Modern Art and Mime in the Sun

After 40 some odd days of fog and cold, we hit the sunshine today and it was wondrous! Ah, summer may finally be here at last!

Yesterday, I decided I would head to SFMOMA first thing and take in the Calder to Warhol exhibit featuring pieces from the new Fisher Collection. After much hullabaloo and at least two building designs that did not appease the Presidio community where the collection was originally to be housed, Don Fisher, the founder of Gap, just before passing away decided, to donate his collection to the SFMOMA for the next 100 years. Now, SFMOMA has found the right architect to add on to their building now standing on 3rd Street near Howard. And, until September 19th, there are two floors of the Fisher Collection on exhibit including several pieces in the roof garden (which may be one of my new favorite spots in the City). Some of my favorite pieces from this collection are the works by Agnes Martin, Chuck Close's Gwynne watercolor, and Jeff Wall's Tattoos & Shadows, a riff on Manet's Dejeuner sur L'Herbe.

After perusing Fisher, I walked down to the New Topographics photography exhibit which was an excellent collection of photographers who captured the new development going on in the United States especially the tract housing and industrial parks, in the seventies. I saw Stephen Shore speak awhile back at the San Francisco Art Institute and a few of his pieces were on show. Then, I walked down to see the 75th Anniversary exhibit which was a great gathering of works from so many great Bay Area artists among others. There are so many amazing connections that have been a part of making the SFMOMA what it is today!

The sun was blazing as I walked out the doors and I opted to pick up some food at Whole Foods and sit in Yerba Buena Gardens. It's such a beautiful park nestled among the high rises of downtown. And, it's YB Gardens Festival time and this weekend the SF Mime Troupe was featured doing Posibilidad or Death of the Worker. This was not your typical mime performance; there was singing and depiction of a telenovela and a social justice message! So San Francisco!

Poetry Near the Park

To support a colleague and friend of mine, I went to Duboce Park Cafe for a poetry reading. First, Duboce Park Cafe serves yummy organic salads topped with bacon, turkey and other delights.

The poetry reading was great! My colleague read from her chapbook that is coming out soon; several pieces my favorite of which is called Tales we Tell Our Children. The poet took this work and some of the others that she read to VONA this summer. And with her London accent, she read the revised work with brilliance as the N Judah clanged past the door of the cafe.

After she read, the mic was opened up to whomever wanted to read. At this point, another colleague decided to read her prose poem about her time spent working at Johns Hopkins hospital, in Baltimore, at the time when AIDS first came to our consciousness. I had a tear in my eye by the end. It was an evening filled with creativity.

Secret Garden - Mission

One of my favorite things to do is spend a weekend with my body-work practitioner who comes to San Francisco once a month from LA. She works out of a live-work loft on Potrero at 16th with a beautiful courtyard garden that seems to produce sunlight. The peaceful calm of the fountain and bursts of blooms betrays the noisy chaotic corner just outside the purple gate.

B* Bar and Books

Met up with a friend returning from magnificent, far off places, today. We went to lunch at B*Star Bar one of the Burma Superstar restaurants in the Richmond. Burma Superstar is one of my favorite places to lunch not too far from work and now, so is B*Star.

I ordered the soup and salad combo with tea leaf salad and butternut squash soup. So good I can't even handle it! The butternut squash soup is just the right amount of sweet and salt and the tea leaf salad is one of the best items on both B*Star and Burma Superstar's menus. It was also as gluten free as can be and GAPS friendly, since that is one of my current restaurant criteria.

Afterward, we went over to the new sweet clothing store on Clement, Seedstore. And, then wandered through Green Apple Books, the bookstore I don't frequent enough, looking for economics books. Then over to Toy Boat Dessert Cafe for apple cider and some of the most excellent people watching.

Hollow

On a walk to the beach today, a friend and I stumbled upon a sweet spot called Hollow. Yelpers and bloggers alike called this coffee and tchotchke shop a hidden gem and it most certainly is. Nestled sweetly between a driveway and a cigar store on Irving between 14th and 15th Avenues, this spot made me feel like I'd just wandered into Winnie the Pooh's house, only without the honey and with way more style than the bear ever had. It's only big enough for a couple tables for two in the window but, I could spend hours drinking Ritual Americanos and sniffing perfumes, looking at mother of pearl beauties, and chatting with the person behind the counter.

Layaly Middle Eastern Goodness

A friend and I wandered through the Presidio after work today and ended up coming out the 25th Avenue gate. Legs tired and very wind blown, we sat down to enjoy the deliciousness that was Layaly, on Clement. Apparently, this establishment recently changed management and according to my friend who had been there before, the food was definitely improved.

We started off with some Greek Shrimp, which does not appear on the menu online but, is fantastic! The sauce is something I'd like to try to replicate but, am not sure where to start. Then, we got some baba ghanoush which was also good. And, lastly, we ordered some kofta kebab served with veggies and rice.

One of the main reasons I liked this place was that even though there was pita and rice and other items that are not currently on my dietary regimen, I could eat most of the food and enjoyed it immensely. Now, that's what I call satisfying!

Movie to Calm an Upset Tummy

Lately, I've been sucked into watching episode after episode of the Wire, the HBO television series that was a sleeper hit earlier in the past decade. Although I've attempted to catch some funny sitcoms on Hulu, I haven't been happy with the selection aside from 30 Rock. But, this weekend, Netflix dropped the movie, The Darwin Awards, into my mailbox. It's pretty funny. And with some tummy trouble going on today, I preferred gut laughs over crime drama.

It has an excellent cast including Joseph Fiennes, Winona Ryder at her finest, Juliette Lewis, David Arquette, and plenty of other funny folks. The basic story line surrounds a quirky profiler with the SFPD who also happens to faint at the sight of blood and is obsessed with the Darwin Awards website. He is fired from his police post when he lets a murderer flee because he punches the perp in the nose then faints when his nose starts bleeding.

And, it continues with funny stories of stupid deaths around the United States including one where a drunk and high dude attempts to break into a Metallica concert and is smashed by a van. I liked the references to beat poets (Fiennes' character is named Burroughs), famous North Beach haunts (Vesuvio and City Lights are both featured), and all of San Francisco's musicians and actors. While not a standard comedy with slapstick humor and silly lines, I found myself giggling throughout at the stupidity and hilarity of humanity.

Tony Hsieh from Zappos on Commonwealth Podcast

Just click on Tony Hsieh's link to hear the podcast from Inforum. He's brilliant, nerdy and an 8 1/2 on the Zappo's weird scale. If I lived in Las Vegas, or wanted to, I might try to work at Zappo's.com.

On this podcast Mr. Hsieh talks about what makes Zappo's so good at customer service. The main point I picked up from the podcast is that he (and everyone else at Zappo's) believe that they don't need to up-sell every time they interact with a customer. In fact, he said the call center employees are trained not to try to sell more stuff to callers. I wish Wells Fargo would learn that this is customer service! Not what they are providing every time I call or walk into a branch and someone tries to force me into opening up another credit card...

Mr. Hsieh also believes that a happy employee will want to provide the best customer service. It's a truly novel idea and I hope it spreads.