Week 10: October 27

Ok people, I have made a fantastic discovery, and it’s called………….Golden Gate Park. Of course I’ve always known GGP was there, and I’ve even passed through it once or twice, but I never explored it. However this week it was the destination of two caching expeditions, and I foresee many more in the future – there’s so much to see and do, and the gardens and wildspaces are amazing.

We had Monday and Tuesday off classes, for a little “Fall Break”, so Tuesday afternoon was my first expedition out to GGP, caching solo. The fog was chilly so I didn’t stay out too long, but I got a taste of things to come.

Hmm, this looks pretty suspicious....

AHAHA, KNEW IT!!!

The road goes ever ever on.....

And on and on the other way.......

 

Oh, that's alright then, I'm good to go!

When I described my expedition to M, she got excited and expressed a wish to see GGP herself, so on Saturday the two of us planned a big expedition. We planned for three caches, which isn’t a lot, but one of them was a big multi-stage cache involving several points of interest, gathering of cryptic information, computations and calculations, some guesswork and shots in the dark, and a really clever final container. We had a super time on the quest, and the day could not have been more perfect.

Across the lake......

......and down the gully

M is the heroine! First catch of the day!

Outside the Japanese tea garden

Looking inside the Japanese tea garden

Shakespeare garden, one of the stops on our quest

The trees have beards

M the Orator

These were some pretty amusing quotes.

Focative is Caret!!!

De Young Museum. Looks like it's about to fall over

That's one big bunny! Another stage in the quest!

Push through the bamboo screen......

Enter the redwood grove. "How's the weather up there??"

They don't answer because they're trees

 This is the final cache. Yes that's right.....THIS IS the final.

Stop and smell the roses! Who knew roses could smell this good!

Huge weird fungus thing

If the placement of that stump on that board doesn't scream out "GEOCACHE", I don't know what does.

TOTALLY CALLED IT

The reason there's a picture of King Tut on the lid is because this cache is called "Walk Like an Egyptian", a tribute to an 80s band which I'm sure many of you remember.

Here is their hit song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHngF_b3NuE&feature=related

And here is the geocaching parody: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6Mp0kLFDjg

We memorized the funniest part of the song (where it talks about walking into trees and off cliffs) and sang it on our travels.

Today (Sunday) I discovered a new joy in life. It’s called “Waffle Opera”. This is a upstart opera company, small-scale but ambitious, performing in an intimate venue and mostly run by young people, with several SFCM students involved in the direction and performance. This afternoon I went to their production of the “Coffee Cantata” and “La Serva Padrona”. These are both relatively short works (they fit quite nicely on each side of intermission), and both pretty hilarious to watch, especially the Coffee Cantata – who knew Bach could make you laugh so hard??

Perhaps the most memorable thing about Waffle Opera is their name, and the fact that they do indeed serve waffles (with strawberries and whipped cream) at intermission and post-show, even renaming “Intermission” to “Waffle Break”. The context is casual but the singing, acting, and especially stage direction/choreography is all top-notch, making for a thoroughly enjoyable experience. If anyone plans to visit SF next spring, I will personally make sure you don’t miss their “Magic Flute”. 

Oh, and I managed to catch the Juilliard Quartet tonight too, in a strange theatre – looks decrepit and abandoned on the outside, but rivals the opera house in fanciness inside. Beethoven op 18 no 2, Schubert 15 and the Quartet masters – who could complain?

- Antisocial Violinist

Week 9: October 21

Probably the best thing that happened this week was the David Kim residency and concert. For those who are unfamiliar, David is concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, an incredible violinist and a strikingly warm and generous spirit. He was here at SFCM for a three-day residency in which he gave lessons, a masterclass and put together a chamber orchestra concert, which we performed last Tuesday. By great good fortune I was put in the chamber orchestra, which was arguably the best experience I’ve had yet. We did Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings with eight firsts, eight seconds, four violas, four celli, two bassi, three days and five rehearsals. 

Regarding the concert itself, all I can say is that it seemed so…..joyful. Maybe it was the intimate size of the orchestra, or maybe it was the “European entrance” David had us do, or the fact that we were all wearing brightly coloured blouses, or maybe it was David’s passionate and very clear leading of the orchestra that infused it with a joyful energy. Or maybe the energy came from us, from the total involvement of each one of my colleagues and our commitment to finding beauty in both these well-known pieces. I’m sure the fact that we were standing up contributed as well.

At any rate, it was an experience I will remember for a long time.

We're all just having a great time. That's me in the centre, in the back, in the red shirt.

Saturday I went to a dress rehearsal at the San Francisco opera, for their production of "Der Fliegende Hollander". I haven't been to see live opera in ages, and the house was magnificent, and the production was extremely well done. The soprano who played Senta was particularly impressive.

On Sunday was my good friend M’s 18^th birthday. I gave her two presents: a box of chocolate donuts and an excursion to a real “quest-type” geocache in which we had to follow a long and complex series of clues to find the well-camoflaged and well-stocked box. We had a blast questing. At one point we were passing through a Best Buy parking lot, and M grabbed a shopping cart and insisted I push her across the parking lot in it, which I was quite happy to do. College kids have no dignity. Ours is the best age because we’re not too old to want to do fun stuff like push each other around in shopping carts, but we are old enough that everyone assumes we’re too mature to do those things, and so they leave us in peace and we can be as immature as we want.

M’s lovely mother also came down from BC for the weekend and took the four of us out for dinner (M, her boyfriend N, yours truly the Antisocial Violinist, and K from Estonia). Then we had chocolate cake, which we cut with dental floss. This worked almost as well as the internet said it would.

Birthday Girl, Estonian Alien, Beloved Boyfriend, Antisocial Violinist. You can see the floss too

One of the best birthdays I’ve ever had, even though it wasn’t mine.

To finish, I present you with the Golden Rules of Ensemble Playing, each of which played a significant role in the success of our Tuesday concert.

 - Antisocial Violinist

Week 8.8: Episode in the Life of a Cacher

Early Sunday morning, the sky is dark when you get up and that’s how you know the year is sinking fast. There’s a sharp chill outside, the wind brisk and fresh, an ocean breeze channeling straight into the concrete canyon. The metro station’s closed, corrugated aluminum sealing the entrance, and you remember that on Sunday morning the trains like to sleep in and at six-thirty am it’s still the OWL bus lines that are running. So you poke around the intersection and introduce yourself to the N OWL stop, the N Judah-Ocean Beach-inbound, and you keep one eye over each shoulder because there’s a handful of skateboarders stomping out their turf, as it were, and hollering in deep voices to each other as if they were trying to display defiance or masculinity or swag or toughness or maybe something else, you’re not really sure, and anyway it doesn’t seem to make much sense because at this hour there isn’t even an audience for their displays except the cold grey buildings and cold grey sky, but maybe that’s the point, maybe if there was an audience they wouldn’t have the guts, and you can understand this because it’s how you feel every day in the practice room.

The bus isn’t silent when it comes but it might as well have been because there’s always an inner silence in that twilight hour before the dawn. You could talk as loud as you liked, you could laugh, sing, cry, but the sounds would be superficial and they would slide right off the roundness of silence (like water droplets from wax paper), and refuse to penetrate the grey air.

Turning south onto the Embarcadero, something bright hits you full on and knocks your breath onto the floor. There’s the flat, calm harbor, there’s the dazzling path the sunlight makes on its crinkled surface, there’s the newly-risen sun itself blazing through the suspension wires of the Bay Bridge and that’s so simple, nothing special about the sun coming up, except beauty. Such a patchwork world this is, when the rigor mortis of concrete is stitched up next to live water, when your view of the sky blossoming from grey to blue is framed in structures made for the glorification of wealth, when the pink-and-gold light washes over the filth and softens it. 

And this is the reason I was there at all.

 By the time you're ready to come home, the OWLs have turned in and you catch the first train of the day, swimming in light.

- Antisocial Violinist

Week 8: October 13

First things first: I’m really excited to show you guys this indoor rainbow. I was walking down the stairs and it was just sitting on the bottom step like a little pet cat. 

That's not paint, I swear

On Friday I went to grab an earthcache at the foot of Telegraph Hill. The rock is called “greywacke”,  which I find amusing – it’s formed from chunks of various rock types, all squeezed together. This makes it very strong and resistant to pressure. I guess that explains why someone felt safe building their house on the lip of a greywacke cliff.

Friday night was our first studio recital of the semester. I performed on the program, along with friend A from home and long-time colleague K from Medicine Hat. I quite enjoyed listening to my colleagues play – everyone had successful performances and I felt that my own was successful as well. At any rate, Ian said that he was proud of me, which is all the assurance I need. After the recital a group of us went out to eat at one of those restaurants which serve small, expensive dishes and incredibly fancy alcoholic beverages. Had I known in advance what the price to volume ratio would be, I believe I would have passed. Oh well.

Now here is something I saw in the metro station the other day, which brought to mind a conversation I had with a good friend last spring. She had asked me for my opinion on purple carrot juice, and I had replied that I was highly skeptical of its existence. Well no more. This one’s for you, J.

GMO, much??

Yesterday M and I mounted an expedition to the California Historical Society, found an indoor geocache and poked around some of the interesting exhibits. The hand-drawn architectural plans looked so crude compared with modern computer-generated plans. It’s funny to think of how recent those hand-drawn plans actually are and how quickly we became dependent on computers.

You can tell it's a legit cache because of the green "Official Geocache" sticker on the lid.

 Treasure time!! That ticket stub is M's contribution. The toothbrush made us laugh. Great swag.

Model of Marin Headlands. This is where SF was originally going to be built.

Tonight after my rehearsal I'm going to a colleague's house for Thanksgiving. She's Canadian, and most of the Canadian students are going. So Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!

- Antisocial Violinist