L.A. Looks Better From the Getty

LA looks better from the Getty

On a day in December

When the smog is swept clean

LA looks better from the Getty
From the mountains to oceans
Next to white travertine

LA looks pretty from the Getty

You can't see the grafitti

Or the harsh wear of time

LA looks pretty from the Getty

With Vincent's blue Irises

Fresh in your mind

Get out of the gridlock
of the I-405
The shuttle will lift you
to Mulholland Drive
When the Santa Ana's blow
you feel so alive
Up here with the angels
We all can survive

On the opposite coast I walk among palm trees

And miss rainless summers

When I lived in the west

My New Yorker son
 Didn't care for the culture

But dear California

To me's always best

                             

The overcast mornings burn off to hot sun
Then dry desert winds
kick my hair in a swirl
I don't mind the asphalt-y smell of a new rain
That city is home to this Hollywood girl


LA looks better from the Getty
Next to Greek statuary
A mixed media skyline

LA looks better from the Getty
A 360 view
Of a city sublime

 

The Rules of Reflexology

I thought the storefront looked a little sketchy at first.

It was your average suburban strip mall shop. That phrase 'strip mall' always conjures up unseemly pictures. I prefer 'shopping center.' Nothing pretty about this boxy street side retail spot.

A blaze of orange color blinded me as the door opened, from the tangerine colored walls. The lobby resembled the sign-in area for a szechuan restaurant.

Further back each long wall was lined with comfortable chairs and towel covered ottomans.

I glanced at my friend who was generously treating me with an, "Is this place legit" look? Then the young Asian man at the counter greeted us and saw us to our chairs.

Immediately 3 large men in their 30's-40's came out and with no introduction or greeting silently proceeded to motion us to dip our feet in a lined bucket of water. The bucket had smooth ridges in the bottom to start the massage process.

His thick spongy fingers began kneading my neck. I couldn't help chattering and joking. When he worked a few knots out of my neck and I really started to relax, I blurted, "That's it. I'm off to La-La land!" The therapist immediately shushed me.

Oh!

That's when I learned:

Rule #1 - No talking during the massage!

 

After the 15 minute neck work, we pivoted around and reclined for the 45 minute reflexology foot massage. We arrived around 10 to an empty room. By 11am the place was packed,  customers lined up in easy chairs and rows of burly men in soldier-like formation attended to skyward toes and feet.

Reflexologists believe that each spot on the foot relates to an organ in the body and complete health can be improved by simply working on the feet.

It was very, very quiet there. Almost like being in a room of deaf people. The only sound was a little muzak that seemed stuck in the 70's, playing James Taylor and other 'easy listening' cuts.

Rule #2 - No talking on cellphones.

 

My attempt to take photos was frowned upon at first. But before long, the once serious therapists were snapping pictures right and left. This guy thought he was real creative in his photos angle, I guess.

I'd never seen a sight such as this in my obviously sheltered life. The Vietnamese brought us nail salons and now the Chinese are bringing us Foot Relaxation rooms.

Rule #3 - Leave a nice tip for Fan.

Fan was my therapist's name.

I'm a fan of Fan.

I floated out of that place with an old Beach Boys song playing in my head:


...Take good care of your feet...


             Better watch out what you eat


                                         Better take care of your life


                                                                  Cause nobody else will...

I owe my friend big time.

All That is Right With the World

Two  precocious little girls danced while we played Moon River. They flipped their hair in tandem and giggled till they were red-faced and breathless. 

Sometimes things are right in the world.

The Asian autistic boy moved to the Blues in B-flat sax improv. When the song finished, he shook his hands, lifted high,  like the deaf people do in applause.

Sometimes things are right in the world.

My husband looked on and felt like he was playing piano with me. We must be one.

Sometimes things are right  in the world.

The shy single woman sat quietly through the whole set, smiling, never budging, just happy and still.

Music.

Good food.

Little girls giggling.

Autistic boys dancing.

A husband who loves me.

This is all that is right with the world.

On Warhol and Becoming Immortal

Jane Doe

Plain Jane

Dick and Jane

Jane Eyer

Jane Fonda

Jane Seymour

Jane Holzer, aka Sweet Baby Jane

My sister-in-law once said, "Any Jane I've ever known has been anything but plain." These women listed above are no exception.

They are all either interesting, charismatic, smart, creative or beautiful. Nothing plain or girl-next-doors-ish about these Janes.

Especially model and actress Jane Holzer of the 60's. And what hair! I thought mine was thick, but hers is positively mane-like, as in the MGM Studios lion, Leo or CS Lewis' Aslan.

When haute couture model meets avant-garde artist, photographer and film maker Andy Warhol you get Immortality.

She was the Queen of Pop Culture and he was the King of Pop Art.

They ruled the world of fashion, art and film from Warhol's East 47th Street studio called the Factory. It was the ultra-cool art loft where Warhol took already famous celebrities and made them even cooler or took under-the-radar luminaries such as Edie Sedgwick (cousin of Krya Sedgwick) and super-starred them.

The simple set consisted of a common chair against a white drape. His subjects would sit absolutely still while he filmed them for 3 minutes. This was his process of Immortalizing.

Edie Sedgwick died at 28 in 1971 from barbiturate overdose. Warhol died at age 58 in 1987 from Aids.

Jane Holzer managed to avoid the drugs and decadence that swirled around the Warhol scene. That lead to the early deaths of many. She lives in Palm Beach, age 73.

Besides being beautiful, she was a smart Jane. 

Andy was pretty clever, too.

What I learned from Warhol is this: The key to artistic success may be in choosing famous subjects. And then running them through his Factory and declaring them Super-Stars.

That was the business that Warhol was in. Immortalizing celebrities in his famous screen tests.

His contribution to photographic art was the advancement of color treatments, filters and overlays. He was a pioneer in photo shop before the digital world of jpegs and tiffs ever existed. He paved the way for  photo applications that are so common to any computer or smart phone owner today.


If you go to the Norton Museum this month you can get one of those screen tests and experience first hand, the eccentric artist's method of immortalizing. You can pick up your 15 Minutes of Fame.
 

A vintage black movie camera sits on a wooden tripod. You just sit with one expression for 3 minutes. Developed as a sliver gelatin photo and, voila, you are an eternal being. The Warhol Foundation will send you your video via email.


You will be right there with Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy,  Mao Tse-tung, Jane Fonda, Wayne Gretsky, Michael Jackson, Campbell soup cans and the big bright flowers

and Sweet Baby Jane.

When You Feel Like You'll Never Do What You Were Meant To Do

I was sitting on a piano bench next to him. A man I respected for his musical accomplishments. A sought after collaborator. We were working on original tunes. And he liked them and we were interacting like musicians are supposed to. Speaking that secret language of minor 7ths, channels, and chord substitutions. 

It was the most delicious feeling.

Then I woke up.  

It was only a dream.

 

The last dreams before you wake can be the sweetest. A lifetime of unrealized hopes smacked me hard when I awoke.

My reality started with a cup of coffee over Hebrews 2, (appropriately, not the Hall of Faith chapter), fixed breakfast, dressed, put on make-up and drove 30 minutes to make a flurry of meetings.

I sent emails and created phone call lists into neat excel pages with shaded, boldened and italic tools. I especially like picking out the fill colors for cells. Love the paint bucket icon. But that's the only thing I love about Microsoft excel programs. Forget the formulas.

Then I had a meeting about next semester.  50 sessions of the same class. No variety, just focus and a Fall campaign and one topic. Planning money. Another excel draft listed possible classrooms, Monday through Sunday.

They say when you're working out of the realm of your giftedness, it's a real de-energizer. I left the meeting exhausted. It was like someone had pulled out the rubber plug at the bottom of my feet and every drop of drive spilled out under the conference table.

Doing what you're wired for energizes you. Which is why drowsiness sets in at the computer screen at 2:00 in the afternoon, but you can work on something you love till 1:00 am, no problem.

Break-time, I sent a blog link to a meeting presenter who's topic was similar to one of my blog posts,  just on the outside chance he might be interested. It had nothing to do with my job description, but was the most fun in my day. My email was never acknowledged. And he used to be the work place massage therapist and I thought they were like hairdressers who remember everything about you.

Lunch with co-workers consisted of conversations about recruiting volunteers. But my big meeting was about the next semester's classes. Figure out how we can get 4300 people into financial classes on Budgeting and Stewardship, handling money.  Numbers are not my thing. I got C's in Algebra.

Wednesday night church found me escaping into a prayer gathering. And instead of standing and lifting hands with everyone else, I sat with my butt in the chair. I tried to absorb the spirit in the room, but pretty much whined to God.

They sang:

"Water you turned into wine, Opened the eyes of the blind...."

They sang. I complained:

Yes, You can turn water into wine, but can You turn excel sheets into manuscript paper? Can you turn Word docs in to song sheets? Can you change  a semester of scheduled finance classes into a musical production schedule?

And for the young moms out there who never think they're going to be able to save the world or speak at a conference or sing in a band, can You turn their piles of laundry into piles of offers and engagements? Can You turn their children's bickering into poetry and spoken word? The endless messes into the beauty, symmetry and order of a dream come true?

Those are the miracles that we pray for. Yeah, we know You did the water-into-wine and lame-to leaping miracles to prove your deity. We don't need any more proof. We just need to make it through our senseless days.

Artist Credit: Laurie Pace

I don't want to hear 'seasons of life' cliches. I didn't study piano for 25 years for a short 7 year ministry stint. I didn't conduct choirs all my life just to sing alto with the hobbyists. Not to mention pay for a private college education. Nor did I spend hours practicing scales and Prokofieff just to get compliments on how fast I click the keys on my Mac.

Square peg - Round Hole. Misfit. Fish outta water. Waiting, waiting, trusting, waiting.

Trying not to worship the gift more than the Giver. 

The pat answers of  "better plans" and "higher ways"  ring hollow.  We ain't gettin' any younger here.

A Call To Letters From A Least Expected Place

This isn't a bemoaning of things lost, like in the-Disappearing-Christmas-Card but a call to revive a fledgling practice. The suggestion does not come from an older generation, but from my 19 year old son.

My son, whom I have referred to in lost-in-the-forest-of-seventeen seems to be emerging from the shadows.

In a recent letter he wrote his eldest sibling, my daughter and expressed an interest in getting to know her. And to do it through letter writing. She is 12 years his senior, grew up in California, my son in  Florida. They had different childhoods and missed each other's worlds. He was 8 when she married and cried right after the ceremony because he was losing his sister before he ever got to know her.

Could this text-ing, vine-ing, emailing, instagram-ing generation be coming full circle?

Letters are treasures in Rubbermaid bins. My parents courted each other for 2 years cross-country from Massachusetts to Hollywood via letters before they married. My father's World War II letters sit neatly in a drawer. Each one describes his time in the Middle East as a Medical Ambulance driver; except for the words that were cut out by an exacto knife that may have divulged wartime secrets, should they have fallen into the wrong hands.

I have the letters his father wrote at the turn of the (1900) century chronicling his trip to Smyrna, Cairo, Lebanon and Syria working as a professor, complete with faded photographs of robed Bedouin desert shepherds.

There are my mother's letters to her parents; my father's to his that tell of my growing up. Things I barely remember,  but when I read them they validate my existence. I truly once was a little girl.

It would be easy to immerse myself in these letters. But I fear leaving the present world of my husband, five children and grandchildren, whom I so want to lean into.

And what did God use to build His church with?  Letters. Enduring epistles from the pen of Paul, John, Luke and Jude. He chose the humble medium of pen and paper to record His Truths, encourage Believers, teach doctrine. God made himself known, his heart and very thoughts, to those He dearly loves - through letters. They are thousands of years old, yet we read them today.

In times past, God spoke to us through laws,  institutions, ceremonies, kings, judges, and prophets. But in the end of His canonized compilation, He speaks to us through

Letters.

There is nothing like a handwritten note.

Telegrams were short congratulatory or directional messages.

Emails are emotionless information bites.

Text messages, even with adorable emotos, still lack heart.

Instagram is a great visual record of a minute-by-minute living.

Twitter is sometimes clever.

Facebook announces daily personal headlines; the perfect platform for bragging. 

Vines entertain.

But a Letter....  

a letter is a window into a person's heart, a door into their most private thoughts...a view of their closest held beliefs and philosophies. A letter is lasting. Not lost in Gmail files to be deleted with the avalanche of junk mail advertisements that fall upon us everyday.

A letter is forever.

So take out the monogrammed stationery on linen paper, pick up your finest pen and in your best handwriting write a loved one. It will make their day and you just may be writing your biography and memoirs in the mean time.

Letter writing is calling us. From a 19 year old's brimming soul.

Let's answer in kind.

A Short Recipe for Life

It's the simple things.....

That keep life civil and sweet.

Put into song

You gotta make peace

You gotta do good

Love the ones you live with

Take care of your neighborhood

Gotta wake up with the sunrise

Like it's gonna be your last

And most of all you gotta

Laugh,

Laugh

Laugh.

Steven Sondheim and His Views On Rhyme

Did you catch it?

Did you catch the mistake in this blog title?

The accents are off when matching "Sondheim" with "on rhyme."

Steven wouldn't like that. He would call it a scansion error. Unacceptable.

The placement of accents and rhyme schemes must be correct. You don't mix SOND-heim with on-RHYME. That's trochee with iamb. It should be trochee with trochee  or iamb with iamb in this title. A skilled wordsmith would select a different word to fix the accent error.

In his two-volume book on  Broadway Musical writing--called Look, I made a Hat and Finishing the Hat--Sondheim also poo-poos all the newly accepted partial rhymes that don't have the same consonant end.


The kind of fake rhymes that permeate today's pop. The inner vowels rhyme only, not the word endings.

That's a lyric-writing no-no, too, in his book.

I think he has earned the right to state his benchmark. He's only been creating the medium for 50 years! He may very well be the Prince of Poetry; Earl of Alliteration; Lord of laundry list lyric writing; and the Master of meter.

Who doesn't know West Side Story; Sondheim's  classic remake of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet of a love mis-match among opposing 1950's New York gangs? I think Shakespeare would have approved of Sondheim's updated version, and applauded the music.


Sunday in the Park with George was my favorite. Written after Seurat's painting called Sunday in the Park. Bernadette Peters gave the perfect sardonic interpretation of Steven's score.

We heard Bernadette live at a show in Vegas. Our first vacation attempt at that desert city. Bernadette did not disappoint, but Vegas did. All the neon lights in the world could not light up that dark place. It was our one and only trip.

Notice the great satire in the superimposed overlay on the iconic painting.

Just last week I was offered a job to accompany "The Assassins." But previous commitments prevented me. Maybe another opportunity to play this great musical writer's works will come my way.

There is nothing like banging out the piano part of  a "Comedy Tonight" showstopper or languishing in the lavish keyboards of "Send in the Clowns."

Sondheim's lyrics are only rivaled by his masterfully written music.

Take a walk through his life of libretti and songwriting and next to greats like Roger Hammerstein and Leonard Bernstein, Roger and Richard Sherman.

Some of his musicals you'll read about:

"A  Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum"(1966)

"A Little Night Music"

"Sweeney Todd"


To list his entire credits would take several blog entries, so pick up the books and see for yourself.


It will be a walk in the park and you won't trip on any rhyming divots. I promise. Sondheim will be the first to point them out.

Rethinking Feminism

It was a rare experience that felt a bit intrusive.

At a meeting a man pulled a chair out for me. As I lowered to sit, he scooted it under my thighs to support my back end.

Nice. He made my sitting down much more comfortable. A surprising gesture, although my personal space felt invaded.

I thanked him for this gallant, chivalrous long-lost act of kindness.

And I rather liked it.

What have I been missing all my life? What has this generation of feminist-minded women been missing all their lives? My father did little things like this and needless to say this gentleman, yes, was older too.

The fight against gender bias has bit us in the butt.

In our quest for equality with the male populous in income, office, and roles, we've lost something that we secretly desire:

To be cared for. To be assisted. To be honored as the weaker sex in the little things, like opening doors, pushing in our seats, carrying our packages, and supporting us entirely financially.

They, the male sector, thought we wanted to work our little hineys off in addition to the heroic feat of bearing and raising children. And frankly, we asked for it.

Remember an 80's t-shirt that said "I want it all." It's true. We do. But why?
What balanced mind would want to be super man and super woman all at the same time?

Is it an unhealthy thirst for power and significance? A lifestyle that will surely take our relationships and even our very lives.

Today, I unintentionally put my new-found discovery that women secretly desire male assistance into action.

Entering a grocery store, I noticed a very pregnant young lady asking the guy next to her to carry her grocery bags. He ignored her while her carried one bag in one hand and his soda in another. Sipping it selfishly while she struggled with two bulky bags in one hand, purse on her other arm, and her large stomach.

At first I did a double-take but kept walking into the grocery store. Bothered by what I'd just seen, I couldn't keep silent. Spinning on my heels, I pursued them out the door.

"Help her with her packages," I yelled across the parking lot. Stunned they turned to look at me. There was another guy on her other side as well. "She's pregnant! Help her with her bags!"

I never saw if they heeded me, because I took a quick about-face and scurried back into the store, hoping they weren't hot-headed youths who might retaliate.

It was so wrong. Here she was at least eight months pregnant and the two guys she was with were void of any common courtesies, much less gentlemanly favors to a women weighted down by her baby bump. No, actually it was a mountain.

Now I birthed six children. And that last thing I wanted  during my pregnancies was to be viewed as an invalid.  But at the third trimester, I accepted help.

The inequality of pay does irk me. As does the age discrimination. I have a degree. But I do not work in my field because music is a young person's job. I am a coordinator (glorified admin assistant) and feel I am worth more (who doesn't) and that there are young men whose job I could do better (another common thought). So I agree with pay equality and position equality. But I believe in role difference and I do not want to lose my femininity and have to look like a boy to get where men are.

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Penny Wong, Australian Labor Party Senator, is a modern day advocate for women's rights and would argue that girls don't pine for a knight in shining armor. I wonder if one has to cut their hair short and don a pinstripe blazer to achieve an official seat and job equality.

Do we have to dress like a man in order to break through the glass ceiling? That doesn't seem like women's rights. That's women dressing like men to gain men's rights. Abstaining from eye make-up, and shunning skirts and heels is required to break gender bias? That's one gender in my mind. Not two equal sexes. Think about it!

Another early activist of Women's Rights, Emmeline Pankhurst  in a 1913 rally.

The oh-so-clever cigarette ads of the 70's.

We can thank our fore-mothers and modern feminists for how far we've come, baby.

Then again, maybe not.

Fasting and Fish on Fridays

Tuesdays were tacos. Thursdays were hamburgers, my favorite.

And it was always Fish on Fridays. Along with grilled cheese sandwiches that resembled cement and rubber more than bread and cheese.

 A generation ago, the rite of forgoing meat on Fridays was recognized in the public schools. The Catholic church had influenced secular society and no one seemed to mind. Although Madeline Murry O'Hare had recently moved the courts to ban prayer at about the same time we were being served our faith conscious meatless mid-day meal.

Why Friday? Because it is the day of the week that Jesus was crucified. To remember, many would deny the flesh, and focus on the spirit.

It's a lost spiritual practice, even among evangelicals.  Our church invited us to pray more deliberately for 3 weeks, and fast together by doing the Daniel Fast, a modified fast modeled after Daniel's vow not to eat the king's rich food, but to eat only fruits and vegetables.

And so I feel a little bit like a freak writing about my 21 day fast I recently embarked upon.

A fast should not be measured in the amount of meals missed, but in the prayers said. Not measured in the recipes that omit meat and processed foods, but the burdens carried to the Throne and the transcendant moments of reaching closer to the heart of God.

So pass the grilled cheese and fish filet. We are going to pray today.