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“The Pinnacle of 20th Century Art and Design”

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A Museum Dedicated to the Art of the French Automobile 1900-1940

A Museum Dedicated to the Art of the French Automobile 1900-1939

Oxnard, California, is blessed with two world-class automobile museums less than a mile from each other. Martine and I had visited the Murphy Auto Museum twice so far this year. It was a little more difficult to visit the Mullin Automotive Museum, mainly because it is open for tours only twice a month by reservation only.

The Mullin Automotive Museum was founded by Peter W. Mullin, an American businessman and philanthropist, who, early on, fell in love with French autos, particularly the Bugatti (which was 100% French despite the Bugatti family’s Italian origins).

Bugatti Hood Ornament

Bugatti Hood Ornament and Grill

The cars at the museum were a revelation. According to the museum’s founder:

For me the French automobiles of the 1920s and 1930s represent the pinnacle of 20th century art and design—the artistic realization in steel, leather, and glass of a modern idea created at a moment when hand craftsmanship embraced the machine, and a spirit of optimism fueled an explosion in artistic and technical development. As an avid collector, the preservation of these rolling sculptures for the enjoyment of future generations is both a responsibility and a pleasure. I relish the stewardship and preservation of their exciting histories.

Surrounding the automobiles along the outer walls is a world class exhibit of art nouveau and art deco works, including paintings, sculptures, and furniture—to to mention some of the neatest hood ornaments I’ve ever seen.

Flying Hood Ornament

Flying Hood Ornament

I was so impressed not only with the cars and the artwork that I plan on doing one or more follow-up blogs. Martine and I showed up at opening time (10 AM) and had to be ushered out at closing time (3 PM). We plan on returning in a number of months, when they have changed their exhibits.

Below is view of the exhibit floor, which is designed to resemble the original Paris automobile salons of the early 20th century, complete with signs indicating the major “exhibitors.”

The Exhibit Floor

The Exhibit Floor


To avoid getting stuck in beach traffic, we returned home via California 126, stopping at Cornejo Produce in Fillmore for some fresh locally-gown produce.

 

The Avila Adobe

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In the Middle of Olvera Street, L.A.’s Oldest Still-Existing House

In the Middle of Olvera Street, L.A.’s Oldest Still-Existing House

In my semi-retirement, I’ve taken to going downtown at least once a week and doing some exploring. Today, I started out at the Central Library reading Claude Izner’s In the Shadows of Paris, set in the City of Lights back in the 1890s.

I picked out a volume of Charles Bukowski’s letters in the literature section and checked it out, making my way to Meeting Room A at 12:30 for something completely different: A guided session on meditation by Giselle Jones. It was super-relaxing. I will look out for other meditation events at the Library.

Then it was on to Dash Bus B to Olvera Street. I had a hankering for some more of Cielito Lindo’s taquitos and chile rellenos. Yum! They were even better than last time.

Finally, I paid a visit to the oldest surviving house in Los Angeles: The Avila Adobe. Although L.A. was first settled in 1781, all the houses were destroyed by the ravages of time, except for the Avila Adobe, which was built in 1818 by Francisco Avila, one of the city’s earliest alcaldes (mayors). The house was an oasis of calm amid the frantic crowds looking to buy souvenirs.

From there, it was a short walk to the bus stop for the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus #R10 to return home.

The Black Finger Cult

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Indulging in Past Favorites

Indulging in Past Favorites

Not two weeks ago, I wrote a post about one of my favorite Japanese actors, Raizo Ichikawa, particularly as he appeared in a 1960s series called variouslythe Kyoshiro Nemuri films and “The Sleepy Eyes of Death.” Since then, I checked out eBay and found that the whole series of twelve films was available for just over a hundred dollars in Zone 1 DVD format. Naturally, I wasted little time in buying the set.

Tonight, I watched my favorite title, Trail of Traps (1967) directed by the underrated Kazuo Ikehiro. I sat entranced as Kyoshiro walked his way between Tokyo (called Edo in those days) and Kyoto, carrying a statue of the Virgin Mary for safekeeping. Along the way, he is seduced several times—Kyoshiro is, after all, an anti-hero—and attacked by a group of devil worshiping baddies who call themselves the Black Finger Cult.

It’s nice to feel the same way after almost half a century about a film one loved to distraction back in the day. Raizo Ichikawa was indeed an excellent actor, and the Daiei Studio people did a great job putting the series together.

Too bad Raizo had to die so young. I think he was even more promising than James Dean.

 

The Game Face of Death

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Michael Phelps Introduces a New Rio Meme

Michael Phelps Introduces a New Rio Meme

While waiting for his next event, U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps assumed the Great Stone face of Death, concentrating hard on his next medal(s). You may recall the 2012 London Olympics, when the award for best Oly-Meme went to gymnast McKayla Maroney, though hers was the “Not Impressed” face while the Phelpser went all-round death glare.

McKayla maroney Is Not Impressed

McKayla Maroney Is Not Impressed

Eve Babitz and the Taquitos

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Cielito Lindo, Specializing in Beef Taquitos on Olvera Street

Cielito Lindo, Specializing in Beef Taquitos on Olvera Street

As I was visiting the Taste of Ecuador Festival by Olvera Street yesterday, I decided to find the place that Eve Babitz writes about in her book Eve’s Hollywood about what could have kept rock star Janis Joplin from OD’ing. Toward the end of the book is an essay entitled “The Landmark,” which she dedicated to food writer M. F. K. Fisher. She starts at the very beginning of Los Angeles:

In 1781 a Franciscan with 24 ex-cons and runaway slaves decided to name something that didn’t exist La Ciudad de Nuestra Signora [SIC] La Reina de Los Angeles and proceeded to build a church and a street called Olvera Street. The church and the street are still there, preserved by this huge city called L.A. as a landmark from when one street was named the City of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels. The street is uneven and bricky and lined with terrific shops where you can get things you think you want, cheap. And taquito stands for in case you get hungry. Taquitos are much better than heroin, it’s just that no one knows about them and heroin’s so celebrated.

Now Eve’s book was written over forty years ago. I decided to see if I could find her favorite taquito stand, which she describes as follows: “The best place to get them [taquitos], though they are also sold in other places throughout the mall, is the place on the Northeast part of Olvera Street.”

Making Taquitos at Cielito Lindo

Making Taquitos at Cielito Lindo

It just so happens that the Northeasternmost restaurant on Olvera Street is Cielito Lindo (“My Little Beautiful Heaven”), which has been around since 1934 and specializes in taquitos in a way that none of the other restaurants on the Street do. Once again, Eve continues:

They have black frying pans with long handles that are about a foot and a half in diameter and have sides that flare out about 3 inches high so that oil won’t hit the cook. With metal prongs, the guy lays the raw taquitos neatly in the oil over a fire of coal that produces a heat of such intensity that blast-furnace clouds encompass the buyer as he watches the taquitos cook and the guy turns them over when they are done on one side.

Except for the coal fire, which is now probably against some city health or safety regulation, that’s pretty much what I saw at Cielito Lindo, such that I am 100% sure that this is the place to which Eve would have directed Janis Joplin to keep her from that nasty heroin.

By the way, the taquitos were delicious. I will return there for more. Their chile rellenos are pretty good, too.

 

Ecuador in Los Angeles

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Flag at 18th Annual Taste of Ecuador Food festival

Flag at 18th Annual Taste of Ecuador Food Festival

I noticed that there was going to be an 18th Annual Taste of Ecuador Food Festival downtown today, so after I walked uphill on the treadmill for an hour at the gym, I grabbed the Santa Monica #10 Freeway Flyer Bus to Union Station. I had attended one of these events two or three years ago, so I knew pretty much what was going to be there.

According to the organizers, there are some 5,000 Ecuadorians in Los Angeles.

I ate a sanguche de chango (pork sandwich on a bolillo roll) that tasted pretty good, and washed it down with a licuada de sandía (watermelon drink).

Below is a typical menu from one of the stands:

 

Ecuadorian Menu at Food Stall

Ecuadorian Menu at Food Stall

Notice the reference to Inka Cola at the bottom of the menu. It is the most popular soda pop of Peru and Ecuador, though it tastes sort of like Mountain Dew on steroids.

On sale at a couple stands were Ecuadorian soccer football jerseys with the national colors.

It wasn’t much, but it’s a reminder that Dan and I are heading down to El Mitad del Mundo in a couple of months.

The Chiltern Hundreds

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The House of Commons in Session

The House of Commons in Session

Let us say that you were a member of Britain’s House of Commons and wanted to quit your job. If it were anyplace other than the United Kingdom, it would probably be a no-brainer. But in Britain, you have to apply to quit, whereupon you are assigned to a royal stewardship from which you can ease out of office. The two stewardships available for this purpose are:

  • Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough, and Burnham—located in Buckinghamshire.
  • Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead—located in North Yorkshire.

The Chiltern Hundreds figure in two novels by Anthony Trollope, Phineas Finn and The Three Clerks.

In 1624, the House of Commons passed a measure making it illegal for an Member of Parliament to quit or willfully give up his seat. The Act of Settlement of 1701, amended by subsequent legislation, MPs were excepted who accepted an office of profit under the crown. (Originally, MPs were not paid.)

Over the years, there have been several other crown offices which served the same purposes, but only the Chiltern Hundreds and Northstead remain.

Serendipity: In Praise of the Short Biography

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F. L. Lucas (1894-1967)

F. L. Lucas (1894-1967)

I had forgotten classical scholar F. L. Lucas entirely. In high school, I had read his most famous book, Style (1955), and loved it. Today, I was searching the stacks of the Los Angeles Central Library and ran into his The Search for Good Sense: Four Eighteenth Century Characters—Johnson, Chesterfield, Boswell, Goldsmith (1958). It was there I read the following:

On all these men there already exist many books—many of them big. One feels embarrassed at adding to the number. Nothing can be a substitute for Boswell’s Johnson; or for those works on an American scale of magnificence, the Boswell Papers and the fifty volume edition of Walpole’s letters. But, given the brevity and busyness of life, many have not time time to read these large works, or a series of full-scale biographies; still less, to re-read them. There is a need for both long and short biographies, as for large-scale and small-scale maps. And it is not only a question of time. One reads such things not only for the amusement of reading, but also to remember. For this, I feel, biographies tend to grow too long. Just because one is told far more than one really needs, one remembers far less. The impression is blurred by multitudinousness; just as one could not, says Aristotle (with a flash of imagination rare in his austere pages) grasp as a unity a creature ten thousand furlongs in length.

I love to rediscover authors whose existence I had forgotten. Unfortunately, it seems that Lucas has also been forgotten by others as well. I had a hell of a time finding a decent photograph of him on the Internet.

Well, I for one plan to search out more of his books, and the L.A. Central Library is the perfect place for it.  I love his writing style. After all, he influenced mine when I was a teenager in Cleveland. I can only hope that I’ve lived up to his teachings.

Rats!

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They Look Enticing ... But Not Just to Humans

They Look Enticing … But Not Just to Humans

Palm trees are a part of the scenery of Southern California that draws admiring comments from Easterners and Midwesterners. Unfortunately, those stately palms can also be a home for roof rats, and often act as an invasion path to your house or apartment.

According to Los Angeles County’s Department of Public Health, the following steps should be taken by homeowners who have palm trees:

  1. Remove all dead palm fronds. (After a high wind, you will find lots of them.)
  2. Trim tree limbs and tall plants six feet away from roof, attic vents, eaves, and utility lines. Thin ivy and
    other thick vegetation, and leave clearance beneath bushes to prevent harborage for rodents.

There are other precautions mentioned in the 4-page document (for which you will need Adobe Acrobat ro read).

One thing that many people do not realize is that the dense foliage of such beautifully landscaped houses such as those in Beverly Hills are effective at attracting rats. According to the New York Times:

“Beverly Hills is a nice place to be a rat,” Ray Honda explained, admiring the cool, verdant landscape of the moneyed class, with its fruit trees, bird feeders, swimming pools and dog-food bowls. “It’s a very good address.”

Mr. Honda, a Los Angeles County health inspector whose speech and demeanor bring Peter Lorre to mind, was quick to append, “the four-legged kind,” adding: “More rats than people, probably. And when they get really bad you can smell them.”

Across Beverly Hills and the other lush corridors of Los Angeles, rats —yellow-bellied, pink-tailed, flea-bitten rats —are wriggling through the woodwork and rooftops. They have come down from the trees and in from the fields, forced into neighborhoods by a strangling drought that has gripped the region. They are eating from dog bowls and drinking from swimming pools and acting in surly ways not normal to the genus.

The article does not mention two-legged rats, but Beverly Hills has always had a large population of those as well.

As much as I like Southern California, I have to admit that we have some unique problems of our own.

 

The Man Who Destroyed Yugoslavia

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Slobodan Milošević

Slobodan Milošević

He was the 3rd President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1997-2000), 1st President of Serbia (1991-1997), and the 14th President of the Presidency of the Socialist Republic of Serbia (1989-1991). I am referring to Slobodan Milošević, the leader who took his country down a rat hole, was responsible for thousands of deaths by genocide (which he called “ethnic cleansing”), and died while awaiting trial at the International Criminal Tribunal at the Hague.

Although he initially ruled a nation of Serbs, Croatians, Slovenians, Albanians, Macedonians, Muslim Bosnians, and Hungarians, in the end he was only interested in changing diverse Yugoslavia into a Greater Serbia. Most of his crimes involved his preferential treatment of his fellow Serbs, mostly in the Yugoslavian Republics of Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, where forces under him or allied to him committed devastating massacres of men, women, and children, including large scale rape and torture.

I am currently reading Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation by Laura Silber and Allan Little (New York: Penguin, 1997). Although twenty years have passed since the first edition came out in 1996, the book still reads like today’s headlines.

It shows what can happen when the elected leader of a democracy decides to take sides on behalf of a particular population and, at the same time, act prejudicially against others. (That’s one of the reasons I am so against a political party being responsive only to, say, angry white males.)

The United States is a diverse country very like the old Yugoslavia. It wouldn’t take much effort to break the country into warring fragments. That’s what happened in Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot decided to persecute or kill city dwellers. Also Hitler’s Germany with its antisemitism and the Ayatollah Khomeini’s persecution of Christians and Baha’i. And, needless to say, ISIS/ISIL/Daesh’s attacks on Christians, Yezidis, and non-Sunni Muslims of the approved flavor.