Tag: downtown

San Diego readies for Peacemaker and The Freak Brothers!

Comic-Con Special Edition, during this Thanksgiving weekend, will be featuring a few cool offsite activations in and around San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter. They are free and open to the public.

I walked along Martin Luther King, Jr. Promenade this morning and saw a big new Peacemaker display and workers readying an offsite that promotes Tubi’s new show The Freak Brothers. (UPDATE—possibly The Freak Brothers! It might actually be the Peacemaker Proving Ground. We’ll have to see Friday!)

NBC will also be promoting La Brea in Gaslamp Square next to the Tin Fish, across from the San Diego Convention Center. I took updated photos of that offsite yesterday, which you can see here.

A security guard told me a homeless person tried to rip off the plastic wrapping, breaking the Peacemaker sign below.

Here’s a photo of the big Peacemaker building wrap on the Marriott Marquis. Peacemaker is a show about the DC Comics character, who appeared in the latest Suicide Squad movie. The new series will be on HBO Max.

Here come more pics from this Thanksgiving morning. It looks like (maybe) The Freak Brothers will be living in a trailer. The animated Tubi show satirizes both the drug counter-culture and the establishment. It’s based on an underground comic about stoner characters and their crazy exploits.

The Garden of Peace sign makes me wonder if this isn’t actually the Peacemaker Proving Ground, referenced here. We’ll find out!

UPDATE!

Turns out I was wrong! What I thought might be The Freak Brothers activation is actually the Peacemaker Proving Ground. That would explain the obstacle course I photographed earlier.

A bus promoting The Freak Brothers will be parked by the Hilton San Diego Bayfront!

I’ll have to check that out this weekend!

…

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!

Have a sweet and Happy Thanksgiving!

Just in case the roast turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, rolls, candied yams, green bean casserole, cranberries and pumpkin pie isn’t enough to send you into a blissful post-feast coma, have a turkey donut! (I swung by the downtown Donut Bar a couple days ago.)

Have a sweet and Happy Thanksgiving!

Richard

Sunrise over San Diego’s trolley and rail yard.

I was walking around the San Diego Convention Center this morning, looking for cool stuff popping up for this weekend’s Comic-Con Special Edition, when I had to pause on the Harbor Drive pedestrian bridge and marvel at the brilliant sunrise.

I took these two photos of sunrise above downtown’s trolley and rail yard.

…

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!

Getting ready for Comic-Con Special Edition!

Preparations are now underway in downtown San Diego for this Thanksgiving weekend’s big Comic-Con Special Edition!

I walked around the Gaslamp Quarter this morning and spotted a building wrap on the Marriott Marquis. In the evening, after dark, I saw workers setting up a couple of Comic-Con offsites!

One offsite, by the Tin Fish, promotes NBC’s television show La Brea. The premise, I learned, is a sinkhole opens up in Los Angeles, swallowing modern people and depositing them in a mysterious subterranean world–where their smartphones don’t work! What will they do when they encounter dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures? The La Brea offsite will be giving away premium swag to all visitors!

The other offsite I spotted is on some grass by Martin Luther King, Jr. Promenade, where Deadquarters has been located the last couple Comic-Cons. Workers were setting up an obstacle course. One person I spoke to thinks this offsite promotes a show on Tubi. Possibly The Freak Brothers. I’ll be providing updates with more photos and info. Stay tuned!

Comic-Con Special Edition banner at one end of the San Diego Convention Center.
These workers confided they’re getting stuff ready for the big pop culture event!
More banners on the convention center along Harbor Drive.
Comic-Con International banners on posts by the convention center. Celebrating the popular arts.
A Peacemaker building wrap on the Marriott Marquis. The television series concerning a DC Comics character will be on streaming service HBO Max.
Setting up an offsite in the dark. The workers didn’t know what it was–except it’s for Comic-Con.
Part of the same offsite, which includes an obstacle course. Someone surmised it promotes a show on Tubi.
The NBC La Brea offsite by the Tin Fish.
Looks like mammoth tusks! Visitors will walk through here to an ambulance where cool swag will be obtained!
Looks like Syfy will also be represented outside Comic-Con Special Edition!
La Brea ads are all over the place.
Stay tuned for more pics later this week!

UPDATE!

I walked all around the Gaslamp and convention center early Wednesday morning. This is what I saw…

First, some large banners have been on the Hilton San Diego Bayfront’s parking structure for a few weeks now. They promote local rapidly growing tech company ClickUp, which is headquartered in the Gaslamp!

Next, I took a pic of exhibitors lined up behind the convention center, waiting to unload trucks.

I took some pics of construction of what I think might be The Freak Brothers offsite near the Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter. (UPDATE! Now I’m thinking this might be the Peacemaker Proving Ground–we’ll see on Friday!)

And finally some daylight pics of the La Brea activation.

…

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 librarian’s Call to Serve in San Diego.

An inspiring exhibit now on display at the San Diego Central Library is titled Call to Serve: Clara E. Breed & The Japanese American Incarceration. It can be viewed through January 2022 in the Art Gallery on the downtown library’s Ninth Floor.

The exhibit recalls how San Diego librarian Clara E. Breed comforted and advocated for those American citizens of Japanese ancestry who were sent away to internment camps during World War II. She particularly helped and encouraged the children, with whom she kept in communication. Part of the exhibit includes many of her letters.

Clara Breed also fought against the censorship of books, and for a library collection that contained more international and multicultural material, that would speak to readers from diverse backgrounds.

I was touched by Clara’s compassion as I read many of the letters. She clearly had a love for the hundreds of children that she tirelessly championed. Anyone reading her words will be moved.

A replica of a barracks that was used to incarcerate Japanese-Americans during World War II can be viewed on the Central Library’s First Floor, near the main entrance. I blogged about it about a month ago here.

“Military necessity” was the justification for the removal of all persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast of the United States…On April 1, 1942, Civilian Exclusion Order No. 4 announced that all persons of Japanese ancestry were to report to Santa Fe Depot…Military guards supervised the transportation fo some 1,150 San Diegans to the Santa Anita Race Track…
“…When the children came to return their books and surrender their cards we gave them stamped postcards. Write to us. We’ll want to know where you are and how you are getting along, and we’ll send you some books to read.” –Clara E. Breed
…I am going to miss you a great deal, as you must know. You have been one of my restorers-of-faith in the human spirit. I know that you will keep your courage and humor in the weeks and days that lie ahead, no matter what they may bring…

…

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!

Three large fish painted on 11th Avenue.

Those who sit waiting for a bus on the west side of the City College Transit Center might see three very large fish out of water. They’ve been painted on a wall facing 11th Avenue, a short distance north of Broadway!

I believe this mural was just finished. I see it was created by the prolific local artists of @ladieswhopaint and @pandrdesignco!

Downtown San Diego becomes more colorful every day!

…

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!

Frankenstein’s monster lives in San Diego!

A few months ago Frankenstein’s monster came to life in downtown San Diego. I saw the awesome monster this afternoon when I stepped through the door of artist James Watts’ studio!

The creature, years in the making, now lives among other imaginative sculptures and works of art. I blogged about some of that artwork a short while ago here.

Frankenstein’s monster has a skin made of hammered aluminum. He’s covered with images cut from old lunchboxes, advertisements, and other odd things. When the innocent monster was assembled and jolted into life, it appears his skin rapidly absorbed impressions from the world he was born into.

James Watts wants viewers of his art to make their own discoveries. Each block that composes the monster’s body is numbered. The two hemispheres of the brain include the word NO or YES. One includes the moon, the other the sun. He showed me several other cleverly arranged images. I saw fun word play.

The sculpture is like a giant jigsaw puzzle or visual poem. All is open to interpretation.

The heart of the Frankenstein monster is made of three pieces that fit together. One piece represents love, another lust, another the mind.

I saw several superheroes and cartoon characters on the monster’s skin, parts of old advertisements, and multiple instances of the Three Stooges.

What do you see?

…

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!

The storytelling blocks of artist James Watts!

One of the most wonderfully creative artists in San Diego has a little-known studio downtown. His name is James Watts.

I blogged about my first visit to his amazing studio several years ago here.

Today I was walking home after a long adventure (many blogs coming up) when I saw his studio door was open. And there he was working away! Hammering at flat pieces of printed aluminum, making colorful storytelling blocks!

What are storytelling blocks? They feature images from human experience on different sides–such as night on one side and day on the other. You can flip them any which way, then insert them into a wooden box with fixed compartments! These visual stories are like small treasures or keepsakes. Dreamlike, they are open to interpretation.

He also showed me his Box of Yes and No (that uses words from different languages and a couple of eyeballs) and a shelf full of storytelling cubes. Plus lots of other cool artwork!

His fantastic Frankenstein monster that debuted earlier this year is so cool it’s coming up separately on my next blog post!

I love the unlimited energy and joy of life that flows from James Watts’ hands. His art is primarily about storytelling. His studio is also filled with large sculptures based on Japanese kokeshi. The sculptures creatively depict Don Quixote, Prometheus, Jonah, Pandora, Joan of Arc, and a whole host of diverse characters from literature.

He told me some of his storytelling pieces will be in a future exhibition at the Oceanside Museum of Art. So you might be getting a little bit of a preview here!

…

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!

Has the Earth moved at Fault Line Park?

Fault Line Park in downtown San Diego’s East Village neighborhood made its debut a little over six years ago.

Has the Earth moved since then?

More specifically, has the Earth on either side of the Rose Canyon Fault System rupture just under the park moved since then?

Very unique public art in this city park helps casual observers determine whether any such movement has occurred. I first blogged about Fault Line Park and its two giant spheres in September, 2015. Revisit that old post by clicking here.

Back then I took a photograph through one of the spheres. The twin stainless steel spheres stand on opposite sides of the shallow underground rupture. Should the ground on either side move over time, the targeting crosshairs inside the one sphere will shift in relation to the other sphere.

Here’s a photo I took over six years ago…

Compare it to the next photo that I took early this morning.

Something is now stuck inside the sphere’s hollow tube, but you can see how the crosshairs still roughly center on the opposite sphere:

I know this isn’t scientific, but if there has been any movement of the ground on either side of the fault line, it appears to be very slight!

I’ll have to take another photo a few years from now!

…

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!

She is LOVED, FREE and STRONG in East Village!

I spotted this uplifting, encouraging mural early this morning as I walked down J Street in San Diego’s East Village. The artwork is located on a wall between 16th Street and 17th Street.

I believe the mural was painted about a year ago. I don’t know by whom.

The three positive messages are: She is loved! She is free! She is strong!

…

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!