Daily Office: Friday
Morning
¶ Blot: Any hope that, having attained the age of reason (ie sixty), I might have grown up to be a steady, sensible man, finally, was shattered yesterday when I almost landed George and myself in the LA clink, or at least loaded us both with $200 fines.
¶ Hallelujah: While we were at breakfast, the hotel did a bit of recomputing…
Noon
¶ Unfunny: It’s Friday, but I’m not going to the movies today. What would I have seen if I’d stayed home? Not these turkeys.
Night
¶ Homebound: Time to head down to LAX and eastward. Home for breakfast! More anon…
Oremus…
Morning, cont’d
§ Blot. I did have a great day, one of the very best, and I can only hope that George had half as much of one. Just to touch on three highlights (two of which I’ll unpack later, when I can lean on the crutch of whatever photographs bear looking at), we started off with the intense beauty, both inside and out, of the newly-refurbished Huntington Museum in Pasadena. Then we drove to downtown Los Angeles, where George walked me through the quietly surprising Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Finally, we drove all the way out to the West Side of town, on streets, not the freeway, through Koreatown, Hancock Park, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, and finally back to Santa Monica, for tea and then dinner with Kathleen. All the while engaging in a lively conversation that never ran out of steam. Truly a red-letter day.
We’ll get to that later. Right now, all I can think of is how ashamed I am of having put George through the awful ordeal, in the vicinity of McArthur Park, of being pulled over by a motorcycle policeman. Especially when George had no idea that I was the culprit. I wasn’t, you see, wearing my seatbelt.
Which was bad enough. Less innocent was my Attitude with the policeman, whom I invited, in what I can only call the mad pursuit of triumphant exculpation, to feel the surgical scar on the back of my neck (as if the operation had not only made it impossible for me to comply with the law, but also failed to clear up my evident dementia), and whom I “reminded” that, as a New Yorker — I was asked to produce identification — my automotive experience was limited to riding about in the back seat of taxis, where — I left this part out, fortunately; but only because it didn’t occur to me — the authorities have more or less given up trying to get people to fasten seatbelts.
If this behavior — astonishingly, in retrospect — did not make things worse, that is only because George’s response to the situation was immensely practical. With humble, slightly harried politeness, George assumed the air of the unlucky cousin who has been stuck with the job of ferrying crazy Uncle Santa from the bus station to the lunatic asylum. This worked so well that, not only did we escape without citations, but the policeman chided George for having pulled over precipitously and nearly collided with a parked car. George had done no such thing, but a policeman who is letting you off (both of you!) is entitled, I suppose, to his parting shot. Â
So let this be a lesson to you, kiddies: be careful of those nice new friends whom you make on the Internet. You really don’t know what kind of trouble they’re going to get you into.
§ Hallelujah … and now we get to keep the room until we leave for the red-eye flight back to New York. After our experience on Wednesday, it will be good to have the safety-net of a room to spend the night in if things go seriously wrong before take-off.
Let me just say: the Casa del Mar is a not-bad reason to visit Los Angeles. I look forward to happy returns.
Night, cont’d
§ Unfunny. The Love Guru trailer certainly didn’t appeal to me, but then I’m not part of its intended audience. Even so, A O Scott really hated it. As for Get Smart, I still haven’t quite forgiven Steve Carrell for Dan in Real Life. What did Anne Hathaway do to deserve Manohla Dargis’s dismissal, as “harmless”? One of these days, we’re going to find out that Ms Dargis is really Dale Peck.