Liberty in LA
One might think that a trip to Los Angeles with such banal and bourgeois surroundings at the Bonaventure would provide no spicy anecdotes for bored lunch time perusal.
One might be right.
Nevertheless, given that the last time I made my way to spend a night at a bougie hotel with Jenny, it ended in near tragedy, panic attacks and the mentada multa and subsequent traffic school (which may have finally been resolved, but I can't quite say as the return receipt has yet to arrive from Ventura), the most egregious events were happily not motorized.
My Dad calls early, 7 am, too early. The bed groans under our weight or upon release as I bounce down the frigid stairs in a desperate attempt to catch the caller. He says that the train tracks are under repair and that they have a bus service whose schedule does not follow, in any remote way, the train schedule that it purports to replace. Traffic is stymied by the onset of rain, and we get stuck in traffic in Chinatown, having chosen to follow the internet directions instead of the clearly marked road signs. (Note to self, in future, follow road signs.) Slightly better than mediocre Chinese food is partaken of, there is minor whining which changes to glee as we pull into an hotel dignified enough for the reigning principessa.
"Will they have chocolates on the pillows?" she wants to know. I smile thinking only that I want double sheeted bedding, and never again will I be happy with less. There are cement fish spouting water in criss-crossing arcs over the passageway to reception. There is a happy child that sees her Zadie and lets mommy go to the movies, grown-up movies. Of course this may be stupid, it must be, but I sob silently at the close of El laberinto del fauno. I know I am supposed to be outraged. I know that Del Toro's use of the fairytale genre permits a beating-over-the-head sort of didacticism that any type of realist narrative would not, and that the hyper-naturalist violence, the saw cutting through bone, the needle piercing the lacerated skin, the beastial impaling of a man's face with the open end of a bottle are two naked and bereft of metaphor for any sort of epic fantasy. I know that the offering of oneself before spilling the blood of an innocent is what is meant to be our lesson. To question authoratarian brutality, to disobey, to resist. And the little girl that lies dead, her alternative, her fantastic escape does not comfort me in any way. I want my baby back. We cross the street.
And now I am the wicked mother again because I turn off the TV. Damn idiot box, does more damage in five minutes... But that wasn't my story. Neither was it the definition of love, or not love, as a willingness to die for someone. I have to reconsider my concept of love, perhaps. But rather, I was appalled to be confronted on the sidewalk, in front of the LA public library, camera in hand. Says the security gaurd. "Excuse me, but you can't take pictures. This is private property."
I look down at my feet, up at the public library. "You mean to tell me that I can't take pictures of the PUBLIC LIBRARY?" I read and point. "No, see," he points, "This sidewalk is private property, everything that looks like this, it is prohibited..." he pleads with his eyes for me to understand. I stand there looking quizzically, debating whether or not I want to pick a fight. Do I step off the sidewalk into the street and take a picture of him standing there, looking official? Do I suggest that as far as I knew the government had a 10 ft lien on the land contiguous to public thoroughfares, and that sidewalks, by virtue of their continuity were considered property of the government and that he was in no way vested with the powers of the government to tell me that I was on private property? "Huh. What will they come up with next?" I muse, annoyed, "Controlling airspace, eh?"
It doesn't help that a mere 500 feet later a police officer stops us from crossing a street by yelling from thirty feet away in garbled language. "Behind the fire hydrant!" he waves his gloved hand. The street is empty. We wait. It must be a film shooting but there are no posted signs or orange filming tape. Nothing happens and then he waves us across. "Idiots." I fume, as if we could possibly be expected to know what other people are doing with no direction or signage. A thought crosses my mind. No, not that. Soon there will be postings proliferating stating every last sort of prohibition possible. "Private property, it is strictly prohibited to have dirty thoughts on this sidewalk, nor may you spread blasphemous rumors, nor launch multi-national offensives (these perhaps should be posted outside the oval office)."
What is wrong with people. And the fashion and architecture exhibit at the MOCA does little to lift my mood, but wonders for my smug sense of superiority until I finally stumble upon a retrospective of Tracey Emin's work in the gift shop, and I am sucked into the dark painful inner/underworl of her whorish bed and vomitous rejection of puritanism and a society that punishes women for being sexually voracious. (And why shouldn't it? says the voice... the obnoxious one that means to be grandatherly and is the voice-over of everycomercial and all the propaganda in my head). I am not terribly struck by the aesthetic of the art, but fascinated by the discurrir de conciencia in her writing. File this away for future reference. Remind myself that whatever my likes and dislikes are, my perversions and subversions, I am so, so, so fucking vanilla. I can live with that, actually. I embrace my mild-form bougie aesthetic and preference for hotels with down comforters (even though I am allergic) and chocolate mints that come with the turn-down service and food that requires more elaborate preparation than being thrown in a vat of molten lard.
After discovering a Yucatecan restaurant not far from Downtown (Chichen Itzá - very good, and resembles to a decent extent actual cuisine from Yucatan). We go to the Redcat to see the staged reading of "Splitting Infinity" it one first prize in the nanotechnology institute's competition. It was well structured, well acted, well researched. But there was something missing. Perhaps it was that I was left with the feeling that there were too many pat clichés, and that American theater so often falls into those categories of hackneyed trite one-liners on religion and scientific practice. It was ambitious, but remained somehow mostly surface. It was taped for airing on NPR. We'll see, I'll listen again and see if I change my mind. (And yet, it was a lovely close to a pleasant weekend.)
One might be right.
Nevertheless, given that the last time I made my way to spend a night at a bougie hotel with Jenny, it ended in near tragedy, panic attacks and the mentada multa and subsequent traffic school (which may have finally been resolved, but I can't quite say as the return receipt has yet to arrive from Ventura), the most egregious events were happily not motorized.
My Dad calls early, 7 am, too early. The bed groans under our weight or upon release as I bounce down the frigid stairs in a desperate attempt to catch the caller. He says that the train tracks are under repair and that they have a bus service whose schedule does not follow, in any remote way, the train schedule that it purports to replace. Traffic is stymied by the onset of rain, and we get stuck in traffic in Chinatown, having chosen to follow the internet directions instead of the clearly marked road signs. (Note to self, in future, follow road signs.) Slightly better than mediocre Chinese food is partaken of, there is minor whining which changes to glee as we pull into an hotel dignified enough for the reigning principessa.
"Will they have chocolates on the pillows?" she wants to know. I smile thinking only that I want double sheeted bedding, and never again will I be happy with less. There are cement fish spouting water in criss-crossing arcs over the passageway to reception. There is a happy child that sees her Zadie and lets mommy go to the movies, grown-up movies. Of course this may be stupid, it must be, but I sob silently at the close of El laberinto del fauno. I know I am supposed to be outraged. I know that Del Toro's use of the fairytale genre permits a beating-over-the-head sort of didacticism that any type of realist narrative would not, and that the hyper-naturalist violence, the saw cutting through bone, the needle piercing the lacerated skin, the beastial impaling of a man's face with the open end of a bottle are two naked and bereft of metaphor for any sort of epic fantasy. I know that the offering of oneself before spilling the blood of an innocent is what is meant to be our lesson. To question authoratarian brutality, to disobey, to resist. And the little girl that lies dead, her alternative, her fantastic escape does not comfort me in any way. I want my baby back. We cross the street.
And now I am the wicked mother again because I turn off the TV. Damn idiot box, does more damage in five minutes... But that wasn't my story. Neither was it the definition of love, or not love, as a willingness to die for someone. I have to reconsider my concept of love, perhaps. But rather, I was appalled to be confronted on the sidewalk, in front of the LA public library, camera in hand. Says the security gaurd. "Excuse me, but you can't take pictures. This is private property."
I look down at my feet, up at the public library. "You mean to tell me that I can't take pictures of the PUBLIC LIBRARY?" I read and point. "No, see," he points, "This sidewalk is private property, everything that looks like this, it is prohibited..." he pleads with his eyes for me to understand. I stand there looking quizzically, debating whether or not I want to pick a fight. Do I step off the sidewalk into the street and take a picture of him standing there, looking official? Do I suggest that as far as I knew the government had a 10 ft lien on the land contiguous to public thoroughfares, and that sidewalks, by virtue of their continuity were considered property of the government and that he was in no way vested with the powers of the government to tell me that I was on private property? "Huh. What will they come up with next?" I muse, annoyed, "Controlling airspace, eh?"
It doesn't help that a mere 500 feet later a police officer stops us from crossing a street by yelling from thirty feet away in garbled language. "Behind the fire hydrant!" he waves his gloved hand. The street is empty. We wait. It must be a film shooting but there are no posted signs or orange filming tape. Nothing happens and then he waves us across. "Idiots." I fume, as if we could possibly be expected to know what other people are doing with no direction or signage. A thought crosses my mind. No, not that. Soon there will be postings proliferating stating every last sort of prohibition possible. "Private property, it is strictly prohibited to have dirty thoughts on this sidewalk, nor may you spread blasphemous rumors, nor launch multi-national offensives (these perhaps should be posted outside the oval office)."
What is wrong with people. And the fashion and architecture exhibit at the MOCA does little to lift my mood, but wonders for my smug sense of superiority until I finally stumble upon a retrospective of Tracey Emin's work in the gift shop, and I am sucked into the dark painful inner/underworl of her whorish bed and vomitous rejection of puritanism and a society that punishes women for being sexually voracious. (And why shouldn't it? says the voice... the obnoxious one that means to be grandatherly and is the voice-over of everycomercial and all the propaganda in my head). I am not terribly struck by the aesthetic of the art, but fascinated by the discurrir de conciencia in her writing. File this away for future reference. Remind myself that whatever my likes and dislikes are, my perversions and subversions, I am so, so, so fucking vanilla. I can live with that, actually. I embrace my mild-form bougie aesthetic and preference for hotels with down comforters (even though I am allergic) and chocolate mints that come with the turn-down service and food that requires more elaborate preparation than being thrown in a vat of molten lard.
After discovering a Yucatecan restaurant not far from Downtown (Chichen Itzá - very good, and resembles to a decent extent actual cuisine from Yucatan). We go to the Redcat to see the staged reading of "Splitting Infinity" it one first prize in the nanotechnology institute's competition. It was well structured, well acted, well researched. But there was something missing. Perhaps it was that I was left with the feeling that there were too many pat clichés, and that American theater so often falls into those categories of hackneyed trite one-liners on religion and scientific practice. It was ambitious, but remained somehow mostly surface. It was taped for airing on NPR. We'll see, I'll listen again and see if I change my mind. (And yet, it was a lovely close to a pleasant weekend.)
posted by ilana at 10:18 p.m.
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