This evening a wonderful Christmas concert was enjoyed in Balboa Park. The San Diego Ballet, San Diego Opera, and Civic Organist Raúl Prieto Ramírez performed holiday favorites for a large crowd at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion!
Ballerinas filed onto the stage to dance to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, then soaring voices filled the chilly night air with warm selections from Handel’s Messiah, and many favorite Christmas carols.
The concert concluded with a rousing Hallelujah Chorus.
I’m delighted to see how this annual free Christmas concert has grown in popularity to become a true San Diego holiday tradition.
On one special December evening some our city’s finest cultural institutions unite, bringing joy to young and old alike.
I sat in the pavilion and listened, and managed a few okay photos from afar.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
There’s a beautiful new mural on the front of the Welcome Home Boutique & Art Space in Lemon Grove. I spotted it yesterday during a walk down Broadway near Grove Street.
The art is by muralist and social justice activist Mario Chacón. It was painted this year.
Included in the artwork is the image of migrant workers collecting fruit from citrus trees.
Lemon Grove used to be largely agricultural. It’s sunny climate is perfect for growing citrus. The San Diego Union newspaper in 1894 referred to Lemon Grove as “a sea of lemon trees.”
My adventure yesterday included a visit to the Lemon Grove Parsonage Museum, which is operated by the Lemon Grove Historical Society. I’ll be sharing those fascinating photos in the next few days!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
If you are intrigued by human creativity, science or philosophy, you might enjoy the artwork now on display at the The Bonita Museum and Cultural Center. The title of the exhibition is Rule 42, Stretched Language.
Why Rule 42? According to one popular work of fiction, 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe and Everything. Go ahead, smile!
Why Stretched Language? Perhaps because human language can be stretched in endless ways. Words assembled in infinite combinations can represent one’s personal experience or shine light into dark places. Be made into poetry.
Words are symbolic. Numbers, variables and equations are also symbolic. They, too, can be used in poetic expression. Indeed, the exhibition’s subtitle is “Explorations into visual, concrete and mathematical poetry.”
Supposedly, the works in this exhibition each have something to do with mathematics. It seemed to me, however, that they all celebrate something larger: the unique capacity of diverse human minds to imagine, rationalize and create. And even embrace pure nonsense.
Psychronometrics. Sounds scientific. Sounds profound. The equation and description is impressive. But the assertion is that our psychological experience of time, and how time seems to accelerate as we become older, is related to Einstein’s theory of relativity.
To compare the two is utterly absurd. That equation in the photograph above includes velocity. Neither the young nor the old have managed (yet) to approach the speed of light!
But you know what? The plasticity of the human mind, which can imagine and rationalize absolutely anything and everything, is what is on display. These are the metaphorical works of visionary artists, not “serious” scientists. Infinite artistic truths cannot be defined with a few equations.
More rational visitors to the exhibit might laugh at some of the jumbled assertions and associations. Rule 42, Stretched Language can be a stretch.
My advise? Don’t be too critical. Step outside your own idea of Truth and enjoy!
This rather unusual exhibition ends on December 3, 2021.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Today many are celebrating Día de los Muertos–Mexico’s traditional Day of the Dead. It is a time when departed loved ones are remembered and honored.
Early this evening I took a short walk around Old Town San Diego to see what I might see.
Many are still cautious because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so there wasn’t the usual crowd and activities. But I did find music and colorful Catrinas at Fiesta de Reyes, and sugar skull face painting at a few spots in the State Park and along San Diego Avenue. I also came across a couple of Día de los Muertos altars.
These are my photos…
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
Two remarkable and historically important sculptures were moved recently from Presidio Hill to the San Diego History Center in Balboa Park.
When I visited the History Center today I was surprised to see the two large Arthur Putnam works, because I’d observed them several times in the past during walks through Presidio Park.
An explanation on the gallery wall explains that The Indian (1904) and The Padre (1908) were moved to protect them from the outdoor elements and vandalism. I learned they will be gallery centerpieces as this section of the San Diego History Center receives additional material. Critical context will be provided for these bronze statues.
If you’d like to see photos of the two sculptures when they stood on Presidio Hill, check out past blog posts here and here.
The first link will take you on a walk from Old Town up to the Serra Museum–a walk I made years ago when Cool San Diego Sights was just getting started.
The second link concerns an Arthur Putnam exhibition at the San Diego Museum of Art. You’ll learn that he was internationally renowned, particularly for his sculptures depicting animals. And he also had an interesting San Diego connection!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
For a few minutes this afternoon in Balboa Park, I enjoyed watching the outdoor rehearsal of a community program coming to San Diego courtesy of the Old Globe.
Shakespeare: Call and Response, which will run from October 26 to November 14, 2021, is a three week tour of free performances with audience participation in diverse settings around the city.
What I observed was a crazy fun mixture of Shakespeare’s plays, modern romance, hip hop culture, dancing in the audience, laughter, bubbles, a Día de los Muertos altar, comedy about Halloween candy, and loads more impromptu cleverness and playful creativity!
This year’s program is part of the annual Globe For All Tour, which “brings free, live, professional productions of Shakespeare and select productions from our mainstage to diverse multigenerational audiences in the neighborhoods throughout San Diego County.”
I just received the above information. There will be a Grand Opening of Old Town San Diego State Historic Park’s recently completed expansion!
The new outdoor interpretive area, which I visited yesterday and blogged about here, is called Iipay ~ Tipai Kumeyaay Mut Niihepok, Land of the First People. It’s a beautiful place, with winding walkways and public art and displays concerning the history and culture of the Native American Kumeyaay. These First People have lived in our region for thousands of years, long before European explorers arrived.
The big Grand Opening is scheduled for Tuesday, October 26, 2021, and will take place between 1 pm and 4 pm.
Kumeyaay bird singers will perform during the historic Grand Opening ceremony!
If you plan to go, look for the large park-like space full of trees and native greenery, at the corner of Taylor Street and Juan Street!
Old Town San Diego State Historic Park’s major expansion has opened!
The beautiful new outdoor area, situated at the north end of the State Park, near the intersection of Taylor Street and Juan Street where an old Caltrans building used to stand, is called Land of the First People. It honors our region’s Native American Kumeyaay.
Pathways wind through native vegetation, beautiful public artwork, and interpretive displays on stones that describe the history and culture of the Kumeyaay, who lived here for many thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. A Kumeyaay village called Kosa’aay existed where Old Town is now, near the mouth of the San Diego River.
I arrived at Old Town San Diego State Historic Park this evening just before sunset and noticed the construction fence circling this new area had finally come down! So I had to investigate immediately!
Artwork I discovered includes numerous disks along the pathways, showing native animals and the Kumeyaay words for each; a circular plaza with a mosaic depicting stars and constellations recognized by the Kumeyaay; and two benches made extraordinary with mosaics by local artist Betsy K. Schulz. Her amazing mosaics can be found all around San Diego. I’ll provide more photographs of these two benches in my next blog post!
Before it became too dark as night fell, this is what my camera captured…
Iipay ~ Tipai Kumeyaay Mut Niihepok — Land of the First People.Ha silly hatekarr – sea otterThe Kumeyaay created pottery made of local clay for cooking and storage. A large askay or saakay kept water cool…The traditional Kumeyaay diet was highly diverse, but shawii (acorn mush) was eaten daily…The traditional Kumeyaay cosmology of Maay Uuyow (Sky Knowledge) is extensive and elaborate…Hand tools like those shown here are used with the bowl-like hollows and other indentations in xepiicha (grinding stones) to process acorns, seeds, fibers…This ancestral land is respectfully dedicated to the First People, the Kumeyaay.The people of the Kumeyaay Nation have historically lived in and traveled through the Southern California and Northern Baja California region. This area extended from the Pacific Ocean to the desert…
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
A couple weeks ago I noticed a large mural was being installed on a wall of the courtyard at the newly transformed Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park.
Today I saw the work has been completed!
For many years, Variations on a Gold Theme, created by artists Ellamarie and Jackson Woolley in 1966, could be viewed in Escondido outside the museum’s satellite branch on Maple Street.
Originally this fantastic 12-by-36-foot enamel-on-copper mural made its home in downtown San Diego, at the First National Bank Building.
Now, as you can see in my photographs, the radiant, quite beautiful Variations on a Gold Theme inspires those who sit outside in the sunshine at the Mingei Museum’s new Lucille and Ron Neeley Courtyard!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
Accordion music, costumes, dance and tasty treats can be enjoyed by visitors to Balboa Park this weekend at the International Cottages. The House of Czech and Slovak Republics is presenting their festive lawn program!
I swung by to enjoy a bit of culture and ended up gobbling some yummy strudel. I also got a few colorful photos!
I stepped into the House of Czech and Slovak Republics cottage and discovered a beautiful painting on one wall of Prague. And artwork depicting folk costume and dance!
Then a smile and book titled FAVORITE RECIPES Czech & Slovak Cottage was promptly followed by sweet temptation!
The lawn program will be held tomorrow, Sunday, as well! The public is invited!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Cool San Diego Sights! 