san francisco days
Newsletter 10.30.22
Hello, is it me you’re looking for?
Bienvenue and welcome back to Musée Musings, your idiosyncratic guide to Paris and art. Greetings and Salutations dear reader, this is Ginevra filling in for my PhD Mom who is under the weather but wanted me to tell you that she just saw the final exhibition of Proust at the Bibliotheque National de France and will be writing about that shortly. In the meantime please read or re-read this fabulous article on Boldini:
Giovanni Boldini: The Master of the Swish
I did not go to a museum this week, saving that sort of excursion for when Mum arrives in November. So instead I’ll fill you in on some San Francisco news:
On Tuesday we had a magnitude 5.1 earthquake which I’m pretty sure someone on KQED told me was the largest since the 1989 Loma Prieta (which was magnitude 6.9 and happened on October 17th, so obvi big quakes and October is a thing). I was in bed reading a fabulous mystery called Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance, and by the time I determined it was an earthquake and not a semi going down my street it was too late to stop, drop, and roll or rather drop, cover and hold. Though I did stare longingly at my doorway, which they say is the safest place. So at least I did that. I remember as an undergrad at Berkeley cheering on the Cal Bears especially when we played Stanford or USC (booooo!) and thinking about how the Hayward faultline runs right through the middle of the stadium. Maybe that’s why Aaron Rogers didn’t graduate.
On Friday a man with a hammer broke into Speaker Pelosi’s house and attacked her husband while demanding to know where Nancy was. Now aside from the terrible acts of violence being raised against our political leaders, I have to say as a San Francisco resident it is most troubling that a man got into the back door of a mansion in Pacific Heights. If you can break into a mansion in SF’s toniest neighborhood, what hope do the rest of us have? And also, is that why Zuckerberg bought two?
Finally I will leave you with some pictures of my garden at twilight in anticipation of the time change which we do next week but France does this week and which I always blame on the farmers but I just learned is in fact one more thing I can blame on Benjamin Franklin. Thanks Ben. I watched a documentary on him recently. Here is what I concluded: aphorism and country creating are eased along when you have a wife and two slaves doing all the real work. Just saying. “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” - Benjamin Franklin.
Cheers and Bisous,
Ginevra
Philhellene, Epigramist-in-training, Viscountess.
