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We were here to see "Florencia in Amazonia" at LA Opera
      · Los Angeles ·        
November 2014  
 
Around the Ritz-Carlton
& LA Live Friday     		  At the LA County
Museum of Art Saturday 		  & the Iberio-American folk art show
  at the LA Natural History Museum


 

A lot to like in the friendly skies.


At the Ritz-Carlton, we went right to the rooftop pool for some mid-afteroon sun.

The Hollywood hills in the distance,
and the famous sign, which once read "Hollywoodland."
Sunset, a couple of hours later.
 
 
A helcopter in search of traffic jams, & views from Room 2201
 

 
In the area around the R-C, which is called "LA Live" and seems to be mostly about sports and concerts,
it seems that every building is also a billboard or an LED screen. This one works overtime.
It got our attention, but after a bit it slipped into the landscape.
 
 
 
We had dinner later at Patina, which is next to Disney Hall,
arriving in the hotel's new Mercedes 550 (no picture, unfortunately).
 

The area around LA Live is full of LA history, mostly preserved by these helpful posters.
The Figueroa Hotel and the theater across the street, with its startling motto from
the Reformation (often wrongly attributed to St. Augustine), could have slipped right by us.


"In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things charity."
The information poster says this is from St. Augustine, but it's a quotation from Peter Meiderlin,
A German theologian (from Augsburg), c. 1627.
It's not a sentiment one would expect from one of the great Fathers of the Church.

Nearby, LA's famous Original Pantry Cafe, which never closes its doors and usually has a line waiting to get in.

Also picturesque, the Figueroa Hotel, with its Moroccan theme.

Saturday we headed to the LA County Museum of Art, where we spent most of our time in the Broad Museum,
looking at 20th-century work and, later, having lunch at Stark & Ray's next to Steve Martin.
   
Heads and headless.
   
It's artsy outside as well.
 
Lost in the weeds in the art world  
This installation of street lamps is inspired. We loved it.
 
The little kid in his scooter loved it too.

   


Nearby, "Levitated Mass"
 
Somebody was proposing, and "Marry me" was disappearing as fast as it could be written.
 
We headed for the LA Museum of Natural History, where there is a huge
exhibition of Iberio-American folk art, some of very sophisticated for "folk art," however.
 
Wild animals; some of the work, as below, was just wild.
 
 
Baroque influence takes lots of forms.

 


A fascinating take on biblical narrative--the Flood, the Last Supper,
and much else, but what? The lion-headed figure is certainly St. Mark, so I'm guessing Mark inspired the work.