Monday, February 9, 2009

Venice (CA)


Paul did a great reading tonight at Good Luck, a bar in Silverlake with a faux-Chinese feel -- lots of red lacquer and dragons on the ceiling. It's a wonderful place for listening to literary readings, unusually quiet, and the audience really takes the readings in.

So we've spent the weekend in L.A., at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, the great meta-museum in Culver City; at the somewhat derelict Culver Hotel, with its handsome lobby and decrepit rooms (well, ours is anyway); on Abbot Kinney in Venice, watching the beautiful and beloved dogs being taken out for shopping and brunch; walking out on the Venice Pier on Washington Boulevard (see the photo above) and going to the terrific Small World Books; driving our rented bronze Prius -- leg room! the pleasure of environmental responsibility! -- down the light-washed canyon of Sunset Blvd at night through West Hollywood.

Around the corner from Good Luck is the Vista Theater, a fantastic art deco moviehouse, and below is a shapshot of the ticketbooth -- gilded, covered with heiroglyphics, like a sacred entrance to the temple of illusion. Lotuses are etched onto the glass of the doors on either side. Tonight they were showing The Wrestler.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's nice to see a great poet hangin' in our neck of the woods (I live in Santa Monica). I was at Small World Books on Sunday; wonderful store, one of the few independent bookstores left in our city. They're all disappearing I'm afraid. Enjoy L.A.

Christopher said...

It was a great reading.

Mark, it was so nice to meet you last night, and I really enjoyed our conversation. Very excited for your Whitman project. Do check out Robert Dessaix's "Twilight of Love: Travels with Turgenyev." You won't be disappointed. Or, if you are, you can place the blame squarely on me.

I hope you and Paul have a wonderful, productive spring in Palo Alto...

Collin Kelley said...

Great photo!