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Second Friday Art Walk
··· Oct 14 2010 · By ···
One of the nice things about San Rafael is that there is a rather strong arts community. This means that there are lots of opportunities to take in, purchase, be inspired by, even exhibit art.
One of the ways that the San Rafael arts community presents its art to the public is by holding a monthly art walk downtown on 4th St. (and some of the surrounding streets). This event is called the 2nd Friday Art Walk, and happens – you guessed it – on the second Friday of each month. It’s put on by Art Works Downtown, a San Rafael arts incubator.
Well, since Dorothy and I are interested in local art, and have missed taking part in things like this since we left Kalamazoo (where they have a monthly Art Hop that is similar to this) we thought it would be nice to head downtown and get our art on.
We didn’t have a lot of time, so we felt it would be best if we stuck to the densest part of the art walk, between C and D Streets on 4th. This worked out good, as we were able to check out a number of galleries and the Art Works facilities. Overall, most of the art was paintings, mixed media, and photographs at most of the places we went. I didn’t take too careful of notes on who the artists art or anything this time, but one of the things that I did notice is that a lot of artists are working in encaustic. For those who haven’t heard of encaustic, it is basically a pigmented bees wax that is layered onto the canvas (or board, or whatever). That layering gives the work a really cool depth. You can also do stuff like transferring things onto it, then covering the transfer with more encaustic medium. You get the picture, I am sure, if not check here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encaustic_painting . Anyway, maybe it is a bit played out as the medium of the moment, but I like how it looks and I even hope to get into a little experimental wax painting some time soon (hands rubbing together)…
One of my favorites is the Folk Art Gallery. I had a nice chat with the owner, Sharon Christovich, who is also an artist (it is indeed obvious that she has an artist’s eye). She really seems to enjoy what she does. They specialize in unique, handmade things that are produced by various native peoples from Mexico to Africa to Peru to the Middle East (and a lot of places in between). One of the things that I enjoy about a lot of the products in places like this is you see a lot of re-use of items that in the USA we typically will throw out. Dorothy pointed out a neat chicken (or cock) made from old plastic bags (hopefully clean). I noticed this door curtain made from strung together plastic bottle pieces, garden hose, and other stuff we normally pitch, or recycle. It’s cool!
There are also some more traditional items like this funny hat that might have been used in some ceremony or celebration that you see in National Geographic magazine.
It’s nice to be part of a community with a thriving local artist scene, and I have only scratched the surface with what D & I experienced here in San Rafael. A few years back we produced a little video about a Cotati based artist 3D Edddy. Needless to say, Dorothy and I are totally looking forward to exploring the art scene all up in this place we call home.
Univega Bikes
··· Oct 13 2010 · By ···
I was given a pair of nearly matching Univega 10 speed bikes a while back, a Gran Turismo racer and a SuperTen Mixte. These are both really neat bikes in their own right. I am in the process of fixing them up and making them roadworthy, so let me tell you a little about them as they are currently.
Let’s start with the Gran Turismo. For starters the frame is made from 1024 steel butted tubing. Some research on this type of steel indicates that it is a fairly heavy steel that is not too highly regarded by the bike snobs who like their rides light. Whatever, I like a steel frame myself, so the 1024 will do. The forks are probably the same material. Whatever heaviness that the frame has is partly made up for by having a set of Araya 27” aluminum alloy rims. These rims aren’t anything special, but it is nice that they aren’t steel. The gearing components are SunTour V-GT-Luxe and are shifted with end of bar friction hybrid (they click in one direction) shifters. The brakes are Dia Compe center pull, and are in need of some new pads.
For the most part, I like this bike. I am not sure if I am going to keep it as a 10 speed, or make it into another single speed bike.
The SuperTen mixte is a pretty cool bike. I have been wanting a mixte frame for some time, and am glad that this one dropped into my lap. Of course, the frame is too small for me, so this bike is going to become a lender bike for visitors who want to go for a bike ride, or for Dorothy to tool around on. It is a heavy one, with steel everything, from the Araya rims to the handlebars and seatpost. The tires on both bikes are dry rotted and in very bad shape, yet they all hold air (at least for a while). Obviously the rubber all needs to be replaced.
The modern mixte frame is an offshoot of the porteur frames that delivered newspapers and other things around Paris many years ago. As you can see from the pictures here, a good number of frames had a third stay in the rear triangle, even with a standard mens top bar. There are a few examples of a dropped top tube in this collection as well.
Well, enough history. I am planning to fit this bike with some different gear. The first thing to go will be the drop bars. I really can’t stand drop bars and think that some old style swept back handlebars will hook this bike up and provide the rider with a more upright posture. A leather saddle (of course), and maybe some new gearing options (like an internally geared hub) will do this bike nicely. Both of these bikes are a bit on the heavy side, with the mixte being the heavier of the two. I would like to ultimately change out the rims, but that may have to wait for a while so I can concentrate on getting an old Schwinn Jaguar built up for Dorothy.
Lowdown ina Showdown
··· Oct 01 2010 · By ···
I’m just going to come out and say it right away, Dub Step is the ultimate underground dance music. Now that I got that out of the way, let me get down to some of my reasoning.
I attended the September 19th Lowdown ina Showdown event at the Showdown bar in San Francisco, right next door to the legendary Tu Lan Vietnamese Restaurant. This event is a free, monthly Dub Step dance party and BBQ that is also in collaboration with a weekly free Dub Step event across 6th St. at Anu called Ritual. Really, how can you go wrong with two free events. (as of this writing, it is unsure whether either of these events are continuing)
So I called up some friends in the City, and we headed down to see what all the fuss is about. The fuss is all about deep dark beats, MCs rhyming, bodies moving, and some good clean underground fun.
Ritual is the larger event, with a bigger dance floor. It looks like there is a waiting list to get in, but what really goes on is that the club is 21+ so anyone younger than that just hangs out on the sidewalk in front, dancing, hanging, eating BBQ, even playing retro video games on some old NES consoles that are set up. When you go in, Anu is dark, hot, and loud – just the alchemy needed to get bodies moving. We set up camp along the side for a while, had some drinks (I had some water since I was driving) and watched the action and took in the sounds.
The one thing that you immediately notice when listening to Dubstep in a proper setting (loud dark club) is that the music is pretty stripped down, almost minimal and sort of slow. That’s alright, because it is really the underlying bass line that serves as the meat of Dubstep. I could go into a whole page on what makes a song Dubstep (versus, say Garage, Twostep, Jungle…) but it is better to just provide a link to the Wikipedia article on Dubstep to get you started. I do like this opening quote attributed to the All Music description of Dubstep.
“its tense, almost oppressively dark sound was built on tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals”
Meanwhile, over at the Showdown, UFO! was getting ready for his set. I have been a huge fan of UFO! back when I lived in SF and was part of the Jungle scene in the late 1990s. In case you missed out on that scene, too bad, because the way that I feel currently about how Dubstep is the ultimate underground dance music, is the way I felt about the San Francisco Jungle scene back then. I was familiar with the UK jungle that was popular, with all of its offshoots. But I was fortunate to see first hand how those building blocks were interpreted and transformed by a bunch of talented DJs and musicians, who created a very unique San Francisco Jungle sound. Among them was UFO! Part of the Phunckateck crew UFO! regularly filled the dancefloor wherever he played, mixing a tight combination of UK and local tracks, while keeping the beats gritty, dark, and full. In addition to his spinning and mixing, UFO! was a character, sometimes stopping a track to yell something across the floor, then getting right back to it, without missing a beat. Oh, those were some good times!
So I had this chance to see UFO! perform again for the first time in like 12 years. Seeing that he is on a bill for some Dubstep, I thought that is a good change for him. Wow, did I ever enjoy his set! It was like a natural progression that took some 10+ years to get from the Jungle he was producing back in the late 90s to the Dubstep whatever you wanna call it that he was throwing down here in 2010. I felt that the only thing that was wrong with things during his set was the mic hogging MC who couldn’t shut up! There is a time for MCs to do their thing, but they don’t have to try to find a rhyme all the time (sorry). And the lady MC who had the mic during UFO!’s set was just harshing things in a major way (and don’t get me started on the feedback from the mic). Regardless of all that, UFO! worked his style into his mix, including his patented “stop the music to yell things across the floor” move (mostly aimed at the girl on the mic).
Driving back across the Golden Gate Bridge, through some of the thickest San Francisco fog I have ever seen with the sounds still fresh in my head, I smiled and sent cosmic thank you to UFO!