Castro: Tales of the Village

We started at the Harvey Milk Plaza, where various Metro lines converge. There is a plaque with a row of photos commemorating Harvey Milk's life and a small, locked park. 

The rainbow flag symbolizes the lesbian gay bisexual transgender pride movement. There is a giant one right at Harvey Milk Plaza.  Across the way, is the Twin Peaks Tavern, which was opened in 1972 by a lesbian couple, Mary Ellen Cunha and Peggy Forster. It was the first gay bar that had uncovered, full plate glass windows.

The Castro Theatre is one of the last grand movie palaces in San Francisco. It features classic films and sing-alongs and before the movie begins, we get to listen to a concert on the mighty Wurlitzer organ. There are two camps among the regulars of Castro Theatre as to what the quintessential San Francisco song is - the Jeannettes and the Tonys. The Jeannette Macdonald song is "San Francisco (open your Golden Gates)" and Tony Bennett's song is "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." The intersection of Castro Street and Market is where the F line begins. Today, a bright yellow lemon drop of a tram went by our walking tour.

The Castro is famous for its freedom of expression and tolerance for a rainbow of lifestyles. I walked by a blindingly pink victorian house, notice boards plastered with all kinds of entertainment, and a house with a large collection of Ken dolls in the windows.

A tour of Castro would not be complete without a history lesson on Harvey Milk. He was a member of the Board of Supervisors in the 1970's but his career was cut short by an assassin. Nonetheless, his influence on building coalitions with unions, championing gay and civil rights, has earned him the title, "Mayor of Castro Street." His plaque on the ground in front of his former camera shop. And just up the street, the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy includes ceramic and glass murals of marchers and messages.

 

All About Foxes

                 
                 A Small Bonfire                                                        Midnight Tea

Back in 2011, I started a couple of paintings featuring the fox. I had a long fascination with this animal, which has several associations with indigenous Shinto and folklore in Japan. After completing my first paintings, circumstances prevented me from moving forward with a complete series until recently. Since time has passed and my original inspiration is fuzzy, I decided to visit the foxes during a recent family visit to Japan.

   The Makekirai Inari shrine is located in Sasayama and it was hard to research. There was only one or two references on Google and location was unclear. However, once I got to the city of Sasayama, people knew where to send me. The purple curtains above depict a muscular fox ready to wrestle. Afterwards, we stopped for coffee at a small Peruvian cafe and became friends with the couple who runs the place. He was a former adventurer who rode his motorcycle across the US and all over South America. He met his wife in Peru and they moved to the little town of Sasayama. His wife was overcome with emotion when my mother mentioned that I was visiting her from the States. She said she misses her mother terribly, though her mother now resides in the States.

The Toyokawa Inari is located in the town of Toyokawa outside of Nagoya. Under the shade of tall cryptomeria trees, the large pack of kitsune creates an eerie scene. I don't know who sews the red bibs and dresses each fox, but the effect is stunning. These foxes looked like jackals and some have fierce expressions.

Just outside the Toyokawa shrine, there's a small inari zushi place that serves the most delicious inari. I instantly turned into a fox, gobbling down these delectable morsels. 

The Fushimi Inari in Kyoto is one of the largest, and features a long torii gateway up the hill to the main shrine. Eachi torri represents a hefty donation by a business or individual. At the top, you can purchase a charming wish card in the shape of a fox's face. At the entrance to the shrine, there is a leaping fox with a sheaf of rice grain in its mouth. The fox's role as the intermediary or messenger of the god of grain is emphasized here. And so is capitalism. 

The Tamatsukuri Inari Shrine in Osaka is only incidentally an inari shrine. It features the sacred jewel rather than the fox. But a small corner of the shrine includes some foxes that were shunted over to this shrine many centuries ago by Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

The Oiwa Inari is tucked away in an unassuming Tokyo neighborhood. It is named after Oiwa, the famous vengeful ghost in Yotsuya Kaidan. Located in the family estate of the "real" Oiwa, this shrine is visited by film crews and actors who pray that misfortune will not visit them while they film the latest version of Yotsuya Kaidan.

Foxes are also associated with family and fertility. Here are some tender scenes between mother and child.

21st Century Contemporary Art Museum

New Kanazawa train station with expansive glass atrium 

 Swimming Pool by Leandro Erlich 

Color Activity House by Olafur Eliasson

Something that Dwells Inside Life by Kashio Satomi

Eco-Art with misspelling, artist name missing

The 21st Century Contemporary Art Museum in Kanazawa is comprised of free public access exhibitions and an admission-based (not cheap) section. Because we arrived in the late afternoon, we decided to visit areas that were free-access only. The museum is divided into multiple sections connected by white-walled corridors. It has several outdoor installations as well as segmented indoor exhibitions (painting section, eco-art section, installation section). Overall, I felt the collection was uneven. I loved Kashio's fiber art installation but many of the contemporary works by Japanese artists left me cold. I felt that the artists only grasped the surface sensibility of Western conceptual and eco-art and had not yet transformed the media into their own. 

Entrance to museum

Connecting corridors

City Walk: POPOS

"POPOS (privately-owned public open spaces) are publicly accessible spaces in forms of plazas, terraces, atriums, small parks, and even snippets that are provided and maintained by private developers," San Francisco Planning Dept. I took a City Guide walking tour today of several POPOS located South of Market between 4th and 2nd Streets. Click this link for other POPOS.

Contemporary Jewish Museum with the Four Seasons Hotel in the background

The circular shape on the Marriot represents the lotus. Their POPOS is the walkway between Mission and Market Streets

A spacious, enclosed POPOS at 101 2nd St. The space includes tables and chairs for dining and a cafe.

In the ornate lobby of the former Pacific Telephone building by architect Eliel Saarinen.  

Outdoors POPOS at 100 First Plaza

Outdoors POPOS at 100 First Plaza

535 Mission Street, glass blends into sky

City Walk: Chinatown

Early morning view of Chinatown merchant. Note soldiers standing guard on roof.

Early morning view of the Eastern Bakery, an old-fashioned sweets shop in Chinatown. My friends used to love their angel food cakes and double duck yolk moon cakes.

Originally a Chinese telephone company with Chinese women operators who had to memorize every resident's name, address and phone number to connect calls through. There was no phone book for them to look up numbers - and in any event looking up numbers would have taken too long. It took women with extraordinary memory skills to work the lines.

The Ghee Kung Tong, which is purportedly where Sun Yat Sen stayed when he visited the States from Taiwan. Now associated with Raymond Shrimp Boy Chow.

A faint outline of a door which served as an escape route for the workers and guests of the gambling and prostitution den across the way. A board would be laid across the two buildings for a quick getaway when the police raided.

A fully utilized fire escape in Chinatown

Taiwan flag over building in Chinatown

Mural art of Peking Opera singer

Dragon motif near Le Central bistro outside Chinatown

City Guide walkers basking in the bright winter sun