Adjusting happily to California Time; waking early

to lemons

we walked the dog and dove immediately into long-postponed tasks

dental [don’t ask]

and the closer-to-home-automotive; all swell.

[none of these vehicles mine, however]

Enrico made good on his promise to introduce us to Bernard, resulting in a most pleasant lunch

down First as the yard was chaos with Castro cutting back the jungle while Scott ground through powder-coated steel in the studio…things all rolled along quite smoothly until,

immediately after loading Reliable’s flatbed, I inexplicably collapsed for six daytime hours…but,

seemingly recovered, slept the night,

lived a day and Saturday we were in San Francisco town

to catch Noam’s show at Ratio 3,

some anomalous Robert Hudsons from the late seventies and

Ed Moses [at ninety the mastery came as no surprise] at Brian Gross where

in the back room we found a flight of Flemings as well before a brief detour

into Catherine Clark’s where Sandow Birk’s “Monuments” were all the rage.

Down in the architectural chaos of SOMA we tried SFMOMA for Saturday lunch

and Magritte, but whereas Etel Adnan was peacefully accessible ol’ Rene was definitely not…

This was made up for* by Wayne Thiebaud’s choices of greatest hits from the collection, some, like the Beckmann below, familiar and among my all time favorites but others truly hidden

treasures.  Never a great fan of the later paintings his revelatory choices and commentaries nonetheless helped me at last understand why he is such a revered teacher and personage.

I’d seen the Bischoff before but the Joan Brown below, never;

…and George C. Ault, “The Hudson from Riverside Drive”, 1920 – 21…[!]

Around 2:30 we fled,

got into line for the ever-stalled Bay Bridge

and after maybe an hour home…where I began my Subtle Decline under pristine skies.

*[It even inspired an eleventh hour renewal of our membership]