Frisco Vista

We have had weird swings this spring and summer between long chilly stretches and brief scorching temperatures.

The reason is clear: the ice caps are melting, and as a result our weather is bipolar.

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This is the garden from the narrow side, looking west. Clevr had trouble with this image, so I just stitched it in Photoshop.

Hey! I see a weed!

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Virtual NoCal

• Art of the African savanna at the de Young : 60 sculptures by artists of the Luba, Songye, Chokwe, and Luluwa cultures
• Namastenancy not impressed by de Young preview : An overbearing “stench of class and power”
• Frisco Psychedelia : Vintage posters exhibited in Denver
• East Bay unemployment at all-time high : “This is the deepest we’ve been”
• Amygdules at Sibley Volcanic Reserve : “Fossil bubbles”
• An award to be proud of? : The Chronicle’s editors “should be asking themselves if . . . they went too far in slanting . . . stories against immigrants”
• Edible Expeditions : At the Conservatory of Flowers

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Panorama of pool garden, year 2 on CleVR.com

We actually took a step backward this year, in a way, because we expanded the garden by taking out more concrete, and so we undid some of our work from last year. But the garden recovered nicely and is doing well, especially considering our cold, gloomy June. The monster plants on the right are tomatoes, which are already starting to bear fruit.

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We have many bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds in the garden this year.

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This 1914 video shows opium paraphernalia being burnt in what is now the Civic Center area. At the time the area had not yet been rebuilt following the ‘06 earthquake (because voters would not pass bonds for funding the project because of the corruption of city leaders), but here you can see the new city hall under construction.

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via bluehour on the Asian Art Museum blog

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The city would not at first seem an AskMen kind of place. But they rank it the third best city in the world to live in (after Chicago — hey, they’re men’s men, the cold and wind don’t bother them — and Barcelona, and before London and Sydney). This is mainly, I guess, because it is one of the healthiest sizeable cities, it is tech savvy and has a “culture of innovation,” and the people are educated and smart.

But they’re a little confused about at least one thing. “The city’s boy-to-girl ratio (male: 51%; female: 49%) doesn’t seem promising at first,” they write, “but remember this is San Francisco, so you can shave a good 8% to 10% off the competition right there.”

I guess if you ask men, only the guys are gay.

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Rebecca Cathcart, writing in today’s NYT about Gov. Schwarzenegger calling for a study of legalizing marijuana in California, says:

Sales could raise $1.2 billion to $1.34 billion in annual tax revenue, some estimates say.

But that would be little salve for the state’s deficit, which could reach $20 billion in 15 months if ballot initiatives proposed by the governor do not pass….

But surely the economic consequences of legalizing marijuana are more complex that just straight tax revenue on direct sales. Two consequences that come immediately to mind:

• Increase in tourism dollars. Isn’t that what happened in Amsterdam?
• Decrease in prison expenses. Aren’t most of our prisoners incarcerated for drug offenses?

This is why the governor is acting sensibly (for once) in calling for a study.

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image via celebrity-cash.com.

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For them as cares, Twitalyzer offers a list of “the 100 Most Influential people in Twitter who say they live in San Francisco.” Gavin Newsome is number three.

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Not all businesses are contracting in the down economy. Robert Berman, based in Santa Barbara, has opened a new gallery in San Francisco, located at 1632 Market Street. For its inaugural show, the gallery is featuring historical photos (newly printed) of San Francisco by Julius Shulman. Shown is San Francisco Bay Bridge under Construction, 1934.

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Last night the ceremony announcing this year’s winners of the Goldman prize for environmental activism was held in San Francisco’s Opera House. The award is the brainchild of Richard and Rhoda Goldman. Rhoda passed away in 1996. This year it appeared Richard’s health had taken a turn for the worse, although he still spoke cogently. Click here for more »

United Nations Plaza was conceived as the entrance to a grand walkway leading from Market Street to City Hall, a vision that never quite materialized. The plaza commemorates the founding of the United Nations in San Francisco.

On Wednesdays and Sundays the plaza hosts a farmers market, while an arts and crafts fair holds sway on most Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. In the photo above the fair is at its colorful best (but sometimes it is a little too colorful).

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The strange shapes lurching over the pollarded trees of Civic Center Plaza are not homeless shelters — they are an “environmental sculpture installation,” entitled The Upper Crust, by Patrick Dougherty. The eight-foot tall structures are made of  18,000 lbs. of willow saplings interwoven into the sycamore trees. No fastenings were used; instead, the saplings were bent and twisted through the branches.

The installation will run through November.

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Maybe it’s just because I’m familiar with it, but the freeway system in the Bay Area seems a lot more sensible than in DC, where I have been visiting.

To go left in the nation’s capital you usually have to start off to the right. Generally, to get anywhere at all you have to go in a circle first.

Something fitting in that.

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Image (not acually DC) from 1Sock’s photostream.

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This year we decided to expand the garden that used to be a swimming pool. We broke up the decking that used to surround the pool.

We had to tear out the old drip system, and I’m redoing it now. We had to undo some of the plantings as well, since the paths and beds are no longer quite the same. Because the pool is about 70 percent bigger, we added a central bed. We edged the beds with bricks and made the central bed an oval shape. It amuses me to think of the result as a tiny Getty Center garden.

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In what has become a tradition, this year we again visited the de Young Museum for its Bouquets to Art, in which flower arrangers present displays inspired by artworks in the museum’s collections.

Each year distinct trends can be identified. This year the popular color schemes were blue and white, as above, and combinations of orange and pink or peach, as below.

Time for blogging has been hard to come by lately, but I’ll try to post some more photos from Bouquets to Art soon, as many of the arrangements really were spectacular.

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A designer I’ve been working with on a book project reported today that he saw a guy in downtown San Francisco walking a dog. Okay, no big deal. Except on the dog’s back was a cat. But it doesn’t stop there — on the back of the cat was a rat.

Even though I’ve lived in the city for a long time I still had to say “Come on, do you expect me to believe that?” But even then I knew it was true. And here’s the confirmation.

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The people at Rate it all seem a little geographically challenged. Their top-rated San Francisco attraction is … Click here for more »

And it’s not even built yet.

Remember these transbay terminal designs? It turns out, according to “state transportation officials,” the terminal would be inadequate to serve projected travelers, and it would also pose engineering problems.

“Three sets of engineers met and they concurred that the design for the station was inadequate and useless for high-speed rail,” according to Quentin Kopp.

Another triumph for the City That Once Knew How.

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Story via the Chronicle. Enjoy it, because the paper says it might not stay in business much longer.

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Story at Right Reading.

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A display of Ellen Christensen’s ink drawings will be on view at the 504 Cafe, 504 Wesley Avenue, on the northeast side of Lake Merritt in Oakland, through March 1. It’s worth checking out!

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Here’s a belated valentine for back-to-work day following Valentine’s Day and the Presidents Day holiday. For Valentine’s Day Namastenancy linked to Robert Indiana’s Love painting — though a different version than the one featured on the SFMOMA web site, which I won’t show since it carries a copyright notice from the artist (so much for free love).

The sculpture in Philadelphia’s JFK Plaza (”Love Park”) is fair game though. Here’s a photo I took a few years ago.

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