journal

My last couple of days in the Bay area I moved from Oakland to San Francisco and stayed in an interesting old Deco hotel.  It bordered on charming and kinda scary.  But I love the old, boutique hotels with some character.  I went to a dance performance on Saturday night at the S.F. Conservatory of Music.  Really great building and I loved having the opportunity to see a recital there.  I saw an ad when we were in the Castro District for the world premier of “ManDance” – a company of male ballet dancers.  When in Rome…    San Francisco is so supportive of the gay and lesbian community and I thought I should be as well.  The show was really interesting and the choreography innovative… especially the dance to the music from Brokeback Mountain.  To continue my cultural experience I went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and the Jewish Contemporary Museum (JCM) on Sunday.  SFMOMA had two fabulous special exhibits – Georgia O’Keefe paired with Ansel Adams and the photography of Richard Avedon.  The art museum had some really cutting edge modern art.  After checking out all four floors and the sculpture garden I went across the street to the Jewish Contemporary Museum.  There was a special exhibit – “Jews on Vinyl”, curated by Roger Bennett, one of our guests at the Tampa JCC Jewish Book Month Celebration last year. In the exhibit hall there was a listening area set up like the fifties and on the record player was the Temptations Motown version of “Fiddler on the Roof’.  Wish I had that recording.  After the JCM I went to the park across the street where the S.F. Opera was holding a free performance.  As I was leaving I stopped to chat with a very nice man who saw me studying my map and offered some directions.  While chatting with him I was so excited to see some folks that I know from Tampa.  Stuart and Cindy Novick were visiting their daughter who lives in S.F. and went to SFMOMA as well. Stuart and I have worked together for about four years on the Tampa Bay Jewish Film Festival.  After 11 days I said goodbye to the Bay Area.

Getting to the Giants game was so fabulous.  Since we were in Oakland I knew we had to take public transportation and we’d already done BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit).  After some research I found the ideal way to get there.  How cool is it that the Giants park is on the water, in the harbor and a ferry from  Oakland docks there.  Peggy and I had such a good time coming and going on the boat.  The views were great.  The most interesting scene that we kept seeing in Oakland was the harbor with these enormous machines to unload the ships (Harbor Animals).  The game was also fun and you know I really enjoyed the cold weather.  The entire time we were in the bay area it was cool.  YEAH.

This day was a visit to a few of San Francisco’s famous neighborhoods.  We started at the BART station going into the city.  Our first stop was in the Mission District and we walked to the Castro Neighborhood.  This is the place where Harvey Milk lived and made his valiant effort to change the acceptance of gay people.  His life was memorialized in the film “Milk” starring Sean Penn.  It was so inspirational and we had to see the place that holds his spirit.  The homes on the way there were really interesting.  Once we got to the Castro District the rainbow flags were abundant.  Then we saw the Castro Theater and they had some vintage movie posters.  Not to mention the really special showing coming up – “Valley of the Dolls” with special guest Patty Duke.  Sooooooooo coooool.

Next we went to Haight/Ashbury.  There was another spirit alive there.  This is the place where “The Summer of Love” was alive in 1967.  Hippies were everywhere.  There was a little bit of that left but now it’s pretty much a tourist spot.  Catch the wonderful legs coming out of the window.  Peggy and I got to do the feet shot on the sidewalk sign for Haight Street.

Our last stop was Fisherman’s Wharf.  It was such a major tourist spot but we had a great time anyway.  On the way out of the area we found these cool flowers.  A quick streetcar to the subway and home.

The Pacific Coast Highway is one of the most spectacular and scary drives ever.  The curves are little jaunts into the air with the rocks and the Pacific way below.  It took us 10 hours to go from Los Angeles to San Francisco.  We kept going around and around the curves… oohing and ahhhing until we decided that you can just get a little too saturated with beauty.  But a few stops along the way (in the safe places) gave us view that will never translate here.  So instead I found a scene to add a little humor to the setting.  See you in San Francisco.

Okay, so I am taking an artistic risk here.  Let me explain.  My friend Yvonne has a client and dear friend named Shirley.  She is a classic renaissance woman who began to explore her artistic talents in the hallowed decade of the forties in the little town of New York.  I spent a charmed afternoon with her in her home in Los Angeles.  We talked about how we both studied the art of our choosing at The New School in lower Manhattan (photography for her and calligraphy for me).  Shirley’s house was filled with treasures from the deco light fixture in the foyer to the molded formica and lucite table in the dining room.  I was entralled with the artwork in the dining room. Shirley herself was a treasure and shared with me her photographic style and technique.

She showed me that the photographs were filled frames of how the eye sees beautiful and fascinating little peices of art and design.  Each one of the photos are virtual snippets of the world around us and not manipulated in any way; just captured segments made beautiful by light, shadows, reflections, angles, etc.  The day after visiting Shirley I saw my first incredible segment at LACMA (the Los Angeles County Museum of Art).  It’s the photo at the top of this page.  Since that time I have looked at the vistas in each place I’ve visited to see if there is another segment worth capturing.

In honor of Shirley and with the greatest respect for the years of experience honing her art of photography I offer these samples.  I don’t love them all but a few are good enough to make me happy.  Let me know what you think.

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