As my general director told us, it is important to attend conference sessions, but equally as important, we must take the opportunity to socialize and get to know our opera co-horts. Even if that means making a trip out to Amoeba, the largest independant record store in the world.
I have been twittering with San Diego Opera’s Edward for a while now. He contributes some fabulous opera trivia on Twitter, as well as, being a fount of pop culture knowledge. And we share the same taste in music. FTW. You gotta appreciate someone who, never having met you face to face yet, comes up with the opening line zinger “So you’re the one I’m roading tripping with to see The Knife.”
For those not in the know, that was referencing the avant-garde music group, The Knife and their Darwin opera, called Tomorrow in a Year. Without missing a beat, I also added to the road trip checklist the Damon Albarn/Alan Moore opera about alchemist and occultist John Dee and Terry Gilliam’s take on The Damnation of Faust.
Think we can both get our opera companies to pay for all these professional development road trips?
Anyways, back to Amoeba. We headed out by subway to Sunset & Vine area to inflict some damage on our wallets. Here’s something hilarious. The subway stations are pretty clean. And on the empty side. It’s Thursday late morning and there’s no one on the platforms.
Old film canisters on the subway ceiling at Hollywood & Vine platform
Nobody walks. Everyone drives here. Which is why, even though we don’t look like “tourists”, we were easy marks for people who had something to sell, simply because we walked the few blocks over to Amoeba.
If I can tangent for another moment, nobody jay walks here either. Even when the coast is clear on both sides of the road. For miles.
I’ve been told that you really jay walk at your own risk. That cars can appear out of nowhere here. Most likely in the form of some guy talking on his cell phone while driving and possibly fuelled by more than just the gas in his car. And if they do see a pedestrian jay walking, they don’t slow down. In fact they speed up. And then blame you if you get hit by their car.
Anyways, Amoeba is HUGE. If you go there, don’t expect to surface for a few hours. I was like a kid in a candy store. It has so much merchandise that I got overwhelmed, not knowing where to start. Thank goodness we only had time to stay for an hour before heading back to the hotel for our next opera session.
This is a quarter of the floor at Amoeba. There’s also a mezzanine floor.
I showed incredible restraint, as I have to save as much money as I humanly can for my trip to Europe next week.
After finishing with the last session of the day, I had a brief downtime before heading out with Edward and New Century Chamber Orchestra’s Maura to go to MOCA. The art museum is right outside the hotel. On Thursday nights, MOCA is free to the public.
That’s the Omni Hotel on the right. My room overlooks the MOCA.
At the moment there is a retrospective on Arshile Gorky. I found that the Gorky’s life intrigued me more than his works. His life was beset with such tragedies: lost his mother to starvation during the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Russians, diagnosed with cancer and underwent a colostomy, his art studio burned down, he was involved in a car crash so severe his neck was broken and he had to wear a metal neck brace and was so depressed when his wife left him with the children that he ended up hanging himself. But his artwork lives on.
We left MOCA and walked past the stank side of downtown/east LA to have dinner at Urban Noodle. The restaurant is hip, but not pretentious. I chowed down on dim sum items such as har gow, veggie spring rolls, veggie potstickers, and this really yummy appy of vegetable cream cheese wantons.
Veggie creamy what?!?
Kid you not, it was delicious. Never had it before and will be on the look out to see if any Vancouver restaurant serves this on their menu. We finished with black sesame ice cream.
Outside the streets were buzzing with people. Throngs of hipster kids were out because it was the Downtown Artwalk. Every 2nd Thursday of each month, art galleries and museums open their doors, free to the public and everyone is walking shoulder to shoulder looking at art and listening to DJs spinning. I’m not a fan of super crowded places, but this was definitely fun.
We got to check out Helena Gullstrom Gallery and Poplock Gallery Before heading back to The Edison to meet up with Maura’s friend Dale and Rex from Opera Colorado.
The Edison was jumping tonight. There was a live 4 piece band playing on stage called Big Willie’s Burlesque and a burlesque dancer, that would tempt and tease the packed dance floor. People definitely dressed up more than last night: flapper dresses, men in vests. I even saw a guy in an empty gun holster tearing up the dance floor. (Carlos D. he was not)
There was also this beautiful woman with hair bobbed like Louise Brooks or Clara Bow and wearing green fairy wings. The wings looked like Tiffany lamps and were lit at the tips. She was of course, the absinthe fairy. And she pushed her little cart from table to table, selling little concoction bottles of absinthe.
Live jazz band, a sassy burlesque dancer in a fringed 2 piece bikini, the green fairy and hanging out with “the braintrust”.
This can’t be work. It’s too fun.
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