.
We headed out to dinner at the Rex Hotel with Don and Linda. The Rex was a pretty famous place during the war, when the 5pm follies, the daily news briefing, were held there. Now it’s got the hippest, coolest rooftop bar/nightclub/restaurant in the city, with fantastic high-priced shops like Cartier and Bulgari on the ground floor. It’s at a huge intersection in the heart of the city.
And here’s the thing–the streets are lit up like Vegas, if Vegas just had a little more money to spend. We were stunned at the lights lining the streets, crossing the streets, lighting up the roundabouts.
From the Rex Hotel rooftop
A different direction, still tons of traffic and lights
Looking down on a statue of Uncle Ho.
The rooftop restaurant of the Rex Hotel. That's Don way down near the stage, Gail with her back to the camera.
From the other direction. This is a great place on a balmy evening.
The Rex is huge with the tourists–although it isn’t expensive, it’s probably too rich for most of the residents of Saigon. They offer both western and Vietnamese food. Hicks that we are, we were all ready for some home cooking. I had a club sandwich. Gail and Linda had the Rex Burger, which is about as good as a burger gets:
Big burger, cheese, bacon, ham and a fried egg. Fries on the side. The salad is just for show. This is probably a felony in Los Angeles, but it sure tastes good.
The future president of the ACBL couldn’t resist:
What Don thinks of the World Bridge Federation
After dinner we walked into the malestrom of traffic to get to the center island of the roundabout and take a photo of the hotel. It was full of young people (all of Vietnam is full of young people) just enjoying the evening. A couple of teenaged girls, about 85 pounds each, needed to have their picture taken with Don and me–they had never seen anyone so large. We made their night when we each picked one up like babies and their friend took a picture. Noblesse oblige, and all that.
We had a great time that night–the air was perfect, the food was fine and the mood of the city was bright and exciting. Not a bad end to the trip.
Totally Unauthorized 