Here’s how Cee Neuner introduces the challenge:
Last June, self saw a fabulous exhibit at the Legion of Honor: Guo Pei, Coutoure Fantasy.
Gold was everywhere! Even on legs and feet! For example:
Self is in love with the gold booties.
Stay tuned.
Here she is last night, at the post-rehearsal reception, in one of San Francisco’s premiere Tiki Bars, Pagan Idol on Bush.
It seems only yesterday when she wrote me a note: “Tita, I’m accepting Stanford because of you.”
Posting for Debbie Smyth’s Six-Word Saturday Challenge.
Whenever self feels in need of getting away, she goes to Golden Gate Park. It is 30 miles north, but being there always nourishes her spirit. She visits Stow Lake and sees whatever’s on at the de Young.
Last June, when she took these pictures, she dropped by to see the Alice Neel exhibit (fantastic!)
Posting for Jez Braithwaite’s Water Water Everywhere Challenge.
Self was climbing up the walls after a whole year of pandemic lockdown. California Governor Gavin Newsom lifted the lockdown order in March 2021. The following month, self was taking road trips galore (so were her neighbors: 96-year-old Mrs. C went on a road trip to Seattle! Self remembers standing on the sidewalk and waving good-bye as Mrs. C and her sons and daughters drove off in a huge Cadillac!).
In April 2021, self signed up for a tour of the California Academy of Sciences. The tour was led by an in-house naturalist, everyone was still wearing masks, but oh, what joy to be out in the company of others!
It was self’s first time on the living roof. The naturalist explained that what held the roof together were coconut husks (like the ones we use to scrub our floor in the Philippines!). Six inches of soil were deposited on the roof, and then the naturalists left the roof alone to see what grew there.
The California Academy of Sciences runs entirely on solar energy. The round shapes on the roof are solar panels. It’s wild seeing the ferris wheel pop up across a meadow. Highly recommend this tour, if anyone is thinking of going.
Yesterday, Sunday, self left bright and early for Golden Gate Park. She’d made a reservation to see the Ramses the Great exhibit. While walking from her car to the museum, she passed a stand of gorgeous yellow abutilon and just had to stop and take a picture.
Self has two different kinds of abutilon in her garden: an anemone pink, and a variegated orange. This is the first yellow abutilon she’s ever seen. So pretty!
Posting for Cee Neuner’s Flower of the Day.
I am fascinated by Land’s End. It’s the tip of San Francisco that abuts into the Pacific Ocean. It’s at one end of the Great Highway, past Ocean Beach.
Now, a section of the Great Highway has been blocked off, so I can’t take that iconic drive through the sand dunes any longer. I have to detour through the Outer Richmond before doubling back to the ocean.
The Cliff House is the only remaining landmark. It’s being used temporarily as a museum and art gallery. I heard a restaurant was going to take it over. Good. I’d only been at the old restaurant a handful of times, but I loved that the tables were arranged next to big, plate-glass windows that made me feel as if I were right IN the surf.
Posting this for Jez’s WWE Challenge.
Stay tuned.
The spring came on hard and much too early this year, which must be why the dimensions of reality shifted. It was a January afternoon in San Francisco. The sun was shining. I was on my way to pick up my son from pre-school, about to cross the street and enter a small undernourished park.
A shiny red jeep veered out of traffic. It made a left turn and pulled onto the crosswalk in front of me. The word “Rubicon” in blocky silver letters shone on its side. Behind the wheel was this kid I used to be close to in Russia, back in the 1990s, still seventeen on this day in 2018, the shock of chestnut hair cresting high over his forehead. On the sleeve of his overcoat snow was quickly melting. He leaned down and through the open window handed me a TDK compact cassette, the exact kind he and I used to exchange in high school.
About Olga Zilberbourg:
The host of this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge is Jez Braithwaite:
This was such a fun challenge. Thank you for dreaming it up, Jez!
This was the first exhibit self saw at the de Young Museum after getting back from the UK. It was a knockout. Alice Neel ROCKS!
Thanks to Debbie Smyth at Travel with Intent for hosting this fun challenge!
Yesterday, self dropped by the Asian Art Museum on Larkin in downtown San Francisco. Traffic was surprisingly light. Good thing, because self was so distracted by listening to npr on her car radio that she might have gotten into an accident, the news was so bad.
It was her first visit to the Asian Art Museum since before the pandemic, well over two years ago.
The museum currently has not one, not two, but three blockbuster exhibits: Carlos Villa, Worlds in Collision; two experimental artists: one from Kolkata, the other from Hong Kong. And Marin artist Zheng Chongbin’s I Look for the Sky, a site-specific installation hanging from the lobby ceiling.
Hong Kong artist Lam Tung Pang’s piece, A day of two Suns (2019) was a video installation. The screen looked like a Chinese painting, but with witty modern objects decorating the edges. Amazing.
Posting for Travel with Intent’s Six Word Saturday.
Kanlaon 