Does anybody?
Author: Jinx
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SF MOMA is, like most of the features in that part of the city, relatively new. Also like many San Francisco institutions, its strong features are its appearance rather than its mediocre premanent collection. The building itself looks like a CD player on the outside. Inside, it is light, airy, and quite beautiful.
Since it was the first Tuesday in the month, admission was free and the place was pretty crowded, but not unreaasonably so. Once we were let in, we filed slowly past the exhibits, from Magritte’s rather murky early work to the brilliantly colored canvasses of the ’50s and ’60s. Afterwards, we walked across the street to Yerba Buena Park.
Like MOMA, it’s new. When I first moved to San Francisco in 1988, that whole section of blocks was little more than a hole in the ground. Yerba Buena is now a nice little patch of green, with a fine, man-made waterfall dedicated to Martin Luther King. It was a pretty day, and the park was filled with people. We found a spot on the grass, and I went up a flight of stairs to a Starbucks on a terrace at the top of the waterfall, got some iced lattes for our guests and a frappucino for myself.
SFMOMA is much improved now. I’m afraid back then, my opinion about its permanent collection was formed by the prominent display of the polished , colorfully painted ceramic piece by Jeff Koons of Michael Jackson cuddling his pet chimp, Bubbles.
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It’s important.
And no, it’s not just a gesture, like genuflecting. It has real-world consequences. There are few things that make me angrier than people who treat voting like a game. We see them all the time interviewed on election day after coming out of the polls, smirking at the camera as they say, “I voted for Jill Stein/Ralph Nader/Mickey Mouse/Brexit. Wanted to send the durned POLLYTISHUNS a message.”In the 20th century American south, black Americans were killed for even attempting to register as voters, and even after the Civil Rights Act, every effort was made to prevent them from casting a ballot. The voting machines in black neighborhoods had a way of breaking down, lines would go around the block, people who could not afford to miss a day’s pay would be faced with the choice of voting or working. When Harvey Gantt ran against Jesse Helms in 1990, black districts in North Carolina were flooded with leaflets worded to make it sound as if anyone who’d moved within the last year would be arrested if they tried to vote.
I know someone who went door-to-door the day before the election, trying to convince voters that it was untrue. She got kind smiles from older folks who said, yes, they knew it wasn’t true, but it didn’t matter whether it was legal or not. They could get arrested for it anyway.
In 2004, I traveled to New Orleans, got up before dawn, and poll-watched in a neighborhood where so many voters had been deliberately left off the rolls they had to send out for more provisional ballots.
Hell yes. I vote.
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This morning, as I drove over the bridge, everything was suffused with a white glare, the sun reflecting off the mist that had rolled in. Almost as soon as I got to work, Charlie left with Shelly to take the issue in. He gave me nothing to do while he was gone, so I spent most of the day filing photographs. Boring.
The deer have not completely abandoned Charlie’s back yard. I saw a doe walk past, followed by a very young fawn, still in spots. They didn’t linger, but they didn’t avoid the new house. Maybe when plums start falling, they’ll hang around like they did last year.
The deer in the Oakland hills were (probably still are) very bold. One morning I pulled up to work and saw three does and a fawn standing — I suppose they were conversing — in my usual parking space. Pulling up close did not make them move. Honking my horn did not make them move. When I got out of the car and slammed the door, they just turned their heads and looked at me as if curious. Finally, they all sauntered away and I could park my car.
When we lived near Grizzly Peak, a young, antlered buck terrorized the local dogs. Our neighbors called him “Bambo.”
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Another foggy morning. Two more before I can go out, and so Michael is making a CostCo run with the help of a neighbor who has a car.
The problem with CostCo is that it’s one of those big box stores where everything is sold in bulk. “Get eggs,” I said, and he pointed out it wouldn’t be a dozen, but 36. When I mentioned carrots, he reminded me of the time I yelled at him for bringing home a 10-pound bag. In normal times, yes, that would be a problem, but maybe I could make and freeze some carrot soup. If he can find cumin seeds, I’ll make smoked cumin to go with it.
If he can find frozen chicken breasts, I’ll make a pot pie. If he can find frozen shrimp, I’ll make a shrimp stew with potatoes. Actually, whether he can find shrimp or not, I want potatoes. Small whites, preferably, or if not that, Yukon and if not that Russet, which I can slice and roast. Oh, and garlic. If he can find, if he can find… It’s frustrating to be unable to go out and see what’s available for myself.
Trump wants meat processing centers open in spite of the safety concerns. At least one governor is demanding that citizens show up for work or do without unemployment checks. This includes “essential” workers like department store employees. Powerful people in this country, worried about their stock portfolios, are trying to get us all used to the “if they die, they die” philosophy towards working Americans.
We’ll have another online event tonight, a discussion between two experts about Artificial Intelligence. Our co-hosts, who are very tech-savvy, will manage the Zoom, for which I am grateful. All I have to do is moderate the Q&A. And, this Friday, our Cinema series will start up again. We can’t stream movies — even if we had the technical means, we don’t have the rights to do that — but Mechanics’ has signed up for Kanopy, and people can watch films at their leisure, then meet via Zoom to talk about them. This week it’s Room at the Top.
Have I mentioned Kanopy? It’s a film streaming service offered free to libraries, both public and membership. You sign on by typing in the bar code on your library card. Their collection includes foreign films, classics, silents, documentaries, pre-Code, etc, a much wider variety than is offered by our licensing company when we actually screen movies in our events space. I was worried about our members finding both Zoom and Kanopy too complicated, but I underestimated them. Our reservations for Friday’s discussion hit thirty yesterday — and include viewers in Montana and Florida! I’m going to have to remind out of state participants about the differences in time zones.
Our shut down order in California is continuing through May. Even if we open up in June, I doubt large gatherings will be either wise or permitted, so we’re wrestling with the question of how we are going to handle Bloomsday.
Every year, on June 16th, the library has celebrated James Joyce’s masterpiece with readings, Guinness, Soda Bread, grapes, gorgonzola cheese, and Irish Songs. Bloomsday is a big deal for us, and has invariably sold out. If we stick to Zoom, however, we may have to do not only without the food but without the songs, and that’s a shame because there are musicians who’ve performed for us at Bloomsday every year.
Who knows where we’ll be by then?
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Always.
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is from Lola Montez, the 19th century adventuress, actress and courtesan. My life has been nothing like hers, nor would I want it to be, but I’ve thought of her motto every time I find myself becoming anxious about the future, especially if I am facing a moral decision. “Courage, and deal the cards.”
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Everyone loaded their own plates from the spread on the kitchen table. There was saffron rice, black beans, yucca cooked with garlic, and wonderful fiery, transparent sauce, and a powdered combination of banana and pappers to sprinke over it all. I settled on a couch in a sort of parlor near the front door, the only area with at least a couple of free seats. It was a darkly-painted little room with a beautiful sofa in purple crushed velvet, tucked into one of the window alcoves. A huge surfboard leaned against the wall in one corner. At one point, I got up and located my purse. I feared it blending so completely in with the brown walls and drk wooden furniture that I’d have a hard time finding it when we were ready to leave. It was night now, and in the window nearby I could see only a large bush, covered with white bell-like flowers, rocking gently in the wind.
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My happy gentile childhood is largely responsible for that. Discovering my parents were Santa Claus was no great shock because they already seemed half supernatural to me.
Even now, when I can sleep soundly on Christmas Eve and there is no wonderful mystery waiting to be lit up in the living room on Christmas morning, I still feel a little of that magic.
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We did mainly corrections today. Charlie was grumpy and inconsistent. There was some interesting news. J.G. Ballard was coming to town and would visit Charlie. Looking forward to that. Charlies expressed amazement that Ballard was touring at all – apparently, he is something of a recluse.
Ballard’s visit to the United States may have had to do with the Spielberg filmed adaptation of his breatkthrough novel EMPIRE OF THE SUN. It had been released just a few months before, and nominated for several Oscars.
Pam Troy 