Tag Archives: San Francisco

Chroma, Beaux, and Number Nine at SF Ballet, for Zyzzyva

The San Francisco Ballet’s Program 2, which finished its run late last month, started strong. Wayne McGregor’s “Chroma” — one of three works making up the program — looked more like contact sport than ballet, an effect strengthened by the … Continue reading

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I interviewed photographer Fred Lyon for The Rumpus

What does it take to commit to a craft for more than 70 years—particularly one that has undergone the revolutions in technology that photography has? Legendary photographer Fred Lyon worked as a Navy photographer in WWII, spent more than a decade … Continue reading

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Speak, Memory: Restaging the Past in Todd Hido’s Silver Meadows

The press release for Todd Hido’s recent exhibit Excerpts from Silver Meadows describes it as a “metaphorical reckoning with his own past,” and indeed many of images look as they might in memory or old polaroids: blurry, the colors faded or over-saturated … Continue reading

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I chatted with artist Michael Brennan for Zyzzyva.

If you’ve dined at any number of swanky Bay Area establishments, you might have unwittingly enjoyed your meal in a restaurant designed by one of the few people who is as well known and well respected for his fine art … Continue reading

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Masked Ball, Venetian Masters, and trippy mashups at the de Young, Zyzzyva

Gerhard Richter’s enormous mural Strontium glowered over Wilsey Court. The mural, made from a collection of blurred photographs representing the atomic structure of strontium titanate (a substance used to make artificial diamonds), might have been interpreted as a bit of a symbolic … Continue reading

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SF Ballet’s “Onegin”, Zyzzyva

Often, the thing we love about the work of a great author is the ability to describe a moment, an emotion, some nuance of experience, in such a way that it is immediately recognizable to us, however foreign to our … Continue reading

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Joan Baez at Yoshi’s, Zyzzyva

As diverse as the music performed in concerts is, so are the appearances of the audiences. James Mollison documented a spectrum of what he calls the “tribes” of attendees in his photography project and book The Disciples, a rough census of personae … Continue reading

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This is fun.

Did you know that Russians have been in California longer than San Francisco has been a city? In 1812, the tsarist government (which didn’t have much going on that year) chartered Fort Ross in what is now Sonoma County, to control exploration, trade, … Continue reading

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The Edwardian Ball got Balmy on the Crumpet, Yo. SF Weekly

San Franciscans are serious about partying. We’ve been to a lot of fancy dress events, and a lot of events that weren’t “fancy dress” per se, but which were treated as such, apparently just for kicks. But the Vau de … Continue reading

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I’m going to this tomorrow. Are you?

So you want to “get fit.”  But prolonged periods of training are dangerous; you eventually find yourself sporting a Borat leotard and kissing your own biceps in the mirror. When you’re finally sick of post-workout Jamba Juice and hating the … Continue reading

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