Art and laughs

Furniture hanging out to dry
Shot down
The Bay bridge
Juliana garden
Briana Miller
Remembering those we've lost

More cycling, checking out the Golden Gate park. Covered in fog, fresh and moist, I stopped by the Japanese Tea Garden, a tourist trap on days you have to pay for getting in, which are four of the seven days a week. The AIDS memorial grove was interesting, as was the Dutch windmill. I didn’t see the bison roaming the grounds.

From Fisherman’s Wharf, where I had rented the bike, I walked to the Rincon center, where a series of large and reasonably pretty murals dominate the hall of the old post office.
Inside, the ‘Rain Column’, a fountain like a small continuous rain cloud, was surrounded by a series of small restaurants where employees were enjoying their lunches. Here’s a few things, food related, which I’ve noticed over the past few days:

+ There are not very many 7-11 supermarkets.
+ McDonalds is only lightly represented.
+ Almost every street corner seems to have a Starbucks.
+ Subway (sandwiches) is all over the place. And they only have two sauces, whereas in Chiang Mai they have eight.
+ Mexican food (and Mexicans) are everywhere.

While in Mexico City, I was disappointed with the lack of Frida Kahlo artwork on display. Little did I know there is a major Frida Kahlo exhibition currently on at the SFMOMA, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. (I visited the New York counterpart of the museum seven and a half years ago.)
The museum is good and Kahlo’s exhibition is more than excellent. Besides her famous paintings, quite a few never seen before artworks are also on display.
After these wildly popular internationally renowned works of art, I stopped by the Cartoon Art Museum, where a reception was being held, presenting the works of upcoming comic strip artist Briana Miller. Her self-published works were for sale and good. Very evocative. She regularly produces nice one-panel shorts on her blog.

Related:  Unstoppable

I finished with a visit to BrainWash, where Tony Sparks was hosting an open mic evening. Comic followed comic, until I realised that most of the crowd was actually either on stage before or going to be on stage later.