San Juan Capistrano

Over the weekend we were in Southern California for a wedding. While there, we spent an afternoon in San Juan Capistrano, home to some of the oldest buildings still in use in California. We wandered through the Los Rios Street Historic District along the railroad. Huge trains rolled by tiny board and batten structures, some of which still house descendants of the orignal families. We had lunch in the old train depot and then went over to the Mission. Built in the auspicious year of 1776, Mission San Juan Capistrano became a bustling complex of adobe buildings and a large stone church. Tragically, the church was destroyed by an earthquake in 1812, killing the congregation. The church has been left as a ruin to memorialize the event but the adobe buildings are restored and the site "romantically" landscaped. Always a treat to visit examples of California's fragile Mission-Era history.

Free films at the MOMA

The films shown today at noon at the SFMOMA were very appealing. The first one was filmed in New York in 1921 by Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand and though grainy, showed impressive urban views of architecture. The most stunning was by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Well preserved, the film depicted Berlin in 1931 and focused less on the urbanism and more on the urbane. Those first two films were silent and while the second films were meant to have sound, they were not able to make it work, which wasn't much of a loss. I rather enjoyed the silence. Rudy Burckhardt's 1955 film showed a large industrial brick building under the Brooklyn Bridge being taken down, literally brick by brick. And the final film was on San Franicsco in 1968 and while I was looking forward to some hippie footage set to Pink Floyd, it was actually rather jarring with the images blurred and sped up to the point that it was a little unnerving.

Free Museums Tomorrow

Tomorrow, the first Tuesday of the month, there is free admission to museums in San Francisco. At the MOMA they are also showing a series of short films at noon. They describe them as "cinematic events that evoke urban space and pace through kaleidoscopic imagery and dynamic visual rhythm." One of the films is by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy of Berlin in 1931!