2015-07-12: Panorama Mode

Los Angeles has been achieved. We are going to work on the assumption that our past behaviour is probably a good predictor of future behaviour.

The Hovertrain Funicular exemplifies the techno-elitist future moving on from the organic yet contorted and angular aspect of patriarchal society as it has evolved. Or of course some tourists are too unfit to take the stroll up the hill.

Therefore we expect that we will have high hopes of being good tourists but these will fade into being good at eating food and that will slowly fade into us just looking for genitalia based jokes as we wander around looking faintly lost.
Good Tourists Like Art, Architecture, Churches and Vistas.

A Nerd Church I guess.

I am not sure if Los Angeles has churches. If it does they are probably Churches Of Satan. Los Angeles does have Art and Architecture conveniently combined into a single venue which has expansive views of Los Angeles. We can go to the Churches of Satan another day.

Places Review: The Getty Museum

http://www.getty.edu/
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Apparently selling stock image photos can make you crazy rich. Or maybe if you are crazy rich from oil you can start a stock image company to further your vision of the world. I'm not sure.
I guess setting up an art museum is one way to say sorry for swamping the world with inane imagery. I shall have to remember this fact.

Picasso did a 3 sisters painting I think. Shame he didn't do a cubist 3 Amigos.

Entry is free, parking is $15.
There is a particular Japanese furniture aesthetic which has rough rock mixed with polished marble and glass. Not something I have strong feelings for either way. I think the furniture guys may have copied the style from Meier, the designer of this building. It has the feel of a cubist hacienda.

Cacti do not piss anyone off during a drought any more than they piss people off in normal times. I don't know anyone that is pissed off by cacti but they are probably linguists.

Possibly it is more hacienda currently than was originally intended. California is in the middle of a drought. The Getty had several water features. In the spirit of not annoying anyone (more than the stock photos do anyway) they have turned off the water feed to the features. The remaining water has evaporated away leaving tide marked and calcified rock.

Which I think is cooler than what they probably looked like with water

I like to be informed about what I am looking at, temples in Japan became boring after the first couple when I didn't know anything about the specific temple. They all look kind of the same so a lack of back story makes them less than interesting. I can make up stories about them which can save the day sometimes.

Being distracted by shiny things means Brutus could never have stabbed me in the back, his sword was too polished, I would have been unable to stop looking at it. So there is an evolutionary advantage to my state of mind.

I have little in the way of planning skills though so I normally find out about things after I have seen them. Getty must have been good at planning as he had a little movie theatre set up with an explanatory film.

I like a joke in art. And I like pink.

I might have learned something watching the film but there was a bit of light that got in and I get distracted by shiny things pretty easy. I am guessing the film was explaining something about how Getty was a bit of a dick in life and felt bad about it so set up the museum to say sorry.
I don't know much about art but I don't really follow the art choices.

Have to water the Maze though.

The outside art and architecture is mostly abstract and what I would call modern art. Inside there is an awful lot of traditional European art. Maybe Getty was a hoarder and the inside is stuff from his early life and the outside is when he was older and feeling a bit less willing to stick to societal standards.

Pretty grapes.

There was an interesting exhibition of experimental photography. Lots of photographic plates made with weird materials and exposed in weird and interesting ways. None of it really made any sense but I don't feel any drive to understand art.

This expression is one that reminds me I could really go for a beer. Don't know how she does it. Some form of mind control I guess.

Also Ewa and I usually get bored before we get to a point where anything makes sense.

Rating: 7/10 (You should go, its better than I make it seem)

When I worked at Toshiba one of my Co Workers came up with a theory that Celine Dion was a Robot. He had noticed that she announced her retirement would be New Years Eve 2000.

I think one of my other co workers had the same shoes as this passing person

Then about a year later Celine Dion came out of retirement. He reckoned it was a Y2K problem and it took a while to debug. I always liked that theory.

Cultural Observations: Puritan Prudery

We all know some of the weird double standards that America has. I am sure a lot of them are made up or twisted versions of the truth because we like feeling superior to Americans. One of my favourites is that they make the most porn in the world but also have some of the most restrictive laws around porn.

Not as weirdly double standard as the Japanese sexual thing which I intend to spend some time trying to figure out another time but weird enough that it is interesting.

Futzing around taking pictures of the Hollywood stars and the chinese theatre in the heat and the crowds got Ewa thirsty and she announced we were going into the nearest bar. It turned out to be a Hooters.

People refer to Hooters as a great place for wings. I like wings. I suspect that People refer to Hooters as a great place for wings in the same way that people used to read Playboy for the articles. It's a cover story for looking at boobs.
The weirdest thing about this Hooters was that it was a family restaurant. There was nothing sexual about the place at all. Big boobs in tight T shirts somehow had as much sexual content as Disneyland pirates have menace.

Maybe it is because floor staff to tourists is such a tedious job and that being a tourist kind of saps your energy. Perhaps there are Hooters with salacious staff. Maybe it is just that society has changed its mores and Hooters no longer has a risque element to it.
Either way the wings aren't very good, the pretzels and cheese sauce are good, the boobs are large and boring.

Rating: 4/10 (+2 for the pretzels, -4 for making boobs boring, normally I love boobs)

I was so bored by the boobs that I actually did some research into being a good tourist while we ate and drank. Apparently the Hollywood sign is surprisingly hard to get a good photo of despite it being visible from almost everywhere.

It is in the background. Truly it is.

The top secret list of best places to get a shot of the sign which I found on the internet suggested swinging up by the Griffith Park Observatory. There were even sample pictures which looked like it was pretty easy to get a decent photo of it.

Unfortunately the park was crazy busy and parts of it closed and in the end we parked and tried walking to a place where we could see it clearly. It was a long and dusty and hot walk. But it did have sweeping vistas.

We did not succeed in any serious way. So I photoshopped the one in the carpark to fix the focus. This seems easier than the walking, the heat and the dust. I could start a business selling photohopped tourist photos!