sf stream o' consciousness
Just a few things I want to capture before I forget...
-- Met Miranda July last week at her book/dance party. The show was sold out which totally took me by surprise, but one of Superjew's friends was kind enough to give me her wristband so I got in eventually. MJ was very nice and seemed a bit tired... which is understandable. The Stranger writer who interviewed her asked some pretty bad questions and she had to sign a whole long line of people's books. We chatted briefly about how clever her book promotion website was and I professed to her that she was one of my creative heroes, to which she smiled and said thank you. Wow, Cat Power and now MJ all in the span of one year... which of my fantasy wives will I meet next?
-- Arrived in SF yesterday, decided not to get a rent-a-car like trips past. Rode the BART from SFO to the Mission... very convenient and speedy. Met up with my host, Lars (not Ulrich), at her very cool printmaking place of work and she gave me some tips on places to check out along Valencia. Headed that way and got a delicious fish burrito from Mariachi, saffron/pistachio ice cream from the Bombay ice cream place, and several amazing experimental and dubstep records from Aquarius. I have a feeling I'll be going there quite often.
-- Met back up with Lars and went out for some delicious sushi with her BF before the Kompakt show at Mezzanine. Walked in 30 mins into Gui Borrato's set... I was irked about that, but we still caught a nice chunk of it. He stuck mainly to stuff off of his latest album, sounded great on their sound system. Decent sized turn out, met a lot of super friendly people. Mayer came on and played a pretty bangin' set. He's also big on dancing behind the decks which is something I like to see.
-- Woke up today and headed to Tartine, the most amazing bakery I've ever been to in my life. Line was way out the door and I was told that I was smart to go during a "down time." I can't even imagine what it must be like on the weekend. Ordered a prosciutto & arugula pressed sandwich, a large chocolate chip cookie, a croissant, and a latte. Everything was delicious, saved half of it (minus the coffee) and ate that for dinner. Met some more super nice people at one of the shared tables in the bakery. One of which was Persian and works for Neiman's jewelry dept... talk about small world. She gave me the scoop on the best kabob places to hit in town... can't wait to try them out!
-- Headed from there on the BART to the Metreon. Wow, that place is dead. The arcade owners got evicted and the whole place has the feeling of imminent doom. Walked around the Playstation store, got very bored, and headed to the Yerba Buena arts center. There I saw a strange exhibit by a group of artists obsessed with the color black. Everything in the exhibit was supposed to be donated objects that people associate with "blackness"... so there's just a lot of random junk in the exhibit strewn about. One neat thing about it though was 3 members of the organization walked around with a mic and an amp and interviewed various museum attendees and asked them questions about politics and world changing. I was secretly hoping they'd come and talk to me, but they had their hands full with an opinionated older lady and I didn't feel like sticking around.
-- Next exhibit was all about the work of Harry Crumb. It was quite entertaining, although, I still don't really understand why he portrays black people the way he does in his comics. I think one of the descriptive panels in the exhibit said that this was the way he holds up a mirror to society to show their racism straight back at them... but without that background info, it'd be easy for a superficial viewer (like myself) to mistake his work for that of an extreme bigot. Maybe one of you know more about Crumb and can illuminate me on this topic?
-- There was another exhibit upstairs of photography that bored me to tears so I headed to SF MOMA which is one of my favorite places to spend time on the planet. The main exhibit was on Picasso and American artists that were influenced by him like Roy Lichenstein. Strangely enough, I didn't really enjoy the Picasso works, but the other ones were quite cool.
-- The most amazing thing I saw in the museum was a gigantic pyramid made out of blue collar worker clothing (pants and shirts). In front of the pyramid is an old desk with a librarian-esque lady sitting behind it, licking an eraser occasionally and erasing passages out of some non-descript book. I thought the whole thing was fascinating. The artist who made it was Ann Hamilton. I think she is my new favorite artist. The MOMA had a movie showing that was from a semi-recent PBS series that follows various artists around and profiles their work. I saw the "Spirituality" one from the series and Ann was one of the artists profiled. She deserves her own post just to talk about some of the cool projects she's worked on... I'm definitely going to have to read up on her more when I get a chance. There was another artist in the film that I need to look up who's name escapes me... the piece I have to find of his depicts a CEO as a christ-like figure sitting on top of the earth with little office worker angels offering up gifts to him. My description isn't doing it justice, but I'll post it if I can find it later.
-- The other exhibit I saw had a lot of modern objects like posters, furniture, and other household items. This one wasn't too exciting for me... a lot of it I had seen before last year when I was there. I did get a strong desire though to try and create a piece of furniture some day. Many of the pieces in the exhibit looked handmade with common items and I was getting visions for what my ideal couch would look like.
-- The last leg of MOMA adventure was carried out in their wonderful bookstore where I picked up a few interesting DVDs, a rad paperclip holder, a garlic grinder, and a wooden bookmark. Man, I love that place.
-- It was time to head back to Lars's place and wow, what a workout of a walk that was. I'm going to get body builder legs if I continue to walk up these hills much longer.
-- Now I head to netlon's friend's place and I'm not sure what the rest of the weekend will entail, but it probably won't be as action packed as these past two days (thankfully, I needs to chill). Till the next episode...
-- Met Miranda July last week at her book/dance party. The show was sold out which totally took me by surprise, but one of Superjew's friends was kind enough to give me her wristband so I got in eventually. MJ was very nice and seemed a bit tired... which is understandable. The Stranger writer who interviewed her asked some pretty bad questions and she had to sign a whole long line of people's books. We chatted briefly about how clever her book promotion website was and I professed to her that she was one of my creative heroes, to which she smiled and said thank you. Wow, Cat Power and now MJ all in the span of one year... which of my fantasy wives will I meet next?
-- Arrived in SF yesterday, decided not to get a rent-a-car like trips past. Rode the BART from SFO to the Mission... very convenient and speedy. Met up with my host, Lars (not Ulrich), at her very cool printmaking place of work and she gave me some tips on places to check out along Valencia. Headed that way and got a delicious fish burrito from Mariachi, saffron/pistachio ice cream from the Bombay ice cream place, and several amazing experimental and dubstep records from Aquarius. I have a feeling I'll be going there quite often.
-- Met back up with Lars and went out for some delicious sushi with her BF before the Kompakt show at Mezzanine. Walked in 30 mins into Gui Borrato's set... I was irked about that, but we still caught a nice chunk of it. He stuck mainly to stuff off of his latest album, sounded great on their sound system. Decent sized turn out, met a lot of super friendly people. Mayer came on and played a pretty bangin' set. He's also big on dancing behind the decks which is something I like to see.
-- Woke up today and headed to Tartine, the most amazing bakery I've ever been to in my life. Line was way out the door and I was told that I was smart to go during a "down time." I can't even imagine what it must be like on the weekend. Ordered a prosciutto & arugula pressed sandwich, a large chocolate chip cookie, a croissant, and a latte. Everything was delicious, saved half of it (minus the coffee) and ate that for dinner. Met some more super nice people at one of the shared tables in the bakery. One of which was Persian and works for Neiman's jewelry dept... talk about small world. She gave me the scoop on the best kabob places to hit in town... can't wait to try them out!
-- Headed from there on the BART to the Metreon. Wow, that place is dead. The arcade owners got evicted and the whole place has the feeling of imminent doom. Walked around the Playstation store, got very bored, and headed to the Yerba Buena arts center. There I saw a strange exhibit by a group of artists obsessed with the color black. Everything in the exhibit was supposed to be donated objects that people associate with "blackness"... so there's just a lot of random junk in the exhibit strewn about. One neat thing about it though was 3 members of the organization walked around with a mic and an amp and interviewed various museum attendees and asked them questions about politics and world changing. I was secretly hoping they'd come and talk to me, but they had their hands full with an opinionated older lady and I didn't feel like sticking around.
-- Next exhibit was all about the work of Harry Crumb. It was quite entertaining, although, I still don't really understand why he portrays black people the way he does in his comics. I think one of the descriptive panels in the exhibit said that this was the way he holds up a mirror to society to show their racism straight back at them... but without that background info, it'd be easy for a superficial viewer (like myself) to mistake his work for that of an extreme bigot. Maybe one of you know more about Crumb and can illuminate me on this topic?
-- There was another exhibit upstairs of photography that bored me to tears so I headed to SF MOMA which is one of my favorite places to spend time on the planet. The main exhibit was on Picasso and American artists that were influenced by him like Roy Lichenstein. Strangely enough, I didn't really enjoy the Picasso works, but the other ones were quite cool.
-- The most amazing thing I saw in the museum was a gigantic pyramid made out of blue collar worker clothing (pants and shirts). In front of the pyramid is an old desk with a librarian-esque lady sitting behind it, licking an eraser occasionally and erasing passages out of some non-descript book. I thought the whole thing was fascinating. The artist who made it was Ann Hamilton. I think she is my new favorite artist. The MOMA had a movie showing that was from a semi-recent PBS series that follows various artists around and profiles their work. I saw the "Spirituality" one from the series and Ann was one of the artists profiled. She deserves her own post just to talk about some of the cool projects she's worked on... I'm definitely going to have to read up on her more when I get a chance. There was another artist in the film that I need to look up who's name escapes me... the piece I have to find of his depicts a CEO as a christ-like figure sitting on top of the earth with little office worker angels offering up gifts to him. My description isn't doing it justice, but I'll post it if I can find it later.
-- The other exhibit I saw had a lot of modern objects like posters, furniture, and other household items. This one wasn't too exciting for me... a lot of it I had seen before last year when I was there. I did get a strong desire though to try and create a piece of furniture some day. Many of the pieces in the exhibit looked handmade with common items and I was getting visions for what my ideal couch would look like.
-- The last leg of MOMA adventure was carried out in their wonderful bookstore where I picked up a few interesting DVDs, a rad paperclip holder, a garlic grinder, and a wooden bookmark. Man, I love that place.
-- It was time to head back to Lars's place and wow, what a workout of a walk that was. I'm going to get body builder legs if I continue to walk up these hills much longer.
-- Now I head to netlon's friend's place and I'm not sure what the rest of the weekend will entail, but it probably won't be as action packed as these past two days (thankfully, I needs to chill). Till the next episode...