The new Berkeley Art Museum and a Few Thoughts on Nancy Reagan

This is what we woke up to this morning:

Toppled

Fifteen years ago,  a landscaper chose the wrong species of tree fern to plant up against the house, a tall one instead of one sturdier squat one.  It grew away from the house and toward the sun until most of the foliage was on one side.  Recent torrents of rain did it in.

Not a crisis, obviously, but startling.  Now we'll get a squat one.

* * * * *

A couple of weeks ago, I checked out the new UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, which opened in January in the former campus printing plant.  I like it--the light's good, the spaces feel friendly to visitors and art, and the cafe serves good food.

I've followed the campus art museum from pillar to post, starting in the winter of 1969, when I drove up to Berkeley from UC Santa Barbara with friends.  At that time, the Art Gallery was housed in an old building near Sproul Hall:

The Old Art Gallery, as it's now known

By the fall of 1970, I'd transferred to Berkeley, and from my window in a high-rise dorm I looked down on the back of the brand-new art museum, a gigantic Brutalist structure on Bancroft Way.  One evening I looked out my window and saw a guy in black rappelling down its side on a black rope. We all thought the new museum was the bee's knees.

 The front of the old art museum

By the 1980's, I hardly ever went to the art museum because it was too hard to find parking, and because, with a few exceptions, I didn't think the shows were very interesting.  I did, however, become a regular visitor to the campus printing plant, in downtown Berkeley, because by then I was a writer/editor in the Graduate Division.

Many years later, the massive concrete museum was found to be a seismically unsafe, so it was propped up and braced while people decided what to do about a new building.   To my amazement,  the new location turned out to be the now-abandoned printing plant, close to BART and restaurants. The 1939 building was going to be re-purposed to look like this:

At the corner of Center and Oxford Streets.  Designed by Diller Scofidio & Renfro.

This is what it looks like today:

Stretching the block between Center and Addison, across from the West Gate of the campus. To the left, the former printing plant, and to the right, an addition with a huge screen at one end.

The screen faces Addison Street:

Walking alongside it

The Center Street entrance

A Rosie Lee Tompkins quilt

The Forum, where they were setting up for a dance performance

A view across Center Street, which is lined with restaurants, including Top Dog and Bongo Burger, Berkeley institutions

Cafe Babette on the museum's second level; no outdoor seating, alas

The stairwells are ORANGE

More orange

The Berkeley Art Museum is open Wednesday-Sunday from 11 am-9 pm.  General admission is $12; senior admission is $10.  Free admission to UC students, staff, and retirees.

 * * * * *

My First Lady archives

 I have something of a side-line in First Ladies. I read all the biographies and autobiographies I can lay my hands on, Republicans and Democrats, although I go only as far back as Eleanor Roosevelt.

These ladies range from feisty (Bess Truman) to Nobel-material (Eleanor Roosevelt) to silly (Mamie Eisenhower).   Pat Nixon was piteous, and Babs Bush, however well-mannered she is, apparently can be downright unpleasant; one of her assistants said she's "a good person, but not nice."

Nancy Reagan, in my opinion, was insecure and sad.  As a child, she was abandoned by her father and then, temporarily, by her mother. I don't think she ever got over it. She was very afraid of a) being alone, and b) getting it wrong, although she often did--buying new White House china during a recession and launching the "Just say No" campaign are two examples.

If only it were as simple as just saying "no."

 Long-time Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote that around the White House Nancy was known as "The Hairdo with Anxiety." Noonan herself tried to find a pillar to hide behind if she saw her coming, as Raisa Gorbachev probably did after this meeting, described in a puff piece produced by the Reagan Library: "Mrs. Reagan arrived wearing this Galanos gray suit.  Raisa Gorbachev, in contrast, was starkly dressed."

Poor Raisa.

Nevertheless, when I heard that Nancy Reagan died,  I thought, she's had some tough times and rest in peace. The internet lit up with very unkind, vitriolic comments, and I thought, why? She's gone, poor woman.

Then came her funeral and the likes of Judy Woodruff and the New York Times going on about her great romance with Ronnie (I'd call it an enmeshed relationship, excluding even their children) and her social graces as the queen of Camelot in 1980's-era Washington in her Adolfos and Galanos.   Is this really admirable?  Are we that desperate for heroines?  

Back to Eleanor and her hairnets.

Greenbaggers, Not Having Children, and Those Jeans

On Saturday, I had a tea party for six friends who donate food to the Berkeley Food Pantry through the Berkeley Neighborhood Food Project.  I call them "the greenbaggers," because everybody gets a green shopping bag to fill every two months.  I collect the bags and take them to the Pantry.

Oh, we had fun!  Two cakes from Masse's Bakery (flourless chocolate cake and spice cheesecake, which was much lighter than it sounds) and a bunch of age 60+ women, all liberal, each with a gratifying sense of humor, and all of them generous. Some of them had never met, but no matter. The party lasted three hours.

Did I think to take a group picture?  Yes, but you can't see much.

The greenbaggers:  Ann, Anne, Suzanne, Valerie, Claudia, Karen.  Plus cakes.

The neighborhood food project now provides about half the food distributed by the Pantry. It's so satisfying to see the food I bought in from the group on a Saturday given out to clients on Monday, when I volunteer. Last month,  I sent out an alert to the group about the need for dry cereal for families, and they donated so much that our combined-weight total was the lowest it's ever been.  Cheerios aren't very heavy.

* * * * *

Yesterday I had one of those lightbulb moments when you wonder why in the hell it took you so long to figure something out.

I was lying on a massage table having my neck and shoulders kneaded.  The young woman with the magic fingers was talking to me about some issues in her life and mentioned that she and her husband have decided they won't have another child (they have a two-year old).  She said there are many reasons, some financial, and it just isn't going to happen, which makes her sad because she's 40, and this is it.

Grieving the loss of a child you might have had is something I can relate to.  I have no children, by choice (my temperament,  lack of patience, desire to focus on other things), but occasionally I feel sad about the loss.  For a while, maybe right up until yesterday, whenever I felt a twinge of sadness about it, I'd think I might have made the wrong choice.

But yesterday, listening to this young woman, I realized that you can feel sad about something and still know that your choice was the right one.  In my case, I've revisited that choice periodically when I'm around small children, and never have I come away thinking I would have been well-suited to being a mother.  Even the adorable girls next door (now 24 and 26), who so enriched my life, were never mine to be responsible for 24/7.  Their mother, Laura, did all the work.

The young woman and I commiserated.  I told her that for me, the hardest time was when I was 38-42, when I knew window of opportunity was closing.  It would get easier, I told her.   You can have a fine life without children or with only one.  Not that you sometimes won't feel sad about the loss of what might have been.  But it doesn't mean you should doubt your choice.

Driving home, I could breathe a lot more deeply, in part due to the massage, but also: Why had it taken so long to figure this out?  Maybe because I'd never talked to a younger woman in the throes of making that choice, and I'd never articulated what I already knew, on some level.

 * * * * *

The jeans I mentioned in  the last post are continuing to be terrific.  They have ample stretch and the added benefit that they don't crease! Yes!  No crease marks from sitting.  I may go back for more. Now, if I can just stay away from the leftover cake.

 Thank-you, Not Your Daughter's Jeans!

Hey, Donald: You Have Really Bad Hair

So, The Donald.

Until the recent Republican debate,  he was pretty much off my radar.  A bombastic buffoon with truly terrible hair (my hairdresser is sure he cuts it himself), someone who would go away, thank God.  Implode, and the sooner the better.

But when I read that Megyn Kelly asked him about calling women "fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals,"  it really touched a nerve.  Apparently, he's also called women "ugly, grotesque, and "the unsexiest woman alive."  The last referred to Sarah Jessica Parker.



Now I really, truly despise him.


I remember the first time a boy said a really mean thing about me.  It was during a school dance class in the 7th grade.  He muttered to a friend, loud enough for me to hear, that I had big feet and hairy legs.

Thanks, Steve van Sickle.  Did I mention at the time that you had bad hair and nerd glasses?  No.  Would I have thought to within your earshot?  No.  I wanted you to like me.  Also, I was not mean.



When I was young and single, I heard similar remarks from some men.  Why was my hair so short?  Was I a lesbian?  My feet were big (again).  I had a moustache.  I looked like I'd gained weight.

A lot of these unkind comments were meant to get me to prove I was a woman by having sex with these these people.  I never did, but I was hurt and full of self-doubt. (Do guys use the lesbian line anymore?  Or is it so politically incorrect that they've given up?  I fervently hope so.)

Trump is one in a long line of males who try to intimidate women by making cruel remarks about their appearance.  At 65, I'm invisible to men like him, and I move in "liberal, coastal, sophisticated" circles, as a New York Times writer characterized us in last week's Sunday magazine.  I can't imagine a man I know making such comments.

But I'll bet that this kind of intimidation is going on at Berkeley High School, just across town.  I'll bet there are boys sniping away at girls about their appearance, trying to bully them into submission. There are still men who model this kind of behavior, and Trump is one of them.

So it's not so much Trump's implying that Megyn Kelly was having her period and therefore "mean" to him that I find most offensive. That's so absurd and irrelevant that it isn't worth addressing.  It's the point she brought up in the first place: that he makes derogatory remarks about women and whenever the hell he wants.

I began to wonder: We may make fun of Trump's hair, but has anyone ever said it to his face?  Has anyone ever told him that he looks bad, has a tight mouth, a sour expression, and--I don't know--big feet?  Or that he has an extra roll around his middle (I'm guessing here)?

I doubt it.  The press makes fun of him, and so do we Coastal Liberals, privately.  But he's rich, aggressive, and scary. Who wants to step up to The Donald and tell him what we're all thinking?  Is anyone that brave? (or mean?)
 
He's a bombastic buffoon, yes.  But he's also unkind, controlling, and a bully.  He verbally beats up men and women. Sorry if I offend anyone with this, but,  really, he's just an asshole.  When I get to be President, I'm going to build a tall fence to keep people like him out of  the country.

Black Lingerie, Glammy Armpits, & Quilt Update

Quilt finds new home!  Claudia M. put in the winning bid of $400 and wins the quilt.  It lives across the back of her new cream-colored (pale butter?) leather sofa.  Congratulations!  And the Berkeley Food Pantry thanks her, too.

 * * * * *

Yesterday Val, Anne, and I trekked over to Pt. Reyes/Inverness to celebrate Anne's 82nd birthday.   We went there for her last birthday, too, but the weather that day was vastly different--cold, windy, wear-fleece weather.

LAST YEAR

Chilly but we had a good time

THIS YEAR

The weather was perfect--warm, with a cooling breeze.

 The basking birthday girl

We ate lunch at Chicken Ranch Beach and marveled at how many off-leash dogs there were considering that there's a front-and-center sign saying that dogs must be on leash. Teeny dogs, big masterful dogs, and everything in between.  But that's beside the point.  Mostly, we chatted and watched people wade out into the calm waters of Tomales Bay.

Val, pondering and browning

After while, we hied ourselves up, carted our beach chairs to the car, and drove up a nearby hill to my friend Elisabeth's house, where we sat on her deck and gazed at the hypnotic view:

Well, not gazing right at that moment

I brought cupcakes from "Love at First Bite" in Berkeley.  (You don't think 8 cupcakes for 4 women are too many, do you?)

My gift to Anne: 100% cotton BLACK granny panties, which she insists on calling "lingerie."  Generally, she wears the Hanes 3-pack variety.  (The shop that sold me the new pair is "Beauty and Attitude."  Berkeley shop names.)

My dear pool compadres, Val and Anne

We drank iced Earl Grey tea with lemon and mint, more perfection.

Afterward, Elisabeth e-mailed me and said, "Such lovely ladies...It was so nice meeting Anne and Val today. They're so different from each other, but I love the friendly joshing and camaraderie among all of you."

Friendly joshing and camaraderie! Perfect description.

* * * * *

In today's New York Times Style Section, brought to my attention by Val:

No, those are not ink smudges in her armpits.  That's dyed hair.  Oh, yes. (Don't you feel old?  Do you even have enough available hair to do this?  I don't.)

The color above is "Voodoo Blue" by Manic Panic, in case you were wondering.  The model, Destiny Moreno, sees this as a feminist statement.

"Nobody questions when a guy wearing a tank top does a selfie that shows his armpit hair," she says. "But if I happen to show my armpit hair in a selfie, it's like, 'Whoa, feminist witch asking for attention.' "

You can go to a "pit-in" for group dyeing sessions in Seattle and Pensacola, or you can pay $65 in a salon. Or you can go to the "Free Your Pits" website and learn how to do it yourself.

There are lots of ways to make fun of this trend, but, honestly, I think these young women have a point.  Shaving your legs and armpits is a form of tyranny.  Erasing part of your body to make your appearance more mainstream, more acceptable per social norms, is not appealing in theory, although everyone I know goes with it in some way (haircuts? make-up? nail polish?)  Why not  "broaden the standard of beauty?" I get that.  But I'm too old.

I showed the picture to Jerry.

"I don't imagine you're thinking of doing that," he said. Nervously?  Warily?

It was almost enough to make me consider it.  In the abstract.  If I could.

What Do Children Want?

My sister and me with our stay-at-home-mom, c. 1955

First, let me say that I have no axe to grind about whether mothers should stay at home or be employed.  I'm not a mother.  I never had to struggle with that.

But I am a former child, and today when I saw this video on the blog of a (militantly) stay-at-home-mom, I thought, yes, it's moving, but there's more to it than this.

See what you think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=85027636&v=EQ3ePGr8Q7k&x-yt-ts=1422503916

When I finished watching, I thought, If someone had handed me a pencil and a piece of paper when I was, say, eight, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have written what those children did, asking for more attention.

I would have asked my mother for consistency, that she never switch without warning between cloying affection and anger, that she always love me.  She was a SAHM mom, and I could have done with way less of her kind of attention.

I would have asked my father for acceptance, that he stop judging how I looked and whether or not the last drawing I did meant I would be a famous artist.  Less scrutiny of that kind,  please!

Working mothers who see the video on this particular blog could extrapolate only that they were being judged for not being at home. It wouldn't have been an endearing video but an accusatory one, trust me. And it's not fair, Mrs. SAHM Blogger!  Staying home does not necessarily make you a good mother.  It's way more complicated than that.

Isn't it disheartening that the Mommy Wars drag on?  So much insecurity and anger.  Isn't life--for parents and children--hard enough?

Of course, the SAHM readers of that blog probably derived Major Validation, and it's unlikely that working mothers would be masochistic enough to follow it.  And why am I reading it?  Sigh.  More time-consuming lurking.














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Banished Toilet, Sneaky Conservatives, Hotdog with Champagne

And now what I know you've all been waiting for:  An update on the bathroom project.

The drywall is in and now the "tape-ers" have taken over.

The before picture:

 And now:

The toilet is mostly out of sight!

I know, in the Age of Ebola, ISIS, and Marjorie Dannenfelser (see below), this is not a very big deal, but I'm very happy about this transformation, 30 years overdue.  And there are SEVEN NEW DRAWERS for fabric stacked in the basement.

* * * * *

Yesterday, when I flipped open the latest issue of The New Yorker yesterday and found this photograph,  I thought, Whoa!

Does anyone else think this woman looks scary?  Her name is Marjorie Dannenfelser, and  she's the president of the Susan B. Anthony List.   Sounds feminist, right?

"Oh, good, she's on our side!" I thought.

But, no.  The sole aim of the Susan B. Anthony List is to abolish abortions; the group funnels money to anti-abortion candidates.   If you're a person who believes in reproductive choice for women, she's as scary as they come--clever, glib, and passionate about her cause,  a one-issue gal.

"We can't have a Democratic majority in the House or the Senate right now," she said.  "If we're close, I can't in good conscience, for the cause of life, support even a great pro-life Democrat."

The article's called, "The Intensity Gap," and, boy, can you see it in her face.

And why "Susan B. Anthony?"   Because in 1869, Anthony decried, "the horrible crime of child-murder...Guilty?  Yes, no matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed."

You can read the article here and see how the quote was taken way out of context by the S.B. Anthony List.  Hey, I was taken in.  How many others?

* * * * *

On Sunday, I was feeling so housebound from being sick for two weeks that I has to get out of the house, away from remodeling detritus/chaos, all of it.

So, we drove over to San Francisco to see a new show at the Legion of Honor, "Houghton Hall: Portrait of an English Country House."  

Go, if you're an Anglophile like me.  Don't go, if you are driven mad by the gap between the rich and the poor and can't be seduced for an hour by paintings, china, furniture, tapestries, and other what-nots collected by the family of the Marquess of Cholmondeley.

 Houghton Hall, Norfolk.  Built in the 1720's for Sir Robert Walpole, Britain's first prime minister.

 The Cabinet Room  (the remarkably small bed is in the show)

.

 

 The Marble Parlour  (some of the furniture is in the show)

 The Saloon in Houghton Hall

Portrait of Sybil, Countess Rocksavage (Later Marchioness of Cholmondeley), John Singer Sargent, 1913.  She used funds from her family, the Sassoons, to restore the house.

 They're even selling English tea towels in the gift shop! Bought one, of course.  But the high point of the day was lunch: a hotdog and champagne.

Had to come home and take a nap

The Houghton Hall show is up through January 18, 2005.  Hard-core Anglophiles can even have an English tea in the cafe.

Why Are Swimsuits So Scary?

My friend Laura sent a link (here) to a spoof on what kind of body you need to have to wear a bikini.  It's based on those damned magazine articles about body type and flattering swimsuits that crop up every summer.  It's all about covering up imperfections.

To hell with it!  I think every woman in America should publish a picture of herself in a swimsuit and overwhelm the number of photo-shopped, air-brushed photos of models in swimsuits.  This is what real women look like. 

I got so worked up, I put on my current swimsuit and took a picture:

 

 

I feel a bit embarrassed by the state of my bedroom--another feminine hang-up--but not about how I look.  I realized that after 12 years of wearing a swimsuit twice a week for pool exercise, I think I've gotten desensitized to fear-of-swimsuit! It is what it is.

 

Maybe all it takes is repetition.  And a nice crowd.  The first day I went to the pool, I was freaked by how out of shape I was.  Then I looked around the dressing room and realized that nobody cared what I looked like. 

 

A great crowd

 

Nobody there would ever study another person's body in a swimsuit and think, "fat thighs, bulging stomach, big hips," or any of the other mean things I'd been saying to myself.  Mean, mean stuff. All they cared about was exercise and getting in shape.

 

I've gone through countless swimsuits in 12 years.  The chlorine rots them and makes them fade, stretch out, and become translucent.  After buying expensive ones with special panels to hold in my tummy ("Miraclesuits"), and cheap ones at Ross in mid-winter (great bargains if you can find your size AND it's Senior Discount Day), I've settled on simple tank suits I find at  this website. 

 

I order two sizes larger than I wear in jeans, and I like the "Longitude" brand because it's long in the torso, with a built-in bra.  The straps stay put.  What more could I ask for?  And there are always some on sale, and they're exercise-friendly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Oh, Woody, Say It Isn't So!

Did anyone else feel her heart sink while reading Nicholas Kristof's column in today's New York Times?  The title is "Dylan Farrow's Story." 

Kristof quotes form a letter Dylan wrote upon learning  that Woody Allen, whom she accused of molesting her when she was 7, received a Golden Globe lifetime achievement award a few weeks ago. 

She's now 28 and been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome. You can read the column here.

For years, I've thought that the allegations against Allen, made by Mia Farrow and their adopted daughter, Dylan, during Farrow and Allen's custody battle, were false, prompted by Farrow's hysteria over learning that Allen (God, this is complicated) had a relation with one of her adoptive daughters,  Soon-Yi Previn, whom he later married.    A panel of psychiatrist sided with Allen at the time, and the prosecutor dropped the charges.   

Now, for the first time, I feel myself being swayed.  What do you think?  I so admire Allen as an artist (just watched and loved "Blue Jasmine"), but this is very disturbing.  And what to do about it if it is true?

* * * * *

 

A reader suggested this article in The Daily Beast as giving a well-researched perspective on the allegations.

Walking Wombs?

 
In the past week or so, there have been a number of truly scary (and maddening) news stories:

1.  The Supreme Court will hear Hobby Lobby's challenge to the Affordable Care Act mandate that employer-provided health insurance provide contraceptives, including the morning after pill.  Can a corporation claim the religious freedom and therefore control a woman's fertility?

2.  A woman lost custody of her baby because a judge agreed with her ex-boyfriend, Olympic skier Bodie Miller, that she'd left California while pregnant in order to avoid a custody battle with him.  In fact, she moved so that she could accept a graduate fellowship at Columbia University.  Their relationship had lasted one month, and he had urged her to get an abortion when she first discovered she was pregnant.  The father and his wife got custody after the baby was born and are fighting to keep him.

3.  The "personhood" movement is attempting to define a fertilized egg as a person.  Think about where this could go--not just in the definition of viability vis a vis abortion, but about controlling pregnant women, making  them conform to proscribed standards of prenatal care and behavior or be arrested or lose custody of their child.

4.  PBS and the New York Times have investigated a case in St. Augustine, Florida, in which the girlfriend of a deputy sheriff died of a supposedly self-inflicted gunshot wound.  The investigation was so tightly circumscribed that neighbors and the victim's family were never interviewed.   Despite ample evidence that the boyfriend killed her, he was never prosecuted and continues to be a deputy sheriff. 

The pro-life lobby has a hand in #1 and #3, which means there are other women who want to control a woman's fertility (and life).   Ignorant judges are part of the problem (#2).  The closed-ranks attitude toward police officers who are perpetrators of domestic violence is another (#4).

We are 50% of the population!  There are doctors, lawyers, and scholars among us, and yet these blatant attempts to control women's lives go on and on.  Where are Hillary, Nancy, DiFi, and, for that matter, Elizabeth Warren?  Women's rights, our worth, our stature are being eaten away at.   (Not so much mine personally, because post-menopausal women seem to be invisible.)

Okay, now I'll give thanks:  that I live in Berkeley, where enlightened attitudes about women prevail (but not without exception).  That I'm married to a man who respects women.  That I live in the 21st century when women--at least technically--are not property.

Or are they?

Aging: We Don't Have to Take This Sitting Down



No, we do not!  We older woman are still alive (!), lively, and open to new things.  Including make-up and clothes, if we want to be.

I hesitate to write that because there's something vaguely shameful about vanity in women of a certain age, especially liberal women who are feminists.  Who live in Berkeley.

Oh, to hell with it! All women have the capacity to be fab, even glamorous.

Recently, I found a blog I'm minorly addicted to:  www.advancedstyle.blogspot.com    One stylish, beautiful older woman after another, chronicled by a young man who seems to roam Manhattan to find them.  And I mean older:  into their eighties.   Any woman over fifty will like this blog, and women over sixty will love it.

Is this why I bought ANOTHER bottle of nail polish this week? 

You mean you don't keep your nail polish in the fridge? 

 

 

And why I'm trying yet another eyeliner (still the "wrong" color, sigh)?  Why, before I go to New York next week, I'm going to use instant tanning lotion on my legs and upper arms? To look just a wee bit better?  Or to feel better?

In the allergist's waiting room this week, I picked up Real Simple for some tips on hair care (grab your wet hair into a ponytail and put cream rinse only on the ends) and eyeliner (apply dots in a row and then connect them).  Also,  I've been reading up on beauty serums and wish I'd started using them sooner.  And they're expensive.  Don't care.


Where do you cross the line from taking care of yourself to pointless poor values?  God forbid I should look, in my mother's words, like "mutton done up as lamb." 

Don't know.  My friend Val just spent $300+ on Perricone cosmetics, and I applauded her.

Because, in the meantime, well ahead--I hope--of the Grim Reaper, we might as well enjoy ourselves.

Altogether now:  We're here!  We're beautiful!  We're reveling in life! (Yes, I took my med today.)

That said, this is how my hair looks as I write this:

Hey, it's hot!