Southland Sojourn: Art n' stuff

We hit LACMA before Pelf's play.

Bobo wanted to check out their Western exhibitions and I've always wanted to check out their collection of Netsuke
My fave:
kleek.
and the wife's fave:
kleek.

They're no bigger than a walnut, but you expect their breath to fog the glass when you see them in person.

The Western landscape exhibit was fab, although the wife found their overarching theme suspect (and who am I to argue with an art history major?) It mixed photography and painting to good effect. The thing that nailed me to the floor was a mesmerising photo by Edward Steichen, one of my absolute favorite photographers and one I'd only seen in books.

It was titled Black Canyon, and it seems immune to Google (although I now know that a print recently auctioned for 110k, and that photography publisher Aperture is also a non-profit organization). Maybe Anner can use her google-fu to track down a visual.

It's a brooding, misty shot of a canyon, combining surpassing natural beauty with layers of depth to generate an aura of ominous fascination. The 'look' is a bit like his famous picture of the Flatiron building, but it felt like a much more profound image.

Of course I haven't seen the Flatiron shot 'live', so it's actually a monstrously unfair comparison...but it'll have to do because I'm too lazy to come up with a better one. =P

Oh, and there was an amazing painting by Thomas Hart Benton (who I was also seeing 'live' for the first time) that would have stood out as a masterpiece even if it wasn't encased in an armored Lucite box. I love his style and it was a treat to see it up close. Great paintings vibrate with life when you get close enough to see the brush-strokes...they're very organic.

Anyone in the vicinity is urged to check it out.

80's Cartoons

30 Minutes of Intros

Pretty cool, but I'd prefer the 70's...

Bad News for Humans

Devra has been co-opted by our would-be cuttlefish overlords.

Nova issued this dire warning in documentary form last month.

NARRATOR: Imagine an alien that can float through space, with a giant brain shaped like a doughnut, eight arms growing out of its head, and three hearts pumping blue blood. This alien lives right here on Earth. It's called the cuttlefish, a flesh-eating predator who's a master of illusion, changing its shape and color at will. It can hypnotize its prey or even become invisible.

And lest you assume we're safe because we live on dry land....

NARRATOR: This is a place of the weird and the wonderful, where standing out or blending in all depends on whether you are predator or prey. It's one of the few places you'll find the rare mimic octopus.

But the strangest of them all is a creature called the flamboyant cuttlefish. For a start, it's walking, not swimming.

MARK NORMAN: It's still really foreign for me to watch a cuttlefish walking around on the seafloor. They actually look like these prehistoric lumbering monsters, sort of walking through these ancient black deserts.

MMM HMMMM.

So, whatchoo gonna do when dread Cthulhu comes for you?
If you're Devra you immediately begin currying favor with the tentacular tyrants intent on transforming the human race into bipedal veal calves!

Fiend pic for Anner

clicky.

Fiend and her pink Christmas guitar.

Southland Sojourn continued

As promised, The Best Gelato in the USA.

Anner spotted this note in the LA Weekly and made us venture into the foothills of Altadena to find it.

It was tucked away in the courtyard of a half empty, dilapidated mall that wouldn't have been out of place in Santa Maria, occupying the spot recently vacated by L337 Force PC Gaming (no really!).

The fellow in charge had gone to Italy to apprentice with one of the remaining ancients steeped in the wisdom of making gelato from scratch. He learned the lessons well, because all the flavors we tried tasted like distilled wonderful.

I went for Pistachio, the wife opted for basic chocolate, Anner e Bobo split a large cinnamon chocolate.

We all thought our choice was best.
The stuff had the texture of velvet and a startlingly clean flavor that couldn't have compared more favorably to the oversweetened, chemical taste of most frozen treats.

It's definitely on the itinerary for my next visit.

Dark Secrets

What isn't Bobo telling us?

Simultaneous raids carried out in four Alabama counties Thursday turned up truckloads of explosives and weapons, including 130 grenades, an improvised rocket launcher and 2,500 rounds of ammunition belonging to the small, but mightily armed, Alabama Free Militia.
----------------
Arrested and detained in federal custody were Dillard, also known as Jeff Osborne, 46, of Collinsville; Adam Lynn Cunningham, 41, of Collinsville; Bonnell Hughes, 57, of Crossville; Randall Garrett Cole, 22, of Gadsden; James Ray McElroy, 20, of Collinsville; and Michael Wayne Bobo, 30, of Trussville.

approved headstones

The recent approval of the Wiccan pentacle for use on military headstones dragged this list of approved symbols across my bow.

Greg Saunders over at This modern world is partial to the Atheist symbol.

After giving the list a once over (and being astonished at the inclusion of the profoundly wacky Eckankar) my favorite symbol has to be the marching lamb of the United Moravian Church.




A banner anyone could feel good about rallying 'round.