Pockets of charm

The thing is, Los Angeles is a conurbation of lots of different areas which grew into urban spaces from some other origin - Tarzana was Edgar Rice Burrough's ranch. If you say you don't like it, which part do you mean? Have you walked around Angeleno Heights, NoHo, Toluca Lake, Encino...? I keep noting that Los Angeles must have been overwhelmingly beautiful in the early years of the 20th century and when the former-Vienna Conservatory professor Vicki Baum came here in 1931 to assist on the filming of her novel, Grand Hotel she said, "I stayed drunk for weeks with this sun and air and the beauty of the hills." You can still see this Los Angeles, as for example we did in Westwood, near UCLA, last week.

Percy Parke Lewis's 1931 Fox Theater, Westwood

Even amidst the anonymous glass towers of modern corporate architecture, you can see the hills and palms and 1920s peeping through.

Looking up Westwood Blvd across Willshire

If you liked this blog, others of mine on Los Angeles are:

A daily reminder, 1 April 2011
When you take a closer look, 21 April 2011
The frame (thoughts on the Getty Center), 24 April 2011
A light on the hill (the Reagan Library), 30 April 2011
A couple of snapshots (Malibu and the Valley), 1 May 2011
More to love about LA, 6 Jan 2012
Walking with stars, 10 Apr 2012
En plein air and a little elan, 16 Nov 2012
LA Substantial, 18 Jan 2013
City of Angels, 20 Jan 2013
City of Nets? City of Dreams, 31 Jan 2013
Rounding off - LA vignettes, 2 Feb 2013
Loving the architectural reminders of old Los Angeles, 4 Feb 2013
Cultural conjuntions, 4 Feb 2013
Cultural conjunctions II, 6 Feb 2013

Non-linear lessons, 7 Feb 2013
More than whimsy - Contemporary Art, 8 Feb 2013
Life and movies, 10 Feb 2013
But, whimsy indeed, 12 Feb 2013
Pockets of charm, 13 Feb 2013

Non-linear lessons

Some years ago I learnt not to listen to Beethoven's Emperor Concerto from the beginning. I'd heard it so often I would vague out, find myself compiling tomorrow's shopping list or something, before the end of the exposition. I'd be lulled into a dream by the predictable unfolding of the familiar landscape. Catching snatches of the piece coming out of the open window of someone's living room, however, or absent-mindedly flicking on a radio gave me a new appreciation of the piece. Why? Because what I'd experience when entering the piece in midstream was the actual hue, the full impact of the piece without the dulling of any mental expectation.

This has got me thinking about the mosaic manner in which we most effectively learn something. I'm getting to know Los Angeles in a similar fashion: "Oh, so if that's Westwood, Beverly Hills must be over there" etc...

This has got to be one of the most lovely confusing places I've ever had to orientate myself in. I think it has something to do with mountains on all sides of the San Fernando valley. I wonder how I can be approaching mountains when I've just left mountains behind. But gradually I've begun to piece the city together (it helps to have gotten used to the sun being in the south of course). I've now got a picture in my head of a coast that goes south-east to north-west, then east-west, and then south-east/northwest again. There is a big ring of mountains sitting on the flat bit of coast (bounding the San Fernando Valley), then to the east of that a break leading to the coastal plain where Downtown and Hollywood etc lie. I got a buzz coming home the other day when I knew we were about to hit the Sepulveda Pass into the Valley and "if my predictions are correct, the Getty Center will be up there on the left. Westwood and UCLA are over there on my right, and Santa Monica is behind us to the left." I'm working on the city inside out, rather as a composer does when he's working on a piece and the entire shape isn't yet (can I say "boringly"?) guaranteed.