Maybe it is a luxury of familiarity to guiltlessly use it as an excuse for sleeping in, or are we just lazy? I prefer blaming it on growing older, but then again, admitting that age might be playing a role could convince me that the passage of time is indeed occurring while I try to maintain the illusion that it’s waiting on me. In some sense, time is waiting on my arrival, ready to place me in its past after my run is over.
Fortunately, this morning was not yet my moment to find the exit, and so, without further ado, Caroline and I jumped in the car and drove toward the ocean. Too early for breakfast, which begins at 8:00, we parked in front of the café of our dreams and walked a mile to the sea looming in the distance. I snapped this photo of the mother of St. Augustine of Hippo, a.k.a. Santa Monica, to note the start of our day in Southern California, and then we made our way back up Wilshire Boulevard.
Everything about this visit to the Los Angeles area is a luxury; no matter how low cost we try to keep things, there’s no being cheap here. Believe it or not, our motel is on the inexpensive side at $165 a night. Breakfast, on the other hand, doesn’t allow for skimping: although alternatives exist, we were not going to miss eating at Huckleberry Cafe even though we spent $81 for the first meal of the day.
Whoa, I hope that was for more than a pastry and cup of coffee, John? Well, as a matter of fact, we each had the Huckleberry signature breakfast of bacon and eggs with avocado, potatoes, and the most amazing homemade English muffin ever, in addition to a pastry each and a lemon scone that Caroline ordered to go. Mind you, the food charge was only $68 with a 20% tip of $13, bringing the grand total to the aforementioned sum.
Maybe I did this backward, talking about the price before explaining why we return to this café again and again. We love everything about this place, the incredible quality with extraordinary attention to detail that creates an experience worth indulging in as often as we can.
While the idea of a nap was calling, beckoning, pleading, for us to return to whatever residual warmth might have remained in the bed we left 90 minutes earlier, we were not giving in because the vastness and gravity of the Pacific Ocean were tugging at our senses.
The only fixed appointment on the itinerary for this visit from Arizona was a 10:00 reservation at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, down the road from Malibu. With time to spare, we pulled up to the ocean for a walk on the beach. Not only was Caroline able to play in the surf barefoot, but we also saw a few cormorants holding out their wings to dry while at least one seal hung out on a distant rock.
Here we are at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades for our second visit ever. As of this writing, I can’t say when the last one was as I couldn’t find a record of that trip on my blog, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been here; it only implies that I can be sloppy in my vigilance of always sharing everything. Then again, this isn’t a blog of the erotic, so that’s not here either, though as you scroll down, there had been an ancient wine bowl featuring a copulating couple, but in my effort to reduce the number of images from 65 down to 35 out of the 376 photos I shot over the course of the entire day meant that one was one that fell to the ax.
J. Paul Getty, upon building his Spanish-style ranch overlooking the Pacific Ocean, may have not yet known that his art collection would outgrow his home. His former residence today serves as a museum library, but the rest of the grounds were developed to house part of his collection. I say a “part of his collection” because even more of his stuff is over at The Getty, which is only about 8 miles away.
After walking along the pool and fountains and admiring the lush gardens, the first piece that greeted us indoors was this sculpture from the Cycladic period, estimated to be about 5,000 years old. The artist is obviously unknown, but I can’t help but be impressed by the idea that I will likely never create something so enduring with such a fine hand and eye interpreting the essence of a moment out of my own contemporary history. Just as the well-worn marble of this sculpture conveys its own story, I’ll use my page to once again share my own well-worn story about the disdain for all those humans around me who are happy to do much of nothing aside from consuming the banal culture of television, video games, and celebrity.
Around 1620, Peter Paul Rubens painted this work titled A Satyr Holding a Basket of Grapes and Quinces with a Nymph. If anyone cares, I believe this satyr is a proto-hipster who has been defining men’s appearance for the past ten years.
This enchanting work is also from Rubens. There’s so much going on, and in some ways, it is quite psychedelic. Titled The Discovery of the Infant Erichthonius, it features an infant with serpent legs, but it is the depiction of Diana of Ephesus in the top right that really captured my attention. Caroline informed me that Diana has often been depicted with dozens of breasts, so maybe Rubens, only including five of them, is denying us viewers the truth. Caroline couldn’t have cared less about the boobs; she wanted to know what that blond, mulleted man was doing with his left hand. [After revisiting the story of Erichthonius, I must concede that mullet-man is actually the third daughter of Cecrops; hips don’t lie after all. – Caroline]
This is the last piece from Rubens I’ll feature here; it is titled Death of Seneca. According to the placard that accompanies this painting, containing some things I should have been taught in school: Seneca was a tutor of Emperor Nero, and the idea behind this work is that Seneca has been sentenced to commit suicide and is being slowly bled out into the tub.
Hello Jupiter, tell me how yer doing. That’s right when I think of sculptures of gods named after planets, the summer of 1990 jumps into my conscious with the lyrics of Dr. Alban singing from Sweden about his motherland Nigeria and Africa. If you weren’t listening to Euro-pop back in the early 90s, you probably have no idea what I’m referencing by Jove. Would you know about the Roman King of the Gods, either?
Fragment of a sarcophagus with a visualization of the story from the Myth of Endymion, the shepherd prince.
Bear with me for a second on this one. This bronze, nearly 2,000-year-old eagle statue might have been the iPhone or Tesla of its day. What I mean to say is that if you were a foreign visitor arriving in Rome a couple of thousand years ago and you’d never seen such bronze works, this would have been the height of technological and artistic creativity. We humans, in my opinion, appear to believe that the era we are living in is the most complex and advanced society that has yet existed, but why should we begin to think that every preceding culture wasn’t experiencing the exact same sentiment? I can only imagine the sense of awe that other Neanderthals must have felt more than 60,000 years ago when one of them, after carving four holes in a young cave bear’s thigh bone, blew air through this early flute and those present fell into astonishment that they had come so far.
Earlier, I wrote of J. Paul Getty’s home and of the grounds where his art is housed well; this museum is an inspired replica of the Villa dei Papiri (Villa of Papyruses) in Naples, Italy, that was buried by Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, preserving much of what lay hidden for centuries. This fresco is but one small section taken during excavation when treasures would simply be taken and sold with little regard to preserving artifacts in situ.
Meet the feet of the Mummy of Herakleides. Why would an Egyptian burial process be featured in a museum that seems to be focusing on all things Roman Empire? You can look at an old map of that empire and either refresh or memory or learn that a large part of Egypt fell under the Roman Empire. This burial happened just before Christianity put an end to the process of mummification, or so that’s the way I understand it.
History sure opens doors in my mind as this statue that is possibly that of Tiberius of Star Trek fame…you know, James T. Kirk? Oh my, I think I just heard my wife groan as she proofreads this in the near future. Okay, Emperor Tiberius, prior to acquiring his title, suppressed rebels in Dalmatia (modern Croatia), where this statue was found not far from the ruins of Solana (near present-day Split).
I don’t own a silver drinking horn, but if I did, I tend to think I’d prefer one with a hybrid praying mantis crossed with a scorpion locked in an embrace with the eagle in the photo above. Considering this, I realize I don’t even own a single thing that’s 2,000 years old or even 200 years old, though I do own a copy of a book printed in 1959, which is not really a good foundation for building my own museum.
Balsamarium in the form of a boxer’s head, a balsamarium is a vessel containing oil. This bronze container is approximately 2,000 years old, triggering the idea that the golden age of Rome must have been about 400 years before its fall.
Various Roman bronze dishes from 1 – 79 AD.
Orpheus and the Sirens floating out of the underworld.
We look upon this Volute Krater (vessel for mixing wine and water) featuring Apollo and Artemis from 2,500 years ago, and we immediately understand its historic and artistic value, but if I were to break out my terracotta-vase-making kit and paint a naked me on it along with Caroline working her sprang loom while our cat (now deceased) looked on with curiosity, I don’t believe anyone would find artistic merit to it; such is art. I should point out that my painting skills amount to poor outline drawings, maybe half a step beyond stick people, so I would obviously have to accept rejection.
Excuse me, ladies, might you be the Sirens? If so, please dash my brain upon the rocks at the shore as this thing in my head that chose to share so many images from this day is approaching a state of dysfunction and betrayal.
These instructions for the underworld inscribed on a gold tablet from about 300 BC reads:
(Initiate) I am parched with thirst and perishing!
(Spring) Then come drink of me, the Ever-Flowing Spring, on the right–a white cypress is there. Who are you? Where are you from?
(Initiate) I am the son of Earth and Starry Heaven. But my race is heavenly.
To put it simply, this is being shared as a reminder to my wife how much she liked the plump little fat rolls that added a sense of realism for her.
The Royal Lion Hunt is the name given to this Assyrian relief sculpture that is approaching its 3,000th birthday. This and the following pieces are on loan from the British Museum, London.
Protective Spirits.
Detail from the above panel stems from Nineveh and is believed to have been created during the reign of Ashurbanipal, the last great king of Assyria.
Blending man, beast, and bird, the artists of what was then the largest empire on earth had no shortage of imagination or skills needed to create such beautiful, long-lasting works that only hint at their worldview. After taking in just about every square inch of the Getty Villa, it was time for a break to rest our now-aching feet. We found a table on the terrace of the Museum Café where I was able to write, and Caroline knitted while we shared a coffee and sparkling water in a fancy blue bottle. When we left, it was too late for lunch and too early for dinner, so we decided to squeeze in a new-to-us destination.
Welcome to the South Coast Botanical Garden on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. This is no ordinary garden, though; in many ways, that’s exactly what it looks like. We are standing atop a former mine that was sold in 1956 to Los Angeles County, which used it as a landfill until 1961. April of that year saw the first planting of trees that would become an integral part of this botanical garden which now plays host to more than 200,000 plants and has had Prince Charles visit to learn about the reclamation efforts invested here. Today, it’s John and Caroline who will walk these grounds hoping to discover some toy or soup can working its way through the earth for us to find.
This is a Paperbark Tree originally from Australia
The next tree to capture my attention is this White Floss Silk Tree native to Peru and Argentina. I can’t admit to understanding its name and feel it would make more sense if it were called Fat Elephant Limbs With Fuck-Off Spikes.
That Fat Elephant tree has some nice-looking flowers, though.
No, this tree is not called Tree With Poop Pods; it is the Lace Bark Tree.
This is Angel’s Trumpet and is from the Datura family, meaning it should never be consumed because if it doesn’t kill you, you might wish you were dead instead of suffering the disturbing hallucinations it’s said to have.
As an experiment in reclamation, the South Coast Botanical Garden is an amazing example, but as far as Southern California gardens go, we’ll stick with the Descanso and Huntington Gardens. Barely 10 miles away is our dinner destination, and after missing lunch, we’re plenty hungry as the garden is closing here at 5:00. [While John makes it sound as if the South Coast Botanical Garden is “less than,” one should keep in mind that not only is Winter not exactly the best time to visit a botanical garden in the Northern Hemisphere, we were also here in the hour before sunset which didn’t really help its appearance. In addition, several garden sections were closed off because of “Glow,” which features creative lighting arrangements between the trees and shrubs and other nighttime entertainment. Unfortunately, we hadn’t been aware of Glow, and while we were somewhat tempted to hide between the shrubs to avoid having to leave and get new tickets for the event, our hungry stomachs told us differently. – Caroline]
San Pedro Fish Market is a hopping lively place, even in a pandemic. Not an inexpensive affair but worth every penny for the price of entry. You are looking at $96 of shrimp fajitas with peppers, onion, and potatoes, garlic bread, lemons, corn, shrimp cocktail, and a michelada. While we barely touched the garlic bread, nearly everything else disappeared because this restaurant on the harbor never disappoints. Another point worth noting, we ordered the “cheap plate” as it was just the two of us. Had we added a whole fish, a small lobster, and a few crab legs, we could have easily spent a few hundred dollars feasting here, and it is serious feasting at its best.
All of our previous visits had been early in the day, just as they opened, to avoid the worst of the crowds. Well, that turned out to be a flaw in our planning because, at least on Saturday nights, they feature karaoke, including this guy rocking a solid Elvis impersonation. A kid no older than about ten did a mean Montell Jordan as he stomped between the tables with a mic in hand, telling us This Is How We Do It.
This view of the harbor is our departing shot as we look back at Terminal Island, enchanted that we have experienced a perfect day.