Knock, Knock --- Days 15/292 & 293

Walks: Hood Halloween Scouts

Distances: 4.5 average

 

A Walk in the Park --- Days 15/291 & 292

Walks: Hood (Alta Plaza Park)

Distances: 4.5 miles average

So Ciwt went for a walk through 'her' park* a block away, and when she got to the far corner she saw this: 

(?)

So she turned, looked up the hill behind her and saw this along with several security guards:

(?)

Well, it turns out the movies are back in San Francisco.  This one being partially shot** in 'her' park is a 1940's San Francisco indie titled 'Fog City." Doesn't look like another ghost, horror or animated one, and she's looking forward to seeing it when it comes out. Hope it is good; but she'll enjoy seeing 'her' park in any event.  

* Actually it is old timey Alta Plaza Park, beloved by all neighbors - and their dogs because it is one of the few remaining 'off leash' areas in the city.

**Apparently much of it was shot in Australia posing as San Francisco.

Another Newcomer!!! --- Day 15/291

Walk: Hood

Distance: 4.5 miles

So, Ciwt was scouting a familiar route when she spotted what looked like a whole new Halloween Entrant!

Yes!  It was!

Going all the way along the side of the house.

Welcome New Neighbors and CNHC Enrants.

Newcomer! --- Day 15/290

Walk: Presidio

Distance: 4.5 miles

A new neighbor has joined Ciwt's Neighborhood Halloween Decorating Contest (NHDC)!  Maybe they moved in since last year's contest or just caught the October spirit around here😈👻

Flowers and Fall --- Day 15/289

Walk: Hood

Distance: 3.5 miles

A pretty neighborhood sidewalk picture before the witches, skeletons and monsters take over.

Need a Hat? Broomstick? --- Day 15/288

Walk: Hood

Distance: 4 miles

Ciwt's local 5&10 is all stocked up for San Francisco's Favorite Holiday.  

The Halloween Contest Begins!! --- Days 15/283 - 287

Walks: Hood

Distances: 4 miles average

October 1 and Two Time All House Winner of CIWT's Neighborhood Halloween Decorating Contest is right on schedule.  And reminding Ciwt that it's time for the contest to begin.  Yay!  It's exciting - and fun! - to see all local neighborhoods get scary to walk through 😱

They're All Right --- Days 15/281 & 282

Walks: Hood of course

Distances: 1 day of almost rest; 1 day 4 miles

So Ciwt was given and is enjoying a page-a-day book lover's calendar.  She really resonated with this one from back in March.  Maybe some of  her readers as well?

Merry Valentine's Day, Easter, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Etc... --- Days 15/276 - 280

Walks: Hood

Distance: 4 miles average

So that plant taking up much of Ciwt's bureau top was supposed to start drying out, turning brown and dying some time after its Christmas bloom. 

Now with the next Christmas a few months away (really!), looks like it will still be dark hardy green and demanding its space in her bedroom.  

Oh Ya, Fame --- Day 15/275

Walk: Hood, Vogue Theater (Late Fame)

Distance: 4.5 miles

Late Fame

So, over the years Ciwt has had a way of sort of ignoring Willem Dafoe.  She would note his presence in a movie - always eye-catching because of his chiseled features - and go on to pay attention to the movie's story or other actors.  Then a decade or so ago, when Dafoe was given prominent roles in movies like The Sunshine Project and The Lighthouse, she began noticing what a remarkable actor he is.  And, yesterday, in his wise, endearing, seamless performance in Late Fame she was mesmerized.  How, in a movie so quiet and subtle, did Dafoe's every half smile or eye movement stand out, convey so much, be the beating heart of the movie?  You'll have a chance to answer that - and see Dafoe's well deserved personal late fame for yourselves  - when Late Fame begins streaming on October 5.

'Past' Surprises --- Days 25/173-274

Walks: Mostly around home, putting things back in place after trip

Distance: 2 miles average

So overall, Ciwt was mostly surprised by Colonial Williamsburg.  First by its size. She had been planning her trip based on the map above.  The tiny map above. If you can read it, you see there are no distance/scale markers.  So, in the dark of night, when her driver told her they had entered the site, she was surprised when he kept driving and driving and driving until they finally reached the Inn where she was staying.  In fact Colonial Williamsburg is 301 acres, a mile and half long and at least 8 blocks side to side.  In 'normal' weather, a slightly challenging but comfortable, walking day.  In 95 degree, 90 percent humidity, bordering on hell. 

The carriage rides were cancelled to save the horses from the heat. - along with most of the reenactments you see in pictures on line.

When she went out the next morning, her next surprise was how spick and span the replicated village was.  Every wood building creamy white, every stone building chipless.  The 1776 inhabitants must have spent their days tidying in and out between planning for a revolution, then executing it.   Ciwt had expected to be instantly cast back into history, instead it was a matter of suspending disbelief.  By day two her sensibilities had adjusted; so, if you are going to go, Ciwt suggests 3 days, 2 to get into the feeling.  Otherwise you might end up with the impression of the great architectural reviewer, Ada Louise Huxtable: a 'superbly executed vacuum.' 

Or as she wrote in her The Unreal America: “What the perfect fake or impeccable restoration lacks are the hallmarks of time and place. They deny imperfections, alterations, and accommodations; they wipe out all the incidents of life and change. The worn stone, the chafed corner, the threshold low and uneven from many feet, the marks on walls and windows that carry the presence and message of remembered hands and eyes….are absent or erased. There is nothing left of the journey from there to here, nothing that palpably joins the past to the present, that makes direct physical and emotional contact with the viewer, the bittersweet link with those who have been there before.”

But then Ciwt majored in U.S. History and gives art tours. If she had been on the 'restoration' (ie, rebuild, replace, eliminate) committee in the 1930's when the vast and beyond expensive project ($100M+)  was ongoing, what would she have done?  You can't have original buildings - even if they exist - because they would look like off-putting slums and probably collapse on the first visitors.  And having a whole mix of the architectural styles that actually were in place might confuse the educational focus.  The project was and is meant to be educational, and it succeeds in large part with the costumed employees and their historical reenactments and spiels.  It is hard to say whether children fall for all of this or how deeply they are educated.  Many adults apparently are very pleased; There is one story of a couple who has returned 153 times since first visiting on their honeymoon.

Now for the First Class venues:  The Art and Archelogical Museums!!  Because she had such a short time, Ciwt let AI plan her trip and he/she/it took her to the historical buildings the first day and reserved the second and last day for the Art.  In fact Ciwt could have spent her entire trip at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Museum, DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum and even the newly opened Archaeological Museum. She would definitely return for those.  Fortunately, they all of  have extensive online presences where she can spend time now that she is back.  A nice surprise.

Now We Are Five --- Days 15/260 - 272

 Walks: Williamsburg, DC

Distances: 5 hot, humid miles average

Not Gonna Happen...

So, Ciwt is a traveler of very limited focus.  From the minute she gets serious about a trip, all eyes are on it and all nervous system parts begin fighting against the entire concept.  It always a race between going ahead and cancelling.  This is all very un-2026 in which toddlers have already traveled internationally - several times.  

Their parents, Ciwt presumes, think of planes like Ciwt thinks of walking - a pleasant (enough) way to get wherever you want as often as you want.  Not Ciwt; she took one look at an airplane sometime around age 5 and decided immediately and conclusively:  A big metal think like that Can't fly!!  To this day, even though 10's of thousands of planes prove her absolutely wrong on a daily basis, her five year old self remains steadfast.  "Doesn't mean the next one will.  Doesn't mean the one she gets one will make it."

So, heeding her inner five year old, she has canceled many trips, some at the very last minute.  And the few she has taken, like this last one, have been cliffhangers.  Then there is the matter of the return flight....

Okay, all that said, she's happily back to her beloved CIWT and her more beloved readers.

Zoom to Your Theater --- Days15/258 & 259

Walks: Hood, AMC Kabuki (Acme vs Coyote)

Distance average: 3 miles

So when Ciwt was a kid,  the Looney Tunes characters in the shorts before the main movie seemed like silly friends.  Particularly Wile E Coyote and his ridculously impossible and always 'fatal' attempts to catch his nemesis, the Beep Beep, Road Runner!  Now they - and all sorts of other Looney Tunes friends -  are back on the screen in Coyote vs. Acme, and Ciwt suggests you rocket right to a theater to see it. 

 (But don't take an Acme rocket if you expect to get there!)  If you are of 'a certain age' you're sure to have a delightfully nostalgic time being entertained by the zany, imaginative, lighthearted getaway with a teeny amoung of seriousness and a lot of heart. No thinking needed.

Awwww --- Days 15/255- 257

 Walks: Hood mostly

Distance: 4.5 miles average

Mutual Friends        photographer: Ernest Porter

So London's Natural History Museum has posted a few previews of its Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition which opens October 16.  From chance encounters to patiently planned, the images are always stunning, thought provoking and touching.  

For instance, what could be more dear than the relationship between an oxpeckers and a rhino captured by Ernest Porter.  The 'wildly' different animals have an ancient close and mutual relationship.  The oxpeckers get a good meal by plucking parasites from the rhino's skin which helps protect the rhino's health.  The birds also act as lookouts, warning rhinos of impending danger.  And it looks to Ciwt like the rhino provides a the oxpecker with a calming 'window seat' to sleep or just calmly chill.

How to Handle Ongoing Glum, Cold, Windy Weather? --- Days 15/251 - 254

Walks: Cold, Windy, Mostly Grey Hood

Distance: Average 3.5 miles

Answer:  Window Seats, Books and Cats

(Over?) Education? --- Days 15/251 to 253

Walks: SFMOMA

Distance average: 4 miles

So, Ciwt is absorbing the new look of  SFMOMA.  They have completely rehung the Fisher Collection  filling four of the huge museum's seven viewing floors with 750 out of the 1,000+ art works bequeathed by Don and Doris Fisher.  A mighty undertaking which we're told fulfills SFMOMA's agreement with the Fishers that an important exhibition of their collection would be mounted every 10 years.  Probably it was time anyway because much of the Fisher art had remained in the same place since 2016. 

For Ciwt a big  problem of the massive rehang is that the Fisher Collection introductory tours she has been giving since 2016 have been organized around the old hanging.  So, how is she doing taking in the new placements?  Well, she started a few months ago when she was invited to a special presentation of the rehanging by the curators in charge.  And she was horrified.  She thinks the story of (modern) art, its history, its evolution, the way one look of art influenced the next work, the thinking and stirrings around all that.  There is a fascinating story there, like there is in all history.  (To Ciwt)   And that story, the pretty much agreed on scholastic story modern art tells, was gone.  For instance, Sol Dewitt, Alexander Calder and Ellworth  Kelly, highly important, influential artists who had interesting real world connections with each other now occupied an entire floor grouped together by something impersonal and (to Ciwt) off-putting like "Artists Who Worked with Line and Form."  

This was very not right (to Ciwt) and her initial reaction was to reject the entire rehang out of hand.  For numerous and more adult reasons she pulled herself out of her pout and has now spent considerable time studying the new placements. Clearly prodigious multidisciplinary efforts and thinking went into the rehang project and Ciwt admires this. Without a guide like Ciwt, modern art is truly incomprehensible to most people.  Great educational pains have been taken to teach viewers about each artist's intention or historical period or working technique.  There are multiple pictures of the artists, young and old, videos of them or others speaking about their art, individual headphones to listen for more information, extensive expanatory signage with braille tablets for the blind.  Especially if the viewer is new to modern art or Don and Doris Fisher, viewers are given abundant information and ways to access it.

But, so far in her efforts to integrate the rehang - maybe form a new tour in her mind - Ciwt is questioning whether all this education is Too educational.  In many rooms she feels more aware of the the education but not the art.  She wonders how many viewers the art is able to speak to.  Looking at the art, 'hearing' it speak, allowing it to communicate (or not) is how she herself was drawn to it. Her spirit was touched and the rest followed. There are greeting cards, posters, even coffee cups which can spark immediate connection in old, young and art ignorant souls.  No education needed.

So Ciwt, at least at this point in her integration, is wondering whether viewers are being over educated. Are they able to just look and be moved in some way first?  But, Ciwt learns intuitively by seeing and listening. Too much (factual) informaton alienates her. But in this multimedia age maybe the Fisher Collection rehang is communicating beautifully to most people. The various curators at SFMOMA are aware these ways of presenting art are a departure from tradition.  So, Ciwt is continuing to keep the doors open to her conclusions about SFMOMA these days.  Another type of education - learning how to push at her own boundaries.

Wake Up with the Birds --- Days 15/249 & 250

Walks: small hood

Distance Average: 3 miles

Green-headed Tanager

So the other morning Ciwt came sleepily to her computer, turned it on and ...Boom!  A little birdie woke her right up! Small, brightly colored Tanagers have a way of doing that. 

The one on her screen was the Green-headed Tanager for reasons Ciwt doesn't quite understand, since its head appears aqua to her.  It lives mostly in the humid forests of Brazil, Paraguay and far north-easter Argentina.  None in Northern California.  Darn.  And the few other Tanager species that can be seen here - Scarlet, Western and Summer - are usually just on their migratory way.  Same was true in in Minnesota and Connecticut where Ciwt grew up.  Once in Minnesota she thought she saw a Scarlet one  but it might have been a Red Cardinal .  Either way she has remembered her happy excitement ever since.

Okay, Bye................

Early Course --- Days 15/247 & 248

Walks: Hood

Distance: 3 miles average

Seems dicey to Ciwt to make a biographical movie based on a young Anthony Bourdain.  Ciwt was thoroughly entertained by Bourdain's writings and TV shows but not a weekly followed, and even she still feels the sad shock of his 2018 end.  But she is glad director Matt Johnson went ahead with Tony and that she got herself to one of our neighborhood theaters to see it.  It is well acted throughout, with Antonio Banderas as supporting standouts, nearly entirely believeable, highly entertaining and - best of all to her - gives insight into Bourdain's mental workings  That last sheds new light on Montaigne's "seize the moment." 

Flowers and Stoops --- Day 15/246

Walk: Hood

Distance: 4 miles

So older San Francisco architecture is primarily Victorian and most of our residences don't have stoops.  Those little or big areas in front where people put chairs, tables, often swings, fan themselves in the summer heat, drink ice tea or stronger, wave to and socialize with neighbors passing by.  Come to think of it, San Francisco just isn't a very neighborly city that way.  Maybe because it began in earnest during/because of the Gold Rush where almost entirely men from every nation came one by one all at once seeking their own personal fortunes. The number who intended to stay around was likely exceeding small. Some - 95% men - did stay in San Francisco.  Wide spread domestic settling - rooting -  happened eventually, but San Francisco still retains very much of that boom or bust spirit.

But it is a beautiful city, and we all share our delight in that.  Maybe not as welcoming or sociable as stoops are the tiny and big gardens along our sidewalks.  Most of them, if even a few square feet, are filled with artfully placed seasonal flowers and shrubs and carefully tended.  In their quiet way they say somebody cares and are a fresh "hello,"have a good day," "enjoy," in passing.  They light up Ciwt's daily walks.

Flowers and An Elephant --- Days 15/241-245

Walks: Hood

Distance: 4 miles average

So the elephant that keeps popping up in Ciwt's mind and life is age.  She tries not to notice or think of it as a big deal.  And she particularly tries not to mention it to her wonderful CIWT readers.  Somewhere in the air many years ago she picked up some messages about old age talk: It is boring; No one want to hear about it; it is completely individual, etc.   Ie, Do Not Talk About it!! 

But that's gettin harder and harder because old age is right smack in the middle of her life all the time these days.  It's in her hip. her thin and thinning hair, her balance, her overall snap, crackle and pop, just for openers.  The number of workarounds for age increases daily and, she is slowly getting, they are going to increase, not become unnecessary.  It is strange territory, but she's in it and needing to figure out how to navigate it. She's even considering giving herself permission to talk about it from time to time in CIWT.

She may open up about other 'no no to her' topics, including a cat entry or two.  We'll see. Just so you know....

August 7 --- Days 15/235 - 240

Walks: Hood

Distance average: 4 miles

So, some quote Ciwt read recently declared "The best people are born in August."  Quite over the top, but today, August 7, is her birthday so she will take it.  Oh, and her cats too.  They are 10; Ciwt is....let's just say a delicate age.  

August 1 --- Days 15/233 & 234

Walks: Hood

Distance Average: 4.5 miles

Well, here's August with its strange mix of sadness, lack of motivation, sort of lostness for Ciwt.  What to make of August?  There's so much 'same old, same old' in it.  Out here it is the same old cold, grey, Windy weather; back East it was the 'dog days' of windless heat, clothes clinging  humidity and smelly green weeds covering the lake.  It's not a ho hum month for Ciwt, too disjointed for that.

Many people love August, its slowness, gentleness, its deep summerness.  Some others feel more like Ciwt.

Poet Sylvia Plath for instance who wrote: 

And the writer Sue Monk Kidd has this thought: 

Welcome to your August. 

Love, Ciwt

A Third Treasure --- Days 15/229-232

Walks: Hood, deYoung Museum

Distances: 4 miles average

Coffin lid of Queen Ahhotep II. Egyptian, Luxor, West Bank, Dra Abu el-Naga, tomb of Queen Ahhotep II. New Kingdom, Late Dynasty 17 or early 18, reign of Ahmose I.  Wood, gilded, painted, and stucco.

So, virtually everything Ciwt has seen or knows about the ancient Egyptian life and culture stems from the two massive exhibitions the deYoung Museum and MondoMostre hav mounted in collaboration with the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt. Beginning  August 1 Treasures of the Pharaohs, a third of these ancient Egyptian visual and educational extravaganzas will be on view until January 31, 2027. Judging from the large number of dignitaries and members of the press at yesterday's Press Preview, it will draw viewers from all over the world.  

Good!  Like Ciwt, visitors will get rare insights into ancient Egyptian society, its beliefs and creations.  The exhibition begins at the top with the pharaohs who were considered kings, military leaders and chief priests from ca 3100 BC until 30 BC when Egypt was invaded by Rome.  But the pharaohs were not loners; in order to carry otr their many social, political, spiritual, military functions, they depended on royal family members, a complex bureaurocracy of high-ranking officials, artisans whose creations included daunting symbols of power, exquisite jewelry and furnishings.

Armchair of Princess Sitamun, Egyptian, Luxor, Valley of the Kings, Tomb of Yuya and Thuya (KV 46), New Kingdom, reign of Amenhotep III, wood, gold leaf, stucco, plant fibers

And the all important servants who made everyday life not just functional but beautiful, refined - and fun!

Servant brewing beer, Egyptian, Giza necropolis, Old Kingdom, dynasty 5, Limestone, painted

The more Ciwt let go of what she thought she knew and looked closely - like a child - at the rare and splendid objects in Treasures of the Pharaohs, the more she noticed their sense of humanity. In the past she has been diverted by the stiff Egyptian style and paid little attention to the individuals portrayed.  But the Treasures exhibition is very well spaced so she had an opportunity to really look at the various faces and saw that they are very definte portraits that capture much of the individuality of the subject.  Even the sensitive double portrait of the priest below shows slightly different aspects of him.

Double statue of the priest Nimaatsed, Egyptian, Saqqara, Tomb of Nimaatsed, Mastabe (D56), Old Kingdom, Dynasty 5, Limestone, painted

There is a child's version of the Treasures of the Pharaohs catalogue which she's thinking of buying for herself.  Probably many other adults new to ancient Egypt history would also learn much from it.

https://www.famsf.org/exhibitions/treasures-pharaohs

The Ho Hum of the New --- Days 15/225 -228

Walks: Hood

Distance Average: 4 miles

Henri Matisse, Woman with Hat, 1905, oil on canvas

So here it is.  THE painting that electrified modern art.  THE painting that magnetizesd Paris pulling to the city throngs of artists who had been struggling to break from academic rules and truly express themselves.  THE painting that was presented at the 1905 Salon d'Automne and so shocked the Parisian  public that they spat on it, attempted to shred it with their fingernails and who knows what other vandalism. Their tastes were essentially taken directly from art critics and academics: proper portraits still should resemble the Mona Lisa in their minds' eyes; they hadn't even accepted Monet and Impressionism yet.  Word (and uproar) of THE painting traveled internationally: Matisse was hung in effigy in Chicago for instance. THE painting that shocked the artist himself because he had painted sincerely what he had discovered about color with no intention of causing uproar.  And then, when uproar ensued, cautioned his wife (whose portrait this is) not to attend the exhibition for fear of her safety.

THE painting that announced to artists, critics, art teachers, anyone who would listen with their eyes  that COLOR in and of itself was a means of artistic expression. From THE painting on, free and personally expressive use of color set modern art apart from the past.  

SFMOMA recreaction: Apartment of Leo and Gertrude Stein, Paris, 1909 with Picasso's 1907  Portrait of Gertrude Stein hanging above Matisse's Woman With Hat

THE painting that Picasso looked at many times hanging just below his own portrait of Gertrude Stein (1905-6) in the legendary apartment/salon she shared with her brother Leo.  At the time Picasso was a young, yet unsung, impoverished artist who had moved to Paris five years before.  He was favored by the Steins and was still struggling mightily - over 90 sittings! and still not finished - to complete the portrait Gertrude Stein had commissioned.  During that time he was on the edge of a breakthrough but not quite there, and he knew when looking at THE painting that Matisse had advanced to the higher plain Picasso was seeking.  Eventually, largely because of THE painting, Picasso created the next most influential painting of early modern art.  In it Picasso brought geometric forms, fragmented perspectives, elements of African masks and sculptures, raw personal emotion into Western European art.  Cubism.    

(Picasso invited Matisse to view it, and Matisse, from his experience with Woman with Hat, cautioned him not to show it.  Picasso, having witnessed the uproar first hand, heeded his advice and waited several years before bringing it public.  Even then and actually to this day it the reaction was shock, even horror).

Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907, oil on canvas

THE painting that Ciwt starts all of her art tours with or makes sure people are aware of even if  her tour has a different focus.  It is a minor miracle that THE painting is in the collection of SFMOMA. It came almost directedly from the walls of the 1905 Paris Salon bought - almost against his will - by Leo Stein, as part of a collection he and his sister Gertrude were assembling.  Again there are whole important art stories regarding the Steins' collection.  THE painting is like looking at the first wheel in modern art terms.

There is Much more - interesting, important  -about THE Painting; but enough, dear readers, for today.  Except to say that, to CIWT,  little -if any - of the true Shocking energy, excitement, vital importance of  THE Painting is present in SFMOMA's exhibition: Matisse's Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal. Ciwt has been several times, and was interested to see the general look of the 1906 Salon and learn several  the historical facts and personalities surrounding THE painting.  But, considering all the exhibition could (and really - from art scholars -  should) have been, she found it a 'shockingly' ho hum dud.     

Pink and Grey --- Days 15/221 - 224

Walks: Hood

Distance Average: 4 miles

Ciwt can be a sucker for all shades pink.  So when she saw these bougainvilleas ahead, she stepped up her pace.

And she wasn't disappointed.  So pretty in pink and grey.  

The Beautiful International Energy --- Day 15/220

Walk: No, inside watching World Cup Finals

Distance: n/a

Ciwt cries for the great Argentinian soccer player, Lionel Messi seen above taking in the resounding and touching cheers of his countrypeople and the entire soccoer world probably.

And she roundly applauds Spain, the 2026 World Cup Champions who played superb soccer from beginnng to end of the awesome, deeply moving tournament.  

The Streets of San Francisco