My top arts events from 2009

My top ten list is always a tease. I took in an array of incredible exhibitions, concerts, author talks and so forth in the Palo Alto area in the past 12 months. But now I'm reminded of everything I didn't get to see. Rewind!

Here's my list of the 10 favorites I did see in 2009 -- in no real order, as it would be like comparing apples to gooseberries.

New event: World Music Day, Palo Alto
The festivities kicked off beautifully, and WMD wasn't hard to find. We wandered through a balmy downtown from one free outdoor concert to another: klezmer, jazz, hip-hop, Latin and Balkan and Celtic music, and practically every other kind of tune you could think of. Bravos to Claude Ezran and the other organizers. Let's hope this becomes a tradition.

New song: "A Change is Overdue" from "Tinyard Hill," TheatreWorks
After I sat in on a rehearsal of this Tommy Newman-Mark Allen musical that premiered at TW in July, I kept playing this song on Newman's website. I love the open, hopeful feel of the line "I want to twist it, forge it, bend it into something new."

Exhibition: "From Their Studios," Cantor Arts Center
A remarkable diversity of voices characterized this show of work by Stanford faculty artists. John Edmark's kaleidoscope-like "Geometron," Robert Dawson's haunting photos, and Enrique Chagoya's satirical prints were highlights. This show is still open, through Jan. 3. (My list continues after this particularly eerie Dawson photo.)



Exhibition #2: "Treasures From the Mexican Museum," Palo Alto Art Center
It was hard to look away from a riveting lithograph of artist David Alfaro Siqueiros (those deep-set eyes), but this 150-work show had a wealth of other pieces to see, including spirited Day of the Dead papier-mache works and pre-Conquest vessels.

Metamorphosis: Tom Gough in Dragon Productions' "Greater Tuna"
Gough didn't actually hit a high C on stage, but I wouldn't have been surprised. The guy utterly transformed himself into the choir-singin', hip-bumpin', bubble-gum-pink-wearin' Bertha Bumiller for this goofy comedy. Amen, sister.

Metamorphosis #2: Kevin Kirby in Palo Alto Players' "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
This mild-mannered Weekly theater critic let the zingers fly as George in the classic marital rumble. Disclaimer: Kevin is a friend, but he doesn't know I'm writing this. Hi, Kevin. (Liza Zassenhaus was another stand-out in this production as Honey, fragile yet quirky. But I've never met her, so I don't know whether this was a true metamorphosis.)

Metaphysical music: "The Metaphysics of Notation," Mark Applebaum
This brilliantly enigmatic score hangs in the Cantor Arts Center, where every Friday afternoon a different musician interprets it in a free performance. No standard staff and notes here; the Stanford composer penned a visual work of art with symbols, designs and curves that challenge musicians to climb inside its world. Performances continue through February.

Music talk: John Adams, Cantor Arts Center
His son performed "Metaphysics" in May, but John Adams may have a few musical credits as well. The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer brought a new string quartet to Stanford Lively Arts this year, and also took part in a wonderful free-flowing talk at the Cantor with violinist David Harrington. Adams seemed friendly and candid. He even cracked a musical-theater joke. The museum and Lively Arts periodically bring in musicians for these free talks; a "jazz/tech talk" is set for Jan. 21.

Author talk: Sarah Dunant, Stanford Continuing Studies
Another delightful speaker this year was the historical-fiction author Sarah Dunant, who talked about writing her trio of books about women in the Renaissance. Her November talk was inspiring to any would-be novelist, providing lively insight into her lengthy research process.

Film: "Motherland," directed by Jennifer Steinman
This documentary about six American women grieving the loss of family members, then taking a life-changing journey to South Africa, was shown on the Peninsula to benefit Palo Alto's Kara organization. The film was compelling and highly moving without being overwrought; it told the women's stories with grace.

Pictured: Top: Mark Fiebert, front, and Alex Ran of Accidental Klezmer playing at World Music Day. Photo by Veronica Weber.
Above: Robert Dawson's 2005 photo "Outermost house, Arctic Circle, Iceland." This jet print from digitally scanned film is part of the "From Their Studios" exhibition at the Cantor Arts Center.

Calling all outdoorsy artists

You could whine about turning 40, or you could celebrate by publishing a coffee-table book about yourself. Well played, Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District.

The district, which those in the know call MROSD, plans to mark the big 4-0 in 2012 by putting out said book, and is calling all poets, painters and other artists to take part. The tome will feature words and images inspired by MROSD's open-space preserves. If a hike moves you to bust out the watercolors, you may be just the person.

Guidelines for submission include the statement "We are especially interested in images reflecting the wide range of habitats across District lands, including riparian, grassland, chaparral, and redwood environments." Cool. What rhymes with "riparian"?

Info here. Photography submissions are closed, but people can still submit other types of art.

Another note on art en plein air: Stanford biologists including former university president Donald Kennedy have launched a new podcast series that gives listeners a tour of the campus' plants, animals and outdoor art. Artworks will be viewed "through a science lens as examples of Science Art." I'm not sure what that means, but I'm looking forward to taking the tour once I find my mud-proof shoes.

Pictured: Wildlife in the Monte Bello Open Space Preserve, photographed by Strether Smith. Image drawn from the district's desktop wallpaper gallery at openspace.org.

Still a party in the pressroom

Last night I went to my only party of the season that features fudge made by the district attorney. It was the annual holiday fete in the pressroom in the county Hall of Justice in Redwood City.

The pressroom is my old home sweet home: I was stationed there for a few years as a reporter for the San Mateo County Times. This was back in the dot-com boom, but because I worked for ANG, I had no Internet. If I wanted to look something up online, I had to go to the library. Or make nice with a Chronicle reporter across the room and use one of their snazzy machines. My computer typed only in orange.

Still, the pressroom wasn't a bad place to be. We had a creaky leather couch and a wall of shame of misspelled headlines, always good for a laugh. (Beware the "rouge ship.") There was also a nice camaraderie among the reporters when we weren't trying to scoop each other. When we set off to cover a meeting of the board of supervisors, we'd often amble down the hall together -- then sit in a clump and whisper when the debate flagged. The pressroom was convenient. If a supe or a DA ducked your calls, sometimes you could grab him or her outside in the hall or even spot the person through the window from your desk. Ha. I once bolted all the way across the courtyard to catch a quote. We were younger then. Reporting is a good job for people who can run.

At one point I think we had three Times reporters, four from the Chron, one from the Mercury News, one from Bay City News Service and one from a legal publication. It was bustling in there. We had Christmas lights year-round.

Now there are two reporters in the pressroom. Plus a lot of empty desks, a drawer of dusty coffee mugs, ANG time sheets with no one to fill them out, and even -- until recently -- a few left-behind Chron computers. In '99 I would have killed for those.

Last night, it was definitely a smaller party than in years past. Some writers, some county employees. I swapped recollections with fellow old-timers, but the younger reporters, who mostly work in other offices, didn't think we were that funny. (Come on! How can you not laugh about the Times doing a story about Merv Griffin and accidentally running a photo of Supervisor Mary Griffin?) But there was still plenty of lively talk about stories, sources and editors.

And I heard that many of my former cohorts who have left newspapers are doing pretty cool things. One works for San Mateo County, something that has interested me since my days as a poli-sci major. Another is in the foreign service and headed for India, while Michele (Marcucci) Ellson, a former Times pressroom denizen, writes and edits the Alameda online news source "The Island."

Of course, some of us soldier on as ink-stained wretches. It can be tough to feel like the last one standing, especially as an arts journalist (a particularly endangered breed). But I'm as proud as ever of what we do. Someone's got to keep an eye on the store.

Photo of a typewriter -- which would have been better than the computer I had in the pressroom -- courtesy of morgueFile.com.