No HornTo Blow -- Day 4/341

Walk: Drisco Hotel, ACT (SATCHMO at the Waldorf)
Distance:  1.5 miles



Excellent visit with dear cousin and outstanding one man show by John Douglas Thompson have (happily) used up Ciwt's creative energy for today. Now she waits with mist outside the window for both experiences to sink in..

Oh, THAT'S What Ciwt Bought Them For --- Day 4/340

Walk: UPS, Pets Unlimited
Distance: 2 miles and Good Home Yoga



Say what you will about the weather, Ciwt is enjoying actually wearing her true/non-SF winter clothes like long underwear and fleece lined clogs.  Just like the big guys back East.

Curriculum Vitae --- Day 4/339

Walk: Clement Street (Marin Driving Day)
Distance: 1 mile, small yoga 

Ciwt once had a store job where she stood out front on the sidewalk - sometimes all day - breaking down boxes.  So these should be easy; plus she can do it inside, out of the rain. 

Eye OK This --- Day 4/338

Walk: Lamp Store
Distance: 2 miles and small home yoga




Darn, according to Mary Norris*,  it's a position that only exists at The New Yorker.  Page OK'er. Ciwt would so like to have one of those to OK all her CIWTs and other writings she sends out from her computer.

Oh boy, does Ciwt ever value correct punctuation, correct grammar and absolutely correct spelling. But maybe you don't believe her because when you read CIWT it can be filled with inaccuracies in one, if not all, those departments.

It is not for lack of trying on Ciwt's part that they are there.  Well, sometimes, if she just wants to quickly publish the first draft and clean things up later.  But at some point she usually re-reads for errors.  Even after that, still!!**, there can be those pesky inaccuracies that her Page OK'er would find if The New Yorker hadn't cornered the market on them.

*Mary Norris, Between You & Me, Confessions of a Comma Queen   (Delightful reading if you care about comma's).
** Incorrect punctuation, but Ciwt likes it.

Winter Gardening --- Day 4/337

Walk: Lots of stairs 
Distance: 5-6 blocks up and down, small yoga to State of the Union



Winter gardening is a bleak pleasure.

Non- ---- Day 4/336

Walk: Clement Street, etc.
Distance: 4.6 miles, small yoga



Ciwt had her non-yoga nails done while having a non-writing day:


Kusakabe Kimbei (Japanese 1841-1934), Writing Letter, colored photograph


“Kusakabe Kimbei (1841 – 1934) was a Japanese photographer. He usually went by his given name, Kimbei, because his clientele, mostly non-Japanese-speaking foreign residents and visitors, found it easier to pronounce than his family name. Kusakabe Kimbei worked with Felice Beato and Baron Raimund von Stillfried as a photographic colourist and assistant before opening his own workshop in Yokohama in 1881 in the Benten-dōri quarter, and from 1889 operating in the Honmachi quarter. He also opened a branch in the Ginza quarter of Tokyo”. – Wikipedia

Japanisme, Oui --- Day 4/335

Walk: Asian Art Museum
Distance: 5 miles

                                       Henri Guerard (French, 1946-97), Rabbits, woodcut, ink on paper*

So now Ciwt has gotten herself back to the Asian Art's Looking East show for a personal look-see. What did she conclude?  Well, It's a very high quality show, broad-based from fine art to clothing, furniture, photography, the decorative arts. The signage is thorough and informative and the crowds it is attracting would be the envy of most museums.

What's missing for Ciwt is impossible to include.  It's the shock of the new.  Once upon a time, in about 1849 in Paris, virtually no one had laid eyes on anything Japanese.  The operable aesthetic was that of Louis XIV as it had wended its way through rococo, neo-classicsm.  It was F-r-e-n-c-h; if you wanted to be chic, in the know, you collected French, hung it on your walls, dressed in it, ate off it and sat in it.  And if you weren't chic, not adhering to the current French mot, well, au revoir to you.

Into this aesthetic stranglehold, slowly began to appear Japanese images: shockingly colorful prints with unheard of proportions and use of lines.  Shortly after the woodblocks came silk tapestries and kimonos with non-heraldic designs like butterflies, cranes, fans and lotus flowers. Then on other boats began arriving dinnerware, desk and table top accessories, screens.  It was all so Decorative and the rage was on!!  People of all classes were wild for the Japanisme; wearing it and collecting it became what status-conscious Parisians simply had to do. The effects were suddenly everywhere from the new more fully realized and sensual view of women (more sexy in their kimonos), to the use of posters for promotion (the beginning of advertising as we know it) , and certainly in painting which was already being transformed (into Impressionism) by new information about the science of light.

In our age, the Eastern aesthetic  - from food, to cars, to gadgets, to iconic designs and a host of other areas -  is one component in daily, globalized life.  So, while there is no shock in the Looking East show, it is interesting and informative to return to a time when the melding of East and West began in earnest.



*Perhaps because the show is tackles such a large and complex topic and includes so many excellent examples of Japanese and French art, Ciwt found herself most drawn to this print, one of the simplest images in the show.

Home Practice --- Day 4/334

Walk: Hood, Errands
Distance: 3.5 miles, yoga



Ciwt was thinking this morning about how much she's liking her home yoga practice after decades of studio classes:

-She can do it whenever she likes
-Tailor the poses and length to what she feels she needs that day
-Continue the peace and privacy of home
-Not be concerned with appearances
---And she likes the teacher