It's Complicated --- Days 15/22 & 23

Walks: Hood

Distances: short, just 2 miles and some pt (then home for meetings, measurements, see below)

So for aging in place purposes, Ciwt thought: "An Elevator! Why not?" and hired the necessary architect to get the process started.  It's been a few months of meetings, measurements, trips to the Building Department, and back for more meetings, measurements, trips to the Building Department.  So far all she has learned for sure is there are many reasons for "Why Not?"

He's Gone --- Days 15/20 & 21

Walks: Hood

Distances: 3.5 miles

Bob (Bobby) Weir 

1947-2026

No place to begin; So many memories and so much gratitude held by people of all ages all over the world including Ciwt. His family's statement tells his story beautifully.

It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of Bobby Weir. He transitioned peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after courageously beating cancer as only Bobby could. Unfortunately, he succumbed to underlying lung issues.
 
For over sixty years, Bobby took to the road. A guitarist, vocalist, storyteller, and founding member of the Grateful Dead. Bobby will forever be a guiding force whose unique artistry reshaped American music. His work did more than fill rooms with music; it was warm sunlight that filled the soul, building a community, a language, and a feeling of family that generations of fans carry with them. Every chord he played, every word he sang was an integral part of the stories he wove. There was an invitation: to feel, to question, to wander, and to belong. 
 
Bobby’s final months reflected the same spirit that defined his life. Diagnosed in July, he began treatment only weeks before returning to his hometown stage for a three-night celebration of 60 years of music at Golden Gate Park. Those performances, emotional, soulful, and full of light, were not farewells, but gifts. Another act of resilience. An artist choosing, even then, to keep going by his own design. As we remember Bobby, it’s hard not to feel the echo of the way he lived. A man driftin’ and dreamin’, never worrying if the road would lead him home. A child of countless trees. A child of boundless seas. 
 
There is no final curtain here, not really. Only the sense of someone setting off again. He often spoke of a three-hundred-year legacy, determined to ensure the songbook would endure long after him. May that dream live on through future generations of Dead Heads. And so we send him off the way he sent so many of us on our way: with a farewell that isn’t an ending, but a blessing. A reward for a life worth livin’. 
 
His loving family, Natascha, Monet, and Chloe, request privacy during this difficult time and offer their gratitude for the outpouring of love, support, and remembrance. May we honor him not only in sorrow, but in how bravely we continue with open hearts, steady steps, and the music leading us home. Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings.

“If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine

And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung

Would you hear my voice come through the music?

Would you hold it near as it were your own?  

Ripple, words by Robert Hunter, sung by Grateful Dead

Maybe Too Secret --- Day 15/19

Walk: Hood/Presidio

Distance: 4 miles

You know when you begin a book that is exceptionally well written but takes a lot of concentration to keep going?  You admire it but wish it wasn't quite so exacting and subtle.  Well, that's how Ciwt responded to The Secret Agent. Guiltily responded actually because the movie was the most awarded film at Cannes (Actor, Director, Art House Cinema and FIPRESCI for Best Film), then became the first Brazilian film to receive Golden Globe nominations for Best Drama, Best Actor and Best Foreign Language.  And as of today has been shortlisted for Oscar's Best International Feature Film.

And to think Ciwt couldn't make it to the end!  As the plot kept roaming around without a lot of clues about what was going on Ciwt started to get tired from concentrating. It was all a bit too secret. Then when she looked at her watch and found there was another 50 minutes to go.....well..  

As she said, she greatly admired many aspects of The Secret Agent including the leading man's (Wagner Moura) compellingly grounded acting and the highly complex and penetratingly accurate glimpse into  everyday life and survival under Brazil's deceiptful, murderous authoratarian regime in the 1970's.  So, like that book that you know deserves completion, Ciwt is considering a return to the theater late in The Secret Agent to watch those last 50 minutes.  

Tree People --- Day 15/18

Walk: Hood

Distance: 3.5 miles

Ciwt wasn't a Neil Diamond Tree People but she was a Tree House People who listened countless times  to him shouting to them in his now classic Hot August Night album.  If you were a Tree Person or just a simple fan of Neil Diamond, you must see Song Sung Blue.  It's a true life story of a Milwaukee couple who called themselves Lightning and Thunder and endeared themselves to their hometown audiences, tiny and huge, with what they called  A Neil Diamond Tribute.  The movie is totally lowbrow, melodramatic,  weepy at times, exhilerating often.  The critics of course don't have much good to say about it, but Ciwt loved it and was sad to have it end..

And if you are a Kate Hudson non-fan, you too are encouraged to see Song Sung Blue. You might change your mind. At nineteen Hudson was nominated for Oscar's Best Supporting actress as a young high spirited 'band-aid" (groupie) In Almost Famous. Now 46 she has matured into Song Sung Blue's courageous, resiliant, heartfelt songstress - and Oscar Best Actress zone. 

Chipper --- Day 15/18

Walk: Goodwill, Apple Cinema (Song Sung Blue)

Distance:  4.5 miles

Stripped Christmas trees are a common sight on San Francisco sidewalks every January.  So common in fact, Ciwt never questioned until today what is actually done with them.

Turns out they are given a second act. After Recology crews pick them up on their regular routes, the trees are sent to commercial composting facilities (some owned and operated by Recology).  There, rather than adding to landfill waste, they are chipped and ground with other organic materials (like food scraps) into high quality compost.  This nutrient rich compost is then used for landscaping and soil improvement in parks and other green projects around the Bay Area.

Nice and Chip, Chip Hooray.  Makes Ciwt even more fond of the Christmas trees she sees fully adorned in windows and  on sidewalks during the holiday season.

Rain: Somewhere in Asia --- Day 15/17

Walk: Sunny! Hood

Distance:  3.5 miles

?

So, Ciwt saw this work on the internet but searched in vain for information on the artist who created it.  It may be Fruzsi Kenez from Adelaide, Australia.  Whoever produced it and whether it is an oil, watercolor or other medium, it is a charming way to say sayonara to CIWT's and SF's flurry of rainstorms.  The sun is out at last🌞

Rain: Commuter Stations Everywhere --- Day 15/16

Walk: Short

Distance: 1.5 miles, Yoga Room 1 hour

John Philip Falter (1910-1982), Commuters in the Rain, ca. 1961, (Saturday Evening Post Cover, october 7, 1961) oil on Masonite 

So, Ciwt is old enough to remember The Saturday Evening Post which arrived at her family's Midwestern mailbox in one of two daily deliveries (until 1950) until its final issue in February, 1969. By that year there were zip codes (beginning in 1963) one mail delivery a day and Ciwt was out of college doing her best to navigate NYC, DC and the world outside her childhood home.  

She particularly remembers the Norman Rockwell covers which warmed her heart even after grown up history of art classes taught her they were corny. But she doesn't remember the covers illustrated by John Philip Falter. Her loss.  

Rockwell created over 300 covers during his near five decade collaboration with The Saturday Evening Post beginning in 1916.  Falter produced the second highest number having begun his long and fruitful relationship with the magazine in 1943 with a portrait of Benjamin Franklin (the true father of the SEP).  

You really can't get more 'Americana' than the combination of these three men: Franklin, Rockwell, Falter. But Franklin's magazine didn't have full page illustrated covers which began in 1899 ( before Ciwt, btw).  Although Rockwell and Falter both depicted American life, Falter was no Rockwell imitator.  Falter tended to specialize in Midwestern scenes which he captured with humor and a broad view, often from above looking down. Their creative processes were also different with Rockwell relying on methodical staging while Falter was gifted with a photographic memory, often sketching entire complex scenes from it and adding finishing details later. Falter's long perspective allowed for more of a panorama (like the Commuters in the Rain cover above) while Rockwell was more concentrated on the character's themselves - their clothing, expressions. 

(Norman Rockwell, 1941)

Rockwell came to respect Falter's work and actually had what he referred to as a "Falter Period" when he employed Falter's long view perspective. 

(Norman Rockwell, 1940)

Falter, on the other hand, grew up revering Rockwell's work, even opening an early studio in New Rochelle, New York, long a colony for illustrators, including Frederic Remington and Rockwell himself as well as friends from the Kansas City Art Institute.  As he told it: "Rockwell was our inspiration then. I didn't meet him until years later. We would hear that Rockwell had been out on the street. and we'd all rush out and hunt for him. If they'd tell us that he had looked in a shop window, we'd look in the same window trying to absorb what he looked at by osmosis.

"There were plenty of Rockwell imitators. My main concern in doing Post covers was trying to do something based on my own experiences. I found my niche as a painter of Americana with an accent of the Middle West. I brought out some of the homeliness and humor of Middle Western town life and home life. I used humor whenever possible." 

https://www.johnphilipfaltermuseum.com/sepcovers3 

Rain: Brussels --- Day 15/15

Walk: Short, Rain

Distance/Activity: 1.5 miles, 1 hour Yoga Room

Rene Magritte (Belgian) , Golconda, 1953, oil on canvas

So, if you find yourself confused by exactly what Rene Magritte is communicating in his art, artist mission accomplished.  The Belgian painter was a mystery writer at heart, a devoted follower of the French crime series Fantomas and a prolific writer in genres stretching from poems, film scripts to manifestos. Beyond these real world activities, he believed deeply in mystery itself, at least once saying "Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist."

Are the 'raindrop men' in Golconda above rising, falling, just hovering in mid air?  Why are they dressed as the same Belgian businessman complete with bowler hat (one his real life trademarks)?  What is Magritte saying here?

Like everyone, Ciwt doesn't know, but she has some guesses what Magritte may have had in mind. He had remained in Brussels during World War II during the nearly five years it was occupied by the Germans. Daily life was an ongoing surreal experience of his countrypeople going about ordinary business as usual while arrests, executions, checkpoints, credential checks, betrayals were highly unusual, menancing and deadly norms  Perhaps he is alluding to these times.  Also, even though a communist in his thinking, maybe was aware of the sameness, lack of individuality of that system. Or capitalism?  Also Magritte may have been thinking of Golgonda, an actual ruined city in 14th to 17th centuries India.

Or maybe he didn't have any of these things on his mind.  He was about evoking mystery, not solving it. Like a good mystery writer, he invites his viewers to be detectives using clear, common images to create puzzles that spark curosity, humor, and imagination without needing any complex art-world knowledge.  Even if you don't 'understand' them, there is humor, fun, wonder on his canvasses, and, like Ciwt, you are invited to find your own meaning.