Pro the Pro? --- Day 4/287

Walk: Union Square, Best Buy, Fillmore
Distance: 4.6 miles and home yoga



It's Heeere and it's BIG.  Well, not quite this big, but..

Ciwt has been waiting for the ipad Pro, the new Big ipad, to arrive and Apple released it yesterday.
It's gorgeous and movies can't help but be amazing on its retina screen with upgraded speakers.  But it is heavier than Ciwt anticipated and a bit more cumbersome/definitely not easy to hold with one hand while navigating or typing. 

All the accessories aren't in stores yet, like the stylus which will be so great for artists  and the portable keyboard which makes it a laptop and the case which hopefully will be good for propping up Ciwt and Callie's in bed movies. Hmmmm.   We'll see.


PS - Ciwt tries not to comment on politics and new events.  But the violence that is happening in Paris right now as she writes is reprehensible, incomprehensible, unfair and sad beyond words. 

Left, Right, Left, and an A in Art History... --- Day 4/286

Walk: Drive to Marin Day
Distance: 1 mile and try, try, try on shoe after shoe






Today was a shoe day for Ciwt which meant it was also high alert for her credit card fraud department.  Because she doesn't buy shoes often, when she does her credit card 'people' always assume someone has stolen her card.  It can be embarrassing when her card is rejected.  She explains just what she explained here, but you can kind of see the store owners or person at the cash register rolling their eyes.  Then it takes a loooong time to get the security people on the phone - more store eye rolling - for them to have their chat with Ciwt and finally to OK the transaction.  At that point the store person acts like he/she knew everything would be fine all along, but you know what they were really thinking......

Meanwhile she has encountered Nick Adelman, a man who feels people can most easily learn art history through the shoes they try on or buy. Above is his lesson in Byzantine Art.  Pretty clever - and accurate - in Ciwt's opinion.

Now, off to walk around the house in the unhistoric shoes she laid in today.

Veterans Day, 2015 --- Day 4/285

Walk: Sports Basement
Distance: 1 mile


Winslow Homer (American, 1836-1910), The Veteran in a New Field, 1865, oil on canvas, 24 1/8 x 38 1/8"

To confer honor this Veterans Day, Ciwt can do no better than Winslow Homer and the commentary by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Painted through the summer and fall of 1865, not long after the nation came to grips with Robert E. Lee's surrender and mourned President Lincoln's assassination—both of which occurred during the second week of April—Homer's canvas shows an emblematic farmer who is a Union veteran, as is signified by his discarded jacket and canteen at the lower right. The painting seems to blend several related narratives. Most soldiers had been farmers before the Civil War. This man, who has returned to his field, holds an old-fashioned scythe that evokes the Grim Reaper, recalls the war's harvest of death, and expresses grief upon Lincoln's murder. The redemptive feature is the bountiful wheat—a Northern crop—which could connote the Union's victory. With its dual references to death and life, Homer's iconic composition offers a powerful meditation on America's sacrifices and its potential for recovery.

Go Neil and Pascale --- Day 4/284

Walk: JCCSF, Trader Joe's, Mureta's Antiques
Distance: 3.5 miles and yoga class


Neil

Pascale

So, Ciwt was in shopping at Pasqualine, one of her favorite boutiques, when Pascale's (the owner) boyfriend, Neil Blumenfield, came in.  The room started crackling with their combined energies. For good reason: she's a top Parisian retailer, recently moved to San Francisco, and he is - as Ciwt writes - in 2nd place in the World Championship of Poker.  Dressed by Pascale to be dashing as well as non-revealing at the poker table, Neil, at 61, is nearly the oldest to ever make the WC of Poker finals, and has become the event favorite with a Huge cheering section in Las Vegas.

Fun.  And really difficult: All the top players literally train like Olympic athletes bringing and keeping their bodies, minds and nervous systems to the healthiest possible level. They also keep in constant competition, playing as many tournaments as they can get in during the course of the year. And who knows what else...It is nerve wracking, intense and grueling.

Once again, for good reason: the winning stake is over $7 million, and, for all Ciwt knows, perhaps leads to endorsements.  So, Go Neil!!!  (And Pascale - She's Sooooo excited and, understandably, soooo nervous).

Tales from a San Francisco Window Seat --- Day 4/283

Walk: No.  Nice quiet day nursing cold on window seat with cat in the sun
Distance: 0, two home yoga practices

Ciwt has been wrong all these years about her family coming over on the Mayflower.   As it turns out Ciwt's family arrived 13 years later on the sailing ship Griffin which had left Downs, England and arrived with its 200 adults and one new on board infant at Plymouth, Massachusetts on September 3, 1633.  

Sailing in late summer might have meant the Griffin's voyage was slightly smoother than the Mayflower's late fall 1620 passage with approximately 132 passengers and crew.  The winds of September are known to make the Atlantic treacherous, and indeed it was a miserable passage for the Mayflower with huge waves constantly crashing against its upper deck.  The Griffin's early Fall arrival must also have been more advantageous for its the colony of religious dissidents than for the Mayflower Pilgrims who lost half their number in the first, harsh New England winter.

Most likely the Griffin was a similar ship only perhaps larger, both built as mercantile cargo ships. And, with luck, the Griffin would not have been built with the 30-foot high, square aft-castle which made hard sailing against the North Atlantic's westerlies and was the direct cause of the Mayflower's voyage taking over two months. With more knowledge, perhaps modifications had been made to the awkward superstructure on future ships such as the Griffin and their voyages were considerably swifter, although still arduous.

Ciwt's ancestor on the Griffin was Stephen Post (b. 1596, Kent, England), a member of the congregation of non-conformist English minister, Reverend Thomas Hooker. He was granted 12 acres in New Towne (now Cambridge, Massachusetts) where he lived with his young family. But, within in three years, for unknown reasons, Hooker's people - including Stephen Post - migrated as a body in 1735 or 1736 to the Connecticut River Valley. There they founded the city of Hartford and Post was one of its first proprietors.         
(Hartford Founder's Monument in the Ancient Burying Ground)

Apparently city living wasn't for Post, and he made a forage and exploration to Saybrook, Connecticut in 1645.  There he again became a proprietor, was granted (ie, paid for) 250 acres of choice land when Saybrook was first divided and died in 1645 with 442 pounds, 3 shillings and a 6 pence - cash on the barrel head, not including land.

Honestly, Ciwt's grandmother could have told you these things and much more - conversationally off the top of her head - about Stephen and the Post Family as it grew, intermarried with other founding families, settled and established throughout Connecticut and New England. Such interesting stuff to Ciwt.  And a sad loss when the 'first hand' stories 'died' along with her grandmother (in her beloved city where she was known to all as The Grand Dame of Hartford).

Staying Ahead --- Day 4/282

Walk: Cinema Club (Brooklyn), Curbside Cafe, Doc Stories Festival (Hitchcock/Truffaut)
Distance: 3.2 achey miles



Ciwt was busy today outrunning a cold with multiple events.  Now, two asprin and a good night's sleep.  Catch you tomorrow.

Decisions, Decisions --- Day 4/281

Walk: Clay Theater
Distance: 5 blocks

Ciwt was wracked with indecision today.

Should she go to the opening reception for a Wayne Thiebaud Paintings show where the artist - who has always been generous with his time even as his fame increased - would probably be?  And where even the smallest painting was priced at "upwards of $2 million" according to the gallery?                 

Wayne Thiebaud

Bakery Counter

1993

oil and graphite on paper

8 5/8 x 11 1/2 in. [image]

9 1/8 x 12 in. [sheet] 

Or should she go to the newest documentary (He Named Me Malala) by film and TV director/producer, Davis Guggenheim?  It was 7 blocks away at the Vogue with Guggenheim in a Q & A after the film. 

But, she'd met Wayne Thiebaud in her art gallery years, was short the $2 mill, not all that drawn to the Malala film AND 5 blocks away at the Clay was the opening of a documentary about Tab Hunter (Tab Hunter Confidential). That was what Ciwt chose.  Not because it was the closest but because Tab Hunter was a heartthrob of her youth (swoon) and because he and his partner (also the film's producer), Allan Glaser, would be doing a Q & A.   What a great decision!!  And what a totally authentic, caring, grounded man! As well as multi-talented: A top 40's singer, champion figure skater, competitive ski racer, and, the love of his life, Top Champion (Hunter/Jumper) Horseman .  As crazy as Ciwt was about him in her youth, she genuinely respects the real man now that he's well and contentedly past Hollywood.

Shift in Perspective --- Day 4/280

Walk: Downtown
Distance: 1.5 miles and home yoga

 

     

It's been a while since Ciwt has spent some time in the financial, working parts of San Francisco. She felt out of practice. Quite a contrast from how downtown looked from the Legion yesterday with the setting sun illuminating the far away windows  .