Category Archives: Travel

Kentucky Travel: “Not Barry Manilow and a Glass of Wine”

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Derby HatThe first question everyone asked when they learned we were going to the Kentucky Derby this year was—“Do you have a hat?!” Yes, I did, and here’s the photo to prove it! It was like wearing a dinner plate on the side of my head.

Unlike the unlucky folks who didn’t spring for under-cover seating, we were nice and dry, even though the May 5 race was the wettest Derby on record, by far. Our seats were great—right across from the winner’s circle and in full view of the finish line.

Given the television coverage, which we watch year after year, mint julep in hand, we were prepared for the elegant hats, the snazzy men’s suits, even Johnny Weir. But we were surprised Churchill Downs’s food options aren’t any better than those at our local AAA baseball team. Our Derby package came with a tent buffet (only so-so), and I pitied the patrons who had to depend on the track’s concession stands. Though we’d been warned off the premade mint juleps readily available, the one the bartender in the tent made from scratch was delicious.

The Derby itself—“the most exciting two minutes in sports”—was of course the pinnacle of the Louisville portion of our trip, but we saw lots of other sights in town, notably:

  • 21C Hotel Art

    Art at the 21C Museum Hotel; photo: Vicki Weisfeld

    The Louisville Slugger museum and a tour of the factory, which makes millions of baseball bats every year. Down Louisville’s Main Street are plaques in the sidewalk commemorating key ball players, along with life-sized replicas of the bats they used. And here I thought if you’ve seen one baseball bat, you’ve seen them all.

  • A guided tour of the modern art collection at our downtown hotel, the 21C Museum Hotel (If you’re interested in modern art and don’t know about this small but growing boutique hotel chain, you’re really missing something!).
  • The Zachary Taylor National Cemetery. The 12th president’s tomb was of peculiar interest to me, because recent genealogical research unearthed a photo of the gravestone of my three-greats grandmother, which says she was a descendant of President Taylor. A modicum of digging proved this to be more fake news.
Lexington horse farm

Lexington horse farm; photo: Vicki Weisfeld

  • The nearly 300-acre Cave Hill Cemetery, with its graves of Louisville founder George Rogers Clark, Muhammad Ali, Col. Sanders, Confederate and Union dead, and more than 100,000 other Louisville residents, famous and not-so.
  • A bus tour that took us to Lexington and two horse farms, where we “met” the sire and grandsire of Derby winner “Justified” and saw lots of new foals. Also were briefed on racehorse breeding. “It’s not Barry Manilow and a glass of wine,” our guide said. No indeedy.
  • A pleasant self-guided walking tour of Old Louisville, one of the country’s largest remaining Victorian neighborhoods.

Where we fell short was on the Urban Bourbon Trail. We visited only three of the 40 or so bourbontastic watering holes included in our passport, and even forgot have it stamped in one of them. On a five-day visit, that performance would have to be judged weak.

Reading on the Go

When you travel to Kentucky, here are some books you might take along.

Churchill Downs

Churchill Downs’s iconic twin spires; photo: Vicki Weisfeld

ICYMI: American Folk Art Museum

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American Folk Art MuseumThe free American Folk Art Museum at 2 Lincoln Square, shares its modestly sized space with the Manhattan temple of the Church of Latter Day Saints, across from Lincoln Center on Columbus Avenue at 66th Street. This location is one of the Museum’s two outposts. The other, in Long Island City, displays items from the permanent collection, whereas the Manhattan space has  rotating exhibitions.

When we visited recently, the exhibit was a fascinating display of “self-taught” art, along with the artists’ written commentaries about their work. Twenty-one artists from the United States and numerous other countries are represented, and the exhibition will be on display until May 27.

What the works have in common, over space and time, is the intensity and focus of the artistic vision applied. Many of the artists struggled with mental illness and art may have been a way of coping with and an expression of their challenges. Collectively, the exhibition catalog says, the artists through both their works and what they say about them demonstrate the “idiosyncratic structure of their lifelong, intricate, and nonlinear narratives.”

The first set of pencil drawings we examined, by artist James Edward Deeds, Jr. (1908-1987), was mounted so you could see both sides of the paper on which his drawings of steamboats, horse-drawn carts, and circus wagons were created. The paper on which they were created was unused forms from the state mental institution where he lived for 37 years. A few years after Deeds’s death, a curious teenager rescued the artist’s 283 drawings from the trash.

I was drawn to a display of more than a hundred 8 x 10-inch topographical drawings and paintings fitted together like a map—“Journey to Another Dimension” (photo below)—by Michigan artist Jerry Gretzinger, The full set of almost 3500 of these panels could cover the floor of a basketball court and has been shown in its entirety only once (on the floor of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art). A fascinating video shows Gretzinger talking about his elaborate, random process for revising individual panels, which allows for organic change in the set.

There’s a group of 80-year-old drawings of children by Henry Darger (one is featured on the Museum website) that at first look playful until you read the captions; Spanish artist Josep Baqué’s fantastical creatures; and a pattern on paper that looks like dots. The museum conveniently offers a powerful magnifying glass to let you see the dots are very, very teensy words.

It’s fair to say that all the works were intriguing, some even startling, but perhaps not as much as the inspired minds behind them. I hope to go back regularly to see what this museum is up to! A fantastic gift shop, BTW.

Gretzinger Map

photo: Nicholas Helmholdt

Scottsdale, AZ — a Sweet Visit!

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Ice Cream light fixture

photo: Vicki Weisfeld

A trip to sunny Arizona took us out of the slush of New Jersey for a few days earlier this month. Having seen and enjoyed the city’s museums and major attractions on numerous previous visits, we put together a set of new, easily managed stops, some of which might interest you, if you’re headed west.

Scottsdale Art Walk – We were in town on a Thursday night, when galleries all stay open in downtown Scottsdale. You pick and choose what to see from a “casual and eclectic” array, at your own pace. It’s always interesting to see what artists are up to.

We enjoyed the public art installation along the Arizona Canal, just west of Scottsdale Road. This is a changing exhibition, and might not be the same in a few months. What we saw was “Reflection Rising,” by Patrick Shearn and Poetic Kinetics—hundreds of thousands of strips of mylar (?) suspended in waves over the canal. Lovely.

Mandatory stop at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore, 4014 North Goldwater Boulevard. You can probably time your visit to coincide with one of  the many author book signings they host, and the staff always has great recommendations on mysteries and thrillers. Our visit necessitated a trip to the post office to mail our purchases home—probably they would have arranged that if we’d thought of it before we got back in the car. Too excited about our treasures!

What’s not to love? At The Art of Ice Cream pop-up exhibit, 4224 North Craftsman Court—you get ice cream, you get photo opps, you get a small exhibit with lots of humor and spirit, including a canoe dressed up as a banana split. Note the ice cream-shaped light fixtures in the photo!

Having seen Sedona multiple times, this trip our out-of-town sojourn was to Payson and the Mogollan Rim, a 90-minute drive northeast. The countryside becomes thick with trees, and once you arrive, there are a couple of interesting things to do in this historic town. The Rim Country Museum and Zane Gray Cabin both had cheerful local volunteer guides who were natural storytellers. Nearby was the Tonto Natural Bridge State Park, with the world’s largest natural travertine bridge.

An annual event, the Indian Fair and Market was on view at the Heard Museum. We didn’t set foot in the museum itself, which is always a great experience, but wandered the tents of the market and a bit of the surrounding Old Phoenix neighborhood.

And another must-do Scottsdale event, is lunch at the Sugar Bowl. I asked the valet at our hotel what the cross-street is for the Sugar Bowl, but he wasn’t familiar with it. “What? You don’t like pink?”

The Friends Book House: Haven for Authors

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Albania, books

photo: Rebecca Forster

Guest Post by Rebecca Forster – In the movie, Wag the Dog, the U.S. president’s PR team creates a ‘war’ in Albania to deflect attention away from a brewing scandal. When the mastermind of this plan is asked why he chose Albania, he answered, “Do you know where Albania is?”

But today, magazines and newspapers are rife with travel articles about the country and action/ adventure movies have riffed on the Albanian mafia. I’m not surprised by the interest; I knew it would be only a matter of time. You see, I stumbled on Albania years ago and I will soon be going back for an extensive stay.

My love affair with the country can be explained by the fact that I am a lover of mysteries. The people are at once welcoming but guarded, generous yet clinging to blood feuds over personal infractions. But my affection for Albania is more than that of a traveler; it was fueled by a shared passion for the written word.

From mountain villages that may be no more than a cluster of clan houses to the streets of the large cities, books are everywhere. In the cities brick-and-mortar bookstores stand alongside pop-ups where inventory is laid out. They may run the length of a city block by the river or along the footpaths in a park. An architectural flourish on a building becomes a display shelf where the pages of magazines flutter in the breeze and the covers of books glint in the fading light of day.

Friends Book House

And, in Tirana, there is Friends Book House, a haven for people who write the books.

I found a mention of Friends Book House in the pages of a throwaway visitor’s guide. It said writers were welcome. To reach it I navigated crumbling sidewalks, dashed through traffic that stop for no one, and wound my way through narrow alleys.

At first glance it appeared to be like a thousand other Albanian coffee shops, until I was ushered to a lower level and through a glass door into a large room decorated in red and black, the colors of the Albanian flag. Upholstered banquettes, large tables, and low-slung couches hugged the walls. Wine bottles, brass hookahs, and paintings decorated the room. There were pictures of authors and diplomats who had come to this place to discuss their writings. Classical music played softly. There were books everywhere. I slid into a booth, opened my computer and began to work.

In the month I lived in Tirana, the owner, Lati, and the baristas became my friends. My tea was always waiting. The quiet room was always welcoming. Friends Book House was, quite simply, inspiring, and it was there I began to write Eyewitness, the fourth book in The Witness Series. It is a novel about a clash between ancient law and modern justice. I have Albania to thank for the inspiration.

I am going back to Albania soon. Lati knows I’m coming. I will sit in the red room and write. For three weeks I will be in a writer’s heaven created by a man who admires writers in a country that loves books. I know how lucky I am to have found Friends Book House because every writer needs a special room. Sometimes it is steps away and sometimes you find it half-way around the world.

Albania - Friends Book House

Rebecca and Lati at “her” table in the Friends Book House

Rebecca Forster is a USA Today & Amazon best-selling author of the Witness Series, the Finn O’Brien Thrillers, and more. Her latest in the Finn O’Brien series (just in time for St. Patrick’s Day) is Secret Relations.

American Writers Museum: Chicago

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book coversOn the lookout for something new and interesting to do in Chicago? Try the American Writers Museum, the first U.S. museum devoted to authors. If you are a writer, you may find it’s a tangible uplift. It both celebrates American writers and shows their pervasive influence on “our history, our identity, and our daily lives.”

The museum is huge in heart, if not in size, and, unless you’re one of those people who must read every word of every exhibit (in which case you’d better set aside a day or two), you can probably explore it in under two hours. Although it doesn’t claim to be exhaustive, the museum nevertheless includes authors and works from throughout the nation’s literary history—poetry, song lyrics, speeches, drama, fiction, nonfiction, journalism,and more. The displays are well designed and captivating.

So many iconic American writers are associated with Chicago—from Studs Terkel to Nelson Algren to Gwendolyn Brooks, from Carl Sandburg to Sandra Cisneros—it’s fitting that there’s currently a special exhibition on the talent nurtured there, complemented by an exhibit of photographs by Art Shay of writers at work (and play).

When I visited, a school group was there, and it was amusing to hear the teacher explain the operation of a typewriter. “There’s this ribbon thing, see, and there’s ink on it . . . And then when that bell rings, you move the carriage back.” Numerous hands-on exhibits let museum-goers experiment and play with words. Poetry construction. Where words come from. Where writers come from.

You can vote for your favorite novel. To Kill a Mockingbird leads the list, followed by The Great Gatsby and The Grapes of Wrath. My guess is the “voters” feel less confident about 21st century books and fall back on what they studied in school. That process needs an infusion of more recent stellar work. I’d like to see Jennifer Egan’s Black Box there. Kids could relate to a novel in tweets.

The museum isn’t just about the already-written, though. It also has an extensive educational program, including the Write In Youth Education program for students in middle and high school. And series of panels gave good advice about craft and process for writers of any age.

The AWM, which opened only nine months ago, has been chosen in a USA Today Reader’s Choice poll as “Best Illinois Attraction” and by Fodor’s Travel as one of “the World’s 10 Best New Museums.” Find it at 180 N. Michigan Avenue, Second Floor, Chicago, IL 60601.

The Rouge: Industrial Architecture Icon

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The Rouge, Michael Kenna

photo used wall-size to open the exhibit – © Michael Kenna

The Princeton University Art Museum’s exhibit of evocative photos of the Ford Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan, remains on display through February 11. British photographer Michael Kenna became enamored of the Rouge in the early 1990s—past the time when auto manufacturing there was at its peak. At that time and before automation, the plant employed some 100,000 workers a day—including my grandfather, his neighbors, and several of my uncles.

Kenna especially liked to photograph the Rouge at night and in frigid weather, when the temperature turns the heat and steam into clouds whose buoyancy contrasts with the solidity of the structures. The museum has a large collection of these photographs, which, in documenting this famous landmark by industrial architect Albert Kahn (“the architect of Detroit”), shows today’s Rouge and its “complicated status as a symbol of industrial decay and endurance.”

The Rouge was a mile long and took in raw materials from massive Great Lakes freighters at one end, and finished automobiles rolled out the other. It had its own steel- and glass-making plants, and its eight-towered Powerhouse produced enough electricity to serve a city of a million residents. My grandfather walked to work at the Rouge every day, and my father and his sibs swam in the Rouge River (not recommended).

As Kenna photographed, “Parts of the Rouge were active and quite dangerous with moving cranes, trains, and enormous containers of molten steel and slag. Other parts were disused and quiet, rusting and decaying, with vegetation growing in and around long-abandoned machinery.” Some of the vegetation is purposeful. Land around the Rouge has been turned into sunflower fields, with the flower-heads harvested to make oil that is used in today’s manufacturing processes.

It isn’t a huge exhibit, but the photos are so powerful, you can almost smell hot metal and hear the hissing steam and clanking machinery.

LA — Outdoor Attractions

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On a January day when the winter wind’s noise is nearly constant, new snow is sheeting around the corner of the house, and the temperature forecast for Saturday is minus 5, I happily return to memories of the 90-degree days we enjoyed in Los Angeles just six weeks ago. In addition to a tour of the landscape garden at the Getty (threatened by the wildfires soon afterward), we visited these three major outdoor attractions.

The Arboretum

Los Angeles, Queen Anne Cottage

The Queen Anne Cottage – photo: Vicki Weisfeld

We walked the 127-acre Los Angeles Arboretum & Botanic Garden on Thanksgiving Day, when not much else was open. Griffith Park (the largest urban municipal park in the United States), which has a zoo and an observatory just seemed too much to deal with. It probably would have been a better choice. There’s not much to the Arboretum, located west of the city. It contains large areas planted with species from Australia and Africa, small herb and rose gardens, a couple of greenhouses, and, on Thanksgiving Day, not much was going on. Gift shop was closed.

The most attractive feature was the Queen Anne Cottage and coach barn. The Victorian-era cottage is set on a lake and extensively restored. Charming, but closed that day. We finally found a place to get a cold drink and sat on a terrace surrounded by greenery and screaming peacocks. Kids seemed to enjoy running on the expansive lawns. Under other circumstances, this could be a gem, but wasn’t.

The Huntington

Los Angeles, Japanese garden

The Huntington – photo: Vicki Weisfeld

On another day—when, thank goodness, the marvelous gift shop and restaurants were open—we visited The Huntington. It’s near the Arboretum, but a world away in terms of interest. The Huntington combines a library, art collection, and botanical garden on the former ranch of early California railroad and real estate magnate Henry E. Huntington. Huntington began collecting rare books, art, and the specimens for botanical gardens during his lifetime.

The library is one of the world’s leading independent research libraries and has an extraordinary collection of some seven million manuscripts, 430,000 rare books, and more. Starting with The Gutenberg Bible, it has originals of The Canterbury Tales, folio editions of Shakespeare’s plays, letters from the hands of the Founding Fathers, and one of the world’s leading collections related to the history of science. The exhibits of these materials are interesting and well planned. (We did not tour the art museum, home to such world-famous works as Thomas Gainsborough’s “Blue Boy” and Sir Thomas Lawrence’s “Pinkie.”)

The enticing grounds are laid out with many noteworthy features, including the Chinese Garden of Flowing Fragrance, and an elaborate, multi-level Japanese garden that displays an extensive bonsai collection. We enjoyed the rose and herb gardens, and the Shakespeare garden. The heat kept us out of several other areas (the desert garden, the Australian garden), but left us with a reason to return.

LaBrea Tar Pits

Sabre-toothed cat, Los Angeles, toy

Sabre-toothed cat–OK, not a real one–photo: Vicki Weisfeld

Unexpectedly (to me), the LaBrea Tar Pits are on Wilshire Boulevard, smack in the middle of the city. The Page Museum there includes some astonishing and hands-on displays about the animals whose bones have been found in the pools of bubbling black gunk. Kids love it, and the displays are intriguing for adults too. Take a docent-led tour of the outdoor tar pit area and active dig-sites in order to get the most out of your visit. You will have questions, and the guide we had was able to answer those of visitors ages seven to seventy.

LA Sidetrip: Nixon Library and Museum

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richard-nixonNixon’s the One!

Certainly there was a period of years when I couldn’t have imagined visiting the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, much less enjoying it, but times change. Located in the town of Yorba Linda, where the 37th President was born, it’s about an hour southeast of downtown Los Angeles. (The better-known “western White House” in San Clemente is near the ocean.)

The National Archives runs the site and has done a fine job creating exhibits and audiovisuals. They don’t gloss over the problematic aspects of Nixon’s presidency—you can even listen to some of the infamous White House tapes—as well as remind visitors of the good parts.

And there were accomplishments that Americans can still be proud of and value. Among those described on the library’s website, he started the Environmental Protection Agency and supported a range of environmental issues, he launched the “War on Cancer,” which, though far from over, has led to significant advances in cancer care and fundamental biomedical research, he oversaw programs and laws protecting the civil rights of women, school-children, and American Indians, and, on the international front, he opened the door to China, used diplomatic means to limit the Soviet-American arms race, and affirmed U.S. treaty obligations. Nowadays, Nixon looks better than one might have predicted 43 years ago when he left the White House in disgrace.

Watergate

The library has an excellent timeline of events that led to Watergate and, ultimately, Nixon’s resignation. Some years later, I worked in the very suite of offices that the Democratic National Committee occupied in 1972—600 Virginia Avenue, third floor. One of the doors leading to the stairwell had a plaque on it commemorating the night that the tape was found on that door, which led to the discovery of the Watergate break-in, which led to the cover-up, which led to the Saturday night massacre, which led to the congressional hearings, which led to the Nixon family’s departure from the White House lawn in Marine One.

Pat Wanted an Acting Career

The museum surprises with its documenting of the quiet and steady contribution of Pat. As First Lady, she was active and participatory and carried a good will message from America around the world. In the Watergate era, when I was perhaps paying more attention, she seemed unruffled, on pause. Possibly this was a coping strategy or a bizarre fulfillment of her desire to be an actor.

On the Grounds

Nixon's boyhood home

Nixon’s boyhood home; photo: Vicki Weisfeld

Also at the museum complex you can tour the “boyhood home” and see the bedroom where Nixon was born, as well as the plot where he and Pat are buried. The Marine One helicopter, used by numerous presidents is on display and tour-able unless the weather is too hot! Nixon was a lawyer, a commissioned Navy officer during World War II, and served his country as U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, Vice President during the Eisenhower years, and President.

As a private citizen again, he wrote his memoirs and several other books. Despite his flaws, the Library notes that every president who succeeded him consulted him on foreign affairs (Henry Kissinger’s eulogy).

Going? Books to Throw in Your Suitcase

LA Cultural Forays – Travel Tips

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Los Angeles is more than surfing dudes and starlets. But you knew that. Our recent visit included a toe-dip into some truly world-class cultural institutions.

The Museums

LACMA

Streetlamps on Parade

In conjunction with a visit to the adjacent LaBrea Tar Pits, we visited three museums in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) complex. We wandered down the serene walkway of the Pavilion for Japanese Art vaguely reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright’s sinuous Guggenheim—a sure cure for I-10 traffic stresses. We didn’t allow time (perhaps a week-and-a-half!) to fully take in the other buildings’ exhibits, but did hook up with a Resnick Pavilion tour of a temporary exhibit about artistic cross-fertilization between SoCal and Mexico, “Found in Translation: Design in California and Mexico: 1915-1985.” Led by a knowledgeable and interesting docent, we got a lot out of it.

We walked through the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, happening upon Chris Burden’s delightful Metropolis II (see it in frenetic action here), which actually runs only limited weekend hours. Even at a standstill, amazing.

On another visit, I want to check out the Craft and Folk Art Museum, the Museum of Tolerance, and the Automotive Museum, all of which are in LACMA’s vicinity.

12/12 UPDATE – The Getty Center reopened 12/8 after a two-day closure due to wildfires in the vicinity. Buildings were kept closed to protect the collection. Why the art can stay.

Getty Center

Bougainvillea bouquets at the Getty

The lengthy trip (in terms of time, not distance) to the Getty Center ends at a tram stop, from which you’re whisked uphill to the art museums proper. Again, there are multiple buildings, with views to the hills, the Pacific, and downtown in between them. We took a grounds tour, learning about the architecture and construction choices, as well as the landscaping, which is equally part of the complex’s design. The “museum highlights” tour sounded like an efficient idea, but is totally dependent on the current whims of its docent-leader. Ours had a deep affinity for Saint Jerome. Even so, she got us in and out of several buildings. Paintings are distributed over the top floors of several of the pavilions, where they can get better light, and decorative arts occupy the bottom floors. A temporary exhibit I gladly spent time in was “Golden Kingdoms: Luxury and Legacy in the Ancient Americas.” (One of my many odd passions.) So much was lost, and what was saved is so remarkable.

Music and Theater

Walt Disney Concert HallWe weren’t willing to take out a new mortgage on our house, so did not purchase tickets for a concert at the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall. However, we took the acoustiguide tour of its several floors, which allowed us to see many parts of the building, excluding the auditorium itself—too much demand for rehearsals, they say. Beautiful, and the building’s curved aluminum skin changes color and appearance as the light changes. (You can take a virtual tour at the website above.) And within walking distance, theoretically, to our hotel.

 

One evening we attended a performance at the Ahmanson Theatre, across the street from the Disney Concert Hall. The theaters in the complex have a full season of opera, plays, and other performances. We saw the musical Bright Star, written by Edie Brickell and Steven Martin (yes, that one). The story was more than a bit predictable, but the production and cast were first-rate.

So You Shouldn’t Starve

Patina, a $$$$$ restaurant in the performing arts complex serves delicious food, with (more of a rarity these days) impeccably gracious service. It was our gastro-splurge. We had a nice lunch at the Getty, as well.

Books to Toss in Your Suitcase

Hooray for Hollywood! – Travel Tips

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Walk of Stars

photo: Vicki Weisfeld

A Los Angeles vacation wouldn’t be complete without a trip to Hollywood! We shunned the swarms of shills for “homes of the stars” bus tours and instead took a prearranged walking tour along the few compact blocks of Sunset Boulevard where the movie studios, the radio and television networks, and the recording industry all got their starts. Amazing, really.

Our guide, Philip Mershon, has an encyclopedic knowledge of the area and will cheerfully answer any questions once the tour is over. Maybe he’s like the Aztec messengers who memorized their speeches and had to begin from the beginning again if interrupted. He’s personable, and he did a great job. (Philip Mershon’s Felix in Hollywood).

On Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, we trod portions of the “Walk of Fame,” the 2500-some plaques representing leading lights of radio, television, movies, and theater. You can’t help exclaiming over the names you recognize and wondering, who are all these other guys?

Grauman’s Theatres

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

photo: wikimedia, creative commons license

Sid Grauman was an early Hollywood theatrical entrepreneur, and his “Chinese Theatre” is justly famous for its over-the-top orientalist décor. It’s a bit of a mob-scene. Amusingly, it’s a popular stop among Chinese tour groups, though there isn’t a thing authentically Chinese about it. Hey, that’s Hollywood. Many celebrities have left their hand or footprints—or both—in the cement of the forecourt—including Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe, under a scrawl of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and local (Paterson and Asbury Park, N.J.) talents Lou Costello and Bud Abbott.

A quieter spot was Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre down the block (I admit never having heard of it), which was the site of Hollywood movie premieres for many years. Its décor turned out to be timely, as the theater opened in 1922, just days before the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, a public relations coup even Grauman couldn’t have engineered.

Grauman's Egyptian Theatre

photo: Vicki Weisfeld

The lobby was designed to be small, with the illuminati instead gathering outside in the spacious forecourt, packed with starstruck admirers on both sides of a central aisle. The theater underwent numerous infelicitous renovations over the years, but since the late 1990s, American Cinematheque largely restored the original appearance and brought its technology up-to-date.

Behind-the-scenes tours of the Egyptian are offered only once a month, but it’s worth checking out what is playing there (and at the companion Aero theater in Santa Monica), because actors and directors often participate in these screenings. We missed this, but in November, the two theaters had scheduled in-person visits from Dick Van Dyke, Patrick Stewart, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jennifer Lawrence, Judi Dench, and many others, along with screenings of their films past and present.

Why Starve Yourself?

We had lunch next door at the historic Pig ’n Whistle, where Judy Garland had her fifteenth (?) birthday party. The richly decorated eatery was an early favorite of Hollywood stars and tourists alike.

Books to Toss into Your Suitcase:
The Day of the Locust, the classic by Nathanael West
A Better Goodbye by John Schulian, gritty noir about Hollywood’s sex trade (here’s my review)