Parks in Profile: Stern Grove

      It's been a month since I last posted and for that I apologize. The pace of my life has picked up considerably in many areas. April was also a month of travel, ill health and astrological angst. Things happen so fast now; I don't whether it means I'm living a full life in rapid San Francisco or if all of our countrymen are being thrashed about on this wild ride in the spring of 2014 in the U.S.A. or at least feeling like they are being thrashed about.

 

      A week ago, I picked up a fascinating page-turner at Aardvark Books called Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now (New York: Penguin, 2013) by Douglas Rushkoff. It's about the collapse of narrative since the year 2000 and how art, literature, media and politics has moved far away from personality and emotions and biography to a more austere, scientific take on how systems work. It's a rather heady read. For instance, Rushkoff delves into explanations for pop-culture t.v. series like the wildly-favored, Game of Thrones (which has captivated Mauricio and me for the past several weeks). Without spoiling any story lines, Rushkoff states the show's opening credits are "drawn in the style of a fantasy role-playing map used by participants as the game board for their battles and intrigues. And like a fantasy role-playing game, the show is not about creating satisfying resolutions, but rather about keeping the adventure alive and as many threads going as possible." In my interpretation, it's never about the desperate feelings about, say, a character like Sansa Stark, who has met more trauma than any young girl her age, but about whether she can survive in a hostile world of shifting alliances. Feeling is out and puzzle is in.
 The Calla Lilies grow as tall as men.
      
      The one antidote to speed and chaos is finding beauty wherever you go. Living in San Francisco with this theme in mind can be an embarrassment of riches. Likewise, something that has pulled me into Game of Thrones is its comely filming locations which I had found to traverse the countries of Northern Ireland, Iceland, Malta, Croatia and Morocco.

A Wooded Path from outside Rivendell

      There are pockets of San Francisco that have a magical, fairy quality like Game of Thrones' Westeros and one of my special places is Stern Grove or Sigmund Stern Grove Recreation Area, named after a philanthropist and a nephew of Levi Strauss, the inventor of blue jeans. Most people associate this green oasis, located in the Sunset neighborhood, with the Stern Grove Music Festival, an independent summer concert series that has been running for over 75 years. But Stern Grove also is a place for a lot of individual dog owners, a few dogwalkers, exercise nuts and birders. At 33 acres, you can find sundry hiking trails, a Redwood grove and a small body of water called Pine Lake. There is also a pair of nesting red-shouldered hawks, ducks, cormorants and (most recently) a few red-winged blackbirds.
 A Touch of King's Landing at Stern Grove
      
      Each corner of the park transports you to somewhere else. The wooded trails above the stage area could be from outside Rivendell in Lord of the Rings, the stage area itself could be from GoT's King's Landing and around Pine Lake, there is a horizon of Eucalyptus that could be plucked from any non-arid region of Australia.

 Doesn't this look like Down Under? 

      It's just another benefit to living in a city that borrows with glee from all corners of the globe. Stern Grove is one place where you can put aside the chaos and slow down with the beauty. 

 More Wisteria

 A Japanese Maple with Coast Redwoods

 Basil & Carson love it here.


      

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