I saw these balls from a distance and they made me look. The piece is called Convergence, 2005-7 by Sunagawa Haruhiko.

.

Here until January 2, 2022, from the LACMA website: “Featuring the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery’s official portraits of President Barack Obama by Kehinde Wiley and Mrs. Michelle Obama by Amy Sherald, The Obama Portraits Tour enhances conversations surrounding the power of portraiture and its potential to engage communities.”

.

Here until April 17, 2022, from the LACMA website: “Black American Portraits features 200 years of Black American subjects, sitters, and spaces, centering Black love, abundance, family, community, and exuberance. This selection of approximately 150 works draws primarily from LACMA’s permanent collection and chronicles the ways in which Black Americans have used portraiture to envision themselves in their own eyes.”

The scope and power of the show is quite remarkable. The curator chose to hang the pictures very close and very tight in a relatively small space so that one is quite surrounded by them on all sides. The show will be up through mid-April so there’s time to see them more than once.

.

Also in the same building, the Weiwei Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads is back. They used to be delightfully positioned outside LACMA (see the inset) but now they’re moved into the Resnick Pavilion.

That’s Marley and Bagel.

It’s the Friday after Thanksgiving and I get to feast on Celina’s leftovers! Gideon and Sam came too, always a pleasure.

.

With THANKS! A first Thanksgiving in Darryl and Angela’s new home.

Darryl made the spinach, mashed potatoes and gravy, and fried tofu. Angela made beet and arugula salad, Brussels sprouts, and apple crisp. I made the stuffed squash, roasted carrots and parsnips, and orange and fennel salad. Lilly made the pumpkin pie. Rome made an artichoke hummus and put together a bountiful appetizer display, true, even without a picture.

.

.

And oh Oliver, what a Cutie. (You’re plenty cute too Gary!)

HAPPY HOUR at the Georgian Hotel, sitting on the veranda, enjoying the sunset. Mighty nice!

.

I’ll comment about parking at the LA Convention Center. OMG. Make a plan before you go to park a little distance away and walk. Yikes those lines to get into the big lots.

Ken and Susie weren’t going to use their tickets to the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood to see Paradise Blue and offered them to me. Oh yes, thank you very much! Marsha came along and we had dinner at Violet, a very nice place two blocks from the theater.

.

Coffee is happening. They call it “handcrafted Syphone coffee”. They said they’ve been in this location since 2006 meaning I’ve lived here as long as they’ve been open, less than a mile from my house, and I’ve never heard of them or taken notice of the shop, maybe not surprisingly since this is the google street view of Funnel Mill.

They’re remodeling after covid with some private work spaces to rent.

Thank you Muriel for finding this place and buying me a coffee!

Hilda couldn’t go so I Got Her Ticket. Thank you thank you Hilda…

And Merlyn!

23 months in now and going strong.

.

Wow, right. Carl invited me to the Chargers game on Sunday and I got to visit the SoFi Stadium for the first time. It had been under construction for years, in Inglewood on the site of the old Hollywood Park racetrack, just down the road from the Forum. It officially opened September 2020 but didn’t host guests until May 2021.

You can read about its construction as there’s much to say, most of it full of praise for the innovative design, environmental awareness, and technical sophistication. It’s home to the Rams and the Chargers, many annual events, and set to host the opening and closing ceremonies and several sports during the 2028 Olympics.

These are internet pictures of the outside since I couldn’t get far enough back, and the big shape is worth knowing.

From the pictures above you can get the idea and I’ll point out some details below.

Thanks Carl, it was great!

First we were going to go to the new Academy Museum but sorry, no tickets available, then we were going to walk in the hills but sorry, too hot, finally we decided The Movies, let’s go to the movies!

Ann’s table centerpiece, right from the garden. All in season and fresh off the trees we get persimmons, figs, lemons and limes and grapefruits, and now we’ve got papayas coming along. Ahhh.

Click on this link for both mine and Lilly’s photos, some in combination!

For Lilly’s birthday outing we went to California Adventure to meet The Avengers. Lilly knows every Avenger movie, every character, every story line By Heart!

More pictures coming when I get Lilly’s.

From Merlyn and Hilda’s balcony. The inset below shows what it usually looks like from their 29th floor balcony. I was wanting to get a picture of the 100s of ships waiting outside the harbor but today it was not to be.

Merlyn-Hilda-Alex-Carol, we all got together for an old-fashioned “slide show of my vacation”, and it went like this: appetizers, me, dinner, Carol, dessert, Merlyn. Oh yes it fun!

We went to a big nice Barnes and Nobel to spend Lona’s birthday gift cards to the kids, and it was super-fun to stroll around through a book store. Like the waaay before times.

Hail Hail the Gang’s All Here.

Ljubicia, Marija, Maxine, Becky, Alicia, Marsha, me, Ann