How We Survived Carmaggedon

Carmageddon turned out to be a whole bunch of nothing, but we turned it into something. We prepared to not step foot into our cars at all this weekend, but then found out that everyone planned the same as we did since the freeways and streets had the lightest traffic that they've seen in decades. We were resigned to our plan however and were happier for it. This afternoon we decided to walk over to LACMA and enjoy us some culture...

Stark Bar is located near the famous lightpost installation so we thought it would be best to grab a drink or two before our gallery viewings, you know to get in the right frame of mind. ;)
And boy are we glad we did, the drinks were amazing. We started out with a mojito, which was one of the best I've ever had.

Their drink menu seems pretty inspired after looking at it, so we tried out a couple of others: the Owl and the Pussy Cat (a rum drink with strawberries and chiles) and Steel Magnolias (Champagne, Rum, Strawberries and basil). Honestly, we both decided that we need to come back to LACMA just to come to Stark Bar -- well worth it. The bar food wasn't too shabby either. We tried a tomato flatbread (really its just a pizza) and some olives. Brian can't get enough of olives after Spain so this seemed like an obvious choice from the menu.

After we were "refreshed"  we walked over to the ticket booth. I was under the impression that it was free for L.A. locals after 5pm, which is true but only on weekdays (someone decided not to read the fine print, oopsie poopsie). We went in anyway and it was great. The Tim Burton exhibit was the biggest draw at the moment (and cost an extra five bucks, I might add). It was interesting to see something that he had sketched on scrap paper or newspaper that was later used in one of his films. I thought he was a very unique artist, although a different exhibit was co-curated by Burton and reflected his inspiration. Don't get me wrong, he definitely is unique but he can also draw a direct inspiration from other works (pretty much a copy). Brian reminded me that "good artists borrow, great artists steal." We talked about how great works are created on the shoulders of giants and that you need those other works to get to the artistic creative mindsets and outcomes that you want.

We walked on through more exhibits and saw many great pieces of art (Picasso, Man Ray, among others) and in my opinion saw some other not-so-great pieces of art. I mean honestly if it is a painting of a colored square that I can make in one hour, I hardly think that deserves to be on that wall. Sorry, but that's the way I feel right now.  I will make sure to have a conversation with an art history major in the near future to explain what I cannot see in these pieces. Seriously, there was a white canvas with nothing on it. A WHITE CANVAS!!! Wtf?!

After we peaked through all the areas we were interested in, we headed back home. All the walking felt great. Reminds us of how much we enjoy spending time together seeing the neighborhood. It was walking around together in Studio City where we fell deeply in love (not to mention the extreme amount of walking in Amsterdam, but we'll detail at a later date), so it's nice to be able to do that on the other side of the hill. Who says nobody walks in L.A?
 - J