San Francisco

I went to San Francisco last week. Pat, my wife, had meetings there, and I went along for the ride. I created my own meetings. We left Madison on Monday morning. Pat was driving to the airport, and she careened down Madison's streets wanting to get there on time. Careening is the expected way to drive in Madison. The heart of the city is on an isthmus. Because of this, there are no freeways going to the center of the city...just streets. If you are going to the capital, you drive on streets...same with the university. I like it. I had laundry left to fold and pack into my suitcase. As Pat drove, I crawled into the back of the minivan to fold shirts and pack them. She heard my grunts in the back. It was centripetal force that was doing a number on me. We got to the airport just in time. As we left home, at the last minute, I grabbed a book of short stories off my shelf...from my college days. On the plane, I drew the landscape below in my sketch book. It was fun and had the same effect as caffeinating me. I also read stories by Salinger, EM Forster and EB White. Coincidentally, they were all about despair and salvation. White's story (Doors) was mostly about despair. Rats, when trained, will approach a certain door to obtain food. When the door is changed, they don't get it and ultimately despair. Humans, on the other hand, will bump into the door, but then go to other doors. White once went to a door for a girl, he went through it repeatedly with wild abandon ("like any rat") until the door changed. His nose bled for a hundred hours. There is not salvation in White's story, but at the end the earth comes up to meet his feet so my guess is that he thinks it is up to us to save ourselves. Hmmm.

In San Francisco, I got together with Ross Halper and his lovely wife, Sachiko. Ross was a good friend in gradeschool. We read Tarzan novels together, watched Johnny Weissmuller on late night television (every Friday night), also read Tanar of Pelucidar, John Carter of Mars. Burroughs (Edgar Rice) could do no wrong. Ross and I went separate ways in high school. He became passionate about opera at a young age. My parents sent me to Norway to visit aging grandparents when I was 11. I asked Ross what I could bring back for him. He said he wanted a Jussi Bjorling recording. I remember sitting in the listening booth of an Oslo record store with my cousin Hellek listening to records of Jussi singing. It was a far cry from the Luxembourg popular music radio station that we listened to every day. Ross, Sachiko and I got together for dinner in San Francisco on Tuesday evening. He brought the record! He said he has it hanging on the wall in his living room. He works in opera by the way; it has been a lifelong passion. He moved to SF over thirty years ago, and sings tenor and directs.

Before this trip, I set up some appointments. I realized a few years ago that opportunities were not coming to me. I realized that I needed to knock on the doors (like any rat?). I called the Legion of Honor art museum and was able to meet with Karin Breuer on Wednesday morning. I also called Arion Press and was able to meet with Andrew Hoyem that afternoon. They were good meetings. Did anything come of them? No, but there is potential, and to me that is what it is about. Sitting on my hands (I never really sit) in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin has never accomplished anything for me. Karin Breuer, seeing one of the baseball etchings that was in my folder, suggested I visit an SF gallery that was having a baseball art exhibit. Late in the afternoon I visited the gallery. The owner agreed to look at my etching (I name dropped). He liked it and bought it. I had been to a famous bookstore on Columbus Avenue (near Kerouac Alley) and had my eye on a couple of books. The extra cash enabled me to buy them guilt free. The biography of Thelonius Monk is highly regarded, and I have been in awe of Duke Ellington for as long as I can remember so I bought the books.

Thursday, I went to a William Wiley retrospective (on Andrew Hoyem's recommendation). It was impressive work. It was in Berkeley at the art museum. As I walked through the campus (google maps had instructed me to take the path through the Eucalyptus grove)I approached and passed the campus center, I heard the crescendo and diminuendo of amplified student voices protesting immigration laws.

I also got together with my friend, Jim Colias, twice. That will be another loooonnnnggg entry, but is an interesting story. I hope I haven't bored anyone. We came back from San Francisco on Friday and were back at home in the evening.