Daily Life 2026

Here come some random pictures from February.

Noma has reopened across the street and it is very welcoming inside. I went there first with Rome and then with Jo Ann and Alan. Everyone agreed, we should go here again, and we will.

Oliver

This statue has been in the lobby of the Nuart for as long as I can remember, and the theater opened in 1930. There have been remodels and my memory is not 100% (I know I know) so I can’t even remember the first time I came to this Cinema as it was known. Maybe I was a teenager.

I went with my sisters to see Amadeus at the Pasadena Playhouse. It was good, always special to see live entertainment, but if you are really interested, rent the movie.

Fendi is releasing a new line of shoes and purses and our Jo Ann conceived of and is leading the art side of the advertising campaign. Fendi shipped tons (literally, tons) of gear to LA and so many participants – multiples of hair, makeup, costumes, lights, electrical, staging, catering, models, props, costumes, etc etc, and even a seamstress. I got to hang around for a lot of Saturday and some Sunday too and what FUN.

Here come a lot of pictures taken with my phone in not the most favorable light, but I hope you can feel it for the event. Also leafed throughout are the final professional pictures. YOU WILL HAVE NO PROBLEM TELLING THEIRS FROM MINE.

Most of the images are modeled after photos Jo Ann has taken over the years and you can find them in her books available on Amazon.

They had two walls for the order of work, Day 1 and Day 2, including Jo Ann’s drawings and product sheets. Then as they completed a shot they would take off the drawing and put up just a quick sample print.

As you look through the pictures notice all the couches, chairs, tables, chests, backdrops, etc all brought in for this shoot.

I didn’t see any of this one.

Or this one.

They partitioned off a section of the huge room for wardrobe, hair, and makeup, and importantly, for the featured shoes and bags.

Shoes.

A seamstress at the ready.

I wasn’t there for this set-up on Day 1 but Meriellen was there and took this picture. I was around for maybe 6 hours total over the three long days, Prep Day, Shoot Day 1, and Shoot Day 2. They decided to redo this..

..and I got to catch a little of it. The monitor that you see below is an essential part of the effort. Everything that comes out of the camera is instantly available here.

The props guy brought all different sizes of these plants, for choice. You can see how they are used in the monitor above.

Day 1

Day 2

Mariellen and Alan chatting up one of the models.

This is another time I wasn’t there for the first idea (it’s Meriellen’s picture) but..

..I was there when they redid it. They couldn’t get the bag to show right and they used that string for placement which they will spot out in post-production.

Notice everyone gathered around that monitor.

So much involvement on all sides.

I missed the bag in all of these candle pictures but the most fun thing was the smoke. Looks like they’re not going to use the smoke pictures but rather just the model lighting a match, or maybe lighting the candles? I enjoyed the smoke so much I didn’t get a picture without it.

Check out the guy under the table – I don’t know what he’s doing there.

In this image I think they are only going to use the arms and the bag although they did go to the trouble of putting the models in fancy new shoes. Those outlines are just an artifact of telephoto on my phone I’m guessing?

I’ll say it again later, everyone there was delightful and even in moments of stress it didn’t seem to me that anyone was taking it out on anyone else.

I grabbed one last blurry shot on my way out.

It was quite amazing to me that I just hung around in the background trying to stay out of the way and every single person was cheery and kind, offering me a seat or some water or a chat with not a single side-eye among them. There’s a lot of pressure in a situation like this because time-is-money (and a lot of money!) and they’ve got to get it right. I was expecting you might be able to cut the tension with that cake knife that didn’t get used, but it didn’t bleed over to me. Thanks to everyone for letting me enjoy myself entirely!

It’s over now, let’s dance!

Mick, Richard, Ken, Carl, Ben, Josh

I’m so happy that there have been a lot of getting-together these days. Here’s a jr high-high school-college crowd, and thanks Richard for making it happen with the plan to keep up meeting the last Tuesday of the month. You know me, I love a plan.

We often stopped breathing so breathtaking was this performance.

COPIED FROM THE DISNEY CONCERT HALL WEBSITE

Gustavo Dudamel brings together the massive choral and orchestral forces and even grander musical ideas of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis. “From my heart, may it go to the heart,” Beethoven wrote at the top of his “Solemn Mass,” and privately he told friends he believed it to be his best composition. Yet, the epic, near-90-minute testament of Beethoven’s faith grounded in human and Rationalist spirituality is a rarity in concert halls because of its ambitious scale, leading Beethoven biographer Jan Swafford to call it “one of the greatest pieces never heard.” With a stellar cast of soloists and 125 voices from Barcelona’s Orfeó Català chorus, Dudamel navigates the shifting landscapes of Beethoven’s transcendent and revelatory masterwork.

A note from Gustavo Dudamel

The Missa Solemnis is, for me, the holy grail of the symphonic repertoire. At its core, it is about faith—faith in something greater than ourselves. Beethoven had to invent a new musical architecture for his solemn mass, and each time I look at the score I find a new room. The piece itself is incredibly difficult, with almost impossible requirements for singers, for orchestra, and for chorus, which creates this overwhelming feeling. It makes me believe in another dimension of greatness and beauty.  

This weekend marks my first time conducting the Missa Solemnis. Often conductors will wait until they have reached a certain level of maturity and expertise before they perform it. Some are still waiting. After 17 years of this fruitful artistic relationship with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, I felt that now was a perfect time to attempt it together, along with our four extremely talented soloists and two choruses.  

As musicians, we are often asked which works are our favorite or what is the best. It’s difficult to say. But we do know that Beethoven considered this his greatest accomplishment, and that is remarkable. —Gustavo Dudamel

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After the concert we walked over to the Conrad Hotel bar area across the street from the DCH to take that first picture. We also found a restaurant on the ground level that was tasty, comfortable, and didn’t break the bank. And then leaving the parking structure was a breeze.

What I do every time these days. (“No, you won’t remember”.)

Marsha and I just saw the Live Action Shorts and it was the best collection that either of us could remember after having seen many many years of Academy Award nominated shorts. Go if you can! We’re going to see the Animated Shorts on Wednesday. I don’t know about the Documentary Shorts yet.

And after the show I ate Tom’s Tacos with Tom, Marsha, Kelly, Kris, John, Jen, and Jordan. More fun!

I mentioned yesterday about the chores and eating out. In-between I’ve caught a few more Academy Award nominations.

Hamnet (losing their son to plague, with so much crying.)

Marty Supreme (Chalamet getting to the ping pong tournament, with so much screaming.)

One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson, DiCaprio, Penn, del Toro “When their evil enemy resurfaces after 16 years, a group of ex-revolutionaries reunite to rescue the daughter of one of their own.” I’ll watch it again since I didn’t quite get the charm.)

Train Dreams (slow moving quiet tragic life that many found touching)

Jay Kelly (Clooney, Sandler self-centered movie star and his devoted manager, and me not caring about either of them)

Bugonia (SO odd and violent but I liked it anyway)

Sinners (talk about odd and violent, both genius and horrifying, and far too many vampires)

Sentimental Value (more than half in Swedish, it was touching. Spoiler: the main character did not redeem himself.)

Blue Moon (a sad getting-to-know-you piece, especially good if you like musical theater)

For the last several days I’ve been going out to eat mostly with friends, sometimes not, because I’ve been trying, unsuccessfully, to get through my To Do list. But I have made a dent. For example I’m putting away the Christmas Tree… and I downloaded TurboTax…

This scene catches my eye every time I walk by, which happens when I meet Darryl for lunch at Tiato.

Lilly is quite the fingernail design maven! Today we did a little shopping for Lilly to buy Valentine’s Day gifts. It was fun!

And also I had a nice coffee with Angela at The Boy and the Bear and we walked there. Thanks Angela for the comfortable pace.

And here’s a picture of how my house looked today, mid-February. So many kumquats, I’m excited for them to ripen.

Mid-morning on a Wednesday it’s not so crowded although buses of children did arrive from time to time, it was easy to find a place to stand for as long as you’d like in front of any of the exhibits. Alex and Carol joined me and then Merlyn came by for lunch at Shenanigans.

There’s a Black Rockfish and a Kelp Rockfish. I don’t know which this is, or it could be something else entirely since I’m asking google’s AI so who knows. “Both are species of rockfish (genus Sebastes), which encompasses over 100 species with a variety of colors, sizes, and shapes. They are long-living fishes, with some species living up to 200 years.”

I thought the hand in the back was cool-looking.

Blue-banded Goby (also known as a Catalina Goby). This little guy was one or two inches long.

Purple-striped Jellyfish (Chrysaora colorata), a species primarily found off the coast of California. 

Probably another Rockfish.

The lorikeet exhibit is very fun. There’s a huge aviary for dozens of people to wander around in and over a hundred birds flying about. What’s a flock of lorikeets called? A chattering, which is perfect.

It’s included to get in and you can pay $5 for food guaranteeing birds will find you very attractive.

Wow, that’s a shark and the largest ray I’ve ever seen.

It was so delightful to hear all the kids shouting out “It’s Rubber Ducky..Look look at Rubber Ducky!”.

Spot-fin porcupinefish (Diodon hystrix), also commonly known as a spotted porcupinefish. It puffs up with water making spines visible.

We have our pot luck every Monday out in the valley where I used to live and I drive out there most weeks. Birthdays are so much fun and here we have February’s celebrants – Ljubica, Alicia, and Marija. We give each other rude cards and twenty bucks, and once again as is ever the case, we had no card duplicates.

First we had a nice lunch, gotta have lunch, and then we decided to have a swing by Sharon’s neighborhood destroyed by the fire. I thought I’d be able to get better pictures off the internet but none of them looked like what we saw. Above is Sharon’s lot. We could tell because the back side of a fountain survived. Below is more of the lot.

The US Army Corp of Engineers scraped all the burned ground about 6 inches deep removing contaminated soil, ash, and structural debris. A lot of weeds are grown in and every block or two had a couple houses being built. I’m not saying rebuilt because there was nothing left and I expect everything will be coming back bigger.

Here’s an aerial from the internet before the removal project.

Hilda stopped by after taking her son Raffi to visit her mom’s grave, in honor of the 5th year of mom’s passing. On the other side of the frame is a picture in the same pose of Hilda kissing Raffi’s forehead. It’s a beautiful thing.

Hilda brought a Persian sweet treat most often shared at funerals and the anniversary of the passing of a loved one. It’s called halvah and it turns out there are two very different types, the kind you get at the deli made of crushed sesame seeds, and the Persian kind made with toasted flour. I’d never had the flour kind before(!) and it was delicious.

Jo Ann and Alan at Forma, they have to drive across town but I can walk, lucky me.

We first saw the Collecting Impressionism at LACMA exhibit which was interesting and I was glad to have seen it and then we saw a real museum highlight, an exhibition of the work of Tavares Strachan called The Day Tomorrow Began that left us slack-jawed. It’s on until March 29 and you won’t be sorry if you can get there. It’s a wowzer for sure.

There’s too much to say about the few objects here and the many more in the show. Here is the LA Times review of the exhibit with plenty of words.

“Some loads are too heavy to carry alone.”

We are a few months late but, you know, it’s always something. Happy Birthday Susie!

Windy, Lona, me, Rome

So fun when we’re all free at the same time.

Movies with Marsha

Book group

Monday Ladies

Dinner with Rome

Steve and Celina came by