Legion 2

The Legion of Honor houses a large collection of European paintings, furniture and period rooms emphasizing the 18th Century but including Victorian and Impressionist painters.

Legion 3

One of John's pleasures in museums is looking closely at details.

Landscape with Venus and Cupid (detail). Circa 1651. Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi, called Il Bolonese (Italian, Bolognese, 1606-1680). Oil on canvas.

An Italianate River Landscape with a Poling Boatman and a Woman with a Basket of Crabs (detail). ca. 1605. Domenico Zanpieri, called Il Domenichino (Italian, 1581-1641). Oil on canvas.

Mother and Child (detail). ca. 1895. Pierre-August Renoir (French, 1841-1919).

Le Chinois (detail). 1872. Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, (French, 1827-1875). Bronze.

SFMOMA

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) designed by Swiss Architect, Mario Botta, is situated on 3rd St, just across from the Yerba Buena Gardens.

It houses a wonderful permanent collection and very exciting special exhibitions.

When we visited there was an amazing retrospective of Richard Avedon's Portraits as well as a show of contemporary Chinese, Korean and Japanese photographers. Very inspiring!

The top floor of the museum has a sculpture garden and galleries of recent art purchases.

Yerba Buena

The Yerba Buena Gardens sit right outside the front doors of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).

The open grass Esplanade surrounded by trees in the center of the Gardens is a very popular meeting and lounging spot in the SOMA (South of Market) neighbourhood.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum with its additions by Daniel Libsekind is situated on Yerba Buena Lanes between Mission and Market Streets. We saw a fabulous show of original illustrations by Maurice Sendak there.

Diplomatico

We've been enjoying Toronto's Cafe Diplomatico for decades.

Sundays will generally find us taking lunch or a late breakfast.

And the people watching is some of the best in Toronto

Balfour

No Sunday would be complete without a visit to our favourite used bookstore in Toronto: Balfour Books in Little Italy. 601 College Street

They have great window displays. Oh, there's an Aaron Siskind. Trevor likes Siskind. Louis told us that people are buying books out of the window as Christmas presents.

Their front racks are stocked with thrillers and other reliable fast reads.

Above they always put the latest hardcovers.

I bought Andreas Gursky's latest collection of architecture photos. It's a lap-sized catalogue of his last German show with essays about each of the 15 featured works. Here Altdorfer's "Battle of Alexander at Issus (1529) is being compared to one of Gursky's photos of a Madonna concert.

Knock, knock

Bill and I were kicking back with wine and beer and chips after our day-trip to Alcatraz. He was channel surfing. I was reading Janet Malcolm on Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. A rap came to the door, then more raps: Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock!

Heavy. Loud. Authoritative. Not to be ignored.

I opened the door to two handsome, enormous San Francisco police officers, looking even more bulky in their bullet-proof vests. One held out a copy of our room key. Had we lost this? Had our room been broken into?

I got our actual key out of it's place in the drawer by the bed and showed it to them. We were fine. The officer thanked us and told us that they probably wouldn't have to speak to us again and asked where we were from. Canada. He had nothing to say to that. He wished us a pleasant evening and I closed the door.

Bill and I wondered what had brought them up to our room on such a flimsy pretext. Surely they had cleared up any possible problem with the desk staff. They must have insisted on coming up themselves. We amused ourselves with fantasies of how they just wanted to have a look at us and wondering whether we should have invited them in.

Our Neighbourhood

Our neighbourhood in San Francisco was around our hotel, the Baldwin Hotel, located just below the Dragon Gates on Grant Avenue. In our area it would be much easier to buy an Armani suit than a bottle of beer. Pictured below is the rouge/blanc winebar across the street attached to the Hotel Triton, a smart boutique hotel.

Below is one of our favourite buildings on Grant Avenue at Sutter.

The Baldwin Hotel at 321 Grant Ave, San Francisco. Nice, friendly place and at very good rates considering the neighbourhood.

Pretty blondes beside the King Triton Fountain at Hotel Triton at Bush St and Grant Avenue.

Gallery Grill

The Gallery Grill  on the University of Toronto campus is an elegant eatery perched above the Great Hall of Hart House. Particularly popular for their weekend brunches.

We especially love the old Neo-Gothic ceilings.

Shop Windows

This is not the Asian Art Museum. It's a shop window at night on Grant Avenue in Chinatown.

The variety is endless until you leave the Dragon Gate.

For more photos by Bill of San Francisco's Chinatown visit

Uncle Lynx' flickr site

Moon Festival

On September 19th in San Francisco's Chinatown the Autumn Moon Festival was in full swing with performances, a market...

 

and food concessions.

Hallowe'en

I love what our camera does in low light. Who says you need light to take pictures? Rebecca is holding the pumpkin as still as she can. It's heavy and the exposure is about 5 seconds. I would raise the ASA to 1600, it's at 400 now, but I would hate to miss effects like this. The Great Pumpkin welcomes you to another Hallowe'en.

Bill designed this costume minutes before the trick or treaters started to arrive. Mother Earth? The Green Man? A nine year old girl got it best: "You look like a mix of things". Indeed.

Indiana Jones stopped by for a quick brew. That bag is full of bottles of beer.

Nancy "the bat" before putting on her wings.

As always, the spooks and ghouls gathered in the black light of the 4th floor, witness Alka, fabric artist of the living dead.