The original black fabric JOURNEYworm has been replaced. The sinuous art installation, which is visible along Park Boulevard near San Diego High School, is now made of orange plastic safety fencing!
I posted photos of the first, more fragile JOURNEYworm in early February. Unfortunately, a series of very windy winter storms decimated the thing. So now I see it has been replaced with material that is more durable.
What on earth is the JOURNEYworm? It’s part of a new Bay to Park Paseo walking experience, which will stretch from San Diego Bay to Balboa Park!
I provided a description of the project when I posted those original photographs. To revisit those photos, click here.
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Art was recently installed on windows near the main entrance of San Diego’s Central Library. Before There Were Borders depicts native wildlife and the languages of indigenous peoples who lived in our region north and south of the present-day U.S./Mexican border, long before the arrival of Europeans.
Animals such as roadrunners, whales, deer, mountain lions, pelicans, rabbits, butterflies, coyotes and bears are matched with their names in four languages: Kumeyaay/Kumiai, Kuupangaxwichem/Cupeño, Payòmkawichum/Luiseño, and Cahuilla.
But there’s much more to the installation. As this explains, a “digital art piece will be accessible within the arcade of the Central Library. Rob Quigley, designer of the Central Library, envisions it to be one of ‘stage’ and ‘performance.’ As participants move though the arcade, images will appear to entice further exploration using a simple scan of a QR code with a smartphone. The installation will include video holograms, viewing cultural objects through augmented reality, and immersive reality language experiences.”
Before There Were Borders is part of a 1.7 mile artistic walking experience along the Bay To Park Paseo, a project inspired by the selection of San Diego/Tijuana as World Design Capital 2024.
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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)!
Deadpool has traveled from Chile in South America to San Diego, and I found him hanging out today in Balboa Park!
This young man with the cool Deadpool cosplay, posing for photographs on El Prado, didn’t speak much English. But I did ascertain he loves the Deadpool movies.
I don’t know if he’s in pursuit of any supervillains at the moment. Perhaps his buddy Wolverine was nearby, but I didn’t see him.
You never know what or who you’ll encounter in wonderful Balboa Park!
If you’re reading this on a serious San Diego newsfeed, sorry. I’m just a blogger who likes to walk around the city, and sometimes I post silly, fun things.
Perhaps you’ll enjoy a quick smile before returning to a world where depressing news is far too common.
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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)!
Stunning. Powerful. I’m not sure how I can adequately describe one performance today at the La Jolla Playhouse WOW Festival.
Two acrobatic dancers from the Taiwanese circus troupe 0471 Acro Physical Theatre in their performance of Duo acted out the passion and turmoil of love. The crowd watching in UCSD’s Revelle Plaza was completely mesmerized.
Not only was the performing couple incredibly athletic, but they convincingly displayed the many emotions of troubled but enduring love. There was reluctance, passion, the pushing away, the pulling together. There were moments of sky reaching ecstasy.
There was interesting symbolism, too. It seemed to me the clothing they carried and displayed at times was symbolic of an ideal partner as lovers might see it. But the hesitation, indecision, conflict, resentment and other emotions made the actors, whirling about without that fancy clothing, more human, more true. Through the motion of their bodies, they transmitted their inner impulses and desires.
How the two acrobats could expressively move and fly about for half an hour nonstop was jaw-dropping. I thought their acting was even more impressive. It expressed what love is.
I saw people in the audience with hands over their heart.
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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)!
A pen full of vulnerable sheep was attacked today in La Jolla. A wolf somehow infiltrated the UC San Diego campus and made its way to the small sheep pen at Revelle Plaza, where the terrified, trembling sheep were saved by a shepherd, who chased the wolf away.
Onlookers clapped as the wolf slinked away. That’s because they’d just witnessed a unique, often funny performance of Les moutons by Canadian company CORPUS. The strange act was part of this weekend’s La Jolla Playhouse 2024 WOW Festival!
The sheep might have been sheepish, but they did entertain the crowd with their dull stares, herd mentality, their shearing, milking and feeding sessions, and a couple of natural but unspeakable animal behaviors!
Here comes a ram through the astonished crowd? What does it want?
A howl was heard in the distance. Then…
Panic! Chaos! (My camera wasn’t fast enough.)
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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)!
Yesterday a group of unsuspecting people confronted imminent danger at UC San Diego in La Jolla!
The large group could not know the sort of peril they’d be facing. We had gathered in Revelle Plaza to witness a performance by Cirque Inextremiste, but many didn’t realize that WE would be the performers!
Yann Ecauvre appeared and proceeded to drag long, very heavy wooden beams out to the surrounding audience. He stood the beams on end and then had ordinary hands (some of which were rather small) hold them upright. When unsteady beams began to precariously tip, the danger was safely overcome. Whew!
Then audience members began to build a wooden structure made of more beams. Higher and increasingly impressive the construct grew . . . those vertically held beams were added . . . then a chain of courageous humans holding hands mounted the crazy, tipsy structure!
The performance was called Damoclès. It was part of this weekend’s free La Jolla Playhouse 2024 WOW event!
Would you like to bring out your own courage? Damoclès will be repeated this afternoon. See the 2024 Without Walls Festival schedule by clicking here!
(By the way–were you there? That was me, surprised, given a yellow danger tape necktie, and helping to hold up the second beam. Taking photos during the ordeal was a challenge!)
These kids were fearless!
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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)!
Dangling high in the air, the BANDALOOP vertical dancers wowed a big crowd watching from below, near UCSD’s new Epstein Family Amphitheater. The dancers floated down from the roof of the multi-story Design and Innovation Building to whale song and watery music in a graceful ballet that made everyone ooh and ahh.
The dancers whirled, flew, even crawled like Spider-Man on the building’s side–it was anything but ordinary!
The Without Walls Festival quick guide describes Downstream (tributaries) as a “mix of dance and climbing technology guided by impermanence, wisdom and the memory of shared waterways.”
As you can see from my photos, the BANDALOOP performers were absolutely incredible. Just imagine the physical strength, steadiness and courage that is required for such a high-flying dance!
Personally, I really liked how the dancers’ shadows and reflections in windows danced right along with them!
To see the La Jolla Playhouse WOW Festival programming for tomorrow, Sunday, click 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)!
What’s that tall brick smokestack near the world-famous Hotel del Coronado?
It’s the most noticeable part of a historic industrial complex!
I walked around the Hotel Del’s old laundry building, ice house and power plant last month during the San Diego Architectural Foundation Open House event. I discovered several plaques that provide information about these three buildings, which, clustered south of the hotel lobby entrance, are called the industrial complex.
The brick building shown below once provided the Hotel del Coronado’s laundry service. It’s now home to The Laundry Pub!
Laundry, established 1919.
The original hotel laundry opened on the second floor of the Power Plant in January 1888. The Laundry occupied the majority of the second floor and employed 20 women. In 1919 this brick structure was built to house the laundry operation, which had expanded to serve all of Coronado Island with a fleet of five laundry trucks and a branch location on Orange Avenue. Laundry services were provided here for the hotel until 2018.
The next photo is through the window of The Laundry Pub, which features an 1880s-era bar and the laundry’s early conveyor system above restored wood floors.
North of the brick laundry building is the hotel’s old ice house.
The ice house is now home to the fascinating Ice House Museum of the Hotel del Coronado, where you can view historical displays and artifacts, plus photographs of the many celebrities, movie stars and United States Presidents who’ve visited the Victorian resort over the years. I blogged about the museum two years ago here.
In the rear of the ice house is this plaque…
Ice House, established 1889.
Ice was originally produced with a small machine inside the Power Plant until this masonry structure was built to house a new 10-ton De Coppet ice machine. Renowned for excellent tasting ice, the De Coppet system was cutting edge technology at the time and allowed The Del to manufacture and supply ice throughout Southern California. In 1909, the building was converted into a storeroom with later uses including an upholstery shop and offices.
Lastly, north of the ice house is the old power plant with its tall, striped smokestack.
Power Plant, established 1887.
Built in 1887 to house the incandescent electric light plant, laundry, and engine house, the Power Plant supplied electricity to all of Coronado Island until service was established with SDG&E in 1922. The Power Plant housed five Mather dynamos, two Hazelton boilers, and heavy pumping and heating machinery. To this day, a utility tunnel connects the Power Plant to the historic hotel.
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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)!
A gigantic videoboard, installed in Gaslamp Square, has been activated! Two huge LED walls are mounted high in the air, attracting the attention of people near the San Diego Convention Center, Petco Park and the Gaslamp Quarter!
When I walked past the videoboard this morning, at least one worker was still up a ladder finishing the installation.
Bright videos that were running included promos for the Padres, MTS, and our beautiful City of San Diego. Mixed in were several advertisements, including one for a popular baseball video game.
Gaslamp Square, located directly next to the Gaslamp trolley station, has become a hub for many downtown activities such as Comic-Con. Now this outdoor space will be even more lively!
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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)!
Why is the towering island of the USS Midway aircraft carrier wrapped up?
To protect San Diego Bay and the environment as the historic aircraft carrier (now a popular tourist destination) receives a new coat of paint! That’s what I was told a couple days ago by a USS Midway Museum employee.
But how strange it appears!
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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 San Diego Sights! 