Sigur Ros LIVE!

Last night, April 17, 2013, I finally got to see my beloved Sigur Ros in person! When they have rolled through Northern California in the past, the timing has never been right for me to see them, but the stars aligned this time, and their appearance at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco was, for me, a highly emotional spectacle. Seen from absolutely perfect seats, I must add...I couldn't have asked for a better vantage point.

They opened the show behind a scrim, on which was projected what looked like dark moving clouds...and a backlit Jónsi was seen intently bent over his guitar sawing away with his cello bow. But the scrim dropped during the next number to reveal a massive, panoramic projector screen which was alternately raised above the band and lowered to stage level, depending on the mood and lighting effects for each song. The film and graphics projected on the screen for each song included shots and clips from that song's accompanying video, if one was created. So, for "Sæglópur," for instance, we were presented with images of the young boy swimming underwater from the official video, seen here. In each instance though, the video was not shown in its entirety, but used as a way to evoke, and was mixed with sparks, clouds, rippling water, swirling galaxies, shooting stars, smoke, glittering dust motes, or other textural elements. Some songs that did not have an accompanying video were surprisingly even more beautiful: once, on a jagged, rocky landscape, tiny figures of people appeared, holding flashing beacons, but halfway through the song, the beacons rose up, floating over us in a moment of gentle emotional release, suggesting the possible release of the soul.

Strategically placed small golden lights on rods were scattered across the stage which, when illuminated, resembled twinkling fireflies or a sea of pulsing, glowing orbs. Special lights--sometimes emitting blinding flashes--aimed out at the audience added to the crescendos, and silhouetted the band along with the string and horn sections.

I must confess to a goose bump moment when I heard Jónsi start to sing the first song of the evening... I had to remind myself that I was actually hearing, in person, that voice that has the quality of a universal angel of compassion. His voice and phrasing are a brilliant counterpart to the often expansive, grand, shaking and shattering sound Sigur Ros can produce... a cosmic, transcendent sound that invokes at once creation and destruction. It was a marvel to experience these crescendos first hand, to hear them go on for five minutes or more, and just when one thinks the song is going to end, the crescendo gets ratcheted up so the crescendo gets a crescendo. Simply awe-inspiring.

They played all my favorite songs, like "Glósóli" and track one from their "( )" release. They even performed "Brennisteinn" as well as "Kveikur" (in English: "Quaker") from their forthcoming release of the same name. But most importantly, I got to hear the heart-stopping "Svefn-g-englar" or "Sleepwalkers" in English. This song was the first Sigur Ros composition I ever heard, more than a decade ago and it occupies a very special place in my heart. And for the gentle, lulling "Tjú" refrain (in Icelandic, the word "Tjú" is a comforting sound one makes to a baby), I was fascinated to watch Jónsi perform a little sonic trick: he raised his guitar and sang into it so the electric feed picked it up and brought it to the speakers sounding muffled and far away. Watch him do this in the video below (enlarge to full screen)... and notice the pulsing, glowing lights...

I bought a great tour tee of very soft grey jersey on which is printed, in highly reflective silver metallic, the name/logo of the band.

It was a lovely evening. Thanks to my friends Judy and Bianca for coming along, and thanks to my man for the tickets, an early birthday present!

http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk/

BEAUTY: Art--Jeremy Mann

I have developed a love of cityscapes over the last few years and San Franciscan resident and painter Jeremy Mann does a splendid job capturing the rainy, moody, romantic, foggy streets of my hometown, the most beautiful city in the United States. Each of these views is so familiar to me and stirs up feelings and memories...sigh.

Top to bottom: Nocturne #13; Union Square In Yellow; Evening Over San Francisco; Nocturne #14; Nocturne #13; Nocturne #4

http://www.redrabbit7.com/

Día de los Muertos

Today is Día de los Muertos, a joyous, upbeat holiday originating in Mexico but now widely celebrated here in the United States. It is a day to celebrate and remember ancestors and departed loved ones. Altars are created in homes that feature pictures of dead loved ones along with favorite objects and food they liked when they were alive (called ofrenda or offerings), decorated sugar skulls, imagery of skeletons and calacas (a figure of a skull or a skeleton), colorful paper cut-outs, candles, and copious amounts of marigolds.

Families go to cemeteries to tend to family plots, gravesides and tombs. There is a carnival-like atmosphere in Mexico as huge crowds descend upon cemeteries to hold all night vigils and cook food not only for themselves but also for the spirits of the departed who can visit this earthly realm one night a year. Old women sit in chairs by the graves while children run and play tag, musicians play and sing, and people sit and talk with family members.

Above: A grave in Ocotepec, a town near Cuernavaca.
Below: Ofrenda in a cemetery in Milpa Alta, Mexico.

Below are four shots of my personal altar I created this year (2012) for Día de los Muertos with

 images of my relatives, ancestors from Italy, and my mom and dad.

Photos by JEF

In the United States, the largest Día de los Muertos celebration is held in San Francisco. A street parade with drumming and dancing attracts thousands of people who dress up in traditional skull face paint and costumes. Nearby Garfield Park is home to many altars honoring the lives of friends and family members. Some altars invite people to participate by adding photos of lost loved ones. The video below, by David C. Hill, is a nice clip of the street parade from 2010.

For more information, visit The Marigold Project at
http://dayofthedeadsf.org/
which sponsors the procession and Garfield Park altars.

San Francisco: The Best Place To Live!

San Francisco occupies the top spot on the 50 Best Places To Live list just released. The list is a collaboration between Bloomberg Rankings and Businessweek.com. Here's how they figured it out (from their website):

"With assistance from Bloomberg Rankings, Businessweek.com evaluated 100 of the country’s largest cities based on leisure attributes (the number of restaurants, bars, libraries, museums, professional sports teams, and park acres by population); educational attributes (public school performance, the number of colleges, and graduate degree holders), economic factors (2011 income and June and July 2012 unemployment), crime, and air quality. Major professional league and minor league teams, as well as U.S.-based teams belonging to international leagues in that city were included. The greatest weighting was placed on leisure amenities, followed by educational metrics and economic metrics, and then crime and air quality. The data come from Onboard Informatics, except for park acreage, which comes from the Trust for Public Land."

"The City by the Bay, this year's winner, provides residents with the best blend of entertainment, education, safety, clear air, and a prosperous economic base. As the heart of the Bay Area, San Francisco draws on the prosperity of Silicon Valley and possesses its own diverse history well represented at cultural centers such as the de Young Museum. Residents care fiercely about their cafés and causes; night life flourishes in the Mission and the Castro, while tech companies code away in SoMa.

Bars: 394
Restaurants: 3,430
Museums: 70
Libraries: 52
Pro sports teams: 2
Park acres per 1,000 residents: 7
Colleges: 17
Percent with graduate degree: 16
Median household income: $90,640
Percent unemployed: 7.8

As long as chilly weather, walking uphill, and really expensive real estate don’t turn you off, San Francisco has no shortage of positive qualities. Though numbering fewer than a million people, this coastal city packs in so much—from world-class restaurants and museums to community fairs and music festivals, a large educated class, and an improving economy—that many proud San Franciscans will tell you that its finish at the top of Businessweek.com’s 2012 best cities ranking is well-earned."

I personally cannot--and don't want to--live anywhere else but Northern California.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-26/san-francisco-is-americas-best-city-in-2012
http://www.sfgov.org/index.asp
http://www.sanfrancisco.travel/

"Fratres" by Arvo Pärt

Last night, I attended a concert at the Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco and heard a piece of music that is new to me. The Estonian composer Arvo Pärt wrote "Fratres" in 1977. Many different arrangements of the piece exist; I heard a version for strings and percussion. And was completely overwhelmed.

"Fratres" is simple, starts softly, builds in intensity (the strings get louder and louder, the percussion gets louder) and then fades away again. But the repetition of the little phrase the strings play is so heartbreaking; there is something about the piece that speaks to me of a certain kind of tension between melancholy and hopefulness. It is bittersweet but that is not quite the right word. I want a word that means feeling sadness but being content in the sadness, as though contemplating life itself, contemplating the suffering, brings a profound realization of the preciousness of life, of its fleetingness, its beauty. I don't think there is a word in English that captures that. I wonder if there is a language that can say all that in one word. (UPDATE: I think I may have found the language and word. In Japanese, the word yugen subtly means “a profound, mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe… and the sad beauty of human suffering”... I think that could be it!)

There is a holiness to the piece, and I certainly do not mean that in a religious way. I mean holy in the sense of "a cosmic, everlasting, transcendent truth." It speaks to an enigma...but "speak" is not the right word either. "Fratres" is all about the unspoken... things that cannot be uttered. Things that simply are, with no mind to formulate a word, with no mouth make a sentence... it is beyond corporeal.

At about 3/4 of the way through, I started to cry. And after the piece, I sat stunned and teary through the set up for the next piece, a Bartok piano concerto... I could not stop crying.

"I could compare my music to white light which contains all colours. Only a prism can divide the colours and make them appear; this prism could be the spirit of the listener."
--Arvo Pärt

http://www.arvopart.info/

Ghosts Of An Earthquake

San Francisco-based photographer Shawn Clover has done a remarkable thing by digitally compositing photos of the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake with up-to-the-minute shots of the exact same view. The results are rather shocking. I live in the SF Bay Area and know The City well, and it is heartbreaking to see things like Chinatown heaped with rubble, and shocking to see, simply laying in the road, dead horses killed by the falling debris. This kind of destruction is nearly unfathomable to me. But many lived through it, and lived to see a rebuilt and vibrant city.

To see more, visit his site.
http://shawnclover.com/