Multiple Diversions Recommended --- Day 7/363

Walk: No (c-w-r again)
Distance: 0, Yoga

So over the years Ciwt had heard people talking about reading several books at once.  This seemed odd to her and she dismissed the concept.  Now, with months on end of cold-wind-rain (c-w-r) and getting a bit bored with the book group novel she's been reading, she decided to Google the topic.  

Well, turns out having multiple books going can have all sorts of positive effects like keeping the reader stimulated when he/she has run out of steam on one, and enlarging one's understanding of the world for two.  In Ciwt's case there might be the dissipation of guilt factor as well.  She's not a library borrower so she buys books, puts them in her bookcase then, more often than she cares to admit,  never takes them off to read them.  

She's going to give multiples a try; her big question is whether she'll forget the characters and plot on several books at a time. (Likely).  If that happens, she'll take a lesson from her cats. As you might notice from he picture above, Ciwt's cats have no trouble whatsoever with multiple toys and couldn't care less if they forget the one they were just carried away with.

Information, Please --- Day 7/362

Walk: No (another rain-wind-cold one)
Distance: 0, Yoga, and exercising her eyes reading a book club selection

Today is the 7th year, 362nd day of CIWT. Can 365 be far behind?  Time hovers more consciously than before.  Earlier this year it prompted Ciwt to go visit one of those (sensible) places for maybe the 17th year of CIWT.  Oh dear.  The lobby fountain is above; residents dress for dinner, there is ballroom after ballroom for entertaining (this is a guess).  Upstairs things are less grandly appointed but still on the high end of the scale (even the 'health' - read hospital - facilities).

This option - and others like it - are not on Ciwt's wish list, but in year 7 of CIWT it seemed 'sensible' to become informed.

Picture Still A Bit Blurry --- Days 359 and 360

Walk: Day 1: Home doing Spring Wardrobe Closet Caper  Day 2: Clay Theater (Never Look Away)
Distance:  1. 8 blocks  2. 3.5 miles, small yoga

What can Ciwt say about the movie Never Look Away?  Well,  at 3 hours, fifteen minutes, it's a long one.  And because Ciwt is interested in art and artists she found it an interesting study of the creative development of one of the current world's most well known, talented and expensive artists.

The movie is based on the life events of Gerhard Richter.  Our SFMOMA has an extensive collection of his works, and Richter is/was personally befriended, beloved and collected by both the art-powerful Fisher and Schwab families.  Ciwt herself has led tours of Richter's paintings and described his art and life story and relationship to Bay Area collectors numerous times.  But, even as she explained, a part of her could never fully grasp why this painting virtuoso continually changes subject matter and forms - being a Vermeer look alike one moment, a wildly colorful abstract artist the next, then settling for a moment into color chart studies before moving to paintings of blurred photographs. There are more styles, but you get the picture.  The wonder is that Richter is a complete master of each and every style he explores; he truly is a painting genius.

So it felt vaguely comforting to Ciwt to watch Never Look Away and finally 'see' this man, the making of his early paintings and the life she has been touring and explaining.  But it was also vaguely uncomfortable because this was no authorized bio; the characters have fictional names and the media shy Richter himself has said the writer/director "..has managed to abuse and grossly distort my biography."

For Ciwt Don't Look Away might have worked best as a total work of fiction so she didn't have to think about invading and melodramatizing Richter's privacy and very real biography.  Take away that, she liked the movie, thought it was well acted and absorbing, informative about art, beautifully shot and worth 3 hours and fifteen minutes of the time of movie buffs who are interested in the artistic process and one artist's (partially fictionalized) life.

Boot and Stage --- Day 7/358

Walk: Strand Theater (Her Portmanteau), M.A.C. Clothing
Distance: 1.5 Windy, Rainy, Cold Miles (again)

See Ciwt's rain boot nearly touching the stage at the Strand Theater where she sat Front Row Center (to say the least) for Her Portmanteau.  If you think that looks close, they actually rolled the stage forward so the performance was at Ciwt's eye level just a foot or so away.  Even with such visibility she had to ask the woman sitting next to her exactly what happened at the end of the play.  Maybe Ciwt was preoccupied with her neck which had become sore from swiveling right and left to follow the actors. 

Standing Tall --- Day 7/357

Walk: CPMC, Hood
Distance: 3.8 miles, Yoga

Standing Tall at Crissy Field

The Colors of Our Lives --- Day 7/358

Walk: The Ever Renewing Crissy Field 
Distance: 3.4 miles, wee yoga

For forty plus yearsCiwt has walked right past the rocks at Crissy Field with hardly a glance. But since adopting her Greige/Tawny cats (named Misty Gris and Tawny) Ciwt has become much more aware of objects in those tones. Whole new world.

Baffled in Plain Sight --- Day7/257

Walk: Cinema Club (The Invisibles)
Distance: 2.4 miles

No particular Ciwt comment on The Invisibles, today's Cinema Club docudrama about 4 young (at the time) German Jews who hid in plain site in Berlin during WWII and survived.  Such a story is riveting, multi-faceted, intense on the face of it.  But The Invisibles, moving from actors to the actual people in their old age and then back all with subtitles was a bit too baffling for Ciwt's little mind and took her away from the importance and depth of the stories being told.  When asked for a show of hands of other audience members who also got lost, Ciwt was interested that over 60% of the assembled movie buffs raised theirs.  Probably good to go and see for yourself; Ciwt gives it a C+.

Last and First --- Days 7/355 and 356

Walk: 1. Discount Fabric House, PGCC  2. Sutter Upholstery, AMC Kubuki (Opera: Daughter of the Regiment)
Distance: 1. 2.3 miles, teen yoga  1. 2.3 rainy mile

Last Gold Fabric in San Francisco finally captured by Ciwt

A couple of golden days for Ciwt.  Just when she was about to give up on finding gold fabric to reslipcover her couch (see previous CIWT days if you at all interested), she drove with little hope to Discount Fabric House. There she was presented with an enormous warehouse of fabrics rolled up and on shelves that rose to the ceiling.  Again, she nearly threw in the towel, but luckily her uphosterer had given her the name of someone she knew there.  Someone who didn't speak any English whatsoever.  But somehow Ciwt and he were able to communicate Gold, enough yards for a couch, strong enough for two cats (his eyes popped at this last).  He was brave enough to climb up to the sky again and again, but through his smiles Ciwt could see he too was ready to throw in the towel  Then, there it was - literally, the only candidate.  Both he and Ciwt were stunned, then overjoyed.

First Opera Encore Ever Seen by Ciwt: Javier Camarena in The Daughter of the Regiment

Then this morning it was off to New York's Metropolitan Opera - at the AMC Kabuki movie theater right here in San Francisco.   What a way to see an Opera!!!  Fabulous acoustics, clear, intimate filming so you are Orchestra Center or closer the whole time.  No heads moving back and forth in front of you, consistent temperature and super comfortable seats. And did Ciwt mention the price?  Ciwt would have been perfectly happy with all these things, but then an unexpected event happened: the lead tenor was so resoundly applauded after one aria that he sang an encore through joyous tears.  Ciwt was stunned again!  She had heard of but never seen an opera encore, and, when she texted her opera buff friend who has been a Met mainstay for decades, she learned they are so rare her friend had never heard one in all her years of attending operas all over the world.  Golden!