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The Greatest Show on Earth

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Ringmaster Andre McClain of the Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey Circus

Ringmaster Andre McClain of the Ringling Brothers Circus

When I returned from Iceland, I noticed that Martine had printed out a couple of sheets about the latest show of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Since she had been waiting patiently for my return, suffering from an obscure nerve disorder (apparently still not officially diagnosed as fibromyalgia) that has robbed her of sleep and caused a steady level of back pain, I thought it would be a good idea to take her out on Saturday afternoon to see the show.

It was playing at the Staples Center downtown, which Martine had never seen; so I reserved a couple of VIP seats and hopped on the bus to go downtown. (A Santa Monica #10 freeway flyer bus straight downtown picks up only a block from our apartment, and it is far more convenient than hassling the downtown parking scene.)

I had seen several circuses in Cleveland while I was growing up, both the Ringling Brothers and the Grotto Circuses. In Los Angeles, I had seen Circus Vargas twice. Even in Mexico, I had seen small local circuses in Zacatecas and San Cristobal de las Casas. The latter was a family affair which I saw with my brother Dan in 1979. The 15-year-old aerialist also sold popcorn. Having taken a shine to Dan, she sat several rows behind him and tried to get his attention by tossing popcorn at him.

Ringling Brothers is several thousand times bigger then the Circulo del Sureste in San Cristobal, but it was all the same sort of fun. Instead of an adolescent boy rolling around in broken glass and Mamacita balancing furniture on her chest, we had a tiger tamer from Chile that had me on the edge of my seat. There was also an all-African-American unicycle team that played basketball, a young lady shot out of a cannon, a parade of elephants, various high wire acts, and a husband/wife pair of clowns from Russia who were outstandingly funny.

Outside the Staples Center were scores of protestors claiming that the animals in the show were being tortured to perform. Yes, true to some extent, but so were the humans; and no one was protesting about that.

The only sour note was that my cell phone holster fell apart, and I lost my cheap cell phone. I’ll make a few calls to lost and found today, but I’m not exactly disconsolate about the whole thing. I never answered my cell phone anyhow unless I was expecting a particular call.

The Japanese Garden

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The Japanese Garden at Huntington Library and Gardens

The Japanese Garden at Huntington Library and Gardens

Closed for over a year for a $6.8 million overhaul, the Japanese Garden at the Huntington Library and Gardens in San Marino, California, has recently marked its centenary. It had reopened in April looking as stunning as ever, with its koi ponds, ornamental trees, its moon bridge, traditional Japanese house, and scattered strategically-placed temple-like structures.

Now with the addition of the equally spectacular Chinese Garden, the Huntington remains one of the primo tourist attractions in Southern California. Sometimes, I wonder why people visiting here make the needless trek to Hollywood with its crumbling Walk of Fame and decaying footprints at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. My vote for the best tourist attractions in the Southland are, along with the Huntington, Descanso Gardens in La Cañada-Flintridge and the Los Angeles Arboretum in Arcadia.

Sometimes I think that people from out of town who dislike Southern California do so mainly because they have been badly informed.

 

By the Lily Ponds

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Watchful Heron

Watchful Heron

While we were spending some four hours at the Huntington Gardens on Saturday, we spent an inordinate amount of time at the two large lily ponds. Not only did we see a heron (above), but also Canada geese with two ungainly, very adolescent-looking goslings, and a mother duck with seven little ducklings. Then, too, there was a supersized turtle and a whole lot of koi.

Below are the goslings, both of which have their heads tucked away in “You can’t see us” mode:

Two Goslings

Two Goslings

For the better part of an hour, the goslings sat at our feet while we occupied front-row seats at a strategically located bench. Sure, Martine tired herself out; but we both had a good time.

If you’re interested in seeing all the pictures I uploaded to Yahoo! Flickr, click here and scroll about 80% of the way down to photo DSCN3853, where Saturday’s pictures begin. As yet, there are no captions.

The Luminescent World of Cacti

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The Cactus Garden at the Huntington Library and Gardens

The Cactus Garden at the Huntington Library and Gardens

Although she is still struggling to get a good night’s sleep, Martine wanted us to go yesterday to the Huntington Library and Gardens in San Marino. So off we went. We usually take the same route through the gardens, ending up in the large and rather spectacular cactus garden on the eastern edge of the park. It is Martine’s favorite, and for me shares top billing with the lily ponds (about which more in a future posting).

There is something otherworldly about cacti. They catch the light in a certain way and play with it. The result, as with the cholla cacti above, is eerily luminescent. One feels a desire to hug the thorny plants as if they were overstuffed teddy bears. Ah, but the thorns of the cholla are barbed like tiny fishhooks and are difficult to remove. Beautiful, but deadly.

Part of the fascination that Martine and I feel wth the cactus garden is that in the slanting light of late afternoon—and it is always the last stop of our round tour of the gardens—the cacti have an almost supernatural look to them. One result is that my photos of the cacti are usually the best pictures of the lot.

 

“The Earth Laughs in Flowers”

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Flower from the Tropical Greenhouse at the L.A. Arboretum

Flower from the Tropical Greenhouse at the L.A. Arboretum

The sentiment is from Ralph Waldo Emerson, as is the following: “Flowers … are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty overvalues all the utilities of the world.”

When I was a child, I was always surprised that my parents expended so much effort surrounding their house with elegant (and hard to care for) tree roses and other flowers. Perhaps I was slightly jaundiced in my opinion because my brother and I had to keep the blossoms and leaves free of voracious Japanese Beetles.

Now that my parents are gone, I begin to appreciate how they felt. One of the things that I noticed was that they could always tell if a Hungarian family lived in a particular house based on the flowers they planted. I guess it’s partially a genetic thing. Although Martine and I do not raise flowers—after all, we live in an apartment—we go out of our way to visit Huntington Gardens, Descanso Gardens, the Los Angeles Arboretum, and other places where one could walk in floral beauty.

It seems that the Japanese Beetles never made it out to California. Perhaps the intervening deserts and mountains deterred them. One result is that the flower gardens out here in Southern California are particularly beautiful.

The orchid illustrated above is from the L.A. Arboretum’s tropical greenhouse, which contains a treasure of such exotic blossoms.

 

Architecture and Personal Power

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Proposed Peter Zumthor Design of New L.A. County Museum of Art

Proposed Peter Zumthor Design of New L.A. County Museum of Art

Has that museum building been hanging around too long? You know the one I mean: The one with the central court that goes up four floors. Rather nice for a building designed in the 1960s. Well, it’s gotta go! It will be razed in favor of Swiss architect Peter Zumthor’s space station illustrated above in a photo from the Los Angeles Times.

In Europe, people are not quite so quick to go to the wrecking ball. And it’s not just because of earthquakes: We see new architecture as an attribute of personal power. Basically, the executives of LACMA are just flexing their muscles. They’ll have to close down most of the museum’s collections for several years while the new monstrosity is being constructed.

By the time the new wing opens, I will probably have just written LACMA off as a place I’m interested in seeing. The works I like the most (click here) will probably be crated up and stored in some sub-basement until the Zumthorian space station emerges out of the dark matter by the La Brea Tar Pits. Of course, all the 20th century stuff I hate will continue to be on view in an adjacent building.

This Is the Rather Handsome Museum Building Doomed to Be Torn Down

This Is the Rather Handsome Museum Building Doomed to Be Torn Down

I really feel for those people in Istanbul who are rioting because the Turkish government wants to turn an old Ottoman-era barracks, sitting on one of the few parks in the city, into a shopping mall. Even Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister, has gotten into the act—presumably because he has been paid off by the developers.

Why don’t the people of Los Angeles rise up against the morons who run LACMA and toss them into the adjoining Tar Pits. It would be no more than they deserve!

The Dance Goes On

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Dancing Aphrodite

Dancing Aphrodite

Today was the Valley Greek Festival in Northridge. Martine and I went to St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at Balboa & Plummer and sampled some of the Greek cuisine (very limited in my case, but still most excellent). Also, I watched some of the folk dancing to the live band—I think its name was Olympia.

The young lady in the photograph above seems to be at all the local Greek festivals. It is a joy to watch her dance: Her moves are incredible. Over the years I have been attending these festivals, perhaps as many as eight or ten years, I have nicknamed her Aphrodite. Never having spoken to her, I do not know her real name; but she is poetry in motion, a regular Terpsichore.

We also took the tour of the church for the umpteenth time. There is something about the Orthodox church that appeals to me. If I were to become an active Christian, I might well switch my allegiance from the Church of Rome to the Church of Hellas. (For one thing, the whole child molestation epidemic among the Catholic clergy has repulsed me, even though I know that only a minority of the priests are guilty.)

The next big Greek festival in the area is in Torrance the weekend after I get back from Iceland in July., followed by the L.A. Greek Fest at Saint Sophia Cathedral in downtown Los Angeles early in September. The dance goes on …

 

 

 

Southern California in Bloom

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Star Jasmine on a Chain Link Fence

Star Jasmine on a Chain Link Fence

The nicest thing about Southern California in the springtime is the proliferation of blossoms. Most prevalent is the Star Jasmine as shown above, scientific name Trachelospermum jasminoides. When I walked into Santa Monica yesterday morning, I saw jasmine bushes everywhere. The flowers emit a delightful scent that hits one in waves as one walks past a plant.

Even more spectacular is the flowering jacaranda tree, Family Bignoniaceae. Beginning in May and lasting through most of the summer, the trees, which seem to be everywhere, are full of purple blossoms. While they have no particular scent, the dropped blossoms do play havoc with the paint jobs of parked cars.

Both plants are “invaders” (albeit welcome ones) from other parts of the globe. (Of course, most of the human inhabitants are invaders, too, in their own right.) The star jasmine hails from Malaya, and the jacaranda from South America. Shown below are jacarandas in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires:

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Jacarandas in Buenos Aires

Other than the fact that it marks the end of tax season, these two plants make Southern California a beauty spot every May and June. Now if only the marine layer would go away!

Bulgarian for a Day

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Bagpipe (Gaida) Player and Singer/Keyboard Player

Bagpipe (Gaida) Player and Singer/Keyboard Player

When my neighbor told me about a Bulgarian Festival in Culver City today, I thought it would be fun to attend with Martine and be Bulgarians for a Day.

Well, not quite. Neither of us could speak the language, but we liked the music and dancing. The latter is similar to Greek dancing, but much faster and more energetic. And the Gaida, or Balkan bagpipe, produced an exotic sound that was infectious.

There was a limited menu of Bulgarian foods, including kebapche and doner kebabs with a cold bean salad, cole slaw, and two types of cakes, including a baklava and a kind of cheese cake made with feta.

All told, we spent two hours at the festival. Then the rock music came on, and we left. Neither of us particularly care for ear-splitting music, especially since it made it difficult to talk with anyone.

A Nice Surprise

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I Kept It a Surprise Until the Last Minute

I Kept It a Surprise Until the Last Minute

Martine has had a rough time of it ever since the New Year. It seems more and more likely that she is suffering from fibromyalgia, which is not only painful but exhausting, inasmuch as it robs her of a full night’s sleep. This coming week, she has an appointment with a local rheumatologist to prescribe a course of treatment for her pain and sleeplessness.

Because she has not only felt bad, but felt guilty because she felt she “was a burden to me” in her present condition, I planned to surprise her. There is nothing that Martine likes more than chicken. So I discussed the options with my friends at work, and they recommended Mrs. Knotts Chicken Dinner Restaurant in Buena Park, which has been serving fried chicken dinners since 1934, and doing it the old-fashioned way with all the traditional trimmings.

It was not until we were a mile away from our destination that Martine remembered my recommending Mrs. Knotts to her a couple of months ago. Now that tax season is over, I had to time to drive 68 miles round trip for lunch.

I, myself, am not a chickenholic like my little girl, but I had a great spicy chicken salad in which the meat was clearly superior. So even with my diabetes regiment, I felt that I did well. Uh, I did, however, eat a couple of biscuits. (So kill me!)

The Knotts Berry Farm Amusement Park is adjacent to the restaurant, but neither of us felt like being shaken and jarred into insensibility. That was for the mobs of teenagers waiting in line to get in.

It was a long drive, but the surprise was worth it; and we both had a good time.