More Crissy Field Sights

Something about the sans serif letters on this container ship make it seem like the name was added with Photo Shop but this is how it really looked. Cliquer s'il vous plaît.

This looks like a weird D-Day commemoration (the 70th anniversary is two weeks away) but is really a combination of two things: Mark di Suvero's monumental sculpture show and the transportation of all the dead in San Francisco, with the exception of those in Mission Dolores and the military cemetery, to the city of Colma in the first half of the 20th century. The migration of the dead left a lot of funereal monuments and grave stones and those were used to stabilize the beaches along the ocean and the bay.

Here's a different angle on the same sculpture.

and a companion piece.

And here's the bounty of the bay, a stripped bass.

Madame Le Chef, the bureau's resident scientist, read a nearby sign that suggested that stripped bass was in the less desirable category for human consumption because of possible chemicals. At least it wasn't outright prohibited.

Strange Light

The bureau chief has a bad case of blogger's guilt. It's approaching three weeks since I last blogged. The best I can offer are these photos of my favorite subject strangely lit.

 

 

The Kentucky Derby

Part of the process of getting old in America is moving to smaller and smaller spaces with the concomitant winnowing of one's possessions.The bureau chief's mother is going through this process at the moment and various photos and papers have surfaced.

This is the official program for the 1936 Kentucky Derby. My forebears lived in Louisville, Kentucky and trips to Churchill Downs were part of the fabric of life. I like that the only two advertisements are for whiskey.

My maternal grandfather's careful numbers are on the left-hand page. Hopefully he was totaling winnings.

Bold Venture won the derby that year, in case you were wondering.

Mennonite Donuts

Richmond VA has one exotic foodstuff, Mennonite Donuts, that as far as I know, is not available in the Bay Area. Unfortunately, the bureau chief did not have time to wait in the long line to purchase them.

But I have photographic evidence that they are definitely sold by Mennonites.

Unlike the Amish, the Mennonites have no problems with 21st Century technology.

Cupid's Span

What could be more appropriate for wedding photos than Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen's "Cupid's Span" which graces San Francisco's Embarcadero near the Bay Bridge. Click SVP.

A bride and groom and two photographers.

Positions please.

Action!

Some spectators were not impressed.

Meanwhile transient art floated in.

Downtown San Francisco

The majority of San Francisco consists of neighborhoods of two and four story buildings, although this is starting to change. Of course we also have a downtown with a dense concentration of highrises. Some buildings that would stick out in the other neighborhoods are packed in shoulder to shoulder here.

Eglise Notre Dame Des Victoires.

 All these pictures are taken from the upper floors of the Sutter Stockton Parking Garage. Here's part of it.

The massed towers.

 The tops of the building from the early 20th Century are a lot more interesting than the contemporary ones.

And this one.

More Murals

These murals are all from two alleys off of Valencia near 17th St. Cliquez s'il vous plaît.

Satan or Kurt Cobain?

This wonderful mural, which I had to shoot in two overlapping parts, is a memorial to the Compton's Cafeteria Riot which took place in San Francisco in 1966, three years before the famous Stonewall riots in New York City. Portraits of transgender women have been placed on the bodies of medieval saints.

Girl-bird.

Sad Woman