Feathers Fire and Sound

It's been a rough couple of weeks so excuse the delay, but there were a couple of notable moments to document.

I attended Audium, the "sculpture through sound" theater which is only set up for this sort of performance. It looks straight out of 2001: Space Odyssey, with a very 60s feel. You sit in a circle in a round room with walls full of speakers. They turn off all the lights and the show begins. You are in pitch blackness for about an hour and a half, listening to abstract and recorded sounds, some of which sound like the beeps from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and some which sound like you are standing in the middle of a street and a parade is marching around and past you. I couldn't take photos in the mod theater, but there was some interesting art in the lobby.



I went to the Chinese New Year parade and street fair. This photo is interesting only because it shows one of the streets of the fair, all of which were still allowing vehicle traffic. Chaos.



One day X wanted to make flying thai-style lanterns. Not having a clue how to do it, we each tried our own style.





Neither flew, but both made brief and fiery spectacles on Ocean Beach. I later learned that the lanterns are much huger than we had thought--bigger than a person, as you see in my friend Nik's blog. We will be re-attempting this venture. Stand back.



On a totally different note, I sometimes go to this park in SF. The park is not a secret, but it is hidden. It's the Levi's park, part of the plaza, and its design is fascinating and soothing. It has to be the cleanest and best park in SF, unfortunately probably owing a lot to the private security that patrols it. A great place for a work day picnic, with RJ's market and deli right near by.



On Valentine's Day I had the uncertain pleasure of taking part in the massive pillow fight at the Embarcadero center. It was quite a spectacle and lasted with earnest for half an hour, though there were many smacking stragglers. Wish I could post video! My friends ended up on the news talking about how my friend's shirt busted open mid-fight. This 5 second sound byte was of course clipped from a five minute interview. There were gusts of feathers blowing down Market Street afterwards. The flying snowstorm of feathers during the fight made the softcore violence almost magical. Definitely special.





X and I went for a night walk in the city down to the Aquatic Park and saw a seal in the cold water and a nice skyline, for which this photo doesn't do justice.

Tidepools, holograms, a red dog, and eggs benny

Last weekend I took a trip to Baker Beach with my friend Colin and his dog who I adore, Sol, went to SFMoma, and went to Half Moon Bay to brunch and the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve--the best tidepools in the Bay Area.

I kept trying to take picturesque photos of Colin and his dog but Sol wasn't having the listening to Colin part.


I saw the Chuck Close and Kiki Smith exhibits at the MOMA. Chuck Close's self-portraits exhibits featured 5 holographic plates with details so intricate that you could see tiny hairs growing out of the tip of his bulbous nose. Shayla's brother, Adrian, recently learned how to do these type of plates using a ruby pulse laser at his art school, and he entertained us and about 10 eavesdropping art patrons with his knowledge. As soon as you hear ruby pulse laser you know it's gonna be good.

The day at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve was incredible. I went with a wonderful friend who is an amazing photographer. If he had a photojournal it would outdo mine ten-fold. He takes amazing close-ups of plants and animals the likes of which I've never seen. We had a great day laughing like crazy and looking at plants and animals in colors you can't imagine possible in nature. We brunched before the tidepools at Rogue Chefs in Half Moon Bay (don't want to get tempted as you're looking at the smorgasbord of fauna! totally kidding). This is their version of eggs benedict. Amazing. I had randomly heard of them through Daily Candy. I don't think a lot of other Daily Candy readers were there. The arts and crafts-style house it's in was pretty empty, but well-designed and the food and service were great.


When we got to the tidepools this is one of the first things we saw. It's harbor seal mating and birthing season and these seals were lying out close to the tidebreak at the marine reserve. The water you can see in front of them is part of the tidepools.


By the way, here is what you look like when you go to tidepools. Everyone you see is either doing this, or they're delicately stepping their way through the tidepools trying to kill as few things as possible and not fall in at the same time, which seems inevitable (i did a couple times). That, or you step on a an anemone exposed to the air and activate the anemone alarm, meaning that you get squirted with water by a very pissed-off invertebrate, if invertebrates can muster up enough emotion to really get pissed off. I'd imagine they'd generally be pretty mellow.


And here's what you see when you're looking at the tidepools.


There was a huge field of mussels clustered closely together. They just shut up tight when the water goes out.


These purple urchins sit in rounded-out crevices.


There are lots of colorful anemones.



Another amazing sunset while we sat on the beach.