UnHip LA

You gotta check out the new Broad Contemporary Museum at LACMA.  It has an excellent, huge, three floor collection of modern art - a Cindy Sherman room, Jenny Holzers, Basquiats, and installation art by a young British artist whose name I can’t remember.  The first floor has these huge spirals that you can walk through (picture below).  I love installation art and BCAM is an awesome fun house.

Target Free Holiday Mondays

Monumental Monday May 26 | Memorial Day Visitors of all ages are invited to a free day at the museum featuring live music, artist-led workshops, sculpture tours, and self-guided activities. Free admission from 12 to 8 pm; performance and art workshops from 12:30 to 4 pm; tours at 4, 5, 6 and 7 pm. For more information, click here. _________________________________________

 

We saw Of Mice and Men at the Pasadena Playhouse.  It was short and sweet (in a devastating way), probably the best play I’ve seen at the PP.  The play was the book almost verbatim, with Spanish thrown in, and the acting was fine all around.  Lenny was exactly what I pictured Lenny as. The sets, as usual for PP, were great to look at. Most of the plays I’ve seen at the PP have had okay acting and seemed to last way too long.  I think one of reasons this worked was because how short it was. 

….is BOOKEXPO!   It’s coming to the L.A. Convention Center, May 29 - June 1st.  It’s a book publishing trade show.  Tons of book publishers come out and give out FREE copies of their new books.  There is also a HUGE authors’ petting zoo, where you can get autographed copies of new books for $1.  BookExpo is primarily for publishing industry professionals and costs $50 - 65 per day.  You can also buy 3-day passes. 

http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/ 

The last time BookExpo was in L.A. was about 6 years ago.  It was massive fun and I almost got a hernia from all the books I lugged out.   This is like the L.A. Times Festival of Books but all the books are freeeeee!

This Sunday…..this sounds great!

http://www.museumsofthearroyo.com/ 

If you’re going let me know. 

******UPDATE*******

We went to this - loads of fun despite the 100 degree weather.  I sweated my way through the Heritage Square Museum and the Southwest Museum and then got respite at the air conditioned Police Historical Museum.  All three stops were vastly different and taking the yellow school bus between them was great fun.  It totally brought back memories of school field trips and elementary school.  Back then we could fit three to a seat, now it’s two.

So yah, the Heritage Museum which is a collection of Victorian-era houses to traipse through was really interesting. The Southwest was beautiful but most of the collections were closed.  My favorite though was the Police Historical Museum.  What a setup, a well-designed space with jail cells to try out, displays of handcuffs and deadbolts, and a seat to take mug shots.  There was also a rather morbid display of the North Hollywood shootout, the shot up cars and tanks used, the bullet-proof clothing the assailants wore, and much more.  It was freaky.  L.A.’s finest also offerred free hotdogs and lemonade.  A secure feeling of macho men prevailed.

I’m so glad I got to try out these three off-beat museums without paying!    

Happy Birthday Reenie!!!

Here’s to a great birthartday year for you!