I do indeed love you, San Francisco

Here is an industry-meets-sky image from a recent sailing trip around the bay. I have been trying to capture the edges and transitions from civilization to sky to use in my laser etching work. All this joyful-grim civilization notwithstanding, what I love most about sailing on the bay is the swift and total transition from bustling city to peaceful smooth and empty beauty. It is amazing what calm exists so close to this shrieking city machine.There is a new tower going into South Beach; if you are in San Francisco you've seen it. It's easy to spot from anywhere that you can see the bay bridge, and loads of places where you can't. It's big, and sticks out so much partly because it's much taller than all the buildings around it.


Today I read this article about new Transbay bus terminal plans. They put a skyrise on top like whipped cream. Funny how none of the people lounging on the lawn in the only outdoor street-level rendering they gave us look like homeless people.


This is the gaping pit on my streetcorner. I've started a photoset documenting its fall and high-rise - two towers coming, 2-300 units. Double parking garage, hold the trees. The wind on this wind tunnel is already bad enough to knock you off your bike when you pass out of the lee of Fox Tower.

I keep saying to anyone who will listen, as a form of watery complaint, "If I had wanted to live in Manhattan I would have moved there." We laugh about condos like they are the new in-joke and sip our drinks at parties. Occasionally I'll meet someone at one of those parties, usually older, who is a little rabid in the eyes and is actually Doing Things about it. They usually tell me to keep doing what I'm doing although I don't know that it's anything. Sure as hell going to vote against Newsom again; maybe you will too? My new roommate Graham told me that he thinks these new paintings - made with the laser etchings! - are reminiscent of earthquake photography. Tons of photos exist of the wreckage of the 1906 quake, all sepia and mottled, full of smoking heaps of rubble and bewildered people wearing voluminous clothes. City deconstructed and crumbling all about. I often feel when I am making these sparse and wandering works on wood like I am sort of dealing out a hand of scraps, scattering like a handful of acorns across the table. Little scraps of our city, being burned away from within.


Let's end on a happy note. See how the fog rolls in over the mission? Living here (especially sailing here!) makes the patterns of weather apparent and very fascinating. Blue sky persists beneath. The night before this picture was taken I walked past the same cross street all dark and echoey late night and heard a theremin echoing down from across the boulevard to curl around my ankles like a cat.