Redwoods and Gaultier


      We spent the day in Muir Woods about 30 minutes north of The City in a lush, upscale region known as Marin County. The Coastal Redwoods are the gatekeepers to a time before industrial exploitation. It was raining lightly and reminded me of the Pacific Northwest where I attended college. Many of the trees on the peninsula have actually been introduced by folks like William Hammond Hall and (supposedly) John Muir in the creation of Golden Gate Park. The blessed Eucalyptus with its lemon-scent is actually more of an invasive species. The two prominent trees native to Northern California are the Coastal Redwoods and the Monterrey Cypress.

     On the other end of the recreational spectrum, we hit the Gaultier exhibit at the deYoung Museum. Subtlety was not his forte but it was wonderful to witness the close friendship that developed between him and Madonna (at least according to the quotes and Polaroid pictures). His style is postmodern baroque; there's no group that he didn't offend or borrow from in an over-the-top way. Here's one of my favorites: his bleeding heart dress. Maybe it's because I'm a liberal!

Comments

  1. Sandy Leonard SnapsMarch 29, 2012 at 6:03 AM

    Love Gaultier's contributions to Almodovar's films 'Bad Education,' 'Talk to Her' and 'The Skin I Live In.' And as for your home search...take it easy, don't force solutions. The right place will appear. You know that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Blue-XelaMarch 29, 2012 at 10:49 AM

    Thanks, Sandy, I am trying to keep that in the forefront of my mind. The SF Chronicle swears that an apartment construction boom is around the corner but in real estate time that could be anywhere from 6 months to 3 years. The bright side is that I'm able to check out these new neighborhoods even when the rooms "fall through."

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Magic of Magnolias

Image
      I worried about being too showy with this post as most of my readers in Boston remain under 7 feet of snow. But the fact remains: Spring does come to California in February! California readers, has this always been the case or is climate change the go-to villain?       We're not immune, in the Golden State, to "Global Weirding." Los Angeles in fact is to receive more rain than San Francisco over the next ten days. Up here in fact it did not rain one drop in January - an almost exact replica of 2014. Business owners and farmers are getting jittery as this drought continues into its 4th year and thus state government is getting creative. Desalination right now is the hot-ticket-idea to secure water flow in California, something that countries like Israel have been investing in for decades.       At least the authorities won't neglect Golden Gate Park, a well-watered oasis that should really be sandy scrubland. These photos were taken at the SF Bot
Read more

Controversy at the BL Symposium on Decorum and the Soul of the Humanities: DITA Assignment #3

Image
Gosh, where do we start with this one?                                                                                                                                      Photograph: Alamy                  Our class had taken a field trip to the British Library Digital Labs Symposium which ended up being like an awards show for the most cutting-edge projects associated with local research groups. There was free food, an explicit call to "network" (a term that gives me the willies when spoken aloud), and a number of creative projects. The keynote speaker who kicked things off at the ripe hour of 10 a.m. was problematic in several different ways. Armand Leroi's talk entitled "The Science of Culture" basically used a number of infometric ways of tracking what lyrics and chords and instruments had been used in American Top 40 charts since 1960. While initially quite intriguing and entertaining, one ended up asking after all his graphs and boasts: &quo
Read more

Thomas's Pandemic Diaries: The Good Ole' Literature Review for the Dissertation

Image
Green and leafy London is affording me a nice atmosphere in which to tackle phase one of my UK Master's dissertation. Its working title is "Gift of the Gab: The Rise of the Audiobook and the Festive Turn in Library Science." The scholars I am reading are quite masterful and eloquent and I wonder if I can elevate my chatty banter in time for final publication. Ironically, what draws me to the subject of the audiobook (and to the podcast) is the approachability and egalitarianism of the medium and subsequently, the literature depicting it. Of course, the one community who would be left out is the deaf community; still I do believe the "A-book" reaches quite a large slice of the population who never "caught on" to SSR (Sustained Silent Reading). We've all have had a bad experience or two in high school English class. So a bit of housecleaning around terminology. A Master's thesis in the U.S. is for an M.A. or M.S. while a dissertation is for a P
Read more