One of the pleasures of living in our neighborhood is the ability to travel back and forth to work on Muni- a pleasant walk, downhill, and then the light rail to downtown. ‘Serendipity’ would apply here, too, as even I get the occasional, shall we say, admiring glance from someone on the train with whom, under other circumstances I might plight my troth- for a few minutes, anyway. (Let’s see if Keith McCullar reads this post) Muni also keeps me abreast of social phenomena, lost as I am for most of the day in my own thoughts, with proximity to others, and the adverts on the train, begging for my attention. Jostling from the other passengers does that, too, and the frequency of it reminds me that all cultures and ethnicities have different spatial orientations. Interestingly, as frequently as I rode the Tube while living in London, I don’t think cumulatively I had elbows, backpacks, and other extensions of humanity in such immediate proximity as I do in any given day riding Muni. While I’ve long ago written complaining of the size of backpacks, wondering what on earth people on their way to work, and ostensibly not on their way to begin a 7 day hike in the Sierras, could possibly have that they find it impossible to do without during the course of the working day. But what’s augmented all this, and I notice it more each day, are the arms and elbows raised while people are- wait for it- texting. This is not a new phenomenon, as technologies go, being a few years old. But with the applications available on any number of smart phones- none of which I possess- the ease with which people can do stuff that they didn’t previously realize they even needed to do makes enclosed spaces, consequently, a forest of arms and elbows akimbo. I never cease to wonder what deathless message or imperative tasks people are performing, beyond the obvious one of gouging each other in the ribs.

Given the brevity of text messages and the visual message of the application icon, it’s little wonder that bookstores are in peril. People don’t read, or at least, not typically more than a 140 character Tweet. That said, I don’t really know that the result of iPhones and text messages literacy will go the way of the buggy whip. Human culture as human cognition is dynamic, and while at any given time, there may be typical yardsticks, there’s never a static, immutable norm. I consider myself literate and learned in the humanities, but my Latin’s pretty rusty. By some fairly typical measures of, say, a century ago, I would hardly be considered literate, much less learned.

The preference for either a brief message or just to look at the pictures is hardly new, and since we all know the picture/1,000 word aphorism, I can then immediately suggest that  it is largely so many 20^th century critics that have sought, through criticism, to transform paintings and other artworks into other (printed) media- with very limited success. Moreover, artworks should compel action, just like a computer icon or iPhone app, and it was the mindfulness of a compulsion to buy that made, for artists, the placement of their paintings in 19^th century salons so fiercely competitive.

So the iPhone and its concomitant features are here, and are okay- but what to do about the incessant poking in the ribs?

One of my closest friends is the architectural historian Jane Harding. We became acquainted when both of us worked for the amenity society The Georgian Group, with Jane busy as a caseworker, reviewing planning applications for changes to Georgian built environment in the north of England. Me? I was beavering away in the basement, trying to organize moldy boxfiles that contained decades old casework records. I’ll say this, despite performing my work in a magnificent Robert Adam terrace house, dust and dirt are still noisome, no matter that it’s from the 18^th century.

Perhaps one of the reasons I love Jane is that, as well as bright, she is possibly yet more forthright than I am. One of my favorite Jane stories involves her declination to visit some 18^th century houses in the American southeast, dismissed, as she put, as examples of ‘debased regionalism.’ Did I say forthright? ‘Acerbic’ might be nearer the mark. That said, she does make a point, inadvertently, and something that we have to be cognizant every day we’re in business. Specifically, the further something is away from the style centre, the more idiosyncratic its design becomes. That said, idiosyncratic is not bad, but can account for some marked differences.

Just at the moment, there’s some discussion about a consideration of the furniture of the Channel Islands- Jersey, Guernsey, and Sark- dependencies of the Queen of England, but not part of England, and geographically much, much closer to the coast of northern France. All this has had an odd impact on material culture, including furniture, with a ready to hand example these late George III bedside tables. The mahogany and tray top with the handholds are materials and motifs that are typically English, as are the round legs and pad feet. That said, the round legs and pad feet are not typical features of an English bedside cupboard. Pictured is more familiar example, with a similar tray top, but the cupboard is enclosed, and the legs are square. The other example is French of similar vintage, with an open front, tray top, but no hand holds, and the legs are splayed. The veneer is kingwood, common in French pieces, but not usual in English examples.  Often, though, in French bedside cupboards, the wood may be something more mundane, typically apple or pear wood.

The why of this stylistic divergence is probably the subject of a number of scholarly papers. That it is so divergent, given that geographically the distance between the places of origin of these three types of bedside cupboards is possibly as little as 300 miles. The point of all this though, is that, debased or not, regionalism can have a profound effect, even on something as prosaic as a bedside cupboard.

One of my Facebook acquaintances, Eldon Daetweiler, has put me in mind of my salad days in Fresno. Eldon has flourished there, with his business, Fresno Modern, functioning as a virtual clearing house of all things in the Eichler/Neutra/Schindler mode. Or should I more accurately say, to give credit to extraordinary Fresno based talent, the Robert Stevens/Gay McCline/Walter Wagner mode. My hat’s off to Eldon. Some of the rest of us have flown, and sad that this has happened, for in my own case specious reasoning resulted in my rushing to the connoisseurship I felt could only be garnered with education and rubbing elbows in a more sophisticated environment. Quite a lot of what I turned my back on was, on reflection, manifestly as good as anything I ran towards.

Central to all this was my good fortune to enjoy a time of significant, albeit brief renaissance in Fresno’s Tower District, a commercial strip that takes its name from the exquisite art moderne masterpiece that is the Tower Theater. Plenty has been written about it, but it is nonetheless worthwhile for my blogophiles to peruse the theater’s website. Moreover, it anchors an area of satellite buildings from the late 1920’s through the early 1960’s, rather underutilized just at the moment. For a brief bit in the early 1980’s, following the restoration of the theater, the neighborhood enjoyed a flurry of activity- shops, restaurants, and services- and with that flurry the ad hoc designation of Fresno’s gay ghetto. Sounds trite now, but at the time, it was the center of a wonderful experience, with many establishments along Olive Avenue, the district’s main commercial thoroughfare, though not manifestly gay, all gay friendly. What no one saw on the horizon to affect this was the specter of HIV which eventually decimated the local gay community as it had everywhere else. That, and the waxing and waning of fashion, the vicissitudes of commercial enterprise, and real estate values have taken a toll on the Tower District.

It’s interesting to consider, much as I enjoyed living and recreating in the neighborhood in the 80’s, one other factor might also be influential. That is, the gay community, arguably, no longer feels quite the same imperative to maintain its own turf. While that’s not such a good thing for the Tower District, such a phenomenon is certainly a better thing for society at large. Mind you, I am hardly suggesting that Fresno is a bastion of liberalism, and has a ways to go to fully embrace the diversity that includes its gay population. But, then, the same can be said about most communities. It is nice to know, however, that the past is hardly forgotten, with the city’s gay pride parade still annually traversing Olive Avenue.

It is also nice to know that the welter of mid century architecture in Fresno, including notable buildings that survive in the Tower District, are recognized and, possibly, more broadly celebrated now than they have been in the recent past. I applaud urban pioneers like well-known landscape designer Robert Boro, whose new offices are now on Van Ness just south of Olive in a newly rehabbed vintage building, whose other occupant is interior designer Michael Weil. Is there a re-renaissance on the horizon? I can hope, of course, and say- paraphrasing the poet- Eldon Daetweiler, Michael Weil, and Robert Boro, may your tribe increase.

I freely admit that the Facebook phenomenon, actually just about anything in the electronic age seems more than a bit alien. Us with our avocation makes this rather easier to understand. Psychically we have feet comfortably planted in the 18^th century.  Mind you, despite our métier, Facebook is lots of fun, and after watching ‘The Social Network’, it’s abundantly clear that, say what you want, the site is still largely a beauty contest. What is yet impossible to communicate electronically, however, are those areas of sensual beauty that exceed the visual. With all that, even the visual leaves something to be desired as, no matter the pixels, one can’t substitute beholding the object of one’s desire firsthand. That’s actually why I read art history in London. An object based discipline, one wants to be around the objects with which London’s collections, more than anywhere else in the world, are replete. I have often heard it said that American art historians are distinguished as those who come up with lots of methodologies and build elaborate tropes- something that they might not necessarily do if they had access to, and consequently gloried in, more of the objects they write about with such prolixity. ‘In the flesh’ is a phrase that has so much to recommend.

Moreover, one finds comeliness not just in the visual, even when the visual as virtual is as accurate as current technologies can make it. I was reminded of this in spades, showing a discriminating client the hidden interior drawers of an exquisite William and Mary period japanned cabinet. While we are always asked what we’ve found in the innumerable hidden drawers our many items bought and sold over the years have possessed, my standard rejoinder has always been ‘Period dust.’ But in the most recent instance, I asked my client, with her nose within the cabinet interior, to inhale deeply. And by way of showing her how, I did, too. Nothing, I mean nothing can replicate the aroma that time has wrought in old wood, consonant with 300 years of existence. And of course, this is a sensual side aspect of beauty that is impossible to communicate electronically. Assuming one has simply a connoisseurship of the visual, I can only say that you are forgoing an experience possibly not resulting in a stir to the genitals, but possibly so, but certainly otherwise exceptional.

Reminded on the news this morning that today’s the official kickoff of the Giants season with their annual Fan Fest at AT&T Park, in its honor I wore my only bit of orange and black outerwear, an old Burberry shirt that has yet to make it to the rag bag.  For once, it turned out I made the right decision, as riding to the galleries this morning on Muni, those handful of people not garbed in team colors were, shall we say, conspicuous.

Giants mania is hardly a local phenomenon, unless you wish to consider a fan radius of 500 miles local. Astonishing the numbers of people who traveled just that far to queue up for today’s event. For those very few of you who may be looking down your toffee noses about this sort of thing, I can only say you must not have watched even 30 seconds of either the Giants playoff or World Series performance. For those of us in San Francisco, the link goes much, much deeper, with the Giants players and the Giants organization deeply connected with what goes on here. Clearly, fan loyalty is reciprocated by at least an equivalent in kind factor. No greater expression of that mutuality of regard can be imagined than that of the Giants World Series victory parade. It was my privilege to watch it just around the corner from our galleries, and the photos we took I’m happy to reprise on our Facebook page. Click here to view the album.