Love Lexa: toy tanks

September 5, 2013

back to school.

Well, well, well.

Here we are again. I was working on a blog post in the beginning of August, and then...something pretty big came up that took up all my time and energy. Something really good and amazing. But my little break from the blog turned into a long break--a summer vacation, if you will. I didn't plan it that way, but I think maybe I needed it.

Anyway, it's time to get back into the swing of blogging again. One of the (many) things I love about having a blog is that I can evolve it any way I like. And I think I need a change again. I love doing these big, full posts, but they turn into mini-epics and take forever to complete. I think it's time to go short and sweet.

So here are a few photos from Labor Day weekend. The sunsets were off the hook. And I thought I would re-commit with the passage that inspired this blog in the first place--what is now five years ago. Yikes.

                    In one room they were concocting miracles and natural cataclysms--
                   typhoons in bathtubs and miniature earthquakes, the Deluge, the
                       Dividing of the Red Sea, the Great War in terms of toy tanks and
                       Chinese firecrackers, ghosts and the Next World.

From Los Angeles. A Rhapsody by Aldous Huxley, where the author details his visit to a Hollywood movie studio.

July 17, 2013

love #3

Welcome to this week's list. Let's take a look at what we're loving.

1. Love the Self Realization Fellowship in Mt. Washington. While it's not as fancy and flashy as Pacific Palisades location, it's lovely and peaceful, with a stunning view of #dtla and a relaxing garden.

I especially loved this hibiscus.

2. Love that Good Girl Dinette in Highland Park is serving breakfast now.

Summer vegetables in cream with coddled egg. That's a lemongrass leaf poking it.

3. Love the new album by Phosphorescent. Is it really new? Not sure. Love the haunting vocals and echo-y slide guitar. It's music to play when you're hiking in the L.A. canyons, keeping your eyes out for coyotes and rattlesnakes--which I do a lot, now that I have a dog who is the size of a large, juicy and delicious raccoon.

4. Love this poster for A Band Called Death. I really wanted to check this out during its run at Cinefamily, but I can't do everything, people. Will definitely check it out when it comes round to streaming.

5. Love this photo of Heart. And their rendition of "Stairway to Heaven" at the Kennedy Center Honors. I get chills when I think of it--and I'm not exaggerating.

6. And I love these photos of baby sea lions rolling around in the sand for sun protection.

Photos via abcnews.com

7. Love Book Soup. Haven't been here in ages, so I swung by Sunday on the way to brunch. This place reminds me so much of being new to L.A. Back in 2000, I was so excited for the release of Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves, and went here to buy it. Also got a ticket for parking on a hill and not turning my wheels towards (or away from?) the curb. I still can't figure those signs out.

So it was only fitting that I picked up...

8. The Fifty Year Sword. Danielewski has performed this work as a show for the past couple of years at REDCAT on Halloween, where he "conducts" a choir of actors who all read the story. And I got the inside scoop that it won't be coming back this year, so I feel like I got to see something special.

9. Love the Velasalavay Panorama. Have you ever been here? It's an oddball, little place down in the neighborhood of USC, a theater nestled amid classic old L.A. Craftsmans. It houses a resident panorama--currently an Arctic-themed "Effulgence of the North."

I recently saw the visiting exhibit, Be Kind: A Visual History of Humane Education: 1880-1945, created by the National Museum of Animals and Society.