Blowin and Winnin in the Wind --- Day 2/239

Walk: Arguello Open House
Distance: 2.5 miles



Serena Williams of the lighter than air flowy tennis skirt took a 'somewhat scenic route' (NY Times) through the final but ultimately claimed her fifth US Open title. She had to be formidable to hold out against Victoria Azarenka and perhaps her even greater opponent, the distracting wind that had the ball and that fluffy skirt moving all over the place. 
Congratulations,  Serena

Watching Tennis -- Day 2/238

Walk: Mindful Body, Fillmore Street
Distance: 3 miles and teach yoga class

The US Open is in its final rounds, and I miss watching tennis.  Not because it isn't televised.  The Men's Semifinals were today, the Women's Finals tomorrow and Monday will be the Men's Finals. All on television at watchable times.

But if I see the men's matches at all it will just be for a few minutes here and there to keep abreast. Even in the tightest matches I'm mostly just interested in who won and not in watching the points.

This is a game, the men's singles especially,  I used to watch - point by point - for hours.  The variety of shots and strategies were riveting.  Chops with odd bounces, drop shots, overheads, amazing performances with one or even both players at net.  It was intriguing, like a thriller; you couldn't be sure what trick the well-rounded players might pull off their rackets from moment to moment.  The players didn't just outlast and overpower their opponents; they outfoxed them!  And in this they were usually graceful, lithe.  The cagey game was quite balletic, light, bouncy, swift. Federer it seems is the last of this breed; remarkable for bringing a beautiful game to a powerful game - and being the Champion for so many years.

More and more now the game belongs to the mighty, the powerhouses who can stand or run back and forth at the baseline executing and defending shots so fast they would damage most people's wrists if they could get their rackets on the ball.  Rallies go on and on at this ferocious pace.  Shot after shot long, huge and every player running like mad to get themselves to balls most of us would have a hard time even seeing.  Long rallys go into long games and long games into long sets and matches go on for 3,4, 5 hours, often finally settled by tie breakers.  There are no real surprises, not utterly unexpected, clever shots.  The winner is the prevailer, the outlaster.  And it just isn't that interesting to watch.  Kind of like watching a marathon being run, not that interesting as I said.

I suppose, hope really, the next level will come when these powerhouses also have to be extremely cagey. When the next champion becomes a player who has great variety in his shots and consistently puts them into practice. The powerhouse with the slice serve that runs in, executes drop shots, then hangs high wobbly volleys in the air or just generally shows up in an unexpected place in the court with an unexpected shot.This will force the rest of the contenders to start varying their huge games.

 

And hopefully, once again tennis will be remarkable and exciting to watch from beginning to end.

Git Along Little Dogies -- Day 2/237

Walk: Mailboxes, Etc., Mindful Body, Dogpatch Historic District

Distance: 1 mile and take yoga class

Today looked at San Francisco with new eyes.  Not uncommon when you really concentrate on art as I was doing at my artist's friend studio.  For the first time I really began to take in the Size of the current San Francisco.  There are at least two new cities within the southern limits of SF.  A huge new medical center going in, the baseball stadium, all the wealthy young commuters to Silicon Valley who want to live in the city.

Cool restaurants, cool stores selling wares I would never imagine, some crafted, some industrial. You can't find a parking place to save your soul.  I ended up finding a large, dirt tree root and pulling up on it.  Young, pricey, hip, crowded and cute as old warehouses and the few Victorians in that part of town have been turned into adorable happening places. Probably many of the people who hang in this rapidly evolving hood (part of which is known as Dogpatch) know nothing about the older, settled neighborhoods.  The neighborhoods you see in movies and postcards. The orientation is local and then south to Silicon Valley (and soon to the new medical center).

No more than 15 years ago, these were the hinterlands, light rail and bus yards, pot holed streets, shipping ports, electrical towers galore.  Areas you'd drive over on the freeways or not notice as you bumped and thumped through because you'd taken a wrong turn and gotten lost.

Hang on to your hat - and your wallet $.

@15 years ago

 NOW

                                                 

                                   Tomorrow?...

Open Studio/Blank Canvas --- Day 2/236

Walk: Corte Madera, Terra Linda
Distance: 8 blocks and home yoga practice

Tomorrow I'll visit an artist friend's studio.  Just the two of us and her art, the third presence in the room.  I'm really looking forward to it.  But also a bit anxious, as I'm sure she is - even more so. It's an intimate almost hallowed experience - with no rituals or form to follow.  Seeing, being seen, choosing words or silence.  Every moment is fresh and sort of fraught.  An intense privilege.

I think about some paintings by artists of either their own studios or those of their artist friends. These paintings often carry this same, hallowed energy.  The studio is the apparent subject, but often what is being painted is soul: the soul of the artist whose studio it is and the painter's deep relationship to that artist's work (either another artist's or their own).

For me, one of the most touching and powerful paintings of an artist's studio is Studio at 'La Californie' painted by Picasso in 1955 shortly after Matisse's death.

It is known that above all artist's Picasso revered Matisse.  This began in the early 1900's when, in many ways, Matisse's work challenged Picasso, thus opening artistic doors.  One genius speaking to another - and Picasso heard, rivaled, grew. It was an intense and complex friendship all the way through.

After the Second World War Picasso became a regular visitor to Matisse in the South of France, and their relationship entered its final and closest phase.  When Matisse died at age 84 in 1954, Picasso was deeply stirred.  I would submit stirred on the level of his 1947 Guernica (which he painted in a sustained state of rage in reaction to the Nazi's bombing of that Basque town during the Spanish Civil War).  Immediately after Matisse died, Picasso went into an almost painting frenzy producing numerous canvases using the the decorative profusion, vivid hues and odalisques associated with Matisse.  How much of this came from the conscious or unconscious, whether he was somehow painting Matisse alive cannot be known. But to me Picasso seems to have finally given up on that possible doomed resurrective quest and acknowledged his profound loss and grief in the color-drained Studio at 'La Californie' with the inexpressively poignant blank canvas in its center.

And my decision is.... -- Day 2/235

Walk: JCCSF, Tanforan Shopping Center
Distance: 1 mile and private training session (part gym, part Pilates)

Tired today.  Kind of exhausted from thinking of whether to make an airstrike, how to not name a landmark bridge after a certain local politician, how to contain forest fires near gorgeous Yosemite and my former Idaho home and keep the firefighters safe.  Then there is Mylie (or however you spell her name) and whether to go to that reunion on the East Coast.  Other things too, like what toaster/convection oven to buy.  It's all stimulating and I wouldn't miss a minute of it, but sometimes also a bit exhausting all this running the world from my head.

Really good news: my cat Callie had another ultrasound yesterday and - can it be? - is totally free of fatal symptoms.  Even the vet was stunned, a little in shock.  Hopefully the wrong chart wasn't read.

 
Weight of the world on her shoulders

Time with Wings -- Day 2/234

Walk: Mindful Body
Distance: 10 Blocks and teach yoga class

It flies....

I love you, Mason --- Day 2/233

Walk: Mindful Body, Trader Joes
Distance: 1 mile and take yoga class

Ciwt isn't much of a cook and hence not much into kitchens.  But the other day she saw the inside of her friend's kitchen cabinets and fell in love.  Everything - everything - in beautiful, clear Mason jars, lying on their sides even.  So visually appealing, like art.

So I'm thinking maybe even my cabinets could be a pleasure to open.  It'll take work, to say the least.  But with all my clothes closet practicing, maybe...

Thoughts:

2 sxy 4 an apt --- Day 2/232

Walk:  Mindful Body
Distance: 10 blocks and take yoga class

Guess ciwt is on a political streak in spite of itself.  To wit, the local rag wrote a (completely irresponsible, immature) front page feature today on a few (healthy, employed) people who choose to live (illegally and in violation of health ordinances among other codes; like where do they pee?) in RV's around San Francisco. One particular techie fop was the main subject.  I couldn't believe I was seeing this in a grown up newspaper - as one reader said, "Is this an Onion article?"  But, once again, San Francisco readers and fellow SF travelers to the rescue.  Like this A+++ response from one of the subject's contemporaries.

Well isn't he a special little snowflake?
A little prince, in a little castle, making more meaningless digital crap, waxing philosophical about the evils of the world - you know, like, armoires. It came up in the article on age and the tech industry a few weeks back as well - people like Mark Zuckerberg and this guy, spouting off about being able to discern what's 'really important" in life (ie - working for Zuckerberg, or blogging software. Barf). 
Part of me (the part that has tried to navigate the hellish rental market in SF) wants to say 'attaboy' to him for bucking the system. But that part was entirely overruled by the gold leaf'd gold monogrammed, d-baggery of it all. 
I am 29, so this guy and I are basically the same generation and I hold my head in shame for the vapid, narcissistic wasteland that "we" (they!!) are creating. All style, no substance...It doesn't matter if those solar panels actually generate energy, as long as it looks like I'm all down with the sustainable energy, we're good. It doesn't matter that my Samovar lounge tea cost $7/cup (<--hyperbole), it makes me look thoughtful and zen. 
And don't even get me started on the doofus 'stache and shorts and PINK sneakers on the other guy*. 
I just hope that somehow, some way, humanity will not be totally destroyed by these morons.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/articleComments/These-young-SF-professionals-choose-to-live-in-RVs-4778625.php

* I'd love to get the commentator started on this..