As I type this, Kevin is on a plane heading this way, a plane that took off three and a half hours late. Poor Kevin. I had plans for the evening that fell through last minute, too late to set something up with somebody else, especially with my being on the west side on Friday, the traffic out of here is monstrous. So I decided to go to Santa Monica, simply because it's not here, and it's easy to get to. I started with a Taoist yoga class. It was at a laid back neighborhoody studio, a mile or so away from the water and all the shopping. Here's the back door to the studio. This was a beginning class. It was packed, mostly with regulars. Lots of slow movements that strengthen your core and limber your joints. A heavy emphasis on openness and relaxation. I enjoyed the balancing poses, and I normally hate balancing poses. The teacher said that balance wasn't static, so we'd be balanced on one leg and then we were supposed to sway in all directions, bend forward and backwards, exploring the limits of our balance, and experiencing the shifting nature of balance. Usually in balancing poses people are wobbling and gritting their teeth, but this was fluid and fun. Even though I felt good afterwards I didn't feel totally transformed like I tend to after a Hatha class. But I'd go back again because I liked the energy of the place
Then I headed over to downtown Santa Monica and used up the remaining funds on my $75 gift certificate to Real Foods Daily. I like hippie vegetarian food, and that's one thing that's almost impossible to get in San Francisco. I ate beans and quinoa and greens and vegan caesar salad. And then I took a walk, and of course I took another photo of one of the dinosaur topiary fountains.
It looks like the dinosaur's spitting light, but it's water. It's surprising how indifferent the people in the photo seem to the dinosaur. I think we all should be bowing down to it. I saw one young blonde woman posing in front of it, and she stuck her tongue all the way out, so it looked fat and wide and hung down towards her chin. It was a very unflattering look. Clearly, the dinosaur held some strange bestial power over her. She maintained this pose for a really long time as a friend slowly took her picture.
Every few feet there were singers with guitars and other street performers. Here's a blurry photo of a guy who was doing a combo of break dancing and acrobatics. He was part of a troupe. They were very professional and really worked the audience. When they passed around a neon green bucket, I felt enchanted and dropped in a $5 bill.
And then, as my hippie food digested, I went to Santa Monica's art theater and saw
Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding, starring Jane Fonda as a hippie grandmother who wins over the affections of her uptight lawyer daughter who she hasn't seen in 20 years, as well as her teenage granddaugher and grandson. The movie was filled with accomplished actors—it had enough star power to light a small city, but it was dreck. No development, the kind of movie where characters will say two lines to one another, and then we're supposed to care about them and their relationship. In 80 minutes, the movie developed 3 new love relationships, each of which was given like 5 minutes of tension when everything was falling apart at the end of Act II. The movie also developed, not one, but two alienated mother/daughter relationships that moved, predictably, towards understanding. Jane's character lives in Woodstock, which has been frozen in time, having never left the 60s, and everybody who comes there, regardless of age, starts smoking grass, going to protest marches, dancing at music festivals, and howling at the full moon. I think they should have made it a horror film, about the sinister effect this town has on all who enter it, with Jane the head sorceress of a horde of tie-dyed zombies. That would have been fun to watch. Jane Fonda professionally emoted like crazy, but had no chemistry with anybody. It was like she was acting up a storm to a blank space into which the other characters were later digitally inserted. Here's a series of pix I took on my iphone of Jane emoting.
Kevin will be here in half an hour or so, and aloneness will be no more. I'll still be as weird as ever, but he'll be here to soften the edge.
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