LACMA marks the 500th anniversary of the Reformation with a huge show, but leaves out one important fact: Martin Luther was a horrible anti-Semite ... The LA Zoo marks its 50th birthday with a 1966 cocktail party. So, just what cocktails were people drinking then (You don't want to know)? ... We’ll take you to a racetrack where the cars do thousand-foot laps in 17-seconds, cost 4-thousand dollars, and are as big as a shoebox ... We go to Newport Beach to see possibly the most awesome Christmas light display you’ll ever see. The man who did the work says he started planning it this summer. There will be penguins.
UPDATE: LACMA amends 'celebration' of Protestant Reformation to include Luther's anti-Semitism
"Renaissance and Reformation: German Art in the Age of Dürer and Cranach" is at LACMA's Resnick Pavilion til March 26, 2017.
UPDATE 1/3/2017: On Dec. 14, two weeks after Marc's commentary ran on KPCC's Off-Ramp, LACMA added the following to the exhibit's main wall didactic and says it made changes to the audio tour as well:
"This exhibition is a celebration of the Reformation and of its impact on European culture. Martin Luther was the key figure in the Reformation. His ideas and actions were marked by controversy, and his writings could be particularly virulent to groups beyond the Roman Catholic Church. He supported, for instance, the repression of the peasants' revolts in 1525 and sided with the powerful, who in return protected him. Particularly unacceptable were his anti-Semitic feelings, which he expressed in several pamphlets. Although Lutheran churches have over the years distanced themselves from Luther's positions on the subject, there is no denying that Luther's anti-Semitism was used by the Nazis to foster their own. Luther's positions on Islam were equally inflammatory.
"Renaissance and Reformation: German Art in the Age of Dürer and Cranach is in no way an endorsement of Luther's beliefs on these subjects. The works in this exhibit have been selected primarily for their beauty, but also to evoke a major cultural shift in Europe by bringing together some of the finest works by the greatest German artists, painters, sculptors, and craftsmen of the Renaissance and Reformation periods."
Marc responds: I appreciate that their corrections underline Luther's infamies. I might further point out that, while Luther did at one point castigate Muslims, in Luther's time, the armies of Islam were engaged in total war with Christian Europe, while the Jews were a small, powerless, and inoffensive segment of the European population. And Luther's "On the Jews and Their Lies" was a full-length book; he did also write some anti-Semitic pamphlets.
LACMA’s observation of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation is a mighty production from three major German museums: the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, and the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen München. It’s exhaustive, inspiring, beautiful, unique … and disturbing.
500 years ago, rich principalities among the incoherent Catholic entity known as the Holy Roman Empire eased away from the teachings of Rome. Generations of dissent focused on a single prelate, Martin Luther, who in 1517 published 95 resolutions against the Church — the big one being that people could not save their sinful souls merely by giving money to the Pope.
It was one of history’s major spiritual convulsions, and it produced an outpouring of visual art the German-speaking countries of Europe had never experienced … and birthed the original scurrilous mass media.
“Renaissance and Reformation,” at LACMA’s Resnick Pavilion, offers us work from the titans and the lesser known. So here we have Holbein, and works by Albrecht Durer, best known for his myriad engravings, that show he may have been the finest German painter of all.
There’s a superb array of works by the Cranach's, father and son. Cranach the Elder, like Durer, worked for both Catholic and Protestant patrons. LACMA has also gathered fine work by artists far less known, like Hans Baldung Grien and Melchior Feselen.
There is an affecting transition here, as the great religious painting of the Renaissance, with its mighty triptychs and frescos, gives way to a more individual and realistic style of portraiture, and the more personal style of artistic religiosity that brought us Durer’s “Praying Hands” and Holbein’s mighty “Christ in his Tomb.” Another art revolution came via the printing press: not just books, but pictures rolled off the presses. Durer’s major income source was the stream of engravings that he and his wife Agnes peddled all over Central Europe. These included some of his greatest and most famous pictures, like the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” and “St. Jerome in his Study,” both of which are at LACMA.
Printing also produced what the exhibition rightly terms the invention of mass media as religious propaganda broadsheets — vicious captioned cartoons showing the Pope as the devil, or Luther as a 7-headed monster.
This material was distributed on both sides by the tens of thousands, waging an indelible war of words that often fueled the war of swords that raged until 1648. (The show appropriately includes many ornate weapons of the period.)
The art is glorious, but the tone of the show uncomfortably exults the Reformation. LACMA’s Chief Curator of European Art, J. Patrice Marandel, said at the press preview, “The spirit of the Reformation changed the world for the better.”
Few historians see it that simply. For one thing, the religious battles that followed the Reformation killed off 40% of Germany’s population alone: it took 130 years for Europe’s leadership to realize warfare can’t settle religious differences. For another, the great Martin Luther, simply by being the most prominent Anti-Semite of the 16th Century, inspired the centuries of German bigotry against Jewish people that culminated in Hitler. Luther wrote a book, widely circulated both in his time and Hitler’s, called “Jews and Their Lies,” and the last sermon he ever preached called for Jews either to convert or be killed. In his time, Jews were driven out of Nuremberg, Regensburg, and other German cities.
The exhibit’s $50 catalog briefly notes Luther’s anti-Semitism, but the wall copy, which is what most people will see, doesn’t even mention this tragic underside of the glorious Reformation. Via a LACMA spokesperson, curator Marandel explained that mentioning that Luther was an anti-Semite did not seem essential, especially since the museum didn’t have a copy of “Jews and Their Lies” to display.
But it is essential, and not mentioning it is a serious historical inaccuracy, idealizing an historic movement while ignoring its deep, dark flaws. An old saying goes, “where God builds a cathedral, the Devil will build a chapel.” The devil built a megachurch right inside the Mighty Reformation.
For the annual Newport Beach 'Ring of Lights,' it takes a village to build a village
When Balboa Island resident Shirley Pepy walks outside her door around the holidays, she's met with awe and gratitude from passersby. "Thank you for doing this!" remarks a woman in a furry hooded coat. Children stop and take pictures with their parents' cell phones. Eyes light up. Time stops. Nostalgia sets in. And for a moment, all is right with the world. All it takes, is an entire year of planning.
For over 2 decades, Pepy has decorated her home for the annual Ring of Lights competition in Newport Beach. The event, which includes dozens of homes and boats alike, draws over a million viewers a year. Pepy explains the tradition has evolved over the years. "It used to be one boat with a tree on it," Pepy explains. Although the Ring of Lights is over a century old, Pepy is co-founder of the Balboa Island Museum and is a wellspring of area lore. "Back in the day, many of the storefronts were actually used for gambling."How things have changed...
Pepy is grateful for the "Oohs" and "Ahhs" from onlookers, but admits she doesn't do it alone. "I don't come up with this," she explains. "It's just my lawn."
"We have no idea why we do this," says Dillon Wells. He, along with his mother Deanne Lemire, father Dan Lemire, and aunt Darcy Hafner spent nearly a year drafting up and executing the lawnscape for Pepy's home. "This isn't anyone's regular job, so we don't have a workshop for it. We've got penguins coming out all over the place." In other words, there is no formal workshop to build Santa's workshop. Wells and his family have been working with Pepy for the last 5 years. "It's only been in the last year or so that we've really started to enjoy the process," he says. Later, he corrects himself as to why he and his family work so hard on this temporary installation, "One time I saw a 13 year-old boy stop his skateboard, stare, and go 'Whoa.' I mean if you can get a teenager to stop what they're doing, you know you're doing something special."
Cocktail history: You don't want to know what your parents were drinking in 1966
The annual holiday light show is back at the L.A. Zoo, and this month they're celebrating the zoo's 50th birthday with a bunch of events, including a cocktail night on December 15, with a drinks, snacks, and music from 1966.
I was born in 1966, but I wasn't drinking back then, so I called up Richard Foss of Manhattan Beach, author of "Rum: A Global History" and "Food In The Air and Space: The Surprising History of Food and Drink in the Skies," and California Curator of the Museum of the American Cocktail.
Richard, for its 1966 evening, the Zoo is pouring Manhattans, Gibsons and dirty martinis. They had dirty martini's back then?
The Manhattan and Gibson were popular drinks at this time, but both invented long before this period. As for the dirty martini, it existed before then because Russians have been putting pickle juice in vodka for a long time, but it did become slightly more popular in the late 60's. The 60's were when martinis switched from gin to vodka thanks to the James Bond movie "Dr. No," in which the line "Shaken, not stirred" was first used. That means James Bond got a watery, bad drink.
They also could have had Rusty Nails, or daiquiris, which the Kennedy's famously served in the White House, as an alternative. The ones they chose also could all be characterized as men's drinks - in this era the Brandy Alexander, Greyhound, Harpoon, or Pink Squirrel would have been considered women's drinks.
Richard, I have a vintage Mr. Boston's cocktail recipe book from the 1960's, and the recipes just make me shudder.
The 1960s were easily the least creative decade of the 20th century when it comes to cocktails, and the things they did invent then are mostly regarded as awful now. The only ones that anybody drinks any more are the Rusty Nail, the Harvey Wallbanger (which was probably invented in the '60s even though it became popular in the '70s), and the Blue Hawaiian, invented in 1958 but popularized in the '60s. The others from that period are mostly creamy, sweet, and badly balanced, often made with absurd amounts of creme de menthe or creme de cacao. To add insult to injury, even fundamentally sound drinks were usually made with bottled juices rather than fresh. The '60s saw the widespread use of bottled sour mix and collins mix, which desecrated otherwise good cocktails.
How about the menu: deviled eggs, Swedish meatball sliders, a cheddar cheese fondue station, and beef bourguignon?
All sound choices, though the meatballs would have been served on toothpicks or little plastic swords. If they want to go for a popular idea that isn't quite as horrible as it sounds, they could add some grape jelly into the meatballs. Fondue was such a fad food of the period that just about every newlywed got a fondue pot which they used once - it's why they are so common in thrift stores. Fondue using good cheese like gruyere or Swiss raclette cheese with a dash of kirsch liqueur is lovely, but those cheeses were not widely available then.
DIY Film Fest: Before they were bald
Tim Cogshell, film critic for KPCC's Filmweek and Alt Film Guide, has joined Off-Ramp's team of commentators. Cogshell blogs at CinemaInMind.
I’ve been thinking about how some guys can do bald and some guys can’t.
In Hollywood, hair is a big deal. Can you imagine the late great Gene Wilder without those fuzzy curls or Brad Pitt minus those flowing blonde locks in Legends of the Fall? Bucking tradition, some actors not only survive after losing their hair, but excel.
Here are the totally arbitrary rules:
First - they must be now publicly and completely bald. Classic male pattern baldness and comb-overs don’t count. This lets out Burt Reynolds... John Travolta... Nick Cage... William Shatner... and many other actors known to be bald but who won’t cop to it in public.
They must have become or continued to be a movie star after becoming denuded - and last - their name must have occurred to me before I finished this piece. Okay... here we go.
1. Yul Brynner
Brenner appeared in only one film with a full head of hair. In 1949’s Port of New York, Brynner played a debonair gang leader with fabulous dark wavy hair. He’s good. He didn’t need hair-- even back then.
2. Taye Diggs
Nevertheless, you can see Taye Diggs with hair in a stint on The Guiding Light - 1997- where he played Adrian 'Sugar' Hill - a sexy business shark - with hair! He’s still got hair in the movie that launched him to movie stardom -1998’s How Stella Got Her Groove Back. He still needed a brush in The Wood - 1999 - but by 2000’s, The Way of the Gun - Taye was a handsome bald man, on-screen and off, and has been ever since.
3. Morris Chestnut
Morris Chestnut had hair from before Boyz N’ The Hood - 1990 - thru the 90’s, including that first Best Man - opposite Taye Diggs in 1999. It was the last time they’d have hair together. By 2002’s Half Past Dead, Chestnut had also gone clean shaven. By The Best Man Holiday in 2013, both Diggs and Chestnut had been bald for years and were bigger stars than ever.
4. Vin Diesel
Vin can be seen pop-locking in an instructional dance video in the late 1980s with a serious head of hair. He still had a whisper of hair when he got his big break in Saving Private Ryan - 1995, and when he got first starring role in Pitch Black - in the year 2000. There was even still a shadow of his former fro in the first Fast and Furious film - 2001. It was as Xander in 2002’s Triple X that Vin was first a wholly bald badass.
5. Samuel L. Jackson
Sam has lots of early movie credits with hair - dating back to 1972. You’ve seen him with hair in School Daze and Goodfellas and Jungle Fever and Jurassic Park. In 1998’s The Great White Hype, Samuel is wearing an interesting wig - it’s straight and frosted white - and perfect for this character - a shady boxing promoter a’la Don King.
Sam’s best hair is found in Unbreakable also at the turn of the millennium. It’s kind of Frederick Douglass meets Sugar Foot - the late front man for the Ohio Players - it’s stately - yet funky.
Sam appears in Unbreakable opposite our next pre-and-post hair movie star, Bruce Willis.
6. Bruce Willis
Bruce had a long career with hair - on Broadway and on TV - even before his hit series Moonlighting in the early 80s. He had hair thru the Die Hard movies, though, truth be told, it was always wispy. By Death Becomes Her in 1992, it’s getting very thin. For Pulp Fiction in 1994, his hair was thinner still. Then, finally, Bruce Willis goes boldly-bald in 1995’s Twelve Monkeys.
Both Bruce and Sam are avid movie-hair actors - which I love. Sam will rock a Pulp Fiction gerri-curl or a long straight Tina Turner ponytail like he did in Jackie Brown, if the role calls for it, while Bruce Willis has been known to wear any number of pieces to top off a character - so to speak.
So in a town as shallow as Hollywood what’s the thing that not only gets some actors past the loss of their hair - but catapults them to greater stardom? Here is my totally arbitrary answer: Some guys have bad heads for bald... and know it. Some guys have good heads for bald... but don’t know it. But some guys have good heads for being bald and do know it. For these guys hair is an accessory-- fun but never really necessary.
Small cars, big fun. 41 years of the Greater Los Angeles Remote Control Racing Club
Asphalt race tracks for remote control (RC) cars have closed in Compton, Huntington Beach, Riverside, San Diego, and Pomona, and now, Southern California is dominated by dirt tracks for off-road RC cars. But there is one place where you can still burn a little rubber on asphalt.
The Greater Los Angeles Remote Control Racing Club started in 1975. Over the years, they’ve raced all over the county, from Santa Monica to Whittier, but it all started in a parking lot in Crenshaw.
“There was a group of about 6 fathers, mine included. They were looking to keep their sons and kids out of trouble, and give us a positive thing to do,” says Glenn Williams, president of the GLARCRC. “A few dads had experience with radio control planes. So they got together and said, ‘let’s buy our sons radio control cars for Christmas’ … We had basic remote control cars that nowadays would be considered prehistoric. We thought that 35mph was really doing well.”
For the past 9 years, GLARCRC has called the parking lot at Harbor Gateway Transit Center in Gardena its home. The total length of this parking lot track is 1,077 feet. Some of these cars are curving that in 17 seconds, maneuvering through 12 turns.
Every few minutes the cars make a pit stop. The pit crew checks the suspension and always have a bottle of fuel handy. Just like a real car, it takes fuel to make horsepower – and some of these badboys are burning up to 4 ounces of oil in less than 4 minutes.
The club, which has 60 members, meets up 22 weekends a year, and most of the races are friendly, but the club hosts the Fifth Scale World Challenge – a 4-day competition with over 230 racers.
During some of these club meets, some of the racers tinker with their remote control cars under canopies, but others 8 feet in the air, standing on the roof of a trailer, guiding their shoebox-sized racecars around the rectangular track.
Victor Garcia from Long Beach has been racing with the club for 20 years. “[The] mind relays the remote control car to the real car somehow,” Victor says. “You get in the driver stance, even though you aren’t driving the car. You mind goes into a crazy mood where you feel like you are literally controlling the car in the car. It hard to explain.”
The yellow track layout has plenty of black skid marks, and crashes happen a lot. Some of the fastest cars weigh about 4 pounds. Those high speeds can do a lot of damage to these little cars.
“Sometimes that happens, they blow up,” Glenn says. “Some of these engines turn close to 50,000 rpm on that straight away. I tip my hat off to the manufacturers…There is a lot of technology in these engines. They are actually built to aerospace tolerances because they turn that kind of RPM.”
Recently, they registered the club with LAUSD and will be doing demos at schools this spring. They are currently working to bring the layout to next year's Long Beach Grand Prix.
Glenn says the club loves to give back to the community. While the club keeps busy with races they also organize two charity events a year. The clubs seasonal Toys for Tots race is next weekend at the Harbor Gateway Transit Center, for more info visit their website.
To hear how loud some of these cars can get, make sure you listen to the audio above.
Song of the Week: 'Viva Tirado' by: El Chicano
This week's song of the week comes from soul singers El Chicano with the their cover of "Viva Tirado."
The song was written by black Latin Jazz great Gerald Wilson in honor of the suave teenage Mexican matador José Ramón Tirado.
It became a top 40 hit for El Chicano in 1970, helping usher in a wave of "brown-eyed soul." And if you're listening Saturday, you can see El Chicano and whole host of other throwback groups at the Art Laboe-hosted Chicano Soul Legends Concert at the Honda Center in Anaheim. Art Laboe-- still kicking after the great purge of musical talent courtesy of 2016, as is El Chicano.
And make sure to listen to the late great Bobby Espinosa talking about how El Chicano changed his life and gave pride to his fellow Chicanos in East LA, in this piece from the Off-Ramp archive.
WHEN did Alex North find out Kubrick didn't use his score for '2001?'
American Cinematheque programmer Grant Moninger says, "If you haven't seen '2001' in 70mm, you have not seen the film." His colleague Gwen Deglise says they get so many requests to screen Kubrick's 1968 sci-fi masterpiece, they have to run it at least once a year.
Put the two together, and you have the Cinematheque's 5-year exclusive deal with Warner Bros. to show a brand new 70mm print of "2001: A Space Odyssey." They're planning two extended showings every year, the first of which runs Dec. 9 - 27 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.
Now, when you go, you probably won't be surprised by the music in the movie. "Also Spake Zarathustra," the "Blue Danube," the etherial Ligeti choral pieces. But one person who was surprised was composer Alex North, whom Kubrick commissioned to score the movie! He didn't find our Kubrick dumped his music until he went to a preview.
Listen to the audio to hear Craig Curtis tell you the whole story.
Disney's Moana's directors John Musker and Ron Clements: a partnership for the record books.
John Musker and Ron Clements are a part of your life — a part of your world — even if you don’t know their names.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the creative team that brought you The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid, and now, Disney’s new animated feature, Moana - Ron Clements and John Musker!
Here's the trailer from their latest picture - the Polynesian epic "Moana:"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKFuXETZUsI
What inspired Musker and Clements to make Moana?
“I was intrigued by the Pacific Islands. I read novels that were set there, I saw paintings by Paul Gaugin, I thought it was a great arena to set a movie,” said Musker. “And then that actually lead me to reading Polynesian mythology, which I had never read. I discovered what a rich vein of storytelling it was. And particularly, there’s this character, Maui, who the island is named after. He’s a demigod, a bigger than life trickster, shapeshifter, has a magical fish hook that he pulls up islands, tattoos.”
Meantime, Disney has just announced it's giving Clements and Musker their own retrospective at El Capitan Theatre. They're calling it the Countdown to Moana, and it starts Oct. 6 with “The Little Mermaid,” continuing with “The Princess and the Frog,” “Treasure Planet,” “The Great Mouse Detective,” “Hercules,” and “Aladdin.” For each film, there's a special presentation, incluing Ron and John talking about the movie.