GOING to see the AI WEIWEI exhibit on Alcatraz, October 2014

Night Gude on Alcatraz, Jim Breeden, led the tour group up the hill on Alcatraz, stopping now and then for chapters in his fascinating and thoroughly researched presentation on the Indian Occupation of Alcatraz.  




























He reported on the twists and turns of that event, and the changing attitudes of both the indigenous people who wanted to take possession of the island, and officials in Washington, D.C., who reacted in widely different ways.  Jim's ironic revelation:  President Nixon agreed with the indigenous people that they should be given possession of Alcatraz.  

Many in the tour group may have been from other parts of the world, yet it was surprising that when Jim asked how many of the Occupation, only Martha Hubert and I were aware of that history.  Later, in the room dedicated to that history, we talked about the occupation with a young Chinese man who was sorry that he was not demonstrating with his friends in HongKong.
   

 

 

 
 

 

  

 

More from the Modern Art Exhibit

Photos I took in the current California Arts Show at the Oakland Museum

Handel's Partenope at the San Francisco Opera

…thanks to a senior rush ticket that placed me at an ideal spot in center orchestra…   

18 October 2014

At the San Francisco Opera House, about to hear an opera, I looked at the gold masks either side of the stage, the Mask of Tragedy and Mask of Comedy.  I noticed that in both masks the eyes were troubled.  Tragedy’s eyes were wide with horror.  Comedy’s eyes winced with pain.

       The San Francisco Giants won the pennant and the San Francisco Opera is presenting Handel’s comic opera Partenope (“par-TEN-opee”), and for me, Travis Ishikawa’s joyous final run around the base that won the Giants the pennant was precisely echoed in counter tenor David Daniel vocally running the line in Handel’s music. 

Some people find Handel not to their taste, and I imagine that they avoid attending Handel operas.  There are others who appear to come to hear Handel specifically because they will be credited with acute taste when they complain how much they dislike the opera they are hearing.  One must put up with their never varying remarks, or not enough tickets will be sold to assure future productions of Handel.

The woman who lectured before the opera understood how some cannot maintain interest in a 3 or 4 hour opera, and reminded us that in Handel’s day people often sat in boxes where they could draw curtains during that time, to converse, dine, play cards, or make love so they did not find the opera going on outside the box to be tedious. 

I don’t know if there are written records describing the physical direction and staging of his comic operas, but I must assume that he wanted his comic operas to be funny, and so I have to assume that we are cheated when the operas are not directed as Christopher Alden directed this production – the endless run of luscious arias, sung beautifully, punctuated with visual comedy that never interfered with great singing – with special surprises, as when in Act One someone sang an aria while hanging by his hands in mid-air.  The cast met physical as well as vocal challenges.  

Central in Act II was a bathroom, often open with someone sitting on the toilet.  (At the moment when a suitor is singing about his love for Partenope, she, in the bathroom, flushes the toilet.)  The longest applause of the evening was for Emilio (Alek Shrader) after one of his long slapstick episodes that began with his singing the most difficult section of an aria while balanced on his stomach in the transom over the bathroom door (as he had been locked in).

Besides many comical visual moments, there were all the usual Handel tricks – Partenope singing of a butterfly on the air with an aria that sounds like a butterfly on the air.

The lecturer before the opera is from Naples that in B.C. was called Partenope, and in A.D. became Naples, a contraction for Italian words meaning “New City.”

She described the formula for these kinds of operas – one aria each for various emotions or moods, no moods repeated immediately. 

Even the manner of singing – the show-off elaboration – could become comic, a reflection of the vanity of the character.  I am at the point in a James Baldwin novel where people are trading sexual partners and being uncertain who they love or don’t love, and that was precisely the subject of the opera, with the various moods of love from foolish to pining, but whimsical and sophisticated, with some wonderful slapstick.       

Just to overplay how whimsical the production was at times, in the last act someone tap-danced while singing an aria.

Nevertheless, only for those who love Handel.

An Internal Climate Change

With a friendly game of seesaw, there is playful give-and-take, and dependence on a fulcrum of balance.  If such a reciprocal relationship existed between the parent Earth and its child, the human, an internal change of psychological climate would prevent poisoning the home planet.  It is not news to you that those who feed on the Earth must remain in a proper state of empathy with the Earth.   
Did you ever, when playing, jump off your end of a teeter-totter, to play a trick on your partner, only to have your end of the teeter-totter strike you under the chin?  Avoid such karmic retribution by singing these words set to the ancient Doxology common to many churches and bell towers which began with the words "Praise God in whom all blessings flow." I have done previous versions, but this one, with its dripping cloud, seems also to be praying for rain in California:

The Ziegfield Plates

I have never determined what to do with these plates left behind when Florenz ("Flo") Ziegfield and his wife Billie Burke, caught in the Crash of 1929, abandoned many possessions when they lost their mansion in Chicago.

 An aunt of mine saved them from destruction and then they were passed on to me.  They are hand-painted, I believe, but with some scratches and some chipped edges that do not make them prime as antique objects.

 Yet I hate to think that the two 10-inch wide plates and the 17-1/2 inch platter will end up simply being tossed, considering that they once belonged to the impresario of the Ziegfield Follies and to perky Billy Burke, with a voice, like a chirping bird; as the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz,  she told Judy Garland how to get back home to Kansas by clicking her red shoes together.  I hope nostalgia will cause someone eventually to find some better fate for them.  Below the platter, cleared up scratches, and artist signature (which seems to be "R.K. Beck").

At this date, 15 September 2014, 7 Beck plates are on sale on eBay.  The owner had this information on the plates.  The size of the plates is different from mine -- perhaps a wider edge beyond the pictures.  Also, instead of the Buffalo Pottery stamp on the back, mine have this mysterious stamp "TST Latona" OR "Iatona"

The man with similar plates for sale says on eBay: 

For sale is a set of 6 plates & 1 oval platter.  Plates measure 9 1/8" wide.  Oval platter measures 15.25" long & 11" wide.

Each piece is signed by  Wildlife Artist, R.K. Beck.  He worked at Buffalo Pottery from 1909 to 1914.

These plates were commissioned by the Larkin Company with the Buffalo Pottery Company.  This was a soap manufacturer who produced these plates as a "soap premium".  They were a series of fish and game plates (Forest Series).  This listing is for the Wild Game Plates.  From my investigation I found that these were produced from approximately 1908 to 1918.

The plates feature both the male and female animals including elk, moose, deer, caribou.

It is stated that RK Beck had hand painted each plate and then signed them.  Truth be told, they were painted and then applied to the china piece and glazed over.

As with anything that is over 100 years old, all of these pieces are severely aged.  All show crazing, discoloration, bowed ceramic on the platter (it wobbles and doesn't sit flat) & scratches, but the colors are vibrant and the gold trim is still intact.  There is a slit on the back of 1 plate.  This is not a crack since it does not go through to the other side.  I believe that this was a manufacturer defect when the ceramic slip material dried and split prior to firing of the piece.  There is also 1 plate with an obvious crack.  Due to economic conditions way back when, my Grandfather had "repaired" this himself by gluing it back together.  I understand that this might be something that can be fixed and made more presentable.

I have attempted to show both the front and back of these pieces so that you can use the zoom feature to see close up views.  Email if you would like additional pictures since I can only have 12 pictures on ebay.