People who get it… in El Lay

Here’s a pattern I’ve seen in California, Italy, France, Australia, Germany, the U.S., Brazil, Australia, and Spain. People far from the equator think themselves refined, cultured, and responsible; they consider their neighbors closer to the equator slow, shiftless, and overly emotional peasants and farmers. Those peasants consider their compatriots distant from the equator cold, dull, uncreative, and uptight business types.

I’m a Northern Californian. Generally, I have about as much respect for Los Angeles as a Bostonian has for, say, Biloxi, Mississippi. Hence, it’s a shock to the system to re-discover that the world’s not so simple, and the stereotypes don’t map to reality. Uta and I just got back from two days of non-stop culture immersion in El Lay.

A few snapshots from a great two days:

View from our table at Cafe Pinot

Wild mushroom risotto with white truffle shavings

Le saumon, monkfish on cauliflower reduction

A Night at the Opera

Frank Gehry did this conversion from a police-car storage facility before tackling the Gugenheim in Bilbao.

Ceci n’est-ce pas une pipe.

It’s all in the details.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Car culture