Wandering Artist's Journal

"An informed people tends to be a free people." Dave Garroway, on the first Today Show, January 14, 1952 hulu.com has posted the very first NBC Today Show . Or at least 57 minutes of the 2 hour show. With evident pride in their technological display, Dave Garroway shows off all the new tools in the studio, including: Massive (wired) microphones, attached to the mens' fronts, sticking up from waist-level to a few inches below the chin. They're always fiddling with wires, but they rarely touch the shaft. A chalkboard for the national weather map - Garroway makes the notations while on the phone with a meteorologist. A camera pans the latest news and photos, which are stuck to a bulletin board with thumb-tacks. Another wall has newspapers, flown in from cities around the country and clipped to a rack on a wall. They seem most impressed that they have a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle. An electric typewriter (!) which Garroway gleefully demos for us. Telephone line...

" The capacity to hold our attention, in the moment or in reflection later, is a mark of significant art in an era when mass media work hard to abbreviate attention spans so as to cut costs and decapitate questions." Kenneth Baker on SFGate

June flew by - I had an art opening at HANG (two pieces in their "Alumni" show) the first week, then Dave had a couple of days of treatment at Kaiser, then we left for Seattle - 22 hours on Amtrak, in coach. We went up there to see our nephew's graduation, and we stayed about a week, visiting with family and seeing some art in the area. Seattle had great weather, water all around, gold-rush history, good food, bookstores, coffee houses, lots of artists. I liked the city - it's basically a smaller version of San Francisco. And I like the emphasis on craft in the Seattle art world. The best gallery I saw on this trip: Greg Kucera . The best art show: Sherry Markovitz at Greg Kucera and the Bellevue Art Museum . Then the 22 hour return trip. It was grueling - not as bad as I'd feared, but bad enough that I don't want to do it again. Maybe if I won the lottery or something and could get a sleeper cabin it might be OK. The other nephew graduates in three ye...