Favorites of 2015

Clockwise from top right: Mad Max: Fury Road, South Park, Pericles,
Mr. Burns, Gotham, and Bluebeard's Castle

Not a comprehensive best-of list; just my personal favorites from all sorts of media in 2015.

Books

The sun comes out after a good book.

Billie by Anna Gavalda: It rained all the first day of a family vacation, but I didn't mind, because I'd brought this book. This little gem of a novel (translated from the French) chronicles the relationship between two childhood friends determined to break away from their white-trashy town and make it in Paris. The two stick together through classroom awkwardness, homophobic violence, and a potentially fatal hiking accident - the immediate aftermath of which finds Billie telling their story to a star. Gavalda's skill shines in her use of Billie, an inarticulate girl who's bold but lacking in confidence, as narrator. Like Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami last year, this was just the right book at the right time for me.

Horse Medicine by Doug Anderson: I'm a sucker for dead horse poems. Although that's what first drew me to this book, the collection encompasses Anderson's reflections on not just horses, but religion, war, and aging. My favorite lines come from "What the Angel Said": "Who are you to think/ you will not have to/ live history/ out all the way/ to the consequences/ and beyond?"

Paper-Doll Fetus by Cynthia Marie Hoffman: In this poetry collection, a rock falls in love with a goat placenta, and it makes sense. With fearlessness and compassion, Hoffman dives into the female reproductive system, exploring miscarriages, stillbirths, phantom pregnancies, and the traumas and joys of childbirth. There are poems told not only from the point of view of the aforementioned rock and the titular doomed fetus, but from a strap used to inhumanely restrain laboring women and a lamb who dies shortly after being born. Periods still suck, but I appreciate them a little bit more having read this book.

The Good, the Bad, and the Furry by Tom Cox: Yes, Cox writes cat books about a famous twitter handle, @MYSADCAT, but his books transcend cat books and twitter books. They're thoughtful and funny reflections of the English countryside, parents, nature, music, and yes, cats.

Favorite Old Books I Read or Re-read

King John's Prince Arthur and Hubert in Laslett John Pott's engraving.

Dangerous Liaisons/Les liaisons dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos: I finally read this French epistolary novel, and despite this being a cliche...yes, something written in 1782 can still be scandalous in 2015. Bored aristocrats the Marquise de Merteuil (a wealthy widow) and her best friend and former lover the Vicomte de Valmont (a bachelor and libertine) manipulate others sexually for fun and revenge. But what starts as a quotidian (for them) ruining of others' lives slowly turns into a battle of wills. Of particular interest are Merteuil's ruminations on the strict gender roles of the time and how she's gotten around them.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë: I do a lot of my reading on the bus, and re-reading for the first time since high school this epic about an extended family who needs to get the mix of incest just right in order to heal always made me sad to reach my stop. It's too bad E. Brontë gets accused of romanticizing bad male behavior, because that's not really what's happening. Heathcliff and Cathy are weirdos who need to do their Heathcliff and Cathy thing, not a template for all heterosexual relationships. After reading, I watched three different adaptations (what Wuthering Heights really needs is a mini series that shows all generations at the correct ages) and listened to Kate Bush's song about the novel about a million times.

 King John by Shakespeare: I read this lesser known drama as just another stop on my way to reading all of Shakespeare's plays, for better or worse...but I really liked it and don't see why it isn't performed more. It's basically a less powerful Richard III, but I can see how it would be entertaining on stage. It has a central character audiences are somewhat familiar with (John is the mama's boy lion in Disney's animated Robin Hood), a great comic relief character in Richard the Lionheart's bastard son, a crazy mom meltdown, and a kid talking his way out of a hot poker to the eyes. How is this not a hit?

Movies

Patricia Velasquez leads Liz in September's cast.

Mad Max: Fury Road: This thrilling action movie had style, substance, and heart.

Liz in September: This beautiful tearjerker from Venezuela is the country's first lesbian romance movie.

Tom at the Farm: This tense, arty Quebecois rural noir finally got a limited run in the US.

Cartel Land: The drug cartels of Mexico have been a subject of fascination and horror for years. While 2015 saw fictional characters in Sicario tackle the US's involvement in the violence, Matthew Heineman went on the ground in this documentary about local efforts to quell the reign of terror. The film is an absolute gut-punch, although not in the way you'd necessarily expect: one grassroots group of courageous locals starts out as the lovable underdogs peacefully standing up to the cartels; later, Heineman pans his camera around the now-powerful group's new headquarters as individuals they've detained wait to be tortured. It's a crushing statement on moral corruption and the complexity of fighting evil.

One disputed artistic decision Heineman made was to include scenes of a self-appointed anti-cartel group in the US - basically gun aficionados in camo parading consequence-free around the border. Some critics felt like Heineman was giving this group legitimacy and supporting their cause, but I read the inclusion as ironic. The American group's belief that they're brave soldiers fighting a battle is shown to be a delusion of grandeur when juxtaposed with the citizens of Mexico who are actually dealing with the deadly reality of the cartels.

Theater

Nadine Sierra and Brian Mulligan in Lucia di Lammermoor.

Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play - A.C.T.: Anne Washburn's Simpsons-inspired meditation on storytelling and human resolve is one of the most polarizing plays I've seen. Full write-up here.

Swimmer - San Francisco Ballet: Yuri Possokhov, SF Ballet's choreographer in residence, based this ballet on a John Cheever short story. The loose plot is that a philandering businessman swims through neighbors' pools, glimpsing others' lives. But when he returns to his own suburban home, he finds his nuclear family is gone. The piece is a celebration and examination of the American mid-century modern aesthetic, and is visually stunning. However, while the video projections sometimes added a lot, they weren't always necessary (example: in the final scene, it was clear from the dancer's pantomime that he was flailing in the water; the added video footage of a man flailing in water was superfluous).

Pericles - Oregon Shakespeare Festival: I'm so glad I got a second chance to see the play that made Pericles good!

Lucia di Lammermoor - San Francisco Opera: I was lucky to share in a friend's complimentary tickets to this opera with rising star Nadine Sierra (excellent as Musetta in last year's La Boheme at SF Opera). The set for Enrico's office was breathtaking and properly imposing, and the famous "mad scene" was especially visceral.

Other theater favorites this year: Dan Clegg unexpectly stole the show as Edmund in California Shakespeare Theatre's King Lear; Berkeley Rep scored one of the top Eponines, Samantha Barks, for Amelie; and I finally got to see The Book of Mormon!

TV

Mikhail Petrenko and Nadja Michael in Bluebeard's Castle

Great Performances at the Met: Bluebeard's Castle: I caught the second part of this PBS double feature by chance. I turned on the TV, intending to veg out to the hot twins show on HGTV or something else other than a two-person Hungarian opera, but the channel was set to PBS, and the very first frame arrested me. By the end of the day, I had watched several other versions of the opera on YouTube* and added the music to my iPod.

At its most literal, Bluebeard's Castle (by Béla Bartók and Béla Balázs) is about a woman gradually realizing, and finally admitting out loud, that her new husband is a serial killer. But it's also about what we keep hidden within ourselves and the competing desires to deny or investigate in the face of unpleasantness. Mikhail Petrenko's and Nadja Michael's performances; the Met's minimalist yet dramatic staging in black, gray, white, blue, and red; and the skillful cinematography of this stage performance make for an hour that is almost unbearably tense, but too captivating to turn from. 

*Sadly, it looks like there's no DVD of the Met's production available yet. Other productions available on YouTube include Michael Powell's 1963 movie; this modern, noirish version; and the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra's performance (in English).

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy Schmidt joined the heroines of Mad Max: Fury Road and Room by also escaping her Bluebeard in 2015. While Fury Road told the tale as an action movie and Room used stark realism, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt did a risky take - humor - and succeeded.

Better Call Saul: The prequel is off to a good start with this concise first season. While it shares characters and the gorgeous New Mexico setting with Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul is developing its own brand of dark humor and character drama, and has its own breakout stars in Rhea Seehorn and Michael Mando. A highlight of the season was finally learning what happened with ex-cop Mike in Philadelphia in an episode that ended with a bravura monologue by Jonathan Banks. I'm hoping a future season will reveal the similarly hinted at dark past in Chile of Giancarlo Esposito's Gus.

South Park: South Park continues its high note as it nears drinking age. The satire in season nineteen was topical and withering without over-the-top seething. Targets included both politically correct ideology and reactionary conservatism, online advertising, gentrification (most notably in a stomach-churningly accurate condo commerical), and America's gun lust. And there was a nice break from the heaviness of real-world problems in a meta episode acknowledging one of the curiosities of the fandom: certain fans' obsession with the imagined romance between minor characters Tweek and Craig. The hilarious episode included musical montages set to fanart submitted by viewers.

Gotham: The pre-Batman Batman show hit its stride in the second season, leading with stellar performances by Cameron Monaghan (I will be so mad if Jerome's not in Indian Hill!), James Frain, Erin Richards, and the rest of  the regular cast. The intertwining of Gotham society's underbelly became more insidious than ever: Jim Gordon's relationship with Penguin's criminal enterprise became even deeper steeped in blood, Ed (the future Riddler) and Penguin became murder-buddies and roommates, and Wayne Enterprises was revealed to be working with Arkham Asylum on a series of inhumane medical experiments.

Besides the Jerome thing, my main complaints are the premature end of Sarah Essen and the unremarked upon absence of Renee Montoya. I hope Montoya's back in the second half of season two, which will feature the great BD Wong as Hugo Strange.

Art

A Robert Dighton work from Luminous Worlds

Janet Delaney: South of Market at the de Young: SOMA is probably the best example of San Francisco's gentrification and housing bubble, so 2015 was the perfect year to look at Delaney's photos of the neighborhood as it was in the 70s and 80s.

Luminous Worlds: British Works on Paper at the Legion of Honor: Tucked away in one of the farthest corners of my favorite museum, this exhibition of physically delicate works by Turner, Beardsley, Blake, and more was truly luminous.

Time|less: Kappy Wells, The San Francisco Gallery: Working with sheetrock and charcoal, Wells captured the magnificence of the glaciers we are losing to global warming. 

Janet Delaney: South of Market

Painting Mural, Langton Street, 1980 by Janet Delaney

A few weekends ago, I spent a Saturday helping with an office move. The next day, to relax after hauling boxes and packing/unpacking seemingly endless office supplies, I went to the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park.

The reason I went was actually to see Botticelli to Braque: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland, but while there, I remembered there was another exhibition I'd been meaning to see: Janet Delaney: South of Market, an exhibition of photographs of the SOMA neighborhood.

The timing was fortuitous, because the office move I'd just worked on was a relocation from SOMA (South of Market/South Of Market Area) to the Financial District. The Financial District, as its name implies, is has historically been the core of San Francisco business. However, the past few decades have seen more and more office buildings rise on the other side of Market Street, joining the previously quite solitary Pacific Telephone Building at 140 New Montgomery. Now, with SOMA being the desired HQ for many tech companies, the amount of skyscrapers being built for business and luxury living is staggering.

Photo I took in July 2014, looking northeast over the Transbay Transit Center.

With this influx of tech companies and their highest-paid beneficiaries have come steeply rising rents. One bedroom apartments at Tower 2 of One Rincon Hill, the second tower from right in the photo above, currently start at 613 sq. ft. and  > $3000.

So Janet Delaney: South of Market, is especially timely. Delaney moved to SOMA in 1978, just as redevelopment was starting, and she soon began documenting the neighborhood's transition. This exhibition displays her resulting photographs of SOMA in the late 70s and early 80s: a SOMA with diverse residents who are feeling - rightfully - threatened by the construction growing around them.

Detail from Langton between Folsom and Harrison Streets, 1979.

Delaney's images are deeply affecting, especially for those familiar with the area. A few older visitors I saw seemed overwhelmed with emotion. I felt a mix of melancholy and guilt. The just-completed office move meant I would no longer spend my lunch breaks in South Park or Yerba Buena Gardens, where I walked, read, and wrote. But the only reason I had had access to those places was because of my job's location, which was linked to the development that displaced so many.

Excerpts of Delaney's interviews with residents are on display. Their concerns are strikingly familiar: fears of being pushed out of the Bay Area entirely, frustration at the changing landscape, and the stress of living under an absentee landlord who might indirectly evict you at any time by drastically raising your rent. Although I'm not in as dire straits as most of those interviewed, being able to stay in the Bay Area, where I was born and raised, seems less and less sure.

Sorry, as always, for my awful photos. 

Whether it brings grim consolation or just despair, Delaney's work highlights that there's nothing new about the constantly changing nature of neighborhoods and the constancy of instability for and artists and those on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder. While looking at the photographs and reading the stories, I thought of how the poor were displaced in Paris under Haussmann and in New York City under Giuliani. I wondered where those who work in the Bay Area but are increasingly unable to afford living here are supposed to go. Will areas inaccessible now someday be feasible again? SOMA landmark South Park was built in the 1850s as an exclusive square for the wealthy. Since then it has risen and fallen in real estate value multiple times. Currently, the park hosts a mix of tech workers, homeless, and dog owners of various income brackets, and is slated for a renovation.

Yerba Buena Gardens, part of what was unsuccessfully fought against in the pamphlet below, is a beautiful public space where a diverse crowd can find some tranquility in the city. Office workers, families, passersby, schoolchildren, and residents from assisted care facilities attend their free summer entertainment. It also shuts down occasionally for private, grandiose tech events. In one of Delaney's photographs, the area that is now the Yerba Buena Gardens and Jessie Square in front of the Contemporary Jewish Museum consists of a parking lot - and razed blocks. Now the surrounding neighborhood is one of the most expensive in the country.

Contemporary flyers, articles, and letters are on display.

Janet Delaney: South of Market has been popular - so popular, in fact, that the accompanying photo book was sold out when I visited, but the FAMSF-published book will be out mid-May. The exhibition runs until July 19th.

Delaney has since returned to SOMA to photograph. Her series SoMa Now is on her website.

Image info:
Painting Mural, Langton Street, 1980 - Janet Delaney's website
All other photos - mine, all but July 2014 taken at exhibition

Gorgeous Eggs for Easter

 Spring Hare on the postcard of Andrews's Thinkspace show.

Easter's just over a week away, so here are some lovely eggs you can admire and - if your involvement with Easter and eggs goes beyond plowing through Cadbury - be inspired by for your own crafting.

Faberge

Bouquet of Lilies Egg, 1899

Fabergé eggs are THE eggs. What started out with a fairly simple white enameled egg containing a golden hen Alexander III commissioned for his wife turned into a family tradition of increasingly elaborate jeweled eggs from the Fabergé workshop.

Alexander III Egg, 1910. He's trampling the soul of the proletariat.

Of course, these intricate trinkets were being accumulated by the Russian royal family at the same time as many other Russians were living in poverty, and we know how that turned out. Most of the Imperial Eggs survived (Unlike Anastasia. Sorry, Dimitri.) and can be viewed in various museums. In 2009, they even went on tour in the Artistic Luxury: Fabergé, Tiffany, Lalique exhibit.

Pysanka

Anyone who dyed blown Easter eggs as a kid knows that getting an egg hollow while keeping the shell mostly intact sucks. Or blows. Anyway, it involves pin-sized holes, hyperventilation, and mouth-to-raw-egg contact. Imagine doing all that and then foregoing the tablet/cup dye process for the painstaking, multi-tiered process of pysanka, the Ukrainian method of creating vividly patterned eggs. The designs are made by covering different areas of the egg with wax while immersing the egg in different dyes. Traditionally, these were made with whole, not hollowed, eggs, so your masterpiece had a shelf life.

 Sharon Beals

I want to snuggle in feathers now.

If you'd like to experience the beauty of unadorned, natural eggs, the photography of San Francisco photographer Sharon Beals is the place to look. Although she photographs many subjects, her clear images of museums' nests specimens are the most well known and are the subject of her book Nests. The diversity in the eggs themselves and the nests built for them is fascinating. There are camouflaged tern eggs resting on seashells, tiny white finch eggs in woven trash, and lovely blue thrush eggs in a more classic nest. I first saw her photographs in an exhibit at the San Francisco Botanical Garden's library, and I've been enthralled ever since.


Image Credits:
Bouquet of Lilies Egg: Wikimedia Commons/shakko
Alexander III Egg: Wikimedia Commons/shakko
Pysanka: Wikimedia Commons/Luba Petrusha