the best fish taco in ensenada

I could eat here every day.




Two shrimp, one fish.

the room.

"It's a film student's worst nightmare and wet dream." --Terry

Pillow fight!

i love l.a.

I like to hike on Saturdays with Else, Nicki and Clara. We hiked up to the Observatory today before it got too hot. However, Nicki decided to do the old school thing and really get back to nature by not bringing her cell phone, so we missed each other. Crap! Fortunately, I will see her tonight at the movies.


Downtown L.A.
Rebel.


Else and Clara.

haven.

experience.

"I am thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one of my friends who expects everything of the universe, and is disappointed when anything is less than the best, and I found that I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate goods. I accept the clangor and jangle of contrary tendencies. I find my account in sots and bores also. They give a reality to the circumjacent picture, which such a vanishing meteorous appearance can ill spare. In the morning I awake, and find the old world, wife, babes, and mother, Concord and Boston, the dear old spiritual world, and even the dear old devil not far off. If we will take the good we find, asking no questions, we shall have heaping measures. The great gifts are not got by analysis. Everything good is on the highway. The middle region of our being is the temperate zone. We may climb into the thin and cold realm of pure geometry and lifeless science, or sink into that of sensation. Between these extremes is the equator of life, of thought, of spirit, of poetry, -- a narrow belt. Moreover, in popular experience, everything good is on the highway." --RWE

roses.

succulents.

succulent with fire extinguisher.

succulent with gnome.

in bloom.

The tree over my deck is starting to flower. I'm embarrassed to say I still don't know what it is. Anyone?

aurelia's oratorio.

I saw this wonderful little show--and by wonderful I mean filled with wonder--with Nicki a couple of weeks ago at UCLA's Freud Playhouse, but it's worth noting here and now. Created and directed by Victoria Thierrée Chaplin, daughter of Charlie Chaplin, and performed by his granddaughter Aurelia Thierrée, this surreal fantasy featured dance, mime, puppetry, acrobatics and simple yet breathtaking visual illusions--a kite flying a girl, a shadow casting a man, Aurelia performing a puppet show for an audience of puppets. My favorite bit as when a Yeti-like snow monster eats her leg--and she knits it right back (you have to see it).

There was no real linear plot or narrative--it floated along from one whimsical scenario to the next. I thought it was cool to see a show so simple yet so compelling in a one-industry town that invests hundreds of millions in over-the-top special effects. I felt like I was at a cabaret show in 1940's Paris. Seriously, it was like stepping into Children of Paradise.

the title.

Brian said it was a little long for a blog title, but it just stuck in my head while nothing else did. It's lifted from a nifty little essay by Aldous Huxley entitled Los Angeles: A Rhapsody. It's brief, yet divided into "movements" which appeals to the musician in me. The phrase refers the the primitive special effects he witnesses being created in a movie studio. I read the essay in David Ulin's Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology.

hello.

I broke down and did it--the blog thing. Now I can't remember why. But I have a moderately interesting life, and I really enjoy living in L.A. now, although for a long time I didn't, as all the folks in Minneapolis can attest. Plus, I'm addicted to my friends' blogs, it's good writing practice and I want to take more pictures. I'm actually looking forward to this. I hope you are, too.