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 | Systematic Landscapes The 49-year old sculptor and architect Maya Lin is best known for her design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a monument that attests to the artist’s ability to elicit emotion from a viewer through minimal attempts at representation, and a concurrent reliance on the associative factors of vision and memory to create the desired response. Lin’s monumental approach to her sculpture can also be found in her recent exhibition at the de Young Museum, “Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes", which follows on the heels of her recent installation at the new California Academy of Sciences.More |  | Rustic Perfection The Northern California resort town of Calistoga is known for its historic hot springs (whose therapeutic properties have been soaked up by locals and vacationers for centuries, dating back to the indigenous Americans who discovered the springs’ healing potential) and Main Street soda-fountain charm, which makes this unassuming little hamlet of hedonism all the more appealing. And when it comes to luxury getaways in Calistoga, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Nestled in a private canyon with a view of the majestic Mayacama Mountains, Calistoga Ranch is an exclusive resort that tips its hat to the location’s built-in rusticity.More |  | A Brilliant Meditation Playwright Jane Anderson’s “The Quality of Life", currently at the American Conservatory Theater, is a brilliant meditation on a morass of issues: love, loss, grief, Red State v. Blue State, spiritual transcendence, and the possibility of shared understanding in times of crisis. Given all the issues that snake through the story with the mathematical complexity of a Moebius strip, Anderson, who also directs, displays tremendous skill in weaving her plot points together with seamless ease and opting for relatable, believable characters rather than a grand metanarrative about the human condition.More |  | Best Beauty Sojourns for the Fall Cracked cuticles, flakey or sensitive skin, severely overworked muscles, the onset of seasonal affective disorder (aptly known as SAD)… these are just a few of the symptoms that tend to beset us as we march inevitably toward winter. But if 'tis the season to tie up loose ends before the new year sneaks up on us, 'tis also the season to get pampered pronto, and prettify yourself in the not-so-flattering darkening months. Here are some pampering mainstays -- ranging from holistic to deservedly froufy -- that’ll allow you to pack in a few good hours of spaah-induced bliss before, you know, taking care of all your less urgent seasonal duties.More |  | Restorative Yoga Therapy and Massage Combining your trips to your yoga studio and massage therapist seems like the ideal kind of fusion. After all, physicians have been touting the stress-combating and corrective benefits of yoga for years, and recent studies that reveal massage’s curative effects on both stress and chronic pain have made the requisite spa trip way more than frivolous pampering. Now, harried San Franciscans can get their yoga on and take in a bit of bodywork, or simply do one of either, at Prasadana.More |  | Youth, Imagination and Transformation The new exhibition at indie arts space Intersection for the Arts predictably foregoes gallery gambits and examines the power of public art to create communal transformation. The concept of public art, at least in the art world, has largely been confined to high-brow ideas of site-specific installations meant to evoke eyebrow-raised reactions.More |  | Get Your Spa On - Together! From foreplay-inducing couples massage to candlelit baths for two, romantic spa havens for lovebirds abound in San Francisco. But what about those days when you’re looking to meld the practical with the sentimental and don’t necessarily want to wait for a special weekend to treat yourselves to a little well-deserved pampering? Here are three places to help you get your spa on--between errands, after work, or whenever you just plain feel like it -- at a margin of the cost you might incur at other places boasting the right ambience for amorous encounters.More |  | Ambitious But Uneven Playwright Itamar Moses’ “Yellowjackets” is creating quite the stir on Berkeley Rep’s Thrust Stage, which has been impressively thrown into relief by Annie Smart’s vivid, graffiti-spackled set and a towering fence that’s more suggestive of a high-security prison than a high school. The play swirls with mid-90s slang (sending a shiver of recognition down the spines of those of us who braved adolescence during that epoch), urban politics, racially charged turbulence, schoolyard violence and bullying, the Kafkaesque K-12 bureaucracy, and the riotously epic, hormone-driven confusion that characterizes the American teenage experience.More |  | Free Flowing Environment with a Full Body/Soul Experience Editorial Note: One Taste Urban Retreat Center no longer provides spa or massage type services.
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One Taste's upstairs lounge area is packed with a dozen Bay Area massage therapists and a slew of customers who are eagerly waiting to sample a sumptuous array of massage styles, from reiki to traditional deep tissue. At first, it's an odd semblance of a massage studio. With people lounging on velvet cushions and yoga mats, there isn't a clear line of people for the massage therapists, who seem to be going in 10-15 minute spates.More |  | A Rich Assortment The latest exhibit at the Asian Art Museum, “Arts of the Islamic World from Turkey to Indonesia", on display through March 1st in the museum’s Tateuchi Gallery, is an all-encompassing glimpse into the richness and variety of Islamic art, dating from the death of the prophet Muhammad to contemporary 20th and 21st century interpretations of Islam and the cultural and artistic forces that have continued to shape its reception on a global scale.More |
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