life, death, and art

(Odd formatting below, I know, I think it has something to do with the

embedded clip...)

Spent the morning watching youtube clips.

Started with the Seeds because their frontman just passed away,

but his death had been swept under the rug by Farrah Fawcett

and especially Michael Jackson.

I'm not a huge Seeds fan, but this led me through a bevy of old rock clips,

including the following little gem.

It's a song I never especially cared for recorded, but it's fantastic live.

But yes, yesterday was a strange and culturally significant day.

Michael Jackson went into cardiac arrest in his current residence

in Holmby Hills. Coincidentally, I happened to be a few doors down

the day before at the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, which I had

planned to blog about anyway. Up until a few days ago, I didn't even

know the area was called Holmby Hills, though I'd driven through before

to get a gander at the edge of the Playboy estate.

Anyway, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation is a large modern art

collection kept in the former residence of Mr. Weisman,

a two story house designed by Gordon B. Kauffman in the 1920s.

The house is fairly big, but the collection is bigger so there is art

EVERYWHERE, on every wall and in every corner or every room,

and quite often, on the ceiling as well. In the garden, in the front yard,

heck, there's even a piece in the pool (I kid you not).

There's so much art, that the Weismans had an annex built for the pieces

that were too large and difficult to store inside the house.

And it's a magnificent collection, three Yves Klein pieces just sitting out

in the open (and IKB looks phenomenal in person),

Magritte paintings and sculptures (who knew?),

a bed set designed by Mas Ernst, some early Picasso,

photo-collages by Hockney, portraits of the patrons by Warhol,

and more Lichtenstein than you can shake a stick at.

In other words, it was very cool.

We went through the collection on a tour that moved at warp speed

which took about two hours.

They bill themselves as LA's best kept secret,

I'd never heard of the collection and it's impressive,

so I'd say it definitely makes a top 10 list of secrets.

I went with my fellow interns, one of whom pointed out that

LA seems to be a town based on secrets.

From regular midnight screenings at fantastic and obscure movie theaters

to the best beaches, to dozens of canyon roads,

to all the "Little" country neighborhoods

(Little Somalia might be a personal favorite),

to the secret menu at In-n-Out, she definitely has a point.

Nevertheless, these are things you pick up pretty easily from living here.

The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation does not publicize at all,

it relies strictly on word of mouth, plus it's tucked away in the hills

on a residential street, so it qualifies as especially secret.

The Foundation is open Monday through Friday

and tours are by appointment only. I highly recommend it.