March 30 - The Journey Out

Time to leave the Vaca Mountains and English Hills again, at least for awhile,



turning and getting on I-80, the northside of the Lagoon Mountains as a bumpy dark green horizon,


the south side of the Poverty Hills starting to sere out against rogue cumuli.


Harriet's driving, so I get to take slightly better pictures than normal of some of the 680 sights, including Long Barn and its backing fingers of vegetated canyons reaching up to the Sulfur Springs summits,


Eden,


the Hovel Hills,


and Horse Farm



On beyond, approaching cloudier conditions near Orinda,



up to


and through the Caldecott Tunnel



for another rehearsal of Antigone: III-V and San Rafael News at Berkeley's Chamber Arts with Eliza, Kristin, Beth, and Janet;



then to the City for a brief practice with John Partridge, checking the Goat Hall mail, dropping the PHNH key off with Erling, lunching in the chill of Connecticut Yankee, and checking out the Phoenix Theatre near Union Square (an interesting 49-seat venue six floors up in the Native Sons Building) -- ultimately heading to Marin, approaching the Rainbow Tunnel



through the 101 Headlands Canyon,


down the Waldo Grade with Mt. Tam rising.


Stopping at the Strawberry Starbucks yields views north to Horse Hill,



west to an outlying eminence in greater Mill Valley,



and south back to Marin City and the highlands beyond.



It's Symphony night, but we're early, so we take our leisure by driving the long way around China Camp, three-quarters circling San Pedro Mountain,



past the Brick Yard,



to the heroic viewpoint at Rat Island Cove, where Mt Burdell looks great



at any distance.


So does the isle itself


(just offshore of the picnic area),


a spot of singularity,


as distinctive a presence as the shadowy Turtleback beyond.


We arrive at the Civic Center, with Frank Lloyd Wright's singular spire,


and views of the north slope of San Pedro Mountain (across from the druid-circle-flowers of the duck pond's artificial island),


the eccentric light sculpture in the round-about (one assumes Frank Lloyd Wright's own?), and


Mt. Tam glowing in the half-light beyond the parking lot.


Concert is fine (and in color, live) and will be reviewed tomorrow, appearing in Commuter Times this Friday, and excerpts at 21st-centurymusic.com and 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com.


Page 4 of Variations on Americana orchestrated upon return.

March 16 - Easy Going Spring Weep Happiness

Early a.m., record instrumental version of I. Difficult from Op 156 Vocal Sonatina No. 1 ("Spitzer")



and II. I Am Not a Monster




After eventful sleep and blogging Kurt Weill for markalburgermusichistory.blogspot.com,



off to Berkeley for another Red Horse rehearsal with Allen, Beth, Eliza, Harriet, Kat, and Kristen (Jones, that is...), working on Fire from The Bald Soprano (Kat), III-V from Antigone (Beth, Eliza, Harriet), and San Rafael News (+ Kristen, working out parts for Death Catch, Immortality, The Reproductive Organs, and Rain-Death Fugato, as well as solo work on Sylvia Dryer with Beth) -- nice to discover that there's a second piano at Chamber Arts (n.b. above is Claremont Hotel on this brilliantly sunny day), which we put to good use. And -- glory be! -- there are palms above: after all, it is


Palm Sunday (with ironically the arguably most-racy-post-thus-far heading this blog entry).



Leaving in a timely fashion, back to Castro Valley / Hayward border for a walk uphill, east on Kelly Road, where the eucalypti are tall and


the hills far, including


the heights of San Francisco's Sutro Tower, between enmeshed power poles.


Homeward, and it's seemingly a photographic recapitulation of last Sunday, with shots of the Dublin Canyon Declivity (but now including the green graffiti barn.... hmm, perhaps this side canyon is actually the green graffiti graven)....


Mount Diablo from the 580 / 680 interchange,



and half-an-oak and flowers in the Diablo Foothills northeast of Danville.


Traffic on 80, however, leads to a diversion on Abernathy Road, welcomed by a fertility goddess (though perhaps not as welcoming as the top at top...)


for views of Twin Sisters (ditto...) across Suisun Valley (with wildflowers in league with those of Jameson Canyon and Moss Beach / Half Moon Bay [moon...]),


palms [again!] lining an entrance way,



Gomer School,


the Mankas Corner / Waterman Foothills



(bearing an uncanny resemblance to itself last May 18, in a closer -- and first -- shot from Waterman),


and the straight-on view of Mount Vaca.



Further, hewing to the side roads, Three-Oak Hill looms,


revealing, in this season, two as deciduous


(again, a comparison shot from last late spring --



actually --


three)



Onward through suburban Vaca Foothills


Cement Hill comes into view;


as do the South Lagoon Mountains over Paradise Valley;


Poverty Hills, to the east of 80


(another simple equation -- now three trees and a cow), and


the main reach of the Lagoons across the Cherry Valley side of the freeway



and from the Pena Adobe Road Exit.



Home, watching the beautiful Francois Girard (of Red Violin) film



Silk



(with music by Ryuichi Sakamoto), with Harriet, while beginning the Sergei Prokofiev chapter of the Music History site.