This is a rare picture. Most everyone would identify it as a shaky handheld shot of fireworks, and they would be right. However this is a shaky handheld shot of fireworks in San Francisco, on the fourth, with no fog, no rain, not even rainy foggy mist. We have fireworks every year, but this is the first time, in as long as anyone can remember, that we could actually see the darn things. Oooohs and Ahhhhs all around
Between the fields where the flag is planted, there are 9+ miles of flower fields that go all the way to the ocean. The flowers are grown by seed companies. It's a beautiful place, close to Vandenberg AFB. Check out the dimensions of the flag. The Floral Flag is 740 feet long and 390 feet wide and maintains the proper Flag dimensions, as described in Executive Order #10834. This Flag is 6.65 acres and is the first Floral Flag to be planted with 5 pointed Stars, comprised of White Larkspur. Each Star is 24 feet in diameter; each Stripe is 30 feet wide. This Flag is estimated to contain more than 400,000 Larkspur plants, with 4-5 flower stems each, for a total of more than 2 million flowers.
Aerial photo courtesy of Bill Morson
Bought to my attention by Sue Allen
It's a drilling a well.
No..It's a CIA observation platform
Naw...It's scientific, you know, for whales-n-stuff
Well let's see. Welded stainless, painted in a custom color,with a sort of misshapen skirt, made of roofing material, tacked on its upper bout. It must be art.
But it's useful. The top pivots in the wind, like a weather vane, and it's placed by a marina. Useful would never get past the Arts Commission.
Sea Change is a 60'h x 30'w x 30'd stainless steel Mark di Suvero sculpture at 40 S. Beach Harbor, installed in 1995.
Someone, bless his or her heart, has posted a series of excerpts from Home of the Brave, 1986's Laurie Anderson tour movie. ( DVD- coming soon, no really ) Catchphrase by Billy B, song and staging by Anderson.
Now for those of you who don't know, a film refers to a pre-video method of capturing images. A celluloid strip, coated with silver nitrate, was pulled through a mechanical contrivance and exposed to light. And we had to focus those lights by hand, no vari-light board. And no preset scenes on the audio desks. We had to walk through six feet of snow to get our avant-garde. And....
A teaser on IO9 this morning lead me to Top Secret.com. Through a combination of scientific investigation of the above crop circle, and inside information, we now know of the impending disaster. As if earthquakes, thunder and lightning, Von Neumann gray goo, and politicians weren't enough.
Follow-Up inserted 7/11/09
Crème Fraîche is a cultured dairy product. In America it's a specialty product and you pay dearly for the French label. The quickest work-around is to buy Crema Mexicana ( Crema Agria, Crema Español, Crema Fresca), available in just about any big box grocer. The drawback to these commercial products is their standardization. If the pH (tang), viscosity and fat content are what your recipe needs, you're home free. If not, you can make your own.
Take whipping cream, half & half or industrial cream ( used in commercial kitchens with about 2% more butterfat than whipping cream ) and warm it to 89°F. This is baby bottle warm. Add two tablespoons of buttermilk per cup of cream. You can also buy a culture, but again, cost comes into play. Cover your warmed bowl, pot or container with plastic, let it sit at room temperature for eight hours, then pop it into the fridge. Wait a day or two for everything to meld and there you are.
Advantages: Crème Fraîche has some flavor.(it won't fix canned green beans, however) Unlike sour cream or yogurt, it won't break in a sauce or when heated. It can be whipped, think topping on a savory. If drained, ( cheesecloth and colander ) it makes a fresh cheese similar to Mascarpone.
The Language of Birds was installed at the corner of Broadway and Columbus, just a block from my hovel, late last year. It flies above a small plaza that was originally a right hand turn lane and an island. A video of the unveiling is here. Usually I'm a bit leery of art (or music: pace Bailey) that can't explain itself, i.e. needs an artist or publicist to provide an exegesis, but at night the lights and placement of this piece provides its own raison d'être without need of the backstory. During the day you can see the wires and hanging equipment, but it's easy to overlook the mechanism behind the illusion in the overhead tangle of the bus line and crosswalk infrastructure. All-in-all, a nice addition that graces a previously schlumpy corner.
