Stan’s Obligatory Blog

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6/4/2022

The Daily Show Strikes Again…

Filed under: — stan @ 7:26 pm

On Friday, I heard that “The Daily Show” had set up another art project honoring “Heroes of the Freedomsurrection” for all the brave patriots who fought against the United States. And after displaying it in New York, they were bring it it to Los Angeles. So of course we had to go see. Heh… “Lion Ted”…

This was another “Daily Show” stunt along the lines of the “Presidential Twitter Library” they did a few years ago. And as that was, this one was pretty funny, since the actual underlying reality of it is pretty horrifying.


9/9/2018

The Blacklist

Filed under: — stan @ 1:58 pm

Today’s bike ride was a visit to USC and the Fisher Museum to see the art project in front of the museum commemorating the Hollywood Blacklist of the 1950s. We did this before, but it was several years ago. Besides, it seems that people doing un-American things is more in the news again lately for some reason…

It had been long enough since we did this ride that I had to make a few adjustments to the route, but that wasn’t a bad thing. We rode the usual route into downtown, and then south to USC. Along the way, we stopped to see the old Parker Center, which was the long-time headquarters for the Los Angeles Police. It’s slated to be torn down soon, so I wanted to see the building again before it’s gone. Besides, I still remember going to the Street Scene in downtown L.A. back in the ’80s. They had stages set up all over the Civic Center area, and I always wanted to know what rocket scientist thought it was a good idea to put the hardcore punk stage on the street in front of Parker Center. And of course, everyone was shocked – shocked, I tell you – that a riot broke out.

Riding through downtown, it was a misty sort of morning, which made for some nice sunlight reflecting off the buildings. We haven’t seen that since we did “Down for the Count” in 2009.

We stopped at USC to see the garden and the art installation there, and then continued on to Larchmont Village and bagels at Noah’s. Then we rode home through Silver Lake, and up Benton Way, which we haven’t done in a while.

44 miles.

Route map and elevation profile.

6/3/2018

The Wende Museum

Filed under: — stan @ 7:19 pm

This afternoon I went to a tour of the Wende Museum in Culver City. This is a museum that preserves artifacts from the Cold War. It began as a collection of things from the former East Germany, and has broadened to collect things from all the Eastern Bloc countries. I’d gone there once before, but that was before they had a real location.

They are still in the process of setting up the museum. A good bit of the collection has not yet been catalogued. But they did have two big exhibits out today. One was about Hungary before and after the 1956 attempted revolution. The other was about hippies and the counterculture in the former Soviet Union. Apparently, hippies were a thing there, starting about 1968, and all the way through until the fall of communism.

At the end of the tour, they had a tray of snacks for us, as well as some samples of vodka to try. They had regular Smirnoff, and then a bottle of Polish potato vodka, and a bottle of Russian vodka. And on the way out, I got a photo-op with an East German Wartburg 353 car. Apparently, this was the ‘nice’ car in East Germany. A step up from the Trabant, which was apparently the only other option.

11/19/2017

The Word on the Street

Filed under: — stan @ 3:39 pm

This past week, I saw a small item in the L.A. Times about an artist who has been making funny fake street signs, which are currently installed at various parks around Glendale. He has a Facebook page for the project, and I was able to contact him there, and to get a map showing where the different signs are installed. So that was our ride for today.

We rode out across Pasadena and Eagle Rock, and then into Glendale. The first one we saw was the “START” sign in Maple Park. Heading off to the next sign, we passed Mission Wine and Spirits. Funny thing is, back in 2006, that same store was called Hammered Liquor Store.

Continuing on, we came to the “BREATHE” sign at Glendale Central Park. Then we rode a little side trip to Pacific Park, and the heart-shaped “ONE WAY” sign. After that, we headed up almost to Burbank to see “RELAX” at Griffith Manor Park. We liked the placement of that one. Seeing the mountains behind it did give it a peaceful air. At least now that those mountains aren’t on fire any more…

We stopped for snacks at Paradise Bakery in Glendale. Then we started on the return leg of the trip. We took a short side trip to see the “Peace Signs” at Casa Adobe de San Rafael. Then we started up the long hill into La Crescenta. We stopped at the skate park to see the ‘SHRED” sign installed there.

Finally, we stopped off at Montrose Community Park to see “Infinte Clearance”. That one turned out to be the hardest to find, largely because that park was much larger than all the others we’d visited.

This was a very entertaining street art project. We liked seeing it, and it kind of reminded me of the time when Richard Ankrom made and installed a freeway sign as an art project in downtown Los Angeles. In the end, it was a fun ride, but as sometimes happens when I make up a completely new route to see something, this one came up a little short. But that’s all right once in a while.

35 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

1/8/2017

The Peephole Cinema

Filed under: — stan @ 3:59 pm

A few weeks ago, we went to an event at the Museum of Broken Relationships in Hollywood. Part of the event was a brief presentation by the Atlas Obscura people about a few odd things they know about in Los Angeles. One of the slides showed a person peering into a little hole in a wall in an alley behind a building. They said it was a miniature cinema that is continuously showing a few short films made by local artists. And GPS coordinates for it were in the footer of the email reminder about the event. So that night, I looked up where it was, and it turned out to be in an alley in Chinatown. So I figured that was going to be a bike ride one day. And today was the day.

We started out across Eagle Rock and Glendale, and then down the L.A. River bike path to Elysian Park. We rode up and over the hill to get to Echo Park and Chango Coffee. And after the stop there, we went back over the hill to get to Chinatown. Then we went in to Chung King Way to get to the little alleyway where we saw the small sign for the Peephole Cinema. We took turns standing up on the little step stool to be able to peer into the hole. It’s an odd little art project.

The route home took us back by way of Huntington Drive. This is usually our route to go into downtown, but this time we were riding the other direction, which felt a little odd.

36 miles.

Route map and elevation profile


11/13/2016

The Wall of (Un)Fame

Filed under: — stan @ 2:01 pm

Today’s bike club ride was yet another art tour. We’ve been to Downey to see the Columbia Space Center, and also to see the Carpenters, but I recently heard about the Wall of (Un)Fame.

Every Metro Rail station has some sort of art in it. And it turns out the Green Line station in Downey is home to a piece called the Wall of (Un)Fame. The piece features something like 650 concrete panels, each with hand and footprints and names, much like the Walk of Fame at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood, but each is a random, not-famous local person who was chosen in a lottery.

So we started out going south, and we went through the part of Downey that has the oldest operating McDonald’s. Then we went a bit farther south and came do the Green Line station and the Wall of (Un)Fame. We go to see a lot of public artworks, and this one was very entertaining. It’s a funny idea, and it’s a bit of social commentary at the same time.

Leaving the Metro station, we headed back into Downey and our snack stop at 3rd Street Coffee. Then it was back up the Rio Hondo bike path to Temple City, and then home through Arcadia.

47 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

8/7/2016

LA Current: Prime

Filed under: — stan @ 2:46 pm

Last week, I found an article about Current: LA, which is sponsoring a set of art installations around the city, all intended to have a water theme. So today, we rode to Studio City to see one of them. And to go for gelato, too.

It was a prefect morning for riding. Cool, with the marine layer keeping the sun hidden. We rode out across Eagle Rock and Glendale to Studio City. The entrance to the park was right across the street from Universal Studios, and the actual art installation was all the way at the back of the park. Three fiberglass horses embedded in the ground. “…the horses are empty slates onto which viewers can project meaning.”

As I always say, anything can be art if you say it is and can get other people to agree that it’s art.

Leaving the park, we made a brief stop at the little park with the foundations of Campo de Cahuenga. This is a little piece of history that was unearthed during construction of the Red Line Universal subway station. Then we took some little side streets to make our way over to Tujunga Ave and the gelato place.

The route home went down the L.A. River bike path, and then up the Arroyo Seco path to take us back to Pasadena.

46 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

9/27/2015

Update of the Spheres of MacArthur Park

Filed under: — stan @ 2:11 pm

A few weeks ago, we went out to see the “Spheres” art project under way in MacArthur Park. That weekend, they were in the process of installing the painted balls on the lake in the park. So this week we went to see the completed piece.

We took our usual route into downtown Los Angeles on Huntington Drive and Main St. There was a little haze in the air there, and that made for dramatic reflections off the windows of the Ritz Carlton near L.A. Live. We’ve seen this effect before, in 2013 and 2009. It’s always this time of the year, so I think the angle of the sun also is part of the effect.

Our snack stop was at Noah’s in Larchmont Village. We had bagels and drinks there. There was a little bakery a few doors down that we noticed for the first time today. I went in to see what it was like. But when they said everything was vegan and gluten-free that was a big NOPE for me.

The route back went on 7th St to MacArthur Park. That was where Carla got a flat. Fortunately, there was a nice shady spot to sit in and fix it. Then we got to the park. There were a lot more balls floating on the lake this time. It was very colorful.

It was getting pretty hot by now, so we deviated a bit from the route and headed directly up Benton Way to Silverlake. We took York across Highland Park to avoid the Colorado hill. And we stopped briefly at my office to get some ice from the freezer to ice our water bottles down for the last few miles home.

45 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

8/23/2015

The Spheres of MacArthur Park

Filed under: — stan @ 1:14 pm

A few months ago, I read about how an artist was planning on having some 3,000 plastic spheres painted with flowers, fish, birds, and so forth, and then was going to float them all on the lake in MacArthur Park. I made a note that we should go see this when it was done, and this was the weekend. This is our first art tour bike ride since we went to see “Urban Light” back in May.

We rode down Huntington Drive into downtown L.A., and then down Spring St through downtown, and then Flower down to Adams, near USC. On the way out on Adams, there is a place with some sharp humps in the pavement, and Carla’s pedal hit the peak of one of them. This knocked her foot out of the pedal, and it snapped off one of the little stops that hold the spring-loaded back of the pedal. We were able to lever it back into place well enough to continue the ride, but that was today’s installment of the long-running series, “I’ve never seen one of these break before“.

We stopped for bagels at Noah’s in Larchmont. After that, we headed back toward downtown, taking 7th St in, since it goes right by the park. When we got to the park, we stopped off to have a look at the balls floating on the lake.

The route home went through Echo Park and Silverlake, and then home by way of York Blvd and South Pasadena. It was kind of hot at the end, but a pleasant ride.

43 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

7/2/2015

The Griffith Park Tea House

Filed under: — stan @ 7:17 pm

Yesterday, I read about how some unknown artists had popped up a little Japanese-style tea house on an old concrete pad on top of one of the peaks in Griffith Park. Apparently, it was done on the sly in one night, and from the pictures I saw, it looked like it was very nicely done. Since it was unclear how long it would be there, I figured it was something we should go see immediately. Fortunately, Morgan and Jason from my office were up for it, and we headed over there this afternoon.

The instructions on how to find it from Modern Hiker were for starting out from the observatory, but parking there is always a problem, and coming from Pasadena, it’s just easier to start from the other side of the park, by the Old Zoo. We headed up the trail just like we did back in March, when we went to Mt Hollywood to see the marathon lights. When we got to the part of the trail that goes around just below Taco Peak, we looked up, and the tea house was there. Just a short distance up the trail, we came to the spot and saw it close up. There were quite a few people there to see it. I guess everyone had the same reaction to hearing about it.

The artists had left pencils and little wooden chips to write wishes for Los Angeles on, but all the wood chips had been used. We went inside to see them all hung on the pegs and read what people had written. It was all very nicely done. The construction of the house was first-rate, and it really looked like it belonged there. It’s unclear what will happen to it, but at least we got to see it when it was still fresh.

It kind of reminded me of Amir’s Garden, which is another place in the park that was built by one man with a vision. So on the way down, we took a route to go through there. It was nicely cool and shady there, as the garden is irrigated with what I can only assume is reclaimed water. But it was very nice there. Then we took a very steep trail down the end of the ridge to get back to the trail that would bring us back to our starting point. It was a good little afternoon adventure.

Route map and elevation profile

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