The Gurly Life

Concerning photographs

You have already had a glimpse of some of the photos I took – at least, I hope you did go see them, but if not, here’s another opportunity. I have also added links to all the sets from DC at the end of this post. So even if you don’t read it, scroll down to the links. I love comments on my photos, by the way, so feel free.

DC is a very photogenic city. Basically, all you do is point your camera at things, and POP! -- great photo. In other words, a monkey can take good photos in DC. I really got to take in some sights this weekend. I did not get to it all, not by a long shot. There are A LOT of Smithsonians I did not even walk into, I didn’t get to see the White House, or Arlington Cemetery, or the Pentagon (hello, Secret Service or NSA or some other military intelligence, if you happened to come upon this blog).  Oh stop your gasping, I did not have time for everything, so don’t be giving me that look.

Here’s what I did visit: the National Mall, the Washington Monument, the WW II Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial (and this one, I went back for seconds on Sunday evening for night shots), the National Archives and the National Air and Space Museum. I was in the Museum of the American Indian for lunch but as it is not the at the top of my museum wish-list, I passed on it in favor of the Air and Space Museum.

As to most of these, I will let the pictures speak for themselves. The Washington DC set includes the Mall, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, WW II Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Archives. The Air and Space Museum gets its own set, there were lots of rockets and planes to photograph and I thought some folks would like those. I also have a short set for the Lincoln Memorial at night. I will say a few words about some of these, however.

I have already mentioned the WW II Memorial. It is really grand, but it was a world war, and one of the few wars where the good and the evil were clearly defined: it is evil to kidnap people, tear their families apart, take all their belongings and pull out their gold teeth, and destroy them on masse because of some perceived ethnic flaw, or because they’re gay (yeah, he did that too). There is no choice but to stand up to such evil, and that’s what the world did. It was a war on two massive fronts: the Allies (Great Britain, Russia and the US) fought the Axis (Germany, Japan and Italy) in the Pacific and in the Atlantic.

These two fronts are represented by the sculptures at the two ends of the Memorial. It was the war where 6 million innocent Jews were slaughtered, an estimated 20 million people died, dozens of countries fought, and two atomic bombs were dropped, each of which killed 100,000 people or so (a questionable move, at best, I would agree – even the good make terrible mistakes). It was the war of Pearl Harbor.

A war like that doesn’t just get a subtle, artistic memorial, it gets a fucking awesome memorial because all the millions of people who died and all the millions of people who fought and survived deserve it. So for anyone who might have a thought that the memorial is kitsch or vulgar or too ostentatious, I recommend looking into the eyes of the remaining veterans who visit and telling them that their war does not deserve such recognition. And that’s all I have to say about that.

While I was there, I was able to mingle with and photograph some WW II veterans who were there on a bus tour. They are all pretty old, some in wheelchairs, and were accompanied by guardians. One guardian asked if I would take a photo of her with her two veterans by one of the sculptures, which I happily did. I also took this photo with my camera, and emailed it to one of them.

This is the email response I received from him.

Dear Elena,

 

Thanks for taking the time to take a picture of a couple of old Veterans and their assigned "Guardian". The group that took us from Harrisburg, PA to Washington was called "Honor Bus". Among other things a local middle school raised to money for the trip for about 60 WW II Vets. Other groups flew in on "Honor Flights' from around the U.S. Having that many people care about saying "Thank you" gave us a warm and fuzzy feeling about the future of the country.

 

Thanks again for being considerate to a couple of total strangers.

 

Bill Kelley  

"Bill" as a WW II Merchant Marine Officer when he wasn't so old

Is this the best thing ever? Yes!

The Vietnam War Memorial is just as moving as the WW II Memorial, but in a quiet way that initially underwhelms you but then creeps up on you and suddenly you’re in it, in all the sadness and the death. It was a smaller war that WW II, and the loss for the US was more individual: a lot of young men died (I think 60,000) for a war that turned out to be pointless, and they are missed to this day. The Memorial is made up of two long marble walls that meet at an angle. It rises out of the ground with a few names and then grows and grows until it is much taller than any man, and then grows smaller again and disappears once more into the ground with the last name.

There are thousands upon thousands of names. When you go, you cannot help but cry and touch the names and say a prayer for them whether you pray to God or Buddha or just the universe. You say a prayer for them and for the ones left behind, and for their friends who come to the wall to find their names and trace them on a piece of paper so they can have something of them to take away.

All this in one morning – I needn’t tell you that I was a wreck after that. My heavens!

And finally, a few words about the National Archives. Really, only a few. This is where the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution live. And I tell you what, when I got in front of that Constitution and saw it up close and personal, and saw all those signatures beginning with G. Washington, I cried. Again. I’m out of tissues.

All the monuments and historic buildings and collections, the National Mall, and the Smithsonians are all free to visit. Free. Not a penny do you have to pay to look at these things. I of course dropped money in every donation box I could find, and I joined The Smithsonian to support it, their museums really are remarkable. In addition, donations can be made to the The Trust For The National Mall, which is tasked with the maintenance of the Mall. It could use a little more upkeep, I think, so I will be making a donation to them, also.

I write this on the plane. As we took off, I thought of the 1903 Wright Flyer, which I saw at the National Air and Space Museum.

Washington, DC

I am in Washington, DC, for Deirdre's wedding. Deirdre and John got married tonight, it was a lovely ceremony. But more of that later. Earlier in the day, I took a quick tour of the National Mall, catching the National Monument, WW II Memorial, Vietnam War Veteran Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. It was a beautiful day.

I got to see a man on the subway who wore a bowler hat and had a mustache, and wondered whether it was Hercule Poirot. On my way back to the Metro I encoutered three Tibetan monks. One gave me an open loving smile, and I bowed namaste to him. A few minutes later I was able to stop by the Metro station and enjoy an amazing trumpet player strut his stuff for passers-by. Once I stopped, a whole crowd of people stopped too, and everyone gave him change. I was the last to leave. He asked me if I am a musician.

The National Monument.

Detail of the WW II Memorial. The inscription: HERE WE MARK THE PRICE OF FREEDOM. Each of those little things is a star, presumably for a life lost. This Memorial is majestic and moving, and today it was overflowing with WW II veterans. I cried the entire time I was there.

Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool. Which needs to be cleaned.

A man traces the name of a lost friend at the Vietnam War Veterans Memorial.

The Lincoln Memorial. Obviously.

The incredibly long escalator ride at the Bethesda Metro station. Ok, less historic, but still pretty impressive, I think.

I have pictures from my National Mall tour on Flickr. I apologize in advance for the many pictures I took of the WW II Memorial, it really was incredible and there was A TON of stuff to see. I did not take pictures of everything there, believe it or not, but there were writings, sculptures, fountains, bas reliefs, and lots of veterans just waiting to be immortalized. The veterans will not with us for much longer. If you can get past those, you'll see the Lincoln Memorial and Vietnam War Veterans Memorial pics. I hope you like them, it was a joy to take them.

Photos of old Los Angeles

These came to me via an email forward, so impossible to really credit the photographers or the source, but thanks Kirke for the forward.

              6th Street Bridge

              7th and Broadway

                             Alameda Street flood 1900

              Bellevue Terrace Hotel 6th and Figueroa

              Broadway and 6th

              Bunker Hill homes 1969

              Chavez Ravine 1950

              Courthouse and Hall of Records

              Dodger Stadium Construction 1961

              Flooded street intersection 6th and Mariposa 1920

              Forced eviction of Chavez Ravine 1950 (for Dodger Stadium)

              Garfield and Slauson 1941

              Glendale 1900

              Hall of Records

              Hill and 3rd 1978

              Los Angeles before 1900
              Los Feliz Boulevard, Atwater Village 1920

                                     Ocean Piers

              Old Los Angeles [this looks like the San Fernando Valley, but I'm not sure about that]

              Pacific Electric subway cars

              Reseda Boulevard from Devonshire

              San Fernando Valley 1900

              Santa Monica Beach 1900

              The Port of Los Angeles 1900

              Venice Beach 1920

              Venice Beach "bathing beauties"

              Ventura Boulevard, Sherman Oaks 1910-1920

              View from City Hall 1930

              Wilshire Boulevard

I'm chaste. ... What?!?

It's now official: out of all my friends, I am the only one who sucks at gift-giving. Lucky for me, I have many other juicy qualities, so I am forgiven for this. Here's an awesome gifty I got today from Kirke. He found this at a gun show. Yes, a gun show. Kirke is armed to the teeth. He has to be armed for me, too, as I've been told I should not have a gun. Eh-hem. Anyway.

Here's the gift: it's a little booklet. The cover, in case you can't see it well, says "Penal Code of California Peace Officers Edition." It's the 1962 edition, from when Stanley Mosk was Attorney General. He was also a California Supreme Court Justice for 37 years. The main courthouse in downtown LA is called the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, just to give you a sense of the significance.

My favorite is Section 268. Here's what it says: "Every person who, under promise of marriage, seduces and has sexual intercourse with an unmarried female of previous chaste character, is punishable by inprisonment in the state prison for not more than five years, or by a fine of not more than five thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment."

Let's parse this out a bit, shall we? Notice that the culprit does not need to be a man. It just says "a person." Now, in legalese, a person also includes corporations, government entities and so on. I'm not 100% sure that was the case in1962 (which was FORTY-EIGHT years ago, people. 48), but it probably was.

The promise. All I can say is that if anyone had ever said to me, as a seduction tactic, have sex with me, I'll marry you, I'd have run like the wind the other way. I mean, the horror! The horror!

The girl. Has to be unmarried (adultery was also a crime, so that's covered elsewhere) AND (and this is a big and) of previous chaste character. Wow. So, to recap: it was ok to lie to a woman who was not chaste (whatever THAT means!) to get her into bed, hell, she's already a slut, who cares? But if you lied to a good girl, oh no, 5 years in prison and a $5000 fine. $5000 in 1962, by the way, was the equivalent of $35,000 in 2009. Source: The Inflation Calculator.

Damn good thing I wasn't a young lady in 1962, I'd have been dog food. And if you're my dad reading this, I'm totally chaste. Totally.

A reunion

Nothing is quite so restorative as spending a weekend with old friends and celebrating your accomplishments.

That is exactly what I got to do.

This past weekend was my 20th college reunion. My college is Brown University. 20 years ago this past Sunday, my friends and I donned black gowns and caps and walked through the Van Wickle Gates (and how much do you love that that links to the Encyclopedia Brunoniana?) and down college hill. Those gates are open only three times a year: when the incoming freshmen walk up the hill and on to campus, and when the graduating seniors do the reverse, let loose on the world.

So that's where I begin: Commencement. The ceremony is like a sock, and then the sock inverts. What I mean is that the oldest alumni lead the procession through the gates, and they stop at the top of the hill. Behind them are progressively younger classes, which walk through the gates, in between the older classes, and then they take their places further down the hill, to watch classes below them walk past. When all the alumni have taken their spots, then the med school grads and graduate students walk through, and finally the graduating seniors walk through, all 1,500 or so of them. 

Once they have gone by, all the faculty walk through, followed by the oldest alumni for the inversion. Now the oldest walk down the hill through the younger alumni all the way through the current graduates.

So what it amounts to is that every class gets to walk down the hill past everyone else. Everyone who is on the sidelines claps and cheers for the classes walking through them. It’s a lot of fun.

What was very obvious to both me and Liza, who was there with me, was the changing colors of the classes as the walked through. The 75th reunion were the oldest alumni there (to spare you the math, they graduated in 1935), only three of them, and everyone was white all the way to 1970.

The class of 1970, which honestly is the best class ever, walked through wearing tie-die t-shirts, flashing the peace sign, and probably stoned. 

The class of ’70 always shows up in force at the reunions, and they are by far the most party class. Last reunion I had to walk by the dorm where the class of ’70 was housed, and at any time of the day or night, music was blasting, people were out on the patio, and it was just one long party. Then I’d get to class of ’90, my class, and it was crickets. They just don’t make ‘em like they used to!

Where was I? Oh yeah, class of ’70. In that class was a sprinkling of non-white faces. By the class of ’75, the next reunion, there were more faces of color (and some of those guys were out dancing the night before, and they certainly knew their steps), and each reunion class got more and more interesting, more and more diverse. Until the class of 2010 walked through, and then you couldn’t tell who was what anymore, there were all colors, physiognomies, hair, eyes, mixes you have never seen before and everything in between. Real diversity. It was amazing and inspiring to watch.

Once the graduating seniors walk through, then the oldest classes came down the hill through all the younger classes. The first were the class of 1935, the 75th reunion

and then on down. Finally it became our turn, we filed down the hill and past the graduating seniors in their caps and gowns. Walking through those amazing young people, who all clapped and cheered for the classes gone before them, was incredible. There was screaming, and laughing, and high fives to as many people as we could, and an amazing bonding that will be reinforced every five years.

The funny aspect to walking through the graduates was that they reeked of alcohol so much that we totally got a contact buzz!

Rancho Los Alamitos, Long Beach

Saturday mom and I went on a tour of the house and gardens at this historic ranch, Rancho Los Alamitos in Long Beach. We went with the Women's Committee of the Brown Club of So Cal (that's the last picture, our group). The gardens have an amazing variety of plants and flowers. So here are a few pics, and if you're a fan of flora please see the Flickr set. There are LOTS more on Flickr. LOTS.

Historic Theater District

As I mentioned in my previous post, today we went on a walking tour of the downtown theater district. I cannot write a very thorough post about everything we saw, but here are some pics. The entire photo stream is here.

 
The Million Dollar Theater.

 
The Bradbury Building. Not part of the theater tour, but we went in to take a peek anyway.

 
The Roxie.

 
The Los Angeles Theatre. 

 
The Orpheum Theatre. This had some wonderful detail. Here's one example:

  

 
The Tower Theatre.

 
The Pantages.

LAFD Fallen Firefighter Memorial

Yesterday, as I was driving to the Time-Warner Cable office to pick up my new-fangled cable box, I drove by the LAFD Hollywood Station. 

 
[plaque on the ground next to the memorial]

This is a large station, and it also happens to house the LAFD Museum. I highly recommend a visit to the museum, by the way, they have some cool old fire engines, and the volunteers are a treasure trove of information. Every time I go I learn something new about the LAFD, as I did this time.

I pulled into the station because I realized that the Memorial was completed months ago, and I had not yet visited. I literally did a double take as I was driving by and did a screeching u-turn. I like to think it was a legal screeching u-turn, but the LAPD might have thought otherwise. For the record, it was a safe screeching u-turn, I was the only one on that particular street at that particular moment. Anyway.

  

On the wall are the names of the fallen firefighters. The ones who died while fighting a fire have the Maltese cross next to their name

  

I went inside the museum to ask about the cross and also found out that the early fire departments were all volunteer. I was also to that currently, the only volunteer fire department in California is in Sierra Madre, all the rest are professional.

The volunteer at the Museum told me that the early fire departments sprung up around bars because that's where lots of men could be found gathered reliably (heh heh), so it was easy to get a group of guys to run and help with a fire. At some point, fire departments were part of insurance companies, and they would put out the fire at structures insured by that particular company. So if the building across the street was not insured, they would just let it burn. I will not make the painfully obvious comparison with the current health care system. Oops. Just did.

Reciprocity is also apparently something that kicked in around the '40s and '50s. Reciprocity is when there's a fire over here, and that department over there rushes in to help, even though technically the fire is not in their jurisdiction.

Keep in mind I got this information on the fly, and am not certain of the dates. Regardless, interesting, no? There's some more LAFD history here.

Please do go visit the museum and memorial, and bring the kiddies, it will be worth your time. And while you're there, support the LAFD Historical Society.

China's Terra Cotta Warriors

Next Saturday I'm going to the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana to see this fantastic exhibit. I'm thrilled, and will take as many pictures as they allow me to take. Without a flash, obvy. [Photo courtesy of the Bowers Museum website.]