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Pacific Grove in the afternoon.

I've been meaning to post ever since we got back from Spain, but life and work intruded -- in a happy way. I'm working on a new story, to be included in an anthology coming out next year.
Though I've kept my nose to the grindstone, it's made my blogging lackadaisical. Then Thanksgiving came -- a wonderful communal gathering with my beloved god family -- and after that we went to Pacific Grove for the weekend. Pacific Grove, Monterrey, and Carmel have long had a shared place in our hearts. We come back when we can, like homing pigeons, to walk the beaches and visit the art galleries in Carmel.

We spent both mornings in Pacific Grove, driving, then walking along the sea wall, enjoying the slate-blue of the distant waters, the foamy white ruffles of incoming waves, the soft hush-sh-sh of waves rippling and splashing on rocks, the muffled roar of larger waves, and the kwee-dkwee-kwee of the seagulls that soared and swooped from rocks to shore and back again.

A distant boat on the endless waters.

A lone seagull, taking it all in.

Rocks that jut up like sculptures.

And a rock littered with roosting gulls.

That was the ocean view.






On land, the ice plant that makes a fuchsia-colored carpet across the sand in spring was bereft of flowers, but it glistened in green and red tones like stained glass.

A path of beauty.

Fall colors like stained glass

Someone staring out to sea.

For years I've wanted to visit the Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove, an "overwintering" spot for monarch butterflies, November through February each year, free for viewing. This time we did. Look closely. Nature has truly devised a great safety system for these delicate creatures;
At first we thought they were only dried

Hundreds of butterflies with folded wings, looking like so many dried leaves in their wonderful camouflage.

leaves hanging from trees--and not
pretty leaves, at that. And then a little
kid pointed them out to us! "They're
in camouflage," he said. (Smart kid!)
We looked again, and were amazed.
Hundreds upon hundreds of folded
wings. Camouflage indeed!

One butterfly opened its wings

Both afternoons, we drove into Carmel to enjoy the many art galleries. We have certain galleries we particularly like: One is Classic Art Gallery. One is the Carmel Art Association, a collaborative gallery that features work by local artists and puts out a lovely small catalogue each year that is like a book of art gems. You can visit them HERE. We also like Jones & Terwilliger Galleries.  But actually there are so many good galleries, an amble through them is like an amble through several fine art museums.

Because Rajan is into black and white photography, we stopped by two photography galleries we've always enjoyed.

One is the Weston Gallery. They are featuring a color show in one section at present, but they specialize in the art of some of my husband's favorite black and white photographers: Ansel Adams (his hero), Edward and Brett Weston, Yousuf Karsh, Michael Kenna, Imogen Cunningham . . . . You can click on the name of the gallery above, and, once there, click on the artists and see wonderful samples of their work. The other is Photography West Gallery, featuring some of the same artists, all working in black and white film (my husband's first love) rather than digital.

Both afternoons we stopped by a charming restaurant/bar called Grasings on  6th and Mission, and had a glass of crisp Chardonnay. The place had a soft, warm atmosphere and a friendly staff, and it made for a nice pause in the day.

Hubby's ear in lower left corner. :-)

A nice pause in the day.

 My birthday was Monday, but since we would be driving back to Sacramento that day, we celebrated Sunday evening at a little French restaurant in Pacific Grove. (Or maybe it's Monterrey: those areas run into each other, and I'm never quite sure. )

                                              It's called Fifi's Bistro Cafe , reasonably price, a charming restaurant with a cosy atmosphere. Fifi was there that evening, as it was the restaurant's 30th anniversary. She's French, of course, and she looked casually chic, as the French somehow always manage to do -- black dress, red scarf, hair tumbled back in a clip. We are not dessert eaters, but when she found out we were celebrating my birthday, she insisted on bring an order of flan for us to share, and she brought a beautiful red rose to the table, scattering the petals over the white tablecloth. How French!

I have a lot of questions in this post: Have you ever seen the monarch butterflies wintering over in some location? (I understand there are quite a few; not just Pacific Grove.) Do you have a special affinity for the ocean? Do you enjoy black and white photography? What is your favorite art form?



     

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By Michelle Rafferty

When my friend sent me a link with the subject line: Carmel in WSJ! I clicked with trepidation. The last time my hometown made national news it involved a sodomy hazing incident and the high school basketball team. Phew. This time, it was only about a local dispute over an expensive new piece of suburban architecture:

This is the Palladium, a $126 million concert hall, whose controversial price tag is heating up this spring’s mayoral election. My first thought was: why, when Indianapolis theater and concert venues reside a mere 20 minutes south, did Carmel do this?* I asked our resident city expert Sharon Zukin for her opinion on the matter and she wrote:

…so Carmel, Indiana, has entered the global sweepstakes of destination culture!…every city copies every bigger, more famous, more glamorous city to build cultural attractions in the hope of attracting tourists and (hope against hope) They hire starchitects (usually Frank Gehry but in this case…the long-dead Andrea Palladio!) to design flagship buildings that will get media attention (the Guggenheim Bilbao effect). They sign up for the Cow Parade (see the website) if they have a low budget and for “The Gates” (Christo in Central Park, 2008) if they have a big budget and for the Olympics if they have a huge budget. All of which puts them on a treadmill of cultural competition.

And the ironic thing  is that the more cities compete, trying to differentiate themselves with “cultural attractions,” the more alike they become. As Zukin also told me:

…so many cities do the same thing that they ALL wind up building the same kind of attraction, so the uniqueness of any of these attractions is submerged in the wave of same-old same-old spectacles; the resulting standardization is called, thanks to the geographer Donald McNeil, McGuggenization.

Think of the Guggenheims, Times Squares, MOMA’s, and MOCA’s across the world. That’s McGuggenization. And your city could be next!

*In the Palladium’s defense, I spoke with my mom and she happened to like the center (they offered a free concert for the grand opening).  And she didn’t have much sympathy for the outcry about a potential raise in taxes due to Palladium expenses. Turns out Carmel has one of the cheapest tax brackets in the area, meaning the residents have gotten a lot of bang for their buck over their years. Like a brand new Arts & Design District. Safer roads. And Waterslides.

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