Title says it all!

I'm still on vacation, and staying in Miami in the lovely Biltmore Hotel.  Still, weather is fucking with me.  Ike is deciding weather or not to douse Haiti and Cuba.  It's also deciding whether or not to skirt Key West.  Which is my next destination, and where I'm supposed to fly out of, back to SF.  Bleah! I do have pictures, and I'll show em soon.  But if everyone could blow to the south and push it down below Cuba, that would be cool.

I suppose after 55 years, getting married might, in a way, seem superfluous.  If you can last that long with someone, there's no piece of paper, no revered institution, no ring and ritual that is going to come between you and the one you love.

Nonetheless, Del Martin married -- twice -- not only for herself, but, in a way, so other people who would come after her wouldn't have to wait 55 years to do so.  It's how she spent her adult life.

Another story, where the heroine who married dies a few weeks later, we think of as melodramatic tragedy.  A Love Story-esque tearjerker.  Something with a soundtrack cut that gets played on the radio for a few weeks and becomes a karaoke standard.  But when the background history goes beyond just one person and happens every day, and happens such that the couple can never get married in the first place . . . well, I don't think I've ever heard a torch song to match that kind of tragedy.

But in this case, I suspect that Martin would never see her marriage as anything but a victory, a reason to celebrate, no matter how far along her own personal countdown she was when society finally recognized her union.  After all, 55 years with the one you love . . . that is the opposite of tragedy.

I'm a bit slow on the news cycle, since I'm on the road in Florida.  I have pictures.  I will post some later!

Preparation mode! I'm leaving for my annual work conference tomorrow (Sunday).  It's in Washington D.C. this year.  This move marks a first, as far as I know.  Normally, it's in Boston.  But the old company, IDX, was bought up by GE about two years ago.  There've been a few changes, naturally.  Some good, some (like our ever-changing support team) not so good.

So I will sadly be missing my NE friends.  On the plus side, I'll be visiting my mid-Atlantic friends who I've not seen in quite some time.  Long enough, in fact, for them to have had a second child! Well, I'll get to meet both of them for the first time.

After the conference, however, I'm taking some vacation time, my first since England over New Year's.  Nothing exotic this year given the economy.  I'm going to see family and then show Z-Man some highlights of Florida.  He'll be seeing St. Augustine, one of my favorite cities with some great beaches.  We'll also hit Tampa, Miami, and Key West.

In some ways, this will "complete" my transition to being a West Coaster.  I've been here for ten years as consultant and full-timer.  But I remember when my family moved from Miami to Gainesville.  Each successive return trip there was more like a tourist visiting than "going home."  Well, it's kinda like that now.  Plus I'm going to see lots of touristy sights.  And beaches.  I want a tan and sand in my shoes.

Part of my preparation mode involves getting my camera disks ready.  So, at last, here are some pictures of my sister and nephew's visit here this year! I've uploaded all of them, including these, to my snapfish site.

Update:  And, hey! It's 8/8/8! Or 08/08/08!

Last Thursday, I took Z-Man to Teatro ZinZanni for both LGBT night and our two year anniversary.  As Buddy Cole would say, "In straight time, that's like three reincarnations with the same mate."  It was a great evening. 

At one point, Z-Man got picked on for audience participation with the soup tasting.  The "Chef," Ceasar, makes a big show of soup tasting, where he pulls a man and a woman out of the audience and demonstrates how to properly taste his soup.  This inevitably involves pseudo-mating ritual behavior, dancing around, kissy-face, and occasional pelvic thrusting.  Z-Man was pulled from our table to a giant fake spoon containing some soup for tasting.  Chef pulls out another equally hapless audience member, and she accompanies him to the center ring.  As Chef demonstrates proper soup tasting protocol to Z-Man, Z-Man whispers something I can't hear, but Chef does.  "What? It's LGBT night? Why don't they tell me these things!" Whereupon Chef Ceasar escorts the lady back to her table and instead pulls me up on stage, whereupon the entendre changes a bit to fit the new configuration, and it was great.

Toward the end of the evening, I notice two drag queens watching the show behind us, and they looked so great.  I realized after looking around a bit that they were the only two folks in drag in the whole theater (who weren't onstage, of course).  Well, I had to give them props for representin'.  I sent two drinks over to their tables on my tab, because, I mean, really. 

They sat at our table at the end of the show, replacing our erstwhile tablemates who had to excuse themselves because of a sudden attack of "too much to drink."  Turns out, the taller of the two, Pollo Del Mar wrote for a local publication here, the Bay Times.  Her companion, Anjie Myma, occasionally features in her column as well.

Guess who made the papers, ma?

A co-worker just let me know via SF Gate that the comic book X-Men have moved to my fair city.  They'd spent the last 40 years in Westchester, NY, but they're now calling SF their home, playing up the city's reputation as a sanctuary city, even for mutants.

And of course I'm delighted that they're living here now.  On the other hand . . .

That's the skylight of SFMOMA, where I've seen amazing exhibits of Chagal, Calder, Magritte, Eliasson, and, most recently, Khalo.  Colossus (who can turn his entire body into a kind of living, sculpture-crushing, canvas-shredding steel) is about to fly through it ass first.  That's no way to introduce yourself to fine art, tovarisch! Do NOT hurt the Khalos!

On the other hand, X-Force was stationed out here for a while, and I think we survived okay.  Still, please kindly take your superbattles away from our museums, if you would be so kind.

New sidebar video of Mexican/American singer/songwriter Lila Downs.  Z-man turned me on to her.  She's great.  Check out her other stuff.

Blogger Hilzoy is blogging at Andrew Sullivan this week, and she cross-posts this wonderful factoid from the PB&J campaign:

"Each time you have a plant-based lunch like a PB&J you'll reduce your carbon footprint by the equivalent of 2.5 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions over an average animal-based lunch like a hamburger, a tuna sandwich, grilled cheese, or chicken nuggets. For dinner you save 2.8 pounds and for breakfast 2.0 pounds of emissions.

Those 2.5 pounds of emissions at lunch are about forty percent of the greenhouse gas emissions you'd save driving around for the day in a hybrid instead of a standard sedan.

If you have a PB&J instead of a red-meat lunch like a ham sandwich or a hamburger, you shrink your carbon footprint by almost 3.5 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions."

I think I've posted about peanut butter before and how variations on it are being used to combat malnutrition and hunger.  Well, there's a sort of running joke in my family.  When I was schoolage, I basically had a PB&J every school day for about 12 years, with occasional variations.  Yes, really, from kindergarten to high school.  My mom worried long ago, but our family physician assured her that there were far worse things I could be eating.  I had an uncle that would snack almost daily on a Uneeda biscuit and peanut butter.  He's 90-something now.

Things haven't changed too much even today.  You'll still always find PB&J in my house, but my tastes are somewhat more refined.  No more Skippy or Jiff, but some organic smooth peanut butter from Rainbow, and no more Welch's concord grape jam, but D'Arbo raspberry jam.  And multigrain, whole wheat bread.  It serves multiple roles of "light eating," "easy to make," and "comfort food."

With Z-Man's return from Oaxaca, he and I watched the remaining three episodes of Doctor Who of season four.  This concludes the series for a year. The show is going on hiatus while David Tennant works in 2009 with the Royal Shakespeare Company.  Russel T. Davies, the writer who helped and helmed the show's rebirth, is also stepping down as lead writer, and Stephen Moffet is taking over.  Moffet is responsible for some of my favorite stores of the series to date, so I'm pretty happy about this.  There will be one Christmas special for 2008, then three episodes for 2009, and then season five will commence in 2010 (crap, I'll be 40! And older than David Tennant!).

I've mentioned before Television Without Pity's Jacob and his recaps of the show, which are, really, brilliant.  Sometimes even a bit too clever by half, but I love the insight he brings and the dimensions he adds.  He goes a fairly sophisticated distance with the material, and I love him for it.  He latches on to themes that have run through a series, going for some fairly esoteric commentary.  He doesn't comment on the more mundane thematic content that seems to run from season to season, either because he doesn't see it or (I suspect) it's low-hanging fruit. 

So I'm going to, at a timetable of my convenience.  It's fan wankery, so if you have no love of the show, feel free to skip over those posts.  I'll mark them in the title and give you fair warning.  My posts have been very sparse as of late, and I want to change that, and this is as good a way as any of padding for content.  I'll post other stuff too.  I'm hoping that this will prompt other posts. And certainly, my upcoming travel in August/September will prompt some posting, although I realize I've still got some pictures to download from my nephew's visit.  Hm, bad uncle. 

So anyway, here's where my thoughts were taking me:  each season of DW has a theme that runs through the course of the episodes.  Sometimes, it's really apparent in each episode; sometimes it's quite subtle, and I'm probably stretching things to suit my purpose.  But nonetheless, here's what I've seen, and what the associated posts will be titled:

Season 1 (2005) - "Endings and Remainders"
This was the reboot season that started the show's renaissance.  Davies brought back the Doctor from nearly 20 years absence, save one very strange made-for-television movie in 1996.  In that long absence, we learn that there was a terrible conflict that transcended space and time -- the Last Great Time War, the Doctor eventually names it, and we learn that the Doctor is the sole remaining survivor of his home planet, culture, and people.  This season, although a new beginning for the series, deals largely with the fallout and impact of that war's ending, and the races of creatures who felt its impact, not the least of whom includes the Doctor himself.

Season 2 (2006) - "Fits and Starts"
A "new" Doctor.  A "new" ("new new new new new new new new new new new new new new") Earth.  A "new" enemy.  Some things which were old are new again, and everything starts somewhere.  Sometimes you get to be there at the beginning, to see something wonderful happen as it unfolds.  Sometimes, you have the misfortune to see great evil take root.  Beginnings don't much care themselves if they're good or bad.  The Doctor gets to watch them all.  In fact, he doesn't have much choice in the matter.  We get to come along for the ride.

Season 3 (2007) - "Devourers and Other Hangers-On"
Eternity is a lie.  We lie to ourselves all the time because we're too proud or too scared to admit that all things have their time, be it life or love.  Or, in fact, the universe.  Nonetheless, this lie that we tell ourselves can lead to greatness and achievements and wonder, and things that endure just a little bit more each time.  It's the Big Lie That Keeps Us Going.  By definition, things cannot live past their expiration date.  But that doesn't stop them from trying, and in those cracks of reality, in those pools of paradox, monsters arise that draw sustenance from victims in the world around it just so it can scramble and live another sweet, sweet day.  But, how is that any different from living?

Season 4 (2008) - "Parents and Children"
The desire to propagate the species is one of the accepted symptoms of life, as is eating (see Season 3).  It's also part of The Big Lie, but a direct refusal to buy into this little acre of it will absolutely result in the extinction of a species.  So, we have other ways of ensuring continuity, if not eternity, and our children become that little part of us that will occupy our space in the future.  Did you know that modern date trees are incapable of reproducing themselves anymore? Most commercial date trees must be hand-brushed with pollen in order to propagate.  Sometimes nature needs a hand.  Our desire for date trees doesn't go much beyond the simple need for more of them in this activity (the trees presumably would agree).  But if we're willing to go that far for a freakin' tree, imagine the lengths some will go to for their own kids?

So, yes, I've been giving this some thought.  Stay tuned (or not).

I saw glass artist Dale Chihuly's work for the first time in the mid-90s, probably around 1996 or so, at the Harn Museum of Art at the Universit of Florida, in Gainesville.  I was pretty dazzled back then by it, and it always held a soft spot with me.

Well, in the last decade, he's gone on to more recognition and more projects, and I think he and his team have gotten even better.  He's got a good display here currently at the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park here in San Francisco that was a treat to wander about.

It was a nice gloss of various periods and pieces he's known for, starting with his "Venetians," traditional Venice-inspired vases with fanciful and organic non-traditional ornamentation.  It also had some of his "Ikebana" pieces.  Named after the buddhist tradition of flower arrangement, it was a variation away from the elaborate Venetians, in that the vases were more traditional looking.  But rather than use real flowers, he created glass flowers to be arranged instead, thus creating a whole composition.

A whole room was dedicated to "Tabac Baskets," pieces inspired when he saw many traditional Native American woven baskets being taken out of storage at a museum.  These baskets had been slightly deformed by their storage, and it inspired him to create glass representations of them.  They tend to be more monochromatic and unifomly earth-toned, but the also have a little ornamental pigment, usually near the rim.  They are on display at the De Young with some of Chihuly's personal collections of baskets -- both glass and basket intermixed with each other -- and an entire wall of various woven Native American cloth blankets.

"Chandeliers" are hanging pieces of frightening proportion and dazzling colors, each piece focusing on a single color or very close range of color.  I'd seen them before at the Harn.  He also had some of what he called "Persians," a name he admits he conjured up to capture the exotic feel, rather than a specific origin.  They look rather like flowers or coral buds, and the large installation he had at the De Young were all orange.

One type that you may have seen on display before were his "Reeds," a type of long blown tube of colored glass.  He's fond of putting these in outdoor installations.  I think there may still be some at the Harn.  There are some at Bellagio as well (he also has a gallery there of some of his work for sale).  The De Young ones were lavender colored and mounted onto fallen tree logs.

Another exhibit, "Boats" is on display.  Two wooden boats are filled to overflowing with glass spheres in one boat and organic "flowers" in the other.  The boats are in a dark room set on dark mirrors -- Chihuly tends to display and photograph his pieces in galleries and studios on a dark background and carefully lit, and, indeed, I have to give huge props to the team that help light his scultpures at the De Young.  Some of his bowls in "Macchia" appeared to be lit from within, as opposed to from above, a spectacular effect with some of them.

Possibly my favorite installation of the exhibit is his "Persian Ceiling."  You walk into a room, where above you there is a lowered ceiling of glass, and bright lights mounted in the real ceiling above.  In between the glass and lighting, he's filled the space with his "Persians," as well as some represenatational forms, such as cherubs, octopii, starfish, trillobites, and other somewhat-recognizeable shapes.  The whole effect makes it feel like you're underwater.  It's incredibly soothing and dazzling at the same time.

There are also a couple of displays scattered about of his conceptualizing paintings interspersed, particularly around his Ikebana pieces and "Black," mostly black pieces with splashes of color that leap out at the eye.

The last section in the exhibit is "Mille Fiori," Italian for "Thousand Flowers."  Indeed, this last section feels like a walk through the gardens in Alice in Wonderland.  Mounted as usual on dark mirrors in a black room and carefully lit from above, this installation is quite long and demands a full orbit of your attention.

 All in all, this was a terrific tour of his pieces, styles, and even a little of his thoughts and inspiration and history.  Granted, bright, shiny, supersaturated color tends to get and hold my attention; but Chihuly's scale, execution, and imagination deserve recognition.  It's nice, too, when an artist is appreciated in his own lifetime, and observing the attendees' reactions, delight and awe were typical responses that echoed my own.

(Most pictures above were used without permission from the Chihuly website about the De Young installation, but a few were from my own phone camera)

Too funny not to share.  Playgirl model demonstrates the Wii hula-hoop game, with additional props and varying thongs.  Not for the faint-hearted.  Thank you, Towleroad.