Gardens & Villa at SOhO [mobile photo]
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Another lovely performance by the Gardens. Even more chops than usual. Off to tour once again.
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Posted by ws1 on:
Another lovely performance by the Gardens. Even more chops than usual. Off to tour once again.
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I swear, one of these days I'm going to do a survey of tags and markings in SB. This one appears to say 'BM'. Not sure I want to know.
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This cool little modern home in I.V. has had a rough stretch from then to now. For better or (arguably) worse, the current residents have accessorized.
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Here are a few pictures from a giant (ficus?) tree that was knocked over on upper State Street and Ontare - right in front of the Hydroponics shop and the Wash n' Go. The Police officer I talked to said it was felled by 60-80MPH winds/gusts. What was remarkable about it was that the whole thing was just snapped clean off.. the trunk hanging 6 feet above an otherwise healthy-looking stump. Someone please explain this year's weather to me.
Right now, west-bound traffic is blocked on State. I'm guessing they'll have it chopped up by morning.
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Just a few pictures of Santa Barbara and Goleta from the window of my plane (bound for Denver) the other day. Nice visibility and some cool clouds hanging over the mountains.
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Unexpected awesomeness last night (video at bottom of post).
Around 11:30pm on Sat (last) night, as my wife and I were walking home after an art show and a movie at Paseo Nuevo, we heard music coming from De La Guerra Plaza. We'd missed most of Fiesta this year for various reasons, so we walked over towards the noise hoping we might catch a few minutes of live tunes and a churro.
Though the vendors were starting to pack up, there was a sweet latin band playing in the old Casa (De La Guerra) courtyard behind the beer garden fence. To our surprise, only a few people were dancing in the center of the crowd. After standing there for only a few minutes we noticed that the small crowd doing the dancing was growing, and, before we knew it (zombie attack?) there was a full-blown (impromptu) group dance of at least 50-60 people going off on in the middle of the street outside the beer garden wall. It was like stars - and a dude with a whistle - aligned perfectly.
Easily the best fiesta moment I've had in years.
Here's a video (it gets good towards the 1/3 point) I took with my iPhone of the last song. It only partially captures the collective upwelling of happiness and spontaneity from the crowd.
Anyway. Watch it. And try not to smile.
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Interesting spot to watch the parade from. Something about the openness of the street and the relative lack of spectators makes it feel old.
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Decorations going up everywhere. Locals, brace for impact ( I'll be taking evasive maneuvers myself). I am now fresh out of pathetic Star Trek fiesta isms. Have a good day.
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If you've been following (or even enjoying) my ramblings on the press-line ritual, and the spectacle that is the SBIFF red carpet, you'll be pleased to know that there was more of the same last night. James Cameron was there to receive the Lucky Brand Modern Masters Award. Here's the scoop from the Indy.
The crowd was a little thinner than some of us expected. And the Governator didn't do the red carpet stroll (which we assumed was the case upon arrival, after noticing that the security was minimal). Still, another interesting night of overhearing interviews and watching the paparazzi shuffle.
Here are some photos:
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It's Night Two of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Sandra Bullock vs. Forest Whitaker (aka Forest graciously presents Sandra with the American Riviera Award because she is awesome ).
Since we know that both artists are immensely talented, humble, and that the ceremony inside the arlington will go predictably... I'm not going to get into it.
What does always strike me as interesting is the ritual that occurs on the red carpet. We (the press) arrive and check-in, and then stake out our 6 inches of space, exchange light conversation about camera lenses (Nikon vs. Canon) and consider if anyone near us might need a some gum. Then we wait.
The stars eventually arrive, and in typical 'gracious star' fashion, greet their fans with varying levels of authenticity. Sandra made a big effort to go say hi, shake a few hands, give a few quick interviews and chat.
Eventually, the stars handlers and festival organizers help them make their way (separately, never overlapping) and up the carpet and through the gauntlet of yelping and jostling journalists. There's a different emotional vibe with the press than with the fans. Most photographers yell the stars names or shout compliments at them that are mostly designed to elicit a momentary response (preferably a genuine looking smile).
The stars play along with the ritual. They smile, and then pause for longer-than-realistic periods of time so that everyone can get a good shot (probably thinking to themselves "you know, I never really get used to this.."). They occasionally joke back at us, but it's always slightly awkward because everybody knows the game, and everyone is a little anxious to get their awards, or review their photos. As a former Anthropology major, I can't help wonder how this ritual might look to outsiders.
I'll freely admit that despite my weird comments about the press line, it is fun to be surrounded by so much energy and enthusiasm. I do my best to ignore the few cranky and jaded journalists who seem to complain a lot about; people in their way, dead camera batteries, bloggers and lost press-passes. In my mind, I offer them a breath mint.
At the end, I always leave these red carpet events with a bigger smile on my face than I expected. Despite all the strange fanfare and commotion, being so close to famous people does humanize them a little bit - which is comforting.
I think Sandra wins in the screaming chanting salivating fans department. But Forest might actually have the upper hand in the charming smile category. Make your thoughts known below.
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Not only is this line long.. It's also slow. Of course the chile con queso can't be argued with.. but a 45 minute wait? I think I'll reserve that for the holiday season when friends come back to town and need a hit of #17. Otherwise, you can find me at Lily's eating less-dry tacos for half the price, and none of the tourists.
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Here are a few shots from the mesa and Hendry's. I'm also testing out the new City2 feature that allows me to post multiple images :)
When Clicking on the thumbnails, be patient, it takes a second or two to load. :)
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I know I haven't been posting lately. But I am gearing up for a few new posts in the next month. Before I do, I wanted to share the first of what will hopefully be a new series of posts (to compliment the normal random stuff I send in and write about).
For those of you who don't know what an animated gif is. A gif is a type of image file (like a jpeg). What's special about gifs is that they can let you include more than one frame (like the image below).
As an artist, I get hyperfocused on a lot of strange things. Lately, I've been interested in abstracting what is familiar to me, like this picture of the sewage/creek water flowing out into the ocean at Hendry's ( aka the Pitt, aka Arroyo Burro). When I was a kid, I used to play in this thing.. Now, there's a sign about 20 feet away warning of sewage contamination.
If you think I'm on drugs, or feel like you are after looking at this image, you can see where I'm taking a bit of inspiration from by visiting this site, which has a lot of wonderfully artful and intriguing animated gifs. What I like about them is that they often focus on just a few limited frames of something, which forces you to think about it a bit more than you might if it was a still image.
I think it'll be fun to play with local imagery in the same way.. hopefully I can do this (barely existent) genre some justice. :)
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Last month, before last Sunday's fire, my girlfriend and I nervously parked our Honda amongst all the giant lifted macho trucks at the Camino Cielo shooting range to break up the monotony of our peaceful and earthy tour of the mountaintop. I had been up there before (years ago), but never noticed the sheer massiveness of the mess. The whole hillside was covered in shot-up junk (TV's, matresses, thousands of beer bottles, cans, sofas, and piles of shells and cartridges ).
There were probably 15 or so people shooting. We saw a young kid with his dad and uncle letting their shotgun off, a bunch of late-teen-early 20somethings (who reminded me a little too much of some of the more scary kids I knew in Boy Scouts), and some other dudes with mustaches that I wasn't about to look at for too long.
Once we got over the loudness of some of the guns and the contrast between the beautiful hillside and the shell strewn ground, we noticed that there was a very distinct etiquette. Every 30 min or so, someone would call a time-out, and everyone would go calmly out into the range and re-set their targets. We watched for another 45 min or so and then drove off into the mist..
I'm still formulating an opinion about how I feel about our local shooting range culture, but if that fire the other day was indeed caused by some irresponsible target practice, I'd be a little ticked. The trash is kind of a turn off too. Some of the pictures on Edhat, seem to show a much cleaner 'post-fire' shooting range.
More later.. Too late to get into more detail. Enjoy the pictures. :)
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Local culture, happenings, news, art, and other miscellany.
