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.