Sailing 5/17/15

As I mentioned in my last post, last weekend we had an opportunity to go out on a sailboat again! The morning started out a bit overcast, but as we headed out of Marina del Rey and into the open ocean, the clouds split open and gave us some nice weather for a day of sailing. As usual, there were plenty of animals, fun boats to watch, good company and plenty of ocean to clear the mind.....












Marina del Rey:

Wildlife:

I think this might be a Reef Stingray, but I guess there are a couple other that are commonly confused with the Reef Stingray, so I could be wrong!

dolphins!

The Boat:

(note to self: learn to tie knots.)

(inside the boat with all of our crap!)

confinement and freedom

(when I look at something like this, my brain immediately begins deconstructing the seams/stitches and trying to figure out the roles of each one)

I (barely) managed to get all 6 passengers in this 1 reflection!

 

Theoretically sitting on the edges of the boat seems scary/risky, but I think it's my favorite place to be since you get the least obstructed views of the ocean & sky 

Open Ocean:

the Bloodhound

 looking towards Malibu near the Getty Villa

 

Refugio, 4/13

This past weekend we were lucky enough to be invited out for a sailboat adventure again. After getting home that evening with visions of the ocean still in my head, we were talking about going back to Refugio to camp because it was so awesome, enjoyable and relaxing the last time. Then, only days later, the Refugio Oil Spill happened.

And while there have certainly been much worse oil spills, I have to say I've still been very saddened by this one. Partially because of our plans. Partially because I think back to how much I enjoyed walking alone on the shoreline there in the early morning watching the sun and the water and the birds and then later as the tide went out, we wandered over to the rocky area to the north west and it's in such contrast to the images of black oil coating all of those things we enjoyed and covering the ocean smell with oil. And I know the area is part of a unique ecosystem. And I know this is the kind of thing we make ourselves vulnerable to when needing these materials. And I know the associated companies have relatively bad accident rates and massive profits (in the many millions/nearly billion.)

Anyway, it's one of those things I don't like reading about, but I feel like I need to anyway. And then I think about what Refugio was when we visited. These are some of my photos of the shore in a more pristine state from 2 years ago when we camped there

St Charles Borromeo Festival, 2015, part 1

One of the things I've enjoyed taking photos of over the years I've lived in the Studio City/North Hollywood area is the St. Charles Borromeo Festival that usually happens at the end of April. With the carnival attractions and colors, I've found it new and interesting to go back year after year. This year I had an expired roll of Kodak Ektar 100 and decided to bike over there and shoot it in my Yashica Mat at the Festival.

 

10 on 10, May 2015 video alternative

Similar to last month's 10 on 10, I created a series of short videos vs. photos. I kept not making the videos 10 seconds long though, so it's a little imperfect in that respect & also always being a little more approximate in terms of once an hour... that's an idea I might never achieve, but I'm ok with that.

Studio City Farmers Market : flying rat : hummingbird : bike maintenance :  Rotary club of Sherman Oaks Arts & Crafts fair : dinosaur house : jacaranda in bloom : biking : wreck this journal "float this page": scanning negatives

Zorn at LACMA, part 2

A continuation of photos from John Zorn at the LACMA on May 2, 2015....

 I believe this was an owl....

This piece of silver was supposedly special because it was an early example of a piece that allowed for a large variety of foods to be placed on it so people could serve themselves instead of having to be served by a servant.... 

 Paul Klee "Untitled"/ Chris Otto & Kevin McFarland setup for "Zeitghoft"

 I love the painting in the middle. It's such a perfect depiction of "Anger"

The group on the left is crowding around the Jack Pollock "Black and White Number 20" that John Zorn and Dave Lombardo played in front of. When I noticed this single seat over to the side I thought "Oh!!!! How awesome!!! They are having performances in both rooms simultaneously? This is so unique to have the single piece of music played throughout the 3 dimensional space of the museum! Where will the other musicians be located!!?! That's Avant Garde!!!".

Then I realized this single chair was the setup for the piece following, Joseph Cornell "The Trajectory or Ursa Major" w/ Kevin McFarland playing "Untitled for Joseph Cornell".

Anyway, I think that this would be an awesome idea to have the concert played throughout a large 3 dimensional space. I know it would be difficult to pull off, but it would be SO unique and awesome (are you reading John Zorn? I know you supposedly hate anyone writing anything, but this idea is great and if it's been done before, I've never experienced it. Thanks, Me)

I feel this is also when things started getting particularly crazy in terms of the crowd. I personally saw none of this performance (but to be truthful, I'm not the largest fan of the sax and much preferred the quartets.... those made me actually miss playing the bassoon at times because I never had a chance to play anything that interesting...)

 Unfortunately during the Joseph Cornell piece, a docet lead tour came into the room adjacent to the performance and seemed to be carried out with complete ignorance of the cellist and the massive group of people standing & sitting around and listening. Meanwhile the docent rambled about how exciting an oddly shaped white canvas way (because it was reminiscent of female genitalia, but he never said that part but he liked to talk about the hidden seam in the canvas) and about a melancholy woman in a window. BOO. That kinda ruined it a bit for me.

 !!!! I LOVED this painting and the colors in it. Synchromy in Purple by Stanton MacDonald-Wright

 So this is when it became really obvious there were way more people at this event than anticipated. We spent a little time outside before the next performance - the Art of the Pacific Gallery with William Winant and Nava Dunkelman performing "Dark River" & "Gri-Gri".

When we came back inside, we were not able to get into the gallery for the performance since it was "over capacity", but we were assured the music would be loud and we could hear it outside. We got a few rumbles every now and then, but that was about it. So we wandered upstairs to the second level so we could get a birds' eye view of the last performance near the Tony Smith "Smoke" sculpture where the Jack Quartet with Tony Arnold were performing "Pandora's Box"

 Jack Quartet with Tony Arnold and John Zorn, post performance. This one gave me goosebumps at moments...