Wine-glass music

I was back at the Panorama this weekend for an interesting musical performance by a band called the Long Lost and a guy who plays wine glasses.

The wine-glass player, Douglas Lee, was really amazing. He has a wood tray on legs that holds a number of glasses of different sizes. Before each song, he dips his fingers in some water, and then sets to work– rubbing a finger around the rim of a glass produces a nice tone, and different sized glasses sound different pitches. So far this is not surprising– you have probably tried it yourself sometime while drinking wine– but the incredible part is that he can go from note to note VERY FAST with perfect control over the sound, producing complicated melodies and effects.

In other words, he turns wine glasses into a Serious Instrument. After the show we asked him a few questions. He said that he learned to play from a guy in a circus that he worked in. Each time he plays, he sets up the glasses, fills them with water, and then adjusts the levels a bit to tune each glass. The scale is the same as the piano (including both white and black keys). 

For his rendition of “Istanbul not Constantinople” and other songs, you really have to check out the videos here.

OK, now I have seen some actors!

I was at the 3rd Street Promenade on Saturday and noticed a group of photographers with professional-looking gear standing around outside Armani Exchange. What was happening?

A few minutes later, Robert Buckley (who I had never heard of, but is apparently on Lipstick Jungle, which I haven’t seen) showed up, and the photographers swung into action. He posed for a few shots and then headed inside the store for a promo event.

 

He was followed by AnnaLynn McCord (who is also on Lipstick Jungle, as well as 90210). She had a LOT of makeup on, I noticed. Here is a somewhat blurry shot from my iPhone.

A little ways down the Promenade, there was a Latin band called Grupo Fantasma playing inside the Apple Store. They were really lively and sounded great.

Making my day even more exciting, I happened to wander into Breadbar and discovered that they sell my favorite jam: June Taylor’s Apricot-Almond Butter. I love this stuff. $14 a jar but so totally worth it. I had a chance to visit June’s kitchen-warehouse in Berkeley last summer to see how it was made, had a lovely chat, and bought a number of jars in bulk. Now I have a local source if I want to avoid the shipping fees. Unfortunately I felt like I had already spent too much that day by the time I reached Breadbar, so there is none in my refrigerator at the moment. But soon… soon…

Happy Chinese New Year

This is where I draw the line. What exactly is "pork bung"?

Today I had a great time going out for dim sum at New Capitol Seafood in San Gabriel. Everything we ate was very tasty, including the jellyfish with squid in XO sauce, the fried frog, and the crab and fish belly soup. (I like to think I am a fairly adventurous eater, for an American. I passed on the pigs’ feet, though.)

We stopped by the Chinese supermarket afterwards and found some more exciting things. I got a nice looking, hefty vegetable called a “moqua” which tastes like something in between a cucumber, a melon, and a squash. We also picked up some interesting looking mushrooms and porridges. The supermarket had lots of whole fish on ice and live crabs to remember for next time.

In other news: saw an Armenian traditional band with drums and a heavy metal singer at Troubadour last weekend (amazing!). The next day brought an inflatable UFO, courtesy of the Raelians, in the Doo-Dah Parade. After the parade, I discovered that the egg salad sandwiches at Euro Pane really are that good. Thank you, thank you, Jonathan Gold. Such lovely, creamy, deep yellow yolks, blanketed by mayonnaise in its purest form, like nothing you’ve ever had from a jar… There’s also an interesting documentary photography exhibit on Iran at CAFAM. Oh, LA is an amazing, amazing place…

People, by which I mean people who aren’t poor

I just saw a special on West Adams on “Eye on LA”. One homeowner, who had restored his historic Craftsman house, said something like the following (this is a paraphrase, not exact): “this was once one of the grandest neighborhoods in the city. Then the 10 was built and decimated the neighborhood and it became inner city. Fortunately, the costs of real estate in LA started driving people back here, and now we are witnessing a turnaround.”

‘Cause you know, there weren’t any “people” here before. 

I think “recently, people with money to restore the historic homes started moving back in, and the neighborhood became more middle class” would be more accurate… and would avoid that troublesome insinuation that poor people aren’t people.

A trance-like state

There was an interesting performance tonight down the street at the panorama. An upright bass player strung together notes, phrases, thwacks to the side of the instrument, and footsteps as another performer “played” video, choosing abstract clips of swirling and jumping shapes of light. In the second act, a keyboard player and a vocalist added to the mix, carrying you along.

There is another performance Sunday night, with another, interesting looking combination of instruments.

No big deal

OK, so there are some disadvantages to living in the inner city. One thing I do not like is getting harassed on the street. This doesn’t happen to me every day, but once every month or two, something odd occurs…

1. Woman approaches on foot. “Excuse me,” she says, “let me walk with you a minute.” She then launches into a long story about how that’s her car right over there, the brown one, the station wagon, and she came out and saw she was out of gas, and it wouldn’t start, and she called the police because she figured that seeing as how she was a county employee they would give her a bus pass to get back to Torrance, but they wouldn’t, the jerks, and… Eventually it registered in my brain that this was an attempted con in progress, and I interrupted with, “Oh, money? Oh no, I don’t have any money” (trying hard to put on my best innocent face, since I was actually carrying a $2500 laptop in my backpack). She stomped away angrily, got into the car, started it up just fine, and drove off.
2. As I was about to cross the street to get to my house, I noticed a man on a riding toward me on a bike. He was riding slowly and weaving a bit, which I thought was suspicious. I sped up, crossed against the light, and immediately turned right away from the biker. He stopped, looked to see where I was, saw that I had turned, and started to make a U-turn to come back in my direction. I ran towards my house and let myself in very quickly.
3. Last week, while walking into the parking lot of the grocery store, a man was standing outside on the sidewalk. “Hey sweetie, what’s your name?” he asked me, maneuvering himself into my walking path. I smiled faintly and tried to ignore him. “What’s your name?” he repeated, and then, when I had successfully gotten past him, called out “what’s the matter. Haven’t you ever had a black man?” As it happened, there was a policeman right in front of the grocery store, standing in front of a man who appeared to be passed out on the lawn. I told him there was a guy over in the corner of the parking lot who was giving me a hard time, and repeated the jist of the conversation. “OK, so just verbal?” asked the policeman. “Uh, yeah,” I said. “No big deal. Just thought I’d let you know.”

I thought about that a lot later– “no big deal.” What did I mean? Was I proud of myself that day, that unlike incident #2, I didn’t run away, but kept walking calmly while smiling? Was I trying to be oh-so-deferential to the policeman, as in, “yeah, I know you have, like, murders, to deal with, plus that drunk guy on the lawn, so maybe dealing with something that probably does not even qualify as a crime (since, unfortunately, I have reason to know the definition of criminal harassment, at least in the state of Massachusetts, and this is not it) might not be at the top of your priority list”? Or “hey, I’m used to living in a city and am not some naive suburban kid who freaks out the first time they get talked to by a drugged/drunken stranger, even though I might have been 15 years ago, because I am oh so much older and wiser now, and besides, took a very practical, street-fighting form of jiu jitsu for a year and a half so could punch someone if I had to?”

I think all of those things were probably going through my mind.

Even if this stuff is a “normal” feature of life in the city, it still stinks when it happens. “No big deal” doesn’t really capture that feeling.

2009: Meet More Musicians

The new year is beginning, and it’s time for resolutions. Luckily, I don’t need to exercise more or lose weight, so let’s move on to the next topic: meeting more musicians and actors.

I mean, I live in LA, people. Where are they all?

This year has netted a slim supply of actor and musician sightings:

1. I got invited to a party where I met a member of the Pixies. (Not bad.)
2. I went to a supper club in Hollywood and met a girl who has a movie credit for vomiting on cue.
3. The real estate agent who showed us around Pasadena was filming a Barclay’s bank commercial the week we met him (though strictly speaking, that was back in 2007).

So, how to find actors and musicians? Perhaps I should just do the LA tourist thing, and resort to the Star Map, along with walking around on Rodeo Drive.

Festivals

Just a small sampling of the West Hollywood Halloween Parade, Oct. 31

Three festivals, three different scenes:

The WeHo Halloween Parade was a rollicking street party. Santa Monica Boulevard was packed with people in costume, walking around and looking at each other. I saw a drag queen go-go dancer in a wheeled cage, a whole lot of monsters and space aliens, and a group of friends dressed up as those red plastic monkey toys with interlocking arms. Toward the end it got very crowded, and I wanted to escape.

An altar at the Day of the Dead Festival, Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Nov. 1

The Day of the Dead Festival was excellent… mellow, colorful, spooky, artsy, musical. Families sat around to the altares they had made to commemorate loved ones, people strolled around in finest skeleton face paint and Mexican peasant dress, and traditional Mexican dancers performed on a colorful stage set up in the park. A troupe went by in Aztec headdresses. Hipsters milled around by the dozens. Older Anglo couples with NPR tote bags sat eating tacos and fried dough and watching the ballet folklórico. I think this was my favorite.

Part of the boat parade, Newport Beach, Dec. 21

 We parked on a side street, among the summer homes, and wound our way down to the beach to watch the boat parade. Restless teenagers chased each other around and pretended to fight. We watched the boats go by, decorated in colored lights, some with a Santa waving from on board. Afterward, we walked for a short stretch along the boardwalk and surreptitiously spied on the rich people having parties in their glass fronted houses filled with paintings. We went home without dinner, afraid the friend of a friend we were with would lead us to a posh restaurant from which we could not escape. A quick trip to the supermarket produced Odwalla bars to tide over the hungry.

Belated tribute to Salsa, Salsa!

One of my favorite events all year was Salsa, Salsa!, a day of making, eating, and dancing salsa. It was way back in August… in fact, the very first weekend after I moved here. The whole thing was put on by Fallen Fruit, the guys who map publicly accessible fruit, and Islands of LA, the guys who plant tomatoes in the middle of LA traffic islands and track which survive. And I found out just in the nick of time, thanks to Bert for commenting on one of my posts here…

The raw ingredients, including tomatoes from the traffic islands and the organizers' yards

Sampling all the different types of salsa, with freshly-fried tortilla chips

Everyone who came pitched in to chop tomatoes and make their own salsas from the ingredients on hand. 

Afterwards there were salsa lessons and a salsa band. The event was held at Farmlab, which has a wonderful outdoor space under a bridge that served as the dance hall.

You know you’re in LA when…

the street musicians turn out to be really good.

I got a CD from these guys today, while down at 3rd Street Promenade:

Los Pinguos on the 3rd Street Promenade. Way cooler than Express.

The snow-covered San Gabriel mountains are beautiful these days– so beautiful that I am enjoying driving on the highway, looking at palm trees against the mountains.

Meanwhile, another way you know you are in LA: everyone around you (and I mean everyone– even the overweight 50-something year old couple walking down the street next to you) has given in to the Ed Hardy trend. I myself tried to buy a discounted tiger t-shirt from Loehmann’s yesterday, but couldn’t find my size. Below, the flagship Melrose store (before the security guard noticed me taking a photo and kicked me out):

Not only can you wear an Ed Hardy t-shirt, but a coat, belt, tights, and hat too!

Note the skull...

 

Someone, I’m sure, could say something very interesting and deep about the connections between Mexican Day of the Dead imagery and biker tattoos, and how Christian Audiger has managed to popularize the style and imagery of a subculture and sell it to the masses. That person, however, would not be me, as I am unable to think of a 2nd sentence to follow the last. All I know is, 1) we watched “Raising Arizona” last night, and the Biker of the Apocalypse character had a very classic Day of the Dead skull design on his arm tattoo, and that movie is fairly old (1987), and (2) my sister reports that the TJ Maxx in Cleveland, Ohio (a discount re-seller of clothing, for those not in the know) has a huge surplus of Ed Hardy merchandise. From this I conclude, uh, both that the popularization of Chicano/biker tattoo themes was a long time in coming, and that perhaps it did not sell so well outside of LA.