Wine Notes: Prager 2001 Aria White Port

Seriously good shit.

I've been meaning to open this bottle for long while now because of its age. It's a good thing I finally did because while the cork was intact, it was getting a bit soft. I bought this port on my first wine trip with my girlfriends but I was already familiar with Prager. My ex and I went there for our honeymoon in 1988. Prager is a small operation run by a single family. They are located right next to Sutter Home. If you're in Napa Valley, I highly recommend stopping by.

As you can see from the label, the alcohol content is 18%. This port is produced from Napa Valley Chardonnay grapes. As mentioned before I like reds and generally prefer whites that have been fermented in steel barrels so this was a departure for me. The label notes that this port can be served chilled and I have to say it tastes GREAT chilled.

The wine itself is a golden amber color. There's no mistaking the high alcohol content. With the nose, you're hit with alcohol fumes but with some patience and letting the port breathe a bit you can pick out just a hint of roasted marshmallows that have not yet been burned.

According to label, this port has "flavors of apples and pears with a pronounced nutty finish." Well, after 10 years it doesn't really taste like that anymore. The most striking thing about it is when it first hits your tongue, it has a long super smooth beginning. There's no syrupy mouth feel but there is floral honey and subtle flavors of very fresh caramel, like just cooked caramel. It seems like there might be a bit of spice on the sides but that could just be the high amount of alcohol. There's a hint of very juicy ripe pears before the swallow. The finish isn't long but I can taste caramel apples (the kind you get at the Boardwalk, not the gourmet kind) and I get just the barest taste of cashews but that's it for the "nutty finish." When it's warm you can taste cotton candy at the very end of the finish.

I definitely prefer this port chilled but it tastes great when it's a little warm. I'm drinking it with Ham and White Bean Soup with Spinach and it's friggin' awesome! Too bad I don't have any Rosemary Foccacia Bread to go with it.

Contents Of My Backpack

I have a lot of backpacks. Too many for my own good. Most of the time I carry the one below. It's beautiful, lightweight, cozy, and has a laptop sleeve. Since I carry a lot of stuff, I thought I'd make a list of the current contents. Just for fun.

Front zip pocket (clockwise from the Meetup sign):

• Coffee splattered Meetup sign for my writing groups.
• "Billy Elliot" theater ticket. A great musical, by the way.
• Lighter. I don't smoke but you never know when you're going to be stuck in a med lab with an alien and you have to set off the fire alarm so the marines will come rescue you. Okay, maybe I've watched "Aliens" a few too many times but my excuse is I own the Alien Quadrilogy DVD box set.
• Buttons from my favorite online comic: two "tops" and one "bottom."
• Hemp Lip Conditioner from Body Shop and Vincent Longo Lip Stain Lipstick in Belle Etoile. Ms Anne, a regular reader of this blog, once asked me how my lipstick stays so perfect in my pictures. This is the lipstick I use for those photos and for nearly everything else. I also like Burt's Bees lip balm.
  
• Mints
• Stash's English Breakfast black tea bag.
• A sample of Gun Oil, a silicone lubricant from Good Vibrations, a famous woman owned sex shop here in San Francisco.
• Work badge, volunteer badge.
• Moleskine Notebook: plain pages, soft cover, pocket size.
• Various pens, including a green mechanical pencil and some Hello Kitty pens.

Main middle compartment (clockwise from purple scarf):

• Purple tissue weight cashmere pashmina scarf bought on sale at Nordstroms and, other than my Raybans, ID case, and phone, my constant companion.
• One hand knitted merino wool "Oliver Twist" style fingerless glove bought at an antique shop in the Mission. The other glove is around here somewhere.
• Zip cosmetic bag with various sundry items: hair brush, contact lens case, compact, etc.
• Super gory Korean military mystery/horror film "The Guard Post." The film is a bit confusing with the flashbacks but I really liked it. I should enjoy subsequent viewings. Not available here in the U.S., had to order it from the U.K.
• Ear buds for phone.
• Flash light in case I get stuck in the MUNI tunnel and the power goes out. Hmm. I better check those batteries.
• Not shown: Motorola Droid phone and its power cord.

Laptop sleeve (clockwise from the keyboard):

• Close to full size keyboard made specifically for my Galaxy Tab. It's very sturdy, has a good feel to the keys, and there's no typing lag time. It was pricey at the time and a little heavier than I would have liked but turned out to be a great buy.
• Samsung Galaxy Tab, 7 inch screen. Tablets are typically thought of as "consumer" devices but I use mine primarily for writing. My favorite writing program, Scrivener for Mac, syncs folders and documents through Dropbox so I have my entire story on the Tab. When changes are made, it uploads the edited files to Dropbox and when I open Scrivener, the changes are sync'd inside the program. I can also upload new files from Scrivener to Dropbox to my Tab. No more cutting and pasting documents. It's beautiful! I also have Amazon Kindle on the Tab. I surf the internet, check Twitter and GReader, etc. but mostly I write on it. I often pull up my current story when I'm in the tunnel on MUNI and read and make edits with the onscreen keyboard.
• Power and extension cords for Galaxy Tab.

Items I'm never without:

• Raybans. I wear my Raybans all the time, even at night. I don't do it because it looks cool; I do it because they are very good at blocking the wind. Because I wear hard contact lenses, any little thing that gets into my eyes hurts like hell and I can't see. Raybans prevent stuff from being blown into my eyes. Sometimes I'll wear them on MUNI late at night when I take the bus because they're a kind of psychological barrier between you and bothersome/drunk/stoned passengers. For some reason, people tend to leave me alone if I'm wearing them.
• Clipper card. This is my public transportation card for MUNI and BART. I use both all the time.
• Zip ID case. I replaced my wallet with this wonderful little case. I have my drivers license, insurance and registration info, credit card, ATM card, Starbucks gold card, cash, and several different museum membership cards. Sometimes, like now, it gets a little full so I have to empty it out on a regular basis.
• Not shown: Again, the Motorola Droid phone which I'm using to take these pictures.
  

And the main missing item? My camera and an extra charged battery. I should carry my camera everywhere but I don't because of the extra weight it adds. I need to get used to carrying it with me all the time, like before. When I first started this blog, the camera was another one of my constant companions.

City life: The Castro

One of my favorite neighborhoods here in SF.

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City Life: An Upcoming Mini Pedro Almodovar Film Fest at Castro Theatre

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Wine Notes: Kalyra 2004 Syrah Port

I haven't written much about wine but my wine fridge holds 50 bottles and I'm slowly drinking my way through it. I'd like to keep a record of what I drink somewhere. I figured this blog is as good a place as any.

As you can see, this is a 2004 Syrah Port, half bottle. I bought this bottle during one of my wine trips with my girlfriends. We go tasting 1-2 times a year and when we're flush we might go up to 3 times a year. I think I bought this bottle in 2005, maybe 2006. I believe it was our first trip to the Santa Ynez Valley which is about 350 miles from San Francisco near Santa Barbara. Kalyra Winery was a busy place with very friendly, down-to-earth wine servers. Also, I recall the prices for the wines were economical.

Though I don't know much about grape varietals, I do enjoy a good Syrah. In fact, I don't really know much about wine in general but I do have a good palate, as my girlfriends say. I know what tastes good and can pick out subtle flavors in wine. When I first started wine tasting, I was mostly into Cabs (big reds). Now I really like Pinot Noir and Syrah. I still love a good Cab but I don't automatically zero in on them anymore. I've also been interested in whites. I particularly enjoy white wines that have been aged in steel barrels.

Back to this Syrah Port. Since it's a 2004 you know it's been in my wine fridge for several years. When I first opened it there was an overwhelming smell and taste of alcohol. As you can see from the label, the alcohol content is 19%. The thing is when I opened it up, the cork looked weird. I examined it and realized the cork is synthetic! It's made up of a kind of foam. In recent years we've seen wineries going to screw top and synthetic corks but I don't recall that happening in 2004-2005. I called my good friend and told her about it. We discussed the thinking behind using a screw top lid vs. synthetic cork. A screw top effectively arrests the wine in its current state; no more aging is possible with a screw top lid. Using a screw top lid is very effective with an already well-developed white wine. We've spoken to folks at wineries and they say a synthetic cork allows a little air in but the wine can't really age like it would with a regular cork. This means this Petite Syrah has been sitting in its own massive alcohol content for years.

I poured the wine into a wine glass with a big bowl and spent time swirling it around. If I had a decanter I would have definitely decanted it in an attempt to mellow out the alcohol fumes. When I first tasted it after swirling around it had a sweet port-y taste. I couldn't understand it. I enjoy port but not heavy sweet ports. I made no sense to me that I would have bought this bottle and I talked to my friend about this fact. I kept swirling and we kept talking. Eventually the wine had breathed long enough so I could get a better idea of the taste. Sometimes it can take a while for a wine flavor to really come out after it's been poured.

Decent to brilliant wines have three tasting stages: when it first hits your mouth, how it tastes after you've held it in your mouth (this is the stage where you can pick out any tastes on the side of your tongue), and the finish. By the way, this isn't anything I've read. It's just something I've learned while doing my own tasting. There's also "the nose," that is, what it smells like. And there's what the wine looks like: color, transparency, etc.

This Syrah port could definitely fall into the dessert wine category. It has an interesting mouth feel. Like some ports it has an almost syrupy feel but with some time to breathe it's not really sweet. When this Syrah first hits your mouth it tastes like very ripe strawberries that have been marinated in balsamic vinegar for several hours. It's taken me some time to figure this out. This explains the very fresh, ripe strawberries in the finish (after the swallow, it's very subtle), yet the syrupy mouth feel remains after the swallow and this has an almost maple-y flavor. There's a hint of box-just-opened brown sugar at the end but this is very subtle as well since this wine does not have a very long finish. Most of the time it doesn't take me that long time to figure out how a wine tastes but this was a tough one.

As for the nose, it's difficult to get an accurate scent because of the high alcohol content. Nah, I won't attempt to figure it out because I've already drank almost a full glass and since I'm a lightweight, I need to stop here.

I'll be enjoying this bottle for another couple of days and if memory serves, it was well worth the money I spent on it.

Writing Life: Stories on the Fly - An Explanation

I've been wanting to do something like this for a while. That is, give myself a scenario such as the one in the post below (a woman, locked in a room, with a deadline), write a story within a certain time, and allow myself less time to edit the story. Then post it on this blog immediately.

It's really a writing exercise to see what I can come up with. With enough practice I should get better at it (I hope). When I was with my ex, we tried a similar idea but we had to tell the stories out loud to each other without writing anything down. I took the scenario (two men in a car, arguing about a woman) and told a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end right off the top of my head. There was plenty of conflict and secrets that came out in that little story. There was no time limit. The idea was we had to verbally tell the story until it was finished.

I'm going to try this exercise from time to time. Feel free to leave a scenario and a time limit in the comments if you'd like. The minimum time for writing the story is 15 minutes. I promise I won't cheat! I can't guarantee that all the stories will be good or even decent but I'll never improve unless I challenge myself.

Thanks for reading.

Writing Life: Stories on the Fly - The Only Way Out

Total Writing Time: 15 Minutes; Total Editing Time: 8 minutes, 30 seconds

Scenario: A woman. Locked in a room. With a deadline.

The clock was ticking. She looked up at the window. Sheet metal had been welded over it. She checked her watch again. She knew it was two minutes fast. Yes, two minutes might be enough, she thought. Above her head near the top of the window, was a bomb. Just a handmade bomb but she could see there was enough explosives to destroy half the building, and certainly this entire room.

She was alone in a room about 500 square feet. The walls were painted black, featureless. The floor was made up of white shiny tiles. There were pools of bright lights concentrated in the center of the room, leaving the outer edges dark. There was only one window and one door. The door had bars of steel welded over the front of it on the other side. She knew this because there was a small screen hanging down from the ceiling in front of her showing the door and hallway outside. It was a little like one of those DVD screens that drop down inside a fancy, tricked out mini-van. No one was in the hallway. She had nothing but her clothes and her watch. She pounded the sheet metal over the window with her fist, testing it. There was no way to break through it.

After looking around the room, she walked around the outer edges quickly testing the walls for any weaknesses. She finished in the middle of the room and stared up at the DVD screen. It was attached to the ceiling but there seemed to be a seam in the ceiling. She jumped lightly, hitting the bottom of the DVD screen. There was the tiniest amount of give. She smiled.

She backed up and then ran towards the DVD screen and leaped up towards it. She grabbed the screen and held on, swinging her legs. The screen held and then her forward momentum pulled the screen's based too far and the screen ripped from the ceiling leaving a gaping hole that looked like it would just large enough for her to crawl through. She landed on her hip with a thud, pulling the screen and its cords with her. She checked her watch. There was only three minutes to go. She grabbed the cords and climbed up through the hole as quickly as she could. She was breathing hard but paid no attention. There was a long corridor of vents ahead of her. She had no idea if she was going to get far enough away in time but she had to try. She began crawling away from the room, barely able to get up on her knees. She went in the direction of the north side of the building near the river and kept going. She knew if she didn't reach the other end of the building, she would probably be killed in the blast or at least seriously injured.

She stayed focused. Kept moving, she thought. It was the only thing she could do. She could see the other end of the building in front of her. Just a little bit longer, she thought.

The building exploded.

Blog Housekeeping

I moved this blog post just to keep everyone in the loop about the changes made. I first posted it on 7/9/11.

***

Today I did some housekeeping. First, I moved all my posts from my Fainting in Coils blog to this blog and shut down Fainting in Coils. Anything that would be been posted there will now have a label titled "Mr. Gryphon."

You can see I've included buttons at the top of my blog. The top row of buttons are About pages for general information and the bottom row of buttons are label buttons. I chose some categories I like and created the buttons. If you click on a label button, all posts with that label will be displayed. If you have a suggestion for label button, feel free to leave a comment. The list of all the labels I've used on my blog posts is still located on the side bar.

I created a separate link list on the side bar for my strange story FailSafe. It shows all the chapters in chron order and includes the Asides I wrote. I originally did a label button for it but found it to be too unwieldy given the story's length. When I finally get around to posting another story I will create a separate link list for it.

Lastly, for those of you following this blog I sincerely apologize if you were inundated with notifications or emails when I transferred the Fainting in Coils posts to this blog. I'm still not sure if all the blog posts I moved were sent to you as new postings, and my attempts to find out (and prevent this from happening) were met with failure.

Thanks for reading.

Old Blog - Posted on June 16, 2006: Fainting in Coils

This is the first post featuring Mr. Gryphon. At the time, he was only "Gryphon." I added the Mr. shortly after. As I've said before, I created him when I was breaking up with my ex as a way to keep him around a little while longer.

In this post you can clearly see his trademark qualities: seriousness, unsmiling, and slight crankiness. Plus, he never hesitates to call me on my shit.

****

Gryphon and I spent the evening together last week. It was a beautiful San Francisco night. The Universe was playing up its parallel nature to the hilt. I was running late as usual. Gryphon was annoyed.

"Can't you tell those work people to shove it?"

"I try to but I don't get anywhere with that and if I continue they won't ask me back. Who would pay for dinner then?" I say.

"Hmm. Good point."

We make our way into the MUNI underground. Since this is San Francisco, California, United States of America, no one seems to notice the Gryphon and his wings. As long as he's wearing his chaps, no one casts a second look.

I'm feeling stiff from residual work week stress but then again that could just be my turtle shell. We somehow manage to fit on the MUNI train. The Gryphon folds his wings away.

"What about what's-his-name?" he asks. There a crunching sound as Gryphon crushes the bar he's holding on to.

"What about him?" I ask.

"Thought so," says the Gryphon. He gazes up and down the train, apparently satisfied that the topic of conversation has been exhausted. I'm relieved myself. I'm happy to be alone with what's-his-name and my thoughts for a change.

We're only going two stops to Powell Station. The doors open and we disembark. We make our way up to Union Square. Gryphon insists upon taking a Cable Car two stops to our destination. After some pushing and shoving, I manage to hang off the side of the Car, Rice-a-Roni style, and he's content to perch on top. Tourists gape and take pictures.

We reach our dinner destination, The Cheesecake Factory. There's only an hour wait. We put our names in and wait in the bar. Gryphon watches the basketball game on TV, he's quite fond of games. I sip my alcohol laced milk shake.

"I'm having lobster," he announces, shaking his great head.

"They don't have lobster, you'll have to settle for shrimp," I'd been reading the menu.

He gives a little growl but says nothing. The first time I'd met Gryphon was during a dance at the beach. He'd been pretty much keeping to himself on the shingle, kicking a stone here and there. Most people think he's too taciturn and solemn but we managed to become friends somehow. Since he's going to keep watching the game, I give up on talking to him until we sit down for dinner.

A server named Mandy, all bright and fetching, bounds towards us.

"Drinks? Alcohol? Appetizers?"

"Now and Laters?" The Gryphon holds up a package of "classic" Now and Laters for her to see.

"Oooh, yes! Have any grape ones?" He tears open the package and gives her all the grape flavored ones. She is excited. He watches her but does not smile. He never smiles. She leaves us with more time to decide what we're eating.

"That's the kind of girl you need," I say, "Someone to offset your seriousness."

"Miss Turtle," he says leaning in, "it's better to be a little serious than to cause yourself all kinds of unnecessary sorrow."

"Are we getting on that subject again?"

"Of course, that's why I'm here. Why else would I be sitting here in chaps on a Thursday night at the damn Cheesecake Factory?"

"At least you got to ride on top of the Cable Car again," I say, glaring at the menu.

"Stop pouting and no crying this time," he says.

"I'm NOT pouting and crying," I snap.

"No raising your voice at me either."

I seethe and consider leaving the restaurant but some men at the next table start singing the Barry Manilow song "Mandy" to our server. I look down at the menu and smile a little.

"I used to love Barry Manilow," I say wistfully. The Gryphon just looks at me, that look of disdain on his brow.

"We need to get on with this dinner, Miss Turtle," he says briskly, "Now, you need to relax and stop worrying so much and be thankful for what you have. All this fancy about the end of the world and how bad things are getting just won't do. YOUR wasting a lot of time."

"You spelled YOU'RE wrong," I say stiffly.

"What of it? That adverb there is silly, by the way. You're always stiff on account of your shell. Stephen King would not approve of all these adverbs."

"What about what's-his-name?" I ask.

"YOU'RE pouting again. What about him? Why are you even asking that? Is he here right now at this moment? Then don't worry about him. He's fine where he's at, wherever he is."

"Is? At? Same thing?"

"Yes, sometimes." Gryphon picks up his Ultimate Margarita in his claws, thinks better of it and puts his glass down.

We order, the food comes and we eat in silence. The night is turning a little cool. I start to think the last dialog exchange was the whole point of the dinner but then Gryphon looks at me again.

"Just remember, you are fine where you are. Am I right?"

"Suppose so. What's going to happen next? How will this all turn out? Will anything happen?" I'm getting my trademark tears in my eyes.

"Don't know what's going to happen next. Don't know how it's all going to turn out and something will definitely happen," Gryphon says, "No crying, you heard what I said before about that."

"Piss off, "I say wiping my eyes.

He sighs and holds up a dinner menu. "Dessert?"

"No thank you. I'm going to throw up if I eat very much more. Why is everything so painful sometimes?"

"I've answered that already. You know how it goes. The answer is in front of you at all times. All the things you need to know now. Stuff like that.

"This has turned out to be a tiresome dialog, Mr. Gryphon. I think we need to end it now."

He agrees and we make our way out of the restaurant. I wipe my eyes. "No sorrow?" I ask.

"Not a one," he says, "you know it's true. You keep asking the same questions over and over. It's time to drop them. No answer is forthcoming, at least not in the form YOU'RE hoping for."

A Cable Car stops on our corner. He smiles a little, then I laugh as we run to the Car before it pulls away from the stop.

Triangular

The love of my life is obsessed with a married woman. We never could see each other clearly.

Every time I hear or even imagine him singing her praises: how beautiful she is, how brainy, the look of wonder and sliced pain on his face every time he talks about how glorious her poetry or paintings are, I feel spite rolling slowly from one side of my chest to the other, my heart providing security the way inflatable bumpers provide cushioning to bowling balls during children's tournaments.

I used to smile wanly at him, but he wouldn't notice my pained eyes because he was too busy staring off into space in the crowded restaurant as radiant pictures of his married love broadcast behind his darker than dark eyes.

One night I broke into the art studio where she paints and spent hours looking at her neatly lined up brushes, her carefully positioned canvases. Even her well used palettes along with works in progress look like they belong in a museum, full of cobalt and silver and orange and rust and mint and rain and summer and ashes and warm wood. I rarely talk to her, but when I do I try to stay with the conversation. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of big heartness not to scream and yell at the HAPPY bitch.

For she is happily married with her own family, she talks about cold autumn afternoons, spooning and snuggling. Warm blankets wrapping up precious children. All of that and still she takes the love of my life even if he's content to flit around the edges of her cozy world saying inappropriate things to other people like how he wishes he were married to her instead of her lucky husband. He doesn't care what anyone thinks. And long ago, he decided that I was unworthy of his love, unworthy of his attentions.

And although I was tempted to, I didn't sabotage her paintings or her supplies even though I wanted to very much. Instead, I crawled through the window I'd forced open, landing painfully on harsh concrete. I sprained my ankle and scrapped my left knee in the process. I sat pitifully on the hard, unforgiving ground crying from pain and love, the full moon washing down on my tears.

Two days later, he and I are sitting in the same diner and once again he is talking about how wonderful she is. He doesn't see me. I look hard at him, my tears forming shrink wrap over my eyes, blurring my vision. "Look at me," I think as hard as I can, as hard as when I wished for a pony when I was eight years old. I try to send the thought to him with all the force of a visionary. I try as hard as I can, but he just becomes more blurry.

"She's just so amazing," he's saying, shaking his wonderful blond head. His glasses are sliding slowly down his slightly pink nose. He pushes them up with his index finger, a completely unconscious gesture, then his eyes drop down to his half eaten burger with caramelized onions and cheddar cheese still not seeing anything. "I'm never going to find someone to love. It's been too long, I'm too set in stone," he says.

I think harder and then harder still until I realize the salt shaker on the table is trembling from my thoughts, "I'm here. In front of you. I love you. Look at me. Look at me." The tears spill from my eyes, not that he will ever notice.

***

I wrote this post on March 12, 2007 at 8:34 pm while in the middle of a personal relationship shitstorm. I think I posted it for a few hours before taking it down. I remember at the time being proud of the quality of writing but that it hit too close to home for me to feel comfortable with putting it out in the world. I'm still proud of the writing. Thankfully, the guy wasn't the love of my life though I sincerely believed it at the time. He never did see me properly. Oh well, it's his loss.

Movie Musings: My Approach to Film Surveys

Now that I've completed two film surveys and am working on a third, I thought it was time to write about how I go about doing them.

First, I'm not doing this for school. When I mention to people that I do film surveys and explain what I'm doing, they always ask if it's for a class. I do this because I get so much out of it and it's really fun. I think it's interesting that many people assume someone engaged in this kind of activity would do so only for school.

Second, I've never taken a film course so I have no idea how an instructor would approach a similar survey. The process I use grew out of my own efforts and I'm assuming an instructor's course would have much more depth, and certainly more information.

All that being said, here's how I go about it.

PICK A SUBJECT MATTER

Sometimes the subject matter is easy. You decide you want to explore a particular director's body of work so that's where you start. Or you decide you want to concentrate on a particular time and place, or even a particular actor.

My first film survey was on Weimar Cinema, films made in Germany from 1920 (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) to 1933 (The Testament of Dr. Mabuse). I also watched The Triumph of Will (1935), the notorious Nazi propaganda film as a coda. Choosing my next subject was easy because I really wanted to learn more about Akira Kurosawa and his films. The subject matter for current survey was more difficult. I had the thought that I wanted to concentrate on a European director, perhaps someone who'd made films in the 1940s and 50s, possibly into the 60s, but I was also taken with the idea of focusing on an event or subject matter.

One of my friends did an impressive overview of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He read a bunch of books, watched films and documentaries, and even read a manga or two about it. I seriously thought of going this route and either following in his footsteps or picking another event. I also thought about other directors and even actors (one of the actors at the top of my list was Vincent Price). In the end, I settled on Spanish director Luis Buñuel. I was fascinated that he'd made so many films in different countries and languages and for his reputation as a surrealist.

I should note that I don't consider my continuing review of South Korean films to be a "survey." For me, film surveys are all about looking back at a particular time and place or a particular person, such as a director. South Korean films are still evolving and maturing. For now, I'm merely a collector.

Once the subject matter has been chosen, it's time to make a list.

THE LIST

A film survey must have a beginning and an end so it's important to make a list of films. I always start on Amazon, believe it or not. I run searches for Listmania! articles ("So you wanna..."). This is how I created my Kurosawa list of films. After reviewing Amazon, I'll run a general Google search and do some reading for recommendations. Yahoo! Answers is another good place to find film recommendations. After I have some idea of what films could be on the list, I'll start reading Wikipedia, Rotten Tomatoes, and IMDB articles about the films. Some films are are a no brainer such as Kurosawa's Seven Samurai or Buñuel's Belle du Jour. Others are less obvious and require some reading to ferret out.

My survey of Weimar Cinema topped out at 14 films. My Kurosawa survey encompassed 16 of his films. When I'm done with Buñuel, I'll have watched 23 of his films. None of these numbers include any "offshoot" or remake films (more on this later).

The next most important thing is to find a book of the films. I found my book on Weimar Cinema at the library. The Films of Akira Kurosawa by Donald Richie was a wonderful book to have on hand. Oddly enough, there isn't such a book for Buñuel's films so I had to do some poking around. I found a book called A Companion to Luis Buñuel which discusses his films and also his life but not film by film. In the end, the best resource I found was Luis' autobiography My Last Sigh. UPDATE: I found a splendid book titled Luis Buñuel: A Critical Biography by Francisco Aranda at a used bookstore in the Mission and paid $8 for it. It has a detailed bio, especially of his childhood, a film by film review, and many of his critical writings about art and films, and some of his surrealist writings. This book, along with My Last Sigh, are my best book companions.

WATCHING THE FILMS AND FILM EXTRAS

If you're lucky, as with all of the Kurosawa films I watched, the film will have been released by the Criterion Collection. Criterion is a company that releases films that have been restored and include excellent extras. I suppose you could consider their approach to be more scholarly. Some of their releases are brilliant, such as my three-disc set of Seven Samurai. It has the best audio commentary I've heard so far along with documentaries, essays, and the like. On the other hand, I was somewhat disappointed to find out that the only Buñuel films released by Criterion were from his Second French period.

I watch the film, all commentaries, and all documentaries. After that, I'll look the film up on Wikipedia, Rotten Tomatoes, and IMDB and read more about it. If I have a book of the films I'll read the relevant section but only after I see the film first.

In the past, I've stopped there but now I log the films in my Master Notebook. Logging is tremendously satisfying. I'll take at least one screenshot, maybe more, give the film my own rating, add factual details, and write a review. In addition to logging, I'll make a note in the survey's diary section in my Master Notebook entitled The State Of My Obsession.

My current survey for Buñuel includes the film log, The State of My Obsession diary section, and a Reading Page. I've been doing a lot of reading related to Buñuel himself, his films, and his friends so I keep track of those activities there. As noted before, I also write articles relating with the survey but I've noticed the articles are slower in coming. I'll definitely do an article about Buñuel and his friends, and will likely do an article about recurring themes in his films: surrealism, his attitudes towards the Bourgeoisie, and religion at some point.

REMAKES AND "OFFSHOOT" FILMS

Many directors, Kurosawa is definitely one of them, inspire others and remakes of their films are made. Depending on the film, I'll sometimes watch a remake for comparison purposes. For the Kurosawa survey, I watched Magnificent Seven, a 1960 western remake of Seven Samurai, and A Fistful of Dollars, an iconic 1964 Spaghetti western remake of Yojimbo. An "offshoot" film is always one by a different director but might explore a similar genre, might even include actors my director likes to use. Or the "offshoot" film is about the director, usually fictionalized in some way. For my Kurosawa film survey, I watched The Sword of Doom, a 1966 Samurai film directed by Kihachi Okamoto and starred Kurosawa regulars Tatsuya Nakadai and Toshiro Mifune. For my Buñuel film survey, I've watched Little Ashes, a fictionalized account of Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí, and Federico García Lorca during their university days.

FILM SURVEYS AS JUMPING OFF POINTS

My Buñuel survey has taken me to new places I never anticipated. I've become interested in Paris in the 1920s and have been doing a little exploring in that area. I already have a bit of background from reading Buñuel's autobiography and learning about the Surrealists. It also helps that we have a number of wonderful art exhibits going on here in San Francisco that encourage this kind of exploration: a Picasso exhibit at the DeYoung Musuem, a Steins exhibit at SFMOMA, and an exhibit on Gertrude Stein at the Jewish Contemporary Museum. I might take a bit of time and read one of Hemingway's books (either A Movable Feast or The Sun Also Rises).

CONCLUSION

As you can see, my biggest problem is keeping the survey contained and focused. The other problem is completing the survey in a reasonable time. Both my Kurosawa and Weimar Cinema surveys took years to complete because I wasn't very focused on them. I've already seen 16 of Buñuel's films and am now focusing my efforts on his Second French Period. It's a bit overwhelming to go from doing a survey in a couple of years to doing one in a couple of months. I need to find the right balance for myself.

I'll definitely write a blog post here and there about the survey (here's one I did about Buñuel's First French Period), but these posts tend to be watered down, shortened versions of my Master Notebook log. I have toyed with the thought of starting a separate blog for writing about films and film surveys but I've got too much on my plate to focus on that right now. I may try it later.

This is really fun for me. It never feels like work. The added element of logging the survey and writing essays just makes it that much more wonderful. Plus, I get to flip through my Master Notebook to see the results. So satisfying.

New Self-Portrait

I had fun manipulating iPhoto to get this picture.
I was going to post this as my profile pic on FB but it doesn't look as good as a thumbnail.

The Job Hunt

I haven't talked a lot about the job hunt, mostly because I'm used to the situation I'm in. This is the third time I've been without a job in three years and I've been determined to enjoy the extra time. I have done that but as I approach my one year anniversary, I'm feeling a bit of panic setting in.

I have been diligently looking for a job but I keep bumping up against the oddities of this weird economy. First off, I believe the industry I work in, the legal industry, has been permanently altered by this economic downturn. I could be wrong but I don't think so. I don't believe companies are willing to pay the exorbitant fees attorneys have been enjoying in the past and this has manifested itself in the form of lower staff salaries. My biggest disadvantage from what I can tell is I've been working in this field for too long. I have a lot of experience and before everything went to shit that meant a higher salary especially if you have an area of specialty like me. Now it appears employers want a lot of experience (because they're staffing leaner and they need people who can do more) but they don't want to pay for it. I'm fairly certain when I do find a job I will have to take a pay cut. My goal is to minimize the cut as much as possible.

Potential employers have the upper hand, of course, but even they seem to be having trouble finding the right fit for their jobs. I don't know why this is so. Maybe they're relying on the computer to review resumes and pull only the ones with the right "search terms" and the people the computer is coming up with aren't good candidates. I could scoff at this method but the fact is employers are getting hundreds of applications for every job posted and sifting through all that is difficult.

The job market out there resembles a bad dating situation. I've been in at least three situations where I went through several interviews and was told they love me, they want to hire me, etc. and then they pull back at the last possible minute. I'm certain the reason for this is because of my stated salary range. I'm willing to take a pay cut, and I'm willing to negotiate but my recent salary history seems to scare people away before we can even get to that point.

I can't tell you how many times I've been in situations where someone has seen my resume, responded very enthusiastically, I've been told they want to schedule me for an interview, and then...nothing. They decide they don't need someone after all or they have enough candidates already or they've just changed their mind about me. Firms and companies seem to be getting flakier and ruder as time goes on. They keep flip-flopping around and then a month or two later I see the same job position being advertised again. I've discussed this phenomenon with my friends and there are a variety of theories:

• They had a position open and wanted to hire for it but the work dried up or something happened with that client. Perhaps a month or two later they finally get the money they need and re-post the position.
  
• They hired the wrong person for the job (probably someone cheaper) and found out how wrong and are back to square one.
• They had no intention of hiring someone from the outside. Instead they want to promote someone from within but their policies state they have to post the position and do some interviews.
• They have no intention of hiring anybody at all. They just want to do a "market survey" to see how things are out there. This is an incredibly cruel and FUCKED UP thing to do.

Not long ago I was in a situation where I was told I was the only candidate who was qualified for the position, that they really liked me (I come across as a warm person in interviews. I'm a nice person anyway but sometimes it's hard for people to convey that during the stress of an interview), but they had to find more qualified candidates for comparison purposes. That was almost two months ago and I've heard nothing. I've given up following up with them and have been expecting a letter saying "thanks, but no thanks" but haven't even gotten that. What a bunch of rude bastards.

Now when someone says they want to interview I say, "Sure, I'd love to" but I half expect them to flake on me. And when someone says they really want to hire me and think I'd be a great fit for them I say "That's great! I'm really interested in working for you too!" but I don't believe for a second that they're serious. I won't believe it until I'm walking in the door on my first day of work, and the even sadder thing is I probably won't believe it until I've been there for at least six months. Maybe I'll never believe it. Job security seems to be a thing of the past.

The right job will come, the right job will come. My friends keep reminding of this truth, thank God, and I have no choice but to keep moving forward but it does get disheartening at times.

City Life: Positive messages on a chainlink fence in the Mission.

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City Life: A reproduction of Posada's Calaveras in a sidewalk grating on Valencia in the Mission

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Writing Life: The Bar

One of the key settings for the post-apocalyptic novel I drafted during the last November National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a bar. The first quarter to third of the novel takes place there. I knew I had to find a real bar to base this setting on but the ones I checked out in San Francisco were all wrong. They were too small, too narrow, and other problems. None of them made sense. I was thinking I might have to grab one of my good friends and go on a serious search through the City to find one.

While in Pioneertown visiting a friend during my Joshua Tree road trip, we stopped at a local bar for a drink before dinner. We were deciding on appetizers and drinks and I kept looking around. The place was really familiar but I couldn't figure out why since I'd never been there before.

It took me a few minutes to realize this is the bar in my novel. I was only familiar with the area where the main bar was and the kitchen was much narrower than in my novel but this is place. The brick walls, extra seating area, small stage area, and bricked in office in the center of the building were all extra details but they're perfect and will change the story for the better. I told my friends I needed to look around so I strolled around and around trying to take in as many details as possible since I'd left my camera in the car. There was a band playing too and I didn't want to retrieve my camera to take flash pictures during the performance. I took note of the floors, the smells, the walls, and the configuration of the place. When we got back to my friend's place for dinner, my friend gave me a brand new notebook to record my notes. You can see some of my notes below:


One of my friends suggested that perhaps the reason I couldn't find a bar in San Francisco is because the story should be set out in the middle of nowhere and not in a city. I told her I was seriously rethinking that idea.

I'm far away from going back to this novel since I'm working on other projects but it feels really good to have found this very important part of the story. And it will change the story quite a bit. The wheels are already turning.

City Life: Marquee for the Roxie Theatre

This is where i saw the SF Indie Film Festival last Feb. On 16th Street near Valencia in the Mission.

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City Life: Police Station Window

On Valencia near 17th Street in the Mission.

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City Life: A Rare Payphone in the Mission

On Valencia near 18th Street.

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Odds and Ends - Another Junk Mail Post

According to some religious types the end of the world is set to begin this Saturday at 6:00 am. The San Francisco Chronicle posted a FAQ on its website for those who are interested. I'm not one of those religious types, by the way, just fascinated.

For folks who expect to be raptured on Saturday, there's an outfit run by "confirmed atheists" that will take care of your pets. Apparently, business is brisk and they've increased their rates due to the high interest.

****

I watched this week's episode of Doctor Who, The Doctor's Wife by the great Neil Gaiman, with my brother and damn if it didn't make me cry. The storyline was epic, huge, and super satisfying. The official Doctor Who website has a ton of extras including a bunch of Neil related stuff. I just found this stuff less than two minutes ago. I feel like I'm going to faint as my fangirl glee kicks in! (Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have had that soy mocha with no whipped cream this evening. I do feel a bit punched up tonight and it's...12:45 am.)

****

I've been working on a new version of my story FailSafe. The original story is on my other blog Fainting in Coils. I didn't think much of it would change but I just added some new dialogue to one of the chapters and am already thinking of other changes. More importantly, the epic-ness that will become the new Gryphon/Mock Turtle story, Transmogrification, is seriously rolling around in my mind. I'm not sure when I'm going to write that one down but the characters are knocking on the inside of my head which means I'm going to have to write it down very soon. The new FailSafe and Transmogrification will likely be part of an experiment I'm doing in self-publishing.

****

It's another big month for watching plays. A list:

Angels in America: Millenium Approaches - watched twice (hey, it's my favorite play, the tickets were cheap, and it's rarely performed).

Tales of the City, the world premiere of a new musical based on the books by Armistead Maupin. Going to see the first preview tomorrow night.

Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, put on by Berkeley Rep. This particular production is getting monster reviews. I can't wait.

Little Shop of Horrors, put on by Boxcar Theatre, is going to have several numbers performed outside (on Skid Row). Should be a really cool production. I went to a special event at the Conservatory (the plants, not the music) and two cast members were on hand to sing a few numbers from the show. They were great!

Reborning, a world premiere play put on by SF Playhouse, is getting great reviews. Great cast, fascinating premise.

Lastly, this isn't a play but I'm going to artMRKT on Friday which is a huge event of art galleries from around the world, including the Bay Area and New York City. Should be a lot of fun.

****

I might be getting a job, finally. We'll see. Nothing is for certain until it actually happens. Fingers crossed.

****

If the world ends this weekend, I can say I've been doing all right. As many of you know, my motto is "What the fuck have you done lately?" I have this motto as wallpaper on my phone and look at it all the time. And I ask myself what the fuck have I done lately. For a while now I can say that my answers have been satisfactory. A short list of stuff I'm happy about:

• I've written two stories (a short story and a fan fiction) that are the most polished pieces of writing I've done so far. And if the world doesn't end, my writing is only going to get better.
• I checked some publishers and realized I could probably get some of my weird blog posts that I've tagged "Surreal Shit" published as prose poems.
• I'm working on the third draft of my novel. This puts me in a serious minority. How many people can say they've made it that far? Not many.
• I've been to Europe, Zion National Park, and the area around Joshua Tree National Park in the last year.
• I've indulged in my obsessions with Fullmetal Alchemist, Luis Bunuel's films, and South Korean Cinema and have been chronicling those obsessions.
• I see my family and friends regularly.
• I wrote the first draft for my next novel, all 75,000 words of it.
• I'm still working with the penguins after 23 years.

It's a wonderful life and a beautiful world. I hope you are all enjoying yourselves. Thanks for reading.

Writing Life: The Value of Critique

Once again I'm humbled.

I've been hesitant about sharing my writing with other people but when I had my last short story critiqued by my writing group I was amazed. I thought the story was good when I went in but they gave me fantastic suggestions, all of which I incorporated. Their suggestions made the story much better, more moving, and allowed me to really bring out the relationship between the two main characters. I'm now working on sending this story out for publication.

I have another story I've been working on for a while and I sent it to someone to review (or beta as we call it). It's a fan fiction story. Sorry, I won't say anything more than that. Once again, I thought it was in good shape but this person gave me wonderful suggestions for making it better, more accurate, and consistent.

The process of becoming a writer is all about falling in love, stepping out tentatively, gaining confidence, then relearning that you need to be humble. Here's what I mean:

• Falling in Love - In order to keep writing you have to fall in love. If you're writing fiction, you start out by falling in love with your story and your characters. This keeps you writing and helps you develop your own style. When you see your own style unfolding, you fall madly in love with your own thoughts and words. As I mentioned before I LOVE reading my own stuff out loud. I love hearing my own words strung together.
  

• Stepping Out Tentatively - In my case, I started out by writing for this blog. I learned that people like my words and I became a much better writer with regular posting. After that, I started going to my writing group and writing fiction regularly. More improvements followed.
  

• Gaining Confidence - After a while, I started thinking that my writing was going well, might even be pretty good. Falling in love starts to spill over into a bit of egoism. A fellow writer explained to me that he thought all writers have to be egotistical to some degree. He's right.

• Relearning You Have To Be Humble - It's difficult for me to to let go of my own words. They're safe and I'm already happy with them. Why should I invite somebody else in to take a look? Writing for yourself is good if that's what you want, but your writing can't improve unless you subject it to scrutiny. I was afraid when I had my writing group critique my short story even though I knew they would be gentle about it, but sending my fan fiction story to someone I didn't know scared the hell out of me. Even after I received the comments and verified all of them were excellent, kind, and constructive, I still had a hard time starting the process of reviewing them in detail and making edits. I spent a good deal of time psyching myself out just so I can could open the documents on my desktop. Once I got into it, the process was fun and satisfying.
  

This process is so humbling. I read and re-read this fan fiction story, made a ton of edits, and did many revisions to get to where I am now. I also spent almost two months reviewing the source material and taking extensive notes since I wanted the story to follow the existing canon. And I felt I was familiar with the source material to begin with! This process was tremendously instructive for my novel writing because I learned that this kind of scrutiny of the characters' back stories is essential. The person who critiqued my fan fiction brought up plot holes I knew about but had not resolved simply because I decided to be lazy about them, made outstanding suggestions to bring the story in line with the source material, pointed out where things weren't clear, asked great questions, and made excellent grammatical and sentence structure suggestions.

I thought I'd done everything I possibly could to make the story the best it could be but I was wrong. It's impossible to catch everything so a second set of eyes is necessary. It makes me wonder about my blog posts. I'm really comfortable with writing, editing, and posting my own stuff but it occurs to me that they could be so much better if someone critiqued them. On the other hand, this is just a blog and the writing isn't supposed to be out of this world.

I keep wondering what the hell I'm going to do when I finally finish the third draft of my novel. It will be in decent enough shape to show it someone for feedback but who am I going to show it to? I'm so intimidated by that idea. So much work and love has gone into these characters and this story and I'm terrified to let someone else see it. Fortunately it will be a little while before I have to really think about that.

my dad's roses

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Road Trip to the Desert (Joshua Tree): The Pictures

Near Joshua Tree National Park

We drove to Reno, Nevada then down US 395 to Pioneertown, California, about 10 miles from Joshua Tree National Park, across the 10 freeway near Pasadena, California, up US 5 over the Grapevine in Southern California back to San Francisco.

Current Favorite Self-Portrait of Miss Turtle

Invisible Marks, Whorls and Fleshed Ridges

Along the surface of things my fingers trail, leaving invisible marks, whorls and fleshed ridges. I used to wonder if we didn't have our five senses would things cease to exist? Is it possible that our five senses construct things to see, smell, taste, touch, hear?

Not true with others, that's for sure, but if we were alone we would never feel the things we might bump into. Without others there's no one to tell us what the world is like. The world ceases to exist and we are not around, not in any conventional space or time. Things in the world turn to misty transparencies each time we approach something: a desk, a wall, the ground. We float, suspended with not even the darkness to keep us dancing. In the end, we might turn transparent ourselves, devoid of softly padded boundaries, while the underbelly of the surface world pours through us in a riot of strange visions and clandestine energies.

****

One night while slipping in between a state between waking and sleeping, I found myself in a dark place. It was as if I'd slid under my sheet which blotted out everything. Since this was one of those rare times when I knew I was dreaming I desperately wanted to fly away into the starry, foggy night above the city but I couldn't get myself free. I tried willing myself out of that fabric of darkness but had no luck. There was a tickling in my brain, like the recent tickling I felt when I ate fresh ground black pepper in a splendid salad at a dinner party. I felt like those angels in battle who'd been unfortunate enough to be pinned under the great mountains that were thrown on top of them. I realized I wasn't going to get out of that sheeted dark place and reluctantly woke myself up.

There was no getting back to sleep after that.

***

Every once in a great while strange things happen to me that I can't explain. This has been going on since I was a child. Other than the usual obvious childhood experiences such as the times I saw God, was blessed by Jesus, and saw the shadow of Satan on my wall, other things have occurred. (I've never seen an angel, though. Oh wait, maybe I have...hmm, but I can't be sure so I'll just say I haven't.) I used to be able to choose really great books by walking along the stacks in the library and running my fingers over the spines without looking at them. When I stopped, I would pull out the book and read it. It was always amazing. I was reading all the time and it was becoming cumbersome to find really good books so I started using this method to save time. Curiously, this ability faded once I reached puberty.

One time when I was driving down Highway 101 with my ex, we saw a giant tumbleweed coming towards us on the freeway. Now if you've been on 101 you'd know there's absolutely no reason for a tumbleweed to be anywhere near there, much less a tumbleweed larger than the car. The weed bounced over the car and disappeared behind us. At first, I thought it was just my imagination but my ex mentioned he'd seen it too. I never did figure out what was going on there.

There was also that strange time I was walking to McClure's Beach in Point Reyes National Seashore with the same ex. We were walking down a short path from the parking lot to the beach and when I first saw the ocean I had to stop. Something had changed and I couldn't figure out what it was. My ex inquired as to my reason for stopping but I ignored him. I continued to stare at the crashing surf and a real panic was growing inside me. Something was terribly wrong. I realized the sound of the surf and the actual surf were off by a few moments. As soon as I figured out this sound delay I became incredibly nauseous and almost threw up. I had to look away from water and when I looked at it again everything was fine and I no longer felt sick. This feeling seemed to be tied to the place I was standing in so I spent a few minutes walking back and forth along the path but couldn't recapture that feeling again.

****

It's probably nothing but most of the clocks in my apartment don't work. My clock radio is always off by 15 minutes no matter what I do (replace battery, check the plug). The previous clock was also off by 15 minutes which prompted me to get the current one. Any clock I put in the bathroom always stops working even the clocks designed to stick to your bathroom mirror. The wall clock here in the living room doesn't work. It's always slowing down until it's off by about 20 minutes. It doesn't matter how many times I change the battery. It doesn't matter how many clocks I replace it with (the current clock is the third one I've tried; I even tried an atomic clock once). Once the current clock stopped working completely I just left it on the wall permanently set to 9:46:44. The two watches I use the most work though I've noticed all my other watches seem to have stopped working prematurely. I even took a couple to have the batteries replaced but they wouldn't start up again. The computer, phone, and tablet clocks are working well, thank goodness.

It occurs to me there's a story in here somewhere.

****

I can tell when the bus is going to come and from which direction. The bus can come from two different directions on my corner and I started out by guessing which direction as a way to pass the time. I learned quickly that if I let myself settle and stopped thinking about it, I could feel which direction the bus was coming in and whether it was coming soon, right way, or in a while. Anybody who rides MUNI knows how unpredictable the buses can be so this odd game has proven to be useful. My accuracy rate is better 90% at this point.

I've thought about attempting a similar game with lottery tickets, dice, card games, or roulette but haven't had the time to try it out.

****

Years ago, I had boyfriend where odd things seemed happen more often than usual. There were the times I checked his blog and for a moment I would see the shimmering ghost of a blog post about trains that he wouldn't post until a good two weeks later. Why that post? I'm not sure but he did mention me in it so maybe that was the reason. I'd also sent an email to a different guy before I started seeing this boyfriend where I talked about moats and inferiority complexes. It was a sarcastic reply to a mean email he'd sent me and I'd sent it to the guy before meeting this boyfriend. Later, while checking my boyfriend's blog I found an old post of his where he discusses inferiority complexes and moats in almost the sarcastic same way. There were other things but they're too weird to even post here. Needless to say because of these odd things I was convinced that we were right for each other.

That was a bad call.

(Someone is practicing scales on a tuba in an apartment on my street. It's the first time I've heard it. Seems appropriate for this post and my state of mind today.)

****

During the worst part of my divorce (the first two weeks), very strange things would happen. I kept hearing things falling and dropping in other rooms in the house. I knew these sounds were happening because the dogs would look up too. Sometimes when I went to see what had fallen I wouldn't find anything. Other times I'd find something on the floor that had no business being there. I was in a very bad state, almost suicidal, and not eating or sleeping. I realized after the first few days that I was probably imagining these things falling though the scary thought occurred to me that perhaps I was causing things to fall because of my whacked out state of mind.

I've had two concrete encounters with ghosts though I've never actually seen one. There have been other similar kinds of situations though they've been too vague to explain. All in all, I don't take these odd things very seriously. They don't happen very often (except the bus thing) and are probably explained away by something perfectly rational. Still, I do believe there are things in this world that we just don't understand and so many things are happening below the surface that I can't ignore it.

city life: a wall near 24th and valencia-the mission

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city life: "the greenest thing you could possibly do is hang yourself from a fucking tree"

Same wall in the Mission near 24th and Valencia.

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City Life: Along the Embarcadero, Part 2 (Ferry Building to Fisherman's Wharf)

Continuing my post of The Embarcadero (Part 1), I walked from the Ferry Building to Fisherman's Wharf earlier this month.

The walk from the Ferry Building (A) to Fisherman's Wharf (B) is 1.8 miles.

I strolled on the nice walkway on Pier 3 and got this shot of the Ferry Building. People like to come here at lunchtime to stretch out on the benches and read.

Back on The Embarcadero looking towards Fisherman's Wharf. Along here is a stretch of expensive restaurants and more moderately priced bars.

A street sign at Broadway.


I've never tasted chocolate here but I couldn't resist the sign.
I'll have to go back later and check it out.

Alcatraz!! Alcatraz Landing is located at Pier 33 and is where you purchase tickets and depart on tours. The island is only accessible by ferry. I only go there when I have guests but it's a fascinating tour and highly recommended. The cellhouse audio tour is excellent and really brings the place to life.

Ah yes, the parking. Parking near Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf is expensive and can be difficult so plan accordingly.

Approaching Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf brings a change in smells. Right about here you can smell cotton candy. As you closer to the Wharf, this can change to the overwhelming smell of crab and fish, depending on the time of day (usually in the morning and early afternoon).

We locals consider Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf the great tourist traps of our city. I generally don't come down here myself but they are must-see places according to all the tour books.

There's an aquarium here (not the one I volunteer at). I have to confess I've never visited but lots of people do and enjoy it. It's a small aquarium but focuses on the marine life in our San Francisco Bay.

Pier 39 is a full of gift shops, restaurants, and other places to eat.

You gotta love a two-story carousel that plays Gershwin. The carousel is located near the end of Pier 39 as are the world famous Pier 39 California Sea Lions.

In September 1989, our California Sea Lions started hauling out at end of the pier. You can see them piled on each other and you'll hear there barking as you approach. The Marine Mammal Center folks are here to provide information and answer questions. They have a shop upstairs above where the seals are.

At the end of Pier 39 are lovely views of Alcatraz.
You can see it was a windy day when I snapped this picture.

Fisherman's Wharf is located at Pier 43 or thereabouts. There are plenty of restaurants, places to eat on the run, the Wax Museum, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, gift shops, street musicians, In-and-Out Burger, and The Cannery, a sort of gift shop mini-mall.

If you keep walking past the Cannery and cross the street you'll come to this lovely park. There's a lovely lawn and a beach at the other end. It's a nice place to have lunch and take a stroll if it's not too crowded or windy.

As you can see Ghirardelli Square is right at the top of the park. I've been known to come here on rare occasions with friends for lunch. Ghirardelli is full of shops and restaurants. If you go, be sure to check out the famous chocolate shop.

I completely forgot this lovely Bay beach was located here.

Above the beach are concrete bleachers if you don't want to sit on sand.

I walked back the way I came to the Ferry Building and stopped at the park next to Justin Hermann Plaza where I was attracted by the raucous cries of our parrots. Yes, we have parrots here in San Francisco. Apparently, they are strays that got away and have grown into an impressive flock. You would think it's too cold for them but they don't seem to mind.

I've blogged about the parrots before on this blog but I didn't have a 10x zoom camera at the time so I wanted to post a decent picture.

This ends my posts about The Embarcadero. I hope you enjoyed it. I'm planning to do more neighborhood posts in the future.

Thanks for reading.

City Life: Sunset Outside My Apartment Door

Looking towards the Pacific Ocean. Taken April 8, 2011

el dorado casino in reno, nevada

Cheesy!

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A Kind of Subatomic Musical Chairs

The days and nights flutter by like crisp $100 bills blown by wind through the concrete and steel canyons. I keep wondering where the time goes but have now realized it seeps into the pores of my skin through my blood, bones, and organs, exiting the other side. I am just a sieve, a through way for that the giant wall of water known as Time.

Stuff happens but Time is still in my own mind. This is how we can get around Time, by keeping it in our own heads. We do it in our dreams every night, don't we? My dreams are all nanoseconds and epic generations of stories. Hundreds of years go by in a single dream, my thoughts running to catch up. I grasp at those loose dark veils which trail behind, all pageantry and bridal echoes. I never see the face hidden behind the layers of black lace and sheers. When I have the opportunity, I draw away from there. I don't want to see.

The traffic of my projects zoom by me on this congested road. Everyone is going more than 80 miles an hour but they're following too close. I think a crash must be imminent but there's no rain, not even a bump in the road, to interrupt progress. Again, I'm barely able to keep up. It seems my interests have taken on a life of their own, they seem to be stretching out new muscles, but they know they have to wait for me because I'm their conduit, their channel. Nothing happens until I literally make it so. Until then it's all a massive, incoherent stew.

Unreality and reality are separated by the thin membrane which separates my internal and external selves but I know that wall is just an illusion, something the brain makes up to keep track of everything. This should scare me but it doesn't for I know everything has its place even though it would be just as happy switching positions, playing a kind of subatomic musical chairs. When you have order vs. chaos, many times the order wins. The only reason this happens is because we make it so. Order, like that thin membrane, is just a mental construct, an evolutionary survival mechanism.

I wish I could frisk like any other self-serving person but I'm too painfully aware of my limitations. I've too much narrowness in my vision of things. Too little expansion of mind. No matter how much I fill my head with neat things, it's never enough. I'm surrounded by others who dance in ritual, holding hands, inviting me into that idyllic pastel landscape. They say letting go is the best thing all around. I still doubt them.

the pink church, the pacific ocean, golden gate park

Happened to glance out my window and today the view to the ocean is true and clear

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New Toy, er, Netbook Replacement

*chortle*

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another pic from the conservatory

I posted the wrong one

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the conservatory of flowers in golden gate park

For a special nite reception. Aquatic plants gallery

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