Strangely Quiet

As predicted, I did no spooky celebrating last night.

Apparently, neither did the rest of our city. Driving back from rehearsal, I noticed that the streets looked no different than on a typical Wednesday night, save for a few more people in crazy costumes than usual, and a heavy presence of police officers and barricades. City Hall said we couldn't have Halloween this year, and we sure as heck didn't.

Compare: SF to NY.

The husband and I did, however, watch Something Wicked This Way Comes for the first time in over twenty years, and it was just as strange and creepy as I remembered.

Halloween

No time this year, too busy.

The most halloweeny thing I've done was to visit the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival and a nearby pumpkin patch.





Oh, and we watched Donnie Darko, like we do every year.

Tonight, I have rehearsal, so no trick-or-treating for me. I had such a great costume in mind, too. Oh, well. Next year. (Isn't that what I say every year?)

Autumn in Wine Country

To mark his crossing into his thirties, the husband and I spent the weekend in Russian River Valley.

Over the course of two days, we visited 10 wineries and had two exquisite dinners (fennel pollen dusted scallops, coffee encrusted filet mignon!).

We stayed in a cabin with a fireplace and a hot tub. It was a quiet weekend, simple, yet lavish.

I didn't expect to see such a vivid autumn, only 70 miles north of the city. The colors were brilliant, and the air quite cold. Just like New England, but with more wine.

We're in the News

The husband has a google alert set up for the band. Whenever someone posts anything about us on the internets, he gets a notice about it. This morning, he received a notice for this article. Apparently, we're causing a surge of "scantily clad men" in London.

This interested me: "Studies have found that sleepwalking can be brought on by . . . eating cheese." Who knew?

The Better Ahab

A week of rehearsal and immersion in maritime themes.

Watched: Two versions of Moby Dick (one and two).

I'm partial to the latter version despite it's poor production quality, because I have a special affinity for Patrick Stewart. There is no better Ahab. I like Gregory Peck alright, but his Ahab lacks real human emotion. He signifies the character's monomania with one solid, unchanging scowl and calculated, horizontally-directed glares. Stewart injected his Ahab with the full-spectrum of human emotion from glee to dejection, love to hatred. The movie may be silly, but his performance more than makes up for it.

I once saw Patrick Stewart as Prospero in The Tempest at Shakespeare in the Park. I can't imagine anyone could play him better, either.

Lunchtime Environs

Since living in San Francisco, the husband and I have considered the Presidio as special place for us, even though we had no reason why. There was no glistening memory or significant event that took place between us there. I think it must simply be the beauty of it - the striking views of the Golden Gate Bridge, of Land's End, of Marin and the Bay, the eucalyptus and palm trees, the rolling fog, that drew us to it. For whatever reason, the husband and I decided to get married in the Presidio, and make it a significant place for us. Five months later, I am working in the Presidio, and spending every day there. Today I spent my lunch break wandering along Chrissy Field.

With the bridge stretching out before me, Sausalito off to my right, and Alcatraz behind me, I thought about all the places I have spent my lunch breaks. When I worked downtown, I liked to walk the narrow alleys near the Transbay Terminal, and down to the Embarcadero. Before that, I would spend my breaks at the Dahlia Dell behind the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. Before that, I used to eat lunch on top of a stone wall on Lexington Avenue at 53rd street, watching the criss-crossings of pedestrians at the intersection below. Other daily lunchtime environments include Bryant Park, Battery Park, Washington Square Park, Central Park, and Red Square, Moscow.

The Work I Do.

I spend the first half of my day online, ‘researching’ youth brands and products that look like they could use a little advertising help. I watch commercials, I judge their creativity, I research their effectiveness, I find out when the campaign began, and I get contact information for the person in charge. That contact goes into a tickler file to pass on to my company’s Business Development Manager.

I’ve never been so aware of ads. I notice them everywhere now. I think about target audiences, demographics, gender roles, and where I and the people around me fit in to these categories.

I’ve determined that I do not like working in advertising.

I’m sitting at my office desk right now, typing this entry into a word document on my iMac G5. On the wall in front of me is a banner displaying the work we did for Camel. The directive was to ‘reposition Camel as a relevant brand for twenty-something consumers.’ The result of my firm’s work was ‘a brand mark that conveyed quality, masculinity and authenticity.’ Not, of course, cancer and death.

As a member of the target-audience for this campaign, I think the creative work is really cool. It’s artsy, colorful, and urban. None of the people in the ads are holding cigarettes. Instead, wispy, graffiti-esque entrails - resembling the patterns of cigarette smoke - swirl around them, creating a sense of aura and internal rhythm. The accompanying slogan is, "Camel. Life Experience."

What a life it is.

Midday Muse

I took a walk through part of SOMA today. The image above shows my route. With the sun out, my spirits were higher than they have been lately, even as I sweated under my wool turtleneck sweater. I enjoyed seeing new views of the city, and finding narrow alleys lined with humble, squat, brick buildings hidden in the shadows of the modern, glass-encrusted high-rises. Looking up into the second floor windows of these tiny, antiquated commercial blocks, I saw architecture studios, art studios, and secret galleries. I was transported to the alleys of SoHo and the far West Village, to Old San Juan, and Industrial Los Angeles.

I would love to have an art studio in a squat, ivy-lined, brick building someday. A private work space outside of my house, in a city – a quaint little cubby in which to create my art. But for now, I end my lunch break where I started: in the marketing department of an advertising agency.

A Walk Home

After work today, I walked straight to the train station half a block away, but then realized I’d left my wallet in my gym bag at home. After digging through my bag, I was only able to scrounge up two quarters. A MUNI ticket is $1.50. I thought I’d call the husband and swing by his office to borrow the buck fifty from him, but then I discovered I’d also left my cell phone in my gym bag. I didn’t want to show up at his office unannounced because he’s on the 10th floor, behind a locked door. It would just cause too much confusion for me to go up there and ring the bell. If they weren’t expecting anybody, they might not even answer. So I decided to walk home.



A jaunt of any length through San Francisco inevitably offers a study on homelessness, but a walk of the length I took yesterday offers a study of greater depth. On every block along Market Street, I passed people who have made the streets their home. They were napping, pushing shopping carts, harassing shoppers, staggering, screaming or playing cards. Every open public space such as a park, a fountain, or a plaza was completely overtaken by the homeless. I was beginning to feel tired as I walked past the main library. I’d just spent one of my quarters on a nectarine at the UN Plaza farmer’s market; I thought it would be nice to sit on one of the concrete benches that line the library and enjoy my fruit. Once there, though, I noticed that the only available spots would have me flanked on both sides by vagrants, and what seemed to be the rowdy type. I kept walking.

In all, I walked 2.72 miles, a typical New York stroll. With these hills, though, it feels longer.

Despite the multitude of homeless, I quite enjoyed the walk. I haven’t worked my legs like that in a long time. There is something so exhilarating about long walks like that. It somehow feels constructive, like you’re really accomplishing something as you move forward, watching your surroundings change along the way.

August in Fog City

. . . looks like this:

Hot Yoga is Bad for the Planet

A friend bestowed upon me a 30 day free pass to Bikram Yoga. I didn't know whether to say "thank you" or "damn you", because I knew I'd use the pass, as I like working out and I'm too poor to pay for classes, but I also knew I'd hate it.

Bikram Yoga is torture, yet it's good for you. I always feel great afterwards, but for the ninety minute duration of the class I feel lightheaded, nauseous, and dizzy. The instructors say it's because I don't drink enough water throughout the day, and though that may be true, I have to wonder, "Don't you think it might be the 120 degree heat?"

Aside from the nausea, my strongest observation about Bikram Yoga is the unsustainable material impact. Simply put, it's bad for the environment. A single class requires the following materials:

• shorts
  
• tank top
  
• two towels (one for laying on the floor under my mat, because the floor is so sopping and stinky that I want as little of my mat to touch it as possible, and one for on top, to absorb the sweat.)

After each class, my outfit is soaked (as in dripping), as is the top towel. The bottom towel reeks of old carpet bacteria and the sweat-of-many-strangers. Therefore, all of these items go straight into the washing machine after each and every class. What is that - fifteen gallons of water per 'small load' cycle?

Also, the locker rooms are stocked with small plastic sacks - like the kind you get in the produce department - to put your sopping clothes in so that the interior of your gym bag doesn't get wet.

The impact:

• 15 gallons of water
  
• 1/4 cup laundry detergent
  
• 1 yard of plastic

Finally, the studio I'm doing this in has horrendous fluorescent lighting. I have to wonder about the energy being used to light the studio, as well as to keep the heaters running.

All this in the name of detoxing our bodies.

Religion in Childhood

The second free movie we saw with our free passes was Eve and the Fire Horse, about a young chinese girl growing up in America who faces cultural confusion between Buddhism and Catholicism.

I was reminded of my own childhood forays in religion, going to church with Catholic and Mormon neighbors. In Catholic mass, I loved the sitting and standing, the quaint and humble prayer hands, the singing and hugging. It satisfied my affinity for ritual and performance. In Mormon church, I loved the little snacks - torn pieces of white bread in adorable little cups, like the kind you get at the dentist, and cookies in primary classes. These satisfied my affinity for both sugar and miniatures.

The religion aspect of church never much spoke to me, though.

For the Love of Art or Money

I recently won two tickets to two movies, which is timely since we're broke over here. Working our jobs, trying to save for the future, tackling debt (small, but still) from the recent past. We're on a tight budget which means we probably won't be seeing any major summer blockbusters.



The first free movie we saw was Gypsy Caravan. For many of the musicians profiled in the film who come from small, third-world villages around the globe, making music was the only way to make a living. And here we are, in our big city in this first-rate nation, trying our damndest to figure out how to make a living by making music.

Well, the husband is, anyway. I, on the otherhand, am trying my damndest to make a living by performance art. Ha! What a notion!