Wandering Aimlessly

Today was Getty Center Day. It started out cold, a little rainy, and a lot grey and cloudy, but as the day wore on, the sun came out a bit. It was still windy and chilly at the top of the hill, but it was clear enough to see both downtown Los Angeles and the ocean, so I count it as a win.

There was a rather strange exhibit on Russian avant garde poetry and illustrations called Tango with Cows that I just didn't get, and a really neat exhibit on photography from the 1800's--it was an amazingly complicated process, photography, and I honestly don't know how people managed!

We really spent most of the day wandering around and taking pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. I whittled down the hundred and seventy-some I ended up with to about thirty I liked, here.

A preview:

Posted by kate at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, it's been raining in Los Angeles, which we really, really needed. Not only does it leave the sky clear and the air smelling fresh--I actually thought to myself that it smelled like people had been doing laundry, and then realized that maybe all that "rain fresh" detergent actually does smell like rain!--but it can make for some really neat things you don't often see. Like my neighbors' cala lilies. See?

Project 52+

Posted by kate at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wednesday night, on our walk home from dinner, we noticed the moon was amazing! I ran into the house and grabbed my camera and by the time we got out into the neighborhood where there are fewer lights, the ring around the moon was fading. I took a couple pictures, but sadly none of them turned out as cool as it looked in person.

This one probably shows the ring the best, although I think it's a little overexposed. I was laying on my back on some poor person's driveway, trying not to breathe while my camera did its thang. Rings around the moon! What causes that? Kinda cool, huh?

Project 52+

Posted by kate at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(View the whole set)*

So, tonight was pretty awesome. Elaina, Gen and I went to the Ojai Playwrights Conference, which was held in a junior high auditorium in Ojai (which happens to be about as rural as I've encountered so far in California). The participants were, in no particular order: Steven Weber, Neil Patrick Harris, David Burtka, Zachary Quinto, Tyne Daly, Dana Delany, Jane Leeves, and Dick Van Dyke.

The theme of the night was Money, and all the scenes they read from had to do with, well, money. It started with a David Mamet scene on the outgoing president, which was hilarious (NPH as the president without a clue). There was one on waitresses, one about a playwright-gone-Hollywood (by the writer of Doubt?), one from Death of a Salesman, a really funny piece about Medea, one about a $200,000 modern white painting, a stockholders meeting, a mother/daughter chat about prostitution, and it ended with a hysterical scene from Moliere's The Miser, complete with really terrible French accents (which everyone except Dick Van Dyke sported; he said one line without an accent, turned to the audience and said, "I'm not doing a French accent. I'm from Illinois!").

Everyone looked like they were having an absolute ball up there, the audience was great, and it was an excellent way to spend an evening. In fact, next year I might even go to the dinner and auction afterward.

Way cool. WAY cool. All of it!

*About the pictures... you would think that after taking photos every day for two years straight, I'd have learned how to use my camera properly. Apparently I have not quite figured out the setting to maximize clarity without a flash. Oh well.

Posted by kate at 12:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)