If these people were my real parents

Clara Bow's hair + Albert Brooks' hair = my hair

***

Today, I have reentered the Land of Curly Hair.

I feel a little bit more like Shirley...

... but I'm working my way towards sexy Biba-dom.

I have to take the curly fabulousness in stages. The Boy is so confused. Right now I told him I'm entering my Gypsy/bohemian stage. He didn't know about that either. He keeps telling me that he's had the same hairstyle his whole life, ever since he started growing hair. He doesn't know anything about girls and their stages, even now.

I left the house early this morning with straight hair and came home looking like a moppet. He keeps asking me what I did to my hair, but I can't give away all of my beauty secrets. I told him I had a lot of curly fries for lunch and that's what did it, but he's not buying it.

***

And then I was compelled to dress up like this.

Tell me you do this sort of thing too when you get a new 'do. I just happened to have those rainbow glasses lying about from a walk down Haight Street.

Peace out, babies, peace out.
And pass the curly fries!

xoxo

***

Because I can't take all the credit: Clara Bow photo, Biba photo and Shirley Temple photo. I can't remember where I got the Albert Brooks photo from. I love him, though.

And because I really can't take all the credit, my beauty secret for today is

Angie and Martha's Hair Salon
524 Geary Street
(between Shannon St & Taylor St)
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 359-9375

Thank you, dutchbaby, you were right about these ladies. They are awesome!
Thank you Angie and Martha!

(insert more kisses here.)

Hope your day is full of style

I just love being my own one stop shop for images to post. I took this photo yesterday while on that photowalk at lunch with a new flickr friend.

I have a thing about barber shops. And I find the coat and smock on these two gents (see, julochka, the twins' thing just gets deeper and more profound) to be très chic.

Today I have two photo shoots, one for pay (!) and one for the i live here: SF site, and then a meeting about another future photo shoot.

And tomorrow I do have an appointment that deals with hair as well (my hair, as I'm feeling desperate), and if the 'do goes horribly, horribly wrong then I'll need to put together a wardrobe of stirrup leggings and bright jackets with big shoulder pads in them.

Or, if the hair thing turns out super cute, then little ringlets and curls will be a factor. Enjoy your day! I'll miss you.

Enough of that biorhythm stuff

Okay, maybe today wasn't that bad.

***

I just couldn't leave the blog rolling into a Free Friday on that airy fairy note, even though it's partially true (and funny) and apparently many of us are in the same boat re: disasterous biorhythmic cycles.

From today's photowalk with Justin. Check him out on flickr.

Well, that explains it

My biorhythms are all fucked up.

***

Parts of my biorhythm are smirking. That makes sense. One part is winking. The rest are in the crapper. No wonder I can't get it together this week.

Julochka wrote a post about why she's all out of sorts this week, and then Starlene recommended that she check out about her biorhythms, and so I followed julochka's example, et voila!


That first graph has me worried. It looks a little crazy, don't you think? A little too up-and-down-y for my tastes. I'll just try to keep smirking to maintain some balance.

Julochka wisely read my chart and graphs and she says that I'll be capable of taking some great photos due to my high Aesthetic secondary rhythms, but that I'll be too weak to pick up my camera for long periods of time because my primary Physical rhythm is so in the dumps.

I do have to say that I don't believe in this stuff, but today I guess I'm willing to admit that something's up that's out of my control. If you want to see what parts of you are smirking or dysfunctional, you can make your own chart here for free.

I'm just counting the minutes until Free Friday. That should fix it.

Wish You Were Here

I find myself taking photos often, not so much for myself, but for other people. Sometimes I forget to share them (and if you saw what my Lightroom2 library looked like, you'd understand why--it's a total jungle in there) and in this case, I think rediscovering these photos while I was still trying to wake up this morning ended up being perfect timing... a few months late.

These are for Tara. I wish you were here. xoxo

***

Tara, note any particular building in the reflection? ;-)

These photos were taken the day I first saw the beautiful wild parrots on Telegraph Hill. I just forgot to share them.


I could have taken a hundred photos of this old wet fence. I love how the rain soaked wood changed the colors and made it so interesting.

And how this rain-speckled ivy looks like a perfect real Valentine heart.

Just some quiet and color and soft San Francisco rain sent to Paris with hugs.

***

ps.: thanks, Brittney, for mentioning this post today. I still don't know how to do that linky thing. *sigh*

The Thing with the Hole

The Thing With a Hole on a Stick, courtesy of Engrish.com

***

I don't know how it is with you today, but I'm having one of those days where I'm drawing a blank at every other word. You know, that thing.

I can't even pretend to write anything interesting, nor do I have any photos to share with you, so I'm going to list some past favorite posts here, for laughs or until my cerebral cortex kicks in again. Yes, I'm stalling. But I don't want to leave a big hole in my blog. Even if the hole is covered in chocolate.

***

I'm so dingbatty right now that these posts aren't even in any order, but I like them all scattered about. So maybe you will too. Don't worry, this isn't homework. It's just something to do until I recover.

xoxo

Take a Walk in My Backyard

My Dad Is SO Not Joe the Plumber

Things I Would Tell My Grandmother

You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone

Little Curly Shutterbug

My Forty Daughters

Growing Up in Little Oblivion

The Parabola of a Writer or, Coming to This All Backwards

The Beauty of Impermanance

Hope for the Future

Putting My Money on Stephen Colbert

I don't watch the Oscars, haven't for years. I'm still upset that Gloria Swanson did not win Best Actress in 1950 for Sunset Boulevard and instead Judy Holliday did for Born Yesterday. And I wasn't even born then but it bugs me.

BUT, if I did join in an Oscar Pool, I'd have to adopt Stephen Colbert's method because this makes more sense to me than how they really pick the winners.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The DaColbert Code - Oscar Predictions

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Funny Political News

Christian Bale Parody
Joke of the Day

14,325 days ago, 4 days ago, today

14,325 days ago (39 years ago), a young man came back to the United States after his tour of duty, serving his country in Vietnam. He came through San Francisco on his way home. I don't know this man or know the details of the story, but I do understand that he was treated poorly, with disrespect and hate. It was wrong. It was undeserved.

14,325 days ago (39 years ago), I was learning to walk without the metal braces I'd had on my legs since I was a baby. No longer would people openly stare at me and ask my mother if I was a cripple, breaking her heart. I lived just outside of Washington DC when this young soldier came home to the United States, via San Francisco.

14,325 days ago is 20,628,000 minutes is 39 years.

At that time, one person became whole and one became hurt.

One stopped being stared at and discriminated against and one started to be, and neither one was to blame.

Luckily, I am the one who does not remember what that was like.

***

4 days ago this man wrote a comment on my post about my new San Francisco project, and it was an angry but sincere comment, so I published it even though sometimes I feel that when people say they read my blog, they really don't, based on the comments I get. They assume they know everything about you because you write a blog, or they know all about you based on where you live or what the color of your skin is or how much money you make.

Sometimes, including 4 days ago, people write to leave a comment so that they can be HEARD from the rooftops, my rooftops, even though those rooftops are small and not many people are listening because they're all too busy thinking about something else.

In truth, I'd rather have comments that stay on topic to the post, because then I feel like someone actually took the time to read what I took the time to write. But I'd also rather publish a comment that had some feeling in it, rather than the millisecond comment "nice blog."

***

Today, I would like to thank that man who, 14,325 days ago, served our country proudly and with his heart and sweat and tears, and also say I'm sorry that he was treated shabbily and without honor, by a nation of which some people in some places were arrogant, ignorant and insensitive. I can't apologize for those particular people, or even for San Francisco, where this hurt occurred, because I wasn't one of the ones who participated in such behaviour, and I didn't even live here.

14,325 days ago, I was learning to walk and be a little girl.

***

14,325 days down Memory Lane is a long time. I know we all wander down Memory Lane, and lots of what we remember during our travels back there end up on our blogs and sometimes those memories end up making us smile, or may end up hurting us in painful ways we thought we had forgotten.

Or else we never left Memory Lane at all, and to me that is very sad and quite a waste of a life.

I would like to think that in 14,325 days, 20,628,000 minutes, or 39 years, people or places would shift and change and that my impression of them at some time in the past would be subject to improvement.

I would also like to think that for the next 14,325 days that this man has before him, if he is to be so lucky, and all of the days that possibly lie before all of us, that we spend more time looking forward than we do looking back, if it does not serve to make our lives more joyous.

We may not have 14,325 days ahead. We may only have a few.

***

First photo taken in the Haight, where all of the sidewalks have something to say.

Second photo taken in the sweet and haunting pet cemetery in the Presidio, where beloved pets sleep forever under the freeway overpass.

Happy Tired, Tired Happy

"Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open." ~ John Barrymore

The MOO cards came for my new blog. Everything seems better when you've got a MOO card to share.

***

But I've got to cool my heels.

What happens when you "put it out there," tell people what you want to do (and it appears to be going in the right direction) is exhilarating. I'm so excited and happy right now that it's made me so pooped I can't even write it all down. It's like when you played all day and didn't take your nap and you're happy tired.

***

My first photo for my i live here: SF project has gone somewhat viral on flickr. I've never had 200+ views of any photo... and already have several photoshoots lined up. Next Free Friday is already booked.

And the Shy Kitten poster went to the kindergarten class.

I got a bunch of notes and drawings from the kids who loved that photo so much in the Chinatown book. Just think what they'll do when MJ puts the poster on the wall.

And I met old friends and new. Friends are just popping out all over!

And some Boy left me a little treat tonight.

I wish this post was more coherent. This is all I can do right now. Love to you.

xoxo

The i live here: SF project...

Sometimes you have just part of an idea rattling around in your head, and then all of a sudden --whoosh! --the pieces fit together. Many thanks to ~K, namastenancy and Soad for saying the right things at the right time that tied it all together. And as always, a thank you to Brittney at Eye on Blogs, who is always so supportive in her shout outs and recognition of what I post here.

***

I can't say that I walk around like this all the time, but it happens enough of the time to know that it's not a fleeting thing. Plain and simple, I just love living in San Francisco, for all the reasons I write about in this blog, and for a thousand other reasons that I might not fully be aware of, or for reasons that just don't get written down at all.

And I keep meeting interesting, talented and fascinating souls that inspire and charm and intrigue me. Their faces and their stories make me want to meet more of them, even if our encounter is for the briefest moment, in the time it takes for me to snap their photo. Regardless of our economic concerns now, our fears and worries, I think we all appreciate a genuine human story and image.


So I'm embarking on a "real" project, the working title of said project is:

i live here: SF

This blog is a platform for whatever this larger thing turns out to be, but for right now it's photographing the people of San Francisco. The images shared here are willing collaborations between myself and those pictured because I feel that the photos I take in partnership with someone else are the ones I like the most and to which I am the most connected. The people being photographed can share their story with me, maybe something about why they live in San Francisco and what they think about it, or remain anonymous.


It is my goal to share some of the spirit and fascinating layers of this city through the eyes and visages of those who live here.

***

Because this is a participatory endeavour, you can be a part of it, if you want to. In a nutshell, if you'd like to have your photo taken for this project, or know other people who might, or can help in any way by forwarding this post, mentioning it to a friend or posting it somewhere, please do. I'd really appreciate it.

If you live in SF and want to have your photo taken, contact me (email's in the sidebar) and we can talk about it.

Or, if you don't live here, but know someone who does, someone who you think might want to share in this project, then by all means, put them in touch with me. You know where I am.

Thank you all, and be sure to check in at my other site. As things progress, I hope to have lots more to share with you there. I don't know what the final result of all of this will be but sometimes the surprise at the end is the best part.

Kitten with a Whip

Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.

***

The Shy Kitten has spoken.

It's amazing what I can get done when I'm not at work.
I printed this poster on my Epson R1800 at home (love you Epson, you're the best!) on 13x19 glossy paper and I have to say it looks pretty damn adorable. The font makes it look kind of Scholastic-y and retro. Who remembers the Scholastic Book Mobile? And Dynamite magazine? Oh man, do I feel old now. Wow.

Thanks to all of you who offered sage advice as to what the kitten would say to MJ's kindergarten class. In the end, I morphed a bit of what Cartooncharacter and Iasa commented. Hopefully that kitten is still around Chinatown somewhere and I can pay it some royalties, or give it a can of tuna.

***

ps.: If anyone is interested in purchasing a Shy Kitten poster, let me know. I'm totally intrigued by the idea of actually selling my work someday!

Living the Silent Life

Since I can't take you all with me all of the time, here is one of the films I saw on Saturday at the SF Silent Film Festival, Winter/Valentine's Day Event.

Buster Keaton in his second film, an entertaining romp of love and vengeance called Our Hospitality. From the program notes:

Set against the drama of an age-old feud between two families, Buster Keaton's ingenious take on Romeo and Juliet is a laugh-out-loud parody of Southern hospitality, circa 1830. Upon learning he's inherited the ancestral estate, Buster takes the first train home to reclaim his heritage. Soon he's courting a sweetheart and dodging her family's bullets. Buster's daredevil rescue attempt above a waterfall is one of the all-time great movie stunts.

The wondrous live piano accompaniment was provided by Philip Carli, who is also the pianist in residence at the George Eastman House (where, when I win the lottery or inherit a fortune, I will be enrolling in film conservation classes, fyi).

If I was forced to pick my favorite silent film comedian, I'd have to pick Harold Lloyd. BUT my very very very close second would be Buster (who got his nickname as a child from none other than Harry Houdini, how freaking cool is that?!) That face ("The Great Stone Face") just kills me. He was such a pro. I'm not going into one of my silent film raves now (you can look up past ones yourself), but gosh darn it, I'll watch a Buster Keaton film a million times before I rent the Director's Cut of the Boring Sappy Blech of Benjamin Button.

Some very kind and patient person uploaded the entire film here, viewable in three parts. For those of you who (like me) despair of most modern cinema experiences nowadays, here you can watch a film full of stunts that are real (no special effects), great comedy, no special effects, and no special effects. Just imagine, a movie without CGI! How ever did they do it?!

Amazing.

ps.: I know that most of you (all of you?) won't watch the entire film if any of it, but if you do (maybe there's a lull at work?), there's a scene in part 2 here where a man kicks a hat off of another man's head (no special effects, just incredible gymnastic ability). That man was Buster Keaton's dad, who makes a brief cameo. And Keaton's son, billed here as Buster Jr, makes an appearance in the beginning of the film, as the baby. Keeping it all in the family. Oh, and his wife is the love interest. So there you are.

pss.: The full SF Silent Film Festival is scheduled this year for July 10-12. So don't call or write to me then. But I'll save you a seat!


Watch Buster Keaton - Our Hospitality 1/3 | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

part 2


Watch Buster Keaton - Our Hospitality 2/3 | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

part 3


Watch Buster Keaton - Our Hospitality 3/3 | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Veni, Vidi, Legi

(Ineptly translated from my nonexistent Latin as I came, I saw, I read.)

Through this oversized book-shaped portal lies a wonderland for the curious and intense little world of book obsessives, collectors, and those who wish they were.

Who is that Boy whizzing by with his green umbrella?

The Antiquarian Book Fair pays a visit to San Francisco every two years. For anyone who might lose their mind with joy at seeing a 15th century illuminated manuscript page and actually be allowed to touch it (albeit in a clear plastic sleeve), cry happy tears at seeing a first edition of whatever their favorite children's book was (in mint condition) or hyperventillate slightly to see Abraham Lincoln's signature, this is the place to be. (Last time, I hung around a booth full of Charles Dickens' first editions. Did I almost cry? Yes.)

It's like the coolest museum, except you can touch stuff.

And if you have enough money, you can buy what you're touching.
(The above card on the copy of Candide reads: One of thirteen known copies, preceding all other editions. Printing and the Mind of Man. $100,000.) I did not ask to handle that book, fyi.

Below are some items that intrigued me for whatever reason. But this tiny collection of photos was nothing compared to the vast variety of what was there on display.

A children's book written by Nazis. Charming.

Another non-PC title for children: John Chinaman

And yet another.

These children's books make me hope we've made some sort of progress. (We have, right?)

Maps of a world that no longer exists.

Fascinating stuff for explorers and armchair travelers.

I'm still not quite sure what purpose this lovely certificate had, but I'm sure the Red Man didn't come out to be the winner here, despite the bright colors and the gold seal.

This book reminded me of Brad.

Not that you could tell from this crap photo, but here is a letter written by George Washington. You'll be glad to know that he had lovely penmanship.

Who doesn't want a first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird?
(A steal at $26K)

Besides the books, incredible maps, posters, and autographs were everywhere.

A folio of Shakespeare's comedies, histories and tragedies, for the drama geek in your life.
Dated 1678.

Descartes, with someone writing in the margins.
Dated 1737.

Tiny perfect miniature sets.
This is a collection of Shakespeare.

I tried to give you an idea of how many booths there were but there was no way to get the scale of this place. You'll just have to see it for yourself in 2011.

One mind-boggling display after another. Booksellers from all over the country packed up their best items to sell here. Many many from England, and also France and Germany.

A Hebrew grammar book from Paris. Dated 1636. It looked new.

What every child needs to know about Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov (V.I. Lenin). Sorry, I have to throw some Big Lebowski in whenever I can. You should know that by now!

You can pick up a first edition of Mao's Little Red Book for a mere $25K.

I don't collect things and normally don't really covet them. But this was the one item (only $950) that I would have bought if I could. From Vienna, a policeman's ball, this petite pouch in soft white leather with a matching tassel contained a tiny vial of perfume and a miniature dance card and pencil. These dainty trinkets were given to the ladies attending just a run-of-the-mill ball in 1913. *sigh*

And there you have it... a day's mania in one post!