Yes, this Blog is Still Alive

Debs and I have been so busy learning HTML and Javascript over the past few days that neither of us have had the time to blog. The online course material has been generally good and rapidly digested, though some parts have been a little confusingly worded. It's the assignments though that suck up the time.

In other news, we visited the Napa valley last Friday (details to come in a future blog) and we intend to visit San Jose tomorrow. Tonight the FBI issued a warning that a strike against "American interests" is possible "on or around" Feb 12th, aka today. This is the most direct warning that the FBI has given, but there's a sense of disbelief, largely because previous warnings have, thankfully, proved unnecessary. It's a weird time to be alive right now.

Today though, we watch as Tony and Debbie go to:

Coit Tower - Mural Tour - Jan 26

Imagine rain. Heavy rain. Persistent rain. The sort of rain that gives clouds a bad name. Well that pretty much describes the weather we encountered as we walked the streets of North Beach, San Francisco, enroute to Coit Tower. We'd hopped off the Muni and had covered about half the 4 or 5 block walk to the Tower when the rain commenced, gently at first, but soon building to a discomforting level.

San Francisco is, as I'm sure many of you reading this already know, ridiculously hilly in parts. Indeed there are a number of hills that seem perfect for abseiling but entirely unsuitable for unassisted walking. Our journey on this day, already dampened, also neccessitated that we climb one such hill.

Having ascended Mt. Whatever-the-name-of-the-street-was - I believe we took the much-neglected north-face - I found myself reacquainted with muscles in my thighs that I thought had long-since found alternative legs for homes. Resisting the temptation to pitch a tent and set up camp for the rest of the morning, we bravely took on the steep staircase that led to the summit.

We arrived at the Tower about 40 minutes before the scheduled tour time and so had time to look out over the Bay (what of it we could see) and listen to the honking sea lions at Pier 39 who were surprisingly clear given their distance from us. Soon enough we were joined by our guide for the day, a lady whose name I don't remember and who closed her eyes as she spoke, as if imagining a far better scenario in which none of us were present.

The tour began with a somewhat lengthy spiel about the Tower's benefactor, Lily Hitchcock-Coit, who died in 1929 and left almost US$120,000 - a third of her wealth - "to be expended in an appropriate manner for the purpose of adding to the beauty of the city which I have always loved". Such vague direction as to the proper use of her bequest led, predictably, to many years of discussion and debate before the idea of a tower on Telegraph Hill was suggested and agreed upon.

Introduction over, we were led inside the tower to view the murals that adorn the walls around the base of the Tower. Apparently, many of these murals caused considerable controversy just after their creation due to their overt leftist symbolism. Indeed, such was the hoohah that some murals were altered to remove offending symbols or depictions. Viewed today, it's hard to see what the fuss was about.

To me, one of the most striking murals in this section of Coit Tower is of a San Francisco street scene. The mural takes up an entire wall and is, conservatively 40ft wide. Shown here is part of the right-hand side of the mural. Though you probably can't see it, a good example of the leftist symbolism is the newspapers depicted at the newsstand. Almost without exception they're what would have been considered left-wing publications of the day. Regardless, it's a great mural and rewards close inspection - there's just so much going on, so many 'vignettes' in different parts of the mural.

The first section of Coit Tower that we toured is open to the general public, free of charge. For the final part of the tour, we were, however, allowed behind a locked door that leads up the Tower and is only viewable as part of a tour. The rationale, I guess, for restricting access to these murals relates to their preservation. They adorn the staircase and other walls and are well within the touching and brushing distance of a careless or malevolent viewer.

The shot at right is a mural on the right-hand staircase wall and shows children at play. The mural is especially noted for its depiction of 'adult' faces on children's bodies; I chose for this shot what I thought was the best example of this depiction. There's something very disquieting about the face on the 'girl'. She looks early-to-mid twenties and has that worldly-wise, bored-with-it-all look that seems so out of place on the body of a child. You can almost hear her saying to the boy "A ball? That's just so yesterday".

For the final shot, I've chosen a mural that is remarkable not for its content but instead for the 'paint' used in its creation which comprised egg, coloured chalks and water. You just have to wonder : what was going through the mind of the first person to try this? (well, maybe you don't, but I do). Our guide seemed a bit concerned about people taking photos of these murals lest others attempt to copy them. So, if you've a dozen free-range eggs in your fridge, please resist the urge to use them for repainting the study. Have a nice omelette instead. Thanks.

Originally posted by TC.