#2162: Sunday, October 7: The Broad, The Visitor, Ice Cream and the Luck

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Post 2162
- 7 years and 280 days since I started this blog -

  

With Andy Warhol's Big Electric Chair at the Broad.

Journal
(written 10/3/18)

I'm trying something new. I'll be linking this post to its associated photo album on Facebook. If that's how you got here, here's some background: 8-1/2 years ago I started this blog as a food journal. I had a medical crisis and needed to lose weight. Initially, that's all I did here: Journal my food intake and my weight. It contributed to helping me lose 20+% of my body weight in 6 months, and continuing has kept me on track since then. I started adding commentary after a while, but lately it has become infrequent. 

While I'm traveling, I let go of the weight-tracking and food journaling, except for the occasional food shot when I've eaten something interesting. And that's where we find ourselves now.

Until Alex moved here about twelve years ago, I didn't have much use for LA.

It was just one of those things. Through no fault of Los Angeles's, my two or three visits previously had been less than a good time. On my first one, it rained (rained!) for most of my visit, and I got sick. Next time, I was refused admission to Disneyland for being too cool (or, as their Security guy put it, a dirty hippy who didn't meet Disney's dress code standards, whose presence could not be tolerated in a family-oriented park).

But with new maturity and different priorities, since I started coming out here to see Alex I have enjoyed my visits and enjoyed LA.

For one thing, I like the architecture. The big beautiful homes, the art deco or modern office buildings, the Hollywood spectacle homes. And I like the scenery - I don't get tired of the valley-mountain-canyon landscape. I find it all energizing.

In times past, I was a serious movie-goer, these days, not so much. It's still been fun to join Alex when he's shooting, which I've done a few times over the years. Alex is a screenwriter and an actor and sometimes an editor and director, that's when I get to see him doing his gig.

I've been fortunate to get to do some of that on the majority of my visits.

But then again, I'm one fortunate son of a bitch. I'm more than fortunate, I'm lucky! I think that might be better.

The other day I stopped to get a quick eat-on-the-go breakfast, and the woman in front of me turned and said, give in your order, I'm buying. And she was, and it was for no reason. But I had a free breakfast: Lucky me.

I'm also lucky with parking spots. Usually. But when it comes right down to it, the number one way I'm lucky is that I can hang with my son. That's huge for me.

With some down time for the two of us, we went to one of my favorite museums, the Broad (which Alex keeps on insisting rhymes with 'load' but I refuse to accept that - I think it's just pretentious).

The Broad, and, further to the right, the Disney Music Hall.

I'm a museum junkie, and I've passed on my love of museums to Alex. The Broad is one of the newest museums in downtown LA. I was in town a week after it opened about three years ago, and went, and loved it. On that visit, I saw 'The Visitor', and it became my absolute favorite multimedia installation, and one of my favorite art installations, period.

Here's the deal with The Visitor:

This is a picture of the signage outside the blacked-out interior of The Visitors installation. This pic is from 2015.

Basically, it is a performance of a composed-with-improvisation piece of music. The way it is presented, each screen displays a video of the performance in a room, where that musician is playing his part (listening to the other musicians on headphones). The rooms have been staged and decorated (the author sings and plays guitar in a bathtub). There is one mic in each room, picking up the sound of the instrument (acoustic or amplified) and voice in the room's acoustic.

Each performance is played back on a screen, with a single speaker playing back that room's recording. You can hear all the playback from all nine screens and speakers, but the one you're nearest to is louder.
I was totally captivated when I first spent time there. In my visits over the last couple of years, I looked for it but the installation had been removed. Last year, I didn't go. Although I really enjoy the art, I have been hoping to see this unique work, and I've been disappointed.

This year, I didn't even check. When Alex suggested we see it in some down-time Sunday, I agreed, and decided not to even check; que será, será.

The main galleries are up a long escalator. We spent a couple of hours there, and I found, again, a lot to like. Some of my favorites from previous visits, but also a lot of new-to-me art on display, including some pieces I really, really liked, including a room where the stark primary colored paintings made my eyes vibrate. Literally.

But this would be a shitty story if, at the end of viewing the smaller galleries downstairs, we didn't find a new installation of the Visitor.

The old installation had arranged the screens in a labyrinth, where you could only see one screen at a time (while still being able to hear everything). This installation had a couple of screens dividing a large blacked out cube space, with other screens on the walls. At first, I thought it wouldn't be as good, but it was fine. It was actually an improvement, in that you could more easily get to a screen of interest, and see more screens just by turning your head. The audio was just as good as I remembered.

I was so happy to see it again. I'm so lucky. Click here for a video I made inside The Visitor. You really have to go and see it for yourself.

After the museum, it was all about ice cream. Alex's favorite, Little Damage, is in a rundown, skid-row-like part of downtown that is relatively close. But that would not deter me, and I do believe, this soft-serve may be the best ice cream I've ever eaten (broken record this trip for food that was "the best I've ever eaten"). My selection is lava cake, and it is the darkest chocolate ice cream I have ever eaten.

Last year the best ice cream was at Salt and Straw. It was Creepy Crawlers and featured chocolate covered crickets and candied mealworms.

That was good, so we're going back. My choice this year is a much more conservative basil and goat cheese scoop and an espresso and bourbon scoop. Great, but this year's prize goes to Little Damage.

Food Comment

I've continued to eat all my meals in restaurants, and it has been excellent all the way. I continue gaining weight! I'm happy. Fat and happy.

Food extras

Dinner
At Public School #818:

Fish and chips and grilled brussel sprouts.

Lunch
At Guisado's:

Tacos! Tinga, Asada, Barbacoa and Carnitas. Not shown: The new reigning champion fish tac. Sorry, Malibu Seafood!

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