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27 March 2011

San Francisco Time Lapse

While I was in SF I made a few time lapses. This is an amalgamation of said videos, in my first ever edited video using Adobe Premier, with Grizzly Bear and Feist in the background.

The video looks better at higher quality so click before or follow this link and up the quality and full screen it.

23 March 2011

San Francisco Film

All of this is shot on Kodak B&W 120 film. Borders are left because it's basically photojournalism and no edits are made other than brightness and contrast - as per the usual.


Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption by Nervi and others.



Frank Lloyd Wright's V.C. Morris Gift Shop.


Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park.




Renzo Piano's California Institute of Sciences.



Artesa Winery in Napa by Domingo Triay.



The Painted Ladies next to Alamo Square.

Unemployment at a Glance

Trending of the monetary and employment makeup of the US lately has been both disturbing and interesting, but first some articles and figures:

The unemployment rate is currently 9.5% as of February 2011.

A more accurate unemployment rate, the U6 (total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons), is about 16%.


There are now 5 unemployed workers for every 1 job opening.


The unemployment rate of the young, often cited as a reason for unrest, in Egypt is 25% - in the US it's 21% (defined as 16-24 in the US and under 25 in Egypt). If you're a college grad it's more like 11% and if you're over 25 it's 4.5%.

Cutting unemployment benefits is correlated with people looking for work less.


Graduating from college now and not getting a job is detrimental to your long term prospects - that is, we're damaging a whole generation of workers.

And last but not least, the top 400 richest Americans now own more than the bottom 50% of Americans.

I'm not even sure I need to comment further. It should be abundantly clear why firing teachers - which will most likely be young and will further exacerbate the problem, cutting government spending - which will increase that 5 unemployed per job opening number, and/or cutting taxes (on the rich none the less) at this point in time makes no sense. The employed have historically high employment rates while some job postings are even requiring that you're currently employed just to apply for the job. It's as if the unemployed have become a minority group with little power and diminishing resources. Why is this acceptable?

San Francisco

California Academy of Sciences designed by Renzo Piano.


Back entrance.



The de Young by Herzog and Demuron.


Copper facade.


Entrance courtyard.


A cathedral made of...


... bullets, gun parts, casings, and buck shot.


Interior courtyards in the de Young.


View from the observation tower.




This is the inside of the California Academy of Sciences.



Walk under aquarium...


The green roof made of native CA plants.



I'm not a fan of ceiling tiles, but in this case - sans the metal rack they usually sit on and replaced by an undulating pattern formed by hanging them from metal wire they both perform and please.



The Golden Gate Botanical Garden.


Rafael Viñoly's Ray and Dagmar Dolby Regeneration Medicine Building for UCSF.


It abuts a beautiful nature preserve with quite the elevation.


A view to the green roof which is open to staff (and by the looks of it actually gets used).


These are a collection along of homes along Laidley Street that I found interesting for one reason or another.




Morphosis designed San Francisco Federal Building... it's like contemporary brutalism. Looks oddly similar to his Cooper Union building.



The back was the best part. It reminded me of the buildings in Germany.



San Francisco MOMA by Mario Botta.


The brickwork was nice but I'm not thrilled by the building.


Frank Lloyd Wright's V.C. Morris Gift Shop (now Xanadu Gallery).



Easily the best building I saw. Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption designed by Nervi plus some other people.


Notice the size of the people where the concrete touches the floor.



The scale is hard to capture in photos. The roof is 190' tall.







Frank Lloyd Wright's Hanna House - tours booked months in advance.


Ritual Coffeehouse.


Artesa Winery in Napa by Domingo Triay.



French Oak barrels. They were playing Gregorian chants...






Looking out from the entrance.





The Painted Ladies.


This is Buena Vista Park. It made me realize that Chicago doesn't have any parks that are, in some sense of the word, native/natural or even really picturesque landscapes. Maybe North Pond/the Alfred Caldwell Lilly Pool or maybe even Washington Park if Chicago weren't a segregated city.