Terence Clarke

The exhibition The Cult of Beauty, now in its only U.S. showing at The Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco (through June 17) reminded a friend of mine that, when she lived in New York City in the 1960s, "you could have bought most of these paintings for a...

"I like doing two types of film," David Kennard says. "One in which I try to channel, if you will, the wit and wisdom of some sort of expert. The other in which I am trying to synthesize a lot of people's opinions about something into something that's my own....

"My eyes had been opened wide," Roth Martin says. He smiles. He has just described how his life had changed. "And it all began with some fireplace mantels."

What began was Hedge, a very-much-talked-about San Francisco gallery in which noted contemporary artists are shown on an exclusive basis,...

Writing about the Irish is no joke.

Your preparation for it depends upon where you were as a child on celebratory feast days like Easter Sunday and Christmas. In my case, that would be the kitchen where, in my experience, all the action was. Irish men frequently have low conversational...

In American business, the mission statement is viewed as the core declaration that determines the course of a company. Much intellectual sweat pours from the foreheads of the leaders of businesses in their efforts to get their mission statement right. The trouble is that, in most companies, the statement ends...

On St. Patrick's Day, a Latino friend whose family has lived in Arizona and California since before 1848, asked me "What immigration problem?" He leaned far over the cappuccino on the café table between us, shook his head slowly and then looked up at me once more, a smile on...

Occasionally, wretched excess is quite beautiful, and an example -- many examples -- can be found amply presented in "Maharaja: The Splendors of India's Great Kings," an exhibit currently up at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, through April 8. Until now, I had not seen an...

In most of the countries of Central and South America, some version of The Conquest is still going on. The Indian populations remain subservient to those of European or mestizo (mixed) origins, almost 500 years after Hernán Cortés and his men first landed on the eastern shore of Mexico. Any...

I'm very much in concert with the Catholic Church's eager concern over the separation of Church and State. This was amply demonstrated Thursday at the House of Representatives hearing regarding the Obama administration's rule that requires insurers to pay for birth control for women when the religious...

The Obama administration's recently posted rule requiring the health insurance plans of Catholic universities and charities to offer free birth control information and services to women has raised the hackles of the Catholic Church. It feels that birth control is a sin and that the Church's First Amendment rights to...

John Buchanan, who has been for six years the superb Director of The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, died last Friday after a protracted bout with cancer. He was responsible for a grand resurgence of interest in the museums, especially with the new de Young Museum in...

In the new film of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, weather sets the scene and provides the underlying emotional theme for the action. It snows and rains throughout the movie, symbolically appropriate since the story deals with the Cold War and spy activities between the Soviets and the British...

I dreamed I saw Joe DiMaggio last night, alive as you and me.

It was in the old San Francisco Seals stadium at 16th and Potrero Streets, where I occasionally went to games as a child. This was before the New York Giants came to San Francisco and ruined the...

In her book The World of Venice, Jan Morris describes an arrival at one of the most artful places in the world. "It is very old, and very grand, and bent-backed... It is a gnarled but gorgeous city... [It] seems to shimmer -- with pinkness, with age, with...

In the world-wide community of Argentine tango, there are a few maestros that are sought after everywhere. These are people who have studied, danced, and written about tango so extensively that to study with them means that you'll receive the distilled essence of the form itself.

One of these maestros...

When asked the reason for going into the business, many restaurateurs will reply with some variation of the phrase "Because you're nuts!" The sheer amount of time required to bring a restaurant or café to fruition, and then to maintain it, is numbing. Seven days a week, and long hours...

The Ides of March, George Clooney's new directorial effort, provides the grittiest of views of the moral deterioration of a very young and savvy political operative. Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling) is the number 2 man in the Ohio Democratic party presidential primary campaign of Governor Mike Morris (George...

I have envied many cowboy hats in my life. John Wayne's, for instance, which is iconically famous, a big hat for a big man, its very wide brim reminding me of a ship's wake making its way across a troubled sea. Clint Eastwood's is not as grand, but it very...

Argentina has seldom looked with kindness upon business innovation -- and especially manufacturing innovation -- because of a pervasive opinion in the country that things not made in Europe are of second- or even third-rate quality and value.

Alicia Muñiz and Raquel Coltrinari are the owners of

I live in San Francisco and, so, would hope that this lovely city is a haven for fine cafés. You would think so, given San Francisco's famously European look, its reputation for artfulness, its sophisticated population and renegade, colorful politics.

But that's not so. There are more individually owned...