Flower pictures

Yesterday, in the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park:

The Contemporary Jewish Museum opened today

Very nice! Interesting architecture, with the new literally smashing into the old. There were two major exhibits, one a multi-artist show on various reactions to Genesis, and the other a retrospective of the work of William Steig, New Yorker cartoonist, cover illustrator, and children's book illustrator and author. He's best known as the creator of Shrek (which means "fear" in Yiddish). There was also a sound installation inside the "yud" space.


The blue structure on the left is the new part of the museum building. It contains the gift shop, visible through the diamond windows, and the "yud" gallery above. The red brick building on the right was originally a power station built in 1881. Daniel Libeskind was the museum's architect.


Inside of the "yud" gallery.

Eeek, I've gone digital!

I got a digital camera for a birthday present.  It's just a point-and-shooter, but I've been playing with it to see what it can do.  Love not having to buy film.  Hate not having more contol over the focus, aperture, and shutter speed.  Love, love, love that it's tiny and weighs almost nothing, and I can just throw it in my purse and take it with me anywhere.  

I won a contest!

After months of being among the runners-up (always a bridesmaid and never a bride) for this weekly satire-writing contest, this time I won! The assignment: write 400 words or less on the topic "Polygamy is made legal."

Update: Won again (6/24/08): Another former Bush adminstration official publishes a tell-all book, and this one tops all the others!

And again! (7/15/08): Cheney declared election winner after Haliburton wins electronic voting machine contract

And another (7/22/08): To attract young voters, John McCain raps

And I thought my landlord was bad ...

From yesterday's SF Chronicle:

Morrow fought his eviction and won ... That was when the trouble started....

One day, Morrow noticed the blade of a saw come through his living room floor, his attorney said. He and a friend managed to bend the blade, which had cut a 2-by-4-foot hole in the floor.

Yikes!

The other tenants in the building didn't fare much better:

The couple were also charged with terrorizing two other tenants in the building who began paying the Macys reduced rent after concluding that they were being overcharged under the city's rent control law.

Prosecutors said the Macys broke into the tenants' apartment last June and stole $2,000 in cash, a Gucci watch and a cell phone....

When Hernandez came home and confronted Kip Macy as the landlord was ransacking his apartment, Macy kicked him in the chest, the suit says...

In October, Nicole Macy broke into the apartment and poured ammonia on clothes, bedding and home electronics, prosecutors said.

I went downtown to see the closing ceremonies for the Olympic torch yesterday

There was no torch.

Leonard Cohen inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Leonard Cohen singing "Suzanne" -- Isle of Wight, 1970

Ack! Nostalgia attack! I was crazy about Leonard Cohen when I was in high school -- the written poetry first, as I recall, and then later the songs, which I played over and over.