Engineer's Daughter

wyndham lewis portraits

Percy Wyndham Lewis's portraits currently showing at the National Portrait Gallery in London, created in the early half of the twentieth century, are truly lovely, and I especially like his rendering of TS Eliot against a background so supposedly "distasteful" the Royal Academy rejected it in 1938.  But his right-wing social and political views weren't so hot, and it's hard not to let that influence how I look at his work.  Similarly uncomfortable: I found out after I posted the Mario Sironi picture yesterday that Sironi not only was a supporter of Mussolini but also contributed a ton of his drawings to fascist newspapers.  Can you ever really separate the art from the artist?

rough to the gills

Sometimes it's easy to forget that certain now-inhabited parts of my state were practically desert before our water systems were put into place. But water does not move around in California without a cost, namely to the fish that also use streams and rivers. Last week U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger noted that California salmon have been put in real danger thanks to diversions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, and if that already doesn't sound like good news just wait to hear what he said next. From Grist:

But while Wanger agreed with environmentalists that "the three salmonid species are not viable and are all in jeopardy of extinction," he declined to order a short-term remedy. The National Marine Fisheries Service, in response to a successful lawsuit from the green groups, will by March come up with operational changes to California's water-export system that will hopefully be less harmful to fish. In the meantime, greens had asked that Wanger order an immediate cutback in agricultural water diversion, but he demurred. While waiting for March to roll around, green groups and water agencies will continue discussions on how to balance fish livelihood and irrigation needs.

I already haven't been able to bring myself to eat salmon ever since the fishing season was cancelled earlier this year, and this just makes me even more nervous. Tonight is the night I stay in and write public service announcements for KALX, so at least I've got one of my topics already.

the obama media brand

No matter how you feel about Barack Obama (and I do love him, a lot), you have to admit that his campaign so far has been incredibly savvy on a number of levels.  I of course have been interested in his design and typography decisions, from the construction of the "O" logo to the selection of Gotham as his official font of Change.  The Guardian has posted a gallery of some of his branding techniques that also briefly touches on those used by his companions (past and present) in the presidential race.  My own favorite Obama image remains Shepard Fairey's awesome silkscreens, and a man who can inspire design like that gives me all kinds of other hope besides.

catachresis

Mario Sironi, Aircraft above the city, 1915 (Italy).  Sometimes my favorite view of a city is out my plane window on the approach for landing, as I pick out landmarks both familiar and new and feel that voyeuristic thrill from getting a glimpse into people's backyards.  I like Sironi's Futurist vision of the flying experience and how he incorporates the city skyline as well as swaths of light and shadow, painted at a time when aviation was still fairly new.  Getting up in the air is always good for a change of perspective.

3

I'm afraid I'm just going to have to reduce this weekend to laundry list format.  Too much stuff!
-Lots more music, both raucous and beautiful, at Ghost Town Gallery for the Diamond Days fest.
-The 3 show at Gregory Lind Gallery, including awesome work by Ernesto Burgos, Kyle Ranson and Derrick Snodgrass.  There's a giant fabric and bleach piece by Snodgrass that is particularly mind-blowing, and I dare you to tell me how he did it.
-The first and third films of Jean Cocteau's Orphic Trilogy at SFMOMA.  I appreciated the director's early attempt to explore the thought processes of a poet through a variety of surreal landscapes in Le Sang d'un poète (Blood of a Poet), but I thought the later Le Testament d'Orphée (The Testament of Orpheus) was a lot more sly and fun, with Cocteau appearing himself alongside the likes of Pablo Picasso and characters from Orphée (Orpheus).
-The supreme cuteness of Feist at the Greek, with Sasha.  Besides the gorgeous music she had these shadow projections being done live behind her that were so so cool: waves created by fingers dragged through ink, an erupting volcano, sparkling lights.  Such a great show.
-Delicious (and deadly) post-concert Sazeracs at Cesar.
-Zachary's pizza, a visit from Patrick and a lot of laughter in honor of Sophie's 9th birthday.

show 90

playlist

full disclosure

I have much to post about but no time to post about it quite yet.  So I'll just pimp tomorrow's DJ shift:

3 - 6pm PST, Sunday, July 20

KALX Berkeley 90.7fm

take a short walk, and a long peer

We always get very excited here in the Bay Area whenever we show up NYC, so imagine our collective delight when this week San Francisco was named the most walkable city in the country by the software company Front Seat.  They use some fancy algorithm that takes into account city density and distance to desirable destinations such as grocery stores, restaurants and bars, which would probably help explain why Chinatown (pictured right) ranked highest within the city itself, even though it's not a place I tend to like to walk myself.  From Grist:

San Francisco took top honors, followed by New York City, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia; the lowest scoring cities were Jacksonville, Fla.; Nashville; Charlotte, N.C.; Indianapolis; and Oklahoma City. The rankings also singled out the nation's most walkable neighborhoods, with Tribeca, Little Italy, and Soho in NYC placing first. "It's both healthy for the Earth and for humans to be able to walk to most of the places they need," said Kate White of the Urban Land Institute. "Your carbon footprint is significantly lower than someone who has to drive everywhere ... and you're able to have real neighborhoods where you're not totally separated from your neighbors." People can see their own 'hood's walkability score at Walkscore.com.

My own favorite city walks from the world over?  The Mission in San Francisco.  Soho in New York.  De Negen Straatjes in Amsterdam.  The south bank of the Thames in London.  Downtown Los Angeles.  Wicker Park in Chicago.  The boardwalk in Miami.  And hey, my apartment in Berkeley gets a "walk score" of 78.  Not damn bad.

a first look at gehry's pavilion

When I first saw the models of Frank Gehry's idea for this summer's Serpentine Pavilion, included in the gallery I posted about yesterday, I confess it looked to me as if a child had dumped out an erector set in a messy heap.  But then the Guardian put up some pictures of the final phases of the pavilion's construction last week and my jaw dropped open.  Suspended panes of glass, steel supports, wooden beams all come together quite beautifully in the actual structure and will perhaps convince some of the doubters that Gehry is much more than a one-trick pony.  I did have to laugh that the weather looked even rainier in London on the day they took the photos than it was when I was there a month ago:

Like its predecessors, the space will function as a cafe by day and a party and events space by night. Standing under an umbrella, occasionally sneezing gently, Gehry admitted yesterday that he had perhaps not fully considered the celebrated English summer. An earlier stage of the design had tarpaulin covers that could be pulled over the frame to give some shelter. "They may have to go back," he said, sighing.

There are pictures of previous summers' Serpentine Pavilions here, with delicious designs from the likes of Niemeyer, Koolhaas and Libeskind.  Too bad they're always temporary!

dark undercoat

Heeb's Diamond Days festival got kicked off with a bang tonight, opening with Emily Jane White at Mama Buzz.  She is currently one of my favorite local songstresses, and it was utterly sublime to listen to her croon in Mama Buzz's cozy little gallery space with the sun starting to set behind her, filling that room with golden light.  She closed her time out with "Dagger" and I very nearly died from the beauty.  Ben Becker followed with an equally engrossing solo set on acoustic and electric guitar, and then local rock 'n' rollers Mist and Mast delivered some highly enjoyable swagger to finish off.  After we'd all moved over to Ghost Town Gallery for more music I chatted with Mr. Becker further and learned that he's currently on the west coast to record, and is fleshing out his songs with other instruments he is also playing himself.  I'm listening to the tracks on his myspace right now and really really digging them.  

Earlier today I visited SFMOMA to see media work by Swiss artists Alexander Hahn and Yves Netzhammer in the museum's Room for Thought exhibit.  Netzhammer's piece consists of an immersive environment he created specifically for SFMOMA, a room full of unusual constructions and animations that seem to come straight out of a dream.  The surreal atmosphere is heightened by an enigmatic soundtrack and by some metaphorical smoke and literal mirrors the artist employs.  But it was Hahn's piece right next door that totally sucked me in.  It's really just a DVD that occasionally lets you select which path you would like to continue on using a remote control and bright points of light that appear onscreen.  But in between those decision moments Hahn sends you around an abandoned apartment, into the midst of a bubbling hot spring, through a crowded city diner, all shot so tightly and often so close to the ground I never quite got my bearing even as I found myself impulsively looking around to gain some peripheral vision.  I want to go back and explore every possible path.