LACMA's huge new Resnick Pavilion ... Lou Adler on The Painted Turtle and his talent ... muralist Siqueiros did landscapes, too ... skeletons in the closet? a German baron has mummies in his crypt ... meet This Old House, finally coming to LA ...
Resnick and Piano on LACMA's new Resnick Pavilion
KPCC's John Rabe attended the media opening for LACMA's huge new "Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion," and heard from museum director Michael "who knew?*" Govan, architect Renzo "I'm no Romantic" Piano, Lynda "I'm so excited" Resnick, and LA County Supervisor "This is big" Yaroslavsky.
This weekend, the museum - including the pavilion - is free! Click through for a LACMA link.
(*At the news conference, Govan said, on seeing the Resnick's collection for the first time, "Who knew there were collections like this in Los Angeles?!")
LACMAS-Resnick Pt 2: Fashioning Fashion
Off-Ramp's John Rabe explores the "Fashioning Fashion" exhibit at the Resnick, which gathers exquisitely preserved men's and women's wear from Europe, 1700-1915.
Mummy's Descendent Visits Mummies Exhibit
We're probably all descendents of King Tut, somehow or other. But for the Mummies of the World exhibit, now at the California Science Center, they brought in a direct descendent of the mummies on display. Off-Ramp host John Rabe spoke with Dr. Manfred Baron von Crailsheim and Baroness Lieselotte von Crailsheim about two mummies ... from the crypt at the Baron's ancestral home, Schloss Sommersdorf. Click through for more about the castle, which is now a B+B!
From Debra Kolben's NYT article (link to the right):
"Guests enter the 26-room castle over a stone bridge before ascending a spiral staircase with thick walls and small windows to reach the guest quarters — Gothic-style rooms with dark furniture, wall tapestries and the occasional suit of armor in the hallway.
"The castle has been in the family for 450 years. Two decades ago, to help finance renovations, Baron von Crailsheim started renting out eight apartments, including two floors off the 14th-century turret. Guests are free to roam around the property, which includes a garage full of classic cars and a collection of Tanzanian spears. But they might think twice about wandering down to the dusty, dark crypt, where six ancestors, including Julius Wilhelm Freiherr von Crailsheim, who was killed in an 18th-century hunting accident, are buried.
"Baron von Crailsheim, a retired nephrologist, takes macabre pleasure in showing off his forebears. Guests, however, might prefer a dip in the small swimming pool just on the other side of the moat.
"If Sommersdorf feels a bit musty, with its old-fashioned décor and dark colors, other castles present a more modern style..."
The Other Side of Siqueiros
The Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros was more than a muralist.
He painted important landscapes as well, touching on topics like war, progress and the environment. Nearly all of which are on exhibit now in Long Beach. You can see the David Alfaro Siqueiros exhibit at the Museum of Latin American Art, it runs through January of next year.
Lou Adler Finale: Family, Charity, and His Talent
Lou Adler discovered Cheech and Chong and brought the Rocky Horror Show to the screen. He co-wrote "What A Wonderful World" and "The Poor Side of Town." He managed Jan & Dean and The Mamas & The Papas and helped make Monterey Pop Happen. He produced "Tapestry," one of the best selling records of all time.
But as Alex Ben Block of the Hollywood Reporter finds out in this, the final installment of our exclusive career-retrospective interview, Adler is also raising his sons, giving very sick kids summer camp fun at The Painted Turtle, and humbled by his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
We've also posted Alex's entire interview with Adler in case you missed it when it came out a special Off-Ramp podcast.
LA Record interviews Fitz and the Tantrums
Fitz and the Tantrums are a soul-revival band in the proud tradition of Motown legends like Marvin Gaye, the Jackson Five and The Four Tops, and even modern acts like Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings.
They sat down to talk with LA Record's Chris Ziegler about sweating, tambourines, and breakup songs. Fitz and the Tantrums' new album just came out and you can buy it online, just see the links below!
This Old House's Kevin O'Connor and Norm Abram on their way to LA to renovate your house?
(UPDATE: This Old House has picked a Spanish Revival home in Silverlake to renovate. Click through to see the entire news release, with quotes from the LA Conservancy's Linda Dishman and LA City Councilman Eric Garcetti.) "This Old House" has been renovating homes on TV for thirty years and only now is taking on a project in Los Angeles. Listen as Off-Ramp host John Rabe talks with the show's Kevin O'Connor and Norm Abram for the inside story, and COME INSIDE for guidelines on nominating your project for the show.
Photo by Bob Martin from the LA Public Library/Hollywood Citizen News/Valley Times Collection: Debris tumbles down the hill and dust rises from demolished walls as a wrecking crane does its job on the Anthony's Hollywood Tudor-style house. The Anthonys' house is being razed to build a Hollywood television and film museum that never came to pass. Photo dated: Apr. 15, 1964. Here's the latest from WGBH, which produces "This Old House:" FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE THIS OLD HOUSE® EMBARKS ON FIRST-EVER RENOVATION PROJECT IN LOS ANGELES Spanish Colonial Revival to Get Hollywood Treatment on New Season of Emmy® Award-Winning Show CONCORD, Mass., (September 23, 2010) - For the first time in its 30-year history, the PBS home improvement series This Old House is traveling to Los Angeles to tackle a West Coast renovation project. A charming 1930s Spanish Colonial Revival home located in the picturesque hillside community of Silver Lake will get a Hollywood makeover from the show's expert crew. The This Old House Los Angeles project, featuring 10 brand-new episodes, premieres nationally on PBS beginning Thursday, January 27, 2011 (check www.thisoldhouse.com/tvschedule or your local listings). In order to accommodate a growing family, the This Old House team, with the help of local tradespeople, plans to expand the home's existing footprint, add a second floor and make updates for modern living, while preserving the quaint period details that make the property unique. Homeowner Kurt Albrecht purchased this home in 1998 and moved in with his wife, Mary Blee, shortly thereafter. The couple was not only drawn to the original period style of the house and its view of the Silver Lake Reservoir, but they loved the diverse community and its central location to most Los Angeles areas like Downtown, Glendale, Burbank and Hollywood. The one floor, 1,500-sq.-ft. house was the perfect size for a young, married couple so they only made minor cosmetic updates at first. However, in recent years as their family began to expand and basically outgrow the two-bedroom, one-bath house, they decided it was time for more extensive renovations. The This Old House experts are working with Los Angeles-based contractor Steve Pallrand and his design-build firm Home Front on a modest 750-sq.ft. expansion which includes a new second floor, larger kitchen, new family room, two additional baths and two more bedrooms. The plan also calls for preserving and replicating some of the homeowner's favorite existing period details such as arched doorways, tray ceilings, plaster ornamentation, inlaid floors and art deco light fixtures. "This project embodied all the elements we were hoping to find in our first-ever Los Angeles renovation, and Spanish Colonial Revival is a style we've never worked on before, so it's particularly exciting for us," said This Old House host Kevin O'Connor. "Southern California is rich in architectural history, but much different than the New England homes we normally feature on the show. We are looking forward to sharing this and many other amazing aspects of the area with our viewers." These Los Angeles project episodes will also feature side stories highlighting the distinctive lifestyle, world-class building projects and talented local craftspeople in the city and surrounding areas. One segment will focus on the active renovations to the spectacular city-owned Hollyhock House, Frank Lloyd Wright's first Los Angeles project built between 1919 and 1921. Another episode will spotlight preservation efforts at the Silver Lake home and studio of the late architect Richard Neutra, known for his influence on California Modernism. "This Old House will introduce to the nation those mid-century, Craftsman, Spanish and other neighborhood landmarks that aren't as well known as the Chinese Theater, for example, but that are just as defining in terms of who we are as a city," Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti said. "This Old House will highlight Los Angeles' rightful place as a leading city in terms of architecture and will help homeowners recognize and preserve our city's architectural gems." "We love the Hollywood sign and Walk of Fame, but Los Angeles is so much more than that," said Linda Dishman, executive director of the Los Angeles Conservancy, a non-profit historic preservation organization. "We're essentially a city of neighborhoods, many of them historic and filled with excellent examples of Victorian, Craftsman, Spanish Colonial Revival and other architectural styles, not to mention our unparalleled collection of residential modernism. Residents here are using historic preservation to strengthen and revitalize their communities and protect the unique, authentic character that attracted them to these neighborhoods in the first place. We know that This Old House is committed to telling those stories and showing viewers a side of Los Angeles that they don't normally see." Show producers found this Silver Lake property after an exhaustive search, which included extensive outreach to the local building/architectural community and a public call for entries earlier this spring, which yielded several hundred project submissions. Previously, the expert crew renovated four other homes in California, two in Santa Barbara, one in Napa Valley and one in San Francisco. The last California project was completed 10 years ago. For more information about this and other This Old House projects, please visit www.thisoldhouse.com. Viewers can also become a fan of This Old House on Facebook or follow the show on Twitter. ----- Here's the news release from WGBH, which produces "This Old House." THIS OLD HOUSE® PLANS FIRST-EVER RENOVATION IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY Home Improvement Series Seeks Project Submissions CONCORD, Mass., (May, 3, 2010) - For the first-time ever, the Emmy® Award-winning television series This Old House is looking for a historic home to renovate in Los Angeles County. The TV crew is hoping to find a dynamic family with a classic old house in need of help, with plenty of things to save and update. However, the project's scope must be "just right" - not a whole house, but more than just a kitchen. The renovation must be able to be completed in about five or six months, with construction potentially beginning as early as August 2010 and finishing by January 2011. The ideal project should already be underway with architectural plans and/or have the ability to be "fast-tracked" to the building phase. The selected project will be featured on multiple This Old House episodes airing on PBS in early 2011. The deadline for submissions is June 14, 2010. Please note that the renovations are completely funded by the homeowners and not by This Old House, though the show coordinates product discounts and donations where possible. All donated items are considered gifts, on which the homeowners pay taxes. This Old House is reviewing proposals now. To be considered, submit the following: · Brief description of the renovation project - be sure to also include house style, location and year built · Low-res digital pictures of the home's interior and exterior · Brief description of the current owners · Low-res digital pictures of the homeowners · How much you plan to spend · When you need to start and conclude the project Please e-mail proposals to pickmyhouse@thisoldhouse.com or submit them via regular mail to: This Old House Project Proposals, P.O. Box 130, Concord, Massachusetts 01742. Select homeowners will be contacted by show producers for further interviews. Due to the volume of proposals received, This Old House will not be able to respond personally to everyone or return submitted materials. For more information about this and other This Old House projects, please visit www.thisoldhouse.com. Viewers can also become a fan of This Old House on Facebook or follow the show on Twitter. WGBH Boston is America's preeminent public broadcasting producer, the source of fully one-third of PBS's primetime lineup, along with some of public television's best-known lifestyle shows and children's programs and many public radio favorites. For more information, visit www.wgbh.org.
Marc Haefele reviews "Permanently Blue"
If you're a Democrat, you're probably dreading the November 2 Election as the Morning-After Hangover to the Obama Sweep of 2008. But now, just when you needed it most, comes a longer -- and highly optimistic view of the Democratic future, Dylan Loewe's "Permanently Blue". Marc Haefele has a review.
Marc's Script:
If you're a Democrat, you're probably dreading the November 2 Election as the Morning-After Hangover to the Obama Sweep of 2008. It's something you wish that you could sleep through. But now, just when you needed it most, comes a longer view of the Democratic Future. And a far brighter one.
Permanently Blue offers a seasoned but basically optimistic take on the Democrats' national future … their long-term future.
As Loewe puts it, "The Democrats are about to lose a ton of seats..." and "If you were to look at (their) chances of their building a long term majority ... it would be hard to argue that things are going to go well soon."
But after that, it's another story. Loewe, like others of the Obama generation, argues that further down the road, you're going to see a rising strength in the Democratic Party that will ultimately either force the Republican Party to roll over and die or change itself unrecognizably. Over the next 24 years, he argues, the 2010 elections, however disastrous, will prove to be the least consequential in decades.
That's because, Loewe insists, the future is all about voter population growth that will change representation patterns in the next decade.
Democrats will prevail because Demographics are Destiny. "Everywhere America is growing, it is liberalizing," says Loewe. And when the 2010 census is implemented, those growth areas are where the new, likely-Democratic, seats will be. Loewe similarly argues that Republican-represented populations are shrinking -- all of which probably explains the recent and unusual ferocity of inter-party strife on census issues.
This change will come even in the gun-toting GOP-gerrymandered bastion of Texas, says Loewe, where Latino populations are growing and white ones are diminishing. Due to the GOP's unfailing propensity to alienate Hispanics on immigration, Republicans have failed to recruit Hispanics on any scale outside the Cuban-dominated Miami area, and even there, the younger generation mostly voted for Obama, who took nearly 70-percent of the national Latino vote. Looking beyond 2010, Loewe foresees the 2020 census with its great increase of minorities and decrease of whites as giving Democrats what he calls "a permanent majority". Hence the title, Permanently Blue.
It's an appealing thesis, but as the old saying goes, "many things can't be imagined, but anything can happen." His thesis almost ignores the economic realities behind the current Republican surge. And the Republican party changed to survive in the middle of the last century, and, for a generation, supported moderate national candidates who appealed and won across party lines. For a long time after that, the Democrats were better at losing elections than winning them. Loewe remembers this, and his most entertaining chapter is his bravura-wicked takedown on the campaign-losing rhetoric of Al Gore and John Kerry.
His message to his party: Don't do dumb stuff like that again. And there'll be calm waters past the rapids of next month.
For Off-Ramp, this is Marc Haefele.
Dinner Party Download meets "Nowhere Boy director"
Dinner Party Download ... with Rico Gagliano and Brendan Francis Newnam.