Category: Uncategorized

Watch a Live Art Installation in Balboa Park!

During the next few days, renowned illustrator and artist Mohammad Barrangi will be performing a live demonstration of the reverse print transfer process as he installs new art in San Diego’s always amazing Balboa Park!

Those walking through the Plaza de Panama near the San Diego Museum of Art’s outdoor courtyard should look for Mohammad and his work in progress. The finished large-scale piece will be a diptych inspired by Iranian history and visual traditions.

The installation precedes this weekend’s Mehregan Fall Fête at the San Diego Museum of Art. The Iranian festival of Mehregan will be celebrated at the museum with a performance of Voices Unveiled, which invites audiences to listen to and feel the stories of two Iranian women as they experience oppression and seek freedom and justice.

Click the above links to learn more!

I’ll try to swing by in the next few days and provide an update here with additional photographs!

UPDATE!

The following day, I walked by in the early evening and took these photos…

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Aviation enthusiasts spot planes in San Diego.

There’s a community of aviation enthusiasts in San Diego who love to spot airplanes. I met two of these spotters recently on top of downtown’s Cortez Hill. They were taking photographs of planes approaching San Diego International Airport.

The first spotter I spoke to is named Scott. He operates the SANspotter website. We spoke for a few moments about the many different aircraft I’ve seen while walking atop Cortez Hill–from huge airliners flying nonstop from London or Tokyo, to small, sleek business jets, to relatively tiny propeller-driven planes.

About a week later, I encountered a second friendly spotter whose smile and enthusiasm were infectious. He became excited when a shiny, colorful Southwest Airlines plane came into view. With his powerful telephoto lens, he took an amazing crisp photograph.

Both spotters found their ideal position at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Date Street, near the west end of Tweet Street city park, across Interstate 5 from Balboa Park’s Marston Point.

If you’re interested in joining this community of San Diego spotters, here’s the San Diego Spotters group page on Facebook.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Day of the Dead at House of Mexico cottage!

Day of the Dead displays are beginning to appear in San Diego. I observed an amazing example today at the International Cottages in Balboa Park.

Inside the House of Mexico cottage, a large Day of the Dead, or Día de los Muertos, altar has been created. There are sugar skull decorations, and papel picado, and marigolds, and candles, and framed photos, and pan de muerto, and a variety of beautiful Catrina figures, large and small.

Día de los Muertos is a beloved Mexican holiday that remembers family members and ancestors who’ve passed. Their spirits return to mingle with the living.

In San Diego, it’s an early November tradition that many love.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

The Enchanted Tail performs magic in Balboa Park!

Young kids excited about an opera, cheering the characters, cheering the actors? It must be magic!

This afternoon the San Diego Children’s Choir joined Opera4Kids at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park. Accompanied by San Diego Civic Organist Raul Prieto Ramírez, the children’s Apprentice Choir sang two fun pieces, then added to the lively opera with their voices.

The Enchanted Tail is a wonderful production of Opera4Kids. It’s a sort of mix of traditional fairy tale with that classic O. Henry short story The Gift of the Magi. It’s about a woodsman and princess who, cursed by an evil witch, can’t use their voices to sing. Through human kindness and the unselfish sacrifices of both characters, they resolve a seemingly intractable conflict and regain their voices.

This was the second time I’ve seen The Enchanted Tail and I loved it even more than before! (I suppose I’ve grown overly sentimental.)

Want to introduce your kids to fun, infectious opera? Opera4Kids has another Balboa Park performance coming up on November 5th, 2023. Check that out here.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Red-tailed hawk by Sixth Avenue sidewalk.

Look what I spotted while walking home from Balboa Park this afternoon! A red-tailed hawk was perched in a palm tree next to the Sixth Avenue sidewalk, at the west edge of the park.

The bird, perhaps ten feet above my camera, was unfazed by my presence.

A young person staring at a phone walked directly under the hawk without noticing it. What other wonders in this world go unseen?

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Star of India crew trains for historic sail!

Crew members of San Diego’s world-famous tall ship Star of India were training today for her upcoming journey into the wide Pacific Ocean!

Accompanied by a fleet of beautiful sailboats and Maritime Museum of San Diego vessels, Star of India will sail out beyond Point Loma on November 11th and 12th, 2023, to celebrate her 160th birthday!

This morning I stood on the Embarcadero watching the sail crew hauling at lines, raising a sail, and practicing the complicated dance that is required to maneuver the world’s oldest active sailing ship. The crew will be training each Sunday up until the big weekend next month.

If you want to buy tickets for Star of India’s historic sail, go to the Maritime Museum website here.

Enjoy my photographs, taken from the nearby boardwalk…

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Cool photo memories from October 2018.

Five years ago, during the month of October, so much was going on that Cool San Diego Sights was overflowing with photographs!

Anyone interested in technology, or archaeology, or dance, or sailing, or visual arts, or architecture, or the history of San Diego had many diverse places and events to experience!

Get ready to travel back in time to 2018!

Here come a dozen memories…

Click the following links for many photographs:

Paintings by Kadir Nelson exhibited in San Diego.

Dancers portray the homeless in San Diego.

Photos outside 2018 Maker Faire San Diego!

Unfolding Humanity appears at Maker Faire!

Rowing For the Cure on beautiful Mission Bay.

Photos of Massing of the Colors in San Diego.

Beautiful works of glass art in Balboa Park!

Historical exhibit features archives at City Hall.

Learning about archaeology in San Diego!

Sailing . . . kite boarding . . . racing on the bay!

An amazing Wyland mural cruises into San Diego!

Photos of North Park’s Day of the Dead festival!

A dark, disturbing look at art Beyond Reason.

Frank the Trainman mural Train of Wisdom.

An architectural landmark in University Heights.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Oktoberfest dog races, food and fun in La Mesa!

Oktoberfest has returned this weekend to downtown La Mesa. The enormously popular event is attracting a crowd of thousands today, and these colorful photographs document some of the fun!

Where else can you watch crazy Weiner dog races while wearing lederhosen and feasting on tasty bratwurst?

Visitors to La Mesa Oktoberfest can enjoy multiple beer gardens, a kids fun zone, and every sort of delectable food. Smiling vendors, artists, and community organizations fill several city blocks. There’s chalk art, dancing, craft activities and a whole lot more! Folks who dine outdoors at restaurants along La Mesa Boulevard have an excellent view of the action.

A great way to travel to Oktoberfest is by trolley. The La Mesa Boulevard station of the San Diego Trolley is located directly across the street from the festival’s main entrance.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Fantastic 3D art inside San Ysidro Library!

Are those holograms? No! The archway just inside the San Ysidro Library’s front door features a cool 3D effect produced by its two lenticular print columns.

This amazing public art, titled Pasaje, debuted in 2019 when the new branch library opened. The artists are brothers Jamex de la Torre and Einar de la Torre.

The San Diego Civic Art Collection website explains: The interior artwork, Pasaje, consists of an archway which serves as both a literal and symbolic entrance to the library. The columns of the archway are wrapped with colorful, illuminated lenticular prints drawing on themes related to San Ysidro, architecture, and the library as a source of knowledge. These densely layered and highly dynamic lenticular images produce the illusion of depth and change when viewed from different angles. Sitting atop the columns is a cantera stone lintel inspired by both Spanish colonial and Mesoamerican architectural motifs.

The San Ysidro Library website further explains: The arch columns feature back-lit lenticular transparencies that exhibit two images in flip format, one showing historical pictures of San Ysidro and the other showing a plethora of images that symbolize curious illustrations in the exploration of books.

Your own eyes have to experience this fantastic optical art!

I found it hard to take good, focused photographs, because the seemingly layered images fade in and out with every slight movement the camera makes. (If you’ve ridden the main elevator at the San Diego Central Library, you’ve probably marveled at similar lenticular artwork by the same artists!)

Hopefully these photos entice you to visit the library in person!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Colorful signs of Autumn in Balboa Park!

Trees change color in the lush Lower Garden of the Japanese Friendship Garden.

Autumn officially began in San Diego last Saturday. There are plenty of signs in Balboa Park that Fall, with its rich harvest of colors and traditions, is well underway!

I took a walk through Balboa Park late this afternoon. Clouds were gathering. Rain is forecast for tomorrow.

Enjoy a few photos…

Prado Perk is in Love with the Season!

Holiday productions are coming to the Old Globe, including Ebenezer Scrooge’s Big San Diego Christmas Show. (I didn’t realize Scrooge surfs!)

Spooky Spinners for sale in the Balboa Park Visitors Center.

A leafy Welcome at Studio 3 in Spanish Village.

And a pumpkin, too!

An “Autumn Memories” Ikebana Flower Exhibition is coming in October.

Fallen leaves near the giant Moreton Bay Fig tree.

A fun Balboa Park Spooktacular is coming the weekend before Halloween!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!