Notes from San Francisco

Or, more accurately, notes about San Francisco, as I have been home for a week.

It was a great trip.  I stayed at my usual B & B, the Hayes Valley Inn.  It passes for cheap in San Francisco, and is two blocks from the opera house.  B & B is not strictly right; the breakfast offering is so pedestrian, and the coffee is so terrible, that I have taken to eating breakfast (or at least coffee) elsewhere.  That was particularly true this trip, when I discovered Johnnie's Doughnuts a few blocks away.  I know, I know, a dreadfully incorrect breakfast, and, generally speaking, \i am not even a big fan of doughnuts, but god these were good.  I started with a maple bar (in David's honour, his favourite) and branched out to lemon poppyseed and beyond.  Bespoke doughnuts.  Only in San Francisco.

As a lot of you know, this long planned trip was to see and hear Wagner's Ring.  But Peter, god bless his little heart, filled the week with other music events, Wagner related outtings, and, of course, good food.  I'll will do those first, and then double back to the Ring, which was performed on Tuesday, Wednesday. Friday and Sunday..

I arrived Monday mid-day. and just had time to unpack and nap before meeting Peter and friend Fay for a light dinner at Arlequin, a favourite for opera and ballet-goers.

Both Peter and Fay give money to the Merola program, which works under the opera umbrella to develop young singers.  As a result, they get invited to things such as Monday's "do" and were able to score a ticket for me as well.  We sat in on a Master Class, at the Conservatory of Music.  Master classes are experts in various fields critiquing the students on their performances.  This was not my first, and some are more interesting to the novice than others.  This one was fascinating.  Warren Jones was charming(for the audience) and very encouraging (for the singers); you could see - and hear - the singers improving before your eyes!

Tuesday afternoon was devoted to the Museum of Modern Art, the first of four museums this trip.  Their show du jure was a Magritte retrospective.  Magritte has, never been one of my favourites.  I tagged onto a docent tour, though, and I found myself drawn in to his thinking.  Peter doesn't like tours - or even the wall descriptors - but personally, I need all the help I can get...

....I even like the inter-active bits....

Wednesday, I was off to the Legion of Honour,

....to see the Julian Schnabels on offer...

....as well as old favourites like the Burghers of Calais...

....and Bouguerea's The Broken Pitcher.

...and others.....

There was food, of course.  Here we are at a rather high-end Japanese place (Okana, I think, although I could be wrong) in the Hays Valley, near both my hotel and the opera.  As is usual in these places, the presentation was spectacular, and the taste not too bad either.

In between, when I had an hour or two, I tried to take in one or two of the "111 places you should see in San Francisco".  Below is 140 New Montgomery, now the home of Yelp, but its previous incarnation lovingly restored...

For all its highrises and crazy homeless people, downtown San Francisco has some wonderful bits, including lots of great public art...

And even where there isn't public art per se, there were green spaces with seating, open to the public, marked by signs such as this one...

They were mostly at ground level, but sometimes rooftop.  This is apparently required for all new buildings now, and a huge change from the development in Vancouver, which doesn't seem to provide much of either public art or public access.

Thursday, I walked downtown and spent some time at the Farmers' Market at the Ferry Terminal, before meeting friends Karen (left) and Suzanne (right) for dim sum at a very old school Cantonese place in the Avenues (which shall remain nameless, because, even though this is not the first time I have been there, I'll be damned if I can remember its name.

 
We all worked together at the bank in the 80's, with Hank.    It was good to see them both, of course, and to catch up, but it was bitter sweet.  The last time we had been there was with Hanklast year, not too long before his death.  I think it made all of us feel old (if our assorted aches and pains hadn't done that already).  Besides which, I should know better than to eat Chinese food anywhere but Vancouver.....

The evening's dining adventure was better, with Fay, Peter and I meeting up at Tapitas, for "nouvelle" Mexican, before going to a Wagner Choral Concert at the Taube Atrium Theater.  It was performed by the San Francisco Opera Chorus, which I love anyway, doing Wagner choral music from everything but the Ring.

 It was a lovely evening, but too short, something not said too often in the same sentence with Wagner!!!

Friday was my day for Golden Gate Park and the deYoung Museum.

For all the times I have been there, I have never gone up to the tower....

.......went up this time, though, and was rewarded by great views....

....and, of course, great art, old favourites.....

.....and two special exhibits, one called Weapons of Mass Seduction....

.....which included posters, fabrics, films and other ephemera from the 1910's through the 1940's. and one called Cult of the Machine: Precisionism and American Art.....

.....which I liked very much.

I should put a word in here for A Mano, an Italian restaurant which we actually went to twice during the course of the week (including Friday night, before Sigfried).  Two thumbs up, for location, service, and, of course, great Italian food.

Taking a breath of air during intermission, there was City Hall, all lit up, for, of course, Pride.

.....while we were at it, we tried to get someone to take our picture...

...not terribly successful, but I think it is the only opera shot that I have...

Saturday was packed, starting with an all-day seminar on - imagine - The Ring, including: musicology (we know Wagner is manipulating our emotions, but how?); political and social history (how the Wagner Societies all over the world, made up in some large part of Jews, helped finance Bayreuth, Wagner's anti-semitism, etc); a review of a number of Ring productions, including this one; and much more.  The conversation was lively, the lunch provided was actually quite good, as these things go - fascinating!

The evening provided a break from Wagner - the Merola singers (see explanation above) auditioned for the Director of the San Francisco Opera!  It took place in the opera house, the stage still set for the last scene in Die Walkurie, where Brunhilde is left sleeping in a ring of fire....

....minus the piano, of course....

I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the opera house, as one almost never has the opportunity to do so...

Again, a new musical experience for me - I had never seen these auditions before.  The singers were all young and enthusiastic (a surprising number of Asian candidates too, which Fay and Peter assure me is unusual), singing lots of arias with which I was not familiar.  I thought they were all terrific - personally, I couldn't have said no to any of them!!

Sunday morning, I was back at 111 places you should see in San Francisco.  Most of you know I lived in San Francisco I actually lived in the Haight for a time, but it was in the 80s, a bit too late for the summer of love and all of that.  I did have the poverty, though, and, oh, the cockroaches...  Anyway, gentrification seems to have missed the Haight.  It really is pretty tawdry.  I did get Janis Joplin's house....

.......Jimi Hendrix'.....

...and Jefferson Airplanes....  Thought of Hank, who, for all I know, made annual pilgrimages....

Sunday afternoon was the grand finale of the Ring, Gotterdammerung (mistranslated as Twilight of the Gods)....

.....ending with an extended standing ovation.  Obviously, a good time was had by all.  More on that at the end.

Because of the early curtains all week, our dining was pretty casual up to this point.  Since this was a matinee, however, Peter had booked us into Plaj for our almost final dinner...

It is a fancy Scandinavian place at Inn at the Opera, where we have eaten before.  It has been years, but it is still as lovely as ever, great atmosphere, great service, great food, great ending for the Ring.

Monday was the real grand finale, a "Rhine" cruise with the Wagner Society of Northern California, and friends.  In reality, we just went out on the Hornblower, an old San Francisco party ship, had lunch sailing out under the Golden Gate, and back.

...as you can see, it was a glorious day.  There's Peter, looking dapper as always..

...and below, Terry, the President of the Northern California Wagner Society, who had arranged the seminar and the cruise, and was rightly proud of herself...

..inevitably at these events there is a Walkure wannabe.....

.......here, we are coming around the back of Alcatraz..

...... this was another bitter sweet moment, reminding me as it did how often David and I did this route on our sailboat...

Never mind.  I still had some groupie stuff to do.  Here I am with Ronnita Miller, who played Erde in Rhinegold and Siegried....

.....  pretty terrific she was too (and not nearly as big as the costume made her look).

And, below, with Falk Struckmann, who played Albericht, one of the (many) villians....

.......who was a lot nicer than he appeared. 

The lunch was mediocre, but hey, none of us was there for the food.  It was just the perfect way to decompress, after an incredibly emotional week, with other crazy people who love Wagner, and, in particular, the Ring.

Peter and I weren't finished, though.  Although we hadn't made any plans, neither of us was quite unwound yet, and so arranged to have dinner at - how appropriate! - a German restaurant. Suppenkuche used to be one of Peter's favourites, but had fallen off his radar.  (They don't take reservations, and it is hard to manage that on performance evenings.)  However, we were in no rush on Monday, and, in the event, they weren't busy anyway, so we had one final blast of rehashing the Ring before saying our goodbyes.  (And yes, two thumbs up.)

I wasn't leaving till later in the afternoon on Tuesday, so decided to check out early, leave the bags at the inn, and head for the Asian Museum, the one biggie I had missed.  It is not my favourite museum - as I said, too cerebral for me - but even so, worth seeing.  They too had a special exhibit, called The Face of God, not to mention a newly renovated cafe.

Then, Uber to the airport for an uneventful trip home.

Finally, back to the Ring.  This was my 8th Ring, and, in my opinion, the best (not counting the quality of the sound in Bayreuth).  Greer Grimsley was our Wotan.  I have heard him before, but this was certainly the most moving performance.  Jamie Barton was Frika; she is a graduate of the Merola program (see above), and a local favourite.  The conductor was Donald Runnicles, and both he and the orchestra were in fine form.  Daniel Brenna was the Sigried.  This was his San Francisco Opera debut, and what he lacked musically, he made up in youthful enthusiasm, acting and emotion.  Most important, maybe, was the directing, by Francisca Zambello.  She was an assistant director when I was in San Francisco in the 80's.  I am always quick to blame the director when things so wrong; this time, let me be quick to praise.  This was certainly the most coherent, and the emotionally moving, Ring for me.

And a funny thing.  These operas keep on getting shorter and shorter.  I guess that's what happens when you don't want them to end.  Thanks for letting me relive this wonderful experience!  I'm already plotting to get back to Bayreuth in 2020 for the new Ring there....

Nothing so exciting coming up, but I promise to check in anyway...

Notes from Penticton

After posting last, I was off to Penticton, British Columbia for a regional bridge tournament with bridge partner Alex and his wife Vicki.  For those of you who don't know, Penticton is in the Okanagan, the fruit basket of the province about 4 hours east of Vancouver.  I have never been as fond of the Okanagan as most British Columbians - give me New Jersey any time - but it is close enough to go for a tournament, and Alex was kind enough to volunteer to drive.....

We stayed in a small, family run motel called Black Sea (funnily enough, the family is from Turkey, on the Black Sea), right on Okanagan Lake.  I wouldn't exactly recommend it - the only two rooms on the lake were the ones snagged by Alex for us, and it is otherwise unremarkable - but it did have the virtues of being cheap, clean, and convenient enough to the bridge venue.

Salty's, the current favourite fish and chips joint, ......

.....and Starbucks (for Vicki - as most of you know, I am not a fan)

.....were close by, as were some other local sights...

I wasn't really fond of Salty's either, but Villa Rosa, a rather more up-scale Italian restaurant, did turn my crank - we went back twice.

.....a peach bellini (above) and veal picatta (below)....

.....what's not to like?

That's the good news.  The bad news is that the bridge tournament itself was a disaster.  Not only was their "hospitality" not very hospitable (no free coffee in the A.M., candy bowls empty by noon, "free"gift worth what you paid for it), but we didn't score a single point - master points being, of course, the point of the whole exercise.  

Oh, P.S.  No adult should sit in the back seat of a car for 4 hours, no matter how expensive the car.  They are inherently uncomfortable.  The return trip was broken up, however, by a stop at a great fruit stand.  They had picked the local cherries while we were playing bridge. The stands were full of them, and they were delicious. And Alex is always good company.

My next outing was considerably more successful; notes from San Francisco to follow. 

Strange Encounter

This was really strange.  Bridge partner Alex was at my place - we were strategizing about bridge in anticipation of the upcoming tournament in Penticton - when my phone rang.  When I picked up, the voice said "Hi.  Remember me?"  My response was "No, you'll have to give me some more clues.  Your name might help".  (For future reference, I hate people who do that.)  We got cut off, and then the phone rang again.  This time a name was added:  "This is Gerry, you really don't remember me?"  Again we got cut off, and again he called, now to say "I'm at your front door.|

I had no idea, of course.  We haven't had a working intercom since I moved in 3 years ago, and I had forgotten that it was reactivated while I was away this winter, and worked through my cel phone. Meanwhile, Alex had said his goodbyes and left, and I - flustered by this time - let a complete stranger into my house. 

I can hear the groans from out there already.  I know, I know.  In any event, I lived to tell the tale, and, trust me, it won't happen again.  And it turned out that, indeed, I had known this person.  He was my neighbor, having lived in my building in downtown Vancouver in the mid-70's.  Even after seeing him I didn't remember him, but after he told me his last name, and innumerable details about the time - the name of my cat (which I hadn't remembered until he mentioned it) and dog, my secretary, the cars I drove at the time (including the leaky roofed Toyota Celica, I accepted that, indeed, I must have known him.  The creepy part of it was that I have gone through one name change and about 13 moves since then.  How exactly did he find me?  And more to the point, why?  He left about 1 1/2 hours later, with those questions still unanswered.

Creepy.  Really creepy.  I was shaken for quite a while after that encounter, and have no wish to have it repeated.

On a happier note, it has been a good week for theater.  Jack and I saw Angels in America Part I and II this week, encore performances by National Theater Live.  Actually, because of difficulties in scheduling, we saw them in reverse order.  It didn't matter, nor did it matter that we had both seen the plays in various iterations several times before.  It is grand theater with grand themes, fabulously acted and staged.  If you have not seen these, you must, you absolutely must.  (Tony Kushner, the playwright, also co-authored the screen play for Munich, and got an Academy Award for the screen play for Abraham Lincoln.)

Continuing in the theater theme, I went off for a weekend in Seattle with friend Arlene, and we had two theater outings.    The first was in a small theater on Lake Union (Arlene had been on the board until recently), Seattle Public Theater.  They were putting on Hand To God, which played on Broadway - okay, maybe off Broadway - for ages.  It takes place in the basement of a church in Nowhere, Texas, and they described it this way:

After the death of his father, meek Jason finds an outlet for his anxiety at the Christian Puppet Ministry, in the devoutly religious, relatively quiet small town of Cypress, Texas.  Jason's complicated relationships with the town pastor, the school bully, the girl next door, and - most especially - his mother, are thrown into upheaval when Jason's puppet, Tyrone, takes on a shocking and dangerously irreverent personality all its own.  Hand to God explores the startlingly fragile nature of faith, morality, and the ties that bind us.

Generally speaking, I am not a big fan of puppets.  But this was a very clever way of externalizing Jason's thoughts and fears, not to mention I can't imagine seeing better puppet sex.  Anyway, it met my test for good theater - I cared about this people and their problems, and how they resolved them.  Although both Arlene and I had reservations, we ultimately agreed on two thumbs up.  And in discussing the play, I came up with the line of the weekend:  Subtlety is a tough sell!  (when discussing the lack of subtlety in the play....)

Our next outing couldn't have been more different.  It was Seattle Shakespeare's production of Shakespeare in Love.  The theater (formerly called Inteman Theater, now named after someone else who I can't remember but obviously gave them a lot of money) was lovely....

.... as was the very traditional production.  And Arlene and I agreed that the weekend' experiences were greatly enhanced by the company, and the ability to talk about the plays with another avid theater-goer.  You know I go to the theater a lot on my own, and will continue to do so.  Nonetheless, it is great to be able to clarify your thoughts by talking about them.

Of course, there was also food.  Monsoon on Saturday was a return visit to Arlene'w "go-to" neighborhood Vietnamese place.  Our last visit had not been terribly successful, but we returned, mostly based on Arlene's long - and tasty - past history.  We were glad we did.  Perhaps we just made better choices; in any event, a very nice meal.

Sunday, we returned to Racha, the Thai restaurant popular in the arts district of Seattle.  Again, we had had a bad experience last time (bad food and bad service), but choices are surprisingly limited in the neighborhood, considering it hosts the opera, the ballet, and two theaters (San Francisco'a Hayes Valley has ten or more to chose from).  Again, we were pleasantly surprised.

Altogether a lovely weekend, ended by a quick (2 hour) and uneventful drive home.

The bad news I have to report is that there is still no work.  It didn't stop me from spending time with my colleagues, though...

Paul and I got out to a new Japanese restaurant whose name escapes me (there are millions of these places popping up every week in Richmond, which is now about 80% Asian, compared to Vancouver, which is officially 54% Asian)

Paul is great company, and very adventurous in his eating choices.  We don't go out often, but always enjoy it when we do.

Also saw friends (from left to right) Susan, Joanne and Deirdre for dinner at the Dosa House...

.... a tiny, funky South Indian restaurant, close to home and previously mentioned in these pages.  For those of you who don't know, a dosa is the Indian version of a crepe (every culture seems to have one), pictured above.  They are filled with an assortment of goodies - in my case, spinach and lamb), and are amazingly filling - and cheap.  A little spicy for me, but we like this place for its other attributes!

Of course, a week wouldn't be complete without my walks....

And, of course, at least one dinner and bridge outing, in this case with Dennis, Jules, Ruixa, and John (and yes, I know that makes five of us, but we make it work...), first at the local Flamingo House, and then back to my place for bridge.

Reading this week was Carol Shield's Larry's Party (meh!) (apparently "meh" is an accepted word in whatever Dictionary Word is using these days.  Who knew?) and listening to Michael Pollen's book called "Changing your Mind".  Again, I was misled by the title - I didn't really understand that the book was about the use of mind-altering drugs to "change your mind", but again I was not sorry.  I have read several of Michael Pollen's books, and whatever he writes about, he does it well.  Also on the go is another of Peter Robinson's mysteries, this one called Final Account.  I haven't tired of them yet, and I have read at least 8 or 9. 

And, finally, a quote, from as it turns out, Larry's Party:  Getting older was to witness the decline of limitless possibility.  That's all it was.

Oh yes, two good articles passed on to me, both from the New York Times, I think.  (I would try to get the links from my mail, but I am afraid that I would not be able to get back to this post - you know how bad I am with technology....)  One touted Vancouver as the best place in the world for Asian food.  Not exactly a revelation, but interesting to read their recommendations.  And I had totally forgotten about the Richmond night market, which I will definitely have to add to my tourist repertoire. 

The other was an article about the 25 best plays since Angels in America, which was first performed 25 years ago. (I had forgotten that it has been 25 years - that must be why it is getting so much air time this year...) Considering how much theater I go to, I was amazed that I had only seen seven or eight of the plays listed, and I am not sure I would have put some of them on the list.  Still others that I had seen and thought worthy were not on the list.  Still interesting, though, and, considering what I think about Angels in America (see above), I think it is perfectly right to use that as a sort of watershed moment.

That's all.  I'm off tomorrow to Penticton, B.C. with Alex for the bridge tournament.  Wish me luck!!!!