365 True Things: 314/LA

Last night, we were supposed to get together with my niece for dinner at a restaurant she suggested not far from our hotel. But then she texted to ask if it was okay to bring her daughter. Sure! I called the restaurant.

Um, no, not really. We could try to squeeze three of us onto a bench seat, but . . .

I decided, no, I didn't want to try that, especially being unable to see how a table ostensibly for three couldn't in fact accommodate four. More texting ensued, and I agreed that we would drive "over the hill," as I call Sepulveda Pass, to the San Fernando Valley and meet my niece at a Japanese restaurant she likes.

Ah, but then I looked at Google Maps. And when I saw it would take almost an hour and a half to travel twenty miles, I put the kibosh on that idea. Now we are planning to meet Sunday for brunch. Hopefully people stay home on Sunday mornings . . .

Instead, David and I walked to the restaurant-for-three. Once we got to Abbot Kinney Boulevard, about halfway along our twenty-minute route, the sidewalks were increasingly jam packed with twenty- and thirty-somethings, most of whom were flocking to a good dozen-plus food trucks parked along the street. It was spectacularly crowded.

As it turned out, our table for three was really a table for two (they were squeezing us in), and the restaurant was very loud, so an actual conversation with my niece probably would not have occurred. So I'm glad the plans unraveled. And in the end, we had a marvelous (if pricy) meal. Right down to dessert, which we don't usually get: warm monkeybread with crême brulée.

When we left for the return walk, the sidewalk was still crowded, maybe even more so. Unbroken lines of cars inched down the street in each direction. The atmosphere was festive, but it made me so glad I live in the sticks, where "rush hour" lasts about half an hour and extends for all of five miles, if that.

I am blown away by how many cars there are in this city. And last night and then again today along the Venice boardwalk, I'm almost as blown away by all the people who are out and about. The weather is gorgeous, so it makes sense they're all out. But oh my, there are so many of them!

So: there's the downside of a city like Los Angeles—congestion, crowds, traffic, impatience, irritation, delays, traffic.

But the upside, ah. The humanity, for one: this morning we stopped and chatted with several delightful people along the Venice boardwalk, set up for a busy day of commerce. Many of these people are homeless; they make things that they sell (or one man, As You Are—yes, that's his name—demonstrates yoga), without the need for a permit. Forward-thinking LA. Yet it feels very organized, controlled, safe. The LAPD and LAFD are a constant presence, in a good way: just cruising along, making sure everything's fine. The beach is freshly plowed early each morning, to minimize trash, and every couple, few days, it seems, city workers scour the boardwalk washing the furniture and picking up garbage. (The homeless move their stuff aside for the duration, then move it right back.)

Wilkes, The Serengeti (1915)

Salgado, The Mines of Serra Pelada

Then there's art. This afternoon with our friend Tesi we visited a small complex of art galleries, a few of which had interesting work. And then we entered a photo gallery, and wham: I recognized two amazing things right off. First, an oversized day-to-night photo montage that I'd seen, and been impressed by, on FB not long ago, by Stephen Wilkes, a NG photographer. And second, a whole roomful of works by Sebastião Salgado, whom I discovered in the 1980s when he was photographing (in beautiful black and white) impoverished gold miners in his home country of Brazil. Well, today I discovered that he's been venturing much farther afield, but with equally beautiful, and socially pointed, results. What a treat!

Not to mention all the museums in LA: LACMA, the Getty, the Skirball, Norton Simon, the Huntington Library, Annenberg Space for Photography, MOCA, the new Broad Museum, which I've not yet visited—and more. 

And then there are the neighborhoods. I was reminded of that Thursday, when I visited Pasadena briefly. And today: after touring the galleries, we stopped at Tesi's local bar for a beer, in the neighborhood of Mar Vista. Chatted with the bartender, Aaron, and his fiancée, who came by for a cup of soup and to give Aaron a ride home. It was so cozy and friendly, positively Cheers-like. I completely forgot the bazillions of cars fighting their way through traffic in the rest of the city. As we walked back to Tesi's house she pointed out some of the local businesses: a used record store, a used bookstore, a time machine store (yes—unfortunately, we didn't get to check it out, but maybe next visit), a nice market/eatery, a Oaxacan restaurant, a tattoo parlor (incidentally), a last-pickings grocery story (food up to 70 percent off!). A very nice mid-scale neighborhood where I think it would be a pleasure to live.

If I had to live in LA.

Which fortunately, I don't. I'm very happy living in a relatively uncrowded place. But that said, Monterey quiets down at about 7:30—no night life to speak of. You would never wander into a random gallery and find photographic masterworks just by accident. Our neighborhoods offer considerably less variety than, say, Mar Vista. We don't have nearly the same diversity of humanity as here.

I've gathered in many more impressions—visual, aural, aromatic—of this great city, but I will leave this at that lest I go on and on and on. I'm glad to have had a good opportunity to experience a couple of fascinating and fabulous corners of this city these past few days. Even though I grew up here, I don't know it well at all. This visit makes me eager to pay a return visit and discover more. I'm sure I'll be surprised and delighted all over again. (As long as I can avoid the traffic.)