Architecture With Elephant and Hummingbird

The one downside of Lucy and Ricky's Getaway is that the Internet connection is dicey. I can write a blog post -- especially now, in the middle of the night, when no one else is online -- but browsing is a challenge. So if I'm scarce elsewhere in blogland at the moment, that's why.

Yesterday was the busiest Valentine's Day I've had in a while! Dave wanted to rest in the morning, but I was eager to get out and get some exercise, so I left him lounging in the room while I took a long walk. I headed south through downtown and then back north again on the two main streets, Palm Canyon and Indian Canyon. I imagine I walked a couple of miles.

Palm Springs is known for its mid-century modern architecture, so I was paying special attention to the buildings and lines. Once I got away from the stucco-and-barrel-tile-roof section of downtown, everything was more as I remember it -- sleek, low and white. I like this look and this time period, and of course the desert light was beautiful, so I had fun taking pictures.

Of course, the problems of the world have not bypassed Palm Springs.

In late morning I went back to the room, and Dave and I set out for lunch. He really wanted to go to In-N-Out Burger, and there wasn't one in our immediate vicinity. We had to drive several miles south to Rancho Mirage, and on the way we passed a Goodwill in Cathedral City. Woo hoo! I bought a shirt and Dave, to my surprise, bought THREE!

Lunch was fantastic. In-N-Out seems like a well-run place with well-trained employees, who seem cheerful and attentive. We both marveled at how good the food was, how polite and friendly the staff. Apparently Anthony Bourdain was a fan, which put it on Dave's radar, and I understand why -- the food is really made there, not frozen and packaged somewhere else and simply re-heated. I watched a guy making fries from whole potatoes, and the meat was grilled right in front of us. Fast food the way it was meant to be.

As we were walking to the car, Dave exclaimed "Look!" He pointed to a low bush in the parking lot...

...where this little hummingbird was feeding on nectar. Amazing! I think it's a Costa's hummingbird, though I am no expert and my slow Internet connection is making it hard to do very comprehensive identification.

Oh, and remember how I wrote about the Elephant Super Car Wash sign in Seattle? Well, they have one in Rancho Mirage, too!

We headed back to Palm Springs, to buy a map of the modernist houses there and do a little self-guided architecture tour. It started before we even got the map, when we passed Bob Hope's former home, sitting like a spaceship on a mountaintop above the city:

We picked up a map at the visitor's center and it was very comprehensive. There were about a hundred buildings listed. We got a helpful flier with an abbreviated "must-see" list, so we followed that instead.

These steel houses -- which are literally made of metal -- were built in the north end of town in the late '50s. I love the design! It seems like steel might get hot but maybe with insulation they work well in the desert.

We also saw several grander structures, like this house formerly owned by Dinah Shore. I think I read that Leonardo DiCaprio owns it now. (Dave quipped that it "looks like a funeral home.")

Anyway, I'm glad we didn't try to do the whole tour. We saw enough to get a sampling and that was enough for me.

In the evening we had VERY STRONG drinks at a bar recommended by a friend of ours -- if there was any tonic in my gin & tonic I sure couldn't taste it -- before going to dinner in yet another rooftop restaurant, this one overlooking the mountains. I had scallops but to tell you the truth the whole meal was a blur!

Today it's back to L.A. for one more night.

Out in the Desert

Can I take you on another odyssey related to the movie "The Graduate"? I didn't intend that film to crop up so much on this trip, but I guess reading the book on the plane -- and then re-watching the movie, and realizing I was amid so many of the filming locations -- has kept it in the forefront of my mind. I knew that the church where the final scenes were filmed was located in the little town of La Verne, between Los Angeles and San Bernardino. So I devised a plan to stop there on our way out to Palm Springs.

It was easy to do, actually -- La Verne is just a few miles off the freeway. And sure enough, we found the church, which was brand new when the movie was made in the '60s.

Here's a screen shot, showing Dustin Hoffman running around the outside of the building:
 

He eventually runs up that side staircase and in through a door. Looking at the church now, in the top photo, I notice that staircase doesn't exist. They must have built it for the film. I bet the architect hated that! I also notice that some lighting sconces and (hopefully temporary?) wreaths have been hung on the front wall, and the windows are no longer such large panes of glass.

Anyway, we didn't try to go in, though the doors were standing open and there were people around. I was happy just to see the outside.

On we drove, via the Foothills freeway, passing the turn-offs to Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead on the way to Palm Springs...

...which is much more congested and built up than I remember it! The last time I was here was in April 2008, and I remember a quiet little town with clean, modernist lines. Yesterday, as we walked down the main drag with its red barrel-tile roofs and faux adobe buildings, I kept saying to Dave, "What have they done to this place?! It's like Frontierland at Disney World!"

But then I looked at Google Street View from 2008 and it doesn't look much different, at least not in our immediate area. There IS a big new hotel, I think, as well as a gigantic statue of Marilyn Monroe that I don't remember seeing before, but maybe I'm just not remembering things accurately. Anyway, once you get off the main drag, the town is as charming as ever.

Here's where we're staying -- a little 1940s apartment complex now called the Hideaway. I'm standing in front of our room, which is called "Lucy and Ricky's Getaway," looking toward the pool. It's a great little place with period furnishings and original fixtures, including a crazily narrow shower door that must be discouraging to people bigger than I am.

Speaking of which, I really hope to get some walking in today. I need exercise in the worst way. Too much sitting and driving!

Georgia O'Keeffe and Led Zeppelin

Dave and I drove to Venice Beach yesterday morning, and spent a couple of hours walking around and having lunch by the ocean. Some people describe Venice as seedy, and it does have a very urban feel, but I like the colorful characters and street art and buskers and taco stands and t-shirt shops. There were guys (and girls) playing pick-up basketball, as well as something I'd never heard of called teqball. There were people on skateboards and roller skates, and people lifting weights at Muscle Beach. A lot happening!

It was only late morning by the time we got there, but we settled into a sidewalk cafe (aptly named The Sidewalk Cafe) and had an early lunch. It was a peculiar menu, with omelettes named after John Denver, Emily Dickinson, Will Rogers and Georgia O'Keeffe. What's the connection between Emily Dickinson and a plain cheese omelette? (I ordered a Georgia O'Keeffe without the bacon.) There were burgers named after Dylan Thomas, John Irving and Zane Grey. Mysterious!

A nearby guitar player skillfully strummed tunes by Eric Clapton and Santana as we ate. Afterwards we walked up and down the sidewalk checking out the scene.

There was a lot of marijuana smoke drifting around.

Here I am in front of a typically colorful mural. And you'll note I'm wearing my Bahamian fish shirt! I blended right in.

(As we were taking this picture, a couple of guys rode by on bicycles, carrying beers -- at 10 a.m. -- and hooting loudly. "We're scaring the tourists!" one yelled to the other.)

We only barely ventured onto the sand. The beach was so wide that the water seemed about a mile out -- I thought we might die of thirst before we got there and back.

Afterwards, Dave wanted a nap, so I dropped him at the hotel and set out on a driving odyssey of my own. I wanted to hit some Goodwill thrift shops, and on Google Maps I found one in West Hollywood and another in Santa Monica that seemed doable.

I was sitting at a stoplight on Beverly Boulevard by a Ralph's supermarket, the sun shining through the trees and warming my face, with Led Zeppelin's gentle guitar ballad "Going to California" on the car radio, when I suddenly had a moment of bliss that I could almost call ecstasy -- a feeling that everything is beautiful. I swear, being in the sunshine is doing me a world of good.

The Goodwills, unfortunately, were a bust. I didn't buy anything in either one. I did find a beautiful Robert Graham shirt in the one in Santa Monica, but alas, it was the wrong size.

Finally, last night, Dave and I had dinner at Merois, a Wolfgang Puck restaurant atop the Pendry Hotel off Sunset Boulevard with stunning views over the city. I had West Coast oysters on the half-shell, followed by Shanghai lobster and a delicious coconut/tapioca/mango dessert called halo halo; Dave had a crab salad followed by a pork shank and a chocolate-hazelnut cake. I wondered what their martinis would be like, but I didn't go there since I'm the designated driver. (The only driver -- Dave no longer has a license.)

Today, off to Palm Springs!

Take Fountain

I'll say this for Beverly Hills -- it has some of the most beautiful, lushly landscaped streets I've ever seen anywhere. This is Hillcrest Road off Santa Monica Boulevard, where we pulled over yesterday morning almost randomly to turn the car around. Other streets might feature different types of trees, but they all look amazing.

We started the day with breakfast at Norm's near West Hollywood. We wanted an authentic diner experience, and this branch of Norm's was opened in 1957 and remains the chain's longest-operating restaurant. We got a table by the window (pretty much all the tables are by the windows) and I had a veggie omelette, while Dave had a lumberjack breakfast and ate almost all of it.

We then went to chop down some trees in Beverly Hills. KIDDING.

We drove into Hollywood, following Bette Davis' possibly apocryphal advice for hopeful starlets trying to get there: "Take Fountain." (My friend Christopher, who lived in West Hollywood before he died last year, loved that joke. I was telling Dave yesterday that I feel Christopher and Gerry, his late partner, all around me on this trip -- which is to be expected since I visited them here several times.)

We drove along Hollywood Boulevard past the Walk of Fame and Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the Pantages and the Capitol Records tower.

We stopped only to take a photo of this amazing motel sign. We might come back and look at that area more closely, but because we had such a clear, sunny day we wanted to get up to the observatory at Griffith Park to check out the views.

Of course half of Los Angeles had the same idea, so parking up there proved to be a challenge (and cost $10 an hour), but we managed to get this breathtaking vista of downtown and everything to the south and west. This is a pano shot taken with my phone, and you'll have to enlarge it to really get a sense of how much we were seeing, all the way to the Pacific Ocean on the right.

Here's a shot taken with my big camera. (Yes! I brought my big camera, with which most of these pics were taken.) Note the people walking one of the park trails below the observatory at lower right.

Behind us was the legendary Hollywood sign, up in the hills. The observatory, you may remember, was the setting for some of the critical scenes in the movie "Rebel Without a Cause."

We saw these acorn woodpeckers on our walk to and from the car -- and we heard yellow-rumped warblers, a mockingbird and a dark-eyed junco. (I know this because of my Merlin bird app!) There were also several hawks soaring overhead.

We had to get back to the hotel by noon in order to Skype with Dave's parents on our weekly call. We then ran an errand to Target in Westwood and got some tacos for lunch before coming back to the room and resting a couple of hours. I watched most of "The Graduate" just to refresh my memory of the film after reading the book -- it's surreal to watch it just a mile or so from where many scenes were filmed. (Of course that could be said of hundreds, if not thousands, of movies!)

Finally, last night we went for a drink at The Abbey, a huge gay bar in West Hollywood, which was having a Super Bowl party. We didn't stay long, not caring at all about the Super Bowl. We went to a French restaurant on Melrose for dinner and then came back to the hotel. I got slightly more sleep last night, but my jet lag is still pretty intense!

Randy's and The Apple Pan

Well, Dave and I have arrived safely in the City of Angels, and we are now in our hotel room where the clock absurdly says it's 12:45 a.m., even though my body knows perfectly well it's almost 9 a.m. I hope I can get back to sleep but I'm doubtful!

Our flight went pretty smoothly. We saw some poor man melt down in the security line at Heathrow because he'd lost something -- I think his laptop. He was blubbering like a baby and I felt so bad for him. I hate that sinking panic that comes when you first realize something important is missing. I was hoping we'd see him in the terminal later just to know whether he ever found the computer, but we didn't.

In case you're curious, this is the route our Virgin Atlantic/Delta flight took:

From there, it was south over Saskatchewan and Montana, Utah and Nevada. All told, about ten hours. I read two New Yorkers back to back (including an article about the problem of feral cats in L.A.) and then the entire 1963 novel "The Graduate," which was the basis, of course, for one of my favorite movies of all time.

I have a lot of thoughts about this book but I won't bore you with them if you're not really into "The Graduate." I'll put them in an optional coda at the end of this post which you can read if you choose.

Once on the ground in sunny California -- and it is sunny here, thank goodness -- we somehow found the shuttle bus to the Budget car rental lot, and picked up our vehicle. I'd reserved a Toyota Corolla but we got something called a Nissan Rogue, which is basically an SUV, albeit a smallish one. I am behind the wheel and so far my driving skills have kicked in pretty reliably. No one's even honked at me, though of course they could be cursing under their breath.

We drove in a sort of deliberately roundabout way to our hotel in Westwood. Our room doesn't have much of a view, but from the other side of the building we get a good look at the nearby Mormon temple on Santa Monica Boulevard while we're waiting for the elevator. I think those are the hills near Culver City in the background.

By this time, we were hungry -- even though we'd had a meal, two snacks, a popsicle and numerous nibblies on the plane. The thing about planes is, you may be eating frequently, but you're not eating much. The portion sizes are tiny.

So we hopped back in the car and drove a short distance south to...

...The Apple Pan, a very old-fashioned lunch counter on Pico Boulevard that my co-worker Staci (who grew up in L.A.) told me about. We both had root beer and burgers and finished them off with a slice of The Apple Pan's famous banana cream pie. It was fabulous. I thought about buying a t-shirt but they were almost $50, which seemed insane, so I'll just have to plug them on the blog and leave it at that. Well worth it for the atmosphere alone -- it was like stepping back into 1948.

And with that I'm going back to bed.

-------

Here's what I thought about Charles Webb's novel "The Graduate."

I’d always heard the book is lesser than the movie — and that’s definitely true. But the plot and dialogue are much more similar than I expected. Whole lines and exchanges are lifted from the page and used verbatim in the film. (Perhaps the biggest exception is the famous bit about “plastics,” which does not appear in the book.) I’d always heard that Webb’s graduate was meant to be a WASPy type, and that casting Dustin Hoffman in the film was a huge departure from that original character — but actually the book doesn’t describe Benjamin Braddock at all, in any physical or cultural sense. The only character who routinely gets a physical description is Mrs. Robinson, and even then it's only her clothing -- for example, she is said to be wearing a low-cut green dress with a large gold pin when she invades Benjamin’s bedroom during that suffocating graduation party in the opening scenes.

I’d also heard that the ending of the book was different from the film, but it’s pretty much identical, if barely more ambiguous. Benjamin and Elaine, having fled the church and her wedding to Carl Smith, are last seen sitting in the back of the bus, and Elaine takes Benjamin’s hand as their fellow passengers stare.

There are a few minor differences. The movie’s famously awkward scenes at the Hotel Taft, when Benjamin blunders into the Singleman party and develops paranoia about the hotel desk clerk, aren’t nearly as funny in the book. Benjamin briefly leaves home and winds up a volunteer firefighter in northern California, a sojourn that is cut from the movie entirely. He also sells his car when he first moves to Berkeley and afterwards flies back and forth from L.A., rather than driving — I assume the filmmakers chose to keep the car to show off the California scenery that gives the movie such a sense of place. The book has no scene at Carl’s fraternity house. But Benjamin does take Elaine to a strip joint on their first date, and even the stripper and her famous “maneuvers” are the same.

The biggest difference, I’d say, is one of tone. Webb’s writing style is very flat. Some people say deadpan, but to me it’s utterly colorless. The bulk of the book is dialogue. It’s almost like reading a draft version of the screenplay. Webb famously sold the rights for a flat $20,000 and no royalties, and the movie made many times that at the box office on its way to becoming a cinema classic. But it took the talents of Mike Nichols, Hoffman, Anne Bancroft and many others to bring color and life to what otherwise seems a rather gray tale.

(Top photo: Randy's Donuts in Inglewood, photographed on our drive from the airport.)

Animal Encounters

This is the day/night building that I blogged a couple of weeks ago. I walked past it yesterday and noticed that someone has added some graffiti to the front. REZ, I think it says? And "Don't Do Drugs." (Nancy Reagan as graffiti artist...)

If the angles in that photo look weird, it's partly because the building itself is wonky.

Dave and I are off this morning on our journey to Los Angeles. We're not packed yet but I've gathered everything together, so it's just a matter of putting it in a bag. Olga isn't bothered by us stacking stuff up, but when we get the suitcases out she knows what's coming and she goes into a funk. So I wait until the last minute.

I had some interesting wildlife encounters yesterday.

While walking the dog I passed a tree that was positively alive with slugs. I think they're green cellar slugs (but I am no expert) and they appear to live in the cracks at the base of the tree. It was rainy yesterday, so I guess on damp days they come out and climb the tree in search of lichen or fungus or whatever it is they eat. They seemed to all be on their way home when I came across them.

I know some people are squeamish about slugs so if you'd rather not watch, I get it. I did, however, find a pretty funkadelic musical sountrack to accompany that video, thanks to iMovie jingles -- if that's any inducement to give it a try.

And then, while walking to work, this fox was coming toward me on the sidewalk. It crossed the street to avoid me, but then found itself in the path of a man walking a dog, so it went past me and crossed again. I was close enough to get a very good video, because the fox was more worried about the dog than me.

Work yesterday was fine -- it was a very quiet day. My boss asked me to write a thank-you letter to some authors who visited recently, which I did pretty quickly, and she seemed quite happy with the result. My New York Times journalism training is good for something!

Last night, I checked in online for our flight. What a fiddly process that is! Uploading documents, answering questions, blah blah blah -- I'd almost rather just do it at the airport. I'm dubious that it saves us much time but we'll see. At least it guarantees us a seat (hopefully).

Of course, the process might have been complicated by this:

But I tell you, after this week, I needed it. (OK, I admit it -- I had one Thursday night too.) Yes, those are sweet pickled onions and gherkins in my glass! They were left over from our lunch with our friend Josh a couple of weeks ago, and to finish them off I've been using them as a martini garnish. They're actually delicious that way. Who knew?

You can see some of my LA-themed reading behind the glass. I'm not sure I'm taking all of those books with me -- we'll only be there a week, after all -- but I wanted to get in the mood!

Trust

I took this photo in Canary Wharf when I went there for Winter Lights a couple of weeks ago. There are a couple of restaurants in the boat basin that appear to be housed on barges, and they seemed quite elegant. Might be fun for a visit sometime.

But not anytime soon, because tomorrow Dave and I are off to Los Angeles! I've been trying to make some mental plans and I'm suddenly realizing how little time we actually have there. We land on Saturday afternoon, we have Sunday and Monday free, and then Tuesday we're off to Palm Springs. Two days isn't much time for a city the size of Los Angeles. I had all these vague notions of hiking to the Hollywood sign and going to the Getty and going downtown and driving around Beverly Hills and maybe even heading down to Venice -- but realistically, that's not all going to happen. Fortunately there is no strict agenda and we can play it by ear.

The question is, should I bring the big camera, or just my iPhone? (This is always the question.)

I have one more day of work to get through, but it's going to be pretty uneventful, I think. Yesterday we had some meetings but otherwise I was shelf-reading, which I love -- working in a quiet room, putting things in order. I had some more awkward exchanges with my boss but I'm not going to dwell on those. I'm still having trouble sleeping so this vacation can't come soon enough. (But then the jet lag! Argh!)

Here's another panel from the Mill Lane bridge, painted by six-year-old Anushka. I love the roller rink theme and the disco ball! I'm glad to know that six-year-olds are still familiar with roller skating, and not all sitting at home playing Nintendo.

I finally finished "Trust" yesterday. I liked it more as the various strands of the story came together, and it came to a very interesting and thought-provoking finale, but I'm glad to be done with it. There was one line that really jumped out at me, spoken by a dying character after a visit from a priest: "God is the most uninteresting answer to the most interesting questions."

Amen!

Now I've got to catch up on my New Yorkers. Fortunately, Airplane trips are ideal for that.