Paley Center

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Paley Center for Media
Beverly Hills
December 20, 2014

We went with Margaret to the Paley Center in Beverly Hills primarily to see a special exhibit, the Jay Ward Legacy. We had read about that exhibit in the Los Angeles Times. The exhibit featured original art from the Rocky and Bullwinkle show and the various related cartoons, such as Dudley Do Right, Mr. Peabody, and Fractured Fairytales. The lobby of the center was dominated by the Rocky and Bullwinkle statue commissioned for the special Sunset Boulevard block party Jay Ward staged in 1961 to promote the Rocky and Bullwinkle show when it moved to prime time.

A special treat we were not expecting also awaited us in the lobby: a Santa Claus was seated there entertaining the children who visited. Margaret was quite taken with him, and we waited our turn to visit with Santa.

Paley-Santa

After seeing the Jay Ward exhibit and visiting Santa, we went up to the second floor for another special exhibition, the Soboroff Typewriter Collection. Dozens of typewriters which had belonged to famous people were on display there, along with memorabilia such as vintage Time and Life magazines featuring the owners. We saw typewriters belonging to Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, George Bernard Shaw, Truman Capote, Ray Bradbury, and various other writers. The typewriter on which Orson Welles wrote Citizen Kane was on display, near the typewriter Jerry Siegel used for Superman and his other work. The Unabomber’s typewriter was on display. It was missing its cover; the docent explained that he had used it to make one of his bombs!

The docent encouraged us to visit the media library. This is a permanent feature of the center. There are a number of workstations, each with a large flat screen monitor and headphones. The visitor can search the center’s large media archive for television and radio shows and commercials. Inspired by the exhibit downstairs, we selected a Rocky and Bullwinkle episode, and the three of us watched it together at a station reserved for parties of 3 or 4 people.

There is a theater on the ground floor which we did not go into. It was showing a continuous loop of vintage Christmas cartoons when we were there. The same shows were running on video monitors in the lobby with the sound muted.

Admission to the Paley Center is free, as is parking. Donations are encouraged. The center is located on the southwest corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and North Beverly Drive. Parking can only be accessed from Santa Monica Boulevard. The center was fully accessible by wheelchair.

There are no café facilities at the Paley Center, so we had planned ahead to eat at a nearby restaurant, Walter’s Café. Our youngest daughter and her boyfriend joined us. Meredith first ate at Walter’s with that daughter, on a visit to L.A. several months ago. They found it through Yelp. The food and service were excellent on both visits. It is a family-run restaurant which has operated in Beverly Hills since 1949. The restaurant is small and casual, with an extensive sandwich and salad menu as well as various other offerings.

At the end of the day we met up with Meredith’s sister Kathleen at a Starbucks in the Valley. Margaret ordered her old favorite, regular coffee with cream and LOTS of sugar. We gave Margaret the Christmas presents we had for her, as did Kathleen.

Margaret’s energy level varied a bit today. She struggled with most of the transfers between wheelchair and car, except for the final one when we left Starbucks. We joked with her that it must be all the sugar that gave her the energy to climb into the car; she smiled and agreed. She struggled a little with aphasia while at Paley, pointing at items and not saying anything, although she seemed interested and curious. She did answer Santa’s questions, telling him she was from Maine, which is true because she grew up there, but we think she left him with the misleading impression she had just now come from Maine to L.A. for a visit. She was much more verbal at Walter’s and at Starbucks, telling us without prompting what items she wanted to order.

Fowler Museum (UCLA)

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Fowler Museum
November 29, 2014
Westwood

We went to the Fowler Museum of Cultural History on the UCLA campus. It is a small to midsize facility which at any given time shows several special exhibitions and also has two galleries devoted to items from its permanent collections. The main focus of our visit this time was a set of exhibitions with textiles as the theme. In a press release last summer, the museum’s curators referred to it as a “textile trifecta”, and so it was.

The first exhibition we looked at was Bearing Witness: Embroidery as History in Post-Apartheid South Africa, which featured some hand embroidered modern pieces made in South Africa. They were mounted on the walls around the central atrium, and we strolled along looking at each piece in turn.

We then saw Yards of Style, a display of African print cloths from Ghana. The bright colors were a feast for the eyes. The explanatory material in the gallery described the different manufacturing methods and contrasted qualities of the higher end fabrics, made in the Netherlands and in Africa, with the less expensive ones made in China. There was an interesting array of prints, from traditional geometric and abstract designs to common everyday items like cell phones and clothespins.

We next went into the exhibition called Textiles of Timor, Island in the Woven Sea. The gallery featured many hand woven items, both women’s tube skirts and men’s shoulder cloths. There were several videos playing inside the exhibition, with interviews of native weavers and displays of the dyeing and weaving processes.

Margaret particularly liked the hand embroidered pieces and the videos showing the hand weaving process in Timor.

The Fowler sometimes showcases a modern artist, and this time was no exception. We strolled through World Share: Installations by Pascale Marthine Tayou. There were some interesting pieces, but all in all it was not really to our taste.

We decided not to visit the anthropological permanent collection gallery this time, but we did revisit the Francis E. Fowler Jr. silver collection, which we have seen several times before. It includes a number of strikingly beautiful pieces both American and European.

Admission is free, but visitors have to pay for parking. We parked in the hourly parking section of parking structure 4, off Sunset Boulevard, as recommended on the museum website. From the underground garage a visitor can take either the elevator or the stairs up to the plaza level, and it is a short walk to the museum from there. After our visit to the museum we strolled around the campus a little bit, over to the campus store and to visit the UCLA Bruin statue, then back to our car.

Getty Center — Tapestries

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Getty Center
Sepulveda Pass
November 15, 2014

We took Margaret to see the special exhibition at the Getty, of tapestries and related paintings by Peter Paul Rubens. The tapestries are part of a larger set celebrating the Triumph of the Eucharist, commissioned in the 1620s by the Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia, the ruler of the Spanish Netherlands. The tapestries were woven in Belgium and installed in the Convent of the Poor Clares in Madrid, an institution closely associated with the Habsburg monarchy. We first learned about the exhibition through a preview piece Joyful Weaving of Art in the Los Angeles Times. After it opened there was a longer review in the Times, Wonders Unfurl, as part of an article which also looked at a tapestry exhibit in New York.

Getty-Rubens

The tapestries are of monumental size. Next to them were paintings on oak panels that Rubens had made as models from which the weavers could work. It was interesting to note that the paintings are mirror images of the tapestries. The weavers were working from the back side of the tapestries and this reversal of the pattern image made their work easier. Although the colors have faded slightly with time, the tapestries still show remarkable shadings of detail.

The overall spirit of the series is triumphalist, very much in keeping with the Counter Reformation period in which they were made. They are devotional works and celebrate one of the central mysteries of Catholic Christianity, the sacrament of the Eucharist. Some panels are allegorical, such as the victory of Truth over Heresy. Other panels illustrate scriptural stories which Catholics see as prefiguring the Eucharist, such as the sacrifice offered by Melchizedek for Abraham, and the gathering of manna in the desert.

After touring the special exhibition we went over to another building to see a Rubens painting in the permanent collection, of the Caledonian boar hunt. We strolled through that gallery and looked at other period paintings, mainly by Flemish artists. Margaret enjoyed a Rembrandt self portrait in which the artist is laughing.

Admission to the museum is free, but parking costs $15. The parking system has been changed so that one pays on leaving, rather than entering.

We ate at the museum café. A nice feature is that there are half a dozen different stations, so one can select from a variety of choices. We each enjoyed Mexican food; Margaret had a fruit salad from the grab and go section.

We enjoyed the tapestries and related panels a great deal. Margaret was not particularly interested in them. Her preferences run more to historical and anthropological museums, and less toward art. After the museum visit she was very interested to hear about our trip to Ontario last week, where we met three of her cousins. They had asked to be remembered to her, and she enjoyed hearing about our dinner with them. After we left the Getty we met up with Kathleen for coffee and showed both Margaret and Kathleen our slides from Brampton and Toronto. We gave Margaret a framed photo of Meredith with the cousins which she was very pleased to have.

Skirball — Films

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Skirball Cultural Center
November 2, 2014
Sepulveda Pass

We took Margaret to see the “Light and Noir” exhibit at the Skirball. For more information about that museum generally, see our post from July 2014. This exhibit was about émigrés and exiles who came from Europe to Hollywood, and about their role in making movies in the 1930s and 40s. It dovetailed nicely with our prior visit to LACMA, with its “Haunted Screens” exhibit about German expressionist filmmakers in the 1920s. (See the immediately preceding post.)

We followed a red carpeted walkway from the main Skirball museum over to its special exhibition space. The hallway was lined with movie posters from Academy award winning movies associated with émigrés and exiles, including for instance The Lost Weekend written by Billy Wilder. The first part of the exhibit had photos from the building of Universal City in 1915. Carl Laemmle, who founded Universal Studios, is a leading example of one of those who emigrated to the United States for better opportunities. The exhibit then shifted from émigrés to those who were exiled from Europe, that is who had to flee Nazi persecution. One display case had immigration papers for a number of well-known Hollywood personalities, including Marlene Dietrich, Peter Lorre, and S. Z. “Cuddles” Sakall. There was a whole room given over to Casablanca, a movie whose cast was made up largely of exiles. We knew this from having read the book Round Up The Usual Suspects by Aljean Harmetz some years ago, but we love the movie, so it was fun to watch the film clips and see the rest of the items in that room.

In the main exhibition space there was a clever division, with one side given over to displays about comedy movies made by exiles and émigrés, and the other side given over to noir movies. The comedies included, among others, Harvey and It Started with Eve. The noir side included Mildred Pierce and Sunset Boulevard, another one of our favorites. Looking at the Mildred Pierce display, Margaret commented that she had never liked Joan Crawford. Meredith replied that was probably a common sentiment. Bob, the contrarian, suspects that was not a common sentiment until the biographical movie Mommy Dearest came out, based on the book by Christina Crawford.

The last part of the main exhibition had a section with displays about the Hollywood 10 and the House Committee on Un-American Activities and another section about the émigré salons and social life in Los Angeles.

We then returned to the main part of the museum and toured a related special exhibition about the “noir effect.” That exhibit featured contemporary art, such as paintings and graphic novels, which draw on the noir film genre. One wall had a large photo of a street scene, in front of which the visitor was invited to take photos. We did.

Skirball noir effect

We ate in the museum restaurant, which we have always enjoyed. Lately Margaret has seemed to want quesadillas whenever we go someplace that offers them. Zeidler’s does not. We had joked before we picked her up that maybe she would want a cheese blintz, which is the closest thing to a quesadilla on this menu. Without prompting from us, she did in fact ask for cheese blintzes when she saw them on the menu. She enjoyed them, as did Meredith. The blintzes were served with a large side portion of fresh melon and pineapple slices. Bob had a salmon pastrami sandwich, which he also enjoyed.

The museum was quite busy. In addition to many regular visitors like us, there was also a conference going on and a wedding party on the central terrace. Usually we visit on Saturdays, and we did not recall the museum being this crowded before. This time we went on a Sunday, and perhaps the facility is busier then, since it is not the Sabbath.

Parking is free, and there is a large parking garage. Wheelchair access is easy. The museum participates in the Bank of America Museums on Us program.

LACMA

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Los Angeles County Museum of Art
October 12, 2014
“Miracle Mile” Wilshire Boulevard

We took Margaret to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to see a special exhibition, “Haunted Screens: German Cinema in the 1920s.” The exhibition featured over 150 drawings and set photos from German movies of the 1920s, both silent and early sound era. There were also several screens showing clips from the movies featured in the exhibit, and a number of contemporary movie posters were displayed on the wall. We first heard about the exhibition through an article we saw in the Los Angeles Times. The set design drawings were quite evocative. Meredith was struck by the skill and artistry of some of the watercolors. Bob was amused by the directions written on some of them including the word “achtung.”

LACMA haunted-screens

We next went to see another special exhibition, “Big Quilts in Small Sizes: Children’s Historical Bedcovers.” The museum has drawn on some of its reserve collection and displayed a dozen quilts, mostly from the 19th century and a few from the 20th century, all handmade and small in size. This was the exhibit Margaret liked best. She has been quite adept at handwork of all sorts and particularly likes quilting. She admired the careful work on several of the pieces displayed. After seeing the quilts we strolled through some of the permanent collection in the Art of the America’s building, stopping to admire a gigantic mirror that once adorned a mansion in Menlo Park, then served as a Hollywood prop for decades, before finally joining the museum collection in the 1990s. On our way out of the museum complex we went through the Japanese art building and stopped to browse through the special exhibition of modern kimonos. We particularly liked the ones that illustrated abstract flowing water designs, especially one that had dragonflies on it.

The museum complex is quite large and encompasses nine different buildings. It has an impressive collection spanning many countries and eras. One could certainly spend a full day there and still not see everything. The museum is located at the west end of Hancock Park; the Page Museum, better known as the La Brea tar pits museum, is at the east end of the park. The park is a fun place to stroll, and features the novel sight of various tar pits large and small interspersed throughout the lawn area that makes up the park. The aroma of liquid tar may not be to everyone’s taste, however!

We parked at the east end of Hancock Park, in the lot that is actually associated with the Page Museum. That lot cost $9 – the weekend rate – and put us closer to our favorite area restaurant, Johnnie’s New York Pizzeria. (There is also parking in a garage at the west end of the museum, which costs a little more.)

We met up with our youngest daughter and her boyfriend for lunch at Johnnie’s before going over to the museum. Margaret surprised us by choosing something other than her regular dish, turkey panini. This time she had what Johnny’s calls its Italian quesadilla – thin pizza dough with melted mozzarella and pesto sauce. It was quite good. The young people had other plans so did not join us at LACMA. Discussion over lunch of our visit to the Torrey Pines reserve prompted Margaret to recall a very large white pine which grew in the yard at the Dresden Avenue home where she grew up, in Gardiner, Maine.

Admission to LACMA is $15 for adults, $10 for seniors. Bank of America customers who visit on the first full weekend of the month can get in free by showing a B of A debit or credit card. Wheelchair accessibility is good, although one sometimes has to hunt for the ramps and interconnecting bridges between buildings.

Torrey Pines State Reserve

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Torrey Pines State Reserve
October 11, 2014
San Diego

This outing was just the two of us, close to home; Margaret did not go with us. Torrey Pines State Reserve is in the northwest corner of the City of San Diego, just south of Del Mar. There are multiple interlocking trails up on the mesa overlooking the beach. The trails are mostly of intermediate difficulty; a couple are easier, but none are wheelchair accessible.

Torrey M&R

There is a $15 day use fee for the park, which is part of the state park system.

Our main purpose in coming here was to hike, but we also spoke with the docents stationed at the trailhead, who told us a great deal about the geology of the area and showed us rock samples to illustrate their points. After our hike we explored the visitor center which, although small, offers well designed explanatory displays about the area vegetation, animals, and geology.

Torrey VC

The different colored layers of the cliffs are quite striking. As we hiked to Red Butte and Razor Point we were able to see the effects of erosion and observe the sedimentary layers in the cliffs. We then hiked south over to Yucca Point, and then back to the visitor’s center. After viewing the exhibits in the center, we walked up to the High Point overlook, from which we could look inland to the east as well as north up the coast.

The land for the reserve was purchased and donated to the public by Ellen Browning Scripps in the early 20th Century. Her foresight and generosity saved the last large wild Torrey Pine woodland from development. This remarkable tree is the rarest pine in North America. It is only found in coastal San Diego County and on Santa Rosa Island. The tree is well adapted for the arid coastal climate; its extra long needles have grooves which channel dew and fog droplets to the ground where it can be absorbed by the tree’s roots. (It is also grown as an ornamental plant by some gardeners; seeds can be purchased from Anderson Seed Company.)

Park up top if you are hiking the cliff top trails or seeing the visitor center, or down below if visiting the beach. You can get plenty of scenic climbing on the trails; there is little point in a long walk up the steep driveway between the two parking lots!

Stagecoach Inn Museum

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Stagecoach Inn Museum
Newbury Park
September 21, 2014

We went west, into Ventura County, to see the Stagecoach Inn Museum in Newbury Park. As with some of our other recent outings, we found out about it through the Passport 2 History program and booklet. There are several different buildings on the grounds; the old inn is the main building. The original building was built in 1876, the nation’s centennial, and named the Grand Union Hotel. The building lasted nearly a century. The original porches were removed when it became a military academy in the 1930’s, and it was relocated to the current site in order to widen the Ventura Freeway. Unfortunately, the original building burned to the ground in 1970. It had been extensively documented and photographed, and there was a great outpouring of community support which enabled it to be rebuilt essentially as it was before. It reopened in 1976. It has been furnished with excellent period furniture and artifacts.

Stagecoach1

The three of us all toured the ground floor of that main building together with a docent who explained a number of the items to us. He showed us historic photos and explained the history of the area and its prominent families. In the kitchen, he turned us over to two junior docents, elementary school age girls who explained to us what the various kitchen items were and how they were used, including two butter churns, an ice chest, flat irons, and a telephone which had been on a party line. Margaret remembered that the family’s summer cottage on Pleasant Pond in Maine had a party line. She told us later over coffee that her family’s ring had been two long rings and one short. She said when you used the party line you could hear the sound of neighbors hanging up.

Since Margaret could not go up to the second floor of the main building, she and Meredith stayed downstairs and took a close look at six different antique dresses from the 1880s and 1890s that are displayed on dress forms down there. They were quite nice and had some intricate embroidery and other details. Bob toured the upstairs of the main building with a college student docent. The upstairs includes both a family wing and a guest wing. There is a bed up there with a turned wood bedstead. It is the only piece in the museum that was part of the collection before the 1970 fire; it had been removed for restoration. It is called the “Lincoln Bed” because the tradition is that it had belonged to Abraham Lincoln’s son or grandson.

We then went over to the carriage house where a different docent explained the two stagecoaches on display. One is an antique stagecoach which was actually used, although where it was used and by whom is not known. Next to it is a replica stagecoach which was built for and used in filming movies. It is designed to look like the classic red Wells Fargo stagecoaches. Outside the carriage house is a pony cart made to look like a miniature stagecoach.

Stagecoach2

We also looked into the blacksmith shop and walked down to the Newbury House. The latter building is a replica of the home in which the Newbury family lived, in what is now Thousand Oaks, near the current Performing Arts Center. The docent at that building explained that the Newburys had written many letters to relatives back East describing their home, and they documented it so well that the museum staff are confident the replica is very close to the original.

Finally, we walked over to the Timber School building, also a replica. The surrounding area used to be called Timberville, before it was renamed Newbury Park. The school building is a classic one room schoolhouse furnished with old wooden desks. It has been built to match the original schoolhouse, as depicted in a late 19th century photograph that hangs in the main building of the museum.

We enjoyed our visit. There is ample free parking, and admission was modest: $5 per adult, $4 dollars for seniors. Wheelchair access is limited. As noted, we did not take Margaret up to the second floor of the main building. There is no ramp access to get inside the Newbury House, the path down to the adobe is too steep for a wheelchair, and the threshold of the school building was a bit high. We were able to see into the schoolhouse and Newbury House, however, and there was plenty to see in the main building, carriage house, and blacksmith shed.

We ate before we went to the museum. We stopped at a small local Mexican restaurant called El Sancho Loco Taqueria in Newbury Park. The prices were quite reasonable, and the ingredients were fresh and of good quality. The food was plain. Margaret enjoyed her quesadilla, and Bob and Meredith enjoyed the daily special, two beef tostadas. It is a casual place, with ordering at the counter and food brought to the table. They were quite generous with the quantity of tortilla chips served on the side! The server was pleasant and helpful.

Autry National Center

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Autry National Center
Griffith Park
September 7, 2014

We met up with two of our daughters and their significant others (husband of one, boyfriend of the other) at the Autry Museum of the American West. The museum is located in Griffith Park, across from the zoo. The Autry participates in Bank of America’s Museums on Us program, so on the first full weekend of each month admission is free to B of A debit or credit card holders.

Autry 3 generations

Together with Margaret, our group explored the two special exhibitions currently offered. The first exhibit we toured was Floral Journey: Native North American Beadwork. That exhibition runs through April 26, 2015. The exhibition features over 250 Native American beadwork pieces with floral designs. There are many stunning pieces, and tribal cultures from all over North America are represented. Most of the pieces are historical pieces from the 19th or early 20th century. Sprinkled throughout the exhibition are some modern pieces, also by Native American artists, inspired by their cultural history. The exhibition combines two of Margaret’s passions, handwork and Native American culture, and she enjoyed it very much.

We also toured the Route 66: the Road and the Romance exhibition, which will remain open through January 4, 2015. The exhibition was both large and well thought out, with a variety of artifacts on display, ranging from historic road signs to a 1960 Chevrolet Corvette to drawings from the movie Cars. The first few display cases set the background for the exhibition, explaining how difficult travel was and how few well-maintained through roads there were, prior to the time Route 66 and other US highways were built, starting in the 1920’s.

Autry MB 66

Memorabilia from the construction and dedication of the highway are on display. There are extensive items showing its role as a migration route for Dustbowl immigrants in the Depression, including a page from Steinbeck’s manuscript for The Grapes of Wrath, a first edition of the book, and a related photo essay from Life magazine. At several points in the exhibit there are some short videos which can be heard through headphones. Margaret and Meredith listened to several vignettes, including the reminisces of a Japanese American who grew up in Gallup, New Mexico and one of the co-creators of the Cars movie who took a road trip along the route to get inspiration for the movie.

The group ate in the museum café. They serve excellent food, semi-cafeteria style. One orders at the counter and gets drinks there, then sits and the food is brought out to the table by staff when it is ready. The menu is mainly sandwiches, burgers, soups, and salads. Margaret and Meredith each had portobello mushroom burgers. Bob and our middle daughter opted for half sandwich / cup of chili combos. The younger men had pulled pork sandwiches, and our youngest daughter had a fry bread chicken taco. The café serves soft drinks, beer, and wine. It usually offers vintage soft drinks in addition to modern ones, like sarsaparilla and cream soda, but they were out of those the day we visited. The staff is very knowledgeable and helpful. We have always enjoyed eating there. The prices were quite reasonable for museum fare; the bill for all seven of us came to just under $100.

There are rotating family activities. Today they were set up to have families do beadwork, playing on the theme of the Floral Journey exhibit. The permanent collection is extensive and impressive. We did not stay to look at it today, although we have seen it in the past. Bob, Meredith, and Margaret left early to meet up with Kathleen for coffee. Bob first took the young people down to show them the historic gun collection, which is quite extensive. The four of them stayed on to look at the rest of the permanent collection after we left. The museum is an interesting blend of the historic West and the Hollywood West. The permanent collection has many artifacts from the American West, including not only items from the majority culture but also items representative of minorities, women, and Native Americans. There is also an extensive area devoted to memorabilia such as props and posters from Western movies, from the silent era through spaghetti Westerns and everything in between, including of course Gene Autry films.

Wheelchair access is excellent. Parking is free.

There are a number of special events at the Autry, and it is a good idea to check their calendar to see what may be happening on a given day. On past visits we have seen a farmers market, and a Western family day celebration.

We did not take advantage of the docents this time, but in the past we have joined docent led tours through the special exhibitions and been very pleased with the quality of those presentations.

The Autry merged with, or perhaps acquired, the Southwest Museum back in 2003. The Southwest Museum has a very extensive collection of Native American artifacts, far more than it can exhibit. Having the large museum space the Autry offers in Griffith Park allows for showing more of those pieces to the public. Meredith and Margaret visited the Southwest Museum back in the 1970’s or early 80’s, before the building was damaged in the Northridge earthquake, and long before wheelchair access was a concern for us. There has been some controversy about the Autry’s control of the Southwest Museum and its collection. We do not know enough about the background of the controversy to have an opinion, but we do wonder if the critics have an appreciation of just how difficult and expensive it is, both to restore and maintain historic structures like the old Southwest adobe, and to maintain delicate collections like those originally housed in that facility.

Will Rogers State Historic Park

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Will Rogers State Historic Park
Pacific Palisades
August 31, 2014

When I die, my epitaph or whatever you call those signs on gravestones is going to read: I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn’t like! I am so proud of that I can hardly wait to die so it can be carved. – Will Rogers

(Bob wisecracks: I never met a museum I didn’t like.)

Will Rogers porch
We took Margaret to visit the historic Will Rogers house which is located in the state park that bears his name, in Pacific Palisades off Sunset Boulevard. Famous humorist, columnist, cowboy, movie star and stage entertainer Will Rogers lived there from 1928 until his untimely death in 1935. In 1944, his widow Betty donated the land, house, and contents of the house to the state in his memory. The house is a simple but large ranch house. It is an interesting site to visit because it is so well, and authentically, furnished. It is a wonderful time capsule of the 1930s. The kitchen features a period Frigidaire refrigerator and a Hotpoint range – brand new electrical appliances that were top-of-the-line at the time. The home also has wonderful artifacts and memorabilia associated with Will Rogers, such as Navajo rugs, sketches and paintings of Western scenes, and portraits of Will and Betty Rogers in the dining areas.

The main living room has a stuffed calf. Throughout his life, Will continued to practice the rope tricks that had first made him famous. He was constantly roping things, both inside and outdoors, including occasionally his guests! One friend of his sent him the calf with a pointed note about using it for roping practice rather than his visitors. Rogers later joked that he was the best dead calf roper around.

The house was built in several stages, so lacks a coherent plan. The first part built was a rustic six room cabin, intended as a getaway location and home for their horses when the Rogers family still lived in their main home in Beverly Hills. The family then moved into it as their main home, adding another wing with somewhat nicer (but still casual) finish and furnishings. Will also “raised the roof” on the original section of the house, adding a second story with several guest bedrooms. Eventually the house came to have 31 rooms, including 11 bathrooms, and 7 fireplaces.

Next to the house is a visitor center, in what was previously the garage. There are displays with a timeline and photographs from Will Rogers’ life, a gift shop, and a short video playing on a loop.

Because this is a historic house, much of it is not accessible by wheelchair. The park staff was very helpful and loaded Margaret and her wheelchair onto a cart which they then drove around to the back of the house. We were able to see the older section of the house including the main room and kitchen. Meredith and Margaret then watched the video the park service has for wheelchair visitors, showing the interior of the other part of the house, while Bob continued on the docent led tour of that section.

Will Rogers ranger cart

Will Rogers is one of Margaret’s favorite people of all time. She owns and has read several times Ben Yagoda’s biography of him. Although Rogers died in a plane crash two years before Margaret was born, he remained such a giant for people of that time that she grew up hearing him frequently quoted and referred to. She has visited the Rogers home before, the first time over 30 years ago, with her mother and sister, and again a few years ago with us, when she first moved back to Los Angeles.

The state park grounds also include the stables the Rogers family built and polo grounds, both of which are still used. There are hiking trails as well.

The house is kept locked. Docent led tours are given every hour at the top of the hour. Admission is free, but parking costs $12. There is no restaurant or snack bar on the state park grounds, so we ate in the Valley before we headed to the park.

Getty Villa

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Getty Villa
Malibu
August 9, 2014

Getty Malibu 3

We went to the Getty Malibu campus this time, primarily to see a special exhibit of Byzantine art, “Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections.” We had seen that exhibition described in the LA Times some months before and noticed that it would close on August 25 so wanted to be sure to see it before that date.

The Malibu campus is similar to the Sepulveda Pass Getty Center in offering free admission but charging for parking. Parking at the Malibu campus costs $15. There is one additional requirement here: visitors to the Malibu site have to make advance reservations and print admission tickets, even though there is no charge for those tickets. Unless the driver can show admission tickets, cars are not allowed to drive up the hill to the parking garage. Admission is time regulated, to control the number of visitors and more importantly the number of vehicles. Other procedures may apply for those arriving by public transportation, but that is not a viable option for us bringing Margaret. For parking and public transport options see the museum website: Getty parking and access.

Traffic was heavy on Pacific Coast Highway this time, and I am sure that is a chronic problem. The museum can only be accessed from PCH heading north if one is arriving by car; left turns from PCH south bound are not allowed, nor can one access the museum from other neighborhood streets.

The building and grounds are a treat in and of themselves. The Getty Villa is based on a villa at Herculaneum which was buried when the Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. and has only partially been excavated. One can stroll the arcades to the south of the main museum building and enjoy the plantings in the garden. On prior visits we have always enjoyed the fountains and a large reflecting pool, but we found all of those features drained and dry on this visit, due to the severe drought.

There is one little known feature of the gardens. If one stands on the star in the pavement in the middle of the semi circular benches in the central garden area and speaks toward the benches, one can hear an echo back. We could not make this work for Margaret, but Bob was able to make it work as we have done in the past. We are guessing that it is a trick of height; one must stand rather than be sitting in the wheelchair. Bob then demonstrated this to a visiting Italian couple, and they were thrilled.

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We had lunch at the museum café. The food was quite tasty. The prices were a little on the expensive side and the selections were limited. Margaret wanted a quesadilla – remembering the Sagebrush Cantina lunch from our last visit, maybe? – but she made due with a cheese and fruit plate that we both thought was quite generous. In addition to the café, there is a coffee cart available which sells some sandwiches, and there is a picnic area to the north of the museum building for those who wish to bring in food.

The Byzantine exhibit spanned over a millennium, from the time of Constantine in the Fourth Century A.D. to the fall of the empire to the Turks in 1453. It was dominated by religious art, including, among other things, some large and spectacular icons. Some everyday items were also included, such as serving bowls, combs, and oil lamps, to name a few.

After we saw the Byzantine exhibit we went to another gallery on the second floor which had a special exhibition of ancient glass, “Molten Color: Glassmaking in Antiquity.” This exhibit opened in 2010 and is ongoing. There were pieces made with a variety of techniques, including some pieces made as long ago as 2500 BC.

We also strolled through some of the museum’s permanent collection. Margaret was tired, so we did not stay long, but we did go in to see the bronze sculpture known as the Victorious Youth, which has always been a favorite of ours, and we saw the Lansdowne Heracles statue, also a favorite.

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Wheelchair access is easy throughout the museum. Wherever there are stairs, there is always an alternative of ramp, elevator, or wheelchair lift.

Note: some of the photos used above are from last year’s visit; the photo of Bob and Margaret by the bronze statute of Tiberius was from this most recent visit.