More Inspiration from Mad Scientist Mind

Not long after my post referencing my love of mad scientists, I happened into a shrine to mad scientism, The Huntington in San Marino, CA. OMG! Founded by railroad tycoon and evident honorary mad scientist, Henry E. Huntington, in 1919, his namesake institution fully expresses his "special interest in books, art, and gardens."
"Start with the library," I was advised by the woman at the welcome desk.
"The Huntington Library is one of the largest and most complete research libraries in the United States in its fields of specialization. The Library’s collection of rare books, manuscripts, prints, photographs, maps, and other materials in the fields of British and American history and literature totals more than nine million items."
We're talking manuscripts and first editions from Shakespeare and Chaucer, Thoreau and Audubon. I was blown away. Thankfully, the Huntington Gardens beckoned and I cleared my mind with an eye-boggling meander through the 120 acres of cactus, bonsai courts, rose gardens and lily ponds. I was so glutted on beauty and wonder, I didn't make even it into the galleries to view the extensive collections of British and European art.
"Your first time?" the cashier at the gift store asked after I'd done a quick, slightly dazed holiday shop.
"Yes," I said, explaining that I was from out of town. "I had no idea."
"Yes," he nodded, "We're one of LA's best kept secrets."

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

1151 Oxford Road

San Marino, CA  91108

626.405.2100

Deborah Crooks | A more diverse form of Americana | Latest Cds

Read.Eat.Listen: Time & Beauty

Lucky me was afforded a couple of days at a lovely spa hotel where I went somewhat off the grid. It's amazing how much of what I think is necessary isn't when I can unplug a bit. It's amazing how much beauty gives to the mind, body and soul. S p a c e opens. Yes!
Read: The latest Murakami is out, I'm reminded, by none other than Patti Smith in her recent NY Times review "Deep Chords: Hurui Murakami's 'Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.  Buying the book will be due diligence but reading her review is a different kind of fun.
Eat:   Though I think the days may be numbered for doing so, I do eat fish. Cold water fish just nourishes. This is a very simple and yummy recipe for pan-fried salmon: Quick & Easy Balsamic Salmon
Listen: I put on some R&B/Soul by SF fave Quinn Devaux today. It will cure what ails you: 

Divinating Space: James Turrell at LACMA

In a few days we'll be in the desert. No it's not the best time to be heading through one of the hottest places in the world, but there' nothing so clarifying as a good sweat, a sun-baked sky and a wide horizon. I thought this on Tuesday while practicing yoga in LA during the West Coast's heat wave, trying hard not to slide off my mat, having driven down highway 5 the day prior. Pasadena is stop one of our vacation/tour/friend&family jaunt through the Southwest and Rocky Mountains. Pasadena is also the birthplace of my artist crush of the moment, James Turrell, whose retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art opened at the end of May. Turrell is obsessed with light: light as form, light as experience, as much as light as a tool. I wrote about my love of his Skyspace at the De Young Museum a few weeks ago. Gladdened by the opportunity to see a retrospective of his work, I toweled myself off after yoga and made my way to the heart of LA to view a career's worth of his projections, holograms, and rooms filled with light.
LAMCA wisely limits the number of visitors who can enter at once (my ticket came with an allotted time of visit) so as to maximize the works' powers of altering perception. The immersive, full-room light installation - Key Lime, Breathing Light - held the most power for this viewer, placing me in shifting lightsapes evoking dreams in the former, the experience of weather changing on a mountain in the latter. In two videos featuring the artist discussing his sky spaces and his Magnus opus, The Roden Crater in Arizona, he mentioned his interest in inviting the viewer not only to perceive, but to see themself perceiving. In almost every case I had the feeling of having entered a divinated space, a nondenominational church of light, a testament to Turrell's unwavering focus and clarity of vision. The videos, photos and sketches of the works he's creating at Roden Crater were worth the price of admission alone. God love a mad scientist realizing his vision.

Read.East.Listen: Pasadena Pastimes

I spent a few days in Pasadena last week on the excuse that my husband was on a longish work trip to the city 10 miles north east of downtown Los Angeles. Over the past few years, I've found Pasadena to be a lovely perch for Southern California visits. Provided you don't want to get to the beach, it provides fairly convenient access to much of LA as well as its own cultural highlights (I didn't get to the Norton Simon Museum this trip, but it's definitely on my radar for my next visit). Pasadena also provides a good perch for birds. As I learned observing the local Alameda peregrines, there's a nesting pair of falcons on the AT&T building smack in the middle of Pasadena. On our way home from dinner, we stopped by to watch the birds on the highest reaches of the building setting up to roost for the night.  Pasadena is very close to Angeles National Forest the San Gabriel Mountains so perhaps it shouldn't come as such a surprise to see such wildness amid the urbanity. Either way, I've been finding it immensely pleasing to see these once-endangered species thriving while surrounded by humanity.

Yes, there are peregrine falcons in this photo

Read: I've been studying up on all my raptors in prep to volunteer at the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory this fall. Glenn Stewart's Eye to Eye with Eagles, Hawks and Falcons isn't on the recommended reading list but I'd recommend it to anyone interested in raptor conservation. Likewise, it will be of interest to anyone who had any association with the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group and its work in the recovery of peregrine (and eagle, and hawk) populations. Stewart, the current director of PBRG, was in on the group's work from the beginning, and offers fascinating accounts of the group's origins, conservation efforts in Idaho, Arizona, California, Alaska and Canada, as well as falconry in general.
Eat: When in Pasadena, it's usually a toss up between Real Food Daily — gourmet vegan with a good wine list to boot — and Green St. Tavern, a cozy restaurant with a menu dictated by the seasons. We were won over by the Green St.'s chef offering of a daily 'pie inspiration' on the dessert menu. Who wouldn't be? (The apple pie was a winner.)
Listen: Most of the music happening on this trip was either rehearsal related (Kwame and I are polishing up some of the tunes we wrote for the most recent RPM Challenge) or on the car stereo (a lot of classic rock and top-40 pop happening on LA radios). Nonetheless, somewhere along the routes of the past few weeks, I've been turned onto Escondido, an Americana band out of Nashville. Check 'em out.