Frida Kahlo's Mexico City

I have wanderlust. I've been caring for my baby in Santa Cruz for over a year, and I want to travel internationally so bad it hurts. Thats not going to happen, so I am revisiting an adventure I had years ago, imagining myself in Frida Kahlo's Mexico City. 

I was inspired to write this post by a New York Times Article here, about Frida's current popularity, 60 years after her death. What most caught my attention in the article is the show about Frida at the New York Botanical Garden. Oh how I wish I could go!

Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo, which translates to: Museum House Studio. Juan O'Gorman designed and built the twin home studios for Frida and Diego, who lived and worked
"next door" to each other for 7 years here. Frida moved back to her parents' home in 1941, when her father passed away, but Diego stayed in the twin houses until his death in 1981.

Exhibits like this make me miss New York so much! The New York Botanical Garden opened the show "Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, Life" on May 16th. The exhibit features Kahlo's art work, plus a reimagining of Frida's garden at her parent's home in Coyocan, Mexico City. Special events will feature dance, music, food and film inspired by Frida's artistic influences.

The National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California

"We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.” 

- John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Downtown Salinas, early 20th century, when Steinbeck lived there as a boy. Photo from National Steinbeck Center exhibits
Photo by Madeline Horn

I finally made it to the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, on an impromptu trip with my mother and my son. We were in Salinas dropping my sister off at the train station, after a quick weekend visit. It was a special day - my son Wilder’s first museum visit! It means a lot to our family since both myself and my mother have careers in museums.

As a Central Coast native, I especially enjoy Steinbeck’s stories that are set locally. However, I would love his work even if we didn’t share a stomping grounds. Like all my favorite authors, Steinbeck is a true philosopher, capturing the experience of being human with his words. 

The National Steinbeck Center is located at the foot of Main Street in downtown Salinas, anchoring a strip of historic art deco and victorian buildings, sports bars, coffee shops, florists, and banks. Salinas still has a Fox Theater, with a swirling gold and aluminum confection of a box office. Historic photos depict a bustling, crowded, thriving downtown Salinas, which just isn’t the case anymore. The strip was calm on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Many of the businesses were closed on Sundays.

Fox Theater, Salinas - the first of many historic theater box offices this boy will pose in front of 

Photo by Dorris Welch

Visitors enter the National Steinbeck Museum through a large airy atrium. The immersive exhibits bring Steinbeck’s writing to life through audio, text, artifacts, interactives and film. Exhibits are laid out chronologically. I enjoyed interactive elements, such as drawers and doors opened by visitors to further explore themes. Audio of text being read aloud in some sections made it nearly impossible for me to read the large amount of text on the walls. I didn’t represent your typical museum visitor - I had an infant strapped to my chest. That said, I found myself unable to get motivated to read all the quotes and interpretive text.  

The museum has preserved sea creature specimens from Ed Ricketts (“Doc” in Steinbeck’s book Cannery Row) on display, as well as Rocinante, the actual camper Steinbeck drove across the United States in his book Travels With Charley: In Search of America. I would have appreciated them so much more had they been labeled as the actual artifacts. Instead, I wasn’t sure, so I assumed that they were replicas. Later, I read on the museum website that they were the real thing. 

East of Eden exhibit, National Steinbeck Center
Photo by Madeline Horn

The museum gave me a sense of what the Salinas area was like in the early 20th century, when Steinbeck was born and raised there. Exhibits also include sections on Asian and Mexican immigrants to the area throughout history, important to represent in light of the current population of migrant and immigrant farmworkers.

Pillow quote - National Steinbeck Center
Photo by Madeline Horn

We ate lunch at Patria, a sprawling restaurant on Main Street with a full bar that made us feel like we were in the twilight zone. The restaurant is so spacious that we got our own dining room to sit in. Patria’s fanciness and old school European vibe felt out of place in Salinas. However, that wasn’t a bad thing at all. The crab cake was practically 100% crab, and the caramelized onion, goat cheese and bacon pizza was delightful. The prices were surprisingly reasonable for a restaurant whose waiters wore head to toe black uniforms.

I learned a lot about Salinas on our day trip. I was surprised at the wealth of historic information available to the public. I found a historic house at the train station and a sign with a phone number for an audio tour. I also picked up a brochure and map on Salinas’ art deco architecture. By happy accident we drove by Steinbeck’s childhood victorian home (now a restaurant) on our way out of town. Steinbeck’s work is an important legacy for the Central Coast. It was great to explore his world for an afternoon. 

Rocinante  - Steinbeck's home on the road in the book Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Photo by Madeline Horn

Interior of Rocinante trailer, complete with Courvoisier 
Photo by Madeline Horn

Museum Website - http://www.steinbeck.org

The Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies, San Jose State University - http://as.sjsu.edu/steinbeck/index.jsp

The Perfect Day in Capitola Village

The Capitola Theater in 2005, after it was closed.
Photo courtesy of FsuFiji

I have worked in theater box offices since I was 16-years-old. Audrey, who owned and ran the beachfront Capitola Theater for 50 years, seemed as good a character as any to model my career after. She wore thick glasses and a grey bun in her hair while she sold tickets in the box office until the theater closed in 1996. In the 1980s and 90s my family religiously attended the theater’s second-run double features. Huge plumes of tobacco smoke billowed from one half of the auditorium, the official smoking section. Audrey’s devil-may-care attitude towards the public’s health gave me a thrill.  

To my horror, the theater was demolished in 2010. Despite this travesty, Capitola Village still has its charms. 

Garden path along Soquel Creek
Photo by Madeline Horn

The pastel architecture and small winding streets of Capitola Village evoke a seaside Mediterranean village. The village exists to entertain tourists and pleasure-seeking locals.

How to spend the perfect day in Capitola: 

Mr. Toots Coffeehouse: walk up the stairs on the Esplanade to this warm and cozy second story coffee shop with a beach view.

The Windmill House on Soquel Creek

Photo by Madeline Horn

Soquel Creek Walk:  Walk down below the Stockton Avenue Bridge (on the side closest to the Village), away from the beach, on a flower-lined path between 1920s houses and their backyards, which overlook the creek on the other side of the path. Resist the urge to enter the disheveled cheerful gardens for a better look at the creek.

Capitola Historical Museum
Photo by Madeline Horn

Capitola Historical Museum: Walk up Capitola Avenue to the little red museum with free admission. If they are not open, you can still check out the historic bath house toilet and shower stalls and the tiny beach cottage with an adorable 1920s beach vacation scene inside, complete with mannequins and little dog. If the museum is open, learn about the old carousel, bowling alley, Theater Capitola, ice rink, tiki-themed night clubs, speakeasy, and Grand Hotel - all lost to history.

The John at Capitola Historical Museum
Photo by Madeline Horn

1920s Beach Cottage Scene at Capitola Historical Museum
Photo by Madeline Horn

Capitola Venetian Hotel
Photo by Madeline Horn

The Beach: Sunbathe and jump in the water on the beach. Relax.

The Pier at Capitola Village
Photo by Madeline Horn

The Pier: Catch the sunset at the end of the pier for a view of the village from the sea. Poke your head into the bait shop and step back in time to the early 80s. Nothing has changed here. Check out hundreds of photos of fishermen and women with their catch on the walls and ceiling.

Soquel Creek in Capitola Village
Photo by Madeline Horn

Dinner at the Shadowbrook: Take the little red cable car down the steep hill to this restaurant clinging to the steep banks of Soquel Creek. Have a cocktail in the Rock Room Lounge while you wait for your table. Prices reflect the impeccable cuisine and ambience on offer here.

Capitola Village Links for Visitors:
Capitola Historical Museum
Capitola Venetian Hotel
Shadowbrook Restaurant 
Mr. Toots Coffeehouse
Capitola Theater Memorial Page

Free Movies! at the Pacific Rim Film Festival

From a 9am first-run screening of Jurassic Park with grandpa to a High on Fire metal show with my drunk punk friends, I’ve spent a lot of time at the Rio Theatre over the years. It warms my heart that the 1949 Seabright district theater is still going strong. The 938-seat Rio Theatre (built for movies) showed Hollywood films into the 1980s and 90s, but now offers a mix of live music and films.

Rio Theatre Marquee
Photo courtesy of Neenaa

Tonight I attended the Pacific Rim Film Festival’s closing night film, Mariachi Gringo, at the Rio Theatre. The best mariachi band I’ve ever seen, Mariachi California de Javier Vargas, performed before the film. The singer can hold a note for an ungodly long amount of time. 

Mariachi Gringo is essentially a story about following your dreams. Ed, the main gringo character, has anxiety issues and turns thirty while still living with his parents in Kansas. Ed finds inspiration in a local restaurant owner and mariachi musician from Guadalajara, Mexico, who takes Ed under his wing, teaches him classic mariachi songs, and encourages Ed to go to Mexico. Ed takes off to Guadalajara, the epicenter of mariachi, to become a mariachi musician. Mexico is life-changing for Ed, where he is mentored by Sofia, played by the incomparable Lila Downs. Watch her video here. Although Ed’s anxiety causes him some set-backs in his new life in Mexico, the message comes through loud and clear that he made the right decision to take the leap to live the life he wanted. He is able to live a richer life in Mexico, filled with higher highs and lower lows than his life in Kansas. Mariachi Gringo made me want to run off to Mexico, drink tequila, sing mariachi songs, and learn to cook traditional Mexican food. This is what I love so much about international film – the feeling that you’ve experienced another culture and the inspiration to visit the place.

The 2012 Pacific Rim Film Festival featured six days of free films aiming to foster cross-cultural understanding. The Pacific Rim includes all countries touching the Pacific Ocean; picture the U.S., South America, Japan, and the South Pacific. It’s a big, international territory. Amazingly, all of the films in the Pacific Rim Film Festival, aside from closing night, were free of charge!

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Blue Ocean Film Festival in Monterey

I spent the day with my mom at the Blue Ocean Film Festival and Conservation Event in Monterey yesterday, a hybrid of a film festival, underwater film industry conference, and conservation conference. We watched films of varying quality on Humpback Whales, Manta Rays, Sea Otters, Giant Squid, diving sea birds, and Japan's tsunami. It was a treat to watch films in the Golden State Theatre, a 1926 movie palace with both moorish and spanish flourishes. My favorite discovery in the Golden State was an ornate crying window in the lobby for patrons to continue watching the film while keeping their crying baby out of the main theater.

Ocean Voyagers 3D was an absolute highlight, featuring a mother humpback with her baby in 3D. Meryl Streep narrates the film. Close-up shots of the mother's eye watching her baby are jarring, because, for some reason, it is just difficult to look a whale in the eye. It makes her seem human. Watch the trailer below.

Golden State Theatre
photo by Madeline Horn

Because my mom's whale watching business, Sanctuary Cruises, is working with OceanGate this week to take their submarine out to sea, we were able to enter the submarine they have on display!

Mom entering the hatch

Submarine control panels

The festival runs through sunday and takes place in downtown Monterey and in the Cannery Row area.    

Check here for more information.

Catch a Flick in Deco Style in Santa Cruz

Built in 1936 and dripping with colorful deco style inside and out, the Del Mar Theatre, on Santa Cruz’s main drag, Pacific Avenue is the best place in town to see films. The beloved movie house was renovated in 2002, when programming switched from Hollywood to independent and art house films. Catch midnight movies on Friday and Saturday nights for just $6.50. Check out more photos here.

Del Mar Theatre is located at 1124 Pacific Avenue, Santa Cruz 

Phone (831)426-7500

Del Mar website

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Living Underwater in Thailand

I love this video by Gideon Mendel of Thai flood victims doing their thing in waist-deep water.

Silver Screen Travel: Les Blank at PFA

Les Blank

July 8 - August 30th at the Pacific Film Archive - travel through America's back roads, cities and the Amazon jungle with filmmaker Les Blank. I co-curated Always for Pleasure: The Films of Les Blank with Kathy Geritz and Hila Avraham. Blank, one of my favorite filmmakers, will be at each of the screenings for Q&A. Experience  a creole dinner, Aromaround, and tea tasting at PFA this summer!

Les Blank's camera enters the heart of celebrations, feasts, concerts, and dances of regional American cultures that are often overlooked. Music and food crop up repeatedly in his films. He went to college in New Orleans, giving him a fondness for Louisiana culture, demonstrated in films like Always for Pleasure, Dry Wood, and Hot Pepper. His films also portray unique characters from the Bay Area to Appalachia and extraordinary musicians, including Dizzy Gillespie, Lightnin' Hopkins and Ry Cooder.

The ship in Burden of Dreams

Burden of Dreams is one of Blank's best-known films for good reason. Stunning footage of seething jungle and its native inhabitants sets the scene for one of the more unusual films about film making. Burden of Dreams documents Werner Herzog's obsessive four-year struggle to complete his 1982 film, Fitzcarraldo. The title character (played by Klaus Kinski) was himself obsessively driven to build an opera house in the turn-of-the-century Amazon. To finance his project, Fitzcarraldo moves a riverboat over a mountain between two rivers, which Herzog re-creates for his film, the jungle fighting him at every turn. The film has to be seen to be believed. Editor, sound technician and frequent Blank collaborator Maureen Gosling will be at the screening to discuss sound and editing.

I will be introducing the films on Sunday July 15th and Sunday August 12th.

Always for Pleasure: The Films of Les Blank
July 8 - August 30, 2012
at the PFA Theater, 2575 Bancroft, Berkeley, CA

Find the complete calendar on BAM/PFA's website here.

Read about the series in this East Bay Express article.

                                       
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