Christine Monteith on the Pebble Beach Coast

First day of the AT & T Pro-Am started off with sunshine and ended with sun but rained in between. Saw Michael Bolton playing Monterey Peninsula Country Club this AM. All players and caddies looking a little drippy.

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Just returned from the one night performance of Pilobolus at the Sunset Center in Carmel. It is the most fascinating form of dance created. The poetic flow of movement is expressed by the combined physicality of 2 or more dancers. This is collaborative work at its most intense. There are no boundaries in personal space, the dancers bodies meld into a single entity to form fluid images that move in 3 dimensions on the dance plane.

The program opened with a new piece, “Lanterna Magica.” On the dark stage, tiny firefly lights flit about. The serene atmosphere of a warm, midsummer night envelopes the audience. The visual and aural delights continue in this varied program with “Pseudopodia,” the rhythmic heartbeat soundtrack and deep red lighting focus the energy and attention on the solo dancer Jun Kuribayashi. Laughter is the key to “Walklyndon.”

After intermission, the emotionally intense “Gnomen” was the most moving piece of the evening. And the evening ended with “MegaWatt,” a frenetic, hard-pumping ensemble work. I reminded me of a few nights on the Playa. Though I’m not sure how the majority of the Sunset Center audience (whose median age is 67) responded to the soundtrack of Primus and Radiohead. The Sunset Center bass speakers do their job.

Check out these photos of these pieces from a Detroit performance.
Photo credit on this page: John Kane

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Pacific Groveis a quiet, little town that sits on a small outcrop of rock along the central coast of California. It exists in the shadows of its more famous neighbors, Carmel and Pebble Beach. You don’t see much Shoefiti around here. Yesterday, my broker took this photo of her new listing. There are many theories on the motivation for “shoefiti.” There is an elementary and middle school nearby, my conclusion is some student needs a new pair of shoes.

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In the last few weeks, there has been a spontaneous art movement, visitors are creating towers of stone. This section of Spanish Bay, just off 17 Mile Dr in Pebble Beach is naturally strewn with lovely ocean-rounded stones.

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Just love living here! If you are a jazz fan, living on the Monterey Peninsula is great. There is the Monterey Jazz Festival each year. During the rest of the year, several artists perform here. The Jazz and Blues Company has a great line up. The Sunset Center in Carmel offers a mix of jazz, popular, dance and theatre in it’s outstanding venue.

Last night, I was offered a grounds ticket to the Jazz Festival. I went with a couple of friends. One is an amateur jazz pianist who gets a few gigs around San Diego. They wanted to see Barbara Dennerlein and she does not disappoint. The place was jamming.

We also saw Kurt Elling singing Coltrane-Hartman arrangements with Ernie Watts. I’d never seen Kurt Elling before. He is very talented and very entertaining in his segues. He also featured an adorable vocalist Jamie Cullum. It is great that there is some young blood interested in performing jazz. Jamie is talented and very easy on the eyes.

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To add to my list of “California” experiences (a week long workshop at Esalen, developing a “green” residential building program, practicing Pilates and Gyrokinesis are some of my other “California” experiences), I’m going to Burning Man.

Fortunately, I’m going with a group of experienced “Burners” who are generously sharing their knowledge. Even more exciting is that our group of Burners are building a theme camp, Andy’s Wonder Factory. We are celebrating Andy Warhol and Wonder Bread.

Though our Burner crew has been working every Sunday for weeks now on different camp art projects (a shade tent structure painted to look like a Wonder Bread loaf wrapper, an art installation for the Playa,) we had a last minute push yesterday. We were building the Wonder Wall.

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Our cute and historically designated office on 17th Street attracts the most interesting “walk-ins.”

Yesterday, Bernt Wahl ventured up our front porch stairs to ask about neighborhood names. I wasn’t quite sure what he was asking until he explained that he has developed G.I.S search software to define neighborhoods and provide demographic information. As Former CEO of DataHunt.com to provide information solutions to business. Now has Factle Maps

We had a great conversation about neighborhood names in Pacific Grove, a little history, a little culture. Bernt was speaking at the SCGIS 2008 Conference at the Asilomar Conference Center .

I live just a few blocks from the Asilomar Conference Center, I walk through the grounds on the way to the beach. They host many conferences, my assigned voting place, and also the Pacific Grove Chamber of Commerce Annual Fashion Show. No words can quite describe the experience of the Fashion show (I’ve model several times), it is better experienced first hand.

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Last time that I was excited about the Olympics was the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary. ‘Cause I was working for ABC Sports PR, so I was being paid to be excited. Though working at ABC Sports that year was one of the best years. We promoted the 1987 World Series, Super Bowl XXII and the Winter Olympics, all in just 6 months. That was the last great year of ABC Sports and quite a learning experience for me.

I can’t contain my curiosity for the Beijing Olympics. Today is the day for the opening ceremonies with director Zhang Yimou. His early films released in the U.S. Red Sorghum, Ju Dou to the tragic Raise the Red Lantern were just preludes to what I feel is his best work, “To Live.” Though the family in that story (its tragedies and small joys) are so foreign from my cosseted existence, the intensity of the emotions and atmosphere portrayed by Zhang still brings tears to my eyes.

Now Zhang is the orchestrator of probably the most important cultural and political, though the Olympics are not political event of 21st century Chinese history. Yes, it is that big a deal to the Chinese that all the eyes of the world have now “turned to the East.” (To paraphrase Mao.) Check out the report of the dress rehearsal the the official Olympic website.

And if you don’t think this is such a big deal, when was the last time that you remember that a U.S. President went to the opening ceremonies of an Olympics outside of the U.S. Of course, GW thinks he’s been on vacation since the spring so this is just one more stop on his ’round the world while it’s on the taxpayer’s dime tour.

Though today’s NY Times article on Zhang Yimou is accusing him of toadying to the “Party,” I don’t think that Zhang with his family history and the story that he told in “To Live” could have sold out just to direct the Olympics.

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When I see an outstanding image of an architecturally interest building, something hitches in my core. I don’t know what it is about great architectural photography that draws me in. When I saw the John Lautner’s image of his creation Marbrisa on The Moment blog , it took my breath away. I know that I’m not a “closet” architect. But an image that accentuates the unusual angles of a structure pleases me. There is an exhibit of Lautner’s work at the Armand Hammer Museum in LA.

As a REALTOR who enjoys shooting my listing photos, I try to find an interesting aspect for even my most ordinary properties. Believe me, it is sometimes a challenge. Most REALTORs are “do-it-yourself” types when it comes to marketing. Unfortunately, many of my colleagues may be competent in the nuts & bolts of a transaction but photography and marketing real estate is a challenge for most. As an example, I found this listing of John Lautner’s design of the “Gantvoort Home” in Flintridge LaCanada. Whoever shot these images were trying to capture the essence of the home but…. I’m not sure what the photographer was trying to capture in some of these images.

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