Photocosm

Three Moments Under A Red Sun

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We've had forest fires up and down California, and the air quality of the Bay Area has dropped. There are no fires in sight around the San Francisco Bay, but it doesn't matter. Air quality has been declared unhealthy today, and that is unusual. Here's the sunrise recently in a few locations.

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The view from Corte Madera across US 101.

Here's how polluted the sky is, the sun is still red well after sunrise. It doesn't come through well because of camera limitations, but the Sun looks like something from a Coleridge poem. That's an Erector Set posing as a bridge.

The sun is placed behind a set of lamps, and it reveals the hazy orange quality of the sky.

And now for 3 moments.

1 of 3. I was driving around dawn in metropolitan Larkspur. The radio was tuned to KCBS in San Francisco, which reported the status of the Big Sur fires as I drove past that black Prius. Big Sur is far south of the San Francisco Bay Area along the coast, but it isn't considered part of Los Angeles. I instantly pulled the car to the curb. Why?

2 of 3. This car has a license plate that reads Big Sur. It doesn't read Big Sur exactly, it could be BIG SUR or BIG SURR or BIGG SUR. I don't like to give out license plate numbers, but it's clearly a Big Sur plate. How strange, to see a Big Sur license plate around 6am as the radio reported on the firefighting at Big Sur. So, why is this more than a simple coincidence?

3 of 3.  In a strange way, you are looking at Big Sur. This thick gray air contains smoke which drifted up from the wild fires around Big Sur.

In other words, we have Big Sur on a plate, Big Sur on the airwaves, and Big Sur in the air. And that is an example of how everything is connected.

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Burning Itching Eyes

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We've had some odd light here recently. Forest fires up north and down the coast have blown into the Bay Area. We got the northern smoke first, it slipped into the area around Tuesday and pretended it was dry fog, but fog doesn't make the sun red well after sunrise.

Here's a house up in the hills near Larkspur, its front window reflecting the red sunlight when it would normally look brilliant white.

Notice the blackbird leaving my airspace. They're camera-shy unless you pay an appearance fee, pieces of bread or chocolate truffles candy. They are quite good at locating truffles underground, but they are not celebrated for digging them out. You can only get so far using a beak, and then they look like those silly toy birds that dip their beaks into a glass of water, but raptors are another story.

Raptors could probably dig successfully for truffles, but it's not considered respectable. When young hawks or eagles are asked what they'd like to do when they grow up, they never answer, "Dig for truffles." Instead, they give the usual job-applicant interview responses, "I'd like to eat small dogs that appear in taco commercials," or maybe "I enjoy catching large fish on clear mountain lakes," or "I like workin' out, chicks really like a hawk that can help them build a treehouse." The safe raptor answers.

Here's the Berkeley Hills from high up another hill. The smell of smoke was strong this morning as fast breezes blew in from the south. Looks like the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. One ridge, at least.

Summer Cool Is Almost Here

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Ah, the beautiful mists and cooling breezes of summer. They're almost here, since the first full day of summer was Saturday. This last week has been a heat wave for Bay Area citizens.  The temperatures rose above 60, and then they broke through the 70-degree threshold, and then they seared through the almost-unheard-of 80-degree mark. It was like Chuck Yeager blasting through mach one. Finally, temperatures exceeded 100, but people here didn't care because their brains were melted like wilted pieces of hot Jello.

But something magical ALWAYS happens around the first of July, and usually around the Fourth of July: fog. Until then, we endure. All for the best, though. Here in the Silicon Valley Area, people figure if they can handle temperatures above 100 degrees, they can probably deal with Windows Vista by Microsoft.

The longest full day of summer 2008 started on the 21st, Saturday. Dawn revealed the soft colors of the Larkspur ferry landing. Notice the pink-orange clouds in the right half of the frame? We almost never see them, the start of thunderheads, and a confirmation of high humidity.

The sun wasn't up yet, in fact there wasn't alpenglow yet on Mount Tamalpais, and a bird flew under the moon, or below it or beneath it.

Was A Sunny Day. That's the name of a song by Paul Simon from the same album which featured the hit song, Kodachrome. Here's a view of Mt Tam from nearby Corte Madera, and some of the greens of summer.

The early morning heat afflicted dog owners. Here in San Anselmo, also known as Home To The Reclusive Movie Director, a pedestrian opens a water faucet for his dog. As one trained in the fine art of canine body language, I can report what the dog said to its owner, "Where's my bowl?"

I then decoded the body language of the dog owner, "I'm sorry I didn't bring your water bowl, but see how I've cupped my hands. You can drink the water from my hands." 

To which the dog replied, "I'm not drinking from there, I know where your fingers have been. You may think I'm stupid because I can't speak or handle a stick shift, but I'm always watching you, like HAL in 2001. Frankly, I could write a book about the things you do, the dirty, smelly, stinking habits you've picked up in your sad, self-destructive existence. Have you no shame?" 

The dog owner suggested, "How about some ice cream at the Italian stand?"

The dog answered, "You're my pal!"

I visited Two Bird, a popular cafe in San Geronimo Valley. Next door, a hummingbird took a rest on a wire. Hard to believe, but you're watching a thousand heartbeats a minute. When it spends some time on the perch, though, maybe half that. Somehow, though, the hummingbird is able to enter a kind of hibernation when it sleeps, and it's down to maybe 60 heartbeats a minute. An amazing bird, I watched one feeding on the nectar from a flower high up on a tall bush, then drop like an express elevator to a flower bed by a sidewalk. When motivated, they can fly 40 miles an hour, but hummingbirds all wear a little sign, "I Brake For Petunias."

 

The Descent Of Terror

I was visiting Magic Gardens in Berkeley today. They sell flowers and landscaping stuff. I always go there looking for the magic, but I leave with a can of Pepsi. Today, though, I got to watch a little drama.

There was a large bird sitting on a wire. It was obviously an overweight mockingbird that covered up its weight problem by sitting up straight.

Soon, the sniping by the smaller and svelte birds began, which meant this was not an obese mockingbird but a raptor, and the smaller birds were defending their airspace. This was some sort of hawk, I figured. It wasn't a black hawk, though, and it wasn't a yellow-throated hawk, and it wasn't a humminghawk, and it wasn't a seahawk. It wasn't a blue hawk, either. You'd have to be an idiot to think this was a blue hawk.

Nor was it a sparrow hawk, or a narrow hawk, or a wren hawk or a peacock hawk or a swan hawk. The swan hawk has a very long neck. It has been known to swoop down toward children and small animals at picnics and grab bottles of beer. It's partial to Lone Star Long Necks. Anyway, it wasn't a swan hawk because this isn't Texas. By the process of elimination, I concluded this was the dreaded loon hawk.

The hawk suddenly dropped from its wire and flew...toward me. I wasn't expecting that.

The hawk struck quickly at the flowers.  Notice the wings in the bottom right corner. Just a few feet away, I watched a titanic death struggle. Who would win, the hawk or the Salvia Semiatrata? Meanwhile, a mouse sprinted away through the fence, or maybe it was a cat or a skunk. The hawk had failed to seize its prey, but it smelled a lot nicer now.

The hawk flew to a post nearby and tried to strike a dignified pose. I am the hawk, the deadliest creature you will ever see...after it's too late. I am a stealthy creature, capable of reading the fine print on a wireless phone contract from a mile away, I can achieve speeds exceeding a BART train, I can --- gotta go.

The hawk flew off when the sniping resumed and it left the area. I figure it'll think twice before it disturbs the flora and the fauna of peaceful Magic Gardens.

Bloomsday

Today is Bloomsday, one of the most important dates in literature. This is the day in which the James Joyce novel, Ulysses, takes place.  It's quite a day these days, lots of colleges and pubs and bookstores have celebrations of Bloomsday. I won't go into them here, since I didn't participate in any of them, but I did listen to part of my audiobook of Ulysses. I then walked for a couple of miles, but didn't have any Bloomsday moments.

There was a small unusual moment, though. Soon as I left home and started my daily walk, I was covered by the shadow of a Gulfstream jet. The plane was only a couple of thousand feet up, easy to read. It's an odd feeling to feel the blink of darkness, then see the shadow move across the street in the blink of an eye.

Here's the fence behind a baseball field in Marin around sunrise.

The ducks were at the ballpark early as well, caring for their personal hygiene near the sprinklers.

The crows did not handle the high winds well. We've had some offshore breezes lately, the winds that rush down the hills and mountains toward the shore. It's a dry warm wind that disorients you, it even seems to have a different electrical charge from the regular winds that sweep in from the Pacific. These birds had to find a sheltered spot, you can see their ruffled feathers.

The stiff breezes blew some leaves onto a table in Fairfax. Or maybe somebody picked them and littered the table with the red ashtray. The patio area with this table was covered with leaves, so maybe the tree trimmers were reckless.

Here's a barn in Nicasio.

And we close with a bit of abstract art, maybe. I was passing through a junk yard and spotted some electrical components on some wall board. Black and white and colors.

 

FIRE

It's the very dry season in California, there's a drought underway, and fires are up and down the state. Meanwhile, the Oakland A's are five games behind Los Angeles.

We had a small fire today, a couple of acres, but it started and spread in an area which was devastated in the huge Oakland Hills Fire back in the 90's. There were houses nearby, plus an apartment complex, and a set of tunnels on Highway 24 through the hills. The winds were low, however, and the firefighters were able to control it. This is the photo I shot from San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley.

Here's a better photo by Noah Berger for the San Francisco Chronicle. For the story and the photo series, click here.

Hi Frank

Today is the birthday of the architect who designed the inspiring Marin Civic Center. Frank Lloyd Wright was born in 1867 or thereabouts, and he died in 1959. I don't know whether he was a Taoist or if he practiced Feng Shui, but he asserted the importance of harmonizing the design of a building with its surroundings. You don't build a house upon a hill, he said, you make that house a part of the hill. He called the landscape in Marin County one of the most beautiful he had ever encountered.

This is the only building which I would call easy to miss and impossible to miss at the same time. As beautiful as it is, the Marin Civic Center does not steal attention from the land itself. It is surrounded by hills and trees, so as you drive around it, much of the civic center is exposed and then concealed in the same way that fog drifts through Marin County. You see a mountain and then it vanishes. Even the color of the exterior matches somewhat the dry grasses on the hillside. I've read that Wright had originally wanted the roof to be gold, but the spire is enough. The blue top remains unusual even today for prominent buildings.

I shot these photos on the way to the Farmers Market at the civic center. I would include a photo but Wright didn't design the Farmers Market there. It's Frank's day, not the farmers'.

Earthquake Friday

I woke up early this morning, really early, around 2 am. We had a few earthquakes, small ones, with epicenters near Danville. It's funny how you react to an earthquake when you're sleeping, just hilarious. I thought there was a big rat in the room or a giant raccoon under the house or an enormous pig knocking on the door. Nope, just a 3.5, plus a 2 and a 1. Trifecta quakes, wonderful.

I visited the ferry terminal at Larkspur at dawn, thought it would be fun to visit San Francisco. They didn't have a hovercraft, though. I really wanted to ride on a hovercraft.

Skipped the ferry and played sunrise soccer in Corte Madera instead. I won.

A red ashtray through blocks of glass. I spotted it on a walk through Fairfax. This was a patio next to a bar or restaurant.

A little more red, now, a Porsche parked in Emeryville.

More of the spectrum, now. And what is this? Guess there were lots of ice crystals hovering in the skies over Berkeley, which is why we see the rainbow color suspended in the blue. It's hard to see, but there's a single-engine plane flying through the frame.

And we close with flowers in Berkeley.