Ah, simpler times.

Books and media about the modern-day dilemma of finding the “right” private school for your 4 year old to attend is so overdone.  Someone needs to write a book about the travails of not interviewing, and not being interviewed by, elementary teacher-professors; about having to live with the fact that your horrible neighbors spawned their demon child the same time you did, which means their child is in your kid’s class, and there’s no imposed playroom interview to evaluate whether Chucky “fits in” with the class of ’09; and about not receiving weekly newsletter reports about how much the class is learning about organic farming.

Enter Sandra Tsing Loh, who makes an appearance on Tuesday at the Santa Monica Public Library to promote her newest book, Mother on Fire.  Mother on Fire is a memoir of her experience touring private and public school grounds in search of the right kindergarten for her daughters and (spoiler alert) chooses the public school and becomes a total PTA mom to boot.  It’s free, and you can pick up tickets an hour before the 7pm showtime.

I’m personally hoping that Tsing Loh also will offer an editorial on “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,” an essay published in this month’s issue of The Atlantic Monthly.  There, she uses her extramarital affair and subsequent divorce  (“Given my staggering working mother’s to-do list, I cannot take on yet another arduous home- and self-improvement project, that of rekindling our romance”) as a vehicle to rail against marriage (“…isn’t the idea of lifelong marriage obsolete?”).  Even though she would have a bit more credibility if she wasn’t writing this in the aftermath of a tumultuous divorce, it is a fascinating read.  Much more interesting than the kid’s story, anyway.

And Lucky You has two opportunities one opportunity, in what remains of summer, to bask in the presence of what remains of that era’s royalty, namely one Ms. Smith, in Santa Monica, starting this weekend. The first one costs $30; the second is free.

On Saturday, August 1st, Santa Monica Museum of Art will be the setting for An Evening with Patti Smith, featuring an improvisational performance by PS and clips from Steve Sebring’s 2008 documentary, Patti Smith: Dream of Life. (7 PM; $30, Sold out, but the doc is now on DVD.)

Then, on Thursday, September 3rd, Patti Smith and her Band will perform at the closing night of the Santa Monica Pier Twilight Dance Series, a two-month program of free concerts that began in early July. (7 PM; free)

Maybe some of you were lucky enough to be at her season closer show at the pier  two years ago (I was) and need another shot (I do.)

At first, I thought I was looking at a sale flyer for Pavillions.

Not being a smoker, I usually find second-hand smoke annoying in outdoor dining areas at restaurants, on beaches and at other public spaces. But do I need a cutesy ad campaign with precious graphics and copy to announce that smoking is a big fat no-no?

How about a simple, official-looking “No smoking allowed under penalty of law” sign instead of this silly poster campaign that the city of Santa Monica is spending $150,000 to execute? (There are four other versions.)

Instead of stating forthrightly that smoking in an area is illegal, why make it seem like it’s an option if you’re really not in the mood for yucky asparagus?

In 2007, Santa Monica banned smoking in most popular public spaces, like the Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica Pier and Pacific Park. The ban also applies to outdoor common areas such as bus stops, ATM lines, local beaches and 20 feet from the entrances of any public building.

In 2008, the law was extended to include restaurants’ outdoor dining and waiting areas.

In today’s NY Times, Adam Radinsky, Santa Monica’s deputy city attorney, says he thinks the cuteness  factor is “playful, a fun type of campaign, not too much the government telling you what to do, not too Big Brother-ish.”

I like to think I’m as liberal as the next Whole Foods shopper, but is a touchy-feely, Sesame Street approach to enforcing laws supposed to inspire confidence in government?

With more than 85,400 veterans interred across its 114 acres, the cemetery — 120 years old this year — is a solemn and poignant and historic place any day, but on this particular weekend with each grave bearing a flag it is especially so.

Since the official ceremony is tomorrow, this morning was quiet. Not more than a handful of visitors were on the premises. Nevertheless when my friend Hap and I arrived we were told immediately by the groundskeeper to walk our bikes so we wondered why, but respectfully obeyed the order and locked up near the chapel to wander around on foot.

I’m the kind of sap that won’t stand for a fallen flag and will go way out of my way to right the ones that I see downed.  But graves unadorned as those two that I found near to where we’d secured our bikes? Inconceivable.

I made things right at the first grave with one flag found just stuck in the ground near nothing in particular. But I wasn’t so fortunate with the second site. So I tried the chapel door and it was locked, but a lady approaching it told me where the restrooms were.

“Thank you, but I don’t need a restroom. I need a flag for a grave I found without one.”

Her eyes went wide and she motioned for me to follow her around the side of the building where we found the same groundskeeper who’d earlier told us to dismount. She asked him to get me a flag and he gruffly trudged off to a storage shed with me bringing up the rear.

As he rummaged around inside the dark room, he mumbled something about that not being the only grave the boy scouts missed this year, so I asked him how long it took to plant all the flags.

“About two-and-a-half hours,” he said unimpressed.

But I was: “Wow! That’s fast.”

“Well, there’s 2,700 of them.”

“Oh, well then pffft,” I said. But I was still impressed.

He soon came out with a flag in his hand that was wrinkled and a bit faded but otherwise ready for the light of day.

“The kids I can tolerate,” he said, handing it to me. “It’s some of the parents I can’t stand.”

I chuckled my understanding and thanked him for his help. Then went and I placed that flag atop the undecorated grave and soon after Hap and I were on our way.

Oxford Street Dance Theater presents Fusion
The Miles Memorial Playhouse
1130 Lincoln Blvd
Santa Monica
Tickets $15 in advance here/$20 at the door
Various dates from May 7 – 17.

Please pass the saccharine

For the third installment of this occasional series, I again fail to stay within the actual borders of Los Angeles proper, straying again into one of those Island municipalities that dot our landscape within LA county.  Tonight found a strange lesson in the kitsch back rooms of the ever hip city of Santa Monica.

My journey for the evening took me first to Santa Monica’s Laemmle theater to see the documentary Enlighten Up!, which carries the tagline “A skeptics journey into the world of yoga.” I will return to this after the fold, but let me foreshadow the after-movie dinner at Gates of India, around the corner from the theater.  Such is the source of this installment’s artistic sampler.  In defense of the restaurant, it has a distinct disconnect between its serving area and its restroom, a pattern I somehow expect to find throughout this series.  The front room is quite replete with fairly interesting Indian artifacts, with nary a whiff of Hallmark Americana schlock.

To enter the front of Gates of India, one passes through a carved hard wood arch (freestanding, past the actual architectural entrance).  I cannot speak to its “authenticity,” but the style is plausibly similar to Indian classicism.  The ceiling is covered with tapestries.  The walls have a number of interesting metal-inlay and other attractively detailed door fronts, I suppose suggestive of eating in an Indian palace, perhaps in which one might imagine each door leading to some other interesting room or realm.  True enough that the decor does start to border on garish with an excess of detail, and perhaps an excess of literalism in its illustration of the name of the restaurant.  Nonetheless, it convincingly carries the feel of a pleasant indian restaurant, even with bits of too plain drywall showing through the decoration in places.  The food is good and well presented, even if nothing terribly special among the large number of wonderful Indian restaurants in LA.

The shock, of course, comes in this other world of the restrooms at back. Sterile unadorned walls would speak to the plain functionality of the location.  Here the men’s room is shown above the fold, the women’s below it.  Somehow I think the men’s room version is even more laden with vacuous sentimentality in its painting, but both have plenty of this to go around.  What exactly motivates the desire of so many restaurants to put such utterly incongruous pieces above their sinks? Do the owners feel that the “restaurant experience” mandates some display of decorative flourish here, and think this need served by even the most pro-forma gestures toward artistic accouterment?

Watteau visits Branson

My rhetorical questions probably already reach the limit of what I can say about this contrast, at this point. Perhaps sociologically astute readers have some greater insight that I can ruthlessly crib for later installments. So I reckon I’ll return to the promise of the pre-meal movie.

There was something–well, a number of things–interesting about Enlighten Up!. A Western interest in yoga, conceived sometimes in various faddish or new-age ways, is certainly not a special characteristic of Los Angeles, but surely we have earned a place in this pantheon.  The documentary, while not a particularly brilliant one, did an interesting job of showing and interviewing a good number of the best known yogis, both in India and in the United States.  The premise of trying to bring main subject, skeptical journalist Nick Rosen, towards yogic enlightenment works plausibly well, even if the premise is slightly forced.  The framing device, at the least, got the interviews and taped teaching/practice sessions that make the bulk of the film.

A curious feature of the documentary, however, was how its directory/writer achieved–either on purpose or inadvertently–a dual presence in the film.  On the one hand Kate Churchill decided and created the framing and points of identification in the film.  In essence, we remain sympathetic with Rosen’s skepticism, while still listening respectfully to the explanations of the various yogis.  However, Churchill also appears occasionally on camera, herself interviewed, or off camera asking the questions of Rosen or other subjects.  In these cases we find her moderately unsympathetic, since she seems only to be pushing Rosen towards her predetermined goal of transformative enlightenment through the means of yoga practice.  She is certainly no villain here, but nonetheless it feels like the takeaway is that her simplified goal is somewhat misguided (or at least overzealous).  The narrative voice of reason is our very fulcrum by which we critique the non-detachment of its narrator.

Johnathan sings of “Nature’s Mosquito” that “You see, God put me here just the same as he put you, so I’m nature’s mosquito. And that means I’m gonna go bite-bite-bitie-witie-wite-sir.”  Or of a discarded “Chewing Gum Wrapper,” “These colors move me more than most of what I see today.  I love the faded colors like would end up at the dump,  My heart goes bumpety, bumpety, bumpety bump.” Or yet again, of his “Dodge VegOMatic” that although it sits in the parking lot, with brakes of glass and tires of vinyl, he “likes this car a lot.”

Not all of his songs are quite as silly, but they all have a joie de vivre to them.  Singing about Los Angeles is not different.  [...]His iconizing Los Angeles song has a somewhat peculiar temporal frame for me.  Johnathan apparently lived in LA during the 1970s, for a bit of his early career.  However, it took until 1992′s I, Johnathan for him to set the experience to lyrics in “Rooming House on Venice Beach.”  1992 was already a time for a very different LA than was 1976; however, I never actually knew the song until I moved to LA in 2006, and quite by chance bought that album. By the time I heard it, I already knew Los Angeles well enough to nod in agreement with Johnathan rather than merely listen with wide-eyed novelty about this strange place I might someday go.

So a bit of feel of the 1970s in Venice, which somehow feels a lot like Venice of the 2000s.

It was rough rough rough

With ancient rustic hippie stuff

It was cheap cheap cheap

Nowadays I hear that rents are steep

It was eerie, eerie, eerie

Followers of Watts and Leary

You could walk walk walk

To Marina del Rey by the dock

Oh the ancient world was in my reach

From my rooming house on Venice Beach.

Sure seems to copy the eternal Venice feel, in just a few lines, no?  Let’s try a little bit more of the lyrics:

It was a rooming house on venice beach

About half a block

To the ancient sea which i could reach

With half a walk

The ancient weird guy in his toga

Staff in hand

The ancient bearded guy doing yoga

On the sand

Oh the ancient world was in my reach

From my rooming house on venice beach

It makes me so terribly sad I had to be out of town when Johnathan played the El Ray a few months back. I sure hope he’ll make it back this way. Check him out if you ever have a chance, it’s an amazing live show. Not really chiefly for the musicality–though Johnathan and the musicians he works with are indeed startlingly talented–but mostly for the overwhelming charm and authenticity he exudes. Y’know, those very Los Angeles qualities.

Unfortunately, I was not able to find a video or linkable sound file for the title song of this post. As a compromise, I’ll leave you with a different old place song from Johnathan, “New England”.

Also read more posts in this series.

Beyond cookery, Julia was an unabashed supporter of a number of causes, including Planned Parenthood.  She even wrote a fundraiser letter on their behalf in 1982 (“Few politicians will take the risk of publicly supporting either contraception or abortion – and who is ‘for abortion’ anyway?  We are concerned with choice.”).  Apt, then, was her appearance at Planned Parenthood’s inaugural Food Fare in 1979, a food tasting and fundraising event.  As the event became an annual bash, she made subsequent appearances, even managing to get out there in 2002, two years before she died at 91.  Now, that is commitment!

Filling Julia’s big shoes at this year’s Food Fare (at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium) were Suzanne Goin (chef-owner of Lucques and AOC) and Nancy Silverton (former owner of La Brea Bakery and current co-owner/chef of Mozza).  Sadly, there were no cooking demonstrations; they were present just to autograph their respective cookbooks.  There also were tasting booths, vendors selling womanly wares like purses and children’s goods, and, as this was a fundraiser, a silent auction.  The tickets themselves weren’t cheap: $125 for the day session and $175 for the more happening night session.  I usually am extremely skeptical of well-to-do crowds congregating for fundraisers in which their donations help boost their ego, and, incidentally, their cause, but this event generally smacked less of privilege and more of an old-fashioned benefit ball.

Chatting with Suzanne Goin about her new restaurant, food tastings, and winning strategies for silent auctions after the jump.

Top left: Clementine's Annie Miller (I think). Top right: Suzanne Goin!!!!. Sitting: Nancy Silverton

Now, to appreciate this paragraph, you have to understand that I am in love with Suzanne Goin.  One of the very few female chefs to attain any semblance of national prominence, I am in love with her, her food, her quiet but exuding confidence in her food, everything.  Whenever I have a problem or need inspiration, I consult her difficult-but-still-manageable cookbook, Sunday Suppers with Lucques.  My copy is dog-eared; there are post-its everywhere; the sweet onion tart recipe has a weird caked-on flour stain for some inexplicable reason; the cover is torn in a few places.  This is the book I brought for her to sign.  “Thanks for taking good care of this book!” she wrote.  Ha ha!  I love her even more!  I asked her about her new restaurant in Brentwood (at the former Hamburger Hamlet space).  The final word: she’s set to open it on April 15 with 7am to midnight operating hours.  I am super excited about this, especially the fact that it will be open for breakfast – even with Huckleberry opening recently, there is a serious deficit of solid breakfast fare on the Westside.

Afterwards, I roamed the floor, looking for foods to try.  There were lots.

Left to right: Clementine’s fudgy but not chewy cookies; Compartes‘ truffles; Border Grill’s pear and endive salad (that was spicier than it looks) and cochinita pibil (this was flavorful, but the rendition at Chichen Itza is better); Gonpachi’s shrimp ball that was not as difficult to eat as it looks; and Akasha’s not-too-mayonaissey egg salad on pumpernickel.

The highlight of the event, besides Suzanne Goin (!!!), was Gail Silverton’s Gelato Bar, tucked away in the corner of the room.

Gail serving strawberry chip gelato.

The final product: go there now.

This was absolutely amazing, stop-reading-and-go-there-now gelato.  Gail (aka (probably to her annoyance) Nancy Silverton’s sister) was the last person I expected to serve up my sample size gelato, but there she was, and telling me to come back to try the rest of the flavors to boot.  I came back about 3 more times; as she fed me one sample after another, we chatted: why most gelaterias taste like ice cream (traditional gelato contains whole milk and no cream, so the difference probably is there), why gelato is served with those tiny spoon shovels (the small size of a proper gelato cup necessitates a utensil smaller than an American-sized silver spoon), and Chowhound, which is a higher form of Yelp, or at least the ‘Hounds would like to think so.  I noted that all ‘Hounds seem to universally recommend Gelato Bar.  Gail said she used to follow the threads, but then was a bit miffed when someone wrongly accused her of making the gelato from cans or tins.  “First of all, how do you even can gelato??”  Ahh, Chowhound, both the best and worst resource of information …

As this was an auction as well as a tasting event, there were all sorts of items up for bidding.  The trick seemed to be getting your bids in right before the auction closed, and, in the meantime, circling your coveted item like  a hawk, being sure to angrily eye anyone who picked up the pen to bid.  If done properly, you could have won Tommy Lasorda wines (who knew he sold wines??), a dog training class for your “alpha” dog, “Fun with Warren Beatty,” gift cards, etc.  Surprisingly (or not, given the price of the admission ticket), the starting bids for these items were fairly low.  If you played your cards right, you probably could have won something for less than its actual value.  And, this being LA, no event is complete without a chance to win a non-speaking, definitely non-union, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it walk-on role on a tv show – here, that sappy Sally Field drama, “Brothers & Sisters.”

Overall, I’m not sure that there was $125 worth of free tastings here, but it was still a very fun event for an incredibly significant cause.  We’re concerned with freedom of choice. Ah, Julia.  You helped kick off a nice thing here.  Until next year …

The NY Times’ The Moment blog posted this morning about a few new shops in Venice. NYT continues to ramp up their LA coverage for the SoCal print edition, so it’s nice to see that happening on their website too.

Businesses mentioned are Big Red Sun, Venice Beach Wines, C.A.V.E. and Parker Pettit.

This summer has sorta sucked in terms of getting to the beach for water play.  Probably the worst in 8 years.  Between a wreck that laid me up for a while, kids in summer school, kids in summer camps, summer basketball league in The Valley of all god forsaken places, time to round everyone up for a day at the beach has been next to impossible.

Today finally all the schedules came together.  The boys and I finally got to go to the beach.  Water play day for the boys. We grabbed the boogie boards and headed straight down the 605.  Even the commute gods wanted us to play today as they cleared the freeway for us an we were at our summer home in Bolsa Chica, good old Tower 22 in 30 minutes.  Thank you someone for watching out for us.

For the rest of the story you need to make the jump…I am a stinker after all.

We arrived to brilliant blue skies, Mike hit the water first.

Long Beach and Santa Monica were shrouded in a thick marine layer, we picked the perfect beach for a play day!

The waves were pretty crappy, at least the beach was pretty empty…did I mention it was a perfectly crystal clear day?

Secret to survival at the OC beaches…arrive early if you want a fire pit for later.  You’ll fry your brains all day, but come dusk when you want a sunset BBQ you have a pit.

The Bolsa Cafe and Rentals is the only food place on the beach.  I do better with a picnic lunch as I can load it up with water, fruit and other goodies far cheaper than I can buy it there.  They do however have “world famous pink popcorn” which I an told is like a loose popcorn ball and very sweet.  Certainly not the variety of Venice Beach, but then again they don’t have “pink popcorn” so they may not be the end all after all.

You can rent boogie boards, bicycles and these bicycle-cart-thingies-with-a-surrey-with-fringe-on-top, but they do cost a quite a bit, just short of an appendage so be prepared if you want to do that rather than haul your own bikes down.

OK, so here’s how I mooned OC.  It wasn’t a full moon which is lucky for a more than a few on shore I suppose.  Joey and I were on a wave that broke early and very hard.  He cut in front of me as we started to barrel roll.  He grabbed for me.  He thought he grabbed my boogie board cord.  It was my swim trunk tie.  He went rolling with the cord.

I stood up and my shorts were at half mast and I was standing in now ankle deep water.

Joey says “Dad you’re showing a little ass”.  “Dude, its not a little ass” and I proceeded to move to deeper water to fix my shorts.

Now you had your laugh.  But even an moon at the beach is still better than a day as a cube dweller!

All pics by me with my trusty che-ez snap…the toy camera for the digital age.  Don’t get better.  Don’t get bigger.  It is the perfect little artsy wyswyg!