Los Angeles: Gallery 6

January 28, 2012, Saturday

Miles flown:  2475 miles x 2 New York JFK <-> Los Angeles LAX
Flight time:  10h 45 min = 5h 45 min + 5h
Landed:  9:15 am at Los Angeles LAX
Left:  9:25 pm for New York JFK
Returned:  5:30 am at New York JFK (January 29, 2012)

I left my apartment at 4:10 am.  Remember my insistence at using public transportation?

Not having been to Frank Gehry's concert hall before, I was interested to see the building and I bought a ticket for a children's concert at 11 am.  Though my flight arrived 40 minutes early, I was four minutes late because of a problem with public transportation.  The concert featured excerpts from Mahler 5.  The acoustics were impressive, and I found Gehry's design ingenious.

Walt Disney Concert Hall, courtesy of Wikipedia and Carol Highsmith

Mahler 5 Adagietto, Walter & Vienna, 1938, courtesy of YouTube

My next stop, after lunch, was LACMA.  I spent most of my time inside the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, designed by Renzo Piano.  The second floor featured a special Ellsworth Kelly exhibition.  Koons, Baldessari, Therrien and Warhol shared the third floor, while Serra's sculptures and a Nauman video were on the first floor.   The elevator shaft showed Barbara Kruger.

If I wasn't the first to complete the Challenge, I could very well be the first to arrive at the Beverly Hills gallery by bus!  Afterwards I was off to see the Chinese Theater in Hollywood before heading back downtown for dinner.  I thought of having dinner in Chinatown, but oddly most places had closed or were about to close, and it was not even 6 pm yet.  Little Tokyo was much more inviting. 

I don't want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light. 

My strong allegiance to Manhattan has softened over the years, and Los Angeles is probably much more exciting culturally than it was when Woody Allen's Annie Hall was released.  Still Los Angeles is difficult without a car, but I found much I liked.  I'd like to see all the famous modernist architecture some day.   The urban sprawl was jarring, and using the bus made me acutely aware of deep economic divisions.  But yes, I'll admit this:

Sun is shining, the weather is sweet
Make you want to move your dancing feet

Airfare:  $298.10