Sound Experiment 11 featured guitar coupled with video I made in San Francisco, California and Flagler Beach, Florida.
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Tag: san francisco
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California Dreaming
Over a 1300 mile+ drive, my darling and I explored northern California. Neil, if you’re reading this, I apologize for not being able to visit due to time constraints.
We started in Sacramento, then attended a memorial service in McArthur, way up north.
We drove down to Eureka, then on to Ft. Bragg, then San Fransisco and back to Sacramento.
I finally got to try an In and Out burger, animal style. So good! And look at that address! We also had Jack in the Box tacos, and the best corned beef hash I’ve ever eaten. Also, some of the best Chinese I’ve ever eaten. There’s some good food in California. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Fort Bragg is famous for its glass beach, from when they used to dump their garbage in the ocean and the ocean would return smooth glass bits. The beach has been picked clean, mostly, but we found this. We left it there, too. There was also tide pools, and I made some interesting recordings which will appear in future S.Ex exercises.
As we drove along the Trinity river, we encountered this fire, and watched helicopters air life water from the river. It was hazy almost everywhere we went, and we could see the Dixie fire blazing away from the airplane.
We spent two days around the redwoods. It was peaceful and still in there – no bugs, no sounds. These trees are some of the oldest living things on earth.
It was chilly! A very refreshing break from the Baltimore heat.
And we saw a lot of interesting things along the way.
Someone finally scored a pair of Fluevogs.
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Street Comics of San Francisco
I went, in part, to San Francisco to learn about the history of Underground Comix, and the role the city played in its development. I wrote about that elsewhere.
As I walked through the city, however, I encountered many examples of comic narrative at the street level. I’m sharing a little of that below.
You are great (in the Haight).
Not sure if this is social justice, but it was huge, surprising and cool.
The next two drawings were in a window, mostly likely drawn by a child. I wonder if they knew it would been seen by someone from the other side of the county, and posted on the Internet?
The next photos were taken in an alley in the Mission district. They were stunning, powerful and inspiring.
All these drawings and scenes were viewed by a visitor, documented and shared. And I saw a lot more, too. This tells me it’s worth making things like this and sharing them. You never know who will see it.
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April Dawn Alison
While cruising through SFMoma, my companion and I stumbled on the dye diffusion transfer prints (Polaroids) of April Dawn Alison.
The exhibition drew from over 9200 photographs of April, taken by herself, or, very probably, a photographer named Alan Schaefer. Schaefer worked as a commercial photographer, and doesn’t seem to ever have had any gallery shows or exhibits. According to his friends and neighbors, he loved playing tennis, jazz records and was known simply as ‘Al’.
No one knew that Al was also April. And no one had seen these photos until after his death in 2008. This collection was donated in 2017 to SFMOMA by painter and collector Andrew Masullo.
Al and April lived in Oakland, California, and April’s world seems to be completely contained in Al’s apartment.
There are many, many photos in the exhibit – I’m only sharing a handful here.
There is a joy in the photos I saw, which are beautiful, hilarious, enigmatic, and heartbreakingly sad. The work span more than three decades, beginning in the early 1970s, and then developing during the 80s into an exuberant, wildly colorful, and obsessive practice inspired by representations of women in classic film, fetish photography and advertising.
I wonder – did Al want these photos to be found? Would April want them to have been seen by the world? If they had it all over to do again, would April (And Al) have been happier and fulfilled if they had the chance to “go public” while they were alive?
There is a catalog on Amazon from the show, if you are interested.
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The San Francisco Cartoon Museum
My lady friend and I visited San Francisco earlier this month. I was excited to visit to Cartoon Museum to assist in some comic research I’m doing on the origins of underground Comix, which have deep roots in San Francisco.
Here’s text taken directly from their website:
Founded in 1984, the Cartoon Art Museum has something for everyone—from comic strips, comic books and anime to political cartoons, graphic novels and underground comix. People of all ages can view original cartoon art at exhibitions and screenings, produce their own comics and animation at classes and workshops, research deeply into our collection and library, and mix and mingle with professional and aspiring cartoonists. This unique institution houses approximately 7,000 original pieces in our permanent collection and attracts more than 30,000 visitors annually.
https://www.cartoonart.org/about
I wrote to them about a week ahead of time, asking if there was an optimal day to visit, and if there is a docent or someone from their collections that could help.
I never received a response.
What I found when I visited is not a museum at all, but a medium sized gallery. There is no collection on site, and no one with any knowledge of comix history. It was disappointing, as I had hoped to “research deeply into [the] collection and library, and mix and mingle with professional and aspiring cartoonists,” as indicated by their site.
The gallery had a collection of cartoony distorted portraits by John Kascht and some panels from EC Comics’ horror books. That’s it. After reading through the information panels EC comics, there is no scholarly insight about EC’s books or artists. All the information is already available on WikiPedia.
Below, on the comic rack, are printer copied covers of some EC titles, but not a real comic in sight. It’s a pretty appropriate metaphor for the “museum,” too. Looks good from a distance, but there’s no substance up close.
Friends, it’s not worth the $10 entrance fee.
UPDATE
Over a month after I emailed the cartoon museum, I received a response indicating that “We might have some people we can put you in contact with.” Ah well.