Labor Day Weekend

On Saturday I hit up the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Yerba-Beuna Gardens Festival, the latter of which had some live musicians playing for free, Rob Reich, Darren Johnston, and Daniel Fabricant. The prior was less inspiring than I expected. Most of the art at the MoMA looked as though it took little work and had little aesthetic beauty. Don't get me wrong I love giant murals of paint and big sculptures, plus the facilities are really nice, pictured below. There were certainly plenty of exceptions, like the detailed photorealism of Chuck Close and the classic style of Henri Matisse but for the most part I was unimpressed. At the free festival the band playing was a trio, an accordion player, a trumpet player, and a stand-up bassist. Their flow was natural and free and they were accompanied by a potent string quartet that tied the risky jazz solos together to form something capricious, elegant, and rewarding. There is something about the accordion that is extraordinarily French sounding.

Yesterday I ran to the Emeryville marina which is a couple square miles of tall masts and antennas protruding from sailboats and yachts. I became one of those topless runners wearing shorts you see and think wow they are hardcore. Today, my legs are achy and my thighs are speckled with crimson dots from the friction of thousands of paces. I will save you from the photo I took as evidence. Either way, I ran 9.2 miles yesterday.

Today I woke up thinking I had to go to a group meeting at 11am. I got out of bed slowly at 8am and proceeded to make tea and breakfast. While bicycling to work on the UCB campus I recalled a question a person asked me about what I had in store for this labor day weekend several days ago. Boom, it hit me, today is labor day. Wow, what a shocker. I know it would be a lot more exciting had I been with someone else who I could share my excitement with. Oh well, such is the life of I for today.

Plucking various chords and melodies on the fret board of an Epiphone Les Paul Junior I am sure to fully pronounce each note to its fullest amplitude, this still remains a mixed challenge in spite having owned and played a guitar for many years now. I hope to play with good musicians someday and have them say that they enjoyed my music. That will be the day. I am thankful to the corner supermarket operating on labor day ran by what looked to be a middle eastern couple judging by the arabic font on the storefront. Their daughter was in control of the cash register and would dictate the prices out loud to customers ears. Her mother stood close by ensuring accurate arithmetic. She seemed surprised when I told her I was going to use the bag I had brought with me into the store, out of which I had just pulled all of my merchandise. She told me I should put the fruit on the top of items in the bag instead of the bottom. I quickly accepted she was right and removed the fruit I had placed first in the bottom of the bag. I thought about my use of temporal logic. Item 1 received, Place Item 1 in Bag. Item 2 received, Place item 2 in Bag, and so on. I sometimes wonder where my brain is at moments like this, was I focused on the daughter-mother interaction? Or maybe I was preoccupied with the fact that I brought my own bag, or even better, the logical thinking section of my brain was on it's day off just like the rest of the nation.