the greater Silverlake area

Silverlake is the land of hipsters, to be sure.  Bordered by Echo Park and Los Feliz, it's kinda near Dodger Stadium, surprisingly close to Downtown, and also a neighborhood with a heavy immigrant influence, particularly from Mexico.  It's a diverse neighborhood, and for the most part not a flashy one.  It's also one I'm growing fonder and fonder of.  Not just because it's Hipsterville, U.S.A. (although this does mean there are some funky awesome little boutiques and some good people watching), but it's home to Beck (ok, not making a good non-hipster case yet), my favorite glasses shop, a fun and very legit weekly market, and it's got great street names.  

I'm not really where exactly on the Los Feliz-Silverlake-Echo Park map the following places lie, but most of them are in Silverlake, if not close by.

That said, here are some of my new favorite places.

1. Gogosha Optique - run by a wonderful eyewear guru named Julia, the frames are pricey but creative, interesting, and hard if not impossible to find anywhere else.  Their claim to fame, you walk in and instantly the sales clerk will find about a dozen frames that look good on you, but the two of you will work together to find the best match.

2. Little Dom's - while sometime I think they're called Major Dom's or they ought to serve Asian fusion, Little Dom's is in fact a good ol' fashion American restaurant with an old Hollywood glamour and a well-preserved charm.  Not only that, the food is excellent.  You can order a bowl of fruit as a side, but instead of your run of the mill cantaloupe, honeydew, grapes, etc, they serve an eclectic and ever-changing mix of the best that's in season.  When I went, the fruit bowl included fresh fig, apricot, and plum, among other things.  

3. The Silverlake Farmer's Market - A good ol' fashion farmers market chock full of  fresh produce and home made crafts, but with a twist, meaning avocado crepes and pure cane juice, handmade notebooks made from recycled paper (so recycled that there's still writing on the other side) made by Tyler Bender, and an organic coffee stand that serves a drink called "Global Warming" (Cafecito Organico).  Granted, most of these vendors are also at the larger Hollywood Farmers Market, but I like Silverlake because it's smaller and more laid back (this may or may not be related to the pervasive smell of marijuana that lingers in the air).

4. The Echo - okay, so this one's definitely in Echo Park, not too far from the park itself, but its in the general region and it's a great concert venue.  Small, but not too small, there's seating against the wall if you get too tired of standing, but they keep a pretty solid lineup running through there, so during concerts there isn't much need to sit.  

spotlight on Cleveland

The rumors are true, today's spotlight city is none other than Cleveland, Ohio.

However, contrary to popular belief, I am not actually in Cleveland at the present time.

So then why Cleveland? Let me explain:

Having recently come into possession of a 2009 Cleveland calendar, I thought today was as good a day as any to hang my 99 cent calendar above my desk.  I opened it to July and lo and behold, a bright shiny picture of the Steamship William G. Mather Maritime Museum.  So maybe Billy is missing an S at the end of his name, small potatoes, we're totally related!  (...maybe)  

But why did I hang a 2009 calendar in July?

The calendar was a gag gift from one of my uncles to my dad for my dad's birthday which was in May.  My dad was both puzzled and unamused by the gift so after trying to pass it off to a cousin or two, the calendar fell into my possession and, as an enthusiast of the esoteric, I kept it.  Then it sat around for about a month at which point I rediscovered it and, as calendars are always handy, I hung it up.  This morning.

Coincidence #1 - I opened a random calendar at a random time to find the steamship of a man who will surely prove to be my long lost uncle.

Calendar in place, I went about my business.  A few hours later I got a call from a friend who just so happened to be en route to Cleveland himself. (Coincidence #2)  He is neither a resident, nor, at the time that we spoke, a fan of Ohio (pro - it's hillier than Indiana or Illinois, con - there are not enough rest stops on the highway; Ohio lost this round), but was on his way to see a friend.  We decided that should I fail at life, the next logical course of action would be to fly to Cleveland, paint an S on the Steamship William G. Mather Maritime Museum and claim ownership.  

Cleveland will be none the wiser.  

I've named this particular friend as my traveling correspondent and he's promised me an exposé on Cleveland, but in the meantime, I leave you with these:

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1907953
http://www.collegehumor.com/Video:1909669

lacma

Today I went to LACMA with my internship. It was wonderful, quick, but wonderful.

The most wonderful? Magritte's Ceci n'est pas une pipe, naturally ;)

Also, just saw this film, like it a lot, mostly for the conversation:

reference material

for all of your future Venn Diagram Day celebrations, refer to the following:

Suggestions 

Happy 4th of July*

Today is a day to celebrate.  But contrary to popular belief it is not just a day to celebrate America's independence from those rascally British (I love you Great Britain, I really do), it is also a day to celebrate Venn diagrams, those overlapping circles of joy and organization.  It is a young holiday and an obscure one to be sure, but every year it grows in popularity as people across the nation (and certainly soon, across the world) celebrate the beauty of a diagram that shows all possible logical relations between a finite collection of sets (thank you wikipedia).  And so, in honor of Venn Diagram Day, I humbly present my own Venn diagram for the occasion:

Please note that Lewis Carroll was indeed correctly placed in the "Venn diagrams" circle.  

But beware, dear reader, there have been unofficial attempts to celebrate Venn Diagram Day at other times in the year.  While the most logical celebrations might be August 4th or April 4th (the birth and death dates of John Venn respectively), no recognized celebration of Venn Diagram Day has ever occurred on either of these dates.  

2002 is the earliest known reference to Venn Diagram Day:

Exhibit A

Later, in 2006 a celebration of Venn diagrams took place sometime around November 16th:

Exhibit B

Exhibit C 

However, if you read the comments attached to Exhibit B, there is a brief explanation:

It actually started with a simple post from seasecret (the post is locked, otherwise I'd link to it) that simply said "I would like to see some Venn diagrams on my friends page." And we all took the bait. 

Nevertheless, the official celebration of Venn Diagram Day is July 4th and has been so for a number of years.  

So happy Independence Day, happy Venn Diagram Day, happy 4th of July*!

*I've been informed recently that July 4th may also be Venereal Disease Day, but I can neither confirm nor deny the legitimacy of this claim.  

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.

the blood arm, art brut, and chairlift

On the topic of French, I saw the trailer for Girl from Monaco, looks good, plus it's in French! (with English subtitles)

Alright, new topic.

Music!

Last weekend I went to see Art Brut Friday at the Echo (near Echo Park) and Chairlift Saturday at the Getty (Oh man! So many links, I can't even handle it).

Friday at the Echo, the Blood Arm opened for Art Brut. Their song "Suspicious Characters" is fun, so is "Attention" which is half in French! They have a lot of energy on stage, primarily because their lead singer, Nathaniel Fregoso, who hopped off the stage a few times, into the crowd to sing to us individually before jumping on top of the bar.

You have to look a little closely, but he's there atop the bar (below).

Then back off the bar and into the crowd to give me a big ol' sweaty kiss on the cheek.

However, it was Art Brut that I went to see and Art Brut delivered. They'd been in LA for 4 nights and I guess a lot of the people at the Echo had gone to the previous nights' shows at Spaceland. After 3 nights of stayin up late and gettin deaf, the crowd was a little lackluster, and a little older than I expected, a pretty even spread of 18-40+, and pretty mellow for the most part. But that didn't stop those of us up front from dancing! Most of Art Brut's music sounds more or less the same, but I love it, as I told my friend Maggie that night while walking back to the car (excuse me, as I yelled to her, as neither of us could hear a darn thing), they're one of the few bands that make me want to dance around AND genuinely laugh out loud.

Ready Art Brut?

I was milling around online Saturday afternoon, still trying to recover my ability to hear properly, when I stumbled upon a blog that mentioned Saturdays Off the 405 at the Getty. I'd heard that the Getty had a summer concert series but I hadn't really looked into it. It recently moved from Fridays to Saturdays, so that now every Saturday evening, the Getty hosts a free outdoor concert. FREE! That was enough to sell me. Although it helped that Chairlift was playing. They are responsible for the tune that accompanies one of the iPod Nano commercials, "Bruises." Like the Blood Arm, they've got a well-dressed woman rocking the keyboard (although these days, who doesn't?), but Chairlift's Caroline is the lead vocalist with a lovely voice and pretty, light brown eyes. They opened with an original song, followed by a cover of Snoop Dogg's "Sensual Seduction" which was alternately very steamy and very amusing.

I went with Stephanie and after the concert we wandered the Getty gardens at sunset; I don't think I'd ever been there that late in the day, it was absolutely lovely.

The effect is a weaker in a small picture as opposed to being there in person, but look closely at the chairs in the windows below.

It was a good weekend. Plus, about mid-day Sunday I realized I could hear properly again, so it was a really good weekend.