Marc Valdez Weblog

Nice Cities

Markos Moulitsas (founder of Daily Kos) asked for suggestions on nice places to live. My suggestion:

I'm an Albuquerque native, but I'm quite fond of Salt Lake City. The place has what you want (except warm winters) and is more diverse than people imagine. The Mormons travel overseas on missions, so there is a better-travelled populace than you can find almost anywhere else that is interested in foreign affairs. The leftish crowd has more to work against in SLC, right in the middle of the belly of the conservative beast, than you'd find in most of the country (even the South) so there is a real vitality to the work: it MEANS so much more! Small industry and industrial arts are better-respected there than in the Sunbelt (after all, Mormon culture is a derivative of the culture of northern New York State, where Yankee ingenuity means something). Crime rate is very low, and the people are nice. They believe strange things, but there are no nicer people anywhere!

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"Memoirs of a Geisha"

Photo caption: Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh and Gong Li in Columbia Pictures' "Memoirs of a Geisha" - 2005

Saw "Memoirs of a Geisha" tonight (first day of release). I liked the movie: the claustrophobic sense of reserve, the hidden secrets, the lash of sudden emotions, long silences. And the rain: so much rain!

The actors and actresses did well. There is apparently a controversy about using so many Chinese players in a movie about a quintessentially-Japanese subject, but my philosophy is that one shouldn't cast by nationality, but rather by appropriateness for the role. If the Chinese actors were the best at auditions, then they should play the parts. As Roger Ebert notes:

Even in Japan, Zhang and Li outgross any Japanese actress.

Nevertheless, without a lot of education, it's hard to tell how authentic the movie is. There is an entire universe of hard work and specialized high culture involved with the Geisha, and I suspect only Japanese cultural authorities can say with assurance how well the movie approximated the real world of the Geisha. I wonder what the Japanese will think?

I like this comment on imdb:

"Geisha" is essentially a soap opera wrapped tightly in the robes of a holiday prestige picture, representing the finest in production quality and acting talent that normally comes along with this level of flagrant Oscar-baiting. The scope of craftsmanship on display in the film is largely impressive; it's clear that Marshall knows how to photograph a pretty picture and set a specific mood. Production designer John Myher has worked miracles to encapsulate the insular pre-war atmosphere of Japan, using the narrow walkways and claustrophobic native paper-and-wood construction to set the right tempo in Sayuri's escapeless surroundings. Marshall continues the general theme of oppression through the use of continuous rain and secretive nightfall to accompany the actors almost anywhere they go.

One Japanese reviewer liked the acting (everyone seems to like the acting), but hated the set, the overpowering and disrespectful Hollywood glitz, and the orientalist clap-trap. I do have to agree that the solo dance number, although really cool to watch, was over-the-top: someone, somewhere described the music as 'John Cage on a mandolin' (and as interesting as that might sound, it's noticeably inauthentic even for an uneducated American boob like myself).

Nevertheless, in a world where everyone seems to either love or despise this movie, I fall somewhere in the middle, and think it's an interesting movie, and certainly worth a view!
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Albuquerque No Go Boom

Arrests made:

Four men were arrested Friday in connection with the theft of 400 pounds of explosives from a storage depot, federal officials said.

All the explosives, which authorities had said was enough to flatten a large building, were recovered.

...A tip led to the arrests, but authorities gave few details.

The brothers, Leslie Brown, 44, of Ignacio, Colo., and David Brown, 49, of Bloomfield, face federal charges including possession of stolen explosives and felons in possession of stolen explosives, Dixie said.

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Debtor Nation

Courtesy of Old Hippie's Groovy Blog, is this mind-numbing statistic:

President Bush and the current administration have borrowed more money from foreign governments and banks than the previous 42 presidents combined, a group of conservative to moderate Democrats said Friday.

Blue Dog Coalition, which describes itself as a group "focused on fiscal responsibility," called the administration's borrowing practices "astounding."

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Ola Na Iwi: The Trans-Atlantic Story

Alistair Cooke's cancer-ridden bones were stolen and sold on the black market for healthy bone implants! What a bizarre fate for the famed television host and commentator! The only question I have is: were they British bones, or American bones?
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More Tales of Sacramento at Night: Tumbleweed Snowman

Caption, left: The AMAFCA tumbleweed snowman, in Albuquerque.

I was walking my dog last night about 3 a.m., several blocks from my Curtis Park home, when I came across a toppled tumbleweed snowman in a yard on Third Avenue, not far west of the Sierra II Community Center. It looked like the recent storms and rain had gotten to it, or else they were going for a tumbleweed-snowman-lounging-on-a-divan look that didn't work very well at three in the morning.

Interesting thing is, you don't find tumbleweeds around here: someone went through a lot of trouble to make this snowman. They probably drove to Nevada and sacrificed lots of perfectly-good vehicle storage space for the project. These folks are to be commended for their holiday gusto!

Municipal employees in Albuquerque, NM, assemble a tumbleweed snowman every Christmas in the I-40 freeway median.

The nation needs more tumbleweed snowmen!
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Asking The Obvious, Cynical Question

As if we don't know why there haven't been any alerts lately!:

When was the last time there was a major terror alert? They were something like a regular occurence for the eighteen months or so before the 2004 election. And through 2004 the administration pushed the line that al Qaida was aiming to disrupt the elections themselves. But as near I can tell there hasn't been a single one since election day.

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Christmas Spirit

Nice photo, from Slate.

VATICAN CITY — Pope John XXIII enjoys the snow, 1958.

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Aerobics With Pepper Von

I hurt tonight: I think my electrolytes are out-of-whack. Nevertheless, you've got to hand it to Pepper - few people can lead an aerobics class quite like him, and make the hurting feel good ('Step One', Tuesdays & Thursdays). Cardio pumpin'; new school jumpin'; syncopate, five-six-seven-eight!

And an unusually youthful and comely class it is too: all that effort pays off! But it makes you wonder... Are the beautiful people attracted to the class because other beautiful people are there, or is it the class that makes them beautiful in the first place? A chicken-and-egg dilemma that can't be solved. I tried to solve the mystery on Tuesday. I was dazzled by how *alive* everyone looked, and wondered how that could be, but all that the wonderment did was make me lose my place in the blistering hot routine.

You can't argue with the results, though: Kelly D. came into class briefly in the summer, got whipped into shape by Pepper (with the help of Pam and others), and now off she goes to headline in Vegas in February! Heather B. ('Cassie', DMTC's "A Chorus Line" 2003) lets step aerobics on Tuesdays keep her reflexes sharp. And others with that fetching model look are plentiful. What do they know that others don't?

Astonishing Journeys of Frigate Birds

Wide-ranging birds (2,500 miles for treats)!

Lydia's trip started Oct. 18 from Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean about 310 miles south of Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, and 1,600 miles northwest of Perth, in western Australia.

Leaving a baby chick in the care of her partner, Lydia headed south over open waters -- probably to steal fish from other seabirds, a common habit among frigate birds.

She then circled back on Oct. 26 and flew between Indonesia's Java and Sumatra islands. From there, she headed across Borneo island on Nov. 9 before flying back over Java and returning on Nov. 14 to her nesting site, where she likely regurgitated a meal for her chick.

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"Memoirs of a Geisha": Sacramento-Area Connection

I didn't realize that significant portions of this movie were filmed right around here.

Old Sacramento train station was transformed to the Kyoto train station where Young Chiyo and her sister Satsu were taken to.

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Trusting The NY Times

Can't be done, these days:

But the Times has yet to answer a key question: Did it actually have the wiretapping story before the '04 election, as several people at the paper have indicated to reporters is the case? And if it did have the news more than a year ago, why did the story indicate that that publication had been delayed for only "a year"? It would be "pretty bad," says Jay Rosen, an NYU journalism professor and the proprietor of the PressThink blog, "if the Times had the wiretapping story before the '04 election but tried to tell us it didn't when finally it decided to publish in 2005. That would be deceiving your readers. So I'm worried about that."

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The Chronic of Narnia Rap

I need to watch more television! Like user 'johnslob' says:

Man! I cannot stop watching this, nor can I stop laughing...Was the rest of the show this funny?

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Nostalgia Fads

Every decade it rolls around, for a time period twenty years past!

Sometimes the time period is a little elastic. By watching as much 'I Love Lucy' as I have, you can tell in the 50's they were having a nostalgia fad for the 20's. It's a bit of a stretch, but you can understand: by universal agreement, everyone hated the 30's.

Nothing disheartened me more in the 70's than the nostagia fad for the 50's. What's the matter: no originality anywhere? Building on the popularity of 1973's "American Graffiti", television shows like "Happy Days" exploited warm memories for all they were worth.

Mysteriously, there was no discernable 60's nostalgia in the 80's. That is one of the great mysteries of all time (along with where socks disappear to, leaving all those unmatched orphan socks). The only equivalent mystery is the absence of a 40's nostalgia in the 60's (or maybe they called it 'The Lawrence Welk' show).

There was a kind of cheesy nostalgia for the 70's in the 90's (dang!: and just after I sold my great pair of tight Angel Flight bell bottom pants to a thrift store!), but since dance music had really gone underground for only two years (1981-82), there was no particular reason to have 70's nostalgia.

But these days, it's 80's nostalgia, which the radio stations are exploiting for all the warm memories they can possibly strip mine from people's heads. One advantage of 80's nostagia, of course, is listening again to 80's tunes on the radio! I heard Dire Strait's 'Industrial Disease' the other day, and it's just as pertinent today as then.

In a decade, I look forward to 90's nostalgia. Did any toy manufacturer ever make a Courtney Love Barbie doll? A Nancy Kerrigan baton? Time to buy all that rubbish, and (unlike my premature bell-bottom pant sale) hold on to it for the inevitable price escalation.

'Industrial Disease' (Dire Straits' album 'Love Over Gold' - 1982)

Now warning lights are flashing down in Quality Control,
Somebody threw a spanner, they threw him in the hole.
There's rumors in the loading bay and anger in the town,
Somebody blew the whistle and the walls came down.

There's a meeting in the boardroom, they're trying to trace a smell,
There's leaking in the washroom, there's a sneak in personnel.
Somewhere in the corridor someone was heard to sneeze,
"Goodness me could this be Industrial Disease ?"

Caretaker was crucified for sleeping at his post,
Refusing to be pacified, it's him they blame the most.
Watchdog's got rabies, the foreman's got the fleas,
Everyone concerned about Industrial Disease.

There's panic on the switchboard, tongues in knots,
Some come out in sympathy, some come out in spots.
Some blame the management, some the employees,
Everybody knows it's the Industrial Disease.

Yeah now the work force is disgusted, downs tools walks,
Innocence is injured, experience just talks.
Everyone seeks damages, everyone agrees that,
These are "classic symptoms of a monetary squeeze".

On ITV and BBC they talk about the curse,
Philosophy is useless, Theology is worse.
History boils over there's an economics freeze,
Sociologists invent words that mean "Industrial Disease"

Doctor Parkinson declared - "I'm not surprised to see you here
You've got smoker's cough from smoking, Brewer's droop from drinking beer.
I don't know how you came to get the Bette Davis knees,
But worst of all young man you've got Industrial Disease."

He wrote me a prescription, he said "You are depressed,
I'm glad you came to see me to get this off your chest.
Come back and see me later *ding* next patient please,
Send in another victim of Industrial Disease"

Ha,
Splendid.

I go down to Speaker's Corner I'm a thunderstruck,
They got free speech, tourists, police in trucks.
Two men say they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong,
There's a protest singer, he's singing a protest song.

He says "They wanna have a war, keep their factories,
They wanna have a war, keep us on our knees,
They wanna have a war to stop us buying Japanese,
They wanna have a war to stop Industrial Disease.

They're pointing out the enemy to keep you deaf and blind,
They wanna sap you energy, incarcerate your mind.
Give you Rule Brittania, gassy beer, page three,
Two weeks in Espana and Sunday striptease."

Meanwhile, first Jesus says - "I'd cure it soon
Abolish Monday mornings and Friday afternoons"
The other's out on hunger strike, he's dying by degrees.
How come Jesus gets Industrial Disease?

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What's Up With Persia?

Persia has apparently been possessed by the spirit of an elk.

This reminds me of when my sister took up big-game hunting. Except there, she was trying to possess the spirits of turkeys and deer and elk. She chased those critters up and down the mountains with determination. With Persia, it's apparently the opposite.

Persia's approach is better.
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Kylie Has A Plan

For a new album:

She has already met with record bosses and told them she wants to start recording next summer - and even hopes to headline the Glastonbury Festival the following year.

She's been totally out of commission, and she'd better do something fast to remain active.
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In The Desert Southwest....

September 11th or not, when it comes to high explosives, some things never change:

In the post-Sept. 11, 2001, era, one might assume bomb-making materials would be under the tightest possible security.

In fact, they sit unattended in the New Mexico desert, guarded by little more than lock and key.

Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White says he doesn't understand it.

"You have to question the logic behind federal regulations that prohibited you from carrying nail clippers onto an airplane, but allow you to store high-grade explosives in a poorly protected site in the middle of nowhere," White said.

On Sunday afternoon, 400 pounds of military-grade plastic explosives, 20,000 feet of explosive detonation cord and 2,500 blasting caps - enough material to flatten a large building, experts say - were found to be missing from a storage facility about nine miles southwest of Albuquerque, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives announced Monday.

The private storage facility ... was in compliance with ATF regulations, said Wayne Dixie, special agent in charge of the agency's Albuquerque office.

The facility was also in compliance in December 2003 when, under a different owner, 350 pounds of explosive ammonium nitrate pellets were stolen from the site. That material ... was later recovered abandoned on a deserted roadside.

...Dixie said the missing material is not explosive until attached to a detonator, adding that he hopes the person who stole it doesn't have that knowledge. But the thief knew enough to travel deserted roads to reach the storage lot, get over or through its padlocked gate and break into two metal trailers.

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N-Dimensional Thinking

There was a very interesting hour on NPR's 'This American Life' regarding Tulsa preacher, Reverend Carlton Pearson.

If ambition to extend his ministry was what was driving Pearson's embrace of what appears to be heresy, then he is sure going about things in a strange way. No, agree with it or not, this is a kind of revelation at work. In general, ambition eschews pain.
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Going Ape

Stalin sure had some strange ideas:

THE Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style warriors by crossing humans with apes, according to recently uncovered secret documents.

Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia's top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior.

According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: "I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat."

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Finally....

The Albuquerque press finally realizes something is up.
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Can't Obey Even The Most Elastic Law Imaginable?

Time to impeach him:

No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story—which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year—because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker. He insists he had “legal authority derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force.” But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the law.

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Afghan Disco

Break a move, break my will:

New York-based Human Rights Watch has issued a report saying the United States operated a secret prison in Afghanistan and tortured detainees. The report quoted an Ethiopian-born detainee as saying he was kept in a pitch-black prison and forced to listen to Eminem and Dr. Dre’s rap music for 20 days before the music was replaced by "horrible ghost laughter and Halloween sounds."

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Blackout

Interestingly, there is almost nothing on the Web regarding the Cherry Engineering explosives theft, and nothing in the Albuquerque press either.

Oooo-eeee-ooooo!

Hero

Tragic hero of the August 14th Helios Airways flight, of course, but at least he tried:

Aviation experts said after re-enacting the doomed Boeing 737-300 flight from Larnaca in Cyprus to Prague, that the steward -- who had some flight training and used an emergency oxygen kit -- actually flew the plane for 10-12 minutes.

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Oceans 1

Gee, this is funny! Referring to Liza Minnelli:

Yet here on Earth, she's a big star. Why, you ask, and rightly so? I'll tell you why. Because her mother, who always looked like she was two seconds from jumping off a high ledge, knew an incredible secret--a secret so dark and twisted that it has never been spoken aloud--a secret any Rosicrucian would give his left nut to possess--forbidden knowledge older than the pyramids unveiled here for the first time--a secret guarded by the rich and powerful for centuries yet I reveal it to you for the price of a rock'n'roll magazine--a dreadful secret that Judy, lying on her death bed, with seconds to live, leaned over and whispered into her daughter's ear:

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Pyros

When I went to NM Tech, and lived on-campus in West Hall, my next-door-neighbor was a secretive explosives hobbyist with Confederate leanings. "Rebel Yell" always made sure to ground his door key when he unlocked his room, so there would be no stray sparks. Late at night, I would stare at the cinder-block wall, and wonder when I would find that wall in my face.

Anyway, I was reminded of those days by this story:

About 400 pounds of explosive material was stolen from a research facility in New Mexico, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives confirmed today.

The theft was discovered Sunday night by local authorities.

ATF agents are investigating the large theft from Cherry Enginering, a company owned by Chris Cherry, for decades the senior explosives scientist at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.

Also, 2,500 detonators were missing from a storage explosive container, or magazine, in the name of Cherry Engineering.

...A special agent at ATF said the incident was unusual because such high-powered material was targeted.

One hundred and fifty pounds of the plastic explosive compound C-4 and 250 pounds of undetectable "sheet explosives" — a DuPont flexible explosive material that can be hidden in books and letters — were stolen in the burglary, which also included the theft of blasting caps.

Burglars used a torch bar to break into the explosives containers and remove the material.

The missing material could potentially make numerous bombs.

Postscript - I sent an E-Mail with a link regarding this theft to "Old Techie", speculating that "Rebel Yell" might have been involved, and "Old Techie" responds:

Nah, ("Rebel Yell") had enough honor not to STEAL stuff. Even psychopaths have some standards...

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Impressions of Oklahoma Weirdness

John in Oklahoma City speculates about some of the latest theories regarding the Kingfisher County mystery:

(T)he mysterious gas bubbling out of the ground in central Oklahoma continues and nobody can seem to figure out where it is coming from. Chesapeake Energy is taking responsibility though the evidence that the gas is coming from their well is open to question. They recently drilled a well about 12 miles from the location of the first surface gas leak and attention speculation turned to that well since it is the first well in that area in quite some time that has significant subsurface pressure. The area has been drilled extensively since the 1920's but all of those earlier wells have long since lost pressure.

Tying the gas leaks to the Chesapeake well has numerous problems. First, when a well is drilled and the casing is set the borehole is pretty well sealed from leakage. Chesapeake claims they fractured the producing zone but that is probably several thousand feet deep (they don't want to give specifics about that producing zone because they stand to make a bundle off of offset wells). It is highly unlikely that there would be a zone that deep which would allow migration on gases. There is the possibility that the frac procedure contacted an older, forgotten borehole which was not sealed properly when abandoned and the gas is migrating through that.

Near the surface in that area is the Blaine Formation, a gypsum unit which has extensive karst through western Oklahoma. In fact the largest gypsum caves in North America are found in that formation. That might explain how that gas could migrate along a zone which appears to be in the range of 17 miles long on a SW-NE trending line. But again, how does the gas get into that formation?

Most people are baffled about the whole situation--nothing of the sort has ever before occurred previously here or anywhere else that I've been able to find. The director of the Oklahoma Geological Survey allegedly speculated that it's coming from west Texas (blame Texas.. a proud Oklahoma tradition!) which is 150 MILES AWAY! Somehow that doesn't seem likely to me. But all is well since according to the local sheriff the gas poses no risk of explosion "because it's bubbling up through water." Well, I'm not going to light up any cigars out there!!! Nothing like a good mystery to produce bizarre statements to the media... I'll keep you posted!

"Ballets Russes" - The Movie

Look who was at the 4:00 p.m. Saturday screening of "Ballets Russes" at the Opera Cinema in San Francisco: Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine, the filmmakers who made the documentary film! What a treat! The audience was able to express its great appreciation to them with immediate directness! (There is a good user comment at imdb.com)

After the screening, Goldfine and Geller hosted a Question-and-Answer session regarding the movie. Even though the audience was small (15 or 20), the audience was unusually well-informed and enthusiastic about what they had just seen.

I was curious what had initiated this project. Goldfine described an event put together by ballet fans in New Orleans in the late 90's (whose own ballet company had just expired), to bring together the veterans of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, some of whom hadn't seen each other in nearly forty years. A colleague named Mark Hawk alerted Geller and Goldfine that this was going to be a unique event, and that someone with their filmmaking talents HAD to be there to film it (they had won an award at the Sundance Festival for "Isadora Duncan: Movement of the Soul" in 1988). Starting there, with all the revived personal contacts and refreshed memories, the project began moving forward, but there was still the time element to consider, since many of the dancers were already in their eighties and nineties. (Still, it begs the question of how Mark Hawk heard of the New Orleans meeting).

Goldfine described a worry she had at the start of the project regarding whether the dance veterans would be able to carry the burden of the documentary. Sure, in their heyday, the dancers had been major stars, but today, they were in advanced age. Would the dancers prove to be too feeble, or too dull, or too unfocused to be - interesting?

This worry proved to be completely unfounded. They might be octogenarians, sure, but the dancers of the Ballet Russe were some of the most dramatic, self-possessed, fierce performers the world had ever seen, and that fire still burned!

Reading some initial reviews of the film, I had formed the erroneous impression that the narrative thrust of the film would be something like: 'plucky group of Russian expatriates in Paris get ambitious, and conquer the world'. That approach couldn't work, though, because there were so many different dancers, who joined in different places and at different times, sometimes under radically-different circumstances. Also, most of the dancers didn't join as principals or directors. Instead, they were chosen at a young age (sometimes shockingly young, like 14-year-old Yvonne Chouteau). The dancers were swept up in a grand adventure: like joining the circus that arrived in town.

Some of the stories are amazing. To me, the most touching story was by Miguel Terekhov. Terekhov informed his father that he he wanted to join de Basil's company (which had been performing in Terekhov's hometown of Montevideo, Uruguay), but his father did NOT approve (and NOT for any of the obvious reasons!)

Plus, all the beautiful, beautiful dancing!

Editing the film proved a major headache. They had twenty, or so, major characters who could not be ignored: the voluble and indefatigable Frederic Franklin, the amiable Mark Platt, the strong-willed Mia Slavenska, the unapproachable Dame Alicia Markova, the alert Nini Theilade, etc., etc. It was almost impossible to weave a workable storyline for use in a film with such a large number of interesting personalities, particularly when there was also a complicated story; a story that starts with the de Basil/Blum partnership in 1931, the big split, the best of Massine's work, the war years in North and South Americas, the return of Balanchine, the temptations of Hollywood, and the agony of what amounted to senescence in the late 1950's and early 60's.

The approach Goldfine and Geller settled on was to place the burden of the complicated narrative onto a female narrator, who told the story almost as a fairytale. The dancers then told their individual stories within that framework. In that way, when a complicated event had to be explained, the narrator could do it, with maps and other visual aids, just as efficiently as possible.

It was so much fun seeing George Zoritch on film. There were touching scenes of Zoritch talking and dancing with former partner and famous ballerina Nathalie Krassovska. Very charming!

The women dancers of the Ballet Russe, some of the most discerning and beautiful women in the world, were unanimous in their opinion of Zoritch. Their testimony:

Maria Tallchief:
George Zoritch. Oh, oh, oh, he was so good looking! He was the best-looking man I ever saw in my life! Tall and thin; planes of his face, and his beautiful figure. Thin waist, wide shoulders, long legs. Well, he was just - perfection!

Irina Baronova(?):
He was very handsome, with the most wonderful body.

Tamara Tchinerova Finch:
I think he was really born to be a dancer.

Nathalie Krassovska:
I think he was wonderful line, wonderful style. We danced it at the theater.

And they were right of course! When you look at the pictures of Zoritch when he was in his prime, the only comparison that comes to mind is Classical Greek sculpture.

I took my first, clumsy ballet classes with Zoritch in 1982 at the University of Arizona. Under his good-humored tutelage, even as a neophyte, you came immediately to love dance, and to respect dance tradition. I knew that Zoritch must have some very interesting stories, as also must his fellow dancers. We must all be deeply grateful that Goldfine and Geller, and their colleagues, also saw the possibilities here.

I was very, very pleased with the film! See it if you can, and by all means, support the theaters that take a risk on this film! Goldfine and Geller said that the DVD of the documentary will be coming out around September/October 2006, and will feature much unused footage.
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San Francisco Daytrip

Went with several of the DMTC folks to overcast, rainy San Francisco today (first time I've been down there in two years). We ate twice: at the Emeryville Public Market (pictured at left), and also at Pier 39, in the vicinity of Fisherman's Wharf.

The others went to Union Square for shopping, but I instead asked to be dropped off at the Opera Cinema. A fountain in a courtyard at the cinema is pictured at left. I was eager to see "Ballets Russes": San Francisco is one of just a handful of cities nationwide to host the documentary.




Pier 39: I don't get out much!