Every now and then you have a day in the city you've lived in for a long time, and you're won over all over again. Yesterday was like that for me, as we took surface streets from Pasadena to the Miracle Mile. Passing through all the brightly painted Spanish homes in Los Feliz, we let each neighborhood surround us at the perfect pace of 35 miles per hour. When you're not in a hurry, LA can be a wonderful place to tour by car. This summer, the heat has been coy--playing hard to get until October, when it will undoubtedly make up for lost time. So it was a mild low-eighty-something as we watched the mysterious tar pits bubbling, while a European folk singer stomped his feet and sang while playing fiddle in the open park. Then we took in the Catherine Opie and Thomas Eakins exhibits, so different in style but similar in subject matter. Eakins' pale athletic boatmen from the last century didn't seem so far off from Opie's adolescent football players. Both artists capture something innocent in the athletic physique. But before long, we ended up in the beautiful Broad building to see John Baldessari's work. This work takes more time to look at, making your brain do jumping jacks and every so often making you chuckle aloud. After all that art, we had worked up an appetite, so it was off to the Farmer's Market for something to eat. I mentioned to Eric that this open air food frenzy isn't a top tourist stop, but it's more like a tourist indulgence for locals. You can bring your children and let the scream and run wild while nobody notices. You can eat something greasy next to actors eating the very same thing. Nobody comes to be seen or "read scripts." People come to eat and have conversation. We settled on the French Crepe Co., a long-surviving vendor. I've never been to Paris, so I don't know how accurate these crepes are, but they taste delicious and the feeling of eating at a counter in a busy marketplace feels European for sure.
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