A few weeks ago I did manage to brush my intimidation aside and pay a first-time visit to MOCA to see the cool exhibition of Weegee’s Hollywood period photographs, but — pardon the digression — then I wandered around the museum’s permanent exhibit and found this piece of crap stuck to the wall, which reinforced both my abject disdain for “contemporary art” and my urge to punish whoever curated it with an extended indian-burn session to the forearm of his or her choosing.

Detail from the 1938 Kirkman-Harriman map depicting Los Angeles County in 1860.

So instead of getting all wound up trying to eenie-meanie-miney-mo to which big box the next I’d go, instead I brought along my inner map geek and together we ventured yesterday to the first floor galleries of the Central Library downtown where I spent an extended segment of the afternoon marveling at the selection of kick-ass cartography displayed as part of  its “As The City Grew: Historical Maps of Los Angeles” exhibit.

The 34 maps arrayed go back to the mid-1800s and offer an awesome and up-close glimpse back into our city as it was and as it became. Unlike the aforementioned contemporary bullshit I encountered, some of the maps are true and intricate works of art, and I would highly recommend paying them a visit whether you just find yourself in the library’s vicinity or are in between far better-decided visits than mine to the myriad Pacific Standard Time venues.

WHERE: Los Angeles Public Library, Central Branch, 630 W. 5th St, 90071
WHEN: Through November 4, 2012
COST: Free

Do you remember the movie Airplane?

Remember the two gentlemen who spoke “Jive?” Remember the subtitles at the bottom that translated what they were saying? Remember whenever one of them would say a certain word, the subtitle always translated it as “Golly?”

Such fun.

It’s in this spirit I would like to remind you, one and all, that The Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nothin’ to Trifle With!

(And if you haven’t seen Airplane, get your golly together and watch the trifling thing.)

In Any Case, I’m giving away Tickets to see The Wu on Saturday, Jan 21st! Wanna Go?

Email your Full Legal Name as it appears on your Legal Driver’s Licence or State ID card to blacontests@gmail.com

Winners will be notified and will show said ID at the Will Call booth the night of the show to claim tickets. Protect your neck.

Wu-Tang Featuring All Original Members: RZA, GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God and Masta Killa
Saturday January 21, 2012
Club Nokia
Los Angeles, California
Show time: 9:00pm
Door time: 8:00pm
Age: All Ages+

Step to the Wu.

I’m really jazzed that the L.A. Auto Show has invited me back for Press Days this year which is this Wednesday and Thursday.  There is so much going on with some 50 premieres set for those days.  Add in the Green Car of the Year award and the press days driving of the green cars there is much to do and tell about.

Among the things I’ve got going on includes an interview with the GM head of Electric Vehicles set for Weds AM.  With Electric Vehicles, “EV” in trade talk starting to show up here on the L.A. roads I have more than a few questions to ask him on the topic.  First and foremost is with L.A. considered one of the most EV ready cities in the country, what all does GM have in store to make them appealing to us and actually get us in those machines.

There will be a Sneak Preview night, it is pricey but the cost of admission goes to support Homeless Health Care Los Angeles and One Voice.  This is a great way to be wined and dined (well hors d’ouvres actually) while enjoying the Auto Show without the usual crowds. I”m sorely tempted to go as it is helping a couple of good causes which makes it worth the cost of admission.

Bringing the family to the auto show is actually a pretty good idea.  Once the little ones tire of looking at the shiny new cars and concepts they can be dropped off at the Kids Zone.  The Kids Zone is a regular institution at the L.A. Auto Show at this point.  It is a safe place, ID needed to check them in and out.  I dropped my kids off there for just that reason when they were under 12.  Its a safe place with arts and crafts, bouncey houses and such to keep them occupied while you enjoy the rest of the show.

Now for the contest.  I already mentioned that I get to interview a GM exec about EVs. What questions would you like answered?  The best question…on topic I get will win the tickets.  Contest closes Tuesday at 6pm at which time I’ll announce the winner and contact them for your mailing address to send out the tickets.    For this reason make sure you comment with an email addy I can access.

For all the information you could want about this years L.A. Auto Show you can get it at their web HERE.

And while I enjoy going to the theater from time to time, I would hardly consider myself an informed critic.

And now that I’ve gotten my excuses out of the way, I’m happy to say that I really enjoyed the opening night performance of “The Language Archive,” which took place last night at the David Henry Hwang Theater in Little Tokyo.

The play is an exploration of how love, language, meaning, and relationships intersect, all portrayed through a mix of humor, philosophical meanderings, and emotional gravity. The East West Players did a very nice job hitting these various notes through most of the play, with my personal favorites being Ryun Yu as George and Jennifer Chang as Emma.

The play centers on an incredibly intelligent linguist whose marriage is falling apart because he doesn’t know how to express his feelings to her. And yet, she also seems to be unable to tell him what it is that she wants from him. Full disclosure: I have an MA in English and my first (and only) wife left due in large part to strained communications. So, you know, I’ve gotta back George a little bit on this one. His wife, Mary (Kimiko Gelman), plays games like leaving notes hinting at her unhappiness, but refuses to admit she’s left the notes or discuss her expectations openly with him.

The play takes its name from George’s work, the language archive, which involves cataloging and recording samples of dying languages. I particularly enjoyed Cho’s juxtaposition of dying languages and strained relationships, especially as it is illustrated through the relationship of Resten and Alta (Nelson Mashita and Jeanne Sakata), whose native language Elloway will die with them. Alta explains that the death of a language is simply the final breath of a dying culture: “Our world is already gone. No amount of talk talk talk will ever bring it back.” This observation not only evokes the idea of an ever-increasing level of homogeneity among world cultures—an enduring concern for Asian American communities, among many others—but it also reflects back on the failing marriage between George and Mary, whose inability to communicate may have more to do with their lack of a common culture than with their difficulties speaking to one another in a common language. George’s culture is that of a devoted linguist, and Mary is, as we come to learn later, unsure of what the hell she wants to do with herself.

There were a few things about the play that, while humorous, didn’t seem entirely necessary. In the opening lines of the play, for example, George is addressing the audience directly, and then Mary stops him and explains, “I’m right here. I can hear you.” While this unexpected break in form was certainly a good laugh, it didn’t seem to add anything substantial to the play, and didn’t return at any point beyond that first instance. Little moments such as this didn’t necessarily detract from the play, but they did have a cumulative effect of making the play feel as though it may be trying too hard to be cute and funny.

At other moments, the play felt as though it was about to cross the line from sentiment into sentimentality, or from pensive to overly philosophical. These moments seemed to be concentrated in the soliloquys delivered by Mary and Emma, speeches that seem almost to spell out motivations and conclusions for the audience that the writer might have feared wouldn’t fully be captured by the audience. Still, as close as Cho seems to come to crossing the line in these moments, for the most part the writing manages to stop just short of committing these types of literary sins. And when Ryun, Kimiko, and Jennifer delivered some of their more emotionally evocative lines of soliloquy, I thought they hit the mark quite well.

I imagine if we studied this play in one of the literary theory courses I took, we would probably spend at least a little bit of time talking about how feminist theory might view this play. The play opens with Mary performing the duties of the “traditional housewife,” and her escape to true happiness involves cooking—becoming a baker, taking on responsibility for Mr. Baker’s “seed” dough. Alta’s sense of security in her marriage to Resten is tied up inextricably with his appreciation for her cooking: “She would strap an oven to her back if she could.” Emma’s love of George is all tied up in her role as his lab assistant, her devotion to ensuring that everything in the lab is always set up just how he needs it to be. But my literary theory class is long over with, so I suppose I don’t have to linger on that point too long.

The set was very interesting and elaborate, but not to the point of being over the top or a distraction from the play itself. The music and sound effects were quite effective and seemed only to add to the play’s strengths. This was my first time visiting the David Henry Hwang Theater, and I found it to be a comfortable and relaxing environment for the play. All in all, I really enjoyed this play. Here are details from the press release:

All performances of THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE will be staged at the David Henry Hwang Theater at the Union Center for the Arts at 120 Judge John Aiso St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE opens Wednesday, November 9, 2011 and closes on Sunday, December 4, 2011. Opening night will be accompanied by a pre-performance cocktail reception and a post-show reception with the cast and creative team. Performances are Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 2pm. Previews are Thursday–Saturday November 3–5, at 8pm and Sunday, November 6 at 2pm. The Pay-What-You-Can Performance will be held Wednesday, November 23 at 8 pm with a suggested $5 minimum donation.

General Admission Tickets range from $3 I – $41. Preview tickets are $20 for all seats. Please call theatre for opening night ticket availability and special event pricing. For ticket purchases or more information, please call East West Players at (213) 625-7000 or visit www.eastwestplayers.org. Senior, student and group discounts are available. Dates, prices, and details are subject to change.

And here are photos of the cast in action, courtesy of Michael Lamont, via the East West Players’ press kit:

Rex Bruce’s exhibit “Moving Violations” opens for a 2 month run at the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art on October 13.  The opening reception will be that day held in conjunction with the Downtown LA Art Walk.

Moving Violations is a capture of life in LA through the windows of a moving car.  It is really a commentary on the destruction of the city and its environment done by the cars that we pretty much live in getting from place to place.  The exhibit is still images and video aimed at a sensory overload with a political message.  The full artists bio and description of the show can be found HERE.  In the artists words:

The work is pretty self explanatory—toxic SoCal overkill and maximum carbon emission, but it is informed by a particular vision of my era that has coalesced in my mind.

Deets:October 13-December 3, Reception Thursday October 13, 7-9pm, 102 W 5th Street, Los Angeles CA 90013 MAP HERE.

On Bunker Hill has blogs and historical archives of the history we lost when Downtown LA grew so explosively after World War II.  George Mann has quite the historical archive of images of some of the old homes that once stood on Bunker Hill taken in the 40′s and 50′s.  (They are for sale too if you are so inclined).  A little quoted from their blog to get you interested in checking out the site:

Bunker Hill is a ghost, and though you may today walk streets named Grand and Hope and imagine that you stand where once were grand Victorian homes turned flophouses, you are in fact one hundred feet beneath the old roads, which the city shaved away to make a wider footprint for the high rise tenants that replaced them.

Its always just a little interesting to see what we have lost in the name of progress.

The clip is made up of several segments, and is literally the next best thing to actual time travel. As best as I can plot it the car follows this route from 2nd Street to Grand, to 5th Street to Flower and back up to 2nd. I’ve already spent too much time scrolling through it frame by frame just entirely mindblown at the slice-of-life details to be discovered in the people and places and passenger vehicles the camera captures in passing, and invite you to get lost in this record of a long-gone Bunker Hill (best viewed full screen in 1080p) :

National Watergun Fight Poster click to embiggen

The poster says it all, National Water Gun Fight is Saturday July 30.  Should be fun and I doubt that any governing or policing body has sanctioned this event so do be forewarned.  4 hours seems like a long time for a water fight and nothing is said regarding where one can refill their gun when its been exhausted…pesky details.  Regardless break out your super-soaker and go to town downtown.

Deets:11AM-3PM July 30, 2011.  Pershing Square, Downtown Los Angeles Map HERE.

Highlights from the exhibit after the jump.