Emily and Linda’s Travel Blog

Today we met up with Chris, Margaret, Chris's brother Michael and her sister Julie and another friend Phyllis. We started with lunch at a really sweet little restaurant called Alison on Lexington and 103rd Street. A little chilly for outdoor dining, but none of us are ready for indoor dining yet.  

The food was really tasty and unusual (sorry no pictures). Several of us had Mediterranean eggs with cous-cous, tomatoes,cucumbers, labneh, and salad. Also recommended were the grilled chicken sandwich and the quinoa bowl ( with avocado, tomatoes, spinach, spaghetti squash and shrimp). They didn’t have unsweetened iced tea on the menu, but made some for us anyway. Such great service.  We'll definitely be back for another visit. 

Next we visited the Graffiti Hall of Fame which surrounds a school playground on 106th St at Park Avenue 

Our next stop was Central Park where we visited the boat basin.  Phyllis and I remembered it fondly from childhood row boating and I also remembered it as the setting of an old B&W children’s series Journey to the Beginning of Time where a group of boys start out rowing on the lake after a visit to the Museum of Natural History and end up hanging with mastodons and other creatures. 

From there we walked over to the Conservatory gardens. We were surprised to find that the North Garden was very much in bloom, despite it being late October

All in all a good "staycation" day in NYC and a lovely afternoon with old friends during this still-restricted time. 

Once we returned to NYC, we got ourselves tested to make sure we weren’t bringing home any California Delta variety. Negative, so cleared for careful local travel. We took the train to visit our friend Phyllis up in Scarsdale. We decided to take Billy on the Metro North for the first time. We spent the week before getting him used to the carrier by putting treats in it randomly. By Saturdayhe was pretty up for whatever went with that magic treat box. 

He had a few qualms about the train, but mostly seemed OK

Once there, he showed his usual excellent lap dog skills

By the trip home he was kind of over the whole business. But he'd reached the pliable stage of fatigue  

We declared it a success. Next goal Greenport by train (which is about 2 hours longer). Better get out the treats and chew toys. 

While we were there, Phyllis put out an amazing spread including shrimp cocktail, brussels sprouts with bacon and almonds, fall off the bone fabulous ribs, torched sausage for Max, pigs in blankets, crudite (which people actually ate), and fresh fruit with ice cream and cookies.

Then she asked us what we wanted for dinner!?! 

Saturday we met up with my old friend Diana Cushway from Oak Park, IL days. We met in middle school more than 50 years ago, but hadn’t seen each other since the late 1960s. So great to see the grown women we've become and to find that we still have so much to connect about. Also wonderful to know that we have both found supportive and loving partners. We should have taken more photos to include Linda and Diana’s husband Bill, but once again the conversation crowded out that thought. Next day I ran back over to Jack London Square for a quick photo of two old friends.  

The one below is from our 8th grade graduation photo

Thursday we met Jim and Louise at the ferry landing in Alameda and took a ride over to San Francisco. The Bay was lovely as always, though that day there was a fair amount of smoke from the fires up north, muting the views. We were grateful for the breeze off the water once were underway.   

Louise was able to dig up some old paper tickets left over from when she used to commute via ferry to SF.  Pretty much everyone else on board was using a pre-loaded card or their phones, but the ferryfolk said the tickets were still good  

The trip is about a half hour and we were able to get seats on the top deck outside. The iconic SF Ferry Building approach always reminds me of the of all the old noir movies and newsreels  where that view is used to set the scene. 

It was a short walk from there to the Rincon Post Office which has some WPA murals.  But more on that later.

There was also a more modern wing 

Next stop was Perry's for lunch - beautifully situated on the Embarcadero with views of the Bay.  

I took some photos of the food, but it wasn’t visually remarkable so I'll summarize by saying it was good American food - burgers, salads, chicken, steak etc.  The standout for me was the New England clam chowder with beautifully fresh clams.  

Finally it was time for our entry to the Gallery (you have to make an appointment for a 2 hour slot) so we made our way there  The exhibit was called "Looking Back: Ten Years of Pier 24 Phoography” It’s main focus was portraiture - some of the photos were traditional examples of the genre, but others were more loosely tied to the idea, like this one -"Manufacturing" #10ab by Edward Burtynsky  a sort of group portrait of factory workers in Xiamen City

Followed by a more traditional portrait by Liu Zheng - Xinjiang Girl Working in a Textile Factory 

The exhibit featured Avedon, Arbus, Lange, Robert Adams, and Hiroshi Sugimoto as well as less well known photographers.  These were a few of my favorites 

Palm Sunday by Alec Soth

Jasmijn, away from the Light by Richard Learoyd

Lift Portrait 24 by Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse

New York City 1970 by Lee Friedlander

One room was dedicated to mug shots, introduced by this quote:

"Classic mugshots, which typically pair a full-face picture with a profile, tend to be as impersonal as photo booth pictures but more brutally matter-of-fact.  The results aren’t intended as character studies; they’re descriptive, recording a hooked nose, a jutting chin, a mole, a scar - features that can be used to identify the suspect if he ever comes to the police's attention again.  There’s no photographer behind the camera hoping to open a window on his subject’s soul, but because most mugshots are taken shortly after a suspect’s arrest, in a moment fraught with tension, fury, defiance, and shame, they can be incredibly revealing.  Only the most carefully composed arrestee can avoid being emotionally naked" 

- Vince Aletti

I was particularly fascinated by this sort of flip book of mug shot cards which included the detainees' "Bertillon number".  It turns out Bertillon was an early criminologist in France who was trying to systematize the cataloguing of apprehended suspects with a goal of being able to track repeat offenders and to uncover people using aliases.  He was a student of "anthropometrics" and the inventor of the mug shot (which preceded fingerprints as a way to identify individuals).  

More here for the mystery-readers among you (as well as his role in the conviction and eventual overturned verdict in the Dreyfus Case)

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_Bertillon

One "portrait" that Got Linda's and my interest was this one - Lovell Beach House by Veronika Kellndorfer:

It’s printed on glass.  The lights across the top are reflections of track lights which light the photo, but also produce both a projection of the work behind and shadows created by the surface image.  Anyone who know Linda's work can see how that would intrigue her.  

We strolled back along the waterfront and stopped for ice cream in the Ferry Building market before taking the ferry home 

The lowering sun had by then reached the smoke, imparting a moody light on the Bay and buildings

Wednesday we soaked our heads - these two introverts have been mighty social on this trip.  We needed a quiet day so we'd be ready for our dinner guest, Chris Moran (whose son Sam and his girlfriend Hannah stayed with us just before the pandemic shut down - see Fun in Gowanus post from March 12, 2020).  More great conversation and this time we remembered to get a photo:

It’s been interesting this trip seeing so many old friends. We're all around the same age so there’s been lots of talk about retirement, making transitions, losing parents or other loved ones, pondering what the next phase of our lives will contain. Especially after being isolated for the past year or so, there’s a longing to make sense of it all and to understand how each of us is negotiating the changes. 

Tuesday I visited Jim who said he could help me with an audio project.  I'd lost a treasured and no longer available CD recording of the Peninsula Women's Chorus' memorial tribute to Patricia Hennings their former conductor (and Frank Ferris' sister).  Through Jim's good work in his studio/lab, I now have it restored to my iTunes library.  

 Afterwards I took a drive down Telegraph to see if an old haunt was still there  The White Horse Inn was the first gay bar I ever dared enter (thanks to Matt, whose last name I've lost, for holding my hand during that nervous moment).  Not only is it still there, I learned that it’s the oldest continuously operating LGBT bar in the US (though perhaps others also lay claim to that designation?), dating from 1933.  Apparently it used to be connected via a back door to Chinese restaurant so that patrons would only be seen from the street as entering a different type of establishment.  

Here’s my picture and a better one from SF Gate

And an article for anyone interested in this particular bit of Oakland LGBTQ history

 https://www.sfgate.com/bars/article/White-Horse-oldest-gay-bar-Bay-Area-history-16269812.php

In the afternoon I took a drive to Palo Alto to meet up with Elisabeth Rubinfien, an old friend from Pomona College days.  I often tell the story of when we first met in Microbiology class.  We walked home together talking.  She walked me to my dorm, then I walked her to hers, then back to mine again and by then it was dinner time so we moved on to the dining hall so we could continue talking.  It’s been pretty much like that ever since (now almost 50 years).  It was great to pick up the conversation once again.  Elisabeth made a delicious meal, but no pictures were taken because we were too absorbed in discussion.  We did manage a picture before I left though:

Being retired means getting to take a longer vacation. We've both been recalling how our employed selves would arrive at vacation exhausted and would need the first week just to recuperate. Then maybe we had a second week and back at it again. Now we can take 3 weeks, really settle in and enjoy "la dolce far niente" (the sweetness of doing nothing).

Rockridge is a neighborhood that straddles the border between the south of Berkeley and the north of Oakland. It was a place I remember as a high schooler where we hung out to feel cool. Much gentrified since then, but still sweet. Monday we started at Kitchen Story because Linda loves breakfast and they are famous for it.  Linda had her eggs with the "millionaire's bacon" which is mentioned in all the reviews of the place. It’s marinated in maple syrup and then has some sort of spicy heat added.

I had a chicken sausage and spinach scramble which was also tasty.  The potatoes were also particularly good - crispy and seasoned with rosemary 

We wandered along College Avenue and visited Pegasus Books (there are actually two independent bookstores within a few blocks!).  

I was tempted by this one since the sloth is my spirit animal:

In the end though I purchased this one as possible book club material:

The best discovery though was that the Women Street Photographers book that includes Linda was featured in the bookcase near the entrance!

This shelf amused me

As did this front yard later in our travels. Hard to discern any unifying thought. I guess we’re free to interpret as we will  

Sunday my brother Jim and his partner Louise came over to see the AirBnB house and have brunch. The dining room table seats at least 6 and is dramatic, but we discovered that it was so large that we had to either stand to serve ourselves or scoot the dishes across to each other.

Later in the day, we had a mini reunion of Pomona grads: Denise, Frank, Linda, and I along with Denise’s husband Caleb and Frank's husband Bill. So great catching up and our first time meeting Bill, who is quite a raconteur and had some fascinating tales of his time researching German Opera Culture - by being a member of a German opera company.  

The food was fabulous as always at Denise and Caleb's house and included carrot soup, mashed sweet potatoes with ginger, baked salmon, a Japanese cabbage slaw and a sort of agro dolce cannellini beans dish. 

The show stopper for me though was the fruit plate for dessert which included freshly picked pluots from their own trees - so fragrant you could smell them from several feet away  

So grateful to be able to gather with friends and family after a year of separation. 

After visiting the Afrofuturism exhibit, we stopped at the cafe which has a lovely outdoor dining space.  This is a picture I cribbed from the internet. The tables were much further apart and nowhere near this crowded

The cafe Town Fare is run by one of our favorite Top Chef contestants- Tanya Holland. She also owns Brown Sugar (which we may yet get to before we leave). 

 Her interesting story here (keep scrolling through the ads to get it all)

https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/Tanya-Holland-opens-veggie-centric-soul-food-cafe-16258559.php

Barbara and I had sides of deviled eggs eaten before the camera came out and this beautiful beet and fennel salad and elderberry tonic to drink  

Linda went for the fried chicken sandwich. Brown Sugar is famous for its fried chicken. This was a slightly healthier version made with a skinless chicken breast - really delicious (this gluten free girl had to have a wee taste)

Friday Linda visited the SF MOMA. She is not quite as into documenting her visits as I am, but she enjoyed the Calder exhibit 

And 

She also visited the Contemporary Jewish Museum and particularly enjoyed

Saturday we met Barbara Ustanko (fellow Pomona alum) and visited the Oakland Museum of California to see the exhibit called "Mothership - Voyage into Afrofuturism which was fascinating (some of these entries require scrolling through the thumbnails at the top to see them all) I tried to add the legend and info after pictures  

The science fiction writer, Octavia Butler is referenced as a visionary force in multiple places

Barbara suggested we spend some time with 

"Passage", a video triptych installation

There’s no way here to do justice to the way it simultaneously mesmerizes and challenges so here’s a link to an excerpt to give you a taste if it interests you - imagine though that you are sitting surrounded by the 3 projection screens

There were references to The Black Panther and something called the Wakanda Dream Lab 

I remember Sun Ra vaguely from my Berkeley days, but mostly as a musician. I learned he also made pioneering movies and wrote and spoke prolifically 

Two of the pieces that grabbed my attention were these two by Nigerian artist Olekan Jeyifous called Shanty Mega-Structures: Makoko Waterfront and Makoko Canal

Here are selections from a series of photographs from 1960s and 1970s Oakland community life

Ruth-Marion Child: Mother and Child & Black Panther feeding son(Free Huey Rally, Oakland, CA

Stephen Shames: Untitled, Woman with a bag of food at the Black Panther’s FreeFood Program & Untitled,Black Panthers testing for sickle cell anemia at Community Survival Conference rally 

Some of W.E.B. DuBois' contribution to the American Negro Exhibit in the 1900 Paris Exposition seemed out of step with the other pieces, but his approach to graphic representation of data was fascinating:

One last for further thought