REDONDOWRITER'S SACRED ORDINARY

Memories of Chinese New Year at the Huntington Gardens

When I visited the Huntington Gardens on Saturday with my family, we were totally unaware a Chinese New Year Celebration was going on that weekend. Here are a few of my photos I thought you might enjoy. 

Incidentally, for those of you who may never have visited the Huntington Library and Gardens, their website has a wonderful set of online video and audio tours as well as many podcast lectures and virtual galleries. 

You can experience the inspiration behind Liu Fang Yuan, The Garden of Flowing Fragrance at The Huntington at this link as well as seeing other online tours and podcasts available. 

 

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Went To Jung's Red Book Exhibition at the Hammer Museum L.A.

Jung's Red Book exhibition ends on June 6 and I keep telling myself to drive to Los Angeles to see it before it is too late. But, I kept procrastinating. I've never been to the Hammer Museum and I am getting more reticent to drive around the city alone than I used to, especially to places unknown to me. (I do not like this part of growing older!) This morning and early afternoon I spent at the 80th birthday brunch of a dear friend and at 1:30 p.m., when it ended, I decided, on the spur of the moment, to drive to Westwood to the Hammer Museum where the exhibition is. My choice of a day was perfect--very little traffic on the 405 and the museum was not crowded.

Though the exhibition itself was somewhat anti-climatic given that I've been reading the actual Red Book, and because the room was small with no place to sit and contemplate, I felt somewhat frustrated. And yet, when I got home, I wrote in my journal a long time and I haven't been doing much of that lately either. This Friday night is the last lecture--Jack Kornfield and Katharine Sanford. To my delight, all the lectures are available at the website above. Photos were not allowed, even with flash suppressed but the Red Book itself, which was a gift from one of my son's for Christmas, provides far more information than the exhibit provided.

I was absolutely enchanted with the Hammer Museum which is part of UCLA. It's easy to get to, parking is available at a decent rate, and it's right off the 405. All the other exhibitions I saw today were excellent--well worth the drive. In the courtyard, outside the Billy Wilder Theater, five musicians were playing what I call tone poems and the acoustics were excellent. Seeing the actual Hammer Collection including many masterpieces by artists who are household names was a high point. I stood in front of this Van Gogh of the asylum in Arles mesmerized me. I will return to this venue repeatedly now that I've "found" it.

If you would like to read in depth about this exhibition, the first link will tell you many details. The Hammer website is a very good one.

I started thinking about my reticence to drive to the museum alone today and it kind of puzzled me. I have been to New York five times with students and went all over the city alone using public transportation. I've driven alone throughout New England, including Boston, and have seen a lot of Washington state by myself in a rental car. I am going to Washington again this summer, but now I am beginning to feel anxious about that.

For years I've been meaning to visit the Jung Institute in Los Angeles and today's visit to the Hammer has me adding that to my summer list of places to go and things to see. 

In only three weeks I'll be off for the summer and I'm trying to get organized so the days don't just slip by.

St. Mary Unity Chorus of South Bay Gets on Down

Tonight was the annual talent show at the Unity Church of the South Bay and the finale featured the St. Mary Chorus which started very sweet with "My God."

 

I can't even remember what the next two numbers were, but believe me, these ladies became their rendition of "Sister Act." Seems one woman came up with this idea because she always wanted to play Whoopee Goldberg's part. But wouldn't you know it? She called in sick. The rest of the chorus, however, took up the slack and brought the house down.

 

The main reason I wanted to go, however, was to hear my long-time friend Rick, who turns 80 this fall, along with another friend Charla, present their rendition of Gene Krupa's "Swing, Swing, Swing."

There were several performances tonight including some with the church kids and I was so touched how easy it was to be totally entertained right in my hometown without having to pay big concert ticket prices. What fun we had.

Annual Visit With San Francisco's Chanticleer

Last night my friends and I made our yearly trek to Disney Hall for Chanticleer's Christmas concert. Chanticleer, the renowned San Francisco Men's Chorus, was well worth the drive in an unusual rain storm where traffic creeped. We built in a few hours just in case and I'm glad we did. Thanks, Barbara, for driving. My friend Hazel's daughter is the Executive Director of this choral group which tours around the world throughout the year. Our special treat this particular year was the after-concert reception in Disney's Founders Circle for a Patina buffet and rubbing shoulders with the group and with Disney Hall's top donors, courtesy of our friend's daughter. I actually recognized a few people, but the men in the chorus freely mixed with us. I just love this group.

Chanticleer was recently named the 2008 “Ensemble of the Year” by the editors of the Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts, the first time a vocal ensemble has been so recognized. Want a taste of Chanticleer? This video is from the Today Show on December 3, though you do have to endure one Toyota commercial to get to it. If you visit Chanticleer's website above, you can listen to other pieces as well.

Chanticleer sings ‘Carol of the Bells’

Check out their concert schedule for 2008 as they may well be appearing in your city or a town near you.

Yesterday I Heard the Mermaids Singing

Last night I watched a 1987 Canadian movie written and produced by Patricia Rozema and starring totally winsome and loveable Sheila McCarthy called "I've Heard the Mermaids Singing." 1987 was a very transitional year for me personally, one filled with pain and joy, which all came flooding back after the film was over. This movie serendipitiously opened a Pandora'€™s box but I'm ready to put what came out back in.

On the box of the DVD this question is asked, "Isn't life the strangest thing you've ever seen?" And I give a resounding shout "Right on." McCarthy plays awkward, shy, frighteningly natural, and funny Polly Vandersma, an organizationally impaired temporary assistant to a pretentious, French art gallery owner. This film is considered one of Canada'€™s 10 best films ever. It's avant garde, but I loved it like I have long loved "Being John Malkovich."

But, seeing the characters quirkily interact, the clothing, hairstyles, cultural beliefs and euphemisms for that period of time 20 years ago really did trigger memories. Their exaggerated personality characteristics, the flash backs in McCarthy's life, her report of it on camera kind of like the YouTube we know now, the transitions from color to black and white, her romantic longing, and the music made me soar, laugh and wince especially when I recognized my own self doubts and pretentiousness.

I did take myself very seriously in those days. In 1987 I had been separated 3 years and my divorce after 27 years of marriage became final. I was three years into my "dream job" in downtown L.A. and because I bypassed alimony, I was making enough money to support myself. I sold the family home and began the search for the digs to herald my "new life." I alternated between my taste of freedom and choice and utter despair of making mistakes without a man. I no sooner bought my new townhouse in Redondo Beach when I lost my job. This was tantamount to disaster for someone who always feared being a bag lady deep down inside. I survived working temporary jobs until a full-time one in Santa Monica presented itself. I wrote my case to request a Catholic annulment for my deceased marriage, gut-wrenching and unnecessary in retrospect. I ended a one year rebound relationship that was going nowhere and another clandestine one that had begun to drive me nuts with its unpredictableness, which was also part of its lure. I contracted a bad kidney infection and ended up in the hospital for a week--and I went on vacation to Mammoth for a week with my girlfriend where we both spent time hiking, writing, laughing, and marveling at life being the strangest thing we'd ever observed. Did I say my first grandchild was born that year?

So, that'€™s what happened and what I remembered when I watched "I've Heard the Mermaids Singing." Each week I take an exploratory visit to my local libraries where I glom onto movies that seem to leap Intuitively into my basket. It's always an adventure and this one was utter delight. Yet to come this week are "Born Into Brothels," and "Bukowski Reads at Bellevue."

Finding an Elder Heroine in Balboa Park: Eva Zeisel

For eight hours today, I wandered in San Diego’s famed Balboa Park. As always, I was mesmerized and after our private tour of the San Diego Historical Society’s archives this morning, I sat down in the grassy area and tried to plan my day. A huge Falon Gong demonstration was setting up near the Botanic Pavilion and there were street musicians, tarot card readers, lots of families, dogs and a slew of tourists slowly gathering to tour the museums and attractions. There were also many quinceanera photo shoots—and weddings galore. I have seen several of the museums in the park before and I wanted to experience some new ones—and also rest frequently and take in the people. I toured the Historical Society’s museum, went through the Botanical Pavilion, and then settled on a new-to-me museum, the Mingei International. A special exhibit of 100-year-old famed ceramist Eva Zeisel’swork absolutely captivated me. She was trained in Hungary in the Bauhaus style, lived in Germany, worked and was imprisoned in Russia, then released. She and her husband fled Germany in 1938 for the U.S. I did not know who she was until I saw the exhibit—and then her dining pieces, glass, tables, ceramic tiles et al were all very familiar. I knew her work but not her name. There was also an excellent 45 minute documentary—and I realized my path had crossed that of an extraordinary elder, someone I want to find out more about—and who, as I grow older, will continue to be a role model. She is still prolifically designing and often appears in person at her international exhibits. Nambe is apparently the funder of this exhibit.

I finished off my afternoon sitting in the huge organ pavilion where a series of organists were practicing for a concert tomorrow—and I took photos of the quinceanera parties and the public weddings in various places which will turn up here another time.

I ache so badly tonight from a long day on my feet so I’m about to take Ibuprofen and settle in with Tom Wolf’s “I Am Charlotte Simmons.” What a wonderful day I had--and it was a nice break from the classroom.

Voices of the Animal World

Imagine my delight when I opened my work e-mail today and found a flyer about a concert and collaboration that poet and writer Deena Metzger will present in Los Angeles with cellist, composer and singer Jami Sieber on Sunday, January 14. If you live in Los Angeles and you are a fan of Deena like I am, it would be a shame to miss this.

When: Sunday, January 14, 2007
Time: 2 p.m.
Where: The Ruskin Art Club
800 S. Plymouth Blvd., Los Angeles

The flyer says that "Voices of the Animal World: A Concert and Collaboration of Words and Music with Writer/Poet Deena Metzger and Cellist/Composer/Singer Jami Sieber" brings together two acclaimed artists in a performance at The Ruskin Art Club. The event is part of the series Poetry at the Ruskin, which is a collaboration between Red Hen Press and the Ruskin Art Club.

Deena Metzger will be reading from a new poetry manuscript, The Fifth Life of the Baobab Tree. Deena is a novelist, poet, essayist, storyteller and healer seeking to map the imaginal realms. She is an explorer of the deeper meanings and manifestations of story and is devoted to the restoration of creation. She is the author of many works and her latest book, From Grief Into Vision: A Council, is posted on her website and will be published by Hand to Hand in 2007. Among her other books are Entering the Ghost River: Meditations on the Theory and Practice of Healing; and the novels Doors: A Fiction for Jazz Horn, The Other Hand, both published by Red Hen Press, and What Dinah Thought. She is also the co-editor of Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals. Her most recent books of poetry are Looking for the Faces of God and A Sabbath Among The Ruins.

Jami Sieber has played and composed with the Thai Elephant Orchestra. The recording of that work is her latest CD The Hidden Sky. Deena’s poem Mandlovu became the words for Mandlovu Mind, one of the tracks on the CD. Mandlovu is an African word for female elephant. Jami is an electric and acoustic cellist, vocalist and composer. She is a celebrated pioneer of her instrument, recognized internationally, and received the Northwest Area Music Association Award for Best Rock Instrumentalist, no easy feat for a cellist. As a musician she speaks to the spirit by way of her instrument, reaching inside the soul with compositions that are contemporary, timeless, lush and powerfully evocative. She will also appear in concert at Sacred Space in Ojai, CA, on Saturday, January 12.

Kate Gale, Managing Editor of Red Hen Press, and Elena Karina Byrne, past Regional Director of the Poetry Society of America and Poetry Moderator and Consultant for the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, are the hosts for the January 14 event at the Ruskin. The 2 p.m. performance by Deena and Jami will be followed by a reception with complementary refreshments. The Ruskin Art Club was founded in 1888 and is the city's oldest cultural association. The association's 1922 clubhouse was declared a Los Angeles Historical Monument, in 1997.

The Ruskin Art Club at 800 S. Plymouth Blvd., Los Angeles, is in the Hancock Park area, just south and west of the intersection of Wilshire and Crenshaw Boulevards. Tickets are $10 for general admission and $5 for students and seniors. Seating is limited and on a first come basis. Contact: The Ruskin at 323-755-3530.