For the second time in three weekends, Lynne and I had a real kulturfest that shows what varied entertainment there is in and around LA, and how similar the audiences are - even though we were probably the only two people who went to all five, yes five, events.
It started last Wednesday, Jan 19, at the Huntington Library with a lecture on the social side of scientific discovery in the eighteenth century - no, it doesn't sound promising, but it was a real gem.
Thursday we were two of only a dozen or so who went to see the 1967 film of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood at the Egyptian.
Friday we had $20 tickets for Minsky's, a new musical at the Ahmanson.
Saturday we went to hear Ian Whitcomb and the Bungalow Boys at the Fret House in Covina, preceded by dinner at One World vegetarian restaurant in West Covina.
Sunday was a trip to the Pasadena Playhouse for Stormy Weather, a bio muscial of the life of Lena Horne - with a quick dinner beforehand at Gale's.
We made our usual visit to Conrads on Monday, so by the Tuesday we were gagging to stay in and watch TV - American Idol was about all we could manage, and a chance to catch up with the by-then highly neglected newspapers.
The Huntington lecture was given by Jan Victor Golinski, despite his name a Brit living in New Hampshire who has specialised in the history of science since he left Cambridge. it was all about how scientists used to meet in London coffee houses in the 18th century and how they thereby restrained (and stimulated) one another - as opposed to Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's creation, who worked on his own in an attic. It was very lively, with lots of questions afterwards - including one by me on whether this social scene crossed over with the stock and insurance markets, which also grew out of coffee houses. Apparently it did.
We always enjoy going to the Egyptian, something warm and comforting about it, and we discovered a new restaurant, Mediterranean Fresh, on the other side of Hollywood Boulevard.
In Cold Blood is a grim tale, grimly told. No overt blood - it is in any case in black and white - but lots of suspense. Lots of smoking too: this was a 1960s film. But no mobile phones. It showed how easily the two murderers could have got away with it, if they had only stayed in Mexico or just laid low. Remote farmhouses will never seem the same again.
Minsky's couldn't have been more different, a standard hoofers show, not an original note in it, but professionally presented and a really light evening out - and we had good seats, at the end of Row E in the stalls.
On Saturday we were among only 26 at the Fret House, which couldn't have made money for someone, either the venue or the band. Ian took the first opportunity to plug his forthcoming book, a collection of Letters from Lotusland, about Rollo being groomed for stardom. I took care of the real Rollo, who was a bit fractious.
Back to more sombre fare on Sunday, with a show that I thought didn't really work. We went with our friend Diana Cole, who had alerted us to the Minsky's tickets. Stormy Weather was too lopsided, because everything happened in the first half, being discovered, going to New York then Hollywood, breaking up her family, facing racial prejudice then the communist witchhunt. It slowed to a crawl after the interval, until we got the 'Stormy Weather' finale with Leslie Uggams in a gold lame evening gown.
it says something for American education and culture that any of the audiences for these five events could have been transposed to any of the others and felt entirely at home. There is an acceptance of entertainment that is completely different from the restlessness you can find in London theatres and cinemas, where everything seems very stratified.
Of course there were differences, because the Huntington lecture was in effect for members although anyone could attend for free. But in front of me at Stormy Weather was an irritating little man in a beard and check shirt who could easily have been at the Fret House or In Cold Blood.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
An Inspector Calls by Bill Kay
"Good morning, I'm from the Internal Revenue Service. My I speak with you for a moment?"
I had answered the late-morning door bell thinking it was the usual peddler of a road to heaven, either religious or pharmaceutical. Instead I was confronted by a little bald man in a striped formal shirt, no tie, holding over his head a garish red-and-white golf umbrella. That was the easiest bit to understand: it was raining, after all.
After those opening words he showed his badge, which I didn't ask to inspect but looked genuine, so I invited him in and sat him on the sofa. I sat opposite and prepared to savour one of the more bizarre encounters I have experienced since moving to the US nearly two and a half years ago.
He began by handing me a piece of paper setting out my rights as a taxpayer. I didn't read it there, because I had decided I was going to let this meeting proceed as painlessly as possible. The paper says nothing about surprise visits, but it does say I can have someone accompany me at an interview, at which I can make a sound recording provided I give the IRS 10 days' notice - maybe so they can dust down their tape recorder too. If I believe I have not been treated in a professional, fair and courteous manner, the paper advises me to tell the employee's supervisor - not exactly designed to get the most easy-going deal.
But the fellow was polite enough and, after these preliminaries, he told me he was calling about Pasadena Media, the little business my partner Lynne and I have set up to give us access to a group health insurance scheme. I thought it best not to pass on that detail.
No, the problem was that we had not been making quarterly payroll returns. I explained that Lynne and I were the firm's only employees as well as its only shareholders, and our accountant had advised us not to bother filing returns because we pay our tax at the year-end instead. The inspector seemed content with this explanation but said he would like to talk to our accountant, which may or may not be significant.
He said: "I usually deal with people who owe $500,000 or $1 million, but this is a very simple case." And off he went, taking his umbrella with him.
It seems a very odd way of chasing what appears to be little more than a minor discrepancy in the paperwork. We hadn't ignored any letters or phone calls, even though he left a letter saying "you should already be aware of this from our previous contacts with you."
My suspicion that, as we are relatively new taxpayers, and our company as a taxpaying entity is even newer, the IRS just wanted an excuse to eyeball us and make sure we weren't employing a factory full of illegal immigrants and failing to declare tax on their income. Instead, they found a decent-sized but decidedly non-industrial cottage containing two rather bemused Legal Permanent Residents.
* For anyone who didn't spot it, my heading is the title of an excellent mystery play by the British author, J.B. Priestley.
I had answered the late-morning door bell thinking it was the usual peddler of a road to heaven, either religious or pharmaceutical. Instead I was confronted by a little bald man in a striped formal shirt, no tie, holding over his head a garish red-and-white golf umbrella. That was the easiest bit to understand: it was raining, after all.
After those opening words he showed his badge, which I didn't ask to inspect but looked genuine, so I invited him in and sat him on the sofa. I sat opposite and prepared to savour one of the more bizarre encounters I have experienced since moving to the US nearly two and a half years ago.
He began by handing me a piece of paper setting out my rights as a taxpayer. I didn't read it there, because I had decided I was going to let this meeting proceed as painlessly as possible. The paper says nothing about surprise visits, but it does say I can have someone accompany me at an interview, at which I can make a sound recording provided I give the IRS 10 days' notice - maybe so they can dust down their tape recorder too. If I believe I have not been treated in a professional, fair and courteous manner, the paper advises me to tell the employee's supervisor - not exactly designed to get the most easy-going deal.
But the fellow was polite enough and, after these preliminaries, he told me he was calling about Pasadena Media, the little business my partner Lynne and I have set up to give us access to a group health insurance scheme. I thought it best not to pass on that detail.
No, the problem was that we had not been making quarterly payroll returns. I explained that Lynne and I were the firm's only employees as well as its only shareholders, and our accountant had advised us not to bother filing returns because we pay our tax at the year-end instead. The inspector seemed content with this explanation but said he would like to talk to our accountant, which may or may not be significant.
He said: "I usually deal with people who owe $500,000 or $1 million, but this is a very simple case." And off he went, taking his umbrella with him.
It seems a very odd way of chasing what appears to be little more than a minor discrepancy in the paperwork. We hadn't ignored any letters or phone calls, even though he left a letter saying "you should already be aware of this from our previous contacts with you."
My suspicion that, as we are relatively new taxpayers, and our company as a taxpaying entity is even newer, the IRS just wanted an excuse to eyeball us and make sure we weren't employing a factory full of illegal immigrants and failing to declare tax on their income. Instead, they found a decent-sized but decidedly non-industrial cottage containing two rather bemused Legal Permanent Residents.
* For anyone who didn't spot it, my heading is the title of an excellent mystery play by the British author, J.B. Priestley.
Monday, January 19, 2009
The shape of LA by bill kay
Life, and writing about it, look totally different if you can give them a shape - as I am sure fellow hacks will agree. And, with a little shaping, this has been an extraordinary weekend for me, which I hinted at in a status update.
It's been the sheer cultural variety, which I know can be experienced in any decent-sized city these days but which seemed peculiarly LA mainly because of the attitude that other people demonstrated towards each event.
It began on Friday night with a trip to the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard for a rare 70mm showing of Magnificent Seven in a new print. These days the Egyptian, once a mainstream cinema, is run by American Cinematheque, a non-profit dedicated to giving rarely seen movies a fresh airing (can't wait for the annual film noir season in the spring). It has been wonderfully restored, sight lines perfect and we sat in the balcony which is at just the right height for a big film like this. All for $7 (member) or $10 (non-members) a ticket.
I hadn't seen Mag7 since I was a kid, so had totally forgotten what it was about beyond the fact that it involved 7 cowboys getting together to do something noble, and it was based on the Japanese film Seven Samurai.
As it was made in 1960 it seems naive by today's standards. Mexican village gets terrorised by bandits, villagers go into nearest town for protection, find Chris (Yul Brynner) who recruits another 5 gunslingers. A kid (Horst Buchholz) tags along to make 7. After winning and losing battles against the bandits, the 7 stage a final assault in which 5 of them are killed. Brynner and Steve McQueen sail off into the sunset, job well done.
Very enjoyable. But, bearing in mind that this was essentially a club viewing even though the public were admitted, you get a lot of cine-nerds at the Egyptian, a mood enhanced by a preview from Glenn Lovell to push his new biog of the director, John Sturges. Among the distinctive habits of Hollywood cinemagoers, especially at the Egyptian, is applauding the first appearance of the stars or their names, as if we were at live theatre. A guy in front of me went into raptures about the first appearance of James Coburn about 20 minutes into the film, but I suppose it makes for a more emotionally charged occasion.
Saturday was a complete change of gear. I suddenly noticed that LA Opera was performing Magic Flute at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown. The tickets were ever so slightly dearer than at the Egyptian, but it was worth it for the experience.
The audience was much more restrained, not quite like Covent Garden, many dressed more casually, but just as appreciative. A custom at LA Opera is to hold a lecture or Q&A before the performance to give backgroun and insights into the work - on this occasion given by the conductor, James Conlon, in full white tie and tails just before he descended to the orchestra pit. He was in great humour, telling plenty of anecdotes from the 350 Flutes he has been involved in right from his early days as the back of an animal!
The production was Peter Hall's, using very arty sets designed by Gerald Scarfe which added to the sense of fun, fantasy and general unreality. We had an idiot two rows in front of us who was tall to start with and insisted on moving forward and upward at the slightest excuse, even though we all had perfectly good uninterrupted views. If I'd been right behind him I'd have been furious. As it was, there was a strange sense of changing cultures as we raced for our car in the underground car park and within minutes of the final curtain (we didn't wait for encores) we were negotiating the Pasadena Freeway.
There were actors and audience of a totally different stripe on Sunday morning for Pasadena's Doo Dah Parade, the yearly mocking of the official Tournament of Roses Parade on new year's day. So touchy is Pasadena high society about the formal parade, that this rebel version offends some of them - hard to believe, as it's pretty tame, poking fun, sticking bums out blowing a general raspberries at a level barely above a British university rag week. Just shows, California is neither as laidback nor as egalitarian as it thinks it is.
The parade itself, the third we have seen, was easily the limpest. Hard to tell whether it was the recession was cutting budgets, or because the imminent coronation of Obama had killed off several anti-Bush floats from previous years, but after a while it seemed to fizzle out. But there was plenty of anarchy and rock n roll, with bizarre costumes which I will post on the status page, to make a pleasant couple of hours in the sun watching the world (or at least a mildly eccentric part of it) go prancing by.
By last night we were sufficiently sated to stay in and watch a DVD of Gran Torino, the Clint Eastwood hit that could easily be renamed the Magnificent One. Same plot - bunch of thugs disrupt a neighbourhood, the Eastwood character seems them off in a startling way. He turns from grump to saint and nearly everyone lives happily after. Not a bad film, but not worth a fraction of the praise that has been lavished on it. Lesson: keep the plot simple and you can rehash it endlessly.
And tonight, I'm not there yet, but it will almost certainly be a very stimlating evening of chat, conversation, banter and hyperbole at Conrad's diner. With the Inauguration to come tomorrow, it will add up to five days of tremendously varied and quintissentially American cultural experience.
And what shape was it? I'm thinking tetrahedron with knobs on.
It's been the sheer cultural variety, which I know can be experienced in any decent-sized city these days but which seemed peculiarly LA mainly because of the attitude that other people demonstrated towards each event.
It began on Friday night with a trip to the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard for a rare 70mm showing of Magnificent Seven in a new print. These days the Egyptian, once a mainstream cinema, is run by American Cinematheque, a non-profit dedicated to giving rarely seen movies a fresh airing (can't wait for the annual film noir season in the spring). It has been wonderfully restored, sight lines perfect and we sat in the balcony which is at just the right height for a big film like this. All for $7 (member) or $10 (non-members) a ticket.
I hadn't seen Mag7 since I was a kid, so had totally forgotten what it was about beyond the fact that it involved 7 cowboys getting together to do something noble, and it was based on the Japanese film Seven Samurai.
As it was made in 1960 it seems naive by today's standards. Mexican village gets terrorised by bandits, villagers go into nearest town for protection, find Chris (Yul Brynner) who recruits another 5 gunslingers. A kid (Horst Buchholz) tags along to make 7. After winning and losing battles against the bandits, the 7 stage a final assault in which 5 of them are killed. Brynner and Steve McQueen sail off into the sunset, job well done.
Very enjoyable. But, bearing in mind that this was essentially a club viewing even though the public were admitted, you get a lot of cine-nerds at the Egyptian, a mood enhanced by a preview from Glenn Lovell to push his new biog of the director, John Sturges. Among the distinctive habits of Hollywood cinemagoers, especially at the Egyptian, is applauding the first appearance of the stars or their names, as if we were at live theatre. A guy in front of me went into raptures about the first appearance of James Coburn about 20 minutes into the film, but I suppose it makes for a more emotionally charged occasion.
Saturday was a complete change of gear. I suddenly noticed that LA Opera was performing Magic Flute at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown. The tickets were ever so slightly dearer than at the Egyptian, but it was worth it for the experience.
The audience was much more restrained, not quite like Covent Garden, many dressed more casually, but just as appreciative. A custom at LA Opera is to hold a lecture or Q&A before the performance to give backgroun and insights into the work - on this occasion given by the conductor, James Conlon, in full white tie and tails just before he descended to the orchestra pit. He was in great humour, telling plenty of anecdotes from the 350 Flutes he has been involved in right from his early days as the back of an animal!
The production was Peter Hall's, using very arty sets designed by Gerald Scarfe which added to the sense of fun, fantasy and general unreality. We had an idiot two rows in front of us who was tall to start with and insisted on moving forward and upward at the slightest excuse, even though we all had perfectly good uninterrupted views. If I'd been right behind him I'd have been furious. As it was, there was a strange sense of changing cultures as we raced for our car in the underground car park and within minutes of the final curtain (we didn't wait for encores) we were negotiating the Pasadena Freeway.
There were actors and audience of a totally different stripe on Sunday morning for Pasadena's Doo Dah Parade, the yearly mocking of the official Tournament of Roses Parade on new year's day. So touchy is Pasadena high society about the formal parade, that this rebel version offends some of them - hard to believe, as it's pretty tame, poking fun, sticking bums out blowing a general raspberries at a level barely above a British university rag week. Just shows, California is neither as laidback nor as egalitarian as it thinks it is.
The parade itself, the third we have seen, was easily the limpest. Hard to tell whether it was the recession was cutting budgets, or because the imminent coronation of Obama had killed off several anti-Bush floats from previous years, but after a while it seemed to fizzle out. But there was plenty of anarchy and rock n roll, with bizarre costumes which I will post on the status page, to make a pleasant couple of hours in the sun watching the world (or at least a mildly eccentric part of it) go prancing by.
By last night we were sufficiently sated to stay in and watch a DVD of Gran Torino, the Clint Eastwood hit that could easily be renamed the Magnificent One. Same plot - bunch of thugs disrupt a neighbourhood, the Eastwood character seems them off in a startling way. He turns from grump to saint and nearly everyone lives happily after. Not a bad film, but not worth a fraction of the praise that has been lavished on it. Lesson: keep the plot simple and you can rehash it endlessly.
And tonight, I'm not there yet, but it will almost certainly be a very stimlating evening of chat, conversation, banter and hyperbole at Conrad's diner. With the Inauguration to come tomorrow, it will add up to five days of tremendously varied and quintissentially American cultural experience.
And what shape was it? I'm thinking tetrahedron with knobs on.
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