Spring seems like it’s on its way this weekend, as it got pretty warm out, but everything’s relative, I guess. Our weekend started with a little after-work drink with folks from work at the Bowery – love that baked mac and cheese there – and then a screening of Lars and the Real Girl, which will be one of the last nominated films I see before the awards. Saturday, we got up early and headed out for another Walking L.A. walk, this time in and around (and down and up the stairs of) northwest Santa Monica. Photos from the walk here.
In the afternoon, I hung out at Intelligentsia Coffee in Silver Lake while Aimee got her hair cut (a pretty radical change, which I love but which I think she’s taking some time to get used to). In the afternoon, we headed up to Vendome Wine in Toluca Lake for a high-gravity beer tasting with Kelly and Kris at the well-stocked wine and beer store. In a word: interesting. We liked some of them (the Kilt Lifter Ale, the Russian Imperial Stout) better than others (most of the barley wines, I think), but we had a good time and enjoyed the new tastes.
Back home, we relaxed for a little bit before heading out to Largo for another 826LA benefit, our third, and one of the more surprising ones: Zooey Deschanel, whose singing voice grabbed my attention first in Elf a few years ago, was headlining, in advance of her record debut later on this year, and she was terrific. Her choice of songs was impeccable; nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that wasn’t immediately recognizable (besides the one she wrote herself, which fit right in, style-wise), but a dozen songs, mostly from the Great American Songbook, that showcased her unique and beguiling voice. It didn’t hurt, of course, that we were sitting nearly on the stage, about three feet from her microphone, and the incomparable Dave Palmer, whom we’ve seen before, was once again doing amazing things with his virtuoso accompaniment on piano and melodica. Her set list:
- Moon River
- I’m Beginning to See the Light
- I Could Write a Book
- She’s Got You
- I’ve Got It Bad
- Corcovado
- The Possibility of Staying in My Corner (?)
- Ain’t Misebehavin’
- I Put a Spell on You
- I Can’t Give You Anything But Love
- Walk Away Renee
- God Bless the Child
-—- - ‘Til There Was You
The rest of the night was fun, with Largo regular Paul F. Tompkins doing some funny stand-up at the end of the evening, though the writer who opened the night seemed like a bad fit for 826LA – she didn’t share any of the spirit or tone of the other folks who’ve collaborated, and was pretty uninispiring. The auctions (books, a poster, season three of Six Feet Under, again, and some bit of sewing Zooey had done on her sewing machine) seemed to do pretty well, but we didn’t get any news about the progress of the Echo Park Time Travel Mart, except to learn that actual tutoring has been going on on the site for about a month. We love Largo more each time we go, and this was a particularly memorable show.
This morning, we headed north through Glendale to Deukmejian Park for a nice three-mile hike in the foothills. The weather was perfect, cool and sunny, and the hike was a good combination of steep uphills and beautiful overlooks. We saw some nice flowers and trees, a few little lizards, and some very beautifully maintained grounds around the old winery building that sits at the entrance to the park. (Photos here) We took the advice of the author of the guide to stop in on Honolulu Ave. in nearby Montrose, and we enjoyed the nearly chain-store-free boulevard, filled with Sunday market-goers. I got my milkshake fix, though unwittingly purchased from a sugar-free ice cream shop, and Aimee had a tasty grilled corn.
Sunday afternoon meant Film Noir at the Silent Movie Theatre, so I headed over to Fairfax again for City Across the River, and enjoyed the not-quite noir film as well as the discussion with actor Mickey Knox on stage afterwards. I’ve been to a number of these Q & A sessions with aging Hollywood players, B- or C-list actors (not meant as an insult) asked to talk about their careers, briefly, but more importantly, to try to capture the fading aura of Hollywood. These are people who were in the orbit of stars, talking about their associations with other, more famous names. For Knox, it was Bogart, Rooney, Cagney, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, John Garfield, Norman Mailer, Henry Fonda, Jean Renoir, Antonioni, Leone… He had a fascinating post-Blacklist career, which is why he apparently wanted to name his memoir Thank You, Joe McCarthy… My favorite story from the afternoon: Nicholas Ray was famous for being hard to read: “When your phone rang and no one was on the other end, it was Nick Ray.”
Hopefully the photos look a little different these days; starting on Friday morning, I’ve been trying out my new camera, a Canon Digital Rebel XTi which I got for my birthday, and I have really loved the results so far. The Capitol Records Building, above, was one of the first things I shot, walking around the neighborhood during lunch. I’ve also been taking some street art photos this weekend, for which there is no end of subjects:
No trivia last week, and no trivia this week, scheduling conflicts, but we did win the week before (Mark Felt!) and did OK, third place, I think, the week before that. Hard to believe the show is only a week away; it’ll be another busy one, with Katie coming in from Boston and my friend Michael coming in from Rochester, which means another trip to Largo to see Jon Brion.
