Lisa's Remote LA Journal
Saturday, May 15, 2004
The flight west - 9:16am, Madison Time.
Now I am kicking myself for not fully charging up my laptop before my flight because I have made the rather bold transition from scribbling away in my paper journal [a favorite traveling pastime] to typing like some kind of hip-cyber blogger. I may end up posting all of my LA entries later, upon my return back to real life. Either enjoy this in its entirety or in posted parcels, whichever I decide.
It's been a rocky morning, but already things are looking up. Last night was Jordis's fond farewell party before she leaves for Germany on Monday. She's been a big fixture in my life here and I will miss her dearly when she goes to finish her teaching practicum that can take up to two years. I can honestly say that had I not stayed with her and Tom as a prospective student, chances are, I would never have come to Madison. But her send off was very nice - all of our friends gathered together and it was a nice way to come full circle (Tom and Jordis threw a great big welcome bash in the fall) and finish the year strong. It is really heartbreaking that she is leaving - but the party suited her. There are lots of pictures - including a bunch of really goofy shots of people smiling with orange peel covering their teeth. When Tom and I are in town together some day, I will get all of these photos, including a bunch from the faijitas and sangria dinner party that Patrick and I threw on Thursday.
Remarkably, despite the rather silly decision to eat the alcohol-soaked sangria remnants on Thursday, liberally, like fruit salad, I still managed to finish my production test in the afternoon, submit my class grades, do my laundry, pack for LA, and make it to Jordis's party. But this is the way one should leave for vacation – working up to the minute of departure, not sleeping a whole heck of a lot last night, but craving the relaxation that is to come.
Unfortunately, Patrick and I could not get on the same flight. We tried, but today is an unexpectedly busy travel day. We went to the airport in time for my 6am flight, but I boarded and he had to stay and wait in Madison for two hours. The same fate awaits me, but I am consoled by the fact that instead of dingy Madison, I can sit and look out at palm trees in LAX. Just the same, since I have to wait anyway, I volunteered for a bump (rather unselfishly, had I gotten one, I would have still arrived first and picked up a free roundtrip ticket - fingers crossed for the way home). I didn't get my bump, but for volunteering, the ticket agent rewarded me with an upgrade to business class. Since it's a five hour flight, I can really appreciate the footrest, truly "reclining" seatback, and less claustrophobic seat arrangement. Ah, this is how I should live - having coffee served in a porcelain cup and saucer while looking out over the great plains. I feel like such a lucky girl. And it's especially nice when things like this happen because it's all bonus - completely unexpected. It is a wonderful thing when you wake up expecting all of the crowdedness of coach and then find the pleasant surprise of a roomy upgrade. The same principle could apply to anything in life.
This is actually pretty ironic because in a round about way, I met Patrick in the Madison airport. We had been introduced prior at a department cocktail party, but around Christmas, we had the same connecting flight from Madison to Chicago where we ended up talking for a while, and had our first meaningful conversation. But today, the chips aren't with us, but at least I got the upgrade. I've been reading [and LOVING] Truss's social history of punctuation called
Eats, Shoots and Leaves. It's dry and hysterical and I feel guilty reading in public and visibly enjoying myself too much. Also, I've been listening to Modest Mouse and Franz Ferdinand and having too much fun.
I am thrilled for the trip - and while it seems kind of redundant to write out the sketchy itinerary now (when I'll just end up fleshing it out later as things really happen), but I think that my introduction to this god-forsaken city hated by all self-proclaimed New Yorkers is going to be smooth. Patrick is just going out of his way to keep me happy - Minimalism at LA MoCA, the Getty, we have tickets for a concert at the new Frank Gehry / Disney theater, and with any luck, fabulous screenings associated with the Fellini retrospective (what a treat to see 8 1/2 projected!) and then a double header of Jacques Demy's Model Shop (of the films figuring prominently into the paper I just finished) and an Agnes Varda film. It's been a while since I've taken a "real vacation" (it may have been Vegas in college) and this just feels like one great thing lined up after another, all starting with Jackson Browne tomorrow. Granted, I have the added stress associated with meeting his family, but he's confident that this potentially rocky situation will also be smooth.
Monday, May 17, 2004
1:48pm, California Time
48 hours in LA... and already a sunburn
It has been a busy run since I've landed in LA. The weekend was filled with many activities, including meeting just about all reaches of Patrick's immediate and extended family. We played with the kids, we prepared his mother's homemade spaghetti sauce (and speaking as someone who has never eaten homemade spaghetti sauce, it is actually worth the trouble), and put the baby to bed.
Yesterday was eventful. We started the morning early, escorting Patrick's mother to Occidental College to receive her honorary degree. Unfortunately, Jackson Browne and other dignitaries such as Queen Noor of Jordan decided to skip out on the brunch, so I didn't technically “meet” him, though we had VIP tickets for the graduation and I had a clear view of his ageless boyishly handsome face. In terms of star sightings, the actor who played BJ Hunnecut on MASH was sitting behind me and that should count for something. It was a beautiful day to sit outside in the outdoor ampitheater at Oxy, purple jacaranda in bloom, and the ceremony was nice. I did get a sunburn, but I almost wanted one so that when I tell people that I've been in LA they'll believe me.
After the ceremony we came back to Patrick's sister's house [which is incredibly charming and had the most vivid interior color palette] where we had a nice catered lunch in the shady backyard. Southern California does have a few things going for it, including spending a nice Sunday afternoon in the backyard. We spent the afternoon entertaining Patrick's very sharp 8yr old niece Hannah, playing games, making mobiles, and teaching her cursive.
In the evening, we took the scenic route from Glendale through Hollywood, eventually ending at UCLA. The drive was actually sort of surreal - this strip of road has been so overly location scouted (including just about all you can see of Beverly Hills) that it feels like I place I have been to before. UCLA is a nice campus, not that this surprises me, and the surrounding area in Westwood Village is what downtown Madison should be. We had some burritos for dinner and then went to see a double feature of Demy's
Model Shop and Varda's
Mur Mur. I can absolutely see why Model Shop flopped – the performances were spotty and in my opinion the script had some visible problems, but it was the perfect film to see in LA. Most of the film follows around the listless George driving around LA as he re-thinks his approach to life as an architect on the verge of being drafted into the Vietnam War. It literally re-traced most of our drive from earlier in the evening and for that reason alone, I found it interesting. Additionally, the film is sort of the third and concluding chapter in the "Lola" story that I recently wrote my Demy paper about. I am not so sure I like this ending, it seems to have shaken off all of its optimism and taken on a much more somber, almost desperate, course of action. It doesn't seem to be the right way to end that story.
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
12:18pm, Madison Time
Flying Somewhere between Denver and Madison
I have hardly been a faithful journalist. Rather, I was enjoying my much needed vacation. I am still processing things, so this is actually a good way for me to reconstruct the trip for my own benefit.
First of all, I should preface any possible tangents by saying that I had a truly wonderful time. I really went in, in part because of my East Coast-biases, expecting to be allergic to LA and break out in some kind of violent rash because of all of the driving or the burger joints and palm tress. Quite the opposite - I am still not convinced that I'd ever want to live there, but it was a very nice place to visit. The weather is very agreeable this time of year and there is culture to be consumed if you make it a priority. The food was good (especially compared to Madison) and we ate entirely too much. I keep threatening Patrick that we're going on a salad diet and exercising when we get back from this glutton-fest.
Like good film students, we saw several movies.
Shrek 2 (with Patrick's niece, but it was very punny), Guy Maddin's
The Saddest Music in the World (my pick - which is a feature length AG-film in the spirit of 1930s musicals and I think, interesting),
Thirteen Going on Thirty (his pick, and written by one of his USC chums, and cute overall, but I didn't LOVE it), and
8 1/2, shown in the American Cinematheque series at the Egyptian theater in Hollywood, which was, in all grandiose senses, a spectacle. A nice mix in all, I still want to see
Super Size Me and we didn't have time to see Jim Jarmasch’s
Coffee and Cigarettes, but with any luck, they'll both come to Madison one of these days. In other big film news, kudos to you Michael Moore for snagging the Palme D'Or, except that many suspect that the Weinsteins are pulling the strings on this one to quadruple their profits.
We also did our fair share of cultural outings. Early in the week we went to see "A Minimal Future?," a Minimalism retrospective at LA MoCA. They devoted the whole museum to the show and I was thrilled to rekindle a lost love of boxes and grids. Interestingly, there is barely any wall text, so the viewers have to fill in a lot of the gaps [and there can be a lot of gaps]. Some of the things that struck me about the show was the new canon it presented. There are two or three Judd pieces in the whole show. Instead, this really proposes a different glimpse of Minimalism. Firstly, there were far more paintings than sculptures. Lots of California artists including Larry Bell and some others. Lots of color (even though it was a somewhat subdued palette of sage greens, muted purples, and deep reds). There were definitely staples – including a whole room of Morris sculptures, a Carl Andre floor, the four staple Frank Stella paintings done on the cusp of Ab-Ex and Minimalism like "the Marriage of Reason and Squallor," a room of Dan Flavin, a large classic Sol LeWitt, some representative Serras - but there were mirror Smithsons posed against Crayola colorful Judy Chicago constructions, several colorful Brice Marden paintings, some “abroad” Minimalists like Hans Haacke, a few humorous Dada-era Artschwiegers, and a nice little room of Eva Hesse drawings and table top sculptures. Just the same, it was interesting to see. This show would never be organized in NY. I think I've hungered for museums and Minimalism just long enough to really get excited about this one. I mean to ILL the catalogue and see if the essays intended to strip the context of the works (the text doesn't distinguish between the coasts, women, race) or if it's just the product of an art historian projecting.
Another day we went to the Huntington gardens and museum, which I think is in Pasedena. This turned out to be a fabulous outing and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to escape the freeways of LA. We snuck a little picnic lunch into this grand estate once owned by a railroad baron. On the grounds there are several different gardens - a desert garden with scary other worldly succulents, a peaceful Japanese garden with giant goldfish and little pagodas, a rose garden just past its prime bloom, and the like. We spent most of the day just strolling, but there are mansions filled with other art treasures like the Blue Boy, Pinkie, and rare books including a Guttenberg Bible and an illuminated manuscript of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.
Possibly my favorite, however, was the long afternoon spent at the Getty. It is really an amazing site. You board the little tram and in a matter of minutes, you leave not only LA but the rest of the lowly world behind. Sure it's elitist and pristine and modernist, but I firmly believe that it's worth escaping to spaces like this every so often. The views of LA and all the way to the Pacific are just stunning. The Getty's collection I could take or leave - the fact that their collection "ends" at 1895 - doesn't thrill me. But they've managed to get some very good Cezannes, Van Gogh's very pricey lilies, and a few other gems. They have a photography show up right now that is very strong - the equivalent of a survey course in the history of photography; 50 photographers from the earliest technologies to now, and three photographs from each. Three images works incredibly well - sometimes you want a little more, but others, it's representative of a career, a moment, a technology and glad to move on to the next. The whole day was much more Patrick's taste and expertise, but we both love Meier’s building and just had the most terrific time there. We stretched out on the well-manicured lawn and napped in the sun -it was probably my favorite day, of many very good days, in LA.
Our last big cultural outing was seeing the LA Master Chorale in Disney Hall, Frank Gehry's new postmodern acoustical wonder. It was a three part program - Perotin (a 13th Century French composer, and a piece performed in Notre Dame), a 15th Century Italian mass by Palestrina, and following intermission, a modern piece by Part. The three held together extremely well, used the stage / auditorium space creatively and effectively, and it was another terrific evening. It was fun to get dressed up and experience this great building.
We spent a day in the Academy of Motion Pictures film library. Patrick worked on some special collections research on censorship files from 1930s films and since I didn't have special clearance, I just stayed in the main reading room. Just the same, it's a very nice research spot and they have a very strong film book collection (they claim to have “every” book about film, and this is surely an overstatement). I sat and did a lot of general research about the 1940s (I've decided that my summer class will be a historical survey / mish-mash of 1940s Hollywood). It was a solid day of work and now I feel better prepared to dive into my prep work when I get back to Madison. I still don't think that I’ll ever fully convert to a Hollywood-person, but it doesn't feel like an impossible subject any more. To make my job a little easier, or perhaps distract me further, we also went to some incredible bookstores - including Midnight Special and Hennessey & Engels' Art and Architecture bookstore (both on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica) and then the unbeatable Sam French film bookstore in Hollywood. My suitcase is much heavier coming home with an armful of new avant-garde and film books, but I think I'll emerge the better for it. Now I just need to sit down and read them…
Socially, it was a productive and delightful trip. We met my friend Michelle and her boyfriend for sushi and incredible deserts and it was a nice reunion / introduction to new significant others. I also had a chance to meet two of Patrick's close friends from film school; Camille and Jordan. They are both have dynamic, incredible, and strong personalities in different ways, but with both, a meal fostered fast friendships. Patrick finally showed me some of his films, more remain to be seen, but it was nice to see evidence of this other life he once lived as a cinematographer. As I hinted at earlier, I met the whole lot of Patrick's immediate family and some of his extended family at the various parties / picnics we went to. He and I cooked, a lot, but we had fun and had many successes, due largely to the exceptional line of Williams Sonoma cookbooks – a grilled lunch of chicken satay and peanut sauce, soy-soaked asparagus, and honey-lime sweet potatoes at this father's house in Valencia, another day of breaded chicken with roasted corn and pepper relish, and a steak dish with chili pepper onion rings and Patrick’s best pico de gallo salsa.
It felt like a fast 10 days - we did a lot of other things, including sleeping in, attending Moira's 4th birthday party, window shopping in Old Town Pasedena, gazing out at the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica, and logging some miles in the car.
My plane's getting ready to land, but I feel like I did the trip justice (maybe more than justice to those who didn't care) but it was a great vacation. For Patrick and I, it was a great vacation in many respects - we enjoyed each other immensely and we're continuing to figure out who we are together, which by itself is a fun endeavor. It was nice to be away from Madison and away from school and away from real life…
The last bit of (tentative) big news. Patrick was asked to interview for a tenure track job... at St. Andrews, in Edinburgh. The interview is slated for mid-June, but he hasn't decided if he'll go or if he even wants the job. The airfare (which they'll reimburse, but would be an issue if he ended up there, even semi-permanently) would be $1800 to fly from Chicago with this much notice. There are many variables still very much up in the air for next year - other one-year jobs that haven't told him definitively one way or the other and even the chance that Madison came through and offered him something that would allow him to stay put, really finish the disseration (even turn it into a book) and give the job market another try with his diss completed (this is often a requirement) and a more solid teaching portfolio. Scotland is very far away. I still don't have a fully formed opinion on this yet, but selfishly, I don't like the sound of it. When I get back today I'll check the mail and this will eliminate some of the unknowns - including his Madison teaching appointment and if any other schools had anything to say, via post, while we were away. Suddenly, the Midwest seems like idea real estate for two people who otherwise consider themselves, decidedly, coastal personalities.
nothing in the mail about jobs for next year
grrr... I am sorry for all of the wierd formatting errors. I tried to export the text wholesale from MS Word and it doesn't seem to cooperate. I hope to have it cleaned up soon.
posted by lmjasinski at 2:28 PM
