My last notes on LA

Self Portrait in front of Red Rothko, if you ever have the opportunity to see an actual Mark Rothko painting, listen up and do this... Start from the furthest point in the room away from the painting, face the painting and walk towards it, slowly, at a point you will feel as though the painting has enveloped you creating a vortex, sucking you in. The later paintings do not create this experience they block you out and are meant to. Warning: the Museum guards tend to frown on this sort of behavior!!! But, tell them I told you to do this and it will all work out. This one is at LACMA, where we saw the Warhol and Koons of the Broad collection, the Warhols are terrific, the Koons if one were offered to me as a gift, I'd paint over it or re-use the frame.
Holly in front of a great abstract DeKooning, when we were first dating I took her to a DeKooning exhibit at the MFA in Boston, so we always feel any of his work has a special meaning to us. Below is a renaissance altar, and what an altar it is, from the Getty Museum collection. We were only able to visit the Getty Museum and LACMA, both worthwhile and inspiring. The Getty Museum is an amazing place, LACMA is a bit confusing and divided up in such a way as to confuse and not be too user friendly (the parking garage is easier to get around in). Driving around LA takes a lot of time, parking is expensive at $18-22. for parking lot fees and a $60. parking fine ticket keeps you running back to the car before the meter runs out, and egads puts quite a dent in the checkbook. We never did get to any of the galleries I hoped to see the Kenny Scharf exhibit and a few others, but lack of time put a damper on that. I could probably count on my hands the number of stores I went into, which means not many, far too much driving. When I'd ask parking lot attendants how to get someplace they'd look blankly, no not at me and say "I don't know", wow really you don't know, did you understand the question. Thankfully, Holly is a great patient navigator, and can read a map so we were never lost, (you've got to have the patience of an angel married to me). The store sales people were anywhere from bored indifferent to informative, helpful and glad you were there.
LA seems like a place where Halloween would be quite a spectacle, on the day before we began seeing people in costumes on a fairly regular basis, Or, were they in costume at all, could they have been just in their regular dress. The Japanese men trying to look like Rock Stars and the Rock Stars trying to look Japanese, put a nice spin on what's fashionable in LA. Yes, Holly put that $3,000. Stella McCartney dress back on the rack in Barney's before you damage it and are forced to buy it, and yes it would be stunning on you. Sorry, Holly but the mortgage is still due, and I don't think the bank would take the dress as payment. LA Men either have finely coiffed hair or have shaved it all off, all of them looking like they are up for a part in the next big hit TV show if they could just get a break before they turn 30. The Barista at Barney's Cafe probably has the scoop on any upcoming projects, so befriend him, although he's probably already screen tested for the role anyway. As for LA women, sorry but I really tried not to look, which also means I saw no movie stars, I couldn't even purchase a map to the homes of the stars.
"Taos, isn't that a ski resort", was the question of the day at the tourism/American Airlines non stop to Santa Fe convention on Wednesday, (although these same ski enthusiasts could not tell me what an ice scraper was). The fact that people know Taos for it's skiing and not for the over 100 year old Art Colony, the Taos Pueblo and San Francisco de Asis Church was startling to me, although it says oodles about Taos Ski Valley and it's marketing. The town & county of Taos have a lot of catching up to do. No one asked about the Whitten hotel mogul who had been seen on CNN, MSNBC & MSN just the day before, interviewed about his racist attitude toward Hispanic people. Not a single person asked about what had been a national news story the day before, only about 'how's the skiing'!

Ah, Americans, we do love our vacations, I know I did!

I must thank Joannie Griffin and Cathy Connelly. The hotel that JG found us was a treat to stay at, the Custom Hotel in Santa Monica, great rates, great service, truly a room with a view. Joannie made it all easy for us, no pressure, very professional and worked the entire time nonstop to LA. Just the fact that these 2 people chose me to go to LA to help promote Taos was an honor, would I do it again, well...... ......let me put it this way, I wouldn't want either of their jobs, I love what I do and when I can help out with something, I'm there, so thank you both.