Posts Tagged ‘San Francisco’
Calendar of Chaos – Day Eight
You probably believe that at some point in your life you’ve seen the most outrageous, over-the-top, power-grid-challenging display of Christmas lights that could possibly exist. Well, unless you have seen the annual decorations at 3650 21st Street in San Francisco, you would be wrong.
Every year the people who live in this house come up with some variation on a holiday theme and turn their entire, not unsubstantial, property into a holiday fantasy of Gulliverian proportions. They hire someone to be Santa and hand out candy to the anticipated throngs of folks who show up to see the first lighting and then retreat into their decorations-on-steroids bedecked house to have some holiday festivities of their own.
You have to love people like this. You just do.
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CommentLet your shoes be your guide.
Wanderlust takes many forms. Yes, it may be travel purely for the sake of getting away and experiencing a new place or enjoying a beloved destination. But sometimes wanderlust is more like a deep-felt restlessness to shake things up, smash the status quo, leap out of limbo into a place – either proverbial or actual – where the life we are living is one that inspires us and makes us eager to start every morning wondering what fantastic thing is going to happen to us today.
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
~ Dr. Seuss
So when I saw Polyvore’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go! contest I absolutely was inspired by this Dr. Seuss quote to create an entry of my own. To enter the contest, you have to pick a pair of shoes from a selection chosen by Polyvore and create a set inspired by where you believe they will take you. From the entries, Polyvore will pick three winners to receive $100 gift cards.
I guess it isn’t difficult to figure out where I want a pair of Ripicca sandals to take me and what I would love to be doing once I get there.
Dream House, Piedmont, California
Every couple of weeks, the San Francisco Chronicle features a home for sale that is particularly interesting for its architecture, history or character. This Craftsman-style house, built in 1921 by noted Bay-area architect John Hudson Thomas, is in Piedmont, a town Northeast of Oakland. Sure, I’d rather be closer to the ocean than that, but living in a house like this I think I could get used to driving to the beach.
The home still features many of the original design features, including floor-to-ceiling casement windows, expansive arches and beautiful wood. I might funk up the formal living room with some more interesting furniture, but I love all of the Craftsman detail.
The library! I have always dreamed of having a library. Absolute heaven.
I love, love, love the green of the home office. Blog central.
Think of the baking I could do in this kitchen! Is that a William Morris shade?
Herb garden anyone?
This is the first time this house has been on the market in 50 years. I need to win the lottery. Now.
Dream House, San Francisco
Okay – I want to live here.
The home's living area is walled with gray-blue Italian plaster and sound-absorbing perforated galvanized steel.
This was SFGate.com’s featured home in Sunday’s real estate section:
The basics: Designed by Maybeck Award-winning architect Daniel Solomon, this three-story home was built in 1989 for composer Patrick Gleeson and his wife, former Kronos Quartet cellist Joan Jeanrenaud. Parts of the film “The Joy Luck Club” were filmed here in 1992.
The exterior of the property features a black-shingled facade with large central windows divided by a chimney and flanked by 20 small square portals. A dome with a central overhead oculus hovers over the interior, which includes a main living and entertaining area walled with gray-blue Italian plaster and sound-absorbing perforated galvanized metal, dark hardwood floors, a fireplace and 24-foot ceilings.
At the center of the property is a cylindrical stairwell with two concentric flights of stairs. It also features a three-car garage and outdoor garden court with abstract walls, a fountain and plum trees.
What you’ll love about it: The media room that previously served as Gleeson’s recording studio, where he recorded artists such as Depeche Mode, Phil Collins and Earth, Wind & Fire.
The room still has some of the original acoustic insulation, and there’s an adjacent office with built-in furniture that served as the recording booth.
The home's zinc-clad kitchen has a hooded four-burner gas stove and stainless steel refrigerator.
The exterior of the property features a black-shingled facade with large central windows divided by a chimney and flanked by 20 small square portals.
The three-bedroom, 1.5-bath home spans 2,561 square feet is on the market for $2.4 million. Gee, let me get my checkbook.
I Heart Mark Morford
For any of you who haven’t figured it out yet, I have a serious thing for Mark Morford. His writing makes my toes curl the way my ex used to when – um, ahem, excuse me, never mind. What I was trying to emphasize is how spiritually and otherwise delicious is this columnist from my adopted home town San Francisco.
Do you know anyone else who writes with such candor about sex, God, Republicans, the human condition and every possible other thing? And who posts to Facebook the kinds of things that make you want to be able to lick the back of your scull and describe the way it tastes?
Deep breath, full moon, low howl, swallow whole. Call now and mention your hopeful longing and we’ll throw in a screaming possibility absolutely FREE.
Do yourself a great big favor and start reading Mark Morford’s column now and often. Expand your mind just a little bit to think the way he does. And if you are in San Francisco, take one of his yoga classes.
And seriously, don’t you just want to do this man?
My name is Angela Eloise and I am a freelance writer. That sounds as if I am copping to an addiction. I am. In addition to writing this blog, I also write a column about social media and I am at work on a series of essays that I hope to see in print some day. Cloud of Chaos was born from my desire to dance with the absurdity of life, to create a space where I could write and share all of the gorgeous, fun, snarky deliciousness I find spinning around me every day. What does a spinning cloud of chaos have to do with writing? Everything, as it turns out.
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