Things to do in San Francisco

*Ride the trains. San Franciscans are friendly.

*Wear orange and black and go see the Giants. You, too, can have your heart broken.

*Go see the Book Arts Show at the library, through September 6, 2014.
Skylight Gallery, sixth floor, San Francisco Public Library on Larkin St. in the Civic Center.

This from Laura:
Hi All!

The Pacific Center for Book Arts just sent a link to a 2 minute film of the Book Arts Show that Dale and I both have pieces in. My piece isn’t visible but at about the 1:55 minute mark you can see Dale’s “Bruno.” Enjoy!

https://dalependell.com//vimeo.com/99549084

xo
laura

*Go see the world-class stained glass at Grace Cathedral, right on Nob Hill.

There is stained glass by Charles Connick, the Willet Studios, and dalle de verre by Gabriel Loire. A pair of opera glasses will help for the clerestory Loire windows.

 

 

 

 

Transept window by Charles Connick.

 

 

 

 

“Slab glass” window in the choir by Gabriel Loire.
If the sun is out the amount of light transmitted by dalle de verre is spectacular.

 

 

Detail: you can see the conchoidal fractures on some of the pieces.

By traditional or Continental standards, the subject matter of the windows verges on the bizarre. And in a good way.

In the Loire windows, in the clerestory, subjects include Robert Frost, Frank Lloyd Wright, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jane Addams, Luther Burbank, Henry Ford, John L. Lewis, and Albert Einstein.

 

The Willet windows are like a collage in glass, bringing together Wycliffe with Gutenberg, the King James Bible, Douay, and the Revised Standard Version. Alcuin is joined by Pope John, Luther, Buber, Kierkegaard, Tillich, and the Bill of Rights.

 

 

 

 

 

*
Outside Grace we hailed a cab to get back to the Civic Center. The cabbie was Mongolian. We quickly determined that he was not from Ulan Bator, nor did the capital city seem to impress him much. I tried horses and eagles and throat-singing, but these subjects also were quickly exhausted.

The cabbie had come to San Francisco as a student, and now had a family here. “So I guess I’m staying here,” he laughed. “Have you heard of Chinggis?”

Having just recently finished a biography of Genghis Khan, and having read The Secret History of the Mongols, I was able to tell him that I did indeed know of Chinggis, and of his mother. We talked about Chinggis as a social reformer. When Chinggis conquered a city, he looked at his prisoner’s hands. If they worked, or knew how to do something, like an engineer or an artisan, he hired them. If they had lived off of the work of others he cut their heads off. As we arrived back at the Civic Center a moment of silence passed for the great Khan.

It is estimated, through genetic studies of the Y chromosome, that 1 in 200 men alive today in the world are direct descendants of Genghis Khan.