One of the coolest things about living in San Diego is all the freebie cultural events we get to see here. Thanks to another great tip off by my friend Berenice, I spent yesterday afternoon roaming around the subterranean gallery at the Lyceum Theatre at Horton Plaza in downtown perusing some really interesting photos by a bunch of admirably creative photographer...
The free exhibit is called the Art of Photography, and it is open now until November 1st, 2009.
This... is my favorite. It's almost like a photographic version of a Mobius strip, isn't it? What's inside or outside?
If you happen into downtown San Diego between now and November 1st, drop by at the Lyceum Theatre Gallery at Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego (underground level with entrance from Broadway Circle... where the blue obelisk is). I can really hang down here all day (the place is nicely air-conditioned and has a lot of comfy sofas to perch on).
Every now and then I dump off my excess books at the local Salvation Army Store before checking their book sections to see if there's any good book I can pick up for a dollar. The check out line was moving slowly so I got to look around a bit and spotted this sign...
This store will sell you heavy things but won't help you put it in your car even if you're a frail looking 80 yrs old grandma because they're afraid that you'd sue them if you happen to twist an ankle while helping them load the stuff... or the store helper would if he twists his ankle. To hell with good will, right? Everybody is so fearful of the law even though they aren't criminal. And why shouldn't you be fearful of the law if you live in America? There are so many of them even lawyers can't keep them straight!
And while I'm ranting... Just ran into another acquaintance who had somehow warped into yet another Jesus-freak since the last time we met. I was a JF once. I know how the mind works there, but then I had the advantage of having grown out of it by the time I hit 27. It is sort of frustrating to see someone who used to make good sense all of the sudden turns into a robotic Bible-citing parrot. Definitely a progress in the wrong direction... And, as anyone familiar with how American evangelical Christians are these day would predict, our conversation quite preposterously landed on Darwin vs the Bible. I posted what I feel about people who base all their argument on what the bible says a while back, of course, so I won't repeat myself.
What really bugs me, though, is this notion that just because one is now a Christian one automatically knows all there is to know about things that haven't got anything to do with Christianity to begin with. Why is it that none of the Christian fundamentalists who have tried to convince me that Evolution dictates that life came from nothing and that the liberals want more laws because they want to impose social Darwinism on us all actually know anything about what science and evolution and social Darwinism actually say to begin with? Worse yet, they don't even realize that they are the ones who are espousing the very ideas (something came out of nothing, more laws/regulation means applied Social Darwinism, etc) they are supposedly fighting against!
Evolution is a theory of biology that address how the diversity of life on planet earth came about. It doesn't say anything about how the first life as we know it came to be... much less how the universe itself came to be (that's a question for astrophysicists, not biologists). And the physicists don't believe that something came out of nothing 'at the beginning of time' either. If anything, the Big Bang theory posits that it was space-time and everything else that existed that got bunched up into the infinitestimally small singularity that then expanded into the cooler and much bigger universe we're living in today. That's why the physicists are busy trying to come up with a grand unifying theory... they know that both Einstein's general relativity and Quantum Mechanics break down at the beginning because the universe at time zero was not only fantastically small, but it was also fantastically dense as well. The people who go around saying that the scientists think that something came from nothing have no clue what the heck they're talking about. Even the notion of 'empty' space in science really isn't empty anymore, thanks to Quantum Mechanics (quantum particles continuously pop into existence and annihilation each other, so the sum total at any given time is zero, but it is a very active zero rather than static!).
On the other hand, had they thought about the position they're championing out loud for a minute, 'something coming out of nothing' is precisely what special creation dictates. God spoke, and poof, something popped up into being from nothing... Definitely not something any scientist is espousing.
(AronRa... if I could ever have a crush on a dude, he (or, rather, his brain) would be it!) Darwin's theory was and is only a scientific theory meant to enable scientists to decipher how the diversity of life on earth came about and related to one another. It was never put forward as a social theory where 'survival of the fittest' is to be the rule of the land. Now... I don't like the idea of having more laws and regulations myself. I think there are already too many petty little laws that nobody pays any attention to and not enough sound judgment being practiced. All the same, the lefties aren't proposing rules and regulations to force 'survival of the fittest' on people. They are doing it to prevent 'survival of the fittest' from actually playing itself out in society! All the medicines and technology that science enables are being used to keep more of us alive longer and more comfortably... regardless of what defective genes we carry.
In short; if you apply Social Darwinism on real human society you don't get socialism. What you'll get is an unrestrained free market capitalism where everybody only does what is best for himself and the 'self-regulation' turns up something much more macabre than what the short-sighted right-winged fundies are capable of foreseeing! Try growing some bacteria on a petri dish and witness exactly what self-regulation is... real life isn't as neat as the text book would have you believe. The population growth chart doesn't see a smooth transition from exponential growth curve to the stabilized equilibrium line when there are real organisms involved. The line is wiggly. The 'straight' line represents the averaged population... It's akin to looking at the US weather map and expecting St. Louis, Missouri to get hit by multiple tornadoes every year because the isotherm showing where the cold northern air meet with the moist warm air from the Gulf of Mexico passes right through the city. In reality, though, half of the tornadoes in the area happen north of the city, and the other half to the south of it and St. Louis itself rarely gets hit at all.... even though the line drives right through the place. In a totally unrestricted free-market, the wiggliness of the thing will represent real human casualties. To heck with Jon Stossel and his ill-founded self-regulating skating rink analogy. In real life it only takes one spectacularly bad driver with a big and speedy car to cause a major traffic accident. And it isn't realistic to expect every single drivers on the road (some are professional drivers, most are not, and many are inexperience newbies) to be able to detect every potential car-wreckers out there. There is a LOT of room between socialism and judiciously regulated free market... and anarchy.
There is hardly a more family-friendly way to cool off a summer evening than to spend the few hours after sunset at the breezy Embarcadero Marina Park South with the San Diego Symphony. This Labor Day weekend ushered in the Summer Pops concert series’ finale with 3 evenings of music from Tchaikovsky and his contemporaries under the baton of Matthew Garbutt (who celebrated his birthday on stage Saturday).
The line up contained well known favorites (Tchaikovsky’s Slavic March and 1812 Overture) as well as some rarely performed treats (Balakirev’s Overture on Three Russian Folk Songs, the 1st movement from Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, the 4th movement from Tchaikovsky’s Mozartiana suite and Dances Cosaque from his opera, Mazeppa). With the nearly full moon presiding over the partly cloudy evening, the winds section (and its new principal oboist) really earned its pay in casting a convincingly Slavic aura over the marina. The concertmaster, Jeff Thayer, also proved a very smooth virtuoso through out the evening that featured many solo violin passages, though I wish he had turned up the heat a few notches during the Mozartiana variation.
The capacity Saturday night audience was also treated to impromptu additions of two excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s celebrated Swan Lake Suite, with the Dance of the Swans being guest-conducted by young Saul Garcia. Apparently one of the series’ sponsor had bought the right to conduct a number and generously donated it to allow a budding local youngster the chance to cue up a major Symphony on a real stage. The young man took his turn with aplomb and drew a decent round of applause from the appreciative crowd.
The show, of course, ended with Tchaikovsky’s timelessly blustery 1812 Overture (as in how Napoleon got his butt kicked by the rebounding Russian Empire during the winter of 1812) that finished in high-octane salvos of theatrical cannons and firework displays on the bay… along with the added brass courtesy of the US Navy Band Southwest (from nearby NAS North Island). The firework started a couple of beats early, but the cannons were right on cue and loud enough to cause many in the audience to jump right out of their seats (and some loose pants).
All in all, it was a fittingly spectacular ending to the summer pops concert season for the San Diego Symphony, which will be celebrating its 100th anniversary during the 2010-11 season. Yours truly is sufficiently impressed with the quality of the performance and the decidedly community-minded attitude of the entire outfit that I’m resolved to patronize the businesses (Sycuan, Manpower, Fidelity Investment, etc) that sponsored this show whenever possible to show my appreciation for their support to a local asset like the SD Symphony. No good deed shall go unpunished!
It was so hot earlier this week I hopped on the bus up to Balboa Park to seek relief from the heat at one of my favorite afternoon quiet spots in town, Zoro Garden, the sunken stone garden that used to serve as the area's nudist colony. Apparently I wasn't the only one that liked the place. A bunch of youngsters were there hopping up and down across the garden's steep stone aisles...
Apparently they were practicing Parkour (or Free Running), a new urban sport where one treats ones' surrounding as natural obstacle course to be traversed as efficiently as possible in a straight line and without outside help (or gadget). To tell the truth, watching them I wished they were at least wearing a helmet. Nobody's head is made of sterner stuff than the real rocks of those steep aisle...
Pork satay
Nam Tok beef
Afterward, I treated myself with a trip to Asia Cafe in Chollas Creek. It's one of the best kept gastronomic secrets in San Diego, I think. If you're ever in town and feel like having a go at really authentic Laotian food without breaking your budget (most entrees here go for $4.50-6.00!), the place is at the northeast corner of Market and 47th Street east of downtown. It's open from 10:30AM-6PM Wednesday-Monday.
Pho noodle soup
I can't cook worth a sniff, but I sure can eat a lot of these even with my low budget!
If you’ve read more than a few of my operatic ramblings, then you already know of my fondness for the deep voiced mezzos… and some dark voiced sopranos. What really attract me to an artist, though, is his/her ability to make me forget that I’m watching/listening to a performance and get really transported into the story he/she is selling. Somehow it seems that the darker and deeper voices are better equipped for that than the lighter high voices are…. With some exceptions, of course.
The French soprano Mireille Delunsch has a sleek voice that doesn’t grab me even in the repertoire that suits her the most (French Baroque), but when you can both see and hear the lass…
(Youtube clip posted by Foly90: Delunsch exploring how she portrays her characters with sample of her as the Governess from Britten's The Turn of the Shrew, Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata, and La Folie in Rameau's Platée) What can I say? Elle une artiste! And with a brain to match her artistic imagination at that!
One of the coolest things about living in San Diego is all the freebie cultural events we get to see here. Thanks to another great tip off by my friend Berenice, I spent yesterday afternoon roaming around the subterranean gallery at the Lyceum Theatre at Horton Plaza in downtown perusing some really interesting photos by a bunch of admirably creative photographer...
The free exhibit is called the Art of Photography, and it is open now until November 1st, 2009.
This... is my favorite. It's almost like a photographic version of a Mobius strip, isn't it? What's inside or outside?
If you happen into downtown San Diego between now and November 1st, drop by at the Lyceum Theatre Gallery at Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego (underground level with entrance from Broadway Circle... where the blue obelisk is). I can really hang down here all day (the place is nicely air-conditioned and has a lot of comfy sofas to perch on).
