’24 September

Parked down the street, taken while ambling along on Oliver’s daily walk.

With Rome and Lilly for a week while The Parents celebrate their 20th anniversary. Oh boy are we having some fun. I’ll put in more from the whole week in the next entry. I have surprisingly few pictures for an entire week. But then again, we were busy.

Lilly is in this play at Redondo Union High School and the amount of time the kids put into the production is amazing. They have rehearsals until 6:30 most nights and a full day’s commitment on Saturday. Impressively it’s not just the cast but the crew too are amazing. They do everything. They sew the costumes, build the sets, power tools and all, they do hair and makeup, lights and sound, the whole ball of wax. It’s going to be great!

And Lil again, a shadow on the dining room wall.

Rome’s shoes, fancy new laces, and lizard socks.

Wandering around.

More later!

Isn’t it annoying when this happens?!

And another annoying thing. I played Fortune Cookie Lotto with Richard and Emilia a few weeks ago. Our three tickets hit a $10 winner so we decided to ‘re-invest’ in 10 more tickets. Too bad, surprise surprise, a big fat nothing.

City wildlife. Auto-focus went to his tail. Auto-focus should get better on noticing eyes.

Our favorite exhibition was called Groove: Artists and Intaglio Prints, 1500 to Now. It’s one of those awesome shows that makes you stand in the middle of the room all slack-jawed and delighted.

They also had a huge contribution to PST: Art & Science Collide called Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice. For me it was just too noisy, too many screens, too many sounds, including a tour guide moving through the space with a loudspeaker(!).

One thing I did like in the Breath(e) exhibit was the bees. This guy, Garnett Puett builds sculptures out of wax then puts the sculpture with a bunch of bees in a glass box and we watch the bees build a hive. Where do the bees get what they need to build the hive? I forgot to ask!

We ate lunch at Lulu, the on-site celebrity-chef café established by Alice Waters and David Tanis. We were both very happy with our meal.

The building in the distance always catches my eye and at the same time a nice part of the second floor is this garden. If you stand around long enough you can smell the growing things.

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

Everyone’s at Becky’s and since I’ve got stuff for the next four Mondays, let’s have a photo! Thanks Jack for the click.

This is LACMA’s current PST contribution Josiah McElheny: Island Universe. The reflection is me, Lynn, and one of the security guards. The guards were especially vigilant because it was so easy to just walk into the art.

We also enjoyed a large retrospective of the works of Ed Ruscha called Now Then.

Notice below, the one written “I DONT WANT — NO RETRO — SPECTIVE,

A classic.

I don’t think I’ve seen this one before.

Panels made by dipping papers in chocolate.

Ken and I went to a matinee at the Ahmanson, to see 7 Fingers, this group of French Canadian acrobats, much like the French Canadians of Cirque du Soleil. It was a delight, and then we walked a few miles around downtown looking for a suitable Happy Hour since the place I had identified, once we got there, we discovered that it no longer exists. Oh the internet, but it’s not even the internet’s fault. I should have checked!

Remember the Pacific Standard Time art exhibitions? In 2011-12 the theme was Art in L.A., 1945–1980 and it was The BEST. Then in 2017-18 the theme was LA/LA celebrating Latin American art. Now for 2024-25 we have Art & Science Collide.

Click here for the website with all the participants in PST: Art & Science Collide. You can read through the catalogue and press more more more. It goes on for many pages.

I wanted to walk and thought let me walk to Bergamot Station where several of the galleries are participating. I wasn’t so taken by many of the shows but this guy was a highlight – James Griffith and Small Paintings of Infinity below. My favorite though was the Raven with Tool, above.

Some pictures around Bergamot Station.

It looks like it’s all cement but once there it feels nicer I think.

We ate some nice Chinese food, wandered around, did some shopping. That’s Lilly, so patient and willing, I got to choose from 30 jumps!

Rome and I, toying with the idea, I could make a spot on the back porch…maybe…

Looks like some kumquat jam is in my future!

Windmills from the car window.

Rome and Lilly’s birthdays are in September (19! and 15!), a week and four years apart. I drove out with DAR&L to Liz and Gary’s home in Yucca Valley to celebrate. It was a lovely afternoon and the traffic wasn’t even bad. Bad Granny on the photos, no gifts, no lunch, no dessert, but we did go for a walk and here are some pictures from around the ‘hood.

I learned a new word, pinnipeds, the group of marine mammals including seals, sea lions, and walruses, all enemies of the marinas where they loll on the docks pooping everywhere, and where they colonize the swimming platforms and back decks of the boats at anchor.

Alex and Carol are heading out from Long Beach to spend a few weeks in the Channel Islands. They stopped in Marina del Rey on the way and we had a most pleasant afternoon on Red Sky and Happy Hour at Tony P’s.

Tuesday and Wednesday at the Hollywood Bowl, photo from 1953.

The sound system has been updated many times over the years, and the fountain was filled in for boxes.

Tuesday Marsha and I saw the last of our concert series and it was a spectacular highlight. Dudamel conducted the LA Philharmonic and the LA Master Chorale in Beethoven’s 9th and it was a dream.

You’ll always get to know your neighbors when you’ve got a box.

The second picture is Marsha on the shuttle running into a friend who sings with the LA Master Chorale.

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On Wednesday I joined Richard, Emilia, and Mick for their season closer, Jazz on Tap at the Bowl. None of us were too taken with the show but it was good as always to be there and to enjoy each other’s company.

But it was Too Hot so Ingalill invited me over for a Swedish Smorgasbord. Oh YUM!

shrimp, smoked salmon, sausage, two kinds of herring, eggs, tomatoes, black bread, rye crackers, cheese, various sauces

The Flapjax Diner, just a few blocks down Wilshire, a breakfast/brunch/lunch place opened in 2022 and with Sharon I’m just now giving it a try. It was fun, the menu is extensive, and I’d go again.

It was noisy inside from being full and from the soundtrack but the back patio was lovely.

Lona is back from North Carolina where she has been with TeeTee and Halayna for the last couple months. Look at us, Lona and Windy ate NO chips. I ate A Few chips. We were all quite pleased with ourselves and happy to be together.

And here’s a bon voyage picture from TeeTee, sending Lona back to LA.

It was Hot in so many ways. The show was a real charmer, yes, and then also we were sitting in a Bowl of hot. Every now and then a whiff of hot desert air would pass through and the crowd would sigh (notice the fluttering California flag). Jo Ann and Alan invited me and Muriel. Jo Ann brought spray bottles and we spritzed each other and ourselves often. And it was worth it, for the company and for the memorable show.

Carmen and Carnival with Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl: “Experience .. pure whimsy as Gustavo Dudamel leads Carnival of the Animals. Brother-sister piano duo Sergio Tiempo and Karin Lechner march with lions and waltz with elephants in the playful and imaginative suites by Saint-Saëns. In between two enchanting showcases of symphonic Spanish dances by Roberto Sierra, Operalia prize-winner Rihab Chaieb transports us to Seville’s sensuous town square, singing “with a razor-sharp presence that really suits the larger-than-life persona [of] Carmen” (Broadway World).”

The piano duo was a total delight and Rihab Chaieb sang several songs from Carmen, she IS Carmen btw, was so fabulous I would see her again in anything.

A new covid vaccine? Sign me up!

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I watched the first 8 episodes of the new Shōgun a while ago, but having read the book (FABulous) and seen the 1980 mini-series with Toshiro Mifune and Richard Chamberlain (fanTAStic), I knew what was going to happen and didn’t feel the need to blubber out tears for a couple hours. But then I did it anyway, I watched the last two episodes. And because it was mostly in Japanese I had to actually watch the show with my eyes. And although I think I liked the book and the 1980 series better, that was long ago, hard to remember exactly, and this version is quite good too.

After a beautiful breakfast with Steve and Celina and a nice walk down to their community garden, I left, stopping off at Burt and Char’s for a visit and a yummy late lunch. Here are the three of us:

And how fun is this, selfies with me and the grandkids, first John then Bradley, now so dang grown.

Then, since I was going to drive out to the valley the next day for Monday lunch I, instead of going home, saved myself the extra round-trip by going to Tom and Marsha’s for the night. They invited John and family over and how fun to visit with those kids too. What a soulful weekend!

And Chauncey the CAT.