motodraconis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
motodraconis) wrote2013-07-01 09:20 pm
motodraconis) wrote2013-07-01 09:20 pm
Entry tags:
Los Angeles - the return!
The last few days in Los Angeles were pretty hot, with the temperature getting up to the 80's and then the 90's. Naturally, these were the days when I decided to do the most walking. But on the plus side, I did get to Tatooine!
However, on my first day, it was more balmy and in the 20's and I got up early to go to Venice Beach to see the freak show, but it being closed in the morning I ended up walking to Santa Monica to kill some time. Now, I recall, the last time I was there, it seemed to be somewhat lacking in gorgeous beach bunny girls and stripped to the waist hunks (as I complained about last year.) However, this time was different, perhaps because I was there so early?
Nowt like a bit of early morning brachiation! But actually, it's pretty difficult stuff, so I was suitably impressed.
Even wee kids were getting in on the act...
A little less ripped, but still an impressive feat, or indeed, impressive feet.
There was still a lack of bikini-clad babes, even with a volley-ball tournament in full swing, it seemed to be mostly chaps. (Bad luck.)
Back at the conference, I made friends with two lovely ladies, who procured tickets for us to see Robert Plant, who happened to be playing at the Shrine...
...a gigantic auditorium right by our hotel and the conference.
Since it was all a bit last minute, we ended up on the balcony, hence the grainy photographs, but bloody hell - he can still sing! When he belted out "Whole lotta love" I got a bit choked up. What a wonderful, unexpected bonus, cheers Elisabetta for snaffling that ticket for me (and buying me beer and all - spoiled!)
The conference itself featured an android Philip K Dick. When I first saw this thing sitting in the darkened auditorium, I did think it was a real person, albeit, a speaker with disabilities, perhaps a paralysis that kept him rigid and limited his facial expressions. Even after seeing that it was an android, every time I wandered past and caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye, my first thought was that it was a real person. Spooky. We were encouraged to touch his face. The skin had been designed to have the same water content as real skin, and the effect was just like touching human flesh. Cold dead skin, but still skin. Gah.
Flashing LEDs. Just like Data. Can't be an android without flashing LEDs!
Handily, the conference and hotel were also right next to the Natural History Museum, where I got to see butterflies...
...dinosaurs...
...and a whale with legs!
On the last day of the conference, I bounded up to E, L and R and basically acted like an excitable child until they agreed to go and see the Endeavour with me, again, pretty much on the doorstep of the conference. The Endeavour... the fucking Endeavour!
It has a really odd, strangely textured fuselage.
Wooah! Space-tech-gasm!
And we got to see a space toilet with sucky-sucky tubes and strap-in foot pedals.
Smoggy view of LA (as seen from Tatooine.)
Hummingbirds...
Ooooh! Messages IN THE SKY!
My last trip of LA was a bus ride to Glendale to see Forest Lawn "we-don't-call-it-a-cemetery it's a Memorial Garden."
I'd seen this on the television the night before, as a little known local attraction, and resolved to go to it instead of the Getty Museum. Yes, I know the Getty museum is amazing, but I didn't travel halfway across the world to see the sort of European artefacts that I could see (and have seen) in the British Museum, The Louvre, the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersberg or indeed, in their original habitats inside European stately homes and palaces. I'd much rather (while in the US) see something more intrinsically, idiosyncratically American - like a Death Theme Park.
Forest lawn was the dreamchild of Dr. Hubert Eaton, who wanted to create "a great park devoid of misshapen monuments and other signs of earthly death, but filled with towering trees, sweeping lawns, splashing fountains, beautiful statuary, and ... memorial architecture" He built a museum and commissioned replicas of all of Michelangelo's sculptures...
With the worthy intention of bringing free art to the masses...
...presumably all those masses who were not black, Jewish or Chinese, who were refused burial in this grand park for many decades, hmmm...
Thankfully, that prohibition has now been overturned, so time to enjoy the THEMEPARK OF DEATH!
Stained glass version of the Last Supper,
The Birth of Liberty Mosaic - the largest historical mosaic in the US (apparently) or perhaps just the largest mosaic featuring the Signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Washington...
The Court of Freedom - presided over by Jefferson?
...ironically walled off to visitors. Only paying patrons of the cemetery may have access to freedom.
This place is weird...
...which is exactly what I wanted!
And finally, a "Bacon Old Fashioned." A bourbon on the rocks with er... a strip of bacon thrown in. Cos everything is better with bacon!
More on flickr though I'd be surprised if anyone wanted to wade through it.
However, on my first day, it was more balmy and in the 20's and I got up early to go to Venice Beach to see the freak show, but it being closed in the morning I ended up walking to Santa Monica to kill some time. Now, I recall, the last time I was there, it seemed to be somewhat lacking in gorgeous beach bunny girls and stripped to the waist hunks (as I complained about last year.) However, this time was different, perhaps because I was there so early?
Nowt like a bit of early morning brachiation! But actually, it's pretty difficult stuff, so I was suitably impressed.
Even wee kids were getting in on the act...
A little less ripped, but still an impressive feat, or indeed, impressive feet.
There was still a lack of bikini-clad babes, even with a volley-ball tournament in full swing, it seemed to be mostly chaps. (Bad luck.)
Back at the conference, I made friends with two lovely ladies, who procured tickets for us to see Robert Plant, who happened to be playing at the Shrine...
...a gigantic auditorium right by our hotel and the conference.
Since it was all a bit last minute, we ended up on the balcony, hence the grainy photographs, but bloody hell - he can still sing! When he belted out "Whole lotta love" I got a bit choked up. What a wonderful, unexpected bonus, cheers Elisabetta for snaffling that ticket for me (and buying me beer and all - spoiled!)
The conference itself featured an android Philip K Dick. When I first saw this thing sitting in the darkened auditorium, I did think it was a real person, albeit, a speaker with disabilities, perhaps a paralysis that kept him rigid and limited his facial expressions. Even after seeing that it was an android, every time I wandered past and caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye, my first thought was that it was a real person. Spooky. We were encouraged to touch his face. The skin had been designed to have the same water content as real skin, and the effect was just like touching human flesh. Cold dead skin, but still skin. Gah.
Flashing LEDs. Just like Data. Can't be an android without flashing LEDs!
Handily, the conference and hotel were also right next to the Natural History Museum, where I got to see butterflies...
...dinosaurs...
...and a whale with legs!
On the last day of the conference, I bounded up to E, L and R and basically acted like an excitable child until they agreed to go and see the Endeavour with me, again, pretty much on the doorstep of the conference. The Endeavour... the fucking Endeavour!
It has a really odd, strangely textured fuselage.
Wooah! Space-tech-gasm!
And we got to see a space toilet with sucky-sucky tubes and strap-in foot pedals.
Smoggy view of LA (as seen from Tatooine.)
Hummingbirds...
Ooooh! Messages IN THE SKY!
My last trip of LA was a bus ride to Glendale to see Forest Lawn "we-don't-call-it-a-cemetery it's a Memorial Garden."
I'd seen this on the television the night before, as a little known local attraction, and resolved to go to it instead of the Getty Museum. Yes, I know the Getty museum is amazing, but I didn't travel halfway across the world to see the sort of European artefacts that I could see (and have seen) in the British Museum, The Louvre, the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersberg or indeed, in their original habitats inside European stately homes and palaces. I'd much rather (while in the US) see something more intrinsically, idiosyncratically American - like a Death Theme Park.
Forest lawn was the dreamchild of Dr. Hubert Eaton, who wanted to create "a great park devoid of misshapen monuments and other signs of earthly death, but filled with towering trees, sweeping lawns, splashing fountains, beautiful statuary, and ... memorial architecture" He built a museum and commissioned replicas of all of Michelangelo's sculptures...
With the worthy intention of bringing free art to the masses...
...presumably all those masses who were not black, Jewish or Chinese, who were refused burial in this grand park for many decades, hmmm...
Thankfully, that prohibition has now been overturned, so time to enjoy the THEMEPARK OF DEATH!
Stained glass version of the Last Supper,
The Birth of Liberty Mosaic - the largest historical mosaic in the US (apparently) or perhaps just the largest mosaic featuring the Signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Washington...
The Court of Freedom - presided over by Jefferson?
...ironically walled off to visitors. Only paying patrons of the cemetery may have access to freedom.
This place is weird...
...which is exactly what I wanted!
And finally, a "Bacon Old Fashioned." A bourbon on the rocks with er... a strip of bacon thrown in. Cos everything is better with bacon!
More on flickr though I'd be surprised if anyone wanted to wade through it.
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BTW,did you know there's a Glass opera about Muybridge, THE PHOTOGRAPHER?
It must be a pretty minor work, though. Gotta admit I've never heard it.
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Muybridge had a rather colourful personal life, good opera potential! If it ever crops up at the ENO I'll go and see it, though the Disney opera was vocally a bit dull.
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Having said that, I am feeling a bit exhausted by it, and would rather prefer to do to a different US city next time!
Robert Plant
Other comments:
Fab photos!
I suspect the yellow warning labels on the rocket motor say something like "Caution: This surface hot when in use"? ;-)
Did you, seriously, get a bourbon with bacon in it? That's just nuts!
Re: Robert Plant
I've tweaked the settings on flickr so you can view large sizes now, apparently, on the rocket it says "Caution Do not crush insulation." (!)
As for the bourbon, I was enjoying a beer called Doghead crabnuts or somesuch, and saw the guy next to me on the bar having the "Bacon Old Fashioned," so I had to get one of my own. I did drink it all, and ate the bacon!
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